For three years following the disappearance of Prince Richard, a bent old woman lived in the heart of London within a stone's throw of the King's palace.In a small back room she lived, high up in the attic of an old building, and with her was a little boy who never went abroad alone, nor by day.And upon his left breast was a strange mark which resembled a lily.
When the bent old woman was safely in her attic room, with bolted door behind her, she was wont to straighten up, and discard her dingy mantle for more comfortable and becoming doublet and hose.
For years, she worked assiduously with the little boy's education.There were three subjects in her curriculum; French, swordsmanship and hatred of all things English, especially the reigning house of England.
The old woman had had made a tiny foil and had commenced teaching the little boy the art of fence when he was but three years old.
"You will be the greatest swordsman in the world when you are twenty, my son," she was wont to say, "and then you shall go out and kill many Englishmen.Your name shall be hated and cursed the length and breadth of England, and when you finally stand with the halter about your neck, aha, then will I speak.Then shall they know."The little boy did not understand it all, he only knew that he was comfortable, and had warm clothing, and all he required to eat, and that he would be a great man when he learned to fight with a real sword, and had grown large enough to wield one.He also knew that he hated Englishmen, but why, he did not know.
Way back in the uttermost recesses of his little, childish head, he seemed to remember a time when his life and surroundings had been very different;when, instead of this old woman, there had been many people around him, and a sweet faced woman had held him in her arms and kissed him, before he was taken off to bed at night; but he could not be sure, maybe it was only a dream he remembered, for he dreamed many strange and wonderful dreams.
When the little boy was about six years of age, a strange man came to their attic home to visit the little old woman.It was in the dusk of the evening but the old woman did not light the cresset, and further, she whispered to the little boy to remain in the shadows of a far corner of the bare chamber.
The stranger was old and bent and had a great beard which hid almost his entire face except for two piercing eyes, a great nose and a bit of wrinkled forehead.When he spoke, he accompanied his words with many shrugs of his narrow shoulders and with waving of his arms and other strange and amusing gesticulations.The child was fascinated.Here was the first amusement of his little starved life.He listened intently to the conversation, which was in French.
"I have just the thing for madame," the stranger was saying."It be a noble and stately hall far from the beaten way.It was built in the old days by Harold the Saxon, but in later times, death and poverty and the disfavor of the King have wrested it from his descendants.A few years since, Henry granted it to that spend-thrift favorite of his, Henri de Macy, who pledged it to me for a sum he hath been unable to repay.Today it be my property, and as it be far from Paris, you may have it for the mere song I have named.It be a wondrous bargain, madame.""And when I come upon it, I shall find that I have bought a crumbling pile of ruined masonry, unfit to house a family of foxes," replied the old woman peevishly.
"One tower hath fallen, and the roof for half the length of one wing hath sagged and tumbled in," explained the old Frenchman."But the three lower stories be intact and quite habitable.It be much grander even now than the castles of many of England's noble barons, and the price, madame ---ah, the price be so ridiculously low."
Still the old woman hesitated.
"Come," said the Frenchman, "I have it.Deposit the money with Isaac the Jew -- thou knowest him ? -- and he shall hold it together with the deed for forty days, which will give thee ample time to travel to Derby and inspect thy purchase.If thou be not entirely satisfied, Isaac the Jew shall return thy money to thee and the deed to me, but if at the end of forty days thou hast not made demand for thy money, then shall Isaac send the deed to thee and the money to me.Be not this an easy and fair way out of the difficulty ?"The little old woman thought for a moment and at last conceded that it seemed quite a fair way to arrange the matter.And thus it was accomplished.
Several days later, the little old woman called the child to her.
"We start tonight upon a long journey to our new home.Thy face shall be wrapped in many rags, for thou hast a most grievous toothache.Dost understand ?""But I have no toothache.My teeth do not pain me at all.I -- "expostulated the child.
"Tut, tut," interrupted the little old woman."Thou hast a toothache, and so thy face must be wrapped in many rags.And listen, should any ask thee upon the way why thy face be so wrapped, thou art to say that thou hast a toothache.And thou do not do as I say, the King's men will take us and we shall be hanged, for the King hateth us.If thou hatest the English King and lovest thy life do as I command.""I hate the King," replied the little boy."For this reason I shall do as thou sayest."So it was that they set out that night upon their long journey north toward the hills of Derby.For many days they travelled, riding upon two small donkeys.Strange sights filled the days for the little boy who remembered nothing outside the bare attic of his London home and the dirty London alleys that he had traversed only by night.
They wound across beautiful parklike meadows and through dark, forbidding forests, and now and again they passed tiny hamlets of thatched huts.
Occasionally they saw armored knights upon the highway, alone or in small parties, but the child's companion always managed to hasten into cover at the road side until the grim riders had passed.