Rupert pressed home his point. "Grant us leave, sir, to go wide through Lancashire and raise the siege of Lathom first. My Lord Derby was here only yesterday, after long travel from the Isle of Man."
The Queen, knowing how persistently Lord Derby had been maligned, how men had poisoned the King's mind against him, caught Rupert's eye and frowned at him. His nimble wit caught the challenge and answered it.
"Sir," he said, with the swiftness and assurance of a cavalry attack, "remember Lady Derby there at Lathom. She has held out for weary months—a woman, with a slender garrison to help her—has held out for the honour of the Stuart. Give me my Metcalfs, and other troops to raise, and grant us leave to go by way of Lathom House."
The King smiled. "I thought you a fighter only, Rupert. Now you're an orator, it seems. Go, rescue Lady Derby; but, as you love me, save York. There are only two cities on the map to me these days—York and Oxford. The other towns count loss and gain, as tradesmen do."
Long stress of misunderstanding, futile gossip of courtiers unemployed, dripping poison into the King's mind, were swept away. "As God sees me, sir, I ride only for your honour. The Metcalfs ride only for your honour."
"Ah, Coeur de Lion," laughed the King, "have your own way of it, and prosper."
At Lathom House, three days ago, there had been a welcome addition to the garrison. Kit Metcalf—he of the sunny smile, because he loved a maid and was not wedded to her whimsies yet—had ridden to the outskirts of the house, had dismounted, left his horse to roam at large, and had crept warily through the moonlight that shone on sleeping men and wakeful sentries. On the left of the moat, near the rounded clump of sedge that fringed its turning, he saw two sentries chatting idly between their yawns.
"It's a poor affair, Giles, this of keeping awake to besiege one woman."
"A poor affair; but, then, what could you look for from an officer of Rigby's breed? Sir Thomas Fairfax had no liking for the business. We've no liking for it."
Kit ran forward through the moonlight, gripped them with his right hand and his left—neither hand knowing just what the other was doing—and knocked their skulls together with the strength given him by Providence. They tumbled forward over the brink of the moat, and Kit himself dived in.