Roger Bland1, my Lord of Troy, rode back from hunting in the Forest. Dan Love, his huntsman, had sent word that morning that he had found the slot of a hart down by Darvel’s Holt, and that the beast lay close in one of the thickets2. My Lord of Troy had gone out with his hounds and gentlemen, hunted the hart, and slain3 him. He was riding home in the cool of the evening, the sunlight shining on his doublet of green cloth of gold, its slashed4 sleeves puffed5 with crimson6, as though striped with blood.
Troy Castle loomed7 up above at the top of a steep and grassy8 hill, throwing a huge shadow across the valley. It was the crown of Roger Bland’s pride, the sign and symbol of his greatness, for the Lord of Troy was a new man, a shrewd hound who had lapped up the blood of the old nobles butchered in the wars of Lancaster and York. Richard Crookback had been well served by Roger Bland. The fellow was a brain, an ear, a creature of the closet, bold in betraying, cautious in risking his own soul.
Yet the Lord of Troy had a presence, a certain lean dignity. His face narrowed to a long, outjutting chin. His mouth was very small, his pale eyes set somewhat close together. The man’s nostrils9 were cruel, his forehead high and serene10. When he spoke11 it was with a dry and playful shrewdness; he could be very debonair12; his tongue wore silk; there was nothing of the butcher about him.
Roger Bland was a man of the new age, half merchant, half scholar, with some of the pride of a prince. He had caught the spirit of the Italians. Subtlety13 pleased him; he despised the stupid English bull. And up in Troy Castle he lived magnificently, and kept a quiet eye on the country for leagues around, a hawk14 ready to pounce15 on any stir or trouble in the land. And the Forest hated him with an exceeding bitter hatred16, for it had suffered grimly at his hands, seeing that it had chosen to wear the Red Rose when the White had proved more fortunate. The Lord of Troy had ridden into it, and left great silences behind him. There were houses empty and ruinous, and no man dared go near them. There were people who had fled across the sea. There were graves in the Forest, shallow holes in the earth into which bodies had been tumbled and left hidden in the green glooms.
As Roger Bland’s black horse lifted him out of the valley a man came down to meet him along the steep road that climbed the hill. It was Noble Vance, the Forest Warden17, a thick, coarse stub of a man who dressed to his own red color. The Forest folk feared him, and mocked at his parents who had christened him so sententiously. “Noble, forsooth!” He wore a doublet of scarlet18 and hose of green. His red hat looked as big as the wheel of a cart, and the face under it was the color of raw meat, and all black about the jowl.
He swept his hat to the Lord of Troy.
“My lord has had good sport,” and he nodded toward the hart lying across the back of a horse.
“Excellent, Master Vance.”
“There is other game, my lord, beyond the purlieus. I have ridden over to speak to you.”
Roger Bland glanced back over either shoulder.
“A good gossip, my friend——”
“As you say, sir, a good gossip——”
“Is best kept for the closet, and a cup of wine. Ride here beside me. Yes, we have made an excellent day of it; we turned that beast out by Darvel’s Holt and ran him three miles. I love a beast with a good heart, Vance, and a man who fights to the death.”
The Forest Warden grinned.
“Such men are growing scarce, my lord, in these parts. A few green youngsters perhaps, and an old badger19 or two deep down in their earths.”
“Like old Jack20 Falconer, I shall draw that badger some day.”
Trumpets21 sounded as they crossed the bridge over the dry moat, for my Lord of Troy had a love of ceremony and spacious22, opulent magnificence. The guards at the gate-house presented their pikes. In the main court grooms23 and servants came hurrying in my lord&............