Trignan, you fit a high and noble name better than many high born ladies I have seen simpering and languishing under it. Zeus and Apollo, but you are a tall lithe wench – a Norman peach, on my honor! I would be your friend; tell me why you are alone in the forest at this hour, with tattered wedding gown and worn shoes.”
He swung supply down from the tall horse, and stood cap in hand before me. His lips were not smiling now, and his dark eyes did not mock me, though meseemed they glowed with an inward vagrant fire. His words suddenly brought home to me how alone and helpless I was, with nowhere to turn. Perchance it was natural that I should unburden myself to the first friendly stranger – besides, Etienne Villiers had a manner about him which induced women to trust him –
“I fled last night from the village of la Fere,” I said. “They wished to wed me to a man I hated.”
“And you spent the night alone in the forest?”
“Why not?”
He shook his head as if he found it difficult of belief.
“But what will you do now?” he asked. “Have you friends near by?”
“I have no friends,” I answered. “I will go on until I die of starvation or something else befalls me.”
He mused awhile, tugging at his clean-shaven chin with thumb and forefinger. Thrice he lifted his head and swept his gaze over me, and once I thought I saw a darkling shadow pass over his features, making him for an instant appear almost like another man. Then he raised his head and spoke: “You are too handsome a girl to perish in the woods or be carried off by outlaws. If you will, I will take you to Chartres, where you can obtain employ as a serving wench and earn your keep. You can work?”
“No man in la Fere can do more,” I answered.
“By Saint Yves, I believe it,” he said, with an admiring shake of his head. “There is something almost pagan about you, with your height and suppleness. Come, will you trust me?”
“I would not cause you trouble,” I answered. “Men from la Fere will be following me.”
“Tush!” quoth he in scorn. “Who ever heard of a peasant going further than a league from his village? You are safe enough.”
“Not from my father,” I answered grimly. “He is no mere peasant. He has been a soldier. He will follow me far, and kill me when he finds me.”
“In that case,” muttered Etienne, “we must find a way to befool him. Ha! I have it! I mind me less than a mile back I passed a youth whose garments should fit you. Bide ye here until I return. We’ll make a boy of you!”
So saying he wheeled and thundered off, and I watched him, wondering if I should see him again, or if he but made sport of me. I waited, and the hoofs faded away in the distance. Silence reigned over the green wood, and I was aware of a fierce and gnawing hunger. Then, after what seemed an infinite time, again the hoofs beat through the forest, and Etienne Villiers galloped up, laughing gaily, and waving a bundle of clothes.
“Did you slay him?” I asked.
“Not I!” laughed Etienne. “I but sent him blubbering on his way naked as Adam. Here, wench, go into yonder copse and don these garments hastily. We must be on our way, and it is many a league to Chartres. Cast your maiden’s clothing out to me, and I will take them and leave them on the banks of that stream which runs through the forest a short way off. Mayhap they will be found, and men think you drowned.”
He was back before I had finished putting on the strange garments, and chatting to me through the screening bushes.
“Your revered father will be searching for a maid,” he laughed. “Not for a boy. When he asks the peasants if they have seen a tall red-haired wench, they will shake their bullet heads. Ha! ha! ha! ’Tis a good jest on the old villain.”
Presently I came forth from the bushes, and he stared hard at me where I stood in shirt, breeches and cap. The garments felt strange to me, but gave me a freedom I had never experienced in petticoats.
“Zeus!” he muttered. “ ’Tis less perfect disguise than I had hoped for. The blindest clod in the fields could tell ’twas no man those garments hid. Here: let me lop those red locks with my dagger; mayhap that will aid.”
But when he had cut my hair into a square mane that fell short of my shoulders, he shrugged his own shoulders.
“Even so you are all woman,” quoth he. “Yet perchance a stranger, passed hastily on the road, would be befooled. Yet we must chance it.”
“Why do you concern yourself over me?” I asked curiously; for I was unused to kindness.
