And still
Gilbert's shield hung blank and white on his lance, and he sat alone,
without so much as a new mantle upon him, nor a sword-belt, nor any
gift to show that the royal favour had descended upon him as had been
expected. So some of the nobles only saluted him with a grave gesture
in which there was neither friendship nor familiarity, and some took no
notice of him, turning their faces away, for they thought that they had
made a mistake, and that the Englishman had given some grave offence
for which even his brave action was not a sufficient atonement. But he
cared little, for his nature was not a courtier's, and even then the
English Normans were colder and graver men than those of France, and
more overbearing in arms, but less self-seeking, one against another,
in court.
Dunstan came from behind the tent, where the fire was, bringing food in
two polished brass bowls, and Gilbert went in to eat his dinner. Coarse
fare enough it was, a soup of vegetables and bread, with pieces of meat
in it, and little crumbs of cheese, scraped off with a sharp knife, and
floating on the thick liquid; and then, in the other bowl, small
gobbets of roasted beef run by sixes on wooden skewers that were
blackened at the ends by the fire. And it all tasted of smoke, for the
wood was yet green on the hillsides. But Gilbert ate and said nothing,
neither praising nor blaming, for very often on the long march he had
eaten the dried bread of the German peasants and the unleavened wheat-
cakes of the wild Hungarians, with a draught of water, and had been
glad even of that.
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