He looked at the floor, frowning and biting his lower lip.
“Come, Messire Fulk”—and her voice had a strange new challenge in it—“come; we change parts for awhile, you and I. And I will not bear to see these bullocks trampling you underfoot, for no man’s valour can overcome twenty men. I have my pride, and pride knows its own kith and kin.”
He raised his eyes suddenly to hers.
“So be it. But when I am swordless——”
“Think you that Father Merlin and I cannot rule these fools?”
“Isoult, you puzzle me.”
She held up a hand.
“No questions. Surrender to me—to Isoult of the Rose. I vow that your sword shall be in safe keeping.”
CHAPTER VIII
In the forest there was an old stone quarry, and in the wall thereof some hermit of long ago had cut himself a little chamber; but the hermit had died in the time of the Barons’ war, and the quarry was full of briers and brambles, broom and bracken. A tall beech wood shut it on every side, so that the place was like a pit into which sunlight fell only at noon and when the sun was high in summer.