The Outlaw of Torn · Chapter
II explained
De Vac, brooding over King Henry III's insult, devises a terrible revenge plot.
What happens
De Vac, brooding over King Henry III's insult, devises a terrible revenge plot. While watching Prince Richard play in the garden with Lady Maud, he conceives a plan to kidnap the prince and raise him as an outlaw, using the boy as a tool for vengeance against the king.
Themes in this chapter
Revenge and Justice
De Vac's brooding and plotting for revenge against King Henry III drives the chapter, culminating in a horrific plan to kidnap the prince.
Power and Corruption
The King's abuse of power and De Vac's corrupt scheme to use an innocent child for vengeance highlight the theme.
Characters to notice
- De Vac
Broods over the King's insult and conceives a plot to kidnap Prince Richard for revenge.
- Prince Richard
The three-year-old son of Henry III, playing innocently in the garden with Lady Maud.
- Lady Maud
The black-haired woman in violet cyclas, playing with Prince Richard in the garden.
- Henry III
King of England, whose insult to De Vac sets the revenge plot in motion.
Key passages
“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!”
De Vac imagines how satisfying it would be to thwart the King's secret plan to hire foreign soldiers.
De Vac's desire for revenge focuses on disrupting the King's military scheme.
“And then Chance carried a little leather ball beneath the window where the old man stood; and as the child ran, laughing, to recover it, De Vac's eyes fell upon him, and his former plan for revenge melted as the fog before the noonday sun; and in its stead there opened to him the whole hideous plot of fearsome vengeance as clearly as it were writ upon the leaves of a great book that had been thrown wide before him.”
Seeing Prince Richard chase a ball gives De Vac the idea for a far more terrible revenge plot.
The innocent child's play triggers De Vac's horrific scheme.