Beatrix of Clare Part 19

"He shall answer me for those words," Buckingham exclaimed.

"I am at your service this very instant," returned Rivers, doffing his bonnet and bowing to his charger's neck.

"This very instant be it," cried the Duke, springing down and drawing sword.

Before the last word was spoken, Rivers was off his horse and confronting Stafford with bared weapon. But ere the blades could clash together, Gloucester swung between them and knocked up the Earl's sword with his own, which he had unsheathed with amazing swiftness.

"Cease this foolishness," he said sternly. "Buckingham, you forget yourself. Ratcliffe, arrest the Earl of Rivers and Sir Richard Grey."

The Master of Horse rode forward.

"Your sword, my lord," he said to Rivers.

For a moment the Earl hesitated; then hurled it far out into the river.

"In the name of the King, whose uncle and governor I am, I protest, lord Duke, against this unwarranted and outrageous conduct," he cried.

"And I arrest you in the name of that very King, whose uncle and guardian I am," replied Richard. "Ratcliffe, execute your orders."

"I must request you to accompany me forthwith," said Ratcliffe courteously, to the two n.o.blemen.

Resistance was utterly hopeless, and without a further word the Earl remounted; and Grey taking place beside him they pa.s.sed slowly toward the rear. Presently, as they neared the end of the long column, a hundred men detached themselves from the line and fell in behind them.

Rivers observed it with a smile, half sad, half cynical.

"They honor us, at least, in the size of our guard," he remarked to Grey; then turned to Ratcliffe. "May I inquire our prison, Sir Richard?"

"Certainly, my lord; we ride to Pontefract."

"Whence two of us shall ne'er return," said the Earl, with calm conviction. "May the Good Christ watch over Edward now."

X

THE LADY MARY CHANGES BADGES

Five weeks had expired since the _coup d'etat_ at Stoney Stratford and Richard was now Lord Protector of the Realm. Before his dominating personality all overt opposition had crumbled, and with Rivers and Grey in prison, the Queen Dowager in sanctuary at Westminster, and Dorset and Edward Woodville fled beyond sea the political horizon seemed clear and bright.

Meanwhile, the d.u.c.h.ess of Gloucester and her Household had come to London and were settled at Crosby Hall in Bishopgate Street. When they neared the Capital, the Duke and a few of his chosen Knights had ridden out into the country to meet them; and Sir Aymer de Lacy had gone gayly and expectantly, thinking much of a certain fair face with ruddy tresses above it. Nor had he been disappointed; and it was her pleasant, half-familiar greeting that lingered in his mind long after the words and sweet smile of the d.u.c.h.ess were forgotten. He had tarried beside the Countess' bridle until the Hall was reached; and as she seemed quite willing for him to be there, he had been blind to the efforts of others to displace him. With Selim she had been openly demonstrative, welcoming him with instant affection and leaning over many times to stroke him softly on the neck or muzzle. Once, as she did it, she shot a roguish smile at his master, and he had nodded and answered that again he was wishing he were a horse--whereupon she deliberately repeated the caress, glancing at him the while, sidelong and banteringly. But when he would have pursued the subject further, she crushed him with a look, and then for the remainder of the ride held him close to commonplaces.

And if De Lacy thought to have again the delightful a.s.sociations and informal meetings that had obtained at Pontefract, he quickly realized his error. There, the Household was relatively small, and life had run along in easy fashion. He had seen the Countess daily--had walked or ridden with her as his duties permitted, and every evening had attended in the presence chamber and gossiped with her for a while. Those few days of unhampered intimacy had let them know each other better than months of London would have done. Lord Darby had been his only active rival, and even he was not there constantly. But in the Capital it was otherwise. Scores of Knights, young and old, now sought her favor and were ever in attendance. Indeed half the eligible men at Court were her suitors, and the feeling among some of the more impetuous had reached a point where it needed only the flimsiest of excuses for such an exchange of cartels as would keep the lists at Smithfield busy for a week. But through it all, the Countess moved with calm courtesy and serene unconcern. She had her favorites, naturally,--and she made no pretense otherwise,--but that reduced not a whit the fervor of the others. Like the dogs in the dining hall, they took the sc.r.a.ps flung to them, and eagerly awaited more.

And the Lady Mary Percy gibed sweetly at them all, and at the Countess, too; but she gibed most at Sir Aymer de Lacy.

"You are a rare wooer, surely," said she one day, as the Lord of Ware bore the Countess off to his barge for a row on the Thames. "You had your chance at Pontefract and . . . yonder she goes! One would never fancy you were bred in France."

"Nor that you were really a sweet-tempered and charming demoiselle,"

Sir Aymer answered good-naturedly.

She laughed merrily. "One might think I were jealous of the Countess?"

"Yes . . . or of the Earl of Ware."

"Or of all the others who hang about her," she added.

De Lacy looked down at her with an amused smile.

"Methinks Ware is enough," he said, with calm a.s.sertion.

She tossed her head in quick defiance. "Your penetration, Sir Aymer, is extraordinary--when it concerns others," she retorted.

"And when it concerns myself?"

She answered with a shrug.

He went over and leaned on the cas.e.m.e.nt beside her.

"Just how stupid am I?" he asked.

She turned and measured him with slow eyes. "I am not sure it is stupidity," she remarked; "some might call it modesty."

He laughed. "And which does the Lady Mary Percy call it?"

"I can tell you better a year hence."

"Why so long a wait?"

"You will then have won or lost the Countess."

He shook his head dubiously.

"How will that decide the matter?" he asked.

She smiled. "Because only stupidity can lose."

He looked at her curiously and in silence, a quicker beat at his pulse and she read his thoughts.

"Oh, I am betraying no confidences," she said. "Your lady gives none--save possibly to the d.u.c.h.ess. But I have been of the Household with Beatrix for two years and------"

"And . . . what?" he inflected.

"You can guess the rest--if you are not stupid," she said, turning away.

But he stayed her. "My barge is at the landing. Shall we follow . . .

the others?" he suggested.

She hesitated--then, catching up a cloak and scarf that lay on a couch, she nodded acquiescence.