VII
MISTRESS AND MAN
When Thoroughgood had left the hall and Brilliana came to the floor,Halfman questioned her, very respectfully, but still with the air ofone who has earned the friendly right to put questions.
"Why do you see this black-jack?" he asked. Brilliana smiled at himas radiantly as if the holding of a house against armed enemies wasthe properest, pleasantest business imaginable.
"With the littlest good-will in the world, I promise you," sheanswered. "But, you know, he so plagued for the parley that it waseasier to try him than deny him. Besides, good friend and captain, Ilearn from what I read in Master Froissart's Chronicles that it wereneither customary nor courteous to deny conference to a supplicatingenemy."
Halfman adored her for her courage, for her calm assumption ofsuccess.
"How if he but come to spy out our strategies?" he asked. "Theleanness of our larder? Our empty bandoliers?"
Brilliana beamed back at him with her bewildering confidence.
"I have thought of that, too," she admitted. "But he shall not findus at our wit's-end. Seek Simon Butler, friend captain. Though ourcellars are near empty he will make shift to find you some fullflagons. Bring hither a bunch of your subalterns, the rosiest, themost jovial, if any still carry such colors and boast such spirit;let them gather in the banqueting-hall, where, with such wit asFrench wine can give, let them sing as if they were merry and wellfed. Our sanctimonious spy-out-the-nakedness-of-the-land must thinkwe are well victualled, he must think we are well mannered."
Halfman made her a sweeping reverence which was not without itsplay-actor's grace, though its honesty might have pardoned a greaterawkwardness.
"We are well womaned, lady," he asseverated, "with you for ourleader. By sea and by land I have served some great captains, butnever one greater than you for constancy and manly valor."
Brilliana's bright face took a swift look of gravity and she gave alittle sigh.
"The King's cause," she said, soberly, "might turn a child into achampion."
The steady loyalty that made her words at once a psalm and abattle-cry bade Halfman's pulses tingle. Who could be foundunfaithful where this fair maid was so faithful? Yet he rememberedtheir isolation and the memory made him speak.
"I marvel that none of your neighbors have tried to lend us a hand?"
"How could they?" Brilliana asked, astonished. "The brave are withthe King at Shrewsbury; the stay-at-homes are not fighters."
"Hum," commented Halfman. "What of Master Paul Hungerford?"
Brilliana shrugged her shoulders.
"A miserly daw, who would not risk a crown to save the crown."
Halfman questioned again.
"What of Master Peter Rainham?"
Brilliana shrugged again.
"A dull, sullen skinflint waiting on event."
Halfman's inventory was not complete.
"You have yet a third neighbor," he said, "and, as I heard, aprodigal in protestation. What of Sir Blaise Mickleton?"
Brilliana's lips twitched with a derisive smile.
"Sir Blaise, honest gentleman, loves good cheer and good ease. Ithink he would not quit the board if Armageddon were towards. He willbe for eating, he will be for drinking, he will be for sleeping, andin the mean time God's chosen gentlemen have learned the value ofliving so long as to grant them a death for their King."
Her voice had risen to a cry of defiance, but now it dropped again toits former note of bantering irony.
"What a wonderful world it is which can hold at once such men as mycousin Randolph or you or Rufus Quaryll and these hangbacks who shameHarby. These three are professed my very good suitors, but they havemade no move to our help. Well, let them hang for a tray of knaves.We need them not. We know that the King's cause must triumph and sowe are wise to be blithe."
Halfman's head was swinging with pleasure. She had counted him in soglibly with the chosen ones, with the servants of God and the King.He was very sure now that his watch-word had always been "God and theKing."
"The King's cause must triumph," he echoed, his face shining withloyal confidence.
"How we shall all smile a year hence," Brilliana answered, "to thinkthat such pitiful rebels vexed us. But for the moment there is one ofthese same rebels to be faced--and to be fooled. About our plan, goodcaptain."
Halfman saluted her more enthusiastically than he had ever salutedmale commander.
"My general," he vowed, "he shall think these walls hold an army ofwassaillers."
He turned on his heel and marched briskly out of the hall. Brillianalooked after him, with the bright smile on her face, till the door ofthe banqueting-hall closed behind him; then the smile slowly fadedfrom her face.
"I would my spirits were as blithe as my speech," she thought, as shewent to the table and bent over it, looking at the open map whichHalfman had been studying.
"What is going on in England, the King's England, little England,that should not be big enough to have any room for traitors?"
She put her finger on the spot where Harby figured on the sheet.
"Here," she mused, "we have been sundered from the world for allthese days by this Roundhead leaguer, hearing no outside news but thering of rebel shots and the sound of rebel voices. What has happened?What is happening? When we began the King was at Shrewsbury and theParliament ruled London. What has come to the Parliament since? Whathas come to the King? Well, Loyalty House will carry the King's flagso long as one stone tops another. We will live as long as we can forhis Majesty, and then die for him gamely."
The Lady of Loyalty House: A Novel Page 8