Wala wa! that time was past. And she had shown no pity.
I never loved her, as in mine opening words I writ: yet in that dread moment I could not find in mine heart to leave her all alone in her agony. I have ever found that he which brings his sorrows on his own head doth not suffer less thereby, but more. And let her be what she would, she was a woman, and in sorrow, not to say mine own liege Lady: and signing to Dame Joan to follow me, down degrees ran I with all haste, and not staying to scratch on the door (Note 9), into the chamber to the Queen.
We found her sitting up in her bed, her hands held forth, and a look of agony and horror on her face.
“Cicely, is it thou?” she shrieked. “Joan! Whence come ye? Saw ye aught? What do they to him? who be the miscreants? Is my son there? Have they won him over—the coward neddirs (serpents) that they be! Speak I who be they?—and what will they do? Ah, Mary Mother, what will they do with him?”
Her voice choked, and I spake.
“Dame, the King is there, and divers with him.”
“What do they?” she wailed like a woman in her last agony.
“There hath been sharp assault, Dame,” said I, “and I fear some slain; for as I ran in hither, I saw that which seemed me the body of a dead man at the head of degrees.”
“Who?” She nearhand screamed.
“Dame,” I said, “I think it was Sir Hugh de Turpington.”