Thorolf dismounted and lifted Yvette off. She stood disheveled, clutching Thorolf's cloak around herself and the coronet.
"Wait here," he said. "I would not startle Vulfilac by your unforewarned appearance."
Thorolf strode into the smithy, where the firelight danced to the beat of hammered metal, while sparks flew out the open portal into the night like fugitive crimson fireflies. Inside the doors, a vestibule led to the smith's small dwelling, huddled against the much larger workplace.
"Aha, Sergeant Thorolf!" boomed the giant smith. "Glad to see you am I!" He continued to pound a bar of red-hot iron, which he held on the anvil by tongs. Setting hammer and tongs aside, he called to the boy who was pumping the bellows: "Take a rest, son. We have a visitor."
"Two visitors," said Thorolf, embracing his gigantic friend despite the smith's sooty face and forearms. Presently the two men came out and hastened toward Yvette. Thorolf said: "Countess, I present my trusted friend Vulfilac Smith. He has some clothes for you."
The smith bowed as Yvette smiled, saying: "Your health, goodman! Where are these garments?"
"In my poor house, your Highness. Will ye step thither?"
In the smithy, they passed a great rack of tools: tongs, files, and hammers with heads of various shapes, round, pointed, and wedged. Unlatching a small door, the smith led his guests into the common room of his dwelling. He unlocked an ancient armoire, mumbling:
"I've kept my goodwife's things for sentiment; but ye are welcome to any or all, my lady."
Smiling, Yvette approached the wardrobe and, still clutching her coronet beneath the cloak, began to rummage. Studying a bodice, she said:
"Methinks your late wife was fuller of breast than I."
"Aye, and taller, too, the gods preserve her soul."
"Amen," said Yvette. "Had she hosen and shoon?"
"Aye." The smith opened drawers beneath the cupboards.
"Splendid!" said Yvette, rummaging anew. "Goodman, your generosity shall be well repaid when I obtain the wherewithal. Meanwhile my thanks must suffice."
The smith gazed at the little countess with the awe of one who beheld Rianna, the goddess of love. "If— if your Highness mind not our simple rustic fare ..."
"You offer to dine us? Mind? I embrace your offer; hungry as I am, your simplest repast were a banquet. Now I beg your leave, good people, to dress."
The men withdrew, the smith to the cookhouse, Thorolf to stable and feed his horse.
When Thorolf returned, Vulfilac was ladling stew into bowls while his son carved a loaf of black bread into slices. Yvette waited, clad as the complete goodwife, with a flounced petticoat showing below her skirt. Below the petticoat were red wool stockings and stout leather sollerets. On her head was a barillet, a miniature turban held in place by a wimple beneath her chin. Handing Thorolf his cloak and shirt, she spoke:
"Friends, the stars do shine and I do starve. Let the feast begin!"
The repast was nearly done when Yvette held up the coronet. "Goodman Vulfilac, canst find me an old cloth wherein to wrap this thing? It were folly to flaunt it in town."
"Aye," said the smith. "Son, attend to the matter." Waving his spoon, he continued the talk of his trade: "As I was saying, it takes a sharp judgment to tell the heat of iron by its color. Ye start hammering when it glows a buttercup yellow and keep on till it cools to dark red. If ye smite it thereafter, 'tis labor wasted. But if ye heat it up to white, so that it shoots out sparkles, then ye've overheated the piece and spoilt it. It were good for nought but scrap, to be melted up again ..." The smith turned toward the door. "What's that?"
Outside, horsemen were dismounting. "Gondomar's men!" Yvette exclaimed. "What shall I do?"
"Out the scullery door, quick!" snapped Thorolf. "Hide in the woods. Hold the forge door with me, Vulfilac."
"Show her the way, lad!" said Vulfilac. The boy gathered up the bundle he had made of the coronet. He and the Countess fled hand in hand. The shouts and hammering grew more insistent as Thorolf picked up his sword and followed Vulfilac into the smithy, where the smith chose four heavy hammers off the wall.
They reached the open door to be confronted by five men; behind them a sixth held their horses. Four of the five grasped swords, while the fifth cradled a cocked crossbow. The leader was a heavy-set man wearing a white surcoat over his leather, metal-studded cuirass. On the chest of this garment was broidered an emblem, but the man wore his surcoat inside out so that the patch was hidden.
"Where is the Countess Yvette?" barked this man.
"We know nought of that lady," said Thorolf.
"Liar! We tracked her to the pool on the Rissel whereat ye fished, and anon a peasant saw her riding pillion behind you. Say where she be and we'll not harm you twain."
"I cannot tell you what I do not know," retorted Thorolf. "So be off with you!"
Vulfilac added: " 'Tis an unseemly time to be pounding an honest workman's door—"
"Take them!" said the leader, pointing with his sword.
The four swordsmen advanced in a semicircle; but as they closed in to pass beneath the lintel, they crowded one another. Vulfilac hurled one of his hammers. With a crunch, it struck the nearest raider in the face and threw him prone and still, his face a mask of blood.
Swords clanged and grated. Thorolf found himself hotly engaged with two of the swordsmen, one of them the leader, while the remaining swordsman danced about just beyond reach of the smith's hammers. Vulfilac made another throw, but the swordsman ducked.
"Get away and give me a clear shot!" cried the crossbowman in the rear.
Another thrown hammer caught Vulfilac's opponent in the belly and sent him reeling, doubled over and retching. One of Thorolf's two looked around for his comrade. Thorolf, till then compelled to remain on the defensive, took advantage of the pause to skewer him of the surcoat with a coupe; his blade punched through the leather corselet into the flesh beneath. The man folded up with a groan. The other swordsman found both the sergeant and the smith advancing upon him.
He ran back, while the crossbowman leveled his weapon. Without armor, Thorolf felt naked. At that range, the bolt would tear through his guts like a skewer through butter. Beside him, Vulfilac wound up to throw his last hammer.
The crossbowman backed away, swinging his weapon so that it bore first upon one antagonist and then the other. At that moment a small figure appeared in the dusk behind the arbalester. The newcomer picked up one of the thrown hammers, lofted it high, and smote the crossbowman's head from behind. The arbalester collapsed.
The raider who had been struck in the belly scuttled painfully to the horses. The unwounded swordsman and the groom who had held the animals boosted him into the saddle. Leading three riderless animals, the survivors cantered off. Holding the hammer she had wielded, Yvette came forward into the light from the smithy with the smith's son.
"Countess!" chided Thorolf. "I told you to hide in the woods!"
"One of my blood," she replied with dignity, "skulks not in hiding whilst her defenders risk their lives for her."
"A good thing she disobeyed you, Thorolf," growled the smith as he collected his hammers. "Without her aid, one or t'other of us would have gat a bolt in's brisket."
Thorolf was kneeling to examine the bodies. He rose, saying, "This one, too, seems safely dead. Let's pile the carrion out back and cover them. The constables will take them in charge after I report to them on the morrow. That was a mighty blow for one so delicate, Countess."
"The strength of desperation, I ween," said Yvette. Pointing to the corpse in the surcoat, she added: "I know that knave: a captain of Gondomar's guard. If you turn back his coat, you will see the red boar of Landai. His survivors will flee back to the Duke, who will set another party on my trail. Ere they return, you must discover me a wizard who can change my appearance, so I cannot be readily tracked. Couldst lead me to the one in Zurshnitt, whereof you told me, this very night?"