The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary Part 6

"That is the cordial called Quinte Essence," said Master Richard, smiling.

They thought it to be a poison, so he was forced to explain that it was not.

"It is made from man's blood," he said, "which is the most perfect part of our being, and does miracles if it is used aright."

They would know more than that, so he told them how it was made, with salt, and set in the body of a horse, and afterwards distilled, and he told them what marvels it wrought by G.o.d's grace; how it would draw out the virtues and properties of things, and could be mixed with medicines, and the rest, as I have told to you before. That is the bottle you have seen at the parsonage.

But they would not give it back to him at that time, and said that he should have it when the King had done talking with him. Then they went out and left him alone, but one stood at the door to keep him until dinner was over.

It was a little room, Master Richard said, and looked on to the river.

It was hung with green saye, and was laid with rushes. There was a round table in the midst of the floor, and a chair on this side and that; and there was an image of Christ upon the rood that stood upon the table.

There was another door than that through which he had been brought from the hall.

Master Richard, when he was left alone, tried to compose himself to devotion, but he was too much distracted by all that he had seen, until he had said _ad s.e.xtam_, and then he was quieter, and sat down before the table, looking upon the rood, and he did not know how long had pa.s.sed before the King came in.

My children, I like to think of Master Richard then; it was his last peaceful hour that he spent until near the end when I came to him. But the peace of his heart did not leave him (except at one time), in spite of all that happened to him, for he told me so himself. Yet, save for the little wound upon his head, he was clean of all injury at this time, and I like to think of him in his strength and loveliness as he was then, content to give his tidings from our Lord to the King, and to abide what was to follow.

As the clock beat eleven, the King came suddenly through from his parlour, but he was not alone: my lord cardinal was with him.

As Master Richard knelt down on the floor to do them homage, he observed the King's dress: it was not as that of the other great men, for the King loved plain dress, and folks said that the clothing he would have liked best to wear was a monk's cowl or a friar's frock (and I doubt not that there be many a monk and friar, and clerk too, who would have been glad to change with him, for not every Religious man has a Religious heart!).... [There follows a little sermon on Vocation.]

The King's dress was a plain doublet with a collar of ermine, and over it a cloak of royal purple lined and trimmed with fur, but cut very plainly with a round cape such as priests wear. He had the collar of _Sanctus Spiritus_ over his shoulders, his cap on his head, with a peak to it, and little plain round shoes (not like those pointed follies that some wear, and that make a man's foot twice as long as G.o.d made it by His wisdom). My lord cardinal was in his proper dress, and bore himself very stately.

The King bade Master Richard stand up, and himself and my lord sat down in the two chairs beside one another, so that half their faces were in shadow and half in light. Master Richard saw again that the King looked somewhat sick, and very melancholy.

Then the King addressed himself to Master Richard, speaking softly, but with an appearance of observing him very closely. My lord, too, watched him, folding his hands in his lap.

"Now tell me, sir," said the King, "what is this tidings that you bear?"

Master Richard was a little dismayed at my lord's coming: he had thought it was to be in private.

"It was to your ear alone, your grace, that I was bidden to deliver the message," he said.

"My lord here is ears and eyes to me," said the King, a little stiffly, and my lord smiled to hear him, and laid his hand on the King's knee.

That was answer enough for the holy youth, who was attendant only for G.o.d's will; so he began straightway, and told the King of his contemplation of eight days before, and of the dryness that fell on him when he strove to put away his thoughts, and of his words with me who was his priest, and his coming to London and an the rest. Then he told him of how he heard ma.s.s at saint Edward's altar, and how at the elevation of the sacring our Lord had told him what tidings he was to take.

The King observed him very closely, leaning his head on his hand and his elbow on the table, and my lord, who had begun by playing with his chain, ceased, and watched him too.

Master Richard told me that there was a great silence everywhere when he had come to the matter of saint Edward's altar; it was such an exterior silence as is the interior silence that came to him in contemplation.

There appeared no movement anywhere, neither in the room, nor the palace, nor the world, nor in the three hearts that were beating there.

There was only the great presence of G.o.d's Majesty enfolding all.

When he ceased speaking, the King stared on him for a full minute without any words, then he took his arm off the table and clasped his hands.

"And what was it that our Lord said to you, sir?" he asked softly, and leaned forward to listen.

Master Richard looked on the sick eyes, and then at the ruddy prelate's face that seemed very stern beside it. But he dared not be silent now.

"It is this, your grace, that our Lord shewed to me," he began slowly, "that your grace is not as other men are, neither in soul nor in life.

