Caged in the Blackbird's Nest

Let him shun castles;
Safer shall he be on the sandy plain
Than where castles mounted stand.--KING HENRY VI.


While Berenger slept a heavy morning's sleep after a resless night,
Philip explored the narrow domain above and below.  The keep and
its little court had evidently been the original castle, built when
the oddly-nicknamed Fulkes and Geoffreys of Anjou had been at
daggers drawn with the Dukes of Normandy and Brittany, but it had
since, like most other such ancient feudal fortresses, become the
nucleus of walls and buildings for use, defence, or ornament, that
lay beneath him like a spider's web, when he had gained the roof of
the keep, garnished with pepper-box turrets at each of the four
angles. 

Beyond lay the green copses and orchards of the Bocage,
for it was true, as he had at first suspected, that this was the
chateau de Nid de Merle, and that Berenger was a captive in his
wife's own castle.

Chances of escape were the lad's chief thought, but the building on
which he stood went sheer down for a considerable way.  Then on the
north side there came out the sharp, high-pitched, tiled roof of
the corps du logis; on the south, another roof, surmounted by a
cross at the gable, and evidently belonging to the chapel; on the
other two sides lay courts--that to the east, a stable-yard; that
to the west, a small narrow, chilly-looking, paved inclosure, with
enormously-massive walls, the doorway walled up, and looking like a
true prison-yard.