came out of the blackness.
“Deafen me not with thy complaints, weakling,” he said fiercely. “Hast behaved in a cowardly fashion to-night.”
Dirk was silent before a new phase of Theirry’s character; he saw that his hold on his companion had been weakened by his display of fear, his easy surrender of the key. “Moans make neither comfort nor aid,” added Theirry.
Dirk’s voice came softly.
“Had you been sick I had not been so harsh, and surely I am sick . . . when I breathe my heart hurts and my foot is full of pain.”
Theirry softened.
“Because I love you, Dirk, I will, if you complain no more, say nought of your ill behaviour.” He put out his hand round the tree and touched the wet silk mantle; despite the heat Dirk was shivering.
“What shall we do?” he asked, and strove to keep his teeth from chattering. “If we might journey to Frankfort —”
“Why Frankfort?”
“Certes, I know an old witch there who was friendly to Master Lukas, and she would receive us, surely.”
“We cannot reach Frankfort or any place without money . . . how dark it is!”
“Ugh! How it rains! I am wet to the skin . . . and my ankle . . . ”
Theirry set his teeth.
“We will get there in spite of them. Are we so easily daunted?”
“A light!” whispered Dirk. “A light!”
Theirry stared about him and saw in one part of the universal darkness a small light with a misty halo about it, slowly coming nearer.
“A traveller,” said Theirry. “Now shall he see us or no?”
“Belike he would show us on our way,” whispered Dirk.
“If he be not from the college.”
“Nay, he rides.”
They could hear now, through the monotonous noise of the rain, the sound of a horse slowly, cautiously advancing; the light swung and flickered in a changing oval that revealed faintly a man holding it and a horseman whose bridle he caught with the other hand.
They came at a walking pace, for the path was unequal and slippery, and the illumination afforded by the lantern feeble at best.
“I will accost him,” said Theirry.
“If he demand who we are?”
“Half the truth then — we have left the college because of a fight.”
The horseman and his attendant were now quite close; the light showed the overgrown path they came upon, the wet foliage either side and the slanting silver rain; Theirry stepped out before them.
“Sir,” he said, “know you of any habitation other than the town of Basle?”
The rider was wrapped in a mantle to his chin and wore a pointed felt hat; he looked sharply under this at his questioner.
“My own,” he said, and halted his horse. “A third of a league from here.”
At first he had seemed fearful of robbers, for his hand had sought the knife in his belt; but now he took it away and stared curiously, attracted by the student’s dress and the obvious beauty of the young man who was looking straight at him with dark, challenging eyes.
“We should be indebted for your hospitality — even the shelter of your barns,” said Theirry. The horseman’s glance travelled to Dirk, shivering in his silk.
“Clerks from the college?” he questioned.
“Yea,” answered Theirry. “We were. But I sorely wounded one in a fight and fled. My comrade chose to follow me.”
The stranger touched up his horse.
“Certes, you may come with me. I wot there is room enow.”
Theirry caught Dirk by the arm.
“Sir, we are thankful,” he answered.
The light held by the servant showed a muddy, twisting path, the shining wet trunks, the glistening leaves either side, the great brown horse, steaming and passive, with his bright scarlet trappings and his rider muffled in a mantle to the chin; Dirk looked at man and horse quickly in silence; Theirry spoke.
“It is an ill night to be abroad.”
“I have been in the town,” answered the stranger, “buying silks for my lady. And you — so you killed a man?”
“He is not dead,” answered Theirry. “But we shall never return to the college.”
The horseman had a soft and curiously pleasing voice; he spoke as if he cared nothing what he said or how he was answered.
“Where will you go?” he asked.
“To Frankfort,” said Theirry.
“The Emperor is there now, though he leaves for Rome within the year, they say,” remarked the horseman, “and the Empress. Have you seen the Empress?”
Theirry put back the boughs that trailed across the path.
“No,” he said.
“Of what town are you?”
“Courtrai.”
“The Empress was there a year ago and you did not see her? One of the wonders of the world, they say, the Empress.”
“I have heard of her,” said Dirk, speaking for the first time. “But, sir, we go not to Frankfort to see the Empress.”
“Likely ye do not,” answered the horseman, and was silent.
They cleared the wood and were crossing a sloping space of grass, the rain full in their faces; then they again struck a well-worn path, now leading upwards among scattered rocks.
As they must wait for the horse to get a foothold on the slippery stones, for the servant to go ahead and cast the lantern light across the blackness, their progress was slow, but neither of the three spoke until they halted before a gate in a high wall that appeared to rise up, suddenly before them, out of the night.
The servant handed the lantern to his master and clanged the bell that hung beside the gate. Theirry could see by the massive size of the buttresses that flanked the entrance that it was a large castle the night concealed from him; the dwelling, certainly, of some great noble. The gates were opened by two men carrying lights. The horseman rode through, the two students at his heels.
“Tell my lady,” said he to one of the men, “that I bring two who desire her hospitality;” he turned and spoke over his shoulder to Theirry, “I am the steward here, my lady is very gentle-hearted.”
They crossed a courtyard and found themselves before the square door of the donjon.
Dirk looked at Theirry, but he kept his eyes lowered and was markedly silent; their guide dismounted, gave the reins to one of the varlets who hung about the door, and commanded them to follow him.
The door opened straight on to a large chamber the entire size of the donjon; it was lit by torches stuck into the wall and fastened by iron clamps; a number of men stood or sat about, some in a livery of bright golden-coloured and blue cloth, others in armour or hunting attire; one or two were pilgrims with the cockle-shells round their hats.
The steward passed through this company, who saluted him with but little attention to his companions, and ascended a flight of stairs set in the wall at the far end; these were steep, damp and gloomy, ill lit by a lamp placed in the niche of the one narrow deep-set window; Dirk shuddered in his soaked clothes; the steward was unfastening his mantle; it left trails of wet on the cold stone steps; Theirry marked it, he knew not why.
At the top of the stairs they paused on