“To the goldsmiths’ first,” she ordered. “On our way back—” Her words were lost on the frosty wind.
The master of the first booth in the row of wretched little stalls was humped with steaming breath over a brazier of glowing coals. He leaped to greet such splendid ladies with a profusion of salaams and a mouthful of pretty speeches that brought some of the color back to Elfgiva’s cheeks.
“Do not have me in contempt, Tata,” she admonished with a laugh of some unsteadiness. “It is not certain that I am going to belie you to the guards, or that I have lost faith in your sign. Let me sharpen my weapon for some space among these precious things, and it may be that I shall go hence panting for the field.”
“Ah, gracious lady, you must needs buy my whole stock,” the merchant cried with ingratiating smiles, “for I can never endure to sell to another what I have once seen near your face.”
Elfgiva laughed beautifully then, and the Danish girl took a fresh grip upon her patience. Certainly the jewelled bugs, the golden snakes, the strands of amber and jet and pearl, seemed to act as tonics upon the Northampton lady. If she had not traded away, at the first two stalls, every ornament in her possession, she would have investigated each booth in the square. She came out in bubbling spirits to the waiting horses and the half-frozen guards.
“This Cheapside is a very fairy garden,” she prattled, lingering with her foot in the hand of the kneeling groom. “Everything in beds and rows as they were herbs,—milk down this lane, soap down that, jewels, fabrics—” She turned with a sudden inspiration. “Maidens, would not this be a merry thought? To find out where the fabrics are kept and try some cloth of gold against these pearls?”
As the servile murmur answered, Randalin’s brow darkened. Cloth of gold and pearls,—when a wolf was tearing at her heart! She spoke desperately, “I wish that the way to the fabrics might lie past the King’s House, lady.”
The King’s wife sent her a glance, half resentful, half questioning. “Why do you say that?”
“Because if Canute could see you as you look now, with your cheeks a-flower and that ermine, like snow, upon your hair, there is nothing in the world he could refuse you.”