"The scheme, my lord, is deeper still," answered Hugh de Monthermer--"the scheme is deeper still, or I am very blind. Did this dear lady point at any one whom she believed the culprit?"
"She would not say," replied Edward, "she would not even hint, before the whole court, who was the object of her suspicions; but since, in private, the Princess has drawn from her the secret of her doubts. We entertain the same.--Have you, too, any cause to fix upon the murderer?"
"Cause, my lord!" cried Hugh, "I know him as I know myself. I have no doubts. Mine are not suspicions. With me 'tis certainty, and full assurance.--Were it not a fine and well-digested scheme, my lord--supposing that between you and high fortune and the hand of the loveliest lady in the land, there stood a father and a brother and a lover--to slay the old man secretly, and instigate his son to charge the daughter's promised husband with the deed--to make them meet in arms, in the good hope that the lover's well-known lance would remove from your path the sole remaining obstacle, by drowning out, in her brother's blood, the last hope of his marriage with the lady? Thus, father, brother, lover would be all disposed of, the lands and lordship yours, and the lady almost at your mercy likewise. Do you understand me, my lord?"
"Well!" answered the Prince, "But who is the man?"
"Richard de Ashby, my lord; and, if the day named for this sad combat had not been so soon, I was promised evidence, within a week, which would have proved upon the traitor's head his cunning villany."
Edward mused, and turned in his mind the possibility of postponing the event. But--though it may seem strange to the reader that such a state of things should ever have existed--a judicial combat of that day was a matter with which even so great and high-minded a prince as Edward I. dared not meddle as he would. We know how far such interference, at an after-period, contributed to lose his crown to Richard II.; and Edward saw no possibility of changing the day, or even hour, appointed for the trial by battle, unless some accidental circumstance were to occur which might afford a substantial motive for the alteration. Otherwise, he knew that he would have the whole chivalry of Europe crying out upon the deed; and that was a voice which even he durst not resist.
"'Tis unfortunate, indeed," he said, "most unfortunate; but my father having fixed it early, and at my request, too, it cannot be changed. But do you feel sure, quite sure, that within one week you could bring forward proofs to exculpate yourself, and to show the guilt of this wretched man?"
"As surely as I live," replied Hugh de Monthermer. "I have the word of one who never failed me yet--of one who speaks not lightly, my good lord."
"And who is he?" demanded Edward.
A faint smile came upon Hugh de Monthermer's countenance: "He is one of the King's outlaws," he answered; "but yet his word may be depended on."