Fulk de Lisle rode all that night, a madman, inflamed¹, balked² of the satisfaction of a violent desire. He had nothing but the stars and the moon to guide him; the Forest was no more than a pathless waste; he pushed northwards, raging like a torch burning in the wind. At dawn his horse died under him, driven by the spurs till its heart failed on the brow of a steep hill. Fulk de Lisle kicked the beast’s body, and looked with red eyes at a gray and silent world.  
But the luck was with him—the luck of the adventurer and the drunkard. Dim and sullen³, Troy Castle stood less than two miles away on its great hill; the rising sun struck slantwise upon it, so that it looked like a huge turreted⁴ ship sailing above a sea of green.
 
Fulk de Lisle came on his own feet to Troy Castle. There was a sense of stir about the place although the day was still so young. A couple of dusty and sweat-streaked horses were waiting outside the gate-house; grooms⁵ and servants were gossiping, and on the battlements soldiers were unlashing the canvas covers of my lord’s cannon⁸.
 
Some one on the walls recognized Fulk de Lisle when he was a quarter of a mile from the dry fosse; there was some shouting and running to and fro; a man vaulted⁹ on to the back of one of the tired horses and went cantering down the road. He was a squire¹⁰ in Roger Bland¹¹’s service, a youngster with red hair and an impudent¹² mouth.
 
“Good morning to you, sir. Why this humility¹³?”
 
Fulk de Lisle took him by the leg and pitched him out of the saddle.
 
“Thanks. I will ride the last furlong, and help you to mend your manners.”
 
Red Head scrambled¹⁴ up and dusted his clothes. Fulk de Lisle was too soaring a bird for him to fly at, but his impudence¹⁵ refused to be chastened.
 
“I trust your news is better than your face, sir. Our dear lord has the ague this morning.”
 
Fulk de Lisle rode on, without troubling to turn the lad’s wit.
 
He clattered¹⁶ over the bridge and into the main court, and the men who saw him ride in stared at his savage¹⁸ face.
 
“Pride has had a fall,” said some one.
 
“Or been balked of a woman.”
 
Fulk de Lisle called a page who was loitering on the steps of the chapel¹⁹.
 
“Have you nothing but eyes, you brat²⁰? Where is my lord?”
 
“In his closet, sir.”
 
“Run and tell him that I am in the castle.”
 
Roger Bland already had the news, and his groom⁶ of the chamber²¹ came out with a haggard face.
 
“My lord would see you—instantly.”
 
“Damnation—may not a man eat?”
 
The Lord of Troy sat in his great padded chair with a writing-board on his knees, and quills²² and an inkhorn on the table at his side. He looked white about the gills, with that whiteness that tells of a faltering²⁴ heart; his hand had lost its steady, clerkly niceness, and there were blots²⁵ upon the paper. He had not been barbered, and still wore a gorgeous crimson²⁶ bed-gown that made his thin face look all the yellower.
 
“What’s this—what’s this, man? Shut that door, Bennington. Not more bad news?”
 
He was petulant²⁷ to the point of childishness. Fulk de Lisle’s red-brown eyes looked at him with veiled and subtle scorn.
 
“I could not make it worse, my lord. The Forest is up.”
 
“The Forest—in arms against us! Man—you are dreaming!”
 
“I am very wide awake, sir. We were ambushed²⁸ last night as we lay outside Woodmere. They must have been a hundred to our thirty. We made a fight of it; that is all that can be said.”
 
Roger Bland’s face twitched²⁹.
 
“How many men came back with you?”
 
“None, my lord.”
 
There was a short silence. My Lord of Troy’s fingers were playing with his quill²³. He looked old and querulous.
 
“These swine! I thought we had tamed them. There is a deeper cunning in all this. I have had secret news this very morning. Richmond is on the sea. By now he may have landed.”
 
Fulk de Lisle took the news as a soldier of fortune takes his pay.
 
“The King will not grudge³⁰ him a battle, my lord.”
 
“Bombast is so easy. But to say who are friends and who are enemies! Supposing I chose to have you hanged, sir?”
 
“A most unreasonable³¹ fancy, my lord.”
 
“And why?”
 
“I have risked my neck in your service. I have no quarrel with your generosity³². And my pride is concerned in this—the pride of a soldier and a captain.”
 
“We shall see, sir; I may let you prove it. And now—we must strike, and strike ............