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Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from The Library of Congress

http://www.archive.org/details/chivalryillustraOOcabe

Painting by Hoicard Pylc

SING OF DEATH'

OII|itialrg

la Slam^a Sranrlj Olab^U

"And /, according to my copy, and after the simple cunning that God Jtath sent to me, have down set this hi print, to the intent that noble men may see and learn the noble acts of chivalry, ^^

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Copyright, 1909, by Harper & Brothers.

AU rights reserved.

Publirhed October, 1909.

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Atttt^ Sranrif fflab^U

"AINSI A VOUS, MADAME, A MA TR^S HAULTE ET

TRES NOBLE DAME, A QUI J'AYME A DEVOIR

ATTACHEMENT ET OBEISSANCE,

J'ENVOYE CE LIVRET."

r^rauttottal

/MPRIMIS, as concerns the authenticity of these tales perhaps the less debate may he 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 14^0, as a dependant on the Duke of Burgundy, it were but human na- ture 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 advanta- geous, on reflection, to put into Gloucester' s mouth a history which in the original version was related ab ovo, and as a sort of bungling prologue to the story proper. Item, 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 consid- eration of space.

And — ''sixth and lastly'' — should confession he made that in the present rendering a purely arbitrary title has been assigned this little book; and chiefly for commercial

V

Olljtbalrg

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 condi- tions 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 bush, and an inferior beverage is not likely to be bettered by arboreal adorn- ment, the reteller of these tales prefers to piece out his ex- ordium {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 extrem^ely ven- erable 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 cur Lord God a thousand four hundred and seventy; and imprinted

vi

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 Prin- cess, 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, Mar- que sse 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.''

OIottt^tttB

CHAP. PAGE

Precautional V

The Prologue i

I. The Story of the Sestina 7

II. The Story of the Tenson 31

III. The Story of the Rat-Trap 53

IV. The Story of the Choices 75

V. The Story of the Housewife 97

VI. The Story of the Satraps 123

VII. The Story of the Heritage 145

VIII. The Story of the Scabbard 153

IX. The Story of the Navarrese 173

X. The Story of the Fox-Brush 195

The Epilogue ^ 219

JIUujBtrattnnH

*I SING OF death'" Frontispiece

THEY WERE OVERTAKEN BY FALMOUTH HIMSELF" . . Facing p. 14

IN AN INSTANT THE PLACE RESOUNDED LIKE A SMITHY " . " 50

SHE HAD VIEWED THE GREAT CONQUEROR" .... " 64

'my prisoner!' SHE said" " 78

'do you forsake sire EDWARD, CATHERINE?'" ... *' 102

'hail ye THAT ARE MY KINSMEN !' " " I32

IN THE LIKENESS OF A FAIR WOMAN " " I48

'you design murder?' RICHARD ASKED " " 170

'take now YOUR PETTY VENGEANCE!'" ** 186

SO FOR A HEART-BEAT SHE SAW HIM " " I98

NICOLAS: A SON LIVRET " " 222

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* ' Afin que les entreprises honor ables et les nobles aven- tures et faicts d'armes soyent noblement enregistres et con- serves, je vats tr alter 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.

OIl|tualri}

2II|0 Prnlnguf

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 offer- ing 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 w^herein I treat of divers queens and of their love-business; and with necessitated candor I

3

QHjittalrg

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 w^ere 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 au- thority 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. Be- cause— as of old Horatius Flaccus demanded, though not, to speak the truth, of any w^oman, —

Quo jugisf ah demons f nulla est fuga, iu licet usque Ad Tanairn fiigtas, usque sequetur ainor.

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

4

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 au- thentic 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, be- cause, 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 tw^o — 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 he 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,

5

(Elittialrg

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 other- wise 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 per- fection with any imperfect encomium.

Therefore to you, madame — most excellent and noble lady,

to whom I love to owe both loyalty and love —

/ dedicate this little book.

I

iSl}t #l0rg at tif? S^tBtxna

^' Armatz de fust e de fer e d'acier, Mos ostal seran hose, fregz, e semdier, E mas cansos sestinas e descortz, E mantenrai los frevols contra 'Is 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.

