"
[1] Witch-wife or seeress.
The anger of the jealous king grew more unreasoning as Sir Ordgar
went on.
"Enough!" he cried. "Seize the traitor,----or, stay; children and
fools, as you have said, Sir Ordgar, do indeed speak the truth.
Have in the girl and let us hear the truth. 'Not seemly'? Sir
Atheling," he broke out in reply to some protest of Edith's
uncle. "Aught is seemly that the king doth wish. Holo! Raoul!
Damian! sirrah pages! Run, one of you, and seek the Princess
Edith, and bring her here forthwith!"
And while Edgar the Atheling, realizing that this was the gravest
of all his dangers, strove, though without effect, to reason with
the angry king, Damian, the page, as we have seen, hurried after
the Princess Edith.
"How now, mistress!" broke out the Red King, as the young girl
was ushered into the banquet-hall, where the disordered tables,
strewn with fragments of the feast, showed the ungentle manners
of those brutal days. "How now, mistress! do you prate of kings
and queens and of your own designs--you, who are but a beggar
guest? Is it seemly or wise to talk,--nay, keep you quiet, Sir
Atheling; we will have naught from you,--to talk of thrones and
crowns as if you did even now hope to win the realm from me--from
me, your only protector?"
The Princess Edith was a very high-spirited maiden, as all the
stories of her girlhood show.
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