“Thou art no fool,” said she.
A little murmur ran through the room.
She sat a moment, silent, studying his face. “Or if thou art, upon my word I like the breed. It is a stubborn, froward dog; but Hold-fast is his name. Ay, sirs,” she said, and sat up very straight, looking into the faces of her court, “Brag is a good dog, but Hold-fast is better. A lad who loves his mother thus makes a man who loveth his native land—and it’s no bad streak in the blood. Master Skylark, thou shalt have thy wish; to London thou shalt go this very night.”
“I do na live in London,” Nick began.
“What matters the place?” said she. “Live wheresoever thine heart doth please. It is enough—so. Thou mayst kiss our hand.” She held her hand out, bright with jewels. He knelt and kissed it as if it were all a doing in a dream, or in some unlikely story he had read. But a long while after he could smell the perfume from her slender fingers on his lips.
Then a page standing by him touched his arm as he arose, and bowing backward from the throne, came with him to the curtain and the rest. Old Master Gyles was standing there apart. It was too dark to see his face, but he laid his hand upon Nick’s head.
“Thy cake is burned to a coal,” said he.
CHAPTER XXIX
BACK TO GASTON CAREW
So they marched back out of the palace gates, down to the landing-place, the last red sunlight gleaming on the basinets of the tall halberdiers who marched on either side.