This was going a bit faster than Randalin had planned, and her breath came quickly, but she took the risk and admitted it. “I did hope that it might happen that we would see the King,” she said, “and—what is more important to us—that the King might see you.”
Slowly, the King’s wife went back to her seat before the mirror, and sat there fingering and turning the jewelled rouge-pots in a deep study.
“Deliver me your opinion of this, Teboen?” she said, at last, to the big raw-boned British woman who was her nurse and also the female majordomo of her household.
Teboen was enough mistress of the magic art to give anything like an omen its due weight,—and perhaps she was also human enough to be weary of a fortnight’s imprisonment with a porcupine. After becoming deliberation, she replied that she thought rather favorably of the plan, that certainly it could do no harm, since a visit to the booths had never been forbidden to them, while it would be almost as sure to do good if the King could be reminded of how beautiful a woman he was neglecting.
Elfgiva’s laughter was like returning sunshine. “How! You say so? Then will we make ready without delay! Leonorine, come hither and finish clothing me,—Dearwyn would shake too much. Lay aside your whimpering, child; the scourging is forgiven you. Tata, I could find it in my mind to scold you for not thinking of this before. You must mouth the order for the horses, though,” she added as an afterthought. “I should expect it would be told me that I am a prisoner, whereat I should weep for rage.”
Another flash of daring lighted Randalin’s eyes, though her mouth remained quiet. “A good way to keep them from thinking you a prisoner, lady, is to act like a free woman,” she said. “I shall tell them that you are going to the Palace to see your husband.” Sowing her seed, she left it to take root, and went away to convince the head of the grooms.
As she had foretold, he was too uncertain regarding their position to dare contest their order, little as he liked it. In something less than an hour, the five women, fur-wrapped and flanked by pages and soldiers, were riding across the little stone bridge and up the wooded slope of the Tot Hill. In something more than an hour after that, they were passing under the deep arch of the New Gate into the great City itself.
“Do you purpose to visit the Palace first, noble one?” the leader of the guards inquired with a respectful if uneasy salute.
The seed had rooted so far that Elfgiva did not disclaim the intention; but she hesitated a long time, pulling nervously at the embroidered top of her riding glove. “In what direction lie the goldsmiths?” she asked at last.
“Straight ahead, lady. Nothing very pleasant is at the beginning; neither the shambles which lie across the way, nor the wax chandler’s which is opposite; but when you get beyond Saint Martin’s to the Commons, you will find—”