Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. The Talisman by Walter Scott (which ebook reader txt) 📖
- Author: Walter Scott
Book online «The Talisman by Walter Scott (which ebook reader txt) 📖». Author Walter Scott
“Oh, no, no!” exclaimed Edith. “Go yourself madam; you have done the evil, do you confer the remedy.”
“I will go—I will go,” said the Queen; “but if Richard be in his mood, I dare not speak to him—he will kill me!”
“Yet go, gracious madam,” said the Lady Calista, who best knew her mistress's temper; “not a lion, in his fury, could look upon such a face and form, and retain so much as an angry thought, far less a love-true knight like the royal Richard, to whom your slightest word would be a command.”
“Dost thou think so, Calista?” said the Queen. “Ah, thou little knowest yet I will go. But see you here, what means this? You have bedizened me in green, a colour he detests. Lo you! let me have a blue robe, and—search for the ruby carcanet, which was part of the King of Cyprus's ransom; it is either in the steel casket, or somewhere else.”
“This, and a man's life at stake!” said Edith indignantly; “it passes human patience. Remain at your ease, madam; I will go to King Richard. I am a party interested. I will know if the honour of a poor maiden of his blood is to be so far tampered with that her name shall be abused to train a brave gentleman from his duty, bring him within the compass of death and infamy, and make, at the same time, the glory of England a laughing-stock to the whole Christian army.”
At this unexpected burst of passion, Berengaria listened with an almost stupefied look of fear and wonder. But as Edith was about to leave the tent, she exclaimed, though faintly, “Stop her, stop her!”
“You must indeed stop, noble Lady Edith,” said Calista, taking her arm gently; “and you, royal madam, I am sure, will go, and without further dallying. If the Lady Edith goes alone to the King, he will be dreadfully incensed, nor will it be one life that will stay his fury.”
“I will go—I will go,” said the Queen, yielding to necessity; and Edith reluctantly halted to wait her movements.
They were now as speedy as she could have desired. The Queen hastily wrapped herself in a large loose mantle, which covered all inaccuracies of the toilet. In this guise, attended by Edith and her women, and preceded and followed by a few officers and men-at-arms, she hastened to the tent of her lionlike husband.
CHAPTER XVII. Were every hair upon his head a life, And every life were to be supplicated By numbers equal to those hairs quadrupled, Life after life should out like waning stars Before the daybreak—or as festive lamps, Which have lent lustre to the midnight revel, Each after each are quench'd when guests depart! OLD PLAY
The entrance of Queen Berengaria into the interior of Richard's pavilion was withstood—in the most respectful and reverential manner indeed, but still withstood—by the chamberlains who watched in the outer tent. She could hear the stern command of the King from within, prohibiting their entrance.
“You see,” said the Queen, appealing to Edith, as if she had exhausted all means of intercession in her power; “I knew it—the King will not receive us.”
At the same time, they heard Richard speak to some one within:—“Go, speed thine office quickly, sirrah, for in that consists thy mercy—ten byzants if thou dealest on him at one blow. And hark thee, villain, observe if his cheek loses colour, or his eye falters; mark me the smallest twitch of the features, or wink of the eyelid. I love to know how brave souls meet death.”
“If he sees my blade waved aloft without shrinking, he is the first ever did so,” answered a harsh, deep voice, which a sense of unusual awe had softened into a sound much lower than its usual coarse tones.
Edith could remain silent no longer. “If your Grace,” she said to the Queen, “make not your own way, I make it for you; or if not for your Majesty, for myself at least.—Chamberlain, the Queen demands to see King Richard—the wife to speak with her husband.”
“Noble lady,” said the officer, lowering his wand of office, “it grieves me to gainsay you, but his Majesty is busied on matters of life and death.”
“And we seek also to speak with him on matters of life and death,” said Edith. “I will make entrance for your Grace.” And putting aside the chamberlain with one hand, she laid hold on the curtain with the other.
“I dare not gainsay her Majesty's pleasure,” said the chamberlain, yielding to the vehemence of the fair petitioner; and as he gave way, the Queen found herself obliged to enter the apartment of Richard.
The Monarch was lying on his couch, and at some distance, as awaiting his further commands, stood a man whose profession it was not difficult to conjecture. He was clothed in a jerkin of red cloth, which reached scantly below the shoulders, leaving the arms bare from about half way above the elbow; and as an upper garment, he wore, when about as at present to betake himself to his dreadful office, a coat or tabard without sleeves, something like that of a herald, made of dressed bull's hide, and stained in the front with many a broad spot and speckle of dull crimson. The jerkin, and the tabard over it, reached the knee; and the nether stocks, or covering of the legs, were of the same leather which composed the tabard. A cap of rough shag served to hide the upper part of a visage which, like that of a screech owl, seemed desirous to conceal itself from light, the lower part of the face being obscured by a huge red beard, mingling with shaggy locks of the same colour. What features were seen were stern and misanthropical. The man's figure was short, strongly made, with a neck like a bull, very broad shoulders, arms of great and disproportioned length, a huge square trunk, and thick bandy legs. This truculent official leant on a sword, the blade of which was nearly four feet and a half in length, while the handle of twenty inches, surrounded by a ring of lead plummets to counterpoise the weight of such a blade, rose considerably above the man's head as he rested his arm upon its hilt, waiting for King Richard's further directions.
On the sudden entrance of the ladies, Richard, who was then lying on his couch with his face towards the entrance, and resting on his elbow as he spoke to his grisly attendant, flung himself hastily, as if displeased and surprised, to the other side, turning his back to the Queen and the females of her train, and drawing around him the covering of his couch, which, by his own choice, or more probably the flattering selection of his chamberlains, consisted of two large lions' skins, dressed in Venice with such admirable skill that they seemed softer than the hide of the deer.
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