Georgette Heyer by My Lord John Page B

play a game. There were endless services held in St Mary’s Church, fast-by the castle, and reached through a private doorway; nothing might be sung, said Thomas sulkily, but placebo and dirige . Thomas had had to endure a homily for humming Dieu sauve dame Emme within Father Joseph’s hearing. Agnes Rokster said it was well for him that the Father was too holy a man to know the words of that song. They were certainly rather rusty: Thomas had picked them up from the men-at-arms.
    It was an uneasy winter. The Countess was childing again. She seemed nervous, starting at sudden noises, her eyes too large for her face. The nurses put their heads together, nipped their talk off in mid-sentence when the lordings came within earshot. My lady had borne her lord six children, four of them easily enough, God be praised! But her first two sons had nearly cost her her life. The eldest had never drawn breath: she had been too young for childbearing, as one person at least had known. Her mother, my lady of Hereford, had removed her daughter from her lord’s side after that disaster. Later had come my lord Harry. Jesu defend! Would any of the ladies forget that summer’s night at Monmouth? The child born out of time, my lord from home, my lady so forspent that they had all thought the soul parted from her body; and the infant so puling that no one had expected him to live an hour: ah, what a night that had been! But Thomas, John, Humfrey, and Blanche she had carried proudly, and dropped as easily as any Nance or Moll. She had not waxed thin, or lost her colour; she had not jumped almost out of her skin at the lifting of a door-latch, as now she did.
    Wisps of rumour filled the castle: it was a relief when some part at least of the truth was known to the lordings. In the New Year Bel sire accused the Earl of Arundel apertly of having fostered that Cheshire rising. My lord let his spleen carry him too far: his counter-accusations came near to touching the King. Cousin Richard had himself upheld his uncle of Lancaster; and the end of it was that my lord was forced to utter a humiliating apology, while Bel sire stood higher than ever within the King’s grace. Only Mother and Great-uncle York seemed still to see a wolf at every turn. Great-uncle York came on a visit to Leicester, with his younger son, Richard. The lordings, who liked good-natured Edward of Rutland, were not fond of Richard of Coningsburgh. He had fewer than twenty years in his dish, but a sneer had already worn clefts that ran down from his nose to the corners of his mouth. Unlike Edward, he was slenderly built, took little interest in the chase, and had womanish habits, such as wearing his hair in overlong ringlets, loading his person with jewels, and being much inclined to fancy himself slighted on small provocation.
    Great-uncle York seemed to be more concerned with his brother Bel sire’s affairs than with the death of his own wife. He was one who hated to be caught up in the toils of warring factions, for he could never see clearly what was best to be done, and was always worrying about it. When M. de Guyenne was in Spain seven years ago, Edmund of York had allowed his forceful brother Thomas of Gloucester to drag him at the heels of his own policy. It had frightened him; and he had been relieved to welcome M. de Guyenne home again, because he had believed there was safety to be found in his shadow. And now, just as he was thinking how wise he had been to abandon Gloucester for Lancaster, what must Lancaster do but quarrel with Arundel? It was all very well for Lancaster to think himself secure because he had driven Arundel from Court, but no one could think that Arundel was not even now planning his revenge. And since Thomas of Gloucester was Arundel’s friend, and only God and His Saints knew which way the redeless King would jump, the future was so dangerful that Edmund of York could neither relish his meat nor sleep sound at nightertale.
    M. de Guyenne, however,