He looked at her sidelong, and said more smoothly:
“I am but their worker.”
“I have said that I believe it not.”
He seized her hands, and even shook her as he hissed:
“Thou wouldst set thyself against me, then. Dost thou forget I am the king? That I can do with thee as I will?”
“Shake me to death, if thou wilt. Yield me upon thine altar, even. But thy sorrow and pain will follow.”
He laughed mockingly.
“Thou dost forget the prophecy of thy father on his bed of death, ‘With Atlana at the palace no evil befalleth Atlano’?”
He drew his breath hard, and averted his eyes before her steady look. With assumed indifference, he replied:
“It was but the babble of age.”