“What does the red banner mean?” “Mean!” and Marpasse bit her lips in her excitement; “death to all, no prisoners, and no quarter if the King wins. That is the song of the Red Dragon.” Denise said nothing. Marpasse glanced at her with a sudden, sidelong stare. “You will not grudge him that one kiss,” she said, “for to-night we may go a-searching for dead friends by torchlight.” The two dragons of war were trailing their coils nearer to one another. The King’s red banner came tossing up the slope, he himself riding before it, holding his shield aloft with the lions of gold thereon. “Simon, _je vous défie_!” That was his cry that morning, a cry that his men took up, and screamed at the silent masses that watched and waited on the slopes above. The royal host was flushed now and confident, trusting in their numbers and in the great lords whose banners blew everywhere. Edward the Prince was the firebrand that morning. He was pricking his horse to and fro like a mad boy, and his lips were bloody under his great helmet. For he had the Londoners before him, those Londoners who had thrown offal and foul words at his mother. The son had taken a vow to wipe out those words with blood. Trumpets rang out on the King’s right. Edward threw his spear into the air, caught it, and stood up in the stirrups. “Death to the dogs! At the gallop, sirs, come.” He was away, a splendid and furious figure, with many thousand horses trampling at his heels. The iron ranks roared, and rocked and thundered. Those who watched saw a tossing sea of horses’ heads, a whirl of hoofs tearing the grass, a mist of slanted spears, a confusion of grotesque heads bending behind painted shields. The mass plunged in on the Londoners like a rock that falls with a deep sob into the sea. There was no submerging of that mass of steel, and flesh, and leather. It went in and through as a fire leaps through dry corn, terrible in its red ruin, unquenchable and splendid. Marpasse, on her waggon, caught her breath, and held it. Simon’s left wing was wavering. Its spears went down in long swathes, and did not rise again. Black puffs of panic started out from the rear of the shaken mass, and spread like smoke over the green hillside. “The Londoners have had enough! The fools always suffered from too much tongue. Dirty dogs, run, run, the devil is at your heels.”