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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Chivalry, by James Branch Cabell
+
+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
+
+Illustrator: Howard Pyle
+             William Hurd Lawrence
+             Elizabeth Shippen Green
+
+Release Date: August 26, 2008 [EBook #22463]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHIVALRY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Cover art]
+
+
+[Frontispiece: "'I SING OF DEATH'"  _Painting by Howard Pyle_]
+
+
+[Illustration: Title page]
+
+
+
+
+
+Chivalry
+
+
+By
+
+James Branch Cabell
+
+
+
+
+
+  "_And I, according to my copy, and
+  after the simple cunning that God hath
+  sent to me, have down set this in print,
+  to the intent that noble men may see and
+  learn the noble acts of chivalry._"
+
+
+
+
+Illustrated
+
+
+
+New York and London
+
+Harper & Brothers Publishers
+
+1909
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1909, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
+
+
+_All rights reserved._
+
+Published October, 1909.
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+Anne Branch Cabell
+
+
+  "AINSI À VOUS, MADAME, À MA TRÈS HAULTE ET
+  TRÈS NOBLE DAME, À QUI J'AYME À DEVOIR
+  ATTACHEMENT ET OBÉISSANCE,
+  J'ENVOYE CE LIVRET."
+
+
+
+
+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
+our author be a little 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 him 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 rejection, 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,
+some passages have been restored in book-form--pre-eminently to _"THE
+STORY OF THE HOUSEWIFE"_--that in an anterior publication had been
+unavoidably deleted through consideration of space._
+
+_And--"sixth and lastly"--should confession be made that in the present
+rendering a purely arbitrary title has been assigned this little book;
+and chiefly for commercial reasons, since the word "dizain" has been
+adjudged both untranslatable and, in its pristine form, repellantly
+outré._
+
+_You are to give my 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._
+
+_So here you have a chance to peer at our world's youth when chivalry
+was regnant, and common-sense and cowardice were still at nurse.  And,
+questionless, these same conditions were the source of an age-long
+mêlée--such as this week is, happily, impossible in any of our
+parishes--wherein contended "courtesy, and humanity, friendliness,
+hardihood, love and friendship, and murder, hate, and virtue, and sin."
+So that I can only counsel you to do after the excellencies and leave
+the iniquity._
+
+_And for the rest, since good wine needs no hush, and an inferior
+beverage is not likely to be bettered by arboreal adornment, the
+reteller of these tales prefers to piece out his 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."_
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+CHAP.
+
+        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
+
+
+
+
+Illustrations
+
+
+"'I SING OF DEATH'"  . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
+
+"THEY WERE OVERTAKEN BY FALMOUTH HIMSELF"
+
+"IN AN INSTANT THE PLACE RESOUNDED LIKE A SMITHY"
+
+"SHE HAD VIEWED THE GREAT CONQUEROR"
+
+"'MY PRISONER!' SHE SAID"
+
+"'DO YOU FORSAKE SIRE EDWARD, CATHERINE?'"
+
+"'HAIL YE THAT ARE MY KINSMEN!'"
+
+"IN THE LIKENESS OF A FAIR WOMAN"
+
+"'YOU DESIGN MURDER?' RICHARD ASKED"
+
+"'TAKE NOW YOUR PETTY VENGEANCE!'"
+
+"SO FOR A HEART-BEAT SHE SAW HIM"
+
+"NICOLAS: À SON LIVRET"
+
+
+
+
+The Prologue
+
+  "_Afin que les entreprises honorables et les nobles aventures
+  et faicts d'armes soyent noblement enregistrés et conservés,
+  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.
+
+
+
+Chivalry
+
+
+The Prologue
+
+_À 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; and your
+postulant now approaches as one not spurred toward you by vainglory but
+rather by plain equity, and simply in acknowledgment of the fact 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.
+In fine, I humbly bring my book to you as Phidyle approached another
+and less sacred shrine, _farre pio et salente 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 even 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 Nicolette shall be discovered in the end to be no less than
+the King's daughter of Carthage, and that Sir Doon 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 as well.
+
+Kings have their policies and wars wherewith to drug each 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 of
+old Horatius Flaccus demanded, though not, to speak the truth, of any
+woman,--
+
+  _Quo fugis? ah demons! 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, and 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 to justify that choice in the ensuing action; 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 a now extinct and dusty time.
+
+For 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 all
+humanity.  For in that aweful moment would Destiny have thrust her
+sceptre into the hands of a human being and Chance would have exalted a
+human being into usurpal of her chair.  These two--with what immortal
+chucklings one may facilely imagine--would then have left the weakling
+thus enthroned, free to direct the pregnant outcome, free to choose,
+and free to steer the conjuration either in the fashion of Friar Bacon
+or of his man, 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_.
+
+It is of ten such moments that I treat within this little book.
+
+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 sat often in
+this same high chair of Chance; and in so doing have both graced and
+hallowed it.  Yet I forbear to speak of this, simply because I dare not
+seem to couple your well-known perfection with any imperfect encomium.
+
+
+  _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 EITHER
+  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?"  He 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 shrivelled 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 advent cast aside.  "O 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 Count
+Bérenger, then reigning in Provence, had about his court four daughters,
+each one of whom was afterward wedded to a king.  First, Margaret, the
+eldest, now regnant in France; then Alianora, the second and most
+beautiful of these daughters, whom troubadours hymned as La Belle.  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 good
+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 my father envied," the Queen said;
+and then, with a new eagerness: "Messire, can it be that you are Osmund
+Heleigh?"  He shrugged assent.  She looked at him for a long time, rather
+sadly, and afterward demanded if he were the King's man or of the barons'
+party.  The nervous hands were raised in deprecation.
+
+"I have no politics," he began, and altered it, gallantly enough, to, "I
+am the Queen's man, madame."
+
+"Then aid me, Osmund," she said; and 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.
+"And 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 him.  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 pious Lewis of that
+realm.  Eh, what is God about when He enthrones these cowards, Osmund?
+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, the sudden
+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 to this detestable island in
+disguise, accompanied by Avenel de Giars and Hubert Fitz-Herveis.
+To-night some half-dozen fellows--robbers, thorough knaves, like all you
+English,--suddenly 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 said, "for he made excellent songs.
+But Fitz-Herveis?--foh! the man had a face like a horse."  Then again her
+mood changed.  "Many men 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 happy.  Now
+you behold me in my 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 hastily 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.  And Lord Brudenel, as you doubtless know, is of the
+barons' party and--scant cause for grief!--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 a very curious 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,--any price in reason for 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,--"since 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 a viol and a long falchion
+for himself, and had somewhere got suitable clothes for the Queen; and in
+their aging but decent garb the two approached near enough to the
+similitude of what they desired to be esteemed.  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 appeared to consider 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 with the Sestina of Spring"?  Osmund Heleigh
+grunted.
+
+"I have forgotten that rubbish long ago.  _Omnis amans, amens_, saith the
+satirist of Rome town, and with some show of 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 so 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 their 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.
+
+[Illustration: "THEY WERE OVERTAKEN BY FALMOUTH HIMSELF" _Painting by
+Howard Pyle_]
+
+"That is very 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 a more threatening adventure befell.  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 among them--a swarthy rascal with his
+head tied in a napkin--demanded that the jongleurs grace their meal with
+a song.
+
+At first Osmund 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 him by the
+throat, shaking him.  In the act this rascal tore open Messire Heleigh's
+tunic, disclosing a thin chain about his neck and a small locket, which
+the fellow wrested from its fastening.  "Ahoi!" he continued.  "Ahoi, my
+comrades, what species 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, for 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 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
+    Marshal his triumph! ah, make haste to see
+  With what tempestuous pageantry they bring
+    Mirth back to earth! hasten, for this is he
+  That cast out Winter and the 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._
+
+  "_Anon in Brittany must Tristan cling
+    To this or that sad memory, and be
+  Alone, as she in Cornwall, for in Spring
+    Love sows, and lovers reap anon--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 ebb back into the lean man like water over a crumbling
+dam.  His voice was now big and desirous.
+
+Sang Messire Heleigh:
+
+  "_Love sows, and 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._
+
+  "_Here Death is;--and no Heracles may bring
+    Alcestis hence, nor here may Roland see
+  The eyes of Aude, nor here the wakening spring
+    Vex any man with memory, for there be
+  No memories that cling as cerements cling,
+    No Love that baffles Death, more strong than he._
+
+  "_Us hath he noted, and for us hath he
+    An how appointed, and that hour will bring
+  Oblivion.--Then, laugh!  Laugh, love, and see
+    The tyrant mocked, what time our bosoms cling,
+  What time our lips are red, what time we be
+    Exultant in our little hour of spring!_
+
+  "_Thus in the spring we mock at Death, though he
+    Will see our children perish and will bring
+  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 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_ both 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! fraid 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 him--do you understand?--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.  Remember
+that I cry _nihil ad Andromachen_!  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.'
+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 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 in all my English
+life, Osmund, has 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 makes the best of it and amuses 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
+His 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 may not
+yield!" he cried, with an unheralded, odd wildness.
+
+"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, with a fine irrelevance, "though you are very droll.
+Ohimé! 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, they 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.  They went without molestation; malice and death had
+journeyed on their road aforetime, as heralds, 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 as for
+inspection; meticulously she observed and appraised her handiwork.
+
+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 killed them all.  And little
+children, my Osmund!  The hair like corn-floss, 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?"
+
+"Not cowards!" he cried.  "Your men and Leicester's ride about the world,
+and draw sword and slay and die for the right as they see it.  And you
+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
+the Arabian bird, arises from these ashes a lordlier and more spacious
+town."
+
+Then they went forward.  The next day Fate 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
+chançons--"  Here 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 to his feet, 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 gone 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.  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 his 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 it up 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 reasons of His own, madame," he observed, "and doubtless for
+sufficient ones, 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 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 à outrance," 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, and they bade one another farewell.
+
+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, 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_,
+and this he sang with a lilt gayer than the matter of it countenanced.
+Faintly there now came to them the sound of his singing, and they found
+it, in the circumstances, ominously adapt.
+
+Sang Camoys:
+
+  "_Et vos, par qui je n'oi onques aïe,
+  Descendez tuit en infer le par font._"
+
+
+Dame Alianora shivered.  "No, no!" she cried.  "Is He less pitiful than
+we?"
+
+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--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 very likely.  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.
+
+"Mon bel esper," said Osmund Heleigh, very 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 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 wailed.  "You gave me gallant
+service, and I have requited you with death!"
+
+"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 life."  His eyes were fervent now.
+
+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, that hereafter men may not say I was slain in an evil cause.  Do
+not shame my maiden venture."
+
+"I will not shame you," the Queen proudly said; and then, with a change
+of voice: "O my Osmund!  My Osmund!"
+
+He caught her by each wrist.  "Hush!" he bade her, roughly; and stood
+crushing both her hands to his lips, with fierce staring.  "Wife of my
+King! wife of my King!" he babbled; and then flung her from him, crying,
+with a great lift of speech: "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, though by this the fear of death had gripped him to
+the marrow; and as he went he sang defiantly, taunting the weakness of
+his flesh.
+
+Sang Osmund Heleigh:
+
+  "_Love sows, and 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 the man was a brave one," 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 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."
+
+"The act was very like him," the Queen said.  "Messire Camoys, I think
+that this day is a festival in heaven."
+
+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 à Dieu ja la nueitz non falhis,
+  Ni 'l mieus amicx lonc de mi no s partis,
+  Ni la gayta jorn ni alba ne vis.
+  Oy Dieus! oy Dieus! de l' alba tan tost ve!_"
+
+
+
+  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 Gâtinais 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
+Entréchat, 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 his news, and a pregnant one.  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 Gâtinais chaffered fairly; he had a vote, Alphonso had a
+sister.  So that, in effect--ohé, 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-à-pie, and in consequence 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 covenanters 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
+Gâtinais, and in exchange get the latter's vote; and Gui Foulques of
+Sabionetta--now Clement, fourth Pope to assume that name--would annul
+the previous marriage, they planned, 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; the barons' power was demolished, there would be no more
+internecine war; and spurred by the unaccustomed idleness, he 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 d'Ebernoe 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 latterly the Prince
+went into Lower Picardy alone, riding at adventure as he loved to do,
+and thus came to Entréchat, 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, so that within
+the instant these five fell into an 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 the death of Sire Edward, the King of England's son:
+and manifestly there was here an actionable difference of opinion; so
+he had his sword out and presently killed the four of them.
+
+Anon there 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 a very untidy condition.
+And seated among them, as throned upon the boulder, was a gigantic and
+florid person, so tall that the heads of few people reached to his
+shoulder; a person of handsome exterior, blond, and chested like a
+stallion, whose left eyebrow drooped so oddly that even in anger the
+stupendous man appeared to assure you, quite confidentially, that the
+dilapidation he threatened was an excellent jest.
+
+"Fair friend," said the page.  "God give you joy! and why have you
+converted this forest into a shambles?"
+
+The Prince told him 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 talc 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 over heels in the
+confidence of my wife."
+
+Now the boy arose and defiantly flung back his head in shrill laughter.
+"Your wife!  Oh, God ha' 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 twain brought face to face."
+
+Prince Edward said, "That is very near the truth."  But, indeed, it was
+the absolute truth, and as concerned himself 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 Gâtinais came a-wooing--and he is a handsome man."  The page
+made known all which de Gâtinais 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 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!" he cried, in a new voice.
+
+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 equity demands I on arrival slay de Gâtinais
+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
+genuinely fond of him.  She found him rather slow of comprehension, and
+was namelessly 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 his more
+stolid 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 hunger
+even.  But now at last 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 done, and later still she and Etienne would be very happy; and,
+in fine, to-morrow was to be a new day.
+
+So these two rode ever 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:
+
+  "_Lord 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._
+
+  "_Ah, heart of mine, that beats so fast
+  As this or that fair maid trips past,
+    Once and with lesser stir
+  We spied the heart's-desire, at last,
+    And turned, and followed her._
+
+  "_For Love had come 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.
+
+For the Prince had quickly fathomed the meaning of the scheme hatched
+in Castile.  "When Manfred is driven out of Sicily they will give the
+throne to de Gâtinais.  He intends to get both a kingdom and a handsome
+wife by this neat affair.  And in reason England must support my uncle
+against El Sabio.  Why, my lad, I ride southward to prevent a war that
+would convulse 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 is our happiness here a trivial matter,
+whereas war is a great disaster.  You have not seen--as I have done, my
+little Miguel--a man viewing his death-wound with a face of stupid
+wonder?--a man about 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 a many such spectacles hereabout that I ride
+southward."
+
+Miguel de Rueda shuddered.  But, "She has her right to happiness," the
+page stubbornly said.
+
+"Not so," the Prince retorted; "since it hath pleased the Emperor of
+Heaven to appoint us twain to lofty stations, to intrust 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.  And 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 Gâtinais.  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 fact.  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 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."
+
+"Nay," Prince Edward said, in misapprehension, for the man was never
+quick-witted--"nay, it is not for my own happiness that I ride
+southward."
+
+The page then said.  "What is her name?"
+
+And Prince Edward answered, very fondly, "Hawise."
+
+"Her, too, I hate," 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 strummed idly as these two debated
+together of great matters; about them was an immeasurable twilight,
+moonless, but tempered by many stars, and everywhere an agreeable
+conference of leaves.
+
+"Listen, my Prince," the boy said more lately: "here is one view of the
+affair."  And he began to chant, without rhyming, without raising his
+voice above the pitch of talk, what time the lute monotonously sobbed
+beneath his fingers.
+
+Sang Miguel:
+
+"_A little while and Irus and Menephtah are at sorry unison, and
+Guenevere is but 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 she 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 fairest of created women, and very wise, but she may never
+understand that at any time one grows aweary of the trodden path._
+
+"_Yet though she cannot understand, this woman who has known me to the
+marrow, I must obey her laudable behests and serve her blindly.  At
+sight of her my love closes over my heart like a flood, so that I am
+speechless and glory in my impotence, as one who stands at last before
+the kindly face of God.  For her sake 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 is a goodly thing, and that I am
+aweary of the trodden path._
+
+"_She is very far from me to-night.  Yonder in the Horselberg 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 o' 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 he, 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; and 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 pale-mouthed priests, 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, what 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, very clearly, that neither existed; and 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, as yet I have not
+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."
+
+"Nay, my little Miguel, I do but 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 path, whether it be my trodden one 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 some roisterer haled before
+the magistrate."
+
+"I consider you to be in the right," the boy said, after a lengthy
+interval, "although I decline--and 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 understand! in part I understand!" the page
+wailed, and now it was Prince Edward who comforted Miguel de Rueda.
+
+For the Prince laid one hand upon his page's hair, and smiled in the
+darkness to note how soft it was, since the man was less a fool than at
+first view you might have taken him to be, and said:
+
+"One must play the game, 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 cog at dice."
+
+The same night Miguel de Rueda sobbed through 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!  Hearken, 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 débonnaire!  O honored Lady!  Thou that wast once
+a woman--!"
+
+You would have said the boy was dying; and in sober verity a deal of
+Miguel de Rueda died upon this night of clearer vision.
+
+Yet he sang the next day as these two rode southward, although half as
+in defiance.
+
+Sang Miguel:
+
+
+  "_And still, whate'er the years may send--
+  Though Time be proven a fickle friend,
+    And Love be shown a liar--
+  I must adore until the end
+    That primal heart's desire._
+
+  "_I may not 'hear men speak of her
+  Unmoved, and vagrant pulses stir
+    Whene'er she passes by,
+  And I again her worshipper
+    Must serve her till I die._
+
+  "_Not she that is doth pass, but she
+  That Time hath riven away from me
+    And in the darkness set--
+  The maid that I may never see,
+    Or gain, or e'er forget._"
+
+
+It was on the following day, near Bazas, these two encountered Adam de
+Gourdon, a Provençal knight, with whom the Prince fought for a long
+while, without either contestant giving way; and 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 Mauléon,
+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 Gâtinais 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 fingertips drumming
+upon the table.  He rose suddenly and flung back his shoulders, all
+resolution to the tiny heels.  On the stairway he passed the black
+little landlord.
+
+"I think," the little landlord considered, "that Saint Michael must
+have been of similar appearance when he went to meet the Evil One.  Ho,
+messire, will there be bloodshed?"
+
+But Miguel de Rueda had passed to the room above.  The door was ajar.
+He paused there.
+
+De Gâtinais 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 of the old tenderness; handsome and
+brave and witty she knew him to be, past reason, as indeed the whole
+world knew him to be distinguished by every namable grace; and the
+innate weakness of de Gâtinais, which she alone suspected, made him now
+seem doubly dear.  Fiercely she wanted to shield him, less from carnal
+injury than from that self-degradation 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 Gâtinais 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 Gâtinais 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.  Nay, rather 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.  And to secure this, 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 'twixt Spain and
+England; to-day El Sabio intends to purchase all 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 Gâtinais spat at him, and
+viciously, for the Frenchman now saw his air-castle shaken to the
+corner-stone.
+
+"They wedded me to the child in order 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 but 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 Gâtinais, more
+deeply than you have planned to sin through luxury and through
+ambition.  Let us then cry quits, Messire de Gâtinais, and afterward
+part in peace, and in common repentance, if you so elect."
+
+"And yield you Ellinor?" de Gâtinais said.  "Nay, 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 Gâtinais 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 most natural that we should desire our reunion to take place at
+Burgos; and she came to Burgos with an escort which I provided."
+
+De Gâtinais sneered.  "So that is the tale you will deliver to the
+world?"
+
+"When I have slain you," the Prince said, "yes.  Yes, since she is a
+woman, and woman is the weaker vessel."
+
+"The reservation is wise.  For once I am dead, Messire Edward, there
+will 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 Gâtinais 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.  And 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 so base as you."
+
+De Gâtinais 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,
+the head of it striking one leg of the table.
+
+[Illustration: "IN AN INSTANT THE PLACE RESOUNDED LIKE A SMITHY"
+_Painting by William Hurd Lawrence_]
+
+"A candle!" de Gâtinais cried, and he panted now--"a hundred candles to
+the Virgin of Beaujolais!"  He shortened his sword to stab the Prince
+of England.
+
+And now the eavesdropper understood.  She flung open the door and fell
+upon Prince Edward, embracing him.  The sword dug deep into her
+shoulder, so that she shrieked once with the cold pain of this wound.
+Then she rose, all ashen.
+
+"Liar!" she said.  "Oh, I am shamed while I share the world with a
+thing so base as you!"
+
+In silence de Gâtinais 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 Gâtinais
+said; "for as God reigns, I love you, and now am I shamed past death."
+
+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.  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," de Gâtinais said.
+
+"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 Gâtinais, you and I
+are not.  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 Gâtinais.
+
+She glanced upward with a pitiable smile.  "Nay, it is you that I love,
+my Etienne.  You cannot understand--can you?--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 Gâtinais 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."
+
+But there was no mercy in the girl, no more for him than for herself.
+The big head lay upon her breast what time she caressed the gross hair
+of it ever so lightly.  "These are tinsel oaths," she crooned, as rapt
+with incurious content; "these are but the protestations of a jongleur.
+A word get you my body?  A word get you, in effect, all which you are
+capable of desiring?  Then why do you not speak that word?"
+
+De Gâtinais raised clenched hands.  "I am shamed," he said; and more
+lately, "It is just."
+
+He left the room and presently rode away with his men.  I say that he
+had done a knightly deed, but she thought little of it, never raised
+her head as the troop clattered from Mauléon, with a lessening beat
+which lapsed now into the blunders of an aging fly who doddered about
+the pane yonder.
+
+She sat thus for a long period, her meditations adrift in the future;
+and that which she foreread left her nor 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 han 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.
+
+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 to the demon-tainted blood of Anjou.  So that next day the
+keeper of the privy purse entered upon the household-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, and more
+lately despatched yet another embassy into France to treat about Sire
+Edward's second marriage.  This last embassy was headed by the Earl of
+Aquitaine.
+
+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 russet were the
+big Earl and his attendants, but upon the scarlets and purples of the
+French lords many jewels shone; as through a corridor of gayly painted
+sunlit glass came the grave Earl 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, hurriedly waved his lords out of
+ear-shot.  His 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 the enfeoffment
+nor the lady, 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 become 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
+lesser title of Earl of Aquitaine, and as his own ambassador.
+
+And 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 trivial circumstance
+that already the bargain was signed and sworn to; and, 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 largely 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 eye, it is recorded, not gently but in a superb fashion.
+And 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 he was, with a crisp beard, and stalwart as a tower; and the
+better-read at Mezelais likened the couple to Sieur Hercules at the
+feet of Queen Omphale when they saw the two so much together.
+
+The ensuing Wednesday the court hunted and slew a stag of ten in the
+woods of Ermenoueïl, which stand thick about the chateau; and upon that
+day 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 considered.
+
+Dame Blanch, it seemed, was undisposed to mirth.  "For 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 will
+not understand, and we will wonder, as the stag did, in helpless
+wonder.  And Death will have his sport of us, as in atonement."  Here
+her big eyes shone, as the sun glints upon a sand-bottomed pool.  "Ohé,
+I have known such happiness of late, beau sire, that I am hideously
+afraid to die."  And again the heavily fringed eyelids lifted, and
+within the moment sank contentedly.
+
+For the King had murmured "Happiness!" and his glance was rapacious.
+
+"But I am discourteous," Blanch said, "to prate of death thus drearily.
+Let us flout him, then, with some gay song."  And toward Sire Edward
+she handed Rigon's lute.
+
+The King accepted it.  "Death is not reasonably mocked," Sire Edward
+said, "since in the end he conquers, and of the very lips that gibed at
+him remains but a little dust.  Nay, rather should I who already stand
+beneath a lifted sword make for my immediate conqueror a Sirvente,
+which is the Song of Service."
+
+Sang Sire Edward:
+
+  "_I sing of Death, that cometh to 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,
+    What time the monarch nakedly must gain
+    Styx' hither 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 prowess of great captains--of Gawayne,
+    Darius, Jeshua, and 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 wisest counsellor--_"
+
+
+"True, O God!" murmured the tiny woman, who sat beside the window
+yonder.  And Dame Meregrett rose and in silence passed from the room.
+
+The two started, and laughed in common, and afterward paid little heed
+to her outgoing.  For 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, like the tapers before an altar.
+
+And, 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 always 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 she 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, 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 with passion.  "It is a trivial matter."  He took her in
+his arms, since already her cheeks flared in scarlet anticipation of
+the event.
+
+And 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 the disordered tapestry of verbiage, passion-flapped as
+a flag is by the wind, she presently beheld herself prefigured by
+Balkis, the Judean's lure, and by the Princess of Cyprus (in
+Aristotle's time), and by Nicolette, 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, by the Countess of
+Tripolis, for love of whom he had cleft the seas, and losing whom he
+must inevitably die as Rudel did.  He 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 with a bludgeon.
+
+"Heart's emperor," the trembling girl more lately said, "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
+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 tomorrow we hunt the great boar.  And in consequence
+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.  He laughed.  "The King is pleased to loose his
+prisoner; and I will do it."  He fiercely said this, for the girl was
+very beautiful.
+
+So he came that night, without any retinue, and habited as a forester,
+a horn swung about his neck, into the unlighted hut of Rigon the
+forester, and found a woman there, though not the woman whom he had
+perhaps expected.
+
+"Treachery, beau sire!  Horrible treachery!" she wailed.
+
+"I have encountered it ere this," the big man said.
+
+"Presently comes 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 disputations, once for all; and Sire
+Edward knew the conscience of his old opponent to be invulnerable.  The
+act would violate all laws of hospitality and knighthood--oh, granted!
+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 at Philippe's
+achievement one-half so heartily as would Sire Edward's son and
+immediate successor, the young Prince Edward of Caernarvon.  So that,
+all in all, ohimé!  Philippe had planned the affair with forethought.
+
+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--
+
+  "_Sots amoureux, sots privez, sots sauvages,
+  Sots vieux, nouveaux, et sots de tous âges,_"
+
+thus he scornfully declaimed, "and as yokefellow with Dan Merlin in his
+thorn-bush, and with wise Salomon when he capered upon the high places
+of Chemosh, and with Duke Ares sheepishly agrin within 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 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 zealot but the expectant
+captain now.  "Look, my Princess!"  For 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," Sire Edward said.
+
+"Too late," said Meregrett; and yet 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 no man
+passes."
+
+"It were very easy now to strangle this herring," Sire Edward reflected.
+
+"But scarcely a whole school of herring," the fellow retorted.  "Nay,
+Messire d'Aquitaine, the bushes of Ermenoueïl are alive with my
+associates.  The hut yonder, in effect, is girdled by them--and we have
+our orders."
+
+"Concerning women?" the King said.
+
+The man deliberated.  Then Sire Edward handed him three gold pieces.
+"There was assuredly no specific mention of petticoats," the soldier
+now reflected, "and in consequence I dare to pass the Princess."
+
+"And in that event," Sire Edward said, "we twain 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 can but return to
+Rigon's hut to rearrange my toga as King Caesar did when the assassins
+fell upon him, and to encounter whatever Dame Luck may send with due
+decorum."
+
+"To die!" she said.
+
+He shrugged his broad shoulders.  "In the end we necessarily die."
+
+Dame Meregrett turned and passed back into the hut without faltering.
+
+And 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 infamy.  If Philippe chance to fall into one of his
+Capetian rages it means death."
+
+"Nay, lord, it means far worse than death."  And she laughed, though
+not merrily.
+
+And now, for the first time, Sire Edward regarded her with profound
+consideration, as may we.  To the fingertips this so-little lady showed
+a descendant of the holy Lewis 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 a spark shudder to extinction over burning
+charcoal.  The Valois nose she had, long and delicate in form, and
+overhanging a short upper-lip; yet the lips were glorious in tint, and
+her skin the very Hyperborean snow in tint.  As for her eyes, say,
+gigantic onyxes--or ebony highly polished and wet with May dew.  They
+were too big for her little face; and they made of her a tiny and
+desirous wraith which nervously endured each incident of
+life--invariably acquiescent, as a foreigner must necessarily be, to
+the custom of the country.  In fine, this Meregrett was strange and
+brightly colored; and she seemed always thrilled with some subtle
+mirth, like that of a Siren who notes how the sailor pauses at the
+bulwark and laughs a little (knowing the outcome), and does not greatly
+care.  Yet now Dame Meregrett's countenance was rapt.
+
+And 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 had 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 but
+flagrant dulness showed, somehow, in Sire Edward, as the majestic
+deliberation of one that knows his verdict to be decisive, and hence
+appraises cautiously; and if sometimes his big, calm eyes betrayed no
+apprehension of the jest at which her lips were laughing, and of which
+her brain very cordially approved, always within the instant her heart
+convinced her that a god is not lightly moved to mirth.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE HAD VIEWED THE GREAT CONQUEROR" _Painting by Howard
+Pyle_]
+
+And now it was a god--_O deus certè!_--who had taken a woman's paltry
+face between his hands, half roughly.  "And the maid is a Capet!" Sire
+Edward mused.
+
+"Never has Blanch desired you any ill, beau sire.  But it is the
+Archduke of Austria that she loves, beau sire.  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.  And I, too, long for this same happiness,
+impotently now, and much as a fevered man might long for water.  And my
+admiration for the Death 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--"  He
+took up Rigon's lute.
+
+Sang Sire Edward:
+
+  "_Incuriously he smites the armored king
+    And tricks his wisest counsellor--_
+
+ay, the song ran thus.  Now listen, madame--listen, while for me Death
+waits without, and for you ignominy."
+
+Sang Sire Edward:
+
+                                    "_Anon
+  Will Death not bid us cease from pleasuring,
+    And change for idle laughter i' the sun
+  The grave's long silence and the peace thereof,--
+    Where we entrancèd.  Death our Viviaine
+  Implacable, may never more regain
+    The unforgotten passion, and the pain
+  And grief and ecstasy of life and love?_
+
+  "_Yea, presently, as quiet as the king
+    Sleeps now that laid the walls of Ilion,
+  We, too, will sleep, and overhead the spring
+    Laugh, 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
+    Spite of that age-long severance and are one
+  Spite of the grave and the vain grief thereof
+    We mean to baffle, if in Death's domain
+    Old 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 sorry unison,
+    My rhymes: and say Death mocks us, and is slain
+  Lightly by Love, that lightly thinks thereon;
+    And that were love at my disposal lain--
+    All mine to take!--and Death had said, 'Refrain,
+  Lest I demand the bitter 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 attempted to serve
+but 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! ay,
+a great largesse, 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.
+
+So that more lately 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 she saw in terror 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 presently 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,
+m'amye.
+
+"Child!  O brave, brave child!" he said to her a little later, "I was
+never afraid to die, and yet to-night I would that I might live a
+trifle longer than in common reason I may ever hope to live!"  And
+their lips met.
+
+Neither stirred when Philippe the Handsome came into the room.  At his
+heels were seven lords, armed cap-à-pie, but the entrance of eight
+cockchafers had meant as much to these transfigured two.
+
+The French King was an odd man, no more sane, perhaps, than might
+reasonably be expected of a Valois.  Subtly smiling, he came forward
+through the twilight, with soft, long strides, and 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 always in the
+flickering gloom of the hut Philippe smiled as an artist might do who
+gazes on the perfected work and knows it to be adroit.
+
+"You prefer to remain, my sister?" he presently said.  "Hé bien! it
+happens that to-night I am in a mood for granting almost any favor.  A
+little later and I will attend to you."  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.
+"Conqueror of Scotland, Scourge of France!  O unconquerable king! and
+will the worms of Ermenoueïl, then, pause to-morrow to consider through
+what a glorious turmoil their dinner came to them?"
+
+"You design murder, fair cousin?" 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--"
+
+And Philippe bowed his head.  "Undoubtedly," he assented, "the deed is
+a foul one.  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 so 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.  Hé bien! now kill this man for me, messieurs."
+
+The English King strode forward.  "O shallow trickster!" Sire Edward
+thundered.  "_Am I not afraid?_  You baby, would you ensnare a lion
+with a flimsy rat-trap?  Not so; 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
+and under darkness pilfers--as 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 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 Fierabras
+did.  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 expressively designed for stabbings?  You baby,
+is the Hammer of the Scots the man to trust 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; and, 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 lieutenant, and what Sire Edward commanded was
+done.  The French King and seven lords of France went from that hut
+trussed like chickens.
+
+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 Fécamp.  To-morrow we sleep in England--and, Mort
+de Dieu! do you not think, madame, that within the Tower your brother
+and I may more quickly 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!"
+
+"I am vile!" was the man's thought.  And, "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
+an eternity in begging him to restore it?  Nay, for I have a 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.
+Mort de ma vie!  Shall not the seasoned hunter adapt his snare
+aforetime 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, and unmolested, for the sake of chivalry.  Could I have
+come to you but as to the brave man I had dreamed of, I had come
+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 had devoted you to the devil."
+
+Anon, still grasping her, and victoriously lifting Dame Meregrett, so
+that her feet swung quite clear of the floor, Sire Edward said: "Look
+you, in my time I have played against Fate for considerable stakes--for
+fortresses, and towns, and strong citadels, and for kingdoms even.  And
+it was only to-night I perceived that the one stake worth playing for
+is love.  It were easy enough to get you for my wife; but I want more
+than that....  Pschutt!  I know well enough how women have these
+notions: and carefully I weighed the issue--Meregrett and Guienne to
+boot? or Meregrett and Meregrett's love to boot?--and thus the final
+destination of my captives was but the courtyard of Mezelais, in order
+I might come to you with hands--well! not intolerably soiled."
+
+"Oh, now I love you!" she cried, a-thrill with disappointment.  "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 yellow beard caressed her burning cheek.  Masterfully he
+said: "Then let it serve as such and ransom for a king his glad and
+common manhood.  Ah, m'amye, I am both very wise and abominably
+selfish.  And in either capacity it appears expedient that I leave
+France without any unwholesome delay.  More lately--hé, already I have
+within my pocket the Pope's dispensation permitting me to marry the
+sister of the King of France, so that I dare to hope."
+
+Very shyly Dame Meregrett lifted her little mouth toward his hot and
+bearded lips.  "Patience," she said, "is a virtue; and daring is a
+virtue; and hope, too, is a virtue: and otherwise, beau sire, I would
+not live."
+
+And 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 lovers 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, and of extensive repute, thanks
+to such among her retinue of lovers as were practitioners of the Gay
+Science and had scattered broadcast innumerable Canzons in her honor;
+and Lord Berners was a man who accepted 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, in a phrase, a man delinquent in it is no more to be valued than
+an ear of corn without the grain.  Nay, I am so profoundly an admirer
+of Love that I can never willingly behold him slain, of a surfeit, by
+Matrimony; and besides, the rapscallion could not to advantage exchange
+purses with Lazarus; 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 two wives already!"
+
+And the Earl would spread his hands.  "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 gusty
+times of warfare between Sire Edward and Queen Ysabeau, until at last
+the Queen had conquered.  Lord Berners, for one, vexed himself not
+inordinately over the outcome of events, 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.
+
+It was in the September of this year, a little before Michaelmas, that
+they brought Sir Gregory Darrell to be judged by the Queen, for
+notoriously the knight had been Sire Edward'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 devoted the silence to consideration of how
+scantily the man had changed.
+
+"And what was your errand in Figgis Wood?" she demanded in the
+ultimate--"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, sharply, "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, as a person in shrewd and epicurean
+amusement, what while she subscribed the parchment within the moment,
+with a great scrawling flourish.
+
+"Take, in the devil's name, the hire of your dexterities," said
+Ysabeau, and pushed this document with her wet pen-point toward March,
+"and ride for Berkeley now upon that necessary business we know of.
+And do the rest of you withdraw, saving only my prisoner--my prisoner!"
+she said, and laughed not very pleasantly.
+
+[Illustration: "'MY PRISONER!' SHE SAID"  _Painting by Howard Pyle_]
+
+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 a little dog in the room 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
+her."
+
+"My friend," said Ysabeau, as 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 as well! 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 will I ride with you to Ordish, upon
+condition you disclose to none at Ordish, saving only, if you will,
+this quite immaculate Rosamund, even a 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 her 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 that which now occupies
+my heart: I must this night take holiday, 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 you indeed do 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?"
+
+His palms clutched at heaven.  "That Ysabeau is dead! and all true joy
+is destroyed, and the world lies under a blight wherefrom 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, although but 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.
+
+"And the more for that your sister is a very handsome woman," was
+Rosamund Eastney's comment.  The period appears to have been after
+supper, and she 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
+sudden splurge of speech informed her 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, more lately, "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, hand quitting hand a shade
+too tardily, and the blinking eyes yet rapt; but these two were not
+overpleased at being disturbed, and the man in particular 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.  "What I have
+written I shall not disown in any company.  It is not, look you, of my
+own choice that I sing, my sister.  Yet if she bade me would I sing
+this song as willingly before Queen Ysabeau, for, Christ aid me! the
+song is true."
+
+Sang Sir Gregory:
+
+  "_Dame Ysabeau, la prophécie
+  Que li sage dit ne ment mie,
+  Que la royne sut ceus grever
+  Qui tantost laquais sot aymer--_"
+
+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 sang it with an incisive gusto, though it seemed to him to
+countersign his death-warrant; and with the vigor that a mangled snake
+summons for its last hideous stroke, it seemed to Ysabeau regretful of
+an ancient spring.
+
+_Nicolas gives this ballad in full, but, and for obvious reasons, his
+translator would prefer to do otherwise._
+
+Only the minstrel added, though Lord Berners did not notice it, a
+fire-new peroration.
+
+Sang Sir Gregory:
+
+  "_Ma voix mocque, mon cuer gémit--
+  Peu pense à 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.  Then she flung 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.  Nay, my
+brother, I do not question your sincerity, yet you sing with the voice
+of an unhonored courtier.  Suppose Queen Ysabeau had heard your song
+all through and then had said--for she is not as the run of
+women--'Messire, I had thought till this there was no thorough man in
+England saving 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, for I find even in your cruelty--England!
+bah, we are no pygmies, you and I!'" the Countess said with a great
+voice; "'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, wherein we
+twain may yet erect our equal thrones, whereon to receive the tributary
+emperors!  For we are no pygmies, you and I.'"  She paused and more
+lately shrugged.  "Suppose Queen Ysabeau 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, "for that I, too, remember--"
+
+"Nay, 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 a trifle overspent,
+Messire de Berners."  And her face had now the weary beauty of an
+idol's.
+
+So the men and women parted.  Madame de Farrington kissed her brother
+in leaving him, as was natural; and under her caress his stalwart
+person shuddered, but not in repugnance; and the Queen went bedward
+regretful of an ancient spring and 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,
+    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...
+    And I neither laugh nor grieve!_"
+
+
+Ysabeau would have slept that night within the chamber of Rosamund
+Eastney had either slept at all.  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; but 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 hollowly began, "it
+is indisputable that his hair is like spun gold and that his eyes
+resemble sun-drenched waters in June.  And that when this Gregory
+laughs God is more happy.  Ma belle, I was familiar with the routine of
+your meditations ere 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, and afterward
+sat silent, one bare foot jogging restlessly; "yet am I two years the
+junior--  Did you hear nothing, Rosamund?"
+
+"Nay, Madame Gertrude, I heard nothing."
+
+"Strange!" the Countess said; "let us have lights, since I can no
+longer endure the overpopulous darkness."  She kindled, with twitching
+fingers, three lamps and looked in vain for more.  "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.  Nay,
+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 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 now stammered, in communicated terror.
+
+"Poor innocent dastard!" 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 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!  Nay, I have lied.  I hate the man, and in such fashion as you
+will comprehend only when you are Sarum's wife."
+
+"Madame and Queen!" the girl said, "you will not murder me!"
+
+"I am tempted!" the Queen hissed.  "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 glad beauty of the devil, 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, Gregory has loved but me."
+
+"Ma belle," the Queen answered, and 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.  Throughout his life
+has Gregory Darrell loved me, O white, palsied innocence! and he is
+mine at a whistle.  And in that time to come he will desert you,
+Rosamund--though 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 at first 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
+masculinity because, poor fools, they scurry to obey your whim! and
+chiefly 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 appeared to deliberate what Dame Ysabeau had
+said.  The 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 but 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 thoughts into my mind
+I may not grapple with!"
+
+"You will comprehend them," the Queen said, "when you know yourself a
+chattel, bought and paid for."
+
+The Queen laughed.  She rose, and either hand strained toward heaven.
+"You are omnipotent, yet have You let me become that into which I am
+transmuted," she said, very low.
+
+Anon she began, as though a statue spoke through motionless and pallid
+lips.  "They 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 filthy worm to come to him.  Eh, and I was tempted--!"
+
+The fearless 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 tiny happenings, it may be, and lacking both in
+abysses and in skyey heights.  Yet is love a flame wherein must the
+lover's soul be purified, as an ore by fire, even to its own discredit;
+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.  Assuredly, it would be hard to yield my single
+chance of happiness; it would be hard to know that Gregory Darrell must
+presently dwindle into an ox well-pastured, and garner of life no more
+than any ox; but to say, 'Let this girl become as I, and garner that
+which I have garnered--!'  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 various imprecations!
+But I, too, grow cowardly, it maybe--  Nay, I know," she said, and in a
+resonant voice, "that I am by this 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 stammered, and ran toward her, for the
+girl had risen, and she was terrified.
+
+"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 will 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."
+
+And timidly the girl touched one shoulder.  "In part, I understand,
+madame and Queen."
+
+"You understand nothing," said Ysabeau; "how should you understand
+whose breasts are yet so tiny?  Nay, put out the light! though I dread
+the darkness, Rosamund--For they say that hell is poorly lighted--and
+they say--"  Then Queen Ysabeau shrugged.  Herself blew out each lamp.
+
+"We know this Gregory Darrell," the Queen said in the darkness, and
+aloud, "ay, 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 but one unending warfare between that which is divine in him
+and that which is bestial, while impartial Heaven attends as arbiter of
+the cruel tourney.  Always his judgment misleads the man, 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 His wisdom
+God intends; so that when the man is overthrown, God the Eternal Father
+may, in reason, be neither vexed nor grieved if only he 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 they hold festival in heaven."
+
+"A very pretty sermon," said the Queen, and with premeditation yawned.
+
+Followed a silence, vexed only on the purposeless September winds; but
+I believe that neither of these two slept with an inappropriate
+profundity.
+
+About dawn one of the Queen's attendants roused Sir Gregory Darrell and
+presently 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, and
+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 die, 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.  Nay, 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 absolute mistress of
+England am I now, and entire 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, as a person in the crisis of panic; "I
+spoke to tempt you.  But you saw, and 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.  Yea, many strong men have
+been slain by me, and futurely will many others be slain, it may be;
+but never you among them, my Gregory, who are more wary, and more
+merciful, and know that I have need to lay aside at least one
+comfortable thought against eternity."
+
+"I concede you to have been unwise--" he hoarsely said.
