Thanks be that ye have arrived! The hour is well
past noonday, and we had begun to fear...."

"Time enough," Jacques growled. He gestured impatiently, and the squire
clambered to his feet, bowing again.

"This way, your Lordship!"

The squire led him to the lower room in the north tower. It was the
usual room of monastic simplicity--whitewashed stone walls, a single
window, two wooden benches and a low couch on which his garments for the
occasion had been carefully arrayed. After the execution, he would be
moved to his black silk tent in the center of the camping grounds.

While the squire fluttered around him, eager to be of help, Jacques
removed his short-sleeved dacron shirt, kicked off his sandals and
stepped out of the comfortable shorts he always wore for traveling. The
squire gaped with awe at the sight of his muscular body.

"M'Lord, truly thou art a powerful man!"

Jacques looked down at him with mixed contempt and amusement. The squire
was a thin, pale little man, with the pinched look of nearsightedness
about his eyes. His wig and tunic were much too big for him.

"What do you do, Squire?" Jacques inquired, not unkindly.

The man looked hurt, as if the question reflected somehow on his ability
to serve as a squire to the Lord High Executioner.

"Computer development," he muttered. "Resonating pentode circuits." Then
he drew himself up defensively, with not a little pride. "But I placed
at the top of the list in the Bureau's test for squires!"

"That's fine," Jacques commented drily. "Now hurry, let's see what you
learned...."

"Dress him handsomely, Squire!" boomed a taunting voice from the
doorway. "Our Lord High Executioner faces a rare challenge this day!"

Jacques recognized the voice of Guy de Archambault, the Court Bailiff,
whose bilious nose he intended to grind into the dust one of these fine
days. But his anger at the Bailiff's intrusion was overbalanced by
curiosity.

"What's all the excitement about?" he demanded. "Who's on the docket,
anyway?"

The Bailiff grinned mockingly.

"Forsooth, M'Lord, restrain thy impatience! In the Court's good time
wilt ye learn...."

"Oh, knock off that drivel, will you! Court's not in session yet...."

The Bailiff's huge belly shook with laughter.

"Have it your own way, Jacques, m'boy! But in any vernacular the
meaning's the same--you're in for quite a surprise, if rumor has it
right!"

"Out with it, then! I can see you've been waiting to tel