"Ha, by the eyes of God!" quoth Sir Pertolepe, "'tis he himself--O sweet sight--see, I grow better already! Who brought him, say you?"
"Lord, 'twas the Duchess Helen!" said one. "Helen!" cried Sir Pertolepe, "Helen of Mortain?" "Aye, lord, as her wedding gift to our lord Duke Ivo." Now hereupon Beltane's staring eyes closed, the great muscles of his body twitched and writhed and stood out gnarled and rigid awhile, then he sighed, a slow, hissing breath, and lay there staring up wide-eyed at the vaulted roof again.
"Came she herself, Raoul?"
"Aye, good my lord."
"Why, then--admit her. God's love, messires, would ye keep the glorious Helen without?"
"Lord, she is gone--she and her ape-man both."
"Gone? Gone, forsooth? 'Tis strange, and yet 'tis like the wilful Helen. Yet hath she left her wedding gift in my keeping. O a rare gift, a worthy gift and most acceptable. Strip me off his armour--yet no, as he came, so shall he bide until my lord Duke be come. Bring now shackles, strong and heavy, bring fetters and rivets, so will I sit here and see him trussed."
And presently came two armourers with hammers and rivets, and shackled Beltane with heavy chains, the while Sir Pertolepe, sitting near, laughed and spake him right jovially.
But Beltane suffered it all, uttering no word and staring ever straight before him with wide, vague eyes, knitting his brow ever and anon in troubled amaze like a child that suffers unjustly; wherefore Sir Pertolepe, fondling his big chin, frowned.
"Ha!" quoth he, "let our Duke that hath no duchy be lodged secure--to the dungeons, aye, he shall sleep with rats until my lord Duke Ivo come to see him die--yet stay! The dungeons be apt to sap a man's strength and spirit, and to a weak man death cometh over soon and easy. Let him lie soft, feed full and sleep sound--let him have air and light, so shall he wax fat and lusty against my lord Duke's coming. See to it, Tristan!"
So they led Beltane away jangling in his fetters, across divers courtyards and up a narrow, winding stair and thrust him within a chamber where was a bed and above it a loop-hole that looked out across a stretch of rolling, wooded country. Now being come to the bed, Beltane sank down thereon, and setting elbow to knee, rested his heavy head upon his hand as one that fain would think.
"Helen!" he whispered, and so whispering, his strong fingers writhed and clenched themselves within his yellow hair. And thus sat he all that day, bowed forward upon his hand, his fingers tight-clenched within his hair, staring ever at the square flagstone beneath his foot, heedless alike of the coming and going of his gaoler or of the food set out upon the bench hard by. Day grew to evening and evening to night, yet still he sat there, mighty shoulders bowed forward, iron fingers clenched within his hair, like one that is dead; in so much that his gaoler, setting down food beside the other untasted dishes, looked upon him in amaze and touched him.