"And till then," Simon added, "I will be your esquire, if you agree, for such was the wish of your dear lady, whose humble servant I am very proud to be." Rainouart stretched out his hand and clasped the hand of Simon. "We will be brothers-in-arms," he vowed, "as we are brothers in service." Then he turned to his father. "Sire," he said; "your son is your soldier till there be an end of the war and till the pope makes me a free man again. And then, by your leave, I will take my troth anew to the greenwood, and humbly pray my sweet love to forgive me." The duke said nothing, for he had nothing pleasant to say to such vagaries. But Simon tugged at his russet beard, and muttered: "I think she will forgive you." XXV CEPHISSUS The dawn was as pink as a peach, and through the pellucid air the city of Athens looked her fairest. The Parthenon, topping her holy hill, glowed like amber in the young sunlight, showing the same fine lines of perfect symmetry to the nobles of France that it had shown to the Roman soldiers of Mummius and to the Athenians of the great war. Within the sanctuary the gold and ivory image of Athena, fashioned by Phidias, had given way to the pale face of Our Lady, Mother of the Holy Child, and the grandiloquent Latin of the mass rolled its volume through the hall that once had echoed to the sonorous Greek of the Palladian hymns. The gods had gone, great Pan was dead, Christ had arisen, and still the Parthenon in almost unaltered beauty crowned the Acropolis. But the chivalry of France paid little heed to the Parthenon or the past of Athens as they rode briskly out on that radiant morning to annihilate the Catalan Grand Company. Their thoughts were with the vivid present, with the pleasure of coming battle, with the pride of certain victory, with the promise of the swift return, flushed with triumph, to find praise and welcome smiling in their ladies' eyes. It was but the second day since the night of the ruined nuptials, but Baldwin was brisk on war business, and his chivalry and his fighting-men were quick to move. The foot-soldiers had taken the field for the march to Thebes on the previous day, and this day, this glorious day of peach-colored dawn, the duke and his knights were to ride to the undoing of the Catalan Grand Company. The Catalan Grand Company had confirmed the menace of Ximenes, and justified Duke Baldwin's doubts by going over as one man to the cause of the Duchess of Thebes. But their defection did not trouble the bluff duke. On the contrary, it furnished him with a full-blooded excuse for exterminating the mutinous mercenaries and wiping out his debt to them with a wet sword. So he and his chivalry rode to their assured victory, and made their march a gala-day.