nd and gave promise of a very gale. I knew the windlestraw, Guy de
Villehardouin, a raw young provincial, come up the first time to Court,
but a fiery little cockerel for all of that. He was red-haired. His
blue eyes, small and pinched close to ether, were likewise red, at least
in the whites of them; and his skin, of the sort that goes with such
types, was red and freckled. He had quite a parboiled appearance.

As I passed him by a sudden movement he jostled me. Oh, of course, the
thing was deliberate. And he flamed at me while his hand dropped to his
rapier.

"Faith," thought I, "the gray old man has many and strange tools," while
to the cockerel I bowed and murmured, "Your pardon for my clumsiness. The
fault was mine. Your pardon, Villehardouin."

But he was not to be appeased thus easily. And while he fumed and
strutted I glimpsed Robert Lanfranc, beckoned him to us, and explained
the happening.

"Sainte-Maure has accorded you satisfaction," was his judgment. "He has
prayed your pardon."

"In truth, yes," I interrupted in my suavest tones. "And I pray your
pardon again, Villehardouin, for my very great clumsiness. I pray your
pardon a thousand times. The fault was mine, though unintentioned. In
my haste to an engagement I was clumsy, most woful clumsy, but without
intention."

What could the dolt do but grudgingly accept the amends I so freely
proffered him? Yet I knew, as Lanfranc and I hastened on, that ere many
days, or hours, the flame-headed youth would see to it that we measured
steel together on the grass.

I explained no more to Lanfranc than my need of him, and he was little
interested to pry deeper into the matter. He was himself a lively
youngster of no more than twenty, but he had been trained to arms, had
fought in Spain, and had an honourable record on the grass. Merely his
black eyes flashed when he learned what was toward, and such was his
eagerness that it was he who gathered Henry Bohemond in to our number.

When the three of us arrived in the open space beyond the fish-pond
Fortini and two friends were already waiting us. One was Felix Pasquini,
nephew to the Cardinal of that name, and as close in his uncle's
confidence as was his uncle close in the confidence of the gray old man.
The other was Raoul de Goncourt, whose presence surprised me, he being
too good and noble a man for the company he kept.

We saluted properly, and properly went about the business. It was
no