Fulcon shrugged his shoulders.
“I have no flour left,” he said, “and no fool will send flour into the town,” and he grinned from ear to ear.
Gaillard cursed him.
“What, you goat, you horned scullion, are we to be starved! I will see to it that you have flour and faggots. You shall bake us bread, you dog, or we will bake you in your own oven.”
Denise was in her room when Gaillard’s men broke into Fulcon’s shop. There was no window looking upon the street, and since Denise was no coward and wished to see what was happening to Fulcon, she opened the door and came out upon the stairway. As she stood there, two of Gaillard’s men caught sight of her, and began to call to her from the street.
“See there, the old dog has a pretty daughter.”
“Hallo, my dear, come down and be kissed.”
Gaillard himself turned his horse, and looked up at Denise. And Gaillard knew her, and she, him.
Denise would have fled in and closed the door, but she seemed unable to move, held there by Gaillard’s eyes. The man’s face had flushed at first, but he covered a moment’s sheepishness with a smile like the glitter of sunlight upon brass. Perhaps he saw how Denise shrank from him, and for a woman to shrink from him made Gaillard the more insolent.
“Sweet saint,” said he, laughing and looking up at her, “what do we here? Have we grown tired of the beech wood, and Gaffer Aymery, and the Sussex pigs?”