She stopped instantly.
“What more, Majesty? If this be true, what more may not be true of such a one as I? I submit myself to your royal grace.”
“She has confessed. What punishment, ladies, does she deserve? Or, rather, what punishment would her cousins of Provence inflict, did we send her southward, to be judged by their Courts of Love?”
One lady said one thing, one another. Some spoke cruelly, some worse than cruelly; for they were coarse ages, the ages of faith; and ladies said things then in open company which gentlemen would be ashamed to say in private now.
“Marry her to a fool,” said Richilda, at last, bitterly.
“That is too common a misfortune,” answered the lady of France. “If we did no more to her, she might grow as proud as her betters.”
Adela knew that her daughter-in-law considered her husband a fool; and was somewhat of the same opinion, though she hated Richilda.
“No,” said she; “we will do more. We will marry her to the first man who enters the castle.”
Torfrida looked at her mistress to see if she were mad. But the Countess-Queen was serene and sane. Then Torfrida’s southern heat and northern courage burst forth.
“You—marry—me—to—” said she, slowly, with eyes so fierce, and lips so vivid, that Richilda herself quailed.