“By my troth, yes. Have we no swords, no good men to read these scullions a lesson?” “Gently, by God, gently. Fifty thousand men are not to be whipped by five hundred.” “Fifty thousand!” “The scum of the city is with them. Who does not love plundering a rich man’s house?” They came to the Walbrook and the bridge was narrow and the press great. Fulk had to rein in; the great company behind him swayed like a dragon with painted scales. Fulk’s eyes fell into a sudden stare. On the parapet of the bridge sat Isoult with Guy the Stallion standing beside her. She was so close to him that Fulk could have touched her with the point of a sword. Their eyes met, and held. Fulk saw that she knew him, and into Isoult’s face the blood crept like fire. She held her head high so that her throat showed. “Long live King Richard, long live the King!” Fulk’s eyes stared into hers, and they were the eyes of a strong man and not the eyes of a boy. The crowd gave back, and he rode on with a voice crying within him, “Isoult—ah, Isoult!” The woman on the parapet found a man gripping her wrist. She glanced down and met the red eyes of Guy the Stallion. “God’s death, wench, I see light.” She did not falter. “And all heaven opened, Sir Guy!” “That was no King!” “His ghost then!” “It is that bastard of the forest, Fulk Ferrers, and you know it.” She laughed in his face. “Friend Guy, you have drunk too much wine.” CHAPTER XXII The Inn of The Painted Lady stood near the river, a gaudy, cut-throat, bold-faced house, the plaster between its beams daubed a hard, bright red, the barge-boards of its gables painted blue. The “Painted Lady” herself on her sign wore scarlet and blue, and her round eyes ogled the passers-by. The inn door was barred that night, the windows shuttered. Nothing but chinks of light came from it, furtive gleams that lost themselves quickly in the darkness. The lane in front of it was rough and dirty and full of holes, and from the lane a narrow passage went down between two houses to the river. Hither came Guy, holding Isoult fast by the wrist. And he found Merlin in “The Painted Lady,” and though it was June, sitting on a stool before the fire, his cowl thrown back, his gaunt face glistening, the nails of his right hand bitten to the quick. Isoult was bidden up the ladder stairs into an attic, and Guy sidled up to Merlin and touched him on the shoulder. “Prettily fooled, by cock, and by no King!” Merlin turned on him savagely. “No King, say you? Too much of a King!” Then Guy bent to him and whispered, and Merlin started and straightened like a man stabbed in the back. “Thunder!” “Ask the wench. It was the bastard, or I’m no man.” “_Mea culpa!_” He struck his chin with his fist. “Fool priest, blind ape! And I never scented the fox!” He sprang up. “That Sussex hawk—that love child of a Prince! Hallo, listen.”