You walk apart from all, even as our Saviour Christ did, when He was upon earth. When you speak, men do not understand you; they take it amiss. They would have you make your kingdom to be of this world, and G.o.d will not have it so. _Regnum Dei intra te est._ ['The kingdom of G.o.d is within thee' (from Luke xvii. 21.)] It is that kingdom which shall be yours. But to gain that kingdom you must suffer a pa.s.sion, such as that which Jesu suffered, and this is the tidings that He sends to you. He bids you make ready for it. It shall be a longer pa.s.sion than His, but I know not how long. Yet you must not go apart, as you desire. You must go this way and that at all men's will, ever within your _portans stigmata Domini Jesu_. ['Bearing the marks of the Lord Jesu' (from Gal. vi. 17.)]

And the end of it shall be even as His, and as His apostles' was who now rules Christendom. _c.u.m senueris, extendes ma.n.u.s tuas, et alius te cinget, et ducet quo tu non vis._ ['When thou shalt be old thou shalt stretch forth thy hands; and another shall gird thee, and lead thee whither thou wouldst not' (John xxi. 18.)] And when you come before the heavenly glory, and the blessed saints shall ask you of your wounds, you shall answer them as our Lord answered, '_His plagatus sum in domo eorum qui diligebant me._'" ["With these I was wounded in the house of them that loved me" (Zach. xiii. 6.)]

When Master Richard had finished speaking, his head and body shook so much that he could scarce stand, or see the King plainly, and by this he perceived for a certainty that G.o.d was speaking by him. But he was aware that my lord cardinal was standing up with his hand outstretched and an appearance of great anger on his face. For indeed those were terrible things that Master Richard had said--that he should foretell the King's death in this manner, and all the sorrows that he should go through, for, as you know, all these words came about.

Yet it seemed that something restrained my lord from speaking till the other was done; but when Master Richard went back a step, shaking under the spirit of G.o.d, my lord burst out into words.

Master Richard could not understand him; there was drumming in his ears, and the sweat poured from him, but when sight came back he observed my lord's face, red with pa.s.sion, turning now to him, now to the King, who sat still in his place; his white eyebrows went up and down, and his scarlet cape and his rochet flapped this way and that as he shook his arms and cried out.

When he had done there was silence again for a full minute. Master Richard could hear the breathing of one in the gallery without.

Then the King rose up without speaking, but looking intently upon the young man, and still without speaking, went out from the room, and my lord went after him.

When Master Richard had stood a little while waiting, and there was no sound (for the door into the King's parlour was now shut again), he turned to the other door to go out; for he had delivered his message, and there was no more to be said.

The man that kept the door, and whose breathing Master Richard had heard just now, barred the way, and asked him his business.

"My business is done," said Master Richard, "I must go home again."

"And the King?" asked the fellow.

"The King and my lord are gone back into the parlour."

There was no cause to keep Master Richard any longer, so the fellow let him past, and he went down the gallery and the stairs towards the court that opened upon the hall.

But before he reached the door, there was a great tumult overhead, and a noise of men moving and crying, and Master Richard stayed to listen. (I had almost said that it had been better if he had not stayed, but made his way out quickly and escaped perhaps; but it is not so, as I now believe, for our Lord had determined what should be the end.)

Two fellows came running presently down the stairs up which Master Richard was looking. One of them was a page of my lord's, a lad dressed all in purple with the pointed shoes of which I have written before, and the other the man-at-arms that had kept the door. The lad cried out shrilly when he saw him standing there, and came down the steps four at a leap, with his hands outstretched to either wall. Master Richard thought that he would fall, and stepped forward to catch him, but the lad recovered himself on the rushes, and then, screaming with anger, sprang at the young man's throat, seizing it with one hand, and striking him in the face again and again with the other.

For an instant Master Richard stood amazed, then he caught the lad's hands without a word and held them so, looking at the man-at-arms who was now half-way down the stairs in his plate and mail, and at others who were following as swiftly as they could. In the court outside, too, there were footsteps and the sound of talking, and presently the door was darkened by half a dozen others, who ran up at the tumult, and all in a moment Master Richard found himself caught from behind and his hands pulled away, so that the lad was able to strike him again, which he did, three or four times.

So he was taken by the men and held.

Master Richard could not understand what the matter was, as he looked at the press that gathered every moment on the stairs and in the court. So he asked one that held him, and the page screamed out his answer above the tumult of voices and weapons.

So Master Richard understood, and went upstairs under guard, with the blood staining his brown and white dress, and his face bruised and torn, to await when the King should come out of the fit into which he had fallen, and judge him for the message which he had brought.

Of Master Richard's second speaking with his Grace: and of his detention

_Abscondes eos in abscondito faciei tuae: a conturbatione hominum._