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Luckily he spoke his own language; but his look and air expressed a good deal of what he said, and Gerberge looked all the more unattractive. "A thorough little Norwegian bear," said the King; "fierce and unruly as the rest. Come, and perform your courtesy do you forget where you are?" he added, sternly.
And as ambition and manners had become less tinged with ferocity than they had been under the Merovingians, the sons of Carloman were not killed or shorn or even shut up in a monastery: they retired with their mother, Gerberge, to the court of Didier, King of the Lombards. "King Charles," says Eginhard, "took their departure patiently, regarding it as of no importance."
And as ambition and manners had become less tinged with ferocity than they had been under the Merovingians, the sons of Carloman were not killed or shorn or even shut up in a monastery: they retired with their mother, Gerberge, to the court of Didier, king of the Lombards. "King Charles," says Eginhard, "took their departure patiently, regarding it as of no importance."
His presence will plead better in his cause than the finest words; moreover, he will grow up in love and friendship with my two boys, and shall be nurtured with them in all good learning and chivalry, nor shall he ever be reminded that he is an orphan while under the care of Queen Gerberge and myself." "Let the child come to me, so please you, my Lord the King," answered Harcourt, bluntly.
Thus they travelled until they reached the royal Castle of Laon, where the Fleur-de-Lys standard on the battlements announced the presence of Gerberge, Queen of France, and her two sons. The King rode first into the court with his Nobles, and before Richard could follow him through the narrow arched gateway, he had dismounted, entered the Castle, and was out of sight.
They obeyed, and found her standing in the Castle hall, looking greatly incensed. "What means this?" she asked, angrily. "Knew you not that the King has left commands that the Duke quits not the Castle in his absence?" "I was only going as far as the river " began Richard, but Gerberge cut him short. "Silence, child I will hear no excuses.
But each step was taking him further from Queen Gerberge, and nearer to Normandy; and what recked he of weariness?
Gerberge, who had from the first dreaded his superior strength and his roughness with her puny boys, and who had been by no means won by his manners at their first meeting, was especially distant and severe with him, hardly ever speaking to him except with some rebuke, which, it must be confessed, Richard often deserved.
"So you have escaped for this once," said Gerberge, coldly, to Richard; "you had better beware another time. Come with me, my poor darling Lothaire."
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