"Damnable traitress!" exclaimed the king.
The baroness paused, and retreated before the sudden fury which flashed from his eyes.
"Go on!" cried he; "hide neither word nor circumstance, that my vengeance may lose nothing of its aim!"
She proceeded:
"Her majesty then talked of his beautiful eyes; so blue, she said, so tender, yet proud in their looks; and only a minstrel! 'De Pontoise,' added she, 'can you explain that?' I being rather, perhaps, too well learned in the idle tales of our troubadours, heedlessly answered: 'Perhaps he is some king in disguise, just come to look at your majesty's charms, and go away again!' She laughed much at this conceit; said he must be one of Pharaoh's race then, and that had he not such white teeth, his complexion would be intolerable. Being pleased to see her majesty in such spirits, and thinking no ill, I sportively answered, 'I read once of a certain Spanish lover, who went to the court of Tunis to carry off the king's daughter; and he had so black a face, that none suspected him to be other than the Moorish Prince of Granada; when lo! one day in a pleasure-party on the sea, he fell overboard, and came up with the fairest face in the world, and presently acknowledged himself to be the Christian King of Castile.' The queen laughed at this story, but not answering me, went to bed. Next morning, when I entered her chamber, she received me with even more gayety, and putting aside my coiffure, said, 'Let me see if I can find the devil's mark here!' 'What do you mean?' I asked, 'does your majesty take me for a witch?' 'Exactly so,' she replied; 'for a little sprite told me last night that all you told me was true.' And then she began to tell me with many smiles, that she had dreamed the minstrel was the very Prince of Portugal, whom, unseen, she had refused for the King of England; and that he gave her a harp set with jewels. She then went to your majesty, and I saw no more of her till she sent for me late in the evening. She seemed very angry. 'You are faithful,' said she to me, 'and you know me. De Pontoise; you know me too proud to degrade myself, and too highminded to submit to tyranny. The Countess of Gloucester, with persuasions too like commands, will not allow me to see the minstrel any more.' She then declared her determination that she would see him; that she would feign herself sick, and he should come and sing to her when she was alone; and that she was sure he was too modest to presume on her condescension. I said something to dissuade her, but she overruled me; and, shame to myself, I consented to assist her. She embraced me, and gave me a letter to convey to him, which I did, by slipping it beneath the ornaments of the handle of her lute, which I sent as an excuse for the minstrel to tune. It was to acquaint him with her intentions, and this night he was to have visited her apartment!"
During this recital the king sat with compressed lips listening, but with a countenance proclaiming the collecting tempest within—changing to livid paleness or portentous fire, at almost every sentence. On mentioning the letter, he clinched his hand, as if then he grasped the thunderbolt. The lords immediately apprehended that this was the letter which Soulis found.
"And is this all you know of the affair?" inquired Percy, seeing that she made a pause. "And enough, too?" cried Soulis, "to blast the most vaunted chastity in Christendom."
"Take the woman hence," cried the king, in a burst of wrath, that gave his voice a preternatural force, which yet resounded from the vaulted roof, while he added—"Never let me see her traitor face again!" The baroness withdrew in terror; and Edward, calling Sir Piers Gaveston, commanded him to place himself at the head of a double guard, and go in person to bring the object of his officious introduction to meet the punishment due to his crime. "For," cried the king, "be he prince or peasant, I will see him hanged before my eyes, and then return his wanton paramour, branded with infamy, to her disgraced family!"
Soulis now suggested that, as the delinquent was to be found with Bruce, most likely that young nobleman was privy to his designs. "We shall see to him hereafter," replied the king; "meanwhile, look that I am obeyed."
The moment this order passed the king's lips, Gloucester, now not doubting the queen's guilt, hastened to warn Bruce of what had occurred, that he might separate himself from the crime of a man who appeared to have been under his protection. But when he found that the accused was no other than the universally feared, universally beloved, and generous Wallace, all other considerations were lost in the desire of delivering him from the impending danger. He knew the means, and he did not hesitate to employ them.