+
+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.  "Nay, choose,"
+she wearily said; "the woman offers life and empery and wealth, and it
+may be, even 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.  "I am I! and I will so to live that I may
+face without shame not only God, but even 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 I or 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 for the man which you
+would make of me, my Rosamund.
+
+"The man!  And what is this man, this Gregory Darrell, that his welfare
+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, durst I but be honest.
+
+"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, and to a hair's-breadth, every
+content of the world by means of a bloodied sponge, tucked somewhere in
+his skull, 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, he is under penalty
+condemned to compute eternity with false weights and to estimate
+infinity with a yardstick: and he very often does it.  For though, 'If
+then I do that which I would not I consent unto the law,' saith even
+the Apostle; yet the 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 make--or 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
+much afraid, and I choose death, madame."
+
+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."
+
+More lately the Queen said: "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--nay, desirous--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, what 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, and as to herself.
+
+Sang Ysabeau:
+
+  "_As with her dupes dealt Circe
+    Life deals with hers, pardie!
+  Reshaping without mercy,
+    And shaping swinishly,
+    To wallow swinishly,
+    And for eternity--_
+
+  "_Though, harder than the witch was,
+    Life, changing ne'er 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 praiseworthily--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, and very bitterly.  "He that is without
+blemish among you--" he said.  Then they armed completely.
+
+
+
+THE END OF THE FOURTH NOVEL
+
+
+
+
+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 BY 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.  The profanity had its poor palliation.  Heir
+to England though he was, you must know that his father in the flesh
+had hounded him from England, as more recently his uncle Charles the
+Handsome had driven him from France.  Now had this boy's mother and he
+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-o'-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 panted.
+
+"Do not mock me, Philippa!" the boy half-sobbed.  Sulkily he rose to
+his feet.
+
+"No mockery here, my fair sweet friend.  Nay, 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, what time the nightingale sang on.
+
+But the boy kept momentary silence.  Even in youth the Plantagenets
+were never 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, and with
+consciousness of the fact, as a necessitated hazard of futurity.  Well!
+he had found chance-taking not unfortunate.  With the episode as
+foundation, Count William had already builded up the future queenship
+of England.  A wealthy 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, what time the nightingale
+discoursed as on a wager.
+
+Presently was mingled with the bird's descant low singing of another
+kind.  Beyond the yew-hedge as these two stood silent, breast to
+breast, passed young Jehan Kuypelant, the Brabant page, 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 Brabanter paused.  His melody was hastily
+gulped.  You saw, while these two stood heart hammering against heart,
+his lean face silvered by the moonlight, his mouth a tiny abyss.
+Followed the beat of lessening footsteps, while the nightingale
+improvised his 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 taken the victim,
+    And flouted thy pale-lipped priest,
+  And set astir in the temple
+    Where burned the fire 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 loving and wonder
+    Contend as a clamor of 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 the Brabant page,
+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 the Queen in company
+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 me pass, sir!  My place is not
+here."
+
+Philippa said, half hopefully, "Do you forsake Sire Edward, Catherine?"
+
+[Illustration: "DO YOU FORSAKE SIRE EDWARD, CATHERINE?" _Painting by
+William Hurd Lawrence_]
+
+"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 eyes flame.  "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 all 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!  Let Sire Edward conquer in France, if such be
+the Trinity's will.  Always he has dreamed of that, and if I bade him
+return now he would be vexed."
+
+"The disappointment of the King," John Copeland considered, "is a
+lesser 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 fairer men 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 with extreme cold.  She
+gazed toward John Copeland wonderingly.  The secretary was as of stone,
+fretting at his lute-strings, 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 the King return with our army!"
+
+"In his absence," the Queen said, "I command here."
+
+"You are not Regent," the Marquess said.  Then he cried, "This is the
+Regent's affair!"
+
+"Let the Regent be fetched," Dame Philippa said, very quietly.
+Presently they brought in her son, Messire Lionel, now a boy of eight
+years, and Regent, in name at least, of England.
+
+Both the Queen and the Marquess held papers.  "Highness," Lord Hastings
+began, "for reasons of state, which I need not here explain, this
+document requires your signature.  It is an order that a ship be
+despatched in pursuit of the King.  Your Highness may remember the pony
+you admired yesterday?"  The Marquess smiled ingratiatingly.  "Just
+here, your Highness--a cross-mark."
+
+"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, 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 him.  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.  When they had ended, I must tell you that
+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 there was a clatter of hoofs
+without, 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 Iscariots!  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 when he
+would breathe."  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
+nine-tenths of them protesting they would do nothing of the sort.
+
+There is comedy here.  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 the
+dreams she had of miraculous victories, what time her barons trafficked
+in secret with the Bruce.  On the Saturday before Michaelmas, when the
+opposing armies marshalled in the Bishop's Park, at Auckland, it is
+recorded that 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."
+
+But 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 intended 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.  But, "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--ay,
+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 an ill man.  I cannot rise from this couch."
+
+You saw that Philippa was not beautiful.  You perceived that to the
+contrary she was superb, saw the soul of the woman aglow, gilding the
+mediocrities of color and curve as a conflagration does a hovel.
+
+"There is no man left in England," said the Queen, "since Sire Edward
+went into France.  Praise God, I am his wife!"  And she was gone
+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, and 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 within the
+moment follow her to storm hell if she desired it."
+
+He meditated and more lately shrugged.  "And so would I," said Hastings.
+
+A little afterward a gaunt and haggard old man, bare-headed 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; yet one plump hand had
+fallen into the big-veined hand of Hastings.  "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.  He
+had ridden off, she was informed, 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.  As you have heard, she considered her cause to be so
+clamantly just that to expatiate to the Holy Father upon its merits
+were 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 stripped the
+atrocious Emir of both 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 as those 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: and 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 genuine 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 mouth-wash; and presently: "Sire Edward should be
+pleased, I think.  Will he not love me a little now, John Copeland?"
+
+John Copeland lifted either plump hand 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;
+and more lately: "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 but 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." ... So 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 mêlée quite unarmed.  A touch of age, perhaps;
+Hastings was always an eccentric man; and 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, he 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 a letter to Neville's secretary,
+which informed John Copeland that he had done what was not agreeable in
+purloining her prisoner without leave.  Let him sans 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 perhaps 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, they could
+not be delivered, since they were all addressed to John Copeland.
+Meanwhile, Scotland was in despair, whereas the English barons were in
+a frenzy, because, however willing you may be, you cannot well betray
+your liege-lord to an unlocatable enemy.  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, a stupendous person, blond
+and incredibly big.  With him were a careful Italian, that 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 Cregi, 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 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 genuinely under the
+scrutiny of those fierce big eyes, which were blue and cold and of an
+astounding lustre, gemlike as the March sea.
+
+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," he 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 Brabanters!"
+
+John Copeland read aloud, while the King trifled with a pen, half
+negligent, and in part attendant.
+
+Read John Copeland:
+
+
+"My DEAR LORD,--_I 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 each night chafe your feet with a rag of woollen
+stuff.  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, with a sob, strode toward a window.  "Catherine!" he
+said.  He remained motionless what time 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 either 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
+shrugged.  "Well, my man, you perceive I am defenceless.  Therefore
+make an end, you dog."
+
+"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 greatest monarch
+our 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 wherewith
+England was regained.  Twenty years ago but for Madame Philippa you had
+died naked in some ditch."
+
+"Go on," the King said presently.
+
+"And 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 but quadrupled her 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 all Scotland as a gift, and in
+return demands nothing--God ha' mercy on us!--save that you nightly
+chafe your feet with a bit of woollen.  You hear of it--and ask,
+'_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 will be hanged ere dawn," the King replied, and yet by this one
+hand had screened his face.  "Meanwhile spit out your venom."
+
+"I say to you, then," John Copeland continued, "that to-day you are
+master of Europe.  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 très beau sire, and have me
+hanged."
+
+The King gave 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 made manifest as His main heritage to
+His children."
+
+King Edward sat in meditation for a long while.  "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 as one transfigured.  His voice was
+grave and very tender.
+
+"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 pre-eminence.  She does not love me, and
+she never will.  She would condemn me to be hewed in fragments sooner
+than permit her husband's little 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 had a vision
+once: 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 my vision) said 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."
+
+He said more lately: "And so she is at Stirling now? with 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 big head as a lion might.  "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 £500 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.  "Nay," 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 shall strive to prove not altogether unworthy of
+my fortune.  Go, then, John Copeland--go, my squire, and bring me back
+my Queen."
+
+Presently he heard John Copeland singing without.  And through that
+instant was 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.  Now at last he understood the heart of Philippa.
+
+"Let me live!" the King prayed; "O Eternal Father, let me live a little
+while that I may make atonement!"  And meantime John Copeland sang
+without 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 murmured 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 Hörselberg 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 désert 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 ONLY
+  FRIEND, AND BY HIM PLAYS THE FRIEND'S PART; AND
+  ACHIEVES IN DOING SO 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.  The
+Queen had presently noted a certain priest who went forbiddingly about
+her court, where he was accorded a provisional courtesy, and more
+forbiddingly into many hovels, where day by day a pitiful wreckage of
+humanity both blessed and hoodwinked him, as he morosely knew, and
+adored him, as he never knew at all.
+
+Queen Anne made inquiries.  This young cleric was amanuensis to the
+Duke of Gloucester, she was informed, and notoriously a by-blow of the
+Duke's brother, the dead Lionel of Clarence.  She sent for this Edward
+Maudelain.  When he came her first perception was, "How wonderful his
+likeness to the King!" while the thought's commentary ran,
+unacknowledged, "Ay, as an eagle resembles a falcon!"  For here, to the
+observant eye, was a more zealous person, already passion-wasted, and
+ineffably a more dictatorial and stiff-necked being than the lazy and
+amiable King; also, this Maudelain's face and nose were somewhat too
+long and high; and the priest was, in a word, the less comely of the
+pair by a very little, and by an infinity the more kinglike.
+
+"You are my cousin now, messire," she 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 trembled,
+without knowing why.  Then he spoke, composedly, and 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: and
+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, denounced 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
+necessity almost, 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 downright two a
+sort of obsession, though always he gave in a half scorn but half
+concealed; and presently they could have marshalled an army of
+adherents, all in rags, who would cheerfully have been hacked to pieces
+for either of the twain, and have praised God at the final gasp for the
+privilege.  It was perhaps the tragedy of the man's life that he never
+suspected this.
+
+Now in and about the Queen's unfrequented rooms the lonely woman and
+the priest met daily to discuss now this or that comminuted 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 trifles while, so clamantly, the dissension
+between the young King and his uncles gathered to a head: the air was
+thick with portents; and was this, then, an appropriate time, the
+judicious demanded of high Heaven, for the Queen of fearful England to
+concern herself about a peasant's toothache?
+
+Long afterward was Edward Maudelain to remember this brief and tranquil
+period of his life, and to wonder over the man that he had been through
+this short 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 all vices but the stains of a traveller
+midway in a dusty journey; and had led the priest no longer to do good
+for his soul's health, but simply for his fellow's benefit.
+
+And 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 yearned, in mockery of common-sense, to suffer somehow for this
+beautiful and gracious comrade; though very often a sudden pity for her
+loneliness and the knowledge that she dared trust no one save himself
+would throttle him like two assassins and move the hot-blooded young
+man to an exquisite agony of self-contempt and exultation.
+
+Now Maudelain made excellent songs, it was a matter of common report.
+Yet but once in their close friendship had the Queen commanded 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, a thought 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 uno animo._
+
+  "_Ever we touch the prize we dare not take!
+  Ever we know that thirst we dare not slake!
+  And ever to a dreamed-of goal we make--
+      Est caeli in palatio!_
+
+  "_Yet long the road, and very frail are we
+  That may not lightly curb mortality,
+  Nor lightly tread together silently,
+      Et 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, reeling, one hand yet clasping either breast.  More
+lately 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 villiens, like the cattle, were by ordinary deeded
+with the land.
+
+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 Edmund of York and bland
+Harry of Derby, John of Gaunt's oldest son.  Each was a proud and
+handsome man.  To-day Gloucester was gnawing at his finger nails, big
+York seemed half-asleep, and the Earl of Derby 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 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 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.  Within the week the three heads of us will embellish 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 he may 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 Brétigny, 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 as
+generally known, however, that, finding this sister of the Vicomte do
+Montbrison a girl of obdurate virtue, he 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 she 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--sire."
+
+He spoke with a stifled voice, and wrenching forth each sentence; and
+now with a stiff forefinger flipped a paper across the table.  "_In
+extremis_ my brother did far more than confess.  He signed--your
+Grace," 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 ever 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.  "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 the titular Queen?"
+
+Again the Duke shrugged.  "I had not thought of the dumb wench.  We
+have many convents."
+
+And 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 yourself
+should wed Dame Anne, once the Apostolic See has granted the necessary
+dispensation.  Treading too close upon the impendent death of our
+nominal lord the so-called King, the foreign war perhaps necessitated
+by her exile would be highly inconvenient."
+
+Then these three princes rose and knelt before the priest; in long
+bright garments they were clad, and they glittered with gold and many
+jewels, what while 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 fearful hour
+wherein Foulques the Querulous held traffic with a devil and on her
+begot the first of us Plantagenets!  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 we Plantagenets 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...  Nay, now let Lucifer rejoice for 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 any
+other than a Plantagenet, with what expedition would I now kill you
+that recognize the strength to do it! then would I slay you! without
+any animosity, would I slay you then, and just as I would kill as many
+splendid snakes!"
+
+[Illustration: "'HAIL YE THAT ARE MY KINSMEN!'" _Painting by Howard
+Pyle_]
+
+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 first 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 his England was.  For
+entire England was his splendid 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 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, like herded sheep, so that in the
+outcome their carcasses might manure the soil of France yonder or of
+more barren 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.  The vivid fields would
+blacken under their sluggish ploughs, and 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 him
+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 strong and admirable
+throughout, 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 would be in effect
+a fratricide, and after death 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 one ignoble life and
+one inconsiderable soul, to win so many men to manhood bedazzled his
+every faculty, in anticipation of the exploit.
+
+The tale tells that Maudelain went toward the little garden he knew so
+well 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 it was, 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 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 over all a gown of
+white, cut open on either side as far as the hips.  This garment was
+embroidered with golden leopards and trimmed with ermine.  About her
+yellow hair was a chaplet of gold, wherein emeralds glowed.  Her blue
+eyes were as large and bright 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 and never stable wisp of
+cloud, while somehow all elation departed from him as water does from a
+wetted sponge compressed.  He laughed discordantly; but within the
+moment his sun-lit face was still and glorious, like that of an image.
+
+"Wait--!  O my only friend--!" said Maudelain.  Then in a level voice
+he told her all, unhurriedly and without any sensible emotion.
+
+She had breathed once, with an aweful inhalation.  She had screened her
+countenance from his gaze what while you might have counted fifty.
+More lately the lithe body of Dame Anne was alert, as one suddenly
+aroused from dreaming.  "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 brief and cruel war."
+
+"In that war the nobles will ride abroad with banners and gay surcoats,
+and 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.  "Many would die, but in the end I would
+be King, and the general happiness would rest at my disposal.  The
+adventure of this world is wonderful, and it goes otherwise than under
+the strict tutelage of reason."
+
+"Not 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 and they will fling you aside, as the barons
+have dealt aforetime with every king that dared oppose them.  Nay, they
+desire to live pleasantly, to have fish o' 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?
+then only do I bid you reign."
+
+The sun had grown too bright, too merciless, but as always she drew the
+truth from him, even to his agony.  "I cannot.  I would not endure a
+fortnight.  Heaven help us, nor you nor I nor any one may transform of
+any personal force this bitter time, this piercing, cruel day of frost
+and sun.  Charity and Truth are excommunicate, and the 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 always Lechery and Hatred sway
+these proud and inconsiderate fools as winds blow at will the gay
+leaves of autumn.  We but fight with gaudy shadows, we but aspire to
+overpass a mountain of unstable sand!  We two alone of all the
+scuffling world!  Oh, it is horrible, and I think that Satan plans the
+jest!  We dream a while of refashioning this bleak universe, and we
+know that we alone can do it! and 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 did God tread the 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 reason with lost
+women, and habitually to consort with rascals, till at last He might
+die between two cutpurses, ignominiously!  Were the considerate persons
+of His day moved at all by the death of this fanatic?  I bid you now
+enumerate through what long halls did the sleek heralds proclaim His
+crucifixion! and the armament of great-jowled emperors that were
+distraught by it?"
+
+He answered: "It is true.  Of anise even and of cumin the Master
+estimates His tithe--"  Maudelain broke off with a yapping laugh.
+"Puf!  He is wiser than we.  I am King of England.  It is my heritage."
+
+"It means war.  Many will die, many 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
+flamed 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?  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 but to pass my whole life between the four walls of some dingy
+and eternal gaol, forever alone with you, lest you become as 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
+often I have 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."
+
+Throughout she spoke as simply as a child.
+
+And beside him Maudelain's hands had fallen like so much lead, and
+remembering his own nature, he longed for annihilation only, before she
+had appraised his vileness.  In consequence 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 birthright Heaven accords me a penny, and with that only
+penny I must anon be seeking to bribe Heaven."
+
+Presently 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!  He is wiser than we are, it may be!  And as
+always Satan offers no unhandsome bribes--bribes that are tangible and
+sure."
+
+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 visibly, convulsed by a monstrous and repulsive joy.
+"Decide! oh, decide very quickly, my only friend!" he wailed, "for
+throughout I am all filth!"
+
+Closer she drew to him and without hesitancy laid one hand on either
+shoulder.  "O my only friend!" she breathed, with red lax lips which
+were very near to his, "throughout so many 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!"
+
+Almost did Edward Maudelain smile, but now his stiffening mouth could
+not complete the brave attempt.  "God save King Richard!" said the
+priest.  "For by the cowardice and greed and ignorance of little men
+were 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.  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, and friendless, and without even name.  I
+bid you dare to cast aside all happiness and wealth and comfort and
+each common tie that even a pickpocket may boast, like tawdry and
+unworthy garments.  In fine, I bid you dare be King and absolute, yet
+not of England--but of your own being, alike in motion and in thought
+and even in wish.  This doom I dare adjudge and to pronounce, since 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 no revenue.  Therein
+waste 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 in desire of which many and many a man would blithely
+enter hell, and the mere sight of which may well cause a man's voice to
+tremble as my voice trembles now, and in 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, that we
+may not cure, we can but salve the hurt--"  Now had his hand torn open
+his sombre gown, and the man's bared breast shone in the sunlight, and
+everywhere heaved on it sleek and glittering beads of sweat.  Twice he
+cried the Queen's name aloud, without prefix.  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, "till you achieve in part the task which is
+denied me.  This doom I dare adjudge and to pronounce, since we are
+royal and God's satraps, you and I."
+
+She answered with a tiny, wordless sound.  He prayed for even horror as
+he appraised his handiwork.  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."
+
+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 realized; and half way he had strained a soft and groping hand
+toward his lips when he relinquished it.  "Nay, not even that," said
+Edward Maudelain, very proudly, too, and now at last he smiled; "since
+we are God's satraps, you and I."
+
+Afterward he stood thus for an appreciable silence, with ravenous eyes,
+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, and over
+and over again.  "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.
+
+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,
+and now with reason troubled, since he had been seeking all night long
+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, already
+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 à 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
+  TO DEATH THEREBY.
+
+
+
+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 done 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 on cushions of silk."
+
+One day in early spring came a more cunning devil, named Bembo, in 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.
+
+[Illustration: "IN THE LIKENESS OF A FAIR WOMAN" _Painting by Howard
+Pyle_]
+
+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 without and strode softly through the door,
+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.
+
+In flame-colored satin he was clad, which shimmered with each movement
+like a high flame, and his countenance had throughout the color and the
+glow of amber.  His eyes were dark and very tender, and the tears
+somehow had come to Maudelain's eyes because of a sudden and great love
+for this tall stranger.  "Eh, from the dead to the dead I travel, as
+ever, with a message and a token.  My message runs, _Time is, O fellow
+satrap!_ and my token is this."
+
+And 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 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 what he held upon the floor.  "_Time is!_ and I have not need
+of any token wherewith 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 this novel guise.  It was
+two weeks later when 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 Richard the Second, so strangely favored by their physical
+resemblance, and the subsequent fiasco at Circencester, are now,
+however, tolerably notorious.  It would seem evident, from the Argument
+of the story in hand, that Nicolas attributes a large part of this
+mysterious business to the co-operancy of Isabel of Valois, King
+Richard's infant wife.  And (should one have a taste for the deductive)
+the foregoing mention of Bembo, 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 eventually 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 _was not Richard Plantagenet: and this contention
+is strikingly 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 in the act one fellow 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 fearful hour wherein Foulques the Querulous held traffic with a
+demon and on her begot the first of us Plantagenets!  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 we Plantagenets
+until the end.  Ay, 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!  Nay, I lack the
+grace to die as all Thy saints, 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 a
+Plantagenet!"
+
+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 as 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, 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 stood erect upon the cushions
+of it.  They saw this Exton strike the King with his pole-axe, from
+behind, and 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 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 Plantagenets."
+
+
+
+THE END OF THE SEVENTH NOVEL
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+The Story of the Scabbard
+
+  "_Ainsi il avoit trouvé 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 TRIUMPHANTLY 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 Bolingbroke.  The
+circumstances have been recorded otherwhere.  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 were both tedious and unprofitable.  But
+at the end of each four months would come to him a certain messenger
+from Glyndwyr, whom Richard supposed to be the devil Bembo, 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 the inhabitants afterward
+rob them of through a very cunning device, that this emissary brought
+the letter which read simply, "Now is England fit pasture for the White
+Hart."  Presently was Richard Holland 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
+very barons who had ousted King Log had been the first to find 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."
+
+More lately Richard spoke with narrowed eyes.  "You forget that while
+Henry of Lancaster lives no other man will ever reign out a tranquil
+week 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 in the end the Master of our Sabbaths
+cannot serve us even though he would."
+
+And Richard crossed himself.  "You horribly mistake my meaning.  Your
+practices are your own affair, and in them I decline to dabble.  I
+design but 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 merely to see that Henry knows I live alone and in disguise
+at Caer Idion."
+
+The gaunt Welshman chuckled.  "Yes, Bolingbroke 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 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 myself.  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, 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.  Nay,
+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, performances, instincts, and so on,
+quite aloofly, as I would 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
+Grunyd, 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."
+
+So then Glyndwyr rode south to besiege and burn the town of Caerdyf,
+while at Caer Idion Richard Holland tranquilly abode 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 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."
+
+They did not; and later 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 incurious hours.
+
+Each day at noon would Branwen bring his dinner, and sometimes chat
+with him while he ate.  After supper he would discourse to Branwen of
+remote kingdoms, wherethrough he had ridden at adventure, as the wind
+veers, among sedate and alien peoples who adjudged him a madman; and
+she, in turn, would tell him many curious tales from the _Red Book of
+Hergest_--as of Gwalchmai, and Peredur, and Geraint, in each one of
+whom she had presently discerned an inadequate forerunnership of
+Richard's existence.
+
+This Branwen was a fair wench, slender as a wand, and, in a harmless
+way, of a bold demeanor twin to that 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 more brightly yellow and 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, Richard decided.  In all, a taking morsel! though her shapely
+hands were hard with labor, and she rarely laughed; for, as in
+recompense, her heart was tender and ignorant of discontent, and she
+rarely ceased to smile as over some peculiar and wonderful secret which
+she intended, in due time, to share with you alone.  Branwen had many
+lovers, and preferred among them young Gwyllem ap Llyr, a portly lad,
+who was handsome enough, for all his tiny and piggish eyes, and sang
+divinely.
+
+Presently 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, I may not deny you."
+
+With that they laid aside their coats and fell to exercise.  In these
+unaccustomed bouts Richard was soundly drubbed, as he had anticipated,
+but throughout he found himself the stronger man, and he managed
+somehow to avoid an absolute overthrow.  By what method he never
+ascertained.
+
+"I have forgotten what we are fighting about," he observed, after a
+half-hour of this; "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 proper 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 divinity will ascend no pedestal save the
+carcass of his happiness.  Yet have many men since time was young been
+addicted to the practice, as 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: "That 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
+either window, 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 all marred and blurred
+  With tavern-catches, which that pity of his
+  Erased, and writ instead one perfect word,
+      O Branwen!_
+
+  "_I have accorded you incessant praise
+  And song and service long, O Love, for 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!'_
+
+  "_I know not!--ah, I know not, who am sure
+  That I shall always love you while I live!
+  And being dead, and with no more to give
+  Of song or service?--Love shall yet endure,
+  And yet retain his last prerogative,
+  When I lie still, through many centuries,
+  And dream of you and the exceeding love
+  I bore you, and am glad dreaming thereof,
+  And give God thanks therefor, 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 has blundered without any astonishment 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 so unvexed by any rational
+afterthought; and each 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 claimed to
+be 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.
+
+And Richard whistled.  "Now will my cousin be quite sure, and now will
+my anxious cousin 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 what while he meditated.  Undoubtedly he
+would kill 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, he was unable to protest any particularly ardent
+desire for the scoundrel's death.  Thus crudely to demolish the knave's
+adroit and year-long schemings savored of a tyranny a shade too gross.
+The spider was venomous, and his destruction laudable; granted, but in
+crushing him you ruined his web, a miracle of patient malevolence,
+which, despite yourself, compelled both admiration and envy.  True, the
+process would recrown a certain Richard, but then, as he 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 is Branwen married to
+this Gwyllem and grown fat and old, and I am remarried to Dame Isabel
+of France, and am King of England: and a trifle later all four of us
+will 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 the day's happenings.  A half-hour since,
+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 will I 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 in a hideous conflict; 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 either hand 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 great fists as they beat
+against the countenance and body of Richard, and the thin splitting
+vicious noise of torn cloth as Gwyllem clutched at Richard's tunic and
+tore it many times.  Richard uttered no articulate word, and Gwyllem
+could not.  There was entire silence for a heart-beat, and then the
+fall of something ponderous and limp.
+
+"Come!" Richard said.  Through the hut's twilight, glorious in her eyes
+as Michael fresh from that primal battle, 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.  In his arms she rode presently, passive, and
+incuriously content.  The horse trod with deliberation.  In the east
+the young moon was taking heart as the darkness thickened about them,
+and innumerable stars awoke.
+
+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 therefrom.  It
+was a full three minutes before he 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.  And so, I think, was once 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 wild 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 similar terms that
+Gwyllem sang of this passion.  Lord," she demanded shyly, "how would
+you sing of love?"
+
+Richard was replete and quite 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 Venus gave her slender body's girth,
+  And Mercury the lyre he framed at birth,
+    And Mars his jewelled and resistless sword,
+    And wrinkled Plutus all the secret hoard
+  And immemorial treasure of mid-earth,--_
+
+  "_And while the puzzled gods were pondering
+    Which of these goodly gifts the goodliest was,
+  Dan 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; and 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 the old dead 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 similes of you and Guenevere,
+  And durst not come with agile lips that bring
+    The sugared periods of a sonneteer,
+  And bring no more--but just with lips that cling
+    To yours, and murmur against them, 'I love you, dear!'_"
+
+
+For Richard had resolved that Branwen should believe him.  Tinsel,
+indeed! then here was yet more tinsel which she must and should 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; and
+curt as lightning came the knowledge that she believed the absolute
+truth.
+
+Richard had taken just two strides, and 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 his whole life was like a wave, to him, that trembled now at
+full height, and he was aware of a new world all made of beauty and of
+pity.  Then the lute snapped between his fingers, and Richard
+shuddered, and his countenance was the face of a man only.
+
+"There is a task," he said, hoarsely--"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.
+
+More lately he said: "Go!  For I have loved so 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 in agony, "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.
+
+"How should she?  I am almost twice her age, an old fellow now,
+battered and selfish and too indolent to love her--say, as Gwyllem did.
+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; and 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 handsome scabbard of a man, precisely as
+Owain said."  This settled, Richard whistled to his dog.
+
+The sun had set, but it was not more than dusk.  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 more cool.  There was as yet but one star in the green and
+cloudless heaven, and this was very large, like a beacon, and it
+appeared to him symbolical that he trudged away from it.
+
+Next day 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 at
+his elbow.
+
+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."
+
+"You design murder?" Richard said.
+
+[Illustration: "YOU DESIGN MURDER? RICHARD ASKED" _Painting by Howard
+Pyle_]
+
+"I design my own preservation," King Henry answered, "for while you
+live my rule is insecure."
+
+"I am sorry," Richard said, "because in part my blood is yours."
+
+Twice he sounded his horn, and everywhere from rustling underwoods
+arose the half-naked Welshmen.  "Your men are one to ten.  You are
+impotent.  Now, now we balance our accounts!" cried Richard.  "These
+persons here will first deal with your followers.  Then will they
+conduct you to Glyndwyr, who has long desired to deal with you himself,
+in privacy, since that WhitMonday when you stabbed his son."
+
+The King began: "In mercy, sire--!" and Richard laughed a little.
+
+"That virtue is not overabundant among us Plantagenets, as both we
+know.  Nay, 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 all these islands.  To-morrow you are worm's-meat;
+and to-morrow, as aforetime, 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 either of 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 had been
+to think you less!"
+
+In a while Richard said: "Now I choose between a peasant wench and
+England.  Now I choose, and, ah, how gladly!  O 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 and aught else there was no choice for him, he
+knew upon a sudden, and could never be!  He was very glad.  He loved
+the tiniest content of the world.
+
+Meanwhile, as from an immense distance, came to this 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 hallucination, 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."
+
+"Ay, 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?  Nay,
+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 King said.  He stared
+at Richard for a while wherein each understood.  "Dear fool," he 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 were only
+he and Branwen left, alone and yet a little troubled, since either 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.  I am the happiest of God's
+creatures," Branwen said.
+
+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 either 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 SHREWD
+  WITHSTANDING OF ALL OTHER ASSAULTS, IS IN A LONG
+  DUEL WHEREIN TIME AND COMMON-SENSE ARE FLOUTED,
+  AND TWO KINGDOMS SHAKEN, ALIKE 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 they might suitably 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!"
+
+"Nay," she answered, "Jehane, whose only title is the Constant Lover."
+And in the green twilight, lit as yet by one low-hanging star alone,
+their lips met, as aforetime.
+
+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; and besides, a
+sorrow too noble for any bitterness had mastered them, and a vast
+desire whose aim they could not word, or even apprehend save cloudily.
+
+"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 fain to die, Jehane.  But, oh, Jehane! dare you to bid
+me live?"
+
+"Friend, as you love me, I entreat you live.  Friend, I crave of the
+Eternal Father that if I falter in my love for you I may be denied even
+the bleak night of ease which Judas knows."  The girl did not weep;
+dry-eyed she winged a perfectly sincere prayer toward incorruptible
+saints.  He was to remember the fact, and through long years.
+
+For even as Riczi left her, yonder behind the yew-hedge a shrill
+joculatrix sang, in rehearsal for Jehane's bridal feast.
+
+Sang the joculatrix:
+
+  "_When the morning broke before us
+    Came the wayward Three astraying,
+  Chattering a trivial chorus--
+    Hoidens that at handball playing
+    (When they wearied of their playing),
+  Cast the Ball where now it whirls
+    Through the coil of clouds unstaying,
+  For the Fates are merry 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.  Fiery-hearted jewels she had, and
+shimmering purple cloths, and much furniture adroitly carven, and many
+tapestries of Samarcand and Baldach upon which were embroidered, by
+brown fingers time 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
+about the end of the second year 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 always the Vicomte swore at his nephew and
+predicted this or that disastrous destination so 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, rode not long afterward for Vannes, in Brittany, where the
+Duchess-Regent held her court.  Dame Jehane had within that fortnight
+put aside her mourning, and sat beneath a green canopy, gold-fringed
+and powdered with many golden stars, upon the night when he first came
+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
+diverted them to the mincing accompaniment of a lute; but Jehane sat
+apart from these, frail, and splendid with many jewels, and a little
+sad, and, as ever (he thought), was hers a beauty clarified of its mere
+substance--the beauty, say, of a moonbeam which penetrates full-grown
+leaves.
+
+And Antoine Riczi found no power of speech within him at the first.
+Silent he stood before her for an obvious interval, still as an effigy,
+while meltingly the jongleur sang.
+
+"Jehane!" said Antoine Riczi, "have you, then, forgotten, O Jehane?"
+
+Nor had the resplendent woman 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 had fluttered somewhat.  "The Duchess
+of Brittany am I," she said, and in the phantom of a voice.  "The
+Countess of Rougemont am I.  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 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.  Drunk with a deadly wine am I,
+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 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 with a sudden roar 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 perfidy.  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 dazzled by a light of intolerable
+splendor, but otherwise sat 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, an eternal service.  I claim my bond.  Yonder prim
+man--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, wed the King of England.  Messire, your audience is done."
+
+Latterly Riczi said this: "Can you hurt me any more, Jehane?--nay, 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 from her smilingly, treading through the hall with many
+affable salutations, while always the jongleur sang.
+
+Sang the jongleur:
+
+  "_There is a land the rabble rout
+    Knows not, whose gates are barred
+  By Titan twins, named Fear and Doubt,
+    That mercifully guard
+  The land we seek--the land so fair!--
+    And all the fields thereof,_
+
+  "_Where daffodils grow everywhere
+    About the Fields of Love--
+  Knowing that in the Middle-Land
+    A tiny pool there lies
+  And serpents from the slimy strand
+    Lift glittering cold eyes._
+
+  "_Now, the parable all may understand,
+    And surely you know the name o' 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 of England.  First had 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"--he 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, whereof the recipient might well be
+proud, and Riczi returned to Lyonnois.  "Depardieux!" his uncle said;
+"so you return alone!"
+
+"As Prince Troilus did," 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, and in another voice; "I would that I were God to
+punish as is fitting!  Nay, come home, my lad!--come home!"
+
+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,
+and 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 a man
+serve his lady according to her commandments, but you have performed
+the most absurd and the cruelest task which any woman ever imposed upon
+her servitor.  I laugh at you, and I envy you."  Thus he died, about
+Martinmas.
+
+Now was Antoine Riczi a powerful baron, and got no comfort of his
+lordship, since in his meditations the King of Darkness, that old
+incendiary, had added a daily fuel until the ancient sorrow quickened
+into vaulting flames of wrath and of disgust.
+
+"What now avail my riches?" said the Vicomte.  "Nay, how much wealthier
+was I when I was loved, and was myself an eager lover!  I relish no
+other pleasures than those of love.  Love's sot am I, drunk with a
+deadly wine, poor fool, and ever I thirst.  As vapor are all my
+chattels and my acres, and the more my dominion and my power increase,
+the more rancorously does my heart sustain its misery, being 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 very crown of that latter kingdom; and as
+the earth is altered by the advent of winter was the appearance of
+France transformed by his coming, and everywhere the nobles were
+stirred up to arms, the castles were closed, the huddled cities were
+fortified, and on either hand arose intrenchments.
+
+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 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, in the month of April, about the day of Palm
+Sunday, and within her dower-palace of Havering-Bower, an interview
+with Queen Jehane.
+
+_Nicolas omits, and unaccountably, to mention that during the French
+wars she had ruled England as Regent, and with marvellous
+capacity--although this fact, as you will see more lately, is the pivot
+of his chronicle._
+
+A solitary page ushered the Vicomte whither she sat alone, by
+prearrangement, in a chamber with painted walls, profusely lighted by
+the sun, and making 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.
+
+A frightened woman, half-distraught, aging now but rather handsome, his
+judgment saw in her, and no more; all black and shimmering gold his
+senses found her, and supple like some dangerous and lovely serpent;
+and with a contained hatred he had discovered, as 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 devil's horns.  Followed the dreary years that
+linked me to the rotting corpse God's leprosy devoured while the poor
+furtive thing yet moved.  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.  Ever the big
+fierce-eyed man has hated me, 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 devise some trumped-up
+accusation.  Friend, I live as did Saint Damoclus, beneath a sword.
+Antoine!" she wailed--for now was the pride of Queen Jehane shattered
+utterly--"within the island am I a prisoner for all that my chains are
+of gold."
+
+"Yet it was not until o' late," he observed, "that you disliked the
+metal which is the substance of all crowns."
+
+And now the woman lifted to him a huge golden collar 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 about her neck.  Ah, you should have mastered me at Vannes.
+You could have done so, and 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.  Then 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 the pride of ill-starred emperors blazed and informed her body as
+light occupies a lantern.  "At last you come for me, messieurs?"
+
+"Whereas," their leader read in answer from a parchment--"whereas the
+King's stepmother, Queen Jehane, is accused by certain persons of an
+act of witchcraft 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--"oh, Harry of Monmouth, could I but
+come to you, very quietly, and with a knife--!"  She shrugged her
+shoulders, and the gold about her person glittered in the sunlight.
+"Witchcraft! ohimé, 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 avenged, no less.  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, and in the sight of common men! and know that Riczi is
+avenged,--you milliner!"
+
+[Illustration: "'TAKE NOW YOUR PETTY VENGEANCE!'" _Painting by
+Elisabeth Shippen Green_]
+
+"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 fresh and private audience of King
+Henry, and readily obtained it.  "Unhardy is unseely," the Vicomte said
+at its conclusion.  Then 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 dissatified.
+
+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.
+
+Then presently these lords had sided with King Henry, as had the
+Vicomte de Montbrison, in open field.  Latterly 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.
+Afterward fell the poised scale of circumstance, and with an aweful
+clangor; and now in France clean-hearted persons spoke of the Vicomte
+de Montbrison as they would of Ganelon or of Iscariot, and in every
+market-place was King Henry proclaimed as governor of the realm.
+
+Meantime was Queen Jehane conveyed to prison and lodged therein for
+five years' space.  She had the liberty of a tiny garden, high-walled,
+and of two scantily furnished chambers.  The brace of hard-featured
+females 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; and in
+fine, had they 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 common inhabitant of all her dreams.
+
+Said Jehane: "This is ill done.  The years have avenged you.  Be
+contented with that knowledge, and, for Heaven's sake, do not endeavor
+to moralize over the ruin 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 her countenance to be
+that of the anemone which naughtily dances above wet earth.
+
+"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.  Nay, 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: how within
+that period King Henry had conquered entire 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 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 he 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 eyes,
+as a flame leaps from stick to stick.  "Harry of Monmouth feared
+neither man nor God.  It needed more than any death-bed repentance to
+frighten him into restoral of 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 all his army?"
+
+The Vicomte de Montbrison said: "There is perhaps no person better
+fitted to patch up this dishonorable business of your captivity,
+wherein a clean man might scarcely dare to meddle."
+
+She appraised this, and more lately said with entire irrelevance: "The
+world has smirched you, somehow.  At last you have done something save
+consider your ill-treatment.  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.
+"Yet 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 in 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 shuddered.  "You have set my thankless service above your
+life, above your honor even.  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."
+
+She had leaned, while thus he spoke, upon the sill of an open casement.
+"Indeed, it had been far better," she said, and with averted face, "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 of life he has pilfered you,
+and he has given you in exchange but dreams, 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?"
+
+"Naught," he answered.
+
+"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 laid one delicate
+hand upon either shoulder.  "Friend, I am aweary of these tinsel
+splendors.  I 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 an ecstasy
+too noble for any common mirth had mastered them, and a vast desire
+whose aim they could not word, or even apprehend save cloudily.
+
+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
+deny myself 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!" she wailed in pitiful distress.
+
+He drew a deep and big-lunged breath that seemed to inform his being
+with an indomitable vigor, and doubt and sorrow went quite away from
+him.  "Love leads us," he said, "and through the sunlight of the world
+he leads us, and through the filth of it Love leads us, but always in
+the end, if we but follow without swerving, he 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!"
+
+"But 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 souëf qui pour mon droit combat,
+  Olivier franc, m'ostant toute amertume._"
+
+
+
+  THE TENTH NOVEL.--KATHARINE OF VALOIS IS WON 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, AND
+  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.  This, 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 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 some 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 odd times uncanny.
+Her abundant hair, too, was black, and to-day doubly sombre by contrast
+with the gold netting which confined it.  Her mouth was scarlet, all
+curves, and her complexion 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 were blue winter stars under
+the tumbled yellow hair, and 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: "You are not a nun--Blood of God! you are
+the Princess Katharine!"
+
+[Illustration: "SO FOR A HEARTBEAT SHE SAW HIM" _Painting by Howard
+Pyle_]
+
+The nuns, her present guardians, would have declared the ensuing action
+horrific, for Katharine smiled frankly at him and demanded how he could
+be certain of this.
+
+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 her cradle and now clamant.
+
+"You have, then, seen the King of England?"
+
+"Yes, Highness."
+
+"Is it true that he is an ogre--like Agrapard and Angoulaffre of the
+Broken Teeth?"
+
+His gaze widened.  "I have heard a deal of scandal concerning the man.
+But never 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.  Katharine punctuated his 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, the
+crown laid aside, he had heard Sire Henry to be 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 of anterior misinformation, 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 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; yet, had she chosen 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
+splurge, 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 Châteauneuf 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 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 Châteauneuf 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 Léonois may have ridden a-hawking in drowned Cornwall,
+thus statelily and composedly, Katharine thought, gazing after him.
+She went to her apartments, singing,
+
+  "_El tems amoreus plein de joie,
+  El tems où tote riens s'esgaie,--_"
+
+and burst into a sudden passion of tears.  There were hosts of
+women-children born every day, she reflected, who were not princesses
+and therefore compelled to marry ogres; and some of them were
+beautiful.  And minstrels made such an ado over beauty.
+
+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,
+grass and foliage uniformly sombre save where dewdrops showed like
+beryls.  Nowhere in the orchard was there absolute shadow, nowhere a
+vista unblurred; but in the east, half-way between horizon and zenith,
+two belts of coppery light flared against the gray sky like embers
+swaddled by their 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 meritorious 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 the while we pray
+  That this the fleet, sweet time 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
+    Seem sweeter far than wisdom--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 mocks 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 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, esteem hell a pleasure-garden.  I have already made
+my prayer to Destiny that she concede me love, and 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, though in doing so it were
+necessary that I split the world like a rotten orange."
+
+"Madness!  Oh, brave, sweet madness!" Katharine said.  "I am a king's
+daughter, and you a minstrel."
+
+"Is it madness?  Why, then, I think all sensible men 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.  Heh, God's face!" Alain swore;
+"the foxes 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, 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 Hôtel de Saint-Pol matters were
+much the same.  Her mother Katharine found in foul-mouthed rage over
+the failure of a third attempt to poison the Dauphin of Vienne, as
+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 Presbyter
+John's wife, the tyrant of Ethiopia.  However, ingenuity had just
+suggested card-playing for his amusement, and he paid little attention
+nowadays to any one save his opponent.
+
+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 poor woman so pestered as I!  The
+puddings to-day were quite uneatable, 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.
+
+"O God!" said Katharine.