3I1|^ g^torg nf tif? ^0Bttna

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 i superfluities, I amputate as more remark- able for veracity than interest. The re- sult, we will agree at outset, is that to the Norman cleric appertains whatever these tales may have of merit, where- as 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 irri- table 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 B^sotian, 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 vexa-

9

tious. Vox et prcBterea nihil, — ^whicli signifies, Yeck, that to converse with women is ahvays dehghtful. Admit her." This was done, and Dame Alianora came into an apartment Uttered with papers, where a neat and shriv- elled 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 await- ed her advent cast aside. "O God!" he said; "you, ma- dame!" 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,

10

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 poHtics," 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 Kenil worth. I am content that he remain there, for he is of all the King's enemies the most dangerous. But, at Wallingford, Leicester has im- prisoned my son, Prince Edward. The Prince must be freed, my Osmund. Warren de Basingboume com- mands 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

II

Queen said, and shrugged her shoulders. "In effect, I skulked back to this detestable island in disguise, ac- companied 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 inceria raiione! and I cry

12

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 contented- ly. "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 w^hat they desired to be esteemed. In the courtyard a knot of servants gaped, nudged one another, but openly said nothing. Messire Heleigh, as they in- terpreted 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 har- vester's, might not inaptly have prefigured October; and

14

Painting by Howard Fyle

"THEY WERE OVERTAKEN BY FALMOUTH HIMSELF

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 vil- lagers 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.

"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 Hauibois in that village, they blundered upon the same troop at dinner in the square

IS

about the inn. Falmouth and his lieutenants were somewhere inside the house. The men greeted the sup- posed 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 w^e gentlemen of the sword are not par- tial to wordy argument." Messire Heleigh fluttered in- efficient hands as the men-at-arms gathered about them, scenting some genial piece of cruelty. *'0h, you rab- bit!" 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 com- rades, what species of minstrel is this, who goes about England all hung with gold like a Cathedral Virgin! He and his sweetheart" — the actual w^ord was grosser — ''will be none the worse for an interview with the Marquess."

The situation smacked of awkwardness, for Lord Fal- mouth 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 solem- nity. " I do not like the looks of this. Yet I will sell it to you, as the saying is, for a song."

i6

*' 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

Ysoudcy with parted lips, that waver and cling.

" Anon in Brittany must Tristan cling To this or thit 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:

17

(Hljiualrg

** 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 he 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 hour appointed, and that hour will bring

Oblivion. — Then, laugh! Laugh, love, and see The tyrant mocked, what time our bosoms clings

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.

i8

®If^ ^tnrg of tlf^ ^tBixnu

"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 Chant r ell Wood. They had the good-fortune there to encounter dry and windless weather and a sufficiency of brushwood, with which Osmund con- structed 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 in- fallible corrective for this ailment, when Dame Alianora rose to her feet.

"Eh, my God!" she said; "I am wearied of such un- gracious 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 fright- ened into forgetfulness — first by Falmouth, then by the trooper. O Eternal Father! afraid of a single dirty soldier!"

"Indeed, I was very much afraid," said Messire He- leigh, 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 He- leigh."

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

3 19

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 yon- der 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 sap- phires! 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."

20

®I|0 S^tnrg nf ttj^ ^tBtxna

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.

0 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.

1 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 discov- ered 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 with- out molestation ; malice and death had journeyed on their road aforetime, as heralds, and had swept it clear.

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At every trace of these hideous precessors Osmund He- leigh 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; meticu- lously 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 Bas- tling, 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 wom- en— 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 w^orld, and a curmudgeon in it grudging God the life He gave!" The man flung out his soft hands and

22

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. 'Every- where 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. *'A11 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 condescen- sion, "n'estez vous pas jongleurs?"

Dame Alianora smiled up at him. "Ouais, messire; mon mary faict les changons — " 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

23

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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 Os- mund, 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 mat- ter, Messire Heleigh. To let the sorceress pass is, of course, out of the question; upon the other hand, I ob- serve 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, irri- tably.

