But when she saw Gilbert the
blood sank suddenly and her eyes grew darker. They lingered on him as
she rode by, and turned back to him a little with drooping lids, and a
slight bend of the head that had in it a grace beyond her own knowledge
or intention. He, like those beside him, threw up his hand and cheered
again, arid she did not see that almost before she had passed him he
was looking along the ranks for another face.
The three hundred cantered slowly round half the meadow, and the cheer
followed them as they went, like the moving cry of birds on the wing;
and first they rode along the line of the King's men, but presently
they came to the knights and soldiers of Eleanor's great vassalage, and
all at once there were flowers in the air, wild flowers from the fields
and autumn roses from the gardens of Nicaea, plucked early by young
squires and boys, and tied into nosegays and carefully shielded from
the sun, that they might be still fresh when the time came to throw
them. The light blossoms scattered in the air, and the leaves were
blown into the faces of the fair women as they passed. Moreover, some
of the knights had silken scarfs of red and white, and waved them above
their heads while they cheered and shouted. And so the troop rode round
three sides of the great meadow.
But at the last side there was a change that fell like a chill upon the
whole multitude of men and women, and a cry came ringing down the air
that struck a discord through the triumphant notes, long, harsh, bad to
hear as the howl of wild beasts when the fire licks up the grass of the
wilderness behind them.
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