"Whereas," the leader of these soldiers read from a parchment--"whereas the King's stepmother, Queen Jehane, is accused by certain persons of an act of witch-craft that with diabolical and subtile methods wrought privily to destroy the King, the said Dame Jehane is by the King committed (all her attendants being removed) to the custody of Sir John Pelham, who will, at the King's pleasure, confine her within Pevensey Castle, there to be kept under Sir John's control: the lands and other properties of the said Dame Jehane being hereby forfeit to the King, whom God preserve!"
"Harry of Monmouth!" said Jehane,--"ah, my tall stepson, could I but come to you, very quietly, with a knife--!" She shrugged her shoulders, and the gold about her person glittered in the sunlight. "Witchcraft! ohimé, one never disproves that. Friend, now are you avenged the more abundantly."
"Young Riczi is avenged," the Vicomte said; "and I came hither desiring vengeance."
She wheeled, a lithe flame (he thought) of splendid fury. "And in the gutter Jehane dares say what Queen Jehane upon the throne might never say. Had I reigned all these years as mistress not of England but of Europe,--had nations wheedled me in the place of barons,--young Riczi had been none the less avenged. Bah! what do these so-little persons matter? Take now your petty vengeance! drink deep of it! and know that always within my heart the Navarrese has lived to shame me! Know that to-day you despise Jehane, the purchased woman! and that Jehane loves you! and that the love of proud Jehane creeps like a beaten cur toward your feet, in the sight of common men! and know that Riczi is avenged,--you milliner!"
"Into England I came desiring vengeance--Apples of Sodom! O bitter fruit!" the Vicomte thought; "O fitting harvest of a fool's assiduous husbandry!"
They took her from him: and that afternoon, after long meditation, the Vicomte de Montbrison entreated a second private audience of King Henry, and readily obtained it. "Unhardy is unseely," the Vicomte said at this interview's conclusion. The tale tells that the Vicomte returned to France and within this realm assembled all such lords as the abuses of the Queen-Regent Isabeau had more notoriously dissatisfied.