CHAPTER III.
HOW HUGH MET THE PRINCE
Only a brief space later, Hugh and this new companion in painted fool's clothes and with raddled cheeks made their way forth from the great west gate to the green. No formless loitering of idle men-at-arms now met their gaze. Straight lines of pikemen had been posted before each entrance to church or monastery, and in the open space beyond stood long regular ranks of other soldiers, with fluttering standards and a forest of tall weapons – all newly burnished – ashine in the morning sun.
The twain, with as bold a front as might be, walked down this passage of pikes until the captain of the watch, a burly, bearded man in Flemish armor, stopped them with uplifted hand; and two dozen pike-heads clashed down as by a single touch, to bar alike progress and retreat.
"I am the scrivener of the Abbey," Hugh called out from within this steel girdle, "and go forth to the Tolzey at behest of your master and mine – the Lord Duke of Gloster."
"And this merry fellow; hath the Duke need for him likewise?" the captain asked, with sharp glances. "I'm sworn his Grace looks more for headsmen than for morris-dancers, as to-day's wind blows."
"Put thy queries to the Duke himself," said Hugh; "and hold us no longer waiting here, as he waits at the Tolzey."
Grumbling in his beard, the captain dropped his hand, and the pikes flashed upward. Hugh and the mock fool passed forth, and turned their feet townwards across the trampled sward. At the church gate to their right hand, a greater body of armed men stood, and beyond these, within the churchyard, high plumes on knightly helmets nodded in the morning breeze. Of what was going forward there the two saw nothing, but hurried on, glad to pass unquestioned.
They came thus to the market-place, held clear by solid walls of troopers, mailed, and armed to the teeth, behind whom the townsfolk, now heartily of but one opinion, strove to win friends and peep between steel shoulders into the open space. Still unmolested, the boy, bearing his inkhorn and scroll well before him as a badge of craft, passed with his companion to the side of the cross – where workmen toiled with axe and mallet to rear a platform of newly hewn beams and boards – and held his course straight to the Tolzey.
"Saw you what they build, there by the cross?" whispered Sir Hereward. "It is a scaffold, where presently axes shall hew flesh and blood, not logs." And then he added, "Whither go we; into the very tusks of the boar?"
"Nay, but to get behind him," returned Hugh, in the same sidelong whisper. "Halt you at the Tolzey door; mix there with the throng which idly gapes upon the soldiery, until chance offers to steal through some alley to the open fields."
"And you leave me there?"
"How shall it be otherwise? And – I say it now – farewell; the saints protect thee!"
"A word," the masker whispered. "Art sure it was a knight who ordered the letter to be writ?"
"None other. A knight in full battle harness. And —Oh! God save us! It is he!"
Before the low-browed Tolzey, or Toll-booth, a house of bricks on timber, with projecting gallery reared over open pillars, an urgent throng of citizens swarmed behind two rows of soldiers, to note the uttermost of what was passing. This Tolzey – at once exchange and town hall, court-house and jail – had in its long life seen strange things, but nothing like unto to-day, when the King's brother, Richard of Gloster, and John Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, held bloody assize upon the enemies of the King. Above the gable floated, side by side, two standards of deep red stuff, on which were wrought, one the silver boar of Gloster, Lord Constable of England, one the silver lion rampant of Norfolk, Earl Marshal.
And at the porch, pushing their way through the press of onlookers under the arches between the pillars, a knot of men-at-arms dragged forward that same strange knight at whose bidding Hugh had written the letter!
"Look! It is he!" the boy repeated breathlessly, quickening his pace for the instant, then shrinking back dismayed.
Sir Hereward laid a firm hand on his arm. "I quit ye not here!" he swore, between clenched teeth. "Hasten we forward, and into the presence of the court."
"But – it means death to thee – " the boy began, as the other hurried him on.
"Better a thousand deaths – by fire and molten lead – than that this should happen," the other gasped. "Up with thy chin! They must not say us nay!"
What answers they gave, in what manner their arguments satisfied, the twain barely knew. The chief matter was that they won their way into the Tolzey, were borne up the foul, narrow staircase by the throng close at the heels of the soldiers and their captive, and suddenly found themselves stumbling over the threshold into a large room, whereof one part was densely crowded, and one empty as a grave fresh dug. A triple line of steel corselets, sallets, and bills, drawn from side to side, split these parts asunder, and behind this line those in authority at the door roughly made to drive the new-comers.
When Hugh had shown his writing tools and told his errand, they smoothed their tone and bade him stand aside, in the cleared space. The others – strange knight, his rude captors, the mummer-gentleman – all were swallowed up behind the barrier into the throng which snarled, and surged, and gnashed its teeth, in weltering heat and evil smells, under the spell of the scent of blood.
