Denise saw the people running to and fro like ants in a nest that have been stirred up with a stick. A crowd began to gather, an anxious, whispering, restless crowd, uneasy as a wood under the first puffs of a threatening storm. For armed men in a town were too often the devil’s retainers, were they friends or foes.
The sound of shouting came from one of the gates, with the blare of trumpets.
“Simon is here!”
The news spread, and men who had wives and daughters, pushed them within doors, bidding them look through cracks in the shutters if they must look at all. A knight came riding by, carrying a black banner with a white cross thereon. A few stray dogs ran hither and thither, to be hooted, and pelted by the boys in the crowd. Then suddenly, with the thunder of hoofs along the street, came the clangour of young Simon’s company, their spears set close together like black masts in a haven.
Denise stood at the door of Fulcon’s shop, with Ban bristling and snarling beside her. A splendid knight on a white horse rode in the van. His helmet was off, and he laughed, and looked about him as he rode with a certain good-humoured vanity. Beside him, mounted on a black mare, Denise saw a woman in silks of blue and green, and a cloak of sables over her shoulders.
The way was narrow, and the crowd greatest just by the baker’s shop. Simon the Younger reined in his horse, holding his spear at arms length as a sign to those behind him to halt.
“Room, good people,” he said, gracious and debonair. “We are not here to trample on honest men’s toes.”
Denise’s eyes met the eyes of the woman who rode at young De Montfort’s side. And in that look the shame of the near past leapt up into Denise’s face, for the lady in the cloak of sables was the woman who had ridden with Gaillard and Peter of Savoy the day they dragged Aymery from her cell.
Etoile’s black eyes had flashed as they stared at Denise’s face. She also had not forgotten. And once again she looked down upon Denise, and mocked her with lifted chin, and laughing mouth.
The street had cleared, and Simon and Etoile went riding on together, with spear and shield following along the narrow street. Denise had drawn back into the shadow of the shop, her face still hot with Etoile’s sneer. Her shame seemed to have been flung at her like a torch out of the darkness. Denise felt as though it had scorched her flesh. And while she hid herself there, Aymery rode by among young Simon’s gentlemen, but Denise neither saw him, nor he her.