Here the post road from Lyons joined that upon which they had come from Paris, thereby doubling the traffic southward bound for the great port of Marseilles; so, for once, in the Hotel de Monsieur at which they put up, they enjoyed the comfort and good food of a first-class hostelry.
They enquired for news of the States General but no startling developments had occurred. After the first session the clergy and nobles had retired to deliberate in separate chambers, leaving the Third Estate in possession of the Salle des Menus Plaisirs; which later proved to have been a tactical error, since that had been officially designated as the meeting-place of the whole assembly, and was the only one to which the public were allowed admittance.
The next step was the verification of credentials, at which each deputy had to produce to his colleagues the papers proving him to have been properly elected and the actual person nominated to represent his constituency. This was obviously a matter which would occupy several days, but the manner of observing the formality had provided the first bone of contention. The question at issue was, should these verifications be carried out in a combined assembly or by each Order separately?
As the decision would so obviously create a precedent it was not surprising that both the clergy and nobles had decided on separate verification, the former by 133 votes to 114 and the latter by 188 to 47. The Third Estate had therefore been left high and dry, as they had no powers to act on their own, and they had begun to protest more vigorously against the other two Orders' refusal to join them.
At Montelimar, in addition to the welcome change that the well-run inn provided, the travellers enjoyed the delicious newly made nougat for which the town is famous; although little Quetzal ate himself sick on it.
It was Quetzal, too, who provoked an episode the following day that showed Isabella to Roger in quite a new light. After leaving Mont61imar they had passed through still hilly but sterile, uninteresting country to the old Roman town of Orange, reaching it early in the afternoon. Had Roger been able to walk he would have set off to view the ruins of the great stone circus and the fine triumphal arch, but he had to be content with a distant view of them before being carried upstairs to the principal bedroom of the inn.
As the day was very hot he was made comfortable near the open window, and the inn being a comparatively new one on the outskirts of the town he could see some way down the road where it wound into the country. After a little while Isabella and the Senora joined him there and he embarked on his daily Spanish lesson. They had been thus employed for about three-quarters of an hour when a little party of excited people emerged from round the corner of a nearby hovel, and came hurrying along the road towards the inn. The group was led by Quetzal, who was being half pushed along by a tall, gaunt peasant; at their heels there tagged two slatternly women and several ragged children.
With a cry of angry excitement at seeing her Indian handled in such a fashion Isabella jumped to her feet and ran downstairs. Roger, seeing that Quetzal had suffered no actual harm, did not unduly disturb himself, but watched out of the window with mild interest to learn the cause of the trouble.
He liked Quetzal. The boy was a droll little fellow and could be very amusing at times; but generally he was inclined to be sedate, had charming manners and never obtruded himself, being apparently quite happy to play for hours with his toys or go off for walks on his own. His fearlessness was one of the things that Roger admired most about him. With his red-brown face, brilliantly embroidered clothes and feathered head-dress he presented an object calculated to arouse the amazement and possible hostility of the superstitious peasantry in any village—as they might easily have taken him for a Satanic imp sprung from the underworld. But, although groups of villagers often followed him about, he had the superb self-confidence of a true aristocrat. Evidently he considered that an Aztec Prince who was in the service of one of the first ladies of Spain could afford to ignore such lesser beings, since he never paid the slightest attention to the unkempt children who sometimes shouted and pointed at him.
Running to the boy Isabella tore him from the peasant's grasp, at the same time calling loudly to her servants. Hernando and Manuel came hurrying from the stable yard, upon which she screamed orders at them in Spanish. Instantly they seized the peasant and forced him to his knees in front of her. Then, snatching from Manuel a whip that he had been carrying, she raised it high in the air and brought it cracking down on the kneeling man's shoulders.
"Hi!" cried Roger from his dress-circle seat at the window. "One moment, Senorita, I pray I Before you belabour the fellow at least find out what is at the root of the matter."
Turning, she scowled up at him, her black brows drawn together, her brown eyes blazing. "Why should I? This scum laid hands on Quetzal! How dare he lay his filthy paws upon my little Indian!"
As she turned back to strike a second time, Roger shouted at her louder than before; begging her to desist until she had heard what the man had to say. It was only at his urgent plea that she lowered her arm, and by that time people were hurrying up from all directions. A number of scowling peasants had edged towards their kneeling fellow countryman but Pedro and the two hired guards arrived to reinforce Isabella, and it was clear that the locals were too cowed to venture on attacking her armed retainers. Then the landlord of the inn appeared and with a scraping bow to Isabella enquired what offence her victim had committed.
The lanky peasant and his women could speak no French but the landlord interpreted their patois, and it then emerged that Quetzal had had an argument with the man's nanny-goat. Whether Quetzal had teased the goat, or his unusual appearance had excited her to unprovoked anger, could not be satisfactorily determined. The fact was that she had charged him and, instead of taking to his heels as most grownups would have done, the courageous little fellow had dealt with the situation in precisely the same way as he had seen a matador deliver the quité in Spanish bull-fights. Drawing his tomahawk he had stood his ground till the last moment, then side-stepped and neatly driven the pointed end of his weapon through the skull of the goat, killing it instantly.
Isabella and her Spanish servants were enraptured with Quetzal's feat, the Senora and Maria clapped loudly from the window, and Roger felt that whether the boy had first incited the goat or not he was deserving high commendation for his bravery; but, even so, his English sense of justice still urged him to ensure that the peasant had a fair deal.
The miserable man pleaded that the dead nanny-goat had been his most treasured possession, as the milk and cheese she gave had formed the main items of food for his whole family; and, knowing the abject poverty of the lowest strata of the French peasantry, Roger believed that he was telling the truth. In consequence he urged Isabella to give the poor wretch a half a louis to buy himself another goat, but she would not until Roger offered to pay, and even then she was swift to devise a judgment that tempered charity with harshness.
Hernando, in his capacity of their courier, always carried a supply of ready cash, so handing him Manuel's whip she told him to give the peasant eight lashes with it and a crown for each. As she had expected, Hernando gave the man eight lashes and threw him only four crowns, but his cries of pain were instantly silenced at the sight of money. The sum was sufficient to buy him several goats, so the bystanders applauded the foreign lady's generosity and he and his family shuffled off grinning from ear to ear.