“Ha!—proceed,” said King Richard, bending his brows.
“This unhappy Scottish knight—” murmured the Queen.
“Speak not of him, madam,” exclaimed Richard sternly; “he dies—his doom is fixed.”
“Nay, my royal liege and love, 'tis but a silken banner neglected. Berengaria will give thee another broidered with her own hand, and rich as ever dallied with the wind. Every pearl I have shall go to bedeck it, and with every pearl I will drop a tear of thankfulness to my generous knight.”
“Thou knowest not what thou sayest,” said the King, interrupting her in anger. “Pearls! can all the pearls of the East atone for a speck upon England's honour—all the tears that ever woman's eye wept wash away a stain on Richard's fame? Go to, madam, know your place, and your time, and your sphere. At present we have duties in which you cannot be our partner.”
“Thou hearest, Edith,” whispered the Queen; “we shall but incense him.”
“Be it so,” said Edith, stepping forward.—“My lord, I, your poor kinswoman, crave you for justice rather than mercy; and to the cry of justice the ears of a monarch should be open at every time, place, and circumstance.”
“Ha! our cousin Edith?” said Richard, rising and sitting upright on the side of his couch, covered with his long camiscia. “She speaks ever kinglike, and kinglike will I answer her, so she bring no request unworthy herself or me.”
The beauty of Edith was of a more intellectual and less voluptuous cast than that of the Queen; but impatience and anxiety had given her countenance a glow which it sometimes wanted, and her mien had a character of energetic dignity that imposed silence for a moment even on Richard himself, who, to judge by his looks, would willingly have interrupted her.
