Long Will Part 8

"Nay, I will not so trespa.s.s," protested Stephen. "The Prince refuseth to eat an I be not by to fill his cup."

"Yet must you bide, I fear me," said Langland gravely. "How shall I answer to the Prince if one he love go forth to harm? At a later hour, when taverns fill and streets are emptied, you may walk abroad with the more ease."

And now, with his adventure succeeded past imagination, the ungrateful Stephen stood disconsolate, a-hanging his head.

Kitte came whispering to her husband, with:--

"Dame Emma will give me a fresh-laid egg, and gladly, if she know we have so fine a guest."

"Nay, wife, we will not flaunt our honours abroad," Langland answered.

"'T were as well Dame Emma do not know."

So Kitte was fain content herself with a sly smoothing of Calote's hair in the midst of Langland's Latin blessing.

The cook in Kennington Palace was one had learned his trade in France a-following the Black Prince. He had a new sauce for each day of the year. Stephen looked with wonder upon the mess of beans that Kitte poured out for him. His trencher bread was all the bread he had; yet even the trenchers at Richard's table were not such bread as this,--black, bitter, hard. He ate his beans off the point of his dagger, and looking across at the fair flower of Calote's face, he marvelled. He had a little mug of penny-ale, and Langland kept him company. Kitte and Calote drank whey and nibbled their trenchers. The meal was silent and short. At the end none poured water over his fingers nor gave him a towel of fine linen to wipe his lips. Excepting the half of his own hard trencher, and this Kitte set away on a shelf, there were left no crumbs wherewith to comfort the poor. Then Kitte lifted the charred sticks off the fire and laid them aside, and Calote scoured the iron pot, and Langland set himself to discourse to his disciple upon the Vision concerning Piers Ploughman.

"And now the Vision 's ended dost dream a new song?" quoth the squire, but his eyes were on Calote.

"I have but one song," said Long Will. "I write it anew, it changeth ever as the years run, yet in the end 't is the same song."

He drew forth two rolls of parchment from a pouch at his girdle and looked on them:--

"Since the death of the Black Prince I have changed the old, somewhat.

Here"--and he pointed with his finger--"I have a mind to set in a new fable."

Calote had come to lean against his shoulder, and now she said:--

"Is 't o' the rats and how they would have belled the cat, father?"

He glanced aside at her with a smile:--

"Calote hath the Vision by heart," he said.

"This gentle keepeth the parchment in a carven box, father."

Langland fingered the pages of his ma.n.u.script, and presently took a quill from his pouch, opened his ink-horn, and crossed out a word.

"An my father would tell thee the tale of the rats, 't would pleasure thee," said Calote to the squire.

"Nay, I have hindered enough," protested Stephen,--"but wilt not thou tell the tale?"

Her father, looking up, smiled, but Calote shook her head, and clasped her hands, and unclasped them, shyly.

From the lane came a snapping sound, as Kitte broke twigs from a brush heap for the fire. Langland, pen in air, studied his parchment. The squire wandered to the window.

"'T is quiet now," said he; "methinks I 'll set forth."

"Not yet," the poet answered; "I will go with you."

"What danger hast thou braved?" asked Calote in wonder. "What 's the meaning? Methought 't was father's jesting."

"Thy father saved my life this day from a rout of prentices that would have mauled me as I came hither,--because, forsooth, the seneschal to the Earl of March is cast in prison. But wherefore the good people of London should so concern them about the Earl's servant is riddle too deep for my guessing."

"The seneschal of the Earl of March?" quoth Calote, wrinkling her brow: "who 's he?"

"A worthy man, one the Earl hath in esteem; 's name's Peter de la Mare."

"Peter de la Mare!" cried Calote. She stared incredulous, and then her eyes blazed big with indignation. "Seneschal to the Earl of March, forsooth! What didst thou this five month? Hast heard o' the Good Parliament?"

"a.s.suredly!" the squire made answer, amazed.

"a.s.suredly!" retorted she. "And yet thou marvellest that the people is angry for the sake of Peter de la Mare? Shall I instruct thee?

Hearken: in this same Parliament 't was Peter spoke for the Commons.

'T was Peter dared tell the King his counsellors were thieves, and the people of England should be no more taxed for their sakes. 'T was Peter brought John o' Gaunt to terms, and did fearlessly accuse that rascal merchant, Richard Lyons, and those others. 'T was Peter charged my Lord Latimer with his treachery and forced the Duke to strike him off the council. He dared even meddle 'twixt the old King and Alice Perrers,--and she a witch! But now that's all o'erthrown, for that the Black Prince is dead.--Natheless, when young Richard, thy master, cometh to his kingdom, see thou 'mind him 't was this same Peter de la Mare, with the Commons at 's back, did force the King to make Richard heir to the throne. And this decree--John o' Gaunt dare not overthrow."

She paused for breath, and the bewildered Stephen, round-eyed, with open mouth, awaited helpless the renewal of her instructing.

"Methought ye n.o.bles were but too busy with affairs of state," she resumed bitterly; "yet 't would appear otherwise."

"I am no n.o.ble, mistress," said Stephen, finding his tongue, "but a poor gentleman, owner of a manor there be not villeins enough left to farm. Young Richard is not yet eleven years of age. It suiteth ill the purpose of his uncles and guardians that he and his household should busy themselves in the kingdom. Mayhap, if we could learn our lesson of lips as fair as thine, we 'd prove apt pupils; but the ladies of our household are busied in matters feminine."

"I am no lady," said Calote, grown rosy red; "I am a peasant maid. I have no idle gentles to woo me all day long, nor never shall. The poor is my Love."

"Mayhap I am an idle gentle," Stephen answered, "yet I woo no lady in Kennington Palace." He came a step nearer and kneeled on one knee.

"An 't please you, fair sir," said the voice of Langland, "the time's as fitting now for departure as 't will be an hour hence. Shall we set forth?"

CHAPTER VI

Food for Thought

Langland and the squire made their way to the river by narrow, muddy lanes and unfrequented alleys. The poet, sunk in reverie, sped onward with the free stride of the hill-shepherd, a gait he had not lost in all the five and twenty years of his sojourn in London; and Stephen walked beside him hurriedly, marvelling at himself that he dared not break the silence and ask the many questions that tingled at the tip of his tongue. For this fine young gentleman, who could be pert enough with Sir Simon de Burley, the tutor of Richard's household, or even with his G.o.dfather, the Earl of March, yet found himself strangely abashed in the presence of the lank peasant-priest. Although Stephen knew not its name, 't was reverence stirring in him, an emotion little encountered among courtiers. The very silence of this grave, dingy figure seemed to him more pregnant than the speech of other men.

On the middle part of London Bridge, where was the drawbridge, Langland paused and leaned upon the parapet to look in the water.

"'T is the key that unlocketh the city," he said. "Let the bridge be taken, and London is taken."

He spoke as to himself,--moodily; but Stephen answered at his elbow:--

"The French are not like to venture so far as London."

"England hath need to be afeared o' them that's nearer home than the French," returned the poet, and went on across the bridge.

In Southwark a shorter way led through a street of ill-repute, and here a young harlot plucked Stephen by his hanging sleeve and looked on him, and smiled. Langland, out of the corner of his eye, saw, yet took no notice. But the squire, taking a piece of silver from his purse, gave it into the girl's hand, saying:--