“Why, by God,” quoth he, “would any man worthy of the name leave a young girl to wander and starve in the forest? My purse holds more copper than silver, and my velvet is worn, but Etienne Villiers holds his honor as high as any belted knight or castled baron; and never shall weakness suffer while his purse hold a coin or his scabbard a sword.”
Hearing these words I felt humble and strangely ashamed; for I was unlearned and untaught, and had no words to speak the gratitude I felt. I stumbled and stammered, and he smiled and gently chided me to silence, saying that he needed not thanks, for goodness carried its own reward.
Then he mounted and gave me a hand. I swung up behind him, and we thundered off down the road, I holding to his girdle, and half enveloped by his cloak which blew out behind him in the morning breeze. And I felt sure that any one seeing us thundering by, would swear it was a young man and a lad, instead of a man and a girl.
My hunger mounted with the sun, but the sensation was no uncommon one in my life, so I made no complaint. We were travelling in a south-eastward direction, and it seemed to me that as we progressed a strange nervousness made itself evident in Etienne. He spoke little, and kept to the less traveled roads, frequently following bridle-paths or wood-cutters’ trails that wound in and out among the trees. We met few folk, and they only yokels with axe on shoulder or fagots on back, who gaped at us, and doffed their ragged caps.
Midday was nigh when we halted at a tavern – a woodland inn, lonely and isolated, the sign of which was poorly done, and almost obliterated; but Etienne called it the Knaves’ Fingers. The host came forth, a stooped, hulking lout, with a twisted leer, wiping his hands on his greasy leather apron, and bobbing his bullet head.
“We desire food and lodging,” said Etienne loudly. “I am Gerard de Bretagne, of Montauban, and this my young brother. We have been to Caen, and are travelling to Tours. Tend my horse and set a roasted capon on the table, host.”
The host bobbed and mumbled, and took the stallion’s rein. But he lingered as Etienne lifted me off, for I was stiff from the long ride, and I did not believe my disguise was as complete as I had hoped. For the long glance mine host cast at me was not such as a man gives a lad.
As we entered the tavern, we saw only one man seated on a settle and guzzling wine from a leathern jack – a fat, gross man, his belly bulging over his leather belt. He looked up as we entered, started and opened his mouth as if to speak. Etienne did not speak but looked full at him, and I saw or felt a quick spark of understanding pass between them. The fat man returned to his wine jack in silence, and Etienne and I made our way to the board on which a slatternly serving wench placed the capon ordered, pease, trenchoirs of bread, a great vessel of Caen tripe, and two flagons of wine.
I fell to avidly, with my dagger, but Etienne ate little. He toyed with his food, his gaze shifting from the fat man on the settle, who now seemed to sleep, back to me, and then out the dingy windows with their diamond-shaped panes, or even up to the heavy smoke-stained beams. But he drank much, refilling his flagon again and again, and finally asked me why I did not touch mine.
“I have been too busy eating to drink,” I admitted, and took it up uncertainly, for I had never tasted wine before. All the liquor which ever found its way into our miserable hut, my father had guzzled himself. I emptied the flagon as I had seen him do, and choked and strangled, but found the tang pleasing to my palate.
Etienne swore under his breath.
“By Saint Michel, in all my life I never saw a woman drain a flagon like that! You will be drunk, girl.”
“You forget I am a girl no longer,” I reproved in the same low tone. “Shall we ride on?”
He shook his head.
“We will remain here until morning. You must be weary and in need of rest.”
“My limbs are stiff because I am not used to riding,” I answered. “But I am not tired.”
“Never the less,” he said with a touch of impatience, “we shall rest here until tomorrow. I think it will be safe enough.”
“As you wish,” I replied. “I am utterly in your hands, and wish to do only as you bid in all things.”
“Well and good,” he said. “Naught becomes a young girl like cheerful obedience.” Lifting his voice he called to
