Part 7 (1/2)
And holding out his one hand, he inclosed her two clasped ones within it, as the little voice ran over an utterly unintelligible form of childishly clipped Latin, sounding, however, sweet and birdlike from the very liberties the little memory had taken in twisting its mellifluous words into a rhythm of her own. And there was catchword enough for Richard to recognize and follow it, with bonnet doffed, and crossing himself.
”And now,” he said, ”surely the need for secrecy is ended. The land is tranquil, the King ruled by the Prince, the Prince owning all the past folly and want of faith that goaded our father into resistance. Wherefore not seek his willing favour? Thou art ever a pilgrim. Be with us in the crusade. Who knows what the Jordan waves may effect for thee?”
”No, no,” grimly laughed Henry. ”Dost think any favour would make it tolerable to be wept over and pitied by the King-pitied by THE KING,” he repeated in ineffable disgust; ”or to be the show of the court, among all that knew me of old, when I WAS a man? Hob the cobbler, and Martin the bagster, are better company than Pembroke and Gloucester, and I meet with more humours on Cheapside than I should at Winchester-more regard too. Why, they deem me threescore years old at least, and I am a very oracle of wisdom among them. Earl of Leicester, forsooth! he would be n.o.body compared with Blind Hal! And as to freedom-with child and staff the whole country and city are before me-no shouts to dull retainers, and jackanape pages to set my blind lords.h.i.+p on horseback, without his bridle hand, and lead him at their will anywhere but at his own.
”All this I can understand for thyself,” said Richard; ”but for thy child's sake canst thou not be moved?”
”My child, quotha? What, when her Uncle Simon is true grandson to King John?”
Richard started. ”I cannot believe what thou sayest of Simon,” he answered in displeasure.
”One day thou wilt,” calmly answered Henry; ”but I had rather not have it proved upon the heiress of Leicester and Montfort.”
”Leicester is forfeit-Simon an outlawed man.”
”If the humour for pardon is set in, Cousin Edward is no man to do things by halves. If he owned me at all, the lands would be mine again, and such a bait would be smelt out by Simon were he at the ends of the earth. Or if not, that poor child would be granted to any needy kinsman or grasping baron that Edward wanted to portion. My child shall be my own, and none other's. Better a beggar's brat than an earl's heiress!”
”She is a lovely little maiden. I know not how thou canst endure letting her grow up in poverty, an alien from her birth and rank.”
”Poverty,” Henry laughed. ”Little knowest thou of the jolly beggar's business! I would fain wager thee, Richard, that pretty Bessee's marriage-portion shall be a heavier bag of gold than the Lady Elizabeth de Montfort would gather by all the aids due to her father from his va.s.sals-and won moreover without curses.”
”But who would be the bridegroom?”
”Her own choice, not the King's,” answered Henry briefly.
”And this is all,” said Richard, perceiving that according to the previous day's agreement the cream-coloured elephant of a German horse was being led forth for his use, and Sir Robert preparing to accompany him. ”I must leave thee in this strange condition?”
”Ay, that must thou. Betray me, and thou shalt have the curse of the head of thine house. Had thy voice not become so strangely like my father's, I had never made myself known to thee.”
”I will see thee again.”
”That will be as thou canst. I trow Edward hardly gives freedom enough to his pages for them to pay visits unknown,” replied Henry, with a strange sneering triumph in his own wild liberty.
”If aught ails thee, if I can aid thee, swear to me that thou wilt send to me.”
Henry laughed with somewhat of a tone of mockery, adding, ”Well, well-keep thou thy plight to me so long as I want thee not, and I will keep mine to thee if ever I should need thee. Now away with thee. I hear the horses impatient for thee; and what would be the lot of the beggar if he were seen chattering longer with a lordly young page than might suffice for his plaint? I hear voices. Put a tester in my dish, fair Sir, for appearance' sake. Thou hast it not? aha-I told thee I was the richer as well as the freer man. What's that? That is no ring of coin.”
”'Tis a fair jewel, father, green and sparkling,” cried Bessee.
”Nay, nay, I'll have none of it. Some token from thy new masters?
Ha, boy?”
”From the Princess, on New Year's Day,” replied Richard. ”But keep it, oh, keep it, Henry; it breaks my heart to leave thee thus.”
”Keep it! Not I. What wouldst say to thy dainty dame? Nor should I get half its value from the Jews. No, no, take back thy jewel, Sir Page; I'll not put thee in need of telling more lies than becomes thine office.”
Richard glowed with irritation; but what was the use of anger with a blind beggar? And while Henry bestowed far more demonstration of affection on Leonillo than on his brother, it became needful to mount and ride off, resolving to tell the Prince and Princess, what would be no falsehood, that the child belonged to a Kenilworth man-at-arms, sorely wounded at Evesham, and at present befriended by the Knights of St. John.
Old Sir Robert Darcy knew so much that it was needful to confide fully in him; and he gave Richard some satisfaction by a promise to watch over his brother as far as was possible with a man of such uncertain vagrant habits; and he likewise engaged to let him know, even in the Holy Land, of any change in the beggar's condition; and this, considering the wide-spread connections of the Order, and that some of its members were sure to be in any crusading army, was all that Richard could reasonably hope.
”Canst write?” asked Sir Robert.