BALTHAZAR
Basely to stab a woman, your wronged niece and her most innocent son,
Sebastian.
ALBA
The boar now foams with wetting.
DAENIA
What has blunted
Thy weapons point at these?
BALTHAZAR My honesty. A sign at which few dwell, pure honesty! I am a vassal to Medina's house, He taught me first the A-B-C of war. E'er I was truncheon high, I had the stile on beardless Captain, writing then but boy, and shall I now turn slave to him that fed me with Cannon- bullets and taught me, ostrich-like to digest iron and steel! No! Yet I yielded with willow-bendings to commanding breaths.
MEDINA
Of whom?
BALTHAZAR Of King and Queen. With supple hams and an ill-boding look, I vowed to do it. Yet, lest some choke-pear <32> of state policy should stop my throat, and spoil my drinking pipe, see, like his cloak, I hung at the King's elbow, till I had got his hand to sign my life.
[Balthazar passes over the document signed by the King.]
DAENIA
Shall we see this and sleep?
ALBA
No, whilst these wake.
MEDINA
'Tis the King's hand?