United States or Seychelles ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Ah, it is true, your imperial highness directs your court to take their meals at other houses," exclaimed the emperor, with a sarcastic smile. "You are paying board-money to the chamberlain, the valet de chambre, and the footman, so that it is unnecessary for you to feed them. But where is your waiting-lady, madame?
My waiting-lady, the priestess, but now has told me that my father, the king, purposes to seize and throw you into prison to-morrow, and thereafter to put you on your trial for being beloved by a daughter of the royal blood, of which, as you are a foreign man, however noble you may be, the punishment is death. Moreover, if you are condemned, your doom will be my own.
With solemn step and slow, they went as though they feared no harm, the priests and singers chanting some ancient, funeral hymn. Next followed the baggage bearers, and after these the royal bodyguard in the midst of whom the Queen, clad in mail, as a man, rode in a chariot, and with her the waiting-lady, Asti, wife of Mermes.
The waiting-lady of the bedchamber slept in the ante-room of her mistress; the others, however high their rank, were closely herded together up a winding stair leading to a small passage, with tiny, cell-like recesses, wherein the demoiselles slept, often with their maids, and then dressed themselves in the space afforded by the passage.
Hastings had not the superb and more than regal pride of Warwick and Montagu; but this notice sensibly piqued and galled him. "My apartments as Lord Chamberlain, as one of the captain-generals in the king's army, given to the waiting-lady of Sir Anthony Woodville's wife! At whose orders, sir?"
When the man had gone and the door was shut, she threw off the cloak and I saw that my visitor was Martina, the favourite waiting-lady of the Empress. We greeted each other warmly, who were always friends, and I asked her tidings. "My tidings are, Olaf, that the waters have suited the Augusta very well. She has lost several pounds in weight and her skin is now like that of a young child."
"She was ever whispering with that tall astrologer at the feast. But does Pharaoh take counsel with waiting-ladies of his private household?" "With this waiting-lady, it seems, Queen. Perhaps you have not heard all her story, in the year before your birth Merytra came up the Nile with Abi. She was then quite young and very pretty; one of Abi's women.
For some weeks after this I saw no more of the Augusta, who appeared to avoid me. One day, however, I was summoned to her presence in her private apartments by the waiting-lady Martina, and went, to find her alone, save for Martina.
In a mood unfit for companionship, he took his way to the apartments usually reserved for him, when a gentleman met him by the way, and apprised him, with great respect, that the Lord Scales and Rivers had already appropriated those apartments to the principal waiting-lady of his countess, but that other chambers, if less commodious and spacious, were at his command.
Hastings had not the superb and more than regal pride of Warwick and Montagu; but this notice sensibly piqued and galled him. "My apartments as Lord Chamberlain, as one of the captain-generals in the king's army, given to the waiting-lady of Sir Anthony Woodville's wife! At whose orders, sir?"
Word Of The Day