Masters of the Guild | Page 8

went straight to the heart of the blackguard audience, and half the voices in the room promptly joined the chorus. Eurydice, the singer went on, was an excellent cook, so renowned that the prince of the lower regions abducted her, and Orpheus was allowed to regain possession of her only on the solemn condition that she should make a pie for that sovereign every twelvemonth. This pie, according to the final verse of the song, would now be cut, so that the company could see exactly what a Plutonian banquet was like.
The troubadour borrowed a dagger from a man-at-arms, made one or two slashes at the ornate crust of the pie--and out flew four live pigeons.
Then Peirol gave his birdlike call, and eluding the hands raised to catch them the pigeons swooped down to him. Ranulph began to dance, playing his lute at the same time, and the boy followed, with the doves flying above him just out of reach. In saucy improvised couplets the troubadour called upon one and another to join the dancing, until before any one quite knew what was happening, the company in the lower hall was drawn into a winding lengthening line following the leaders in a sort of farandole. The hall was not large enough for this to go on indefinitely, and Ranulph suddenly bolted into the outer air, where the shouting, laughing crowd paused for breath--and the pigeons went soaring into the sky.
The party from the table on the dais came out to look on, and Garin de Biterres, as he saw the mounting birds, grew suspicious. "Here, Jean! Michaud!" he said sharply. "Loose the hunting hawks!"
Ranulph's heart missed a beat, but he dared not betray himself by a tremor. Hawks could be trained to pursue carriers, but the doves had a fair start and might be able to get away. The two birds of prey which the men brought were moreover not the type of hawk used especially to hunt pigeons, but young falcons or tercels. The men bungled in handling them; they evidently belonged to the castle, not to the troop. When they finally rose into the air, Pere Azuli, the veteran blue pigeon, and Rien-du-Tout, the little dun-colored stray Peirol had trained, were almost out of sight. The luckless Blanchette was lagging, and despite her frantic attempts to escape her enemy she was soon struggling in the falcon's grip. Clair de la Lune, the other white pigeon, seemed about to meet the same fate when something unexpected happened.
Two wild hawks, beating up from the south, spied the pigeons, and pounced one upon the tercel with the dove in his talons, the other upon Clair de la Lune. In the scrimmage which followed Blanchette's little body fell into the river, and the strange hawk gave chase to Pere Azuli, while her mate began to devour Clair de la Lune at his leisure. The ruffled and bewildered tercels were whistled back, and neither Garin de Biterres nor his prisoners could be certain in the gathering twilight whether any of the pigeons had escaped their pursuers.
The pigeon-chase had taken the attention of de Biterres and his men so completely for a few minutes that Ranulph, without seeming to do so, came near to Lady Philippa. A tiny roll of paper encased in a withered leaf dropped from his fingers on the furred edge of her mantle. She bent to shake off the leaf and her hand closed quietly over the letter. When Ranulph had gone to sing ballads of the camp among the troopers, and the young girls had been ceremoniously escorted to their guarded room, she unrolled and read the missive. It was not long. "Dear and Honored Lady--I pray you pardon the fooleries of the night, since in this way only could I hope to escape the surveillance of these miscreants and do you service. The pigeons we are loosing bear messages telling of your doleful plight, and I doubt not that when it becomes known, help will come to you. Sir Gualtier Giffard is, as you know, at your father's castle awaiting messages from him, and we have thus every reason to hope that there will be no mishap. For the rest, sweet lady, I rejoice that I am within these walls, because you are here, and yet would I gladly go to the ends of the earth if so I might hasten your deliverance.
"Ever your servant, "RANULPH D'AVIGNON."
The loyal and generous words were like balm upon wounds. The last speech that Garin de Biterres had made to her that night conveyed a terrifying possibility.
"Lady Philippa," his cold harsh voice had fallen upon her ears like the grating of a key in a prison door, "your father once refused me your hand. I hope to find you more gracious, or