A Boys Ride | Page 7

to attend thee?"
"If thou require it," answered Hugo, reluctantly.
"I do require it," said Lady De Aldithely, "and I thank thee for yielding.
Now go. Come not again to me until Robert Sadler be well sped on his
journey. Had I but known that he was treacherous and greedy of gold,
no matter how gained, he had never been admitted to these walls."
Obediently Hugo left the apartment and slowly descended the winding
stair. And almost at the small door of the stairway tower he found
Robert Sadler waiting for him. The traitor was growing impatient and
was now resolved to proceed more boldly. "Thou stayest long with her
ladyship," he began. "I had thought the sun would set or ever thou came
down the stair."
Hugo did not meet his glance. He was trying hard to conceal the sudden
aversion he had to the man-at-arms, the sudden desire he felt to look
him scornfully in the face, and then turn on his heel and leave him. And
he knew he must succeed in his effort or Josceline was lost.
Meanwhile the man-at-arms stole questioning glances at him. He could
see that the boy was not his usual self, but he did not guess the cause of
his changed manner. With his usual prying way he began:
"Thou hast been here now a fortnight and more. Perchance her ladyship
will be rid of thee. Was't of that she spake to thee?"
And now Hugo had sufficiently conquered himself so that he dared to

lift his eyes. Innocently he looked into the traitor's face. "We spake of
my uncle, the prior," he said.
For a moment Robert Sadler was silent. "That is it," he thought. "She
will send him packing back to his uncle. The lad wishes not to go.
Therefore he looks down. Now is the time to ask him about the postern
key. When one is angered a little then is when he telleth what he hath
discovered."
He cast a searching look at Hugo, but by it he learned nothing. The boy
now began to take his way toward the tilt-yard, and Robert Sadler kept
close at his side, talking as he went.
"Women be by nature suspicious, you will find," he began. "They be
ever thinking some one will be breaking in; and ever for having some
one on guard. Her ladyship now--surely thou knowest she keepeth the
postern key herself, and will trust no one with it. The grooms and the
warder at the great gate she will trust, but it is the postern she feareth,
because she thinketh an enemy might be secretly admitted there.
Knowest thou where she keepeth the key? I would but know in case my
lord returneth suddenly, and, perchance, pursued, since the king will
have his head or ever he cometh to his home, he hath such an enmity
against him. And all because my lord spake freely on the murder of
Arthur and other like matters. He might be sped to his death awaiting
the opening of the postern while her ladyship was coming with the
key."
"Cometh the lord soon, then?" asked Hugo, interestedly.
"That no man can tell," answered Robert Sadler. "He is now safe over
sea in France; but he might be lured back if he knew the young lord
Josceline was in peril."
"In peril, sayest thou?" asked Hugo. He was learning his lesson of
self-control fast.
"Why else are we mewed up here in the castle?" demanded the
man-at-arms. "I be weary of so much mewing-up. If the king will have

our young lord Josceline to keep in his hand so that he may thereby
muzzle his father, why, he is king. And he must have his will. Sooner
or later he will have it. Why, who can stand against the king?"
"And how can that muzzle his father?" asked Hugo.
"Why, if Lord De Aldithely, who is a great soldier, and a great help to
victory wherever he fighteth, should join with King Louis of France to
fight against our king--why, then it would go ill with Josceline if he
were biding in the king's hand. And, knowing this, his father would
forbear to fight, and so be muzzled."
"And Josceline would not otherwise be harmed?" asked Hugo.
"Why, no man knoweth that," admitted the man-at-arms. "The rage of
the king against all who have offended him is now fierce, and he
stoppeth at nothing."
"I know not so much as some of such matters," observed Hugo, quietly.
"Nor needest thou," answered the man-at-arms. "It is sufficient for such
as be of thy tender years to know the whereabouts of the postern key. I
would ask the young lord Josceline, but, merry as he is, he turneth
haughty if one ask what he termeth