+
+"Ay, our only hope now.  And may God show him no more mercy than he has
+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 him come!"  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, what time town by town fell before the invader like
+card-houses.  Every rumor of defeat--and they were many--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; 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 till death the device sickened her--and there the Earl
+of Warwick embarked upon a sea of rhetoric.  His French was
+indifferent, his periods 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 thunder in His armory that this vile thief should go
+unblasted?  Would you filch love as well as kingdoms?"
+
+His ruddy face went 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, expectant, 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 maddened 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 in secret negotiation the
+Queen-Regent was soon trying to bring this about; yes, he could get the
+girl's body by a couple of pen-strokes; but, God's face! 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: he 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.
+
+He stripped the 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 the 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 usage.  He 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 Hôtel de Ville.  The King was pursing his lips over
+an alternative play, when there came the voice of one singing below in
+the courtyard.
+
+Sang the voice:
+
+  "_I get no joy of my 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
+  As 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 loth 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._
+
+  "_O Love, that art stronger than we,
+    Albeit not lightly stilled,
+  Thou art less cruel than she._"
+
+
+Malise came hastily 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 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 pinch 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 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 preëmpted.  I recall now you are in treaty for my
+daughter's hand.  Katharine is a good girl, messire, but I suppose--"
+He paused, as if to regard and hear some insensible 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
+compère 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.  Always his calm blue eyes appraised Dame
+Katharine.
+
+"Oho, these Latinists cannot hoodwink me, you observe, though by
+ordinary it chimes with my humor to appear content.  Policy again,
+messire: 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 a King of France should be
+thus 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, God'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 o' the middle-sea wait unfed."  He went out of the
+room, giggling, and in the corridor began to sing:
+
+  "_Adieu de fois plus de cent mile!
+  Aillors vois oïr l'Evangile,
+  Car chi fors mentir on ne sait...._"
+
+
+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.
+
+"And that," she said, "is the king whom you have conquered!  Is it not
+a notable conquest to overcome so sapient a king? to pilfer renown from
+an idiot?  There are pickpockets 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 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 o' the marsh!" he said, and his big voice pulsed with many
+tender cadences--"flower o' 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 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 his by a divine favor and Heaven's peculiar
+intervention.  He thought himself God's factor, not His rebel.  He was
+rather stupid, this huge handsome boy; and realizing it, her hand went
+to his shoulder, half maternally.
+
+"It is nobly done, sire.  I know that you must wed me to uphold your
+claim to France, for otherwise in the world's eyes you are shamed.  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 no longer
+need a pretext to hold 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 hers.
+
+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 France's welfare.  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 find words with which to answer him at the first effort,
+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."
+
+Now I have to record of this great king a piece of magnanimity which
+bears the impress of more ancient times.  "That you love me is
+indisputable," he said, "and this I propose to demonstrate.  You will
+observe that I am quite unarmed save 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 might the
+past and the ignominy of the past 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, as 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.  Body and heart and soul I am your
+slave.  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 France that I love next to God.  As Judith gave her body to
+Holofernes, I crucify my heart for France's welfare."  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 as one knowing the upshot of the matter.
+
+A man-at-arms came into the room.  "Germain--" Katharine said, 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.
+
+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 busy bodies of both armies.
+
+
+
+THE END OF THE TENTH NOVEL
+
+
+
+
+The Epilogue
+
+  "_Et je fais sçavoir à tous lecteurs de ce Livret que les
+  chases que je dis avoir vues et sues sont enregistrés icy, afin
+  que vous pouviez les regarder selon vostre ban sens, s'il vous
+  plaist._"
+
+
+
+  HERE IS APPENDED THE EPILOGUE THAT MESSIRE NICOLAS
+  DE CAEN MADE FOR THE BOOK WHICH CONTAINED THE
+  SOUL OF HIM; AND WHICH (IN CONSEQUENCE) HE MIGHT NOT
+  VIEW AS HE DID ANYTHING THAT CONVEYED ABOUT THIS
+  WORLD MERE FLESH AND BLOOD AND THE SOUL OF ANOTHER
+  PERSON.
+
+
+
+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
+patiently.  And if her sentence be that of death I counsel you to
+grieve not at what cannot be avoided.
+
+But, if by any miracle that glorious, strong fortress of the weak
+consider it advisable, pass thence 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 die and be forgotten.  For thus
+only 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 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 verily true and
+erroneously protest too many 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 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 it 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 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.
+
+[Illustration: "NICOLAS: À SON LIVRET" _Painting by Howard Pyle_]
+
+Also, my little book, you will encounter more malignant people who will
+jeer at you, and 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 at most to three scant yards of cambric.
+Indeed had I the power to make you better, my little book, I would have
+done it.  A good conscience is a continual feast, and I summon all
+heaven to be my witness that had I been Homer you had awed the world,
+another Iliad.  I lament the improbability of your doing this as
+heartily as any person living; yet Heaven willed it; and it is in
+consequence to Heaven these same cavillers should now complain if they
+insist upon considering themselves to be aggrieved.
+
+So to such impious people do you make no answer at all, unless indeed
+you should elect to answer them by repetition of this trivial 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 doth the work he chose,
+    And counts all else impertinence!_
+
+
+
+EXPLICIT DECAS REGINARUM
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Chivalry, by James Branch Cabell
+
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Chivalry, by James Branch Cabell
+
+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
+
+Illustrator: Howard Pyle
+             William Hurd Lawrence
+             Elizabeth Shippen Green
+
+Release Date: August 26, 2008 [EBook #22463]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHIVALRY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-cover.jpg" ALT="Cover art" BORDER="" WIDTH="586" HEIGHT="880">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-frontt"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<A HREF="images/img-front.jpg">
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-frontt.jpg" ALT="&quot;'I SING OF DEATH'&quot;  _Painting by Howard Pyle_" BORDER="2" WIDTH="471" HEIGHT="726">
+</A>
+<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 471px">
+&quot;'I SING OF DEATH'&quot;  <I>Painting by Howard Pyle</I>
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-title.jpg" ALT="Title page" BORDER="" WIDTH="471" HEIGHT="726">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H1 ALIGN="center">
+Chivalry
+</H1>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+By
+</H3>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+James Branch Cabell
+</H2>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="dedication">
+"<I>And I, according to my copy, and<BR>
+after the simple cunning that God hath<BR>
+sent to me, have down set this in print,<BR>
+to the intent that noble men may see and<BR>
+learn the noble acts of chivalry.</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Illustrated
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+New York and London
+<BR>
+Harper &amp; Brothers Publishers
+<BR>
+1909
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H5 ALIGN="center">
+Copyright, 1909, by HARPER &amp; BROTHERS.
+<BR><BR>
+<I>All rights reserved.</I>
+<BR>
+Published October, 1909.
+</H5>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+TO
+<BR>
+Anne Branch Cabell
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+"AINSI À VOUS, MADAME, À MA TRÈS HAULTE ET<BR>
+TRÈS NOBLE DAME, À QUI J'AYME À DEVOIR<BR>
+ATTACHEMENT ET OBÉISSANCE,<BR>
+J'ENVOYE CE LIVRET."<BR>
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="precautional"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+Precautional
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+<I>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 </I>1470<I>,
+as a dependant on the Duke of Burgundy, it were but human nature should
+our author be a little 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 him 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.</I>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>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 </I>"THE STORY OF THE
+SATRAPS,<I>" where it seemed advantageous, on rejection, 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,
+some passages have been restored in book-form&mdash;pre-eminently to </I>"THE
+STORY OF THE HOUSEWIFE"<I>&mdash;that in an anterior publication had been
+unavoidably deleted through consideration of space.</I>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>And&mdash;"sixth and lastly"&mdash;should confession be made that in the present
+rendering a purely arbitrary title has been assigned this little book;
+and chiefly for commercial reasons, since the word "dizain" has been
+adjudged both untranslatable and, in its pristine form, repellantly
+outré.</I>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>You are to give my 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.</I>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>So here you have a chance to peer at our world's youth when chivalry
+was regnant, and common-sense and cowardice were still at nurse.  And,
+questionless, these same conditions were the source of an age-long
+mêlée&mdash;such as this week is, happily, impossible in any of our
+parishes&mdash;wherein contended "courtesy, and humanity, friendliness,
+hardihood, love and friendship, and murder, hate, and virtue, and sin."
+So that I can only counsel you to do after the excellencies and leave
+the iniquity.</I>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>And for the rest, since good wine needs no hush, and an inferior
+beverage is not likely to be bettered by arboreal adornment, the
+reteller of these tales prefers to piece out his exordium (however
+lamely) with </I>"THE PRINTER'S PREFACE."<I> And it runs in this fashion:</I>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>"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."</I>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+Contents
+</H2>
+
+<BR>
+
+<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="80%">
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">CHAP.</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">&nbsp;</TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#precautional">PRECAUTIONAL</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap00b">THE PROLOGUE</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">I.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap01">THE STORY OF THE SESTINA</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap02">THE STORY OF THE TENSON</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap03">THE STORY OF THE RAT-TRAP</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap04">THE STORY OF THE CHOICES</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap05">THE STORY OF THE HOUSEWIFE</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap06">THE STORY OF THE SATRAPS</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap07">THE STORY OF THE HERITAGE</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap08">THE STORY OF THE SCABBARD</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap09">THE STORY OF THE NAVARRESE</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">X.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap10">THE STORY OF THE FOX-BRUSH</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap11">THE EPILOGUE</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+</TABLE>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+Illustrations
+</H2>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4>
+<A HREF="#img-frontt">
+"'I SING OF DEATH'"&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. <I>Frontispiece</I>
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<H4>
+<A HREF="#img-014t">
+"THEY WERE OVERTAKEN BY FALMOUTH HIMSELF"
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<H4>
+<A HREF="#img-050t">
+"IN AN INSTANT THE PLACE RESOUNDED LIKE A SMITHY"
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<H4>
+<A HREF="#img-064t">
+"SHE HAD VIEWED THE GREAT CONQUEROR"
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<H4>
+<A HREF="#img-078t">
+"'MY PRISONER!' SHE SAID"
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<H4>
+<A HREF="#img-102t">
+"'DO YOU FORSAKE SIRE EDWARD, CATHERINE?'"
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<H4>
+<A HREF="#img-132t">
+"'HAIL YE THAT ARE MY KINSMEN!'"
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<H4>
+<A HREF="#img-148t">
+"IN THE LIKENESS OF A FAIR WOMAN"
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<H4>
+<A HREF="#img-170t">
+"'YOU DESIGN MURDER?' RICHARD ASKED"
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<H4>
+<A HREF="#img-186t">
+"'TAKE NOW YOUR PETTY VENGEANCE!'"
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<H4>
+<A HREF="#img-198t">
+"SO FOR A HEART-BEAT SHE SAW HIM"
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<H4>
+<A HREF="#img-222t">
+"NICOLAS: À SON LIVRET"
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap00b"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Prologue
+</H3>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+"<I>Afin que les entreprises honorables et les nobles aventures<BR>
+et faicts d'armes soyent noblement enregistrés et conservés,<BR>
+je vais traiter et raconter et inventer ung galimatias.</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+THE DIZAIN OF QUEENS OF THAT NOBLE MAKER IN THE<BR>
+FRENCH TONGUE, MESSIRE NICOLAS DE CAEN, DEDICATED<BR>
+TO THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS ISABELLA OF PORTUGAL, OF<BR>
+THE HOUSE OF THE INDOMITABLE ALFONSO HENRIQUES,<BR>
+AND DUCHESS DOWAGER OF BURGUNDY.  HERE BEGINS<BR>
+IN AUSPICIOUS WISE THE PROLOGUE.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H1 ALIGN="center">
+Chivalry
+</H1>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Prologue
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+<I>À sa Dame</I>
+</H4>
+
+<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capi.jpg" ALT="dropcap-i" BORDER="0" WIDTH="111" HEIGHT="109">
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+nasmuch 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; and your
+postulant now approaches as one not spurred toward you by vainglory but
+rather by plain equity, and simply in acknowledgment of the fact 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.
+In fine, I humbly bring my book to you as Phidyle approached another
+and less sacred shrine, <I>farre pio et salente mica</I>, and lay before you
+this my valueless mean tribute not as appropriate to you but as the
+best I have to offer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 even 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 Nicolette shall be discovered in the end to be no less than
+the King's daughter of Carthage, and that Sir Doon 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 as well.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Kings have their policies and wars wherewith to drug each 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&mdash;as of
+old Horatius Flaccus demanded, though not, to speak the truth, of any
+woman,&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+<I>Quo fugis? ah demons! nulla est fuga, tu licet usque<BR>
+Ad Tanaim fugias, usque sequetur amor.</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+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, and 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 to justify that choice in the ensuing action; 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 a now extinct and dusty time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For 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, <I>Defenda
+me, Dios, de me</I>!  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 all
+humanity.  For in that aweful moment would Destiny have thrust her
+sceptre into the hands of a human being and Chance would have exalted a
+human being into usurpal of her chair.  These two&mdash;with what immortal
+chucklings one may facilely imagine&mdash;would then have left the weakling
+thus enthroned, free to direct the pregnant outcome, free to choose,
+and free to steer the conjuration either in the fashion of Friar Bacon
+or of his man, but with no intermediate course unbarred.  <I>Now prove
+thyself!</I> saith Destiny; and Chance appends: <I>Now prove thyself to be
+at bottom a god or else a beast, and now eternally abide that choice.
+And now</I> (O crowning irony!) <I>we may not tell thee clearly by which
+choice thou mayst prove either</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is of ten such moments that I treat within this little book.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 sat often in
+this same high chair of Chance; and in so doing have both graced and
+hallowed it.  Yet I forbear to speak of this, simply because I dare not
+seem to couple your well-known perfection with any imperfect encomium.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent" ALIGN="center">
+<I>Therefore to you, madame&mdash;most excellent and noble lady,<BR>
+to whom I love to owe both loyalty and love&mdash;<BR>
+I dedicate this little book.</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap01"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+I
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Story of the Sestina
+</H3>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+"<I>Armatz de fust e de fer e d'acier,<BR>
+Mos ostal seran bosc, fregz, e semdier,<BR>
+E mas cansos sestinas e descortz,<BR>
+E mantenrai los frevols contra 'ls fortz.</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+THE FIRST NOVEL.&mdash;ALIANORA OF PROVENCE, COMING IN<BR>
+DISGUISE AND IN ADVERSITY TO A CERTAIN CLERK, IS BY<BR>
+HIM CONDUCTED ACROSS A HOSTILE COUNTRY; AND IN<BR>
+THAT TROUBLED JOURNEY ARE MADE MANIFEST TO EITHER<BR>
+THE SNARES WHICH HAD BEGUILED THEM AFORETIME.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Story of the Sestina
+</H3>
+
+<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capi.jpg" ALT="dropcap-i" BORDER="0" WIDTH="111" HEIGHT="109">
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+n 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This woman demands to see the master of the house," the steward then
+retorted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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?"  He got for answer only a deferential cough, and
+very shortly continued: "This is remarkably vexatious.  <I>Vox et praeterea
+nihil</I>,&mdash;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 shrivelled gentleman of
+fifty-odd sat at a desk and scowled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He presently said, "You may go, Yeck."  He had risen, the magisterial
+attitude with which he had awaited her advent cast aside.  "O God!" he
+said; "you, madame!"  His thin hands, scholarly hands, were plucking at
+the air.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dame Alianora had paused, greatly astonished, and there was an interval
+before she said, "I do not recognize you, messire."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And yet, madame, I recall very clearly that some thirty years ago Count
+Bérenger, then reigning in Provence, had about his court four daughters,
+each one of whom was afterward wedded to a king.  First, Margaret, the
+eldest, now regnant in France; then Alianora, the second and most
+beautiful of these daughters, whom troubadours hymned as La Belle.  She
+was married a long while ago, madame, to the King of England, Lord Henry,
+third of that name to reign in these islands."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dame Alianora's eyes were narrowing.  "There is something in your voice,"
+she said, "which I recall."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 good
+Cynara.  Yet have you quite forgotten the Englishman who made so many
+songs of you?  They called him Osmund Heleigh."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He made the Sestina of Spring which my father envied," the Queen said;
+and then, with a new eagerness: "Messire, can it be that you are Osmund
+Heleigh?"  He shrugged assent.  She looked at him for a long time, rather
+sadly, and afterward demanded if he were the King's man or of the barons'
+party.  The nervous hands were raised in deprecation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have no politics," he began, and altered it, gallantly enough, to, "I
+am the Queen's man, madame."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then aid me, Osmund," she said; and he answered with a gravity which
+singularly became him:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You have reason to understand that to my fullest power I will aid you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You know that at Lewes these swine overcame us."  He nodded assent.
+"And 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 him.  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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But you, madame?" he stammered.  "You came alone?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I come from France, where I have been entreating&mdash;and vainly
+entreating&mdash;succor from yet another monkish king, the pious Lewis of that
+realm.  Eh, what is God about when He enthrones these cowards, Osmund?
+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&mdash;"  She paused, the sudden
+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 to this detestable island in
+disguise, accompanied by Avenel de Giars and Hubert Fitz-Herveis.
+To-night some half-dozen fellows&mdash;robbers, thorough knaves, like all you
+English,&mdash;suddenly 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a long while before Messire Heleigh spoke.  Then, "These men," he
+said&mdash;"this de Giars and this Fitz-Herveis&mdash;they gave their lives for
+yours, as I understand it,&mdash;<I>pro caris amicis</I>.  And yet you do not
+grieve for them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I shall regret de Giars," the Queen said, "for he made excellent songs.
+But Fitz-Herveis?&mdash;foh! the man had a face like a horse."  Then again her
+mood changed.  "Many men have died for me, my friend.  At first I wept
+for them, but now I am dry of tears."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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&mdash;Faustina, or Jael, or Artemis, the
+King's wife of Tauris,&mdash;they that slew men, laughing.  I am somewhat
+afraid of you, madame."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 happy.  Now
+you behold me in my misery.  Yet even now I am your Queen, messire, and
+it is not yours to pass judgment upon me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not judge you," he hastily returned.  "Rather I cry with him of
+old, <I>Omnia incerta ratione</I>! 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.  And Lord Brudenel, as you doubtless know, is of the
+barons' party and&mdash;scant cause for grief!&mdash;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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You? singly?" the Queen demanded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He said this with a very curious 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&mdash;and Messire Heleigh on the face of him was a
+paste-board buckler,&mdash;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,&mdash;any price in reason for the
+Sorceress of Provence.  And you are not wealthy, I suspect."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You may trust me, mon bel esper"&mdash;his eyes here were those of a beaten
+child,&mdash;"since 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When he had gone, Dame Alianora laughed contentedly.  "Mon bel esper! my
+fairest hope!  The man called me that in his verses&mdash;thirty years ago!
+Yes, I may trust you, my poor Osmund."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So they set out at cockcrow.  He had procured a viol and a long falchion
+for himself, and had somewhere got suitable clothes for the Queen; and in
+their aging but decent garb the two approached near enough to the
+similitude of what they desired to be esteemed.  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 appeared to consider his casual
+observation that they would find a couple of dead men on the common
+exceedingly diverting.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the Queen asked him the same morning: "And what will you sing, my
+Osmund?  Shall we begin with the Sestina of Spring"?  Osmund Heleigh
+grunted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have forgotten that rubbish long ago.  <I>Omnis amans, amens</I>, saith the
+satirist of Rome town, and with some show of reason."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Followed silence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 so constantly fretted by the sword tapping at his
+ankles.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 their gross terror.  As the Queen with a sob lifted this
+boy the child died.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Starved!" said Osmund Heleigh; "and within a stone's-throw of my snug
+home!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Queen laid down the tiny corpse, and, stooping, lightly caressed its
+sparse flaxen hair.  She answered nothing, though her lips moved.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-014t"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<A HREF="images/img-014.jpg">
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-014t.jpg" ALT="&quot;THEY WERE OVERTAKEN BY FALMOUTH HIMSELF&quot; _Painting by Howard Pyle_" BORDER="2" WIDTH="468" HEIGHT="726">
+</A>
+<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 468px">
+&quot;THEY WERE OVERTAKEN BY FALMOUTH HIMSELF&quot; <I>Painting by Howard Pyle</I>
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+"That is very remarkable," Messire Heleigh observed.  "I was hideously
+afraid, and am yet shaking.  But you, madame, laughed."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Messire Heleigh somewhat dryly observed that tastes differed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At Jessop Minor a more threatening adventure befell.  Seeking food at the
+<I>Cat and Hautbois</I> 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 among them&mdash;a swarthy rascal with his
+head tied in a napkin&mdash;demanded that the jongleurs grace their meal with
+a song.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At first Osmund put him off with a tale of a broken viol.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 him by the
+throat, shaking him.  In the act this rascal tore open Messire Heleigh's
+tunic, disclosing a thin chain about his neck and a small locket, which
+the fellow wrested from its fastening.  "Ahoi!" he continued.  "Ahoi, my
+comrades, what species of minstrel is this, who goes about England all
+hung with gold like a Cathedral Virgin!  He and his sweetheart"&mdash;the
+actual word was grosser&mdash;"will be none the worse for an interview with
+the Marquess."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The situation smacked of awkwardness, for 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:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Messire, the locket contains the portrait of a lady whom in youth I
+loved very greatly.  Save to me, it is valueless.  I pray you, do not rob
+me of it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It shall be the king of songs," said Osmund&mdash;"the song that Arnaut
+Daniel first made.  I will sing for you a Sestina, messieurs&mdash;a Sestina
+in salutation of Spring."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The men disposed themselves about the dying grass, and presently he sang.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang Messire Heleigh:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Awaken! for the servitors of Spring<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Marshal his triumph! ah, make haste to see</SPAN><BR>
+With what tempestuous pageantry they bring<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Mirth back to earth! hasten, for this is he</SPAN><BR>
+That cast out Winter and the woes that cling<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">To Winter's garments, and bade April be!</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>And now that Spring is master, let us be<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Content, and laugh as anciently in Spring</SPAN><BR>
+The battle-wearied Tristan laughed, when he<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Was come again Tintagel-ward&mdash;to bring</SPAN><BR>
+Glad news of Arthur's victory and see<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Ysoude, with parted lips, that waver and cling.</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Anon in Brittany must Tristan cling<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">To this or that sad memory, and be</SPAN><BR>
+Alone, as she in Cornwall, for in Spring<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Love sows, and lovers reap anon&mdash;and he</SPAN><BR>
+Is blind, and scatters baleful seed that bring<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Such fruitage as blind Love lacks eyes to see!"</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+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 ebb back into the lean man like water over a crumbling
+dam.  His voice was now big and desirous.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang Messire Heleigh:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Love sows, and lovers reap; and ye will see<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The loved eyes lighten, feel the loved lips cling</SPAN><BR>
+Never again when in the grave ye be<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Incurious of your happiness in Spring,</SPAN><BR>
+And get no grace of Love there, whither he<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That bartered life for love no love may bring.</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Here Death is;&mdash;and no Heracles may bring<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Alcestis hence, nor here may Roland see</SPAN><BR>
+The eyes of Aude, nor here the wakening spring<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Vex any man with memory, for there be</SPAN><BR>
+No memories that cling as cerements cling,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">No Love that baffles Death, more strong than he.</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Us hath he noted, and for us hath he<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">An how appointed, and that hour will bring</SPAN><BR>
+Oblivion.&mdash;Then, laugh!  Laugh, love, and see<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The tyrant mocked, what time our bosoms cling,</SPAN><BR>
+What time our lips are red, what time we be<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Exultant in our little hour of spring!</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Thus in the spring we mock at Death, though he<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Will see our children perish and will bring</SPAN><BR>
+Asunder all that cling while love may be.</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+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 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 <I>Cat and Hautbois</I> both fed and unmolested.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My Osmund," Dame Alianora said, presently, "your memory is better than I
+had thought."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I remembered a boy and a girl," he returned.  "And I grieved that they
+were dead."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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&mdash;first by Falmouth, then by the trooper.  O
+Eternal Father! fraid of a single dirty soldier!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Indeed, I was very much afraid," said Messire Heleigh, with perfect
+simplicity; "<I>timidus perire</I>, madame."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 him&mdash;do you understand?&mdash;I loved young Osmund Heleigh."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.  Remember
+that I cry <I>nihil ad Andromachen</I>!  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&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Would you have me go unclothed?" Dame Alianora demanded, pettishly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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.'
+And I say to you&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 gave me England as a toy; I played with
+it.  I was the Queen, the source of honor, the source of wealth&mdash;the
+trough, in effect, about which swine gathered.  Never in all my English
+life, Osmund, has man or woman loved me; never in all my English life
+have I loved man or woman.  Do you understand, my Osmund?&mdash;the Queen has
+many flatterers, but no friends.  Not a friend in the world, my Osmund!
+And so the Queen makes the best of it and amuses herself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Somewhat he seemed to understand, for he answered without asperity:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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
+His 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 may not
+yield!" he cried, with an unheralded, odd wildness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Again you preach," Dame Alianora said.  "That is a venerable truism."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ho, madame," he returned, "is it on that account the less true?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Pensively the Queen considered this.  "You are a good man, my Osmund,"
+she said at last, with a fine irrelevance, "though you are very droll.
+Ohimé! 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Followed four days of journeying.  As Messer Dante had not yet surveyed
+Malebolge, they lacked a parallel for that which they encountered; their
+traverse discovered England razed, charred, and depopulate&mdash;picked bones
+of an island, a vast and absolute ruin about which passion-wasted men
+skulked like rats.  They went without molestation; malice and death had
+journeyed on their road aforetime, as heralds, and had swept it clear.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 as for
+inspection; meticulously she observed and appraised her handiwork.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, madame!" he said, in a dry whisper, "this was the home of so many
+men!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I burned it," Dame Alianora replied.  "That man we passed just now I
+killed.  Those other men and women&mdash;my folly killed them all.  And little
+children, my Osmund!  The hair like corn-floss, blood-dabbled!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, madame!" he wailed, in the extremity of his pity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not cowards!" he cried.  "Your men and Leicester's ride about the world,
+and draw sword and slay and die for the right as they see it.  And you
+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!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not understand, my Osmund."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I was afraid, madame," he returned, dully.  "Everywhere men fight and I
+am afraid to die."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So they stood silent in the ruins of Bastling.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of a piece with our lives," Dame Alianora said at last.  "All ruin, my
+Osmund."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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
+the Arabian bird, arises from these ashes a lordlier and more spacious
+town."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then they went forward.  The next day Fate 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ma belle," said this Camoys, in friendly condescension, "n'estez vous
+pas jongleurs?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dame Alianora smiled up at him.  "Ouais, messire; mon mary faict les
+chançons&mdash;"  Here she paused, with dilatory caution, for Camoys had
+leaped from his horse, giving a great laugh.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Here was imminent danger, for Camoys had known the Queen some fifteen
+years.  Messire Heleigh rose to his feet, his five days' beard glinting
+like hoar-frost as his mouth twitched.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am Osmund Heleigh, messire, younger brother to the Earl of Brudenel."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have heard of you, I believe&mdash;the fellow who spoils parchment.  This
+is odd company, however, Messire Osmund, for Brudenel's brother."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A gentleman must serve his Queen, messire.  As Cicero very justly
+observes&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Osmund had gone very white.  "I am no swordsman, messire&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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.  Plainly, you owe it to
+all three of us to fight."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"&mdash;but I refer my cause to God.  I am quite at your service."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, my Osmund!" Dame Alianora then cried.  "It means your death."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He spread out his hands.  "That is God's affair, madame."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are you not afraid?" she breathed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course I am afraid," said Messire Heleigh, irritably.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Osmund made similar oath.  "Judge Thou this woman's cause!" he cried,
+likewise.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On a sudden Osmund attacked, desperately apprehensive of his own
+cowardice.  Camoys lightly eluded him and slashed his 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 it up and with
+it battered Camoys in the face, dealing severe blows.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"God!" Camoys cried, his face all blood.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you acknowledge my quarrel just?" said Osmund, between horrid sobs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What choice have I?" said Gui Camoys, very sensibly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So Osmund rose, blind with tears and shivering.  The Queen bound up their
+wounds as best she might, but Camoys was much dissatisfied.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For reasons of His own, madame," he observed, "and doubtless for
+sufficient ones, 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Osmund shrank as 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I would suggest that the combat be à outrance," 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This, too, was agreed upon, and they bade one another farewell.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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, 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!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 <I>Signor, saciez, ki or ne s'en ira</I>,
+and this he sang with a lilt gayer than the matter of it countenanced.
+Faintly there now came to them the sound of his singing, and they found
+it, in the circumstances, ominously adapt.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang Camoys:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Et vos, par qui je n'oi onques aïe,<BR>
+Descendez tuit en infer le par font.</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Dame Alianora shivered.  "No, no!" she cried.  "Is He less pitiful than
+we?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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&mdash;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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I go to fight Gui Camoys, madame and Queen."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dame Alianora wrung her hands.  "You go to your death."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He answered: "That is very likely.  Therefore I am come to bid you
+farewell."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Queen stared at him for a while; on a sudden she broke into a curious
+fit of deep but tearless sobbing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mon bel esper," said Osmund Heleigh, very 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 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is I who bring about your death!" she wailed.  "You gave me gallant
+service, and I have requited you with death!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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&mdash;a
+Sestina of days, six days of life."  His eyes were fervent now.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She kissed him on either cheek.  "Farewell, my champion!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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, that hereafter men may not say I was slain in an evil cause.  Do
+not shame my maiden venture."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I will not shame you," the Queen proudly said; and then, with a change
+of voice: "O my Osmund!  My Osmund!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He caught her by each wrist.  "Hush!" he bade her, roughly; and stood
+crushing both her hands to his lips, with fierce staring.  "Wife of my
+King! wife of my King!" he babbled; and then flung her from him, crying,
+with a great lift of speech: "I have not failed you!  Praise God, I have
+not failed you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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, though by this the fear of death had gripped him to
+the marrow; and as he went he sang defiantly, taunting the weakness of
+his flesh.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang Osmund Heleigh:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Love sows, and lovers reap; and ye will see<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The loved eyes lighten, feel the loved lips cling</SPAN><BR>
+Never again when in the grave ye be<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Incurious of your happiness in spring,</SPAN><BR>
+And get no grace of Love there, whither he<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That bartered life for love no love may bring."</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For the man was a brave one," 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That he shall not lack," the Queen said, and gently unclasped from
+Osmund's 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The act was very like him," the Queen said.  "Messire Camoys, I think
+that this day is a festival in heaven."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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&mdash;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, <I>Majores majora sonent</I>.  Nevertheless, I
+assert that many a forest was once a pocketful of acorns.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+THE END OF THE FIRST NOVEL
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap02"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+II
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Story of the Tenson
+</H3>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+"<I>Plagues à Dieu ja la nueitz non falhis,<BR>
+Ni 'l mieus amicx lonc de mi no s partis,<BR>
+Ni la gayta jorn ni alba ne vis.<BR>
+Oy Dieus! oy Dieus! de l' alba tan tost ve!</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+THE SECOND NOVEL.&mdash;ELLINOR OF CASTILE, BEING<BR>
+ENAMORED OF A HANDSOME PERSON, IS IN HER FLIGHT FROM<BR>
+MARITAL OBLIGATIONS ASSISTED BY HER HUSBAND, AND<BR>
+IS IN THE END BY HIM CONVINCED OF THE RATIONALITY<BR>
+OF ALL ATTENDANT CIRCUMSTANCES.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Story of the Tenson
+</H3>
+
+<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capi.jpg" ALT="dropcap-i" BORDER="0" WIDTH="111" HEIGHT="109">
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+n the year of grace 1265 (Nicolas begins), about the festival of Saint
+Peter <I>ad Vincula</I>, the Prince de Gâtinais 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
+Entréchat, 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a postscript to his news, and a pregnant one.  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 Gâtinais chaffered fairly; he had a vote, Alphonso had a
+sister.  So that, in effect&mdash;ohé, in effect, he made no question that
+his Majesty understood!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Here the Prince was accoutred cap-à-pie, and in consequence 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 covenanters never having clapped eyes upon
+each other since the wedding-day&mdash;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&mdash;why, that, in a sentence, and for all his coy verbosity, the
+new pontiff was perfectly amenable to reason.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So in a month it was settled.  Alphonso would give his sister to de
+Gâtinais, and in exchange get the latter's vote; and Gui Foulques of
+Sabionetta&mdash;now Clement, fourth Pope to assume that name&mdash;would annul
+the previous marriage, they planned, 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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; the barons' power was demolished, there would be no more
+internecine war; and spurred by the unaccustomed idleness, he 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 d'Ebernoe 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 latterly the Prince
+went into Lower Picardy alone, riding at adventure as he loved to do,
+and thus came to Entréchat, where his wife resided with her mother, the
+Countess Johane.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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, so that within
+the instant these five fell into an 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&mdash;but to them of undoubted
+cogency&mdash;desired the death of Sire Edward, the King of England's son:
+and manifestly there was here an actionable difference of opinion; so
+he had his sword out and presently killed the four of them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anon there 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 a very untidy condition.
+And seated among them, as throned upon the boulder, was a gigantic and
+florid person, so tall that the heads of few people reached to his
+shoulder; a person of handsome exterior, blond, and chested like a
+stallion, whose left eyebrow drooped so oddly that even in anger the
+stupendous man appeared to assure you, quite confidentially, that the
+dilapidation he threatened was an excellent jest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fair friend," said the page.  "God give you joy! and why have you
+converted this forest into a shambles?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Prince told him 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But midway in his talc 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Prince Edward said, "You appear, lad, to be somewhat over heels in the
+confidence of my wife."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now the boy arose and defiantly flung back his head in shrill laughter.
+"Your wife!  Oh, God ha' 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 twain brought face to face."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Prince Edward said, "That is very near the truth."  But, indeed, it was
+the absolute truth, and as concerned himself already attested.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 Gâtinais came a-wooing&mdash;and he is a handsome man."  The page
+made known all which de Gâtinais 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 lustily, for your wife in company with six other knaves
+is at large between here and Burgos&mdash;that unreasonable wife who grew
+dissatisfied after a mere ten years of neglect."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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&mdash;  But as it is, I bid you mount, my lad!" he cried, in a new voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy demanded, "And to what end?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 equity demands I on arrival slay de Gâtinais
+and fetch back my wife to England."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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
+genuinely fond of him.  She found him rather slow of comprehension, and
+was namelessly 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This troubled the Princess somewhat; and often, riding by his more
+stolid 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&mdash;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 hunger
+even.  But now at last 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 done, and later still she and Etienne would be very happy; and,
+in fine, to-morrow was to be a new day.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So these two rode ever southward, and always Prince Edward found this
+new page of his&mdash;this Miguel de Rueda&mdash;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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang Miguel de Rueda:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Lord Love, that leads me day by day<BR>
+Through many a screened and scented way,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Finds to assuage my thirst</SPAN><BR>
+No love that may the old love slay,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">None sweeter than the first.</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Ah, heart of mine, that beats so fast<BR>
+As this or that fair maid trips past,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Once and with lesser stir</SPAN><BR>
+We spied the heart's-desire, at last,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And turned, and followed her.</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>For Love had come that in the spring<BR>
+When all things woke to blossoming<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Was as a child that came</SPAN><BR>
+Laughing, and filled with wondering,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Nor knowing his own name&mdash;"</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"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&mdash;  And yet, as I remember her, she was nothing
+extraordinary."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The page a little tartly said that people might forget a deal within a
+decade.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For the Prince had quickly fathomed the meaning of the scheme hatched
+in Castile.  "When Manfred is driven out of Sicily they will give the
+throne to de Gâtinais.  He intends to get both a kingdom and a handsome
+wife by this neat affair.  And in reason England must support my uncle
+against El Sabio.  Why, my lad, I ride southward to prevent a war that
+would convulse half Europe."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You ride southward in the attempt to rob a miserable woman of her sole
+chance of happiness," Miguel de Rueda estimated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is undeniable, if she loves this thrifty Prince, as indeed I do
+not question my wife does.  Yet is our happiness here a trivial matter,
+whereas war is a great disaster.  You have not seen&mdash;as I have done, my
+little Miguel&mdash;a man viewing his death-wound with a face of stupid
+wonder?&mdash;a man about to die in his lord's quarrel and understanding
+never a word of it?  Or a woman, say&mdash;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 a many such spectacles hereabout that I ride
+southward."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miguel de Rueda shuddered.  But, "She has her right to happiness," the
+page stubbornly said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not so," the Prince retorted; "since it hath pleased the Emperor of
+Heaven to appoint us twain to lofty stations, to intrust 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.  And 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&mdash;"  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&mdash;that is, to the five senses&mdash;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&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 Gâtinais.  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 fact.  And what am I to deduce from
+this?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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&mdash;that is, no virtue;
+but struck with lightning&mdash;that is, by the grace of God&mdash;they are
+astonishingly fruitful in good works."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The page began to laugh.  "You are hopelessly absurd, my Prince, though
+you will never know it&mdash;and I hate you a little&mdash;and I envy you a great
+deal."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nay," Prince Edward said, in misapprehension, for the man was never
+quick-witted&mdash;"nay, it is not for my own happiness that I ride
+southward."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The page then said.  "What is her name?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Prince Edward answered, very fondly, "Hawise."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Her, too, I hate," said Miguel de Rueda; "and I think that the holy
+angels alone know how profoundly I envy her."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 strummed idly as these two debated
+together of great matters; about them was an immeasurable twilight,
+moonless, but tempered by many stars, and everywhere an agreeable
+conference of leaves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Listen, my Prince," the boy said more lately: "here is one view of the
+affair."  And he began to chant, without rhyming, without raising his
+voice above the pitch of talk, what time the lute monotonously sobbed
+beneath his fingers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang Miguel:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>A little while and Irus and Menephtah are at sorry unison, and
+Guenevere is but 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.</I>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Vine-crowned is she 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 fairest of created women, and very wise, but she may never
+understand that at any time one grows aweary of the trodden path.</I>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Yet though she cannot understand, this woman who has known me to the
+marrow, I must obey her laudable behests and serve her blindly.  At
+sight of her my love closes over my heart like a flood, so that I am
+speechless and glory in my impotence, as one who stands at last before
+the kindly face of God.  For her sake 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 is a goodly thing, and that I am
+aweary of the trodden path.</I>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>She is very far from me to-night.  Yonder in the Horselberg 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 o' me, and I am aweary of the trodden
+path.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+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 he, too, sang.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang the Prince:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"<I>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; and he debated the significance of
+these things, and he went astray to gather violets, while I walked in
+the trodden path.</I>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>He babbled of genial wine and of the alert lips of women, of swinging
+censers and of pale-mouthed priests, 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, what while I walked in the trodden path.</I>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>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, very clearly, that neither existed; and 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.</I>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>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, as yet I have not
+eaten all my apples.'  And he wept aloud, but I was not afraid, for I
+had walked in the trodden path.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Again there was a silence.  "You paint a dreary world, my Prince."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nay, my little Miguel, I do but 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 path, whether it be my trodden one or some
+byway through your gayer meadows, yet leads in the end to God.  We have
+our choice&mdash;or to come to Him as a laborer comes at evening for the
+day's wages fairly earned, or to come as some roisterer haled before
+the magistrate."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I consider you to be in the right," the boy said, after a lengthy
+interval, "although I decline&mdash;and emphatically&mdash;to believe you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly the page kissed one huge hand.  "You have conquered, my very
+dull and very glorious Prince.  Concerning that Hawise&mdash;" but Miguel de
+Rueda choked.  "Oh, I understand! in part I understand!" the page
+wailed, and now it was Prince Edward who comforted Miguel de Rueda.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For the Prince laid one hand upon his page's hair, and smiled in the
+darkness to note how soft it was, since the man was less a fool than at
+first view you might have taken him to be, and said:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"One must play the game, 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 cog at dice."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The same night Miguel de Rueda sobbed through the prayer which Saint
+Theophilus made long ago to the Mother of God:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Dame, je n'ose,<BR>
+Flors d'aiglentier et lis et rose,<BR>
+En qui li filz Diex se repose,</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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!  Hearken, 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 débonnaire!  O honored Lady!  Thou that wast once
+a woman&mdash;!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+You would have said the boy was dying; and in sober verity a deal of
+Miguel de Rueda died upon this night of clearer vision.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yet he sang the next day as these two rode southward, although half as
+in defiance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang Miguel:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>And still, whate'er the years may send&mdash;<BR>
+Though Time be proven a fickle friend,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And Love be shown a liar&mdash;</SPAN><BR>
+I must adore until the end<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That primal heart's desire.</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>I may not 'hear men speak of her<BR>
+Unmoved, and vagrant pulses stir<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Whene'er she passes by,</SPAN><BR>
+And I again her worshipper<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Must serve her till I die.</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Not she that is doth pass, but she<BR>
+That Time hath riven away from me<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And in the darkness set&mdash;</SPAN><BR>
+The maid that I may never see,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Or gain, or e'er forget."</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+It was on the following day, near Bazas, these two encountered Adam de
+Gourdon, a Provençal knight, with whom the Prince fought for a long
+while, without either contestant giving way; and 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus the Prince and his attendant came, in late September, to Mauléon,
+on the Castilian frontier, and dined there at the <I>Fir Cone</I>.  Three or
+four lackeys were about&mdash;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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yes, the fellow informed them: the Prince de Gâtinais 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&mdash;a lady, it might be&mdash;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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You will show me to his room," Prince Edward said, with a politeness
+that was ingratiating.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The host shuddered and obeyed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miguel de Rueda, left alone, sat quite silent, his fingertips drumming
+upon the table.  He rose suddenly and flung back his shoulders, all
+resolution to the tiny heels.  On the stairway he passed the black
+little landlord.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think," the little landlord considered, "that Saint Michael must
+have been of similar appearance when he went to meet the Evil One.  Ho,
+messire, will there be bloodshed?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Miguel de Rueda had passed to the room above.  The door was ajar.
