“Dismiss these women,” he ordered. “I do not come for them.”
Lycabetta thanked him with a deep salutation, dropping her body almost to the ground in mocking reverence.
“You came for me, sire?” she asserted. Robert shook his head and beckoned her, and she glided towards him, while her women huddled together at the back of the hall, quivering with mirth at the sport of fool-baiting.
“No, sweeting,” Robert said, gravely. “No. We have shared rose-red hours; you are made very comely; but there is one here more beautiful than you—than all the world.”
Even from the mouth of a derided fool it is never delightful for loveliness to be told that it is outshone. Lycabetta’s lips tightened a little as she asked, “Which is she, sire?”
In her heart she promised herself that when the King did come she would use her interest to gain master fool the grace of a score of stripes. But Robert, not noticing an irritation which he would not have heeded if he had seen it, went on in his most royal manner:
“The mountain maid we flung to you. I have somewhat turned my thoughts. Bring her to me. I think I will make her Queen of Sicily when I have overthrown my enemies.”
Lycabetta found it hard not to laugh in the fool’s face for his antic assumption of the regal carriage, but her mind seemed instantly illuminated with knowledge. Now she understood the presence of the fool in her palace. This was Robert’s ugliest revenge. He had sent this hideous thing to prey upon Perpetua, and Lycabetta applauded. What degradation more cruel could be found for stubborn purity.