At that moment the Montrose herald, an officer of the Lyon court, who had been recently created in honour of the Crawford dukedom, exclaimed, "Place for the ambassador of his Majesty, the King of France!"
"Sweetheart!" whispered Rothesay, pressing his Margaret's trembling hand, as all eyes were turned towards the entrance, "this is, indeed, a critical day for us! Should my father depart on his long-proposed pilgrimage, I shall be regent, and he must grant us pardon ere he go. If he stays, we shall then be condemned to linger on in secrecy, but only a little longer."
"Until the good Bishop of Dunblane returns," said Margaret, with one of her dearest smiles.
During the reign of James III. there were an unusual number of solemn treaties and splendid embassies passed between the court of Scotland and those of Louis XI. and Charles VIII. of France; Alphonso Africanus of Portugal, Ferdinand V. of Spain, Christian of Denmark, and Charles the warrior, Count of Flanders, by means of nobles, prelates, and heralds. Some of these were exceedingly magnificent, for under the care of kings who were far in advance of their times, Scotland was rapidly rising in the scale of European nations. But on the present occasion the special envoy of Charles VIII. was attended only by two esquires and two pages, who bore his helmet and braque-mart, or short French sword.
The Sieur de Monipennie, Lord of Concressault, was a Scotsman, a cadet of the family of Pitmilly, long naturalized by residence in France, in the armies of which he had served lor thirty years. He commanded four thousand archers in the war between the Charolois and the Lords of the League, and at the battle of Montleri had slain, with his own hand, Pierre de Breze, the grand seneschal of Normandy. At the left clasp of his cuirass dangled the gold cross of eight points, worn by the chevaliers of the Order of St. Etienne, and the Cross of the Immaculate Conception. In aspect he was venerable and soldierlike. His armour was black, edged, studded, and engraved with gold; his boots had those long toes or poleines, of which we may read in the chronicles of Monstrelet; his beard was white as snow, but his dark grey eyes were bright and keen; his features were severe and somewhat harsh, but a smile of pleasure and loyalty overspread them as he approached his native monarch, and, full of honest enthusiasm, knelt down to kiss the hand of James, who immediately raised him from the dais.
"The last time I had the happiness of seeing your majesty," paid he, in a voice that was strongly tinged by a foreign accent, "was about thirty years ago, and ye were then but a halfling laddie."
"At the funeral of my mother, of royal memory, in the collegiate kirk of Edinburgh," said the king.
"I mind it weel, as if 'twere yesterday. Woe is me! but the cares of manhood have been written deeply on your majesty's brow sincesyne; yet ye do remind me of the king, your father, when I saw him last in '58 at the Castle of Stirling. He was ever a good friend to me and to my house."
The eyes of the veteran suffused with emotion as the recollection of years long passed came gushing back upon his warm and generous heart.
"I rejoice, indeed, to see you, my Lord of Concressault, and am all impatience to hear the message of my cousin of France."