these streets in
spring with April blooms at his saddle-bow. They called him Phadbus in
jest, for his face was like the sun.... Willebald, good dull man,
was never jealous, and was glad that his wife should be seen in brave
company. Ah, the afternoons at the baths when we sported like sea-nymphs
and sang merry ballads! And the proud days of Carnival where men and
women consorted freely and without guile like the blessed in Paradise!
Such a tide for lovers!... Did I not lead the dance with him at the
Burgrave's festival, the twain of us braver than morning? Sat I not with
him in the garden of St. Vaast, his head in my lap, while he sang me
virelays of the south? What was Willebald to me or his lean grey wife
to him? He made me his queen, me the burgher wife, at the jousting at
Courtrai, when the horses squealed like pigs in the mellay and I wept
in fear for him. Ah, the lost sweet days! Philip, my darling, you make a
brave gentleman, but you will not equal him who loved your mother."

The Cluniac was a man of the world whom no confidences could scandalise.
But he had business of his own to speak of that night, and he thought it
wise to break into this mood of reminiscence.

"The young lord, Philip, your son, madam? You have great plans for him?
What does he at the moment?"

The softness went out of the voice and the woman's gaze came back to the
chamber. "That I know not. Travelling the ways of the world and plucking
roadside fruits, for he is no home-bred and womanish stripling. Wearing
his lusty youth on the maids, I fear. Nay, I forget. He is about to wed
the girl of Avesnes and is already choosing his bridal train. It seems
he loves her. He writes me she has a skin of snow and eyes of vair. I
have not seen her. A green girl, doubtless with a white face and cat's
eyes. But she is of Avesnes, and that blood comes pure from Clovis, and
there is none prouder in Hainault. He will husband her well, but she
will be a clever woman if she tethers to her side a man of my bearing.
He will be for the high road and the battle-front."

"A puissant and peaceable knight, I have heard tell," said the Cluniac.

"Puissant beyond doubt, and peaceable when his will is served. He will
play boldly for great things and will win them. Ah, monk! What knows a
childless religious of a mother's certainty? 'Twas not for nothing that
I found Willebald and changed the cobbles of King's Lynn for this fat
country. It is gold that brings power, a