“How say ye, my love-birds? Shall we have feast first and marriage after? Shall the priest at eve join ye two in wedlock?”
CHAPTER XVI.
Ethelbert of Kent.
The day of the feast had dawned. Ethne had long left her bed, and was now surrounded by her women at her toilet-table. She slipped the bronze case from her mirror and looked at herself attentively. The days of warfare and anxiety had left no impression upon her; the white skin was as fair as ever, the lips as red, the hair as glossy in its blue-blackness. Fresh from the bath, satin-like from delicate unguents, never had the fair and beautiful skin appeared to greater advantage—this she believed she owed to the elaborate system of bathing Roman Britain had taught her to love, and which she could now enjoy to the utmost; for she had put the baths of the villa into order after much trouble. In her bathing she was a true Sybarite—luxuriating in hot air and vapour, and in summer in sun-baths—spending much time in passing, by almost imperceptible degrees, from cold to the utmost degree of heat she was capable of enduring; after which she plunged into new milk, or was anointed with costly and perfumed oil. She could endure hardship and privation, but her love of luxury and wealth was a passion with her. The toilet table at which she sat was scattered with accessories of the most perfect kind. The silver unguent vases, filled with Celtic spikenard, were in the form of the sacred lotus-flower; the caskets and mirror-cases were ornamented with beautiful honeysuckle pattern, and her own portrait was supported by cupids of priceless workmanship.
Ethne’s magnificent toilette was almost completed—one woman was tying some dusky British pearls about the throat, and another was staining the fingers with henna when Gelert rushed into the room searching and sniffing into every corner and behind every hanging; whining piteously meanwhile. He pushed against the tiring-woman engaged on painting the fingers, and the vase of henna was thrown on Ethne’s robe.
Ethne flew into a rage immediately; she rose and kicked the creature so savagely that it became necessary to change her embroidered shoe as well as repair the damaged robe.
“Ah, brute!” she cried. “Always at hand to annoy me—why did you not follow your mistress?”
Contrary to his usual custom, the hound showed no ill-feeling to Ethne, in spite of her treatment of him; and stretched himself on the ground beside her, although she tried to beat him off. When she rose to leave the room he still hung about her; when her women would have driven him away he snarled and bit at them savagely.
He had been seeking for Elgiva and, unable to find her, was determined to remain by Ethne’s side, where he hoped his mistress would, sooner or later, return.
There was no time for delay; the candle-bearers stood waiting outside the door—for Ethne, doing all things in royal state, had ordered that a great candle, six feet in height, should precede her in the procession.
She knew that all was in readiness. The hall of the feast was swept, and garnished, and sprinkled with vervain-water; ivy wreaths to ward off the effects of drinking were ready for each feaster. The door opened, the great candle shed its rays on her, the procession waited—she rose and followed.