They came to Goldspur manor as the dusk was falling, and the song of the birds went up towards the sunset, and everything was very still. The bridge was down over the narrow moat, and the gate open; no man had been there all that day, for Aymery’s servants had fled with the village folk, and two men who could handle their bows had been sent two days ago with Waleran into the woods.
Grimbald drew the bridge, while Aymery went to the stable to feed and water his horse. They had no fear of Peter of Savoy’s riders that night, and took their augury from the fact that Gaillard had left the place untouched that morning. Grimbald carried tinder and steel in his wallet, and he lit a torch in the hall, and went to the pantry and kitchen to get bread, beer, and meat for supper. He and Aymery sat down in the empty hall, and ate for a while in silence, like men who were weary, or were sunk in thought.
They were nearly through with their hunger, and were talking of Denise and the hermitage, when Grimbald, who was about to finish his mead, paused with the horn between the table and his mouth. The men’s eyes met across the board. They were both listening, motionless as images carved in stone.
The night seemed dark and silent without, the woodlands asleep, the night empty of all unrest. Yet there had come to Grimbald a sense of something moving in the darkness. And as they listened there was a faint splash from the moat, and a sound like the creaking of wet leather.
Grimbald’s eyes were fixed on Aymery’s face.
“Listen!”
“A rat in the moat?”
Grimbald put his horn down on the table, rose up swiftly and silently, and taking his axe, went out into the courtyard. Aymery’s sword and shield hung from a peg in the wall. He took them down, and had gained the door of the hall when he heard a sudden scuffling of feet, an oath in the darkness, the harsh breathing of men at grips, the splash of something into the water of the moat.
A scattering of arrows whirred and pecked at the walls, one slanting in and smiting the flagstones close to Aymery’s feet. He heard the dull jingle of armed men on the move. Grimbald towered back suddenly out of the night, a red splash of blood on his forehead, his eyes shining in the torchlight.
He flung the door to, and ran the oak bar through the staples.