'Well, here be great marvels,' Margot laughed.
He shook his red sides, and his blue eyes grew malicious and teasing:
'Such a strumpet as thy lady,' he uttered. 'A Papist Howard that is known to have been loved by twenty men in Lincoln.'
Margot passed from laughter into hot anger:
'It is a marvel God strikes not their tongues with palsy that said that,' she said swiftly. 'Why do you not kill some of them if you be a man?'
'Why, be calmed,' he said. 'You have heard such tales before now. It is no more than saying that a woman goes not to their churches to pray.'
A young Marten Pewtress, half page, half familiar to the Earl of Surrey, came towards them calling, 'Hal Poins.' He had black down upon his chin and a roving eye. He wore a purple coat like a tabard, and a cap with his master's arms upon a jewelled brooch.
'They say there's a Howard wench come to Court,' he cried from a distance, 'and thy sister in her service.'
'We talk of her,' Poins answered. 'Here is my sister.'
The young Pewtress kissed the girl upon the cheek.