"Back, Weathercote Charles, put a
leash on Talbot, and hold Bayard back!" Her black eyes blazed
upon the invaders until they shrank from that baleful gaze. "Who
are you, you rascal robbers, who dare to misuse the King's name
and to lay hands upon one whose smallest drop of blood has more
worth than all your thrall and caitiff bodies?"
"Nay, not so fast, dame, not so fast, I pray you!" cried the stout
summoner, whose face had resumed its natural color, now that he
had a woman to deal with. "There is a law of England, mark you,
and there are those who serve and uphold it, who are the true men
and the King's own lieges. Such a one am I. Then again, there
are those who take such as me and transfer, carry or convey us
into a bog or morass. Such a one is this graceless old man with
the ax, whom I have seen already this day. There are also those
who tear, destroy or scatter the papers of the law, of which this
young man is the chief. Therefore, I would rede you, dame, not to
rail against us, but to understand that we are the King's men on
the King's own service."
"What then is your errand in this house at this hour of the
night?"
The summoner cleared his throat pompously, and turning his
parchment to the light of the cressets he read out a long document
in Norman-French, couched in such a style and such a language that
the most involved and foolish of our forms were simplicity itself
compared to those by which the men of the long gown made a mystery
of that which of all things on earth should be the plainest and
the most simple.
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