“Well, sir, and what else?”
“A wilful, headstrong baggage!” Fulk roared.
Margaret covered her ears with her hands.
“Do not shout at me!” she said. “I wonder you care to sit with a—a baggage!”
“So do I,” Fulk grunted. “A fitting pair will ye make, you and Simon. Belike ye will scratch his eyes out before he hath time to school ye. Maids were more gentle when I was a lad.”
“Milor’ Fulk, I do not know why ye should couple my name with that of Lord—”
“There’s enough, there’s enough! Think ye I am come to listen to thy foolish chatter against Simon? Bah! Bah, I say!”
“I heard you,” said the Lady Margaret.
“Thou and thy hate! Talk for babes! Empty lies!”
“Sir—”
“Now, will ye have done, Margot? Body o’ me, do ye think to fool a man of my years? Thou froward maid!”
The Lady Margaret abandoned the struggle.
“Indeed, I have never been so set at naught and—and bullied in my life!”
“Better for thee if thou hadst,” growled Fulk. “Thou dost need a master.”
The Lady Margaret tilted her chin.
“And will have one. In Simon!” Fulk went on, louder. “Shake not thy head, I say!”
“He—Simon—will not return. Thou—thou must look for my master—elsewhere,” she said, a tiny catch in her voice.
Fulk put his great arm about her waist.
“Said I not thou wert a silly lass? Did he tell thee that he would come back? Answer me, Margot!”
“I have forgotten.”
“That for a tale! He said he would return, and he breaks not his word.”
“I—I do not—care!”
“Ho—ho!” Fulk pinched her cheeks. “Canst look me in the face and say that, child!”
Margaret was silent, eyes downcast.
“Now here come a pretty pair,” Fulk remarked, and looking up Margaret saw Geoffrey and Jeanne wending their way across the garden. Geoffrey’s arm was about Jeanne’s waist, and his black head was bent over her brown one.
Margaret looked away, chin set firmly.
“Never fret!” Fulk said. “Simon will come. Hey, there!”
The absorbed couple below started, and looked up.
“Is this the way thou dost mind thine affairs?” Fulk bellowed jovially.
“Ay!” Geoffrey answered. “So please you, sir, this is mine affair.”
“I am not at all,” Jeanne said with dignity. “I shall warn all maids ’gainst marriage. Husbands are very ungallant persons.” She looked up at Fulk. “Once I did think Geoffrey courtly and kind,” she said plaintively.
“And thou thinkest it no longer?” Margaret asked, smiling.
Jeanne shook her head mournfully.
“He is a tyrant, madame. My life is misery.”
“What hath Geoffrey to say?” Margaret inquired.
He laughed up at her.
“Why, madame, that maids are sweet, but wives are shrews.”
“Oh!” Jeanne turned to pummel him.
Fulk’s great laugh rang out.
“There’s for you, Jeanne! God’s Body, kissing again? Margot, let us hence! My stomach turns at all this billing and cooing. Give me thine arm, child.” So they went away together.
“He—he—called me—the Amazon,” Margaret said, as they crossed the hall.
“Simon? A murrain on him for a scurvy knave!”
She smiled faintly.
“And yet you love him.”
“I? What ails the girl? I love that roystering, obstinate young hothead? Now, by the troth—”
“Who is lying now?” Margaret said softly.
Fulk squeezed her arm.
“Thou hast me there. He is a good lad, when all is said and done. I do wish to see him happy, Margot.”
“Oh?”
“Ay. And think not that a pert, wilful lass who doth not know her own heart shall gainsay my lion-cub! Think it not, Margot!”
“I—I—am not that—that wilful lass,” she said, very low.
“Are ye not? Who—”
“For—for—I do know mine own heart well.”
“Then what is it?”
“Ah, I—I shall not tell thee that.”
“So long as ye do tell it to Simon, I care not,” Fulk said gruffly.
XX
How He Was Sent for by the King
Early in April the King spoke again to Alan of Simon. He called him up to his closet one evening, and smiled upon him, holding up a bulky packet of parchment sheets.
“Come hither, my Poet. These came today from my brother of Gloucester. Simon is alive and well.”
“God be praised!” Alan said devoutly. “What says his Grace, sire?”
“He says much,” Henry answered. “On the first day of the month he came to Cherbourg, and sat down before it. Listen! ‘But so well fortified and provisioned is the town that assault were folly. It but remains for me to lay siege to it, with your lordship’s gracious leave, that in time I may starve it into submission. As I judge this task will prove long and arduous, I think not to enter Cherbourg until the summer, if I do enter it then. Your Majesty’s well-beloved, Lord Simon of Beauvallet, whom I did send to aid Sir John Robsart in the taking of Carentan and St. Sauveur-le-Vicomte, did join me three days since with the news that the aforesaid towns have yielded to your Majesty. Beauvallet doth render good account of himself, and out of his whole force hath lost but seven men, three having died of sickness. I do beseech you, my dread Sovereign lord and brother, if you have need of Beauvallet, to send for him, for I have ample force, Huntingdon having come also to join me, from Coutances, which town did surrender to your puissant Majesty the Sixteenth day of March.’ ” Henry laid the parchment down. “This is good news, Alan.”
“Very good, sir, save that Cherbourg is so strong.”
“Gloucester will reduce it. Mine answer to his dispatch is here.” He touched a parchment-sheet. “I have sent to command Simon to join me, with his own men.”
Alan bowed.
“What hath your lordship for him then, sir?”
Henry seated himself at the table.
“I have thought deeply on it, my Poet, and at last I have seen how I may serve both mine own ends and his. I will make Simon warden of this land.”
Alan’s eyes widened.
“Sire!”
“Thou dost know that I have a Chancery in the making, Alan. Morgan is to hold the seal of the Duchy, Luttrell is to be Seneschal. But at the head of the military government I will have Simon, for he is all a soldier, and his grip on all matters military is of iron. Thus shall he
