"Sir king! sir king! hear me, for mercy's sake!" cried the Brabançois, as he was dragged away. But John heeded him not, fixing his eyes upon the figure of the Earl of Salisbury, who, armed at all points except the head, and covered with dust, pushed through the crowd of attendants at the extremity of the apartment, followed by two or three other persons, as dusty and travel-stained as himself. His cheek was flushed, his brow was bent and frowning, and, without a show even of reverence or ceremony, he strode up the centre of the hall, mounted the steps of the throne, and standing beside the king's chair, bent down his head, addressing John in a low and seemingly angry whisper.
His coming, and the bold and irreverent manner in which he approached the king, seemed to destroy at once the ceremony of the court. The heart of almost every noble present was swelling with indignation at the assassination of the unhappy Arthur, then already public, and by most persons said to have been committed by the king's own hand; and now, encouraged by the bold anger evident on the brow of John's natural brother, they broke the circle they had formed, and, in a close group, spoke together eagerly; while William Longsword continued to pour upon the bloodthirsty tyrant on the throne a torrent of stern reproaches, the more cutting and bitter from the under-tone in which he was obliged to speak them.
For the reproaches John little cared; but his eye glanced terrified to the disturbed crowd of his nobles. He knew himself detested by every one present: no one, but one or two of his servile sycophants, was attached to him by any one tie on which he could depend. He knew what sudden and powerful resolutions are often taken in such moments of excitement; and, as he marked the quick and eager whisper, the flashing eyes, and frowning brows of his angry barons, he felt the crown tremble on his head. It was in the kindly feeling and generous heart of his bastard brother alone that he had any confidence; and grasping the earl's hand, without replying to his accusation, he pointed to the group beside them, and cutting across the other's whisper, said in a low voice, "See, see, they revolt! William, will you too abandon me?"
The earl glanced his eyes towards them, and instantly comprehended the king's fears. "No," said he, in a louder voice than he had hitherto spoke. "No! I will not abandon you, because you are my father's son, and the last of his direct race; but you are a----." The earl bent his lips to John's ear, and whispered the epithet in a tone that confined it to him to whom it was addressed. That it was not a very gentle one seemed plain from the manner in which it was given and which it was received; but the earl then descended the steps of the throne, and passing into the midst of the peers, grasped Lord Pembroke and several others, one after the other, by the hand.
"Pembroke!" said he, "Arundel! I pray you to be calm. 'Tis a bad business this, and must be inquired into at another time, when our minds are more cool, to take counsel upon it. But be calm now, I pray you all, for my sake."
"For your sake!" said the Earl of Pembroke, with a smile. "By Heavens! Salisbury, we were just saying, that the best king that ever sat on the English throne was a bastard; and we see not why another should not sit there now. Why should not Rosamond of Woodstock produce as good a son as the mother of William the Conqueror?"
"Hush; hush!" cried Salisbury quickly, at the pointed allusion to himself. "Not a word of that, my friends. I would not wrong my father's son for all the crowns of Europe. Nor am I fit for a king; but no more of that! Form round again, I pray you; for I have a duty to perform as a knight, and would fain do it decently, though my blood was up with what I heard on my arrival."
The barons again, with lowering brows and eyes bent sternly on the ground, as if scarce yet resolved in regard to their conduct, formed somewhat of a regular sweep round the throne, while Lord Salisbury advanced, and once more addressed the weak and cruel monarch, who sat upon his throne, the most abject thing that earth can ever produce--a despised and detested king.
"My lord," said William Longsword, almost moved to pity by the sunk and dejected air that now overclouded the changeable brow of the light sovereign, "when we parted in Touraine, I yielded to your importunity my noble prisoner, Sir Guy de Coucy, on the promise that you would cherish and honour him, and on the pretence that you wished to win him and attach him to your own person; reserving to myself, however, the right of putting him at what ransom I pleased, and demanding his liberty when that ransom should be paid. How much truth there was in the pretence by which you won him from me, and how well you have kept the promise you made, you yourself well know; but, on my honour, to do away the stain that you have brought upon me, I would willingly free the good knight without any ransom whatever, only that he himself would consider such a proposal as an insult to a warrior of his high fame and bearing. However that may be, I have fixed his ransom at seven thousand crowns of gold; and here stands his page ready to pay the same, the moment that his lord is free. I therefore claim him at your hands; for, though I hear he is in that fatal tower, whose very name shall live a reproach upon England's honour for ever, I do not think that the man lives who would dare to practise against the life of my prisoner."
"My Lord of Salisbury," replied John, raising his head, and striving to assume the air of dignity which he could sometimes command; but as he did so, his eyes encountered the stern bold look of William Longsword, and the fixed indignant glances of his dissatisfied nobles; and he changed his purpose in the very midst, finding that dissimulation, his usual resource, was now become a necessary one. "My Lord of Salisbury," he repeated, softening his tone, "thou art our brother, and should at least judge less harshly of us than those who know us less. A villain, construing our commands by his own black heart, has committed within the walls of this town a most foul and sacrilegious deed, and many wilful and traitorous persons seek to impute that deed to us. Now, though it becomes us not, as a king, to notice the murmurs of every fool that speaks without judgment; to you, fair brother, and to any of our well-beloved nobles of England, we will condescend willingly to prove that our commands were the most opposite. This we will fully show you, on a more private occasion."