Meanwhile Urswicke had greeted the Abbot and dismounting had turned his horse over to his two attendants—who were neither squires nor yet ordinary servants, and who doubtless could either fight or pray as occasion demanded. Their dress partook of the style of their master, who wore the ordinary riding costume of a Knight, even to the golden spurs; the only marks of his clerical calling being his short cropped hair and the string of beads about his neck with the pendant crucifix. His frame was angular and above the ordinary height. His face was long and narrow, with a hawk-like nose, pointed chin, thin, straight lips, prominent cheek bones and deep-set grey eyes that glittered and chilled like those of a snake. He swept the others from helm to spur with a single glance, and Aymer saw his eyes fasten for an instant on the Ring of the Boar.
But if Urswicke's countenance were forbidding, not so was his voice. Its clear, sweet tones were in such sharp contrast to the fell face that De Lacy was startled into showing his surprise. And the priest noticed it, as he had many times before in others, and smiled in indifferent contempt.
During the refection, that was served immediately, Urswicke was most amiable and paid particular attention to De Lacy and De Wilton. By most astute and careful conversation he sought to draw from them information as to the King's programme during the Autumn; how long he would remain at Pontefract, and whither his course when he left there. Yet with all the art of an adept, he risked no direct question and displayed no particular interest in these matters, when by his very manoeuvring they were touched upon. But De Wilton had been bred in the atmosphere of Gloucester's household and De Lacy had been trained by years of service amid Italian and French plotters; and they both quickly discerned that the Abbot and the Priest-Knight were working together, and they only smiled and played them off against each other; and at the end of the meal, what the two had learned of Richard's intentions was likely to be of scant profit to either Henry Tudor or his scheming mother.
"What a precious pair of priestly scoundrels!" De Wilton exclaimed, when he and De Lacy had mounted and were trotting toward the gate.
"They will be the first knocked on the head if Raynor Royk has located the Countess," said Aymer.
"By the saintly Benedict! why not do the knocking now and then hear Raynor's report?" De Wilton laughed.
"It would give me great pleasure and doubtless be altogether proper as a matter of abstract justice; but I fear rather impolitic. Best wait for Royk."
But Royk's search was barren; and so the Abbot Aldam and Sir Christopher Urswicke were left to their plotting, while Sir Aymer De Lacy and Sir Ralph De Wilton rode Westward, seeking vainly for a clue to the lost Lady of Clare.