“By God’s mercy, Eve, tell me, are you this fellow’s wife?” exclaimed Hugh.

“Not so,” she answered.  “Can a woman who is Dunwich born be wed without consent?  And can a woman whose will is foully drugged out of her give consent to that which she hates?  Why, if so there is no justice in the world.”

“’Tis a rare jewel in these evil days, daughter,” said Sir Andrew with a sigh.  “Still fret not yourself son Hugh.  A full statement of the case, drawn by skilled clerks and testified to by many witnesses, has gone forward already to his Holiness the Pope, of which statement true copies have been sent to the King and to the Bishops of Norwich and of Canterbury.  Yet be warned that in such matters the law ecclesiastic moves but slowly, and then only when its wheels are greased with gold.”

“Well,” answered Hugh with a fierce laugh, “there remains another law which moves more swiftly and its wheels are greased with vengeance; the law of the sword.  If you are married, Eve, I swear that before very long you shall be widowed or I dead.  I’ll not let de Noyon slip a second time even if he stands before the holiest altar in Christendom.”

“I’d have killed him in the chapel yonder,” muttered Grey Dick, who had entered with his master’s food and not been sent away.  “Only,” he added looking reproachfully at Sir Andrew, “my hand was stayed by a certain holy priest’s command to which, alack, I listened.”

“And did well to listen, man, since otherwise by now you would be excommunicate.”

“I could mock at that,” said Dick sullenly, “who make confession in my own way, and do not wish to be married, and care not the worth of a horseshoe nail how and where I am buried, provided those I hate are buried first.”

“Richard Archer, graceless wight that you are,” said Sir Andrew, “I say you stand in danger of your soul.”

“Ay, Father, and so the Frenchman, Acour, stood in danger of his body.  But you saved it, so perhaps if there is need at the last, you will do as much for my soul.  If not it must take its chance,” and snatching at the dish-cover angrily, he turned and left the chamber.

“Well,” commented Sir Andrew, shaking his head sadly, “if the fellow’s heart is hard it is honest, so may he be forgiven who has something to forgive like the rest of us.  Now hearken to me, son and daughter.  Wrong, grievous and dreadful, has been done to you both.  Yet, until death or the Church levels it, a wall that you may not climb stands between you, and when you meet it must be as friends—­no more.”

“Now I begin to wish that I had learned in Grey Dick’s school,” said Hugh.  But whatever she thought, Eve set her lips and said nothing.

CHAPTER IX

CRECY FIELD

It was Saturday, the 26th of August, in the year 1346.  The harassed English host—­but a little host, after all, retreating for its life from Paris—­had forced the passage of the Somme by the ford which a forgotten traitor, Gobin Agache by name, revealed to them.  Now it stood at bay upon the plain of Crecy, there to conquer or to die.