A Boys Ride | Page 7

the sudden aversion he had to the man-at-arms, the sudden desire he felt to look him scornfully in the face, and then turn on his heel and leave him. And he knew he must succeed in his effort or Josceline was lost.
Meanwhile the man-at-arms stole questioning glances at him. He could see that the boy was not his usual self, but he did not guess the cause of his changed manner. With his usual prying way he began:
"Thou hast been here now a fortnight and more. Perchance her ladyship will be rid of thee. Was't of that she spake to thee?"
And now Hugo had sufficiently conquered himself so that he dared to lift his eyes. Innocently he looked into the traitor's face. "We spake of my uncle, the prior," he said.
For a moment Robert Sadler was silent. "That is it," he thought. "She will send him packing back to his uncle. The lad wishes not to go. Therefore he looks down. Now is the time to ask him about the postern key. When one is angered a little then is when he telleth what he hath discovered."
He cast a searching look at Hugo, but by it he learned nothing. The boy now began to take his way toward the tilt-yard, and Robert Sadler kept close at his side, talking as he went.
"Women be by nature suspicious, you will find," he began. "They be ever thinking some one will be breaking in; and ever for having some one on guard. Her ladyship now--surely thou knowest she keepeth the postern key herself, and will trust no one with it. The grooms and the warder at the great gate she will trust, but it is the postern she feareth, because she thinketh an enemy might be secretly admitted there. Knowest thou where she keepeth the key? I would but know in case my lord returneth suddenly, and, perchance, pursued, since the king will have his head or ever he cometh to his home, he hath such an enmity against him. And all because my lord spake freely on the murder of Arthur and other like matters. He might be sped to his death awaiting the opening of the postern while her ladyship was coming with the key."
"Cometh the lord soon, then?" asked Hugo, interestedly.
"That no man can tell," answered Robert Sadler. "He is now safe over sea in France; but he might be lured back if he knew the young lord Josceline was in peril."
"In peril, sayest thou?" asked Hugo. He was learning his lesson of self-control fast.
"Why else are we mewed up here in the castle?" demanded the man-at-arms. "I be weary of so much mewing-up. If the king will have our young lord Josceline to keep in his hand so that he may thereby muzzle his father, why, he is king. And he must have his will. Sooner or later he will have it. Why, who can stand against the king?"
"And how can that muzzle his father?" asked Hugo.
"Why, if Lord De Aldithely, who is a great soldier, and a great help to victory wherever he fighteth, should join with King Louis of France to fight against our king--why, then it would go ill with Josceline if he were biding in the king's hand. And, knowing this, his father would forbear to fight, and so be muzzled."
"And Josceline would not otherwise be harmed?" asked Hugo.
"Why, no man knoweth that," admitted the man-at-arms. "The rage of the king against all who have offended him is now fierce, and he stoppeth at nothing."
"I know not so much as some of such matters," observed Hugo, quietly.
"Nor needest thou," answered the man-at-arms. "It is sufficient for such as be of thy tender years to know the whereabouts of the postern key. I would ask the young lord Josceline, but, merry as he is, he turneth haughty if one ask what he termeth a meddling question. He would say, 'What hast thou to do with the whereabouts of the postern key?' And then he would away to his mother with a tale of me, and the key would be more securely hidden than before."
"And Lord De Aldithely still further endangered if he came riding and pursued?"
"Even so. I see that thou art a clever lad. Much cleverer than thy years warrant. And I warn thee, speak to no one of what I have said to thee, or it may be worse for thee. But tell me plainly, since we have gone so far, knowest thou the whereabouts of the key?"
"Nay," answered Hugo. "I know not. I have never before thought of the postern and its key."
The traitor's frowning face cleared. "I believe thou speakest truly," he said. "Thou art so full of being a knight that thou thinkest only of knightly exercises in the tilt-yard. I