"Pardieu, my dear," said Richard, "I did not mean to distress you—yet since I have said it, let me say a little more. As the Queen likes you, so like I De Lacy, and I have given him these words: 'I make not the match, but if you two wish it, none shall make it otherwise.' And I give them now to you also. Nay, thank me not," as she arose and curtsied low; "and while the match would please us well, yet it is our pleasure to follow your desires. All we need is to know them, and that in your own good time." And Richard took her hand and kissed it; then flung aside the curtains and went out as abruptly as he had entered.
XIV
THE QUEEN OF ARCHERY
As the King appeared before the pavilion, a bugle rang out, the soldiers presented halberds, and all talk ceased sharply.
"My good friends," said he, "I have brought you here to-day to test your skill with a weapon that once made an English army the most feared in all the world. In a word, I am curious to know how steadily you can draw the cord and lay your bodies to the bow. Yonder are the butts, and here the staves and the draw line. It is but a poor one hundred paces to the nearest clout; and as that will be too beggarly a distance for you, my lords, you shall use the second. The first has been placed for the fair dames who are to shoot with you, if they will."
And taking the hand of the Queen, who had come forth with the Countess of Clare and was standing beside him, he led the way to the near end of the clearing where, on a rustic table built of boughs, were piled an assortment of yew staves and arrows of seasoned ash, with cords of deer hide, wrist gloves, baldrics, and all the paraphernalia essential to the archer's outfit.
"Let the lots be drawn," he commanded; and a page came forward with the disc-bag.
As soon as De Lacy saw that Beatrix would participate in the contest, he chose with much care a stave best adapted for her wrist, and picking out a string to correspond and three grey-goose-feather shafts of a proper length and thickness, he brought them to her.
"Do you not shoot?" she asked.