“We can tie up the nag and see how my friend the cook has filled your saddle-bags.”
They turned aside into the beech wood, tethered the horse, and sat down under a tree. They were hidden from the road; the gray trunks hemmed them in.
Gilbert was examining the saddle-bags.
“That cook is a brave creature! Good slices of bread with meat in between. And a bottle of wine. There is enough stuff here to last you for days. Dear Lord, what trouble I was at to explain my buying of that sorry old nag!”
He set one of the bags between them.
“Now for dinner and a gossip. There are two words that you must never utter, Mellis, save when some one challenges you with the question, ‘What of Wales?’ ”
“And those words?”
“Are ‘Owen Tudor.’ They will win you friends where friends are to be had, but also they might hang you.”
“Of course.”
“Our plans have not gone so badly. Our king across the water is a shrewd gentleman. Our business is to stir up a hornets’ nest in these parts; others will play the same game elsewhere, so that Crooked Dick shall be stung in a hundred places while Lord Harry is crossing the sea. Roger Bland is our arch enemy.”