The tail of the King’s company was not fifty paces away, and some of the riders faltered; white faces looked back over half-turned shoulders. “S’death—they have taken the gate behind us!” Salisbury spoke through clenched teeth. “Ride on, ride on, sir. Look not back.” Fulk had not faltered. He looked at the Kentish men who crowded round him, and smiled. “Shout for King Richard, sirs.” And they cheered him gallantly. Fulk rode on, to behold a marvel—a marvel that wiped the crowd of faces away from before his eyes. Halfway across St. Catharine’s Square a wagon was standing in the thick of the press, with a swarm of brown figures clinging to it to get a view, and in the front of the wagon, like a red torch burning amid brushwood, stood Isoult of the Rose. CHAPTER XX They looked at each other, these two—Fulk, like a man who stares into the heart of a fire; Isoult, with eyes that showed at first no more than a tired wonder. She saw the red bridle tighten, the white horse draw in. Then the truth leapt at her out of the eyes that had flashed with a startled swiftness to hers. Then she saw the red bridle jerked and Fulk’s profile, stark and clear, as he pressed his heels into the white horse’s flanks. God, how nearly he had betrayed himself when his heart had leapt in him with a cry of “Isoult, Isoult!” All the blood in his body seemed thundering into his brain. He had to steady himself, clench his teeth, fix his eyes on the tops of the houses, ride on without so much as another side glance. She was not dead then, but living, with red lips and raven hair. How had it happened? Was she a traitress after all, and had she but tricked Merlin to save him out of pity? Pity! He looked as though he had been struck with a whip, his face white as a frost, with tense lips and quivering nostrils. Pity! Wrath blew through him like a winter wind. She might betray him—he who was playing the King—if he had betrayed himself to her in that one flash of the eyes! He set his teeth. And then from some more passionate memory a braver faith leapt to the challenge. What ignoble thoughts were these! She was alive, but what might life have meant to her, to a falcon with a broken wing? He seemed to see Merlin grinning at him from under his cowl—Merlin with the lean and hungry mouth and the big teeth that glistened. His heart cried out with new passion, “Isoult, Isoult!” He found Salisbury riding at his side and staring at him with curious eyes. “Sir, you look grim.” Fulk twisted out a smile. “Good sir, that may be true. I would ask for nothing better than to trample on these gentry as one tramples on corn.” “S’death, go gently. Speak them fair. Make promises. We must humour the beast till we have the twitch on his nose.” “The King makes for the King to break. My lord, I take you.” So “The King behind the King” rode on.