"Surely, Olvir, you misjudge the maiden. All during Lent she has been very kind and gentle. Look; here are the mushrooms which she told Pepin and Karl to gather for our mother."
"Loki,--a Roman dish! Yet the act was to be praised," admitted Olvir, and he stared curiously at the salver borne past by one of the pages. "I see it was not enough of honor to the ugly elf-stools that they should be gathered by a king's sons. They must be served in a golden bowl with a spoon of silver."
"Do not mock, dear. The cook is from Ravenna, and very skilled in his art. He bakes the spoon with the food, and if there should chance to be any poisonous mushroom with the others, he knows that the spoon will blacken."
"Better trust to good flesh and grain, and leave such dishes to the Romans and Greeks," rejoined Olvir, and he turned with sudden remembrance to his neglected trencher.
But his appetite, always moderate, was soon satisfied, and he was turning again to Rothada, when, startling as a thunderbolt from a clear sky, the king's voice broke in upon the laughter of the guests, harsh and strained with alarm: "Bring water! bring water quickly! The queen is ill! Mother of God, she swoons!"
In the sudden hush which followed, all heard the sibilant voice of Fastrada echoing the king's cry: "The queen swoons! Run, fetch the leech!--Kosru, the leech!"
Then all at the table sprang up together, and Liutrad and Worad rushed away in search of the Magian. With his own hands Karl had laid his queen upon the dais. About his stooping form gathered the dames and maidens; while the lords, grave and silent with anxiety, drew together at the far end of the hall. Olvir followed Rothada to the outer line of the women; but Gerold alone pushed in through their midst.
As the Swabian knelt beside his sister, Liutrad came thrusting Kosru before him into the hall. The Magian was deathly pale, and trembled visibly as Liutrad and Worad bore him forward between them. Yet he had not lost his power of speech.
"Stay!" he interposed in a quavering voice, as, at a sign from the king, Fastrada and the other bower-maidens sought to raise the queen. "Stay, maidens! I would first learn what our gracious dame has eaten."
"What we have all eaten," replied Karl, quickly.