The Talisman by Walter Scott (best novels of all time txt) 📕

her tone of raillery, “how can you, who are so good-natured, begrudge us poor wretches a few minutes' laughing, when we have had so many days devoted to weeping and gnashing of teeth?”

“Great be your mirth, royal lady,” said Edith; “yet would I be content not to smile for the rest of my life, rather than—”

She stopped, apparently out of respect; but Sir Kenneth could hear that she was in much agitation.

“Forgive me,” said Berengaria, a thoughtless but good-humoured princess of the House of Navarre; “but what is the great offence, after all? A young knight has been wiled hither—has stolen, or has been stolen, from his post, which no one will disturb in his absence—for the sake of a fair lady; for, to do your champion justice, sweet one, the wisdom of Nectabanus could conjure him hither in no name but yours.”

“Gracious Heaven! your Majesty does not say so?” said Edith, in a voice of alarm quite different from the agitation she had previously evinced,—“you cannot say so consistently with respect for your own honour and for mine, your husband's kinswoman! Say you were jesting with me, my royal mistress, and forgive me that I could, even for a moment, think it possible you could be in earnest!”

“The Lady Edith,” said the Queen, in a displeased tone of voice, “regrets the ring we have won of her. We will restore the pledge to you, gentle cousin; only you must not grudge us in turn a little triumph over the wisdom which has been so often spread over us, as a banner over a host.”

“A triumph!” exclaimed Edith indignantly—“a triumph! The triumph will be with the infidel, when he hears that the Queen of England can make the reputation of her husband's kinswoman the subject of a light frolic.”

“You are angry, fair cousin, at losing your favourite ring,” said the Queen. “Come, since you grudge to pay your wager, we will renounce our right; it was your name and that pledge brought him hither, and we care not for the bait after the fish is caught.”

“Madam,” replied Edith impatiently, “you know well that your Grace could not wish for anything of mine but it becomes instantly yours. But I would give a bushel of rubies ere ring or name of mine had been used to bring a brave man into a fault, and perhaps to disgrace and punishment.”

“Oh, it is for the safety of our true knight that we fear!” said the Queen. “You rate our power too low, fair cousin, when you speak of a life being lost for a frolic of ours. O Lady Edith, others have influence on the iron breasts of warriors as well as you—the heart even of a lion is made of flesh, not of stone; and, believe me, I have interest enough with Richard to save this knight, in whose fate Lady Edith is so deeply concerned, from the penalty of disobeying his royal commands.”

“For the love of the blessed Cross, most royal lady,” said Edith—and Sir Kenneth, with feelings which it were hard to unravel, heard her prostrate herself at the Queen's feet—“for the love of our blessed Lady, and of every holy saint in the calendar, beware what you do! You know not King Richard—you have been but shortly wedded to him. Your breath might as well combat the west wind when it is wildest, as your words persuade my royal kinsman to pardon a military offence. Oh, for God's sake, dismiss this gentleman, if indeed you have lured him hither! I could almost be content to rest with the shame of having invited him, did I know that he was returned again where his duty calls him!”

“Arise, cousin, arise,” said Queen Berengaria, “and be assured all will be better than you think. Rise, dear Edith. I am sorry I have played my foolery with a knight in whom you take such deep interest. Nay, wring not thy hands; I will believe thou carest not for him—believe anything rather than see thee look so wretchedly miserable. I tell thee I will take the blame on myself with King Richard in behalf of thy fair Northern friend—thine acquaintance, I would say, since thou own'st him not as a friend. Nay, look not so reproachfully. We will send Nectabanus to dismiss this Knight of the Standard to his post; and we ourselves will grace him on some future day, to make amends for his wild-goose chase. He is, I warrant, but lying perdu in some neighbouring tent.”

“By my crown of lilies, and my sceptre of a specially good water-reed,” said Nectabanus, “your Majesty is mistaken, He is nearer at hand than you wot—he lieth ensconced there behind that canvas partition.”

“And within hearing of each word we have said!” exclaimed the Queen, in her turn violently surprised and agitated. “Out, monster of folly and malignity!”

As she uttered these words, Nectabanus fled from the pavilion with a yell of such a nature as leaves it still doubtful whether Berengaria had confined her rebuke to words, or added some more emphatic expression of her displeasure.

“What can now be done?” said the Queen to Edith, in a whisper of undisguised uneasiness.

“That which must,” said Edith firmly. “We must see this gentleman and place ourselves in his mercy.”

So saying, she began hastily to undo a curtain, which at one place covered an entrance or communication.

“For Heaven's sake, forbear—consider,” said the Queen—“my apartment—our dress—the hour—my honour!”

But ere she could detail her remonstrances, the curtain fell, and there was no division any longer betwixt the armed knight and the party of ladies. The warmth of an Eastern night occasioned the undress of Queen Berengaria and her household to be rather more simple and unstudied than their station, and the presence of a male spectator of rank, required. This the Queen remembered, and with a loud shriek fled from the apartment where Sir Kenneth was disclosed to view in a compartment of the ample pavilion, now no longer separated from that in which they stood. The grief and agitation of the Lady Edith, as well as the deep interest she felt in a hasty explanation with the Scottish knight, perhaps occasioned her forgetting that her locks were more dishevelled and her person less heedfully covered than was the wont of high-born damsels, in an age which was not, after all, the most prudish or scrupulous period of the ancient time. A thin, loose garment of pink-coloured silk made the principal part of her vestments, with Oriental slippers, into which she had hastily thrust her bare feet, and a scarf hurriedly and loosely thrown about her shoulders. Her head had no other covering than the veil of rich and dishevelled locks falling round it on every side, that half hid a countenance which a mingled sense of modesty and of resentment, and other deep and agitated feelings, had covered with crimson.

But although Edith felt her situation with all that delicacy which is her sex's greatest charm, it did not seem that for a moment she placed her own bashfulness in comparison with the duty which, as she thought, she owed to him who had been led into error and danger on her account. She drew, indeed, her scarf more closely over her neck and bosom, and she hastily laid from her hand a lamp which shed too much lustre over her figure; but, while Sir Kenneth stood motionless on the same spot in which he was first discovered, she rather stepped towards than retired from him, as she exclaimed, “Hasten to