"The torment?" quoth Beltane, starting. "The torment, say you?"
"Aye, messire! Belsaye setteth a rare new fashion in torments of late. Howbeit, the father and lover being denounced before Sir Gui's tribunal, they were forthwith hanged upon my lord Gui's new gibbets--"
"Aye, forsooth, by the neck as is the fashion. Now cometh this woeful wench to me vowing she heard their voices i' the night, and, to quiet these voices besought of me a pardon. But she had but two sorry silver pieces and pardons be costly things, and when she could get no pardon, she went home and that night killed herself--silly wench! Ha! my lord-- good messire--my arm--holy saints! 'twill break!"
"Killed herself--and for lack of thy pitiful, accursed pardon! Heard you aught else in Belsaye--speak!" and Beltane's cruel grip tightened.
"Indeed--indeed that will I, good news, sweet news--O my lord, loose my arm!"
"Thine arm, good Pardoner--thine arm? Aye, take it back, it availeth me nothing--take it and cherish it. To part with a pardon for but two silver pieces were a grave folly! So pray you forgive now my ungentleness and speak my thy good, sweet tidings." But hereupon, the Pardoner feeling his arm solicitously, held his peace and glowered sullenly at Beltane, who had turned and was staring away into the distance. So the Pardoner sulked awhile and spake not, until, seeing Beltane's hand creep out towards him, he forthwith fell to volubility.
"'Tis told in Belsaye on right good authority that a certain vile knave, a lewd, seditious rogue hight Beltane that was aforetime a charcoal-burner and thereafter a burner of gibbets--as witness my lord Duke's tall, great and goodly gallows--that was beside a prison breaker and known traitor, hath been taken by the doughty Sir Pertolepe, lord Warden of the Marches, and by him very properly roasted and burned to death within his great Keep of Garthlaxton."
"Roasted, forsooth?" said Beltane, his gaze yet afar off; "and, forsooth, burned to ashes; then forsooth is he surely dead?"
"Aye, that is he; and his ashes scattered on a dung-hill."
"He was but a charcoal-burning knave, 'tis said--a rogue base-born and a traitor. Now hereupon my lord, the good lord Sir Gui, my lord Duke's lord Seneschal of Belsaye--"