Voices seemed to rise everywhere in the darkness. A waggon went creaking by, with the cracking of a whip, and the oaths of the driver. Mallets began to ring on the polls of stout, ash pegs and Isoult pricked up her ears at the sound. “They are pitching a tent yonder!” Marpasse nodded as she munched her bread. “Some of the lords must be near,” Isoult ran on, “we may be in good company. The saints bring us luck.” Her eyes met Denise’s, and there was a startled something in Denise’s glance that made Isoult flinch, and then burst into spiteful laughter. Isoult had the wine flask in her hand, and she lifted it, and drank deep. “Blood of mine, have we an unshorn lamb here?” She stared at Denise impudently as though challenging her. Denise looked away. Isoult’s face sharpened, the face of a little vixen ever ready to snap and bite. “Lord, how proud we are! Coarse sluts, that is what we are, Marpasse.” The big woman held up a brown hand. “Keep your claws in, cat,” she said, “you were born quarrelling. Curse you, be quiet.” And Isoult obeyed, having felt the weight of Marpasse’s fist. It was not long before a couple of soldiers passed close to the fire, and seeing the three women, red, blue, and grey, they stopped, and began to talk banteringly to Marpasse and Isoult. The women returned the men better than they gave, and showed them plainly that they had no need of their company, for the fellows were rough boors, and sweeter at a distance. Denise sat and shuddered, huddling into herself with instinctive disgust, and understanding why Marpasse had a naked knife in her sleeve. The men slunk off, sending back jeers out of the darkness, for Marpasse had shown her knife. “The sting of a wasp keeps such flies from buzzing too near,” she said; “we are great ladies on occasions, Isoult and I. We cherish our dignity for the sake of the gold.” They went on with their meal, hearing movement everywhere about them in the darkness. Isoult’s eyes were fixed upon a fire about a hundred yards away, whose light seemed to play upon the rose-coloured canvas of a tent. Men were going to and fro there, and Isoult guessed that it was some great lord’s pavilion. As for Marpasse she ate, drank, and kept eyes and ears upon the alert. Denise had nothing before her but the black half sphere of the night chequered with the yellow flutter of the fires. Isoult and Marpasse sat facing her and looking towards the town. Therefore they did not see what Denise saw, the tall figure of a man in war harness, unhelmeted, and wearing a blue surcoat blazoned over with golden suns. He came along the bank out of the darkness, and stood looking down at the three women round the fire.