Georgette Heyer Read Free Page A

a little swineshead he is!’ remarked Thomas. ‘I didn’t hurt him!’
    Kate wiped Humfrey’s blubbered cheeks with the palm of her hand. He stopped crying, and suddenly chuckled. ‘Thomas!’ he uttered.
    Thomas knew that it was cunning, not fear, which had prompted Humfrey to set up a yell, but he was unresentful. No one could be angry with Humfrey for long. He said: ‘Oh, well! Make him show where he put the mammet, Kate!’
    After some persuasion Humfrey pointed to the gillyflowers, but before his brothers had found the toy Kate said sharply: ‘Listen!’
    They stood still, their heads jerked up.
    ‘In the base-court! Someone has arrived!’ said Kate.
    3
    When my lord Derby was from home his castles were so quiet that the visits of such everyday folk as a pardoner, selling indulgences; a chapman, with knacks to tempt the maids; or a wainsman, with a load of merchandise sent from London, were events of interest. The children made for the postern as fast as their legs would carry them. Thomas reached it first, and darted through it to the kitchen-court. Kate, hampered by Humfrey on her arm, brought up the rear. Her ears had not deceived her: someone had certainly arrived at Kenilworth, and someone of more importance than a chapman or a pardoner. The castle, which had before drowsed in the sunshine, now seemed to be alive with expectancy. Kate saw Thomas, and, shifting Humfrey to sit astride her hip, called out to him, ‘Who is it, lording?’
    ‘A herald!’ shouted Thomas.
    ‘Whose?’ panted John.
    Thomas was not sure. It was an important part of any young bachelor’s education to learn to recognise at a glance the shield, the colours, and the badges of a gentle family, but it was not an easily-mastered lesson, and he was not six years old, after all. He said: ‘Well, I only saw him a hand-while. They have taken him in to Mother.’
    ‘Perhaps he has brought a letter from my lord,’ said Kate, in the voice of one resigned to disappointment.
    The lordings discarded this suggestion as unworthy. A herald would certainly be employed on such an errand, but it was more likely that this one had been sent to warn the Countess of the arrival of some distinguished visitor. A dizzy thought entered John’s head, perhaps because Thomas’s mannikin had brought Cousin Richard to his remembrance. ‘Do you think it is the King?’
    Thomas stood spellbound for a moment. It was impossible that children of quick in-wit, living in a large household, should not have grasped from the clapping of servants that Cousin Richard was not universally held in high esteem, but in their eyes he was a magnificent personage, distributing largesse with a lavish hand, and indulging small cousins in a manner as gratifying to them as it was displeasant to their preceptors. He was said to hold exalted ideas of his state; but whenever the children had been in his company it had been with a conscience-stricken effort that they had remembered to say ‘Sire,’ and ‘Pleaseth it your Majesty,’ as they had been taught. Even Harry forgot the deference due to Cousin Richard when Cousin Richard called him his little nuthead, and played at kyle-pins with him, and pretended to hold him in awe, because (he said) he thought he must be the Henry of whom it was long ago prophesied that he would achieve such greatness that the world would be lit by the rays of his glory. It seemed strange that anyone so full of merry japes could have so many enemies.
    The children suspected that even Father was not overly fond of Cousin Richard, although he always spoke of him with reverence. Yet there had been a time when Father had actually taken up arms, not, indeed, against Cousin Richard himself, but against the Earl of Oxford, who had been the King’s dearest friend. He and the Earl of Nottingham had joined forces with the older Lords Appellant, the King’s uncle of Gloucester, and the Earls of Warwick and Arundel, had led an army to the gates of London, and had