elt a hand among his hair,
a strong hand that lifted his heavy, drooping head and turned up his
face to the glare of the torches.

"How now, Fool!" cried a gruff voice, "here's not thy meat--ha, what
would ye--what would ye, Fool?"

"Look upon another fool, for fool, forsooth, is he methinks that cometh
so into Garthlaxton Keep." Now hereupon, opening unwilling eyes,
Beltane looked up into the face of Beda the Jester that bent above him
with a ring of steel-begirt faces beyond.

"Aha!" quoth the jester, clapping Beltane's pale and bloody cheek,
"here is a fool indeed--forsooth, a very foolish fool, hither come
through folly, for being great of body and small of wit, look you, his
folly hath hither brought him in shape of a hairy, ape-like fool--"

"Ape!" growled a voice, and the jester was seized in a hairy hand and
shaken till his bells jingled; and now Beltane beheld his captor, a
dwarf-like, gnarled and crooked creature, yet huge of head and with the
mighty arms and shoulders of a giant; a fierce, hairy monster, whose
hideousness was set off by the richness of his vesture. "Ape, quotha!"
he growled. "Dare ye name Ulf the Strong ape, forsooth? Ha! so will I
shake the flesh from thy bones!" But now, she who sat her horse near by
so proud and stately, reached forth a white hand, touching Ulf the
Strong upon the arm, and lo! in that moment, he loosed the breathless
jester and spake with bowed head: "Dear my lady, I forgot!" Then
turning to the grinning soldiery he scowled upon them. "Dogs," quoth
he, "go to your master and say Helen, Duchess of Mortain bringeth a
wedding gift to Ivo, called the Black. Behold here he that slew twenty
within the green, that burned down Black Ivo's goodly gallows, that
broke the dungeons of Belsaye and bore Red Pertolepe into the green,
behold him ye seek--Beltane, son of Beltane the Strong, heretofore
Duke of Pentavalon!"

Now hereupon arose a mighty turmoil and excitement, all men striving to
behold Beltane, to touch him and look upon his drooping face, but Ulf's
mighty hand held them back, one and all. And presently came hasting
divers esquires and knights, who, beholding Beltane, his costly mail,
his silver belt and golden hair, seized upon him right joyfully and
bore him into an inner ward, and threw him down upon the floor,
marvelling and rejoicing over him, while Beltane lay there fast bound
and helpless, staring up with frowning brow as one that strives to
think, yet cannot. N