+He paused there.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+De Gâtinais 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 of the old tenderness; handsome and
+brave and witty she knew him to be, past reason, as indeed the whole
+world knew him to be distinguished by every namable grace; and the
+innate weakness of de Gâtinais, which she alone suspected, made him now
+seem doubly dear.  Fiercely she wanted to shield him, less from carnal
+injury than from that self-degradation 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 Gâtinais with a
+passion which dwarfed comprehension.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I must question, messire," de Gâtinais 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.  Nay, rather be
+advised by me, messire&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Prince Edward said, "I am not here to talk."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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&mdash;you
+perceive that I am candid&mdash;to achieve in turn the kingship of another
+realm.  And to secure this, possession of the Lady Ellinor is to me
+essential; to you she is nothing."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 'twixt Spain and
+England; to-day El Sabio intends to purchase all 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Eh, and who purchased the woman first?" de Gâtinais spat at him, and
+viciously, for the Frenchman now saw his air-castle shaken to the
+corner-stone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They wedded me to the child in order 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&mdash;the negligence was
+mine&mdash;I may not blame her."  The big and simple man was in an agony of
+repentance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On a sudden he strode forward, his sword now shifted to his left hand
+and his right hand outstretched.  "One and all, we are but 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 Gâtinais, more
+deeply than you have planned to sin through luxury and through
+ambition.  Let us then cry quits, Messire de Gâtinais, and afterward
+part in peace, and in common repentance, if you so elect."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And yield you Ellinor?" de Gâtinais said.  "Nay, 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.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+De Gâtinais 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&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 most natural that we should desire our reunion to take place at
+Burgos; and she came to Burgos with an escort which I provided."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+De Gâtinais sneered.  "So that is the tale you will deliver to the
+world?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When I have slain you," the Prince said, "yes.  Yes, since she is a
+woman, and woman is the weaker vessel."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The reservation is wise.  For once I am dead, Messire Edward, there
+will be none to know that you risk all for a drained goblet, for an
+orange already squeezed&mdash;quite dry, messire."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Face of God!" the Prince said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But de Gâtinais 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.  And in consequence I kiss and tell.  In effect, I was
+eloquent, I was magnificent&mdash;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?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 so base as you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+De Gâtinais 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,
+the head of it striking one leg of the table.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-050t"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<A HREF="images/img-050.jpg">
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-050t.jpg" ALT="&quot;IN AN INSTANT THE PLACE RESOUNDED LIKE A SMITHY&quot; _Painting by William Hurd Lawrence_" BORDER="2" WIDTH="480" HEIGHT="727">
+</A>
+<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 480px">
+&quot;IN AN INSTANT THE PLACE RESOUNDED LIKE A SMITHY&quot; <I>Painting by William Hurd Lawrence</I>
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+"A candle!" de Gâtinais cried, and he panted now&mdash;"a hundred candles to
+the Virgin of Beaujolais!"  He shortened his sword to stab the Prince
+of England.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now the eavesdropper understood.  She flung open the door and fell
+upon Prince Edward, embracing him.  The sword dug deep into her
+shoulder, so that she shrieked once with the cold pain of this wound.
+Then she rose, all ashen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Liar!" she said.  "Oh, I am shamed while I share the world with a
+thing so base as you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In silence de Gâtinais regarded her.  There was a long interval before
+he said, "Ellinor!" and then again, "Ellinor!" like a man bewildered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>I was eloquent, I was magnificent,</I>" she said, "<I>so that in the end
+her reserve was shattered!</I>  Certainly, messire, it is not your death
+which I desire, since a man dies so very, very quickly.  I desire for
+you&mdash;I know not what I desire for you!" the girl wailed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You desire that I should endure this present moment," de Gâtinais
+said; "for as God reigns, I love you, and now am I shamed past death."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She said: "And I, too, loved you.  It is strange to think of that."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I was afraid.  Never in my life have I been afraid before.  But I was
+afraid of this terrible and fair and righteous man.  I saw all hope of
+you vanish, all hope of Sicily&mdash;in effect, I lied as a cornered beast
+spits out his venom," de Gâtinais said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 Gâtinais, you and I
+are not.  We are so fashioned that we can enjoy only the pleasant
+things of life.  But this man can enjoy&mdash;enjoy, mark you&mdash;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&mdash;since he loves it&mdash;and that
+I be in thought and deed all which he desires.  For I have heard the
+Tenson through."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You love him!" said de Gâtinais.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She glanced upward with a pitiable smile.  "Nay, it is you that I love,
+my Etienne.  You cannot understand&mdash;can you?&mdash;how at this very moment
+every fibre of me&mdash;heart, soul, and body&mdash;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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then there fell between these two an infinite silence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Listen," de Gâtinais 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But there was no mercy in the girl, no more for him than for herself.
+The big head lay upon her breast what time she caressed the gross hair
+of it ever so lightly.  "These are tinsel oaths," she crooned, as rapt
+with incurious content; "these are but the protestations of a jongleur.
+A word get you my body?  A word get you, in effect, all which you are
+capable of desiring?  Then why do you not speak that word?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+De Gâtinais raised clenched hands.  "I am shamed," he said; and more
+lately, "It is just."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He left the room and presently rode away with his men.  I say that he
+had done a knightly deed, but she thought little of it, never raised
+her head as the troop clattered from Mauléon, with a lessening beat
+which lapsed now into the blunders of an aging fly who doddered about
+the pane yonder.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She sat thus for a long period, her meditations adrift in the future;
+and that which she foreread left her nor 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.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+THE END OF THE SECOND NOVEL
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap03"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+III
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Story of the Rat-Trap
+</H3>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+"<I>Leixant a part le stil dels trobados,<BR>
+Dos grans dezigs han combatut ma pensa,<BR>
+Mas lo voler vers un seguir dispensa;<BR>
+Yo l'vos publich, amar dretament vos.</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+THE THIRD NOVEL.&mdash;MEREGRETT OF FRANCE, THINKING<BR>
+TO PRESERVE A HOODWINKED GENTLEMAN, ANNOYS A<BR>
+SPIDER; AND BY THE GRACE OF DESTINY THE WEB OF THAT<BR>
+CUNNING INSECT ENTRAPS A BUTTERFLY, A WASP, AND<BR>
+THEN A GOD; WHO SHATTERS IT.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Story of the Rat-Trap
+</H3>
+
+<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capi.jpg" ALT="dropcap-i" BORDER="0" WIDTH="111" HEIGHT="109">
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+n 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 to the demon-tainted blood of Anjou.  So that next day the
+keeper of the privy purse entered upon the household-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, and more
+lately despatched yet another embassy into France to treat about Sire
+Edward's second marriage.  This last embassy was headed by the Earl of
+Aquitaine.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 russet were the
+big Earl and his attendants, but upon the scarlets and purples of the
+French lords many jewels shone; as through a corridor of gayly painted
+sunlit glass came the grave Earl to the dais where sat King Philippe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The King had risen at close sight of the new envoy, and had gulped once
+or twice, and without speaking, hurriedly waved his lords out of
+ear-shot.  His perturbation was very extraordinary.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 the enfeoffment
+nor the lady, but only excuses, Sire Philippe."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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&mdash;unavoidable, alas!&mdash;of returning a hard
+answer before the council; and become 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
+lesser title of Earl of Aquitaine, and as his own ambassador.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And 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 trivial circumstance
+that already the bargain was signed and sworn to; and, 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 largely in
+the company of his affianced wife, Dame Blanch.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 eye, it is recorded, not gently but in a superb fashion.
+And 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 he was, with a crisp beard, and stalwart as a tower; and the
+better-read at Mezelais likened the couple to Sieur Hercules at the
+feet of Queen Omphale when they saw the two so much together.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The ensuing Wednesday the court hunted and slew a stag of ten in the
+woods of Ermenoueïl, which stand thick about the chateau; and upon that
+day 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 considered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dame Blanch, it seemed, was undisposed to mirth.  "For 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,&mdash;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 will
+not understand, and we will wonder, as the stag did, in helpless
+wonder.  And Death will have his sport of us, as in atonement."  Here
+her big eyes shone, as the sun glints upon a sand-bottomed pool.  "Ohé,
+I have known such happiness of late, beau sire, that I am hideously
+afraid to die."  And again the heavily fringed eyelids lifted, and
+within the moment sank contentedly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For the King had murmured "Happiness!" and his glance was rapacious.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But I am discourteous," Blanch said, "to prate of death thus drearily.
+Let us flout him, then, with some gay song."  And toward Sire Edward
+she handed Rigon's lute.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The King accepted it.  "Death is not reasonably mocked," Sire Edward
+said, "since in the end he conquers, and of the very lips that gibed at
+him remains but a little dust.  Nay, rather should I who already stand
+beneath a lifted sword make for my immediate conqueror a Sirvente,
+which is the Song of Service."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang Sire Edward:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>I sing of Death, that cometh to the king,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And lightly plucks him from the cushioned throne,</SPAN><BR>
+And drowns his glory and his warfaring<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">In unrecorded dim oblivion,</SPAN><BR>
+And girds another with the sword thereof,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And sets another in his stead to reign,</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">What time the monarch nakedly must gain</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Styx' hither shore and nakedly complain</SPAN><BR>
+'Midst twittering ghosts lamenting life and love.<BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>For Death is merciless: a crack-brained king<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">He raises in the place of Prester John,</SPAN><BR>
+Smites Priam, and mid-course in conquering<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Bids Caesar pause; the wit of Salomon,</SPAN><BR>
+The wealth of Nero and the pride thereof,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And prowess of great captains&mdash;of Gawayne,</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Darius, Jeshua, and Charlemaigne&mdash;</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Wheedle and bribe and surfeit Death in vain</SPAN><BR>
+And get no grace of him nor any love.<BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Incuriously he smites the armored king<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And tricks his wisest counsellor&mdash;"</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"True, O God!" murmured the tiny woman, who sat beside the window
+yonder.  And Dame Meregrett rose and in silence passed from the room.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The two started, and laughed in common, and afterward paid little heed
+to her outgoing.  For 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, like the tapers before an altar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And, 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 always she looked downward.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The King said: "Never before were we two alone, madame.  Fate is very
+gracious to me this morning."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fate," the lady considered, "has never denied much to the Hammer of
+the Scots."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 she 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&mdash;hot-blooded and desirous man!&mdash;of whom that much-commended
+king has made a prisoner all these years."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is the duty of exalted persons," Blanch unsteadily said, "to put
+aside such private inclinations as their breasts may harbor&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lord," she presently faltered, "lord, 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&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Troubadourish nonsense!" Sire Edward said; "yet it is true that the
+gifts of love are voluntary.  And therefore&mdash;  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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Blanch said, "It is a high matter&mdash;"  Then on a sudden the full-veined
+girl was aglow with passion.  "It is a trivial matter."  He took her in
+his arms, since already her cheeks flared in scarlet anticipation of
+the event.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And 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 the disordered tapestry of verbiage, passion-flapped as
+a flag is by the wind, she presently beheld herself prefigured by
+Balkis, the Judean's lure, and by the Princess of Cyprus (in
+Aristotle's time), and by Nicolette, the King's daughter of
+Carthage&mdash;since the first flush of morning was as a rush-light before
+her resplendency, the man swore; and in conclusion, by the Countess of
+Tripolis, for love of whom he had cleft the seas, and losing whom he
+must inevitably die as Rudel did.  He 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 with a bludgeon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Heart's emperor," the trembling girl more lately said, "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&mdash;and
+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 tomorrow we hunt the great boar.  And in consequence
+to-night this hut will be unoccupied."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man was silent.  He had a gift that way when occasion served.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ha!" the King said.  He laughed.  "The King is pleased to loose his
+prisoner; and I will do it."  He fiercely said this, for the girl was
+very beautiful.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So he came that night, without any retinue, and habited as a forester,
+a horn swung about his neck, into the unlighted hut of Rigon the
+forester, and found a woman there, though not the woman whom he had
+perhaps expected.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Treachery, beau sire!  Horrible treachery!" she wailed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have encountered it ere this," the big man said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Presently comes 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!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 disputations, once for all; and Sire
+Edward knew the conscience of his old opponent to be invulnerable.  The
+act would violate all laws of hospitality and knighthood&mdash;oh, granted!
+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 at Philippe's
+achievement one-half so heartily as would Sire Edward's son and
+immediate successor, the young Prince Edward of Caernarvon.  So that,
+all in all, ohimé!  Philippe had planned the affair with forethought.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In that event I have to-night enregistered my name among the goodly
+company of Love's Lunatics&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Sots amoureux, sots privez, sots sauvages,<BR>
+Sots vieux, nouveaux, et sots de tous âges,</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+thus he scornfully declaimed, "and as yokefellow with Dan Merlin in his
+thorn-bush, and with wise Salomon when he capered upon the high places
+of Chemosh, and with Duke Ares sheepishly agrin within 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&mdash;and hence it is permitted even in our late time that
+always the flesh rebel against the spirit, and always these so tiny and
+so thin-voiced tricksters, these highly tinted miracles of iniquity, so
+gracious in demeanor and so starry-eyed&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then he turned and pointed, no longer the zealot but the expectant
+captain now.  "Look, my Princess!"  For 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," Sire Edward said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Too late," said Meregrett; and yet 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 no man
+passes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It were very easy now to strangle this herring," Sire Edward reflected.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But scarcely a whole school of herring," the fellow retorted.  "Nay,
+Messire d'Aquitaine, the bushes of Ermenoueïl are alive with my
+associates.  The hut yonder, in effect, is girdled by them&mdash;and we have
+our orders."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Concerning women?" the King said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man deliberated.  Then Sire Edward handed him three gold pieces.
+"There was assuredly no specific mention of petticoats," the soldier
+now reflected, "and in consequence I dare to pass the Princess."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And in that event," Sire Edward said, "we twain had as well bid each
+other adieu."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Meregrett only said, "You bid me go?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He waved his hand.  "Since there is no choice.  For that which you have
+done&mdash;however tardily&mdash;I thank you.  Meantime I can but return to
+Rigon's hut to rearrange my toga as King Caesar did when the assassins
+fell upon him, and to encounter whatever Dame Luck may send with due
+decorum."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To die!" she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He shrugged his broad shoulders.  "In the end we necessarily die."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dame Meregrett turned and passed back into the hut without faltering.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And 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 infamy.  If Philippe chance to fall into one of his
+Capetian rages it means death."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nay, lord, it means far worse than death."  And she laughed, though
+not merrily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now, for the first time, Sire Edward regarded her with profound
+consideration, as may we.  To the fingertips this so-little lady showed
+a descendant of the holy Lewis 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 a spark shudder to extinction over burning
+charcoal.  The Valois nose she had, long and delicate in form, and
+overhanging a short upper-lip; yet the lips were glorious in tint, and
+her skin the very Hyperborean snow in tint.  As for her eyes, say,
+gigantic onyxes&mdash;or ebony highly polished and wet with May dew.  They
+were too big for her little face; and they made of her a tiny and
+desirous wraith which nervously endured each incident of
+life&mdash;invariably acquiescent, as a foreigner must necessarily be, to
+the custom of the country.  In fine, this Meregrett was strange and
+brightly colored; and she seemed always thrilled with some subtle
+mirth, like that of a Siren who notes how the sailor pauses at the
+bulwark and laughs a little (knowing the outcome), and does not greatly
+care.  Yet now Dame Meregrett's countenance was rapt.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Sire Edward moved one step toward this tiny lady and paused.
+"Madame, I do not understand."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 had 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 but
+flagrant dulness showed, somehow, in Sire Edward, as the majestic
+deliberation of one that knows his verdict to be decisive, and hence
+appraises cautiously; and if sometimes his big, calm eyes betrayed no
+apprehension of the jest at which her lips were laughing, and of which
+her brain very cordially approved, always within the instant her heart
+convinced her that a god is not lightly moved to mirth.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-064t"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<A HREF="images/img-064.jpg">
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-064t.jpg" ALT="&quot;SHE HAD VIEWED THE GREAT CONQUEROR&quot; Painting by Howard Pyle_" BORDER="2" WIDTH="478" HEIGHT="731">
+</A>
+<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 478px">
+&quot;SHE HAD VIEWED THE GREAT CONQUEROR&quot; <I>Painting by Howard Pyle</I>
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+And now it was a god&mdash;<I>O deus certè!</I>&mdash;who had taken a woman's paltry
+face between his hands, half roughly.  "And the maid is a Capet!" Sire
+Edward mused.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Never has Blanch desired you any ill, beau sire.  But it is the
+Archduke of Austria that she loves, beau sire.  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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And not herself, save in some secondary way!" the big King said.  "In
+part I comprehend, madame.  And I, too, long for this same happiness,
+impotently now, and much as a fevered man might long for water.  And my
+admiration for the Death whom I praised this morning is somewhat
+abated.  There was a Tenson once&mdash;Lord, Lord, how long ago!  I learn
+too late that truth may possibly have been upon the losing side&mdash;"  He
+took up Rigon's lute.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang Sire Edward:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Incuriously he smites the armored king<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And tricks his wisest counsellor&mdash;</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+ay, the song ran thus.  Now listen, madame&mdash;listen, while for me Death
+waits without, and for you ignominy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang Sire Edward:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+<I><SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 17em">"Anon</SPAN><BR>
+Will Death not bid us cease from pleasuring,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And change for idle laughter i' the sun</SPAN><BR>
+The grave's long silence and the peace thereof,&mdash;<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Where we entrancèd.  Death our Viviaine</SPAN><BR>
+Implacable, may never more regain<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The unforgotten passion, and the pain</SPAN><BR>
+And grief and ecstasy of life and love?</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Yea, presently, as quiet as the king<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sleeps now that laid the walls of Ilion,</SPAN><BR>
+We, too, will sleep, and overhead the spring<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Laugh, and young lovers laugh&mdash;as we have done&mdash;</SPAN><BR>
+And kiss&mdash;as we, that take no heed thereof,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">But slumber very soundly, and disdain</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The world-wide heralding of winter's wane</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And swift sweet ripple of the April rain</SPAN><BR>
+Running about the world to waken love.</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>We shall have done with Love, and Death be king<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And turn our nimble bodies carrion,</SPAN><BR>
+Our red lips dusty;&mdash;yet our live lips cling<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Spite of that age-long severance and are one</SPAN><BR>
+Spite of the grave and the vain grief thereof<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">We mean to baffle, if in Death's domain</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Old memories may enter, and we twain</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">May dream a little, and rehearse again</SPAN><BR>
+In that unending sleep our present love.</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Speed forth to her in sorry unison,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">My rhymes: and say Death mocks us, and is slain</SPAN><BR>
+Lightly by Love, that lightly thinks thereon;<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And that were love at my disposal lain&mdash;</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">All mine to take!&mdash;and Death had said, 'Refrain,</SPAN><BR>
+Lest I demand the bitter cost thereof,'<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">I know that even as the weather-vane</SPAN><BR>
+Follows the wind so would I follow Love.</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+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&mdash;hot-blooded and desirous man!&mdash;in honor of the one woman
+who within more years than I care to think of has attempted to serve
+but Edward Plantagenet."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not comprehend," she said.  And, indeed, she dared not.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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! ay,
+a great largesse, 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So that more lately 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&mdash;I am old,
+and presently I die.  As I have served Thee&mdash;as Jacob wrestled with
+Thee at the ford of Jabbok&mdash;at the place of Peniel&mdash;"  Against the
+tremulous blue and silver of the forest she saw in terror 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And presently he turned, stark and black in the rearward splendor of
+the moon.  "<I>As a prince hast thou power with God,</I>" he calmly said,
+"<I>and thou hast prevailed</I>.  For the King of kings was never obdurate,
+m'amye.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Child!  O brave, brave child!" he said to her a little later, "I was
+never afraid to die, and yet to-night I would that I might live a
+trifle longer than in common reason I may ever hope to live!"  And
+their lips met.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Neither stirred when Philippe the Handsome came into the room.  At his
+heels were seven lords, armed cap-à-pie, but the entrance of eight
+cockchafers had meant as much to these transfigured two.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The French King was an odd man, no more sane, perhaps, than might
+reasonably be expected of a Valois.  Subtly smiling, he came forward
+through the twilight, with soft, long strides, and 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 always in the
+flickering gloom of the hut Philippe smiled as an artist might do who
+gazes on the perfected work and knows it to be adroit.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You prefer to remain, my sister?" he presently said.  "Hé bien! it
+happens that to-night I am in a mood for granting almost any favor.  A
+little later and I will attend to you."  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.
+"Conqueror of Scotland, Scourge of France!  O unconquerable king! and
+will the worms of Ermenoueïl, then, pause to-morrow to consider through
+what a glorious turmoil their dinner came to them?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You design murder, fair cousin?" Sire Edward said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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&mdash;and all the while to sit quite still,
+quite unruffled, as a king should always be?  Eh, eh!  I never lived
+until to-night!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, by Heaven," said Sire Edward, "I am your kinsman and your guest,
+I am unarmed&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Philippe bowed his head.  "Undoubtedly," he assented, "the deed is
+a foul one.  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 so 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.  Hé bien! now kill this man for me, messieurs."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The English King strode forward.  "O shallow trickster!" Sire Edward
+thundered.  "<I>Am I not afraid?</I>  You baby, would you ensnare a lion
+with a flimsy rat-trap?  Not so; 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
+and under darkness pilfers&mdash;as you and your seven skulkers!"  The man
+was rather terrible; not a Frenchman within the hut but had drawn back
+a little.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Listen!" Sire Edward said, and 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 Fierabras
+did.  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 expressively designed for stabbings?  You baby,
+is the Hammer of the Scots the man to trust 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There came many armed warriors into the hut, bearing ropes.  Here was
+the entire retinue of the Earl of Aquitaine; and, 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&mdash;"  He
+conversed apart with his lieutenant, and what Sire Edward commanded was
+done.  The French King and seven lords of France went from that hut
+trussed like chickens.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 Fécamp.  To-morrow we sleep in England&mdash;and, Mort
+de Dieu! do you not think, madame, that within the Tower your brother
+and I may more quickly come to some agreement over Guienne?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She had shrunk from him.  "Then the trap was yours?  It was you that
+lured my brother to this infamy!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am vile!" was the man's thought.  And, "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
+an eternity in begging him to restore it?  Nay, for I have a 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&mdash;and, in consequence, the person of your brother.
+Mort de ma vie!  Shall not the seasoned hunter adapt his snare
+aforetime 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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, and unmolested, for the sake of chivalry.  Could I have
+come to you but as to the brave man I had dreamed of, I had come
+through the murkiest lane of hell; as the more artful knave, as the
+more judicious trickster"&mdash;and here she thrust him from her&mdash;"I spit
+upon you.  Now let me go hence."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He took her in his brawny arms.  "Fit mate for me," he said.  "Little
+vixen, had you done otherwise I had devoted you to the devil."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anon, still grasping her, and victoriously lifting Dame Meregrett, so
+that her feet swung quite clear of the floor, Sire Edward said: "Look
+you, in my time I have played against Fate for considerable stakes&mdash;for
+fortresses, and towns, and strong citadels, and for kingdoms even.  And
+it was only to-night I perceived that the one stake worth playing for
+is love.  It were easy enough to get you for my wife; but I want more
+than that....  Pschutt!  I know well enough how women have these
+notions: and carefully I weighed the issue&mdash;Meregrett and Guienne to
+boot? or Meregrett and Meregrett's love to boot?&mdash;and thus the final
+destination of my captives was but the courtyard of Mezelais, in order
+I might come to you with hands&mdash;well! not intolerably soiled."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, now I love you!" she cried, a-thrill with disappointment.  "Yet
+you have done wrong, for Guienne is a king's ransom."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 yellow beard caressed her burning cheek.  Masterfully he
+said: "Then let it serve as such and ransom for a king his glad and
+common manhood.  Ah, m'amye, I am both very wise and abominably
+selfish.  And in either capacity it appears expedient that I leave
+France without any unwholesome delay.  More lately&mdash;hé, already I have
+within my pocket the Pope's dispensation permitting me to marry the
+sister of the King of France, so that I dare to hope."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Very shyly Dame Meregrett lifted her little mouth toward his hot and
+bearded lips.  "Patience," she said, "is a virtue; and daring is a
+virtue; and hope, too, is a virtue: and otherwise, beau sire, I would
+not live."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And 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.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+THE END OF THE THIRD NOVEL
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap04"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+IV
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Story of the Choices
+</H3>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+"Sest fable es en aquest mon<BR>
+Semblans al homes que i son;<BR>
+Que el mager sen qu'om pot aver<BR>
+So es amar Dieu et sa mer,<BR>
+E gardar sos comendamens."<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+THE FOURTH NOVEL.&mdash;YSABEAU OF FRANCE, DESIROUS OF<BR>
+DISTRACTION, LOOKS FOR RECREATION IN THE TORMENT<BR>
+OF A CERTAIN KNIGHT, WHOM SHE PROVES TO BE NO MORE<BR>
+THAN HUMAN; BUT IN THE OUTCOME OF HER HOLIDAY<BR>
+HE CONFOUNDS THIS QUEEN BY THE WIT OF HIS REPLY.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Story of the Choices
+</H3>
+
+<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capi.jpg" ALT="dropcap-i" BORDER="0" WIDTH="111" HEIGHT="109">
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+n the year of grace 1327 (thus Nicolas begins) you could have found in
+all England no lovers 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, and of extensive repute, thanks
+to such among her retinue of lovers as were practitioners of the Gay
+Science and had scattered broadcast innumerable Canzons in her honor;
+and Lord Berners was a man who accepted the world as he found it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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, in a phrase, a man delinquent in it is no more to be valued than
+an ear of corn without the grain.  Nay, I am so profoundly an admirer
+of Love that I can never willingly behold him slain, of a surfeit, by
+Matrimony; and besides, the rapscallion could not to advantage exchange
+purses with Lazarus; and, moreover, Rosamund is to marry the Earl of
+Sarum a little after All Saints' day."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sarum!" people echoed.  "Why, the old goat has had two wives already!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And the Earl would spread his hands.  "One of the wealthiest persons in
+England," he was used to submit.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus it fell out that Sir Gregory came and went at his own discretion
+as concerned Lord Berners' fief of Ordish, all through those gusty
+times of warfare between Sire Edward and Queen Ysabeau, until at last
+the Queen had conquered.  Lord Berners, for one, vexed himself not
+inordinately over the outcome of events, 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was in the September of this year, a little before Michaelmas, that
+they brought Sir Gregory Darrell to be judged by the Queen, for
+notoriously the knight had been Sire Edward'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&mdash;a handsome woman, stoutening
+now from gluttony and from too much wine&mdash;and regarded her prisoner
+with lazy amiability, and devoted the silence to consideration of how
+scantily the man had changed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And what was your errand in Figgis Wood?" she demanded in the
+ultimate&mdash;"or are you mad, then, Gregory Darrell, that you dare ride
+past my gates alone?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He curtly said, "I rode for Ordish."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Followed silence.  "Roger," the Queen ordered, sharply, "give me the
+paper which I would not sign."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Earl of March had drawn an audible breath.  The Bishop of London
+somewhat wrinkled his shaggy brows, as a person in shrewd and epicurean
+amusement, what while she subscribed the parchment within the moment,
+with a great scrawling flourish.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Take, in the devil's name, the hire of your dexterities," said
+Ysabeau, and pushed this document with her wet pen-point toward March,
+"and ride for Berkeley now upon that necessary business we know of.
+And do the rest of you withdraw, saving only my prisoner&mdash;my prisoner!"
+she said, and laughed not very pleasantly.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-078t"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<A HREF="images/img-078.jpg">
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-078t.jpg" ALT="&quot;'MY PRISONER!' SHE SAID&quot;  _Painting by Howard Pyle_" BORDER="2" WIDTH="480" HEIGHT="737">
+</A>
+<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 480px">
+&quot;'MY PRISONER!' SHE SAID&quot;  <I>Painting by Howard Pyle</I>
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+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 a little dog in the room 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?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The tense man had flushed.  "You have harried us of the King's party
+out of England&mdash;and in reason I might not leave England without seeing
+her."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My friend," said Ysabeau, as 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 as well! but not without a final glimpse of this same Rosamund.
+Yet listen: I, too, must ride with you to Ordish&mdash;as your sister,
+say&mdash;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 will I ride with you to Ordish, upon
+condition you disclose to none at Ordish, saving only, if you will,
+this quite immaculate Rosamund, even a 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&mdash;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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 her will."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 that which now occupies
+my heart: I must this night take holiday, lest I go mad."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus did the Queen arrange her holiday.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 you indeed do love this Rosamund
+Eastney?  And of course she worships you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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&mdash;and toward
+such misery any lady must in common reason be a little compassionate."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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&mdash;Le Desir
+du Cuer, was it not, my Gregory?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His palms clutched at heaven.  "That Ysabeau is dead! and all true joy
+is destroyed, and the world lies under a blight wherefrom 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She shrugged, although but wearily.  "I scent the raw stuff of a
+Planh," the Queen observed; "<I>benedicite!</I> 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang Ysabeau:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Man's love hath many prompters,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">But a woman's love hath none;</SPAN><BR>
+And he may woo a nimble wit<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Or hair that shames the sun,</SPAN><BR>
+Whilst she must pick of all one man<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And ever brood thereon&mdash;</SPAN><BR>
+And for no reason,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And not rightly,&mdash;</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Save that the plan was foreordained<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">(More old than Chalcedon,</SPAN><BR>
+Or any tower of Tarshish<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Or of gleaming Babylon),</SPAN><BR>
+That she must love unwillingly<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And love till life be done,</SPAN><BR>
+He for a season,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And more lightly."</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And the more for that your sister is a very handsome woman," was
+Rosamund Eastney's comment.  The period appears to have been after
+supper, and she sat with Gregory Darrell in not the most brilliant
+corner of the main hall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The wretched man leaned forward, bit his nether-lip, and then with a
+sudden splurge of speech informed her of the sorry masquerade.  "The
+she-devil designs some horrible and obscure mischief, she plans I know
+not what."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yet I&mdash;" 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&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Which you never heard!" Lord Berners shouted at this point.  "Jasper,
+a lute!"  And then he halloaed, more lately, "Gregory, Madame de
+Farrington demands that racy song you made against Queen Ysabeau during
+your last visit."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus did the Queen begin her holiday.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a handsome couple which came forward, hand quitting hand a shade
+too tardily, and the blinking eyes yet rapt; but these two were not
+overpleased at being disturbed, and the man in particular was troubled,
+as in reason he well might be, by the task assigned him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is it, indeed, your will, my sister," he said, "that I should
+sing&mdash;this song?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is my will," the Countess said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And the knight flung back his comely head and laughed.  "What I have
+written I shall not disown in any company.  It is not, look you, of my
+own choice that I sing, my sister.  Yet if she bade me would I sing
+this song as willingly before Queen Ysabeau, for, Christ aid me! the
+song is true."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang Sir Gregory:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Dame Ysabeau, la prophécie<BR>
+Que li sage dit ne ment mie,<BR>
+Que la royne sut ceus grever<BR>
+Qui tantost laquais sot aymer&mdash;</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+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 sang it with an incisive gusto, though it seemed to him to
+countersign his death-warrant; and with the vigor that a mangled snake
+summons for its last hideous stroke, it seemed to Ysabeau regretful of
+an ancient spring.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>Nicolas gives this ballad in full, but, and for obvious reasons, his
+translator would prefer to do otherwise.</I>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Only the minstrel added, though Lord Berners did not notice it, a
+fire-new peroration.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang Sir Gregory:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Ma voix mocque, mon cuer gémit&mdash;<BR>
+Peu pense à ce que la voix dit,<BR>
+Car me membre du temps jadis<BR>
+Et d'ung garson, d'amour surpris,<BR>
+Et d'une fille&mdash;et la vois si&mdash;<BR>
+Et grandement suis esbahi.</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+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.  Then she flung 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This song does not err upon the side of clemency," she said at last,
+"nor by ordinary does Queen Ysabeau."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We read, Messire de Berners, that when the she-wolf once acknowledges
+a master she will follow him as faithfully as any dog.  Nay, my
+brother, I do not question your sincerity, yet you sing with the voice
+of an unhonored courtier.  Suppose Queen Ysabeau had heard your song
+all through and then had said&mdash;for she is not as the run of
+women&mdash;'Messire, I had thought till this there was no thorough man in
+England saving Roger Mortimer.  I find him tawdry now, and&mdash;I remember.
+Come you, then, and rule the England that you love as you may love no
+woman, and rule me, messire, for I find even in your cruelty&mdash;England!
+bah, we are no pygmies, you and I!'" the Countess said with a great
+voice; "'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, wherein we
+twain may yet erect our equal thrones, whereon to receive the tributary
+emperors!  For we are no pygmies, you and I.'"  She paused and more
+lately shrugged.  "Suppose Queen Ysabeau had said this much, my
+brother?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Darrell was more pallid, as the phrase is, than a sheet, and the lute
+had dropped unheeded, and his hands were clenched.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I would answer, my sister, that as she has found in England but one
+man, I have found in England but one woman&mdash;the rose of all the world."
+His eyes were turned at this toward Rosamund Eastney.  "And yet," the
+man stammered, "for that I, too, remember&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nay, 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&mdash;eh, my brother?  I am a trifle overspent,
+Messire de Berners."  And her face had now the weary beauty of an
+idol's.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So the men and women parted.  Madame de Farrington kissed her brother
+in leaving him, as was natural; and under her caress his stalwart
+person shuddered, but not in repugnance; and the Queen went bedward
+regretful of an ancient spring and singing hushedly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang Ysabeau:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Were the All-Mother wise, life (shaped anotherwise)<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Would be all high and true;</SPAN><BR>
+Could I be otherwise I had been otherwise<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Simply because of you,</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Who are no longer you.</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Life with its pay to be bade us essay to be<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">What we became,&mdash;I believe</SPAN><BR>
+Were there a way to be what it was play to be<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">I would not greatly grieve...</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And I neither laugh nor grieve!"</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Ysabeau would have slept that night within the chamber of Rosamund
+Eastney had either slept at all.  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; but 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After it might have been an hour of this excruciate ecstasy the
+Countess came to Rosamund's bed.  "Ay," the woman hollowly began, "it
+is indisputable that his hair is like spun gold and that his eyes
+resemble sun-drenched waters in June.  And that when this Gregory
+laughs God is more happy.  Ma belle, I was familiar with the routine of
+your meditations ere you were born."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Rosamund said, quite simply: "You have known him always.  I envy the
+circumstance, Madame Gertrude&mdash;you alone of all women in the world I
+envy, since you, his sister, being so much older, must have known him
+always."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I know him to the core, my girl," the Countess answered, and afterward
+sat silent, one bare foot jogging restlessly; "yet am I two years the
+junior&mdash;  Did you hear nothing, Rosamund?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nay, Madame Gertrude, I heard nothing."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Strange!" the Countess said; "let us have lights, since I can no
+longer endure the overpopulous darkness."  She kindled, with twitching
+fingers, three lamps and looked in vain for more.  "It is as yet dark
+yonder, where the shadows quiver very oddly, as though they would rise
+from the floor&mdash;do they not, my girl?&mdash;and protest vain things.  Nay,
+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 reproach me in a
+voice too faint to reach my ears&mdash;but I would see him&mdash;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!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Madame Gertrude!" the girl now stammered, in communicated terror.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Poor innocent dastard!" 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 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!  Nay, I have lied.  I hate the man, and in such fashion as you
+will comprehend only when you are Sarum's wife."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Madame and Queen!" the girl said, "you will not murder me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am tempted!" the Queen hissed.  "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 glad beauty of the devil, and Gregory Darrell's
+love&mdash;"  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&mdash;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!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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, Gregory has loved but me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ma belle," the Queen answered, and 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.  Throughout his life
+has Gregory Darrell loved me, O white, palsied innocence! and he is
+mine at a whistle.  And in that time to come he will desert you,
+Rosamund&mdash;though with a pleasing Canzon&mdash;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 at first 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
+masculinity because, poor fools, they scurry to obey your whim! and
+chiefly 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The girl kept silence.  She sat erect in the tumbled bed, her hands
+clasping her knees, and appeared to deliberate what Dame Ysabeau had
+said.  The 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 but 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&mdash;  Oh,
+you are all evil!" Rosamund said; "and you thrust thoughts into my mind
+I may not grapple with!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You will comprehend them," the Queen said, "when you know yourself a
+chattel, bought and paid for."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Queen laughed.  She rose, and either hand strained toward heaven.
+"You are omnipotent, yet have You let me become that into which I am
+transmuted," she said, very low.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anon she began, as though a statue spoke through motionless and pallid
+lips.  "They 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&mdash;and I had but to
+crush a filthy worm to come to him.  Eh, and I was tempted&mdash;!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The fearless 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 tiny happenings, it may be, and lacking both in
+abysses and in skyey heights.  Yet is love a flame wherein must the
+lover's soul be purified, as an ore by fire, even to its own discredit;
+and thus, madame, to judge between us I dare summon you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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.  Assuredly, it would be hard to yield my single
+chance of happiness; it would be hard to know that Gregory Darrell must
+presently dwindle into an ox well-pastured, and garner of life no more
+than any ox; but to say, 'Let this girl become as I, and garner that
+which I have garnered&mdash;!'  Did you in truth hear nothing, Rosamund?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, nothing save the wind."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Strange!" said the Queen; "since all the while that I have talked with
+you I have been seriously annoyed by shrieks and various imprecations!
+But I, too, grow cowardly, it maybe&mdash;  Nay, I know," she said, and in a
+resonant voice, "that I am by this mistress of broad England, until my
+son&mdash;my own son, born of my body, and in glad anguish, Rosamund&mdash;knows
+me for what I am.  For I have heard&mdash;  Coward!  O beautiful sleek
+coward!" the Queen said; "I would have died without lamentation and I
+was but your plaything!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Madame Ysabeau&mdash;!" the girl stammered, and ran toward her, for the
+girl had risen, and she was terrified.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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&mdash;and in that instant I will 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&mdash;
+But I must forget all that, for even now he plots.  Hey, God orders
+matters very shrewdly, my Rosamund."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And timidly the girl touched one shoulder.  "In part, I understand,
+madame and Queen."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You understand nothing," said Ysabeau; "how should you understand
+whose breasts are yet so tiny?  Nay, put out the light! though I dread
+the darkness, Rosamund&mdash;For they say that hell is poorly lighted&mdash;and
+they say&mdash;"  Then Queen Ysabeau shrugged.  Herself blew out each lamp.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We know this Gregory Darrell," the Queen said in the darkness, and
+aloud, "ay, 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?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 but one unending warfare between that which is divine in him
+and that which is bestial, while impartial Heaven attends as arbiter of
+the cruel tourney.  Always his judgment misleads the man, 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 His wisdom
+God intends; so that when the man is overthrown, God the Eternal Father
+may, in reason, be neither vexed nor grieved if only he 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 they hold festival in heaven."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A very pretty sermon," said the Queen, and with premeditation yawned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Followed a silence, vexed only on the purposeless September winds; but
+I believe that neither of these two slept with an inappropriate
+profundity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+About dawn one of the Queen's attendants roused Sir Gregory Darrell and
+presently 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Queen said in a toneless voice, "We ride for Blackfriars now."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Darrell responded, "I am content, and ask but leave to speak, and
+briefly, with Dame Rosamund before I die."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the woman came more near to him.  "I am not used to beg, but
+within this hour you die, 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.  Nay, to-day, I may speak freely, for with you
+the doings of that boy and girl are matters overpast.  Yet were it
+otherwise&mdash;eh, weigh the matter carefully! for absolute mistress of
+England am I now, and entire England would I give you, and such love as
+that slim, white innocence has never dreamed of would I give you,
+Gregory Darrell&mdash;No, no! ah, Mother of God, not you!"  The Queen
+clapped one hand upon his lips.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Listen," she quickly said, as a person in the crisis of panic; "I
+spoke to tempt you.  But you saw, and 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.  Yea, many strong men have
+been slain by me, and futurely will many others be slain, it may be;
+but never you among them, my Gregory, who are more wary, and more
+merciful, and know that I have need to lay aside at least one
+comfortable thought against eternity."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I concede you to have been unwise&mdash;" he hoarsely said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+About them fell the dying leaves, of many glorious colors, but the air
+of this new day seemed raw and chill.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Rosamund came through the opening in the hedge.  "Nay, choose,"
+she wearily said; "the woman offers life and empery and wealth, and it
+may be, even a greater love than I am capable of giving you.  I offer a
+dishonorable death within the moment."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And again, with that peculiar and imperious gesture, the man flung back
+his head, and he laughed.  "I am I! and I will so to live that I may
+face without shame not only God, but even 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 I or 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 for the man which you
+would make of me, my Rosamund.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The man!  And what is this man, this Gregory Darrell, that his welfare
+be considered?&mdash;an ape who chatters to himself of kinship with the
+archangels while filthily he digs for groundnuts!  This much I know, at
+bottom, durst I but be honest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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, and to a hair's-breadth, every
+content of the world by means of a bloodied sponge, tucked somewhere in
+his skull, 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, he is under penalty
+condemned to compute eternity with false weights and to estimate
+infinity with a yardstick: and he very often does it.  For though, 'If
+then I do that which I would not I consent unto the law,' saith even
+the Apostle; yet the 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.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There lies the choice which every man must make&mdash;or 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
+much afraid, and I choose death, madame."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+More lately the Queen said: "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&mdash;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&mdash;nay, desirous&mdash;to have you for a
+son-in-law."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+About them fell the dying leaves, of many glorious colors, but the air
+of this new day seemed raw and chill, what 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a silence.  The girl spoke as though it was a sacrament.  "I
+will, madame and Queen."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus did the Queen end her holiday.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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, and as to herself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang Ysabeau:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>As with her dupes dealt Circe<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Life deals with hers, pardie!</SPAN><BR>
+Reshaping without mercy,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And shaping swinishly,</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">To wallow swinishly,</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And for eternity&mdash;</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Though, harder than the witch was,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Life, changing ne'er the whole,</SPAN><BR>
+Transmutes the body, which was<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Proud garment of the soul,</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And briefly drugs the soul,</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Whose ruin is her goal&mdash;</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>And means by this thereafter<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">A subtler mirth to get,</SPAN><BR>
+And mock with bitterer laughter<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Her helpless dupes' regret,</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Their swinish dull regret</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">For what they half forget."</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 praiseworthily&mdash;Lord, Lord,
+how I have fattened!&mdash;so intent on holy things, in fine, should have
+her meditations disturbed by any such unsettling tidings.  Hey,
+son-in-law?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sir Gregory Darrell laughed, and very bitterly.  "He that is without
+blemish among you&mdash;" he said.  Then they armed completely.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+THE END OF THE FOURTH NOVEL
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap05"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+V
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Story of the Housewife
+</H3>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+"<I>Selh que m blasma vostr' amor ni m defen<BR>
+Non podon far en re mon cor mellor,<BR>
+Ni'l dous dezir qu'ieu ai de vos major,<BR>
+Ni l'enveya' ni'l dezir, ni'l talen.</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+THE FIFTH NOVEL.&mdash;PHILIPPA OF HAINAULT DARES TO<BR>
+LOVE UNTHRIFTILY, AND BY THE PRODIGALITY OF HER<BR>
+AFFECTION SHAMES TREACHERY, AND COMMON-SENSE,<BR>
+AND HIGH ROMANCE, QUITE STOLIDLY; BUT, AS LOVING<BR>
+GOES, IS OVERTOPPED BY HER MORE STOLID SQUIRE.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Story of the Housewife
+</H3>
+
+<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capi.jpg" ALT="dropcap-i" BORDER="0" WIDTH="111" HEIGHT="109">
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+n 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.  The profanity had its poor palliation.  Heir
+to England though he was, you must know that his father in the flesh
+had hounded him from England, as more recently his uncle Charles the
+Handsome had driven him from France.  Now had this boy's mother and he
+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-o'-doors
+to resume the weary beggarship, to knock again upon the obdurate gates
+of this unsympathizing king or that deaf emperor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Accordingly the boy aspersed his destiny.  At hand a nightingale
+carolled as though an exiled prince were the blithest spectacle the
+moon knew.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There came through the garden a tall girl, running, stumbling in her
+haste.  "Hail, King of England!" she panted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do not mock me, Philippa!" the boy half-sobbed.  Sulkily he rose to
+his feet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No mockery here, my fair sweet friend.  Nay, 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&mdash;hail, King of England!"
