The Regent sat in her usual place at the head of the long table, working nervously at the usual length of embroidery which served to give employment to her restless fingers.
She had aged of late; her face had hardened, and there were strands of white in her thick, heavy hair. The firm set of her powerful jaw and her majestic deportment gave her a resemblance to the Emperor her father, but her eyes were the eyes of a woman overwhelmed and frightened.
When all the councillors were seated, she dropped her work on to her lap and looked keenly and anxiously from one face to another—the dark, handsome face of Orange; the old, feeble face of Vigilius; the downcast, bitter face of Barlaymont; the beautiful, uneasy face of Egmont; the brooding, sullen face of Hoorne; and the sleek, smiling face of Armenteros, the secretary, who held the dispatches in his hand.
Margaret spoke; her shaking voice was rendered half inaudible by the sound of the rain beating on the leaded casements where glowed the arms of Brabant, and the wind struggling with the heavy window-frames.
William rested his hands on the soft Persian cloth that covered the council table, and he, in his turn, looked steadily at the Regent.
But he was not considering, nor reckoning with, Madame Parma; behind the figure of this confused, agitated woman, whose task was too great for her wits, William saw the real master, the pale King going to and fro his masses and his cell in the Escorial, from whence he directed the destinies of the Netherlands.
"You shall hear the Royal commands, seigneurs," finished the Duchess, and she glanced at those two fine shapely hands of William of Orange resting on the cloth in front of him, and her look of fright deepened as if they had held a bared sword towards her breast.
"Read, read," she cried to Armenteros, in great agitation. She caught up her work, but tears were in her eyes, and she could not see the stitches.
The secretary rose. He was a mere clerk, but since Granvelle's downfall he had grown fat on the spoils of the corruption of the Court, and now affected the great lord; he was dressed in the Spanish style, close doublet and short cloak in plain black velvet which disdained the French and Flemish finery of button, lace, and feather, and wore a great ruff of wired cambric so stiff that he could not turn his head.
He bowed, but formally, to the councillors, and announced that the present dispatches had been received a few days before the Parma wedding, had been placed before the Privy Council and by that body reported upon, which report would be read after the Royal commands.