“Keep your claws in, cat,” she said, “you were born quarrelling. Curse you, be quiet.”
And Isoult obeyed, having felt the weight of Marpasse’s fist.
It was not long before a couple of soldiers passed close to the fire, and seeing the three women, red, blue, and grey, they stopped, and began to talk banteringly to Marpasse and Isoult. The women returned the men better than they gave, and showed them plainly that they had no need of their company, for the fellows were rough boors, and sweeter at a distance. Denise sat and shuddered, huddling into herself with instinctive disgust, and understanding why Marpasse had a naked knife in her sleeve. The men slunk off, sending back jeers out of the darkness, for Marpasse had shown her knife.
“The sting of a wasp keeps such flies from buzzing too near,” she said; “we are great ladies on occasions, Isoult and I. We cherish our dignity for the sake of the gold.”
They went on with their meal, hearing movement everywhere about them in the darkness. Isoult’s eyes were fixed upon a fire about a hundred yards away, whose light seemed to play upon the rose-coloured canvas of a tent. Men were going to and fro there, and Isoult guessed that it was some great lord’s pavilion. As for Marpasse she ate, drank, and kept eyes and ears upon the alert.
Denise had nothing before her but the black half sphere of the night chequered with the yellow flutter of the fires. Isoult and Marpasse sat facing her and looking towards the town. Therefore they did not see what Denise saw, the tall figure of a man in war harness, unhelmeted, and wearing a blue surcoat blazoned over with golden suns. He came along the bank out of the darkness, and stood looking down at the three women round the fire.
Now Denise’s hood was back, and the firelight shining on her hair and face. Gaillard stood on the bank above, and stared at her, intently, silently, and she at him. Denise felt stricken dumb, and the heart froze in her, for Gaillard was near enough for her to recognise his face. It seemed to Denise that he stood there and gloated over her, opening his mouth wide to laugh, but making no sound. She saw him raise his hand, touch his breast, and then make the sign of the cross in the air, watching her as a ghost might watch the confused and half-stupefied terror of one awakened out of sleep.
Marpasse happened to raise her eyes to Denise’s face, and its bleak, fixed stare put her upon the alert.
“Heart alive, sister, is the devil at my back?”
She twisted round in time to see a man moving off into the darkness, and Marpasse caught a glimpse of the gold suns on the blue surcoat. She jumped up, looked hard at Denise, and then went a few steps after Gaillard into the darkness. But the man did not wait for her, and she was recalled by a sharp cry from Isoult.