Sir Gregory Darrell

Darrell moves through Lord Berners' fief of Ordish at his own discretion during the choppy warfare between Sire Edward and Queen Ysabeau, notoriously an adherent of the captured King. Brought fettered before the Queen and condemned, he refuses to soften his defiance, and when pressed to sing he delivers a scurrilous ditty cataloguing her adulteries and assassinations with incisive gusto, countersigning his own death warrant. His reckless candor and his stubborn loyalty set the moral stakes of the tale's early movement, where love and faith are weighed against survival.