“Nay, it is here, and naught is missing. It was all passing strange, and I feared them, for they looked evil men; yet they did me no wrong, and set me on my way gently enough, giving me provision, which I lacked.”
“Pick-purses and cut-throats afraid of God’s judgments for once,” muttered Martin; then aloud, “Well, young sir, we shall do well if we win Westminster before night-fall; shall we journey together since our way is the same?”
Hilarius assented gladly; and as they went, Martin told him of Court and King, and the wondrous doings when the Princess Isabel was wed. He listened open-eyed to tales of joust and revel and sport; and heard eagerly all the minstrel could tell of Sir John Maltravers himself, a man of great and good reputation, and no mean musician; “and,” added Martin, “three fair daughters he hath, the eldest Eleanor, fairest of them all, of whom men say she would fain be a nun. Thou art a pretty lad, I wager one or other will claim thee for page.”
“I will strive to serve well,” said Hilarius soberly, “but I have never spoken but to one maid ’til yesterday, when a woman gave me good-morrow.”
Martin looked at his companion queerly.
“And thou art for Westminster! Nay, but by all the Saints this Prior of thine is a strange master!”
“It is but for a time,” said Hilarius, “then I shall go back to the Monastery again. But first I would learn to be a real limner; I have some small skill with the brush,” he added simply.
Martin stared.
“Back to the cloister? Nay, lad, best turn about and get back now, not wait till thou hast had a taste of Court life. Joust and banquet and revel, revel, banquet, and joust, much merry-making and little reason, much love and few marryings: a gay round, but not such as makes a monk.”
Hilarius smiled.