“What has she done?” again demanded the emperor, growing paler than before.
“In your absence she has encouraged the love of a young knight, and that so openly,” replied Guthram, “that if she gives birth to a son, however the people may rejoice in that event, your nobility will mourn; for though any master is good enough for the multitude, none but the noblest in the empire can command the highest nobles in the world, who will render homage to none but the son of an emperor.”
Henry supported himself against the chair of state on which he leaned, or he would have fallen to the floor, for he remembered that only a month before, the empress had written to him to announce her maternal hopes, with the pleasure natural to a young woman about to become a mother.
“What has become of the knight?” asked the emperor.
“He quitted Cologne as suddenly as he entered it, without any person knowing from whence he came, or whither he is going. His country and name are secrets with which we are unacquainted, but you had better ask the empress, she perhaps, can satisfy your majesty.”
“Very well,” replied the emperor, “Enter, gentlemen, that cabinet.” Then the emperor summoned his chamberlain, and bade him conduct the empress to his chamber. As soon as the emperor was alone, he threw himself into the chair, like a man who had lost his personal strength and mental firmness. He who had endured with unbending fortitude civil and foreign wars, the ban of the church, and the filial revolt, yielded to a doubt. His head, which had borne the weight of a crown for five-and-forty years, without bending beneath the burden, grew feeble under the weight of a suspicion, and hung down as if the hand of a giant was upon it. In a moment the man, who had scarcely passed his full meridian of intellect, forgot every thing—empire, ban, malediction, revolt. He remembered nothing but his wife, the only human being who possessed his entire confidence, and who had deceived him more basely than any other creature had yet done. Much as he had experienced, throughout his long regnal life, of disloyalty and guile, tears fell from his eyes, for the rod of misfortune, like that of Moses, had struck the rock so forcibly, that it had drawn these drops from a source hitherto sealed up and barren.
The empress entered unseen, for her light step had not been heard by her unhappy husband. Fair, blooming, and blue-eyed, with a graceful form, of tall and slender proportions, this daughter of a northern clime approached her lord with a sweet smile, and with almost filial reverence united to conjugal affection, imprinted a chaste kiss on the troubled brow of her lord, who shrank and shuddered as if the touch of her rosy lips had been the fangs of a serpent.
“What is the matter, my lord?” asked the empress, in a tone of alarm.
“Woman,” replied the emperor, raising his head and showing her his tearful eyes, “you have seen me for four years carrying a heavy cross; you have seen my crown a crown of thorns; you have seen my face bathed in the sweat of toil, my brow in blood; but you never saw my eyelids moistened with tears. Well, behold me now—and see me weep!”
“And why do you weep, my dearly-beloved lord?” replied the empress, in a tone of sorrowful inquiry.