The line of spears went eastwards towards Guildford, and dropped slowly out of view. Denise saw that Black Isoult’s nostrils had dilated and that her eyes had the glitter seen in the eyes of a beast of prey. She ran on ahead, light on her feet as a young lad, and they saw her stand outlined against the sky line, and then turn and wave her arm. Below, towards the valley, dark masses of men were moving on Guildford town. The faint braying of the trumpets came up on the evening breeze. Isoult saw a part of the King’s host on the march. She tossed her head, laughed, and spread her arms. “The good saints have blessed us,” she said, and she looked at Denise curiously under her black brows as though searching her inmost heart. Marpasse beamed. “Our grey sister has brought us luck. We must keep our wits sharp to-night.” They went on down the hill, and Isoult, walking softly and lightly as a cat, pointed out where a great baggage train lumbered with a crowd of people like black ants about it. Already they were pitching tents and pavilions in the meadows outside the town. The evening sunlight seemed to strike upon water, for the glitter of the King’s host was like the glitter of a river flowing in the valley. Everything looked so peaceful and minute, so orderly, and yet so human. It was like the green grass over a quagg, bright and rich at a distance, but covering rottenness beneath. Up on the hills one did not smell the sweat of the horses nor hear the men’s foul talk, nor see the savagery that was loose in their eyes. Isoult turned, and looked sharply at Marpasse. “Shall we try the town?” Marpasse shook her head. Her face was hard now, and her eyes watchful. Denise wondered at the change that had come over the two women. “A quick bargain is a bad one,” said Marpasse, “let us bide our time, and listen. We are good enough to take our choice. I shall keep my knife in my hand to-night.” And they went on down hill towards the camp that was being pitched about the town. CHAPTER XXVIII Night came while Marpasse and Isoult were building a fire under the lee of a grass bank in a meadow outside Guildford, for Marpasse, shrewd woman, had no sooner heard the din that the King’s men were making in the town, than she had chosen to pass the night in the open rather than within the walls. “They will all be drunk as swine,” she said, “and a drunken man is no bargain. Out with your knife, Black Cat, and run and cut some of that furze yonder. Some lazy soul has left faggots in that ditch.” Marpasse made Denise sit down under the shelter of the bank, for the grey sister’s feet had hurt her through the last two miles. So Denise sat there in the dusk, lost in a kind of vacant wonder at life, and at herself, and at the strange way that things happened. She felt tired, even to stupidity, and the sounds that came up out of the town were not more audible than the roar of a distant mill.