"A naughty fellow, indeed!" protested the Prior, as he led them into the great hall of the Lodge. "Well, you shall have my protection, Hugh, and you have well-earned your meal if you have helped us preserve those pullets. Sit ye down, children, sit ye down. What news do ye bring?" "We met strangers on the London Road who asked the way to Blancherive," said Edith. "Strangers? Humph! What manner of strangers?" "Dark, ill-favoured," volunteered Hugh. "Oh, well enough dressed, I grant you"--this in reply to an objection from Edith--"but I liked not the looks of their leader." "Whence come they?" inquired Prior Thomas. Foreigners were seldom seen in that out-of-the-way corner of England. "They did not say." "No clue to their race?" "The leader swore 'by the Bodyless Ones,'" suggested Edith. Hugh gave her an admiring glance. "Now, that is a clever maid," he said. "I never remembered it." "It sounds schismatical," commented Prior Thomas doubtfully. "Ay, I suspect that to be a wickedness of the heretics of the Eastern church. Too bad! When you first spoke I had hoped they might be travellers from Rome, who could give us word of the Holy Apostle and his Cardinals. Ah, well, 'tis passing strange if they have come all this way to England from Outremer." A light flooded Edith's face. "Oh," she exclaimed, leaping to her feet, "and if they are come from Constantinople, do you think it may be they bring word of my father?" Prior Thomas stroked his clean-shaven face in reflection. "Belike, belike," he assented slowly. "It may be, my maid. 'Tis all of a year since last Sir Cedric wrote. Had he known these travellers would venture so far he might well have entrusted them with letters." "And you will read them to me?" "What need, with Scholar Hugh to help you?" Prior Thomas laughed. "Ah, Hugh, some day wilt thou give thanks that I made a clerk out of you, for all your arrogant Norman blood." "In sooth, I see cause for thankfulness already," admitted Hugh a trifle shame-facedly. "This last year I have found it easier to keep my accounts, and there are fewer rents scamped for the records I have writ on my scrolls." "Good youth," approved the Prior. "'Tis a meritable combination, Hugh, clerkship and swordcraft. Some day, I say--but here comes the carp. To your trenchers, my children." CHAPTER II STRANGERS AT BLANCHERIVE The courtyard at Blancherive was thronged and noisy, as Hugh and Edith rode across the drawbridge and through the passage under the gate-tower. Men-at-arms, grooms and servants swarmed about a group of swarthy, bright-garbed men, who lounged by the Castle stables. Voices clacked high in speculation over these mysterious persons who could not understand either of the tongues known to the Castle's company--that is, Norman French and the Saxon dialect. So great was the turmoil that Hugh must needs force a path for Edith to the steps that led up to the entrance to the Great Hall in the Keep.