"Ahriman!" he cried, and he turned to the king, his face a sickly yellow.
"Speak out!" commanded Karl, sternly.
"Ai! I feared it, lord king. Queen Hildegarde has eaten poisonous fungi."
"Yet the silver was untarnished. I saw it myself."
"But listen, lord king," replied the leech, so huskily that few could follow his words; "the test is not certain. There is a most deadly fungus, so like the harmless kind--"
"Who gathered the venomous mess?" demanded Karl, harshly.
"Your two eldest sons, sire," replied Fastrada.
"King of Heaven!" The great Frank's head bent forward, and he signed to the bower-maidens: "Bear her hence."
Out of the great hall and through the long corridors to her bower, they bore the swooning queen. The guests, following at a respectful distance, waited without the door, where they could soonest hear any word sent out from the sick-chamber.
Within the bower, husband and brother knelt side by side at the foot of Hildegarde's couch, wrestling in agonized prayer; while around them the maidens and tiring-women stood silently weeping, or, at the bidding of the leech, glided hastily about in the service of their beloved mistress.