“And what be’st thou doing, nevvy?” asked the jester. “Thy trade seems as brisk as though red blood were flowing instead of red wine.”
“I am doing my part towards making the King into Hercules,” said Stephen, “though verily the tailor hath more part therein than we have; but he must needs have a breastplate of scales of gold, and that by to-morrow’s morn. As Ambrose would say, ‘if he will be a pagan god, he should have what’s-his-name, the smith of the gods, to work for him.’”
“I heard of that freak,” said the jester. “There be a dozen tailors and all the Queen’s tirewomen frizzling up a good piece of cloth of gold for the lion’s mane, covering a club with green damask with pricks, cutting out green velvet and gummed silk for his garland! In sooth, these graces have left me so far behind in foolery that I have not a jest left in my pouch! So here I be, while my Lord Cardinal is shut up with Madame d’Angoulême in the castle—the real old castle, mind you—doing the work, leaving the kings and queens to do their own fooling.”
“Have you spoken with the French King, Hal?” asked Smallbones, who had become a great crony of his, since the anxieties of May Eve.
“So far as I may when I have no French, and he no English! He is a comely fellow, with a blithe tongue and a merry eye, I warrant you a chanticleer who will lose nought for lack of crowing. He’ll crow louder than ever now he hath given our Harry a fall.”
“No! hath he?” and Giles, Stephen, and Smallbones, all suspended their work to listen in concern.
“Ay marry, hath he! The two took it into their royal noddles to try a fall, and wrestled together on the grass, when by some ill hap, this same Francis tripped up our Harry, so that he was on the sward for a moment. He was up again forthwith, and in full heart for another round, when all the Frenchmen burst in gabbling; and, though their King was willing to play the match out fairly, they wouldn’t let him, and my Lord Cardinal said something about making ill blood, whereat our King laughed and was content to leave it. As I told him, we have given the French falls enough to let them make much of this one.”
“I hope he will yet give the mounseer a good shaking,” muttered Smallbones.
“How now, Will! Who’s that at the door? We are on his grace’s work and can touch none other man’s were it the King of France himself, or his Constable, who is finer still.”
By way of expressing “No admittance except on business,” Smallbones kept Will Wherry in charge of the door of his little territory, which having a mud wall on two sides, and a broad brook with quaking banks on a third, had been easily fenced on the fourth, so as to protect tent, waggon, horses, and work from the incursions of idlers. Will however answered, “The gentleman saith he hath kindred here.”