“Since I have your majesty's permission,” he said, “I choose, as queen of the tournament, Mistress Edith Vernon.”
There was a movement of surprise and a general smile. Perhaps to all who thought that they had a chance of being chosen the selection was a relief, as none could be jealous of the pretty child, who, at the king's order, made her way forward to the front, and took her seat in a chair placed between the king and queen. The girl coloured brightly; but she had heard so much of tourneys and jousts that she knew what was her duty. She had been sitting far back on the previous day, and the apprentice, when brought up before the king, was too far below for her to see his features. She now recognized him.
“Sir Knights,” she said in a loud, clear, childish voice, “you will both do your duty today and show yourselves worthy cavaliers. Methinks that, as queen of the tourney, I should be neutral between you, but as one of you carries my gage in his helm, my good wishes must needs go with him; but bright eyes will be fixed on you both, and may well stir you to deeds of valour.”
So saying, she resumed her seat with a pretty air of dignity.
“Why, sweetheart,” the king said, “how is it that this 'prentice lad knows your name, and how is it that he wears your gage, for I know that the young Pembroke wears the glove of the Earl of Surrey's daughter?”
“He saved my life, sir, mine and my mother's,” the child said, “and I told him he should be my true knight, and gave him my bracelet, which you see he wears in his helm.”
“I recall somewhat of the story,” the king said, “and will question my Lady Vernon further anon; but see, the combatants are filing off to their places.”
With flags flying and trumpets blowing young Pembroke led his forces into the castle. Each of his ten knights was followed by an esquire bearing his banner, and each had ten men-at-arms under his immediate order. Two of them, with twenty men, remained in the outwork beyond the drawbridge. The rest took their station on the walls, and towers, where a platform had been erected, running along three feet below the battlements. The real men-at-arms with the machines of war now advanced, and for a time worked the machines, which made pretence at casting great stones and missiles at the walls. The assailants then moved forward and, unslinging their bows, opened a heavy fire of arrows at the defenders, who, in turn, replied with arrows and cross-bows.
“The 'prentices shoot well,” the king said; “by our lady, it would be hot work for the defenders were the shafts but pointed! Even as it is the knocks must be no child's play, for the arrows, although not pointed, are all tipped with iron, without which, indeed, straight shooting would be impossible.”
The return fire from the walls was feeble, and the king said, laughing, “So far your knight, fair mistress, has it all his own way. I did not reckon sufficiently upon the superiority of shooting of the London lads, and, indeed, I know not that I ought not in fairness to order some of the defenders off the walls, seeing, that in warfare, their numbers would be rapidly thinned. See, the assailants are moving up to the two towers under shelter of the fire of the archers.”