He leaned upon the manage rail, and halted to rest his leg that pained him.
'It is a good errand enough,' he said.
She was panting like a bird that you hold in your hand, so that all her body shook, and she blurted out:
'I would not that my cousin should murder a Churchman!' and before his eyebrows could go up in an amazed and haughty stare: 'I am like to be hanged between Privy Seal and Winchester.'
He seemed to fall against the white bar of the rail for support, his eyes wide with incredulity.
He said: 'When were women hanged here?'
'Sir,' she said earnestly, 'you are the only one I can speak to. I am in great peril from these men.'
He shook his head at her.
'You have gone mad,' he said gravely. 'What is this fluster?'
'Give me your ear for a minute,' she pleaded. Her fear of him as a man seemed to have died down. As a king she had never feared him. 'These men do seek each other's lives, and many are like to be undone between them.'