The bacon was following the fat into the fire. Abbot Reginald, good man, lost patience, and threw his platter in Silvius’s face.
Silvius, with a gobbet of gravy on his nose, looked comic enough, but still burnt like a Telemachus.
“God shall revenge sacrilege! Let the curse of St. Martin——”
Someone from behind took him by the collar, and twisted a fist into the folds till Silvius was in danger of being choked.
The King lay back in his chair and laughed.
“Take the prophet away, and let him be washed,” he said. “By the heart of King Richard, I have no use to-night for an Elijah!”
In this way it came about that Dom Silvius took a ride on the back of an ass, with his feet lashed under the beast’s belly, and a dirty pot forced down over his ears. The mob pelted Silvius with stones and offal till he was a mere image covered with blood and dirt. Comyn’s Scots had the privilege of bringing the martyrdom to an end. They took Silvius from the back of the ass, and carrying him into the place where the treasure had been buried, pitched him into the garde-robe drain, and so left him.
Silvius’s blundering had, however, a grimmer significance, for it brought upon the Abbey and the town that straggled about it the same fate that had befallen the despised Cistercians. The King had given the place over to plunder, and it was at the mercy of the rough soldiery who were doubly insolent with the fumes of mead and wine. The folk of the borough of Battle might well have cursed Silvius and the Abbey treasure, for the devil was let loose among them that May night.
Nor did the darkness hide the violence and the horror, for the very furniture was thrown out into the street and piled up amid the faggots to help the bonfires that lit the sport of war. Women and children fled like frightened birds into the darkness, and were thrice blessed if they were not caught, and held. The gaudy queans who had followed the army played King of the Castle on the high altar of the church, pulling each other down by the skirts, shouting, and tumbling over one another on the steps. Drunken men burst in the door of the bell tower, and set all the bells clanging in huge discords. Others caught the monks, and made them race naked round the cloisters, whipping them with their girdles to make them nimble.
Gaillard and some of his fellows had come by a cask of wine, and Gaillard had Black Isoult, Marpasse’s comrade, under his arm, and was well content with the lady. They needed a house for a night’s revel, and chose one in the main street, a stone house that joined a forge. Gaillard’s men broke down the door, while their captain held a torch, and Isoult sat on the wine cask, laughing.