The Tangled Skein Part 22

"Only to resume hostilities again, Your Eminence?"

"By all means."

"Once His Grace has ceased to think of Lady Ursula, I and my party will once more work heart and soul to bring about the alliance of Wess.e.x with the Queen."

"And I to win the Queen's hand for Philip of Spain. Until then? . . ."

"Armed truce, Your Eminence."

"And you will accept my help? It may be worth having, you never can tell," quoth His Eminence with a sarcastic smile, which Everingham could not perceive in the darkness.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE VEILED WITCH

Lord Everingham felt not a little perplexed. The Cardinal seemed bent on pressing his point, and on obtaining a definite promise of friendship, whilst the young man would have preferred to leave the matter _in statu quo_, a condition of open and avowed enmity.

Moreover he would have wished to speak with some of his friends. Lord Suss.e.x and the Earl of Oxford were staying at the Palace. Sir Henry Jerningham, Arundel, Cheyne, Paget, all hot partisans of Wess.e.x, could easily be communicated with. In the meanwhile Everingham was racking his brain for the right word to say: the retort courteous, which would not hopelessly alienate His Eminence, if indeed he was seeking temporary friendship.

Chance and a zealous night watchman put an abrupt end to Lord Everingham's perplexity; even when he was about to speak, a gruff voice which seemed to come right out of the darkness interrupted him with the well-known call--

"Who goes there?"

Almost immediately afterwards the strong light of a lanthorn was projected on the figure of the Cardinal.

"How now, friend," quoth His Eminence presently, "art seeking for the truth with that lanthorn of thine?"

But already the knave, having recognized the brilliant crimson robes and realized the high quality of their august wearer, had lost himself in a veritable maze of humble apologies.

"I crave Your Eminence's merciful pardon," he stammered. "I did not think . . . I am on duty . . . I . . ."

His thin, shrivelled form was scarce distinguishable in the gloom, only his old face, with large bottle-nose, and his pale, watery eyes appeared grotesque and quaint in the yellowish light of his lanthorn.

"Then fulfil thy duties, friend," rejoined the Cardinal, who made it a point always to speak kindly and urbanely, even to the meanest lout.

The man made a low obeisance and would have kissed His Eminence's hand, but the latter withdrew it gently.

"Are there marauders about, friend watchman?" he condescended to ask, as the man prepared to go. "Thou dost not appear to be very strong, nor yet stoutly armed."

"Your Eminence's pardon," replied the man, "'tis for a woman I am told to watch."

"A woman?"

"By Her Grace the d.u.c.h.ess of Lincoln's orders."

"Ah!" remarked His Eminence, with sudden interest.

"Mayhap some thief or vagrant, Your Eminence."

"Aye, mayhap! Then go thy way, good watchman; we'll not hinder thee."

Slowly the man shuffled off, dangling his lanthorn before him. The Cardinal watched the patch of brilliant light until it disappeared behind a projecting bosquet.

His Eminence had been exceedingly thoughtful.

"Know you aught of this, my lord?" he asked of Lord Everingham, who also seemed wrapped in meditation.

"I suspect something of it," replied the young man slowly. "There is a story afloat--gossip, I thought it--that one of the Queen's maids-of-honour has been playing some curious pranks at night . . . and in disguise. . . ."

"Indeed? Know you who the lady is?"

"No! nor can I even guess. All the maids-of-honour are young and full of fun, and no doubt the girlish pranks were harmless enough, but Her Majesty is very austere and rigidly stern where questions of decorum are concerned."

"So the d.u.c.h.ess of Lincoln, like a watchful dragon, would catch the fair miscreant _in flagrante delicto_, eh?" continued His Eminence.

Mechanically he turned to walk along the path recently followed by the night watchman. His Eminence would have scorned the idea of any superst.i.tion influencing his precise, calculating mind, but, nevertheless, he had a strange belief in the guiding hand of Chance, and somehow at the present moment he had an unaccountable presentiment, that this gossip anent some young girl's frolic would in some way exercise an influence on his present schemes.

As if in immediate answer to these very thoughts a woman's frightened scream was suddenly heard close by, followed by muttered curses in the watchman's gruff voice.

"What was that?" exclaimed Everingham involuntarily.

"The lady _in flagrante delicto_, meseems," rejoined the Cardinal quietly.

And both men began to walk more rapidly in the direction whence had come the woman's scream. The next few moments brought them upon the scene, and soon in the gloom they distinguished the figure of the old watchman apparently struggling with a woman, whose head and shoulders were enveloped in some sort of veil or hood. The lanthorn, evidently violently thrown on the ground, had rolled down the path some little distance from this group.

The woman was making obvious and frantic efforts to get away, whilst the old watchman exerted all his strength to keep tight hold of her wrists.

"What is it to thee, man, what I am doing here?" the woman gasped in the midst of her struggles. "Let me go, I say!"

She was evidently not very strong, for the old watchman, shrivelled and shrunken though he was, had already mastered her. She had lost her balance, and was soon down on her knees. With a vigorous wrench the man contrived to force her arms behind her back; he held them there with one hand, and with the other was groping in his wallet for a length of rope.

"Not before thou hast given a good account of thyself before the d.u.c.h.ess of Lincoln, my wench!" he said, as he threw the rope round her shoulders and very dexterously contrived to pinion her arms behind her.

"Her Grace?" she murmured contemptuously. "I have naught to do with Her Grace. . . . Let me go, man; thou hast no right to tie me thus."

"Now then, my girl, get up, will ye? and come along quietly with me.

. . . I'll not hurt ye . . . if ye come along quietly."

The man helped her to struggle to her feet. Her veil or cloak had evidently fallen from her head, for the Cardinal and Lord Everingham, who were silently, and with no small measure of curiosity, watching the strange spectacle, caught the glint of a woman's face and of bright golden hair.

The watchman was trying to lead her away towards the Palace.

"Let me go, I tell thee," muttered the girl with persistent obstinacy.

"I have important business here, and . . ."