and possibly the undoing, of the King.

For years an inmate of the palace, and often a listener in the armory when

the King played at sword with his friends and favorites, De Vac had heard

much which passed between Henry III and his intimates that could well be

turned to the King's harm by a shrewd and resourceful enemy.

With all England, he knew the utter contempt in which Henry held the terms

of the Magna Charta which he so often violated along with his kingly oath

to maintain it. But what all England did not know, De Vac had gleaned from

scraps of conversation dropped in the armory: that Henry was even now

negotiating with the leaders of foreign mercenaries, and with Louis IX of

France, for a sufficient force of knights and men-at-arms to wage a

relentless war upon his own barons that he might effectively put a stop to

all future interference by them with the royal prerogative of the

Plantagenets to misrule England.

If he could but learn the details of this plan, thought De Vac: the point

of landing of the foreign troops; their numbers; the first point of

attack. Ah, would it not be sweet revenge indeed to balk the King in this

venture so dear to his heart !

A word to De Clare, or De Montfort would bring the barons and their

retainers forty thousand strong to overwhelm the King's forces.

And he would let the King know to whom, and for what cause, he was beholden

for his defeat and discomfiture. Possibly the barons would depose Henry,

and place a new king upon England's throne, and then De Vac would mock the

Plantagenet to his face. Sweet, kind, delectable vengeance, indeed ! And

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