After a little while there rose an echoing blast of trumpets from the market-place without, riding as it were on the crest of a great wave of cheering. Then hurriedly the officers brought forth from an outer room two high chairs of state, gilded, and bearing the town's arms, and set them upon the floor-cloth under a canopy, and put behind these, on either side of the dais, other chairs and stools – and then bowed low as the doors in the centre were flung open with loud knocks, and two heralds, in blazoned tabards, entered. Behind these, with stately step, by twos came a score of great warriors and lords, mailed to the throat, and with pages bearing their cumbrous head-gear; then others of distinction, for the most part advanced in years, who wore rich gowns and chains, and held velvet caps in their hands; and lastly, two young men in gowns who wore their caps on their heads. And one of these, of a square, thick-featured aspect, with broad breast, and reddish hair, was Earl Marshal of England, yet had scarce a look from any one, so bent were all thoughts upon the other.
This other – clad in sober colors, with a broad chain upon his breast and a black close-curling plume in his cap – came sedately forward and sat in the large chair a hand's breadth in front of his companion's. He let his glance rest easily upon the crowded half of the room, as if noting things in idleness the while his mind was elsewhere.
The heralds called out each his master's exalted office, and what matters they had come now to rightly judge upon; and Hugh, having been seated at a desk by the window, hung with all his eyes to the face of the youth in the foremost chair.
It was a thin, thoughtful face, dark of skin and with a saddened air. The bended nose was long, the point well out in air to bespeak an inborn swiftness of scent. And above, wide apart, there burned a steady flame of great-hearted wisdom in two deep iron-gray eyes which embraced all things, searched calmly and comprehended all things. This Prince, though first subject and foremost soldier under the King, his brother, was even now but nineteen years of age; and Hugh, gazing in rapt timidity upon him, flushed with shame at thought of his own years, close treading upon those of this Prince, and of his own weak unworthiness.
The boy wrote down what the old men in gowns bade him say concerning the dreadful things that now were toward, and, writing, contrived also to look and listen with an awed, ashen face and bewildered mind.
Other soldiers had entered the room, and, making a weapon-lined lane between the door and the throng, brought forward now, one after another, the captive lords and knights taken red-handed from the Abbey or found in hiding in the town. Each in his turn, with elbows thong-bound at his back, with torn raiment and dishevelled if not bandaged head, was haled before the dais, and looked into these deep-glancing eyes of his boy judge.
Richard held them in his calm, engirdling gaze with never sign of heat or pity, and to each spoke in tones high and sharp-cut enough for all to hear, but of a level in cold dignity. When they in turn replied, he listened gravely, with lip uplifted so that his teeth were seen. Ever and again his fingers toyed with the hilt of the baslard at his girdle the while he listened; and these to whom he hearkened thus trembled rightly at the omen. When all needful words were spent, the Prince leaned for a moment to his right and whispered apart with Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk; but this for very form's sake, and not to seek counsel. Then, still in the same chilled, equable voice, he would mete out the judgment, suiting to each with apposite words his deliverance, whether they should lose their heads for their treason on the morrow, or depart under the King's mercy as free men, paying fines in gold or land, or suffering no penalty whatsoever. Well nigh two score and ten passed thus before the Prince, and of this number two-and-twenty were sent to the block. Of these, the greatest in estate was Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, blood-cousin to his judge, and to whom gray hairs had brought neither wisdom nor control. With him Prince Richard parleyed at length, pointing out how the Beaufort line of John of Gaunt, beginning in dishonor with Katherine Swynford, and filtering through envious trickery and disloyalty, would on the morrow run itself miserably out in muddy lees upon the scaffold. And then they led the childless Duke away amid the angered hootings of the crowd.
None but this Somerset, and Sir John Longstrother, who was called the Prior of St. John's, had courage wherewith to accuse the King of broken faith, in that he had sworn to give mercy to all who sought refuge in the Abbey. To this young Gloster, still deadly calm, made answer that the King had given no such pledge, but only granted some old monk's prayer that all of gentle blood who met their death, either in battle or on the scaffold, might be buried in the Abbey without dismemberment; this, and nothing more.
Of a sudden, Hugh, grown at home among these horrors, saw advancing under guard between the glittering lines of bills, the mailed figure he knew so well. The boy held his breath as the strange Knight stood before the dais, helmeted and erect – and as he noted that the morris-dancer, fiercely pushing his way, had followed close behind.
"What now!" – it was Mowbray who spoke – "Who comes thus covered? Loose us his helm!"
"I pray ye both," spoke the Knight, "suffer me to thus remain! It is as easy to lose one's head in this fashion as another. I crave no other mercy."
A pale, flitting smile played over the Prince's lips. "After such stress of sober state affairs, cousin of Norfolk," he said, more gently, "the jest is grateful. Hast brought thy morris-dancer with thee, too, I note, good sir!"
The Knight swung round to follow Gloster's glance; then, after a moment's earnest gaze upon the disguised man close at hand, turned with closed eyes and hand on heart.
The Prince rubbed his hands softly together, and smiled again.
"Aye! lift us the basnet," he said to the soldiers standing guard. "The jest will trip the better for more air and light" – and in a twinkling the men had unfastened and raised the heavy helmet; and the Knight stood, flushed and confused, no knight at all! but a young and fair-faced woman, with loose golden hair tumbled sweetly upon her neck.
