“Ah, my friend, I met comrades by the way. Have no fear, Dame Margaret is safe in Lewes town. We let the baggage pass, but tied up your men. And now, since we are too many for you, it is your turn to surrender.” His pride stiffened itself. “Let them take me—if they dare.” There was the length of the hall between these two and the rest, but Isoult went closer to him, dropping her voice to a whisper: “Fulk, listen to me. These wretches have tasted blood; your men are dead; we could not help it. You might kill the first three, but the rest would drag you down like dogs, and I’ll not suffer it. You cannot fight, because I, Isoult, stand in the way.” His eyes searched hers. “You! You are with these vermin?” “I am, and I am not. But I shall stand between you so that you cannot use your sword nor these Jacks their clubs and bills. The grey friar is merciful. You surrender as my prisoner.” He looked at the floor, frowning and biting his lower lip. “Come, Messire Fulk”—and her voice had a strange new challenge in it—“come; we change parts for awhile, you and I. And I will not bear to see these bullocks trampling you underfoot, for no man’s valour can overcome twenty men. I have my pride, and pride knows its own kith and kin.” He raised his eyes suddenly to hers. “So be it. But when I am swordless——” “Think you that Father Merlin and I cannot rule these fools?” “Isoult, you puzzle me.” She held up a hand. “No questions. Surrender to me—to Isoult of the Rose. I vow that your sword shall be in safe keeping.” CHAPTER VIII In the forest there was an old stone quarry, and in the wall thereof some hermit of long ago had cut himself a little chamber; but the hermit had died in the time of the Barons’ war, and the quarry was full of briers and brambles, broom and bracken. A tall beech wood shut it on every side, so that the place was like a pit into which sunlight fell only at noon and when the sun was high in summer. In the doorway of this hermit’s cell Fulk of the Forest sat on a truss of dead bracken, and stared moodily at the beech trees. His hands and feet were free enough, but the sides of the quarry went up like a castle wall, and Guy the Stallion and twenty men lay night and day among the bushes that half closed the entry. At night a large fire was lit, and he could hear those who kept guard laughing and singing, and telling lewd tales.