Perpetua moved to them with a gesture of authority.
“Let me pass,” she commanded.
The Moors stood motionless. Lycabetta called to her captive:
“Those slaves are as strong and merciless as wild beasts. Whatever I told them to do to you, they would do to you.”
Perpetua moved back towards Lycabetta. Lycabetta gave a sign and the blacks disappeared behind the curtains.
Perpetua advanced to Lycabetta and looked her squarely in the face.
“Why have I been brought here?” she demanded, sternly, though despair was tugging at her heartstrings.
Lycabetta leaned back upon her couch and looked at her prisoner curiously. The Neapolitan recognized that there was beauty of a kind given to the girl—in her hair, red as the reddest sunset, in her candid eyes, in the strong, supple body, overbrown from mountain light and mountain air for Lycabetta’s fancy. This was a raw taste of the King’s, she thought, contemptuously; the girl would only be passable in a while, in a long while. What kind of passion was it that a king could feel for a country wench, while her gardens were thronged with shapes of loveliness, while she, Lycabetta, still lived? The passions of the great are mad fancies, but surely this was the maddest fancy greatness ever entertained. So she mused while Perpetua watched her. She was stirred from her meditations when the girl repeated her question.
“Why have I been brought here?”