Chivalry (9 page)

Sire Edward moved one step toward this tiny lady and paused. "Madame, I
do not understand."

Dame Meregrett looked up into his face unflinchingly. "It means that I
love you, sire. I may speak without shame now, for presently you die.
Die bravely, sire! Die in such fashion as may hearten me to live."

The little Princess spoke the truth, for always since his coming to
Mezelais she had viewed the great conqueror as through an aweful haze of
forerunning rumor, twin to that golden vapor which enswathes a god and
transmutes whatever in corporeal man would have been a defect into some
divine and hitherto unguessed-at excellence. I must tell you in this
place, since no other occasion offers, that even until the end of her
life it was so. For to her what in other persons would have seemed
flagrant dulness showed somehow, in Sire Edward, as the majestic
deliberation of one that knows his verdict to be decisive, and therefore
appraises cautiously; and if sometimes his big, irregular calm eyes
betrayed no apprehension of the jest at which her lips were laughing,
and of which her brain approved, always within the instant her heart
convinced her that a god is not lightly moved to mirth.

And now it was a god—
O deus certe!
—who had taken a woman's paltry
face between his hands, half roughly. "And the maid is a Capet!" Sire
Edward mused.

"Blanch has never desired you any ill, beau sire. But she loves the
Archduke of Austria. And once you were dead, she might marry him. One
cannot blame her," Meregrett considered, "since he wishes to marry her,
and she, of course, wishes to make him happy."

"And not herself, save in some secondary way!" the big King said. "In
part I comprehend, madame. Now I too hanker after this same happiness,
and my admiration for the cantankerous despoiler whom I praised this
morning is somewhat abated. There was a Tenson once—Lord, Lord, how
long ago! I learn too late that truth may possibly have been upon the
losing side—" Thus talking incoherencies, he took up Rigon's lute.

Sang Sire Edward:

"Incuriously he smites the armored king
And tricks his counsellors—

"yes, the jingle ran thus. Now listen, madame—listen, the while that I
have my singing out, whatever any little cut-throats may be planning in
corners."

Sang Sire Edward:

"As, later on,
Death will, half-idly, still our pleasuring,
And change for fevered laughter in the sun
Sleep such as Merlin's,—and excess thereof,—
Whence we, divorceless Death our Viviaine
Implacable, may never more regain
The unforgotten rapture, and the pain
And grief and ecstasy of life and love.

"For, presently, as quiet as the king
Sleeps now that planned the keeps of Ilion,
We, too, will sleep, whilst overhead the spring
Rules, and young lovers laugh—as we have done,—
And kiss—as we, that take no heed thereof,
But slumber very soundly, and disdain
The world-wide heralding of winter's wane
And swift sweet ripple of the April rain
Running about the world to waken love.

"We shall have done with Love, and Death be king
And turn our nimble bodies carrion,
Our red lips dusty;—yet our live lips cling
Despite that age-long severance and are one
Despite the grave and the vain grief thereof,—
Which we will baffle, if in Death's domain
Fond memories may enter, and we twain
May dream a little, and rehearse again
In that unending sleep our present love.

"Speed forth to her in halting unison,
My rhymes: and say no hindrance may restrain
Love from his aim when Love is bent thereon;
And that were love at my disposal lain—
All mine to take!—and Death had said, 'Refrain,
Lest I, even I, exact the cost thereof,'
I know that even as the weather-vane
Follows the wind so would I follow Love."

Sire Edward put aside the lute. "Thus ends the Song of Service," he
said, "which was made not by the King of England but by Edward
Plantagenet—hot-blooded and desirous man!—in honor of the one woman
who within more years than I care to think of has at all considered
Edward Plantagenet."

"I do not comprehend," she said. And, indeed, she dared not.

But now he held both tiny hands in his. "At best, your poet is an
egotist. I must die presently. Meantime I crave largesse, madame, and a
great almsgiving, so that in his unending sleep your poet may rehearse
our present love." And even in Rigon's dim light he found her kindling
eyes not niggardly.

