As she was about to pass by, unconscious of his presence, Olvir uttered a stifled cry. Rothada looked down, and met his eager gaze. At sight of him she halted, as though struck, and he could see her eyes widen and darken with doubt and vague dread. Her first impulse apparently was to hasten on; but she checked herself, and was about to speak, when she chanced to catch Fastrada's look of insolent triumph. At that a flush rose in her white cheeks, and without a word of greeting she passed quickly by to her stool, on the dais beside Hildegarde.
For a moment Olvir sat staring in utter bewilderment. Then the hot blood leaped into his face, and he sprang to his feet. Heedless of the disputing scholars, of the Thuringian, with her short-lived triumph, of the king himself, he stalked down the hall, his head high, and his eyes flashing.
CHAPTER VI
One I loved,
One and none other,
The gold-decked may.
LAY OF SIGURD.
For several days Olvir avoided the villa, pleading the need of overlooking the affairs of his men. At last, however, Karl himself, chancing to pass through the viking camp from a hunt down the Moselle, stopped to bid Olvir attend the mass in the royal chapel on Christmas Day. There could be no excuse for failing to obey the direct command of the king, and Olvir came to the service in his gayest dress. But with him for fellow he brought the grim Floki.
The gloomy chapel exhibited a sepulchral magnificence well in keeping with the ascetic spirit of priest and monk. The few and broken sun-rays which struggled in through the narrow windows glistened brightly on the screens and gates of polished brass and the jewelled images of kings and saints in the wall niches. The nave, crowded with courtly worshippers, was further brightened by the glint of polished steel, the rich colors of precious fabrics, and a bewildering display of gold and gems.
Yet the magnificence of the nave was nothing to the splendor of the chancel. There, from giant silver candelabra, hundreds of tapers shed their radiance over the sumptuous decorations of the altar, the gold crucifix, the tapestries of white silk, emblazoned with griffins and peacocks, the gold vessels of the officiating priests, and the white cassocks of the Italian choir.