Master Lambert looked up and nodded a smile from beneath a
banner with Apollo and the Python, which Ridley might be excused for
taking for St. Michael and the Dragon. The Mayor in scarlet, white
fur and with gold collar, surrounded by his burgomasters in almost
equally radiant garments, marched on.
Next followed the ducal household, trumpets and all sorts of
instruments before them, making the most festive din, through which
came bursts of the joy bells. Violet and black arrayed the
inferiors, setting off the crimson satin pourpoints of the higher
officers, on whose brimless hats each waved with a single ostrich
plume in a shining brooch.
Then came more instruments, and a body of gay green archers; next
heralds and pursuivants, one for each of the Duke's domains,
glittering back and front in the tabard of his county's armorial
bearings, and with its banner borne beside him. Then a division of
the Duke's bodyguard, all like himself in burnished armour with
scarves across them. The nobles of Burgundy, Flanders, Hainault,
Holland, and Alsace, the most splendid body then existing, came in
endless numbers, their horses, feather-crested as well as themselves,
with every bridle tinkling with silver bells, and the animals
invisible all but their heads and tails under their magnificent
housings, while the knights seemed to be pillars of radiance. Yet
even more gorgeous were the knights of the Golden Fleece, who left
between them a lane in which moved six white horses, caparisoned in
cloth of gold, drawing an open litter in which sat, as on a throne,
herself dazzling in cloth of silver, the brown-eyed Margaret of old,
her dark hair bride fashion flowing on her shoulders, and around it a
marvellously-glancing diamond coronet, above it, however, the wreath
of white roses, which her own hands had placed there when presented
by the novice.
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