Girt about with gold,
Good for thy getting.
LAY OF REGIN.
The feast was already begun when the doorward came forward to show the belated guests to their places. They followed him, gazing about with keenest curiosity. The apartment was one of ordinary size, hung with tapestries of a fashion familiar even to the Northman,--purple and blue silks, embroidered in gold and brilliant colors with peacocks and lions, griffins and unicorns. But, notwithstanding what they had heard from Fastrada in the queen's bower, all three, as they went forward, stared half bewildered at the sight of the guests on the pillowed couches.
The table, shaped like a horseshoe greatly elongated, gave room for thirty guests. It was a gay company,--stately dames and merry-faced bower-maidens, high court officials, war-counts, and pompous bishops, all alike gorgeous with silks and jewels.
The king himself reclined on a raised couch at the head of the board, with Duke Lupus at his right. On his left was the genial white-haired Abbot Fulrad; next to whom a high court-dame sat in a chair, severely erect, her eyes fixed watchfully upon the bower-maidens. Two places below the old dame Roland's eager gaze instantly singled out Fastrada.
One couch above and two below the maiden were vacant; and when the doorward waved Gerold and Roland to the latter, the Count of the Breton Mark flung himself down beside Fastrada, without a thought as to why the Vascon should have arranged such an opportunity for his most earnest rival. Gerold, little less hasty, took the second place and fell into gay chatter with the laughing bower-maiden on his left.
Olvir, however, was not to be diverted from his sombre mood either by love or by merriment. He advanced to his place above Fastrada with no sign of surprise at the high honor rendered him by its nearness to the head of the board. Heedless of the maiden, heedless even of the king, he flung back his cloak and stood with the light shimmering on his bared mail, his piercing gaze fixed upon Duke Lupus.
Almost instantly the laughter of the guests died away, and they stared at the Northman in wondering silence. But the king half rose on his couch.
"What does this mean, Dane?" he demanded. "Do guests in the North dine in full war-gear?"