but most of the men had only frowns for the unseemly license
of a court buffoon. Sigurd Blue Wolf, the captain of the Varangians,
moved leisurely down a step.

"Stand aside, fellow!" he said, placidly, in his large voice of Northern
command. He had some pity in his heart for the misshapen thing.

"Where did the buffoon spring from?" Faustina whispered behind her fan
to Messalinda.

Robert had no eyes for the laughing, frowning faces; no ears for the
bidding of Sigurd. He mouthed at the archbishop, foam on his lips and
blood in his eyes.

"You shall hang for this were you ten times archbishop!" he cried. He
could not understand the madness, the audacity of his people; his anger
could not pause in its gallop to make coherent question, to frame
coherent answer. A slim, courtier creature, a thing of jewels and
feathers, perched on the lowest tier of the steps, admonished him with a
shake of scented fingers. Through his frenzy Robert remembered that only
last night he made this same courtier serve him as a foot-stool.

"Do you dare to speak thus to your King?" he gasped, tearing at the
breast of his jerkin in a new-felt difficulty of breathing, a new-felt
longing for air.

Messalinda turned to those about her as one who held the key to the
riddle.

"This is how he played the King yesterday," she said, "and earned the
King's displeasure."

The others nodded. They knew Diogenes' pertinacity with a joke. Yolande
gave voice to the general feeling:

"It is ever the worst of these mountebanks, that they will harp on a
dull jest."

The archbishop, irritated at the continuance of the talking and
brawling, averted his eyes a moment from the interior of the church, and
turned them again upon Robert, who stood as if rooted to his place, the
image of a fighting beast at bay.

"You presume too much upon our patience," he said, sharply. "You will
vex the King again." As he spoke he glanced in the direction of Sigurd
Blue Wolf, a significant glance, suggesting that it was time these
interruptions should be ended. Sigurd moved leisurely a little nearer to
Robert, who did not heed him, heeding only the archbishop. Through his
bewildered mind bewildering thoughts were flitting. What was the meaning
of this strange jest at his expense? Could the archbishop believe that
he would ever pardon so preposterous an enormity? Yet now a kind of fear
crept in upon his rage, as he heard the priest use the name of the King.

"I am the Kin