AY, Messire Long-Face, you may not shun our company this time as heretofore. For I have made ready a pudding of dates against your coming, and Master Will hath fetched some rare wine and, what is more, hath saved some of it.”
So saying, Ellen took Robert's sword-belt and shield and pushed a chair forward to the table where supper was spread.
“Aye,” growled the archer. “Wash, wipe, sit, eat, drink, wipe and depart. 's blood, tall brother, dost never loosen thy belt and stretch thy legs under table like a Christian?”
He noticed that the girl's fingers trembled when she placed food and wine before the knight and saw the ominous breaks made in the steel rings where arrows had struck his haburgeon. Ellen had sent away the slaves who had been placed in the house, for she wished none but herself to tend Father Evagrius. And the priest lay on a mattress in another room. The heat of the day had wearied him, and he had declined to join them.
Robert watched her trip back and forth to clear the table and minister to the priest, and the lines of weariness fell away from his eyes. In truth had he longed for this sight of the maid of Ibelin, and several times had turned aside from his riding in Bokhara to pass through the street and listen for sound of her voice lifted in song.
And now he racked his brain for words, wishful that he had been raised in the court where apt speeches were to be learned. He looked expectantly at Will Bunsley, but the glib tongue of the yeoman was still, for a marvel. Meanwhile Ellen settled down on a cushion under a great candle and began to embroider a pattern on a fair sheet of linen stretched upon a small frame.
Her dark head was bent over her task. In this way had she whiled away the long hours of loneliness. Not once did she raise her eyes to the knight.
“Damoiselle!”
Robert flushed and lowered his voice, for he had spoken as if addressing a squadron of men-at-arms.
“Prithee—my thanks for—the supper.”
The long locks hid Ellen's face as she made answer quickly.
“Messire, my thanks for—saving my life.”
“How? In sooth”
“Indeed Master Will hath told me how you won us from the hands of the wazir.”
“Nay”
“And Father Evagrius did relate how you took his part in the tower dungeon.”
“And sent the wizarder a-packing from the courtyard before vespers,” observed the archer with a nod.
“And so,” went on the girl, “my lord, you have repaid me in most courteous wise for—the despite I put upon you. Once, my lord, I struck you. They tell me you are ever minded to pay a debt and to hold good your word. So do we render you—thanks!”
Suddenly Robert smiled, and when he smiled the tight, downcurving lips grew merry.
“I cry quittance, damoiselle. 'Twas a fair good buffet you dealt me at our meeting, and a just one. Nay, child, hast forgotten our second meeting, beyond the Gates, by the desert sea? Your hand was gentle then—to a churl.”
Ellen bent over her embroidery, and her fingers tangled in the thread. For when Robert had lain ill with fever she had often taken his head upon her knee and stroked his forehead until he slept. She wondered how much he remembered, and, observing with a swift, sidelong glance that he still smiled, she waxed haughty.
“My lord, I am no child. Next Martinmas I will be seventeen.”
“My lady,” Robert laughed, “I am no lord. Nay, you have spoiled the pattern. What is it?”
She untangled the thread and went to work anew, and he saw that she was embroidering a crimson cross upon a white background.
“Father Evagrius did ask it of me.”
“A surcoat? Then the patriarch grows stronger?”
“He doth not mend.”
She glanced anxiously toward the door of the other room.
“It was his wish that I make it for you.”
Robert thought there was slight chance of his donning the garments of a knight again—or of leaving Bokhara alive. And what chance had the girl?
“See—'tis nearly finished.”
She tilted the frame and surveyed it critically.
“The one you wore was sadly stained.”
“'Tis a fair gift,” he said, surprized that the girl should remember details of this meeting six months ago.
And he listened while she talked lightly of the strange slaves of Bokhara, the pretty garden and the music that she heard upon the river near at hand. Will, she said, had seldom been absent from the house; servants of the priests had brought her all she could wish of fruits and sweetmeats.
“And Will must not leave this place to seek the wall again,” responded Robert gravely. “I give you in his charge.”