She glanced exulting over the scene as she sank into her seat of honour.
The leaders of the party, both Briton and Saxon, occupied an elevated position; the dishes and plates from which they ate were of pure gold; all fashioned, as Roman taste had demanded, from ancient and beautiful Greek models. The stage on which they sat had once been an upper chamber of the Roman villa, but its walls had suffered in the Saxon destruction, and it now stood open to the halls and courts below. From her position Ethne had a view of much of the great banquet she had prepared. The half-ruined mansion had lent itself readily to her purpose. In their ravages the heathen had thrown down so many of the walls that the lower rooms and halls formed, with the outer courts, an almost continuous apartment; in many places there was no roof at all, but this proved an advantage in the eyes of the rude chieftains on either side; in the open air they found greater space for the hounds and body-slaves it was their pleasure should attend them. Clad in skins of goat and sheep, hot with mead and gluttony, the warriors gave no thought to autumn gust and passing raindrop; and cared not that wasp and bee mingled with the viands before them.
Ethne’s eye travelled proudly over the scene before her. To her feet the throng of feasters swept; and on through broken courts and halls—branching off here and there to fill unseen side-aisles—and on again to the great opening arch where their figures showed clear against the distant dusk of the forest. A mighty feast even in those days. Where it overflowed into the outer air it gained a fringe of slaves, with here and there a favourite horse called by his master to partake of Roman pulse or oaten cake; to the uproar would be added the shrill neigh of some Hibernian racer, or the deep note of a Saxon war-horse.
But in the midst of her triumph Ethne was moved to disgust. In days gone by she had entertained her guests—polished Greeks and Romans—at flower-strewn tables to the music of singing maidens; the air sweet from perfumed fountains and the wine-flagons garlanded with roses. Now her guests fought with their food as animals with their prey; they scrambled together for the possession of tit-bits, and swallowed great junks of flesh with the ease and rapidity of the hounds at their feet; to the perpetual discord of dirk on platter there was a harsh, pervading accompaniment of men munching their food as animals munch their corn. Like animals, too, she thought they looked, clad wholly in sheep and goat-skins—even their trews of hide; their yellow hair swart from neglect, their fine skins chafed and roughened by sun and air; with grass and hay bound round their feet. And to these savages she must sue! Filthy, unwashed, barbarous—feasting in the ruins they had made.
“A goodly sight, O King!” she said, turning to the Anglo-Saxon in a seat of honour at her side. “These fine warriors are the admiration of the Britons, even on our only meeting-ground, the battle-field—therefore, a thousand times more at festival!”
“And yet I thought but just now, from your manner of looking at them, and from your nostrils’ twitching that you would sooner my warriors were at battle-distance than with you at cup and meat!”
Many of the Saxon thanes at the upper table had added a unique ornament to their appearance—the waving length of a peacock’s feather. For when the servers had entered bearing aloft these dainties with their gorgeous tails outspread—a wild scramble had ensued that each might obtain one of the feathers.
“Now, indeed, O King, you wrong me!” returned Ethne, in her sweetest manner, “and for your words you must needs at once pledge me in this loving-cup, and pledge me in the ale you love so well.”
From a beautiful slave she took a golden bowl that glittered with emeralds, and drinking from it first, held it herself to the lips of her companion.
But he took it coldly into his own hand, turning it with particular care that he might drink from the very spot which her lips had pressed. He returned it to the slave—spilling clumsily the remainder on Ethne’s sweeping robes.