CHAPTER V

For three years following the disappearance of Prince Richard, a bent old
woman lived in the heart of London within a stone's throw of the King's
palace. In a small back room she lived, high up in the attic of an old
building, and with her was a little boy who never went abroad alone, nor by
day. And upon his left breast was a strange mark which resembled a lily.
When the bent old woman was safely in her attic room, with bolted door
behind her, she was wont to straighten up, and discard her dingy mantle for
more comfortable and becoming doublet and hose.

For years, she worked assiduously with the little boy's education. There
were three subjects in her curriculum; French, swordsmanship and hatred of
all things English, especially the reigning house of England.

The old woman had had made a tiny foil and had commenced teaching the
little boy the art of fence when he was but three years old.

"You will be the greatest swordsman in the world when you are twenty, my
son," she was wont to say, "and then you shall go out and kill many
Englishmen. Your name shall be hated and cursed the length and breadth of
England, and when you finally stand with the halter about your neck, aha,
then will I speak. Then shall they know."

The little boy did not understand it all, he only knew that he was
comfortable, and had warm clothing, and all he required to eat, and that he
would be a great man when he learned to fight with a real sword, and had
grown large enough to wield one. He also knew that he hated Englishmen,