noon
Well did a voice warn me that such service was never to be bought ! ' He did not pause to bewail or repent , but returned toward the prison with rapid footsteps , muttering : ` I with the prison-pass for two ; why was I beguiled by that bandit ? Saw I not the very youth given into my hands there , he that was with the damsel and the aged woman ? ' Late in the noon a horseman , in the livery of the Kaiser 's body-guard , rode dry and dusty into Cologne , with tidings that the Kaiser was at Hammerstein Castle , and commanding all convocated knights , barons , counts , and princes , to assemble and prepare for his coming , on a certain bare space of ground within two leagues of Cologne , thence to swell the train of his triumphal entry into the ancient city of his empire . Guy the Goshawk , broad-set on a Flemish mare , and a pack-horse beside him , shortly afterward left the hotel of the Three Holy Kings , and trotted up to Gottlieb 's door . ` Tent-pitching is now my trade , ' said he , as Gottlieb came down to him . ` My lord is with the Kaiser .