e rooms; on the
left the pack animals, mules for priests and the places for their
housings: in the centre, on each side of a vast barn that held the
provender, were the stables of the coursers and stallions that the
King himself rode or favoured; of these huge beasts there were two
hundred: each in a cage within the houses--for many were savage
tearers both of men and of each other. On the door of each cage there
was written the name of the horse, as Sir Brian, Sir Bors, or Old
Leo--and the sign of the constellation under which each was born, the
months in which, in consequence, it was propitious or dangerous to
ride them, and pentagons that should prevent witches, warlocks or evil
spirits from casting spells upon the great beasts. Their housings and
their stall armour, covered with grease to keep the rust from them,
hung upon pulleys before each stall, and their polished neck armours
branched out from the walls in a long file, waving over the gateways
right into the distance, the face-pieces with the shining spikes in
the foreheads hanging at the ends, the eyeholes carved out and the
nostril places left vacant, so that they resembled an arcade of the
skeletons of unicorns' heads.

It was quiet and warm in the long and light aisles: there was a faint
smell of stable hartshorn and the sound of beans being munched
leisurely. From time to time there came a thunder from distant boxes,
as two untrained stallions that Privy Seal the day before had given
the King kicked against the immense balks of the sliding doors in
their cage-stalls.

The old knight was flustered because it was many days since the King
had deigned to come in the morning, and there were many beasts to show
him. In his steel armour, from which his old head stood out benign and
silvery, he strutted stiffly from cage to cage, talking softly to his
horses and cursing at the harnessers. Cicely Elliott sat on a high
stool from which she could look out of window and gibed at him as he
passed.

'Let me grease your potlids, goodly servant. You creak like a
roasting-jack.' He smiled at her with an engrossed air, and hurried
himself to pull tight the headstrap of a great barb that was fighting
with four men.

A tucket of trumpets sounded, silvery and thin through the cold grey
air: a page came running with his sallete-helmet.

'Why, I will lace it for him,' Cicely cried, and ran, pushing away the
boy. She laced it under the chin and laughed. 'Now you may kiss m