XIV
THE QUEEN OF ARCHERY
As the King appeared before the pavilion, a bugle rang out, thesoldiers presented halberds, and all talk ceased sharply.
"My good friends," said he, "I have brought you here to-day to testyour skill with a weapon that once made an English army the most fearedin all the world. In a word, I am curious to know how steadily you candraw the cord and lay your bodies to the bow. Yonder are the butts,and here the staves and the draw line. It is but a poor one hundredpaces to the nearest clout; and as that will be too beggarly a distancefor you, my lords, you shall use the second. The first has been placedfor the fair dames who are to shoot with you, if they will."
And taking the hand of the Queen, who had come forth with the Countessof Clare and was standing beside him, he led the way to the near end ofthe clearing where, on a rustic table built of boughs, were piled anassortment of yew staves and arrows of seasoned ash, with cords of deerhide, wrist gloves, baldrics, and all the paraphernalia essential tothe archer's outfit.
"Let the lots be drawn," he commanded; and a page came forward with thedisc-bag.
As soon as De Lacy saw that Beatrix would participate in the contest,he chose with much care a stave best adapted for her wrist, and pickingout a string to correspond and three grey-goose-feather shafts of aproper length and thickness, he brought them to her.
"Do you not shoot?" she asked.
"Yes--but with small hope. The French do not run to the long bow, andwhile once I could ring the blanc I am sadly out of practice."
"Ring it now . . . you can," she said softly.
He looked at her hesitatingly. "Tell me," he said, coming a bitnearer; "tell me . . . will you be sorry if I fail?"
But the old habit held her and she veered off. "Assuredly . . . itwould be poor friendship if I were not." . . . A bowstring twanged andthe crowd applauded. "Come," she exclaimed, "the match has begun."
"And is this my answer?" he asked.
"Yes, Sir Insistent . . . until the ride back," and left him.
The luck of the discs had made the Countess of Clare the last to shoot.When she came forward to the line the butt was dotted over with thefeathered shafts; but the white eye that looked out from their midstwas still unharmed, though the Duchess of Buckingham and Lady Cliftonhad grazed its edge. Beatrix had slipped the arrows through hergirdle, and plucking out one she fitted it to the string with easygrace. Then without pausing to measure the distance she raised thebow, and drawing with the swift but steady motion of the right wristgot only by hard practice, and seemingly without taking aim, she spedthe shaft toward the mark.
"Bravo!" exclaimed the King, as it quivered in the white.
Before the word had died, the second arrow rested beside it; and evenas it struck, the string twanged again and the third joined the othersin the blanc.
"My dear Countess," said Richard, "I did not know we entertainedanother Monarch. Behold the Queen of Archery! Hail and welcome to ourKingdom and our Court! . . . Gentlemen, have you no knee for HerMajesty?"
Beatrix blushed and curtsied in return, then quickly withdrew to theside of the Queen.
"Methinks, my lords," Richard said, "you have got a hard score to best.However, it is but two hundred yards to your target; so let it be thenotch to the string, the string to the ear, and the shaft in the whiteclout yonder."
As the King had said, the distance was short for rovers. In allregular contests the mark was never under two hundred and twenty paces,and in many districts it was nearer four hundred. Nevertheless, tostrike an object, even at two hundred, that seemed no larger than one'shand is no easy task; and yet, as one after another took his turn, theclout was pierced repeatedly; once by some, and twice by others; butonly the Duke of Buckingham and Sir Aymer de Lacy struck it thrice. Itchanced, however, that one of the latter's arrows landed directly inthe center, on the pin that held the cloth, and this gave him the prize.
"For one who is half a Frenchman, Sir Aymer, you handle a long bow mostamazing well," the King remarked. . . "Pardieu! what say you to amatch between the victors?"
A murmur of approval greeted the suggestion.
"May it please you, my liege," said De Lacy, "permit me now to yield.I am no match for the Queen of Archery."
"We will not excuse you . . . nor, I fancy, will the Countess," turningtoward her.
"If Sir Aymer de Lacy will engage to shoot his best and show no favor,I shall not refuse the trial," she replied, coming forward.
"By St. Paul!" Richard exclaimed. "I will answer for that . . . hereis the prize," and deftly plucking the lace kerchief from her hand hepassed it to a page. "Substitute this for the clout in the fartarget," he said.
De Lacy thought she would refuse the contest; but to his surprise shesmiled--though with rather indifferent hauteur.
"It is hardly fitting, Sire," she said, choosing an arrow, "that Ishould both contribute the prize and contest for it."
Then Sir Aymer spoke, bowing low: "May it please Your Majesty, I amyour leal subject, yet I shall not shoot at yonder mark unless theCountess of Clare consent."
She gave him a grateful look.
"I thank you, Sir Aymer, for the courtesy," she said. . . "Shoot andwelcome;" and she stepped to the draw line.
It may have been that she was careless, or that the scene had made hernervous, for while her first two arrows struck the blanc truly asbefore, the third went a finger's length above it. With a shrug sheturned away, and loosing the string leaned on the long stave, waiting.
De Lacy had purposed letting her defeat him by a margin so slender asnot to seem intentional, but catching the dark eyes of the King fixedon him with sharp significance, he understood that he was to win if hecould. So he drew with care, and pierced the kerchief thrice.
