nd in a mighty ill temper.
The cause of it was a young man who stood disconsolately by a settle a
little way out of the lantern's glow. The dust of the white roads lay
on his bodyarmour and coated the scabbard of his great sword. He played
nervously with the plume of a helmet which lay on the settle, and lifted
his face now and then to protest a word. It was an honest face, ruddy
with wind and sun and thatched with hair which his mislikers called red
but his friends golden.
The girl seemed to have had her say. She turned wearily aside, and drew
the chain between her young lips with a gesture of despair.
"Since when have you become Burgundian, Catherine?" the young man asked
timidly. The Sieur Guy de Laval was most notable in the field but he had
few arts for a lady's chamber.
"I am no Burgundian," she said, "but neither am I Armagnac. What
concern have we in these quarrels? Let the Kings who seek thrones do
the fighting. What matters it to us whether knock-kneed Charles or fat
Philip reign in Paris?"
The young man shuddered as if at a blasphemy "This is our country of
France. I would rid it of the English and all foreign bloodsuckers."
"And your way is to foment the quarrel among Frenchmen? You are a fool,
Guy. Make peace with Burgundy and in a month there will be no Goddams
left in France."
"It is the voice of La Tremouille."
"It is the voice of myself, Catherine of Beaumanoir. And if my kinsman
of La Tremouille say the same, the opinion is none the worse for that.
You meddle with matters beyond your understanding.... But have done with
statecraft, for that is not the heart of my complaint. You have broken
your pledged word, sir. Did you not promise me when you set out that you
would abide the issue of the Bourbon's battle before you took arms? Yet
I have heard of you swashbuckling in that very fight at Rouvray, and
only the miracle of God brought you out with an unbroken neck."
"The Bourbon never fought," said de Laval sullenly. "Only Stewart and
his Scots stood up against Fastolf's spears. You would not have me stay
idle in face of such odds. I was not the only French knight who charged.
There was La Hire and de Saintrailles and the Bastard himself."
"Yet you broke your word," was the girl's cold answer. "Your word to me.
You are forsworn, sir."
The boy's face flushed deeply. "You do not understand, my sweet
Catherine. There have been mighty doings in Touraine, which you have not
heard of in P
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