midday
Presently Beatrix opened her eyes a little , and suddenly she shuddered when she saw Eleanor and heard her voice in the deep stillness . `` As one woman to another -- I ask your forgiveness . '' Gilbert sat in the door of his tent at noon , the sun shining down upon him and warming him pleasantly , for the day was chilly , and he was still aching . As he idly watched the soldiers going and coming , and cooking their midday meal at the camp-fires , while Dunstan and Alric were preparing his own , he was thinking that this was the third day since he had saved the Queen 's life , and that although many courtiers had asked of his condition , and had talked with him as if he had done a great deed , yet he had received not so much as a message of thanks from Eleanor nor from the King , and it seemed as if he had been forgotten altogether . But of Beatrix , Dunstan told him that she was in a fever and wandering , and the Norman woman had said that she talked of her home . Gilbert hated himself because he could do nothing for her , but most bitterly because he had yielded to the Queen 's eyes and to her voice in the instant of balanced life and death . The great nobles passed on their way to their tents from the King 's quarters , where the council met daily to trace the march .