De Lacy received the bit of lace from the page and proffered it to theCountess.
"It is quite destroyed," he said. "I am sorry."
She laughed lightly. "You owe me no apologies, and need feel noregret. You won it honestly--and I accept it now as a gift; a guerdonof your prowess and your courtesy."
He bowed; and as his glance sought the King, the latter nodded, ever solightly, in approval.
An hour later, after the repast was served, the trumpet gave the signalfor departure. As De Lacy stepped forward to hold the stirrup, Richardwaved him aside, and putting one hand on his horse's wither, vaultedeasily into place.
"Look to the ladies!" he called; "and do you, Sir Aymer, escort theCountess of Clare. It is meet that the King of the Bow should attendupon his Queen."
Then dropping his tones, so that they were audible only to De Lacy, hesaid with a familiar earnestness: "And if you do not turn the kerchiefto advantage, you deserve no further aid."
Reining over beside the Queen, he motioned for the others to follow anddashed off toward Windsor. In a trice they were gone, and, save forthe servants, the Countess and De Lacy were alone.
She was standing beside Wilda waiting to be put up, and when Aymertried to apologize for the delay, she stopped him.
"It was no fault of yours," she said--then added archly, head turnedhalf aside: "and you must blame Richard Plantagenet for being left withme."
"Blame him?" he exclaimed, lifting her slowly--very slowly--intosaddle. . . "Blame him! . . . Do you think I call it so?" and fell toarranging her skirt, and lingering over it so plainly that the Countesssmiled in unreserved amusement. Yet she did not hurry him. And whenhe had dallied as long as he thought he dared, he stole a quick glanceupward--and she let him see the smile.
"Am I very clumsy?" he asked, swinging up on Selim.
She waited until they had left the clearing and the grooms behind themand were among the great tall trees:
"Surely not . . . only very careful," she said teasingly.
He was puzzled at this new mood that had come with the archery andstill tarried--this careless gayety under circumstances which,hitherto, would have made her severe and distant. He was so used t
obeing frowned upon, reproved, and held at the point that he was quiteblind to the change it signaled. He bent his eyes on his horse's mane.He thought of the King's words as to the kerchief and longed for a bitof his astute penetration and wonderful tact, that he might solve thisprovoking riddle beside him and lead up to what was beating so fiercelyin his breast. In his perplexity he looked appealingly toward her.
She was watching him with the same amused smile she had worn since thefixing of the skirt; and was guessing, with womanly intuition, what waspassing in his mind.
"And forsooth, Sir King of the Bow," she said--and the smile rippledinto a laugh--"are you so puffed up by your victory that you will notdeign to address me, but must needs hold yourself aloof, even whenthere is none to see your condescension! . . . Perchance even to ridebeside me will compromise your dignity. Proceed. . . Proceed. . . Ican follow; or wait for the grooms or the scullions with the victualcarts."
And this only increased De Lacy's amazement and indecision.
"Why do you treat me so?" he demanded.
"Do you not like my present mood?" she asked. "Yea, verily, that I do!but it is so novel I am bewildered. . . My brain is whirling. . . Youare like a German escutcheon: hard to read aright."
"Then why try the task?"
"I prefer the task," he answered. "It may be difficult, yet it has itscompensations."
"You flatterer," she exclaimed; and for an instant the smile becamealmost tender.
"Pardieu! . . . You grow more inexplicable still. . . Yesterday Iwould have been rated sharply for such words and called presumptuousand kindred names."
"And what of to-day . . . if that were yesterday?"
"To-day! . . . To-day! . . . It has been the mirror of all theyesterdays since the happy one that gave me first sight of you atPontefract; . . . and the later one when, ere I rode back to London, Ibegged a favor--the kerchief you had dropped by accident--and wasdenied." . . . He drew Selim nearer. . . "To-day I again secured yourkerchief; and though I wished to keep it sorely as I wished before tokeep the other, yet like it, too, I could only give it back. And now,even as I begged before, I beg again for the favor. Will you not grantit?"
The smile faded and her face went serious.
"Do you not forget the words of that first refusal," she asked, "that'Beatrix de Beaumont grants neither gage nor favor until she plightsher troth'?"
"Nay, I have not forgotten"--and with sudden hope that made his throatthicken and his fingers chill he reached over and took her hand.
She did not withdraw it nor reprove him. Instead, she fastened hereyes on his face as though to read his very heart and soul.Unconsciously they had checked their horses. Then she blushed, andaverting her eyes in confusion strove to release her hand. But De Lacypressed on, though his heart beat fast and his head throbbed. Leaningacross, he put his arm about her waist and drew her--strugglinggently--toward him.
"And the kerchief, dear one?" he whispered.
"Nay, Aymer, you surely do not wish it now," she answered brokenly.
"Now, more than any earthly gift or Heavenly grace. . . Give it to me,sweetheart."
She had ceased to resist and his face was getting perilously near herown.
Suddenly, and with a smile De Lacy never forgot, she drew forth the bitof torn lace. "Here, take it, dear," she said.
"And you with it, sweetheart?" he cried.
"Unto death, my lord," she answered; and once more the blushes came.
She tried to hide her face in her hands, but with a joyous laugh Aymerlifted her from the saddle and swung her across and into his strongarms.