Eadburh laughed her horse-laugh.
"Are all things to thy liking, fair lady?" said Ethelbert to Ethelfrith.
"Why, greatly to my liking, O King!" answered she.
Suddenly Cynerith called out, "Child, where is thine amethyst brooch? Is it lost, then, thou naughty one?"
"My lady," said the girl, trembling, "I did give it…. Ye saw the beggars. One there was that might have been a leper; and there were little children. O mother, be not wroth! I could not do else—woeful was their crying. I sent them unto the sisters, who will feed them and care for them this night; and I gave my brooch unto the woman with the baby in her arms."
"Fie upon thee, fie upon thee!" cried the Queen. "Is my daughter altogether a fool? I will not have thee go among such filthy folk, to touch them belike! Precious stones give I not thee for this!"
"All beggars and such scum should be whipped and branded," said Eadburh, little guessing that in years to come she herself would roam a foreign city,[ [14] begging her bread. "Lord father, think ye not that it would be well that when a bondman have not work enough, or when he feign himself a cripple, his lord might sell him beyond seas? So do I often tell King Beorhtric."
"Why, why," Ethelbert broke in, "I miss my ring of onyx!"
"Was it loose upon thy finger?" said Queen Cynerith. "Often in unhooding a hawk——"
"Nay," said he, smiling, "I do think it is where the Lady Ethelfrith's sweet charity would have it be!"