H. C. Bailey

“ CHAPTER V QUEST OF A QUEEN THE Queen of France stood looking out by a lancet window, and in the green flat land spread like a carpet two hundred feet below saw neither house nor man. Behind her, her woman was huddled and stitched with blundering fingers. The Queen swept out and began to climb the winding stone stair of the tower. As she rose into the light and clean air, a spear was thrust before her, a man-at-arms barred her way to the walls. ”

“ Louis is not a fool. Oh, this is a foul trick in him!"
"None so cunning as a saint. None so cleverly a fool. Why, let him shame himself and break himself. I will maintain your honour."
"You!" she looked him over. "Oh, boy! And yet not all a boy."
"Do you know me?" he laughed. "I promise you I will not fear you."
"Alas, poor me! A life indeed," she said very placidly. "You are a quick man, my lord Henry. You have never seen me till this morning's light. And now——"
"That have I, Eleanor. I saw you ride into Orleans with King Louis in the spring. ”

“ The ass for the thistle and the thistle for the ass, and you and I we shall grow in the grass, and feed the beasts whereon we fed, for all that is living lives on the dead, and so this world it comes to pass, you are born of a lass, with alas and alas, and you die with alas and alack the day! ”