AY in crimson velvet, down the mossgrown woodland path came a boy with a serious face. Through his girdle a dagger was thrust, and the silver hilt of it flashed sometimes, when the oak-boughs swayed to let in the sun. None other weapon he bore; he stalked on carelessly, a very peacock amid the sober hues of the wood. But his face belied his gay garments; for his face was thin, with deep-set, black eyes; its broad, low forehead overhung high cheek-bones, and below a huge, square chin jutted far beyond his straight, thin lips. There met him a brawny, big-boned lad in leather jerkin and dull iron helm.
"Hey! Sir Page of my lady!" he cried, with a laugh.
"Ho! Sir Lout of my lord!" said the page.
"Fair words, Harry. I called you nought but your name."
"Nor I you, most worshipful," said the page. At once, with a laugh, he of the jerkin sprang at the page and clipped him in his arms. They swung hither and thither for a little, till the heel of the heavier man stole behind the page's. Too quick for voidance, his heavier bulk shot forward, and, tearing the sinewy, velvet arms away, he flung the page on his back in the springing bracken, then stood with his arms akimbo, laughing. The page laughed, too.
"Call quits, Bertram," he cried, as he rose on his elbow. He rubbed his ribs. "Heaven save the man you wrestle with in three years' time!"
Bertram scratched his head.
"Now, Harry, there was a message I had," he said thoughtfully. "Oh, aye! The Lady Rosamund would have you come quickly. Sir Albert of Shere, our friend the Weasel, has come a-visiting."
Harry's heavy brow wrinkled. "The fiend take Albert of Shere!" he muttered.
"Why, so he will—at his own time. But why call him?"
Harry walked on frowning, and at last he said—
"Because my lady fears him—and, fiend seize him! so do I."
"So do not I—him nor any man," said Bertram the man-at-arms, and flung back his head and laughed.
"I have walked with my lady five times in her garden, Bertram, when Albert of Shere was with her, and I know he spoke to her each time of love."
Bertram burst out with a laugh.
"And what does a boy know of love?" he cried.
"Enough— oh! laugh, you fool!—I know enough," said the page sharply, with the majesty of sixteen years afire. "I tell you, Bertram, she bade him go, and she flushed, and again she bade him go—till at last he went. But he came on the next day. I hate Albert of Shere!"
Bertram scratched his head.
"Doth she love him?" he asked.
At that, whate'er the cause may have been, Harry blushed dark.
"How could she?" he cried sharply.
Bertram shook his head.
"The saints may know," said Bertram. "What do women love?"
Then Harry blushed a second time.
"My lady is true to her lord," said he.
"I do not understand women," said Bertram.
"But I do," said Harry the page, and they went on together to the Castle.
The Lady Rosamund sat in her bower, and a maiden stood beside her. Close to her chair, leaning forward to bring his lips close to her ear as he talked, sat Albert of Shere. Harry the page came in upon them. Sir Albert gave a sneering smile.
"So here is Master Popinjay," he said.
"Sir Albert's servant in all things—saving my lady's honour," said the page quickly, and Sir Albert's black eyes gave him a sharp glance. Then Sir Albert leant back carelessly in his chair.
"So Lord Charles comes back on the morrow?" he asked.
"Aye," said Lady Rosamund, bending over her embroidery, and then for a little while they talked lightly of things indifferent, while the colour passed to and fro in the lady's lovely face, Sir Albert's Albert's eyes were fixed on her; but the page as he watched them closely saw that she looked at him never once. At last Sir Albert rose.
"Will you walk in the garden a little, my lady?"
She rose at once, as if it had been an order, and signed with her hand to Harry.
"Nay, let the popinjay stay!" cried Sir Albert. And then in a lower voice, "I have something to say—something I must say, Rosamund." Quickly she looked up at him and quickly her eyes fell before his. She went out slowly without a word, and the page saw that her steps faltered.
So they two went out to the garden. But of what Sir Albert of Shere said to her that was the wife of his friend no man knows much to this day. Something you may guess from this. There was a little maid picking gillyflowers behind a great hedge of privet, and she saw and heard and told how Sir Albert caught the Lady Rosamund's hands in his and said—
"Come with me, Rosamund—you must, you shall!" But the lady, straining away from him, cried—