Igraine caught a deep breath.
“Listen! it comes nearer. Come away, I must see.”
Passing through the gardens they came again to the highway skirting the palace. Men, women, brats, monks, all Christendom, seemed swarming up from the city, and there was already a great throng in the street. The breeze of shouting came nearer each moment. Igraine climbed the pediment of a statue that rose above the balustrading of the gardens; the ledge gave room to both Lilith and herself. Together they stood and looked down on the crowd that began to swarm at their feet—soldiers, nobles, dirty craftsmen, courtezans, fat housewives, churchmen—their small prides lost in one common curiousness. The street seemed mosaicked with colour. The broken words and cries of the crowd were flung up to Igraine like so much foam.
“Gorlois, say you?”
“Noble Gorlois.”
“A thousand heathen.”
“What—all slain!”
“Where?”
“Under the walls of Anderida.”