"Praise to the Saint who has brought me into a life where there are no women!"
he told himself. "Yes! Oh, yes! Here once more I shall rule my thoughts like a
man." When a page finally came to summon him, he followed with buoyant step
and so gallant a bearing that more than one turned to look at him as he
passed.
"Yonder goes the new Marshal," he heard one say to another, and gave the words
a fleeting wonder.
The bare stone hall into which the boy ushered him was the same room in which
he had had his last audience, and now as then the King sat in the great carved
chair by the chimney-piece, but other things were so changed that inside the
threshold the Etheling checked his swinging stride to gaze incredulously. No
soldiers were to be seen but the sentinels that had been placed beside the
doorways, stiff as their gilded pikes, and they counted strictly in the class
with the ebony footstools and other furnishings. The knots of men, scattered
here and there in buzzing discussion, were all dark-robed merchants and
white-bearded judges, while around the table under the window a dozen
shaven-headed monks were working busily with writing tools. The King himself
was no longer armored, but weapon-less and clad in velvet. Stopping
uncertainly, Sebert took from his head the helmet which he had worn, soldier
fashion, into the presence of his chief, and into his salutation crept some of
the awe that he had felt for Edmund's kingship, before he knew how weak a man
held up the crown.
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