"Yes, my lord, since before King Edward's demise."
"Then are his letters very welcome."
"Your pardon, sir," said De Lacy, "but I bear no letters;" and as Richard regarded him in sharp interrogation he added: "My message is by word of mouth."
"And why," said the Duke in the same calm tone he had employed throughout the conversation, "should I credit your story, seeing that I neither know you nor recall your silver trippant stag among the present devices of our land."
"My bearing," returned De Lacy tranquilly, "comes to me from my mother's family, of which she was the heiress, and on English battlefield it has never shone. And unless this ring attest the authority of my message it must be unsaid," and drawing from his finger a broad gold band, in which was set a great flat emerald with a swan exquisitely cut on its face, he handed it to the Duke.
Richard examined it for a moment, then returned it with a smile.
"You are sufficiently accredited," he said. "I will hear your message. What said Stafford?"
"The Duke of Buckingham," replied Aymer, "sends to the Duke of Gloucester his most humble greeting and his very sincere condolence upon the death of Your Grace's great brother and sire."
"Pass over the formalities, Sir Aymer," interrupted the Duke curtly. "It was scarce for them you rode from London to Pontefract."
Aymer bowed. "Buckingham's message was in these words: 'Tell the Duke of Gloucester to hasten to London without delay. I have conferred with the Lords Howard, Hastings, and Stanley, and we are of the one mind that he must be Lord Protector. Tell him we pledge to him our whole support if he will give us his countenance in this crucial struggle against the Woodvilles.'"