A horn set with silver and closed with an ivory lid, passed from hand to hand. It had come from the wallet that hung from Etoile’s saddle. A soldier held it to Aymery’s mouth, steadying him with one arm. Aymery drank, his hand shaking, so that the red wine stained his chin. “Thanks, friend, for that.” He gave the horn back again, raised his head, and looked round him for Denise. She was still leaning against the wall of the cell. Their eyes met for a moment in one quick look that left sadness and joy and pain in the hearts of both. Gaillard’s voice rang out. A horn screamed. Dogs, men, and horses moved suddenly like a crowd that has been held behind a barrier. Etoile remained motionless upon her horse, watching the men pass by her with Aymery in their midst. Already Gaillard’s red surcoat beaconed towards the gloom of the beech wood, the sun shining upon it so that it looked the colour of blood. Peter of Savoy loitered beyond the trampled garden, waiting for Etoile, and wondering what whim kept her near the cell. The men had streamed away before she turned her horse and walked the beast slowly past Denise. And she stared at Denise boldly as she passed, her black eyes mocking her from the vantage of her horse. “Sweet dreams to you, Holy Sister!” she said. And she rode on laughing, and leapt her horse over the wattle fence. Denise stood there motionless, her face bleak and cold, her eyes looking into the distance as though they saw and understood nothing. Suddenly her face blazed with a rush of blood. She hung her head, and seemed to be praying. CHAPTER X So briskly did the Lord of Pevensey sweep the woods that Maytide, hunting his enemies with horn and hound, that he drove such mesne lords as had drawn the sword beyond his borders into other parts. The mere gentleman and the yeoman could make no fight of it as yet against a great lord who held the castles. The peasants were cowed by the lances of the troopers; a few still lurked in the deeps of the woods, chased hither and thither like wild things that fly from the cry of the hound. The finer and fiercer spirits fled with savage thoughts in their hearts, counting on the day when their chance should come again. Waleran de Monceaux took refuge in Winchelsea, and joined himself to the men of that town. Others galloped away to seek Earl Simon, and to ease their wrath under De Montfort’s banner. As for Grimbald the priest, he lay near to death, hidden near a swineherd’s hovel, stricken with the wounds that he had gotten him at Goldspur manor.