In the year of grace 1327 (thus Nicolas begins) you could have found in
all England no couple more ardent in affection or in despair more
affluent than Rosamund Eastney and Sir Gregory Darrell. She was Lord
Berners' only daughter, a brown beauty, of extensive repute, thanks to a
retinue of lovers who were practitioners of the Gay Science, and who had
scattered broadcast innumerable Canzons in her honor; and Lord Berners
was a man to accept the world as he found it.
"Dompnedex!" the Earl was wont to say; "in sincerity I am fond of
Gregory Darrell, and if he chooses to make love to my daughter that is
none of my affair. The eyes and the brain preserve a proverbial warfare,
which is the source of all amenity, for without lady-service there would
be no songs and tourneys, no measure and no good breeding; and a man
delinquent in domnei is no more to be valued than an ear of corn
without the grain. No, I am so profoundly an admirer of Love that I can
never willingly behold him slain, of a surfeit, by Matrimony; besides,
this rapscallion Gregory could not to advantage exchange purses with
Lazarus in the parable; and, moreover, Rosamund is to marry the Earl of
Sarum a little after All Saints' day."
"Sarum!" people echoed. "Why, the old goat has had four wives already!"
And the Earl would spread his hands. "These redundancies are permissible
to one of the wealthiest persons in England," he was used to submit.
Thus it fell out that Sir Gregory came and went at his own discretion as
concerned Lord Berners' fief of Ordish, all through those choppy times
of warfare between Sire Edward and Queen Ysabeau. Lord Berners, for one,
vexed himself not inordinately over the outcome, since he protested the
King's armament to consist of fools and the Queen's of rascals; and had
with entire serenity declined to back either Dick or the devil.
But at last the Queen got resistless aid from Count William of Hainault
(in a way to be told about hereafter), and the King was captured by her
forces, and was imprisoned in Berkeley Castle. There they held the
second Edward to reign in England, who was the unworthy son of Dame
Ellinor and of that first squinting King Edward about whom I have told
you in the two tales preceding this tale. It was in the September of
this year, a little before Michaelmas, that they brought Sir Gregory
Darrell to be judged by the Queen; notoriously the knight had been her
husband's adherent. "Death!" croaked Adam Orleton, who sat to the right
hand, and, "Young de Spencer's death!" amended the Earl of March, with
wild laughter; but Ysabeau leaned back in her great chair--a handsome
woman, stoutening now from gluttony and from too much wine,--and
regarded her prisoner with lazy amiability.
"And what was your errand in Figgis Wood?" she demanded--"or are you
mad, then, Gregory Darrell, that you dare ride past my gates alone?"