"Aye, that may be true—it was crowded in those days… Pardieu! it is scarce three months since then—and yet … Holy Paul, what, changes!" He half closed his eyes in retrospection… "It is marvellous what memory can show us in an instant," he said, and turning sharply from the casement struck the bell again… "Summon the Lord Steward," he ordered … then, to De Lacy, when the page had gone: "And do you attend to what is said and pay no regard to Stanley's glances of uneasiness… You understand?"
De Lacy bowed. "I do, and with profound satisfaction."
"Why satisfaction?"
"That Your Majesty does not trust him."
Richard smiled grimly. "Trust him or his brother William? Rather look for faith and honesty in the Fiend himself. Nathless, I may not slight them—yet awhile. It is watch and wait—now. And a trying task truly, for they are the shrewdest brained in the land."
"Save the King of England," Aymer added.
"Save none, as you some day may see."
"God forbid!" De Lacy exclaimed earnestly.
But Richard only shrugged his shoulders. "Nay, what boots it? As great Coeur-de-Lion said: 'From the Devil we Plantagenets all come, and to the Devil shall we all go.'"
"Then Your Majesty will never be quit of the Stanleys."