Now hereupon, from all the townsfolk crowding wall and turret a groan went up and full many a ruddy cheek grew pale at this dire threat. Whereupon the Prior, having drawn breath, spake on in voice more stern and more peremptory: "Let now your gates unbar! Yield ye unto your lord Duke his mercy! Let the gates unbar, I say, lest I blast this wicked city with the most dread and awful ban and curse of Holy Church--woe, woe in this life, and, in the life to come, torment and everlasting fire! Let the gates unbar!"
Now once again the men of Belsaye sighed and groaned and trembled in their armour, while from crowded street and market-square rose buzz of fearful voices. Then spake the Reeve in troubled tones, his white head low-stooped above the battlement.
"Good Prior, I pray you an we unbar, what surety have we that this our city shall not be given over to fire and pillage and ravishment?"
Quoth the Prior: "Your lives are your lord's, in his hand resteth life and death, justice and mercy. So for the last time I charge ye--set wide your rebellious gates!"
"Not so!" cried the Reeve, "in the name of Justice and Mercy ne'er will we yield this our city until in Belsaye no man is left to strike for maid and wife and child!"
At the which bold words some few men shouted in acclaim, but for the most part the citizens were mumchance, their hearts cold within them, while all eyes stared fearfully upon the Prior, who, lifting white hand again, rose up from cushioned chair and spake him loud and clear: "Then, upon this rebellious city and all that therein is, on babe, on child, on youth, on maid, on man, on wife, on the hale, the sick, the stricken in years, on beast, on bird, and on all that hath life and being I do pronounce the church's dread curse and awful ban:--ex--"
The Prior's mellifluous voice was of a sudden lost and drowned in another, a rich voice, strong and full and merry: "Quit--quit thy foolish babblement, thou fat and naughty friar; too plump art thou, too round and buxom to curse a curse as curses should be cursed, so shall thy curses avail nothing, for who doth heed the fatuous fulminations of a fat man? But as to me, I could have out-cursed thee in my cradle, thou big-bellied thing of emptiness--go to for a sounding brass and tinkling cymbal!"
Thus, from his "mockery" perched high above the battlement, spake Giles, with many and divers knowing gestures of arm, waggings of the head, rollings of the eyes and the like, what time Roger and Walkyn and Ulf, their heads bent close together, busied themselves above a great and bulging wine-skin.