"Then are his letters very welcome."

"Your pardon, sir," said De Lacy, "but I bear no letters;" and as
Richard regarded him in sharp interrogation he added: "My message is by
word of mouth."

"And why," said the Duke in the same calm tone he had employed
throughout the conversation, "should I credit your story, seeing that I
neither know you nor recall your silver trippant stag among the present
devices of our land."

"My bearing," returned De Lacy tranquilly, "comes to me from my
mother's family, of which she was the heiress, and on English
battlefield it has never shone. And unless this ring attest the
authority of my message it must be unsaid," and drawing from his finger
a broad gold band, in which was set a great flat emerald with a swan
exquisitely cut on its face, he handed it to the Duke.

Richard examined it for a moment, then returned it with a smile.

"You are sufficiently accredited," he said. "I will hear your message.
What said Stafford?"

"The Duke of Buckingham," replied Aymer, "sends to the Duke of
Gloucester his most humble greeting and his very sincere condolence
upon the death of Your Grace's great brother and sire."

"Pass over the formalities, Sir Aymer," interrupted the Duke curtly.
"It was scarce for them you rode from London to Pontefract."