“Fiend!” cried Sir Patrick Hepborne, his rage overpowering his grief. “If St. Baldrid do but speed me, I shall find him though he were to flee unto the uttermost parts of the earth. Meanwhile, may God in his mercy, and the blessed Virgin in her purity, protect the Lady Beatrice!”
“Amen! my son,” said the father confessor. “Verily, I do grieve for thee and for her; and of a truth I do bitterly reproach mine own facile credence, the which hath led me to be the innocent author of this misfortune. Thou shalt have my prayers. Meanwhile, let us return to the object of my mission. Richard did send me to tell thee that he doth freely forgive thee thine indiscreet attack on his sacred person, seeing it was committed under a delusion. Thou and thine esquire are forthwith liberated, under his word as a king, and yours as a knight, that all that hath passed shall be buried in oblivion by both sides; and further, that thou, on thy part, shalt fasten no quarrel on Sir Hans de Vere for what hath passed.”
“Nay,” replied Hepborne; “meseems that His Majesty doth ask too much in demanding of me to withhold punishment in a quarter where it is so justly due.”
“Yes, and where it would be so well merited, Sir Knight,” observed the Friar Rushak. “But yet must thou yield for peace’s sake.”
“Thou mayest tell the King, then,” said Hepborne, “that as a mark of the high sense I entertain of his hospitality, he shall be obeyed herein, and that Sir Hans de Vere shall find shelter under it from my just indignation.”
“And now let me show thee forth, Sir Knight,” said Friar Rushak.
“Ere I go,” said Hepborne, forgetting not the misery of others amid his own affliction; “ere I go hence let me entreat [[580]]thee to use thine influence with His Majesty for the liberation of mine host, Master Lawrence Ratcliffe.”
“Knowest thou aught of this same Ratcliffe, Sir Knight?” demanded the Friar after a pause, during which he endeavoured to read Hepborne’s countenance.
“Nay, nothing further than that I have experienced his hospitality by His Majesty’s good will,” replied Hepborne.
“And how may he have treated thee and thine?” inquired Rushak, resuming a careless air.