In the year of grace 1327 (thus Nicolas begins) you could have found in
all England no lovers 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, and of extensive repute, thanks
to such among her retinue of lovers as were practitioners of the Gay
Science and had scattered broadcast innumerable Canzons in her honor;
and Lord Berners was a man who accepted 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, in a phrase, a man delinquent in it is no more to be valued than
an ear of corn without the grain. Nay, I am so profoundly an admirer
of Love that I can never willingly behold him slain, of a surfeit, by
Matrimony; and besides, the rapscallion could not to advantage exchange
purses with Lazarus; 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 two wives already!"
And the Earl would spread his hands. "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 gusty
times of warfare between Sire Edward and Queen Ysabeau, until at last
the Queen had conquered. Lord Berners, for one, vexed himself not
inordinately over the outcome of events, 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.
It was in the September of this year, a little before Michaelmas, that
they brought Sir Gregory Darrell to be judged by the Queen, for
notoriously the knight had been Sire Edward'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 devoted the silence to consideration of how
scantily the man had changed.
"And what was your errand in Figgis Wood?" she demanded in the
ultimate--"or are you mad, then, Gregory Darrell, that you dare ride
past my gates alone?"