+The girl clapped her hands gleefully, what time the nightingale sang on.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the boy kept momentary silence.  Even in youth the Plantagenets
+were never 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, and with
+consciousness of the fact, as a necessitated hazard of futurity.  Well!
+he had found chance-taking not unfortunate.  With the episode as
+foundation, Count William had already builded up the future queenship
+of England.  A wealthy count could do&mdash;and, as it seemed, was now in
+train to do&mdash;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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So he embraced the girl.  "Hail, Queen of England!" said the Prince;
+and then, "If I forget&mdash;"  His voice broke awkwardly.  "My dear, if
+ever I forget&mdash;!"  Their lips met now, what time the nightingale
+discoursed as on a wager.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently was mingled with the bird's descant low singing of another
+kind.  Beyond the yew-hedge as these two stood silent, breast to
+breast, passed young Jehan Kuypelant, the Brabant page, 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At a gap in the hedge the Brabanter paused.  His melody was hastily
+gulped.  You saw, while these two stood heart hammering against heart,
+his lean face silvered by the moonlight, his mouth a tiny abyss.
+Followed the beat of lessening footsteps, while the nightingale
+improvised his envoi.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But earlier Jehan Kuypelant also had sung, as though in rivalry with
+the bird.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang Jehan Kuypelant:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Hearken and heed, Melaenis!<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">For all that the litany ceased</SPAN><BR>
+When Time had taken the victim,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And flouted thy pale-lipped priest,</SPAN><BR>
+And set astir in the temple<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Where burned the fire of thy shrine</SPAN><BR>
+The owls and wolves of the desert&mdash;<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Yet hearken, (the issue is thine!)</SPAN><BR>
+And let the heart of Atys,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">At last, at last, be mine!</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>For I have followed, nor faltered&mdash;<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Adrift in a land of dreams</SPAN><BR>
+Where laughter and loving and wonder<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Contend as a clamor of streams,</SPAN><BR>
+I have seen and adored the Sidonian,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Implacable, fair and divine&mdash;</SPAN><BR>
+And bending low, have implored thee<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">To hearken, (the issue is thine!)</SPAN><BR>
+And let the heart of Atys,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">At last, at last, be mine!"</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+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&mdash;as men now called the Brabant page,
+now secretary to the Queen of England&mdash;brought his mistress the
+unhandsome tidings that David Bruce had invaded her realm with forty
+thousand Scots to back him.  The Brabanter found the Queen in company
+with the kingdom's arbitress&mdash;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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+These two women, then, shared the Brabanter's execrable news.  Already
+Northumberland, Westmoreland, and Durham were the broken meats of King
+David.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Countess presently exclaimed: "Let me pass, sir!  My place is not
+here."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Philippa said, half hopefully, "Do you forsake Sire Edward, Catherine?"
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-102t"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<A HREF="images/img-102.jpg">
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-102t.jpg" ALT="&quot;DO YOU FORSAKE SIRE EDWARD, CATHERINE?&quot; _Painting by William Hurd Lawrence_" BORDER="2" WIDTH="483" HEIGHT="727">
+</A>
+<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 483px">
+&quot;DO YOU FORSAKE SIRE EDWARD, CATHERINE?&quot; <I>Painting by William Hurd Lawrence</I>
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+"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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now you might have seen the Queen's eyes flame.  "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 all flushed.  "She betrays him! she compounds with the Scot!
+Mother of Christ, let me not fail!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A ship must be despatched to bid Sire Edward return," said the
+secretary.  "Otherwise all England is lost."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not so, John Copeland!  Let Sire Edward conquer in France, if such be
+the Trinity's will.  Always he has dreamed of that, and if I bade him
+return now he would be vexed."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The disappointment of the King," John Copeland considered, "is a
+lesser evil than allowing all of us to be butchered."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not to me, John Copeland," the Queen said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now came many lords into the chamber, seeking Madame Philippa.  "We
+must make peace with the Scottish rascal!&mdash;England is lost!&mdash;A ship
+must be sent entreating succor of Sire Edward!"  So they shouted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Messieurs," said Queen Philippa, "who commands here?  Am I, then, some
+woman of the town?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The occasion is very urgent, my lord," the Queen assented, deep in
+meditation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+John Copeland flung back his head and without prelude began to carol
+lustily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang John Copeland:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>There are fairer men than Atys,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And many are wiser than he&mdash;</SPAN><BR>
+How should I heed them?&mdash;whose fate is<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Ever to serve and to be</SPAN><BR>
+Ever the lover of Atys,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And die that Atys may dine,</SPAN><BR>
+Live if he need me&mdash;Then heed me,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And speed me, (the moment is thine!)</SPAN><BR>
+And let the heart of Atys,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">At last, at last, be mine!</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Fair is the form unbeholden,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And golden the glory of thee</SPAN><BR>
+Whose voice is the voice of a vision,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Whose face is the foam of the sea,</SPAN><BR>
+And the fall of whose feet is the flutter<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Of breezes in birches and pine,</SPAN><BR>
+When thou drawest near me, to hear me,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And cheer me, (the moment is thine!)</SPAN><BR>
+And let the heart of Atys,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">At last, at last, be mine!"</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+I must tell you that the Queen shivered, as with extreme cold.  She
+gazed toward John Copeland wonderingly.  The secretary was as of stone,
+fretting at his lute-strings, head downcast.  Then in a while the Queen
+turned to Hastings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The riot began anew.  "Madness!" they shouted; "lunar madness!  We can
+do nothing until the King return with our army!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In his absence," the Queen said, "I command here."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are not Regent," the Marquess said.  Then he cried, "This is the
+Regent's affair!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let the Regent be fetched," Dame Philippa said, very quietly.
+Presently they brought in her son, Messire Lionel, now a boy of eight
+years, and Regent, in name at least, of England.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Both the Queen and the Marquess held papers.  "Highness," Lord Hastings
+began, "for reasons of state, which I need not here explain, this
+document requires your signature.  It is an order that a ship be
+despatched in pursuit of the King.  Your Highness may remember the pony
+you admired yesterday?"  The Marquess smiled ingratiatingly.  "Just
+here, your Highness&mdash;a cross-mark."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The dappled one?" said the Regent; "and all for making a little mark?"
+The boy jumped for the pen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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, a lackey behind him, sat the Marquess of
+Hastings, meditative over a cup of Bordeaux.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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&mdash;to cite an instance&mdash;eight letters quite as blithely as
+one."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Each man glanced furtively about him.  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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The seven wrote in silence.  When they had ended, I must tell you that
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The fellow left the apartment.  Presently there was a clatter of hoofs
+without, and Hastings rose.  He was a gaunt, terrible old man,
+gray-bearded, and having high eyebrows that twitched and jerked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We have saved our precious skins," said he.  "Hey, you Iscariots!  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 when he
+would breathe."  The seven went away without further speech.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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
+nine-tenths of them protesting they would do nothing of the sort.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There is comedy here.  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 the
+dreams she had of miraculous victories, what time her barons trafficked
+in secret with the Bruce.  On the Saturday before Michaelmas, when the
+opposing armies marshalled in the Bishop's Park, at Auckland, it is
+recorded that 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But 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 intended to conquer France.  I shall visit the
+Marquess as soon as Lionel is fed&mdash;do you know, John Copeland, I am
+anxious about Lionel; he is irritable and coughed five times during the
+night&mdash;and then I will attend to this affair."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now the hand of the Marquess veiled his countenance.  But, "I am an ill
+man," he muttered, doggedly.  "I cannot rise from this couch."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a silence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My lord," the Queen presently began, "without is an army prepared&mdash;ay,
+and quite able&mdash;to defend our England.  The one requirement of this
+army is a leader.  Afford them that, my lord&mdash;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!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Hastings answered: "I am an ill man.  I cannot rise from this couch."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+You saw that Philippa was not beautiful.  You perceived that to the
+contrary she was superb, saw the soul of the woman aglow, gilding the
+mediocrities of color and curve as a conflagration does a hovel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There is no man left in England," said the Queen, "since Sire Edward
+went into France.  Praise God, I am his wife!"  And she was gone
+without flurry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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, and 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now is England shamed," said Hastings, "since a woman alone dares to
+encounter the Scot.  She will lead them into battle&mdash;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 within the
+moment follow her to storm hell if she desired it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He meditated and more lately shrugged.  "And so would I," said Hastings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A little afterward a gaunt and haggard old man, bare-headed 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Philippa was not given to verbiage.  Doubtless she had her emotions,
+but none was visible upon the honest face; yet one plump hand had
+fallen into the big-veined hand of Hastings.  "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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Queen then said, "But you are unarmed."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Philippa returned to her pavilion and inquired for John Copeland.  He
+had ridden off, she was informed, armed, in company with five of her
+immediate retainers.  She considered this strange, but made no comment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+You picture her, perhaps, as spending the morning in prayer, in
+beatings upon her breast, and in lamentations.  Philippa did nothing of
+the sort.  As you have heard, she considered her cause to be so
+clamantly just that to expatiate to the Holy Father upon its merits
+were 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 stripped the
+atrocious Emir of both 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+You must know that about noon Master John Copeland came into the tent.
+"We have conquered," he said.  "Now, by the Face!"&mdash;thus, scoffingly,
+he used her husband's favorite oath&mdash;"now, by the Face! there was never
+a victory more complete!  The Scottish army is as those sands which
+dried the letters King Ahasuerus gave the admirable Esther!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I rejoice," the Queen said, looking up from her sewing, "that we have
+conquered, though in nature I expected nothing else&mdash;  Oh, horrible!"
+She sprang to her feet with a cry of anguish: and 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 genuine calamity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is that, then, the King of Scots?" Philippa demanded, as she mixed
+salt and water for a mouth-wash; and presently: "Sire Edward should be
+pleased, I think.  Will he not love me a little now, John Copeland?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+John Copeland lifted either plump hand toward his lips.  "He could not
+choose," John Copeland said; "madame, he could no more choose but love
+you than I could choose."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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;
+and more lately: "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&mdash;"  She unfolded her plan.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 but to-day I perceive that in all the world there
+is no lady more wise than you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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." ... So then John Copeland left the tent and presently
+rode away with his company.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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&mdash;to which, she might remember, he had
+that morning taken the liberty to assent&mdash;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 mêlée quite unarmed.  A touch of age, perhaps;
+Hastings was always an eccentric man; and in any event, as epilogue,
+this Neville congratulated the Queen that&mdash;by blind luck, he was forced
+to concede&mdash;her worthy secretary had made a prisoner of the Scottish
+King.  Doubtless, Master Copeland was an estimable scribe, and yet&mdash;
+Ah, yes, he quite followed her Majesty&mdash;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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 a letter to Neville's secretary,
+which informed John Copeland that he had done what was not agreeable in
+purloining her prisoner without leave.  Let him sans delay deliver the
+King to her good friend the Earl of Neville.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Here was a nonplus, not perhaps 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&mdash;you could see that both by her
+demeanor and by the indignant letters she dictated; true, they could
+not be delivered, since they were all addressed to John Copeland.
+Meanwhile, Scotland was in despair, whereas the English barons were in
+a frenzy, because, however willing you may be, you cannot well betray
+your liege-lord to an unlocatable enemy.  The circumstances were
+unique, and they remained unchanged for three feverish weeks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A page brought Master Copeland to the King, a stupendous person, blond
+and incredibly big.  With him were a careful Italian, that 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 Cregi, 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now King Edward sat leaning far back in his chair, a hand on either
+hip, and 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 genuinely under the
+scrutiny of those fierce big eyes, which were blue and cold and of an
+astounding lustre, gemlike as the March sea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sire," he began, "it is necessary you first understand I bear a letter
+from Madame Philippa&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then read it," said the King.  "Heart of God! have I an eternity to
+waste on you Brabanters!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+John Copeland read aloud, while the King trifled with a pen, half
+negligent, and in part attendant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Read John Copeland:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"My DEAR LORD,&mdash;<I>I 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 each night chafe your feet with a rag of woollen
+stuff.  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</I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+"<I>PHILIPPA.</I>
+<BR>
+"<I>To my true lord.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"H'm!" said the King; "and now give me the entire story."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+John Copeland obeyed.  I must tell you that early in the narrative King
+Edward arose and, with a sob, strode toward a window.  "Catherine!" he
+said.  He remained motionless what time Master Copeland went on without
+any manifest emotion.  When he had ended, King Edward said, "And where
+is Madame de Salisbury now?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At this the Brabanter went mad.  As a leopard springs he leaped upon
+the King, and grasping him by either shoulder, shook that monarch as
+one punishing a child.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now by the splendor of God&mdash;!" King Edward began, very terrible in his
+wrath.  He saw that John Copeland held a dagger to his breast, and
+shrugged.  "Well, my man, you perceive I am defenceless.  Therefore
+make an end, you dog."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"First you will hear me out," John Copeland said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It would appear," the King retorted, "that I have little choice."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At this time John Copeland began: "Sire, you are the greatest monarch
+our 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 wherewith
+England was regained.  Twenty years ago but for Madame Philippa you had
+died naked in some ditch."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Go on," the King said presently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And 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 but quadrupled her 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The King fiercely said, "Go on."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 all Scotland as a gift, and in
+return demands nothing&mdash;God ha' mercy on us!&mdash;save that you nightly
+chafe your feet with a bit of woollen.  You hear of it&mdash;and ask,
+'<I>Where is Madame de Salisbury?</I>'  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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You will be hanged ere dawn," the King replied, and yet by this one
+hand had screened his face.  "Meanwhile spit out your venom."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I say to you, then," John Copeland continued, "that to-day you are
+master of Europe.  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"&mdash;now the
+man's rage was monstrous&mdash;"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 très beau sire, and have me
+hanged."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The King gave no movement.  "You have been bold&mdash;" he said at last.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But you have been far bolder, sire.  For twenty years you have dared
+to flout that love which is God made manifest as His main heritage to
+His children."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+King Edward sat in meditation for a long while.  "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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But when this Copeland spoke he was as one transfigured.  His voice was
+grave and very tender.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 pre-eminence.  She does not love me, and
+she never will.  She would condemn me to be hewed in fragments sooner
+than permit her husband's little 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sire Edward stroked the table through this while, with an inverted pen.
+He cleared his throat.  He said, half-fretfully:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 had a vision
+once: 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 my vision) said these spires were capable of various
+interpretations.  I speak of symbols, John.  Yet I also have loved, in
+my own fashion&mdash;and, it would seem, I win the same reward as you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He said more lately: "And so she is at Stirling now? with 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The King rose and flung back his big head as a lion might.  "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&mdash;not my
+orders, John&mdash;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 £500 a year for you and for your heirs."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+You must know that John Copeland fell upon his knees before King
+Edward.  "Sire&mdash;" he stammered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the King raised him.  "Nay," 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 shall strive to prove not altogether unworthy of
+my fortune.  Go, then, John Copeland&mdash;go, my squire, and bring me back
+my Queen."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently he heard John Copeland singing without.  And through that
+instant was 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.  Now at last he understood the heart of Philippa.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let me live!" the King prayed; "O Eternal Father, let me live a little
+while that I may make atonement!"  And meantime John Copeland sang
+without and the Brabanter's heart was big with joy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang John Copeland:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Long I besought thee, nor vainly,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Daughter of water and air&mdash;</SPAN><BR>
+Charis!  Idalia!  Hortensis!<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Hast thou not heard the prayer,</SPAN><BR>
+When the blood stood still with loving,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And the blood in me leapt like wine,</SPAN><BR>
+And I murmured thy name, Melaenis?&mdash;<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That heard me, (the glory is thine!)</SPAN><BR>
+And let the heart of Atys,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">At last, at last, be mine!</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Falsely they tell of thy dying,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Thou that art older than Death,</SPAN><BR>
+And never the Hörselberg hid thee,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Whatever the slanderer saith,</SPAN><BR>
+For the stars are as heralds forerunning,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">When laughter and love combine</SPAN><BR>
+At twilight, in thy light, Melaenis&mdash;<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That heard me, (the glory is thine!)</SPAN><BR>
+And let the heart of Atys,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">At last, at last, be mine!"</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+THE END OF THE FIFTH NOVEL
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap06"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+VI
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Story of the Satraps
+</H3>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+"<I>Je suis voix au désert criant<BR>
+Que chascun soyt rectifiant<BR>
+La voye de Sauveur; non suis,<BR>
+Et accomplir je ne le puis.</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+THE SIXTH NOVEL.&mdash;ANNE OF BOHEMIA HAS ONE ONLY<BR>
+FRIEND, AND BY HIM PLAYS THE FRIEND'S PART; AND<BR>
+ACHIEVES IN DOING SO THEIR COMMON ANGUISH, AS WELL<BR>
+AS THE CONFUSION OF STATECRAFT AND THE POULTICING<BR>
+OF A GREAT DISEASE.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Story of the Satraps
+</H3>
+
+<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capi.jpg" ALT="dropcap-i" BORDER="0" WIDTH="111" HEIGHT="109">
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+n 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.  The
+Queen had presently noted a certain priest who went forbiddingly about
+her court, where he was accorded a provisional courtesy, and more
+forbiddingly into many hovels, where day by day a pitiful wreckage of
+humanity both blessed and hoodwinked him, as he morosely knew, and
+adored him, as he never knew at all.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Queen Anne made inquiries.  This young cleric was amanuensis to the
+Duke of Gloucester, she was informed, and notoriously a by-blow of the
+Duke's brother, the dead Lionel of Clarence.  She sent for this Edward
+Maudelain.  When he came her first perception was, "How wonderful his
+likeness to the King!" while the thought's commentary ran,
+unacknowledged, "Ay, as an eagle resembles a falcon!"  For here, to the
+observant eye, was a more zealous person, already passion-wasted, and
+ineffably a more dictatorial and stiff-necked being than the lazy and
+amiable King; also, this Maudelain's face and nose were somewhat too
+long and high; and the priest was, in a word, the less comely of the
+pair by a very little, and by an infinity the more kinglike.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are my cousin now, messire," she told him, and innocently offered
+to his lips her own.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 trembled,
+without knowing why.  Then he spoke, composedly, and of trivial matters.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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: and
+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&mdash;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, denounced her from their pulpits as a heretic and
+as the evil woman prophesied by Ezekiel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was the nature of this desolate child to crave affection, as a
+necessity almost, 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 downright two a
+sort of obsession, though always he gave in a half scorn but half
+concealed; and presently they could have marshalled an army of
+adherents, all in rags, who would cheerfully have been hacked to pieces
+for either of the twain, and have praised God at the final gasp for the
+privilege.  It was perhaps the tragedy of the man's life that he never
+suspected this.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now in and about the Queen's unfrequented rooms the lonely woman and
+the priest met daily to discuss now this or that comminuted 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 trifles while, so clamantly, the dissension
+between the young King and his uncles gathered to a head: the air was
+thick with portents; and was this, then, an appropriate time, the
+judicious demanded of high Heaven, for the Queen of fearful England to
+concern herself about a peasant's toothache?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Long afterward was Edward Maudelain to remember this brief and tranquil
+period of his life, and to wonder over the man that he had been through
+this short 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 all vices but the stains of a traveller
+midway in a dusty journey; and had led the priest no longer to do good
+for his soul's health, but simply for his fellow's benefit.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And 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 yearned, in mockery of common-sense, to suffer somehow for this
+beautiful and gracious comrade; though very often a sudden pity for her
+loneliness and the knowledge that she dared trust no one save himself
+would throttle him like two assassins and move the hot-blooded young
+man to an exquisite agony of self-contempt and exultation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now Maudelain made excellent songs, it was a matter of common report.
+Yet but once in their close friendship had the Queen commanded 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, a thought more harshly than was his
+custom.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang Maudelain;
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Ave Maria! now cry we so<BR>
+That see night wake and daylight go.</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Mother and Maid, in nothing incomplete,<BR>
+This night that gathers is more light and fleet<BR>
+Than twilight trod alway with stumbling feet,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Agentes uno animo.</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Ever we touch the prize we dare not take!<BR>
+Ever we know that thirst we dare not slake!<BR>
+And ever to a dreamed-of goal we make&mdash;<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Est caeli in palatio!</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Yet long the road, and very frail are we<BR>
+That may not lightly curb mortality,<BR>
+Nor lightly tread together silently,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Et carmen unum facio:</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+<I><SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 4em">"Mater, ora filium,</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 4em">Ut post hoc exilium</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 4em">Nobis donet gaudium</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 4em">Beatorum omnium!"</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Dame Anne had risen.  She said nothing.  She stayed in this posture for
+a lengthy while, reeling, one hand yet clasping either breast.  More
+lately 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 villiens, like the cattle, were by ordinary deeded
+with the land.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 Edmund of York and bland
+Harry of Derby, John of Gaunt's oldest son.  Each was a proud and
+handsome man.  To-day Gloucester was gnawing at his finger nails, big
+York seemed half-asleep, and the Earl of Derby patiently to await
+something as yet ineffably remote.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sit down!" snarled Gloucester.  His lean and evil countenance was that
+of a tired devil.  The priest obeyed, wondering 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 John is already
+achieving one in Spain.  Eh, in imagination I was already King of
+England, and I had dreamed&mdash;  Well! to-day the prosaic courier arrived.
+Urban&mdash;the Neapolitan swine!&mdash;dares give me no assistance.  It is
+decreed I shall never reign in these islands.  And I had dreamed&mdash;
+Meanwhile, de Vere and de la Pole are at the King day and night, urging
+revolt.  Within the week the three heads of us will embellish Temple
+Bar.  You, of course, they will only hang."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We must avoid England, then, my noble patron," the priest considered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Maudelain recoiled, for he thought this twitching man insane.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Besides, the King intends to take from me my fief at Sudbury," said
+the Duke of York, "in order he may give it to de Vere.  That is both
+absurd and monstrous and abominable."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Openly Gloucester sneered.  "Listen!" he rapped out toward Maudelain;
+"when they were drawing up the Great Peace at Brétigny, 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 as
+generally known, however, that, finding this sister of the Vicomte do
+Montbrison a girl of obdurate virtue, he had prefaced the action by
+marriage."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And what have I to do with all this?" said Edward Maudelain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gloucester retorted: "More than you think.  For she 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&mdash;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&mdash;sire."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He spoke with a stifled voice, and wrenching forth each sentence; and
+now with a stiff forefinger flipped a paper across the table.  "<I>In
+extremis</I> my brother did far more than confess.  He signed&mdash;your
+Grace," 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Moreover, my daughter was born at Sudbury," said the Duke of York.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And of Maudelain's face I cannot tell you.  He made pretence to read
+the paper carefully, but ever 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.  "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 the titular Queen?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again the Duke shrugged.  "I had not thought of the dumb wench.  We
+have many convents."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now Maudelain twisted the paper between his long, wet fingers and
+appeared to meditate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It would be advisable, your Grace," observed the Earl of Derby,
+suavely, and breaking his silence for the first time, "that yourself
+should wed Dame Anne, once the Apostolic See has granted the necessary
+dispensation.  Treading too close upon the impendent death of our
+nominal lord the so-called King, the foreign war perhaps necessitated
+by her exile would be highly inconvenient."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then these three princes rose and knelt before the priest; in long
+bright garments they were clad, and they glittered with gold and many
+jewels, what while he standing among them shuddered in his sombre robe.
+"Hail, King of England!" cried these three.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hail, ye that are my kinsmen!" he answered; "hail, ye that spring of
+an accursed race, as I!  And woe to England for that fearful hour
+wherein Foulques the Querulous held traffic with a devil and on her
+begot the first of us Plantagenets!  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 we Plantagenets 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...  Nay, now let Lucifer rejoice for 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 any
+other than a Plantagenet, with what expedition would I now kill you
+that recognize the strength to do it! then would I slay you! without
+any animosity, would I slay you then, and just as I would kill as many
+splendid snakes!"
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-132t"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<A HREF="images/img-132.jpg">
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-132t.jpg" ALT="&quot;'HAIL YE THAT ARE MY KINSMEN!'&quot; _Painting by Howard Pyle_" BORDER="2" WIDTH="473" HEIGHT="730">
+</A>
+<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 473px">
+&quot;'HAIL YE THAT ARE MY KINSMEN!'&quot; <I>Painting by Howard Pyle</I>
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Maudelain went first 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 his England was.  For
+entire England was his splendid 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 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, like herded sheep, so that in the
+outcome their carcasses might manure the soil of France yonder or of
+more barren 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&mdash;"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.  The vivid fields would
+blacken under their sluggish ploughs, and they would find that with
+practice it was almost as easy to chuckle as it was to cringe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 him
+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 strong and admirable
+throughout, and hesitancy ebbed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 would be in effect
+a fratricide, and after death 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 one ignoble life and
+one inconsiderable soul, to win so many men to manhood bedazzled his
+every faculty, in anticipation of the exploit.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The tale tells that Maudelain went toward the little garden he knew so
+well 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 it was, 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was splendidly clothed, in a kirtle of very bright green, tinted
+like the verdancy of young ferns in sunlight, and over all a gown of
+white, cut open on either side as far as the hips.  This garment was
+embroidered with golden leopards and trimmed with ermine.  About her
+yellow hair was a chaplet of gold, wherein emeralds glowed.  Her blue
+eyes were as large and bright 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 and never stable wisp of
+cloud, while somehow all elation departed from him as water does from a
+wetted sponge compressed.  He laughed discordantly; but within the
+moment his sun-lit face was still and glorious, like that of an image.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wait&mdash;!  O my only friend&mdash;!" said Maudelain.  Then in a level voice
+he told her all, unhurriedly and without any sensible emotion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She had breathed once, with an aweful inhalation.  She had screened her
+countenance from his gaze what while you might have counted fifty.
+More lately the lithe body of Dame Anne was alert, as one suddenly
+aroused from dreaming.  "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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He answered, "It means a brief and cruel war."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In that war the nobles will ride abroad with banners and gay surcoats,
+and 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His thought had forerun hers.  "Many would die, but in the end I would
+be King, and the general happiness would rest at my disposal.  The
+adventure of this world is wonderful, and it goes otherwise than under
+the strict tutelage of reason."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not 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 and they will fling you aside, as the barons
+have dealt aforetime with every king that dared oppose them.  Nay, they
+desire to live pleasantly, to have fish o' 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?
+then only do I bid you reign."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The sun had grown too bright, too merciless, but as always she drew the
+truth from him, even to his agony.  "I cannot.  I would not endure a
+fortnight.  Heaven help us, nor you nor I nor any one may transform of
+any personal force this bitter time, this piercing, cruel day of frost
+and sun.  Charity and Truth are excommunicate, and the 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 always Lechery and Hatred sway
+these proud and inconsiderate fools as winds blow at will the gay
+leaves of autumn.  We but fight with gaudy shadows, we but aspire to
+overpass a mountain of unstable sand!  We two alone of all the
+scuffling world!  Oh, it is horrible, and I think that Satan plans the
+jest!  We dream a while of refashioning this bleak universe, and we
+know that we alone can do it! and we are as demigods, you and I, in
+those gallant dreams! and at the end we can but poultice some dirty
+rascal!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Queen answered sadly: "Once did God tread the 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 reason with lost
+women, and habitually to consort with rascals, till at last He might
+die between two cutpurses, ignominiously!  Were the considerate persons
+of His day moved at all by the death of this fanatic?  I bid you now
+enumerate through what long halls did the sleek heralds proclaim His
+crucifixion! and the armament of great-jowled emperors that were
+distraught by it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He answered: "It is true.  Of anise even and of cumin the Master
+estimates His tithe&mdash;"  Maudelain broke off with a yapping laugh.
+"Puf!  He is wiser than we.  I am King of England.  It is my heritage."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It means war.  Many will die, many thousands will die, and to no
+betterment of affairs."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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
+flamed as he regarded her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And visibly beneath their glare the woman changed.  "My friend, must I
+not love you any longer?  You would be content with happiness?  I am
+jealous of that happiness! for you are the one friend that I have had,
+and so dear to me&mdash;  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 but to pass my whole life between the four walls of some dingy
+and eternal gaol, forever alone with you, lest you become as 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
+often I have 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Throughout she spoke as simply as a child.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And beside him Maudelain's hands had fallen like so much lead, and
+remembering his own nature, he longed for annihilation only, before she
+had appraised his vileness.  In consequence he said:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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&mdash;!  Ey, say, is it not laughable,
+madame?&mdash;as my birthright Heaven accords me a penny, and with that only
+penny I must anon be seeking to bribe Heaven."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently 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!  He is wiser than we are, it may be!  And as
+always Satan offers no unhandsome bribes&mdash;bribes that are tangible and
+sure."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 visibly, convulsed by a monstrous and repulsive joy.
+"Decide! oh, decide very quickly, my only friend!" he wailed, "for
+throughout I am all filth!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Closer she drew to him and without hesitancy laid one hand on either
+shoulder.  "O my only friend!" she breathed, with red lax lips which
+were very near to his, "throughout so many 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!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Almost did Edward Maudelain smile, but now his stiffening mouth could
+not complete the brave attempt.  "God save King Richard!" said the
+priest.  "For by the cowardice and greed and ignorance of little men
+were 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.  Therefore do you pronounce my doom."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"O King," then said Dame Anne, "I bid you go forever from the court and
+live forever a landless man, and friendless, and without even name.  I
+bid you dare to cast aside all happiness and wealth and comfort and
+each common tie that even a pickpocket may boast, like tawdry and
+unworthy garments.  In fine, I bid you dare be King and absolute, yet
+not of England&mdash;but of your own being, alike in motion and in thought
+and even in wish.  This doom I dare adjudge and to pronounce, since we
+are royal and God's satraps, you and I."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 no revenue.  Therein
+waste 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 in desire of which many and many a man would blithely
+enter hell, and the mere sight of which may well cause a man's voice to
+tremble as my voice trembles now, and in desire of which&mdash;  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, that we
+may not cure, we can but salve the hurt&mdash;"  Now had his hand torn open
+his sombre gown, and the man's bared breast shone in the sunlight, and
+everywhere heaved on it sleek and glittering beads of sweat.  Twice he
+cried the Queen's name aloud, without prefix.  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, "till you achieve in part the task which is
+denied me.  This doom I dare adjudge and to pronounce, since we are
+royal and God's satraps, you and I."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She answered with a tiny, wordless sound.  He prayed for even horror as
+he appraised his handiwork.  But presently, "I take my doom," the Queen
+proudly said.  "I shall be lonely now, my only friend, and yet&mdash;it does
+not matter," the Queen said, with a little shiver.  "No, nothing will
+ever greatly matter now, I think."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 realized; and half way he had strained a soft and groping hand
+toward his lips when he relinquished it.  "Nay, not even that," said
+Edward Maudelain, very proudly, too, and now at last he smiled; "since
+we are God's satraps, you and I."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Afterward he stood thus for an appreciable silence, with ravenous eyes,
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang Maudelain:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Christ save us all, as well He can,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">A solis ortus cardine!</SPAN><BR>
+For He is both God and man,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Qui natus est de virgine,</SPAN><BR>
+And we but part of His wide plan<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That sing, and heartily sing we,</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">'Gloria Tibi, Domine!'</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Between a heifer and an ass<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Enixa est puerpera;</SPAN><BR>
+In ragged woollen clad He was<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Qui regnat super aethera,</SPAN><BR>
+And patiently may we then pass<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That sing, and heartily sing we,</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">'Gloria Tibi, Domine!"</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+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&mdash;  But he will not
+return.  He will never return," the Queen repeated, carefully, and over
+and over again.  "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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Next day the English barons held a council, and in the midst of it King
+Richard demanded to be told his age.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Your Grace is in your twenty-second year," said the uneasy Gloucester,
+and now with reason troubled, since he had been seeking all night long
+for the evanished Maudelain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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, already
+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.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+THE END OF THE SIXTH NOVEL
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap07"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+VII
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Story of the Heritage
+</H3>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+"<I>Pour vous je suis en prison mise,<BR>
+En ceste chambre à voulte grise,<BR>
+Et traineray ma triste vie<BR>
+Sans que jamais mon cueur varie,<BR>
+Car toujours seray vostre amye.</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+THE SEVENTH NOVEL.&mdash;ISABEL OF VALOIS, BEING<BR>
+FORSAKEN BY ALL OTHERS, IS BEFRIENDED BY A PRIEST,<BR>
+WHO, IN CHIEF THROUGH A CHILD'S INNOCENCE, CONTRIVES<BR>
+AND EXECUTES A LAUDABLE IMPOSTURE, AND WINS<BR>
+TO DEATH THEREBY.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Story of the Heritage
+</H3>
+
+<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capi.jpg" ALT="dropcap-i" BORDER="0" WIDTH="111" HEIGHT="109">
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+n the year of grace 1399 (Nicolas begins) dwelt in a hut near Caer
+Dathyl in Arvon, as he had done 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 on cushions of silk."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One day in early spring came a more cunning devil, named Bembo, in 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.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-148t"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<A HREF="images/img-148.jpg">
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-148t.jpg" ALT="&quot;IN THE LIKENESS OF A FAIR WOMAN&quot; _Painting by Howard Pyle_" BORDER="2" WIDTH="482" HEIGHT="732">
+</A>
+<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 482px">
+&quot;IN THE LIKENESS OF A FAIR WOMAN&quot; <I>Painting by Howard Pyle</I>
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+That was the worst, and Maudelain began to fear he was a little mad
+because even this he had resisted with many aves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 without and strode softly through the door,
+and upon his breast and shoulders the snow was white as the bleached
+bones of those women that died in Merlin's youth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Greetings in God's name, Messire Edward Maudelain," the stranger said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In flame-colored satin he was clad, which shimmered with each movement
+like a high flame, and his countenance had throughout the color and the
+glow of amber.  His eyes were dark and very tender, and the tears
+somehow had come to Maudelain's eyes because of a sudden and great love
+for this tall stranger.  "Eh, from the dead to the dead I travel, as
+ever, with a message and a token.  My message runs, <I>Time is, O fellow
+satrap!</I> and my token is this."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And 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 the white parchment slowly
+dwindle, as snow melts under the open sun.  But in his hand remained
+the lock of yellow hair.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 what he held upon the floor.  "<I>Time is!</I> and I have not need
+of any token wherewith 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At dawn the Blessed Evrawc rode eastward in this novel guise.  It was
+two weeks later when he came to Sunninghill; and it happened that the
+same morning the Earl of Salisbury, who had excellent reason to
+consider...
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+<I>Follows a lacuna of fourteen pages.  Maudelain's successful imposture
+of Richard the Second, so strangely favored by their physical
+resemblance, and the subsequent fiasco at Circencester, are now,
+however, tolerably notorious.  It would seem evident, from the Argument
+of the story in hand, that Nicolas attributes a large part of this
+mysterious business to the co-operancy of Isabel of Valois, King
+Richard's infant wife.  And (should one have a taste for the deductive)
+the foregoing mention of Bembo, when compared with</I> "THE STORY OF THE
+SCABBARD," <I>would certainly hint that Owain Glyndwyr had a finger in
+the affair</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>It is impossible to divine by what method, according to Nicolas, this
+Edward Maudelain was eventually substituted for his younger brother.
+Nicolas, if you are to believe his</I> "EPILOGUE," <I>had the best of
+reasons for knowing that the prisoner locked up in Pontefract Castle in
+the February of</I> 1400 <I>was not Richard Plantagenet: and this contention
+is strikingly attested, also, by the remaining fragment of this same</I>
+"STORY OF THE HERITAGE."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+... and eight men-at-arms followed him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Quickly Maudelain rose from the table, pushing his tall chair aside,
+and in the act one fellow closed the door securely.  "Nay, eat your
+fill, Sire Richard," said Piers Exton, "since you will not ever eat
+again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is it so?" the trapped man answered quietly.  "Then indeed you come in
+a good hour."  Once only he smote upon his breast.  "<I>Mea culpa!</I>  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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 fearful hour wherein Foulques the Querulous held traffic with a
+demon and on her begot the first of us Plantagenets!  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 we Plantagenets
+until the end.  Ay, 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!  Nay, I lack the
+grace to die as all Thy saints, 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 a
+Plantagenet!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 as an angered lion among wolves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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, and Piers Exton also lay at his feet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 stood erect upon the cushions
+of it.  They saw this Exton strike the King with his pole-axe, from
+behind, and once only, and they knew no more was needed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"By God!" said one of them in the ensuing stillness, and it was he who
+bled the most, "that was a felon's blow."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Exton fretted, as 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 <I>in extremis</I> 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&mdash;God only knows! for they are an odd race, even as he
+said&mdash;these Plantagenets."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+THE END OF THE SEVENTH NOVEL
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap08"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+VIII
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Story of the Scabbard
+</H3>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+"<I>Ainsi il avoit trouvé sa mie<BR>
+Si belle qu'on put souhaiter.<BR>
+N'avoit cure d'ailleurs plaider,<BR>
+Fors qu'avec lui manoir et estre.<BR>
+Bien est Amour puissant et maistre.</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+THE EIGHTH NOVEL.&mdash;BRANWEN OF WALES GETS A KING'S<BR>
+LOVE UNWITTINGLY, AND IN ALL INNOCENCE CONVINCES<BR>
+HIM OF THE LITTLENESS OF HIS KINGDOM; SO THAT HE<BR>
+BESIEGES AND IN DUE COURSE TRIUMPHANTLY OCCUPIES<BR>
+ANOTHER REALM AS YET UNMAPPED.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Story of the Scabbard
+</H3>
+
+<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capi.jpg" ALT="dropcap-i" BORDER="0" WIDTH="111" HEIGHT="109">
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+n 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 Bolingbroke.  The
+circumstances have been recorded otherwhere.  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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Holland was the surname he assumed, the name of his half-brothers; and
+to detail his Asian wanderings were both tedious and unprofitable.  But
+at the end of each four months would come to him a certain messenger
+from Glyndwyr, whom Richard supposed to be the devil Bembo, 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 the inhabitants afterward
+rob them of through a very cunning device, that this emissary brought
+the letter which read simply, "Now is England fit pasture for the White
+Hart."  Presently was Richard Holland in Wales, and then he rode to
+Sycharth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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
+very barons who had ousted King Log had been the first to find 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+More lately Richard spoke with narrowed eyes.  "You forget that while
+Henry of Lancaster lives no other man will ever reign out a tranquil
+week in these islands.  Come then! the hour strikes; and we will coax
+the devil for once in a way to serve God."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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&mdash;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 in the end the Master of our Sabbaths
+cannot serve us even though he would."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Richard crossed himself.  "You horribly mistake my meaning.  Your
+practices are your own affair, and in them I decline to dabble.  I
+design but to trap a tiger with his appropriate bait.  For you have a
+fief at Caer Idion, I think?&mdash;Very well!  I intend to herd your sheep
+there, for a week or two, after the honorable example of Apollo.  It is
+your part merely to see that Henry knows I live alone and in disguise
+at Caer Idion."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The gaunt Welshman chuckled.  "Yes, Bolingbroke 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 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!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 myself.  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, 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.  Nay,
+if the planets do indeed sing together, it is, depend upon it, to the
+burden of <I>Fools All</I>.  For I am as liberally endowed as most people;
+and when I consider my abilities, performances, instincts, and so on,
+quite aloofly, as I would 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have known the thought," said Owain&mdash;"though rarely since I found
+the Englishwoman that was afterward my wife, and never since my son, my
+Grunyd, 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Pardie!  I have loved as often as Salomon, and in fourteen kingdoms."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And I hate Henry of Lancaster as I do the devil."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I greatly fear," said Owain with a sigh, "lest it may be your
+irreparable malady to hate nothing, not even that which you dislike."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So then Glyndwyr rode south to besiege and burn the town of Caerdyf,
+while at Caer Idion Richard Holland tranquilly abode 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 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They did not; and later 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 incurious hours.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Each day at noon would Branwen bring his dinner, and sometimes chat
+with him while he ate.  After supper he would discourse to Branwen of
+remote kingdoms, wherethrough he had ridden at adventure, as the wind
+veers, among sedate and alien peoples who adjudged him a madman; and
+she, in turn, would tell him many curious tales from the <I>Red Book of
+Hergest</I>&mdash;as of Gwalchmai, and Peredur, and Geraint, in each one of
+whom she had presently discerned an inadequate forerunnership of
+Richard's existence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This Branwen was a fair wench, slender as a wand, and, in a harmless
+way, of a bold demeanor twin to that 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 more brightly yellow and 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, Richard decided.  In all, a taking morsel! though her shapely
+hands were hard with labor, and she rarely laughed; for, as in
+recompense, her heart was tender and ignorant of discontent, and she
+rarely ceased to smile as over some peculiar and wonderful secret which
+she intended, in due time, to share with you alone.  Branwen had many
+lovers, and preferred among them young Gwyllem ap Llyr, a portly lad,
+who was handsome enough, for all his tiny and piggish eyes, and sang
+divinely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Such are not the weapons I would have named," Richard answered, "yet
+in reason, messire, I may not deny you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With that they laid aside their coats and fell to exercise.  In these
+unaccustomed bouts Richard was soundly drubbed, as he had anticipated,
+but throughout he found himself the stronger man, and he managed
+somehow to avoid an absolute overthrow.  By what method he never
+ascertained.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have forgotten what we are fighting about," he observed, after a
+half-hour of this; "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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Content!" cried Gwyllem; "but only if you yield me Branwen."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 proper 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 divinity will ascend no pedestal save the
+carcass of his happiness.  Yet have many men since time was young been
+addicted to the practice, as 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gwyllem said: "That is all very fine.  Perhaps it is also reasonable.
+Only when you love you do not reason."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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
+either window, rustling and tapping pleasantly, and Richard was content.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang Gwyllem:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Love me or love me not, it is enough<BR>
+That I have loved you, seeing my whole life is<BR>
+Uplifted and made glad by the glory of Love&mdash;<BR>
+My life that was a scroll all marred and blurred<BR>
+With tavern-catches, which that pity of his<BR>
+Erased, and writ instead one perfect word,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">O Branwen!</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>I have accorded you incessant praise<BR>
+And song and service long, O Love, for this,<BR>
+And always I have dreamed incessantly<BR>
+Who always dreamed, 'When in oncoming days<BR>
+This man or that shall love you, and at last<BR>
+This man or that shall win you, it must be<BR>
+That loving him you will have pity on me<BR>
+When happiness engenders memory<BR>
+And long thoughts, nor unkindly, of the past,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">O Branwen!'</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>I know not!&mdash;ah, I know not, who am sure<BR>
+That I shall always love you while I live!<BR>
+And being dead, and with no more to give<BR>
+Of song or service?&mdash;Love shall yet endure,<BR>
+And yet retain his last prerogative,<BR>
+When I lie still, through many centuries,<BR>
+And dream of you and the exceeding love<BR>
+I bore you, and am glad dreaming thereof,<BR>
+And give God thanks therefor, and so find peace,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">O Branwen!"</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"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 has blundered without any astonishment I would
+perform&mdash;I wonder, now, what miracle?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For he was, though vaguely, discontent.  This Gwyllem was so young, so
+earnest over every trifle, and above all so unvexed by any rational
+afterthought; and each 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.".
