The King is listening to a
quarrel between an Englishman and a Dane; and by reason of it, there are many
in the room whose tempers may--"
Randalin, who alone of all the maidens had remained undauntedly at her
mistress' elbow, caught that elbow in a vice-like grip. "Take the gallery,
then, lady!" she urged in a piercing whisper. "The gallery, as quick as you
can."
As an angry cat wounds whoever is nearest, Elfgiva scratched her in the same
undertone. "Stupid! Do you imagine that the only Englishman who has part in
the world is the one you showed yourself a fool for? Do you not understand
that if I let them assign me to some dark gallery, Canute will not be able to
see me?"
It did not appear that the girl so much as felt the claws. Her eyes had a look
of strained listening as they gazed past the sentinel and across the ante-room
to the great curtained doorway. "He will succeed better in seeing you through
a dim light than through a stone wall," she returned.
Biting her lips, the fair Tyrant of Northampton measured the man through her
lashes. He might have been of the same material as his spear for all the sign
he showed of yielding. She could not understand such defiance, and, like
mysteries in general, it awed even while it angered her. Affecting to draw
herself up in disdain, she really gave back a step. "Perhaps it would be wise
to put off our visit until a day that there is a man at the door instead of a
blockhead--"
Randalin's arm was an iron barrier behind her.
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