What answers they gave, in what manner their arguments satisfied, the twain barely knew. The chief matter was that they won their way into the Tolzey, were borne up the foul, narrow staircase by the throng close at the heels of the soldiers and their captive, and suddenly found themselves stumbling over the threshold into a large room, whereof one part was densely crowded, and one empty as a grave fresh dug. A triple line of steel corselets, sallets, and bills, drawn from side to side, split these parts asunder, and behind this line those in authority at the door roughly made to drive the new-comers. When Hugh had shown his writing tools and told his errand, they smoothed their tone and bade him stand aside, in the cleared space. The others--strange knight, his rude captors, the mummer-gentleman--all were swallowed up behind the barrier into the throng which snarled, and surged, and gnashed its teeth, in weltering heat and evil smells, under the spell of the scent of blood. After a little while there rose an echoing blast of trumpets from the market-place without, riding as it were on the crest of a great wave of cheering. Then hurriedly the officers brought forth from an outer room two high chairs of state, gilded, and bearing the town's arms, and set them upon the floor-cloth under a canopy, and put behind these, on either side of the dais, other chairs and stools--and then bowed low as the doors in the centre were flung open with loud knocks, and two heralds, in blazoned tabards, entered. Behind these, with stately step, by twos came a score of great warriors and lords, mailed to the throat, and with pages bearing their cumbrous head-gear; then others of distinction, for the most part advanced in years, who wore rich gowns and chains, and held velvet caps in their hands; and lastly, two young men in gowns who wore their caps on their heads. And one of these, of a square, thick-featured aspect, with broad breast, and reddish hair, was Earl Marshal of England, yet had scarce a look from any one, so bent were all thoughts upon the other. This other--clad in sober colors, with a broad chain upon his breast and a black close-curling plume in his cap--came sedately forward and sat in the large chair a hand's breadth in front of his companion's. He let his glance rest easily upon the crowded half of the room, as if noting things in idleness the while his mind was elsewhere. The heralds called out each his master's exalted office, and what matters they had come now to rightly judge upon; and Hugh, having been seated at a desk by the window, hung with all his eyes to the face of the youth in the foremost chair.