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next morning came a ragged man, riding upon a mule.  He claimed to
+be 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Richard whistled.  "Now will my cousin be quite sure, and now will
+my anxious cousin come to speak with Richard of Bordeaux.  And now, by
+every saint in the calendar!  I am as good as King of England."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He sat down beneath a young oak and twisted four or five blades of
+grass between his fingers what while he meditated.  Undoubtedly he
+would kill 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, he was unable to protest any particularly ardent
+desire for the scoundrel's death.  Thus crudely to demolish the knave's
+adroit and year-long schemings savored of a tyranny a shade too gross.
+The spider was venomous, and his destruction laudable; granted, but in
+crushing him you ruined his web, a miracle of patient malevolence,
+which, despite yourself, compelled both admiration and envy.  True, the
+process would recrown a certain Richard, but then, as he 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 is Branwen married to
+this Gwyllem and grown fat and old, and I am remarried to Dame Isabel
+of France, and am King of England: and a trifle later all four of us
+will be dead.  Pending this deplorable consummation a wise man will
+endeavor to amuse himself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 the day's happenings.  A half-hour since,
+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 will I 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 in a hideous conflict; 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 either hand seized the thick and
+hairy throat.  What followed was brutal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For many minutes Branwen stood with averted face, shuddering.  She very
+dimly heard the sound of Gwyllem's impotent great fists as they beat
+against the countenance and body of Richard, and the thin splitting
+vicious noise of torn cloth as Gwyllem clutched at Richard's tunic and
+tore it many times.  Richard uttered no articulate word, and Gwyllem
+could not.  There was entire silence for a heart-beat, and then the
+fall of something ponderous and limp.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come!" Richard said.  Through the hut's twilight, glorious in her eyes
+as Michael fresh from that primal battle, 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.  In his arms she rode presently, passive, and
+incuriously content.  The horse trod with deliberation.  In the east
+the young moon was taking heart as the darkness thickened about them,
+and innumerable stars awoke.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 therefrom.  It
+was a full three minutes before he got the better of his bewilderment
+and laughed, very softly, lest he disturb this Branwen, who was so near
+his heart....
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Decidedly, I shall be sorry to have done with shepherding," said
+Richard as he ate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But he only shrugged.  "I am the wisest person unhanged, since I
+comprehend my own folly.  And so, I think, was once 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 wild denizen of
+the forest, or man; for thine, O Love, thine alone is the power to make
+playthings of us all.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Your bard was wise, no doubt, yet it was not in similar terms that
+Gwyllem sang of this passion.  Lord," she demanded shyly, "how would
+you sing of love?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Richard was replete and quite contented with the world.  He took up the
+lute, in full consciousness that his compliance was in large part
+cenatory.  "In courtesy, thus&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang Richard:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>The gods in honor of fair Branwen's worth<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Bore gifts to her&mdash;and Jove, Olympus' lord,</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Co-rule of Earth and Heaven did accord,</SPAN><BR>
+And Venus gave her slender body's girth,<BR>
+And Mercury the lyre he framed at birth,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And Mars his jewelled and resistless sword,</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And wrinkled Plutus all the secret hoard</SPAN><BR>
+And immemorial treasure of mid-earth,&mdash;</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>And while the puzzled gods were pondering<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Which of these goodly gifts the goodliest was,</SPAN><BR>
+Dan Cupid came among them carolling<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And proffered unto her a looking-glass,</SPAN><BR>
+Wherein she gazed and saw the goodliest thing<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That Earth had borne, and Heaven might not surpass."</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Richard laughed, though he was sensibly nettled and perhaps a shade
+abashed; and presently he sang again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang Richard:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Catullus might have made of words that seek<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">With rippling sound, in soft recurrent ways,</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The perfect song, or in the old dead days</SPAN><BR>
+Theocritus have hymned you in glad Greek;<BR>
+But I am not as they&mdash;and dare not speak<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Of you unworthily, and dare not praise</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Perfection with imperfect roundelays,</SPAN><BR>
+And desecrate the prize I dare to seek.</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>I do not woo you, then, by fashioning<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Vext similes of you and Guenevere,</SPAN><BR>
+And durst not come with agile lips that bring<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The sugared periods of a sonneteer,</SPAN><BR>
+And bring no more&mdash;but just with lips that cling<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">To yours, and murmur against them, 'I love you, dear!'"</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+For Richard had resolved that Branwen should believe him.  Tinsel,
+indeed! then here was yet more tinsel which she must and should 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; and
+curt as lightning came the knowledge that she believed the absolute
+truth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Richard had taken just two strides, and 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 his whole life was like a wave, to him, that trembled now at
+full height, and he was aware of a new world all made of beauty and of
+pity.  Then the lute snapped between his fingers, and Richard
+shuddered, and his countenance was the face of a man only.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There is a task," he said, hoarsely&mdash;"it is God's work, I think.  But
+I do not know&mdash;I only know that you are very beautiful, Branwen," he
+said, and in the name he found a new and piercing loveliness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+More lately he said: "Go!  For I have loved so 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 in agony, "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!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For a long while Richard lay at his ease in the lengthening shadows of
+the afternoon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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&mdash;or not, at least, too unalterably
+sorrowful.  It is very well that Branwen does not love me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How should she?  I am almost twice her age, an old fellow now,
+battered and selfish and too indolent to love her&mdash;say, as Gwyllem did.
+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; and 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 handsome scabbard of a man, precisely as
+Owain said."  This settled, Richard whistled to his dog.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The sun had set, but it was not more than dusk.  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 more cool.  There was as yet but one star in the green and
+cloudless heaven, and this was very large, like a beacon, and it
+appeared to him symbolical that he trudged away from it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Next day the Welshmen came, and now the trap was ready for Henry of
+Lancaster.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"God give you joy, fair sir," said Richard, when the cavalier was at
+his elbow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You design murder?" Richard said.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-170t"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<A HREF="images/img-170.jpg">
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-170t.jpg" ALT="&quot;YOU DESIGN MURDER? RICHARD ASKED&quot; _Painting by Howard Pyle_" BORDER="2" WIDTH="478" HEIGHT="732">
+</A>
+<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 478px">
+&quot;YOU DESIGN MURDER? RICHARD ASKED&quot; <I>Painting by Howard Pyle</I>
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+"I design my own preservation," King Henry answered, "for while you
+live my rule is insecure."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am sorry," Richard said, "because in part my blood is yours."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Twice he sounded his horn, and everywhere from rustling underwoods
+arose the half-naked Welshmen.  "Your men are one to ten.  You are
+impotent.  Now, now we balance our accounts!" cried Richard.  "These
+persons here will first deal with your followers.  Then will they
+conduct you to Glyndwyr, who has long desired to deal with you himself,
+in privacy, since that WhitMonday when you stabbed his son."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The King began: "In mercy, sire&mdash;!" and Richard laughed a little.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That virtue is not overabundant among us Plantagenets, as both we
+know.  Nay, 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 all these islands.  To-morrow you are worm's-meat;
+and to-morrow, as aforetime, I am King of England."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Branwen gave one sharp, brief cry, and Richard forgot all things
+saving this girl, and strode to her.  He had caught up either of her
+hard, lithe hands; against his lips he strained them close and very
+close.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Branwen&mdash;!" he said.  His eyes devoured her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, King," she answered.  "O King of England!  O fool that I had been
+to think you less!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In a while Richard said: "Now I choose between a peasant wench and
+England.  Now I choose, and, ah, how gladly!  O Branwen, help me to be
+more than King of England!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 and aught else there was no choice for him, he
+knew upon a sudden, and could never be!  He was very glad.  He loved
+the tiniest content of the world.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Meanwhile, as from an immense distance, came to this 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&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 hallucination, to
+consider a desirable possession.  Take it, then; for, praise God! the
+sword has found its sheath."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The King answered: "I do not ask you to reconsider your dismissal,
+assuredly&mdash;Richard," he cried, a little shaken, "I perceive that until
+your death you will win contempt and love from every person."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ay, 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&mdash;but what had
+I to do with all this strife between the devil and the tiger?  Nay,
+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&mdash;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!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"As God lives, I too regret that time!" the bluff King said.  He stared
+at Richard for a while wherein each understood.  "Dear fool," he 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+More lately Richard dismissed his wondering marauders.  Now were only
+he and Branwen left, alone and yet a little troubled, since either was
+afraid of that oncoming moment when their eyes must meet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So Richard laughed.  "Praise God!" he wildly cried, "I am the greatest
+fool unhanged!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She answered: "I am the happier.  I am the happiest of God's
+creatures," Branwen said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 either was
+too glad for laughter.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+THE END OF THE EIGHTH NOVEL
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap09"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+IX
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Story of the Navarrese
+</H3>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+"<I>J'ay en mon cueur joyeusement<BR>
+Escript, afin que ne l'oublie,<BR>
+Ce refrain qu'ayme chierement,<BR>
+C'estes vous de qui suis amye.</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+THE NINTH NOVEL.&mdash;JEHANE OF NAVARRE, AFTER A SHREWD<BR>
+WITHSTANDING OF ALL OTHER ASSAULTS, IS IN A LONG<BR>
+DUEL WHEREIN TIME AND COMMON-SENSE ARE FLOUTED,<BR>
+AND TWO KINGDOMS SHAKEN, ALIKE DETHRONED AND<BR>
+RECOMPENSED BY AN ENDURING LUNACY.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Story of the Navarrese
+</H3>
+
+<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capi.jpg" ALT="dropcap-i" BORDER="0" WIDTH="111" HEIGHT="109">
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+n 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 they might suitably 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nay," she answered, "Jehane, whose only title is the Constant Lover."
+And in the green twilight, lit as yet by one low-hanging star alone,
+their lips met, as aforetime.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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; and besides, a
+sorrow too noble for any bitterness had mastered them, and a vast
+desire whose aim they could not word, or even apprehend save cloudily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Young Riczi held her now in an embrace more brutal.  "Mine! mine!" he
+snarled toward the obscuring heavens.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Riczi answered: "My desires&mdash;may God forgive me!&mdash;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 fain to die, Jehane.  But, oh, Jehane! dare you to bid
+me live?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Friend, as you love me, I entreat you live.  Friend, I crave of the
+Eternal Father that if I falter in my love for you I may be denied even
+the bleak night of ease which Judas knows."  The girl did not weep;
+dry-eyed she winged a perfectly sincere prayer toward incorruptible
+saints.  He was to remember the fact, and through long years.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For even as Riczi left her, yonder behind the yew-hedge a shrill
+joculatrix sang, in rehearsal for Jehane's bridal feast.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang the joculatrix:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>When the morning broke before us<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Came the wayward Three astraying,</SPAN><BR>
+Chattering a trivial chorus&mdash;<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Hoidens that at handball playing</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">(When they wearied of their playing),</SPAN><BR>
+Cast the Ball where now it whirls<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Through the coil of clouds unstaying,</SPAN><BR>
+For the Fates are merry girls!</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.  Fiery-hearted jewels she had, and
+shimmering purple cloths, and much furniture adroitly carven, and many
+tapestries of Samarcand and Baldach upon which were embroidered, by
+brown fingers time 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Young Antoine Riczi likewise nursed his wound as best he might; but
+about the end of the second year his uncle, the Vicomte de
+Montbrison&mdash;a gaunt man, with preoccupied and troubled eyes&mdash;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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 always the Vicomte swore at his nephew and
+predicted this or that disastrous destination so often as Antoine
+declined to marry the latest of his uncle's candidates&mdash;in whom the
+Vicomte was of an astonishing fertility.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yet it is necessary," Riczi answered; and, filled with no unhallowed
+joy, rode not long afterward for Vannes, in Brittany, where the
+Duchess-Regent held her court.  Dame Jehane had within that fortnight
+put aside her mourning, and sat beneath a green canopy, gold-fringed
+and powdered with many golden stars, upon the night when he first came
+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
+diverted them to the mincing accompaniment of a lute; but Jehane sat
+apart from these, frail, and splendid with many jewels, and a little
+sad, and, as ever (he thought), was hers a beauty clarified of its mere
+substance&mdash;the beauty, say, of a moonbeam which penetrates full-grown
+leaves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Antoine Riczi found no power of speech within him at the first.
+Silent he stood before her for an obvious interval, still as an effigy,
+while meltingly the jongleur sang.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Jehane!" said Antoine Riczi, "have you, then, forgotten, O Jehane?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nor had the resplendent woman 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 had fluttered somewhat.  "The Duchess
+of Brittany am I," she said, and in the phantom of a voice.  "The
+Countess of Rougemont am I.  The Lady of Nantes and of Guerrand! of
+Rais and of Toufon and Guerche! ... Jehane is dead."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man had drawn one audible breath.  "You are Jehane, whose only
+title is the Constant Lover!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Friend, the world smirches us," she said half-pleadingly.  "I have
+tasted too deep of wealth and power.  Drunk with a deadly wine am I,
+and ever I thirst&mdash;I thirst&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Friend, I have swayed kingdoms since."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Jehane, do you remember that August twilight in Pampeluna when last I
+kissed you?  Then as now you wore a gown of green, Jehane."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But 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 with a sudden roar of
+mirth her courtiers applauded the evolutions of the saltatrice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is true," she responded, "it is lamentably true that after to-night
+we are as different persons, you and I."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 perfidy.  For your own sake, Jehane&mdash;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!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Once or twice she blinked, as dazzled by a light of intolerable
+splendor, but otherwise sat 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, an eternal service.  I claim my bond.  Yonder prim
+man&mdash;gray-bearded, the man in black and silver&mdash;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, wed the King of England.  Messire, your audience is done."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Latterly Riczi said this: "Can you hurt me any more, Jehane?&mdash;nay, even
+in hell they cannot hurt me now.  Yet I, at least, keep faith, and in
+your face I fling faith like a glove&mdash;old-fashioned, it may be, but
+clean&mdash;and I will go, Jehane."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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&mdash;!"
+Instead he went from her smilingly, treading through the hall with many
+affable salutations, while always the jongleur sang.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang the jongleur:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>There is a land the rabble rout<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Knows not, whose gates are barred</SPAN><BR>
+By Titan twins, named Fear and Doubt,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That mercifully guard</SPAN><BR>
+The land we seek&mdash;the land so fair!&mdash;<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And all the fields thereof,</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Where daffodils grow everywhere<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">About the Fields of Love&mdash;</SPAN><BR>
+Knowing that in the Middle-Land<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">A tiny pool there lies</SPAN><BR>
+And serpents from the slimy strand<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Lift glittering cold eyes.</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Now, the parable all may understand,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And surely you know the name o' the land!</SPAN><BR>
+Ah, never a guide or ever a chart<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">May safely lead you about this land,&mdash;</SPAN><BR>
+The Land of the Human Heart!</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+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 of England.  First had Sire
+Henry placed the ring on Riczi's finger, and then spoke Antoine Riczi,
+very loud and clear:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I, Antoine Riczi&mdash;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&mdash;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"&mdash;he paused here to regard the gross hulk of masculinity
+before him, and then smiled very sadly&mdash;"in precisely the spirit of my
+said lady, I plight you my troth."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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, whereof the recipient might well be
+proud, and Riczi returned to Lyonnois.  "Depardieux!" his uncle said;
+"so you return alone!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"As Prince Troilus did," said Riczi&mdash;"to boast to you of liberal
+entertainment in the tent of Diomede."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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&mdash;  Boy with my brother's eyes!"
+the Vicomte said, and in another voice; "I would that I were God to
+punish as is fitting!  Nay, come home, my lad!&mdash;come home!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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,
+and 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 a man
+serve his lady according to her commandments, but you have performed
+the most absurd and the cruelest task which any woman ever imposed upon
+her servitor.  I laugh at you, and I envy you."  Thus he died, about
+Martinmas.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now was Antoine Riczi a powerful baron, and got no comfort of his
+lordship, since in his meditations the King of Darkness, that old
+incendiary, had added a daily fuel until the ancient sorrow quickened
+into vaulting flames of wrath and of disgust.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What now avail my riches?" said the Vicomte.  "Nay, how much wealthier
+was I when I was loved, and was myself an eager lover!  I relish no
+other pleasures than those of love.  Love's sot am I, drunk with a
+deadly wine, poor fool, and ever I thirst.  As vapor are all my
+chattels and my acres, and the more my dominion and my power increase,
+the more rancorously does my heart sustain its misery, being 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 very crown of that latter kingdom; and as
+the earth is altered by the advent of winter was the appearance of
+France transformed by his coming, and everywhere the nobles were
+stirred up to arms, the castles were closed, the huddled cities were
+fortified, and on either hand arose intrenchments.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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, in the month of April, about the day of Palm
+Sunday, and within her dower-palace of Havering-Bower, an interview
+with Queen Jehane.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>Nicolas omits, and unaccountably, to mention that during the French
+wars she had ruled England as Regent, and with marvellous
+capacity&mdash;although this fact, as you will see more lately, is the pivot
+of his chronicle.</I>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A solitary page ushered the Vicomte whither she sat alone, by
+prearrangement, in a chamber with painted walls, profusely lighted by
+the sun, and making 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&mdash;!" he
+coldly said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A frightened woman, half-distraught, aging now but rather handsome, his
+judgment saw in her, and no more; all black and shimmering gold his
+senses found her, and supple like some dangerous and lovely serpent;
+and with a contained hatred he had discovered, as by the terse
+illumination of a thunderbolt, that he could never love any woman save
+the woman whom he most despised.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She said: "I had forgotten.  I had remembered only you, Antoine, and
+Navarre, and the clean-eyed Navarrese&mdash;"  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 devil's horns.  Followed the dreary years that
+linked me to the rotting corpse God's leprosy devoured while the poor
+furtive thing yet moved.  All misery, Antoine!  And now I live beneath
+a sword."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.  Ever the big
+fierce-eyed man has hated me, 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 devise some trumped-up
+accusation.  Friend, I live as did Saint Damoclus, beneath a sword.
+Antoine!" she wailed&mdash;for now was the pride of Queen Jehane shattered
+utterly&mdash;"within the island am I a prisoner for all that my chains are
+of gold."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yet it was not until o' late," he observed, "that you disliked the
+metal which is the substance of all crowns."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now the woman lifted to him a huge golden collar 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 about her neck.  Ah, you should have mastered me at Vannes.
+You could have done so, and very easily.  But you only talked&mdash;oh, Mary
+pity us! you only talked!&mdash;and I could find only a servant where I had
+sore need to find a master.  Then pity me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 the pride of ill-starred emperors blazed and informed her body as
+light occupies a lantern.  "At last you come for me, messieurs?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Whereas," their leader read in answer from a parchment&mdash;"whereas the
+King's stepmother, Queen Jehane, is accused by certain persons of an
+act of witchcraft 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!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Harry of Monmouth!" said Jehane&mdash;"oh, Harry of Monmouth, could I but
+come to you, very quietly, and with a knife&mdash;!"  She shrugged her
+shoulders, and the gold about her person glittered in the sunlight.
+"Witchcraft! ohimé, one never disproves that.  Friend, now are you
+avenged the more abundantly."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Young Riczi is avenged," the Vicomte said; "and I came hither desiring
+vengeance."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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&mdash;had nations wheedled me in the place of barons&mdash;young Riczi had
+been avenged, no less.  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, and in the sight of common men! and know that Riczi is
+avenged,&mdash;you milliner!"
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-186t"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<A HREF="images/img-186.jpg">
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-186t.jpg" ALT="&quot;'TAKE NOW YOUR PETTY VENGEANCE!'&quot; _Painting by Elisabeth Shippen Green_" BORDER="2" WIDTH="472" HEIGHT="737">
+</A>
+<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 472px">
+&quot;'TAKE NOW YOUR PETTY VENGEANCE!'&quot; <I>Painting by Elisabeth Shippen Green</I>
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+"Into England I came desiring vengeance&mdash;Apples of Sodom!  O bitter
+fruit!" the Vicomte thought; "O fitting harvest of a fool's assiduous
+husbandry!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They took her from him: and that afternoon, after long meditation, the
+Vicomte de Montbrison entreated a fresh and private audience of King
+Henry, and readily obtained it.  "Unhardy is unseely," the Vicomte said
+at its conclusion.  Then 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 dissatified.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then presently these lords had sided with King Henry, as had the
+Vicomte de Montbrison, in open field.  Latterly 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.
+Afterward fell the poised scale of circumstance, and with an aweful
+clangor; and now in France clean-hearted persons spoke of the Vicomte
+de Montbrison as they would of Ganelon or of Iscariot, and in every
+market-place was King Henry proclaimed as governor of the realm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Meantime was Queen Jehane conveyed to prison and lodged therein for
+five years' space.  She had the liberty of a tiny garden, high-walled,
+and of two scantily furnished chambers.  The brace of hard-featured
+females 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; and in
+fine, had they 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But in the year of grace 1422, upon the feast of Saint Bartholomew, and
+about vespers&mdash;for thus it wonderfully fell out&mdash;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 common inhabitant of all her dreams.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Said Jehane: "This is ill done.  The years have avenged you.  Be
+contented with that knowledge, and, for Heaven's sake, do not endeavor
+to moralize over the ruin 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 her countenance to be
+that of the anemone which naughtily dances above wet earth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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.  Nay, 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then with hurried speech he told her of five years' events: how within
+that period King Henry had conquered entire 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 how with
+his penultimate breath the prostrate conqueror had restored to Queen
+Jehane all properties and all honors which she formerly enjoyed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I shall once more be Regent," the woman said when he 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!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The speech was as a whip-lash.  Abruptly suspicion kindled in her eyes,
+as a flame leaps from stick to stick.  "Harry of Monmouth feared
+neither man nor God.  It needed more than any death-bed repentance to
+frighten him into restoral of 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 all his army?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Vicomte de Montbrison said: "There is perhaps no person better
+fitted to patch up this dishonorable business of your captivity,
+wherein a clean man might scarcely dare to meddle."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She appraised this, and more lately said with entire irrelevance: "The
+world has smirched you, somehow.  At last you have done something save
+consider your ill-treatment.  I praise God, Antoine, for it brings you
+nearer."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+"Yet 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 in 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!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The woman shuddered.  "You have set my thankless service above your
+life, above your honor even.  I find the rhymester glorious and very
+vile."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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&mdash;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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She had leaned, while thus he spoke, upon the sill of an open casement.
+"Indeed, it had been far better," she said, and with averted face, "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&mdash;was it not a
+harpy you called the bird in that old poem of yours?&mdash;to rob me of
+delight.  And you have had nothing, for of life he has pilfered you,
+and he has given you in exchange but dreams, my poor Antoine, and he
+has led you at the last to infamy.  We are as God made us, and&mdash;I may
+not understand why He permits this despotism."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thereafter, somewhere below, a peasant sang as he passed supperward
+through the green twilight, lit as yet by one low-hanging star alone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang the peasant:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>King Jesus hung upon the Cross,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">'And have ye sinned?' quo' He,&mdash;</SPAN><BR>
+'Nay, Dysmas, 'tis no honest loss<BR>
+When Satan cogs the dice ye toss,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And thou shall sup with Me,&mdash;</SPAN><BR>
+Sedebis apud angelos,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Quia amavisti!'</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>At Heaven's Gate was Heaven's Queen,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">'And have ye sinned?' quo' She,&mdash;</SPAN><BR>
+'And would I hold him worth a bean<BR>
+That durst not seek, because unclean,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">My cleansing charity?&mdash;</SPAN><BR>
+Speak thou that wast the Magdalene,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Quia amavisti!'"</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"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&mdash;and even now he dies&mdash;shall I not as Regent possess such power as
+no woman has ever wielded in Europe? can aught prevent this?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Naught," he answered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 laid one delicate
+hand upon either shoulder.  "Friend, I am aweary of these tinsel
+splendors.  I crave the real kingdom."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 an ecstasy
+too noble for any common mirth had mastered them, and a vast desire
+whose aim they could not word, or even apprehend save cloudily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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
+deny myself in choosing you!  Nay, I know it is as nothing beside what
+you have given up for me, but it is all I have&mdash;it is all I have,
+Antoine!" she wailed in pitiful distress.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He drew a deep and big-lunged breath that seemed to inform his being
+with an indomitable vigor, and doubt and sorrow went quite away from
+him.  "Love leads us," he said, "and through the sunlight of the world
+he leads us, and through the filth of it Love leads us, but always in
+the end, if we but follow without swerving, he 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!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But hand in hand," she answered; "and He will comprehend."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+THE END OF THE NINTH NOVEL
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap10"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+X
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Story of the Fox-Brush
+</H3>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+"<I>Dame serez de mon cueur, sans debat,<BR>
+Entierement, jusques mort me consume.<BR>
+Laurier souëf qui pour mon droit combat,<BR>
+Olivier franc, m'ostant toute amertume.</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+THE TENTH NOVEL.&mdash;KATHARINE OF VALOIS IS WON BY A<BR>
+HUNTSMAN, AND LOVES HIM GREATLY; THEN FINDS HIM, TO<BR>
+HER HORROR, AN IMPOSTOR; AND FOR A SUFFICIENT REASON<BR>
+CONSENTS TO MARRY QUITE ANOTHER PERSON, AND<BR>
+NOT ALL UNWILLINGLY.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Story of the Fox-Brush
+</H3>
+
+<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capi.jpg" ALT="dropcap-i" BORDER="0" WIDTH="111" HEIGHT="109">
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+n 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.  This, 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 a year in this well-ordered place.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 some 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&mdash;a lustre at odd times uncanny.
+Her abundant hair, too, was black, and to-day doubly sombre by contrast
+with the gold netting which confined it.  Her mouth was scarlet, all
+curves, and her complexion 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was in rusty brown and not unshabby; but her regard swept over this
+to his face, and there noted how his eyes were blue winter stars under
+the tumbled yellow hair, and 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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: "You are not a nun&mdash;Blood of God! you are
+the Princess Katharine!"
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-198t"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<A HREF="images/img-198.jpg">
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-198t.jpg" ALT="&quot;SO FOR A HEARTBEAT SHE SAW HIM&quot; _Painting by Howard Pyle_" BORDER="2" WIDTH="483" HEIGHT="733">
+</A>
+<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 483px">
+&quot;SO FOR A HEARTBEAT SHE SAW HIM&quot; <I>Painting by Howard Pyle</I>
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+The nuns, her present guardians, would have declared the ensuing action
+horrific, for Katharine smiled frankly at him and demanded how he could
+be certain of this.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She considered this indicative of a cruel disposition, but also of a
+fine taste in the liberal arts.  Aloud she stated:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are not a Frenchman, messire.  I do not understand how you can
+have seen my portrait."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This trenched upon insolence&mdash;the look of his eyes, indeed, carried it
+well past the frontier&mdash;but she found the statement interesting.
+Straightway she touched the kernel of those fear-blurred legends
+whispered about her cradle and now clamant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You have, then, seen the King of England?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, Highness."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is it true that he is an ogre&mdash;like Agrapard and Angoulaffre of the
+Broken Teeth?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His gaze widened.  "I have heard a deal of scandal concerning the man.
+But never that."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Katharine settled back, luxuriously, in the crotch of the apple-tree.
+"Tell me about him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.  Katharine punctuated his 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, the
+crown laid aside, he had heard Sire Henry to be 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Katharine sighed her pity for this ill-starred woman.  "And now tell me
+about yourself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 of anterior misinformation, 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 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; yet, had she chosen to
+read this man's face, the meaning was plain enough.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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
+splurge, 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 Châteauneuf 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 this fox was a
+true Christian, my Princess?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Katharine said: "I lament his destruction.  Farewell, Messire Alain!
+And since chance brought you hither&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 Châteauneuf 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 Léonois may have ridden a-hawking in drowned Cornwall,
+thus statelily and composedly, Katharine thought, gazing after him.
+She went to her apartments, singing,
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>El tems amoreus plein de joie,<BR>
+El tems où tote riens s'esgaie,&mdash;</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+and burst into a sudden passion of tears.  There were hosts of
+women-children born every day, she reflected, who were not princesses
+and therefore compelled to marry ogres; and some of them were
+beautiful.  And minstrels made such an ado over beauty.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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,
+grass and foliage uniformly sombre save where dewdrops showed like
+beryls.  Nowhere in the orchard was there absolute shadow, nowhere a
+vista unblurred; but in the east, half-way between horizon and zenith,
+two belts of coppery light flared against the gray sky like embers
+swaddled by their 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 meritorious 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang Alain:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>O Madam Destiny, omnipotent,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Be not too obdurate the while we pray</SPAN><BR>
+That this the fleet, sweet time of youth be spent<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">In laughter as befits a holiday,</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">From which the evening summons us away,</SPAN><BR>
+From which to-morrow wakens us to strife<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And toil and grief and wisdom&mdash;and to-day</SPAN><BR>
+Grudge us not life!</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>O Madam Destiny, omnipotent,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Why need our elders trouble us at play?</SPAN><BR>
+We know that very soon we shall repent<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The idle follies of our holiday,</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And being old, shall be as wise as they,</SPAN><BR>
+But now we are not wise, and lute and fife<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Seem sweeter far than wisdom&mdash;so to-day</SPAN><BR>
+Grudge us not life!</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>O Madam Destiny, omnipotent,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">You have given us youth&mdash;and must we cast away</SPAN><BR>
+The cup undrained and our one coin unspent<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Because our elders' beards and hearts are gray?</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">They have forgotten that if we delay</SPAN><BR>
+Death claps us on the shoulder, and with knife<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Or cord or fever mocks the prayer we pray&mdash;</SPAN><BR>
+'Grudge us not life!'</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Madam, recall that in the sun we play<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">But for an hour, then have the worm for wife,</SPAN><BR>
+The tomb for habitation&mdash;and to-day<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Grudge us not life!"</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You came!" this harper said, transfigured; and then again, "You came!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She breathed, "Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was by the minstrel 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, esteem hell a pleasure-garden.  I have already made
+my prayer to Destiny that she concede me love, and 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, though in doing so it were
+necessary that I split the world like a rotten orange."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Madness!  Oh, brave, sweet madness!" Katharine said.  "I am a king's
+daughter, and you a minstrel."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is it madness?  Why, then, I think all sensible men 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.  Heh, God's face!" Alain swore;
+"the foxes 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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, 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And for a month the world seemed no less dreary, but about Michaelmas
+the Queen-Regent sent for her.  At the Hôtel de Saint-Pol matters were
+much the same.  Her mother Katharine found in foul-mouthed rage over
+the failure of a third attempt to poison the Dauphin of Vienne, as
+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 Presbyter
+John's wife, the tyrant of Ethiopia.  However, ingenuity had just
+suggested card-playing for his amusement, and he paid little attention
+nowadays to any one save his opponent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 poor woman so pestered as I!  The
+puddings to-day were quite uneatable, 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Katharine had gripped her by the shoulder.  "The King of England&mdash;a
+tall, fair man? with big teeth? a tiny wen upon his neck&mdash;here&mdash;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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I believe so," the Queen said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"O God!" said Katharine.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ay, our only hope now.  And may God show him no more mercy than he has
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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!
+<I>Poised kingdoms topple on the brink of ruin, now that you bid me come
+to you again</I>.  And I bade him come!"  Presently she went into her
+oratory and began to pray.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the midst of her invocation she wailed: "Fool, fool!  How could I
+have thought him less than a king!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+You are to imagine her breast thus adrum with remorse and hatred of
+herself, what time town by town fell before the invader like
+card-houses.  Every rumor of defeat&mdash;and they were many&mdash;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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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; 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+These six entered the tent pitched for the conference&mdash;the hanging of
+blue velvet embroidered with fleurs-de-lys of gold blurred before the
+girl's eyes, and till death the device sickened her&mdash;and there the Earl
+of Warwick embarked upon a sea of rhetoric.  His French was
+indifferent, his periods 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have come," he said, under cover of Warwick's oratory&mdash;"I have come
+again, my lady."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Katharine's gaze flickered over him.  "Liar!" she said, very softly.
+"Has God no thunder in His armory that this vile thief should go
+unblasted?  Would you filch love as well as kingdoms?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His ruddy face went white.  "I love you, Katharine."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," she answered, "for I am your pretext.  I can well believe,
+messire, that you love your pretext for theft and murder."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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, expectant, 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 maddened by Katharine's scorn, presently
+vaulted to a towering fury.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 in secret negotiation the
+Queen-Regent was soon trying to bring this about; yes, he could get the
+girl's body by a couple of pen-strokes; but, God's face! 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: he 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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He stripped the 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 the 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 usage.  He drew up a small force before
+the city and made no overtures toward either peace or throat-cutting.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 Hôtel de Ville.  The King was pursing his lips over
+an alternative play, when there came the voice of one singing below in
+the courtyard.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sang the voice:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>I get no joy of my life<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That have weighed the world&mdash;and it was</SPAN><BR>
+Abundant with folly, and rife<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">With sorrows brittle as glass,</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And with joys that flicker and pass</SPAN><BR>
+As dreams through a fevered head,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And like the dripping of rain</SPAN><BR>
+In gardens naked and dead<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Is the obdurate thin refrain</SPAN><BR>
+Of our youth which is presently dead.</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>And she whom alone I have loved<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Looks ever with loathing on me,</SPAN><BR>
+As one she hath seen disproved<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And stained with such smirches as be</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Not ever cleansed utterly,</SPAN><BR>
+And is loth to remember the days<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">When Destiny fixed her name</SPAN><BR>
+As the theme and the goal of my praise,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And my love engenders shame,</SPAN><BR>
+And I stain what I strive for and praise.</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>O love, most perfect of all,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Just to have known you is well!</SPAN><BR>
+And it heartens me now to recall<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That just to have known you is well,</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And naught else is desirable</SPAN><BR>
+Save only to do as you willed<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And to love you my whole life long&mdash;</SPAN><BR>
+But this heart in me is filled<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">With hunger cruel and strong,</SPAN><BR>
+And with hunger unfulfilled.</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>O Love, that art stronger than we,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Albeit not lightly stilled,</SPAN><BR>
+Thou art less cruel than she.</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Malise came hastily into the room, and, without speaking, laid a
+fox-brush before the Princess.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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&mdash;all pictures,
+dear.  Come&mdash;"  She was coaxing him when Henry appeared in the doorway.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"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 pinch at his dribbling lips.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The King of England!" echoed Charles, and 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 preëmpted.  I recall now you are in treaty for my
+daughter's hand.  Katharine is a good girl, messire, but I suppose&mdash;"
+He paused, as if to regard and hear some insensible counsellor, and
+then briskly resumed: "Yes, I suppose policy demands that she should
+marry you.  We trammelled kings can never go free of policy&mdash;ey, my
+compère 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Henry did not say anything.  Always his calm blue eyes appraised Dame
+Katharine.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oho, these Latinists cannot hoodwink me, you observe, though by
+ordinary it chimes with my humor to appear content.  Policy again,
+messire: for once roused, I am terrible.  To-day in the great
+hall-window, under the bleeding feet of Lazarus, I slew ten flies&mdash;very
+black they were, the black shrivelled souls of parricides&mdash;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!&mdash;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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come, father," Katharine said.  "Come away to bed, dear."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hideous basilisk!" he spat at her; "dare you rebel against me?  Am I
+not King of France, and is it not blasphemy a King of France should be
+thus 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, God'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 o' the middle-sea wait unfed."  He went out of the
+room, giggling, and in the corridor began to sing:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"<I>Adieu de fois plus de cent mile!<BR>
+Aillors vois oïr l'Evangile,<BR>
+Car chi fors mentir on ne sait....</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<P>
+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.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And that," she said, "is the king whom you have conquered!  Is it not
+a notable conquest to overcome so sapient a king? to pilfer renown from
+an idiot?  There are pickpockets 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 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?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Flower o' the marsh!" he said, and his big voice pulsed with many
+tender cadences&mdash;"flower o' 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 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&mdash;Alain who has loved you
+whole-heartedly these two years past and who now kneels before you
+entreating grace."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 his by a divine favor and Heaven's peculiar
+intervention.  He thought himself God's factor, not His rebel.  He was
+rather stupid, this huge handsome boy; and realizing it, her hand went
+to his shoulder, half maternally.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is nobly done, sire.  I know that you must wed me to uphold your
+claim to France, for otherwise in the world's eyes you are shamed.  You
+sell, and I with my body purchase, peace for France.  There is no need
+of a lover's posture when hucksters meet."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So changed!" he said, and he was silent for an interval, still
+kneeling.  Then he began: "You force me to point out that I no longer
+need a pretext to hold 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&mdash;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&mdash;to gain for the
+poor king some portion of that love you would have squandered on the
+harper."  His hand closed upon hers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 France's welfare.  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?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He rose.  "And yet, for all that, you love me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She could not find words with which to answer him at the first effort,
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You loved Alain."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I loved the husk of a man.  You can never comprehend how utterly I
+loved him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now I have to record of this great king a piece of magnanimity which
+bears the impress of more ancient times.  "That you love me is
+indisputable," he said, "and this I propose to demonstrate.  You will
+observe that I am quite unarmed save for this dagger, which I now throw
+out of the window&mdash;" 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was rigid; and his heart leapt when he saw it was because of terror.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You came alone!  You dared!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He answered, with a wonderful smile, "Proud spirit! how else might I
+conquer you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You have not conquered!"  Katharine lifted the baton beside the gong,
+poising it.  God had granted her prayer&mdash;to save France.  Now might the
+past and the ignominy of the past 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, as 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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are cruel!" she wailed, in her torture.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, I am cruel."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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.  Body and heart and soul I am your
+slave.  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 France that I love next to God.  As Judith gave her body to
+Holofernes, I crucify my heart for France's welfare."  Very calmly she
+struck upon the gong.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 as one knowing the upshot of the matter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A man-at-arms came into the room.  "Germain&mdash;" Katharine said, and then
+again, "Germain&mdash;"  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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He raised her to his breast.  "Love is enough," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+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 busy bodies of both armies.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+THE END OF THE TENTH NOVEL
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap11"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Epilogue
+</H3>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+"<I>Et je fais sçavoir à tous lecteurs de ce Livret que les<BR>
+chases que je dis avoir vues et sues sont enregistrés icy, afin<BR>
+que vous pouviez les regarder selon vostre ban sens, s'il vous<BR>
+plaist.</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+HERE IS APPENDED THE EPILOGUE THAT MESSIRE NICOLAS<BR>
+DE CAEN MADE FOR THE BOOK WHICH CONTAINED THE<BR>
+SOUL OF HIM; AND WHICH (IN CONSEQUENCE) HE MIGHT NOT<BR>
+VIEW AS HE DID ANYTHING THAT CONVEYED ABOUT THIS<BR>
+WORLD MERE FLESH AND BLOOD AND THE SOUL OF ANOTHER<BR>
+PERSON.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Epilogue
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+<I>A son Livret</I>
+</H4>
+
+<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capi.jpg" ALT="dropcap-i" BORDER="0" WIDTH="111" HEIGHT="109">
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+ntrepidly depart, my little book, into the presence of that most
+illustrious lady who bade me compile you.  Bow down before her judgment
+patiently.  And if her sentence be that of death I counsel you to
+grieve not at what cannot be avoided.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But, if by any miracle that glorious, strong fortress of the weak
+consider it advisable, pass thence 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 die and be forgotten.  For thus
+only may you share your betters' fate, and be at one with those famed
+comedies of Greek Menander and all the poignant songs of Sappho.  <I>Et
+quid Pandoniae</I>&mdash;thus, little book, I charge you poultice your
+more-merited oblivion&mdash;<I>quid Pandoniae restat nisi nomen Athenae</I>?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yet even in your brief existence you may chance to meet with those who
+will affirm that the stories you narrate are not verily true and
+erroneously protest too many 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 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 it 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 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.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-222t"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<A HREF="images/img-222.jpg">
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-222t.jpg" ALT="&quot;NICOLAS: À SON LIVRET&quot; _Painting by Howard Pyle_" BORDER="2" WIDTH="465" HEIGHT="726">
+</A>
+<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 465px">
+&quot;NICOLAS: À SON LIVRET&quot; <I>Painting by Howard Pyle</I>
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+Also, my little book, you will encounter more malignant people who will
+jeer at you, and say that you and I have cheated them of your
+purchase-money.  To these you will reply, with Plutarch, <I>Non mi aurum
+posco, nec mi pretium</I>.  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 at most to three scant yards of cambric.
+Indeed had I the power to make you better, my little book, I would have
+done it.  A good conscience is a continual feast, and I summon all
+heaven to be my witness that had I been Homer you had awed the world,
+another Iliad.  I lament the improbability of your doing this as
+heartily as any person living; yet Heaven willed it; and it is in
+consequence to Heaven these same cavillers should now complain if they
+insist upon considering themselves to be aggrieved.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So to such impious people do you make no answer at all, unless indeed
+you should elect to answer them by repetition of this trivial song
+which I now make for you, my little book, at your departure from me.
+And the song runs in this fashion:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+<I>Depart, depart, my book! and live and die<BR>
+Dependent on the idle fantasy<BR>
+Of men who cannot view you, quite, as I.</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+<I>For I am fond, and willingly mistake<BR>
+My book to be the book I meant to make,<BR>
+And cannot judge you, for that phantom's sake.</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+<I>Yet pardon me if I have wrought too ill<BR>
+In making you, that never spared the will<BR>
+To shape you perfectly, and lacked the skill.</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+<I>Ah, had I but the power, my book, then I<BR>
+Had wrought in you some wizardry so high<BR>
+That no man but had listened...!</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+<I><SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 9em">They pass by,</SPAN><BR>
+And shrug&mdash;as we, who know that unto us<BR>
+It has been granted never to fare thus,<BR>
+And never to be strong and glorious.<BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+<I>Is it denied me to perpetuate<BR>
+What so much loving labor did create?&mdash;<BR>
+I hear Oblivion tap upon the gate,<BR>
+And acquiesce, not all disconsolate.</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+<I><SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">For I have got such recompense</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Of that high-hearted excellence</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Which the contented craftsman knows,</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Alone, that to loved labor goes,</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And daily doth the work he chose,</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And counts all else impertinence!</SPAN><BR></I>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+EXPLICIT DECAS REGINARUM
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR><BR>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Chivalry, by James Branch Cabell
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+</pre>
+
+</BODY>
+
+</HTML>
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Chivalry, by James Branch Cabell
+
+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
+
+Illustrator: Howard Pyle
+             William Hurd Lawrence
+             Elizabeth Shippen Green
+
+Release Date: August 26, 2008 [EBook #22463]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHIVALRY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Cover art]
+
+
+[Frontispiece: "'I SING OF DEATH'"  _Painting by Howard Pyle_]
+
+
+[Illustration: Title page]
+
+
+
+
+
+Chivalry
+
+
+By
+
+James Branch Cabell
+
+
+
+
+
+  "_And I, according to my copy, and
+  after the simple cunning that God hath
+  sent to me, have down set this in print,
+  to the intent that noble men may see and
+  learn the noble acts of chivalry._"
+
+
+
+
+Illustrated
+
+
+
+New York and London
+
+Harper & Brothers Publishers
+
+1909
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1909, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
+
+
+_All rights reserved._
+
+Published October, 1909.
