But at least the Yorkists were not scouring the woods in search of the Queen, and that was good hearing. Probably I was the only man who knew that she was in them, unless Cork guessed that the woman who had slipped through his hands were she. If he did so, however, he would be likely to keep the knowledge to himself, in order to have all the credit of what he would expect to be an easy capture presently.
"Madam," I said, "I think that there will be no great search for you as yet. The Yorkists will believe you to have escaped, and your servants will take word that you are a prisoner. It will be a long day before those mistakes are found out. The army of York will pass on, and your people will scatter, and go north in little parties, and I shall meet with them. Here you are safe, and you may sleep in peace, even were you to hear voices of men searching for you close at hand, for the secret of this cave is mine only. Now I must go, and I pray you to be content until I return with news in the morning. I must close the cave carefully, and thereafter answer no call save that of my name, Barvill, for that is known here to none save yourself."
Then I knelt and kissed her hand, and was going, but she asked me, very kindly—
"Friend Barvill, what of yourself? We have taken your place, and for our sakes again you are homeless."
"I have other hiding-places, if I need them," I answered, "but now I have work to do, for your sake and the prince's."
I went out of the cave and built up the doorway, as I was wont when I left it for some long time, with the Queen's words of thanks in my ears. More than all else that might bind me to her was this, that not so much as by a look did she show one sign of distrust of me or of my word.
When my work was done, so that even from a yard or two away one might not tell that any cave was there, I went away and left my dog in a hollow tree that was one of my hiding-places to which he was used, and then took my way to Hexham, to learn what I might.
It was close on midnight when I came there, and yet the town was alive with men, as if it were fair-time. Every house was lighted up, and great fires, round which were gathered groups of noisy men, burned in the market-place and in the wider streets. One would have thought that all the army was gathered there to drink after victory, but these were only stragglers, for the camp was on the battlefield, some miles to the southward. All of these men wore the badge of the white rose, however, in some form or other, and to mix with them I must do likewise.
When I found that out, I had not far to seek for what I needed. A man lay in a dark doorway sleeping after overmuch ale, and I borrowed from him. He did not so much as stir when I took the twisted scrap of rag that stood for the proud rose of York from his arm and pinned it to my own.
So marked, I went boldly to the market-place, and followed a press of men into the chief inn of the place in order to get a can of ale, that I might be welcome at one of the fires, where I should best hear what was to be told. Inside the tavern all was confusion, the good old host and his tapster being hard put to with a noisy crowd thronging them for ale that could not be drawn fast enough. I knew the old man by repute, but well I knew his orphan niece, fair Mistress Annot, whose face, when she stayed at a mill, where I was welcome, made me feel my loneliness overmuch at times, for she did not scorn a forest man with whom her cousin, the miller, had friendly dealings. So as the throng shouted and pushed round me, the thought of the girl's terror with this wild mob in the house came over me. But I could do nothing for her, and presently I got a can of ale and went out and across to a big fire, and sat down in a place left vacant when a man rose. None heeded me, for there was constant coming and going.