Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/641

 Rh, however, Prince Yamont, who had forgotten evidently the sharp answer which on a time the young knight had given him in Cracow, for he nodded in a friendly manner, telling him by winks to come whenever possible. At that moment some hand touched the young man's shoulder, and a sweet, sad voice was heard right at his side there,—

"Zbyshko!"

He turned quickly and saw Yagenka. Occupied earlier in greeting the Princess of Plotsk, and then in converse with Anna Danuta, he could not approach Yagenka; so she herself, making use of the confusion caused by Yagello's entrance, came to him.

"Zbyshko," repeated she, "may God and the Most Holy Lady comfort thee!"

"God reward you," answered Zbyshko.

And he looked with gratitude into her blue eyes, which at that moment were as if covered with dew. They stood face to face there in silence. For though she had come to him like a kind and mourning sister, she seemed in her queenly bearing and brilliant court dress so different from the former Yagenka that at the first moment he dared not even say thou to her, as had been his wont at her father's house, and in Bogdanets. And it seemed to her that after those words which she had spoken there was no more to say to him. This continued till embarrassment was evident on their faces. But just at that moment it became less crowded in the court, for the king sat down to supper.

Princess Anna Danuta approached Zbyshko again, and said,—

"This will be a sad feast for us both, but serve me as before."

So the young man had to leave Yagenka; and when the guests were seated he stood behind the princess to change dishes and to pour out water and wine for her. While serving he looked involuntarily from time to time at Yagenka, who, being a damsel of the Princess of Plotsk, sat at her side, and he could not but admire her beauty. Yagenka, since he had seen her at home, had grown considerably; she was not changed so much by her stature, however, as by a dignity of which she had not had a trace before. Formerly, when in a sheep-skin coat and with leaves in her dishevelled hair she chased through forests and pine woods on horseback, she might have been taken really for a beautiful peasant; now, at the first cast of the eye, she seemed a maiden of