‘A man like him is ill to guide,’ said James; ’but he is more himself now than he has been for months, and a few weeks’ quiet with his wife will restore him.  But what is this?’ he proceeded in his turn; ’why is the Lady Joan not here?’

’How can I tell?  It was no fault of mine.  I even got a prim warning that it became me not to meddle about her ladies, and I doubted what slanders you might hear if I were seen asking your Nightingale for a token.’

‘Have you none!  Good John, I know you have.’

John smiled his ironical smile, produced from the pouch at his girdle a small packet bound with rose-coloured silk, and said:  ’The Nightingale hath a plume, you see, and saith, moreover, that her knight hath done his devoir passably, but that she yet looks to see him send some captive giant to her feet.  So, Sir Knight, I hope your poor dwarf hath acquitted him well in your chivalrous jargon.’

James smiled and coloured with pleasure; the fantastic message was not devoid of reality in the days when young imaginative spirits tried to hide the prose of war and policy in a bright mist of romantic fancy; nor was he ashamed to bend his manly head in reverence to, and even press to his lips, his lady’s first love-letter, in the very sight of the satirical though sympathizing Bedford, of whom he eagerly asked of the fair Joan’s health and welfare, and whether she were flouted by Queen Catherine.

‘No more than is the meed of her beauty,’ said Bedford.  ’Sister Kate likes not worship at any shrine save one.  Look at our suite:  our knights—­yea, our very grooms are picked for their comeliness; to wit that great feather-pated oaf of a Welshman, Owen Tudor there; while dames and demoiselles, tire-women and all, are as near akin as may be to Sir Gawain’s loathly lady.’

‘Not at least the fair Luxemburg.  Did not I see her stately mien?’

’She is none of the Queen’s, and moreover she stands aloof, so that the women forgive her gifts!  There is that cough of Harry’s again!  He is the shadow of the man he was; I would I knew if this were the step-dame’s doing.’

’Nay, John, when you talk to me of Harry’s cough, and of night-watches and flooded camps, I hearken; but when your wits run wool-gathering after that poor woman, making waxen images stuck full—­’

‘You are in the right on’t, James,’ said Henry, who had come up to them while he was speaking.  ’John will never get sorceries out of his head.  I have thought it over, and will not be led into oppressing my father’s widow any more.  I cannot spend this Pentecost cheerily till I know she is set free and restored to her manors; and I shall write to Humfrey and the Council to that effect.’

And as John shrugged his shoulders, Henry gaily added:  ’Thou seest what comes of a winter spent with this unbeliever Jamie; and truly, I found the thought of unright to my father’s widow was a worse pin in my heart than ever she is like to thrust there.’