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“Troubadours, by the sound,” said the newcomer. For the Fool was singing to cheer his lack of breakfast. “Coming empty of belly, as come all troubadours.”

But the sentry was dubious. Minstrels were a slothful lot, averse to the chill of early morning.

And when the pair came nearer and drew up beyond the moat, the soldiers were still at a loss. The Fool’s wandering eyes and tender mouth bespoke him no troubadour, and the child rode with head high like a princess.

“I have come to see my mother,” Clotilde called, and demanded admission, clearly.

Here were no warriors, but a Fool and a child. So they let down the bridge and admitted the pair. But they raised the bridge at once again against the loving advances of Philip’s cousin Charles.

But once in the courtyard Clotilde’s courage began to fail her. Would her mother want her? Prayer had been unavailing and she was still a girl. And, at first, it seemed as though her fears had been justified, although they took her into the castle kindly enough, and offered her food which she could not eat and plied her with questions which she could not answer.

“I want my mother,” was the only thing they could get out of her. Her little body was taut as a bowstring, her lips tight. They offered her excuses; the lady mother slept; now she was rising and must be clothed. And then at last they told her, because of the hunted look in her eyes.

“She is ill,” they said. “Wait but a little and you shall see her.”

Deadly despair had Clotilde in its grasp with that announcement. These strange folk were gentle enough with her, but never before had her mother refused her the haven of her out-held arms. Besides, they lied. Their eyes were shifty. She could see in their faces that they kept something from her.

Philip, having confessed himself overnight, by candle-light, was at mass when the pair arrived. Three days one must rot of peace, and those three days, to be not entirely lost, he prayed for success against Charles, or for another thing that lay close to his heart. But not for both together, since that was not possible.

He knelt stiffly in his cold chapel and made his supplications, but he was not too engrossed to hear the drawbridge chains and to pick up his ears to the clatter of the grey horse.

So, having been communicated, he made short shift of what remained to be done, and got to his feet.

The Abbot, whose offices were finished, had also heard the drawbridge chains and let him go.

When Philip saw Clotilde he frowned and then smiled. He had sons, but no daughter, and he would have set her on his shoulder. But she drew away haughtily.

So Philip sat in a chair and watched her with a curious smile playing about his lips. Surely it were enough to make him smile, that he should play host to the wife and daughter of his cousin Charles.

Because of that, and of the thing that he had prayed for, and with a twinkle in his eyes, Black Philip alternately watched the child, and from a window the plain which was prepared against his cousin. And, as he had expected, at ten o’clock in the morning came Charles and six men-at-arms, riding like demons, and jerked up their horses at the edge of the moat.

Philip, still with the smile under his black beard, went out to greet them.

“Well met, cousin,” he called; “you ride fast and early.”

Charles eyed him with feverish eyes.

“Truce of God,” he said, sulkily, from across the moat. And then: “We seek a runaway, the child Clotilde.”

“I shall make inquiry,” said Philip, veiling the twinkle under his heavy brow. “In such a season many come and go.”

But in his eyes Charles read the truth, and breathed with freer breath.

They lowered the drawbridge again with a great creaking of windlass and chain, and Charles with his head up rode across. But his men-at-arms stood their horses squarely on the bridge so that it could not be raised, and Philip smiled into his beard.