“And now, Clarice, I have another thing to say.”
“At your pleasure, Dame.”
“I think it but meet to tell thee a thing I have heard from thy father—that the Lord Edmund, Earl of Cornwall, thy lady’s baron, is one that hath some queer ideas in his head. I know not well what kind they are; but folk say that he is a strange man and hath strange talk. So do thou mind what thou dost. Alway be reverent to him, as is meet; but suffer him not to talk to thee but in presence of thy lady.”
Clarice felt rather frightened—all the more so from the extreme vagueness of the warning.
“And now lap up thy sewing, child, for I see thy father coming in, and we will go down to hall.”
A few weeks later three horses stood ready saddled at the door of Sir Gilbert’s house. One was laden with luggage; the second was mounted by a manservant; and the third, provided with saddle and pillion, was for Clarice and her father. Sir Gilbert, fully armed, mounted his steed, Clarice was helped up behind him, and with a final farewell to Dame La Theyn, who stood in the doorway, they rode forth on their way to Oakham Castle. Three days’ journey brought them to their destination, and they were witnesses of a curious ceremony just as they reached the Castle gate. All over the gate horseshoes were nailed. A train of visitors were arriving at the Castle, and the trumpeter sounded his horn for entrance.
“Who goes there?” demanded the warder. “The right noble and puissant Prince Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, Leicester, and Derby; and his most noble lady, Blanche, Queen Dowager of Navarre, Countess of the same, cousins unto my gracious Lord of Cornwall.”
“Is this my said noble Lord’s first visit unto the lordship of Oakham?” asked the warder, without opening the gate. “It is.”
“Then our gracious Lord, as Lord of the said manor, demands of him one of the shoes of the horse whereon he rides as tribute due from every peer of the realm on his first coming to this lordship.”
“My right noble and puissant Lord,” returned the trumpeter, “denies the said shoe of his horse; but offers in the stead one silver penny, for the purchase of a shoe in lieu thereof.”