“If it does please your Highness,” Hugh said politely; then added honestly, “I should be loath to part with him.”
His Highness laughed outright. “Go to my stable and call for the horse,” he bade. “Come hither again in a week or so, and there may be tidings for you. Only see you do not come to court too often, Master Gwyeth; ’twould be a pity to spoil the honest blunt soldier you are like to be with a slippery courtier polish.”
Then he turned again to his map in sign of dismissal, and Hugh somehow contrived to bow himself safely through the door. He was out in the green quadrangle before he got it through his head that Prince Rupert himself would move for his pardon to the king, and then he recollected he had not even said “thank you,” and he flushed hot with the consciousness of his own churlishness.
It changed his thoughts a trifle to seek out his way to the stable and claim Bayard, whom he had been ready to give up for lost and was proportionately glad to recover. Once upon the horse’s back, he took himself unostentatiously through the streets to the lodgings of his fencing-master, de Sévérac, who received him warmly, when Hugh assured him he was fairly sure of pardon and sought only to have quiet harborage for the week. Those seven days he passed in the dingy sleeping-room behind the fencing-hall, where he studied the pictures in a great French folio, “L’Academie de l'Espee,” or entertained de Sévérac in his leisure moments with a full account of the duel with Bellasis. The fencing-master, who took a professional pride in his pupil’s success, entreated Hugh not to persist in saying the victory was due solely to Bellasis’ carelessness; ’twas just as easy to give credit to himself and those who taught him the use of the rapier.
Thus the week dragged to an end, while Hugh counted the days impatiently, and heard with terror that troops were setting out for Bristol, for in the confusion the great men might well forget his business. At last the seventh day came, and, having put on a clean shirt and brushed his coat, he set out for Christ Church. As he went he tried to steel himself against possible disappointment by telling over the many cases of the ingratitude of kings; but at heart he knew he did not believe so ill of the Prince, and in the end his trust was justified. He had not been kept waiting many minutes in the great hall, when a trim officer came from above-stairs, and, asking him if he were not named Gwyeth, delivered to him a fair great piece of parchment all sealed up. “’Tis my pardon?” Hugh burst out.