The knights and squires of the Earl of Cornwall’s household were gathered together on the balcony which faced the river. One only was absent, Piers Ingham, who was occupied in a more interesting manner, as will presently be seen. His colleague, Sir Lambert Aylmer, was holding forth in a lively manner for the benefit of the four squires, who were listening to him with various degrees of attention. Reginald de Echingham could never spare much of that quality from his admirable self, and De Chaucombe was an original thinker, who did not purchase ready-made ideas from other people. Barkeworth invariably agreed with the last speaker in public, but kept his private views an inscrutable mystery; while all that could be said of Gernet’s notions was that he had “un grand talent pour le silence.”
To this quartette Sir Lambert was explaining his forecast of the political weather. The young knight had a great fancy for airing his politics, and an unwavering conviction of the infallibility of his judgment. If Sir Lambert was to be believed, what King Edward would undoubtedly do was to foment civil war in Scotland, until all the rival male claimants had destroyed each other. He would then marry the daughter of one of them, and annex Scotland as her appanage. All being smooth in that quarter, the King would next undertake a pilgrimage to Palestine, drive the Saracens out, and confer that country on one of his sons-in-law. He would then carry fire and sword through Borussia, Lithuania, and other heathen kingdoms in the north, subdue them all, put a few more sons-in-law in possession as tributary governors, and being by that time an old man, would then return to Westminster to end his days in peace, a new Alexander, and to leave a magnificent empire to his son.
“Easier said than done,” growled De Chaucombe, in his beard.
“Charming!” observed De Echingham, caressing his pet moustache.
“A lovely prospect, indeed,” said De Barkeworth, with a bow, in a tone so impartially suspended between conviction and cynicism that nobody could tell which had dictated it. “I should like to win my spurs in Lithuania.”
“Win thy spurs!” muttered De Chaucombe again. “There are no spurs for carpet-knights (Note 3) in the wardrobe of the Future.”
“I think knights should have golden spurs, not gilt ones—don’t you?” inquired De Echingham.
“Puppy!” sneered De Chaucombe. “If ever either are on thy heels it will be a blunder of somebody’s making.”
“Is it necessary to quarrel?” asked Gernet, speaking for the first time.