“Now, Queen,” said Olfan, “your will is done, and perhaps it may please you to explain.”
“Listen, King, and listen, you, captains,” she answered. “These liars told you that the Deliverer was dead, was it not so? He is not dead, he lies bound in yonder cell, but had I spoken a word to you, then he would have died. Olfan, do you know how my consent was won to be your wife? A shutter within that door was opened, and he, my husband, was shown to me, gagged and bound, and being held over the mouth of a hideous pit in the floor of his prison, that leads I know not whither.
“‘Consent, or he dies,’ they said, and for my love’s sake I consented. This was the plot, Olfan: to marry me to you, partly because the woman yonder, who was my nurse, did not desire my death, and partly that Nam might use me to save himself from the anger of the people. But do not think that you would have kept me long, Olfan; for this was in the plot also, that when you had served their purpose you should die by secret means, as one who knew too much.”
“It is a lie,” said Nam.
“Silence!” answered Juanna. “Let that door be opened, and you shall see if I have lied.”
“Wait awhile, Queen,” said Olfan, who appeared utterly overcome. “If I understand you right, your husband lives, and therefore you say that the words which we have spoken and the oaths that we have sworn mean nothing, for you are not my wife.”
“That is so, Olfan.”
“Then now I am minded to turn wicked and let him die,” said the king slowly, “for know this, Lady, I cannot give you up.”
Juanna grew pale as death, understanding that this man’s passions, now that once he had given them way, had passed beyond his control.
“I cannot give you up,” he repeated. “Have I not dealt well with you? Did I not say to you, ‘Consent or refuse, as it shall please you, but having once consented you must not go back upon your words’? What have I to do with the reasons that prompted them? My heart heard them and believed them. Queen, you are wed to me; those oaths that you have sworn may not be broken. It is too late; now you are mine, nor can I suffer you to pass from me back to another man, even though he was your husband before me.”