Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/637

 Rh Then embracing De Lorche, he placed him on the ground; for just at the entrance the trumpets sounded suddenly, and the Prince of Plotsk entered with his consort.

"The prince and princess here precede the king and Prince Yanush," said Povala, "for though the feast is given by the starosta, it is given in Plotsk, where they are rulers. Come with me to the princess, for thou knowest her since the feast at Cracow, when she took thy part before Yagello."

And seizing Zbyshko by the arm, he conducted him through the court. Behind the prince and princess came courtiers and damsels, all in grand array, and brilliant; since the king was to be there, so the whole space was as bright from them as if they had been flowers. Zbyshko, while approaching with Povala, examined faces from a distance, thinking to find among them some acquaintance, and all at once he halted from astonishment; for close behind the princess he saw, a figure and a face well known indeed to him, but so serious, beautiful, and queenlike that he thought his eyes must be deceiving him.

"Is that Yagenka—or perhaps the daughter of the Prince of Plotsk?"

But that was Yagenka, the daughter of Zyh, for at the moment when their eyes met, she smiled at once with friendliness and compassion; then she grew pale a little, and, dropping her eyelids, stood with a golden circlet on her dark hair, and with the immense brilliancy of her beauty, tall and wonderful, resembling not merely a young princess but a ruling queen.