trample him to a
shapeless pulp. But, trembling there, he stepped back.

'Up, bastard!' he called out. 'Run as ye never ran. Fetch hither the
Lord d'Espahn and His Grace of Canterbury, that should have ordered
these matters.'

The boy stumbled to his knees, and then, a flash of scarlet, ran, his
head down, as if eagles were tearing at his hair.

The King turned upon his guard.

'Ho!' he said, 'you, Jenkins, stay here with this my knight cousin.
You, Cale and Richards, run to fetch a launderer that shall set a
mattress in the ante-chamber for this my cousin to lie on. For this my
cousin is the Queen's chamber-ward, and shall there lie when I am here,
if so be I have occasion for a messenger at night.'

The two guards ran off, striking upon the ground before them as they ran
the heavy staves of their pikes. This noise was intended to warn all to
make way for his Highness' errand-bearers.

'Why,' the King said pleasantly to Jenkins, a guard with a blond and
shaven face whom he liked well, 'let us set this gentleman against the
wall in the ante-room till his bed be come. He hath earned gentle usage,
since he hasted much, bringing my message from Scotland to the Queen,
and is very ill.'

So, helping his guard gently to conduct the drunkard into his wife's
dark ante-room, the King came out again to his wife.

'Is it well done?' he asked.

'Marvellous well done,' she answered.

'I am the man for these difficult times!' he answered, and was glad.

The Queen sighed a little. For if she admired and wondered at her lord's
power skilfully to have his way, it made her sad to think--as she must
think--that so devious was man's work.

'I would,' she said, 'that it was not to such an occasion that I spurred
thee.'

Her eyes, being cast downwards, fell upon the Lady Rochford, by the
table.

'Ho, get up,' she cried. 'You have feigned fainting long enough. But for
you all this had been more easy. I would have you relieve mine eyes of
the sight of your face.' She moved to aid the old woman to rise, but
before she was upon her knees there stood without the door both the Lord
d'Espahn and the Archbishop. They had waited just beyond the
corridor-end with a great many of the other lords, all afraid of
mysteries they knew not what, and thus it was that they came so soon
upon the young Poins' summoning.

II

The King thought fit to change his mood, so that it was with uplifted
brows and a quizzing smile at the corners of