“Persuasion—a touch of persuasion! Hold her.” Guy caught her arms from behind. She stood rigid, staring at the fire. “The blade of a knife under a thumb nail, hey?” Isoult did not resist, did not move, but set her teeth and kept her lips shut. Wat the Tiler sprang up, knocking his stool over. “Let be. This is a coward’s game. Answer me, Isoult. Was it Richard the King on the white horse?” “It was the King—as I know him.” Merlin clutched at her, but Wat thrust him aside. “Out! You have an answer. Isoult, I am a friend.” She met his sinister eyes. “Yes and no. I have spoken.” Merlin flung back towards the fire in a rage. “Go, and get you above. Close the trap on her, Guy. This bird may serve as a lure.” Blood was dripping from Isoult’s hand; she did not heed it, but turned and walked towards the stairs. Guy tried to whisper to her, but she would not listen. They gathered about the fire, hunching themselves on their stools and putting their heads together. John Ball had been in a stupor of prayer, and he was still kneeling with his face in the shadow. Merlin and Wat were the two who talked. Their voices rose and fell like a wind blowing fitfully through a hole in the wall. As for Isoult, she found some straw and a horse-cloth in the attic, and spreading them over the trap-door, made her bed there, so that no one could steal in on her in the night. CHAPTER XXIII In the Princess’s chamber at the Wardrobe the real King sat on an oak hutch, kicking his heels against a panel upon which some craftsman had carved the Pelican in her Piety. The lad looked sulky and silent, or as though some inward pain were gnawing in him, the ache of his own shame. Suddenly he started up, and went towards the door; but his mother, who had been kneeling at her _prie-dieu_, rose and put herself in his way. “What would you, sweet son?” There was less petulance and more manhood in his frown. “Let me pass. I am the King. I’ll not suffer this upstart.” “Son, he has done nobly.” A furtive malice came into his eyes. “I shall remember it—and him. Let me pass, mother. I go out to claim my own.” This new spirit in him filled her with a secret exultation, but she kept her place by the door and would not let him come to it. “No, sweet son, no. It cannot be, this day—or even to-morrow. This Fulk Ferrers has kept faith with us. Were we to break troth with him it would be giving him death.” Richard’s eyes glittered as though a new thought had come to him. He pulled at his lower lip with finger and thumb. “Two Kings cannot live in one kingdom.” He gave a queer, sinister laugh. “Yes, I will remember Master Fulk Ferrers. I shall be in his debt, mother. I will find my way of paying that debt.”