“But, my lord,” said Margery, very naturally, “an’t please you, I could not see so well in a litter.”
Lord Marnell’s displeased lips relaxed into a laugh, for he was amused at her simplicity; but he repeated that he begged she would remember, now that she had seen, that she was no longer plain Mistress Margery Lovell, but Baroness Marnell of Lymington, and would behave herself accordingly. Margery sighed at this curtailment of her liberty, and withdrew to see where Alice was putting her dresses.
As it was approaching evening, Lord Marnell’s voice called her downstairs.
“If thou wilt see a sight, Madge,” he said, good-naturedly, as she entered, “come quickly, and one will gladden thine eyes which never sawest thou before. The King rideth presently from the Savoy to the Tower.”
Margery ran to the window, and saw a number of horses, decked, as well as their riders, in all the colours of the rainbow, coming up the street from the stately Savoy Palace, which stood, surrounded by green fields, in what is now the Strand.
“Which is the King’s Grace, I pray you?” asked she, eagerly.
“He weareth a plain black hood and a red gown,” answered her husband. “He rideth a white horse, and hath a scarlet footcloth, all powdered over with ostrich feathers in gold.”
“What!” said Margery, in surprise, “that little, fair, goodly man, with the golden frontlet to his horse?”
“The very same,” said Lord Marnell. “The tall, comely man who rideth behind him, on yon brown horse, and who hath eyes like to an eagle, is the Duke of Lancaster. ‘John of Gaunt,’ the folk call him, by reason that he was born at Ghent, in Flanders.”
“And who be the rest, if I weary you not with asking?” said Margery, rather timidly.