"And do you know, Sir Aymer," said the Queen, who was in a happy mood, "that the Countess of Clare had also proposed leaving us for Craigston Castle … and, indeed, upon the very morning you had fixed to go?"
"What rare fortune to have met her on the way," said Aymer.
"Greater fortune, think you, than to be with her here at Windsor?"
The Countess looked at her mistress in blank surprise.
"Could there be greater fortune than to be where Your Majesty is in presence?" Aymer asked.
"Where she is in presence at this particular moment, you mean?" taking Beatrix's hand.
"Your Majesty is hardly fair to Sir Aymer or to me," said the Countess quickly. "You draw his scanty compliments from him like an arrow from a wound—hurting him all the while."
The Queen laughed. "If all Sir Aymer's wounds hurt him no more, he is likely to know little pain."
"I know he is French-bred and a courtier," Beatrix answered.
"As you told me once before in Pontefract," De Lacy observed.