And truly, to a man upon whose soul eleven murders lay lightly, an invalidated marriage was likely to be no oppressive weight.
“Yet even now,” resumed the King, again knitting his brows uneasily, “methinks all hardships be scarce vanished. Our good cousin of Kent is he that should not be turned aside from his quarry (object of pursuit; a hunting phrase) by a brook in his way.”
“Not if an eagle arose beyond the heron he pursued?” suggested Arundel, significantly.
“Ha!” said the King.
“He is marvellous taken with beauty,” resumed his priestly counsellor. “And the Lady Custance is not the sole woman in the world.”
“You have some further thought, Father,” urged Henry.
“Methinks your Grace hath a good friend in the Lord Galeas, Duke of Milan?”
“Ay, of olden time,” answered the King, with a sigh. Was it caused by the regretful thought that if he could bring back that olden time, when young Henry of Bolingbroke was learning Italian at Milan and Venice, he might be a happier man than now?
“He hath sisters, methinks, that bear high fame for fair and lovesome?”
“None higher in Christendom.”