After that he unarmed Camoys, and presently they faced each other in their tunics. So for the first time

24

(Sl}t 0tnrg nf tln^ BtBtxnn

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 where- through the power and the word of God might be dimin- ished or the devil's power increased."

Osmund made similar oath. "Judge Thou this wom- an'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 apprehen- sive 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, w^ho in stumbling had lost his sword, and thus the two strug- gled unarmed, Osmund atop. But Camoys was the younger man, and Osmund's strength was ebbing rap- idly 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.

25

(Elfttialrg

"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 condu- cive 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 w^ould 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 with- out 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 stew^ards 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! Par- don and grace, O King of kings!"

26

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 circum- stances, ominously adapt.

Sang Camoys:

** Et vos, par qui je n'oi onques ate, Descendez tuit en infer le parfont.'^

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 else- where 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 w^as, however, no sign of Osmund He- leigh, 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."

27

Qlljtualrg

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 w411 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 cham- pion!"

"Ay, your champion. In the twilight of life old Os- mund Heleigh rides forth to defend the quarrel of Alia- nora of Provence. Reign wisely, my Queen, that here- after 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;

23

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 em- blazoned 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, taunt- ing the weakness of his flesh.

Sang Osmund Heleigh:

" Love sowsy and lovers reap; and ye will see

The loved eyes lighten, feel the loved lips cling

Never again when in the grave ye he 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

29

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. "Mes- sire 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 Am- bresbury, commanding it to be WTitten 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 major a sonent. Nevertheless, I as- sert that many a forest was once a pocketful of acorns.

THE END OF THE FIRST NOVEL

II

''Plagues a Dieu ja la nueitz non falhis, Ni 7 mieus amicx lone de mi no s partis, Ni la gayta jorn ni alba ne vis. Oy Dieus! oy Dieus! de V alba tan tost veT'

THE SECOND NOVEL. — ELLINOR OF CASTILE, BEING ENAM- ORED 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.

Sllf^ 0tora of llj^ Sl^ttfiott

'N the year of grace 1265 (Nicolas begins), about the festival of Saint Peter ad Vincula, the Prince d.e Gatinais came to Burgos. Before this he had lodged for three months in the district of Pon- thieu; and the object of his southern journey was to assure the tenth Alphonso, then ruling in Castile, that the latter's sister EUinor, now resident at Entrechat, was beyond any reasonable doubt the transcendent lady whose existence old romancers had anticipated, however cloudily, when they fabled in re- mote 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 Cas- tile 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 w^as not an obstacle to the plan which his fair cousin had proposed?

Here the Prince was accoutred cap-a-pie, and in conse- quence hauled out a paper. Dating from Viterbo, Clem-

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ent, 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 par- ticular moment ; and that in consideration of the covenan- tors 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 ren- dered 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 per- fectly 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 pre- vious 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 partic- ular 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 bar- ons' power was demolished, there would be no more inter- necine 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 w^oman by this, and it was befitting that he claim his wife. He rode w^ith 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

34

alone, riding at adventure as he loved to do, and thus came to Entrechat, where his wife resided with her moth- er, 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 dis- course. 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 un- guarded ribs. The Prince was astounded, but he was never a subtle man: here were four knaves who, for rea- sons 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 differ- ence of opinion; so he had his sword out and presently killed the four of them.

Anon there came to him an apple-cheeked boy, hab- ited 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 hand- some exterior, blond, and chested like a stallion, whose left eyebrow drooped so oddly that even in anger the stu- pendous 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! 4 35

QII|ttialrg

and why have you converted this forest into a sham- bles?"

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 tale the boy had dismounted with a gasp, and he was now inspecting the features of one carcass. "Felons, my Prince! You have slain some eight yards of felony which might have cheated the gal- lows 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 some- what overheels 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

36

haro, and lustily, for your wife in company with six other knaves is at large between here and Burgos — that unrea- sonable wife w^ho 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 be- gan to laugh. Afterward these two rode southerly, in the direction of Castile.

