Great Britain -- History -- Tudors, 1485-1603 -- Fiction; Historical fiction
"Then this too I command you as a duty," the Bishop said from the thick
darkness, "that for the duration of his life you quit never this knight
but be ever with him, seeking how you may win him from the perception of
this evil being. For signing of the cross shall not do it, neither
shall sprinklings with holy water such as avail with the spirits of men
deceased or with Satan and such imps. For this is even a god and the
only way you may prevail against it is by keeping the mind of your
penitent upon the things of this world of God. If you shall perceive
this form of a woman here or there you shall speak to him quickly of
setting up an oratory, or charity to the poor, or riding, in the name of
God, against the false Scots. This shall avail little, but somewhat it
may. Do you mark me?"
"Father in God," the monk said, "you put me in much better heart than I
was before. For if I may, I will tell you how once I have done."
So the monk, from the darkness, told the Bishop how for the second time
he had seen that lady. This was upon the road below Eshot Hill, going
to Morpeth, near the farmhouse called Helm. Here, as he rode with the
Young Lovell, a little before his men, he had seen that lady come out of
a little wood and mount upon a white horse with a great company of
damsels upon horses about her. And so all that many, brightly clad,
rode down to a little hillock and watched that lording pass them, all
smiling together. So that monk for the first time had been afraid that
this was no St. Katharine and no angel of God.
But the Young Lovell had gone drooping in the hot sun and thirsting
within himself and had not seen that lady. And at first that monk had
wished to pull out his breviary and bid the Young Lovell read a prayer
in it. But in his haste he could not come upon it amongst his robes for
he was riding upon a mule. So, in that same haste, he had made certain
lines with his finger nail upon the saddle before him and commanded the
Young Lovell to look upon them saying it was a plan of Castle Lovell
that he scratched, and the White Tower. And to have money, he told the
Young Lovell, that lord must go with a boat to below the White Tower
where it stood in the sea. And so Richard Raket should lower him gold
in baskets at the end of a rope.
And the Young Lovell had looked down upon these markings attentively and
said it was a good plan and never looked up at that lady and her company
who sat there, all smiling, until they were passed.
"Well, she can bide her time," the Bishop said; then he said: "Brother
in God, I have never seen this Young Lovell, but I perceive that he must
be fair in his body."
"He is the fairest man of his body that ever I saw," the monk answered,
"And as I have heard said by servants that went to meet him and his
father, to Venice, he was esteemed the fairest man that those parts, as
all the world, ever saw. But how that may be I know not."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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