The White Rose of Langley Part 33

"Have a care!" she said warningly.

After that they galloped in silence.

The journey went on till the Welsh Marches were reached, of which the Earl of March was lord. Edmund began to hold his head higher, for he knew that the Welsh loyalists were ready to welcome him as King. Little Roger innocently asked if he would be Prince of Wales when his brother was King of England; because in that case, he would pull down some of the big hills which it took so long to climb. At last only one day's march lay between them and the Princ.i.p.ality.

And on that morning Edward left them. Constance could not understand why he did not go with them to Cardiff. He was determined not to do so; and to the disappointment of every one, he induced his brother to accompany him. Richard would rather have stayed; but he had been too long accustomed to obey the stronger will of his brother to begin the a.s.sertion of his own. The yielding character which he had inherited from his father prevailed; and however unwillingly, he followed Edward.

On the morning of that last day's march, they had to traverse a narrow rocky pa.s.s. The path, though rough and stony, was tolerably level; and feeling themselves almost safe, they slackened their pace. They had just been laughing at some remark of little Roger's, and they were all in more or less good spirits, feeling so near the end of their perilous journey; when all at once, in a turn of the pa.s.s, the leading horse came to a sudden halt.

"Stand, in the King's name!"

Before them was a small, compact body of cavalry; and at their head, resplendent in official ermine, Sir William Hankeford, Judge of the King's Bench.

Resistance and flight were equally impossible. Constance addressed herself to the old man whom she had cheated five years before, and who, having subsequently discovered her craftiness, had by no means forgotten it.

"Sir William, you will do your commission; but I pray you remember that here be five of the King your master's cousins, and we claim to be used as such."

The old Judge's eyes twinkled as he surveyed the royal lady.

"So, Madam! Your Ladyship hath the right: my commission I shall do, and set the King my master's cousins in safe keeping--with a chimney-board clapped to the louvre," [chimney].

Constance fairly laughed.

"Come, Sir, I should scantly play the same trick on you twice."

"No, Madam, I will have a care you no do."

"And for what look we, Sir William? May we know?"

"Madam," said Hankeford drily, "you may look for what you shall find, and you may know so much as you be told."

"We may bid farewell, trow?"

"So it lie not over too much time."

"Well! needs must, Nym," said Constance, turning to the boy who had so nearly worn the crown of England. "And after all, belike, it shall be worser for me than thee."

"Nym won't care," spoke up little Roger boldly, "if my master yonder will let him lie till seven of the clock of a morrow."

"Till nine, if it like him," said Sir William.

"Then he'll be as happy as a king!" added little Roger.

"Nay, you be all too young to care overmuch--save Nan," responded Constance, looking at Anne's white troubled face. "Poor maid! 'tis hard for thee."

"I can bear what G.o.d sendeth, Madam," said Anne in a low voice.

"Well said, brave heart!" answered Constance, only half understanding her. "The blessed saints aid thee so to do!--Now, Sir William, dispose of us."

Hankeford obeyed the intimation by separating them into two bands.

Constance, Bertram, and Maude, he placed in the care of Elmingo Leget, an old servant of the Crown, with orders to conduct them direct to London, where Constance guessed that she at least was to undergo trial.

The four young Mortimers he took into his own charge, but declined to say what he was going to do with them. The three officers of the Duke of York were desired to return to their master, the old Judge cynically adding that they could please themselves whether they told him of the recapture or not; while Maydeston was as cynically informed that Sir William saw no sufficient reason wherefore the King's Grace should be at the charges of his journey home, but that he might ride in the company if he listed to pay for the lodgings of his beast and his carcase. To which most elegant intimation Maydeston replied that he was ready to pay his own expenses without troubling his Majesty, and that he did prefer to keep his master company.

So the little group of friends were parted, and Constance began her return journey to London as a prisoner of state.

But what was happening at Cardiff? And where was the Earl of Kent?

We shall see both in the next chapter.

CHAPTER TEN.

HOW THE ROSE WAS GRAFTED.

"To drive the deer with hound and horne Earl Percy took his way; The child may rue that is unborne The hunting of that day."

_Ballad of Chevy Chase_.

"Willemina!" said the old Lady Le Despenser to her bower-maiden, "what horn was that I heard but now without?"

"Shall I certify your Ladyship?" asked Willemina, rising and gathering together the embroidered quilt on which she was working.

"Ay, child," said the Dowager; "so do." But when Willemina came back, she looked very important.

"Madam, 'tis a sumner from my Lord's Grace of Canterbury, that beareth letter for Sir Ademar. Counteth your Ladyship that he shall be made bishop or the like?"

"With Harry of Bolingbroke in the throne, and Thomas de Arundel bearing the mitre?" responded the old lady with a laugh. "Marry, my maid, that were a new thing."

"Were it so, Madam?" asked Willemina innocently. "Truly, Sir Ademar is well defamed [has a good reputation] of all around here."

"This is not the world, child!" said the Dowager.

"'Tis more like--Well, Sir Ademar? Hath my Lord's Grace--_Jesu, pour ta pite_!"

Ademar had walked quietly into the room, and placed a paper in the hands of the Dowager. It was a solemn writ of excommunication against Ademar de Milford, clerk in orders, and it was dated on the Sunday which had intervened between the marriage of Maude and that of Constance. All official acts of Ademar since that day were invalidated. Maude's marriage, therefore, was not affected, but Constance was no longer Countess of Kent.

"Sir Ademar, this is dread!" exclaimed the old lady in trembling accents. "What can my Lord's Grace have against you? This--this toucheth right nearly the Lady, our daughter--Christ aid her of His mercy!"

"Maybe, Madam, it were so intended," said Ademar shrewdly. "For me, truly I wis little what my Lord hath against me--saving that I see not in all matters by his most reverend eyes. I know better what the Lord hath against me--yet what need I note it, seeing it is cancelled in the blood of His Son?--But for our Lady--ah me!"

"Sir Ademar!"--and the dark sunken eyes of the Dowager looked very keenly into his--"arede me your thought--is my Lord of Kent he that should repair this wrong, or no?"

Ademar's voice was silent; but his eyes said,--"No!"

"G.o.d comfort her!" murmured the old lady, turning away. "For, ill as she should brook the loss of him, yet methinks, if I know her well, she might bear even that lighter than the witting that her name was made a name of scorn for ever."

"Lady," said Ademar, quietly, "even G.o.d can only comfort them that lack comforting."