Sire Edward strode to the window and raised big hands toward the
spear-points of the aloof stars. "Master of us all!" he cried; "O Father
of us all! the Hammer of the Scots am I! the Scourge of France, the
conqueror of Llewellyn and of Leicester, and the flail of the accursed
race that slew Thine only Son! the King of England am I, who have made
of England an imperial nation, and have given to Thy Englishmen new
laws! And to-night I crave my hire. Never, O my Father, have I had of
any person aught save reverence or hatred! never in my life has any
person loved me! And I am old, my Father—I am old, and presently I die.
As I have served Thee—as Jacob wrestled with Thee at the ford of
Jabbok—at the place of Peniel—" Against the tremulous blue and silver
of the forest the Princess saw how horribly the big man was shaken. "My
hire! my hire!" he hoarsely said. "Forty long years, my Father! And now
I will not let Thee go except Thou hear me, and grant me life and this
woman's love."

He turned, stark and black in the rearward splendor of the moon.
"As a
prince hast thou power with God,"
he calmly said,
"and thou hast
prevailed.
For the King of kings was never obdurate, my dear, to them
that have deserved well of Him. So He will attend to my request, and
will get us out of this pickle somehow."

Even as he said this, Philippe the Handsome came into the room, and at
the heels of the French King were seven lords, armed cap-a-pie.

The French King was an odd man. Subtly smiling, he came forward through
the twilight, with soft, long strides, and he made no outcry at
recognition of his sister. "Take the woman away, Victor," he said,
disinterestedly, to de Montespan. Afterward he sat down beside the table
and remained silent for a while, intently regarding Sire Edward and the
tiny woman who clung to Sire Edward's arm; and in the flickering gloom
of the hut Philippe smiled as an artist may smile who gazes on the
perfected work and knows it to be adroit.

"You prefer to remain, my sister?" he said presently. "He bien! it
happens that to-night I am in a mood for granting almost any favor. A
little later and I will attend to your merits." The fleet disorder of
his visage had lapsed again into the meditative smile which was that of
Lucifer watching a toasted soul. "And so it ends," he said, "and England
loses to-night the heir that Manuel the Redeemer provided. Conqueror of
Scotland, Scourge of France! O unconquerable king! and will the worms of
Ermenoueil, then, pause to-morrow to consider through what a glorious
turmoil their dinner came to them?"

"Do you design to murder me?" Sire Edward said.

The French King shrugged. "I design that within this moment my lords
shall slay you while I sit here and do not move a finger. Is it not good
to be a king, my cousin, and to sit quite still, and to see your
bitterest enemy hacked and slain,—and all the while to sit quite still,
quite unruffled, as a king should always be? Eh, eh! I never lived until
to-night!"

"Now, by Heaven," said Sire Edward, "I am your kinsman and your guest, I
am unarmed—"

Philippe bowed his head. "Undoubtedly," he assented, "the deed is foul.
But I desire Gascony very earnestly, and so long as you live you will
never permit me to retain Gascony. Hence it is quite necessary, you
conceive, that I murder you. What!" he presently said, "will you not beg
for mercy? I had hoped," the French King added, somewhat wistfully,
"that you might be afraid to die, O huge and righteous man! and would
entreat me to spare you. To spurn the weeping conqueror of Llewellyn,
say ... But these sins which damn one's soul are in actual performance
very tedious affairs; and I begin to grow aweary of the game. He bien!
now kill this man for me, messieurs."

The English King strode forward. "Shallow trickster!" Sire Edward
thundered.
"Am I not afraid?
You grimacing baby, do you think to
ensnare a lion with such a flimsy rat-trap? Wise persons do not hunt
lions with these contraptions: for it is the nature of a rat-trap, fair
cousin, to ensnare not the beast which imperiously desires and takes in
daylight, but the tinier and the filthier beast that covets meanly and
attacks under the cover of darkness—as do you and your seven skulkers!"
The man was rather terrible; not a Frenchman within the hut but had
drawn back a little.

"Listen!" Sire Edward said, and he came yet farther toward the King of
France and shook at him one forefinger; "when you were in your cradle I
was leading armies. When you were yet unbreeched I was lord of half
Europe. For thirty years I have driven kings before me as did Fierabras.
Am I, then, a person to be hoodwinked by the first big-bosomed huzzy
that elects to waggle her fat shoulders and to grant an assignation in a
forest expressly designed for stabbings? You baby, is the Hammer of the
Scots the man to trust for one half moment a Capet? Ill-mannered
infant," the King said, with bitter laughter, "it is now necessary that
I summon my attendants and remove you to a nursery which I have prepared
in England." He set the horn to his lips and blew three blasts. There
came many armed warriors into the hut, bearing ropes. Here was the
entire retinue of the Earl of Aquitaine. Cursing, Sire Philippe sprang
upon the English King, and with a dagger smote at the impassive big
man's heart. The blade broke against the mail armor under the tunic.
"Have I not told you," Sire Edward wearily said, "that one may never
trust a Capet? Now, messieurs, bind these carrion and convey them
whither I have directed you. Nay, but, Roger—" He conversed apart with
his son, the Earl of Pevensey, and what Sire Edward commanded was done.
The French King and seven lords of France went from that hut trussed
like chickens ready for the oven.

And now Sire Edward turned toward Meregrett and chafed his big hands
gleefully. "At every tree-bole a tethered horse awaits us; and a ship
awaits our party at Fecamp. To-morrow we sleep in England—and, Mort de
Dieu! do you not think, madame, that once within my very persuasive
Tower of London, your brother and I may come to some agreement over
Guienne?"

She had shrunk from him. "Then the trap was yours? It was you that lured
my brother to this infamy!"

"In effect, I planned it many months ago at Ipswich yonder," Sire Edward
gayly said. "Faith of a gentleman! your brother has cheated me of
Guienne, and was I to waste eternity in begging him to give me back my
province? Oh, no, for I have many spies in France, and have for some two
years known your brother and your sister to the bottom. Granted that I
came hither incognito, to forecast your kinfolk's immediate endeavors
was none too difficult; and I wanted Guienne—and, in consequence, the
person of your brother. Hah, death of my life! does not the seasoned
hunter adapt his snare to the qualities of his prey, and take the
elephant through his curiosity, as the snake through his notorious
treachery?" Now the King of England blustered.

But the little Princess wrung her hands. "I am this night most hideously
shamed. Beau sire, I came hither to aid a brave man infamously trapped,
and instead I find an alert spider, snug in his cunning web, and
patiently waiting until the gnats of France fly near enough. Eh, the
greater fool was I to waste my labor on the shrewd and evil thing which
has no more need of me than I of it! And now let me go hence, sire,
unmolested, for the sake of chivalry. Could I have come to the brave man
I had dreamed of, I would have come cheerily through the murkiest lane
of hell; as the more artful knave, as the more judicious trickster"—and
here she thrust him from her—"I spit upon you. Now let me go hence."

He took her in his brawny arms. "Fit mate for me," he said. "Little
vixen, had you done otherwise I would have devoted you to the devil."

Still grasping her, and victoriously lifting Dame Meregrett, so that
her feet swung clear of the floor, Sire Edward said, again with that
queer touch of fanatic gravity: "My dear, you are perfectly right. I was
tempted, I grant you. But it was never reasonable that gentlefolk should
cheat at their dicing. Therefore I whispered Roger Bulmer my final
decision; and he is now loosing all my captives in the courtyard of
Mezelais, after birching the tails of every one of them as soundly as
these infants' pranks to-night have merited. So you perceive that I do
not profit by my trick; and that I lose Guienne, after all, in order to
come to you with hands—well! not intolerably soiled."

"Oh, now I love you!" she cried, a-thrill with disappointment to find
him so unthriftily high-minded. "Yet you have done wrong, for Guienne is
a king's ransom."

He smiled whimsically, and presently one arm swept beneath her knees, so
that presently he held her as one dandles a baby; and presently his
stiff and graying beard caressed her burning cheek. Masterfully he said:
"Then let Guienne serve as such and ransom for a king his glad and
common manhood. Now it appears expedient that I leave France without any
unwholesome delay, because these children may resent being spanked. More
lately—he, already I have in my pocket the Pope's dispensation
permitting me to marry, in spite of our cousinship, the sister of the
King of France."

Very shyly Dame Meregrett lifted her little mouth. She said nothing
because talk was not necessary.

In consequence, after a deal of political tergiversation (Nicolas
concludes), in the year of grace 1299, on the day of our Lady's
nativity, and in the twenty-seventh year of King Edward's reign, came to
the British realm, and landed at Dover, not Dame Blanch, as would have
been in consonance with seasoned expectation, but Dame Meregrett, the
other daughter of King Philippe the Bold; and upon the following day
proceeded to Canterbury, whither on the next Thursday after came Edward,
King of England, into the Church of the Trinity at Canterbury, and
therein espoused the aforesaid Dame Meregrett.