Richard's lips curled again, and his teeth gleamed under them, while his eyes shone with a merry light.
"Most excellent!" he chuckled, looking to Mowbray's dull, puzzled face in mock search for sympathy. "Now scrub us the paint off yon mummer's cheeks, and let his head be bared. The jest goes bravely."
Before the astonished onlookers, this too was done, and Sir Hereward, still arrayed to the throat in motley, with eyes sheepishly downcast, stood revealed.
The young Prince covered the two, as they stood, with his mirthful regard, and rubbed his palms together in silent enjoyment.
"Read me the riddle, Lady Kate," he said at last. "I guess thy errand to these parts, and his is clear enough – perchance too clear! – but why, if thou must trick him out in morris-dress, why bring him here? Nay!" – as the lady would have spoken – "fear nothing; I like the jest thus far, but comprehend it only in part."
"My Lord Duke," the lady said, throwing back her hair with a proud gesture, "we were children together, – you and I, – you will credit my word. I knew not till this moment that he was here, but deemed him – left – behind on the field. And I came hither, not in your despite, or your dread brother's, but to warn my friend here, Sir Hereward, of treason menacing him in his own camp; and to that end, on Friday night, sent I a letter to him where he lay, by my own servant's hand."
"This is the letter," said Sir Hereward simply, drawing from his breast the folded paper with its broken seal.
The Prince bent forward, took the missive, spread it out upon his knee, and read carefully through from first to last. "I grieve to learn of your good sire's death," he said once, lifting his eyes, and then read on, musingly. At last he smiled, and shook his head.
"I have full knowledge – none better, Lady Kate," he said, "of thy high spirits and brave temper. Thou wert of the mettle of knights-errant even in short clothes. But what I looked not for was this clerkly hand, this deft scrolling of lines and letters." Still with dancing eyes he held the paper up before the Earl Marshal. "Why, look you, cousin of Norfolk! 'Tis as fair as any guild work from Bruges. And from a woman's hand, mark ye!"
The lady hung her head and blushed, then, lifting it, smiled. "Your Grace ever loved his jest," she said. "Alas, I am no clerk, nor would be with a thousand years of teaching. I could more easily ride, by night and day, across from Devon to save my – my friend, than mark a straight line on paper."
"And who writ ye this?" pursued Richard, eying the scroll afresh.
"A youth in the Abbey," said the lady, and Sir Hereward pointed him out where he sat.
Then suddenly Hugh, staring vaguely at all this, heard some one say in his ear that his Grace had called for him, and felt another push him to his feet – and then saw, as through a golden fog, that the Prince held up a jewelled finger, beckoning to him. The boys heart thumped to his throat with every step as he moved to the dais.
"It is thy hand, eh?" Duke Richard asked, with kindly voice, and the lad could only bow and blush. One of the old men at the table had brought forward as well the scrolls on which Hugh had written the day's grim record, and the Prince glanced over these with a student's lingering eye. Then, with a quaint smile and sigh, he said: —
"Behold how fair and goodly a thing is learning! Of ye three, this stripling boy comes first in the race. Thou mightst have had thy ride for naught, my Lady Kate, but for his craft. And thou, sirrah, mightst have been murdered in thy camp, but for this same letter. And wert thou set upon by these knaves?"
"Aye, your Grace," Sir Hereward replied, "and slew two, with some small hurt to myself, and their fellows fled – to be butchered elsewhere – down by the mill pit."
The Prince nodded his head in satisfaction, then more slowly spoke again.
"Sir Hereward, were thy head a match for thy heart or thy vast sinews, belike thou hadst not saved it to-day. 'Tis dull of wit, but belongs to a simple valiant gentleman, and I will not lop it from his shoulders. Get thee to Devon, and keep within the King's grace – and if the taste for mumming rise in thee again, and will not down, go morris-dancing on thine own estates – or hers. And thou – saucy Kate – go take thy man, and make thy wit the complement of his slow honesty. But no tricks! Why, silly pretty maid, didst think England was ruled by blind men! Thou hadst not killed thy first horse, in Somerset, ere we knew of thee and thy quest. And as for thy knight in motley, loud rumor preceded him down the street to-day as if he had been the borough bellman."
Sir Hereward, holding the lady's hand, would at this have made some speech of thanks, but that the Prince held up his finger to stop him.
"Nay – another day," he said, "perchance when we do send for thee to come up to London town. Thy affairs have eaten up too much time, as it stands. The saints speed thee, Lady Kate, and teach thee to write. In this rude, topsy-turvy world, naught is secure but learning. Observe what joy I have in this clerkly boy whose skilled hand mocks Master Caxton's types in the Low Countries – but of that thou knowest nothing. I am beholden to thee for the boy. This night I'll beg him of the Abbot, and he shall be of my household at Baynard's. Go now. I am aweary of good unlettered folk."
And as the twain, bowing, left the room, the Prince turned again to the scrivener lad.