"Ha, Wendot," said Edward, with a grave but not unkindly glance, "I have not seen you at these new duties before. So you are a student as well as a soldier? Well, the arts of peace will better become you for the future. I remember your face well, young man. I would it had not been my duty to place you under restraint; but you have broken faith with me, and that grievously. How then can it be possible to trust you in the future? You, as the head of the house, should have set your brothers an example of honour and fealty. As it is, it has been far otherwise, and now you will have to bear the burden of that breach of trust and honour."
Twice Griffeth had opened his lips as if to speak, but Alphonso laid his hand upon his arm with a warning touch, which said as plainly as words could do, "Be silent."
So the youth held his peace, and only bent his head in submission; and Edward, after a moment's pause, added more kindly:
"And how fares it with your brother, Wendot? I hear that his state is something precarious. I hope he has the best tendance the castle can afford, for I would not that any member of my son's household should suffer from lack of care."
"He has all that he needs, I thank you, sire," answered Griffeth. "He lies sorely sick at this present time, but I trust he will amend ere long."
And then the king turned to his son, and spoke with him on some message of the state, and departed without heeding the excited glances of Joanna or the restless way in which she kept looking first at Alphonso and then at Gertrude.
But scarcely had the door closed behind the retiring form of the king before the excitable girl had bounded to her brother's side.
"O Alphonso," she cried, "did you do it on purpose? Tell me what you have in your head."
Alphonso sat up and pushed the hair out of his eyes. Griffeth was simply looking on in surprise and bewilderment. The prince laid a hand upon his arm and spoke very earnestly.
"Griffeth," he said, "it seems to me that through this error of my father's we may yet find means to compass the deliverance of Wendot. There are none of those save ourselves who know which of you twain is the first-born and which the youngest. In your faces there is little to mark you one from the other. Griffeth, if thou wilt be willing to be called Wendot-- if Wendot will consent to be Griffeth -- then we may perchance make his way plain to depart and live in liberty once more; for it is Wendot, and not Griffeth, who has so roused my father's anger. Griffeth he might easily consent to pardon; but Wendot he will keep as a hostage in his own hands possibly for life itself."