The anger of the jealous king grew more unreasoning as Sir Ordgar went on.
“Enough!” he cried. “Seize the traitor,——or, stay; children and fools, as you have said, Sir Ordgar, do indeed speak the truth. Have in the girl and let us hear the truth. ‘Not seemly’? Sir Atheling,” he broke out in reply to some protest of Edith’s uncle. “Aught is seemly that the king doth wish. Holo! Raoul! Damian! sirrah pages! Run, one of you, and seek the Princess Edith, and bring her here forthwith!”
And while Edgar the Atheling, realizing that this was the gravest of all his dangers, strove, though without effect, to reason with the angry king, Damian, the page, as we have seen, hurried after the Princess Edith.
“How now, mistress!” broke out the Red King, as the young girl was ushered into the banquet-hall, where the disordered tables, strewn with fragments of the feast, showed the ungentle manners of those brutal days. “How now, mistress! do you prate of kings and queens and of your own designs—you, who are but a beggar guest? Is it seemly or wise to talk,—nay, keep you quiet, Sir Atheling; we will have naught from you,—to talk of thrones and crowns as if you did even now hope to win the realm from me—from me, your only protector?”
The Princess Edith was a very high-spirited maiden, as all the stories of her girlhood show. And this unexpected accusation, instead of frightening her, only served to embolden her. She looked the angry monarch full in the face.
“‘T is a false and lying charge, lord king,” she said, “from whomsoever it may come. Naught have I said but praise of you and your courtesy to us motherless folk. ‘T is a false and lying charge; and I am ready to stand test of its proving, come what may.”
“Even to the judgment of God, girl?” demanded the king.
And the brave girl made instant reply: “Even to the judgment of God, lord king.” Then, skilled in all the curious customs of those warlike times, she drew off her glove. “Whosoever my accuser be, lord king,” she said, “I do denounce him as foresworn and false, and thus do I throw myself upon God’s good mercy, if it shall please him to raise me up a champion.” And she flung her glove upon the floor of the hall, in face of the king and all his barons.
It was a bold thing for a girl to do, and a murmur of applause ran through even that unfriendly throng. For, to stand the test of a “wager of battle,” or the “judgment of God,” as the savage contest was called, was the last resort of any one accused of treason or of crime. It meant no less than a “duel to the death” between the accuser and the accused or their accepted champions, and, upon the result of the duel hung the lives of those in dispute. And the Princess Edith’s glove lying on the floor of the Abbey hall was her assertion that she had spoken the truth and was willing to risk her life in proof of her innocence.
Edgar the Atheling, peace-lover, though he was, would gladly have accepted the post of champion for his niece, but, as one also involved in the charge of treason, such action was denied him.