And grand and brilliant indeed--with its banners, and martial music, and heralds--looked the company of earls and barons and knights and squires who attended the boy-king in his procession, their plumes and mantles waving and their bridles ringing as they rode haughtily along, their steeds stepping proudly, as if they disdained the ground. But no one looked that day higher and braver than Oliver Icingla, who, side by side with William Longsword, Salisbury’s young heir, rode gallantly along on his black horse Ayoub, no longer wearing the white jacket in which he had made himself so terrible to the French, but arrayed, as beseemed his rank, in cap and white feather, and gay mantelet of scarlet, now and then, also, recognised by the crowd, and cheered as “The Icingla,” and as the boy-warrior whose axe had been wielded with such good effect against England’s foes.
And as the cavalcade reached Ludgate, on the way westward, the gate presented a slight impediment and there was a brief halt in the procession, and as Oliver raised his eyes to that balcony where De Moreville’s daughter was under the wing of Dame Waledger, they encountered that marvellously fair face, with eyes like the violet and hair like the raven’s wing, which had haunted him in all his adventures, and, as he gallantly raised his cap, his heart for a moment leaped with the emotion of a young lover suddenly face to face with her he adores. But it was only for a moment. Quick as the lightning’s flash his memory recalled that terrible dream, the recollection of which he had in vain endeavoured to banish, and so powerful was the impression which it had left, that he almost involuntarily breathed a prayer to be delivered from temptation. As he did so the procession resumed its course towards Westminster, and Oliver rode on, musing silently, and all that day and all that night his thoughts were gloomy, and he was still in melancholy mood next morning when, having been roused at sunrise, he mounted to accompany William de Collingham to take possession of Chas-Chateil in King Henry’s name.
And Beatrix de Moreville became more sad. Part of her sadness arose from the belief that Oliver Icingla had all but forgotten the fair kinswoman whose presence had cheered his heart in captivity as sunshine lights up the landscape in latest October, or only remembered to think of her with dislike as the daughter of a man by whom he had been deeply injured. But this was not all that preyed upon the mind of Beatrix de Moreville, and brought the tears to her eyes. She was aware that Constantine Fitzarnulph, known to her only as a person of strong will and violent ambition, had become madly enamoured of her; that he had vowed that the Norman maiden should be his bride. She was aware that he had secured the co-operation of the Waledgers, male and female, who, reflecting on De Moreville’s harshness in other days, and deeming him now ruined and powerless either to benefit or to injure, had neither scruples nor fears so far as the Norman baron was concerned; and she was aware, also, that Fitzarnulph had, in all the confidence of untold wealth and municipal influence, sworn by the blood of St. Thomas, citizen as he was, he should wed the proud demoiselle, even if it cost the country a revolution and ten thousand lives to fill up the social gap that separated them.