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All the Cavaliers shouted the loyal toast so that the words "The King!" seemed to ring in every nook of the great hall; then every Cavalier drained his glass. "Ah," sighed Lord Fawley, as he set down his empty vessel, "I could drink the King's health forever." "I swear it would sweeten sour ale," Bardon declared. Young Ingrow took him up.
Radlett rubbed approving hands. "Well thought. Let him honor his conqueror," he began. The Lord Fawley tripped him up with a new proposal. "Stop, stop; not so fast," he protested. "The fellow has not pledged the King yet. Let him drink the King's health first and be damned to him." The others applauded, but Ingrow, noting a certain sterner tightening of Evander's mouth, interrupted.
Satchell considered that Tiffany was like to be embarrassed by the attentions of the gentry, or whether she considered that those attentions diverted too much notice from herself as the heroine of the servants' hall, she certainly came to the rescue, edging her bulk between the girl and Ingrow. "She is too green for your grace," she insisted. "You need a fine woman like me for your flag-bearer."
"Ay," assented Radlett, "well met, beef or mutton." Ingrow euphemized, "I shall be well content with bread and cheese and dreams," as he glanced admiration at Brilliana. Bardon grunted, "I would sell all my dreams for a slice of cold boar's head." Halfman addressed them in the character of Father Capulet. "We have a trifling foolish banquet towards."
Out swords and force the toast." As he spoke he drew his sword with his best Mercutio manner, and the suggestion and the naked steel carried contagion. Every gentleman unsheathed his sword; all advanced upon Evander, a line of shining points. "Bait him, bait him!" Bardon shouted. Ingrow shrilled, "Tickle him, prick him, pink him till he drinks!"
Dimly, as one in a dream, she could hear the fury of the Cavaliers find words. "You black Jack, I will clip your ears," Rufus promised. "Blood him. Blood him," bawled Fawley. "Slit his nose," Radlett suggested. "Duck him in the horse-pond," suggested Bardon. "Set him in the stocks," Ingrow advised.
Sir Rufus Quaryll, her neighbor and hot lover; the Lord Fawley, who had vainly wooed her for wife; Sir John Radlett, who had the sense to love her and the sense to hold his tongue; Captain Bardon, the bold and bluff; and young Lord Richard Ingrow, with the delicate, girlish face that masked the amazing rake.
Ingrow commented, smoothly, maliciously: "You see, the gentleman does not drink." Ingrow's words fanned the Cavalier fire. "Damn him for a disloyal rat!" Radlett shouted. Halfman elbowed his way past him and addressed Rufus. "Sweet Sir Rufus," he said, "I have lived in places where a little persuasion has often led folk to act much against their personal inclinations and desires.
Ingrow, stabbing at Bardon's stout ribs with slender fingers, riposted: "And our Bardon has a merry invention." Brilliana looked commands and entreaties at the row of jolly, laughing faces. "Do not play the sphinx with me," she pleaded. Rufus immediately made himself interpreter of the mirth.
Satchell, rightly reading in the tones of her mistress's voice permission to retire, withdrew in good order, beaming and bobbing to all the gentlemen and followed by Shard and Tiffany, who, with lids demurely lowered, avoided recognition of the admiring glances of Fawley and Ingrow. Brilliana turned to her company and lifted her glass. "Drink, gentles," she summoned. "Drink 'The King!"
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