For it appeared to the intriguing little woman a di- verting 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 gen- uinely fond of him. She found him rather slow of com- prehension, and was namelessly humiliated by the dis- covery 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 intend- ed, 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 al- ways dependent on the charity of this or that ungracious patron — on any one who would take charge of her while

37

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the truant husband fought out his endless squabbles in England. Slights enough she had borne during the pe- riod, 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 pur- pose; 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, des- canting 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 hearfs-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 — " 38

r

2[I}0 i^tnrg nf tlj^ MtnBsxn

"And still I would prefer to think," the big man in- terrupted, 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 Ga- tinais. He intends to get both a kingdom and a hand- some 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 hap- piness here a trivial matter, whereas war is a great dis- aster. 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 sta- tions, to intrust to us the five talents of the parable;

39

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 daugh- ter, whom a certain duke regarded with impure and im- proper 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-credu- lous 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 w^as 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 sufhcient 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 aston- ishingly fruitful in good works."

The page began to laugh. "You are hopelessly ab-

40

surd, my Prince, though you will never know it — and 1 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 southw^ard."

The page then said, "What is her name?"

And Prince Edward answ^ered, very fondly, "Haw^se."

"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 after- ward in the little square, tree-chequered, that lay before their inn. Miguel had procured a lute from the innkeep- er, and strummed idly as these two debated together of great matters; about them w^as 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, with- out 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 hut a skull. Multitudinously we tread toward oblivion, as ants hasten toward sugar, and presently Time cometh with his broom. Mtiltitiidinously we tread a dusty road toward oblivion; hut yonder the sun shines upon a grass-plot, converting it into an emerald; and I am aweary of the trodden path.

41

\

** Vine-crowned is she that guards the grasses yonder, and her breasts are naked. 'Vanity of Vanities!' saith the be- loved. 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 under- stand 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 be- hests 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 en- deavor, 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 Hor- selberg 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:

"/ was in a path, and I trod toward the citadel of the land's Seigneur, and on either side were pleasant and for- bidden meadows, having various names. And one trod with me who babbled of the brooding mountains and of the

42

211}^ Bt0v^ of tlj^ 5FFn00ti

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 demon- strated, 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, be- sides, 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 byw^ay 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

43

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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 emphati- cally— to believe you."

The Prince laughed. "There spoke Youth," he said, and he sighed as though he were a patriarch ; "but we have sung, w^e 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. Con- cerning 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, jc 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 eg- lantine, more comely than the blossoming of the rose or

44

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 irt sober verity a deal cf 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, wkateer the years may send — Though Time he proven a fickle friend,

And Love he shown a liar — / 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, hut she That Time hath riven away from me

And in the darkness set — The 7naid that I may never see, Or gain, or e'er forget.''

It was on the following day, near Bazas, these two en- countered Adam de Gourdon, a Provengal knight, w^ith whom the Prince fought for a long while, without either contestant giving way; and in consequence a rendezvous

45

(Eljttialrg

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 Sep- tember, 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 haz- arded to the swart little landlord as the Prince and Miguel lingered over the remnants of their meal.

Yes, the fellow informed them: the Prince de Gatinais had lodged there for a whole week, watching the north road, as circumspect of all passage as a cat over a mouse- hole. Eh, monseigneur expected some one, doubtless — a lady, it might be — the gentlefolk had their escapades like every one else. The innkeeper babbled vaguely, for on a sudden he was very much afraid of his gigantic patron.

"You will show me to his room," Prince Edward said, with a politeness that was ingratiating.

The host shuddered and obeyed.

Miguel de Rueda, left alone, sat quite silent, his finger- tips drumming upon the table. He rose suddenly and flung back his shoulders, all resolution 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

46

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 in- jury than from that self-degradation she cloudily appre- hended 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.

