Part 11

In a second the summer of the King's face lowered to storm darkness, and he turned on Yolande with so much fury, stretching out his hands as if he would take her by the throat, that the girl fell back in a panic fear. For a second the King could not speak with rage; his lips mouthed ineffective; at last words came to him.

"How dare you speak to me of death?" he screamed at her. "You she-devil, do you wish to die of scourging?"

The fury in his eyes, the fury in his fury, the fury in his gestures, transforming him so swiftly from his regal civility to a raging animal, palsied the fair girl's limbs, palsied her tongue.

"Sire," she stammered, piteously, "forgive--"

She could say no more, for her fear choked her, and tears raced from her eyes. Her companions shrank from her as from an unclean thing, one blighted by this fierce show of the King's disfavor. Robert, by a violent effort, controlled himself to composure. His arms dropped by his side, his face smoothed again.

"You shall weep red tears for this, minion!" he said to the unhappy girl, and turned from her again to regard the reliquary. Yolande slunk back to hide herself in the courtly company, and Faustina and Messalinda regained their places.

"The fool!" whispered Faustina to Messalinda, with a glance in the direction where Yolande sought to efface herself--"to hint at death to a king who would like to believe himself immortal as a god."

"Ay," retorted Messalinda, "and to hint it now when they say that the plague creeps abroad."

Robert now addressed the obsequious prelate: "My lord archbishop, escort this coffer into the chapel and give your ceremonial rein. Attend him, lords and ladies," he continued, turning to his retinue; "for ourselves we will linger awhile in this sunlight, having some thoughts of weight to change with the Lord Hildebrand. We will bless you with our presence by-and-by."

Obedient to the King's somewhat contemptuous dismissal, all those that had accompanied Robert to the summit of the mountain now made haste to leave him alone with his favorite. Priests and courtiers, ladies and soldiers, a glittering line, ascended the stone steps that led to the chapel and disappeared within its doors. The rear of the procession was brought up by the King's Varangian body-guard, under the captain, Sigurd Olafson, a young Norseman, whose yellow hair and bright blue eyes made him a conspicuous figure in the thick of so many Southern forms and faces.

When the church doors had closed upon the last of the company, Robert turned a smiling face upon his friend.

"Do you think, Hildebrand," he questioned, "that I came here for this mummery in my father's monument?"

"I never question your Majesty's thoughts or deeds," Hildebrand answered, deferentially. "They are oracles and miracles to your slave."

The King's face yielded a ready brightness to a flattery that never staled.

"I will tell you my true purpose instantly," he said. "But first I have a task for you."

He took Hildebrand by the arm and drew him through the first fringe of the pine wood to the space where Theron's home stood, the mosque with its circle of pillars.

"What do you see?" he asked.

Hildebrand eyed the two beautiful ruins with frank indifference.

"Some pagan pillars," he answered, "and the praying-place of the followers of Mahomet."

"It is to my mind a lovelier shrine than the gaudy box we have just been gaping at," Robert said; and then went on, answering the surprise in his companion's face: "You shall learn why by-and-by. In the mean time know that it is the dwelling of Theron the executioner."

"Theron the executioner?" said Hildebrand. "I thought your honest father had no use for such shedders of blood."

"In the very madness of truth, he had not," Robert answered. "So this rogue has rusted here idly through a generation of eating and sleeping. Very likely his sword is grown with ivy. But now he must stretch his sinews, now he must scour his scimitar, now he begins to be briskly busy."

Robert drew from his thumb his massive gold signet-ring and handed it to Hildebrand.

"Knock at his door. Show him my signet-ring and tell him to speed at once to Syracuse, to my palace, for the beheading of my court-fool."

Hildebrand, weighing the great ring in the cup of his hand, stared at his master.

"Have you caught the runagate?" he questioned, "and do you, indeed, mean to divide him so dismally?"

"I have not caught him yet," said the King, with a frown; "but when I do I will halve him and set up his head on a spear in Syracuse market-place, as a warning to all who cross my pleasure."

Robert emphasized the word "all" so unpleasantly that Hildebrand hastened to excuse himself from any suspicion of sympathy with the offending jester.