“How you wait, wenches!” said the Queen, not able even then to forget frivolous distinctions. “Suffer ye the Lady Edith to do the duties of your attendance? Seest thou, Edith, they can do nothing; I shall never be attired in time. We will send for the Archbishop of Tyre, and employ him as a mediator.”
“Oh, no, no!” exclaimed Edith. “Go yourself madam; you have done the evil, do you confer the remedy.”
“I will go—I will go,” said the Queen; “but if Richard be in his mood, I dare not speak to him—he will kill me!”
“Yet go, gracious madam,” said the Lady Calista, who best knew her mistress's temper; “not a lion, in his fury, could look upon such a face and form, and retain so much as an angry thought, far less a love-true knight like the royal Richard, to whom your slightest word would be a command.”
“Dost thou think so, Calista?” said the Queen. “Ah, thou little knowest yet I will go. But see you here, what means this? You have bedizened me in green, a colour he detests. Lo you! let me have a blue robe, and—search for the ruby carcanet, which was part of the King of Cyprus's ransom; it is either in the steel casket, or somewhere else.”
“This, and a man's life at stake!” said Edith indignantly; “it passes human patience. Remain at your ease, madam; I will go to King Richard. I am a party interested. I will know if the honour of a poor maiden of his blood is to be so far tampered with that her name shall be abused to train a brave gentleman from his duty, bring him within the compass of death and infamy, and make, at the same time, the glory of England a laughing-stock to the whole Christian army.”
At this unexpected burst of passion, Berengaria listened with an almost stupefied look of fear and wonder. But as Edith was about to leave the tent, she exclaimed, though faintly, “Stop her, stop her!”
“You must indeed stop, noble Lady Edith,” said Calista, taking her arm gently; “and you, royal madam, I am sure, will go, and without further dallying. If the Lady Edith goes alone to the King, he will be dreadfully incensed, nor will it be one life that will stay his fury.”
“I will go—I will go,” said the Queen, yielding to necessity; and Edith reluctantly halted to wait her movements.
They were now as speedy as she could have desired. The Queen hastily wrapped herself in a large loose mantle, which covered all inaccuracies of the toilet. In this guise, attended by Edith and her women, and preceded and followed by a few officers and men-at-arms, she hastened to the tent of her lionlike husband.