**0 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 frank- ly, 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 disputa- tion the cutting of one gentleman's throat by another gentleman is well enough, since the argument is unan- swerable. 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

47

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England; to-day El Sabio intends to purchase all Ger- many, 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 Gati- nais 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 prefer- able 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

48

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 re- iterate 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 re- quest. 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 w^ill de- liver 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,

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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 con- sequence 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.

*'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, "EUinor!" like a man bewildered.

SO

Pauitmg by II !/;,,,, I! Hiird Laijrence

IN AN INSTANT THE PLACE RESOUNDED LIKE A SMITHV

"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 en- joy— enjoy, mark you — the commission of any act, how- ever 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 w4th 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, s SI

and to make you happy, my handsome Etienne, at how- ever dear a cost. No; you will never understand that. And since you may not understand, I merely bid you go and leave me wdth 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 power- less. 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 w^hat time she caressed the gross hair of it ever so lightly. "These are tinsel oaths," she crooned, as rapt with in- curious content; "these are but the protestations of a jongleur. A word get you mxy 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 Maul eon, with a lessening beat which lapsed now into the blunders of an aging fly who dod- dered 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

Ill

'' Leixant a part le stil dels trohados, Dos grans dezigs han combatut ma pensa^ Mas lo voter vers un seguir dispensa; Yo Vvos ptiblich, 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.

Sllf? #t0rg 0f llf^ iiat-®rap

N the year of grace 1298, a little before Candlemas (thus Nicolas begins), came letters to the first King Edward of Eng- land from his kinsman and ambassador to France, Earl Edmund of Lancaster. It was perfectly apparent, the Earl wTote, 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 em- bassy 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

55

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, hur- riedly 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 yield- ed 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 ne- cessity— unavoidable, alas! — of returning a hard answer before the council; and become so voluble that Sire Ed- ward merely laughed, in that big-lunged and discon- certing way of his, and afterward lodged for a week at Mezclais, 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-w^itted that he replied to every consideration of expediency with a parrot-like reiteration of the trivial circumstance

56

that already the bargain was signed and sworn to; and, in consequence, while daily they fumed over his stupid- ity, 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 agree- able to every sense; and she compelled the eye, it is re- corded, not gently but in a superb fashion. And Sire Edward, w^ho, 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 Her- cules 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 tow^ard 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 w^ill have his sport of us, as in atonement." Here her big

57

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 td 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 con- quers, 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 inmiediate conqueror a Sirvente, which is the Song of Service."

Sang Sire Edward:

*' / sing of Death, that cometh to the king,

And lightly plucks hitn from the cushioned throne,

And drowns his glory and his war faring 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 Pr ester John, Smites Priam, and mid-course in conquering

Bids CcEsar pause; the wit of Salomon, The ivealth of Nero and the pride thereof,

58

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 after- ward 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 per- son 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

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during that period I have ruled England not without odd by-ends of commendation: yet behold, to-day I for- get the world-applauded, excellent King Edward, and remember only Edward Plantagenet — hot-blooded and desirous man! — of whom that mtich-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 Ed- ward 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 there- fore— 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 Cy-

60

prus (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 con- quer 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 to- morrow 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 fierce- ly said this, for the girl was very beautiful.

So he came that night, without any retinue, and hab- ited as a forester, a horn swung about his neck, into the

6i

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unlighted hut of Rigon the forester, and found a wom- an 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 Ed- ward 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 knight- hood— 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 vicux, nouvcaux, et sots de tons dges,'^

62

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 Mul- ciber. Rogues all, madame! fools all! yet always the flesh trammels us, and allures the soul to such sensual de- lights 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 Eter- nal 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 yon- der, 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

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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 re- arrange 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 finger- tips 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

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Fainting by Howard Pyle

"SHE HAD VIEWED THE GREAT CONQUEROR

Hyperborean snow in tint. As for her eyes, say, gigantic onyxes — or ebony highly poHshed and wet with May dew. They were too big for her Httle 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 coun- tenance 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 de- liberation 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 cor- dially approved, always within the instant her heart con- vinced her that a god is not lightly moved to mirth.

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And now it was a god — 0 dt'us certel — 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 hid us cease from pleasuring y

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?

