CHAPTER XXVSimon the Younger went on his way, and Aymery with him, Aymery whose face had lost some of its youthfulness and caught in its stead the intensity of the life that stirred the passions of those about him. All who had kept troth with Earl Simon after the Mise were men whose hearts were in their cause, and who set their teeth the harder when the odds grew greater against them day by day. Earl Simon’s spirit seemed like light reflected from the faces of the stern, strong men who rallied to him. De Montfort had no use for time-servers, or the half-hearted.
“Let them go,” he would say; “we want no rotten timber in our house.”
When Prince Henry, Richard of Cornwall’s son, sought the earl’s leave not to bear arms against his father and his uncle, Simon bade him go, and return in arms.
