Then she related everything.

The King frowned. "But how do I know whether you are really the Princess
Myrtle? You may for all that be but a goose-girl or a beggar-maid."

She replied, "Let me remain in your court three days as a beggar-maid. If
at the end of that time you are not sure, turn me out. I, too, will be
sure of something at the end of three days."

"Of what will you be sure?" asked the King.

"Which of you is the real king here."

Then King Cuthbert grew red like old leather, and laughed and sighed and
frowned. "God knows, I should myself like that knowledge." Then he
signed to a court lady, who was looking on with proud eyes. "Come, Dame
Caecilia, take this beggar-maid to one of the suites in the palace, and
put fair clothes on her, and conduct her to the dining-hall when the
hour strikes."

The court lady smiled to hide her anger, for she dared not disobey, and
she beckoned the Princess Myrtle to follow her. They went through a vast
door into a corridor that ran beneath heavy arches, and the walls of this
passage moved as if alive, but it was only the draught swaying the
tapestries with their gray trees and knights who rode among the trees
like heavy shadows, and long-haired women who watched the knights ride
while they wove flower-wreaths.

Then the proud court lady took the Princess up a winding stair, like the