It was a state banquet to which they sat down.  That is, there was no hungry crowd of hangers-on clustered below the salt.  To each gentleman was allotted a silver trenchard for his own use, instead of one betwixt two as was the custom.  The service was ordered in the French manner, and there was manifest through all a quiet observance and good taste which won upon the Earl of Douglas.  Nevertheless, his eyes still continued to range this way and that through the castle, scanning each tower, glancing up at every balcony and archway, in search of the Lady Sybilla.

In the banquet-hall the little King sat on his high chair in the midst, with the brothers of Douglas one on either side of him.  He spoke loudly and confidently after the manner of a pampered boy of high spirits.

“I will soon come and visit you in return at the Castle of Thrieve.  The Lady Sybilla hath told me how strong it is and how splendid are the tourneys there, as grand, she swears, as those of France.”

“The Lady Sybilla is peradventure gone to her own land?” ventured Douglas, not wishing to ask a more direct question.  He spoke freely, however, on all other subjects with the King, laughing and talking mostly with him, and finding little to say to the tutor Livingston or the Chancellor, who, either from humility or from fear, had taken care to interpose half a dozen knights between himself and his late guests.

“Nay,” cried the young King, looking querulously at his tutor, “but, indeed, I wot not what they have done with my pretty gossip, Sybilla; I have not seen her for three weeks, save for a moment this morning.  And before she went away she promised to teach me to dance a coranto in the French manner, and the trick of the handkerchief to hide a dagger in the hand.”

As the Earl listened to the boy’s prattle, he became more and more convinced that the Marshal de Retz, having in some way discovered their affection for each other, had removed Sybilla out of his reach.  Her letter, indeed, showed clearly that she was in fear of ill-treatment both for himself and for her.

The banquet passed with courtesies much more elaborate than was usual in Scotland, but which indicated the great respect in which the Douglases were held.  Between each course a servant clad in the royal colours presented a golden salver filled with clear water for the guests to wash their hands.  Through the interstices of the ceiling strains of music filtered down from musicians hidden somewhere above, which sounded curiously soothing and far away.

The Chancellor bowed and drank every few minutes to the health of the Earl and his brother across the board, while the tutor sat smiling upon all with the polish of a professional courtier.  In his high seat at the table end the little King chatted incessantly of the times when he could do as he pleased, and when he and his cousin of Douglas would ride together to battle and tourney, or feast together in hall.