"My Lord Abbot," he said, in a soft, full voice of stately measure which belied his glance, "I and my brothers and our trusty friends have desire to forthwith enter this holy edifice, and with thee offer reverent thanks for this our resplendent victory." As the Abbot held his silence, the King added, "I had not looked to find a Strensham lifting himself between the saints and my piety."
The Abbot found his voice: "I am stricken in years, my liege. My life has been thine as long as has thy crown; take it now if needs be. But while it lasts me, into this consecrated house thou may'st not enter to ravish or mete punishment. Pledge me thy royal faith that no man within these walls shall feel thy wrath—that all shall be suffered to go forth in peace!"
"Since what time, my Lord Abbot," asked the King, dryly, "hath the privilege of sanctuary descended upon the black monks of Tewkesbury?"
"Where God's flesh and blood are, there is sanctuary!" shrilled the Abbot. "By the pains of Calvary, thou shalt not enter unpledged—save over my old bones!"
While the King's answer hung yet in doubt, an old monk slipped past the Abbot, and, thrusting his shaven gray poll in obeisance close before Edward, mumbled a request which none behind him might hear. It was Peter, the Brother Sacristan—and the King, so far from buffeting the audacious shaveling with his gauntlet, thought for a moment, then smiled, and waved Peter aside.
"On my kingly honor, I promise," he said firmly, with a glance ranging from Peter to the Abbot, and the half-smile playing on his handsome, ruddy face. "Before God, I promise! And for this sacrilegious bloodshed here, will I do penance!"
The Abbot's withered old lips formed a mute thanksgiving. "My liege," he faltered, "some forewarning of your triumph of a surety brought me from my bed to the altar this day. Praise God thy enemies are put under thy feet! Pray God for humility and a gentle spirit, these to stay thee from trampling them! Wilt follow, and hear the Mass?"
Thus strangely, the broken procession was reformed, and Hugh, aweary now under the weight of the cross, sick with the smell of blood and the sight of hewn corpses at his feet, stumbled back again up the aisle, past the rood screen, into the choir, the singers chanting the solemn Te Deum Laudamus behind him, and King, princes, nobles and knights and monks and soldiers following the Abbot to the High Altar. Here, out of pity at his white face, another took his office on him, and Hugh, escaping from the incense-laden air of the choir, staggered into the ambulatory, faint and distressed. He had too little wit left to note that the side aisles and transepts held scores of skulking fugitive soldiers, and that others of a like kidney were hiding in the shrine chapels about him.
Not even when one of these came forth from the enclosure dedicated to St. Edmund the Martyr, and laid hand upon his shoulder, was he startled, but only looked up with wan indifference on his chalk-like face.
"Where had ye that ring?" a deep voice asked, with tightened grip upon his shoulder to point the query.