followed quickly in his footsteps. If Master Robin, dancing
attendance upon his clamourous customers, could have divined the
identity of the newcomers whose advent he regarded so indifferently,
his purple face would have paled and his stomach failed him at the
thought that the Fircone sheltered the baleful presence of the king
and of his malign satellite, Tristan l'Hermite.

The two strangers seated themselves at a small table in the very
pole of the room to the place where the Abbess and her friends were
busy, and the second of the pair, drawing a little apart the
dark-coloured fold of cloth that almost concealed his features,
looked around him curiously.

"Is this the eyrie?" he whispered, and his companion answered him in
the same low tone, "This is the Fircone Tavern, sire." The other's
finger was lifted to his lip at once in warning. "Hush, gossip,
hush," he muttered. "No title now, I beg of you. Here I am not Louis
of France, but a simple sober citizen like yourself. I suppose we
must take something for the good of the house?" His henchman
promptly replied that such action was indispensable. But Louis still
looked doubtful. "Will the liquor be very detestable," he asked,
inserting two thin fingers in the black pouch at his belt. Tristan
shook his head. "Nay, you can get good wine here if you know how to
ask for it--and how to pay for it."

"No one knows better than I how to ask for anything," chuckled the
king. "Or worse, how to for it," Tristan sneered. The king scowled
at him. "Then, why do you keep my service?" he snapped. Tristan
shrugged his shoulders. "Some dregs of devotion, I suppose. Here
stands Master Innkeeper." For by this time Robin Turgis was at their