Part 30

"Give me a sword!" he shouted. "Syracuse will stand by me. We will crush this treason bloodily. Give me a sword! give me a sword!"

In that palace of pleasure there were no weapons of death, yet Robert ranged the room wildly as if dreaming that some soldier's friend might lurk behind silken curtains. Lycabetta turned to her comrade and whispered to her behind her hand:

"The poor ape is moon-crazed--clean out of his wits. He mimicked the King yesterday, and now the trick grows on him."

The sound of her voice seemed to arrest Robert in his search for a sword, for he turned and eyed them suspiciously.

"Do not anger him," Lysidice entreated, catching in her fear at her mistress's hand. Robert moved towards the women, frowning.

"Why are you whispering?" he asked, savagely. Lysidice shivered, but Lycabetta was less fearful. Serene in her beauty, she was confident of her power to flatter the fool according to his folly, and she gave him a deep salutation, mockingly reverential.

"We did but admire the thunder of authority, the lightning of royalty," she said; and then, thinking she had done enough to placate his passion, she turned to whisper to Lysidice, "Let us tickle this fool like a cracked lute."

Instantly Robert's rage blazed higher. His bemused senses snuffed treason everywhere. What might these two light women be plotting.

"If you whisper again," he shrieked at them, "I will have you whipped; I will have you crucified. Are you stained with treason?"

There was that in his voice which startled Lycabetta from her indifference. Again she mimed servility.

"Have I offended your Majesty?" she sighed. "I pray your royal pardon. I was but planning with this minion here some way to freshen your spirits. See, I do you obeisance."

She served him a sweeping salutation, in which her lithe body seemed to swoon at his feet in complete surrender. Then, straightening, she swerved and called to her women:

"Girls, girls, girls--Glycerium, Euphrosyne, Hypsipyle--all of you come hither."

Obedient to her voice, the girls came trooping in, from garden and gallery, fluttering like doves, murmuring like doves. Lycabetta held up her hand and they halted, wonder in their lovely eyes to see the priestess of Venus giving audience to the loathly fool.

"Dainties," Lycabetta cried, "his Majesty honors us with his presence to-night."

And as she spoke she pointed with extended arm to the deformed, dishonored man. Glycerium alone voiced the surprise of her fellows.

"His Majesty!" she repeated.

Lycabetta swooped in among her women, laughing and whispering, catching now one and now another of her pretty minions by the hand, as if seeking to choose the fairest.

"He is crack-brained, and calls himself the King," she murmured. "Let him believe it for our sport." Then she called aloud, gulling the suspicious visitor, "Do homage to the King, damsels, and perhaps he may fling his favor to the one of you that dances the most alluringly."

Instantly the girls made a rush towards Robert, a wave of flowing hair, of laughing faces, of fluttering, transparent dresses, a wave that rippled close to him and then receded as the women swayed wantonly into postures of impudent supplication.

"Long live the King!" piped Glycerium; and "God save the King!" altered Euphrosyne; and the others, catching up the cries, repeated them, a babble of merry blessings, while Lycabetta crowned the clamor with the cry of, "Hail to the Lily of Sicily!"

Robert waved his hands angrily to banish the bright eyes, the bright voices, the bright bodies. They were supple and servile enough, but he did not need them then.

"Dismiss these women," he ordered. "I do not come for them."

Lycabetta thanked him with a deep salutation, dropping her body almost to the ground in mocking reverence.

"You came for me, sire?" she asserted. Robert shook his head and beckoned her, and she glided towards him, while her women huddled together at the back of the hall, quivering with mirth at the sport of fool-baiting.

"No, sweeting," Robert said, gravely. "No. We have shared rose-red hours; you are made very comely; but there is one here more beautiful than you--than all the world."

Even from the mouth of a derided fool it is never delightful for loveliness to be told that it is outshone. Lycabetta's lips tightened a little as she asked, "Which is she, sire?"

In her heart she promised herself that when the King did come she would use her interest to gain master fool the grace of a score of stripes. But Robert, not noticing an irritation which he would not have heeded if he had seen it, went on in his most royal manner: