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diff --git a/old/11752.txt b/old/11752.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0ba40db --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11752.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7321 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Chivalry, by James Branch Cabell, et al + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Chivalry + +Author: James Branch Cabell + +Release Date: March 28, 2004 [eBook #11752] +[Date last updated: September 30, 2005] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHIVALRY*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Joris Van Dael, Susan Lucy, and Project +Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + +CHIVALRY + +JAMES BRANCH CABELL + +1921 + + + + + + +TO +ANNE BRANCH CABELL + + + "AINSI A VOUS, MADAME, A MA TRES HAULTE ET + TRES NOBLE DAME, A QUI J'AYME A DEVOIR + ATTACHEMENT ET OBEISSANCE, + J'ENVOYE CE LIVRET." + + + + + +Introduction + + +Few of the more astute critics who have appraised the work of James +Branch Cabell have failed to call attention to that extraordinary +cohesion which makes his very latest novel a further flowering of the +seed of his very earliest literary work. Especially among his later +books does the scheme of each seem to dovetail into the scheme of the +other and the whole of his writing take on the character of an +uninterrupted discourse. To this phenomenon, which is at once a fact and +an illusion of continuity, Mr. Cabell himself has consciously +contributed, not only by a subtly elaborate use of conjunctions, by +repetition, and by reintroducing characters from his other books, but by +actually setting his expertness in genealogy to the genial task of +devising a family tree for his figures of fiction. + +If this were an actual continuity, more tangible than that fluid +abstraction we call the life force; if it were merely a tireless +reiteration and recasting of characters, Mr. Cabell's work would have an +unbearable monotony. But at bottom this apparent continuity has no more +material existence than has the thread of lineal descent. To insist +upon its importance is to obscure, as has been obscured, the epic range +of Mr. Cabell's creative genius. It is to fail to observe that he has +treated in his many books every mainspring of human action and that his +themes have been the cardinal dreams and impulses which have in them +heroic qualities. Each separate volume has a unity and harmony of a +complete and separate life, for the excellent reason that with the +consummate skill of an artist he is concerned exclusively in each book +with one definite heroic impulse and its frustrations. + +It is true, of course, that like the fruit of the tree of life, Mr. +Cabell's artistic progeny sprang from a first conceptual germ--"In the +beginning was the Word." That animating idea is the assumption that if +life may be said to have an aim it must be an aim to terminate in +success and splendor. It postulates the high, fine importance of excess, +the choice or discovery of an overwhelming impulse in life and a +conscientious dedication to its fullest realization. It is the quality +and intensity of the dream only which raises men above the biological +norm; and it is fidelity to the dream which differentiates the +exceptional figure, the man of heroic stature, from the muddling, +aimless mediocrities about him. What the dream is, matters not at +all--it may be a dream of sainthood, kingship, love, art, asceticism or +sensual pleasure--so long as it is fully expressed with all the +resources of self. It is this sort of completion which Mr. Cabell has +elected to depict in all his work: the complete sensualist in +Demetrios, the complete phrase-maker in Felix Kennaston, the complete +poet in Marlowe, the complete lover in Perion. In each he has shown that +this complete self-expression is achieved at the expense of all other +possible selves, and that herein lies the tragedy of the ideal. +Perfection is a costly flower and is cultured only by an uncompromising, +strict husbandry. + +All this is, we see, the ideational gonfalon under which surge the +romanticists; but from the evidence at hand it is the banner to which +life also bears allegiance. It is in humanity's records that it has +reserved its honors for its romantic figures. It remembers its Caesars, +its saints, its sinners. It applauds, with a complete suspension of +moral judgment, its heroines and its heroes who achieve the greatest +self-realization. And from the splendid triumphs and tragic defeats of +humanity's individual strivings have come our heritage of wisdom and of +poetry. + +Once we understand the fundamentals of Mr. Cabell's artistic aims, it is +not easy to escape the fact that in _Figures of Earth_ he undertook the +staggering and almost unsuspected task of rewriting humanity's sacred +books, just as in _Jurgen_ he gave us a stupendous analogue of the +ceaseless quest for beauty. For we must accept the truth that Mr. Cabell +is not a novelist at all in the common acceptance of the term, but a +historian of the human soul. His books are neither documentary nor +representational; his characters are symbols of human desires and +motives. By the not at all simple process of recording faithfully the +projections of his rich and varied imagination, he has written thirteen +books, which he accurately terms biography, wherein is the bitter-sweet +truth about human life. + + +II + +Among the scant certainties vouchsafed us is that every age lives by its +special catchwords. Whether from rebellion against the irking monotony +of its inherited creeds or from compulsions generated by its own +complexities, each age develops its code of convenient illusions which +minimize cerebration in dilemmas of conduct by postulating an +unequivocal cleavage between the current right and the current wrong. It +works until men tire of it or challenge the cleavage, or until +conditions render the code obsolete. It has in it, happily, a certain +poetic merit always; it presents an ideal to be lived up to; it gives +direction to the uncertain, stray impulses of life. + +The Chivalric code is no worse than most and certainly it is prettier +than some. It is a code peculiar to an age, or at least it flourishes +best in an age wherein sentiment and the stuff of dreams are easily +translatable into action. Its requirements are less of the intellect +than of the heart. It puts God, honor, and mistress above all else, and +stipulates that a knight shall serve these three without any +reservation. It requires of its secular practitioners the holy virtues +of an active piety, a modified chastity, and an unqualified obedience, +at all events, to the categorical imperative. The obligation of poverty +it omits, for the code arose at a time when the spiritual snobbery of +the meek and lowly was not pressing the simile about the camel and the +eye of the needle. It leads to charming manners and to delicate +amenities. It is the opposite of the code of Gallantry, for while the +code of Chivalry takes everything with a becoming seriousness, the code +of Gallantry takes everything with a wink. If one should stoop to pick +flaws with the Chivalric ideal, it would be to point out a certain +priggishness and intolerance. For, while it is all very well for one to +cherish the delusion that he is God's vicar on earth and to go about his +Father's business armed with a shining rectitude, yet the unhallowed may +be moved to deprecate the enterprise when they recall, with discomfort, +the zealous vicarship of, say, the late Anthony J. Comstock. + +But here I blunder into Mr. Cabell's province. For he has joined many +graceful words in delectable and poignant proof of just that lamentable +tendency of man to make a mess of even his most immaculate conceivings. +When he wrote _Chivalry_, Mr. Cabell was yet young enough to view the +code less with the appraising eye of a pawnbroker than with the ardent +eye of an amateur. He knew its value, but he did not know its price. So +he made of it the thesis for a dizain of beautiful happenings that are +almost flawless in their verbal beauty. + + +III + +It is perhaps of historical interest here to record the esteem in which +Mark Twain held the genius of Mr. Cabell as it was manifested as early +as a dozen years ago. Mr. Cabell wrote _The Soul of Melicent_, or, as it +was rechristened on revision, _Domnei_, at the great humorist's request, +and during the long days and nights of his last illness it was Mr. +Cabell's books which gave Mark Twain his greatest joy. This knowledge +mitigates the pleasure, no doubt, of those who still, after his fifteen +years of writing, encounter him intermittently with a feeling of having +made a great literary discovery. The truth is that Mr. Cabell has been +discovered over and over with each succeeding book from that first fine +enthusiasm with which Percival Pollard reviewed _The Eagle's Shadow_ to +that generous acknowledgment by Hugh Walpole that no one in England, +save perhaps Conrad and Hardy, was so sure of literary permanence as +James Branch Cabell. + +With _The Cream of the Jest, Beyond Life_, and _Figures of Earth_ before +him, it is not easy for the perceptive critic to doubt this permanence. +One might as sensibly deny a future to Ecclesiastes, _The Golden Ass, +Gulliver's Travels_, and the works of Rabelais as to predict oblivion +for such a thesaurus of ironic wit and fine fantasy, mellow wisdom and +strange beauty as _Jurgen_. But to appreciate the tales of _Chivalry_ +is, it seems, a gift more frequently reserved for the general reader +than for the professional literary evaluator. Certainly years before +discussion of Cabell was artificially augmented by the suppression of +_Jurgen_ there were many genuine lovers of romance who had read these +tales with pure enjoyment. That they did not analyse and articulate +their enjoyment for the edification of others does not lessen the +quality of their appreciation. Even in those years they found in +Cabell's early tales what we find who have since been directed to them +by the curiosity engendered by his later work, namely, a superb +craftsmanship in recreating a vanished age, an atmosphere in keeping +with the themes, a fluid, graceful, personal style, a poetic ecstasy, a +fine sense of drama, and a unity and symmetry which are the hall-marks +of literary genius. + +BURTON RASCOE. New York City, September, 1921. + + + + +Contents + +PRECAUTIONAL + +THE PROLOGUE + + + I THE STORY OF THE SESTINA + + II THE STORY OF THE TENSON + + III THE STORY OF THE RAT-TRAP + + IV THE STORY OF THE CHOICES + + V THE STORY OF THE HOUSEWIFE + + VI THE STORY OF THE SATRAPS + + VII THE STORY OF THE HERITAGE + +VIII THE STORY OF THE SCABBARD + + IX THE STORY OF THE NAVARRESE + + X THE STORY OF THE FOX-BRUSH + + THE EPILOGUE + + + + + +Precautional + + +Imprimis, as concerns the authenticity of these tales perhaps the less +debate may be the higher wisdom, if only because this Nicolas de Caen, +by common report, was never a Gradgrindian. And in this volume in +particular, writing it (as Nicolas is supposed to have done) in 1470, as +a dependant on the Duke of Burgundy, it were but human nature should he, +in dealing with the putative descendants of Dom Manuel and Alianora of +Provence, be niggardly in his ascription of praiseworthy traits to any +member of the house of Lancaster or of Valois. Rather must one in common +reason accept old Nicolas as confessedly a partisan writer, who upon +occasion will recolor an event with such nuances as will be least +inconvenient to a Yorkist and Burgundian bias. + +The reteller of these stories needs in addition to plead guilty of +having abridged the tales with a free hand. Item, these tales have been +a trifle pulled about, most notably in "The Story of the Satraps," where +it seemed advantageous, on reflection, to put into Gloucester's mouth a +history which in the original version was related _ab ovo_, and as a +sort of bungling prologue to the story proper. + +Item, the re-teller of these stories desires hereby to tender +appropriate acknowledgment to Mr. R.E. Townsend for his assistance in +making an English version of the lyrics included hereinafter; and to +avoid discussion as to how freely, in these lyrics, Nicolas has +plagiarized from Raimbaut de Vaqueiras and other elder poets.[1] + +And--"sixth and lastly"--should confession be made that in the present +rendering a purely arbitrary title has been assigned this little book; +chiefly for commercial reasons, since the word "dizain" has been +adjudged both untranslatable and, in its pristine form, repellantly +_outre_. + + +2 + +You are to give my titular makeshift, then, a wide interpretation; and +are always to remember that in the bleak, florid age these tales +commemorate this Chivalry was much the rarelier significant of any +personal trait than of a world-wide code in consonance with which all +estimable people lived and died. Its root was the assumption +(uncontested then) that a gentleman will always serve his God, his honor +and his lady without any reservation; nor did the many emanating by-laws +ever deal with special cases as concerns this triple, fixed, and +fundamental homage. + + + +Such is the trinity served hereinafter. Now about lady-service, or +_domnei_, I have written elsewhere. Elsewhere also I find it recorded +that "the cornerstone of Chivalry is the idea of vicarship: for the +chivalrous person is, in his own eyes at least, the child of God, and +goes about this world as his Father's representative in an alien +country." + +I believe the definition holds: it certainly tends to explain the +otherwise puzzling pertinacity with which the characters in these tales +talk about God and act upon an assured knowledge as to Heaven's private +intentions and preferences. These people are the members of one family +engrossed, as all of us are apt to be when in the society of our kin, by +family matters and traditions and by-words. It is not merely that they +are all large children consciously dependent in all things upon a not +foolishly indulgent Father, Who keeps an interested eye upon the least +of their doings, and punishes at need,--not merely that they know +themselves to act under surveillance and to speak within ear-shot of a +divine eavesdropper. The point is, rather, that they know this +observation to be as tender, the punishment to be as unwilling, as that +which they themselves extend to their own children's pranks and +misdemeanors. The point is that to them Heaven is a place as actual and +tangible as we consider Alaska or Algiers to be, and that their living +is a conscious journeying toward this actual place. The point is that +the Father is a real father, and not a word spelt with capital letters +in the Church Service; not an abstraction, not a sort of a something +vaguely describable as "the Life Force," but a very famous kinsman, of +whom one is naively proud, and whom one is on the way to visit.... The +point, in brief, is that His honor and yours are inextricably blended, +and are both implicated in your behavior on the journey. + +We nowadays can just cloudily imagine this viewing of life as a sort of +boarding-school from which one eventually goes home, with an official +report as to progress and deportment: and in retaliation for being +debarred from the comforts of this view, the psychoanalysts have no +doubt invented for it some opprobrious explanation. At all events, this +Chivalry was a pragmatic hypothesis: it "worked," and served society for +a long while, not faultlessly of course, but by creating, like all the +other codes of human conduct which men have yet tried, a tragi-comic +melee wherein contended "courtesy and humanity, friendliness, hardihood, +love and friendship, and murder, hate, and virtue, and sin." + + +3 + +For the rest, since good wine needs no bush, and an inferior beverage is +not likely to be bettered by arboreal adornment, I elect to piece out +my exordium (however lamely) with "The Printer's Preface." And it runs +in this fashion: + +"Here begins the volume called and entitled the Dizain of Queens, +composed and extracted from divers chronicles and other sources of +information, by that extremely venerable person and worshipful man, +Messire Nicolas de Caen, priest and chaplain to the right noble, +glorious and mighty prince in his time, Philippe, Duke of Burgundy, of +Brabant, etc., in the year of the Incarnation of our Lord God a thousand +four hundred and seventy: and imprinted by me, Colard Mansion, at +Bruges, in the year of our said Lord God a thousand four hundred and +seventy-one; at the commandment of the right high, mighty and virtuous +Princess, my redoubted Lady, Isabella of Portugal, by the grace of God +Duchess of Burgundy and Lotharingia, of Brabant and Limbourg, of +Luxembourg and of Gueldres, Countess of Flanders, of Artois, and of +Burgundy, Palatine of Hainault, of Holland, of Zealand and of Namur, +Marquesse of the Holy Empire, and Lady of Frisia, of Salins and of +Mechlin; whom I beseech Almighty God less to increase than to continue +in her virtuous disposition in this world, and after our poor fleet +existence to receive eternally. Amen." + + + + +THE PROLOGUE + + + "_Afin que les entreprises honorables et les nobles aventures et + faicts d'armes soyent noblement enregistres et conserves, je vais + traiter et raconter et inventer ung galimatias_." + +THE DIZAIN OF QUEENS OF THAT NOBLE MAKER IN THE FRENCH TONGUE, MESSIRE +NICOLAS DE CAEN, DEDICATED TO THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS ISABELLA OF PORTUGAL, +OF THE HOUSE OF THE INDOMITABLE ALFONSO HENRIQUES, AND DUCHESS DOWAGER +OF BURGUNDY. HERE BEGINS IN AUSPICIOUS WISE THE PROLOGUE. + + + + +The Prologue + +A Sa Dame + + +Inasmuch as it was by your command, illustrious and exalted lady, that I +have gathered together these stories to form the present little book, +you should the less readily suppose I have presumed to dedicate to your +Serenity this trivial offering because of my esteeming it to be not +undeserving of your acceptance. The truth is otherwise: your postulant +approaches not spurred toward you by vainglory, but rather by equity, +and equity's plain need to acknowledge that he who seeks to write of +noble ladies must necessarily implore at outset the patronage of her who +is the light and mainstay of our age. I humbly bring my book to you as +Phidyle approached another and less sacred shrine, _farre pio et +saliente mica_, and lay before you this my valueless mean tribute not as +appropriate to you but as the best I have to offer. + +It is a little book wherein I treat of divers queens and of their +love-business; and with necessitated candor I concede my chosen field to +have been harvested, and scrupulously gleaned, by many writers of +innumerable conditions. Since Dares Phrygius wrote of Queen Heleine, and +Virgil (that shrewd necromancer) of Queen Dido, a preponderating mass of +clerks, in casting about for high and serious matter, have chosen, as +though it were by common instinct, to dilate upon the amours of royal +women. Even in romance we scribblers must contrive it so that the fair +Nicolete shall be discovered in the end to be no less than the King's +daughter of Carthage, and that Sir Dooen of Mayence shall never sink in +his love affairs beneath the degree of a Saracen princess; and we are +backed in this old procedure not only by the authority of Aristotle but, +oddly enough, by that of reason. + +Kings have their policies and wars wherewith to drug each human +appetite. But their consorts are denied these makeshifts; and love may +rationally be defined as the pivot of each normal woman's life, and in +consequence as the arbiter of that ensuing life which is eternal. +Because--as anciently Propertius demanded, though not, to speak the +truth, of any woman-- + + Quo fugis? ah demens! nulla est fuga, tu licet usque + Ad Tanaim fugias, usque sequetur amor. + +And a dairymaid, let us say, may love whom she will, and nobody else be +a penny the worse for her mistaking of the preferable nail whereon to +hang her affections; whereas with a queen this choice is more +portentous. She plays the game of life upon a loftier table, ruthlessly +illuminated, she stakes by her least movement a tall pile of counters, +some of which are, of necessity, the lives and happiness of persons whom +she knows not, unless it be by vague report. Grandeur sells itself at +this hard price, and at no other. A queen must always play, in fine, as +the vicar of destiny, free to choose but very certainly compelled in the +ensuing action to justify that choice: as is strikingly manifested by +the authentic histories of Brunhalt, and of Guenevere, and of swart +Cleopatra, and of many others that were born to the barbaric queenhoods +of extinct and dusty times. + +All royal persons are (I take it) the immediate and the responsible +stewards of Heaven; and since the nature of each man is like a troubled +stream, now muddied and now clear, their prayer must ever be, _Defenda +me, Dios, de me_! Yes, of exalted people, and even of their near +associates, life, because it aims more high than the aforementioned +Aristotle, demands upon occasion a more great catharsis, which would +purge any audience of unmanliness, through pity and through terror, +because, by a quaint paradox, the players have been purged of humanity. +For a moment Destiny has thrust her scepter into the hands of a human +being and Chance has exalted a human being to decide the issue of many +human lives. These two--with what immortal chucklings one may facilely +imagine--have left the weakling thus enthroned, free to direct the heavy +outcome, free to choose, and free to evoke much happiness or age-long +weeping, but with no intermediate course unbarred. _Now prove thyself_! +saith Destiny; and Chance appends: _Now prove thyself to be at bottom a +god or else a beast, and now eternally abide that choice. And now_ (O +crowning irony!) _we may not tell thee clearly by which choice thou +mayst prove either_. + +In this little book about the women who intermarried, not very enviably, +with an unhuman race (a race predestinate to the red ending which I have +chronicled elsewhere, in _The Red Cuckold_), it is of ten such moments +that I treat. + +You alone, I think, of all persons living, have learned, as you have +settled by so many instances, to rise above mortality in such a testing, +and unfailingly to merit by your conduct the plaudits and the adoration +of our otherwise dissentient world. You have often spoken in the stead +of Destiny, with nations to abide your verdict; and in so doing have +both graced and hallowed your high vicarship. If I forbear to speak of +this at greater length, it is because I dare not couple your well-known +perfection with any imperfect encomium. Upon no plea, however, can any +one forbear to acknowledge that he who seeks to write of noble ladies +must necessarily implore at outset the patronage of her who is the light +and mainstay of our age. + +_Therefore to you, madame--most excellent and noble lady, to whom I love +to owe both loyalty and love--I dedicate this little book._ + + + + +I + +_THE STORY OF THE SESTINA_ + + + "Armatz de fust e de fer e d'acier, Mos ostal seran bosc, fregz, + e semdier, E mas cansos sestinas e descortz, E mantenrai los frevols + contra 'ls fortz." + +THE FIRST NOVEL.--ALIANORA OF PROVENCE, COMING IN DISGUISE AND IN +ADVERSITY TO A CERTAIN CLERK, IS BY HIM CONDUCTED ACROSS A HOSTILE +COUNTRY; AND IN THAT TROUBLED JOURNEY ARE MADE MANIFEST TO EACH THE +SNARES WHICH HAD BEGUILED THEM AFORETIME. + + + + +The Story of the Sestina + + +In this place we have to do with the opening tale of the Dizain of +Queens. I abridge, as afterward, at discretion; and an initial account +of the Barons' War, among other superfluities, I amputate as more +remarkable for veracity than interest. The result, we will agree at +outset, is that to the Norman cleric appertains whatever these tales may +have of merit, whereas what you find distasteful in them you must impute +to my delinquencies in skill rather than in volition. + +Within the half hour after de Giars' death (here one overtakes Nicolas +mid-course in narrative) Dame Alianora thus stood alone in the corridor +of a strange house. Beyond the arras the steward and his lord were at +irritable converse. + +First, "If the woman be hungry," spoke a high and peevish voice, "feed +her. If she need money, give it to her. But do not annoy me." + +"This woman demands to see the master of the house," the steward then +retorted. + +"O incredible Boeotian, inform her that the master of the house has no +time to waste upon vagabonds who select the middle of the night as an +eligible time to pop out of nowhere. Why did you not do so in the +beginning, you dolt?" The speaker got for answer only a deferential +cough, and very shortly continued: "This is remarkably vexatious. _Vox +et praeterea nihil_--which signifies, Yeck, that to converse with women +is always delightful. Admit her." This was done, and Dame Alianora came +into an apartment littered with papers, where a neat and shriveled +gentleman of fifty-odd sat at a desk and scowled. + +He presently said, "You may go, Yeck." He had risen, the magisterial +attitude with which he had awaited her entrance cast aside. "Oh, God!" +he said; "you, madame!" His thin hands, scholarly hands, were plucking +at the air. + +Dame Alianora had paused, greatly astonished, and there was an interval +before she said, "I do not recognize you, messire." + +"And yet, madame, I recall very clearly that some thirty years ago the +King-Count Raymond Berenger, then reigning in Provence, had about his +court four daughters, each one of whom was afterward wedded to a king. +First, Meregrett, the eldest, now regnant in France; then Alianora, the +second and most beautiful of these daughters, whom troubadours hymned as +the Unattainable Princess. She was married a long while ago, madame, to +the King of England, Lord Henry, third of that name to reign in these +islands." + +Dame Alianora's eyes were narrowing. "There is something in your voice," +she said, "which I recall." + +He answered: "Madame and Queen, that is very likely, for it is a voice +which sang a deal in Provence when both of us were younger. I concede +with the Roman that I have somewhat deteriorated since the reign of +Cynara. Yet have you quite forgotten the Englishman who made so many +songs of you? They called him Osmund Heleigh." + +"He made the Sestina of Spring which won the violet crown at my +betrothal," the Queen said; and then, with eagerness: "Messire, can it +be that you are Osmund Heleigh?" He shrugged assent. She looked at him +for a long time, rather sadly, and demanded if he were the King's man or +of the barons' party. + +The nervous hands were raised in deprecation. "I have no politics," +Messire Heleigh began, and altered it, gallantly enough, to, "I am the +Queen's man, madame." + +"Then aid me, Osmund," she said. + +He answered with a gravity which singularly became him, "You have reason +to understand that to my fullest power I will aid you." + +"You know that at Lewes these swine overcame us." He nodded assent. "Now +they hold the King, my husband, captive at Kenilworth. I am content +that he remain there, for he is of all the King's enemies the most +dangerous. But, at Wallingford, Leicester has imprisoned my son, Prince +Edward. The Prince must be freed, my Osmund. Warren de Basingbourne +commands what is left of the royal army, now entrenched at Bristol, and +it is he who must liberate my son. Get me to Bristol, then. Afterward we +will take Wallingford." The Queen issued these orders in cheery, +practical fashion, and did not admit opposition into the account, for +she was a capable woman. + +"But you, madame?" he stammered. "You came alone?" + +"I come from France, where I have been entreating--and vainly +entreating--succor from yet another monkish king, the holy Lewis of that +realm. Eh, what is God about when He enthrones these whining pieties! +Were I a king, were I even a man, I would drive these smug English out +of their foggy isle in three days' space! I would leave alive not one of +these curs that dare yelp at me! I would--" She paused, anger veering +into amusement. "See how I enrage myself when I think of what your +people have made me suffer," the Queen said, and shrugged her shoulders. +"In effect, I skulked back in disguise to this detestable island, +accompanied by Avenel de Giars and Hubert Fitz-Herveis. To-night some +half-dozen fellows--robbers, thorough knaves, like all you +English,--attacked us on the common yonder and slew the men of our +party. While they were cutting de Giars' throat I slipped away in the +dark and tumbled through many ditches till I spied your light. There you +have my story. Now get me an escort to Bristol." + +It was a long while before Messire Heleigh spoke. Then, "These men," he +said--"this de Giars and this Fitz-Herveis--they gave their lives for +yours, as I understand it,--_pro caris amicis_. And yet you do not +grieve for them." + +"I shall regret de Giars," the Queen acknowledged, "for he made +excellent songs. But Fitz-Herveis?--foh! the man had a face like a +horse." Again her mood changed. "Many persons have died for me, my +friend. At first I wept for them, but now I am dry of tears." + +He shook his head. "Cato very wisely says, 'If thou hast need of help, +ask it of thy friends.' But the sweet friend that I remember was a clean +eyed girl, joyous and exceedingly beautiful. Now you appear to me one of +those ladies of remoter times--Faustina, or Jael, or Artemis, the King's +wife of Tauris,--they that slew men, laughing. I am somewhat afraid of +you, madame." + +She was angry at first; then her face softened. "You English!" she said, +only half mirthful. "Eh, my God! you remember me when I was a high +hearted young sorceress. Now the powers of the Apsarasas have departed +from me, and time has thrust that Alianora, who was once the +Unattainable Princess, chin deep in misery. Yet even now I am your +Queen, messire, and it is not yours to pass judgment upon me." "I do +not judge you," he returned. "Rather I cry with him of old, _Omnia +incerta ratione!_ and I cry with Salomon that he who meddles with the +strife of another man is like to him that takes a hound by the ears. Yet +listen, madame and Queen. I cannot afford you an escort to Bristol. This +house, of which I am in temporary charge, is Longaville, my brother's +manor. Lord Brudenel, as you doubtless know, is of the barons' party +and--scant cause for grief!--is with Leicester at this moment. I can +trust none of my brother's people, for I believe them to be of much the +same opinion as those Londoners who not long ago stoned you and would +have sunk your barge in Thames River. Oh, let us not blink the fact that +you are not overbeloved in England. So an escort is out of the question. +Yet I, madame, if you so elect, will see you safe to Bristol." + +"You? Singly?" the Queen demanded. + +"My plan is this: Singing folk alone travel whither they will. We will +go as jongleurs, then. I can yet manage a song to the viol, I dare +affirm. And you must pass as my wife." + +He said this with simplicity. The plan seemed unreasonable, and at first +Dame Alianora waved it aside. Out of the question! But reflection +suggested nothing better; it was impossible to remain at Longaville, and +the man spoke sober truth when he declared any escort other than himself +to be unprocurable. Besides, the lunar madness of the scheme was its +strength; that the Queen would venture to cross half England +unprotected--and Messire Heleigh on the face of him was a paste-board +buckler--was an event which Leicester would neither anticipate nor on +report credit. There you were! these English had no imagination. The +Queen snapped her fingers and said: "Very willingly will I be your wife, +my Osmund. But how do I know that I can trust you? Leicester would give +a deal for me; he would pay any price for the pious joy of burning the +Sorceress of Provence. And you are not wealthy, I suspect." + +"You may trust me, mon bel esper,"--his eyes here were those of a beaten +child--"because my memory is better than yours." Messire Osmund Heleigh +gathered his papers into a neat pile. "This room is mine. To-night I +keep guard in the corridor, madame. We will start at dawn." + +When he had gone, Dame Alianora laughed contentedly. "Mon bel esper! my +fairest hope! The man called me that in his verses--thirty years ago! +Yes, I may trust you, my poor Osmund." + +So they set out at cockcrow. He had procured for himself a viol and a +long falchion, and had somewhere got suitable clothes for the Queen; and +in their aging but decent garb the two approached near enough to the +appearance of what they desired to be thought. In the courtyard a knot +of servants gaped, nudged one another, but openly said nothing. Messire +Heleigh, as they interpreted it, was brazening out an affair of +gallantry before the countryside; and they esteemed his casual +observation that they would find a couple of dead men on the common +exceedingly diverting. + +When the Queen asked him the same morning, "And what will you sing, my +Osmund? Shall we begin the practise of our new profession with the +Sestina of Spring?"--old Osmund Heleigh grunted out: "I have forgotten +that rubbish long ago. _Omnis amans, amens_, saith the satirist of Rome +town, and with reason." + +Followed silence. + +One sees them thus trudging the brown, naked plains under a sky of +steel. In a pageant the woman, full-veined and comely, her russet gown +girded up like a harvester's might not inaptly have prefigured October; +and for less comfortable November you could nowhere have found a symbol +more precise than her lank companion, humorously peevish under his white +thatch of hair, and constantly fretted by the sword tapping at his +ankles. + +They made Hurlburt prosperously and found it vacant, for the news of +Falmouth's advance had driven the villagers hillward. There was in this +place a child, a naked boy of some two years, lying on a doorstep, +overlooked in his elders' gross terror. As the Queen with a sob lifted +this boy the child died. + +"Starved!" said Osmund Heleigh; "and within a stone's throw of my snug +home!" + +The Queen laid down the tiny corpse, and, stooping, lightly caressed +its sparse flaxen hair. She answered nothing, though her lips moved. + +Past Vachel, scene of a recent skirmish, with many dead in the gutters, +they were overtaken by Falmouth himself, and stood at the roadside to +afford his troop passage. The Marquess, as he went by, flung the Queen a +coin, with a jest sufficiently high flavored. She knew the man her +inveterate enemy, knew that on recognition he would have killed her as +he would a wolf; she smiled at him and dropped a curtsey. + +"This is remarkable," Messire Heleigh observed. "I was hideously afraid, +and am yet shaking. But you, madame, laughed." + +The Queen replied: "I laughed because I know that some day I shall have +Lord Falmouth's head. It will be very sweet to see it roll in the dust, +my Osmund." + +Messire Heleigh somewhat dryly observed that tastes differed. + +At Jessop Minor befell a more threatening adventure. Seeking food at the +_Cat and Hautbois_ in that village, they blundered upon the same troop +at dinner in the square about the inn. Falmouth and his lieutenants were +somewhere inside the house. The men greeted the supposed purveyors of +amusement with a shout; and one of these soldiers--a swarthy rascal with +his head tied in a napkin--demanded that the jongleurs grace their meal +with a song. + +Osmund tried to put him off with a tale of a broken viol. + +But, "Haro!" the fellow blustered; "by blood and by nails! you will sing +more sweetly with a broken viol than with a broken head. I would have +you understand, you hedge thief, that we gentlemen of the sword are not +partial to wordy argument." Messire Heleigh fluttered inefficient hands +as the men-at-arms gathered about them, scenting some genial piece of +cruelty. "Oh, you rabbit!" the trooper jeered, and caught at Osmund's +throat, shaking him. In the act this rascal tore open Messire Heleigh's +tunic, disclosing a thin chain about his neck and a handsome locket, +which the fellow wrested from its fastening. "Ahoi!" he continued. +"Ahoi, my comrades, what sort of minstrel is this, who goes about +England all hung with gold like a Cathedral Virgin! He and his +sweetheart"--the actual word was grosser--"will be none the worse for an +interview with the Marquess." + +The situation smacked of awkwardness, because Lord Falmouth was familiar +with the Queen, and to be brought specifically to his attention meant +death for two detected masqueraders. Hastily Osmund Heleigh said: + +"Messire, the locket contains the portrait of a lady whom in my youth I +loved very greatly. Save to me, it is valueless. I pray you, do not rob +me of it." + +But the trooper shook his head with drunken solemnity. "I do not like +the looks of this. Yet I will sell it to you, as the saying is, for a +song." + +"It shall be the king of songs," said Osmund,--"the song that Arnaut +Daniel first made. I will sing for you a Sestina, messieurs,--a Sestina +in salutation of Spring." + +The men disposed themselves about the dying grass, and presently he +sang. + +Sang Messire Heleigh: + + "Awaken! for the servitors of Spring + Proclaim his triumph! ah, make haste to see + With what tempestuous pageantry they bring + The victor homeward! haste, for this is he + That cast out Winter and all woes that cling + To Winter's garments, and bade April be! + + "And now that Spring is master, let us be + Content, and laugh, as anciently in spring + The battle-wearied Tristan laughed, when he + Was come again Tintagel-ward, to bring + Glad news of Arthur's victory--and see + Ysoude, with parted lips, that waver and cling. + + "Not yet in Brittany must Tristan cling + To this or that sad memory, and be + Alone, as she in Cornwall; for in spring + Love sows against far harvestings,--and he + Is blind, and scatters baleful seed that bring + Such fruitage as blind Love lacks eyes to see!" + +Osmund paused here for an appreciable interval, staring at the Queen. +You saw his flabby throat a-quiver, his eyes melting, saw his cheeks +kindle, and youth seeping into the lean man like water over a crumbling +dam. His voice was now big and desirous. + +Sang Messire Heleigh: + + "Love sows, but lovers reap; and ye will see + The loved eyes lighten, feel the loved lips cling, + Never again when in the grave ye be + Incurious of your happiness in spring, + And get no grace of Love there, whither he + That bartered life for love no love may bring. + + "No braggart Heracles avails to bring + Alcestis hence; nor here may Roland see + The eyes of Aude; nor here the wakening spring + Vex any man with memories: for there be + No memories that cling as cerements cling, + No force that baffles Death, more strong than he. + + "Us hath he noted, and for us hath he + An hour appointed; and that hour will bring + Oblivion.--Then, laugh! Laugh, dear, and see + The tyrant mocked, while yet our bosoms cling, + While yet our lips obey us, and we be + Untrammeled in our little hour of spring! + + "Thus in the spring we jeer at Death, though he + Will see our children perish and will briny + Asunder all that cling while love may be." + +Then Osmund put the viol aside and sat quite silent. The soldiery +judged, and with cordial frankness stated, that the difficulty of his +rhyming scheme did not atone for his lack of indecency, but when the +Queen of England went among them with Messire Heleigh's faded green hat +she found them liberal. Even the fellow with the broken head admitted +that a bargain was proverbially a bargain, and returned the locket with +the addition of a coin. So for the present these two went safe, and +quitted the _Cat and Hautbois_ fed and unmolested. + +"My Osmund," Dame Alianora said, presently, "your memory is better than +I had thought." + +"I remembered a boy and a girl," he returned. "And I grieved that they +were dead." + +Afterward they plodded on toward Bowater, and the ensuing night rested +in Chantrell Wood. They had the good fortune there to encounter dry and +windless weather and a sufficiency of brushwood, with which Osmund +constructed an agreeable fire. In its glow these two sat, eating bread +and cheese. + +But talk languished at the outset. The Queen had complained of an ague, +and Messire Heleigh was sedately suggesting three spiders hung about the +neck as an infallible corrective for this ailment, when Dame Alianora +rose to her feet. "Eh, my God!" she said; "I am wearied of such +ungracious aid! Not an inch of the way but you have been thinking of +your filthy books and longing to be back at them! No; I except the +moments when you were frightened into forgetfulness--first by Falmouth, +then by the trooper. O Eternal Father! afraid of a single dirty +soldier!" + +"Indeed, I was very much afraid," said Messire Heleigh, with perfect +simplicity; "_timidus perire, madame._" + +"You have not even the grace to be ashamed! Yet I am shamed, messire, +that Osmund Heleigh should have become the book-muddled pedant you are. +For I loved young Osmund Heleigh." + +He also had risen in the firelight, and now its convulsive shadows +marred two dogged faces. "I think it best not to recall that boy and +girl who are so long dead. And, frankly, madame and Queen, the merit of +the business I have in hand is questionable. It is you who have set all +England by the ears, and I am guiding you toward opportunities for +further mischief. I must serve you. Understand, madame, that ancient +folly in Provence yonder has nothing to do with the affair. Count Manuel +left you: and between his evasion and your marriage you were pleased to +amuse yourself with me--" + +"You were more civil then, my Osmund--" + +"I am not uncivil, I merely point out that this old folly constitutes +no overwhelming obligation, either way. I cry _nihil ad Andromachen!_ +For the rest, I must serve you because you are a woman and helpless; yet +I cannot forget that he who spares the wolf is the sheep's murderer. It +would be better for all England if you were dead. Hey, your gorgeous +follies, madame! Silver peacocks set with sapphires! Cloth of fine +gold--" + +"Would you have me go unclothed?" Dame Alianora demanded, pettishly. + +"Not so," Osmund retorted; "again I say to you with Tertullian, 'Let +women paint their eyes with the tints of chastity, insert into their +ears the Word of God, tie the yoke of Christ about their necks, and +adorn their whole person with the silk of sanctity and the damask of +devotion.' I say to you that the boy you wish to rescue from +Wallingford, and make King of England, is freely rumored to be not +verily the son of Sire Henry but the child of tall Manuel of Poictesme. +I say to you that from the first you have made mischief in England. And +I say to you--" + +But Dame Alianora was yawning quite frankly. "You will say to me that I +brought foreigners into England, that I misguided the King, that I +stirred up strife between the King and his barons. Eh, my God! I am +sufficiently familiar with the harangue. Yet listen, my Osmund: They +sold me like a bullock to a man I had never seen. I found him a man of +wax, and I remoulded him. They asked of me an heir for England: I +provided that heir. They gave me England as a toy; I played with it. I +was the Queen, the source of honor, the source of wealth--the trough, in +effect, about which swine gathered. Never since I came into England, +Osmund, has any man or woman loved me; never in all my English life have +I loved man or woman. Do you understand, my Osmund?--the Queen has many +flatterers, but no friends. Not a friend in the world, my Osmund! And so +the Queen made the best of it and amused herself." + +Somewhat he seemed to understand, for he answered without asperity: + +"Mon bel esper, I do not find it anywhere in Holy Writ that God requires +it of us to amuse ourselves; but upon many occasions we have been +commanded to live righteously. We are tempted in divers and insidious +ways. And we cry with the Psalmist, 'My strength is dried up like a +potsherd.' But God intends this, since, until we have here demonstrated +our valor upon Satan, we are manifestly unworthy to be enregistered in +God's army. The great Captain must be served by proven soldiers. We may +be tempted, but we may not yield. O daughter of the South! we must not +yield!" + +"Again you preach," Dame Alianora said. "That is a venerable truism." + +"Ho, madame," he returned, "is it on that account the less true?" + +Pensively the Queen considered this. "You are a good man, my Osmund," +she said, at last, "though you are very droll. Ohime! it is a pity that +I was born a princess! Had it been possible for me to be your wife, I +would have been a better woman. I shall sleep now and dream of that good +and stupid and contented woman I might have been." So presently these +two slept in Chantrell Wood. + +Followed four days of journeying. As Messer Dante had not yet surveyed +Malebolge, Osmund Heleigh and Dame Alianora lacked a parallel for that +which they encountered; their traverse discovered England razed, +charred, and depopulate--picked bones of an island, a vast and absolute +ruin about which passion-wasted men skulked like rats. Messire Heleigh +and the Queen traveled without molestation; malice and death had +journeyed before them on this road, and had swept it clear. + +At every trace of these hideous precessors Osmund Heleigh would say, "By +a day's ride I might have prevented this." Or, "By a day's ride I might +have saved this woman." Or, "By two days' riding I might have fed this +child." + +The Queen kept Spartan silence, but daily you saw the fine woman age. In +their slow advance every inch of misery was thrust before her for +inspection; meticulously she observed and evaluated her handiwork. +Enthroned, she had appraised from a distance the righteous wars she set +afoot; trudging thus among the debris of these wars, she found they had +unsuspected aspects. Bastling the royal army had recently sacked. +There remained of this village the skeletons of two houses, and for the +rest a jumble of bricks, rafters half-burned, many calcined fragments of +humanity, and ashes. At Bastling, Messire Heleigh turned to the Queen +toiling behind. + +"Oh, madame!" he said, in a dry whisper, "this was the home of so many +men!" + +"I burned it," Dame Alianora replied. "That man we passed just now I +killed. Those other men and women--my folly slew them all. And little +children, my Osmund! The hair like flax, blood-dabbled!" + +"Oh, madame!" he wailed, in the extremity of his pity. + +For she stood with eyes shut, all gray. The Queen demanded: "Why have +they not slain me? Was there no man in England to strangle the proud +wanton? Are you all cowards here?" + +He said: "I detect only one coward in the affair. Your men and +Leicester's men also ride about the world, and draw sword and slay and +die for the right as they see it. And you and Leicester contend for the +right as ye see it. But I, madame! I! I, who sat snug at home spilling +ink and trimming rose-bushes! God's world, madame, and I in it afraid to +speak a word for Him! God's world, and a curmudgeon in it grudging God +the life He gave!" The man flung out his soft hands and snarled: _"We +are tempted in divers and insidious ways._ But I, who rebuked you! +behold, now, with how gross a snare was I entrapped!" "I do not +understand, my Osmund." + +"I was afraid, madame," he returned, dully. "Everywhere men fight, and I +am afraid to die." + +So they stood silent in the ruins of Bastling. + +"Of a piece with our lives," Dame Alianora said at last. "All ruin, my +Osmund." + +But Messire Heleigh threw back his head and laughed, new color in his +face. "Presently men will build here, my Queen. Presently, as in legend +was re-born the Arabian bird, arises from these ashes a lordlier and +more spacious town." + +They went forward. The next day chance loosed upon them Gui Camoys, lord +of Bozon, Foliot, and Thwenge, who, riding alone through Poges Copse, +found there a man and a woman over their limited supper. The woman had +thrown back her hood, and Camoys drew rein to stare at her. Lispingly he +spoke the true court dialect. + +"Ma belle," said this Camoys, in friendly condescension, "n'estez vous +pas jongleurs?" + +Dame Alianora smiled up at him. "Ouais, messire; mon mary faict les +chancons--" She paused, with dilatory caution, for Camoys had leaped +from his horse, giving a great laugh. + +"A prize! ho, an imperial prize!" Camoys shouted. "A peasant woman with +the Queen's face, who speaks French! And who, madame, is this? Have you +by any chance brought pious Lewis from oversea? Have I bagged a brace +of monarchs?" + +Here was imminent danger, for Camoys had known the Queen some fifteen +years. Messire Heleigh rose, his five days' beard glinting like +hoar-frost as his mouth twitched. + +"I am Osmund Heleigh, messire, younger brother to the Earl of Brudenel." + +"I have heard of you, I believe--the fellow who spoils parchment. This +is odd company, however, Messire Osmund, for Brudenel's brother." + +"A gentleman must serve his Queen, messire. As Cicero very justly +observes--" + +"I am inclined to think that his political opinions are scarcely to our +immediate purpose. This is a high matter, Messire Heleigh. To let the +sorceress pass is, of course, out of the question; upon the other hand, +I observe that you lack weapons of defence. Yet if you will have the +kindness to assist me in unarming, your courtesy will place our commerce +on more equal footing." + +Osmund had turned very white. "I am no swordsman, messire--" + +"Now, this is not handsome of you," Camoys began. "I warn you that +people will speak harshly of us if we lose this opportunity of gaining +honor. And besides, the woman will be burned at the stake. Plainly, you +owe it to all three of us to fight." + +"--But I refer my cause to God. I am quite at your service." "No, my +Osmund!" Dame Alianora then cried. "It means your death." + +He spread out his hands. "That is God's affair, madame." + +"Are you not afraid?" she breathed. + +"Of course I am afraid," said Messire Heleigh, irritably. + +After that he unarmed Camoys, and presently they faced each other in +their tunics. So for the first time in the journey Osmund's long +falchion saw daylight. He had thrown away his dagger, as Camoys had +none. + +The combat was sufficiently curious. Camoys raised his left hand. "So +help me God and His saints, I have upon me neither bone, stone, nor +witchcraft wherethrough the power and the word of God might be +diminished or the devil's power increased." + +Osmund made similar oath. "Judge Thou this woman's cause!" he cried, +likewise. + +Then Gui Camoys shouted, as a herald might have done, "Laissez les +aller, laissez les aller, laissez les aller, les bons combatants!" and +warily each moved toward the other. + +On a sudden Osmund attacked, desperately apprehensive of his own +cowardice. Camoys lightly eluded him and slashed at Osmund's undefended +thigh, drawing much blood. Osmund gasped. He flung away his sword, and +in the instant catching Camoys under the arms, threw him to the ground. +Messire Heleigh fell with his opponent, who in stumbling had lost his +sword, and thus the two struggled unarmed, Osmund atop. But Camoys was +the younger man, and Osmund's strength was ebbing rapidly by reason of +his wound. Now Camoys' tethered horse, rearing with nervousness, tumbled +his master's flat-topped helmet into the road. Osmund caught up this +helmet and with it battered Camoys in the face, dealing severe blows. + +"God!" Camoys cried, his face all blood. + +"Do you acknowledge my quarrel just?" said Osmund, between horrid sobs. + +"What choice have I?" said Gui Camoys, very sensibly. + +So Osmund rose, blind with tears and shivering. The Queen bound up their +wounds as best she might, but Camoys was much dissatisfied. + +"For private purposes of His own, madame," he observed, "and doubtless +for sufficient reasons, God has singularly favored your cause. I am +neither a fool nor a pagan to question His decision, and you two may go +your way unhampered. But I have had my head broken with my own helmet, +and this I consider to be a proceeding very little conducive toward +enhancing my reputation. Of your courtesy, messire, I must entreat +another meeting." + +Osmund shrank as if from a blow. Then, with a short laugh, he conceded +that this was Camoys' right, and they fixed upon the following Saturday, +with Poges Copse as the rendezvous. + +"I would suggest that the combat be to the death," Gui Camoys said, "in +consideration of the fact it was my own helmet. You must undoubtedly be +aware, Messire Osmund, that such an affront is practically without any +parallel." + +This, too, was agreed upon. + +Then, after asking if they needed money, which was courteously declined, +Gui Camoys rode away, and sang as he went. Osmund Heleigh remained +motionless. He raised quivering hands to the sky. + +"Thou hast judged!" he cried. "Thou hast judged, O puissant Emperor of +Heaven! Now pardon! Pardon us twain! Pardon for unjust stewards of Thy +gifts! Thou hast loaned this woman dominion over England, with all +instruments to aid Thy cause, and this trust she has abused. Thou hast +loaned me life and manhood, agility and wit and strength, all +instruments to aid Thy cause. Talents in a napkin, O God! Repentant we +cry to Thee. Pardon for unjust stewards! Pardon for the ungirt loin, for +the service shirked, for all good deeds undone! Pardon and grace, O King +of kings!" + +Thus he prayed, while Gui Camoys sang, riding deeper into the tattered, +yellowing forest. By an odd chance Camoys had lighted on that song made +by Thibaut of Champagne, beginning _Signor, saciez, ki or ne s'en ira_, +which denounces all half-hearted servitors of Heaven; and this he sang +with a lilt gayer than his matter countenanced. Faintly there now came +to Osmund and the Queen the sound of Camoys' singing, and they found it, +in the circumstances, ominously apt. + +Sang Camoys: + + "Et vos, par qui je n'ci onques aie, + Descendez luit en infer le parfont." + +Dame Alianora shivered. But she was a capable woman, and so she said: "I +may have made mistakes. But I am sure I never meant any harm, and I am +sure, too, that God will be more sensible about it than are you poets." + +They slept that night in Ousley Meadow, and the next afternoon came +safely to Bristol. You may learn elsewhere with what rejoicing the royal +army welcomed the Queen's arrival, how courage quickened at sight of the +generous virago. In the ebullition Messire Heleigh was submerged, and +Dame Alianora saw nothing more of him that day. Friday there were +counsels, requisitions, orders signed, a memorial despatched to Pope +Urban, chief of all a letter (this in the Queen's hand throughout) +privily conveyed to the Lady Maude de Mortemer, who shortly afterward +contrived Prince Edward's escape from her husband's gaolership. There +was much sowing of a seed, in fine, that eventually flowered victory. +There was, however, no sign of Osmund Heleigh, though by Dame Alianora's +order he was sought. + +On Saturday at seven in the morning he came to her lodging, in complete +armor. From the open helmet his wrinkled face, showing like a wizened +nut in a shell, smiled upon her questionings. + +"I go to fight Gui Camoys, madame and Queen." + +Dame Alianora wrung her hands. "You go to your death." + +He answered: "That is true. Therefore I am come to bid you farewell." + +The Queen stared at him for a while; on a sudden she broke into a +curious fit of deep but tearless sobbing, which bordered upon laughter, +too. + +"Mon bel esper," said Osmund Heleigh, gently, "what is there in all this +worthy of your sorrow? The man will kill me; granted, for he is my +junior by some fifteen years, and is in addition a skilled swordsman. I +fail to see that this is lamentable. Back to Longaville I cannot go +after recent happenings; there a rope's end awaits me. Here I must in +any event shortly take to the sword, since a beleaguered army has very +little need of ink-pots; and shortly I must be slain in some skirmish, +dug under the ribs perhaps by a greasy fellow I have never seen. I +prefer a clean death at a gentleman's hands." + +"It is I who bring about your death!" she said. "You gave me gallant +service, and I have requited you with death, and it is a great pity." + +"Indeed the debt is on the other side. The trivial services I rendered +you were such as any gentleman must render a woman in distress. Naught +else have I afforded you, madame, save very anciently a Sestina. Ho, a +Sestina! And in return you have given me a Sestina of fairer make,--a +Sestina of days, six days of manly common living." His eyes were +fervent. + +She kissed him on either cheek. "Farewell, my champion!" + +"Ay, your champion. In the twilight of life old Osmund Heleigh rides +forth to defend the quarrel of Alianora of Provence. Reign wisely, my +Queen, so that hereafter men may not say I was slain in an evil cause. +Do not, I pray you, shame my maiden venture at a man's work." + +"I will not shame you," the Queen proudly said; and then, with a change +of voice: "O my Osmund! My Osmund, you have a folly that is divine, and +I lack it." + +He caught her by each wrist, and stood crushing both her hands to his +lips, with fierce staring. "Wife of my King! wife of my King!" he +babbled; and then put her from him, crying, "I have not failed you! +Praise God, I have not failed you!" + +From her window she saw him ride away, a rich flush of glitter and +color. In new armor with a smart emblazoned surcoat the lean pedant sat +conspicuously erect; and as he went he sang defiantly, taunting the +weakness of his flesh. + +Sang Osmund Heleigh: + + "Love sows, but lovers reap; and ye will see + The loved eyes lighten, feel the loved lips cling + Never again when in the grave ye be + Incurious of your happiness in spring, + And get no grace of Love, there, whither he + That bartered life for love no love may bring." + +So he rode away and thus out of our history. But in the evening Gui +Camoys came into Bristol under a flag of truce, and behind him heaved a +litter wherein lay Osmund Heleigh's body. + +"For this man was frank and courteous," Camoys said to the Queen, "and +in the matter of the reparation he owed me acted very handsomely. It is +fitting that he should have honorable interment." + +"That he shall not lack," the Queen said, and gently unclasped from +Osmund's wrinkled neck the thin gold chain, now locketless. "There was a +portrait here," she said; "the portrait of a woman whom he loved in his +youth, Messire Camoys. And all his life it lay above his heart." + +Camoys answered stiffly: "I imagine this same locket to have been the +object which Messire Heleigh flung into the river, shortly before we +began our combat. I do not rob the dead, madame." + +"Well," the Queen said, "he always did queer things, and so, I shall +always wonder what sort of lady he picked out to love, but it is none of +my affair." + +Afterward she set to work on requisitions in the King's name. But Osmund +Heleigh she had interred at Ambresbury, commanding it to be written on +his tomb that he died in the Queen's cause. + +How the same cause prospered (Nicolas concludes), how presently Dame +Alianora reigned again in England and with what wisdom, and how in the +end this great Queen died a nun at Ambresbury and all England wept +therefor--this you may learn elsewhere. I have chosen to record six days +of a long and eventful life; and (as Messire Heleigh might have done) I +say modestly with him of old, _Majores majora sonent._ Nevertheless, I +assert that many a forest was once a pocketful of acorns. + +THE END OF THE FIRST NOVEL + + + + +II + +THE STORY OF THE TENSON + + + "Plagues a Dieu ja la nueitz non falhis, + Ni'l mieus amicx lone de mi nos partis, + Ni la gayta jorn ni alba ne vis. + Oy Dieus! oy Dieus! de l'alba tan tost we!" + +THE SECOND NOVEL.--ELLINOR OF CASTILE, BEING ENAMORED OF A HANDSOME +PERSON, IS IN HER FLIGHT FROM MARITAL OBLIGATIONS ASSISTED BY HER +HUSBAND, AND IS IN THE END BY HIM CONVINCED OF THE RATIONALITY OF ALL +ATTENDANT CIRCUMSTANCES. + + + + +_The Story of the Tenson_ + + +In the year of grace 1265 (Nicolas begins), about the festival of Saint +Peter _ad Vincula_, the Prince de Gatinais came to Burgos. Before this +he had lodged for three months in the district of Ponthieu; and the +object of his southern journey was to assure the tenth Alphonso, then +ruling in Castile, that the latter's sister Ellinor, now resident at +Entrechat, was beyond any reasonable doubt the transcendent lady whose +existence old romancers had anticipated, however cloudily, when they +fabled in remote time concerning Queen Heleine of Sparta. + +There was a postscript to this news. The world knew that the King of +Leon and Castile desired to be King of Germany as well, and that at +present a single vote in the Diet would decide between his claims and +those of his competitor, Earl Richard of Cornwall. De Gatinais chaffered +fairly; he had a vote, Alphonso had a sister. So that, in effect--ohe, +in effect, he made no question that his Majesty understood! + +The Astronomer twitched his beard and demanded if the fact that Ellinor +had been a married woman these ten years past was not an obstacle to the +plan which his fair cousin had proposed? + +Here the Prince was accoutred cap-a-pie, and hauled out a paper. Dating +from Viterbo, Clement, Bishop of Rome, servant to the servants of God, +desirous of all health and apostolical blessing for his well-beloved son +in Christ, stated that a compact between a boy of fifteen and a girl of +ten was an affair of no particular moment; and that in consideration of +the covenantors never having clapped eyes upon each other since the +wedding-day,--even had not the precontract of marriage between the +groom's father and the bride's mother rendered a consummation of the +childish oath an obvious and a most heinous enormity,--why, that, in a +sentence, and for all his coy verbosity, the new pontiff was perfectly +amenable to reason. + +So in a month it was settled. Alphonso would give his sister to de +Gatinais, and in exchange get the latter's vote to make Alphonso King of +Germany; and Gui Foulques of Sabionetta--now Clement, fourth Pope to +assume that name--would annul the previous marriage, and in exchange get +an armament to serve him against Manfred, the late and troublesome +tyrant of Sicily and Apulia. The scheme promised to each one of them +that which he in particular desired, and messengers were presently sent +into Ponthieu. + +It is now time we put aside these Castilian matters and speak of other +things. In England, Prince Edward had fought, and won, a shrewd battle +at Evesham. People said, of course, that such behavior was less in the +manner of his nominal father, King Henry, than reminiscent of Count +Manuel of Poictesme, whose portraits certainly the Prince resembled to +an embarrassing extent. Either way, the barons' power was demolished, +there would be no more internecine war; and spurred by the unaccustomed +idleness, Prince Edward began to think of the foreign girl he had not +seen since the day he wedded her. She would be a woman by this, and it +was befitting that he claim his wife. He rode with Hawise Bulmer and her +baby to Ambresbury, and at the gate of the nunnery they parted, with +what agonies are immaterial to this history's progression; the tale +merely tells that, having thus decorously rid himself of his mistress, +the Prince went into Lower Picardy alone, riding at adventure as he +loved to do, and thus came to Entrechat, where his wife resided with her +mother, the Countess Johane. + +In a wood near the castle he approached a company of Spaniards, four in +number, their horses tethered while these men (Oviedans, as they told +him) drank about a great stone which served them for a table. Being +thirsty, he asked and was readily accorded hospitality, and these five +fell into amicable discourse. One fellow asked his name and business in +those parts, and the Prince gave each without hesitancy as he reached +for the bottle, and afterward dropped it just in time to catch, cannily, +with his naked left hand, the knife-blade with which the rascal had dug +at the unguarded ribs. The Prince was astounded, but he was never a +subtle man: here were four knaves who, for reasons unexplained--but to +them of undoubted cogency--desired his death: manifestly there was here +an actionable difference of opinion; so he had his sword out and killed +the four of them. + +Presently came to him an apple-cheeked boy, habited as a page, who, +riding jauntily through the forest, lighted upon the Prince, now in +bottomless vexation. The lad drew rein, and his lips outlined a whistle. +At his feet were several dead men in various conditions of +dismemberment. And seated among them, as if throned upon this boulder, +was a gigantic and florid person, so tall that the heads of few men +reached to his shoulder; a person of handsome exterior, high-featured +and blond, having a narrow, small head, and vivid light blue eyes, and +the chest of a stallion; a person whose left eyebrow had an odd oblique +droop, so that the stupendous man appeared to be winking the information +that he was in jest. + +"Fair friend," said the page. "God give you joy! and why have you +converted this forest into a shambles?" + +The Prince told him as much of the half-hour's action as has been +narrated. "I have perhaps been rather hasty," he considered, by way of +peroration, "and it vexes me that I did not spare, say, one of these +lank Spaniards, if only long enough to ascertain why, in the name of +Termagaunt, they should have desired my destruction." + +But midway in his tale the boy had dismounted with a gasp, and he was +now inspecting the features of one carcass. "Felons, my Prince! You have +slain some eight yards of felony which might have cheated the gallows +had they got the Princess Ellinor safe to Burgos. Only two days ago this +chalk-eyed fellow conveyed to her a letter." + +Prince Edward said, "You appear, lad, to be somewhat overheels in the +confidence of my wife." + +Now the boy arose and defiantly flung back his head in shrill laughter. +"Your wife! Oh, God have mercy! Your wife, and for ten years left to her +own devices! Why, look you, to-day you and your wife would not know each +other were you two brought face to face." + +Prince Edward said, "That is very near the truth." But, indeed, it was +the absolute truth, and as it concerned him was already attested. + +"Sire Edward," the boy then said, "your wife has wearied of this long +waiting till you chose to whistle for her. Last summer the young Prince +de Gatinais came a-wooing--and he is a handsome man." The page made +known all which de Gatinais and King Alphonso planned, the words +jostling as they came in torrents, but so that one might understand. "I +am her page, my lord. I was to follow her. These fellows were to be my +escort, were to ward off possible pursuit. Cry haro, beau sire! Cry +haro, and shout it lustily, for your wife in company with six other +knaves is at large between here and Burgos,--that unreasonable wife who +grew dissatisfied after a mere ten years of neglect." + +"I have been remiss," the Prince said, and one huge hand strained at his +chin; "yes, perhaps I have been remiss. Yet it had appeared to me--But +as it is, I bid you mount, my lad!" + +The boy demanded, "And to what end?" + +"Oy Dieus, messire! have I not slain your escort? Why, in common reason, +equity demands that I afford you my protection so far as Burgos, +messire, just as plainly as equity demands I slay de Gatinais and fetch +back my wife to England." + +The page wrung exquisite hands with a gesture which was but partially +tinged with anguish, and presently began to laugh. Afterward these two +rode southerly, in the direction of Castile. + +For it appeared to the intriguing little woman a diverting jest that in +this fashion her husband should be the promoter of her evasion. It +appeared to her more diverting when in two days' space she had become +fond of him. She found him rather slow of comprehension, and she was +humiliated by the discovery that not an eyelash of the man was irritated +by his wife's decampment; he considered, to all appearances, that some +property of his had been stolen, and he intended, quite without passion, +to repossess himself of it, after, of course, punishing the thief. + +This troubled the Princess somewhat; and often, riding by her stolid +husband's side, the girl's heart raged at memory of the decade so newly +overpast which had kept her always dependent on the charity of this or +that ungracious patron--on any one who would take charge of her while +the truant husband fought out his endless squabbles in England. Slights +enough she had borne during the period, and squalor, and physical hunger +also she had known, who was the child of a king and a saint.[2] But now +she rode toward the dear southland; and presently she would be rid of +this big man, when he had served her purpose; and afterward she meant to +wheedle Alphonso, just as she had always wheedled him, and later still, +she and Etienne would be very happy: in fine, to-morrow was to be a new +day. + +So these two rode southward, and always Prince Edward found this new +page of his--this Miguel de Rueda,--a jolly lad, who whistled and sang +inapposite snatches of balladry, without any formal ending or beginning, +descanting always with the delicate irrelevancy of a bird-trill. + +Sang Miguel de Rueda: + + "Man's Love, that leads me day by day + Through many a screened and scented way, + Finds to assuage my thirst. + + "No love that may the old love slay, + None sweeter than the first. + + "Fond heart of mine, that beats so fast + As this or that fair maid trips past, + Once, and with lesser stir + We viewed the grace of love, at last, + And turned idolater. + + "Lad's Love it was, that in the spring + When all things woke to blossoming + Was as a child that came + Laughing, and filled with wondering, + Nor knowing his own name--" + +"And still I would prefer to think," the big man interrupted, heavily, +"that Sicily is not the only allure. I would prefer to think my wife so +beautiful.--And yet, as I remember her, she was nothing extraordinary." + +The page a little tartly said that people might forget a deal within a +decade. + +The Prince continued his unriddling of the scheme hatched in Castile. +"When Manfred is driven out of Sicily they will give the throne to de +Gatinais. He intends to get both a kingdom and a handsome wife by this +neat affair. And in reason, England must support my Uncle Richard's +claim to the German crown, against El Sabio--Why, my lad, I ride +southward to prevent a war that would devastate half Europe." + +"You ride southward in the attempt to rob a miserable woman of her sole +chance of happiness," Miguel de Rueda estimated. + +"That is undeniable, if she loves this thrifty Prince, as indeed I do +not question my wife does. Yet our happiness here is a trivial matter, +whereas war is a great disaster. You have not seen--as I, my little +Miguel, have often seen--a man viewing his death-wound with a face of +stupid wonder, a bewildered wretch in point to die in his lord's quarrel +and understanding never a word of it. Or a woman, say--a woman's twisted +and naked body, the breasts yet horribly heaving, in the red ashes of +some village, or the already dripping hoofs which will presently crush +this body. Well, it is to prevent many such ugly spectacles hereabout +that I ride southward." + +Miguel de Rueda shuddered. But, "She has her right to happiness," the +page stubbornly said. + +"She has only one right," the Prince retorted; "because it has pleased +the Emperor of Heaven to appoint us twain to lofty stations, to entrust +to us the five talents of the parable; whence is our debt to Him, being +fivefold, so much the greater than that of common persons. Therefore +the more is it our sole right, being fivefold, to serve God without +faltering, and therefore is our happiness, or our unhappiness, the more +an inconsiderable matter. For, as I have read in the Annals of the +Romans--" He launched upon the story of King Pompey and his daughter, +whom a certain duke regarded with impure and improper emotions. "My +little Miguel, that ancient king is our Heavenly Father, that only +daughter is the rational soul of us, which is here delivered for +protection to five soldiers--that is, to the five senses,--to preserve +it from the devil, the world, and the flesh. But, alas! the +too-credulous soul, desirous of gazing upon the gaudy vapors of this +world--" + +"You whine like a canting friar," the page complained; "and I can assure +you that the Lady Ellinor was prompted rather than hindered by her +God-given faculties of sight and hearing and so on when she fell in love +with de Gatinais. Of you two, he is, beyond any question, the handsomer +and the more intelligent man, and it was God who bestowed on her +sufficient wit to perceive the superiority of de Gatinais. And what am I +to deduce from this?" + +The Prince reflected. At last he said: "I have also read in these same +Gestes how Seneca mentions that in poisoned bodies, on account of the +malignancy and the coldness of the poison, no worm will engender; but if +the body be smitten by lightning, in a few days the carcass will abound +with vermin. My little Miguel, both men and women are at birth +empoisoned by sin, and then they produce no worm--that is, no virtue. +But once they are struck with lightning--that is, by the grace of +God,--they are astonishingly fruitful in good works." + +The page began to laugh. "You are hopelessly absurd, my Prince, though +you will never know it,--and I hate you a little,--and I envy you a +great deal." + +"Ah, but," Prince Edward said, in misapprehension, for the man was never +quick-witted,--"but it is not for my own happiness that I ride +southward." + +The page then said, "What is her name?" + +Prince Edward answered, very fondly, "Hawise." + +"I hate her, too," said Miguel de Rueda; "and I think that the holy +angels alone know how profoundly I envy her." + +In the afternoon of the same day they neared Ruffec, and at the ford +found three brigands ready, two of whom the Prince slew, and the other +fled. + +Next night they supped at Manneville, and sat afterward in the little +square, tree-chequered, that lay before their inn. Miguel had procured a +lute from the innkeeper, and he strummed idly as these two debated +together of great matters; about them was an immeasurable twilight, +moonless, but tempered by many stars, and everywhere they could hear an +agreeable whispering of leaves. + +"Listen, my Prince," the boy said: "here is one view of the affair." +And he began to chant, without rhyming, without raising his voice above +the pitch of talk, while the lute monotonously accompanied his chanting. + +Sang Miguel: + + "Passeth a little while, and Irus the beggar and + Menephtah the high king are at sorry unison, and + Guenevere is a skull. Multitudinously we tread + toward oblivion, as ants hasten toward sugar, and + presently Time cometh with his broom. Multitudinously + we tread a dusty road toward oblivion; but + yonder the sun shines upon a grass-plot, converting it + into an emerald; and I am aweary of the trodden path. + + "Vine-crowned is the fair peril that guards the + grasses yonder, and her breasts are naked. 'Vanity + of Vanities!' saith the beloved. But she whom I love + seems very far away to-night, though I might be with + her if I would. And she may not aid me now, for not + even love is all-powerful. She is most dear of created + women, and very wise, but she may never understand + that at any time one grows aweary of the trodden path. + + "At sight of my beloved, love closes over my heart + like a flood. For the sake of my beloved I have striven, + with a good endeavor, to my tiny uttermost. Pardie, I + am not Priam at the head of his army! A little while + and I will repent; to-night I cannot but remember that + there are women whose lips are of a livelier tint, that + life is short at best, that wine evokes in me some admiration + for myself, and that I am aweary of the trodden + path. + + "She is very far from me to-night. Yonder in the + Hoerselberg they exult and make sweet songs, songs + which are sweeter, immeasurably sweeter, than this + song of mine, but in the trodden path I falter, for I am + tired, tired in every fibre of me, and I am aweary of + the trodden path" + +Followed a silence. "Ignorance spoke there," the Prince said. "It is the +song of a woman, or else of a boy who is very young. Give me the lute, +my little Miguel." And presently the Prince, too, sang. + +Sang the Prince: + + "I was in a path, and I trod toward the citadel of the + land's Seigneur, and on either side were pleasant and + forbidden meadows, having various names. And one + trod with me who babbled of the brooding mountains + and of the low-lying and adjacent clouds; of the west + wind and of the budding fruit-trees. He debated the + significance of these things, and he went astray to + gather violets, while I walked in the trodden path." + + "He babbled of genial wine and of the alert lips of + women, of swinging censers and of the serene countenances + of priests, and of the clear, lovely colors of + bread and butter, and his heart was troubled by a + world profuse in beauty. And he leaped a stile to share + his allotted provision with a dying dog, and afterward, + being hungry, a wall to pilfer apples, while I walked + in the trodden path. + + "He babbled of Autumn's bankruptcy and of the age-long + lying promises of Spring; and of his own desire + to be at rest; and of running waters and of decaying + leaves. He babbled of the far-off stars; and he debated + whether they were the eyes of God or gases which + burned, and he demonstrated, with logic, that neither + existed. At times he stumbled as he stared about him + and munched his apples, so that he was all bemired, but + I walked in the trodden path. + + "And the path led to the gateway of a citadel, and + through the gateway. 'Let us not enter,' he said, 'for + the citadel is vacant, and, moreover, I am in profound + terror, and, besides, I have not as yet eaten all my + apples.' And he wept aloud, but I was not afraid, for + I had walked in the trodden path." + +Again there was a silence. "You paint a dreary world, my Prince." + +"My little Miguel, I paint the world as the Eternal Father made it. The +laws of the place are written large, so that all may read them; and we +know that every road, whether it be my trodden path or some byway through +your gayer meadows, yet leads in the end to God. We have our choice,--or +to come to Him as a laborer comes at evening for the day's wages fairly +earned, or to come as a roisterer haled before the magistrate." + +"I consider you to be in the right," the boy said, after a lengthy +interval, "although I decline--and decline emphatically--to believe you." + +The Prince laughed. "There spoke Youth," he said, and he sighed as +though he were a patriarch. "But we have sung, we two, the Eternal +Tenson of God's will and of man's desires. And I claim the prize, my +Little Miguel." + +Suddenly the page kissed one huge hand. "You have conquered, my very +dull and very glorious Prince. Concerning that Hawise--" But Miguel de +Rueda choked. "Oh, I do not understand! and yet in part I understand!" +the boy wailed in the darkness. + +And the Prince laid one hand upon his page's hair, and smiled in the +darkness to note how soft was this hair, since the man was less a fool +than at first view you might have taken him to be; and he said: + +"One must play the game out fairly, my lad. We are no little people, +she and I, the children of many kings, of God's regents here on earth; +and it was never reasonable, my Miguel, that gentlefolk should cheat at +their dicing." + +The same night Miguel de Rueda repeated the prayer which Saint Theophilus +made long ago to the Mother of God: + + "Dame, je n'ose, + Flors d'aiglentier et lis et rose, + En qui li filz Diex se repose," + +and so on. Or, in other wording: "Hearken, O gracious Lady! thou that +art more fair than any flower of the eglantine, more comely than the +blossoming of the rose or of the lily! thou to whom was confided the +very Son of God! Harken, for I am afraid! afford counsel to me that am +ensnared by Satan and know not what to do! Never will I make an end of +praying. O Virgin debonnaire! O honored Lady! Thou that wast once a +woman--!" + +So he prayed, and upon the next day as these two rode southward, he sang +half as if in defiance. + +Sang Miguel: + + "And still,--whatever years impend + To witness Time a fickle friend, + And Youth a dwindling fire,-- + I must adore till all years end + My first love, Heart's Desire. + + "I may not hear men speak of her + Unmoved, and vagrant pulses stir + To greet her passing-by, + And I, in all her worshipper + Must serve her till I die. + + "For I remember: this is she + That reigns in one man's memory + Immune to age and fret, + And stays the maid I may not see + Nor win to, nor forget." + +It was on the following day, near Bazas, that these two encountered Adam +de Gourdon, a Provencal knight, with whom the Prince fought for a long +while, without either contestant giving way; in consequence a rendezvous +was fixed for the November of that year, and afterward the Prince and de +Gourdon parted, highly pleased with each other. + +Thus the Prince and his attendant came, in late September, to Mauleon, +on the Castilian frontier, and dined there at the _Fir Cone._ Three or +four lackeys were about--some exalted person's retinue? Prince Edward +hazarded to the swart little landlord, as the Prince and Miguel lingered +over the remnants of their meal. + +Yes, the fellow informed them: the Prince de Gatinais had lodged there +for a whole week, watching the north road, as circumspect of all passage +as a cat over a mouse-hole. Eh, monseigneur expected some one, +doubtless--a lady, it might be,--the gentlefolk had their escapades like +every one else. The innkeeper babbled vaguely, for on a sudden he was +very much afraid of his gigantic patron. + +"You will show me to his room," Prince Edward said, with a politeness +that was ingratiating. + +The host shuddered and obeyed. + +Miguel de Rueda, left alone, sat quite silent, his finger-tips drumming +upon the table. He rose suddenly and flung back his shoulders, all +resolution. On the stairway he passed the black little landlord, who was +now in a sad twitter, foreseeing bloodshed. But Miguel de Rueda went on +to the room above. The door was ajar. He paused there. + +De Gatinais had risen from his dinner and stood facing the door. He, +too, was a blond man and the comeliest of his day. And at sight of him +awoke in the woman's heart all the old tenderness; handsome and brave +and witty she knew him to be, as indeed the whole world knew him to be +distinguished by every namable grace; and the innate weakness of de +Gatinais, which she alone suspected, made him now seem doubly dear. +Fiercely she wanted to shield him, less from bodily hurt than from that +self-degradation which she cloudily apprehended to be at hand; the test +was come, and Etienne would fail. Thus much she knew with a sick, +illimitable surety, and she loved de Gatinais with a passion which +dwarfed comprehension. + +"O Madame the Virgin!" prayed Miguel de Rueda, "thou that wast once a +woman, even as I am now a woman! grant that the man may slay him +quickly! grant that he may slay Etienne very quickly, honored Lady, so +that my Etienne may die unshamed!" + +"I must question, messire," de Gatinais was saying, "whether you have +been well inspired. Yes, quite frankly, I do await the arrival of her +who is your nominal wife; and your intervention at this late stage, I +take it, can have no outcome save to render you absurd. So, come now! +be advised by me, messire--" + +Prince Edward said, "I am not here to talk." + +"--For, messire, I grant you that in ordinary disputation the cutting of +one gentleman's throat by another gentleman is well enough, since the +argument is unanswerable. Yet in this case we have each of us too much +to live for; you to govern your reconquered England, and I--you perceive +that I am candid--to achieve in turn the kingship of another realm. Now +to secure this realm, possession of the Lady Ellinor is to me essential; +to you she is nothing." + +"She is a woman whom I have deeply wronged," Prince Edward said, "and to +whom, God willing, I mean to make atonement. Ten years ago they wedded +us, willy-nilly, to avert the impending war between Spain and England; +to-day El Sabio intends to purchase Germany with her body as the price; +you to get Sicily as her husband. Mort de Dieu! is a woman thus to be +bought and sold like hog's flesh! We have other and cleaner customs, we +of England." + +"Eh, and who purchased the woman first?" de Gatinais spat at him, +viciously, for the Frenchman now saw his air-castle shaken to the +corner-stone. + +"They wedded me to the child in order that a great war might be averted. +I acquiesced, since it appeared preferable that two people suffer +inconvenience rather than many thousands be slain. And still this is my +view of the matter. Yet afterward I failed her. Love had no clause in +our agreement; but I owed her more protection than I have afforded. +England has long been no place for women. I thought she would comprehend +that much. But I know very little of women. Battle and death are more +wholesome companions, I now perceive, than such folk as you and +Alphonso. Woman is the weaker vessel--the negligence was mine--I may not +blame her." The big and simple man was in an agony of repentance. + +On a sudden he strode forward, his sword now shifted to his left hand +and his right hand outstretched. "One and all, we are weaklings in the +net of circumstance. Shall one herring, then, blame his fellow if his +fellow jostle him? We walk as in a mist of error, and Belial is fertile +in allurements; yet always it is granted us to behold that sin is sin. I +have perhaps sinned through anger, Messire de Gatinais, more deeply than +you have planned to sin through luxury and through ambition. Let us then +cry quits, Messire de Gatinais, and afterward part in peace, and in +common repentance." + +"And yield you Ellinor?" de Gatinais said. "Oh no, messire, I reply to +you with Arnaud de Marveil, that marvellous singer of eld, 'They may +bear her from my presence, but they can never untie the knot which +unites my heart to her; for that heart, so tender and so constant, God +alone divides with my lady, and the portion which God possesses He holds +but as a part of her domain, and as her vassal.'" "This is blasphemy," +Prince Edward now retorted, "and for such observations alone you merit +death. Will you always talk and talk and talk? I perceive that the devil +is far more subtle than you, messire, and leads you, like a pig with a +ring in his nose, toward gross iniquity. Messire, I tell you that for +your soul's health I doubly mean to kill you now. So let us make an end +of this." + +De Gatinais turned and took up his sword. "Since you will have it," he +rather regretfully said; "yet I reiterate that you play an absurd part. +Your wife has deserted you, has fled in abhorrence of you. For three +weeks she has been tramping God knows whither or in what company--" + +He was here interrupted. "What the Lady Ellinor has done," Prince Edward +crisply said, "was at my request. We were wedded at Burgos; it was +natural that we should desire our reunion to take place at Burgos; and +she came to Burgos with an escort which I provided." + +De Gatinais sneered. "So that is the tale you will deliver to the +world?" + +"After I have slain you," the Prince said, "yes." + +"The reservation is wise. For if I were dead, Messire Edward, there +would be none to know that you risk all for a drained goblet, for an +orange already squeezed--quite dry, messire." + +"Face of God!" the Prince said. + +But de Gatinais flung back both arms in a great gesture, so that he +knocked a flask of claret from the table at his rear. "I am candid, my +Prince. I would not see any brave gentleman slain in a cause so foolish. +In consequence I kiss and tell. In effect, I was eloquent, I was +magnificent, so that in the end her reserve was shattered like the +wooden flask yonder at our feet. Is it worth while, think you, that our +blood flow like this flagon's contents?" + +"Liar!" Prince Edward said, very softly. "O hideous liar! Already your +eyes shift!" He drew near and struck the Frenchman. "Talk and talk and +talk! and lying talk! I am ashamed while I share the world with a thing +as base as you." + +De Gatinais hurled upon him, cursing, sobbing in an abandoned fury. In +an instant the place resounded like a smithy, for there were no better +swordsmen living than these two. The eavesdropper could see nothing +clearly. Round and round they veered in a whirl of turmoil. Presently +Prince Edward trod upon the broken flask, smashing it. His foot slipped +in the spilth of wine, and the huge body went down like an oak, his head +striking one leg of the table. + +"A candle!" de Gatinais cried, and he panted now--"a hundred candles to +the Virgin of Beaujolais!" He shortened his sword to stab the Prince of +England. + +The eavesdropper came through the doorway, and flung herself between +Prince Edward and the descending sword. The sword dug deep into her +shoulder, so that she shrieked once with the cold pain of this wound. +Then she rose, ashen. "Liar!" she said. "Oh, I am shamed while I share +the world with a thing as base as you!" + +In silence de Gatinais regarded her. There was a long interval before he +said, "Ellinor!" and then again, "Ellinor!" like a man bewildered. + +"_I was eloquent, I was magnificent_" she said, "_so that in the end her +reserve was shattered!_ Certainly, messire, it is not your death which I +desire, since a man dies so very, very quickly. I desire for you--I know +not what I desire for you!" the girl wailed. + +"You desire that I should endure this present moment," de Gatinais +replied; "for as God reigns, I love you, of whom I have spoken infamy, +and my shame is very bitter." + +She said: "And I, too, loved you. It is strange to think of that." + +"I was afraid. Never in my life have I been afraid before to-day. But I +was afraid of this terrible and fair and righteous man. I saw all hope +of you vanish, all hope of Sicily--in effect, I lied as a cornered beast +spits out his venom." + +"I know," she answered. "Give me water, Etienne." She washed and bound +the Prince's head with a vinegar-soaked napkin. Ellinor sat upon the +floor, the big man's head upon her knee. "He will not die of this, for +he is of strong person. Look you, Messire de Gatinais, you and I are not +strong. We are so fashioned that we can enjoy only the pleasant things +of life. But this man can enjoy--enjoy, mark you--the commission of any +act, however distasteful, if he think it to be his duty. There is the +difference. I cannot fathom him. But it is now necessary that I become +all which he loves--since he loves it,--and that I be in thought and +deed all which he desires. For I have heard the Tenson through." + +"You love him!" said de Gatinais. + +She glanced upward with a pitiable smile. "No, it is you whom I love, my +Etienne. You cannot understand how at this very moment every fibre of +me--heart, soul, and body--may be longing just to comfort you, and to +give you all which you desire, my Etienne, and to make you happy, my +handsome Etienne, at however dear a cost. No; you will never understand +that. And since you may not understand, I merely bid you go and leave me +with my husband." + +And then there fell between these two an infinite silence. + +"Listen," de Gatinais said; "grant me some little credit for what I do. +You are alone; the man is powerless. My fellows are within call. A word +secures the Prince's death; a word gets me you and Sicily. And I do not +speak that word, for you are my lady as well as his, and your will is my +one law." + +But there was no mercy in the girl, no more for him than for herself. +The big head lay upon her breast; she caressed the gross hair of it ever +so lightly. "These are tinsel oaths," she crooned, as if rapt with +incurious content; "these are the old empty protestations of all you +strutting poets. A word gets you what you desire! Then why do you not +speak that word? Why do you not speak many words, and become again as +eloquent and as magnificent as you were when you contrived that adultery +about which you were just now telling my husband?" + +De Gatinais raised clenched hands. "I am shamed," he said; and then he +said, "It is just." + +He left the room and presently rode away with his men. I say that, here +at last, he had done a knightly deed, but she thought little of it, +never raised her head as the troop clattered from Mauleon, with a +lessening beat which lapsed now into the blunders of an aging fly who +doddered about the window yonder. + +She stayed thus, motionless, her meditations adrift in the future; and +that which she foreread left her not all sorry nor profoundly glad, for +living seemed by this, though scarcely the merry and colorful business +which she had esteemed it, yet immeasurably the more worth while. + +THE END OF THE SECOND NOVEL + + + + +III + +THE STORY OF THE RAT-TRAP + + + "Leixant a part le stil dels trobados, + Dos grans dezigs ban combatut ma pensa, + Mas lo voler vers un seguir dispensa: + Yo l'vos publich, amar dretament vos." + +THE THIRD NOVEL.--MEREGRETT OF FRANCE, THINKING TO PRESERVE A HOODWINKED +GENTLEMAN, ANNOYS A SPIDER; AND BY THE GRACE OF DESTINY THE WEB OF THAT +CUNNING INSECT ENTRAPS A BUTTERFLY, A WASP, AND THEN A GOD; WHO SHATTERS +IT. + + + + +_The Story of the Rat-Trap_ + + +In the year of grace 1298, a little before Candlemas (thus Nicolas +begins), came letters to the first King Edward of England from his +kinsman and ambassador to France, Earl Edmund of Lancaster. It was +perfectly apparent, the Earl wrote, that the French King meant to +surrender to the Earl's lord and brother neither the duchy of Guienne +nor the Lady Blanch. This lady, I must tell you, was now affianced to +King Edward, whose first wife, Dame Ellinor, had died eight years before +this time. + +The courier found Sire Edward at Ipswich, midway in celebration of his +daughter's marriage to the Count of Holland. The King read the letters +through and began to laugh; and presently broke into a rage such as was +possible (men whispered) only to the demon-tainted blood of Oriander's +descendants. Next day the keeper of the privy purse entered upon the +house-hold-books a considerable sum "to make good a large ruby and an +emerald lost out of his coronet when the King's Grace was pleased to +throw it into the fire"; and upon the same day the King recalled +Lancaster. The King then despatched yet another embassy into France to +treat about Sire Edward's marriage. This last embassy was headed by the +Earl of Aquitaine: his lieutenant was Lord Pevensey, the King's natural +son by Hawise Bulmer. + +The Earl got audience of the French King at Mezelais. Walking alone came +this Earl of Aquitaine, with a large retinue, into the hall where the +barons of France stood according to their rank; in unadorned russet were +the big Earl and his attendants, but upon the scarlets and purples of +the French lords many jewels shone: it was as though through a corridor +of gayly painted sunlit glass that the grave Earl came to the dais where +sat King Philippe. + +The King had risen at close sight of the new envoy, and had gulped once +or twice, and without speaking, had hurriedly waved his lords out of +ear-shot. The King's perturbation was very extraordinary. + +"Fair cousin," the Earl now said, without any prelude, "four years ago I +was affianced to your sister, Dame Blanch. You stipulated that Gascony +be given up to you in guaranty, as a settlement on any children I might +have by that incomparable lady. I assented, and yielded you the +province, upon the understanding, sworn to according to the faith of +loyal kings, that within forty days you assign to me its seignory as +your vassal. And I have had of you since then neither my province nor +my betrothed wife, but only excuses, Sire Philippe." + +With eloquence the Frenchman touched upon the emergencies to which the +public weal so often drives men of high station, and upon his private +grief over the necessity--unavoidable, alas!--of returning a hard answer +before the council; and became so voluble that Sire Edward merely +laughed in that big-lunged and disconcerting way of his, and afterward +lodged for a week at Mezelais, nominally passing by his minor title of +Earl of Aquitaine, and as his own ambassador. + +Negotiations became more swift of foot, since a man serves himself with +zeal. In addition, the French lords could make nothing of a politician +so thick-witted that he replied to every consideration of expediency +with a parrot-like reiteration of the circumstance that already the +bargain was signed and sworn to: in consequence, while daily they fumed +over his stupidity, daily he gained his point. During this period he +was, upon one pretext or another, very often in the company of his +affianced wife, Dame Blanch. + +This lady, I must tell you, was the handsomest of her day; there could +nowhere be found a creature more agreeable to every sense; and she +compelled the adoring regard of men, it is recorded, not gently but in +an imperious fashion. Sire Edward, who, till this, had loved her merely +by report, and, in accordance with the high custom of old, through many +perusals of her portrait, now appeared besotted. He was an aging man, +near sixty, huge and fair, with a crisp beard, and the bright unequal +eyes of Manuel of Poictesme. The better-read at Mezelais began to liken +this so candidly enamored monarch and his Princess to Sieur Hercules at +the feet of Queen Omphale. + +The court hunted and slew a stag of ten in the woods of Ermenoueil, +which stand thick about the chateau; and at the hunt's end, these two +had dined at Rigon the forester's hut, in company with Dame Meregrett, +the French King's younger sister. She sat a little apart from the +betrothed, and stared through the hut's one window. We know, nowadays, +it was not merely the trees she was considering. + +Dame Blanch seemed undisposed to mirth. "We have slain the stag, beau +sire," she said, "and have made of his death a brave diversion. To-day +we have had our sport of death,--and presently the gay years wind past +us, as our cavalcade came toward the stag, and God's incurious angel +slays us, much as we slew the stag. And we shall not understand, and we +shall wonder, as the stag did, in helpless wonder. And Death will have +his sport of us, as if in atonement." Her big eyes shone, as when the +sun glints upon a sand-bottomed pool. "Ohe, I have known such happiness +of late, beau sire, that I am hideously afraid to die." + +The King answered, "I too have been very happy of late." + +"But it is profitless to talk about death thus drearily. Let us flout +him, instead, with some gay song." And thereupon she handed Sire Edward +a lute. + +The King accepted it. "Death is not reasonably mocked by any person," +Sire Edward said, "since in the end he conquers, and of the lips that +gibed at him remains but a little dust. Rather should I, who already +stand beneath a lifted sword, make for my destined and inescapable +conqueror a Sirvente, which is the Song of Service." + +Sang Sire Edward:[3] + + "I sing of Death, that comes unto the king, + And lightly plucks him from the cushioned throne; + And drowns his glory and his warfaring + In unrecorded dim oblivion; + And girds another with the sword thereof; + And sets another in his stead to reign; + And ousts the remnant, nakedly to gain + Styx' formless shore and nakedly complain + Midst twittering ghosts lamenting life and love. + + "For Death is merciless: a crack-brained king + He raises in the place of Prester John, + Smites Priam, and mid-course in conquering + Bids Caesar pause; the wit of Salomon, + The wealth of Nero and the pride thereof, + And battle-prowess--or of Tamburlaine + Darius, Jeshua, or Charlemaigne,-- + Wheedle and bribe and surfeit Death in vain, + And get no grace of him nor any love. + + "Incuriously he smites the armored king + And tricks his counsellors--" + +"True, O God!" murmured the tiny woman, who sat beside the window +yonder. With that, Dame Meregrett rose, and passed from the room. + +The two lovers started, and laughed, and afterward paid little heed to +her outgoing. Sire Edward had put aside the lute and sat now regarding +the Princess. His big left hand propped the bearded chin; his grave +countenance was flushed, and his intent eyes shone under their shaggy +brows, very steadily, although the left eye was now so nearly shut as to +reveal the merest spark. + +Irresolutely, Dame Blanch plucked at her gown; then rearranged a fold of +it, and with composure awaited the ensuing action, afraid at bottom, but +not at all ill-pleased; and she looked downward. + +The King said: "Never before were we two alone, madame. Fate is very +gracious to me this morning." + +"Fate," the lady considered, "has never denied much to the Hammer of the +Scots." + +"She has denied me nothing," he sadly said, "save the one thing that +makes this business of living seem a rational proceeding. Fame and power +and wealth fate has accorded me, no doubt, but never the common joys of +life. And, look you, my Princess, I am of aging person now. During some +thirty years I have ruled England according to my interpretation of +God's will as it was anciently made manifest by the holy Evangelists; +and during that period I have ruled England not without odd by-ends of +commendation: yet behold, to-day I forget the world-applauded, excellent +King Edward, and remember only Edward Plantagenet--hot-blooded and +desirous man!--of whom that much-commended king has made a prisoner all +these years." + +"It is the duty of exalted persons," Blanch unsteadily said, "to put +aside such private inclinations as their breasts may harbor--" + +He said, "I have done what I might for the happiness of every Englishman +within my realm saving only Edward Plantagenet; and now I think his turn +to be at hand." Then the man kept silence; and his hot appraisal daunted +her. + +"Lord," she presently faltered, "lord, you know that we are already +betrothed, and, in sober verity, Love cannot extend his laws between +husband and wife, since the gifts of love are voluntary, and husband and +wife are but the slaves of duty--" + +"Troubadourish nonsense!" Sire Edward said; "yet it is true that the +gifts of love are voluntary. And therefore--Ha, most beautiful, what +have you and I to do with all this chaffering over Guienne?" The two +stood very close to each other now. Blanch said, "It is a high +matter--" Then on a sudden the full-veined girl was aglow. "It is a +trivial matter." He took her in his arms, since already her cheeks +flared in scarlet anticipation of the event. + +Thus holding her, he wooed the girl tempestuously. Here, indeed, was +Sieur Hercules enslaved, burned by a fiercer fire than that of Nessus, +and the huge bulk of the unconquerable visibly shaken by his adoration. +In a disordered tapestry of verbiage, aflap in winds of passion, she +presently beheld herself prefigured by Balkis, the Judean's lure, and by +that Princess of Cyprus who reigned in Aristotle's time, and by +Nicolete, the King's daughter of Carthage,--since the first flush of +morning was as a rush-light before her resplendency, the man swore; and +in conclusion, he likened her to a modern Countess of Tripolis, for love +of whom he, like Rudel, had cleft the seas, and losing whom he must +inevitably die as did Rudel. Sire Edward snapped his fingers now over +any consideration of Guienne. He would conquer for her all Muscovy and +all Cataia, too, if she desired mere acreage. Meanwhile he wanted her, +and his hard and savage passion beat down opposition as if with a +bludgeon. + +"Heart's emperor," the trembling girl replied, "I think that you were +cast in some larger mould than we of France. Oh, none of us may dare +resist you! and I know that nothing matters, nothing in all the world, +save that you love me. Then take me, since you will it,--and take me +not as King, since you will otherwise, but as Edward Plantagenet. For +listen! by good luck you have this afternoon despatched Rigon for +Chevrieul, where to-morrow we were to hunt the great boar. So to-night +this hut will be unoccupied." + +The man was silent. He had a gift that way when occasion served. + +"Here, then, beau sire! here, then, at nine, you are to meet me with my +chaplain. Behold, he marries us, as glibly as though we two were +peasants. Poor king and princess!" cried Dame Blanch, and in a voice +which thrilled him, "shall ye not, then, dare to be but man and woman?" + +"Ha!" the King said. "So the chaplain makes a third! Well, the King is +pleased to loose his prisoner, that long-imprisoned Edward Plantagenet: +and I will do it." + +So he came that night, without any retinue, and habited as a forester, +with a horn swung about his neck, into the unlighted hut of Rigon the +forester, and he found a woman there, though not the woman whom he had +expected. + +"Treachery, beau sire! Horrible treachery!" she wailed. + +"I have encountered it before this," the big man said. + +"Presently will come to you not Blanch but Philippe, with many men to +back him. And presently they will slay you. You have been trapped, beau +sire. Ah, for the love of God, go! Go, while there is yet time!" Sire +Edward reflected. Undoubtedly, to light on Edward Longshanks alone in a +forest would appear to King Philippe, if properly attended, a tempting +chance to settle divers difficulties, once for all; and Sire Edward knew +the conscience of his old opponent to be invulnerable. The act would +violate the core of hospitality and knighthood, no doubt, but its +outcome would be a very definite gain to France, and for the rest, +merely a dead body in a ditch. Not a monarch in Christendom, Sire Edward +reflected, but feared and in consequence hated the Hammer of the Scots, +and in further consequence would not lift a finger to avenge him; and +not a being in the universe would rejoice more heartily at the success +of Philippe's treachery than would Sire Edward's son and immediate +successor, the young Prince Edward of Caernarvon. Taking matters by and +large, Philippe had all the powers of common-sense to back him in +contriving an assassination. + +What Sire Edward said was, "Dame Blanch, then, knew of this?" But +Meregrett's pitiful eyes had already answered him, and he laughed a +little. + +"In that event, I have to-night enregistered my name among the goodly +company of Love's Lunatics,--as yokefellow with Dan Merlin in his +thornbush, and with wise Salomon when he capered upon the high places of +Chemosh, and with Duke Ares sheepishly agrin in the net of Mulciber. +Rogues all, madame! fools all! yet always the flesh trammels us, and +allures the soul to such sensual delights as bar its passage toward the +eternal life wherein alone lies the empire and the heritage of the soul. +And why does this carnal prison so impede the soul? Because Satan once +ranked among the sons of God, and the Eternal Father, as I take it, has +not yet forgotten the antique relationship,--and hence it is permitted +even in our late time that always the flesh rebel against the spirit, +and that always these so tiny and so thin-voiced tricksters, these +highly tinted miracles of iniquity, so gracious in demeanor and so +starry-eyed--" + +Then he turned and pointed, no longer the orotund zealot but the +expectant captain now. "Look, my Princess!" In the pathway from which he +had recently emerged stood a man in full armor like a sentinel. "Mort de +Dieu, we can but try to get out of this," Sire Edward said. + +"You should have tried without talking so much," replied Meregrett. She +followed him. And presently, in a big splash of moonlight, the armed +man's falchion glittered across their way. "Back," he bade them, "for by +the King's orders, I can let no man pass." + +"It would be very easy now to strangle this herring," Sire Edward +reflected. + +"But it is not easy to strangle a whole school of herring," the fellow +retorted. "Hoh, Messire d'Aquitaine, the bushes of Ermenoueil are alive +with my associates. The hut yonder, in effect, is girdled by them,--and +we have our orders to let no man pass." + +"Have you any orders concerning women?" the King said. + +The man deliberated. Sire Edward handed him three gold pieces. "There +was assuredly no specific mention of petticoats," the soldier now +recollected, "and in consequence I dare to pass the Princess, against +whom certainly nothing can be planned." + +"Why, in that event," Sire Edward said, "we two had as well bid each +other adieu." + +But Meregrett only said, "You bid me go?" + +He waved his hand. "Since there is no choice. For that which you have +done--however tardily--I thank you. Meantime I return to Rigon's hut to +rearrange my toga as King Caesar did when the assassins fell upon him, +and to encounter with due decorum whatever Dame Luck may prefer." + +She said, "You go to your death." + +He shrugged his broad shoulders. "In the end we necessarily die." + +Dame Meregrett turned, and without faltering passed back into the hut. + +When he had lighted the inefficient lamp which he found there, Sire +Edward wheeled upon her in half-humorous vexation. "Presently come your +brother and his tattling lords. To be discovered here with me at night, +alone, means trouble for you. If Philippe chances to fall into one of +his Capetian rages it means death." + +She answered, as though she were thinking about other matters, "Yes." + +Now, for the first time, Sire Edward regarded her with profound +consideration. To the finger-tips this so-little lady showed a +descendant of the holy Lewis whom he had known and loved in old years. +Small and thinnish she was, with soft and profuse hair that, for all its +blackness, gleamed in the lamplight with stray ripples of brilliancy, as +you may see sparks shudder to extinction over burning charcoal. She had +the Valois nose, long and delicate in form, and overhanging a short +upper-lip; yet the lips were glorious in tint, and the whiteness of her +skin would have matched the Hyperborean snows tidily enough. As for her +eyes, the customary similes of the court poets were gigantic onyxes or +ebony highly polished and wet with May dew. These eyes were too big for +her little face: they made of her a tiny and desirous wraith which +nervously endured each incident of life, like a foreigner uneasily +acquiescent to the custom of the country. + +Sire Edward moved one step toward this tiny lady and paused. "Madame, I +do not understand." + +Dame Meregrett looked up into his face unflinchingly. "It means that I +love you, sire. I may speak without shame now, for presently you die. +Die bravely, sire! Die in such fashion as may hearten me to live." + +The little Princess spoke the truth, for always since his coming to +Mezelais she had viewed the great conqueror as through an aweful haze of +forerunning rumor, twin to that golden vapor which enswathes a god and +transmutes whatever in corporeal man would have been a defect into some +divine and hitherto unguessed-at excellence. I must tell you in this +place, since no other occasion offers, that even until the end of her +life it was so. For to her what in other persons would have seemed +flagrant dulness showed somehow, in Sire Edward, as the majestic +deliberation of one that knows his verdict to be decisive, and therefore +appraises cautiously; and if sometimes his big, irregular calm eyes +betrayed no apprehension of the jest at which her lips were laughing, +and of which her brain approved, always within the instant her heart +convinced her that a god is not lightly moved to mirth. + +And now it was a god--_O deus certe!_--who had taken a woman's paltry +face between his hands, half roughly. "And the maid is a Capet!" Sire +Edward mused. + +"Blanch has never desired you any ill, beau sire. But she loves the +Archduke of Austria. And once you were dead, she might marry him. One +cannot blame her," Meregrett considered, "since he wishes to marry her, +and she, of course, wishes to make him happy." + +"And not herself, save in some secondary way!" the big King said. "In +part I comprehend, madame. Now I too hanker after this same happiness, +and my admiration for the cantankerous despoiler whom I praised this +morning is somewhat abated. There was a Tenson once--Lord, Lord, how +long ago! I learn too late that truth may possibly have been upon the +losing side--" Thus talking incoherencies, he took up Rigon's lute. + +Sang Sire Edward: + + "Incuriously he smites the armored king + And tricks his counsellors-- + +"yes, the jingle ran thus. Now listen, madame--listen, the while that I +have my singing out, whatever any little cut-throats may be planning in +corners." + +Sang Sire Edward: + + "As, later on, + Death will, half-idly, still our pleasuring, + And change for fevered laughter in the sun + Sleep such as Merlin's,--and excess thereof,-- + Whence we, divorceless Death our Viviaine + Implacable, may never more regain + The unforgotten rapture, and the pain + And grief and ecstasy of life and love. + + "For, presently, as quiet as the king + Sleeps now that planned the keeps of Ilion, + We, too, will sleep, whilst overhead the spring + Rules, and young lovers laugh--as we have done,-- + And kiss--as we, that take no heed thereof, + But slumber very soundly, and disdain + The world-wide heralding of winter's wane + And swift sweet ripple of the April rain + Running about the world to waken love. + + "We shall have done with Love, and Death be king + And turn our nimble bodies carrion, + Our red lips dusty;--yet our live lips cling + Despite that age-long severance and are one + Despite the grave and the vain grief thereof,-- + Which we will baffle, if in Death's domain + Fond memories may enter, and we twain + May dream a little, and rehearse again + In that unending sleep our present love. + + "Speed forth to her in halting unison, + My rhymes: and say no hindrance may restrain + Love from his aim when Love is bent thereon; + And that were love at my disposal lain-- + All mine to take!--and Death had said, 'Refrain, + Lest I, even I, exact the cost thereof,' + I know that even as the weather-vane + Follows the wind so would I follow Love." + +Sire Edward put aside the lute. "Thus ends the Song of Service," he +said, "which was made not by the King of England but by Edward +Plantagenet--hot-blooded and desirous man!--in honor of the one woman +who within more years than I care to think of has at all considered +Edward Plantagenet." + +"I do not comprehend," she said. And, indeed, she dared not. + +But now he held both tiny hands in his. "At best, your poet is an +egotist. I must die presently. Meantime I crave largesse, madame, and a +great almsgiving, so that in his unending sleep your poet may rehearse +our present love." And even in Rigon's dim light he found her kindling +eyes not niggardly. + +Sire Edward strode to the window and raised big hands toward the +spear-points of the aloof stars. "Master of us all!" he cried; "O Father +of us all! the Hammer of the Scots am I! the Scourge of France, the +conqueror of Llewellyn and of Leicester, and the flail of the accursed +race that slew Thine only Son! the King of England am I, who have made +of England an imperial nation, and have given to Thy Englishmen new +laws! And to-night I crave my hire. Never, O my Father, have I had of +any person aught save reverence or hatred! never in my life has any +person loved me! And I am old, my Father--I am old, and presently I die. +As I have served Thee--as Jacob wrestled with Thee at the ford of +Jabbok--at the place of Peniel--" Against the tremulous blue and silver +of the forest the Princess saw how horribly the big man was shaken. "My +hire! my hire!" he hoarsely said. "Forty long years, my Father! And now +I will not let Thee go except Thou hear me, and grant me life and this +woman's love." + +He turned, stark and black in the rearward splendor of the moon. _"As a +prince hast thou power with God,"_ he calmly said, _"and thou hast +prevailed._ For the King of kings was never obdurate, my dear, to them +that have deserved well of Him. So He will attend to my request, and +will get us out of this pickle somehow." + +Even as he said this, Philippe the Handsome came into the room, and at +the heels of the French King were seven lords, armed cap-a-pie. + +The French King was an odd man. Subtly smiling, he came forward through +the twilight, with soft, long strides, and he made no outcry at +recognition of his sister. "Take the woman away, Victor," he said, +disinterestedly, to de Montespan. Afterward he sat down beside the table +and remained silent for a while, intently regarding Sire Edward and the +tiny woman who clung to Sire Edward's arm; and in the flickering gloom +of the hut Philippe smiled as an artist may smile who gazes on the +perfected work and knows it to be adroit. + +"You prefer to remain, my sister?" he said presently. "He bien! it +happens that to-night I am in a mood for granting almost any favor. A +little later and I will attend to your merits." The fleet disorder of +his visage had lapsed again into the meditative smile which was that of +Lucifer watching a toasted soul. "And so it ends," he said, "and England +loses to-night the heir that Manuel the Redeemer provided. Conqueror of +Scotland, Scourge of France! O unconquerable king! and will the worms of +Ermenoueil, then, pause to-morrow to consider through what a glorious +turmoil their dinner came to them?" + +"Do you design to murder me?" Sire Edward said. + +The French King shrugged. "I design that within this moment my lords +shall slay you while I sit here and do not move a finger. Is it not good +to be a king, my cousin, and to sit quite still, and to see your +bitterest enemy hacked and slain,--and all the while to sit quite still, +quite unruffled, as a king should always be? Eh, eh! I never lived until +to-night!" + +"Now, by Heaven," said Sire Edward, "I am your kinsman and your guest, I +am unarmed--" + +Philippe bowed his head. "Undoubtedly," he assented, "the deed is foul. +But I desire Gascony very earnestly, and so long as you live you will +never permit me to retain Gascony. Hence it is quite necessary, you +conceive, that I murder you. What!" he presently said, "will you not beg +for mercy? I had hoped," the French King added, somewhat wistfully, +"that you might be afraid to die, O huge and righteous man! and would +entreat me to spare you. To spurn the weeping conqueror of Llewellyn, +say ... But these sins which damn one's soul are in actual performance +very tedious affairs; and I begin to grow aweary of the game. He bien! +now kill this man for me, messieurs." + +The English King strode forward. "Shallow trickster!" Sire Edward +thundered. _"Am I not afraid?_ You grimacing baby, do you think to +ensnare a lion with such a flimsy rat-trap? Wise persons do not hunt +lions with these contraptions: for it is the nature of a rat-trap, fair +cousin, to ensnare not the beast which imperiously desires and takes in +daylight, but the tinier and the filthier beast that covets meanly and +attacks under the cover of darkness--as do you and your seven skulkers!" +The man was rather terrible; not a Frenchman within the hut but had +drawn back a little. + +"Listen!" Sire Edward said, and he came yet farther toward the King of +France and shook at him one forefinger; "when you were in your cradle I +was leading armies. When you were yet unbreeched I was lord of half +Europe. For thirty years I have driven kings before me as did Fierabras. +Am I, then, a person to be hoodwinked by the first big-bosomed huzzy +that elects to waggle her fat shoulders and to grant an assignation in a +forest expressly designed for stabbings? You baby, is the Hammer of the +Scots the man to trust for one half moment a Capet? Ill-mannered +infant," the King said, with bitter laughter, "it is now necessary that +I summon my attendants and remove you to a nursery which I have prepared +in England." He set the horn to his lips and blew three blasts. There +came many armed warriors into the hut, bearing ropes. Here was the +entire retinue of the Earl of Aquitaine. Cursing, Sire Philippe sprang +upon the English King, and with a dagger smote at the impassive big +man's heart. The blade broke against the mail armor under the tunic. +"Have I not told you," Sire Edward wearily said, "that one may never +trust a Capet? Now, messieurs, bind these carrion and convey them +whither I have directed you. Nay, but, Roger--" He conversed apart with +his son, the Earl of Pevensey, and what Sire Edward commanded was done. +The French King and seven lords of France went from that hut trussed +like chickens ready for the oven. + +And now Sire Edward turned toward Meregrett and chafed his big hands +gleefully. "At every tree-bole a tethered horse awaits us; and a ship +awaits our party at Fecamp. To-morrow we sleep in England--and, Mort de +Dieu! do you not think, madame, that once within my very persuasive +Tower of London, your brother and I may come to some agreement over +Guienne?" + +She had shrunk from him. "Then the trap was yours? It was you that lured +my brother to this infamy!" + +"In effect, I planned it many months ago at Ipswich yonder," Sire Edward +gayly said. "Faith of a gentleman! your brother has cheated me of +Guienne, and was I to waste eternity in begging him to give me back my +province? Oh, no, for I have many spies in France, and have for some two +years known your brother and your sister to the bottom. Granted that I +came hither incognito, to forecast your kinfolk's immediate endeavors +was none too difficult; and I wanted Guienne--and, in consequence, the +person of your brother. Hah, death of my life! does not the seasoned +hunter adapt his snare to the qualities of his prey, and take the +elephant through his curiosity, as the snake through his notorious +treachery?" Now the King of England blustered. + +But the little Princess wrung her hands. "I am this night most hideously +shamed. Beau sire, I came hither to aid a brave man infamously trapped, +and instead I find an alert spider, snug in his cunning web, and +patiently waiting until the gnats of France fly near enough. Eh, the +greater fool was I to waste my labor on the shrewd and evil thing which +has no more need of me than I of it! And now let me go hence, sire, +unmolested, for the sake of chivalry. Could I have come to the brave man +I had dreamed of, I would have come cheerily through the murkiest lane +of hell; as the more artful knave, as the more judicious trickster"--and +here she thrust him from her--"I spit upon you. Now let me go hence." + +He took her in his brawny arms. "Fit mate for me," he said. "Little +vixen, had you done otherwise I would have devoted you to the devil." + +Still grasping her, and victoriously lifting Dame Meregrett, so that +her feet swung clear of the floor, Sire Edward said, again with that +queer touch of fanatic gravity: "My dear, you are perfectly right. I was +tempted, I grant you. But it was never reasonable that gentlefolk should +cheat at their dicing. Therefore I whispered Roger Bulmer my final +decision; and he is now loosing all my captives in the courtyard of +Mezelais, after birching the tails of every one of them as soundly as +these infants' pranks to-night have merited. So you perceive that I do +not profit by my trick; and that I lose Guienne, after all, in order to +come to you with hands--well! not intolerably soiled." + +"Oh, now I love you!" she cried, a-thrill with disappointment to find +him so unthriftily high-minded. "Yet you have done wrong, for Guienne is +a king's ransom." + +He smiled whimsically, and presently one arm swept beneath her knees, so +that presently he held her as one dandles a baby; and presently his +stiff and graying beard caressed her burning cheek. Masterfully he said: +"Then let Guienne serve as such and ransom for a king his glad and +common manhood. Now it appears expedient that I leave France without any +unwholesome delay, because these children may resent being spanked. More +lately--he, already I have in my pocket the Pope's dispensation +permitting me to marry, in spite of our cousinship, the sister of the +King of France." + +Very shyly Dame Meregrett lifted her little mouth. She said nothing +because talk was not necessary. + +In consequence, after a deal of political tergiversation (Nicolas +concludes), in the year of grace 1299, on the day of our Lady's +nativity, and in the twenty-seventh year of King Edward's reign, came to +the British realm, and landed at Dover, not Dame Blanch, as would have +been in consonance with seasoned expectation, but Dame Meregrett, the +other daughter of King Philippe the Bold; and upon the following day +proceeded to Canterbury, whither on the next Thursday after came Edward, +King of England, into the Church of the Trinity at Canterbury, and +therein espoused the aforesaid Dame Meregrett. + +THE END OF THE THIRD NOVEL + + + + +IV + +THE STORY OF THE CHOICES + + + "Sest fable es en aquest mon + Semblans al homes que i son; + Que el mager sen qu'om pot aver + So es amar Dieu et sa mer, + E gardar sos comendamens." + +THE FOURTH NOVEL.--YSABEAU OF FRANCE, DESIROUS OF DISTRACTION, LOOKS FOR +RECREATION IN THE TORMENT OF A CERTAIN KNIGHT, WHOM SHE PROVES TO BE NO +MORE THAN HUMAN; BUT IN THE OUTCOME OF HER HOLIDAY HE CONFOUNDS THIS +QUEEN BY THE WIT OF HIS REPLY. + + + + +The Story of the Choices + + +In the year of grace 1327 (thus Nicolas begins) you could have found in +all England no couple more ardent in affection or in despair more +affluent than Rosamund Eastney and Sir Gregory Darrell. She was Lord +Berners' only daughter, a brown beauty, of extensive repute, thanks to a +retinue of lovers who were practitioners of the Gay Science, and who had +scattered broadcast innumerable Canzons in her honor; and Lord Berners +was a man to accept the world as he found it. + +"Dompnedex!" the Earl was wont to say; "in sincerity I am fond of +Gregory Darrell, and if he chooses to make love to my daughter that is +none of my affair. The eyes and the brain preserve a proverbial warfare, +which is the source of all amenity, for without lady-service there would +be no songs and tourneys, no measure and no good breeding; and a man +delinquent in domnei is no more to be valued than an ear of corn +without the grain. No, I am so profoundly an admirer of Love that I can +never willingly behold him slain, of a surfeit, by Matrimony; besides, +this rapscallion Gregory could not to advantage exchange purses with +Lazarus in the parable; and, moreover, Rosamund is to marry the Earl of +Sarum a little after All Saints' day." + +"Sarum!" people echoed. "Why, the old goat has had four wives already!" + +And the Earl would spread his hands. "These redundancies are permissible +to one of the wealthiest persons in England," he was used to submit. + +Thus it fell out that Sir Gregory came and went at his own discretion as +concerned Lord Berners' fief of Ordish, all through those choppy times +of warfare between Sire Edward and Queen Ysabeau. Lord Berners, for one, +vexed himself not inordinately over the outcome, since he protested the +King's armament to consist of fools and the Queen's of rascals; and had +with entire serenity declined to back either Dick or the devil. + +But at last the Queen got resistless aid from Count William of Hainault +(in a way to be told about hereafter), and the King was captured by her +forces, and was imprisoned in Berkeley Castle. There they held the +second Edward to reign in England, who was the unworthy son of Dame +Ellinor and of that first squinting King Edward about whom I have told +you in the two tales preceding this tale. It was in the September of +this year, a little before Michaelmas, that they brought Sir Gregory +Darrell to be judged by the Queen; notoriously the knight had been her +husband's adherent. "Death!" croaked Adam Orleton, who sat to the right +hand, and, "Young de Spencer's death!" amended the Earl of March, with +wild laughter; but Ysabeau leaned back in her great chair--a handsome +woman, stoutening now from gluttony and from too much wine,--and +regarded her prisoner with lazy amiability. + +"And what was your errand in Figgis Wood?" she demanded--"or are you +mad, then, Gregory Darrell, that you dare ride past my gates alone?" + +He curtly said, "I rode for Ordish." + +Followed silence. "Roger," the Queen ordered, "give me the paper which I +would not sign." + +The Earl of March had drawn an audible breath. The Bishop of London +somewhat wrinkled his shaggy brows, like a person in shrewd and +epicurean amusement, while the Queen subscribed the parchment, with a +great scrawling flourish. + +"Take, in the devil's name, the hire of your dexterities," said Ysabeau. +She pushed this document with her wet pen-point toward March. "So! get +it over with, that necessary business with my husband at Berkeley. And +do the rest of you withdraw, saving only my prisoner." + +Followed another silence. Queen Ysabeau lolled in her carven chair, +considering the comely gentleman who stood before her, fettered, at the +point of shameful death. There was in the room a little dog which had +come to the Queen, and now licked the palm of her left hand, and the +soft lapping of its tongue was the only sound you heard. "So at peril of +your life you rode for Ordish, then, messire?" + +The tense man had flushed. "You have harried us of the King's party out +of England,--and in reason I might not leave England without seeing the +desire of my heart." + +"My friend," said Ysabeau, as if half in sorrow, "I would have pardoned +anything save that." She rose. Her face was dark and hot. "By God and +all His saints! you shall indeed leave England to-morrow and the world +also! but not without a final glimpse of this same Rosamund. Yet listen: +I, too, must ride with you to Ordish--as your sister, say--Gregory, did +I not hang, last April, the husband of your sister? Yes, Ralph de +Belomys, a thin man with eager eyes, the Earl of Farrington he was. As +his widow I will ride with you to Ordish, upon condition you disclose to +none at Ordish, saving only, if you will, this quite immaculate +Rosamund, any hint of our merry carnival. And to-morrow (you will swear +according to the nicest obligations of honor) you must ride back with me +to encounter--that which I may devise. For I dare to trust your naked +word in this, and, moreover, I shall take with me a sufficiency of +retainers to leave you no choice." + +Darrell knelt before her. "I can do no homage to Queen Ysabeau; yet the +prodigal hands of her who knows that I must die to-morrow and cunningly +contrives, for old time's sake, to hearten me with a sight of Rosamund, +I cannot but kiss." This much he did. "And I swear in all things to obey +your will." + +"O comely fool!" the Queen said, not ungently, "I contrive, it may be, +but to demonstrate that many tyrants of antiquity were only bunglers. +And, besides, I must have other thoughts than those which I have known +too long: I must this night take holiday from thinking them, lest I go +mad." + +Thus did the Queen arrange her holiday. + +"Either I mean to torture you to-morrow," Dame Ysabeau said, presently, +to Darrell, as these two rode side by side, "or else I mean to free you. +In sober verity I do not know. I am in a holiday humor, and it is as the +whim may take me. But do you indeed love this Rosamund Eastney? And of +course she worships you?" + +"It is my belief, madame, that when I see her I tremble visibly, and my +weakness is such that a child has more intelligence than I,--and toward +such misery any lady must in common reason be a little compassionate." + +Her hands had twitched so that the astonished palfrey reared. "I design +torture," the Queen said; "ah, I perfect exquisite torture, for you have +proven recreant, you have forgotten the maid Ysabeau,--Le Desir du +Cuer, was it not, my Gregory, that you were wont to call her, as +nowadays this Rosamund is the desire of your heart. You lack +inventiveness." + +His palms clutched at heaven. "That Ysabeau is dead! and all true joy is +destroyed, and the world lies under a blight from which God has averted +an unfriendly face in displeasure! yet of all wretched persons existent +I am he who endures the most grievous anguish, for daily I partake of +life without any relish, and I would in truth deem him austerely kind +who slew me now that the maiden Ysabeau is dead." + +She shrugged wearily. "I scent the raw stuff of a Planh," the Queen +observed; "_benedicite!_ it was ever your way, my friend, to love a +woman chiefly for the verses she inspired." And she began to sing, as +they rode through Baverstock Thicket. + +Sang Ysabeau: + + "Man's love hath many prompters, + But a woman's love hath none; + And he may woo a nimble wit + Or hair that shames the sun, + Whilst she must pick of all one man + And ever brood thereon-- + And for no reason, + And not rightly,-- + + "Save that the plan was foreordained + (More old than Chalcedon, + Or any tower of Tarshish + Or of gleaming Babylon), + That she must love unwillingly + And love till life be done,--. + He for a season, + And more lightly." + +So to Ordish in that twilight came the Countess of Farrington, with a +retinue of twenty men-at-arms, and her brother Sir Gregory Darrell. Lord +Berners received the party with boisterous hospitality. + +"Age has not blinded Father to the fact that your sister is a very +handsome woman," was Rosamund Eastney's comment. The period appears to +have been after supper, and the girl sat with Gregory Darrell in not the +most brilliant corner of the main hall. + +The wretched man leaned forward, bit his nether-lip, and then with a +tumbling rush of speech told of the sorry masquerade. "The she-devil +designs some horrible and obscure mischief, she plans I know not what." + +"Yet I--" said Rosamund. The girl had risen, and she continued with an +odd inconsequence: "You have told me you were Pembroke's squire when +long ago he sailed for France to fetch this woman into England--" + +"--Which you never heard!" Lord Berners shouted at this point. "Jasper, +a lute!" And then he halloaed, "Gregory, Madame de Farrington demands +that racy song you made against Queen Ysabeau during your last visit." +Thus did the Queen begin her holiday. + +It was a handsome couple which came forward, with hand quitting hand +tardily, and with blinking eyes yet rapt: these two were not overpleased +at being disturbed, and the man was troubled, as in reason he well might +be, by the task assigned him. + +"Is it, indeed, your will, my sister," he said, "that I should +sing--this song?" + +"It is my will," the Countess said. + +And the knight flung back his comely head and laughed. "A truth, once +spoken, may not be disowned in any company. It is not, look you, of my +own choice that I sing, my sister. Yet if Queen Ysabeau herself were to +bid me sing this song, I could not refuse, for, Christ aid me! the song +is true." + +Sang Sir Gregory: + + "Dame Ysabeau, la prophecie + Que li sage dit ne ment mie, + Que la royne sut ceus grever + Qui tantost laquais sot aymer--"[4] + +and so on. It was a lengthy ditty, and in its wording not oversqueamish; +the Queen's career in England was detailed without any stuttering, and +you would have found the catalogue unhandsome. Yet Sir Gregory delivered +it with an incisive gusto, desperately countersigning his own death +warrant. Her treacheries, her adulteries and her assassinations were +rendered in glowing terms whose vigor seemed, even now, to please their +contriver. Yet the minstrel added a new peroration. + +Sang Sir Gregory: + + "Ma voix mocque, mon cuer gemit-- + Peu pense a ce que la voix dit, + Car me membre du temps jadis + Et d'ung garson, d'amour surpris, + Et d'une fille--et la vois si-- + Et grandement suis esbahi." + +And when Darrell had ended, the Countess of Farrington, without +speaking, swept her left hand toward her cheek and by pure chance caught +between thumb and forefinger the autumn-numbed fly that had annoyed her. +She drew the little dagger from her girdle and meditatively cut the +buzzing thing in two. She cast the fragments from her, and resting the +dagger's point upon the arm of her chair, one forefinger upon the summit +of the hilt, considerately twirled the brilliant weapon. + +"This song does not err upon the side of clemency," she said at last, +"nor by ordinary does Queen Ysabeau." + +"That she-wolf!" said Lord Berners, comfortably. "Hoo, Madame Gertrude! +since the Prophet Moses wrung healing waters from a rock there has been +no such miracle recorded." + +"We read, Messire de Berners, that when the she-wolf once acknowledges a +master she will follow him as faithfully as any dog. My brother, I do +not question your sincerity, yet everybody knows you sing with the voice +of an unhonored courtier. Suppose Queen Ysabeau had heard your song all +through as I have heard it, and then had said--for she is not as the run +of women--'Messire, I had thought until this that there was no thorough +man in England save tall Roger Mortimer. I find him tawdry now, and--I +remember. Come you, then, and rule the England that you love as you may +love no woman, and rule me, messire, since I find even in your +cruelty--For we are no pygmies, you and I! Yonder is squabbling Europe +and all the ancient gold of Africa, ready for our taking! and past that +lies Asia, too, and its painted houses hung with bells, and cloud-wrapt +Tartary, where we two may yet erect our equal thrones, upon which to +receive the tributary emperors! For we are no pygmies, you and I." She +paused. She shrugged. "Suppose Queen Ysabeau, who is not as the run of +women, had said this much, my brother?" + +Darrell was more pallid (as the phrase is) than a sheet, and the lute +had dropped unheeded, and his hands were clenched. + +"I would answer, my sister, that as she has found in England but one +man, I have found in England but one woman--the rose of all the world." +His eyes were turned at this toward Rosamund Eastney. "And yet," the man +stammered, "because I, too, remember--" + +"Hah, in God's name! I am answered," the Countess said. She rose, in +dignity almost a queen. "We have ridden far to-day, and to-morrow we +must travel a deal farther--eh, my brother? I am going to bed, Messire +de Berners." + +So the men and women parted. Madame de Farrington kissed her brother at +leaving him, as was natural; and under her caress his stalwart person +shuddered, but not in repugnance; and the Queen went away singing +hushedly. + +Sang Ysabeau: + + "Were the All-Mother wise, life (shaped anotherwise) + Would be all high and true; + Could I be otherwise I had been otherwise + Simply because of you, ... + With whom I have naught to do, + And who are no longer you! + + "Life with its pay to be bade us essay to be + What we became,--I believe + Were there a way to be what it was play to be + I would not greatly grieve ... + Hearts are not worn on the sleeve. + Let us neither laugh nor grieve!" + +Ysabeau would have slept that night within the chamber of Rosamund +Eastney had either slept. As concerns the older I say nothing. The girl, +though soon aware of frequent rustlings near at hand, lay quiet, +half-forgetful of the poisonous woman yonder. The girl was now fulfilled +with a great blaze of exultation: to-morrow Gregory must die, and then +perhaps she might find time for tears; meanwhile, before her eyes, the +man had flung away a kingdom and life itself for love of her, and the +least nook of her heart ached to be a shade more worthy of the +sacrifice. + +After it might have been an hour of this excruciate ecstasy the Countess +came to Rosamund's bed. "Ay," the woman began, "it is indisputable that +his hair is like spun gold and that his eyes resemble sun-drenched +waters in June. It is certain that when this Gregory laughs God is more +happy. Girl, I was familiar with the routine of your meditations before +you were born." + +Rosamund said, quite simply: "You have known him always. I envy the +circumstance, Madame Gertrude--you alone of all women in the world I +envy, since you, his sister, being so much older, must have known him +always." + +"I know him to the core, my girl," the Countess answered. For a while +she sat silent, one bare foot jogging restlessly. "Yet I am two years +his junior--Did you hear nothing, Rosamund?" "No, Madame Gertrude, I +heard nothing." + +"Strange!" the Countess said; "let us have lights, since I can no longer +endure this overpopulous twilight." She kindled, with twitching fingers, +three lamps. "It is as yet dark yonder, where the shadows quiver very +oddly, as though they would rise from the floor--do they not, my +girl?--and protest vain things. But, Rosamund, it has been done; in the +moment of death men's souls have travelled farther and have been +visible; it has been done, I tell you. And he would stand before me, +with pleading eyes, and would reproach me in a voice too faint to reach +my ears--but I would see him--and his groping hands would clutch at my +hands as though a dropped veil had touched me, and with the contact I +would go mad!" + +"Madame Gertrude!" the girl stammered, in communicated terror. + +"Poor innocent fool!" the woman said, "I am Ysabeau of France." And when +Rosamund made as though to rise, in alarm, Queen Ysabeau caught her by +the shoulder. "Bear witness when he comes that I never hated him. Yet +for my quiet it was necessary that it suffer so cruelly, the scented, +pampered body, and no mark be left upon it! Eia! even now he suffers! +No, I have lied. I hate the man, and in such fashion as you will +comprehend when you are Sarum's wife." + +"Madame and Queen!" the girl said, "you will not murder me!" "I am +tempted!" the Queen answered. "O little slip of girlhood, I am tempted, +for it is not reasonable you should possess everything that I have lost. +Innocence you have, and youth, and untroubled eyes, and quiet dreams, +and the fond graveness of a child, and Gregory Darrell's love--" Now +Ysabeau sat down upon the bed and caught up the girl's face between two +fevered hands. "Rosamund, this Darrell perceives within the moment, as I +do, that the love he bears for you is but what he remembers of the love +he bore a certain maid long dead. Eh, you might have been her sister, +Rosamund, for you are very like her. And she, poor wench--why, I could +see her now, I think, were my eyes not blurred, somehow, almost as +though Queen Ysabeau might weep! But she was handsomer than you, since +your complexion is not overclear, praise God!" + +Woman against woman they were. "He has told me of his intercourse with +you," the girl said, and this was a lie flatfooted. "Nay, kill me if you +will, madame, since you are the stronger, yet, with my dying breath, I +protest that Gregory has loved no woman truly in all his life except +me." + +The Queen laughed bitterly. "Do I not know men? He told you nothing. And +to-night he hesitated, and to-morrow, at the lifting of my finger, he +will supplicate. Since boyhood Gregory Darrell has loved me, O white, +palsied innocence! and he is mine at a whistle. And in that time to +come he will desert you, Rosamund--bidding farewell with a pleasing +Canzon,--and they will give you to the gross Earl of Sarum, as they gave +me to the painted man who was of late our King! and in that time to come +you will know your body to be your husband's makeshift when he lacks +leisure to seek out other recreation! and in that time to come you will +long for death, and presently your heart will be a flame within you, my +Rosamund, an insatiable flame! and you will hate your God because He +made you, and hate Satan because in some desperate hour he tricked you, +and hate all men because, poor fools, they scurry to obey your whims! +and chiefly you will hate yourself because you are so pitiable! and +devastation only will you love in that strange time which is to come. It +is adjacent, my Rosamund." + +The girl kept silence. She sat erect in the tumbled bed, her hands +clasping her knees, and she appeared to deliberate what Dame Ysabeau had +said. Plentiful brown hair fell about this Rosamund's face, which was +white and shrewd. "A part of what you say, madame, I understand. I know +that Gregory Darrell loves me, yet I have long ago acknowledged he loves +me as one pets a child, or, let us say, a spaniel which reveres and +amuses one. I lack his wit, you comprehend, and so he never speaks to me +all that he thinks. Yet a part of it he tells me, and he loves me, and +with this I am content. Assuredly, if they give me to Sarum I shall hate +Sarum even more than I detest him now. And then, I think, Heaven help +me! that I would not greatly grieve--Oh, you are all evil!" Rosamund +said; "and you thrust into my mind thoughts which I may not understand!" + +"You will comprehend them," the Queen said, "when you know yourself a +chattel, bought and paid for." + +The Queen laughed. She rose, and her hands strained toward heaven. "You +are omnipotent, yet have You let me become that into which I am +transmuted," she said, very low. + +She began to speak as though a statue spoke through lips that seemed +motionless. "Men have long urged me, Rosamund, to a deed which by one +stroke would make me mistress of these islands. To-day I looked on +Gregory Darrell, and knew that I was wise in love--and I had but to +crush a lewd soft worm to come to him. Eh, and I was tempted--!" + +The girl said: "Let us grant that Gregory loves you very greatly, and me +just when his leisure serves. You may offer him a cushioned infamy, a +colorful and brief delirium, and afterward demolishment of soul and +body; I offer him contentment and a level life, made up of small events, +it may be, and lacking both in abysses and in skyey heights. Yet is love +a flame wherein the lover's soul must be purified; it is a flame which +assays high queens just as it does their servants: and thus, madame, to +judge between us I dare summon you." "Child, child!" the Queen said, +tenderly, and with a smile, "you are brave; and in your fashion you are +wise; yet you will never comprehend. But once I was in heart and soul +and body all that you are to-day; and now I am Queen Ysabeau--Did you in +truth hear nothing, Rosamund?" + +"Why, nothing save the wind." + +"Strange!" said the Queen; "since all the while that I have talked with +you I have been seriously annoyed by shrieks and imprecations! But I, +too, grow cowardly, it may be--Nay, I know," she said, and in a resonant +voice, "that by this I am mistress of broad England, until my son--my +own son, born of my body, and in glad anguish, Rosamund--knows me for +what I am. For I have heard--Coward! O beautiful sleek coward!" the +Queen said; "I would have died without lamentation and I was but your +plaything!" + +"Madame Ysabeau--!" the girl answered vaguely, for she was puzzled and +was almost frightened by the other's strange talk. + +"To bed!" said Ysabeau; "and put out the lights lest he come presently. +Or perhaps he fears me now too much to come to-night. Yet the night +approaches, none the less, when I must lift some arras and find him +there, chalk-white, with painted cheeks, and rigid, and smiling very +terribly, or look into some mirror and behold there not myself but +him,--and in that instant I shall die. Meantime I rule, until my son +attains his manhood. Eh, Rosamund, my only son was once so tiny, and so +helpless, and his little crimson mouth groped toward me, helplessly, and +save in Bethlehem, I thought, there was never any child more fair--But I +must forget all that, for even now he plots. Hey, God orders matters +very shrewdly, my Rosamund." + +Timidly the girl touched Ysabeau's shoulder. "In part, I understand, +madame and Queen." + +"You understand nothing," said Ysabeau; "how should you understand whose +breasts are yet so tiny? So let us put out the light! though I dread +darkness, Rosamund--For they say that hell is poorly lighted--and they +say--" Then Queen Ysabeau shrugged. Pensively she blew out each lamp. + +"We know this Gregory Darrell," the Queen said in the darkness, "ah, to +the marrow we know him, however steadfastly we blink, and we know the +present turmoil of his soul; and in common-sense what chance have you of +victory?" + +"None in common-sense, madame, and yet you go too fast. For man is a +being of mingled nature, we are told by those in holy orders, and his +life here is one unending warfare between that which is divine in him +and that which is bestial, while impartial Heaven attends as arbiter of +the tourney. Always a man's judgment misleads him and his faculties +allure him to a truce, however brief, with iniquity. His senses raise a +mist about his goings, and there is not an endowment of the man but in +the end plays traitor to his interest, as of God's wisdom God intends; +so that when the man is overthrown, the Eternal Father may, in reason, +be neither vexed nor grieved if only the man takes heart to rise again. +And when, betrayed and impotent, the man elects to fight out the +allotted battle, defiant of common-sense and of the counsellors which +God Himself accorded, I think that the Saints hold festival in heaven." + +"A very pretty sermon," said the Queen. "Yet I do not think that our +Gregory could very long endure a wife given over to such high-minded +talking. He prefers to hear himself do the fine talking." + +Followed a silence, vexed only on the purposeless September winds; but I +believe that neither of these two slept with profundity. + +About dawn one of the Queen's attendants roused Sir Gregory Darrell and +conducted him into the hedged garden of Ordish, where Ysabeau walked in +tranquil converse with Lord Berners. The old man was in high good-humor. + +"My lad," said he, and clapped Sir Gregory upon the shoulder, "you have, +I do protest, the very phoenix of sisters. I was never happier." And he +went away chuckling. + +The Queen said in a toneless voice, "We ride for Blackfriars now." + +Darrell responded, "I am content, and ask but leave to speak, briefly, +with Dame Rosamund before I die." + +Then the woman came more near to him. "I am not used to beg, but within +this hour you encounter death, and I have loved no man in all my life +saving only you, Sir Gregory Darrell. Nor have you loved any person as +you loved me once in France. Oh, to-day, I may speak freely, for with +you the doings of that boy and girl are matters overpast. Yet were it +otherwise--eh, weigh the matter carefully! for I am mistress of England +now, and England would I give you, and such love as that slim, white +innocence has never dreamed of would I give you, Gregory Darrell--No, +no! ah, Mother of God, not you!" The Queen clapped one hand upon his +lips. + +"Listen," she quickly said; "I spoke to tempt you. But you saw, and you +saw clearly, that it was the sickly whim of a wanton, and you never +dreamed of yielding, for you love this Rosamund Eastney, and you know me +to be vile. Then have a care of me! The strange woman am I, of whom we +read that her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of +death. Hoh, many strong men have been slain by me, and in the gray time +to come will many others be slain by me, it may be; but never you among +them, my Gregory, who are more wary, and more merciful, and who know +that I have need to lay aside at least one comfortable thought against +eternity." + +"I concede you to have been unwise--" he hoarsely began. + +About them fell the dying leaves, of many glorious colors, but the air +of this new day seemed raw and chill. + +Then Rosamund came through the opening in the hedge. "Now, choose," she +said; "the woman offers life and high place and wealth, and it may be, a +greater love than I am capable of giving you. I offer a dishonorable +death within the moment." + +And again, with that peculiar and imperious gesture, the man flung back +his head, and he laughed. Said Gregory Darrell: + +"I am I! and I will so to live that I may face without shame not only +God, but also my own scrutiny." He wheeled upon the Queen and spoke +henceforward very leisurely. "I love you; all my life long I have loved +you, Ysabeau, and even now I love you: and you, too, dear Rosamund, I +love, though with a difference. And every fibre of my being lusts for +the power that you would give me, Ysabeau, and for the good which I +would do with it in the England which I or blustering Roger Mortimer +must rule; as every fibre of my being lusts for the man that I would be +could I choose death without debate. And I think also of the man that +you would make of me, my Rosamund. + +"The man! And what is this man, this Gregory Darrell, that his welfare +should be considered?--an ape who chatters to himself of kinship with +the archangels while filthily he digs for groundnuts! This much I know, +at bottom. + +"Yet more clearly do I perceive that this same man, like all his +fellows, is a maimed god who walks the world dependent upon many wise +and evil counsellors. He must measure, to a hair's-breadth, every +content of the world by means of a bloodied sponge, tucked somewhere in +his skull, a sponge which is ungeared by the first cup of wine and +ruined by the touch of his own finger. He must appraise all that he +judges with no better instruments than two bits of colored jelly, with a +bungling makeshift so maladroit that the nearest horologer's apprentice +could have devised a more accurate device. In fine, each man is under +penalty condemned to compute eternity with false weights, to estimate +infinity with a yard-stick: and he very often does it, and chooses his +own death without debate. For though, 'If then I do that which I would +not I consent unto the law,' saith even an Apostle; yet a braver Pagan +answers him, 'Perceive at last that thou hast in thee something better +and more divine than the things which cause the various effects and, as +it were, pull thee by the strings.' + +"There lies the choice which every man must face,--whether rationally, +as his reason goes, to accept his own limitations and make the best of +his allotted prison-yard? or stupendously to play the fool and swear +even to himself (while his own judgment shrieks and proves a flat +denial), that he is at will omnipotent? You have chosen long ago, my +poor proud Ysabeau; and I choose now, and differently: for poltroon that +I am! being now in a cold drench of terror, I steadfastly protest I am +not very much afraid, and I choose death without any more debate." + +It was toward Rosamund that the Queen looked, and smiled a little +pitifully. "Should Queen Ysabeau be angry or vexed or very cruel now, my +Rosamund? for at bottom she is glad." + +And the Queen said also: "I give you back your plighted word. I ride +homeward to my husks, but you remain. Or rather, the Countess of +Farrington departs for the convent of Ambresbury, disconsolate in her +widowhood and desirous to have done with worldly affairs. It is most +natural she should relinquish to her beloved and only brother all her +dower-lands--or so at least Messire de Berners acknowledges. Here, then, +is the grant, my Gregory, that conveys to you those lands of Ralph de +Belomys which last year I confiscated. And this tedious Messire de +Berners is willing now--he is eager to have you for a son-in-law." + +About them fell the dying leaves, of many glorious colors, but the air +of this new day seemed raw and chill, while, very calmly, Dame Ysabeau +took Sir Gregory's hand and laid it upon the hand of Rosamund Eastney. +"Our paladin is, in the outcome, a mortal man, and therefore I do not +altogether envy you. Yet he has his moments, and you are capable. Serve, +then, not only his desires but mine also, dear Rosamund." + +There was a silence. The girl spoke as though it was a sacrament. "I +will, madame and Queen." + +Thus did the Queen end her holiday. + +A little later the Countess of Farrington rode from Ordish with all her +train save one; and riding from that place, where love was, she sang +very softly. + +Sang Ysabeau: + + "As with her dupes dealt Circe + Life deals with hers, for she + Reshapes them without mercy, + And shapes them swinishly, + To wallow swinishly, + And for eternity; + + "Though, harder than the witch was, + Life, changing not the whole, + Transmutes the body, which was + Proud garment of the soul, + And briefly drugs the soul, + Whose ruin is her goal; + + "And means by this thereafter + A subtler mirth to get, + And mock with bitterer laughter + Her helpless dupes' regret, + Their swinish dull regret + For what they half forget." + + +And within the hour came Hubert Frayne to Ordish, on a foam-specked +horse, as he rode to announce to the King's men the King's barbaric +murder overnight, at Berkeley Castle, by Queen Ysabeau's order. + +"Ride southward," said Lord Berners, and panted as they buckled on his +disused armor; "but harkee, Frayne! if you pass the Countess of +Farrington's company, speak no syllable of your news, since it is not +convenient that a lady so thoroughly and so praise-worthily--Lord, Lord, +how I have fattened!--so intent on holy things, in fine, should have her +meditations disturbed by any such unsettling tidings. Hey, son-in-law?" + +Sir Gregory Darrell laughed, very bitterly. "He that is without blemish +among you--" he said. Then they armed completely, and went forth to +battle against the murderous harlot. + +THE END OF THE FOURTH NOVEL + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: For this perplexing matter the curious may consult Paul +Verville's _Notice sur la vie de Nicolas de Caen, p. 93 et seq_. The +indebtedness to Antoine Riczi is, of course, conceded by Nicolas in his +"EPILOGUE."] + +[Footnote 2: She was the daughter of King Ferdinand of Leon and Castile, +whose conversion to sainthood the inquisitive may find recorded +elsewhere.] + +[Footnote 3: Not without indulgence in anachronism. But Nicolas, be it +repeated, was no Gradgrindian.] + +[Footnote 4: Nicolas gives this ballad in full, but, for obvious +reasons, his translator would prefer to do otherwise.] + + + + +V + +THE STORY OF THE HOUSEWIFE + + + "Selh que m blasma vostr' amor ni m defen + Non podon far en re mon cor mellor, + Ni'l dous dezir qu'ieu ai de vos major, + Ni l'enveya' ni'l dezir, ni'l talen." + +THE FIFTH NOVEL.--PHILIPPA OF HAINAULT DARES TO LOVE UNTHRIFTILY, AND +WITH THE PRODIGALITY OF HER AFFECTION SHAMES TREACHERY, AND +COMMON-SENSE, AND HIGH ROMANCE, QUITE STOLIDLY; BUT, AS LOVING GOES, +IS OVERTOPPED BY HER MORE STOLID SQUIRE. + + + + +_The Story of the Housewife_ + + +In the year of grace 1326, upon Walburga's Eve, some three hours after +sunset (thus Nicolas begins), had you visited a certain garden on the +outskirts of Valenciennes, you might there have stumbled upon a big, +handsome boy, prone on the turf, where by turns he groaned and vented +himself in sullen curses. His profanity had its palliation. Heir to +England though he was, you must know that this boy's father in the +flesh had hounded him from England, as more recently had the lad's +uncle Charles the Handsome driven him from France. Now had this boy +and his mother (the same Queen Ysabeau about whom I have told you in +the preceding tale) come as suppliants to the court of that stalwart +nobleman Sire William (Count of Hainault, Holland, and Zealand, and +Lord of Friesland), where their arrival had evoked the suggestion that +they depart at their earliest convenience. To-morrow, then, these +footsore royalties, the Queen of England and the Prince of Wales, +would be thrust out-of-doors to resume the weary beggarship, to knock +again upon the obdurate gates of this unsympathizing king or that deaf +emperor. + +Accordingly the boy aspersed his destiny. At hand a nightingale +carolled as though an exiled prince were the blithest spectacle the +moon knew. + +There came through the garden a tall girl, running, stumbling in her +haste. "Hail, King of England!" she said. + +"Do not mock me, Philippa!" the boy half-sobbed. Sulkily he rose to +his feet. + +"No mockery here, my fair sweet friend. No, I have told my father all +which happened yesterday. I pleaded for you. He questioned me very +closely. And when I had ended, he stroked his beard, and presently +struck one hand upon the table. 'Out of the mouth of babes!' he said. +Then he said: 'My dear, I believe for certain that this lady and her +son have been driven from their kingdom wrongfully. If it be for the +good of God to comfort the afflicted, how much more is it commendable +to help and succor one who is the daughter of a king, descended from +royal lineage, and to whose blood we ourselves are related!' And +accordingly he and your mother have their heads together yonder, +planning an invasion of England, no less, and the dethronement of your +wicked father, my Edward. And accordingly--hail, King of England!" The +girl clapped her hands gleefully. The nightingale sang. + +But the boy kept momentary silence. Not even in youth were the men of +his race handicapped by excessively tender hearts; yesterday in the +shrubbery the boy had kissed this daughter of Count William, in part +because she was a healthy and handsome person, and partly because +great benefit might come of an alliance with her father. Well! the +Prince had found chance-taking not unfortunate. With the episode as +foundation, Count William had already builded up the future queenship +of England. The strong Count could do--and, as it seemed, was now in +train to do--indomitable deeds to serve his son-in-law; and now the +beggar of five minutes since foresaw himself, with this girl's love as +ladder, mounting to the high habitations of the King of England, the +Lord of Ireland, and the Duke of Aquitaine. Thus they would herald +him. + +So he embraced the girl. "Hail, Queen of England!" said the Prince; +and then, "If I forget--" His voice broke awkwardly. "My dear, if ever +I forget--!" Their lips met now. The nightingale discoursed as if on a +wager. + +Presently was mingled with the bird's descant another kind of singing. +Beyond the yew-hedge as these two stood silent, breast to breast, +passed young Jehan Kuypelant, one of the pages, fitting to the +accompaniment of a lute his paraphrase of the song which Archilochus +of Sicyon very anciently made in honor of Venus Melaenis, the tender +Venus of the Dark. + +At a gap in the hedge the young Brabanter paused. His singing ended, +gulped. These two, who stood heart hammering against heart, saw for an +instant Jehan Kuypelant's lean face silvered by the moonlight, his +mouth a tiny abyss. Followed the beat of lessening footfalls, while +the nightingale improvised an envoi. + +But earlier Jehan Kuypelant also had sung, as though in rivalry with +the bird. + +Sang Jehan Kuypelant: + + "Hearken and heed, Melaenis! + For all that the litany ceased + When Time had pilfered the victim, + And flouted thy pale-lipped priest, + And set astir in the temple + Where burned the fires of thy shrine + The owls and wolves of the desert-- + Yet hearken, (the issue is thine!) + And let the heart of Atys, + At last, at last, be mine! + + "For I have followed, nor faltered-- + Adrift in a land of dreams + Where laughter and pity and terror + Commingle as confluent streams, + I have seen and adored the Sidonian, + Implacable, fair and divine-- + And bending low, have implored thee + To hearken, (the issue is thine!) + And let the heart of Atys, + At last, at last, be mine!" + +It is time, however, that we quit this subject and speak of other +matters. Just twenty years later, on one August day in the year of +grace 1346, Master John Copeland--as men now called Jehan Kuypelant, +now secretary to the Queen of England,--brought his mistress the +unhandsome tidings that David Bruce had invaded her realm with forty +thousand Scots to back him. The Brabanter found plump Queen Philippa +with the kingdom's arbitress--Dame Catherine de Salisbury, whom King +Edward, third of that name to reign in Britain, and now warring in +France, very notoriously adored and obeyed. + +This king, indeed, had been despatched into France chiefly, they +narrate, to release the Countess' husband, William de Montacute, from +the French prison of the Chatelet. You may appraise her dominion by +this fact: chaste and shrewd, she had denied all to King Edward, and +in consequence he could deny her nothing; so she sent him to fetch +back her husband, whom she almost loved. That armament had sailed from +Southampton on Saint George's day. + +These two women, then, shared the Brabanter's execrable news. Already +Northumberland, Westmoreland, and Durham were the broken meats of King +David. + +The Countess presently exclaimed: "Let them weep for this that must! +My place is not here." + +Philippa said, half hopefully, "Do you forsake Sire Edward, +Catherine?" + +"Madame and Queen," the Countess answered, "in this world every man +must scratch his own back. My lord has entrusted to me his castle of +Wark, his fiefs in Northumberland. These, I hear, are being laid +waste. Were there a thousand men-at-arms left in England I would say +fight. As it is, our men are yonder in France and the island is +defenceless. Accordingly I ride for the north to make what terms I may +with the King of Scots." + +Now you might have seen the Queen's eye brighten. "Undoubtedly," said +she, "in her lord's absence it is the wife's part to defend his +belongings. And my lord's fief is England. I bid you God-speed, +Catherine." And when the Countess was gone, Philippa turned, her round +face somewhat dazed and flushed. "She betrays him! she compounds with +the Scot! Mother of Christ, let me not fail!" + +"A ship must be despatched to bid Sire Edward return," said the +secretary. "Otherwise all England is lost." + +"Not so, John Copeland! We must let Sire Edward complete his +overrunning of France, if such be the Trinity's will. You know +perfectly well that he has always had a fancy to conquer France; and +if I bade him return now he would be vexed." + +"The disappointment of the King," John Copeland considered, "is a +smaller evil than allowing all of us to be butchered." + +"Not to me, John Copeland," the Queen said. + +Now came many lords into the chamber, seeking Madame Philippa. "We +must make peace with the Scottish rascal!--England is lost!--A ship +must be sent entreating succor of Sire Edward!" So they shouted. + +"Messieurs," said Queen Philippa, "who commands here? Am I, then, some +woman of the town?" + +Ensued a sudden silence. John Copeland, standing by the seaward +window, had picked up a lute and was fingering the instrument +half-idly. Now the Marquess of Hastings stepped from the throng. +"Pardon, Highness. But the occasion is urgent." + +"The occasion is very urgent, my lord," the Queen assented, deep in +meditation. + +John Copeland flung back his head and without prelude began to carol +lustily. + +Sang John Copeland: + + "There are taller lads than Atys, + And many are wiser than he,-- + How should I heed them?--whose fate is + Ever to serve and to be + Ever the lover of Atys, + And die that Atys may dine, + Live if he need me--Then heed me, + And speed me, (the moment is thine!) + And let the heart of Atys, + At last, at last, be mine! + + "Fair is the form unbeholden, + And golden the glory of thee + Whose voice is the voice of a vision + Whose face is the foam of the sea, + And the fall of whose feet is the flutter + Of breezes in birches and pine, + When thou drawest near me, to hear me, + And cheer me, (the moment is thine!) + And let the heart of Atys, + At last, at last, be mine!" + + +I must tell you that the Queen shivered, as if with extreme cold. She +gazed toward John Copeland wonderingly. The secretary was fretting at +his lutestrings, with his head downcast. Then in a while the Queen +turned to Hastings. + +"The occasion is very urgent, my lord," the Queen assented. "Therefore +it is my will that to-morrow one and all your men be mustered at +Blackheath. We will take the field without delay against the King of +Scots." + +The riot began anew. "Madness!" they shouted; "lunar madness! We can +do nothing until our King returns with our army!" + +"In his absence," the Queen said, "I command here." + +"You are not Regent," the Marquess answered. Then he cried, "This is +the Regent's affair!" + +"Let the Regent be fetched," Dame Philippa said, very quietly. They +brought in her son, Messire Lionel, now a boy of eight years, and, in +the King's absence, Regent of England. + +Both the Queen and the Marquess held papers. "Highness," Lord Hastings +began, "for reasons of state which I lack time to explain, this +document requires your signature. It is an order that a ship be +despatched to ask the King's return. Your Highness may remember the +pony you admired yesterday?" The Marquess smiled ingratiatingly. "Just +here, your Highness--a crossmark." + +"The dappled one?" said the Regent; "and all for making a little +mark?" The boy jumped for the pen. + +"Lionel," said the Queen, "you are Regent of England, but you are also +my son. If you sign that paper you will beyond doubt get the pony, but +you will not, I think, care to ride him. You will not care to sit down +at all, Lionel." + +The Regent considered. "Thank you very much, my lord," he said in the +ultimate, "but I do not like ponies any more. Do I sign here, Mother?" + +Philippa handed the Marquess a subscribed order to muster the English +forces at Blackheath; then another, closing the English ports. "My +lords," the Queen said, "this boy is the King's vicar. In defying him, +you defy the King. Yes, Lionel, you have fairly earned a pot of jam +for supper." + +Then Hastings went away without speaking. That night assembled at his +lodgings, by appointment, Viscount Heringaud, Adam Frere, the Marquess +of Orme, Lord Stourton, the Earls of Neville and Gage, and Sir Thomas +Rokeby. These seven found a long table there littered with pens and +parchment; to the rear of it, with a lackey behind him, sat the +Marquess of Hastings, meditative over a cup of Bordeaux. + +Presently Hastings said: "My friends, in creating our womankind the +Maker of us all was beyond doubt actuated by laudable and cogent +reasons; so that I can merely lament my inability to fathom these +reasons. I shall obey the Queen faithfully, since if I did otherwise +Sire Edward would have my head off within a day of his return. In +consequence, I do not consider it convenient to oppose his vicar. +To-morrow I shall assemble the tatters of troops which remain to us, +and to-morrow we march northward to inevitable defeat. To-night I am +sending a courier into Northumberland. He is an obliging person, and +would convey--to cite an instance--eight letters quite as blithely as +one." + +Each man glanced furtively about. England was in a panic by this, and +knew itself to lie before the Bruce defenceless. The all-powerful +Countess of Salisbury had compounded with King David; now Hastings, +too, their generalissimo, compounded. What the devil! loyalty was a +sonorous word, and so was patriotism, but, after all, one had estates +in the north. + +The seven wrote in silence. I must tell you that when they had ended, +Hastings gathered the letters into a heap, and without glancing at the +superscriptures, handed all these letters to the attendant lackey. +"For the courier," he said. + +The fellow left the apartment. Presently you heard a departing clatter +of hoofs, and Hastings rose. He was a gaunt, terrible old man, +gray-bearded, and having high eyebrows that twitched and jerked. + +"We have saved our precious skins," said he. "Hey, you fidgeters, you +ferments of sour offal! I commend your common-sense, messieurs, and I +request you to withdraw. Even a damned rogue such as I has need of a +cleaner atmosphere in order to breathe comfortably." The seven went +away without further speech. + +They narrate that next day the troops marched for Durham, where the +Queen took up her quarters. The Bruce had pillaged and burned his way +to a place called Beaurepair, within three miles of the city. He sent +word to the Queen that if her men were willing to come forth from the +town he would abide and give them battle. + +She replied that she accepted his offer, and that the barons would +gladly risk their lives for the realm of their lord the King. The +Bruce grinned and kept silence, since he had in his pocket letters +from most of them protesting they would do nothing of the sort. + +Here is comedy. On one side you have a horde of half-naked savages, a +shrewd master holding them in leash till the moment be auspicious; on +the other, a housewife at the head of a tiny force lieutenanted by +perjurers, by men already purchased. God knows what dreams she had of +miraculous victories, while her barons trafficked in secret with the +Bruce. It is recorded that, on the Saturday before Michaelmas, when +the opposing armies marshalled in the Bishop's Park, at Auckland, not +a captain on either side believed the day to be pregnant with battle. +There would be a decent counterfeit of resistance; afterward the +little English army would vanish pell-mell, and the Bruce would be +master of the island. The farce was prearranged, the actors therein +were letter-perfect. + +That morning at daybreak John Copeland came to the Queen's tent, and +informed her quite explicitly how matters stood. He had been drinking +overnight with Adam Frere and the Earl of Gage, and after the third +bottle had found them candid. "Madame and Queen, we are betrayed. The +Marquess of Hastings, our commander, is inexplicably smitten with a +fever. He will not fight to-day. Not one of your lords will fight +to-day." Master Copeland laid bare such part of the scheme as +yesterday's conviviality had made familiar. "Therefore I counsel +retreat. Let the King be summoned out of France." + +Queen Philippa shook her head, as she cut up squares of toast and +dipped them in milk for the Regent's breakfast. "Sire Edward would be +vexed. He has always wanted to conquer France. I shall visit the +Marquess as soon as Lionel is fed,--do you know, John Copeland, I am +anxious about Lionel; he is irritable and coughed five times during +the night,--and then I will attend to this affair." + +She found the Marquess in bed, groaning, the coverlet pulled up to his +chin. "Pardon, Highness," said Lord Hastings, "but I am an ill man. I +cannot rise from this couch." + +"I do not question the gravity of your disorder," the Queen retorted, +"since it is well known that the same illness brought about the death +of Iscariot. Nevertheless, I bid you get up and lead our troops +against the Scot." + +Now the hand of the Marquess veiled his countenance. "I am an ill +man," he muttered, doggedly. "I cannot rise from this couch." + +There was a silence. + +"My lord," the Queen presently began, "without is an army +prepared--yes, and quite able--to defend our England. The one +requirement of this army is a leader. Afford them that, my lord--ah, I +know that our peers are sold to the Bruce, yet our yeomen at least are +honest. Give them, then, a leader, and they cannot but conquer, since +God also is honest and incorruptible. Pardieu! a woman might lead +these men, and lead them to victory!" + +Hastings answered: "I am ill. I cannot rise from this couch." + +"There is no man left in England," said the Queen, "since Sire Edward +went into France. Praise God, I am his wife!" She went away without +flurry. + +Through the tent-flap Hastings beheld all that which followed. The +English force was marshalled in four divisions, each commanded by a +bishop and a baron. You could see the men fidgeting, puzzled by the +delay; as a wind goes about a corn-field, vague rumors were going +about those wavering spears. Toward them rode Philippa, upon a white +palfrey, alone and perfectly tranquil. Her eight lieutenants were now +gathered about her in voluble protestation, and she heard them out. +Afterward she spoke, without any particular violence, as one might +order a strange cur from his room. Then the Queen rode on, as though +these eight declaiming persons had ceased to be of interest. She +reined up before her standard-bearer, and took the standard in her +hand. She began again to speak, and immediately the army was in an +uproar; the barons were clustering behind her, in stealthy groups of +two or three whisperers each; all were in the greatest amazement and +knew not what to do; but the army was shouting the Queen's name. + +"Now is England shamed," said Hastings, "since a woman alone dares to +encounter the Scot. She will lead them into battle--and by God! there +is no braver person under heaven than yonder Dutch Frau! Friend David, +I perceive that your venture is lost, for those men would follow her +to storm hell if she desired it." + +He meditated, and shrugged. "And so would I," said Hastings. + +A little afterward a gaunt and haggard old man, bareheaded and very +hastily dressed, reined his horse by the Queen's side. "Madame and +Queen," said Hastings, "I rejoice that my recent illness is departed. +I shall, by God's grace, on this day drive the Bruce from England." + +Philippa was not given to verbiage. Doubtless she had her emotions, +but none was visible upon the honest face. She rested one plump hand +upon the big-veined hand of Hastings. That was all. "I welcome back +the gallant gentleman of yesterday. I was about to lead your army, my +friend, since there was no one else to do it, but I was hideously +afraid. At bottom every woman is a coward." + +"You were afraid to do it," said the Marquess, "but you were going to +do it, because there was no one else to do it! Ho, madame! had I an +army of such cowards I would drive the Scot not past the Border but +beyond the Orkneys." + +The Queen then said, "But you are unarmed." + +"Highness," he replied, "it is surely apparent that I, who have played +the traitor to two monarchs within the same day, cannot with either +decency or comfort survive that day." He turned upon the lords and +bishops twittering about his horse's tail. "You merchandise, get back +to your stations, and if there was ever an honest woman in any of your +families, the which I doubt, contrive to get yourselves killed this +day, as I mean to do, in the cause of the honestest and bravest woman +our time has known." Immediately the English forces marched toward +Merrington. + +Philippa returned to her pavilion and inquired for John Copeland. She +was informed that he had ridden off, armed, in company with five of +her immediate retainers. She considered this strange, but made no +comment. + +You picture her, perhaps, as spending the morning in prayer, in +beatings upon her breast, and in lamentations. Philippa did nothing of +the sort. She considered her cause to be so clamantly just that to +expatiate to the Holy Father upon its merits would be an impertinence; +it was not conceivable that He would fail her; and in any event, she +had in hand a deal of sewing which required immediate attention. +Accordingly she settled down to her needlework, while the Regent of +England leaned his head against her knee, and his mother told him that +ageless tale of Lord Huon, who in a wood near Babylon encountered the +King of Faery, and subsequently bereaved an atrocious Emir of his +beard and daughter. All this the industrious woman narrated in a low +and pleasant voice, while the wide-eyed Regent attended and at the +proper intervals gulped his cough-mixture. + +You must know that about noon Master John Copeland came into the tent. +"We have conquered," he said. "Now, by the Face!"--thus, scoffingly, +he used her husband's favorite oath,--"now, by the Face! there was +never a victory more complete! The Scottish army is fled, it is as +utterly dispersed from man's seeing as are the sands which dried the +letters King Ahasuerus gave the admirable Esther!" + +"I rejoice," the Queen said, looking up from her sewing, "that we have +conquered, though in nature I expected nothing else--Oh, horrible!" +She sprang to her feet with a cry of anguish. Here in little you have +the entire woman; the victory of her armament was to her a thing of +course, since her cause was just, whereas the loss of two front teeth +by John Copeland was a calamity. + +He drew her toward the tent-flap, which he opened. Without was a +mounted knight, in full panoply, his arms bound behind him, surrounded +by the Queen's five retainers. "In the rout I took him," said John +Copeland; "though, as my mouth witnesses, I did not find this David +Bruce a tractable prisoner." + +"Is that, then, the King of Scots?" Philippa demanded, as she mixed +salt and water for a mouthwash. "Sire Edward should be pleased, I +think. Will he not love me a little now, John Copeland?" + +John Copeland lifted both plump hands toward his lips. "He could not +choose," John Copeland said; "madame, he could no more choose but love +you than I could choose." + +Philippa sighed. Afterward she bade John Copeland rinse his gums and +then take his prisoner to Hastings. He told her the Marquess was dead, +slain by the Knight of Liddesdale. "That is a pity," the Queen said. +She reflected a while, reached her decision. "There is left alive in +England but one man to whom I dare entrust the keeping of the King of +Scots. My barons are sold to him; if I retain Messire David by me, one +or another lord will engineer his escape within the week, and Sire +Edward will be vexed. Yet listen, John--" She unfolded her plan. + +"I have long known," he said, when she had done, "that in all the +world there was no lady more lovable. Twenty years I have loved you, +my Queen, and yet it is only to-day I perceive that in all the world +there is no lady more wise than you." + +Philippa touched his cheek, maternally. "Foolish boy! You tell me the +King of Scots has an arrow-wound in his nose? I think a bread poultice +would be best." She told him how to make this poultice, and gave other +instructions. Then John Copeland left the tent and presently rode away +with his company. + +Philippa saw that the Regent had his dinner, and afterward mounted her +white palfrey and set out for the battle-field. There the Earl of +Neville, as second in command, received her with great courtesy. God +had shown to her Majesty's servants most singular favor: despite the +calculations of reasonable men,--to which, she might remember, he had +that morning taken the liberty to assent,--some fifteen thousand Scots +were slain. True, her gallant general was no longer extant, though +this was scarcely astounding when one considered the fact that he had +voluntarily entered the melee quite unarmed. A touch of age, perhaps; +Hastings was always an eccentric man: in any event, as epilogue, this +Neville congratulated the Queen that--by blind luck, he was forced to +concede,--her worthy secretary had made a prisoner of the Scottish +King. Doubtless, Master Copeland was an estimable scribe, and yet--Ah, +yes, Lord Neville quite followed her Majesty--beyond doubt, the +wardage of a king was an honor not lightly to be conferred. Oh, yes, +he understood; her Majesty desired that the office should be given +some person of rank. And pardie! her Majesty was in the right. Eh? +said the Earl of Neville. + +Intently gazing into the man's shallow eyes, Philippa assented. Master +Copeland had acted unwarrantably in riding off with his captive. Let +him be sought at once. She dictated to Neville's secretary a letter, +which informed John Copeland that he had done what was not agreeable +in purloining her prisoner. Let him without delay deliver the King to +her good friend the Earl of Neville. + +To Neville this was satisfactory, since he intended that once in his +possession David Bruce should escape forthwith. The letter, I repeat, +suited this smirking gentleman in its tiniest syllable, and the single +difficulty was to convey it to John Copeland, for as to his +whereabouts neither Neville nor any one else had the least notion. + +This was immaterial, however, for they narrate that next day a letter +signed with John Copeland's name was found pinned to the front of +Neville's tent. I cite a passage therefrom: "I will not give up my +royal prisoner to a woman or a child, but only to my own lord, Sire +Edward, for to him I have sworn allegiance, and not to any woman. Yet +you may tell the Queen she may depend on my taking excellent care of +King David. I have poulticed his nose, as she directed." + +Here was a nonplus, not without its comical side. Two great realms had +met in battle, and the king of one of them had vanished like a +soap-bubble. Philippa was in a rage,--you could see that both by her +demeanor and by the indignant letters she dictated; true, none of +these letters could be delivered, since they were all addressed to +John Copeland. Meanwhile, Scotland was in despair, whereas the traitor +English barons were in a frenzy, because they did not know what had +become of their fatal letters to the Bruce, or of him either. The +circumstances were unique, and they remained unchanged for three +feverish weeks. + +We will now return to affairs in France, where on the day of the +Nativity, as night gathered about Calais, John Copeland came +unheralded to the quarters of King Edward, then besieging that city. +Master Copeland entreated audience, and got it readily enough, since +there was no man alive whom Sire Edward more cordially desired to lay +his fingers upon. + +A page brought Master Copeland to the King, that stupendous, blond and +incredibly big person. With Sire Edward were that careful Italian, +Almerigo di Pavia, who afterward betrayed Sire Edward, and a lean +soldier whom Master Copeland recognized as John Chandos. These three +were drawing up an account of the recent victory at Creci, to be +forwarded to all mayors and sheriffs in England, with a cogent +postscript as to the King's incidental and immediate need of money. + +Now King Edward sat leaning far back in his chair, a hand on either +hip, and with his eyes narrowing as he regarded Master Copeland. Had +the Brabanter flinched, the King would probably have hanged him within +the next ten minutes; finding his gaze unwavering, the King was +pleased. Here was a novelty; most people blinked quite honestly under +the scrutiny of those fierce big eyes, which were blue and cold and of +an astounding lustre. The lid of the left eye drooped a little: this +was Count Manuel's legacy, they whispered. + +The King rose with a jerk and took John Copeland's hand. "Ha!" he +grunted, "I welcome the squire who by his valor has captured the King +of Scots. And now, my man, what have you done with Davie?" + +John Copeland answered: "Highness, you may find him at your +convenience safely locked in Bamborough Castle. Meanwhile, I entreat +you, sire, do not take it amiss if I did not surrender King David to +the orders of my lady Queen, for I hold my lands of you, and not of +her, and my oath is to you, and not to her, unless indeed by choice." + +"John," the King sternly replied, "the loyal service you have done us +is considerable, whereas your excuse for kidnapping Davie is a farce. +Hey, Almerigo, do you and Chandos avoid the chamber! I have something +in private with this fellow." When they had gone, the King sat down +and composedly said, "Now tell me the truth, John Copeland." + +"Sire," Copeland began, "it is necessary you first understand I bear a +letter from Madame Philippa--" + +"Then read it," said the King. "Heart of God! have I an eternity to +waste on you slow-dealing Brabanters!" + +John Copeland read aloud, while the King trifled with a pen, half +negligent, and in part attendant. + +Read John Copeland: + +"My DEAR LORD,--_recommend me to your lordship with soul and body and +all my poor might, and with all this I thank you, as my dear lord, +dearest and best beloved of all earthly lords I protest to me, and +thank you, my dear lord, with all this as I say before. Your +comfortable letter came to me on Saint Gregory's day, and I was never +so glad as when I heard by your letter that ye were strong enough in +Ponthieu by the grace of God for to keep you from your enemies. Among +them I estimate Madame Catherine de Salisbury, who would have betrayed +you to the Scot. And, dear lord, if it be pleasing to your high +lordship that as soon as ye may that I might hear of your gracious +speed, which may God Almighty continue and increase, I shall be glad, +and also if ye do continue each night to chafe your feet with a rag of +woollen stuff, as your physician directed. And, my dear lord, if it +like you for to know of my fare, John Copeland will acquaint you +concerning the Bruce his capture, and the syrup he brings for our son +Lord Edward's cough, and the great malice-workers in these shires +which would have so despitefully wrought to you, and of the manner of +taking it after each meal. I am lately informed that Madame Catherine +is now at Stirling with Robert Stewart and has lost all her good looks +through a fever. God is invariably gracious to His servants. Farewell, +my dear lord, and may the Holy Trinity keep you from your adversaries +and ever send me comfortable tidings of you. Written at York, in the +Castle, on Saint Gregory's day last past, by your own poor_ + +"PHILIPPA. + +_"To my true lord."_ + +"H'm!" said the King; "and now give me the entire story." + +John Copeland obeyed. I must tell you that early in the narrative King +Edward arose and strode toward a window. "Catherine!" he said. He +remained motionless while Master Copeland went on without any manifest +emotion. When he had ended, King Edward said, "And where is Madame de +Salisbury now?" + +At this the Brabanter went mad. As a leopard springs he leaped upon +the King, and grasping him by each shoulder, shook that monarch as one +punishing a child. + +"Now by the splendor of God--!" King Edward began, very terrible in +his wrath. He saw that John Copeland held a dagger to his breast, and +he shrugged. "Well, my man, you perceive I am defenceless." + +"First you will hear me out," John Copeland said. + +"It would appear," the King retorted, "that I have little choice." + +At this time John Copeland began: "Sire, you are the mightiest monarch +your race has known. England is yours, France is yours, conquered +Scotland lies prostrate at your feet. To-day there is no other man in +all the world who possesses a tithe of your glory; yet twenty years +ago Madame Philippa first beheld you and loved you, an outcast, an +exiled, empty-pocketed prince. Twenty years ago the love of Madame +Philippa, great Count William's daughter, got for you the armament +with which England was regained. Twenty years ago but for Madame +Philippa you had died naked in some ditch." + +"Go on," the King said presently. + +"Afterward you took a fancy to reign in France. You learned then that +we Brabanters are a frugal people: Madame Philippa was wealthy when +she married you, and twenty years had quadrupled her private fortune. +She gave you every penny of it that you might fit out this expedition; +now her very crown is in pawn at Ghent. In fine, the love of Madame +Philippa gave you France as lightly as one might bestow a toy upon a +child who whined for it." + +The King fiercely said, "Go on." + +"Eh, sire, I intend to. You left England undefended that you might +posture a little in the eyes of Europe. And meanwhile a woman +preserves England, a woman gives you Scotland as a gift, and in return +asks nothing--God have mercy on us!--save that you nightly chafe your +feet with a bit of woollen. You hear of it--and inquire, '_Where is +Madame de Salisbury?_' Here beyond doubt is the cock of Aesop's +fable," snarled John Copeland, "who unearthed a gem and grumbled that +his diamond was not a grain of corn." + +"You shall be hanged at dawn," the King replied. "Meanwhile spit out +your venom." + +"I say to you, then," John Copeland continued, "that to-day you are +master of Europe. I say to you that, but for this woman whom for +twenty years you have neglected, you would to-day be mouldering in some +pauper's grave. Eh, without question, you most magnanimously loved +that shrew of Salisbury! because you fancied the color of her eyes, +Sire Edward, and admired the angle between her nose and her forehead. +Minstrels unborn will sing of this great love of yours. Meantime I say +to you"--now the man's rage was monstrous--"I say to you, go home to +your too-tedious wife, the source of all your glory! sit at her feet! +and let her teach you what love is!" He flung away the dagger. "There +you have the truth. Now summon your attendants, my tres beau sire, and +have me hanged." + +The King made no movement. "You have been bold--" he said at last. + +"But you have been far bolder, sire. For twenty years you have dared +to flout that love which is God's noblest heritage to His children." + +King Edward sat in meditation for a long while. The squinting of his +left eye was now very noticeable. "I consider my wife's clerk," he +drily said, "to discourse of love in somewhat too much the tone of a +lover." And a flush was his reward. + +But when this Copeland spoke he was like one transfigured. His voice +was grave and very tender, and he said: + +"As the fish have their life in the waters, so I have and always shall +have mine in love. Love made me choose and dare to emulate a lady, +long ago, through whom I live contented, without expecting any other +good. Her purity is so inestimable that I cannot say whether I derive +more pride or sorrow from its preeminence. She does not love me, and +she will never love me. She would condemn me to be hewed in fragments +sooner than permit her husband's finger to be injured. Yet she +surpasses all others so utterly that I would rather hunger in her +presence than enjoy from another all which a lover can devise." + +Sire Edward stroked the table through this while, with an inverted +pen. He cleared his throat. He said, half-fretfully: + +"Now, by the Face! it is not given every man to love precisely in this +troubadourish fashion. Even the most generous person cannot render to +love any more than that person happens to possess. I have read in an +old tale how the devil sat upon a cathedral spire and white doves flew +about him. Monks came and told him to begone. 'Do not the spires show +you, O son of darkness' they clamored, 'that the place is holy?' And +Satan (in this old tale) replied that these spires were capable of +various interpretations. I speak of symbols, John. Yet I also have +loved, in my own fashion,--and, it would seem, I win the same reward +as you." + +The King said more lately: "And so she is at Stirling now? hobnob with +my armed enemies, and cajoling that red lecher Robert Stewart?" He +laughed, not overpleasantly. "Eh, yes, it needed a bold person to +bring all your tidings! But you Brabanters are a very thorough-going +people." + +The King rose and flung back his high head. "John, the loyal service +you have done us and our esteem for your valor are so great that they +may well serve you as an excuse. May shame fall on those who bear you +any ill-will! You will now return home, and take your prisoner, the +King of Scotland, and deliver him to my wife, to do with as she may +elect. You will convey to her my entreaty--not my orders, John,--that +she come to me here at Calais. As remuneration for this evening's +insolence, I assign lands as near your house as you can choose them to +the value of L500 a year for you and for your heirs." + +You must know that John Copeland fell upon his knees before King +Edward. "Sire--" he stammered. + +But the King raised him. "No, no," he said, "you are the better man. +Were there any equity in fate, John Copeland, your lady had loved you, +not me. As it is, I must strive to prove not altogether unworthy of my +fortune. But I make no large promises," he added, squinting horribly, +"because the most generous person cannot render to love any more than +that person happens to possess. So be off with you, John +Copeland,--go, my squire, and bring me back my Queen!" + +Presently he heard John Copeland singing without. And through that +instant, they say, his youth returned to Edward Plantagenet, and all +the scents and shadows and faint sounds of Valenciennes on that +ancient night when a tall girl came to him, running, stumbling in her +haste to bring him kingship. "She waddles now," he thought forlornly. +"Still, I am blessed." But Copeland sang, and the Brabanter's heart +was big with joy. + +Sang John Copeland: + + "Long I besought thee, nor vainly, + Daughter of Water and Air-- + Charis! Idalia! Hortensis! + Hast thou not heard the prayer, + When the blood stood still with loving, + And the blood in me leapt like wine, + And I cried on thy name, Melaenis?-- + That heard me, (the glory is thine!) + And let the heart of Atys, + At last, at last, be mine! + + "Falsely they tell of thy dying, + Thou that art older than Death, + And never the Hoerselberg hid thee, + Whatever the slanderer saith, + For the stars are as heralds forerunning, + When laughter and love combine + At twilight, in thy light, Melaenis-- + That heard me, (the glory is thine!) + And let the heart of Atys, + At last, at last, be mine!" + + +THE END OF THE FIFTH NOVEL + + + + +VI + +THE STORY OF THE SATRAPS + + + "Je suis voix au desert criant + Que chascun soyt rectifiant + La voye de Sauveur; non suis, + Et accomplir je ne le puis." + +THE SIXTH NOVEL.--ANNE OF BOHEMIA HAS ONE SOLE FRIEND, AND BY HIM +PLAYS THE FRIEND'S PART; AND IN DOING SO ACHIEVES THEIR COMMON +ANGUISH, AS WELL AS THE CONFUSION OF STATECRAFT AND THE POULTICING OF +A GREAT DISEASE. + + + + +_The Story of the Satraps_ + + +In the year of grace 1381 (Nicolas begins) was Dame Anne magnificently +fetched from remote Bohemia, and at Westminster married to Sire +Richard, the second monarch of that name to reign in England. This +king, I must tell you, had succeeded while he was yet an infant, to +the throne of his grandfather, the third King Edward, about whom I +have told you in the story preceding this. + +Queen Anne had presently noted a certain priest who went forbiddingly +about her court, where he was accorded a provisional courtesy, and who +went also into many hovels, where pitiable wrecks of humankind +received his alms and ministrations. + +Queen Anne made inquiries. This young cleric was amanuensis to the +Duke of Gloucester, she learned, and was notoriously a by-blow of the +Duke's brother, dead Lionel of Clarence. She sent for this Edward +Maudelain. When he came her first perception was, "How wonderful is +his likeness to the King!" while the thought's commentary ran, +unacknowledged, "Yes, as an eagle resembles a falcon!" For here, to +the observant eye, was a more zealous person, already passion-wasted, +and a far more dictatorial and stiff-necked person than the lazy and +amiable King; also, this Maudelain's face and nose were somewhat too +long and high: the priest was, in a word, the less comely of the pair +by a very little, and to an immeasurable extent the more kinglike. + +"You are my cousin now, messire," the Queen told him, and innocently +offered to his lips her own. + +He never moved; but their glances crossed, and for that instant she +saw the face of a man who has just stepped into a quicksand. She grew +red, without knowing why. Then he spoke, composedly, of trivial +matters. + +Thus began the Queen's acquaintance with Edward Maudelain. She was by +this time the loneliest woman in the island. Her husband granted her a +bright and fresh perfection of form and color, but desiderated any +appetizing tang, and lamented, in his phrase, a certain kinship to the +impeccable loveliness of some female saint in a jaunty tapestry; +bright as ice in sunshine, just so her beauty chilled you, he +complained: moreover, this daughter of the Caesars had been fetched +into England, chiefly, to breed him children, and this she had never +done. Undoubtedly he had made a bad bargain,--he was too easy-going, +people presumed upon it. His barons snatched their cue and esteemed +Dame Anne to be negligible; whereas the clergy, finding that she +obstinately read the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, under the +irrelevant plea of not comprehending Latin, began to denounce her from +their pulpits as a heretic and as the evil woman prophesied by +Ezekiel. + +It was the nature of this desolate child to crave affection, as a +necessary, and pitifully she tried to purchase it through almsgiving. +In the attempt she could have found no coadjutor more ready than +Edward Maudelain. Giving was with these two a sort of obsession, +though always he gave in a half scorn of his fellow creatures which +was not more than half concealed. This bastard was charitable and +pious because he knew his soul, conceived in double sin, to be doubly +evil, and therefore doubly in need of redemption through good works. + +Now in and about the Queen's lonely rooms the woman and the priest met +daily to discuss now this or that point of theology, or now (to cite a +single instance) Gammer Tudway's obstinate sciatica. Considerate +persons found something of the pathetic in their preoccupation by +these matters while, so clamantly, the dissension between the young +King and his uncles gathered to a head. The King's uncles meant to +continue governing England, with the King as their ward, as long as +they could; he meant to relieve himself of this guardianship, and them +of their heads, as soon as he was able. War seemed inevitable, the air +was thick with portents; and was this, then, an appropriate time, the +judicious demanded of high Heaven, for the Queen of imperilled England +to concern herself about a peasant's toothache? + +Long afterward was Edward Maudelain to remember this quiet and amiable +period of his life, and to wonder over the man that he had been +through this queer while. Embittered and suspicious she had found him, +noted for the carping tongue he lacked both power and inclination to +bridle; and she had, against his nature, made Maudelain see that every +person is at bottom lovable, and that human vices are but the stains +of a traveller midway in a dusty journey; and had incited the priest +no longer to do good for his soul's health, but simply for his +fellow's benefit. + +In place of that monstrous passion which had at first view of her +possessed the priest, now, like a sheltered taper, glowed an adoration +which made him yearn, in defiance of common-sense, to suffer somehow +for this beautiful and gracious comrade; though very often pity for +her loneliness and knowledge that she dared trust no one save him +would throttle Maudelain like two assassins, and would move the +hot-blooded young man to a rapture of self-contempt and exultation. + +Now Maudelain made excellent songs, it was a matter of common report. +Yet but once in their close friendship did the Queen command him to +make a song for her. This had been at Dover, about vespers, in the +starved and tiny garden overlooking the English Channel, upon which +her apartments faced; and the priest had fingered his lute for an +appreciable while before he sang, more harshly than was his custom. + +Sang Maudelain: + + "Ave Maria! now cry we so + That see night wake and daylight go. + + "Mother and Maid, in nothing incomplete, + This night that gathers is more light and fleet + Than twilight trod alway with stumbling feet, + Agentes semper uno animo. + + "Ever we touch the prize we dare not take! + Ever we know that thirst we dare not slake! + Yet ever to a dreamed-of goal we make-- + Est tui coeli in palatio! + + "Long, long the road, and set with many a snare; + And to how small sure knowledge are we heir + That blindly tread, with twilight everywhere! + Volo in toto; sed non valeo! + + "Long, long the road, and very frail are we + That may not lightly curb mortality, + Nor lightly tread together steadfastly, + Et parvum carmen unum facio: + + "Mater, ora filium, + Ut post hoc exilium + Nobis donet gaudium + Beatorum omnium!" + +Dame Anne had risen. She said nothing. She stayed in this posture for +a lengthy while, one hand yet clasping each breast. Then she laughed, +and began to speak of Long Simon's recent fever. Was there no method +of establishing him in another cottage? No, the priest said, the +peasants, like the cattle, were always deeded with the land, and Simon +could not lawfully be taken away from his owner. + +One day, about the hour of prime, in that season of the year when +fields smell of young grass, the Duke of Gloucester sent for Edward +Maudelain. The court was then at Windsor. The priest came quickly to +his patron. He found the Duke in company with the King's other uncle +Edmund of York and bland Harry of Derby, who was John of Gaunt's +oldest son, and in consequence the King's cousin. Each was a proud and +handsome man: Derby alone (who was afterward King of England) had +inherited the squint that distinguished this family. To-day Gloucester +was gnawing at his finger nails, big York seemed half-asleep, and the +Earl of Derby appeared patiently to await something as yet ineffably +remote. + +"Sit down!" snarled Gloucester. His lean and evil countenance was that +of a tired devil. The priest obeyed, wondering that so high an honor +should be accorded him in the view of three great noblemen. Then +Gloucester said, in his sharp way: "Edward, you know, as England +knows, the King's intention toward us three and our adherents. It has +come to our demolishment or his. I confess a preference in the matter. +I have consulted with the Pope concerning the advisability of taking +the crown into my own hands. Edmund here does not want it, and my +brother John is already achieving one in Spain. Eh, in imagination I +was already King of England, and I had dreamed--Well! to-day the +prosaic courier arrived. Urban--the Neapolitan swine!--dares give me +no assistance. It is decreed I shall never reign in these islands. And +I had dreamed--Meanwhile, de Vere and de la Pole are at the King day +and night, urging revolt. As matters go, within a week or two, the +three heads before you will be embellishing Temple Bar. You, of +course, they will only hang." + +"We must avoid England, then, my noble patron," the priest considered. + +Angrily the Duke struck a clenched fist upon the table. "By the Cross! +we remain in England, you and I and all of us. Others avoid. The Pope +and the Emperor will have none of me. They plead for the Black +Prince's heir, for the legitimate heir. Dompnedex! they shall have +him!" + +Maudelain recoiled, for he thought this twitching man insane. + +"Besides, the King intends to take from me my fief at Sudbury," said +the Duke of York, "in order to give it to de Vere. That is both absurd +and monstrous and abominable." + +Openly Gloucester sneered. "Listen!" he rapped out toward Maudelain; +"when they were drawing up the Great Peace at Bretigny, it happened, +as is notorious, that the Black Prince, my brother, wooed in this town +the Demoiselle Alixe Riczi, whom in the outcome he abducted. It is not +so generally known, however, that, finding this sister of the Vicomte +de Montbrison a girl of obdurate virtue, my brother had prefaced the +action by marriage." + +"And what have I to do with all this?" said Edward Maudelain. + +Gloucester retorted: "More than you think. For this Alixe was conveyed +to Chertsey, here in England, where at the year's end she died in +childbirth. A little before this time had Sir Thomas Holland seen his +last day,--the husband of that Joane of Kent whom throughout life my +brother loved most marvellously. The disposition of the late +Queen-Mother is tolerably well known. I make no comment save that to +her moulding my brother was as so much wax. In fine, the two lovers +were presently married, and their son reigns to-day in England. The +abandoned son of Alixe Riczi was reared by the Cistercians at +Chertsey, where some years ago I found you." + +He spoke with a stifled voice, wrenching forth each sentence; and now +with a stiff forefinger flipped a paper across the table. "_In +extremis_ my brother did more than confess. He signed,--your Majesty," +said Gloucester. The Duke on a sudden flung out his hands, like a +wizard whose necromancy fails, and the palms were bloodied where his +nails had cut the flesh. + +"Moreover, my daughter was born at Sudbury," said the Duke of York. + +And of Maudelain's face I cannot tell you. He made pretence to read +the paper carefully, but his eyes roved, and he knew that he stood +among wolves. The room was oddly shaped, with eight equal sides: the +ceiling was of a light and brilliant blue, powdered with many golden +stars, and the walls were hung with smart tapestries which +commemorated the exploits of Theseus. "Then I am King," this Maudelain +said aloud, "of France and England, and Lord of Ireland, and Duke of +Aquitaine! I perceive that Heaven loves a jest." He wheeled upon +Gloucester and spoke with singular irrelevance, "And what is to be +done with the present Queen?" + +Again the Duke shrugged. "I had not thought of the dumb wench. We have +many convents." + +Now Maudelain twisted the paper between his long, wet fingers and +appeared to meditate. + +"It would be advisable, your Grace," observed the Earl of Derby, +suavely, and breaking his silence for the first time, "that you +yourself should wed Dame Anne, once the Apostolic See has granted the +necessary dispensation. Treading too close upon the fighting requisite +to bring about the dethronement and death of our nominal lord the +so-called King, a war with Bohemia, which would be only too apt to +follow this noble lady's assassination, would be highly inconvenient, +and, lacking that, we would have to pay back her dowry." + +Then these three princes rose and knelt before the priest; they were +clad in long bright garments, and they glittered with gold and many +jewels. He standing among them shuddered in his sombre robe. "Hail, +King of England!" cried these three. + +"Hail, ye that are my kinsmen!" he answered; "hail, ye that spring of +an accursed race, as I! And woe to England for that hour wherein +Manuel of Poictesme held traffic with the Sorceress of Provence, and +the devil's son begot an heir for England! Of ice and of lust and of +hell-fire are all we sprung; old records attest it; and fickle and +cold and ravenous and without shame are all our race until the end. Of +your brother's dishonor ye make merchandise to-day, and to-day +fratricide whispers me, and leers, and, Heaven help me! I attend. O +God of Gods! wilt Thou dare bid a man live stainless, having aforetime +filled his veins with such a venom? Then haro, will I cry from Thy +deepest hell.... Oh, now let the adulterous Redeemer of Poictesme +rejoice in his tall fires, to note that his descendants know of what +wood to make a crutch! You are very wise, my kinsmen. Take your +measures, messieurs who are my kinsmen! Though were I of any other +race, with what expedition would I now kill you, I that recognize +within me the strength to do it! Then would I slay you! without any +animosity, would I slay you then, just as I would kill as many +splendid snakes!" + +He went away, laughing horribly. Gloucester drummed upon the table, +his brows contracted. But the lean Duke said nothing; big York seemed +to drowse; and Henry of Derby smiled as he sounded a gong for that +scribe who would draw up the necessary letters. The Earl's time was +not yet come, but it was nearing. + +In the antechamber the priest encountered two men-at-arms dragging a +dead body from the castle. The Duke of Kent, Maudelain was informed, +had taken a fancy to a peasant girl, and in remonstrance her misguided +father had actually tugged at his Grace's sleeve. + +Maudelain went into the park of Windsor, where he walked for a long +while alone. It was a fine day in the middle spring; and now he seemed +to understand for the first time how fair was his England. For all +England was his fief, held in vassalage to God and to no man alive, +his heart now sang; allwhither his empire spread, opulent in grain and +metal and every revenue of the earth, and in stalwart men (his +chattels), and in strong orderly cities, where the windows would be +adorned with scarlet hangings, and women (with golden hair and red lax +lips) would presently admire as King Edward rode slowly by at the head +of a resplendent retinue. And always the King would bow, graciously +and without haste, to his shouting people.... He laughed to find +himself already at rehearsal of the gesture. + +It was strange, though, that in this glorious fief of his so many +persons should, as yet, live day by day as cattle live, suspicious of +all other moving things (with reason), and roused from their incurious +and filthy apathy only when some glittering baron, like a resistless +eagle, swept uncomfortably near as he passed on some by-errand of the +more bright and windy upper-world. East and north they had gone +yearly, for so many centuries, these dumb peasants, to fight out their +master's uncomprehended quarrel, and to manure with their carcasses +the soil of France and of Scotland. Give these serfs a king, now, who +(being absolute), might dare to deal in perfect equity with rich and +poor, who with his advent would bring Peace into England as his bride, +as Trygaeus did very anciently in Athens--"And then," the priest +paraphrased, "may England recover all the blessings she has lost, and +everywhere the glitter of active steel will cease." For everywhere men +would crack a rustic jest or two, unhurriedly. Virid fields would +heave brownly under their ploughs; they would find that with practice +it was almost as easy to chuckle as it was to cringe. + +Meanwhile on every side the nobles tyrannized in their degree, well +clothed and nourished, but at bottom equally comfortless in condition. +As illuminate by lightning Maudelain saw the many factions of his +barons squabbling for gross pleasures, like wolves over a corpse, and +blindly dealing death to one another to secure at least one more +delicious gulp before that inevitable mangling by the teeth of some +burlier colleague. The complete misery of England showed before +Maudelain like a winter landscape. The thing was questionless. He must +tread henceforward without fear among frenzied beasts, and to their +ultimate welfare. On a sudden Maudelain knew himself to be invincible +and fine, and hesitancy ebbed. + +True, Richard, poor fool, must die. Squarely the priest faced that +stark and hideous circumstance; to spare Richard was beyond his power, +and the boy was his brother; yes, this oncoming King Edward would be a +fratricide, and after death would be irrevocably damned. To burn, and +eternally to burn, and, worst of all, to know that the torment was +eternal! ay, it would be hard; but, at the cost of Richard's ignoble +life and of Edward's inconsiderable soul, to win so many men to +manhood was not a bargain to be refused. + +The tale tells that Maudelain went toward the little garden which +adjoined Dame Anne's apartments. He found the Queen there, alone, as +nowadays she was for the most part, and he paused to wonder at her +bright and singular beauty. How vaguely odd was this beauty, he +reflected, too; how alien in its effect to that of any other woman in +sturdy England, and how associable it was, somehow, with every wild +and gracious denizen of the woods which blossomed yonder. + +In this place the world was all sunlight, temperate but undiluted. +They had met in a wide, unshaded plot of grass, too short to ripple, +which everywhere glowed steadily, like a gem. Right and left, birds +sang as if in a contest. The sky was cloudless, a faint and radiant +blue throughout, save where the sun stayed as yet in the zenith, so +that the Queen's brows cast honey-colored shadows upon either cheek. +The priest was greatly troubled by the proud and heatless +brilliancies, the shrill joys, of every object within the radius of +his senses. + +She was splendidly clothed, in a kirtle of very bright green, tinted +like the verdancy of young ferns in sunlight, and wore over all a gown +of white, cut open on each side as far as the hips. This garment was +embroidered with golden leopards and was trimmed with ermine. About +her yellow hair was a chaplet of gold, wherein emeralds glowed. Her +blue eyes were as large and shining and changeable (he thought) as two +oceans in midsummer; and Maudelain stood motionless and seemed to +himself but to revere, as the Earl Ixion did, some bright unstable +wisp of cloud, while somehow all elation departed from him as water +does from a wetted sponge compressed. He laughed discordantly. + +"Wait--! O my only friend--!" said Maudelain. Then in a level voice he +told her all, unhurriedly and without any apparent emotion. + +She had breathed once, with a deep inhalation. She had screened her +countenance from his gaze the while you might have counted fifty. +Presently she said: "This means more war, for de Vere and Tressilian +and de la Pole and Bramber and others of the barons know that the +King's fall signifies their ruin. Many thousands die to-morrow." + +He answered, "It means a war which will make me King of England, and +will make you my wife." + +"In that war the nobles will ride abroad with banners and gay +surcoats, and will kill and ravish in the pauses of their songs; while +daily in that war the naked peasants will kill the one the other, +without knowing why." + +His thought had forerun hers. "Yes, some must die, so that in the end +I may be King, and the general happiness may rest at my disposal. The +adventure of this world is wonderful, and it goes otherwise than under +the strict tutelage of reason." + +"It would not be yours, but Gloucester's and his barons'. Friend, they +would set you on the throne to be their puppet and to move only as +they pulled the strings. Thwart them in their maraudings and they will +fling you aside, as the barons have pulled down every king that dared +oppose them. No, they desire to live pleasantly, to have fish on +Fridays, and white bread and the finest wine the whole year through, +and there is not enough for all, say they. Can you alone contend +against them? and conquer them? for not unless you can do this may I +dare bid you reign." + +The sun had grown too bright, too merciless, but as always she drew +the truth from him. "I could not venture to oppose in anything the +barons who supported my cause: for if I did, I would not endure a +fortnight. Heaven help us, nor you nor I nor any one may transform +through any personal force this bitter world, this piercing, cruel +place of frost and sun. Charity and Truth are excommunicate, and a +king is only an adorned and fearful person who leads wolves toward +their quarry, lest, lacking it, they turn and devour him. Everywhere +the powerful labor to put one another out of worship, and each to +stand the higher with the other's corpse as his pedestal; and Lechery +and Greed and Hatred sway these proud and inconsiderate fools as winds +blow at will the gay leaves of autumn. We walk among shining vapors, +we aspire to overpass a mountain of unstable sparkling sand! We two +alone in all the scuffling world! Oh, it is horrible, and I think that +Satan plans the jest! We dream for a while of refashioning this bright +desolation, and know that we alone can do it! we are as demigods, you +and I, in those gallant dreams! and at the end we can but poultice +some dirty rascal!" + +The Queen answered sadly: "Once and only once did God tread this +tangible world, for a very little while, and, look you, to what +trivial matters He devoted that brief space! Only to chat with +fishermen, and to talk with light women, and to consort with rascals, +and at last to die between two cutpurses, ignominiously! If Christ +Himself achieved so little that seemed great and admirable, how should +we two hope to do any more?" + +He answered: "It is true. Of anise and of cumin the Master gets His +tithe--" Maudelain broke off with a yapping laugh. "Puf! Heaven is +wiser than we. I am King of England. It is my heritage." + +"It means war. Many will die, thousands will die, and to no betterment +of affairs." + +"I am King of England. I am Heaven's satrap here, and answerable to +Heaven alone. It is my heritage." And now his large and cruel eyes +were aflame as he regarded her. + +And visibly beneath their glare the woman changed. "My friend, must I +not love you any longer? You would be content with happiness? Then I +am jealous of that happiness! for you are the one friend that I have +had, and so dear to me--Look you!" she said, with a light, wistful +laugh, "there have been times when I was afraid of everything you +touched, and I hated everything you looked at. I would not have you +stained; I desired to pass my whole life between the four walls of +some dingy and eternal gaol, forever alone with you, lest you become +like other men. I would in that period have been the very bread you +eat, the least perfume which delights you, the clod you touch in +crushing it, and I have often loathed some pleasure I derived from +life because I might not transfer it to you undiminished. For I wanted +somehow to make you happy to my own anguish.... It was wicked, I +suppose, for the imagining of it made me happy, too." + +Now while he listened to this dear and tranquil speaking, Edward +Maudelain's raised hands had fallen like so much lead, and remembering +his own nature, he longed for annihilation, before she had appraised +his vileness. He said: + +"With reason Augustine crieth out against the lust of the eyes. 'For +pleasure seeketh objects beautiful, melodious, fragrant, savory, and +soft; but this disease those contrary as well, not for the sake of +suffering annoyance, but out of the lust of making trial of them!' Ah! +ah! too curiously I planned my own damnation, too presumptuously I had +esteemed my soul a worthy scapegoat, and I had gilded my enormity with +many lies. Yet indeed, indeed, I had believed brave things, I had +planned a not ignoble bargain--! Ey, say, is it not laughable, +madame?--as my birth-right Heaven accords me a penny, and with that +only penny I must presently be seeking to bribe Heaven." + +Then he said: "Yet are we indeed God's satraps, as but now I cried in +my vainglory, and we hold within our palms the destiny of many +peoples. Depardieux! God is wiser than we are. Still, Satan offers no +unhandsome bribes--bribes that are tangible and sure. For Satan, too, +is wiser than we are." + +They stood like effigies, lit by the broad, unsparing splendor of the +morning, but again their kindling eyes had met, and again the man +shuddered. "Decide! oh, decide very quickly, my only friend!" he said, +"for throughout I am all filth!" + +Closer she drew to him, and laid one hand upon each shoulder. "O my +only friend!" she breathed, with red lax lips which were very near to +his, "through these six years I have ranked your friendship as the +chief of all my honors! and I pray God with an entire heart that I may +die so soon as I have done what I must do to-day!" + +Now Maudelain was trying to smile, but he could not quite manage it. +"God save King Richard!" said the priest. "For by the cowardice and +greed and ignorance of little men is Salomon himself confounded, and +by them is Hercules lightly unhorsed. Were I Leviathan, whose bones +were long ago picked clean by pismires, I could perform nothing +against the will of many human pismires. Therefore do you pronounce my +doom." + +"O King," then said Dame Anne, "I bid you go forever from the court +and live forever a landless man, friendless, and without even any +name. Otherwise, you can in no way escape being made an instrument to +bring about the misery and death of many thousands. This doom I dare +adjudge and to pronounce, because we are royal and God's satraps, you +and I." + +Twice or thrice his dry lips moved before he spoke. He was aware of +innumerable birds that carolled with a piercing and intolerable +sweetness. "O Queen!" he hoarsely said, "O fellow satrap! Heaven has +many fiefs. A fair province is wasted and accords to Heaven no +revenue. So wastes beauty, and a shrewd wit, and an illimitable +charity, which of their pride go in fetters and achieve no increase. +To-day the young King junkets with his flatterers, and but rarely +thinks of England. You have that beauty by which men are lightly +conquered, and the mere sight of which may well cause a man's voice to +tremble as my voice trembles now, and through desire of which--But I +tread afield! Of that beauty you have made no profit. O daughter of +the Caesars, I bid you now gird either loin for an unlovely traffic. +Old Legion must be fought with fire. True that the age is sick, true +that we may not cure, we can but salve the hurt--" His hand had torn +open his sombre gown, and the man's bared breast shone in the +sunlight, and on his breast heaved sleek and glittering beads of +sweat. Twice he cried the Queen's name. In a while he said: "I bid you +weave incessantly such snares of brain and body as may lure King +Richard to be swayed by you, until against his will you daily guide +this shallow-hearted fool to some commendable action. I bid you live +as other folk do hereabouts. Coax! beg! cheat! wheedle! lie!" he +barked like a teased dog, "and play the prostitute for him that wears +my crown, till you achieve in part the task which is denied me. This +doom I dare adjudge and to pronounce, because we are royal and God's +satraps, you and I." + +She answered with a tiny, wordless sound. But presently, "I take my +doom," the Queen proudly said. "I shall be lonely now, my only friend, +and yet--it does not matter," the Queen said, with a little shiver. +"No, nothing will ever greatly matter now, I think, now that I may not +ever see you any more, my dearest." + +Her eyes had filled with tears; she was unhappy, and, as always, this +knowledge roused in Maudelain a sort of frenzied pity and a hatred, +quite illogical, of all other things existent. She was unhappy, that +only he comprehended: and for her to be made unhappy was unjust. + +So he stood thus for an appreciable silence, staying motionless save +that behind his back his fingers were bruising one another. Everywhere +was this or that bright color and an incessant melody. It was +unbearable. Then it was over; the ordered progress of all happenings +was apparent, simple, and natural; and contentment came into his heart +like a flight of linnets over level fields at dawn. He left her, and +as he went he sang. + +Sang Maudelain: + + "Christ save us all, as well He can, + A solis ortus cardine! + For He is both God and man, + Qui natus est de virgine, + And we but part of His wide plan + That sing, and heartily sing we, + 'Gloria Tibi, Domine!' + + "Between a heifer and an ass + Enixa est puerpera; + In ragged woollen clad He was + Qui regnat super aethera, + And patiently may we then pass + That sing, and heartily sing we, + 'Gloria Tibi, Domine!'" + +The Queen shivered in the glad sunlight. "I am, it must be, pitiably +weak," she said at last, "because I cannot sing as he does. And, since +I am not very wise, were he to return even now--But he will not +return. He will never return," the Queen repeated, carefully. "It is +strange I cannot comprehend that he will never return! Ah, Mother of +God!" she cried, with a steadier voice, "grant that I may weep! nay, +of thy infinite mercy let me presently find the heart to weep!" And +about the Queen of England many birds sang joyously. + +She sent for the King that evening, after supper, and they may well +have talked of many matters, for he did not return to his own +apartments that night. Next day the English barons held a council, and +in the midst of it King Richard demanded to be told his age. + +"Your Grace is in your twenty-second year," said the uneasy +Gloucester, who was now with reason troubled, since he had been vainly +seeking everywhere for the evanished Maudelain. + +"Then I have been under tutors and governors longer than any other +ward in my dominion. My lords, I thank you for your past services, but +I need them no more." They had no check handy, and Gloucester in +particular foreread his death-warrant, but of necessity he shouted +with the others, "Hail, King of England!" + +That afternoon the King's assumption of all royal responsibility was +commemorated by a tournament, over which Dame Anne presided. Sixty of +her ladies led as many knights by silver chains into the +tilting-grounds at Smithfield, and it was remarked that the Queen +appeared unusually mirthful. The King was in high good humor, a +pattern of conjugal devotion; and the royal pair retired at dusk to +the Bishop of London's palace at Saint Paul's, where was held a merry +banquet, with dancing both before and after supper. + +THE END OF THE SIXTH NOVEL + + + + +VII + +THE STORY OF THE HERITAGE + + + "Pour vous je suis en prison mise, + En ceste chambre a voulte grise, + Et traineray ma triste vie + Sans que jamais mon cueur varie, + Car toujours seray vostre amye." + +THE SEVENTH NOVEL.--ISABEL OF VALOIS, BEING FORSAKEN BY ALL OTHERS, IS +BEFRIENDED BY A PRIEST, WHO IN CHIEF THROUGH A CHILD'S INNOCENCE, +CONTRIVES AND EXECUTES A LAUDABLE IMPOSTURE, AND WINS THEREBY TO +DEATH. + + + + +_The Story of the Heritage_ + + +In the year of grace 1399 (Nicolas begins) dwelt in a hut near Caer +Dathyl in Arvon, as he had dwelt for some five years, a gaunt hermit, +notoriously consecrate, whom neighboring Welshmen revered as the +Blessed Evrawc. There had been a time when people called him Edward +Maudelain, but this period he dared not often remember. + +For though in macerations of the flesh, in fasting, and in hour-long +prayers he spent his days, this holy man was much troubled by devils. +He got little rest because of them. Sometimes would come into his hut +Belphegor in the likeness of a butler, and whisper, "Sire, had you +been King, as was your right, you had drunk to-day not water but the +wines of Spain and Hungary." Or Asmodeus saying, "Sire, had you been +King, as was your right, you had lain now not upon the bare earth but +on cushions of silk." + +One day in early spring, they say, the spirit called Orvendile sent +the likeness of a fair woman with yellow hair and large blue eyes. She +wore a massive crown which seemed too heavy for her frailness to +sustain. Soft tranquil eyes had lifted from her book. "You are my +cousin now, messire," this phantom had appeared to say. + +That was the worst, and Maudelain began to fear he was a little mad +because even this he had resisted with many aves. + +There came also to his hut, through a sullen snowstorm, upon the +afternoon of All Soul's day, a horseman in a long cloak of black. He +tethered his black horse and he came noiselessly through the doorway +of the hut, and upon his breast and shoulders the snow was white as +the bleached bones of those women that died in Merlin's youth. + +"Greetings in God's name, Messire Edward Maudelain," the stranger +said. + +Since the new-comer spoke intrepidly of holy things a cheerier +Maudelain knew that this at least was no demon. "Greetings!" he +answered. "But I am Evrawc. You name a man long dead." + +"But it is from a certain Bohemian woman I come. What matter, then, if +the dead receive me?" And thus speaking, the stranger dropped his +cloak. + +He was clad, as you now saw, in flame-colored satin, which shimmered +with each movement like a high flame. He had the appearance of a tall, +lean youngster, with crisp, curling, very dark red hair. He now +regarded Maudelain. He displayed peculiarly wide-set brown eyes; and +their gaze was tender, and the tears somehow had come to Maudelain's +eyes because of his great love for this tall stranger. "Eh, from the +dead to the dead I travel, as ever," said the new-comer, "with a +message and a token. My message runs, _Time is, O fellow satrap!_ and +my token is this." + +In this packet, wrapped with white parchment and tied with a golden +cord, was only a lock of hair. It lay like a little yellow serpent in +Maudelain's palm. "And yet five years ago," he mused, "this hair was +turned to dust. God keep us all!" Then he saw the tall lean emissary +puffed out like a candle-flame; and upon the floor he saw the huddled +cloak waver and spread like ink, and he saw the white parchment slowly +dwindle, as snow melts under the open sun. But in his hand remained +the lock of yellow hair. + +"O my only friend," said Maudelain, "I may not comprehend, but I know +that by no unhallowed art have you won back to me." Hair by hair he +scattered upon the floor that which he held. "_Time is!_ and I have +not need of any token to spur my memory." He prized up a corner of the +hearthstone, took out a small leather bag, and that day purchased a +horse and a sword. + +At dawn the Blessed Evrawc rode eastward in secular apparel. Two weeks +later he came to Sunninghill; and it happened that the same morning +the Earl of Salisbury, who had excellent reason to consider ... + +_Follows a lacuna of fourteen pages. Maudelain's successful imposture +of his half-brother, Richard the Second, so strangely favored by their +physical resemblance, and the subsequent fiasco at Circencester, are +now, however, tolerably well known to students of history._ + +_In one way or another, Maudelain contrived to take the place of his +now dethroned brother, and therewith also the punishment designed for +Richard. It would seem evident, from the Argument of the story in +hand, that Nicolas de Caen attributes a large part of this mysterious +business to the co-operancy of Isabel of Valois, King Richard's eleven +year old wife. And (should one have a taste for the deductive) the +foregoing name of Orvendile, when compared with "THE STORY OF THE +SCABBARD," would certainly hint that Owain Glyndwyr had a finger in +the affair._ + +_It is impossible to divine by what method, according to Nicolas, this +Edward Maudelain was substituted for his younger brother. Nicolas, if +you are to believe his "EPILOGUE," had the best of reasons for knowing +that the prisoner locked up in Pontefract Castle in the February of +1400, after Harry of Derby had seized the crown of England, was not +Richard Plantagenet: as is attested, also, by the remaining fragment +of this same_ "STORY OF THE HERITAGE." + +... and eight men-at-arms followed him. + +Quickly Maudelain rose from the table, pushing his tall chair aside, +and as he did this, one of the soldiers closed the door securely. +"Nay, eat your fill, Sire Richard," said Piers Exton, "since you will +not ever eat again." + +"Is it so?" the trapped man answered quietly. "Then indeed you come in +a good hour." Once only he smote upon his breast. "_Mea culpa!_ O +Eternal Father, do Thou shrive me very quickly of all those sins I +have committed, both in thought and deed, for now the time is very +short." + +And Exton spat upon the dusty floor. "Foh, they had told me I would +find a king here. I discover only a cat that whines." + +"Then 'ware his claws!" As a viper leaps Maudelain sprang upon the +nearest fellow and wrested away his halberd. "Then 'ware his claws, my +men! For I come of an accursed race. And now let some of you lament +that hour wherein the devil's son begot an heir for England! For of +ice and of lust and of hell-fire are all we sprung; old records attest +it; and fickle and cold and ravenous and without fear are all our race +until the end. Hah, until the end! O God of Gods!" this Maudelain +cried, with a great voice, "wilt Thou dare bid a man die patiently, +having aforetime filled his veins with such a venom? For I lack the +grace to die as all Thy saints have died, without one carnal blow +struck in my own defence. I lack the grace, my Father, for even at the +last the devil's blood You gave me is not quelled. I dare atone for +that old sin done by my father in the flesh, but yet I must atone as +befits the race of Oriander!" + +Then it was he and not they who pressed to the attack. Their meeting +was a bloody business, for in that dark and crowded room Maudelain +raged among his nine antagonists like an angered lion among wolves. + +They struck at random and cursed shrilly, for they were now +half-afraid of this prey they had entrapped; so that presently he was +all hacked and bleeding, though as yet he had no mortal wound. Four of +these men he had killed by this time, and Piers Exton also lay at his +feet. + +Then the other four drew back a little. "Are ye tired so soon?" said +Maudelain, and he laughed terribly. "What, even you! Why, look ye, my +bold veterans, I never killed before to-day, and I am not breathed as +yet." + +Thus he boasted, exultant in his strength. But the other men saw that +behind him Piers Exton had crawled into the chair from which (they +thought) King Richard had just risen, and they saw Exton standing +erect in this chair, with both arms raised. They saw this Exton strike +the King with his pole-axe, from behind, once only, and they knew no +more was needed. + +"By God!" said one of them in the ensuing stillness, and it was he who +bled the most, "that was a felon's blow." + +But the dying man who lay before them made as though to smile. "I +charge you all to witness," he faintly said, "how willingly I render +to Caesar's daughter that which was ever hers." + +Then Exton fretted, as if with a little trace of shame: "Who would +have thought the rascal had remembered that first wife of his so long? +Caesar's daughter, saith he! and dares in extremis to pervert Holy +Scripture like any Wycliffite! Well, he is as dead as that first +Caesar now, and our gracious King, I think, will sleep the better for +it. And yet--God only knows! for they are an odd race, even as he +said--these men that have old Manuel's blood in them." + +THE END OF THE SEVENTH NOVEL + + + + +VIII + +THE STORY OF THE SCABBARD + + + "Ainsi il avait trouve sa mie + Si belle qu'on put souhaiter. + N'avoit cure d'ailleurs plaider, + Fors qu'avec lui manoir et estre. + Bien est Amour puissant et maistre." + +THE EIGHTH NOVEL.--BRANWEN OF WALES GETS A KING'S LOVE UNWITTINGLY, +AND IN ALL INNOCENCE CONVINCES HIM OF THE LITTLENESS OF HIS KINGDOM; +SO THAT HE BESIEGES AND IN DUE COURSE OCCUPIES ANOTHER REALM AS YET +UNMAPPED. + + + + +_The Story of the Scabbard_ + + +In the year of grace 1400 (Nicolas begins) King Richard, the second +monarch of that name to rule in England, wrenched his own existence, +and nothing more, from the close wiles of his cousin, Harry of Derby, +who was now sometimes called Henry of Lancaster, and sometimes +Bolingbroke. The circumstances of this evasion having been recorded in +the preceding tale, it suffices here to record that this Henry was +presently crowned King of England in Richard's place. All persons, +saving only Owain Glyndwyr and Henry of Lancaster, believed King +Richard dead at that period when Richard attended his own funeral, as +a proceeding taking to the fancy, and, among many others, saw the body +of Edward Maudelain interred with every regal ceremony in the chapel +at Langley Bower. Then alone Sire Richard crossed the seas, and at +thirty-three set out to inspect a transformed and gratefully +untrammelling world wherein not a foot of land belonged to him. + +Holland was the surname he assumed, the name of his half-brothers; and +to detail his Asian wanderings would be tedious and unprofitable. But +at the end of each four months would come to him a certain messenger +from Glyndwyr, supposed by Richard to be the imp Orvendile, who +notoriously ran every day around the world upon the Welshman's +business. It was in the Isle of Taprobane, where the pismires are as +great as hounds, and mine and store the gold of which the inhabitants +afterward rob them through a very cunning device, that this emissary +brought the letter which read simply, "Now is England fit pasture for +the White Hart." Presently Richard Holland was in Wales, and then he +rode to Sycharth. + +There, after salutation, Glyndwyr gave an account of his long +stewardship. It was a puzzling record of obscure and tireless +machinations with which we have no immediate concern: in brief, the +barons who had ousted King Log had been the very first to find their +squinting King Stork intolerable; and Northumberland, Worcester, +Douglas, Mortimer, and so on, were already pledged and in open revolt. +"By the God I do not altogether serve," Owain ended, "you have but to +declare yourself, sire, and within the moment England is yours." + +Richard spoke with narrowed eyes. "You forget that while Henry of +Lancaster lives no other man can ever hope to reign tranquilly in +these islands. Come then! the hour strikes; and we will coax the devil +for once in a way to serve God." + +"Oh, but there is a boundary appointed," Glyndwyr moodily returned. +"You, too, forget that in cold blood this Henry stabbed my best-loved +son. But I do not forget this, and I have tried divers methods which +we need not speak of,--I who can at will corrupt the air, and cause +sickness and storms, raise heavy mists, and create plagues and fires +and shipwrecks; yet the life itself I cannot take. For there is a +boundary appointed, sire, and beyond that frontier the Master of our +Sabbaths cannot serve us even though he would." + +Richard crossed himself. "You horribly mistake my meaning. Your +practices are your own affair, and in them I decline to dabble. I +merely design to trap a tiger with his appropriate bait. For you have +a fief at Caer Idion, I think?--Very well! I intend to herd your sheep +there, for a week or two, after the honorable example of Apollo. It is +your part to see that Henry knows I am living disguised and +defenceless at Caer Idion." + +The gaunt Welshman chuckled. "Yes, squinting Henry of Lancaster would +cross the world, much less the Severn, to make quite sure of Richard's +death. He would come in his own person with at most some twenty +trustworthy followers. I will have a hundred there; and certain aging +scores will then be settled in that place." Glyndwyr meditated +afterward, very evilly. "Sire," he said without prelude, "I do not +recognize Richard of Bordeaux. You have garnered much in travelling!" + +"Why, look you," Richard returned, "I have garnered so much that I do +not greatly care whether this scheme succeed or no. With age I begin +to contend even more indomitably that a wise man will consider nothing +very seriously. You barons here believe it an affair of importance who +may chance to be the King of England, say, this time next year; you +take sides between Henry and me. I tell you frankly that neither of +us, that no man in the world, by reason of innate limitations, can +ever rule otherwise than abominably, or, ruling, can create anything +save discord. Nor can I see how this matters either, since the +discomfort of an ant-village is not, after all, a planet-wrecking +disaster. No, Owain, if the planets do indeed sing together, it is, +depend upon it, to the burden of _Fools All_. For I am as liberally +endowed as most people; and when I consider my abilities, my +performances, my instincts, and so on, quite aloofly, as I would +appraise those of another person, I can only shrug: and to conceive +that common-sense, much less Omnipotence, would ever concern itself +about the actions of a creature so entirely futile is, to me at least, +impossible." + +"I have known the thought," said Owain,--"though rarely since I found +the Englishwoman that was afterward my wife, and never since my son, +my Gruffyd, was murdered by a jesting man. He was more like me than +the others, people said.... You are as yet the empty scabbard, +powerless alike for help or hurt. Ey, hate or love must be the sword, +sire, that informs us here, and then, if only for a little while, we +are as gods." + +"Pardie! I have loved as often as Salomon, and in fourteen kingdoms." + +"We of Cymry have a saying, sire, that when a man loves par amours the +second time he may safely assume that he has never been in love at +all." + +"--And I hate Henry of Lancaster as I do the devil." + +"I greatly fear," said Owain with a sigh, "lest it may be your +irreparable malady to hate nothing, not even that which you dislike. +No, you consider things with both eyes open, with an unmanly +rationality: whereas Sire Henry views all matters with that heroic +squint which came into your family from Poictesme." + +"Be off with your dusty scandals!" said Richard, laughing. + +So then Glyndwyr rode south to besiege and burn the town of Caerdyf, +while at Caer Idion Richard Holland abode tranquilly for some three +weeks. There was in this place only Caradawc (the former shepherd), +his wife Alundyne, and their sole daughter Branwen. They gladly +perceived Sire Richard was no more a peasant than he was a curmudgeon; +as Caradawc observed: "It is perfectly apparent that the robe of +Padarn Beisrudd, which refuses to adjust itself to any save highborn +persons, would fit him as a glove does the hand; but we will ask no +questions, since it is not wholesome to dispute the orderings of Owain +Glyndwyr." + +Now day by day would Richard Holland drive the flocks to pasture near +the Severn, and loll there in the shade, and make songs to his lute. +He grew to love this leisured life of bright and open spaces; and its +long solitudes, grateful with the warm odors of growing things and +with poignant bird-noises; and the tranquillity of these meadows, that +were always void of hurry, bedrugged the man through many fruitless +and contented hours. + +Each day at noon Branwen would bring his dinner, and she would +sometimes chat with him while he ate. After supper he would discourse +to Branwen of remote kingdoms, through which, as aimlessly as a wind +veers, he had ridden at adventure, among sedate and alien peoples who +adjudged him a madman; and she, in turn, would tell him curious tales +from the _Red Book of Hergest_,--telling of Gwalchmai, and Peredur, +and Geraint, in each one of which fine heroes she had presently +discerned an inadequate forerunnership of Richard's existence. + +This Branwen was a fair wench, slender and hardy. She had the bold +demeanor of a child who is ignorant of evil and in consequence of +suspicion. Happily, though, had she been named for that unhappy lady +of old, the wife of King Matholwch, for this Branwen, too, had a +white, thin, wistful face, like that of an empress on a silver coin +which is a little worn. Her eyes were large and brilliant, colored +like clear emeralds, and her abundant hair was so much cornfloss, only +it was more brightly yellow and was of immeasurably finer texture. In +full sunlight her cheeks were frosted like the surface of a peach, but +the underlying cool pink of them was rather that of a cloud just after +sunset, Richard decided. In all, a taking morsel! though her shapely +hands were hard with labor, and she rarely laughed; for, as if in +recompense, her heart was tender, and she rarely ceased to smile as +though she were thinking of some peculiar and wonderful secret which +she intended, in due time, to share with you and with nobody else. +Branwen had many lovers, and preferred among them young Gwyllem ap +Llyr, a portly lad, who was handsome enough, though he had tiny and +piggish eyes, and who sang divinely. + +One day this Gwyllem came to Richard with two quarter-staves. "Saxon," +he said, "you appear a stout man. Take your pick of these, then, and +have at you." + +"Such are not the weapons I would have named," Richard answered: "yet +in reason, Messire Gwyllem, I can deny you nothing that means nothing +to me." + +With that they laid aside their coats and fell to exercise. In these +unaccustomed bouts Richard was soundly drubbed, as he had anticipated, +but he found himself the stronger man of the two, and he managed +somehow to avoid an absolute overthrow. By what method he contrived +this he never ascertained. + +"I have forgotten what we are fighting about," he observed, after ten +minutes of heroic thumps and hangings; "or, to be perfectly exact, I +never knew. But we will fight no more in this place. Come and go with +me to Welshpool, Messire Gwyllem, and there we will fight to a +conclusion over good sack and claret." + +"Content!" cried Gwyllem; "but only if you yield me Branwen." + +"Have we indeed wasted a whole half-hour in squabbling over a woman?" +Richard demanded; "like two children in a worldwide toyshop over any +one particular toy? Then devil take me if I am not heartily ashamed of +my folly! Though, look you, Gwyllem, I would speak naught save +commendation of these delicate and livelily-tinted creatures so long +as one is able to approach them in a becoming spirit of levity: it is +only their not infrequent misuse which I would condemn; and in my +opinion the person who elects to build a shrine for any one of them +has only himself to blame if his chosen goddess will accept no +burnt-offering except his honor and happiness. Yet since time's youth +have many fine men been addicted to this insane practice, as, for +example, were Hercules and Merlin to their illimitable sorrow; and, +indeed, the more I reconsider the old gallantries of Salomon, and of +other venerable and sagacious potentates, the more profoundly am I +ashamed of my sex." + +Gwyllem said: "This lazy gabbling of yours is all very fine. Perhaps +it is also reasonable. Only when you love you do not reason." + + +"I was endeavoring to prove that," said Richard gently. Then they went +to Welshpool, ride and tie on Gwyllem's horse. Tongue loosened by the +claret, Gwyllem raved aloud of Branwen, like a babbling faun, while to +each rapture Richard affably assented. In his heart he likened the boy +to Dionysos at Naxos, and could find no blame for Ariadne. Moreover, +the room was comfortably dark and cool, for thick vines hung about the +windows, rustling and tapping pleasantly, and Richard was content. + +"She does not love me?" Gwyllem cried. "It is well enough. I do not +come to her as one merchant to another, since love was never bartered. +Listen, Saxon!" He caught up Richard's lute. The strings shrieked +beneath Gwyllem's fingers as he fashioned his rude song. + +Sang Gwyllem: + + "Love me or love me not, it is enough + That I have loved you, seeing my whole life is + Uplifted and made glad by the glory of Love,-- + My life that was a scroll bescrawled and blurred + With tavern-catches, which that pity of his + Erased, and wrote instead one lonely word, + O Branwen! + + "I have accorded you incessant praise + And song and service, dear, because of this; + And always I have dreamed incessantly + Who always dreamed, when in oncoming days + This man or that shall love you, and at last + This man or that shall win you, it must be + That, loving him, you will have pity on me + When happiness engenders memory + And long thoughts, nor unkindly, of the past, + O Branwen! + + "Of this I know not surely, who am sure + That I shall always love you while I live, + And that, when I am dead, with naught to give + Of song or service, Love will yet endure, + And yet retain his last prerogative, + When I lie still, and sleep out centuries, + With dreams of you and the exceeding love + I bore you, and am glad dreaming thereof, + And give God thanks for all, and so find peace, + O Branwen!" + +"Now, were I to get as tipsy as that," Richard enviously thought, +midway in a return to his stolid sheep, "I would simply go to sleep +and wake up with a headache. And were I to fall as many fathoms deep +in love as this Gwyllem ventures, or, rather, as he hurls himself with +a splurge, I would perform--I wonder, now, what miracle?" + +For he was, though vaguely, discontent. This Gwyllem was so young, so +earnest over every trifle, and above all, was so untroubled by +forethought: each least desire controlled him, as varying winds sport +with a fallen leaf, whose frank submission to superior vagaries the +boy appeared to emulate. Richard saw that in a fashion Gwyllem was +superb. "And heigho!" said Richard, "I am attestedly a greater fool +than he, but I begin to weary of a folly so thin-blooded." + +The next morning came a ragged man, riding upon a mule. He declared +himself a tinker. He chatted out an hour with Richard, who perfectly +recognized him as Sir Walter Blount; and then this tinker crossed over +into England. + +Richard whistled. "Now my cousin will be quite sure, and now my +anxious cousin will come to speak with Richard of Bordeaux. And now, +by every saint in the calendar! I am as good as King of England." + +He sat down beneath a young oak and twisted four or five blades of +grass between his fingers while he meditated. Undoubtedly he would +kill this squinting Henry of Lancaster with a clear conscience and +even with a certain relish, much as one crushes the uglier sort of +vermin, but, hand upon heart, Richard was unable to avow any +particularly ardent desire for the scoundrel's death. Thus crudely to +demolish the knave's adroit and year-long schemings savored actually +of grossness. The spider was venomous, and his destruction laudable; +granted, but in crushing him you ruined his web, a miracle of patient +machination, which, despite yourself, compelled hearty admiring and +envy. True, the process would recrown a certain Richard, but then, as +Richard recalled it, being King was rather tedious. Richard was not +now quite sure that he wanted to be King, and, in consequence, be +daily plagued by a host of vexatious and ever-squabbling barons. "I +shall miss the little huzzy, too," he thought. + +"Heigho!" said Richard, "I shall console myself with purchasing all +beautiful things that can be touched and handled. Life is a flimsy +vapor which passes and is not any more: presently Branwen will be +married to this Gwyllem and will be grown fat and old, and I shall be +remarried to little Dame Isabel, and shall be King of England: and a +trifle later all four of us shall be dead. Pending this deplorable +consummation a wise man will endeavor to amuse himself." + +Next day he despatched Caradawc to Owain Glyndwyr to bid the latter +send the promised implements to Caer Idion. Richard, returning to the +hut the same evening, found Alundyne there, alone, and grovelling at +the threshold. Her forehead was bloodied when she raised it and +through tearless sobs told of what had happened. A half-hour earlier, +while she and Branwen were intent upon their milking, Gwyllem had +ridden up, somewhat the worse for liquor. Branwen had called him sot, +had bidden him go home. "That I will do," said Gwyllem and suddenly +caught up the girl. Alundyne sprang for him, and with clenched fist +Gwyllem struck her twice full in the face, and laughing, rode away +with Branwen. + +Richard made no observation. In silence he fetched his horse, and did +not pause to saddle it. Quickly he rode to Gwyllem's house, and broke +in the door. Against the farther wall stood lithe Branwen fighting +silently: her breasts and shoulders were naked, where Gwyllem had torn +away her garments. He wheedled, laughed, swore, and hiccoughed, turn +by turn, but she was silent. + +"On guard!" Richard barked. Gwyllem wheeled. His head twisted toward +his left shoulder, and one corner of his mouth convulsively snapped +upward, so that his teeth were bared. There was a knife at Richard's +girdle, which he now unsheathed and flung away. He stepped eagerly +toward the snarling Welshman, and with both hands seized the thick and +hairy throat. What followed was brutal. + +For many minutes Branwen stood with averted face, shuddering. She very +dimly heard the sound of Gwyllem's impotent fists as they beat against +the countenance and body of Richard, and heard the thin splitting +vicious noise of torn cloth as Gwyllem clutched at Richard's tunic and +tore it many times. Richard did not utter any articulate word, and +Gwyllem could not. There was entire silence for a heart-beat, and the +thudding fall of something ponderous and limp. + +"Come!" Richard said then. Through the hut's twilight he came, as +glorious in her eyes as Michael fresh from that primal battle with old +Satan. Tall Richard came to her, his face all blood, and lifted her in +his arms lest Branwen's skirt be soiled by the demolished thing which +sprawled across their path. She never spoke. She could not speak. In +his arms she rode homeward, passive, and content. The horse trod with +deliberation. In the east the young moon was taking heart as the +darkness thickened, and innumerable stars awoke. Branwen noted these +things incuriously. + +Richard was horribly afraid. He it had been, in sober verity it had +been Richard of Bordeaux, that some monstrous force had seized, and +had lifted, and had curtly utilized as its handiest implement. He had +been, and in the moment had known himself to be, the thrown spear as +yet in air, about to kill and quite powerless to refrain from killing. +It was a full three minutes before he had got the better of his +bewilderment and laughed, very softly, lest he disturb this Branwen, +who was so near his heart.... + +Next day she came to him at noon, bearing as always the little basket. +It contained to-day a napkin, some garlic, a ham, and a small soft +cheese; some shalots, salt, nuts, wild apples, lettuce, onions, and +mushrooms. "Behold a feast!" said Richard. He noted then that she +carried also a blue pitcher filled with thin wine, and two cups of +oak-bark. She thanked him for last night's performance, and drank a +mouthful of wine to his health. + +"Decidedly, I shall be sorry to have done with shepherding," said +Richard as he ate. + +Branwen answered, "I too shall be sorry, lord, when the masquerade is +ended." And it seemed to Richard that she sighed, and he was the +happier. + +But he only shrugged. "I am the wisest person unhanged, since I +comprehend my own folly. Yet I grant you that he was wise, too, the +minstrel of old time that sang: 'Over wild lands and tumbling seas +flits Love, at will, and maddens the heart and beguiles the senses of +all whom he attacks, whether his quarry be some monster of the ocean +or some fierce denizen of the forest, or man; for thine, O Love, thine +alone is the power to make playthings of us all.'" + +"Your bard was wise, no doubt, yet it was not in such terms that +Gwyllem sang of this passion. Lord," she demanded shyly, "how would +you sing of love?" + +Richard was replete and contented with the world. He took up the lute, +in full consciousness that his compliance was in large part cenatory. +"In courtesy, thus--" + +Sang Richard: + + "The gods in honor of fair Branwen's worth + Bore gifts to her:--and Jove, Olympus' lord, + Co-rule of Earth and Heaven did accord, + And Hermes brought that lyre he framed at birth, + And Venus her famed girdle (to engirth + A fairer beauty now), and Mars his sword, + And wrinkled Plutus half the secret hoard + And immemorial treasure of mid-earth;-- + + "And while the careful gods were pondering + Which of these goodly gifts the goodliest was, + Young Cupid came among them carolling + And proffered unto her a looking-glass, + Wherein she gazed, and saw the goodliest thing + That Earth had borne, and Heaven might not surpass." + +"Three sounds are rarely heard," said Branwen; "and these are the song +of the birds of Rhiannon, an invitation to feast with a miser, and a +speech of wisdom from the mouth of a Saxon. The song you have made of +courtesy is tinsel. Sing now in verity." + +Richard laughed, though he was sensibly nettled and perhaps a shade +abashed. Presently he sang again. + +Sang Richard: + + "Catullus might have made of words that seek + With rippling sound, in soft recurrent ways, + The perfect song, or in remoter days + Theocritus have hymned you in glad Greek; + But I am not as they,--and dare not speak + Of you unworthily, and dare not praise + Perfection with imperfect roundelays, + And desecrate the prize I dare to seek. + + "I do not woo you, then, by fashioning + Vext analogues 'twixt you and Guenevere, + Nor do I come with agile lips that bring + The sugared periods of a sonneteer, + And bring no more--but just with, lips that cling + To yours, in murmuring, 'I love you, dear!'" + +Richard had resolved that Branwen should believe him. Tinsel, indeed! +then here was yet more tinsel which she must receive as gold. He was +very angry, because his vanity was hurt, and the pin-prick spurred him +to a counterfeit so specious that consciously he gloried in it. He was +superb, and she believed him now; there was no questioning the fact, +he saw it plainly, and with exultant cruelty; then curt as lightning +came the knowledge that what Branwen believed was the truth. + +Richard had taken just two strides toward this fair girl. Branwen +stayed motionless, her lips a little parted. The affairs of earth and +heaven were motionless throughout the moment, attendant, it seemed to +him; and to him his whole life was like a wave that trembled now at +full height, and he was aware of a new world all made of beauty and of +pity. Then the lute fell from his spread out hands, and Richard +sighed, and shrugged. + +"There is a task set me," he said--"it is God's work, I think. But I +do not know--I only know that you are very beautiful, Branwen," he +said, and in the name he found a new and piercing loveliness. + +And he said also: "Go! For I have loved many women, and, God help me! +I know that I have but to wheedle you and you, too, will yield! Yonder +is God's work to be done, and within me rages a commonwealth of +devils. Child! child!" he cried, "I am, and ever was, a coward, too +timid to face life without reserve, and always I laughed because I was +afraid to concede that anything is serious!" + +For a long while Richard lay at his ease in the lengthening shadows of +the afternoon. + +"I love her. She thinks me an elderly imbecile with a flat and reedy +singing-voice, and she is perfectly right. She has never even +entertained the notion of loving me. That is well, for to-morrow, or, +it may be, the day after, we must part forever. I would not have the +parting make her sorrowful--or not, at least, too unalterably +sorrowful. It is very well that Branwen does not love me. + +"Why should she? I am almost twice her age, an aging fellow now, +battered and selfish and too indolent to love her--say, as Gwyllem +loved her. I did well to kill that Gwyllem. I am profoundly glad I +killed him, and I thoroughly enjoyed doing it; but, after all, the man +loved her in his fashion, and to the uttermost reach of his gross +nature. I love her in a rather more decorous and acceptable fashion, +it is true, but only a half of me loves her. The other half of me +remembers that I am aging, that Caradawc's hut is leaky, that, in +fine, bodily comfort is the single luxury of which one never tires. I +am a very contemptible creature, the empty scabbard of a man, +precisely as Owain said." This settled, Richard whistled to his dog. + +The sun had set. There were no shadows anywhere as Richard and his +sheep went homeward, but on every side the colors of the world were +more sombre. Twice his flock roused a covey of partridges which had +settled for the night. The screech-owl had come out of his hole, and +bats were already blundering about, and the air was cooling. There was +as yet but one star in the green and cloudless heaven, and this was +very large, like a beacon: it appeared to him symbolical that he +trudged away from this star. + +Next morning the Welshmen came, and now the trap was ready for Henry +of Lancaster. + +It befell just two days later, about noon, that while Richard idly +talked with Branwen a party of soldiers, some fifteen in number, rode +down the river's bank from the ford above. Their leader paused, then +gave an order. The men drew rein. He cantered forward. + +"God give you joy, fair sir," said Richard, when the cavalier was near +him. + +The new-comer raised his visor. "God give you eternal joy, my fair +cousin," he said, "and very soon. Now send away this woman before that +happens which must happen." + +"Do you plan," said Richard, "to disfigure the stage of our quiet +pastorals with murder?" + +"I design my own preservation," King Henry answered, "for while you +live my rule is insecure." + +"I am sorry," Richard said, "that in part my blood is yours." + +Twice he sounded his horn, and everywhere from rustling underwoods +arose the half-naked Welshmen. Said Richard: "You should read history +more carefully, Cousin Henry. You might have profited, as I have done, +by considering the trick which our grandfather, old Edward Longshanks, +played on the French King at Mezelais. As matters stand, your men are +one to ten. You are impotent. Now, now we balance our accounts! These +persons here will first deal with your followers. Then they will +conduct you to Glyndwyr, who has long desired to deal with you +himself, in privacy, since that Whit-Monday when you murdered his +son." + +The King began, "In mercy, sire--!" and Richard laughed a little, +saying: + +"That virtue is not overabundant among us of Oriander's blood, as we +both know. No, cousin, Fate and Time are merry jesters. See, now, +their latest mockery! You the King of England ride to Sycharth to your +death, and I the tender of sheep depart into London, without any +hindrance, to reign henceforward over these islands. To-morrow you are +worm's-meat, Cousin Henry: to-morrow, as yesterday, I am King of +England." + +Then Branwen gave one sharp, brief cry, and Richard forgot all things +saving this girl, and strode to her. He had caught up her hard, lithe +hands; against his lips he strained them close and very close. + +"Branwen--!" he said. His eyes devoured her. + +"Yes, King," she answered. "O King of England! O fool that I have been +to think you less!" + +In a while Richard said: "Well, I at least am not fool enough to think +of making you a king's whore. So I must choose between a peasant wench +and England. Now I choose, and how gladly! Branwen, help me to be more +than King of England!" + +Low and very low he spoke, and long and very long he gazed at her, and +neither seemed to breathe. Of what she thought I cannot tell you; but +in Richard there was no power of thought, only a great wonderment. +Why, between this woman's love and aught else there was no choice for +him, he knew upon a sudden. Perhaps he would thus worship her always, +he reflected: and then again, perhaps he would be tired of her before +long, just as all other persons seemed to abate in these infatuations: +meanwhile it was certain that he was very happy. No, he could not go +back to the throne and to the little French girl who was in law his +wife. + +And, as if from an immense distance, came to Richard the dogged voice +of Henry of Lancaster. "It is of common report in these islands that I +have a better right to the throne than you. As much was told our +grandfather, King Edward of happy memory, when he educated you and had +you acknowledged heir to the crown, but his love was so strong for his +son the Prince of Wales that nothing could alter his purpose. And +indeed if you had followed even the example of the Black Prince you +might still have been our King; but you have always acted so +contrarily to his admirable precedents as to occasion the rumor to be +generally believed throughout England that you were not, after all, +his son--" + +Richard had turned impatiently. "For the love of Heaven, truncate your +abominable periods. Be off with you. Yonder across that river is the +throne of England, which you appear, through some lunacy, to consider +a desirable possession. Take it, then; for, praise God! the sword has +found its sheath." + +The King answered: "I do not ask you to reconsider your dismissal, +assuredly--Richard," he cried, a little shaken, "I perceive that until +your death you will win contempt and love from every person." + +"Yes, yes, for many years I have been the playmate of the world," said +Richard; "but to-day I wash my hands, and set about another and more +laudable business. I had dreamed certain dreams, indeed--but what had +I to do with all this strife between the devil and the tiger? No, +Glyndwyr will set up Mortimer against you now, and you two must fight +it out. I am no more his tool, and no more your enemy, my +cousin--Henry," he said with quickening voice, "there was a time when +we were boys and played together, and there was no hatred between us, +and I regret that time!" + +"As God lives, I too regret that time!" the bluff, squinting King +replied. He stared at Richard for a while wherein each understood. +"Dear fool," Sire Henry said, "there is no man in all the world but +hates me saving only you." Then the proud King clapped spurs to his +proud horse and rode away. + +More lately Richard dismissed his wondering marauders. Now he and +Branwen were alone and a little troubled, since each was afraid of +that oncoming moment when their eyes must meet. + +So Richard laughed. "Praise God!" he wildly cried, "I am the greatest +fool unhanged!" + +She answered: "I am the happier for your folly. I am the happiest of +God's creatures." + +And Richard meditated. "Faith of a gentleman!" he declared; "but you +are nothing of the sort, and of this fact I happen to be quite +certain." Their lips met then and afterward their eyes; and each of +these ragged peasants was too glad for laughter. + +THE END OF THE EIGHTH NOVEL + + + + +IX + +THE STORY OF THE NAVARRESE + + + "J'ay en mon cueur joyeusement + Escript, afin que ne l'oublie, + Ce refrain qu'ayme chierement, + C'estes vous de qui suis amye." + +THE NINTH NOVEL.--JEHANE OF NAVARRE, AFTER A WITHSTANDING OF ALL OTHER +ASSAULTS, IS IN A LONG DUEL, WHEREIN TIME AND COMMON-SENSE ARE +FLOUTED, AND KINGDOMS ARE SHAKEN, DETHRONED AND RECOMPENSED BY AN +ENDURING LUNACY. + + + + +_The Story of the Navarrese_ + + +In the year of grace 1386, upon the feast of Saint Bartholomew (thus +Nicolas begins), came to the Spanish coast Messire Peyre de Lesnerac, +in a war-ship sumptuously furnished and manned by many persons of +dignity and wealth, in order suitably to escort the Princess Jehane +into Brittany, where she was to marry the Duke of that province. There +were now rejoicings throughout Navarre, in which the Princess took but +a nominal part and young Antoine Riczi none at all. + +This Antoine Riczi came to Jehane that August twilight in the hedged +garden. "King's daughter!" he sadly greeted her. "Duchess of Brittany! +Countess of Rougemont! Lady of Nantes and of Guerrand! of Rais and of +Toufon and Guerche!" + +She answered, "No, my dearest,--I am that Jehane, whose only title is +the Constant Lover." And in the green twilight, lit as yet by one +low-hanging star alone, their lips and desperate young bodies clung, +now, it might be, for the last time. + +Presently the girl spoke. Her soft mouth was lax and tremulous, and +her gray eyes were more brilliant than the star yonder. The boy's arms +were about her, so that neither could be quite unhappy, yet. + +"Friend," said Jehane, "I have no choice. I must wed with this de +Montfort. I think I shall die presently. I have prayed God that I may +die before they bring me to the dotard's bed." + +Young Riczi held her now in an embrace more brutal. "Mine! mine!" he +snarled toward the obscuring heavens. + +"Yet it may be I must live. Friend, the man is very old. Is it wicked +to think of that? For I cannot but think of his great age." + +Then Riczi answered: "My desires--may God forgive me!--have clutched +like starving persons at that sorry sustenance. Friend! ah, fair, +sweet friend! the man is human and must die, but love, we read, is +immortal. I am wishful to kill myself, Jehane. But, oh, Jehane! dare +you to bid me live?" + +"Friend, as you love me, I entreat you to live. Friend, I crave of the +Eternal Father that if I falter in my love for you I may be denied +even the one bleak night of ease which Judas knows." The girl did not +weep; dry-eyed she winged a perfectly sincere prayer toward +incorruptible saints. Riczi was to remember the fact, and through long +years of severance. + +For even now, as Riczi went away from Jehane, a shrill singing-girl +was rehearsing, yonder behind the yew-hedge, the song which she was to +sing at Jehane's bridal feast. + +Sang this joculatrix: + + "When the Morning broke before us + Came the wayward Three astraying, + Chattering in babbling chorus, + (Obloquies of Aether saying),-- + Hoidens that, at pegtop playing, + Flung their Top where yet it whirls + Through the coil of clouds unstaying, + For the Fates are captious girls!" + +And upon the next day de Lesnerac bore young Jehane from Pampeluna and +presently to Saille, where old Jehan the Brave took her to wife. She +lived as a queen, but she was a woman of infrequent laughter. + +She had Duke Jehan's adoration, and his barons' obeisancy, and his +villagers applauded her passage with stentorian shouts. She passed +interminable days amid bright curious arrasses and trod listlessly +over pavements strewn with flowers. She had fiery-hearted jewels, and +shimmering purple cloths, and much furniture adroitly carven, and many +tapestries of Samarcand and Baldach upon which were embroidered, by +brown fingers that time had turned long ago to Asian dust, innumerable +asps and deer and phoenixes and dragons and all the motley inhabitants +of air and of the thicket; but her memories, too, she had, and for a +dreary while she got no comfort because of them. Then ambition +quickened. + +Young Antoine Riczi likewise nursed his wound as best he might; but at +the end of the second year after Jehane's wedding his uncle, the +Vicomte de Montbrison--a gaunt man, with preoccupied and troubled +eyes--had summoned Antoine into Lyonnois and, after appropriate +salutation, had informed the lad that, as the Vicomte's heir, he was +to marry the Demoiselle Gerberge de Nerac upon the ensuing Michaelmas. + +"That I may not do," said Riczi; and since a chronicler that would +tempt fortune should never stretch the fabric of his wares too thin +(unlike Sir Hengist), I merely tell you these two dwelt together at +Montbrison for a decade: and the Vicomte swore at his nephew and +predicted this or that disastrous destination as often as Antoine +declined to marry the latest of his uncle's candidates,--in whom the +Vicomte was of an astonishing fertility. + +In the year of grace 1401 came the belated news that Duke Jehan had +closed his final day. "You will be leaving me!" the Vicomte growled; +"now, in my decrepitude, you will be leaving me! It is abominable, and +I shall in all likelihood disinherit you this very night." + +"Yet it is necessary," Riczi answered; and, filled with no unhallowed +joy, he rode for Vannes, in Brittany, where the Duchess-Regent held +her court. Dame Jehane had within that fortnight put aside her +mourning. She sat beneath a green canopy, gold-fringed and powdered +with many golden stars, when Riczi came again to her, and the rising +saps of spring were exercising their august and formidable influence. +She sat alone, by prearrangement, to one end of the high-ceiled and +radiant apartment; midway in the hall her lords and divers ladies were +gathered about a saltatrice and a jongleur, who were diverting the +courtiers, to the mincing accompaniment of a lute; but Jehane sat +apart from these, frail, and splendid with many jewels, and a little +sad. + +And Antoine Riczi found no power of speech within him at the first. +Silent he stood before her, still as an effigy, while meltingly the +jongleur sang. + +"Jehane!" said Antoine Riczi, in a while, "have you, then, forgotten, +O Jehane?" + +The resplendent woman had not moved at all. It was as though she were +some tinted and lavishly adorned statue of barbaric heathenry, and he +her postulant; and her large eyes appeared to judge an immeasurable +path, beyond him. Now her lips fluttered somewhat. "I am the Duchess +of Brittany," she said, in the phantom of a voice. "I am the Countess +of Rougemont. The Lady of Nantes and of Guerrand! of Rais and of +Toufon and Guerche!... Jehane is dead." + +The man had drawn one audible breath. "You are that Jehane, whose only +title is the Constant Lover!" + +"Friend, the world smirches us," she said half-pleadingly, "I have +tasted too deep of wealth and power. I am drunk with a deadly wine, +and ever I thirst--I thirst--" + +"Jehane, do you remember that May morning in Pampeluna when first I +kissed you, and about us sang many birds? Then as now you wore a gown +of green, Jehane." + +"Friend, I have swayed kingdoms since." + +"Jehane, do you remember that August twilight in Pampeluna when last I +kissed you? Then as now you wore a gown of green, Jehane." + +"But I wore no such chain as this about my neck," the woman answered, +and lifted a huge golden collar garnished with emeralds and sapphires +and with many pearls. "Friend, the chain is heavy, yet I lack the will +to cast it off. I lack the will, Antoine." And now with a sudden shout +of mirth her courtiers applauded the evolutions of the saltatrice. + +"King's daughter!" said Riczi then; "O perilous merchandise! a god +came to me and a sword had pierced his breast. He touched the gold +hilt of it and said, 'Take back your weapon.' I answered, 'I do not +know you.' 'I am Youth' he said; 'take back your weapon.'" + +"It is true," she responded, "it is lamentably true that after +to-night we are as different persons, you and I." + +He said: "Jehane, do you not love me any longer? Remember old years +and do not break your oath with me, Jehane, since God abhors nothing +so much as unfaith. For your own sake, Jehane,--ah, no, not for your +sake nor for mine, but for the sake of that blithe Jehane, whom, so +you tell me, time has slain!" + +Once or twice she blinked, as if dazzled by a light of intolerable +splendor, but otherwise she stayed rigid. "You have dared, messire, to +confront me with the golden-hearted, clean-eyed Navarrese that once +was I! and I requite." The austere woman rose. "Messire, you swore to +me, long since, eternal service. I claim my right in domnei. +Yonder--gray-bearded, the man in black and silver--is the Earl of +Worcester, the King of England's ambassador, in common with whom the +wealthy dowager of Brittany has signed a certain contract. Go you, +then, with Worcester into England, as my proxy, and in that island, as +my proxy, become the wife of the King of England. Messire, your +audience is done." + +Riczi said this: "Can you hurt me any more, Jehane?--no, even in hell +they cannot hurt me now. Yet I, at least, keep faith, and in your face +I fling faith like a glove--old-fashioned, it may be, but clean,--and +I will go, Jehane." + +Her heart raged. "Poor, glorious fool!" she thought; "had you but the +wit even now to use me brutally, even now to drag me from this +dais--!" Instead he went away from her smilingly, treading through the +hall with many affable salutations, while the jongleur sang. + +Sang the jongleur: + + "There is a land those hereabout + Ignore ... Its gates are barred + By Titan twins, named Fear and Doubt. + These mercifully guard + That land we seek--the land so fair!-- + And all the fields thereof, + Where daffodils flaunt everywhere + And ouzels chant of love,-- + Lest we attain the Middle-Land, + Whence clouded well-springs rise, + And vipers from a slimy strand + Lift glittering cold eyes. + + "Now, the parable all may understand, + And surely you know the name of the land! + Ah, never a guide or ever a chart + May safely lead you about this land,-- + The Land of the Human Heart!" + +And the following morning, being duly empowered, Antoine Riczi sailed +for England in company with the Earl of Worcester; and upon Saint +Richard's day the next ensuing was, at Eltham, as proxy of Jehane, +married in his own person to the bloat King Henry, the fourth of that +name to reign. This king was that same squinting Harry of Derby +(called also Henry of Lancaster and Bolingbroke) who stole his +cousin's crown, and about whom I have told you in the preceding story. +First Sire Henry placed the ring on Riczi's finger, and then spoke +Antoine Riczi, very loud and clear: + +"I, Antoine Riczi,--in the name of my worshipful lady, Dame Jehane, +the daughter of Messire Charles until lately King of Navarre, the +Duchess of Brittany and the Countess of Rougemont,--do take you, Sire +Henry of Lancaster, King of England and in title of France, and Lord +of Ireland, to be my husband; and thereto I, Antoine Riczi, in the +spirit of my said lady"--the speaker paused here to regard the gross +hulk of masculinity before him, and then smiled very sadly--"in +precisely the spirit of my said lady, I plight you my troth." + +Afterward the King made him presents of some rich garments of scarlet +trimmed with costly furs, and of four silk belts studded with silver +and gold, and with valuable clasps, of which the owner might well be +proud, and Riczi returned to Lyonnois. "Depardieux!" his uncle said; +"so you return alone!" + +"I return as did Prince Troilus," said Riczi--"to boast to you of +liberal entertainment in the tent of Diomede." + +"You are certainly an inveterate fool," the Vicomte considered after a +prolonged appraisal of his face, "since there is always a deal of +other pink-and-white flesh as yet unmortgaged--Boy with my brother's +eyes!" the Vicomte said, in another voice; "I have heard of the task +put upon you: and I would that I were God to punish as is fitting! But +you are welcome home, my lad." + +So these two abode together at Montbrison for a long time, and in the +purlieus of that place hunted and hawked, and made sonnets once in a +while, and read aloud from old romances some five days out of the +seven. The verses of Riczi were in the year of grace 1410 made public, +not without acclamation; and thereafter the stripling Comte de +Charolais, future heir to all Burgundy and a zealous patron of rhyme, +was much at Montbrison, and there conceived for Antoine Riczi such +admiration as was possible to a very young man only. + +In the year of grace 1412 the Vicomte, being then bedridden, died +without any disease and of no malady save the inherencies of his age. +"I entreat of you, my nephew," he said at last, "that always you use +as touchstone the brave deed you did at Eltham. It is necessary for a +gentleman to serve his lady according to her commandments, but you +performed the most absurd and the most cruel task which any woman ever +imposed upon her lover and servitor in domnei. I laugh at you, and I +envy you." Thus he died, about Martinmas. + +Now was Antoine Riczi a powerful baron, but he got no comfort of his +lordship, because that old incendiary, the King of Darkness, daily +added fuel to a smouldering sorrow until grief quickened into vaulting +flames of wrath and of disgust. + +"What now avail my riches?" said the Vicomte. "How much wealthier was +I when I was loved, and was myself an eager lover! I relish no other +pleasures than those of love. I am Love's sot, drunk with a deadly +wine, poor fool, and ever I thirst. All my chattels and my acres +appear to me to be bright vapors, and the more my dominion and my +power increase, the more rancorously does my heart sustain its +bitterness over having been robbed of that fair merchandise which is +the King of England's. To hate her is scant comfort and to despise her +none at all, since it follows that I who am unable to forget the +wanton am even more to be despised than she. I will go into England +and execute what mischief I may against her." + +The new Vicomte de Montbrison set forth for Paris, first to do homage +for his fief, and secondly to be accredited for some plausible mission +into England. But in Paris he got disquieting news. Jehane's husband +was dead, and her stepson Henry, the fifth monarch of that name to +reign in Britain, had invaded France to support preposterous claims +which the man advanced to the crown of that latter kingdom; and as the +earth is altered by the advent of winter, so was the appearance of +France transformed by King Henry's coming, and everywhere the nobles +were stirred up to arms, the castles were closed, the huddled cities +were fortified, and on every side arose entrenchments. + +Thus through this sudden turn was the new Vicomte, the dreamer and the +recluse, caught up by the career of events, as a straw is borne away +by a torrent, when the French lords marched with their vassals to +Harfleur, where they were soundly drubbed by the King of England; as +afterward at Agincourt. + +But in the year of grace 1417 there was a breathing space for +discredited France, and presently the Vicomte de Montbrison was sent +into England, as ambassador. He got in London a fruitless audience of +King Henry, whose demands were such as rendered a renewal of the war +inevitable; and afterward got, in the month of April, about the day of +Palm Sunday, at the Queen's dower-palace of Havering-Bower, an +interview with Queen Jehane.[*] + +[*Nicolas unaccountably omits to mention that during the French +wars she had ruled England as Regent with signal capacity,--although +this fact, as you will see more lately, is the pivot of his +chronicle.] + +A curled pert page took the Vicomte to where she sat alone, by +prearrangement, in a chamber with painted walls, profusely lighted by +the sun, and made pretence to weave a tapestry. When the page had gone +she rose and cast aside the shuttle, and then with a glad and wordless +cry stumbled toward the Vicomte. "Madame and Queen--!" he coldly said. + +His judgment found in her a quite ordinary, frightened woman, aging +now, but still very handsome in these black and shimmering gold robes; +but all his other faculties found her desirable: and with a contained +hatred he had perceived, as if by the terse illumination of a +thunderbolt, that he could never love any woman save the woman whom he +most despised. + +She said: "I had forgotten. I had remembered only you, Antoine, and +Navarre, and the clean-eyed Navarrese--" Now for a little, Jehane +paced the gleaming and sun-drenched apartment as a bright leopardess +might tread her cage. Then she wheeled. "Friend, I think that God +Himself has deigned to avenge you. All misery my reign has been. First +Hotspur, then prim Worcester harried us. Came Glyndwyr afterward to +prick us with his devils' horns. Followed the dreary years that linked +me to the rotting corpse which God's leprosy devoured while the poor +furtive thing yet moved, and endured its share in the punishment of +Manuel's poisonous blood. All misery, Antoine! And now I live beneath +a sword." + +"You have earned no more," he said. "You have earned no more, O +Jehane! whose only title is the Constant Lover!" He spat it out. + +She came uncertainly toward him, as though he had been some not +implacable knave with a bludgeon. "For the King hates me," she +plaintively said, "and I live beneath a sword. The big, fierce-eyed +boy has hated me from the first, for all his lip-courtesy. And now he +lacks the money to pay his troops, and I am the wealthiest person +within his realm. I am a woman and alone in a foreign land. So I must +wait, and wait, and wait, Antoine, till he devises some trumped-up +accusation. Friend, I live as did Saint Damoclus, beneath a sword. +Antoine!" she wailed--for now the pride of Queen Jehane was shattered +utterly--"I am held as a prisoner for all that my chains are of gold." + +"Yet it was not until of late," he observed, "that you disliked the +metal which is the substance of all crowns." + +And now the woman lifted toward him her massive golden necklace, +garnished with emeralds and sapphires and with many pearls, and in the +sunlight the gems were tawdry things. "Friend, the chain is heavy, and +I lack the power to cast it off. The Navarrese we know of wore no such +perilous fetters. Ah, you should have mastered me at Vannes. You could +have done so, very easily. But you only talked--oh, Mary pity us! you +only talked!--and I could find only a servant where I had sore need to +find a master. Let all women pity me!" + +But now came many armed soldiers into the apartment. With spirit Queen +Jehane turned to meet them, and you saw that she was of royal blood, +for now the pride of many emperors blazed and informed her body as +light occupies a lantern. "At last you come for me, messieurs?" + +"Whereas," the leader of these soldiers read from a +parchment--"whereas the King's stepmother, Queen Jehane, is accused by +certain persons of an act of witch-craft that with diabolical and +subtile methods wrought privily to destroy the King, the said Dame +Jehane is by the King committed (all her attendants being removed) to +the custody of Sir John Pelham, who will, at the King's pleasure, +confine her within Pevensey Castle, there to be kept under Sir John's +control: the lands and other properties of the said Dame Jehane being +hereby forfeit to the King, whom God preserve!" + +"Harry of Monmouth!" said Jehane,--"ah, my tall stepson, could I but +come to you, very quietly, with a knife--!" She shrugged her +shoulders, and the gold about her person glittered in the sunlight. +"Witchcraft! ohime, one never disproves that. Friend, now are you +avenged the more abundantly." + +"Young Riczi is avenged," the Vicomte said; "and I came hither +desiring vengeance." + +She wheeled, a lithe flame (he thought) of splendid fury. "And in the +gutter Jehane dares say what Queen Jehane upon the throne might never +say. Had I reigned all these years as mistress not of England but of +Europe,--had nations wheedled me in the place of barons,--young Riczi +had been none the less avenged. Bah! what do these so-little persons +matter? Take now your petty vengeance! drink deep of it! and know that +always within my heart the Navarrese has lived to shame me! Know that +to-day you despise Jehane, the purchased woman! and that Jehane loves +you! and that the love of proud Jehane creeps like a beaten cur toward +your feet, in the sight of common men! and know that Riczi is +avenged,--you milliner!" + +"Into England I came desiring vengeance--Apples of Sodom! O bitter +fruit!" the Vicomte thought; "O fitting harvest of a fool's assiduous +husbandry!" + +They took her from him: and that afternoon, after long meditation, the +Vicomte de Montbrison entreated a second private audience of King +Henry, and readily obtained it. "Unhardy is unseely," the Vicomte said +at this interview's conclusion. The tale tells that the Vicomte +returned to France and within this realm assembled all such lords as +the abuses of the Queen-Regent Isabeau had more notoriously +dissatisfied. + +The Vicomte had upon occasion an invaluable power of speech; and now, +so great was the devotion of love's dupe, so heartily, so hastily, did +he design to remove the discomforts of Queen Jehane, that now his +eloquence was twin to Belial's insidious talking when that fiend +tempts us to some proud iniquity. + +Then presently these lords had sided with King Henry, as did the +Vicomte de Montbrison, in open field. Next, as luck would have it, +Jehan Sans-Peur was slain at Montereau; and a little later the new +Duke of Burgundy, who loved the Vicomte as he loved no other man, had +shifted his coat, forsaking France. These treacheries brought down the +wavering scales of warfare, suddenly, with an aweful clangor; and now +in France clean-hearted persons spoke of the Vicomte de Montbrison as +they would speak of Ganelon or of Iscariot, and in every market-place +was King Henry proclaimed as governor of the realm. + +Meantime Queen Jehane had been conveyed to prison and lodged therein. +She had the liberty of a tiny garden, high-walled, and of two scantily +furnished chambers. The brace of hard-featured females whom Pelham had +provided for the Queen's attendance might speak to her of nothing that +occurred without the gates of Pevensey, and she saw no other persons +save her confessor, a triple-chinned Dominican; had men already lain +Jehane within the massive and gilded coffin of a queen the outer world +would have made as great a turbulence in her ears. + +But in the year of grace 1422, upon the feast of Saint Bartholomew, +and about vespers--for thus it wonderfully fell out,--one of those +grim attendants brought to her the first man, save the fat confessor, +whom the Queen had seen within five years. The proud, frail woman +looked and what she saw was the inhabitant of all her dreams. + +Said Jehane: "This is ill done. Time has avenged you. Be contented +with that knowledge, and, for Heaven's sake, do not endeavor to +moralize over the ruin which Heaven has made, and justly made, of +Queen Jehane, as I perceive you mean to do." She leaned backward in +the chair, very coarsely clad in brown, but knowing that her coloring +was excellent, that she had miraculously preserved her figure, and +that she did not look her real age by a good ten years. Such +reflections beget spiritual comfort even in a prison. + +"Friend," the lean-faced man now said, "I do not come with such +intent, as my mission will readily attest, nor to any ruin, as your +mirror will attest. Instead, madame, I come as the emissary of King +Henry, now dying at Vincennes, and with letters to the lords and +bishops of his council. Dying, the man restores to you your liberty +and your dower-lands, your bed and all your movables, and six gowns of +such fashion and such color as you may elect." + +Then with hurried speech he told her of five years' events: of how +within that period King Henry had conquered France, and had married +the French King's daughter, and had begotten a boy who would presently +inherit the united realms of France and England, since in the supreme +hour of triumph King Henry had been stricken with a mortal sickness, +and now lay dying, or perhaps already dead, at Vincennes; and of how +with his penultimate breath the prostrate conqueror had restored to +Queen Jehane all properties and all honors which she formerly enjoyed. + +"I shall once more be Regent," the woman said when the Vicomte had +made an end; "Antoine, I shall presently be Regent both of France and +of England, since Dame Katharine is but a child." Jehane stood +motionless save for the fine hands that plucked the air. "Mistress of +Europe! absolute mistress, and with an infant ward! now, may God have +mercy on my unfriends, for they will soon perceive great need of it!" + +"Yet was mercy ever the prerogative of royal persons," the Vicomte +suavely said, "and the Navarrese we know of was both royal and very +merciful, O Constant Lover." + +The speech was as a whip-lash. Abruptly suspicion kindled in her +shrewd gray eyes. "Harry of Monmouth feared neither man nor God. It +needed more than any death-bed repentance to frighten him into +restoring my liberty." There was a silence. "You, a Frenchman, come as +the emissary of King Henry who has devastated France! are there no +English lords, then, left alive of his, army?" + +The Vicomte de Montbrison said; "There is at all events no person +better fitted to patch up this dishonorable business of your +captivity, in which no clean man would care to meddle." + +She appraised this, and said with entire irrelevance: "The world has +smirched you, somehow. At last you have done something save consider +how badly I treated you. I praise God, Antoine, for it brings you +nearer." + +He told her all. King Henry, it appeared, had dealt with him at +Havering in perfect frankness. The King needed money for his wars in +France, and failing the seizure of Jehane's enormous wealth, had +exhausted every resource. "And France I mean to have," the King said. +"Now the world knows you enjoy the favor of the Comte de Charolais; so +get me an alliance with Burgundy against my imbecile brother of +France, and Dame Jehane shall repossess her liberty. There you have my +price." + +"And this price I paid," the Vicomte sternly said, "for 'Unhardy is +unseely,' Satan whispered, and I knew that Duke Philippe trusted me. +Yea, all Burgundy I marshalled under your stepson's banner, and for +three years I fought beneath his loathed banner, until at Troyes we +had trapped and slain the last loyal Frenchman. And to-day in France +my lands are confiscate, and there is not an honest Frenchman but +spits upon my name. All infamy I come to you for this last time, +Jehane! as a man already dead I come to you, Jehane, for in France +they thirst to murder me, and England has no further need of +Montbrison, her blunted and her filthy instrument!" + +The woman nodded here. "You have set my thankless service above your +life, above your honor. I find the rhymester glorious and very vile." + +"All vile," he answered; "and outworn! King's daughter, I swore to +you, long since, eternal service. Of love I freely gave you yonder in +Navarre, as yonder at Eltham I crucified my innermost heart for your +delectation. Yet I, at least, keep faith, and in your face I fling +faith like a glove--outworn, it may be, and God knows, unclean! Yet I, +at least, keep faith! Lands and wealth have I given, up for you, O +king's daughter, and life itself have I given you, and lifelong +service have I given you, and all that I had save honor; and at the +last I give you honor, too. Now let the naked fool depart, Jehane, for +he has nothing more to give." + +While the Vicomte de Montbrison spoke thus, she had leaned upon the +sill of an open casement. "Indeed, it had been better," she said, +still with her face averted, and gazing downward at the tree-tops +beneath, "it had been far better had we never met. For this love of +ours has proven a tyrannous and evil lord. I have had everything, and +upon each feast of will and sense the world afforded me this love has +swept down, like a harpy--was it not a harpy you called the bird in +that old poem of yours?--to rob me of delight. And you have had +nothing, for he has pilfered you of life, giving only dreams in +exchange, my poor Antoine, and he has led you at the last to infamy. +We are as God made us, and--I may not understand why He permits this +despotism." + +Thereafter, somewhere below, a peasant sang as he passed supperward +through the green twilight, lit as yet by one low-hanging star alone. + +Sang the peasant: + + "King Jesus hung upon the Cross, + 'And have ye sinned?' quo' He,--. + 'Nay, Dysmas, 'tis no honest loss + When Satan cogs the dice ye toss, + And thou shall sup with Me,-- + Sedebis apud angelos, + Quia amavisti!' + + "At Heaven's Gate was Heaven's Queen, + 'And have ye sinned?' quo' She,-- + 'And would I hold him worth a bean + That durst not seek, because unclean, + My cleansing charity?-- + Speak thou that wast the Magdalene, + Quia amavisti!'" + +"It may be that in some sort the jingle answers me!" then said Jehane; +and she began with an odd breathlessness, "Friend, when King Henry +dies--and even now he dies--shall I not as Regent possess such power +as no woman has ever wielded in Europe? can aught prevent this?" + +"It is true," he answered. "You leave this prison to rule over England +again, and over conquered France as well, and naught can prevent it." + +"Unless, friend, I were wedded to a Frenchman. Then would the stern +English lords never permit that I have any finger in the government." +She came to him with conspicuous deliberation and rested her hands +upon his breast. "Friend, I am weary of these tinsel splendors. What +are this England and this France to me, who crave the real kingdom?" + +Her mouth was tremulous and lax, and her gray eyes were more brilliant +than the star yonder. The man's arms were about her, and of the man's +face I cannot tell you. "King's daughter! mistress of half Europe! I +am a beggar, an outcast, as a leper among honorable persons." + +But it was as though he had not spoken. "Friend, it was for this I +have outlived these garish, fevered years, it was this which made me +glad when I was a child and laughed without knowing why. That I might +to-day give up this so-great power for love of you, my all-incapable +and soiled Antoine, was, as I now know, the end to which the Eternal +Father created me. For, look you," she pleaded, "to surrender absolute +dominion over half Europe is a sacrifice. Assure me that it is a +sacrifice, Antoine! O glorious fool, delude me into the belief that I +surrender much in choosing you! Nay, I know it is as nothing beside +what you have given up for me, but it is all I have--it is all I have, +Antoine!" + +He drew a deep and big-lunged breath that seemed to inform his being +with an indomitable vigor; and grief and doubtfulness went quite away +from him. "Love leads us," he said, "and through the sunlight of the +world Love leads us, and through the filth of it Love leads us, but +always in the end, if we but follow without swerving, Love leads +upward. Yet, O God upon the Cross! Thou that in the article of death +didst pardon Dysmas! as what maimed warriors of life, as what bemired +travellers in muddied byways, must we presently come to Thee!" + +"Ah, but we will come hand in hand," she answered; "and He will +comprehend." + +THE END OF THE NINTH NOVEL + + + + +X + +THE STORY OF THE FOX-BRUSH + + + "Dame serez de mon cueur, sans debat, + Entierement, jusques mort me consume. + Laurier souef qui pour mon droit combat, + Olivier franc, m'ostant toute amertume." + +THE TENTH NOVEL.--KATHARINE OF VALOIS IS LOVED BY A HUNTSMAN, AND +LOVES HIM GREATLY; THEN FINDS HIM, TO HER HORROR, AN IMPOSTOR; AND FOR +A SUFFICIENT REASON CONSENTS TO MARRY QUITE ANOTHER PERSON, NOT ALL +UNWILLINGLY. + + + + +_The Story of the Fox-Brush_ + + +In the year of grace 1417, about Martinmas (thus Nicolas begins), +Queen Isabeau fled with her daughter the Lady Katharine to Chartres. +There the Queen was met by the Duke of Burgundy, and these two laid +their heads together to such good effect that presently they got back +into Paris, and in its public places massacred some three thousand +Armagnacs. That, however, is a matter which touches history; the root +of our concernment is that, when the Queen and the Duke rode off to +attend to this butcher's business, the Lady Katharine was left behind +in the Convent of Saint Scholastica, which then stood upon the +outskirts of Chartres, in the bend of the Eure just south of that +city. She dwelt for a year in this well-ordered place. + +There one finds her upon the day of the decollation of Saint John the +Baptist, the fine August morning that starts the tale. Katharine the +Fair, men called her, with considerable show of reason. She was very +tall, and slim as a rush. Her eyes were large and black, having an +extreme lustre, like the gleam of undried ink,--a lustre at some times +uncanny. Her abundant hair, too, was black, and to-day seemed doubly +sombre by contrast with the gold netting which confined it. Her mouth +was scarlet, all curves, and her complexion was famous for its +brilliancy; only a precisian would have objected that she possessed +the Valois nose, long and thin and somewhat unduly overhanging the +mouth. + +To-day as she came through the orchard, crimson garbed, she paused +with lifted eyebrows. Beyond the orchard wall there was a hodgepodge +of noises, among which a nice ear might distinguish the clatter of +hoofs, a yelping and scurrying, and a contention of soft bodies, and +above all a man's voice commanding the turmoil. She was seventeen, so +she climbed into the crotch of an apple-tree and peered over the wall. + +He was in rusty brown and not unshabby; but her regard swept over this +to his face, and there noted how his eyes shone like blue winter stars +under the tumbled yellow hair, and noted the flash of his big teeth as +he swore between them. He held a dead fox by the brush, which he was +cutting off; two hounds, lank and wolfish, were scaling his huge body +in frantic attempts to get at the carrion. A horse grazed close at +hand. + +So for a heart-beat she saw him. Then he flung the tailless body to +the hounds, and in the act spied two black eyes peeping through the +apple-leaves. He laughed, all mirth to the heels of him. +"Mademoiselle, I fear we have disturbed your devotions. But I had not +heard that it was a Benedictine custom to rehearse aves in tree-tops." +Then, as she leaned forward, both elbows resting more comfortably upon +the wall, and thereby disclosing her slim body among the foliage like +a crimson flower green-calyxed, he said, "You are not a nun--Blood of +God! you are the Princess Katharine!" + +The nuns, her present guardians, would have declared the ensuing +action horrific, for Katharine smiled frankly at him and asked how +could he thus recognise her at one glance. + +He answered slowly: "I have seen your portrait. Hah, your portrait!" +he jeered, head flung back and big teeth glinting in the sunlight. +"There is a painter who merits crucifixion." + +She considered this indicative of a cruel disposition, but also of a +fine taste in the liberal arts. Aloud she stated: + +"You are not a Frenchman, messire. I do not understand how you can +have seen my portrait." + +The man stood for a moment twiddling the fox-brush. "I am a harper, my +Princess. I have visited the courts of many kings, though never that +of France. I perceive I have been woefully unwise." + +This trenched upon insolence--the look of his eyes, indeed, carried it +well past the frontier,--but she found the statement interesting. +Straightway she touched the kernel of those fear-blurred legends +whispered about Dom Manuel's reputed descendants. + +"You have, then, seen the King of England?" + +"Yes, Highness." + +"Is it true that in him, the devil blood of Oriander has gone mad, and +that he eats children--like Agrapard and Angoulaffre of the Broken +Teeth?" + +His gaze widened. "I have heard a deal of scandal concerning the man. +But certainly I never heard that." + +Katharine settled back, luxuriously, in the crotch of the apple-tree. +"Tell me about him." + +Composedly he sat down upon the grass and began to acquaint her with +his knowledge and opinions concerning Henry, the fifth of that name to +reign in England, and the son of that squinting Harry of Derby about +whom I have told you so much before. + +Katharine punctuated the harper's discourse with eager questionings, +which are not absolutely to our purpose. In the main, this harper +thought the man now buffeting France a just king, and he had heard, +when the crown was laid aside, Sire Henry was sufficiently jovial, and +even prankish. The harper educed anecdotes. He considered that the +King would manifestly take Rouen, which the insatiable man was now +besieging. Was the King in treaty for the hand of the Infanta of +Aragon? Yes, he undoubtedly was. + +Katharine sighed her pity for this ill-starred woman. "And now tell me +about yourself." + +He was, it appeared, Alain Maquedonnieux, a harper by vocation, and by +birth a native of Ireland. Beyond the fact that it was a savage +kingdom adjoining Cataia, Katharine knew nothing of Ireland. The +harper assured her that in this she was misinformed, since the kings +of England claimed Ireland as an appanage, though the Irish themselves +were of two minds as to the justice of these pretensions; all in all, +he considered that Ireland belonged to Saint Patrick, and that the +holy man had never accredited a vicar. + +"Doubtless, by the advice of God," Alain said: "for I have read in +Master Roger de Wendover's Chronicles of how at the dread day of +judgment all the Irish are to muster before the high and pious +Patrick, as their liege lord and father in the spirit, and by him be +conducted into the presence of God; and of how, by virtue of Saint +Patrick's request, all the Irish will die seven years to an hour +before the second coming of Christ, in order to give the blessed saint +sufficient time to marshal his company, which is considerable." +Katharine admitted the convenience of this arrangement, as well as the +neglect of her education. Alain gazed up at her for a long while, as +if in reflection, and presently said: "Doubtless the Lady Heleine of +Argos also was thus starry-eyed and found in books less diverting +reading than in the faces of men." It flooded Katharine's cheeks with +a livelier hue, but did not vex her irretrievably; if she chose to +read this man's face, the meaning was plain enough. + +I give you the gist of their talk, and that in all conscience is +trivial. But it was a day when one entered love's wardship with a +plunge, not in more modern fashion venturing forward bit by bit, as +though love were so much cold water. So they talked for a long while, +with laughter mutually provoked and shared, with divers eloquent and +dangerous pauses. The harper squatted upon the ground, the Princess +leaned over the wall; but to all intent they sat together upon the +loftiest turret of Paradise, and it was a full two hours before +Katharine hinted at departure. + +Alain rose, approaching the wall. "To-morrow I ride for Milan to take +service with Duke Filippo. I had broken my journey these three days +past at Chateauneuf yonder, where this fox has been harrying my host's +chickens. To-day I went out to slay him, and he led me, his murderer, +to the fairest lady earth may boast. Do you not think that, in +returning good for evil, this fox was a true Christian, my Princess?" + +Katharine said: "I lament his destruction. Farewell, Messire Alain! +And since chance brought you hither--" + +"Destiny brought me hither," Alain affirmed, a mastering hunger in his +eyes. "Destiny has been kind; I shall make a prayer to her that she +continue so." But when Katharine demanded what this prayer would be, +Alain shook his tawny head. "Presently you shall know, Highness, but +not now. I return to Chateauneuf on certain necessary businesses; +to-morrow I set out at cockcrow for Milan and the Visconti's livery. +Farewell!" He mounted and rode away in the golden August sunlight, the +hounds frisking about him. The fox-brush was fastened in his hat. Thus +Tristran de Leonois may have ridden a-hawking in drowned Cornwall, +thus statelily and composedly, Katharine thought, gazing after him. +She went to her apartments, singing an inane song about the amorous +and joyful time of spring when everything and everybody is happy,-- + + "El tems amoreus plein de joie, + El tems ou tote riens s'esgaie,--" + +and burst into a sudden passion of tears. There were born every day, +she reflected, such hosts of women-children, who were not princesses, +and therefore compelled to marry detestable kings. + +Dawn found her in the orchard. She was to remember that it was a +cloudy morning, and that mist-tatters trailed from the more distant +trees. In the slaty twilight the garden's verdure was lustreless, the +grass and foliage were uniformly sombre save where dewdrops showed +like beryls. Nowhere in the orchard was there absolute shadow, nowhere +a vista unblurred; in the east, half-way between horizon and zenith, +two belts of coppery light flared against the gray sky like embers +swaddled by ashes. The birds were waking; there were occasional +scurryings in tree-tops and outbursts of peevish twittering to attest +as much; and presently came a singing, less musical than that of many +a bird perhaps, but far more grateful to the girl who heard it, heart +in mouth. A lute accompanied the song demurely. + +Sang Alain: + + "O Madam Destiny, omnipotent, + Be not too obdurate to us who pray + That this our transient grant of youth be spent + In laughter as befits a holiday, + From which the evening summons us away, + From which to-morrow wakens us to strife + And toil and grief and wisdom,--and to-day + Grudge us not life! + + "O Madam Destiny, omnipotent, + Why need our elders trouble us at play? + We know that very soon we shall repent + The idle follies of our holiday, + And being old, shall be as wise as they: + But now we are not wise, and lute and fife + Plead sweetlier than axioms,--so to-day + Grudge us not life! + + "O Madam Destiny, omnipotent, + You have given us youth--and must we cast away + The cup undrained and our one coin unspent + Because our elders' beards and hearts are gray? + They have forgotten that if we delay + Death claps us on the shoulder, and with knife + Or cord or fever flouts the prayer we pray-- + 'Grudge us not life!' + + "Madam, recall that in the sun we play + But for an hour, then have the worm for wife, + The tomb for habitation--and to-day + Grudge us not life!" + +Candor in these matters is best. Katharine scrambled into the crotch +of the apple-tree. The dew pattered sharply about her, but the +Princess was not in a mood to appraise discomfort. + +"You came!" this harper said, transfigured; and then again, "You +came!" + +She breathed, "Yes." + +So for a long time they stood looking at each other. She found +adoration in his eyes and quailed before it; and in the man's mind not +a grimy and mean incident of the past but marshalled to leer at his +unworthiness: yet in that primitive garden the first man and woman, +meeting, knew no sweeter terror. + +It was by the minstrel that a familiar earth and the grating speech of +earth were earlier regained. "The affair is of the suddenest," Alain +observed, and he now swung the lute behind him. He indicated no +intention of touching her, though he might easily have done so as he +sat there exalted by the height of his horse. "A meteor arrives with +more prelude. But Love is an arbitrary lord; desiring my heart, he has +seized it, and accordingly I would now brave hell to come to you, and +finding you there, would esteem hell a pleasure-garden. I have already +made my prayer to Destiny that she concede me love. Now of God, our +Father and Master, I entreat quick death if I am not to win you. For, +God willing, I shall come to you again, even if in order to do this I +have to split the world like a rotten orange." + +"Madness! Oh, brave, sweet madness!" Katharine said. "You are a +minstrel and I am a king's daughter." + +"Is it madness? Why, then, I think sane persons are to be +commiserated. And indeed I spy in all this some design. Across half +the earth I came to you, led by a fox. Hey, God's face!" Alain swore; +"the foxes which Samson, that old sinewy captain, loosed among the +corn of heathenry kindled no disputation such as this fox has set +afoot. That was an affair of standing corn and olives spoilt, a bushel +or so of disaster; now poised kingdoms topple on the brink of ruin. +There will be martial argument shortly if you bid me come again." + +"I bid you come," said Katharine; and after they had stared at each +other for a long while, he rode away in silence. It was through a dank +and tear-flawed world that she stumbled conventward, while out of the +east the sun came bathed in mists, a watery sun no brighter than a +silver coin. + +And for a month the world seemed no less dreary, but about Michaelmas +the Queen-Regent sent for her. At the Hotel de Saint-Pol matters were +much the same. Katharine found her mother in foul-mouthed rage over +the failure of a third attempt to poison the Dauphin of Vienne, as +Queen Isabeau had previously poisoned her two elder sons; I might here +trace out a curious similitude between the Valois and that +dragon-spawned race which Jason very anciently slew at Colchis, since +the world was never at peace so long as any two of them existed. But +King Charles greeted his daughter with ampler deference, esteeming her +to be the wife of Presbyter John, the tyrant of Aethiopia. However, +ingenuity had just suggested card-playing for King Charles' amusement, +and he paid little attention nowadays to any one save his opponent at +this new game. + +So the French King chirped his senile jests over the card-table, while +the King of England was besieging the French city of Rouen sedulously +and without mercy. In late autumn an armament from Ireland joined +Henry's forces. The Irish fought naked, it was said, with long knives. +Katharine heard discreditable tales of these Irish, and reflected how +gross are the exaggerations of rumor. + +In the year of grace 1419, in January, the burgesses of Rouen, having +consumed their horses, and finding frogs and rats unpalatable, yielded +the town. It was the Queen-Regent who brought the news to Katharine. + +"God is asleep," the Queen said; "and while He nods, the Butcher of +Agincourt has stolen our good city of Rouen." She sat down and +breathed heavily. "Never was any poor woman so pestered as I! The +puddings to-day were quite uneatable, as you saw for yourself, and on +Sunday the Englishman entered Rouen in great splendor, attended by his +chief nobles; but the Butcher rode alone, and before him went a page +carrying a fox-brush on the point of his lance. I put it to you, is +that the contrivance of a sane man? Euh! euh!" Dame Isabeau squealed +on a sudden; "you are bruising me." + +Katharine had gripped her by the shoulder. "The King of England--a +tall, fair man? with big teeth? a tiny wen upon his neck--here--and +with his left cheek scarred? with blue eyes, very bright, bright as +tapers?" She poured out her questions in a torrent, and awaited the +answer, seeming not to breathe at all. + +"I believe so," the Queen said, "and they say, too, that he has the +damned squint of old Manuel the Redeemer." + +"O God!" said Katharine. + +"Ay, our only hope now. And may God show him no more mercy than has +this misbegotten English butcher shown us!" the good lady desired, +with fervor. "The hog, having won our Normandy, is now advancing on +Paris itself. He repudiated the Aragonish alliance last August; and +until last August he was content with Normandy, they tell us, but now +he swears to win all France. The man is a madman, and Scythian +Tamburlaine was more lenient. And I do not believe that in all France +there is a cook who understands his business." She went away +whimpering, and proceeded to get tipsy. + +The Princess remained quite still, as Dame Isabeau had left her; you +may see a hare crouch so at sight of the hounds. Finally the girl +spoke aloud. "Until last August!" Katharine said. "Until last August! +_Poised kingdoms topple on the brink of ruin, now that you bid me come +to you again_. And I bade this devil's grandson come to me, as my +lover!" Presently she went into her oratory and began to pray. + +In the midst of her invocation she wailed: "Fool, fool! How could I +have thought him less than a king!" + +You are to imagine her breast thus adrum with remorse and hatred of +herself, the while that town by town fell before the invader like +card-houses. Every rumor of defeat--and the news of some fresh defeat +came daily--was her arraignment; impotently she cowered at God's +knees, knowing herself a murderess, whose infamy was still afoot, +outpacing her prayers, whose victims were battalions. Tarpeia and +Pisidice and Rahab were her sisters; she hungered in her abasement for +Judith's nobler guilt. + +In May he came to her. A truce was patched up, and French and English +met amicably in a great plain near Meulan. A square space was staked +out and on three sides boarded in, the fourth side being the river +Seine. This enclosure the Queen-Regent, Jehan of Burgundy, and +Katharine entered from the French side. Simultaneously the English +King appeared, accompanied by his brothers the Dukes of Clarence and +Gloucester, and followed by the Earl of Warwick. Katharine raised her +eyes with I know not what lingering hope; but it was he, a young Zeus +now, triumphant and uneager. In his helmet in place of a plume he wore +a fox-brush spangled with jewels. + +These six entered the tent pitched for the conference--the hanging of +blue velvet embroidered with fleurs-de-lys of gold blurred before the +girl's eyes,--and there the Earl of Warwick embarked upon a sea of +rhetoric. His French was indifferent, his periods were interminable, +and his demands exorbitant; in brief, the King of England wanted +Katharine and most of France, with a reversion at the French King's +death of the entire kingdom. Meanwhile Sire Henry sat in silence, his +eyes glowing. + +"I have come," he said, under cover of Warwick's oratory--"I have come +again, my lady." + +Katharine's gaze flickered over him. "Liar!" she said, very softly. +"Has God no thunders remaining in His armory that this vile thief +still goes unblasted? Would you steal love as well as kingdoms?" + +His ruddy face was now white. "I love you, Katharine." + +"Yes," she answered, "for I am your pretext. I can well believe, +messire, that you love your pretext for theft and murder." + +Neither spoke after this, and presently the Earl of Warwick having +come to his peroration, the matter was adjourned till the next day. +The party separated. It was not long before Katharine had informed her +mother that, God willing, she would never again look upon the King of +England's face uncoffined. Isabeau found her a madwoman. The girl +swept opposition before her with gusts of demoniacal fury, wept, +shrieked, tore at her hair, and eventually fell into a sort of +epileptic seizure; between rage and terror she became a horrid, +frenzied beast. I do not dwell upon this, for it is not a condition in +which the comeliest maid shows to advantage. But, for the Valois, +insanity always lurked at the next corner, and they knew it; to save +the girl's reason the Queen was forced to break off all discussion of +the match. Accordingly, the Duke of Burgundy went next day to the +conference alone. Jehan began with "ifs," and over these flimsy +barriers Henry, already fretted by Katharine's scorn, presently +vaulted to a towering fury. + +"Fair cousin," the King said, after a deal of vehement bickering, "we +wish you to know that we will have the daughter of your King, and that +we will drive both him and you out of this kingdom." + +The Duke answered, not without spirit, "Sire, you are pleased to say +so; but before you have succeeded in ousting my lord and me from this +realm, I am of the opinion that you will be very heartily tired." + +At this the King turned on his heel; over his shoulder he flung: "I am +tireless; also, I am agile as a fox in the pursuit of my desires. Say +that to your Princess." Then he went away in a rage. + +It had seemed an approvable business to win love incognito, according +to the example of many ancient emperors, but in practice he had +tripped over an ugly outgrowth from the legendary custom. The girl +hated him, there was no doubt about it; and it was equally certain he +loved her. Particularly caustic was the reflection that a twitch of +his finger would get him Katharine as his wife, for before long the +Queen-Regent was again attempting secret negotiations to bring this +about. Yes, he could get the girl's body by a couple of pen-strokes, +and had he been older that might have contented him: as it was, what +he wanted was to rouse the look her eyes had borne in Chartres orchard +that tranquil morning, and this one could not readily secure by +fiddling with seals and parchments. You see his position: this +high-spirited young man now loved the Princess too utterly to take her +on lip-consent, and this marriage was now his one possible excuse for +ceasing from victorious warfare. So he blustered, and the fighting +recommenced; and he slew in a despairing rage, knowing that by every +movement of his arm he became to her so much the more detestable. + +Then the Vicomte de Montbrison, as you have heard, betrayed France, +and King Henry began to strip the French realm of provinces as you +peel the layers from an onion. By the May of the year of grace 1420 +France was, and knew herself to be, not beaten but demolished. Only a +fag-end of the French army lay entrenched at Troyes, where King +Charles and his court awaited Henry's decision as to the morrow's +action. If he chose to destroy them root and branch, he could; and +they knew such mercy as was in the man to be quite untarnished by +previous using. Sire Henry drew up a small force before the city and +made no overtures toward either peace or throat-cutting. + +This was the posture of affairs on the evening of the Sunday after +Ascension day, when Katharine sat at cards with her father in his +apartments at the Hotel de Ville. The King was pursing his lips over +an alternative play, when somebody began singing below in the +courtyard. + +Sang the voice: + + "I can find no meaning in life, + That have weighed the world,--and it was + Abundant with folly, and rife + With sorrows brittle as glass, + And with joys that flicker and pass + Like dreams through a fevered head; + And like the dripping of rain + In gardens naked and dead + Is the obdurate thin refrain + Of our youth which is presently dead. + + "And she whom alone I have loved + Looks ever with loathing on me, + As one she hath seen disproved + And stained with such smirches as be + Not ever cleansed utterly; + And is both to remember the days + When Destiny fixed her name + As the theme and the goal of my praise; + And my love engenders shame, + And I stain what I strive for and praise. + + "O love, most perfect of all, + Just to have known you is well! + And it heartens me now to recall + That just to have known you is well, + And naught else is desirable + Save only to do as you willed + And to love you my whole life long;-- + But this heart in me is filled + With hunger cruel and strong, + And with hunger unfulfilled. + + "Fond heart, though thy hunger be + As a flame that wanders unstilled, + There is none more perfect than she!" + +Malise now came into the room, and, without speaking, laid a fox-brush +before the Princess. + +Katharine twirled it in her hand, staring at the card-littered table. +"So you are in his pay, Malise? I am sorry. But you know that your +employer is master here. Who am I to forbid him entrance?" The girl +went away silently, abashed, and the Princess sat quite still, tapping +the brush against the table. + +"They do not want me to sign another treaty, do they?" her father +asked timidly. "It appears to me they are always signing treaties, and +I cannot see that any good comes of it. And I would have won the last +game, Katharine, if Malise had not interrupted us. You know I would +have won." + +"Yes, Father, you would have won. Oh, he must not see you!" Katharine +cried, a great tide of love mounting in her breast, the love that +draws a mother fiercely to shield her backward boy. "Father, will you +not go into your chamber? I have a new book for you, Father--all +pictures, dear. Come--" She was coaxing him when Sire Henry appeared +in the doorway. + +"But I do not wish to look at pictures," Charles said, peevishly; "I +wish to play cards. You are an ungrateful daughter, Katharine. You are +never willing to amuse me." He sat down with a whimper and began to +pluck at his dribbling lips. + +Katharine had moved a little toward the door. Her face was white. "Now +welcome, sire!" she said. "Welcome, O great conqueror, who in your +hour of triumph can find no nobler recreation than to shame a maid +with her past folly! It was valorously done, sire. See, Father; here +is the King of England come to observe how low we sit that yesterday +were lords of France." + +"The King of England!" echoed Charles, and he rose now to his feet. "I +thought we were at war with him. But my memory is treacherous. You +perceive, brother of England, I am planning a new mouse-trap, and my +mind is somewhat preempted. I recall now that you are in treaty for my +daughter's hand. Katharine is a good girl, a fine upstanding girl, but +I suppose--" He paused, as if to regard and hear some invisible +counsellor, and then briskly resumed: "Yes, I suppose policy demands +that she should marry you. We trammelled kings can never go free of +policy--ey, my compere of England? No; it was through policy I wedded +her mother; and we have been very unhappy, Isabeau and I. A word in +your ear, son-in-law: Madame Isabeau's soul formerly inhabited a sow, +as Pythagoras teaches, and when our Saviour cast it out at Gadara, the +influence of the moon drew it hither." + +Henry did not say anything. Steadily his calm blue eyes appraised Dame +Katharine. And King Charles went on, very knowingly: + +"Oho, these Latinists cannot hoodwink me, you observe, though by +ordinary it chimes with my humor to appear content. Policy again, +son-in-law: for once roused, I am terrible. To-day in the great +hall-window, under the bleeding feet of Lazarus, I slew ten flies-- +very black they were, the black shrivelled souls of parricides,--and +afterward I wept for it. I often weep; the Mediterranean hath its +sources in my eyes, for my daughter cheats at cards. Cheats, sir!--and +I her father!" The incessant peering, the stealthy cunning with which +Charles whispered this, the confidence with which he clung to his +destroyer's hand, was that of a conspiring child. + + +"Come, Father," Katharine said. "Come away to bed, dear." + +"Hideous basilisk!" he spat at her; "dare you rebel against me? Am I +not King of France, and is it not blasphemy for a King of France to be +mocked? Frail moths that flutter about my splendor," he shrieked, in +an unheralded frenzy, "beware of me, beware! for I am omnipotent! I am +King of France, Heaven's regent. At my command the winds go about the +earth, and nightly the stars are kindled for my recreation. Perhaps I +am mightier than God, but I do not remember now. The reason is written +down and lies somewhere under a bench. Now I sail for England. Eia! +eia! I go to ravage England, terrible and merciless. But I must have +my mouse-traps, Goodman Devil, for in England the cats of the +middle-sea wait unfed." He went out of the room, giggling, and in the +corridor began to sing: + + "A hundred thousand times good-bye! + I go to seek the Evangelist, + For here all persons cheat and lie ..." + +All this while Henry remained immovable, his eyes fixed upon +Katharine. Thus (she meditated) he stood among Frenchmen; he was the +boulder, and they the waters that babbled and fretted about him. But +she turned and met his gaze squarely. She noted now for the first time +how oddly his left eyebrow drooped. Katharine said: "And that is the +king whom you have conquered! Is it not a notable conquest to overcome +so wise a king? to pilfer renown from an idiot? There are cut-throats +in Troyes, rogues doubly damned, who would scorn the action. Now shall +I fetch my mother, sire? the commander of that great army which you +overcame? As the hour is late, she is by this time tipsy, but she will +come. Or perhaps she is with some paid lover, but if this conqueror, +this second Alexander, wills it she will come. O God!" the girl +wailed, on a sudden; "O just and all-seeing God! are not we of Valois +so contemptible that in conquering us it is the victor who is shamed?" + +"Flower of the marsh!" he said, and his voice pulsed with tender +cadences--"flower of the marsh! it is not the King of England who now +comes to you, but Alain the harper. Henry Plantagenet God has led +hither by the hand to punish the sins of this realm, and to reign in +it like a true king. Henry Plantagenet will cast out the Valois from +the throne they have defiled, as Darius cast out Belshazzar, for such +is the desire and the intent of God. But to you comes Alain the +harper, not as a conqueror but as a suppliant,--Alain who has loved +you whole-heartedly these two years past, and who now kneels before +you entreating grace." + +Katharine looked down into his countenance, for to his speech he had +fitted action. Suddenly and for the first time she understood that he +believed France to be his by Divine favor and Heaven's peculiar +intervention. He thought himself God's factor, not His rebel. He was +rather stupid, this huge, handsome, squinting boy; and as she +comprehended this, her hand went to his shoulder, half maternally. + +"It is nobly done, sire. But I understand. You must marry me in order +to uphold your claim to France. You sell, and I with my body purchase, +peace for France. There is no need of a lover's posture when hucksters +meet." + +"So changed!" he said, and he was silent for an interval, still +kneeling. Then he began: "You force me to point out that I do not need +any pretext for holding France. France lies before me prostrate. By +God's singular grace I reign in this fair kingdom, mine by right of +conquest, and an alliance with the house of Valois will neither make +nor mar me." She was unable to deny this, unpalatable as was the fact. +"But I love you, and therefore as man wooes woman I sue to you. Do you +not understand that there can be between us no question of expediency? +Katharine, in Chartres orchard there met a man and a maid we know of; +now in Troyes they meet again,--not as princess and king, but as man +and maid, the wooer and the wooed. Once I touched your heart, I think. +And now in all the world there is one thing I covet--to gain for the +poor king some portion of that love you would have squandered on the +harper." His hand closed upon her hand. + +At his touch the girl's composure vanished. "My lord, you woo too +timidly for one who comes with many loud-voiced advocates. I am +daughter to the King of France, and next to my soul's salvation I +esteem the welfare of France. Can I, then, fail to love the King of +England, who chooses the blood of my countrymen as a judicious garb to +come a-wooing in? How else, since you have ravaged my native land, +since you have besmirched the name I bear, since yonder afield every +wound in my dead and yet unburied Frenchmen is to me a mouth which +shrieks your infamy?" + +He rose. "And yet, for all that, you love me." + +She could not at the first effort find words with which to answer him, +but presently she said, quite simply, "To see you lying in your coffin +I would willingly give up my hope of heaven, for heaven can afford no +sight more desirable." + +"You loved Alain." + +"I loved the husk of a man. You can never comprehend how utterly I +loved him." + +"You are stubborn. I shall have trouble with you. But this notion of +yours is plainly a mistaken notion. That you love me is indisputable, +and this I propose to demonstrate. You will observe that I am quite +unarmed except for this dagger, which I now throw out of the +window--" with the word it jangled in the courtyard below. "I am in +Troyes alone among some thousand Frenchmen, any one of whom would +willingly give his life for the privilege of taking mine. You have but +to sound the gong beside you, and in a few moments I shall be a dead +man. Strike, then! For with me dies the English power in France. +Strike, Katharine! If you see in me but the King of England." + +She was rigid; and his heart leapt when he saw it was because of +terror. + +"You came alone! You dared!" + +He answered, with a wonderful smile, "Proud spirit! How else might I +conquer you?" + +"You have not conquered!" Katharine lifted the baton beside the gong, +poising it. God had granted her prayer--to save France. Now the past +and the ignominy of the past might be merged in Judith's nobler guilt. +But I must tell you that in the supreme hour, Destiny at her beck, her +main desire was to slap the man for his childishness. Oh, he had no +right thus to besot himself with adoration! This dejection at her feet +of his high destiny awed her, and pricked her, too, with her inability +to understand him. Angrily she flung away the baton. "Go! Ah, go!" she +cried, like one strangling. "There has been enough of bloodshed, and I +must spare you, loathing you as I do, for I cannot with my own hand +murder you." + +But the King was a kindly tyrant, crushing independence from his +associates as lesser folk squeeze water from a sponge. "I cannot go +thus. Acknowledge me to be Alain, the man you love, or else strike +upon the gong." + +"You are cruel!" she wailed, in her torture. + +"Yes, I am cruel." + +Katharine raised straining arms above her head in a hard gesture of +despair. "You have conquered. You know that I love you. Oh, if I could +find words to voice my shame, to shriek it in your face, I could +better endure it! For I love you. With all my body and heart and soul +I love you. Mine is the agony, for I love you! and presently I shall +stand quite still and see little Frenchmen scramble about you as +hounds leap about a stag, and afterward kill you. And after that I +shall live! I preserve France, but after I have slain you, Henry, I +must live. Mine is the agony, the enduring agony." She stayed +motionless for an interval. "God, God! Let me not fail!" Katharine +breathed; and then: "O fair sweet friend, I am about to commit a vile +action, but it is for the sake of the France that I love next to God. +As Judith gave her body to Holofernes, I crucify my heart for the +preservation of France." Very calmly she struck upon the gong. + +If she could have found any reproach in his eyes during the ensuing +silence, she could have borne it; but there was only love. And with +all that, he smiled like one who knew the upshot of this matter. + +A man-at-arms came into the room. "Germain--" said Katharine, and then +again, "Germain--" She gave a swallowing motion and was silent. When +she spoke it was with crisp distinctness. "Germain, fetch a harp. +Messire Alain here is about to play for me." + +At the man's departure she said: "I am very pitiably weak. Need you +have dragged my soul, too, in the dust? God heard my prayer, and you +have forced me to deny His favor, as Peter denied Christ. My dear, be +very kind to me, for I come to you naked of honor." She fell at the +King's feet, embracing his knees. "My master, be very kind to me, for +there remains only your love." + +He raised her to his breast. "Love is enough," he said. + +She was conscious, as he held her thus, of the chain mail under his +jerkin. He had come armed; he had his soldiers no doubt in the +corridor; he had tricked her, it might be from the first. But that did +not matter now. + +"Love is enough," she told her master docilely. + +Next day the English entered Troyes and in the cathedral church these +two were betrothed. Henry was there magnificent in a curious suit of +burnished armor; in place of his helmet-plume he wore a fox-brush +ornamented with jewels, which unusual ornament afforded great matter +of remark among the busybodies of both armies. + +THE END OF THE TENTH NOVEL + + + + +THE EPILOGUE + + + "Et je fais scavoir a tous lecteurs de ce Livret que les choses que + je dis avoir vues et sues sont enregistres icy, afin que vous pouviez + les regarder selon vostre bon sens, s'il vous plaist." + +HERE IS APPENDED THE EPILOGUE THAT MESSIRE NICOLAS DE CAEN AFFIXED TO +THE BOOK WHICH HE HAD MADE ACCORDING TO THE BEST OF HIS ABILITY; AND +WHICH (IN CONSEQUENCE) HE DARED NOT APPRAISE. + + + + +_The Epilogue_ + + +_A Son Livret_ + + +Intrepidly depart, my little book, into the presence of that most +illustrious lady who bade me compile you. Bow down before her +judgment. And if her sentence be that of a fiery death, I counsel you +not to grieve at what cannot be avoided. + +But, if by any miracle that glorious, strong fortress of the weak +consider it advisable that you remain unburned, pass thence, my little +book, to every man who may desire to purchase you, and live out your +little hour among these very credulous persons; and at your appointed +season perish and be forgotten. Thus may you share your betters' fate, +and be at one with those famed comedies of Greek Menander and all the +poignant songs of Sappho. _Et quid Pandoniae_--thus, little book, I +charge you to poultice your more-merited oblivion--_quid Pandoniae +restat nisi nomen Athenae?_ + +Yet even in your brief existence you may chance to meet with those who +will affirm that the stories you narrate are not true and protest +assertions which are only fables. To these you will reply that I, your +maker, was in my youth the quite unworthy servant of the most high and +noble lady, Dame Jehane, and in this period, at and about her house of +Havering-Bower, conversed in my own person with Dame Katharine, then +happily remarried to a private gentleman of Wales; and so obtained the +matter of the ninth story and of the tenth authentically. You will say +also that Messire de Montbrison afforded me the main matter of the +sixth and seventh stories, and many of the songs which this book +contains; and that, moreover, I once journeyed to Caer Idion and +talked for some two hours with Richard Holland (whom I found a very +old and garrulous and cheery person), and got of him the matter of the +eighth tale in this dizain, together with much information as concerns +the sixth and the seventh. And you will add that the matter of the +fourth and fifth tales was in every detail related to me by my most +illustrious mistress, Madame Isabella of Portugal, who had this +information from her mother, an equally veracious and immaculate lady, +and one that was in youth Dame Philippa's most dear associate. For the +rest you must admit, unwillingly, the first three stories in this book +to be a thought less solidly confirmed; although (as you will say) +even in these histories I have not ever deviated from what was at odd +times narrated to me by the aforementioned persons, and have always +endeavored honestly to piece together that which they told me. + +I have pieced together these tales about the women who intermarried, +not very enviably, with the demon-tainted blood of Edward Longshanks, +because it seems to me that these tales, when they are rightly +considered, compose the initial portion of a troubling history. +Whether (as some declare) the taint came from Manuel of Poictesme, or +whether (as yet others say) this poison was inherited from the demon +wife whom Foulques Plantagenet fetched out of hell, the blood in these +men was not all human. These men might not tread equally with human +beings: their wives suffered therefor, just as they that had inherited +this blood suffered therefor, and all England suffered therefor. And +the upshot of it I have narrated elsewhere, in the book called and +entitled _The Red Cuckold_, which composes the final portion of this +history, and tells of the last spilling and of the extinction of this +blood. + +Also, my little book, you will encounter more malignant people who +will jeer at you, and will say that you and I have cheated them of +your purchase-money. To these you will reply, with Plutarch, _Non mi +aurum posco, nec mi pretium_. Secondly you will say that, of +necessity, the tailor cuts the coat according to his cloth; and that +he cannot undertake to robe an Ephialtes or a towering Orion suitably +when the resources of his shop amount to only a few yards of cambric. +Indeed had I the power to make you better, my little book, I would +have exercised that power to the utmost. A good conscience is a +continual feast, and I summon high Heaven to be my witness that had I +been Homer you had awed the world, another Iliad. I lament your +inability to do this, as heartily as any person living; yet Heaven +willed it; and it is in consequence to Heaven these aforementioned +cavillers should rightfully complain. + +So to such impious people do you make no answer at all, unless indeed +you should elect to answer them by repetition of this song which I now +make for you, my little book, at your departure from me. And the song +runs in this fashion: + + Depart, depart, my book! and live and die + Dependent on the idle fantasy + Of men who cannot view you, quite, as I. + + For I am fond, and willingly mistake + My book to be the book I meant to make, + And cannot judge you, for that phantom's sake. + + Yet pardon me if I have wrought too ill + In making you, that never spared the will + To shape you perfectly, and lacked the skill. + + Ah, had I but the power, my book, then I + Had wrought in you some wizardry so high + That no man but had listened ... + + They pass by, + And shrug--as we, who know that unto us + It has been granted never to fare thus, + And never to be strong and glorious. + + Is it denied me to perpetuate + What so much loving labor did create?-- + I hear Oblivion tap upon the gate, + And acquiesce, not all disconsolate. + + For I have got such recompense + Of that high-hearted excellence + Which the contented craftsman knows, + Alone, that to loved labor goes, + And daily does the work he chose, + And counts all else impertinence! + +EXPLICIT DECAS REGINARUM + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHIVALRY*** + + +******* This file should be named 11752.txt or 11752.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/7/5/11752 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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