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sip i^t0ra of tl|^ Sat-QIrap

" YeUy 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." 6 67

(iifttialry

"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. Mean- time 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 tremu- lous 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 rear- ward 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 w^as 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.

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®Ij0 ^tnrg nf tlj^ Sat-®rap

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, per- haps, than might reasonably be expected of a Valois. Subtly smiling, he came forw^ard 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, in- tently 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 at- tend 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 uncon- querable 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!"

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"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 per- mit 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 w^ould entreat me to spare you. To spurn the weeping con- queror 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 trick- ster!" 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 French- man 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 fore- finger; "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 be- fore 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

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Capet? Ill-mannered infant," the King said, with bitter laughter, "it is now necessary that I summon my attend- ants 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 Aqui- taine; 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, mes- sieurs, bind these carrion and convey them whither I have directed you. Nay, but, Roger — " He conversed apart with his lieutenant, and what Sire Edward com- manded 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 imme-

71

diate 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 pa- tiently 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 knovv' 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

72

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 disap- pointment. "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 ap- pears expedient that I leave France without any un- wholesome 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 tergiversa- tion (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

''Sest fable es en aquest mon Semblans al homes que i son; Que el mager sen quom pot aver So es aniar 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.

Ua^t S>t0ry nf tt\t (dlyntr^a

*N the year of grace 1327 (thus Nicolas begins) you could have found in all Eng- land no lovers more ardent in affection or in despair more affluent than Rosa- mund 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 breed- ing; 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 ex- change 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!"

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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 pro- tested 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 Or- leton, who sat to the right hand, and, " Young de Spen- cer'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 de- manded 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, sharp- ly, "give me the paper which I would not sign."

The Earl of IVIarch 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/*

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Fainhng by Howard Pylc

MY PRISONER!" SHE SAID

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.

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 Rosa- mund. 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 de- vise. 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."

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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 ty- rants 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 per- fect exquisite torture, for you have proven recreant, you have forgotten the maid Ysabeau — Le Desir du Cuer, w^as 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

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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; ''henedicite! 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 pe- riod appears to have been after supper, and she sat with

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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 Eng- land—"

" 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:

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'' 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 de- tailed 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 counter- sign his death-warrant; and with the vigor that a man- gled snake summons for its last hideous stroke, it seemed to Ysabeau regretful of an ancient spring.

Nicolas gives this ballad in full, hut, 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 surpriSy Et d'une fille — et la vois si — Et grandement suis esbahi.''

And when Darrell had ended, the Countess of Farring- ton, 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 medita- tively 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 ' 83

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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 faith- fully as any dog. Nay, my brother, I do not question your sincerity, yet you sing with the voice of an unhon- ored courtier. Suppose Queen Ysabeau had heard your song all through and then had said — for she is not as the run of w^omen — 'Messire, I had thought till this there was no thorough man in England saving Roger Morti- mer. 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 w4th bells, and cloud-wrapt Tar- tary, 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

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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, Mes- sire de Berners." And her face had now the weary beauty of an idol's.

So the men and women parted. Madame de Farring- ton 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 he all high and true; Could I he otherwise I had heen otherwise Simply he cause of you, Who are no longer you.

^' Life with its pay to he hade us essay to he What we became, — / helieve Were there a ivay to he what it was play to he I would not greatly grieve . . . And I neither laugh nor grieve!''

Ysabeau would have slept that night within the cham- ber 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:

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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 Hfe 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 an- swered, 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, w^here 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 mo- ment 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

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as though a dropped veil had touched me, and with the contact I would go mad!"

"Madame Gertrude!" the girl now stammered, in com- municated 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 re- members 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

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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 Greg- ory 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 be- cause 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 de- liberate 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 w^ith this I am content.

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Assuredly, if they give me to Sarum I shall hate Saruni 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 mv single chance of happiness; it would be hard to know

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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 1 have talked with you I have been seriously annoyed by shrieks and various imprecations! But I, too, grow cow- ardly, it maybe — Nay, I know," she said, and in a reso- nant 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."

