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You have no head. Get back at once to Wanmeeting with one thousand of your men, and leave me five hundred of them to work with. You may think yourself lucky if you find one stone on another or one man's wife as she should be. By the time you are there you will no doubt have orders from High March.
Standing in his stirrups, hat in hand, he made a short speech. "Men of Wanmeeting and brothers," he said, "to-day you shall prove yourselves worthy of your Lady Paramount, of your late master, and of me. Galors de Born, the arch-enemy, is skulking in his strong tower, not daring to attack us. Men of Wanmeeting, we will go and bait him. Hauterive is ours. Follow me, crying, Ha! Saint James!" "Ha!
He shall make my way straight, bless him for a John Baptist. We are for Wanmeeting, my friends. Wanmeeting, then Goltres." Said another "Sir, if that road lead to High March, we must go straight forward to fetch at Wanmeeting." So they disputed at large. She could find out little more.
This was the state of affairs when Prosper passed the edge of the High March demesnes and took the road for Wanmeeting and Goltres. He had not gone far out of the Countess's borders before he saw what had happened. The country had been wasted by fire and sword: cottages burnt out, trampled gardens, green cornlands black and bruised desolation everywhere, but no life. Death he did come upon.
Seeing too how deeply her alarms had sunk into her, he had tact enough not to let her guess his intent, which very nakedly was to follow up Galors towards Goltres or Wanmeeting. Upon this matter he contented himself with asking her one question whether she had ever heard speak of a knight called Salomon de Born? The answer made him start. Isoult shook her head.
The church tower still stood for a mockery, its conical cap of shingles had fallen in, its vane stuck out at an angle. Prosper, whose eyes were good, made out a flag-staff pointing the perpendicular. It had a flag, Party per pale argent and sable. A dun smoke hung over the litter. "We shall do little good there," said he; "we are some days too late. We will try Wanmeeting." Agreed.
If he could get Wanmeeting he would be master of the whole of the north forest, west of Wan. Here would be enormous advantage. By a forced march and a night surprise he might get Market Basing, on the east side of the river; and if he did that he would cut the Countess of Hauterive practically off the whole of Morgraunt.
That night he slept by a roadside shrine, and next morning betimes took the lonely track again. Considering all this as he rode, he reached a sign-post which told him that here the ways of Wanmeeting and Waisford parted company. "Wanmeeting is my plain road," thought he, "but plainer still it is that of Galors and not of Galors alone. I think the longer going is like to be my shorter.
She will come telling fortunes and shameful tales. And she means mischief, but not to you." "Ah! How do you know that, Vincent?" "She talked very often to herself when we were in the forest. We have been to many places Wanmeeting, Waisford. There is no doubt at all. `Kill the buck and you have the doe': she said it over and over again. We have seen the sick man.
It is one thing to kindle military fires in the breast of a High Bailiff, quite another to bid them out. Prosper had overstepped his authority. The High Bailiff of Wanmeeting held himself in check for the better part of a week after his generalissimo's departure; at the end of five days he could endure it no more.
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