+
+
+
+
+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."
+
+
+
+
+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
+our author be a little 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 him 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 rejection, 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,
+some passages have been restored in book-form--pre-eminently to _"THE
+STORY OF THE HOUSEWIFE"_--that in an anterior publication had been
+unavoidably deleted through consideration of space._
+
+_And--"sixth and lastly"--should confession be made that in the present
+rendering a purely arbitrary title has been assigned this little book;
+and chiefly for commercial reasons, since the word "dizain" has been
+adjudged both untranslatable and, in its pristine form, repellantly
+outre._
+
+_You are to give my 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._
+
+_So here you have a chance to peer at our world's youth when chivalry
+was regnant, and common-sense and cowardice were still at nurse.  And,
+questionless, these same conditions were the source of an age-long
+melee--such as this week is, happily, impossible in any of our
+parishes--wherein contended "courtesy, and humanity, friendliness,
+hardihood, love and friendship, and murder, hate, and virtue, and sin."
+So that I can only counsel you to do after the excellencies and leave
+the iniquity._
+
+_And for the rest, since good wine needs no hush, and an inferior
+beverage is not likely to be bettered by arboreal adornment, the
+reteller of these tales prefers to piece out his 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."_
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+CHAP.
+
+        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
+
+
+
+
+Illustrations
+
+
+"'I SING OF DEATH'"  . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
+
+"THEY WERE OVERTAKEN BY FALMOUTH HIMSELF"
+
+"IN AN INSTANT THE PLACE RESOUNDED LIKE A SMITHY"
+
+"SHE HAD VIEWED THE GREAT CONQUEROR"
+
+"'MY PRISONER!' SHE SAID"
+
+"'DO YOU FORSAKE SIRE EDWARD, CATHERINE?'"
+
+"'HAIL YE THAT ARE MY KINSMEN!'"
+
+"IN THE LIKENESS OF A FAIR WOMAN"
+
+"'YOU DESIGN MURDER?' RICHARD ASKED"
+
+"'TAKE NOW YOUR PETTY VENGEANCE!'"
+
+"SO FOR A HEART-BEAT SHE SAW HIM"
+
+"NICOLAS: A SON LIVRET"
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+Chivalry
+
+
+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; and your
+postulant now approaches as one not spurred toward you by vainglory but
+rather by plain equity, and simply in acknowledgment of the fact 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.
+In fine, I humbly bring my book to you as Phidyle approached another
+and less sacred shrine, _farre pio et salente 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 even 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 Nicolette shall be discovered in the end to be no less than
+the King's daughter of Carthage, and that Sir Doon 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 as well.
+
+Kings have their policies and wars wherewith to drug each 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 of
+old Horatius Flaccus demanded, though not, to speak the truth, of any
+woman,--
+
+  _Quo fugis? ah demons! 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, and 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 to justify that choice in the ensuing action; 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 a now extinct and dusty time.
+
+For 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 all
+humanity.  For in that aweful moment would Destiny have thrust her
+sceptre into the hands of a human being and Chance would have exalted a
+human being into usurpal of her chair.  These two--with what immortal
+chucklings one may facilely imagine--would then have left the weakling
+thus enthroned, free to direct the pregnant outcome, free to choose,
+and free to steer the conjuration either in the fashion of Friar Bacon
+or of his man, 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_.
+
+It is of ten such moments that I treat within this little book.
+
+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 sat often in
+this same high chair of Chance; and in so doing have both graced and
+hallowed it.  Yet I forbear to speak of this, simply because I dare not
+seem to couple your well-known perfection with any imperfect encomium.
+
+
+  _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 EITHER
+  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?"  He 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 shrivelled 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 advent cast aside.  "O 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 Count
+Berenger, then reigning in Provence, had about his court four daughters,
+each one of whom was afterward wedded to a king.  First, Margaret, the
+eldest, now regnant in France; then Alianora, the second and most
+beautiful of these daughters, whom troubadours hymned as La Belle.  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 good
+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 my father envied," the Queen said;
+and then, with a new eagerness: "Messire, can it be that you are Osmund
+Heleigh?"  He shrugged assent.  She looked at him for a long time, rather
+sadly, and afterward demanded if he were the King's man or of the barons'
+party.  The nervous hands were raised in deprecation.
+
+"I have no politics," he began, and altered it, gallantly enough, to, "I
+am the Queen's man, madame."
+
+"Then aid me, Osmund," she said; and 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.
+"And 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 him.  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 pious Lewis of that
+realm.  Eh, what is God about when He enthrones these cowards, Osmund?
+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, the sudden
+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 to this detestable island in
+disguise, accompanied by Avenel de Giars and Hubert Fitz-Herveis.
+To-night some half-dozen fellows--robbers, thorough knaves, like all you
+English,--suddenly 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 said, "for he made excellent songs.
+But Fitz-Herveis?--foh! the man had a face like a horse."  Then again her
+mood changed.  "Many men 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 happy.  Now
+you behold me in my 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 hastily 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.  And Lord Brudenel, as you doubtless know, is of the
+barons' party and--scant cause for grief!--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 a very curious 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,--any price in reason for 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,--"since 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 a viol and a long falchion
+for himself, and had somewhere got suitable clothes for the Queen; and in
+their aging but decent garb the two approached near enough to the
+similitude of what they desired to be esteemed.  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 appeared to consider 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 with the Sestina of Spring"?  Osmund Heleigh
+grunted.
+
+"I have forgotten that rubbish long ago.  _Omnis amans, amens_, saith the
+satirist of Rome town, and with some show of 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 so 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 their 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.
+
+[Illustration: "THEY WERE OVERTAKEN BY FALMOUTH HIMSELF" _Painting by
+Howard Pyle_]
+
+"That is very 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 a more threatening adventure befell.  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 among them--a swarthy rascal with his
+head tied in a napkin--demanded that the jongleurs grace their meal with
+a song.
+
+At first Osmund 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 him by the
+throat, shaking him.  In the act this rascal tore open Messire Heleigh's
+tunic, disclosing a thin chain about his neck and a small locket, which
+the fellow wrested from its fastening.  "Ahoi!" he continued.  "Ahoi, my
+comrades, what species 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, for 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 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
+    Marshal his triumph! ah, make haste to see
+  With what tempestuous pageantry they bring
+    Mirth back to earth! hasten, for this is he
+  That cast out Winter and the 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._
+
+  "_Anon in Brittany must Tristan cling
+    To this or that sad memory, and be
+  Alone, as she in Cornwall, for in Spring
+    Love sows, and lovers reap anon--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 ebb back into the lean man like water over a crumbling
+dam.  His voice was now big and desirous.
+
+Sang Messire Heleigh:
+
+  "_Love sows, and 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._
+
+  "_Here Death is;--and no Heracles may bring
+    Alcestis hence, nor here may Roland see
+  The eyes of Aude, nor here the wakening spring
+    Vex any man with memory, for there be
+  No memories that cling as cerements cling,
+    No Love that baffles Death, more strong than he._
+
+  "_Us hath he noted, and for us hath he
+    An how appointed, and that hour will bring
+  Oblivion.--Then, laugh!  Laugh, love, and see
+    The tyrant mocked, what time our bosoms cling,
+  What time our lips are red, what time we be
+    Exultant in our little hour of spring!_
+
+  "_Thus in the spring we mock at Death, though he
+    Will see our children perish and will bring
+  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 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_ both 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! fraid 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 him--do you understand?--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.  Remember
+that I cry _nihil ad Andromachen_!  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.'
+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 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 in all my English
+life, Osmund, has 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 makes the best of it and amuses 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
+His 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 may not
+yield!" he cried, with an unheralded, odd wildness.
+
+"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, with a fine irrelevance, "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, they 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.  They went without molestation; malice and death had
+journeyed on their road aforetime, as heralds, 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 as for
+inspection; meticulously she observed and appraised her handiwork.
+
+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 killed them all.  And little
+children, my Osmund!  The hair like corn-floss, 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?"
+
+"Not cowards!" he cried.  "Your men and Leicester's ride about the world,
+and draw sword and slay and die for the right as they see it.  And you
+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
+the Arabian bird, arises from these ashes a lordlier and more spacious
+town."
+
+Then they went forward.  The next day Fate 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--"  Here 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 to his feet, 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 gone 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.  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 his 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 it up 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 reasons of His own, madame," he observed, "and doubtless for
+sufficient ones, 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 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 a outrance," 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, and they bade one another farewell.
+
+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, 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_,
+and this he sang with a lilt gayer than the matter of it countenanced.
+Faintly there now came to them the sound of his singing, and they found
+it, in the circumstances, ominously adapt.
+
+Sang Camoys:
+
+  "_Et vos, par qui je n'oi onques aie,
+  Descendez tuit en infer le par font._"
+
+
+Dame Alianora shivered.  "No, no!" she cried.  "Is He less pitiful than
+we?"
+
+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--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 very likely.  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.
+
+"Mon bel esper," said Osmund Heleigh, very 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 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 wailed.  "You gave me gallant
+service, and I have requited you with death!"
+
+"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 life."  His eyes were fervent now.
+
+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, that hereafter men may not say I was slain in an evil cause.  Do
+not shame my maiden venture."
+
+"I will not shame you," the Queen proudly said; and then, with a change
+of voice: "O my Osmund!  My Osmund!"
+
+He caught her by each wrist.  "Hush!" he bade her, roughly; and stood
+crushing both her hands to his lips, with fierce staring.  "Wife of my
+King! wife of my King!" he babbled; and then flung her from him, crying,
+with a great lift of speech: "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, though by this the fear of death had gripped him to
+the marrow; and as he went he sang defiantly, taunting the weakness of
+his flesh.
+
+Sang Osmund Heleigh:
+
+  "_Love sows, and 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 the man was a brave one," 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 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."
+
+"The act was very like him," the Queen said.  "Messire Camoys, I think
+that this day is a festival in heaven."
+
+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 lonc de mi no s partis,
+  Ni la gayta jorn ni alba ne vis.
+  Oy Dieus! oy Dieus! de l' alba tan tost ve!_"
+
+
+
+  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 his news, and a pregnant one.  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 in consequence 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 covenanters 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; and Gui Foulques of
+Sabionetta--now Clement, fourth Pope to assume that name--would annul
+the previous marriage, they planned, 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; the barons' power was demolished, there would be no more
+internecine war; and spurred by the unaccustomed idleness, he 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 d'Ebernoe 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 latterly 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, so that within
+the instant these five fell into an 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 the death of Sire Edward, the King of England's son:
+and manifestly there was here an actionable difference of opinion; so
+he had his sword out and presently killed the four of them.
+
+Anon there 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 a very untidy condition.
+And seated among them, as throned upon the boulder, was a gigantic and
+florid person, so tall that the heads of few people reached to his
+shoulder; a person of handsome exterior, blond, and chested like a
+stallion, whose left eyebrow drooped so oddly that even in anger the
+stupendous man appeared to assure you, quite confidentially, that the
+dilapidation he threatened was an excellent jest.
+
+"Fair friend," said the page.  "God give you joy! and why have you
+converted this forest into a shambles?"
+
+The Prince told him 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 talc 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 over heels in the
+confidence of my wife."
+
+Now the boy arose and defiantly flung back his head in shrill laughter.
+"Your wife!  Oh, God ha' 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 twain brought face to face."
+
+Prince Edward said, "That is very near the truth."  But, indeed, it was
+the absolute truth, and as concerned himself 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 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!" he cried, in a new voice.
+
+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 equity demands I on arrival 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
+genuinely fond of him.  She found him rather slow of comprehension, and
+was namelessly 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 his more
+stolid 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 hunger
+even.  But now at last 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 done, and later still she and Etienne would be very happy; and,
+in fine, to-morrow was to be a new day.
+
+So these two rode ever 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:
+
+  "_Lord 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._
+
+  "_Ah, heart of mine, that beats so fast
+  As this or that fair maid trips past,
+    Once and with lesser stir
+  We spied the heart's-desire, at last,
+    And turned, and followed her._
+
+  "_For Love had come 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.
+
+For the Prince had quickly fathomed the meaning 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
+against El Sabio.  Why, my lad, I ride southward to prevent a war that
+would convulse 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 is our happiness here a trivial matter,
+whereas war is a great disaster.  You have not seen--as I have done, my
+little Miguel--a man viewing his death-wound with a face of stupid
+wonder?--a man about 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 a many such spectacles hereabout that I ride
+southward."
+
+Miguel de Rueda shuddered.  But, "She has her right to happiness," the
+page stubbornly said.
+
+"Not so," the Prince retorted; "since it hath pleased the Emperor of
+Heaven to appoint us twain to lofty stations, to intrust 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.  And 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 fact.  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 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."
+
+"Nay," Prince Edward said, in misapprehension, for the man was never
+quick-witted--"nay, it is not for my own happiness that I ride
+southward."
+
+The page then said.  "What is her name?"
+
+And Prince Edward answered, very fondly, "Hawise."
+
+"Her, too, I hate," 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 strummed idly as these two debated
+together of great matters; about them was an immeasurable twilight,
+moonless, but tempered by many stars, and everywhere an agreeable
+conference of leaves.
+
+"Listen, my Prince," the boy said more lately: "here is one view of the
+affair."  And he began to chant, without rhyming, without raising his
+voice above the pitch of talk, what time the lute monotonously sobbed
+beneath his fingers.
+
+Sang Miguel:
+
+"_A little while and Irus and Menephtah are at sorry unison, and
+Guenevere is but 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 she 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 fairest of created women, and very wise, but she may never
+understand that at any time one grows aweary of the trodden path._
+
+"_Yet though she cannot understand, this woman who has known me to the
+marrow, I must obey her laudable behests and serve her blindly.  At
+sight of her my love closes over my heart like a flood, so that I am
+speechless and glory in my impotence, as one who stands at last before
+the kindly face of God.  For her sake 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 is a goodly thing, and that I am
+aweary of the trodden path._
+
+"_She is very far from me to-night.  Yonder in the Horselberg 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 o' 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 he, 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; and 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 pale-mouthed priests, 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, what 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, very clearly, that neither existed; and 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, as yet I have not
+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."
+
+"Nay, my little Miguel, I do but 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 path, whether it be my trodden one 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 some roisterer haled before
+the magistrate."
+
+"I consider you to be in the right," the boy said, after a lengthy
+interval, "although I decline--and 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 understand! in part I understand!" the page
+wailed, and now it was Prince Edward who comforted Miguel de Rueda.
+
+For the Prince laid one hand upon his page's hair, and smiled in the
+darkness to note how soft it was, since the man was less a fool than at
+first view you might have taken him to be, and said:
+
+"One must play the game, 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 cog at dice."
+
+The same night Miguel de Rueda sobbed through 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!  Hearken, 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--!"
+
+You would have said the boy was dying; and in sober verity a deal of
+Miguel de Rueda died upon this night of clearer vision.
+
+Yet he sang the next day as these two rode southward, although half as
+in defiance.
+
+Sang Miguel:
+
+
+  "_And still, whate'er the years may send--
+  Though Time be proven a fickle friend,
+    And Love be shown a liar--
+  I must adore until the end
+    That primal heart's desire._
+
+  "_I may not 'hear men speak of her
+  Unmoved, and vagrant pulses stir
+    Whene'er she passes by,
+  And I again her worshipper
+    Must serve her till I die._
+
+  "_Not she that is doth pass, but she
+  That Time hath riven away from me
+    And in the darkness set--
+  The maid that I may never see,
+    Or gain, or e'er forget._"
+
+
+It was on the following day, near Bazas, these two encountered Adam de
+Gourdon, a Provencal knight, with whom the Prince fought for a long
+while, without either contestant giving way; and 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 fingertips drumming
+upon the table.  He rose suddenly and flung back his shoulders, all
+resolution to the tiny heels.  On the stairway he passed the black
+little landlord.
+
+"I think," the little landlord considered, "that Saint Michael must
+have been of similar appearance when he went to meet the Evil One.  Ho,
+messire, will there be bloodshed?"
+
+But Miguel de Rueda had passed 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 of the old tenderness; handsome and
+brave and witty she knew him to be, past reason, 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 carnal
+injury than from that self-degradation 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.  Nay, rather 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.  And to secure this, 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 'twixt Spain and
+England; to-day El Sabio intends to purchase all 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, and
+viciously, for the Frenchman now saw his air-castle shaken to the
+corner-stone.
+
+"They wedded me to the child in order 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 but 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, if you so elect."
+
+"And yield you Ellinor?" de Gatinais said.  "Nay, 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 most 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?"
+
+"When I have slain you," the Prince said, "yes.  Yes, since she is a
+woman, and woman is the weaker vessel."
+
+"The reservation is wise.  For once I am dead, Messire Edward, there
+will 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.  And 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 so 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,
+the head of it striking one leg of the table.
+
+[Illustration: "IN AN INSTANT THE PLACE RESOUNDED LIKE A SMITHY"
+_Painting by William Hurd Lawrence_]
+
+"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.
+
+And now the eavesdropper understood.  She flung open the door and fell
+upon Prince Edward, embracing him.  The sword dug deep into her
+shoulder, so that she shrieked once with the cold pain of this wound.
+Then she rose, all ashen.
+
+"Liar!" she said.  "Oh, I am shamed while I share the world with a
+thing so 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
+said; "for as God reigns, I love you, and now am I shamed past death."
+
+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.  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," de Gatinais said.
+
+"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.  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.  "Nay, it is you that I love,
+my Etienne.  You cannot understand--can you?--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."
+
+But there was no mercy in the girl, no more for him than for herself.
+The big head lay upon her breast what time she caressed the gross hair
+of it ever so lightly.  "These are tinsel oaths," she crooned, as rapt
+with incurious content; "these are but the protestations of a jongleur.
+A word get you my body?  A word get you, in effect, all which you are
+capable of desiring?  Then why do you not speak that word?"
+
+De Gatinais raised clenched hands.  "I am shamed," he said; and more
+lately, "It is just."
+
+He left the room and presently rode away with his men.  I say that 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 pane yonder.
+
+She sat thus for a long period, her meditations adrift in the future;
+and that which she foreread left her nor 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 han 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.
+
+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 to the demon-tainted blood of Anjou.  So that next day the
+keeper of the privy purse entered upon the household-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, and more
+lately despatched yet another embassy into France to treat about Sire
+Edward's second marriage.  This last embassy was headed by the Earl of
+Aquitaine.
+
+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 russet were the
+big Earl and his attendants, but upon the scarlets and purples of the
+French lords many jewels shone; as through a corridor of gayly painted
+sunlit glass came the grave Earl 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, hurriedly waved his lords out of
+ear-shot.  His 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 the enfeoffment
+nor the lady, 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 become 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
+lesser title of Earl of Aquitaine, and as his own ambassador.
+
+And 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 trivial circumstance
+that already the bargain was signed and sworn to; and, 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 largely 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 eye, it is recorded, not gently but in a superb fashion.
+And 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 he was, with a crisp beard, and stalwart as a tower; and the
+better-read at Mezelais likened the couple to Sieur Hercules at the
+feet of Queen Omphale when they saw the two so much together.
+
+The ensuing Wednesday the court hunted and slew a stag of ten in the
+woods of Ermenoueil, which stand thick about the chateau; and upon that
+day 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 considered.
+
+Dame Blanch, it seemed, was undisposed to mirth.  "For 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 will
+not understand, and we will wonder, as the stag did, in helpless
+wonder.  And Death will have his sport of us, as in atonement."  Here
+her big eyes shone, as 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."  And again the heavily fringed eyelids lifted, and
+within the moment sank contentedly.
+
+For the King had murmured "Happiness!" and his glance was rapacious.
+
+"But I am discourteous," Blanch said, "to prate of death thus drearily.
+Let us flout him, then, with some gay song."  And toward Sire Edward
+she handed Rigon's lute.
+
+The King accepted it.  "Death is not reasonably mocked," Sire Edward
+said, "since in the end he conquers, and of the very lips that gibed at
+him remains but a little dust.  Nay, rather should I who already stand
+beneath a lifted sword make for my immediate conqueror a Sirvente,
+which is the Song of Service."
+
+Sang Sire Edward:
+
+  "_I sing of Death, that cometh to 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,
+    What time the monarch nakedly must gain
+    Styx' hither 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 prowess of great captains--of Gawayne,
+    Darius, Jeshua, and 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 wisest counsellor--_"
+
+
+"True, O God!" murmured the tiny woman, who sat beside the window
+yonder.  And Dame Meregrett rose and in silence passed from the room.
+
+The two started, and laughed in common, and afterward paid little heed
+to her outgoing.  For 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, like the tapers before an altar.
+
+And, 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 always 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 she 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, 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 with passion.  "It is a trivial matter."  He took her in
+his arms, since already her cheeks flared in scarlet anticipation of
+the event.
+
+And 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 the disordered tapestry of verbiage, passion-flapped as
+a flag is by the wind, she presently beheld herself prefigured by
+Balkis, the Judean's lure, and by the Princess of Cyprus (in
+Aristotle's time), and by Nicolette, 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, by the Countess of
+Tripolis, for love of whom he had cleft the seas, and losing whom he
+must inevitably die as Rudel did.  He 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 with a bludgeon.
+
+"Heart's emperor," the trembling girl more lately said, "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
+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 tomorrow we hunt the great boar.  And in consequence
+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.  He laughed.  "The King is pleased to loose his
+prisoner; and I will do it."  He fiercely said this, for the girl was
+very beautiful.
+
+So he came that night, without any retinue, and habited as a forester,
+a horn swung about his neck, into the unlighted hut of Rigon the
+forester, and found a woman there, though not the woman whom he had
+perhaps expected.
+
+"Treachery, beau sire!  Horrible treachery!" she wailed.
+
+"I have encountered it ere this," the big man said.
+
+"Presently comes 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 disputations, once for all; and Sire
+Edward knew the conscience of his old opponent to be invulnerable.  The
+act would violate all laws of hospitality and knighthood--oh, granted!
+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 at Philippe's
+achievement one-half so heartily as would Sire Edward's son and
+immediate successor, the young Prince Edward of Caernarvon.  So that,
+all in all, ohime!  Philippe had planned the affair with forethought.
+
+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--
+
+  "_Sots amoureux, sots privez, sots sauvages,
+  Sots vieux, nouveaux, et sots de tous ages,_"
+
+thus he scornfully declaimed, "and as yokefellow with Dan Merlin in his
+thorn-bush, and with wise Salomon when he capered upon the high places
+of Chemosh, and with Duke Ares sheepishly agrin within 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 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 zealot but the expectant
+captain now.  "Look, my Princess!"  For 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," Sire Edward said.
+
+"Too late," said Meregrett; and yet 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 no man
+passes."
+
+"It were very easy now to strangle this herring," Sire Edward reflected.
+
+"But scarcely a whole school of herring," the fellow retorted.  "Nay,
+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."
+
+"Concerning women?" the King said.
+
+The man deliberated.  Then Sire Edward handed him three gold pieces.
+"There was assuredly no specific mention of petticoats," the soldier
+now reflected, "and in consequence I dare to pass the Princess."
+
+"And in that event," Sire Edward said, "we twain 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 can but return to
+Rigon's hut to rearrange my toga as King Caesar did when the assassins
+fell upon him, and to encounter whatever Dame Luck may send with due
+decorum."
+
+"To die!" she said.
+
+He shrugged his broad shoulders.  "In the end we necessarily die."
+
+Dame Meregrett turned and passed back into the hut without faltering.
+
+And 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 infamy.  If Philippe chance to fall into one of his
+Capetian rages it means death."
+
+"Nay, lord, it means far worse than death."  And she laughed, though
+not merrily.
+
+And now, for the first time, Sire Edward regarded her with profound
+consideration, as may we.  To the fingertips this so-little lady showed
+a descendant of the holy Lewis 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 a spark shudder to extinction over burning
+charcoal.  The Valois nose she had, long and delicate in form, and
+overhanging a short upper-lip; yet the lips were glorious in tint, and
+her skin the very Hyperborean snow in tint.  As for her eyes, say,
+gigantic onyxes--or ebony highly polished and wet with May dew.  They
+were too big for her little face; and they made of her a tiny and
+desirous wraith which nervously endured each incident of
+life--invariably acquiescent, as a foreigner must necessarily be, to
+the custom of the country.  In fine, this Meregrett was strange and
+brightly colored; and she seemed always thrilled with some subtle
+mirth, like that of a Siren who notes how the sailor pauses at the
+bulwark and laughs a little (knowing the outcome), and does not greatly
+care.  Yet now Dame Meregrett's countenance was rapt.
+
+And 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 had 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 but
+flagrant dulness showed, somehow, in Sire Edward, as the majestic
+deliberation of one that knows his verdict to be decisive, and hence
+appraises cautiously; and if sometimes his big, calm eyes betrayed no
+apprehension of the jest at which her lips were laughing, and of which
+her brain very cordially approved, always within the instant her heart
+convinced her that a god is not lightly moved to mirth.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE HAD VIEWED THE GREAT CONQUEROR" _Painting by Howard
+Pyle_]
+
+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.
+
+"Never has Blanch desired you any ill, beau sire.  But it is the
+Archduke of Austria that she loves, beau sire.  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.  And I, too, long for this same happiness,
+impotently now, and much as a fevered man might long for water.  And my
+admiration for the Death 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--"  He
+took up Rigon's lute.
+
+Sang Sire Edward:
+
+  "_Incuriously he smites the armored king
+    And tricks his wisest counsellor--_
+
+ay, the song ran thus.  Now listen, madame--listen, while for me Death
+waits without, and for you ignominy."
+
+Sang Sire Edward:
+
+                                    "_Anon
+  Will Death not bid us cease from pleasuring,
+    And change for idle laughter i' the sun
+  The grave's long silence and the peace thereof,--
+    Where we entranced.  Death our Viviaine
+  Implacable, may never more regain
+    The unforgotten passion, and the pain
+  And grief and ecstasy of life and love?_
+
+  "_Yea, presently, as quiet as the king
+    Sleeps now that laid the walls of Ilion,
+  We, too, will sleep, and overhead the spring
+    Laugh, 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
+    Spite of that age-long severance and are one
+  Spite of the grave and the vain grief thereof
+    We mean to baffle, if in Death's domain
+    Old 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 sorry unison,
+    My rhymes: and say Death mocks us, and is slain
+  Lightly by Love, that lightly thinks thereon;
+    And that were love at my disposal lain--
+    All mine to take!--and Death had said, 'Refrain,
+  Lest I demand the bitter 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 attempted to serve
+but 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! ay,
+a great largesse, 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.
+
+So that more lately 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 she saw in terror 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 presently 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,
+m'amye.
+
+"Child!  O brave, brave child!" he said to her a little later, "I was
+never afraid to die, and yet to-night I would that I might live a
+trifle longer than in common reason I may ever hope to live!"  And
+their lips met.
+
+Neither stirred when Philippe the Handsome came into the room.  At his
+heels were seven lords, armed cap-a-pie, but the entrance of eight
+cockchafers had meant as much to these transfigured two.
+
+The French King was an odd man, no more sane, perhaps, than might
+reasonably be expected of a Valois.  Subtly smiling, he came forward
+through the twilight, with soft, long strides, and 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 always in the
+flickering gloom of the hut Philippe smiled as an artist might do who
+gazes on the perfected work and knows it to be adroit.
+
+"You prefer to remain, my sister?" he presently said.  "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 you."  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.
+"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?"
+
+"You design murder, fair cousin?" 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--"
+
+And Philippe bowed his head.  "Undoubtedly," he assented, "the deed is
+a foul one.  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 so 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.  "O shallow trickster!" Sire Edward
+thundered.  "_Am I not afraid?_  You baby, would you ensnare a lion
+with a flimsy rat-trap?  Not so; 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
+and under darkness pilfers--as 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 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 Fierabras
+did.  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 expressively designed for stabbings?  You baby,
+is the Hammer of the Scots the man to trust 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; and, 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 lieutenant, and what Sire Edward commanded was
+done.  The French King and seven lords of France went from that hut
+trussed like chickens.
+
+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 within the Tower your brother
+and I may more quickly 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!"
+
+"I am vile!" was the man's thought.  And, "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
+an eternity in begging him to restore it?  Nay, for I have a 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.
+Mort de ma vie!  Shall not the seasoned hunter adapt his snare
+aforetime 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, and unmolested, for the sake of chivalry.  Could I have
+come to you but as to the brave man I had dreamed of, I had come
+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 had devoted you to the devil."
+
+Anon, still grasping her, and victoriously lifting Dame Meregrett, so
+that her feet swung quite clear of the floor, Sire Edward said: "Look
+you, in my time I have played against Fate for considerable stakes--for
+fortresses, and towns, and strong citadels, and for kingdoms even.  And
+it was only to-night I perceived that the one stake worth playing for
+is love.  It were easy enough to get you for my wife; but I want more
+than that....  Pschutt!  I know well enough how women have these
+notions: and carefully I weighed the issue--Meregrett and Guienne to
+boot? or Meregrett and Meregrett's love to boot?--and thus the final
+destination of my captives was but the courtyard of Mezelais, in order
+I might come to you with hands--well! not intolerably soiled."
+
+"Oh, now I love you!" she cried, a-thrill with disappointment.  "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 yellow beard caressed her burning cheek.  Masterfully he
+said: "Then let it serve as such and ransom for a king his glad and
+common manhood.  Ah, m'amye, I am both very wise and abominably
+selfish.  And in either capacity it appears expedient that I leave
+France without any unwholesome delay.  More lately--he, already I have
+within my pocket the Pope's dispensation permitting me to marry the
+sister of the King of France, so that I dare to hope."
+
+Very shyly Dame Meregrett lifted her little mouth toward his hot and
+bearded lips.  "Patience," she said, "is a virtue; and daring is a
+virtue; and hope, too, is a virtue: and otherwise, beau sire, I would
+not live."
+
+And 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 lovers 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, and of extensive repute, thanks
+to such among her retinue of lovers as were practitioners of the Gay
+Science and had scattered broadcast innumerable Canzons in her honor;
+and Lord Berners was a man who accepted 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, in a phrase, a man delinquent in it is no more to be valued than
+an ear of corn without the grain.  Nay, I am so profoundly an admirer
+of Love that I can never willingly behold him slain, of a surfeit, by
+Matrimony; and besides, the rapscallion could not to advantage exchange
+purses with Lazarus; 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 two wives already!"
+
+And the Earl would spread his hands.  "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 gusty
+times of warfare between Sire Edward and Queen Ysabeau, until at last
+the Queen had conquered.  Lord Berners, for one, vexed himself not
+inordinately over the outcome of events, 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.
+
+It was in the September of this year, a little before Michaelmas, that
+they brought Sir Gregory Darrell to be judged by the Queen, for
+notoriously the knight had been Sire Edward'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 devoted the silence to consideration of how
+scantily the man had changed.
+
+"And what was your errand in Figgis Wood?" she demanded in the
+ultimate--"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, sharply, "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, as a person in shrewd and epicurean
+amusement, what while she subscribed the parchment within the moment,
+with a great scrawling flourish.
+
+"Take, in the devil's name, the hire of your dexterities," said
+Ysabeau, and pushed this document with her wet pen-point toward March,
+"and ride for Berkeley now upon that necessary business we know of.
+And do the rest of you withdraw, saving only my prisoner--my prisoner!"
+she said, and laughed not very pleasantly.
+
+[Illustration: "'MY PRISONER!' SHE SAID"  _Painting by Howard Pyle_]
+
+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 a little dog in the room 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
+her."
+
+"My friend," said Ysabeau, as 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 as well! 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 will I ride with you to Ordish, upon
+condition you disclose to none at Ordish, saving only, if you will,
+this quite immaculate Rosamund, even a 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 her 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 that which now occupies
+my heart: I must this night take holiday, 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 you indeed do 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?"
+
+His palms clutched at heaven.  "That Ysabeau is dead! and all true joy
+is destroyed, and the world lies under a blight wherefrom 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, although but 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.
+
+"And the more for that your sister is a very handsome woman," was
+Rosamund Eastney's comment.  The period appears to have been after
+supper, and she 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
+sudden splurge of speech informed her 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, more lately, "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, hand quitting hand a shade
+too tardily, and the blinking eyes yet rapt; but these two were not
+overpleased at being disturbed, and the man in particular 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.  "What I have
+written I shall not disown in any company.  It is not, look you, of my
+own choice that I sing, my sister.  Yet if she bade me would I sing
+this song as willingly before Queen Ysabeau, 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--_"
+
+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 sang it with an incisive gusto, though it seemed to him to
+countersign his death-warrant; and with the vigor that a mangled snake
+summons for its last hideous stroke, it seemed to Ysabeau regretful of
+an ancient spring.
+
+_Nicolas gives this ballad in full, but, and for obvious reasons, his
+translator would prefer to do otherwise._
+
+Only the minstrel added, though Lord Berners did not notice it, a
+fire-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.  Then she flung 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.  Nay, my
+brother, I do not question your sincerity, yet you sing with the voice
+of an unhonored courtier.  Suppose Queen Ysabeau had heard your song
+all through and then had said--for she is not as the run of
+women--'Messire, I had thought till this there was no thorough man in
+England saving 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, for I find even in your cruelty--England!
+bah, we are no pygmies, you and I!'" the Countess said with a great
+voice; "'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, wherein we
+twain may yet erect our equal thrones, whereon to receive the tributary
+emperors!  For we are no pygmies, you and I.'"  She paused and more
+lately shrugged.  "Suppose Queen Ysabeau 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, "for that I, too, remember--"
+
+"Nay, 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 a trifle overspent,
+Messire de Berners."  And her face had now the weary beauty of an
+idol's.
+
+So the men and women parted.  Madame de Farrington kissed her brother
+in leaving him, as was natural; and under her caress his stalwart
+person shuddered, but not in repugnance; and the Queen went bedward
+regretful of an ancient spring and 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,
+    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...
+    And I neither laugh nor grieve!_"
+
+
+Ysabeau would have slept that night within the chamber of Rosamund
+Eastney had either slept at all.  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; but 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 hollowly began, "it
+is indisputable that his hair is like spun gold and that his eyes
+resemble sun-drenched waters in June.  And that when this Gregory
+laughs God is more happy.  Ma belle, I was familiar with the routine of
+your meditations ere 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, and afterward
+sat silent, one bare foot jogging restlessly; "yet am I two years the
+junior--  Did you hear nothing, Rosamund?"
+
+"Nay, Madame Gertrude, I heard nothing."
+
+"Strange!" the Countess said; "let us have lights, since I can no
+longer endure the overpopulous darkness."  She kindled, with twitching
+fingers, three lamps and looked in vain for more.  "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.  Nay,
+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 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 now stammered, in communicated terror.
+
+"Poor innocent dastard!" 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 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!  Nay, I have lied.  I hate the man, and in such fashion as you
+will comprehend only when you are Sarum's wife."
+
+"Madame and Queen!" the girl said, "you will not murder me!"
+
+"I am tempted!" the Queen hissed.  "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 glad beauty of the devil, 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, Gregory has loved but me."
+
+"Ma belle," the Queen answered, and 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.  Throughout his life
+has Gregory Darrell loved me, O white, palsied innocence! and he is
+mine at a whistle.  And in that time to come he will desert you,
+Rosamund--though 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 at first 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
+masculinity because, poor fools, they scurry to obey your whim! and
+chiefly 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 appeared to deliberate what Dame Ysabeau had
+said.  The 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 but 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 thoughts into my mind
+I may not grapple with!"
+
+"You will comprehend them," the Queen said, "when you know yourself a
+chattel, bought and paid for."
+
+The Queen laughed.  She rose, and either hand strained toward heaven.
+"You are omnipotent, yet have You let me become that into which I am
+transmuted," she said, very low.
+
+Anon she began, as though a statue spoke through motionless and pallid
+lips.  "They 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 filthy worm to come to him.  Eh, and I was tempted--!"
+
+The fearless 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 tiny happenings, it may be, and lacking both in
+abysses and in skyey heights.  Yet is love a flame wherein must the
+lover's soul be purified, as an ore by fire, even to its own discredit;
+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.  Assuredly, it would be hard to yield my single
+chance of happiness; it would be hard to know that Gregory Darrell must
+presently dwindle into an ox well-pastured, and garner of life no more
+than any ox; but to say, 'Let this girl become as I, and garner that
+which I have garnered--!'  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 various imprecations!
+But I, too, grow cowardly, it maybe--  Nay, I know," she said, and in a
+resonant voice, "that I am by this 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 stammered, and ran toward her, for the
+girl had risen, and she was terrified.
+
+"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 will 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."
+
+And timidly the girl touched one shoulder.  "In part, I understand,
+madame and Queen."
+
+"You understand nothing," said Ysabeau; "how should you understand
+whose breasts are yet so tiny?  Nay, put out the light! though I dread
+the darkness, Rosamund--For they say that hell is poorly lighted--and
+they say--"  Then Queen Ysabeau shrugged.  Herself blew out each lamp.
+
+"We know this Gregory Darrell," the Queen said in the darkness, and
+aloud, "ay, 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 but one unending warfare between that which is divine in him
+and that which is bestial, while impartial Heaven attends as arbiter of
+the cruel tourney.  Always his judgment misleads the man, 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 His wisdom
+God intends; so that when the man is overthrown, God the Eternal Father
+may, in reason, be neither vexed nor grieved if only he 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 they hold festival in heaven."
+
+"A very pretty sermon," said the Queen, and with premeditation yawned.
+
+Followed a silence, vexed only on the purposeless September winds; but
+I believe that neither of these two slept with an inappropriate
+profundity.
+
+About dawn one of the Queen's attendants roused Sir Gregory Darrell and
+presently 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, and
+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 die, 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.  Nay, 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 absolute mistress of
+England am I now, and entire 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, as a person in the crisis of panic; "I
+spoke to tempt you.  But you saw, and 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.  Yea, many strong men have
+been slain by me, and futurely will many others be slain, it may be;
+but never you among them, my Gregory, who are more wary, and more
+merciful, and know that I have need to lay aside at least one
+comfortable thought against eternity."
+
+"I concede you to have been unwise--" he hoarsely said.
+
+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.  "Nay, choose,"
+she wearily said; "the woman offers life and empery and wealth, and it
+may be, even 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.  "I am I! and I will so to live that I may
+face without shame not only God, but even 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 I or 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 for the man which you
+would make of me, my Rosamund.
+
+"The man!  And what is this man, this Gregory Darrell, that his welfare
+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, durst I but be honest.
+
+"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, and to a hair's-breadth, every
+content of the world by means of a bloodied sponge, tucked somewhere in
+his skull, 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, he is under penalty
+condemned to compute eternity with false weights and to estimate
+infinity with a yardstick: and he very often does it.  For though, 'If
+then I do that which I would not I consent unto the law,' saith even
+the Apostle; yet the 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 make--or 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
+much afraid, and I choose death, madame."
+
+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."
+
+More lately the Queen said: "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--nay, desirous--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, what 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, and as to herself.
+
+Sang Ysabeau:
+
+  "_As with her dupes dealt Circe
+    Life deals with hers, pardie!
+  Reshaping without mercy,
+    And shaping swinishly,
+    To wallow swinishly,
+    And for eternity--_
+
+  "_Though, harder than the witch was,
+    Life, changing ne'er 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 praiseworthily--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, and very bitterly.  "He that is without
+blemish among you--" he said.  Then they armed completely.
+
+
+
+THE END OF THE FOURTH NOVEL
+
+
+
+
+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 BY 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.  The profanity had its poor palliation.  Heir
+to England though he was, you must know that his father in the flesh
+had hounded him from England, as more recently his uncle Charles the
+Handsome had driven him from France.  Now had this boy's mother and he
+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-o'-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 panted.
+
+"Do not mock me, Philippa!" the boy half-sobbed.  Sulkily he rose to
+his feet.
+
+"No mockery here, my fair sweet friend.  Nay, 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, what time the nightingale sang on.
+
+But the boy kept momentary silence.  Even in youth the Plantagenets
+were never 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, and with
+consciousness of the fact, as a necessitated hazard of futurity.  Well!
+he had found chance-taking not unfortunate.  With the episode as
+foundation, Count William had already builded up the future queenship
+of England.  A wealthy 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, what time the nightingale
+discoursed as on a wager.
+
+Presently was mingled with the bird's descant low singing of another
+kind.  Beyond the yew-hedge as these two stood silent, breast to
+breast, passed young Jehan Kuypelant, the Brabant page, 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 Brabanter paused.  His melody was hastily
+gulped.  You saw, while these two stood heart hammering against heart,
+his lean face silvered by the moonlight, his mouth a tiny abyss.
+Followed the beat of lessening footsteps, while the nightingale
+improvised his 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 taken the victim,
+    And flouted thy pale-lipped priest,
+  And set astir in the temple
+    Where burned the fire 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 loving and wonder
+    Contend as a clamor of 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 the Brabant page,
+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 the Queen in company
+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 me pass, sir!  My place is not
+here."
+
+Philippa said, half hopefully, "Do you forsake Sire Edward, Catherine?"
+
+[Illustration: "DO YOU FORSAKE SIRE EDWARD, CATHERINE?" _Painting by
+William Hurd Lawrence_]
+
+"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 eyes flame.  "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 all 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!  Let Sire Edward conquer in France, if such be
+the Trinity's will.  Always he has dreamed of that, and if I bade him
+return now he would be vexed."
+
+"The disappointment of the King," John Copeland considered, "is a
+lesser 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 fairer men 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 with extreme cold.  She
+gazed toward John Copeland wonderingly.  The secretary was as of stone,
+fretting at his lute-strings, 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 the King return with our army!"
+
+"In his absence," the Queen said, "I command here."
+
+"You are not Regent," the Marquess said.  Then he cried, "This is the
+Regent's affair!"
+
+"Let the Regent be fetched," Dame Philippa said, very quietly.
+Presently they brought in her son, Messire Lionel, now a boy of eight
+years, and Regent, in name at least, of England.
+
+Both the Queen and the Marquess held papers.  "Highness," Lord Hastings
+began, "for reasons of state, which I need not here explain, this
+document requires your signature.  It is an order that a ship be
+despatched in pursuit of the King.  Your Highness may remember the pony
+you admired yesterday?"  The Marquess smiled ingratiatingly.  "Just
+here, your Highness--a cross-mark."
