South of the armory of Westminster Palace lay the gardens, and here, on
the third day following the King’s affront to De Vac, might have been
seen a black-haired woman gowned in a violet cyclas, richly embroidered
with gold about the yoke and at the bottom of the loose-pointed
sleeves, which reached almost to the similar bordering on the lower hem
of the garment. A richly wrought leathern girdle, studded with precious
stones, and held in place by a huge carved buckle of gold, clasped the
garment about her waist so that the upper portion fell outward over the
girdle after the manner of a blouse. In the girdle was a long dagger of
beautiful workmanship. Dainty sandals encased her feet, while a wimple
of violet silk bordered in gold fringe, lay becomingly over her head
and shoulders.
By her side walked a handsome boy of about three, clad, like his
companion, in gay colors. His tiny surcoat of scarlet velvet was rich
with embroidery, while beneath was a close-fitting tunic of white silk.
His doublet was of scarlet, while his long hose of white were
cross-gartered with scarlet from his tiny sandals to his knees. On the
back of his brown curls sat a flat-brimmed, round-crowned hat in which
a single plume of white waved and nodded bravely at each move of the
proud little head.
The child’s features were well molded, and his frank, bright eyes gave
an expression of boyish generosity to a face which otherwise would have
been too arrogant and haughty for such a mere baby. As he talked with
his companion, little flashes of peremptory authority and dignity,
which sat strangely upon one so tiny, caused the young woman at times
to turn her head from him that he might not see the smiles which she
could scarce repress.
Presently the boy took a ball from his tunic, and, pointing at a little
bush near them, said, “Stand you there, Lady Maud, by yonder bush. I
would play at toss.”
The young woman did as she was bid, and when she had taken her place
and turned to face him the boy threw the ball to her. Thus they played
beneath the windows of the armory, the boy running blithely after the
ball when he missed it, and laughing and shouting in happy glee when he
made a particularly good catch.
In one of the windows of the armory overlooking the garden stood a
grim, gray, old man, leaning upon his folded arms, his brows drawn
together in a malignant scowl, the corners of his mouth set in a stern,
cold line.
He looked upon the garden and the playing child, and upon the lovely
young woman beneath him, but with eyes which did not see, for De Vac
was working out a great problem, the greatest of all his life.
For three days, the old man had brooded over his grievance, seeking for
some means to be revenged upon the King for the insult which Henry had
put upon him. Many schemes had presented themselves to his shrewd and
cunning mind, but so far all had been rejected as unworthy of the
terrible satisfaction which his wounded pride demanded.
His fancies had, for the most part, revolved about the unsettled
political conditions of Henry’s reign, for from these he felt he might
wrest that opportunity which could be turned to his own personal uses
and to the harm, and possibly the undoing, of the King.
For years an inmate of the palace, and often a listener in the armory
when the King played at sword with his friends and favorites, De Vac
had heard much which passed between Henry III and his intimates that
could well be turned to the King’s harm by a shrewd and resourceful
enemy.
With all England, he knew the utter contempt in which Henry held the
terms of the Magna Charta which he so often violated along with his
kingly oath to maintain it. But what all England did not know, De Vac
had gleaned from scraps of conversation dropped in the armory: that
Henry was even now negotiating with the leaders of foreign mercenaries,
and with Louis IX of France, for a sufficient force of knights and
men-at-arms to wage a relentless war upon his own barons that he might
effectively put a stop to all future interference by them with the
royal prerogative of the Plantagenets to misrule England.
If he could but learn the details of this plan, thought De Vac: the
point of landing of the foreign troops; their numbers; the first point
of attack. Ah, would it not be sweet revenge indeed to balk the King in
this venture so dear to his heart!
A word to De Clare, or De Montfort would bring the barons and their
retainers forty thousand strong to overwhelm the King’s forces.
And he would let the King know to whom, and for what cause, he was
beholden for his defeat and discomfiture. Possibly the barons would
depose Henry, and place a new king upon England’s throne, and then De
Vac would mock the Plantagenet to his face. Sweet, kind, delectable
vengeance, indeed! And the old man licked his thin lips as though to
taste the last sweet vestige of some dainty morsel.
And then Chance carried a little leather ball beneath the window where
the old man stood; and as the child ran, laughing, to recover it, De
Vac’s eyes fell upon him, and his former plan for revenge melted as the
fog before the noonday sun; and in its stead there opened to him the
whole hideous plot of fearsome vengeance as clearly as it were writ
upon the leaves of a great book that had been thrown wide before him.
And, in so far as he could direct, he varied not one jot from the
details of that vividly conceived masterpiece of hellishness during the
twenty years which followed.
The little boy who so innocently played in the garden of his royal
father was Prince Richard, the three-year-old son of Henry III of
England. No published history mentions this little lost prince; only
the secret archives of the kings of England tell the story of his
strange and adventurous life. His name has been blotted from the
records of men; and the revenge of De Vac has passed from the eyes of
the world; though in his time it was a real and terrible thing in the
hearts of the English.