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Updated: May 31, 2025
An hour later they stood within the walls of Westminster city, and Hilarius, amazed and weary, clung close to Martin's side. Around him he saw russet-clad archers, grooms, men on horseback, pedlars, pages, falconers, scullions with meats, gallant knights, gaily dressed ladies; it was like a tangled dream.
This is the City of Refuge to which a man may flee when he has robbed or murdered his fellow, or been guilty of treason, seditious talk, or slander a strange place in which to see such a face as thine." "I did but seek a quiet way home and lost the turning," said Hilarius; "in sooth, 'tis a fearful place."
Folk wondered and gaped the Plague was still only a name ten leagues east of London but many repented and confessed and made restitution, though some heard with idle ears, remembering the prophecy of Brother Robert who had come with the same message half a man's lifetime before, and that no evil had followed his preaching. At last St Matthias' Eve saw Hilarius and the Friar at St Edmund's Abbey.
Surely Our Lady had guided him to her, and her great Mother-love would shield this little one from a foul and horrid death. In that dirty, neglected room, the child warm against his breast, Hilarius lived the happiest moments of his life.
His sin had found him out; it was the Devil, the lovely lady of St Benedict; he drew breath and crossed himself hastily with a murmured "Apage Sataas!" The dancer stopped, conscious perhaps of a chill in the wind. "O what a pretty boy!" she cried gaily. "Playing truant, I dare wager. Come and dance!" Hilarius crimsoned with shame and horror.
The gabled fronts of the houses were richly blazoned or hung with scarlet cloth; it was a shifting scene of colour, life, and movement, and to Hilarius' untutored eyes, wild confusion. Outside the taverns clustered all sorts and conditions of men, drinking, gossiping, singing, for the day's work was done.
As she spoke her anger vanished like a summer cloud, and she broke into peal on peal of joyous laughter. "Poor lad, with thy talk of devils; hast thou never looked a maid in the eyes before?" Shrewdly hit, mistress; never before has Hilarius looked a maid in the eyes, and now he drops his own. "Dost thou not know it is sin to deck the body thus, and entice men's souls to their undoing?"
She flung herself on a low couch by the open window, where the peacocks on the terrace strutted in the sun; and Hilarius waited, dumb as the dog to which she had likened him, for he had no word. There was silence a while. Then the Princess spoke, and her voice cut Hilarius like the sting of a lash: "Bring me yon flowers." He obeyed. "Set them at my feet." He bent his knee and did so, wondering.
The return journey was accomplished much more slowly, because of his precious burden; and as he crossed a field, there, dead in a snare, lay a fine coney. "Now hath Our Lady herself had thought for the poor mother!" cried Hilarius joyously, and added it to his store.
A moment, and she trod them under; their dying fragrance filled the air, as their living breath had flooded the senses of the blind- eyed lad at the Monastery gate. One by one she set her heel upon the blossoms, and the marble was yellow with stolen gold. Hilarius held his breath; it was as if she did to death some living thing, and yet he dared not bid her stay her insolent feet.
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