Swords From the Sea by Harold Lamb Page B

Thorne, you have yet to serve your apprenticeship as a bearer-of-arms at court. To gratify the whim of a boy you made naught of your orders. You were placed here not to act a playmate or to seek royal favor, but to guard the life of your prince. What if you had been attacked by yonder canaille? Body of me!"
    This time Thorne kept silent. The nobleman's blame was unjust, but there was enough truth in it to make the armiger realize that his offense would be held unpardonable if Stratford chose to press a charge against him. True, he might appeal to the king, who was honorary captain of the guards.
    But Edward lay passive on his couch, forgetful of sentinel or nobleman.
    Stratford paced the pavilion, hands thrust into his sword-belt, and came to a stop by Thorne. Seeing that Edward was asleep, he said in a whisper:
    "When you are relieved, go to your quarters. Abide there without speaking to anybody of what you have seen or heard in this place. A soldier on duty," he added brusquely, "may not give out what has come under his eye on his post. Can you do that?"
    It was long after the armiger had left with his companions of the guard, but without his firelock, that the Gypsy drew from beneath the couch where it had been hidden by the deerskin the harquebus that she had stolen.
    Unseen by Stratford and unnoticed by the new sentinel, she slipped the short weapon under her ragged mantle and slouched from the pavilion. She had stolen as naturally as a crow picks up something that catches its eye.
    The superstition of high noblemen had invoked her to try to save the life of a dying ruler with her simples, and shrewder than they who had called her forth, she fled with what she could snatch before Edward should die.
    Meanwhile the three ships had passed out of sight down the Thames, and out of the minds of the courtiers who talked of changes that were to come, and fortunes to be made and lost. But Edward still dwelt upon the glimpse he had had of the voyagers.
    Chapter II
    The Signior d'Alaber
    My Lord of Stratford sat late at table the evening he summoned Ralph Thorne to his quarters and looked long upon the flagon, both Rhenish and Burgundy. He had a hard, gray head for drink. It helped him make decisions, a vexatious necessity of late.
    In a long chamber gown he sat at his ease, a pair of barnacles on his nose and a book printed in the new manner from black letters on his knees. My lord had excellent eyesight and did not need the spectacles; and, although he was not scholar enough to read the book, he firmly believed that it was a mistake to be found doing nothing.
    "Master Thorne," he greeted the armiger, "there is a saying- Quis cus- todiat ipsos custodies? Who shall watch the watchmen themselves?"
    He put aside the volume and cleared his throat.
    "I have been at some pains to learn who you are."
    Thorne bowed acknowledgment in silence. He had no patron at court, and the duke was powerful. He had entered upon his duties in the guards with high hopes. In the camps over the sea the name and character of the boy king had aroused the loyalty of the lads who were beginning their military service in the petty wars of the lowlands, and they had waited anxiously for the time when they could appear at their own court.
    Now, lacking anyone to take his part and with Edward unapproachable, a word from Stratford could disgrace him or restore him to honest service.
    "Your father, sirrah, is Master Robert Thorne, who once rendered yeoman aid to his country by bringing out of Spain a mappamundi* faithfully drawn. He is known as the Cosmographer, and he dwells on the coast at Orfordnesse."
    Again the squire bowed assent.
    "You have a reputation. 'Tis said you use a sword like a fiend out of , which is to say with skill but little forethought. You have been in more broils than any dozen of your fellows. Once, I hear, you presumed to go forth alone in the guise of a wherryman. So habited, you ventured rashly to row armed men across a river within the