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'*You understand nothing," said Ysabeau; '*how should you understand whose breasts are yet so tiny? Nay, put out the Hght! though I dread the darkness, Rosamund — For they say that hell is poorly lighted — and they say — " Then Queen Ysabeau shrugged. Plerself 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 no^ 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 w^th premeditation yawned.

Followed a silence, vexed only on the purposeless Septem.ber winds ; but I believe that neither of these two slept with an inappropriate profundity.

About dawn one of the Queen's attendants roused Sir

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Gregory Darrell and presently conducted him into the hedged garden of Ordish, where Ysabeau walked in tran- quil 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

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more merciful, and know that I have need to lay aside at least one comfortable thought against eternity."

"I concede you to have been imwise — " 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 dis- honorable 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 w^heeled 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

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the world by means of a bloodied sponge, tucked some- where 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 instru- ments than two bits of colored jelly, with a bungling makeshift so maladroit that the nearest horologer's ap- prentice 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 yard- stick: 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 limita- tions 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 dif- ferently: 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

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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 w411, 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, par die! Reshaping without }nercy, And shaping swinishly, To wallow swinishly, And for eternity —

^'Though, harder than the witch was, Life, changing ne'er the whole, 95

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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 un- settling tidings. Hey, son-in-law?"

Sir Gregory Darrell laughed, and very bitterly. " He that is without blemish among yoti — " he said. Then they armed completely.

THE END OF THE FOURTH NOVEL

V ®1|0 g>t0ra 0f ti^t ^anstmxft

*' Selh que m blasma vostr' amor ni m defen Non podon far en re mon cor mellor, Ni'l dous dezir quieu ai de vos major, Ni Venveya' ni'l dezir, ni'l talent

THE FIFTH NOVEL. — PHILIPPA OF HAINAULT DARES TO LOVE UNTHRIFTILY, AND BY THE PRODIGALITY dt HER AFFECTION SHAMES TREACHERY, AND COMMON-SENSE, AND HIGH ROMANCE, QUITE STOLIDLY; BUT, AS LOVING GOES, IS OVERTOPPED BY HER MORE STOLID SQUIRE.

'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 noble- man 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 thisunsym- pathizing 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, stum- bling in her haste. " Hail, King of England! " she panted. 8 99

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"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 commend- able 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 un- fortunate. 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

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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 nightmgale 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 accompani- ment of a lute his paraphrase of the song which Archi- lochus 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 night- ingale improvised his envoi.

But earlier Jehan Kuypelant also had sung, as though in rivalry with the bird.

Sang Jehan Kuypelant:

''Hearken and heed, Melcenis!

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, he mine!

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''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 Idngdom'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 ex- ecrable news. Already Northumberland, Westmoreland, and Durham were the broken meats of King David.

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Painting by William Hurd Laurence

"'DO YOU FORSAKE SIRE EDWARD. CATHERINE?'

OIlj^ i^tnrg nf lift i^^nBtrnxft

The Countess presently exclaimed: **Let me pass, sir! My place is not here."

Philippa said, half hopefully, "Do you forsake Sire Edward, Catherine?''

*' Madame and Queen," the Countess answered, "in this world every man must scratch his own back. My lord has entrusted to me his castle of Wark, his fiefs in Northumberland. These, I hear, are being laid waste. Were there a thousand men-at-arms left in England I would say fight. As it is, our men are yonder in France and the island is defenceless. Accordingly I ride for the north to make what terms I may with the King of Scots."

Now you might have seen the Queen's 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.

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''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, High- ness. 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 he 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, he mine!

^^ Fair is the form unheholden,

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 hreezes in hirches 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, he mine!'' 104

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 tne Marquess held papers. " High- ness," 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."

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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 be- hind 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 ac- tuated 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, mes- sieurs, 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 w^ould 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

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dreams she had of miraculous victories, what time her barons trafficked in secret with the Bruce. On the Sat- urday 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 com- mander, is inexplicably smitten with a fever. He will not fight to-day. Not one of your lords w411 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."

