“By my Lady Saint Mary, that wis I little,” said he. “At Windsor, maybe, or Woodstock—with the King.”
“The palmer told us the King was at Woodstock,” remarked one of the hitherto silent monks.
The Abbot annihilated him by a glance.
“Verily, an’ he were,” remarked Sir Godfrey, “it should tell but little by now, when he may as like as not be at Winchester or Norwich.”
Our Plantagenet sovereigns were perpetual travellers up and down the kingdom, rarely staying even a fortnight in one place, though occasionally they were stationary for some weeks; but the old and infirm King who now occupied the throne had moved about less than usual of late years.
Perrote was silent, but her face took a resolute expression, which Sir Godfrey had learned to his annoyance. When the “bothering old woman” looked like that, she generally bothered him before he was much older. And Sir Godfrey, like many others of his species, detested being bothered.
He soon found that fate remembered him. As he was going up to bed that night, he found Perrote waiting for him on the landing.
“Sir, pray you a word,” said she.
Sir Godfrey stood sulkily still.
“If my Lord Duke be now in England, should he not know that his mother is near her end?”