"You should not have suffered him to lick himself," said the King angrily.
"Sire, I believed he was cleaning his spines, that he might present his best appearance to your Majesty."
"Take him away!" ordered Henry, addressing a man-at-arms, "and say he is to receive fifty stripes at the pillory for his negligence. Well, what are you here for, Nest? This is a cursed bad augury on my return to find my porcupine dead and you here with a complaint."
"Sire," said the Princess, "at one time my presence was not of ill-augury to you."
"Times have changed. I am driven mad with rebellion. First in Normandy, then in Wales. One has no peace. But I have beaten down all opposition in the duchy, and now I shall turn my attention to your country. What do you want? To threaten and scold, as once before?"
"No—only to entreat."
"Oh, you women! you plead, and if you do not get what you ask, then you menace. What one of all your threats and denunciations has come true? What single one?"
"Oh, my Sovereign," said Nest, "hearken to me but this once. Now there is an occasion such as may not present itself again of pacifying Wales and making my dear people honor you and submit to your scepter."
"What is that?"
"Owen ap Cadogan is dead. He entered his native land slaying and laying waste, so that every Cymric heart trembled before him—some with fear, others with resentment. And now—he is dead, Gerald my husband, who had some wrong to redress——"