Katharine answered his gentle sneer at her cousin:
'It is true that I have a servant, but he is gone and may not serve me.' Yet the knight would find it in the books of chivalry that certain occasions or great quests allowed of a knight's doing the errands of more than one lady: but one lady, as for instance the celebrated Dorinda, might have her claims asserted by an illimitable number of knights, and she begged him to do her a service.
'I have heard of these Errantry books,' he said. 'In my day there were none such, and now I have no letters.'
'How, then, do you pass the long days of peace,' Katharine asked, 'if you neither drink nor dice?'
He answered: 'In telling of old tales and teaching their paces to the King's horses.'
He drew himself up a little. He would have her understand that he was not a horse leech: but there was in these four-footed beasts a certain love for him, so that Richmond, the King's favourite gelding, would stand still to be bled if he but laid his hand on the great creature's withers to calm him. These animals he loved, since he grew old and might not follow arguments and disputations of _hic_ and _hoc_. 'There were none such in my day. But a good horse is the same from year's end to year's end....'
'Will you carry a letter for me?' Katharine asked.
'I would have you let me show you some of his Highness' beasts,' he added. 'I breed them to the manage myself. You shall find none that step more proudly in Christendom or Heathenasse.'
'Why, I believe you,' she answered. Suddenly she asked: 'You have ridden as knight errant?'
He said: 'For three weeks only. Then the Scots came on too thick and fast to waste time.' His dark eyes blinked and his broad lips moved humorously with his beard. 'I swore to do service to any lady; pray you let me serve you.'
'Pray you take it not amiss. But there is one that hates you.'
'Perhaps there are a many; but do me a service if you will.'
'Look you,' he said, 'these times are no times of mine. But I know it is prudent to have servitors that love one. I saw yours shake a fist at your door.'
'A man?' She looked at Margot, who, big, silent and flushed, was devouring the celebrated hero of ballads with adoring eyes. He laughed.