But at last the Queen got resistless aid from Count William of Hainault (in a way to be told about hereafter), and the King was captured by her forces, and was imprisoned in Berkeley Castle.  There they held the second Edward to reign in England, who was the unworthy son of Dame Ellinor and of that first squinting King Edward about whom I have told you in the two tales preceding this tale.  It was in the September of this year, a little before Michaelmas, that they brought Sir Gregory Darrell to be judged by the Queen; notoriously the knight had been her husband’s adherent.  “Death!” croaked Adam Orleton, who sat to the right hand, and, “Young de Spencer’s death!” amended the Earl of March, with wild laughter; but Ysabeau leaned back in her great chair—­a handsome woman, stoutening now from gluttony and from too much wine,—­and regarded her prisoner with lazy amiability.

“And what was your errand in Figgis Wood?” she demanded—­“or are you mad, then, Gregory Darrell, that you dare ride past my gates alone?”

He curtly said, “I rode for Ordish.”

Followed silence.  “Roger,” the Queen ordered, “give me the paper which I would not sign.”

The Earl of March had drawn an audible breath.  The Bishop of London somewhat wrinkled his shaggy brows, like a person in shrewd and epicurean amusement, while the Queen subscribed the parchment, with a great scrawling flourish.

“Take, in the devil’s name, the hire of your dexterities,” said Ysabeau.  She pushed this document with her wet pen-point toward March.  “So! get it over with, that necessary business with my husband at Berkeley.  And do the rest of you withdraw, saving only my prisoner.”

Followed another silence.  Queen Ysabeau lolled in her carven chair, considering the comely gentleman who stood before her, fettered, at the point of shameful death.  There was in the room a little dog which had come to the Queen, and now licked the palm of her left hand, and the soft lapping of its tongue was the only sound you heard.  “So at peril of your life you rode for Ordish, then, messire?”

The tense man had flushed.  “You have harried us of the King’s party out of England,—­and in reason I might not leave England without seeing the desire of my heart.”

“My friend,” said Ysabeau, as if half in sorrow, “I would have pardoned anything save that.”  She rose.  Her face was dark and hot.  “By God and all His saints! you shall indeed leave England to-morrow and the world also! but not without a final glimpse of this same Rosamund.  Yet listen:  I, too, must ride with you to Ordish—­as your sister, say—­Gregory, did I not hang, last April, the husband of your sister?  Yes, Ralph de Belomys, a thin man with eager eyes, the Earl of Farrington he was.  As his widow I will ride with you to Ordish, upon condition you disclose to none at Ordish, saving only, if you will, this quite immaculate Rosamund, any hint of our merry carnival.  And to-morrow (you will swear according to the nicest obligations of honor) you must ride back with me to encounter—­that which I may devise.  For I dare to trust your naked word in this, and, moreover, I shall take with me a sufficiency of retainers to leave you no choice.”