“How can one put blood into the boy?”
“Ask me some other riddle, my friend! He has been like that ever since Newtown came to him to-day from the mob upon Blackheath. Newtown babbled too much—a pity they did not hang him.”
“And we have promised that he shall parley with them to-morrow.”
“Yes; and he swears that he will not go.”
Warwick struck the wall with his fist.
“Go; he shall go! By God, are we going to be brought to perdition because the lad’s a coward! He has come to a man’s state. Thunder of heaven! Think of what the sire was at his age, and the grandsire before him. Some tricksy devil must have got into the marriage bed.”
Knollys stroked his chin, and his eyes fell into a hard stare.
“Sirs, I have something to say to you.”
And to such purpose did he tell his tale that the murmur of their voices continued behind the curtain for more than an hour.
The next dawn was that of Corpus Christi Day, and Richard the King and his lords and gentlemen heard Mass in the Tower chapel. Those who knew what to fear saw that the King’s face was like the face of a sickly girl, and that his thighs shook under him as he knelt on his crimson cushion. When Mass was over he returned to his chamber with the Princess, his mother, meaning to robe himself to meet these rebel peasants. They were to send their leaders to the southern bank near Rotherhithe, and the King was to go in his barge and listen to their grievances.