She looked up proudly.  “My love.  Is it not enough?”

The fool bowed.  “It must be, when kings crave for it.  Yet beauty such as thine can only love the beautiful.”

“Then I shall pity him—­with all my heart’s strength; I’ll comfort his poor life with sweetest pity.”

“Lady, pity is the meanest gate of love.”

The captain growled and swung his halberd viciously.  “Keep thy wit for the king’s ear,” he said.  “The lady Suelva hath spoken her decision.  We dally no longer.”  He bent down and lifted the squire’s body over his back.  Then he turned to the eunuch.  “Take thou the old mute’s corpse.  I have kept his carcass these seven days; to serve as a pattern.  So carry it down.”

The black’s eyes dilated again, and he shrank back.  “I dare not touch it.  He was my friend.”

“Bah.  Then take thou my load,” and in exchange the captain slung the corpse across his own shoulders.  As he crossed the room, the loose head showed upside-down over his back, bobbing and flabbily wagging its grin-split face.

The lady stared at it rigidly.  She seized the jester’s arm.  “And is his face to be a counterpart of that one?”

“Aye—­every feature exactly.”

The captain threw open the trap-door and went down the ladder.  The eunuch, staggering a little under the squire’s weight, followed him and disappeared from view.  Suelva ran forward a few steps as if to call them back; then she stopped short, hand at breast.

“’Tis too late,” said the jester bitterly, and shut down the trap-door.

“God pity me,” she sobbed.  “I was too selfish of his life—­and of his love.”

“And now, be sure, he will do naught but hate thee!”

As if to spite her overwrought emotions, she turned on him sharply.  “Thou art impertinent, fool.”

He smiled sadly.  “Unpleasant truths must ever seem impertinent—­but they are no less true.  An’ I be the court fool, pray, noble lady, what art thou?  We be all king’s play-things—­my wit and thy beauty and the mute’s deformities.  For all of us sweet life is slowly spoiled—­for the mute and me by scorn and snickerings; for thee by the cold glitter of lavished finery and callous flattery.  That squire, young and beautiful and bursting with ambition, was only a play-thing, too—­thy toy, to dally with and break.”

“Nay, nay!  I loved him dearly and so shall for all time.”

The jester laughed shortly.  “I had not meant for thee to glance upon this scene,” he said, “but if ’twere best, then look, lady, look!” and he threw open the trap.  A great red light flared up into the donjon, and waved and danced along the moon-green walls.  The empty bier seemed licked in ruddy flames, and on the moist mould of the ceiling, each little drop of water sparkled like a ruby.

“Look at him,” repeated the jester.  “Shrink not; they are only heating the irons.”

She crept to the edge of the trap, and peered down, fascinated.  “Who are those huge hairy men, with wild beasts’ faces?” she asked.