'Your messenger is not come back,' said Bedford, presently, rousing himself.
'It may have been no easy task,' replied James, not however without uneasiness.
'I would,' said Bedford, presently, 'that I had writ the matter straight to Robsart. The lad is weak, and may be tampered with.'
'He knows that I have pledged my honour for him,' said James.
Bedford's thin lips moved at the corners.
'Nay,' said James, not angrily, 'the youth hath in some measure disappointed me. The evil in him shot forth faster than the good under this camp life; but methinks there is in him a certain rare quality of soul that I loved him for at the first, and though it hath lain asleep all this time, yet what he hath now seen seemed to me about to work the change in him.'
'It may be so,' said Bedford; 'and yet I would I had not consented to his going where that woman of Hainault might work on him to fret the Lady Esclairmonde.'
James started somewhat as he remembered overruling this objection of Malcolm's own making. 'She cannot have the insolence,' he said.
At that moment a hasty step approached; the door was opened with scant ceremony, and Ralf Percy, covered from head to foot with blood, hurried in breathless and panting.
'My lord Duke, your license! Here is Malcolm Stewart set upon in the forest by robbers and stabbed!'
'Slain? Dead?' cried both princes, springing up in horror.
'Alive still--in the chapel--asking for you, my lord,' said Percy. 'He bade us lay him there at the King's feet; and as it was the readiest way to a priest, we did his bidding.'
'My poor Malcolm!' sighed James; and he and Bedford hastened to obey the summons.
There was time on the way for Ralf Percy to give them the particulars. 'We had gone forth--Trenton, Kitson, altogether some half-dozen of us--for a mouthful of air in the forest after our guard all day in the chapel, when about a mile from the Castle we heard a scuffle, and clashing of arms. So breaking through the thicket, we saw a score of fellows on horseback fully armed, and in the midst poor Glenuskie dragged to the ground and struggling hard with two of them. We drew our swords, hallooed, and leapt out; and the knaves never stayed to see how many of us there were, but made off like the dastards they were, but not till one had dealt poor Stewart this parting stroke. He hath been bleeding like a sheep all the way home, and hath scarce spoken but a thanksgiving for our having come in time, as he called it, and to ask for Dr. Bennet and the Duke.'
The words brought them to the door of the chapel, where for a time the chants around King Henry had paused in the agitation of the new arrival. As the black and white crowd of priests and monks opened and made way for the King and Duke, they saw, in the full light of the wax tapers, laid on a pile of cushions not far from King Henry's feet, the figure of Malcolm, his riding-gown open at the breast, and kerchiefs dyed and soaked with blood upon it; the black of his garments and hair enhancing the ghastly whiteness of his face, and yet an air of peace and joy in the eyes and in the folded hands, as Dr. Bennet and another priest stood over him, administering those abbreviated rites of farewell blessing which the Church sanctioned in cases of sudden and violent death. The princes both stood aside, and presently Malcolm faintly said, 'Thank God! I trusted to His mercy to pardon! Now all would be well could I but see the Duke.'
'I am here, dear youth,' said Bedford, kneeling on one side of him; while James, coming to the other side, spoke to him affectionately; but to him Malcolm only replied by a fond clasp of the hand, giving his sole attention to Bedford, to whom he held the signet.
'It has cost too much,' said Bedford, sadly.
'Oh, Sir, this would be naught, save that I am all that lies between her--the Lady Esclairmonde--and Boemond of Burgundy;' and as at that moment Bedford saw the gold betrothal ring on the finger, his countenance lost something of the pitying concern it had worn. Malcolm detected the expression, and rallying his powers the more, continued: 'Sir, there was no help--they vowed that she must choose between Boemond and me. On the faith of a dying man, I hold her troth but in trust; I pledged myself to her to restore it when her way is clear to her purpose. She would never be mine but in name. And now who will save her? My life alone is between her and yonder wolf. Oh, Sir Duke, promise me to save her, and I die content.'
'This is mere waste of time!' broke in the Duke. 'Where are the knave chirurgeons?--See, James, if the lad dies, 'twill be from mere loss of blood; there is no inward bleeding; and if there be no more loitering, he will do well.'
And seeing the surgeons at hand, he would have risen to make way, but Malcolm held him fast, reiterating, 'Save her, Sir.'
'If your life guards her, throw it not away by thus dallying,' said Bedford, disengaging himself; while Malcolm groaned heavily, and turned his heavy eyes to his royal friend, who said kindly, 'Fear not, dear cousin; either thou wilt live, or he will be better than his word.'
'God will guard her, I know,' said Malcolm; 'and oh! my own dear lord, I need not ask you to be the brother to my poor sister you have been to me. At least all will be clear for her and Patie!'
'I trust not yet,' said James, smiling in encouragement. 'Thou wilt live, my faithful laddie.'
Malcolm was spent and nearly fainting by this time, and all his reply was a few gasps of 'Only say you pardon me all, my lord, and will speak for HER to the Duke! ask HER prayers for me!' and as James sealed his few words of reply with a kiss, he closed his eyes, and became unconscious; in which state he was conveyed to his bed.
'You might have set his mind at rest,' said James, somewhat hurt, to the Duke.
'Who? I!' said Bedford. 'I cannot stir a finger that could set us at enmity with Burgundy, for any lady in the land. Moreover, if she have found means to secure herself once, she can do so again.'
'I would you could have been more kind to my poor boy,' said James.
'Methought I was the most reasonably kind of you all! Had it not been mere murder to keep him there prating and bleeding, I had asked of him what indiscretion had blown the secret and perilled the signet. No robbers were those between Paris and Vincennes in our midst, but men who knew what he bore. I'll never--'
Bedford just restrained himself from saying, 'trust a Scot again;' but his manner had vexed and pained James, who returned to Malcolm, and left him no more till called by necessity to his post as King Henry's chief mourner, when the care of him was left to Patrick Drummond and old Bairdsbrae; and Malcolm was a very tranquil patient, who seemed to need nothing but the pleasure of looking at the ring on his finger. The weapon had evidently touched no vital part, and he was decidedly on the way to recovery, when on the second evening Bedford met James, saying: 'I have seen Robsart. It was no indiscretion of young Glenuskie's. It was only what comes of dealing with women. Can I see the boy without peril to him?'
Malcolm was so much better, that there was no reason against the Duke's admission, and soon Bedford's falcon-face looked down on him in all its melancholy.
'Thanks, my Lord Glenuskie,' he said; 'I thought not to be sending you on a service of such risk.'
'It was a welcome service,' said Malcolm.
Bedford's brows knitted themselves for a moment as he said, 'I came to ask whether you deem that this hurt was from a common robber or routier.'