“A fair sleep and a long one, thanks to my lady mother,” said Jacqueline, turning to her with a loving glance, “who was ever wont to take upon her own shoulders the burden of my humours.”
Full well did Jacqueline repay the kindness of her mother, by her love for that lady which her dignity never caused her for a moment to conceal. Going once more within the tent, she bathed in water fresh and cold, and though the air was a thought too keen, she had the armourer summoned to rivet on her greaves, so that the legs below the knee should be well protected, lest some who were on foot among the enemy might get near and do her harm.
“Bring my helmet,” next she ordered, “and sling it to my saddle bow, for this cap of velvet shall serve me to wear till we near the troops which my false uncle hath gathered.”
Kissing her mother, she whispered in her ear,—
“ON, FOR THE LOVE OF THE DAUGHTER OF HOLLAND, DEATH TO THOSE THAT DENY HER.”—Page [87].
“Fear not, lady, I be a lad this day”; and then placing her spurred foot on the knee of her page, she mounted easily into her saddle. Once on the back of her war-horse, her courage rose higher still, and seizing her pennon in her hand, she drove her horse onward, shouting in her sweet young voice,—
“On, for the love of the Daughter of Holland, and death to those that deny her!”
Across the low bare fields and through the scrubby woods rode the small army, which numbered barely a couple of thousand men. When the sun stood high in the heavens and showed the hour of noon, though the wind was keen and little comfort was to be had, they rested, for the sake of the horses as well as the men.
Whilst they stopped thus, and with fires and food sought to take such ease as they could command, a band of picked men, less than a score, rode forward to gain what news they might of the enemy. Soon they could be seen spurring quickly back, and they brought the welcome news that “John the Pitiless” was encamped just without the town of Grocum, that the men were scattered about as if preparing to halt for the remainder of the day, and that they had learned from some faithful adherents of the Princess Jacqueline’s, that her uncle had been able to muster scarce five hundred men more than were in her own little army.