"'Tis told in Belsaye on right good authority that a certain vile knave, a lewd, seditious rogue hight Beltane that was aforetime a charcoal-burner and thereafter a burner of gibbets--as witness my lord Duke's tall, great and goodly gallows--that was beside a prison breaker and known traitor, hath been taken by the doughty Sir Pertolepe, lord Warden of the Marches, and by him very properly roasted and burned to death within his great Keep of Garthlaxton."
"Roasted, forsooth?" said Beltane, his gaze yet afar off; "and, forsooth, burned to ashes; then forsooth is he surely dead?"
"Aye, that is he; and his ashes scattered on a dung-hill."
"A dung-hill--ha?"
"He was but a charcoal-burning knave, 'tis said--a rogue base-born and a traitor. Now hereupon my lord, the good lord Sir Gui, my lord Duke's lord Seneschal of Belsaye--"
"Forsooth," sighed Beltane, "here be lords a-plenty in Pentavalon!"
"Hereupon the noble Sir Gui set a close watch upon the townsfolk whereby he apprehended divers suspected rogues, and putting them to the torture, found thereby proofs of their vile sedition, insomuch that though the women held their peace for the most part, certain men enduring not, did confess knowledge of a subterraneous passage 'neath the wall. Then did Sir Gui cause this passage to be stopped, and four gibbets to be set up within the market-place, and thereon at sunset every day did hang four men, whereto the towns folk were summoned by sound of tucket and drum: until upon a certain evening some six days since (myself standing by) came a white friar hight Friar Martin--well known in Belsaye, and bursting through the throng he did loud-voiced proclaim himself the traitor that had oped and shown the secret way into the dungeons unto that charcoal-rogue for whose misdeeds so many folk had suffered. So they took this rascal friar and scourged him and set him in the water-dungeons where rats do frolic, and to-night at sunset he dieth by slow fire as a warning to--Ah! sweet, noble, good my lord, what--what would ye--" for Beltane had risen and was looking down at the crouching Pardoner, suddenly haggard, pallid-lipped, and with eyes a-glare with awful menace; but now the Pardoner saw that those eyes looked through him and beyond--living eyes in a face of death.
"Messire--messire!" quavered the Pardoner on trembling knees; but Beltane, as one that is deaf and blind, strode forward and over him, and as he went set his bugle to his lips and sounded a rallying note. Forthwith came men that ran towards him at speed, but now was there no outcry or confusion and their mail gleamed in the early sun as they fell into their appointed rank and company.