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"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 can- not 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 a^e 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 w^as not beautiful. You per- ceived 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 tran- quil. Her eight lieutenants were now gathered about her in voluble protestation, and she heard them out.

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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

no

I would drive the Scot not past the Border but beyond the Orkneys."

The Queen then said, "But you are unarmed."

''Highness," he repHed, "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 twitter- ing 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 to- ward 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 re- tainers. She considered this strange, but made no comi- ment.

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 sub- sequently 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

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attended and at the proper intervals gulped his cough- mixture.

You must know that about noon Master John Cope- land came into the tent. "We have conquered," he said. "Now, by the Face!" — thus, scoffingly, he used her hus- band'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 ga\'e 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 re- tainers. "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

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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 ?jut 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 com- mand, 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 eccen- tric 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 Cope- land was an estimable scribe, and yet — Ah, yes, he quite followed her Majesty — beyond doubt, the wardage of a

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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 forth- with. 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 de- pend 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 l:>c delivered, since they were all addressed to John Copeland. Meanwhile, Scotland was in despair,

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whereas the EngHsh barons were in a frenzy, because, however wilHng you may be, you cannot well betray your liege-lord to an unlocatable enemy. The circum- stances 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 stupen- dous person, blond and incredibly big. With him were a careful Italian, that Almerigo di Pa via 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, w^hich 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?" 9 115

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John Copeland answered: "Highness, you m^ 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, — / 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. Andy 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

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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 des pile f idly 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. There- fore make an end, you dog."

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''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 where- with 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 ever>^ 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 f Here beyond doubt is the cock of ^sop's fable," snarled John Copeland,

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''who unearthed a gem and grumbled that his diamond was not a grain of com."

"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 I" 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 trans- figured. 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

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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 con- demn me to be hewed in fragments sooner than permit her husband's little finger to be injured. Yet she sur- passes 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 wdiile, with an inverted pen. He cleared his throat. He said, half- fretfuUy :

*'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 inter- pretations. 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 tid- ings! 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

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take your prisoner, the King of Scotland, and deliver him ti 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 £s^o 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 w^hile 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 I Idalia ! Hortensis !

Hast thou not heard the prayer, When the blood stood still with loving.

And the blood in me leapt like ivine,

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And I miirmured thy name, Melccnis? — 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 Horselberg hid thee,

Whatever the slanderer saith. For the stars are as heralds forerunning.

When laughter and love combine At twilight, in thy light, Melccnis —

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 aH|? g'tnrg of tljr ^atra^ia

'' Je suis voix au desert criant Que chascun soyt rectifiant La voye de Sauveur; non suiSy 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.

atlfe g»lnra of tl|r BnttnpB

fN the year of grace 138 1 (Nicolas begins) was Dame Anne magnificently fetched from remote Bohemia, and at West- minster 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, w^as a more zealous person, already passion- was ted, 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 1)}^ an infinity the more kinglike.

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"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 know- ing 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 Csesars 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

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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 Maude- lain 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 w^hich 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

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of common report. Yet but once in their close friend- ship 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 tne 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 tmo 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 cceli in palatio!

"Yet long the road, and very frail are we That may not lightly curb mortality, Nor lightly tread together silently, Et carmen unnm facio:

"Mater, or a filium, Ut post hoc exiliiim Nobis donet gaudium Beatorum omnium ! ' '

Dame Anne had risen. She said nothing. She stayed in this posture for a lengthy while, reeling, one hand

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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 Glouces- ter 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 gieat noblemen. Then Glouces- ter 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 con- sulted 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 assist- ance. 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."

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"We must avoid England, then, my noble patron," the priest considered.

Angrily the Duke struck a clenched fist upon the table. "B}^ 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 x^lixe Riczi, whom in the outcome he abducted. It is not as generally known, however, that, finding this sister of the Vicomte de 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 Chertse3% 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 Out^en-Mother is tolerably well-known. I make no com- ment 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

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abandoned son of Alixe Riczi was reared by the Cister- cians 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 bom 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