“Sir,” said Leonard, “it is true that by mishap, nay, if you will have it so, by a child’s inadvertence, I caused this evil chance to befall your daughter, but I deny, and my father denies likewise, that there was any troth plight between the maid and me. She will own the same if you ask her. As I spake before, there was talk of the like kind between you, sir, and my father, and it was the desire of the good King that thus the families might be reconciled; but the contract went no farther, as the holy King himself owned when I gave my faith to the Lord Audley’s daughter, and with it my heart.”
“Aye, we know that the Frenchwoman can make the poor fool of a King believe and avouch anything she choose! This is not the point. No more words, young man. Here stands my daughter; there is the rope. Choose—wed or hang.”
Leonard stood one moment with a look of agonised perplexity over his face. Then he said, “If I consent, am I at liberty, free at once to depart?”
“Aye,” said Whitburn. “So you fulfil your contract, the rest is nought to me.”
“I am then at liberty? Free to carry my sword to my Queen and King?”
“Free.”
“You swear it, on the holy cross?”
Lord Whitburn held up the cross hilt of his sword before him, and made oath on it that when once married to his daughter, Leonard Copeland was no longer his prisoner.
Grisell through her veil read on the youthful face a look of grief and renunciation; he was sacrificing his love to the needs of King and country, and his words chimed in with her conviction.
“Sir, I am ready. If it were myself alone, I would die rather than be false to my love, but my Queen needs good swords and faithful hearts, and I may not fail her. I am ready!”