H. C. Bailey

“ Nenny, nenny, poor Bran is a fool. There is no past nor time to come. Now is all. What hath been is naught and hath no power over what shall come, if what now is is wisely done and well. That is the faith for man. Now is all, oh Bran my brother. But you are no man. You have no life. You are a dreamer and a dream. You are a word in the air, you are a thought in the mind, you are a hope in the heart. You come and go and naught is done. Na, na, God have mercy, brother, but what should I do, I? If I could make the man to my pleasure, naught should fall him but grief beyond measure. ”

“ She laughed. "A word, man, a word. What honour have I left? Naught I am and less than naught."
"You have said and it is your shame that you say."
"You are a bold man, Roger Mortimer."
"And when will you be bold, madame?"
Her hand clutched at the battlements till the knuckles stood out. She commanded herself. "Speak man, speak," she said in a low voice. "What is in your heart?"
"I said, where is the King, madame?"
"Blood of God, man, I know not nor care. Chaffering with this scullion or that."
"It is like enough. But in a little while he will be with a scullion's wench. ”

“ The men who had mocked him began to look at him with some- thing like fear. "There is a devil in that one. God save us, they are of the devil's own seed, those Angevins. Nay, but no man can live in such a madness as that. What if he die upon our hands?" So they talked and Henry heard nothing, knew nothing but his own passion.
When he rode out from Shrewsbury in the morning there was one who marked him far off beyond the river, one who saw the Queen with Roger Mortimer on the walls. Bran his fool, and of all that he saw Bran liked nothing. ”