CHAPTER XXIII
Doña Ava
T a great festival given by Don Garcia, Doña Ava sat at the board. The jewels that decked her coif and neck but increased the paleness of her eyes. No love-dimple dented her fair cheek; it had vanished with the presence of Fernan, and the white lips he had so boldly kissed gave utterance to secret sighs. She spoke no word as she sat in the light of the torches fixed on the walls, nor took any heed of the company of guests, but leaned back, lost in dismal remembrance of the night when her lover, with soft brown hair, who had ridden across the mountains to ask her hand, was beside her.
On the raised dais was a pilgrim knight with a red cross on his breast, arrived from Normandy, and riding through Navarre to cross swords with the Moors at Saragoza. But who he was, or on what special errand he had come, he did not reveal even to the king.
The Infanta took little heed of him, but as the feast proceeded and the gold loving-cup passed round from hand to hand, and each guest quaffed the red wine in honour of the king, she looked up and saw his eyes earnestly fixed on her.
Then a whisper came to her ear, so low that the voice did not ruffle a hair of the delicate locks which so beautified her face and neck.
“Fernan still loves you,” said the voice, “spite of the little kindness you have shown him. I have visited him in prison; I bribed the Alcaide with many golden bezants; you might do the same. Bethink you of the curse which will cleave to your name—worse than Don Julian’s daughter, La Cava—if his life be lost. For your sake he came into Navarre. It is for you to set him free!”
As the pilgrim spoke Ava’s cheeks grew red and white by turns. She trembled, hesitated, while silent tears rose in her eyes, and fell one by one on her rich robe. At length, with faltering voice she whispered back again, watching the moment when the king had turned aside in earnest speech with some nobles from Leon, quaffing to their health in a cup of Cyprus wine taken in the last foray with Almanzor in the North:
“I promise you I will. Tell me who you are and whence you come. Happy is the prince who possesses such a friend.”
Then the stranger explained that he was no pilgrim from Normandy, but a trusty Castilian knight come from Burgos to find his lord, and that so well had he acted his part that he had deceived the whole court and discovered him.