"So be it. I will put vengeance within your reach. It shall lie with you to take it, if you carry out the plan I have in my head."
"Another fat abbey to sack!" cried the younger brother. "In good sooth, brother, you smite with your hands while you give your back to be smitten," he laughed.
"Not so," rejoined Fulke. "I am in no mind to meddle with churches for the nonce. This is quite another kind of deer to chase. You mind that special commission of the king's justices, convoked at Dunstable not long since to inquire into certain of my doings in these parts, which it seemed pleased not those most concerned with them. It hath come to my knowledge that the court has pronounced judgment against me. They may, by my troth, if it pleases them, for it does me no harm. No less than thirty verdicts did they bring against me," he went on chuckling, "and for these thirty verdicts some one shall suffer, I warrant me, though it shall not be he whom their worships had in their mind's eye when they delivered them!"
William gazed at his brother admiringly. His weaker, shallower brain, already somewhat fuddled with his copious libations of the past few weeks, followed him with difficulty.
"Beshrew me, brother, if I see what nail thou art hammering at. These justices will have none of me."
"But I fain will that you have some of them," Fulke went on. "It would beseem ill to the repentant son of Holy Church to lift his arm so soon against her after she has absolved him, for one of these justices is a priest. But you, brother, owe her naught. From trusty sources I learn that these three legal spiders are to meet again at Dunstable for further spinning as soon as this retreat at Elstow is over. Now, what say you, brother, to meeting them upon their journey thither, and to bringing to Bedford Castle, instead of to Dunstable town, the worshipful Thomas de Muleton, Henry de Braybrooke, and Martin de Pateshulle?"
"Martin de Pateshulle!" interrupted William eagerly. "Pardie! a De Pateshulle is a quarry that would please me well."
"He is learned in the law, this priest," Fulke continued, apparently not heeding how his fish had risen to his bait. "The king can fare ill without his counsel in these parts, and methinks, were he and his brother worships safe caged in our stronghold here, it would prove Fulke de Breauté to be a greater fool than men hold him for did he not get what ransom he named. But, certes, I would be merciful, as it beseemeth with a priest. I would ask neither silver nor gold, naught save the remission of the thirty judgments that are out against me. What say you, brother? Is the snaring this legal vermin to your mind?"
"'Twould be good sport, by my troth!" ejaculated William, "though methinks it is no easy emprise! To seize the king's justices! 'Tis a bold swoop, brother."
"Tush!" replied Fulke scornfully; "there speaks no brother of mine! I trow a De Breauté, bastard from a little Norman village, had ne'er sat in the seigneur's parlour of this, one of the fairest of English castles, had he piped in that strain. Take another draught, brother," he added, pushing the flagon across.