Those brethren stood abashed in the presence of such rare beauty. Heming with a deep breath spake and said, “Madam, what slender opinion soever thou hast held of us of Witchland, I pray thee be satisfied that I and my kinsman have sought to thee now with a clean heart to do thee service.”
“Princes,” said she, “scarce might ye blame me did I misdoubt you. Yet, seeing that my life’s days have been not among ambidexters and coney-catchers but lovers of clean hands and open dealing, not even after that which I this night endured will mine heart believe that all civility is worn away in Witchland. Did I not freely receive Corinius’s self when I did open my gates to him, firmly believing him to be a king and not a ravening wolf?”
Then said Heming, “Canst thou wear armour, madam? Thou art something of an height with my brother. To bring thee past the guard, if thou go armed, as I shall conduct thee, the wine they have drunken shall be thy minister. I have provided an horse. In the likeness of my young brother mayst thou ride forth to-night out of this castle, and win clean away. But in thine own shape thou mayst never pass from these thy lodgings, for he hath set a guard thereon; being resolved, come thereof what may, to visit thee here this night: in thine own chamber, madam.”
The sounds of furious revelry floated up from the banquet chamber. Mevrian heard by snatches the voice of Corinius singing an unseemly song. As in the presence of some dark influence that threatened an ill she might not comprehend, yet felt her blood quail and her heart grow sick because of it, she looked on those brethren.
She said at last, “Was this your plan?”
Heming answered, “It was the Lord Gro did most ingenuously conceive it. But Corinius, as he hath ever held him in distrust, and most of all when he hath drunken overmuch, keepeth him most firmly at his elbow.”
Cargo now did off his armour, and Mevrian calling in her women to take this and other gear fared straightway to an inner chamber to change her fashion.
Heming said to his brother, “Thou shalt need to go about it with great circumspection, to come off when we are gone so as thou be not aspied. Were I thou, I should be tempted for the rareness of the jest to await his coming, and assay whether thou couldst not make as good a counterfeit Mevrian as she a counterfeit Cargo.”
“Thou,” said Cargo, “mayst well laugh and be gay, thou that must conduct her. And art resolved, I dare lay my head to a turnip, to do thy utmost endeavour to despoil Corinius of that felicity he hath to-night decreed him, and bless thyself therewith.”
“Thou hast fallen,” answered Heming, “into a most barbarous thought. Shall my tongue be so false a traitor to mine heart as to say I love not this lady? Compare but her beauty and my youth together, how should it other be? But with such a height of fervour I do love her that I’d as lief offer violence to a star of heaven, as require of her aught but honest.”