ather. While
pretending to hunt or hawk I have found three places along this seaboard
at any one of which the army can land next summer with little resistance
to fear, for though the land is rich in cattle and corn, the people are
few.

These places of which I have made survey have deep water up to the
beach. I will tell you of them more particularly when I return.
Meanwhile I linger here for sundry reasons, which you know, hoping to
draw those of whom you speak to me to your cause, which, God aiding me,
I shall do, since he of England has wronged one of them and slighted the
others, so that they are bitter against him, and ready to listen to the
promises which I make in your name.

As an excuse for my long stay that has caused doubts in some quarters, I
speak of my Suffolk lands which need my care. Also I court the daughter
of my host here, the Knight of Clavering, a stubborn Englishman who
cannot be won, but a man of great power and repute. This courtship,
which began in jest, has ended in earnest, since the girl is very
haughty and beautiful, and as she will not be played with I propose,
with your good leave, to make her my wife. Her father accepts my suit,
and when he and the brother are out of the way, as doubtless may happen
after your army comes, she will have great possessions.

I thank your Grace for the promise of the wide English lands of which I
spoke to you, and the title that goes with them. These I will do my best
to earn, nor will I ask for them till I kneel before you when you are
crowned King of England at Westminster, as I doubt not God will bring
about before this year is out. I have made a map of the road by which
your army should march on London after landing, and of the towns to be
sacked upon the way thither. This, however, I keep, since although not
one in ten thousand of these English swine can read French, or any other
tongue, should it chance to be lost, all can understand a map. Not that
there is any fear of loss, for who will meddle with a priest who carries
credentials signed by his Holiness himself.

I do homage to your Grace. This written with my hand from Blythburgh, in
Suffolk, on the twentieth day of February, 1346.

Edmund of Noyon.

Father Arnold ceased reading, and Hugh gasped out:

"What a fool is this knave-Count!"

"Most men are, my son, in this way or in that, and the few wise profit
by their folly. Thus this letter, which he thought so safe, will save
England to Edwa