+
+"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, 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 him.  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.  When they had ended, I must tell you that
+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 there was a clatter of hoofs
+without, 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 Iscariots!  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 when he
+would breathe."  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
+nine-tenths of them protesting they would do nothing of the sort.
+
+There is comedy here.  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 the
+dreams she had of miraculous victories, what time her barons trafficked
+in secret with the Bruce.  On the Saturday before Michaelmas, when the
+opposing armies marshalled in the Bishop's Park, at Auckland, it is
+recorded that 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."
+
+But 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 intended 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.  But, "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--ay,
+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 an ill man.  I cannot rise from this couch."
+
+You saw that Philippa was not beautiful.  You perceived that to the
+contrary she was superb, saw the soul of the woman aglow, gilding the
+mediocrities of color and curve as a conflagration does a hovel.
+
+"There is no man left in England," said the Queen, "since Sire Edward
+went into France.  Praise God, I am his wife!"  And she was gone
+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, and 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 within the
+moment follow her to storm hell if she desired it."
+
+He meditated and more lately shrugged.  "And so would I," said Hastings.
+
+A little afterward a gaunt and haggard old man, bare-headed 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; yet one plump hand had
+fallen into the big-veined hand of Hastings.  "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.  He
+had ridden off, she was informed, 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.  As you have heard, she considered her cause to be so
+clamantly just that to expatiate to the Holy Father upon its merits
+were 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 stripped the
+atrocious Emir of both 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 as those 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: and 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 genuine 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 mouth-wash; and presently: "Sire Edward should be
+pleased, I think.  Will he not love me a little now, John Copeland?"
+
+John Copeland lifted either plump hand 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;
+and more lately: "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 but 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." ... So 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; and 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, he 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 a letter to Neville's secretary,
+which informed John Copeland that he had done what was not agreeable in
+purloining her prisoner without leave.  Let him sans 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 perhaps 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, they could
+not be delivered, since they were all addressed to John Copeland.
+Meanwhile, Scotland was in despair, whereas the English barons were in
+a frenzy, because, however willing you may be, you cannot well betray
+your liege-lord to an unlocatable enemy.  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, a stupendous person, blond
+and incredibly big.  With him were a careful Italian, that 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 Cregi, 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 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 genuinely under the
+scrutiny of those fierce big eyes, which were blue and cold and of an
+astounding lustre, gemlike as the March sea.
+
+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," he 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 Brabanters!"
+
+John Copeland read aloud, while the King trifled with a pen, half
+negligent, and in part attendant.
+
+Read John Copeland:
+
+
+"My DEAR LORD,--_I 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 each night chafe your feet with a rag of woollen
+stuff.  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, with a sob, strode toward a window.  "Catherine!" he
+said.  He remained motionless what time 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 either 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
+shrugged.  "Well, my man, you perceive I am defenceless.  Therefore
+make an end, you dog."
+
+"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 greatest monarch
+our 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 wherewith
+England was regained.  Twenty years ago but for Madame Philippa you had
+died naked in some ditch."
+
+"Go on," the King said presently.
+
+"And 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 but quadrupled her 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 all Scotland as a gift, and in
+return demands nothing--God ha' mercy on us!--save that you nightly
+chafe your feet with a bit of woollen.  You hear of it--and ask,
+'_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 will be hanged ere dawn," the King replied, and yet by this one
+hand had screened his face.  "Meanwhile spit out your venom."
+
+"I say to you, then," John Copeland continued, "that to-day you are
+master of Europe.  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 gave 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 made manifest as His main heritage to
+His children."
+
+King Edward sat in meditation for a long while.  "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 as one transfigured.  His voice was
+grave and very tender.
+
+"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 pre-eminence.  She does not love me, and
+she never will.  She would condemn me to be hewed in fragments sooner
+than permit her husband's little 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 had a vision
+once: 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 my vision) said 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."
+
+He said more lately: "And so she is at Stirling now? with 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 big head as a lion might.  "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.  "Nay," 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 shall strive to prove not altogether unworthy of
+my fortune.  Go, then, John Copeland--go, my squire, and bring me back
+my Queen."
+
+Presently he heard John Copeland singing without.  And through that
+instant was 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.  Now at last he understood the heart of Philippa.
+
+"Let me live!" the King prayed; "O Eternal Father, let me live a little
+while that I may make atonement!"  And meantime John Copeland sang
+without 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 murmured 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 ONLY
+  FRIEND, AND BY HIM PLAYS THE FRIEND'S PART; AND
+  ACHIEVES IN DOING SO 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.  The
+Queen had presently noted a certain priest who went forbiddingly about
+her court, where he was accorded a provisional courtesy, and more
+forbiddingly into many hovels, where day by day a pitiful wreckage of
+humanity both blessed and hoodwinked him, as he morosely knew, and
+adored him, as he never knew at all.
+
+Queen Anne made inquiries.  This young cleric was amanuensis to the
+Duke of Gloucester, she was informed, and notoriously a by-blow of the
+Duke's brother, the dead Lionel of Clarence.  She sent for this Edward
+Maudelain.  When he came her first perception was, "How wonderful his
+likeness to the King!" while the thought's commentary ran,
+unacknowledged, "Ay, as an eagle resembles a falcon!"  For here, to the
+observant eye, was a more zealous person, already passion-wasted, and
+ineffably a more dictatorial and stiff-necked being than the lazy and
+amiable King; also, this Maudelain's face and nose were somewhat too
+long and high; and the priest was, in a word, the less comely of the
+pair by a very little, and by an infinity the more kinglike.
+
+"You are my cousin now, messire," she 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 trembled,
+without knowing why.  Then he spoke, composedly, and 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: and
+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, denounced 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
+necessity almost, 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 downright two a
+sort of obsession, though always he gave in a half scorn but half
+concealed; and presently they could have marshalled an army of
+adherents, all in rags, who would cheerfully have been hacked to pieces
+for either of the twain, and have praised God at the final gasp for the
+privilege.  It was perhaps the tragedy of the man's life that he never
+suspected this.
+
+Now in and about the Queen's unfrequented rooms the lonely woman and
+the priest met daily to discuss now this or that comminuted 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 trifles while, so clamantly, the dissension
+between the young King and his uncles gathered to a head: the air was
+thick with portents; and was this, then, an appropriate time, the
+judicious demanded of high Heaven, for the Queen of fearful England to
+concern herself about a peasant's toothache?
+
+Long afterward was Edward Maudelain to remember this brief and tranquil
+period of his life, and to wonder over the man that he had been through
+this short 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 all vices but the stains of a traveller
+midway in a dusty journey; and had led the priest no longer to do good
+for his soul's health, but simply for his fellow's benefit.
+
+And 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 yearned, in mockery of common-sense, to suffer somehow for this
+beautiful and gracious comrade; though very often a sudden pity for her
+loneliness and the knowledge that she dared trust no one save himself
+would throttle him like two assassins and move the hot-blooded young
+man to an exquisite agony of self-contempt and exultation.
+
+Now Maudelain made excellent songs, it was a matter of common report.
+Yet but once in their close friendship had the Queen commanded 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, a thought 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 uno animo._
+
+  "_Ever we touch the prize we dare not take!
+  Ever we know that thirst we dare not slake!
+  And ever to a dreamed-of goal we make--
+      Est caeli in palatio!_
+
+  "_Yet long the road, and very frail are we
+  That may not lightly curb mortality,
+  Nor lightly tread together silently,
+      Et 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, reeling, one hand yet clasping either breast.  More
+lately 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 villiens, like the cattle, were by ordinary deeded
+with the land.
+
+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 Edmund of York and bland
+Harry of Derby, John of Gaunt's oldest son.  Each was a proud and
+handsome man.  To-day Gloucester was gnawing at his finger nails, big
+York seemed half-asleep, and the Earl of Derby 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 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 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.  Within the week the three heads of us will embellish 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 he may 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 as
+generally known, however, that, finding this sister of the Vicomte do
+Montbrison a girl of obdurate virtue, he 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 she 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--sire."
+
+He spoke with a stifled voice, and wrenching forth each sentence; and
+now with a stiff forefinger flipped a paper across the table.  "_In
+extremis_ my brother did far more than confess.  He signed--your
+Grace," 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 ever 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.  "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 the titular Queen?"
+
+Again the Duke shrugged.  "I had not thought of the dumb wench.  We
+have many convents."
+
+And 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 yourself
+should wed Dame Anne, once the Apostolic See has granted the necessary
+dispensation.  Treading too close upon the impendent death of our
+nominal lord the so-called King, the foreign war perhaps necessitated
+by her exile would be highly inconvenient."
+
+Then these three princes rose and knelt before the priest; in long
+bright garments they were clad, and they glittered with gold and many
+jewels, what while 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 fearful hour
+wherein Foulques the Querulous held traffic with a devil and on her
+begot the first of us Plantagenets!  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 we Plantagenets 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...  Nay, now let Lucifer rejoice for 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 any
+other than a Plantagenet, with what expedition would I now kill you
+that recognize the strength to do it! then would I slay you! without
+any animosity, would I slay you then, and just as I would kill as many
+splendid snakes!"
+
+[Illustration: "'HAIL YE THAT ARE MY KINSMEN!'" _Painting by Howard
+Pyle_]
+
+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 first 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 his England was.  For
+entire England was his splendid 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 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, like herded sheep, so that in the
+outcome their carcasses might manure the soil of France yonder or of
+more barren 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.  The vivid fields would
+blacken under their sluggish ploughs, and 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 him
+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 strong and admirable
+throughout, 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 would be in effect
+a fratricide, and after death 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 one ignoble life and
+one inconsiderable soul, to win so many men to manhood bedazzled his
+every faculty, in anticipation of the exploit.
+
+The tale tells that Maudelain went toward the little garden he knew so
+well 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 it was, 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 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 over all a gown of
+white, cut open on either side as far as the hips.  This garment was
+embroidered with golden leopards and trimmed with ermine.  About her
+yellow hair was a chaplet of gold, wherein emeralds glowed.  Her blue
+eyes were as large and bright 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 and never stable wisp of
+cloud, while somehow all elation departed from him as water does from a
+wetted sponge compressed.  He laughed discordantly; but within the
+moment his sun-lit face was still and glorious, like that of an image.
+
+"Wait--!  O my only friend--!" said Maudelain.  Then in a level voice
+he told her all, unhurriedly and without any sensible emotion.
+
+She had breathed once, with an aweful inhalation.  She had screened her
+countenance from his gaze what while you might have counted fifty.
+More lately the lithe body of Dame Anne was alert, as one suddenly
+aroused from dreaming.  "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 brief and cruel war."
+
+"In that war the nobles will ride abroad with banners and gay surcoats,
+and 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.  "Many would die, but in the end I would
+be King, and the general happiness would rest at my disposal.  The
+adventure of this world is wonderful, and it goes otherwise than under
+the strict tutelage of reason."
+
+"Not 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 and they will fling you aside, as the barons
+have dealt aforetime with every king that dared oppose them.  Nay, they
+desire to live pleasantly, to have fish o' 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?
+then only do I bid you reign."
+
+The sun had grown too bright, too merciless, but as always she drew the
+truth from him, even to his agony.  "I cannot.  I would not endure a
+fortnight.  Heaven help us, nor you nor I nor any one may transform of
+any personal force this bitter time, this piercing, cruel day of frost
+and sun.  Charity and Truth are excommunicate, and the 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 always Lechery and Hatred sway
+these proud and inconsiderate fools as winds blow at will the gay
+leaves of autumn.  We but fight with gaudy shadows, we but aspire to
+overpass a mountain of unstable sand!  We two alone of all the
+scuffling world!  Oh, it is horrible, and I think that Satan plans the
+jest!  We dream a while of refashioning this bleak universe, and we
+know that we alone can do it! and 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 did God tread the 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 reason with lost
+women, and habitually to consort with rascals, till at last He might
+die between two cutpurses, ignominiously!  Were the considerate persons
+of His day moved at all by the death of this fanatic?  I bid you now
+enumerate through what long halls did the sleek heralds proclaim His
+crucifixion! and the armament of great-jowled emperors that were
+distraught by it?"
+
+He answered: "It is true.  Of anise even and of cumin the Master
+estimates His tithe--"  Maudelain broke off with a yapping laugh.
+"Puf!  He is wiser than we.  I am King of England.  It is my heritage."
+
+"It means war.  Many will die, many 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
+flamed 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?  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 but to pass my whole life between the four walls of some dingy
+and eternal gaol, forever alone with you, lest you become as 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
+often I have 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."
+
+Throughout she spoke as simply as a child.
+
+And beside him Maudelain's hands had fallen like so much lead, and
+remembering his own nature, he longed for annihilation only, before she
+had appraised his vileness.  In consequence 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 birthright Heaven accords me a penny, and with that only
+penny I must anon be seeking to bribe Heaven."
+
+Presently 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!  He is wiser than we are, it may be!  And as
+always Satan offers no unhandsome bribes--bribes that are tangible and
+sure."
+
+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 visibly, convulsed by a monstrous and repulsive joy.
+"Decide! oh, decide very quickly, my only friend!" he wailed, "for
+throughout I am all filth!"
+
+Closer she drew to him and without hesitancy laid one hand on either
+shoulder.  "O my only friend!" she breathed, with red lax lips which
+were very near to his, "throughout so many 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!"
+
+Almost did Edward Maudelain smile, but now his stiffening mouth could
+not complete the brave attempt.  "God save King Richard!" said the
+priest.  "For by the cowardice and greed and ignorance of little men
+were 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.  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, and friendless, and without even name.  I
+bid you dare to cast aside all happiness and wealth and comfort and
+each common tie that even a pickpocket may boast, like tawdry and
+unworthy garments.  In fine, I bid you dare be King and absolute, yet
+not of England--but of your own being, alike in motion and in thought
+and even in wish.  This doom I dare adjudge and to pronounce, since 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 no revenue.  Therein
+waste 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 in desire of which many and many a man would blithely
+enter hell, and the mere sight of which may well cause a man's voice to
+tremble as my voice trembles now, and in 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, that we
+may not cure, we can but salve the hurt--"  Now had his hand torn open
+his sombre gown, and the man's bared breast shone in the sunlight, and
+everywhere heaved on it sleek and glittering beads of sweat.  Twice he
+cried the Queen's name aloud, without prefix.  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, "till you achieve in part the task which is
+denied me.  This doom I dare adjudge and to pronounce, since we are
+royal and God's satraps, you and I."
+
+She answered with a tiny, wordless sound.  He prayed for even horror as
+he appraised his handiwork.  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."
+
+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 realized; and half way he had strained a soft and groping hand
+toward his lips when he relinquished it.  "Nay, not even that," said
+Edward Maudelain, very proudly, too, and now at last he smiled; "since
+we are God's satraps, you and I."
+
+Afterward he stood thus for an appreciable silence, with ravenous eyes,
+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, and over
+and over again.  "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.
+
+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,
+and now with reason troubled, since he had been seeking all night long
+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, already
+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
+  TO DEATH THEREBY.
+
+
+
+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 done 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 on cushions of silk."
+
+One day in early spring came a more cunning devil, named Bembo, in 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.
+
+[Illustration: "IN THE LIKENESS OF A FAIR WOMAN" _Painting by Howard
+Pyle_]
+
+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 without and strode softly through the door,
+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.
+
+In flame-colored satin he was clad, which shimmered with each movement
+like a high flame, and his countenance had throughout the color and the
+glow of amber.  His eyes were dark and very tender, and the tears
+somehow had come to Maudelain's eyes because of a sudden and great love
+for this tall stranger.  "Eh, from the dead to the dead I travel, as
+ever, with a message and a token.  My message runs, _Time is, O fellow
+satrap!_ and my token is this."
+
+And 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 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 what he held upon the floor.  "_Time is!_ and I have not need
+of any token wherewith 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 this novel guise.  It was
+two weeks later when 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 Richard the Second, so strangely favored by their physical
+resemblance, and the subsequent fiasco at Circencester, are now,
+however, tolerably notorious.  It would seem evident, from the Argument
+of the story in hand, that Nicolas attributes a large part of this
+mysterious business to the co-operancy of Isabel of Valois, King
+Richard's infant wife.  And (should one have a taste for the deductive)
+the foregoing mention of Bembo, 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 eventually 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 _was not Richard Plantagenet: and this contention
+is strikingly 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 in the act one fellow 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 fearful hour wherein Foulques the Querulous held traffic with a
+demon and on her begot the first of us Plantagenets!  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 we Plantagenets
+until the end.  Ay, 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!  Nay, I lack the
+grace to die as all Thy saints, 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 a
+Plantagenet!"
+
+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 as 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, 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 stood erect upon the cushions
+of it.  They saw this Exton strike the King with his pole-axe, from
+behind, and 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 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 Plantagenets."
+
+
+
+THE END OF THE SEVENTH NOVEL
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+The Story of the Scabbard
+
+  "_Ainsi il avoit 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 TRIUMPHANTLY 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 Bolingbroke.  The
+circumstances have been recorded otherwhere.  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 were both tedious and unprofitable.  But
+at the end of each four months would come to him a certain messenger
+from Glyndwyr, whom Richard supposed to be the devil Bembo, 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 the inhabitants afterward
+rob them of through a very cunning device, that this emissary brought
+the letter which read simply, "Now is England fit pasture for the White
+Hart."  Presently was Richard Holland 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
+very barons who had ousted King Log had been the first to find 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."
+
+More lately Richard spoke with narrowed eyes.  "You forget that while
+Henry of Lancaster lives no other man will ever reign out a tranquil
+week 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 in the end the Master of our Sabbaths
+cannot serve us even though he would."
+
+And Richard crossed himself.  "You horribly mistake my meaning.  Your
+practices are your own affair, and in them I decline to dabble.  I
+design but 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 merely to see that Henry knows I live alone and in disguise
+at Caer Idion."
+
+The gaunt Welshman chuckled.  "Yes, Bolingbroke 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 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 myself.  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, 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.  Nay,
+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, performances, instincts, and so on,
+quite aloofly, as I would 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
+Grunyd, 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."
+
+So then Glyndwyr rode south to besiege and burn the town of Caerdyf,
+while at Caer Idion Richard Holland tranquilly abode 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 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."
+
+They did not; and later 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 incurious hours.
+
+Each day at noon would Branwen bring his dinner, and sometimes chat
+with him while he ate.  After supper he would discourse to Branwen of
+remote kingdoms, wherethrough he had ridden at adventure, as the wind
+veers, among sedate and alien peoples who adjudged him a madman; and
+she, in turn, would tell him many curious tales from the _Red Book of
+Hergest_--as of Gwalchmai, and Peredur, and Geraint, in each one of
+whom she had presently discerned an inadequate forerunnership of
+Richard's existence.
+
+This Branwen was a fair wench, slender as a wand, and, in a harmless
+way, of a bold demeanor twin to that 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 more brightly yellow and 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, Richard decided.  In all, a taking morsel! though her shapely
+hands were hard with labor, and she rarely laughed; for, as in
+recompense, her heart was tender and ignorant of discontent, and she
+rarely ceased to smile as over some peculiar and wonderful secret which
+she intended, in due time, to share with you alone.  Branwen had many
+lovers, and preferred among them young Gwyllem ap Llyr, a portly lad,
+who was handsome enough, for all his tiny and piggish eyes, and sang
+divinely.
+
+Presently 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, I may not deny you."
+
+With that they laid aside their coats and fell to exercise.  In these
+unaccustomed bouts Richard was soundly drubbed, as he had anticipated,
+but throughout he found himself the stronger man, and he managed
+somehow to avoid an absolute overthrow.  By what method he never
+ascertained.
+
+"I have forgotten what we are fighting about," he observed, after a
+half-hour of this; "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 proper 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 divinity will ascend no pedestal save the
+carcass of his happiness.  Yet have many men since time was young been
+addicted to the practice, as 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: "That 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
+either window, 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 all marred and blurred
+  With tavern-catches, which that pity of his
+  Erased, and writ instead one perfect word,
+      O Branwen!_
+
+  "_I have accorded you incessant praise
+  And song and service long, O Love, for 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!'_
+
+  "_I know not!--ah, I know not, who am sure
+  That I shall always love you while I live!
+  And being dead, and with no more to give
+  Of song or service?--Love shall yet endure,
+  And yet retain his last prerogative,
+  When I lie still, through many centuries,
+  And dream of you and the exceeding love
+  I bore you, and am glad dreaming thereof,
+  And give God thanks therefor, 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 has blundered without any astonishment 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 so unvexed by any rational
+afterthought; and each 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 claimed to
+be 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.
+
+And Richard whistled.  "Now will my cousin be quite sure, and now will
+my anxious cousin 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 what while he meditated.  Undoubtedly he
+would kill 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, he was unable to protest any particularly ardent
+desire for the scoundrel's death.  Thus crudely to demolish the knave's
+adroit and year-long schemings savored of a tyranny a shade too gross.
+The spider was venomous, and his destruction laudable; granted, but in
+crushing him you ruined his web, a miracle of patient malevolence,
+which, despite yourself, compelled both admiration and envy.  True, the
+process would recrown a certain Richard, but then, as he 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 is Branwen married to
+this Gwyllem and grown fat and old, and I am remarried to Dame Isabel
+of France, and am King of England: and a trifle later all four of us
+will 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 the day's happenings.  A half-hour since,
+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 will I 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 in a hideous conflict; 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 either hand 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 great fists as they beat
+against the countenance and body of Richard, and the thin splitting
+vicious noise of torn cloth as Gwyllem clutched at Richard's tunic and
+tore it many times.  Richard uttered no articulate word, and Gwyllem
+could not.  There was entire silence for a heart-beat, and then the
+fall of something ponderous and limp.
+
+"Come!" Richard said.  Through the hut's twilight, glorious in her eyes
+as Michael fresh from that primal battle, 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.  In his arms she rode presently, passive, and
+incuriously content.  The horse trod with deliberation.  In the east
+the young moon was taking heart as the darkness thickened about them,
+and innumerable stars awoke.
+
+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 therefrom.  It
+was a full three minutes before he 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.  And so, I think, was once 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 wild 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 similar terms that
+Gwyllem sang of this passion.  Lord," she demanded shyly, "how would
+you sing of love?"
+
+Richard was replete and quite 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 Venus gave her slender body's girth,
+  And Mercury the lyre he framed at birth,
+    And Mars his jewelled and resistless sword,
+    And wrinkled Plutus all the secret hoard
+  And immemorial treasure of mid-earth,--_
+
+  "_And while the puzzled gods were pondering
+    Which of these goodly gifts the goodliest was,
+  Dan 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; and 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 the old dead 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 similes of you and Guenevere,
+  And durst not come with agile lips that bring
+    The sugared periods of a sonneteer,
+  And bring no more--but just with lips that cling
+    To yours, and murmur against them, 'I love you, dear!'_"
+
+
+For Richard had resolved that Branwen should believe him.  Tinsel,
+indeed! then here was yet more tinsel which she must and should 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; and
+curt as lightning came the knowledge that she believed the absolute
+truth.
+
+Richard had taken just two strides, and 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 his whole life was like a wave, to him, that trembled now at
+full height, and he was aware of a new world all made of beauty and of
+pity.  Then the lute snapped between his fingers, and Richard
+shuddered, and his countenance was the face of a man only.
+
+"There is a task," he said, hoarsely--"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.
+
+More lately he said: "Go!  For I have loved so 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 in agony, "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.
+
+"How should she?  I am almost twice her age, an old fellow now,
+battered and selfish and too indolent to love her--say, as Gwyllem did.
+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; and 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 handsome scabbard of a man, precisely as
+Owain said."  This settled, Richard whistled to his dog.
+
+The sun had set, but it was not more than dusk.  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 more cool.  There was as yet but one star in the green and
+cloudless heaven, and this was very large, like a beacon, and it
+appeared to him symbolical that he trudged away from it.
+
+Next day 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 at
+his elbow.
+
+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."
+
+"You design murder?" Richard said.
+
+[Illustration: "YOU DESIGN MURDER? RICHARD ASKED" _Painting by Howard
+Pyle_]
+
+"I design my own preservation," King Henry answered, "for while you
+live my rule is insecure."
+
+"I am sorry," Richard said, "because in part my blood is yours."
+
+Twice he sounded his horn, and everywhere from rustling underwoods
+arose the half-naked Welshmen.  "Your men are one to ten.  You are
+impotent.  Now, now we balance our accounts!" cried Richard.  "These
+persons here will first deal with your followers.  Then will they
+conduct you to Glyndwyr, who has long desired to deal with you himself,
+in privacy, since that WhitMonday when you stabbed his son."
+
+The King began: "In mercy, sire--!" and Richard laughed a little.
+
+"That virtue is not overabundant among us Plantagenets, as both we
+know.  Nay, 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 all these islands.  To-morrow you are worm's-meat;
+and to-morrow, as aforetime, 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 either of 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 had been
+to think you less!"
+
+In a while Richard said: "Now I choose between a peasant wench and
+England.  Now I choose, and, ah, how gladly!  O 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 and aught else there was no choice for him, he
+knew upon a sudden, and could never be!  He was very glad.  He loved
+the tiniest content of the world.
+
+Meanwhile, as from an immense distance, came to this 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 hallucination, 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."
+
+"Ay, 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?  Nay,
+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 King said.  He stared
+at Richard for a while wherein each understood.  "Dear fool," he 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 were only
+he and Branwen left, alone and yet a little troubled, since either 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.  I am the happiest of God's
+creatures," Branwen said.
+
+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 either 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 SHREWD
+  WITHSTANDING OF ALL OTHER ASSAULTS, IS IN A LONG
+  DUEL WHEREIN TIME AND COMMON-SENSE ARE FLOUTED,
+  AND TWO KINGDOMS SHAKEN, ALIKE 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 they might suitably 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!"
+
+"Nay," she answered, "Jehane, whose only title is the Constant Lover."
+And in the green twilight, lit as yet by one low-hanging star alone,
+their lips met, as aforetime.
+
+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; and besides, a
+sorrow too noble for any bitterness had mastered them, and a vast
+desire whose aim they could not word, or even apprehend save cloudily.
+
+"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 fain to die, Jehane.  But, oh, Jehane! dare you to bid
+me live?"
+
+"Friend, as you love me, I entreat you live.  Friend, I crave of the
+Eternal Father that if I falter in my love for you I may be denied even
+the bleak night of ease which Judas knows."  The girl did not weep;
+dry-eyed she winged a perfectly sincere prayer toward incorruptible
+saints.  He was to remember the fact, and through long years.
+
+For even as Riczi left her, yonder behind the yew-hedge a shrill
+joculatrix sang, in rehearsal for Jehane's bridal feast.
+
+Sang the joculatrix:
+
+  "_When the morning broke before us
+    Came the wayward Three astraying,
+  Chattering a trivial chorus--
+    Hoidens that at handball playing
+    (When they wearied of their playing),
+  Cast the Ball where now it whirls
+    Through the coil of clouds unstaying,
+  For the Fates are merry 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.  Fiery-hearted jewels she had, and
+shimmering purple cloths, and much furniture adroitly carven, and many
+tapestries of Samarcand and Baldach upon which were embroidered, by
+brown fingers time 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
+about the end of the second year 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 always the Vicomte swore at his nephew and
+predicted this or that disastrous destination so 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, rode not long afterward for Vannes, in Brittany, where the
+Duchess-Regent held her court.  Dame Jehane had within that fortnight
+put aside her mourning, and sat beneath a green canopy, gold-fringed
+and powdered with many golden stars, upon the night when he first came
+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
+diverted them to the mincing accompaniment of a lute; but Jehane sat
+apart from these, frail, and splendid with many jewels, and a little
+sad, and, as ever (he thought), was hers a beauty clarified of its mere
+substance--the beauty, say, of a moonbeam which penetrates full-grown
+leaves.
+
+And Antoine Riczi found no power of speech within him at the first.
+Silent he stood before her for an obvious interval, still as an effigy,
+while meltingly the jongleur sang.
+
+"Jehane!" said Antoine Riczi, "have you, then, forgotten, O Jehane?"
+
+Nor had the resplendent woman 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 had fluttered somewhat.  "The Duchess
+of Brittany am I," she said, and in the phantom of a voice.  "The
+Countess of Rougemont am I.  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 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.  Drunk with a deadly wine am I,
+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 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 with a sudden roar 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 perfidy.  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 dazzled by a light of intolerable
+splendor, but otherwise sat 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, an eternal service.  I claim my bond.  Yonder prim
+man--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, wed the King of England.  Messire, your audience is done."
+
+Latterly Riczi said this: "Can you hurt me any more, Jehane?--nay, 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 from her smilingly, treading through the hall with many
+affable salutations, while always the jongleur sang.
+
+Sang the jongleur:
+
+  "_There is a land the rabble rout
+    Knows not, whose gates are barred
+  By Titan twins, named Fear and Doubt,
+    That mercifully guard
+  The land we seek--the land so fair!--
+    And all the fields thereof,_
+
+  "_Where daffodils grow everywhere
+    About the Fields of Love--
+  Knowing that in the Middle-Land
+    A tiny pool there lies
+  And serpents from the slimy strand
+    Lift glittering cold eyes._
+
+  "_Now, the parable all may understand,
+    And surely you know the name o' 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 of England.  First had 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"--he 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, whereof the recipient might well be
+proud, and Riczi returned to Lyonnois.  "Depardieux!" his uncle said;
+"so you return alone!"
+
+"As Prince Troilus did," 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, and in another voice; "I would that I were God to
+punish as is fitting!  Nay, come home, my lad!--come home!"
+
+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,
+and 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 a man
+serve his lady according to her commandments, but you have performed
+the most absurd and the cruelest task which any woman ever imposed upon
+her servitor.  I laugh at you, and I envy you."  Thus he died, about
+Martinmas.
+
+Now was Antoine Riczi a powerful baron, and got no comfort of his
+lordship, since in his meditations the King of Darkness, that old
+incendiary, had added a daily fuel until the ancient sorrow quickened
+into vaulting flames of wrath and of disgust.
+
+"What now avail my riches?" said the Vicomte.  "Nay, how much wealthier
+was I when I was loved, and was myself an eager lover!  I relish no
+other pleasures than those of love.  Love's sot am I, drunk with a
+deadly wine, poor fool, and ever I thirst.  As vapor are all my
+chattels and my acres, and the more my dominion and my power increase,
+the more rancorously does my heart sustain its misery, being 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 very crown of that latter kingdom; and as
+the earth is altered by the advent of winter was the appearance of
+France transformed by his coming, and everywhere the nobles were
+stirred up to arms, the castles were closed, the huddled cities were
+fortified, and on either hand arose intrenchments.
+
+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 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, in the month of April, about the day of Palm
+Sunday, and within her dower-palace of Havering-Bower, an interview
+with Queen Jehane.
+
+_Nicolas omits, and unaccountably, to mention that during the French
+wars she had ruled England as Regent, and with marvellous
+capacity--although this fact, as you will see more lately, is the pivot
+of his chronicle._
+
+A solitary page ushered the Vicomte whither she sat alone, by
+prearrangement, in a chamber with painted walls, profusely lighted by
+the sun, and making 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.
+
+A frightened woman, half-distraught, aging now but rather handsome, his
+judgment saw in her, and no more; all black and shimmering gold his
+senses found her, and supple like some dangerous and lovely serpent;
+and with a contained hatred he had discovered, as 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 devil's horns.  Followed the dreary years that
+linked me to the rotting corpse God's leprosy devoured while the poor
+furtive thing yet moved.  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.  Ever the big
+fierce-eyed man has hated me, 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 devise some trumped-up
+accusation.  Friend, I live as did Saint Damoclus, beneath a sword.
+Antoine!" she wailed--for now was the pride of Queen Jehane shattered
+utterly--"within the island am I a prisoner for all that my chains are
+of gold."
+
+"Yet it was not until o' late," he observed, "that you disliked the
+metal which is the substance of all crowns."
+
+And now the woman lifted to him a huge golden collar 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 about her neck.  Ah, you should have mastered me at Vannes.
+You could have done so, and 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.  Then 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 the pride of ill-starred emperors blazed and informed her body as
+light occupies a lantern.  "At last you come for me, messieurs?"
+
+"Whereas," their leader read in answer from a parchment--"whereas the
+King's stepmother, Queen Jehane, is accused by certain persons of an
+act of witchcraft 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--"oh, Harry of Monmouth, could I but
+come to you, very quietly, and 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 avenged, no less.  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, and in the sight of common men! and know that Riczi is
+avenged,--you milliner!"
+
+[Illustration: "'TAKE NOW YOUR PETTY VENGEANCE!'" _Painting by
+Elisabeth Shippen Green_]
+
+"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 fresh and private audience of King
+Henry, and readily obtained it.  "Unhardy is unseely," the Vicomte said
+at its conclusion.  Then 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 dissatified.
+
+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.
+
+Then presently these lords had sided with King Henry, as had the
+Vicomte de Montbrison, in open field.  Latterly 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.
+Afterward fell the poised scale of circumstance, and with an aweful
+clangor; and now in France clean-hearted persons spoke of the Vicomte
+de Montbrison as they would of Ganelon or of Iscariot, and in every
+market-place was King Henry proclaimed as governor of the realm.
+
+Meantime was Queen Jehane conveyed to prison and lodged therein for
+five years' space.  She had the liberty of a tiny garden, high-walled,
+and of two scantily furnished chambers.  The brace of hard-featured
+females 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; and in
+fine, had they 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 common inhabitant of all her dreams.
+
+Said Jehane: "This is ill done.  The years have avenged you.  Be
+contented with that knowledge, and, for Heaven's sake, do not endeavor
+to moralize over the ruin 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 her countenance to be
+that of the anemone which naughtily dances above wet earth.
+
+"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.  Nay, 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: how within
+that period King Henry had conquered entire 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 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 he 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 eyes,
+as a flame leaps from stick to stick.  "Harry of Monmouth feared
+neither man nor God.  It needed more than any death-bed repentance to
+frighten him into restoral of 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 all his army?"
+
+The Vicomte de Montbrison said: "There is perhaps no person better
+fitted to patch up this dishonorable business of your captivity,
+wherein a clean man might scarcely dare to meddle."
+
+She appraised this, and more lately said with entire irrelevance: "The
+world has smirched you, somehow.  At last you have done something save
+consider your ill-treatment.  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.
+"Yet 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 in 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 shuddered.  "You have set my thankless service above your
+life, above your honor even.  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."
+
+She had leaned, while thus he spoke, upon the sill of an open casement.
+"Indeed, it had been far better," she said, and with averted face, "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 of life he has pilfered you,
+and he has given you in exchange but dreams, 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?"
+
+"Naught," he answered.
+
+"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 laid one delicate
+hand upon either shoulder.  "Friend, I am aweary of these tinsel
+splendors.  I 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 an ecstasy
+too noble for any common mirth had mastered them, and a vast desire
+whose aim they could not word, or even apprehend save cloudily.
+
+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
+deny myself 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!" she wailed in pitiful distress.
+
+He drew a deep and big-lunged breath that seemed to inform his being
+with an indomitable vigor, and doubt and sorrow went quite away from
+him.  "Love leads us," he said, "and through the sunlight of the world
+he leads us, and through the filth of it Love leads us, but always in
+the end, if we but follow without swerving, he 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!"
+
+"But 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 WON 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, AND
+  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.  This, 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 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 some 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 odd times uncanny.
+Her abundant hair, too, was black, and to-day doubly sombre by contrast
+with the gold netting which confined it.  Her mouth was scarlet, all
+curves, and her complexion 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 were blue winter stars under
+the tumbled yellow hair, and 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: "You are not a nun--Blood of God! you are
+the Princess Katharine!"
+
+[Illustration: "SO FOR A HEARTBEAT SHE SAW HIM" _Painting by Howard
+Pyle_]
+
+The nuns, her present guardians, would have declared the ensuing action
+horrific, for Katharine smiled frankly at him and demanded how he could
+be certain of this.
+
+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 her cradle and now clamant.
+
+"You have, then, seen the King of England?"
+
+"Yes, Highness."
+
+"Is it true that he is an ogre--like Agrapard and Angoulaffre of the
+Broken Teeth?"
+
+His gaze widened.  "I have heard a deal of scandal concerning the man.
+But never 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.  Katharine punctuated his 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, the
+crown laid aside, he had heard Sire Henry to be 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 of anterior misinformation, 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 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; yet, had she chosen 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
+splurge, 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 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,
+
+  "_El tems amoreus plein de joie,
+  El tems ou tote riens s'esgaie,--_"
+
+and burst into a sudden passion of tears.  There were hosts of
+women-children born every day, she reflected, who were not princesses
+and therefore compelled to marry ogres; and some of them were
+beautiful.  And minstrels made such an ado over beauty.
+
+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,
+grass and foliage uniformly sombre save where dewdrops showed like
+beryls.  Nowhere in the orchard was there absolute shadow, nowhere a
+vista unblurred; but in the east, half-way between horizon and zenith,
+two belts of coppery light flared against the gray sky like embers
+swaddled by their 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 meritorious 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 the while we pray
+  That this the fleet, sweet time 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
+    Seem sweeter far than wisdom--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 mocks 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 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, esteem hell a pleasure-garden.  I have already made
+my prayer to Destiny that she concede me love, and 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, though in doing so it were
+necessary that I split the world like a rotten orange."
+
+"Madness!  Oh, brave, sweet madness!" Katharine said.  "I am a king's
+daughter, and you a minstrel."
+
+"Is it madness?  Why, then, I think all sensible men 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.  Heh, God's face!" Alain swore;
+"the foxes 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, 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.  Her mother Katharine found in foul-mouthed rage over
+the failure of a third attempt to poison the Dauphin of Vienne, as
+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 Presbyter
+John's wife, the tyrant of Ethiopia.  However, ingenuity had just
+suggested card-playing for his amusement, and he paid little attention
+nowadays to any one save his opponent.
+
+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 poor woman so pestered as I!  The
+puddings to-day were quite uneatable, 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.
+
+"O God!" said Katharine.
+
+"Ay, our only hope now.  And may God show him no more mercy than he has
+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 him come!"  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, what time town by town fell before the invader like
+card-houses.  Every rumor of defeat--and they were many--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; 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 till death the device sickened her--and there the Earl
+of Warwick embarked upon a sea of rhetoric.  His French was
+indifferent, his periods 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 thunder in His armory that this vile thief should go
+unblasted?  Would you filch love as well as kingdoms?"
+
+His ruddy face went 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, expectant, 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 maddened 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 in secret negotiation the
+Queen-Regent was soon trying to bring this about; yes, he could get the
+girl's body by a couple of pen-strokes; but, God's face! 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: he 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.
+
+He stripped the 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 the 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 usage.  He 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 there came the voice of one singing below in
+the courtyard.
+
+Sang the voice:
+
+  "_I get no joy of my 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
+  As 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 loth 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._
+
+  "_O Love, that art stronger than we,
+    Albeit not lightly stilled,
+  Thou art less cruel than she._"
+
+
+Malise came hastily 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 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 pinch 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 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 you are in treaty for my
+daughter's hand.  Katharine is a good girl, messire, but I suppose--"
+He paused, as if to regard and hear some insensible 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.  Always his calm blue eyes appraised Dame
+Katharine.
+
+"Oho, these Latinists cannot hoodwink me, you observe, though by
+ordinary it chimes with my humor to appear content.  Policy again,
+messire: 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 a King of France should be
+thus 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, God'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 o' the middle-sea wait unfed."  He went out of the
+room, giggling, and in the corridor began to sing:
+
+  "_Adieu de fois plus de cent mile!
+  Aillors vois oir l'Evangile,
+  Car chi fors mentir on ne sait...._"
+
+
+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.
+
+"And that," she said, "is the king whom you have conquered!  Is it not
+a notable conquest to overcome so sapient a king? to pilfer renown from
+an idiot?  There are pickpockets 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 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 o' the marsh!" he said, and his big voice pulsed with many
+tender cadences--"flower o' 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 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 his by a divine favor and Heaven's peculiar
+intervention.  He thought himself God's factor, not His rebel.  He was
+rather stupid, this huge handsome boy; and realizing it, her hand went
+to his shoulder, half maternally.
+
+"It is nobly done, sire.  I know that you must wed me to uphold your
+claim to France, for otherwise in the world's eyes you are shamed.  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 no longer
+need a pretext to hold 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 hers.
+
+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 France's welfare.  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 find words with which to answer him at the first effort,
+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."
+
+Now I have to record of this great king a piece of magnanimity which
+bears the impress of more ancient times.  "That you love me is
+indisputable," he said, "and this I propose to demonstrate.  You will
+observe that I am quite unarmed save 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 might the
+past and the ignominy of the past 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, as 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.  Body and heart and soul I am your
+slave.  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 France that I love next to God.  As Judith gave her body to
+Holofernes, I crucify my heart for France's welfare."  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 as one knowing the upshot of the matter.
+
+A man-at-arms came into the room.  "Germain--" Katharine said, 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.
+
+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 busy bodies of both armies.
+
+
+
+THE END OF THE TENTH NOVEL
+
+
+
+
+The Epilogue
+
+  "_Et je fais scavoir a tous lecteurs de ce Livret que les
+  chases que je dis avoir vues et sues sont enregistres icy, afin
+  que vous pouviez les regarder selon vostre ban sens, s'il vous
+  plaist._"
+
+
+
+  HERE IS APPENDED THE EPILOGUE THAT MESSIRE NICOLAS
+  DE CAEN MADE FOR THE BOOK WHICH CONTAINED THE
+  SOUL OF HIM; AND WHICH (IN CONSEQUENCE) HE MIGHT NOT
+  VIEW AS HE DID ANYTHING THAT CONVEYED ABOUT THIS
+  WORLD MERE FLESH AND BLOOD AND THE SOUL OF ANOTHER
+  PERSON.
+
+
+
+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
+patiently.  And if her sentence be that of death I counsel you to
+grieve not at what cannot be avoided.
+
+But, if by any miracle that glorious, strong fortress of the weak
+consider it advisable, pass thence 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 die and be forgotten.  For thus
+only 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 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 verily true and
+erroneously protest too many 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 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 it 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 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.
+
+[Illustration: "NICOLAS: A SON LIVRET" _Painting by Howard Pyle_]
+
+Also, my little book, you will encounter more malignant people who will
+jeer at you, and 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 at most to three scant yards of cambric.
+Indeed had I the power to make you better, my little book, I would have
+done it.  A good conscience is a continual feast, and I summon all
+heaven to be my witness that had I been Homer you had awed the world,
+another Iliad.  I lament the improbability of your doing this as
+heartily as any person living; yet Heaven willed it; and it is in
+consequence to Heaven these same cavillers should now complain if they
+insist upon considering themselves to be aggrieved.
+
+So to such impious people do you make no answer at all, unless indeed
+you should elect to answer them by repetition of this trivial 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 doth the work he chose,
+    And counts all else impertinence!_
+
+
+
+EXPLICIT DECAS REGINARUM
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Chivalry, by James Branch Cabell
+
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+
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