On this day her desperation had risen to a pitch scarce endurable. There had been signs that the royal patience was near exhausted. And it was late spring without—she could see it through her window across the green flats that stretched beyond the moat, beyond her prison. Its sweetness reminded her of past days in the forest, so that her heart came near to breaking. Her lips whispered the words of the little glad song that she and her Robin had often sung together:
“Summer is a comin’ in,
Loud sing cuckoo.
Groweth seed and bloweth mead,
And springeth the wood now.
Sing cuckoo, cuckoo.”
“Sing cuckoo,” she wept, “the wanton’s shame! O, Robin, my Robin!” She would never see him again—could never wish to. In a few hours, perhaps, she would be a thing for his scorn, a thing that not death, found too late, could cleanse.
In the evening came the King himself, with his frowning eyes and grim jaw that, with the thick beard clipped close on it, looked like a bulldog’s. He was in a furious mood, his Queen having vexed him, and flashed and scintillated like a scaled devil in the light of the dozen torches he brought.
“How now,” he thundered, “thou rever’s doxy! Still obdurate?”
Her very heart shook; but she stood up to him bravely.
“Plunge thy knife into my breast, Sir King,” she said, “and with my last sigh I will praise thee.”
“What!” he snarled—“so much in love with Death? We’ll see to it thy desire’s whetted in his fondling. He shall prick thee here and there before ye close. Away with her to the Watch Tower!”
It was at least a respite, and she had dreaded the instant worst. This Watch, or Round Turret, rose from the north-east angle of the great Keep. He had her there at his mercy. Her cries might rise to heaven, but could not penetrate the dense fabric below. In this chill, high dungeon they imprisoned the girl. Its cold, its dreadful loneliness, scant food, and the silent guard should break her spirit, the wretch thought. He would taste her submission to the dregs, then fling her to his lackeys to teach her what it meant to flout her King. She answered by starving herself; on which came Kay, the silky-tongued, and warned her smoothly that such contumacy could only invite its swift reprisal. She would not be permitted so to slip through her royal lover’s hands. Whereat she ate all that they would give her, and despaired the more.
There was no escape, none. Locked in as she was, she knew that her every movement was canvassed by hidden eyes, her every sigh recorded. And Robin made no sign.