James Cabell: Chivalry

On a sudden he strode forward, his sword now shifted to his left hand and his right hand outstretched. "One and all, we are but weaklings in the net of circumstance. Shall one herring, then, blame his fellow if his fellow jostle him? We walk as in a mist of error, and Belial is fertile in allurements; yet always it is granted us to behold that sin is sin. I have perhaps sinned through anger, Messire de Gâtinais, more deeply than you have planned to sin through luxury and through ambition. Let us then cry quits, Messire de Gâtinais, and afterward part in peace, and in common repentance, if you so elect."

"And yield you Ellinor?" de Gâtinais said. "Nay, messire, I reply to you with Arnaud de Marveil, that marvellous singer of eld, 'They may bear her from my presence, but they can never untie the knot which unites my heart to her; for that heart, so tender and so constant, God alone divides with my lady, and the portion which God possesses He holds but as a part of her domain, and as her vassal.'"

"This is blasphemy," Prince Edward now retorted, "and for such observations alone you merit death. Will you always talk and talk and talk? I perceive that the devil is far more subtle than you, messire, and leads you like a pig with a ring in his nose toward gross iniquity. Messire, I tell you that for your soul's health I doubly mean to kill you now. So let us make an end of this."

De Gâtinais turned and took up his sword. "Since you will have it," he rather regretfully said; "yet I reiterate that you play an absurd part. Your wife has deserted you, has fled in abhorrence of you. For three weeks she has been tramping God knows whither or in what company—"

He was here interrupted. "What the Lady Ellinor has done," Prince Edward crisply said, "was at my request. We were wedded at Burgos; it was most natural that we should desire our reunion to take place at Burgos; and she came to Burgos with an escort which I provided."

De Gâtinais sneered. "So that is the tale you will deliver to the world?"

"When I have slain you," the Prince said, "yes. Yes, since she is a woman, and woman is the weaker vessel."

"The reservation is wise. For once I am dead, Messire Edward, there will be none to know that you risk all for a drained goblet, for an orange already squeezed—quite dry, messire."

"Face of God!" the Prince said.

But de Gâtinais flung back both arms in a great gesture, so that he knocked a flask of claret from the table at his rear. "I am candid, my Prince. I would not see any brave gentleman slain in a cause so foolish. And in consequence I kiss and tell. In effect, I was eloquent, I was magnificent—so that in the end her reserve was shattered like the wooden flask yonder at our feet. Is it worth while, think you, that our blood flow like this flagon's contents?"

"Liar!" Prince Edward said, very softly. "O hideous liar! Already your eyes shift!" He drew near and struck the Frenchman. "Talk and talk and talk! and lying talk! I am ashamed while I share the world with a thing so base as you."

De Gâtinais hurled upon him, cursing, sobbing in an abandoned fury. In an instant the place resounded like a smithy, for there were no better swordsmen living than these two. The eavesdropper could see nothing clearly. Round and round they veered in a whirl of turmoil. Presently Prince Edward trod upon the broken flask, smashing it. His foot slipped in the spilth of wine, and the huge body went down like an oak, the head of it striking one leg of the table.

"A candle!" de Gâtinais cried, and he panted now—"a hundred candles to the Virgin of Beaujolais!" He shortened his sword to stab the Prince of England.

And now the eavesdropper understood. She flung open the door and fell upon Prince Edward, embracing him. The sword dug deep into her shoulder, so that she shrieked once with the cold pain of this wound. Then she rose, all ashen.

"Liar!" she said. "Oh, I am shamed while I share the world with a thing so base as you!"

In silence de Gâtinais regarded her. There was a long interval before he said, "Ellinor!" and then again, "Ellinor!" like a man bewildered.

" I was eloquent, I was magnificent, " she said, " so that in the end her reserve was shattered! Certainly, messire, it is not your death which I desire, since a man dies so very, very quickly. I desire for you—I know not what I desire for you!" the girl wailed.

"You desire that I should endure this present moment," de Gâtinais said; "for as God reigns, I love you, and now am I shamed past death."

She said: "And I, too, loved you. It is strange to think of that."

"I was afraid. Never in my life have I been afraid before. But I was afraid of this terrible and fair and righteous man. I saw all hope of you vanish, all hope of Sicily—in effect, I lied as a cornered beast spits out his venom," de Gâtinais said.

"I know," she answered. "Give me water, Etienne." She washed and bound the Prince's head with a vinegar-soaked napkin. Ellinor sat upon the floor, the big man's head upon her knee. "He will not die of this, for he is of strong person. Look you, Messire de Gâtinais, you and I are not. We are so fashioned that we can enjoy only the pleasant things of life. But this man can enjoy—enjoy, mark you—the commission of any act, however distasteful, if he think it to be his duty. There is the difference. I cannot fathom him. But it is now necessary that I become all which he loves—since he loves it—and that I be in thought and deed all which he desires. For I have heard the Tenson through."

"You love him!" said de Gâtinais.

She glanced upward with a pitiable smile. "Nay, it is you that I love, my Etienne. You cannot understand—can you?—how at this very moment every fibre of me—heart, soul, and body—may be longing just to comfort you and to give you all which you desire, my Etienne, and to make you happy, my handsome Etienne, at however dear a cost. No; you will never understand that. And since you may not understand, I merely bid you go and leave me with my husband."

And then there fell between these two an infinite silence.

"Listen," de Gâtinais said; "grant me some little credit for what I do. You are alone; the man is powerless. My fellows are within call. A word secures the Prince's death; a word gets me you and Sicily. And I do not speak that word, for you are my lady as well as his."

But there was no mercy in the girl, no more for him than for herself. The big head lay upon her breast what time she caressed the gross hair of it ever so lightly. "These are tinsel oaths," she crooned, as rapt with incurious content; "these are but the protestations of a jongleur. A word get you my body? A word get you, in effect, all which you are capable of desiring? Then why do you not speak that word?"

De Gâtinais raised clenched hands. "I am shamed," he said; and more lately, "It is just."

He left the room and presently rode away with his men. I say that he had done a knightly deed, but she thought little of it, never raised her head as the troop clattered from Mauléon, with a lessening beat which lapsed now into the blunders of an aging fly who doddered about the pane yonder.

She sat thus for a long period, her meditations adrift in the future; and that which she foreread left her nor all sorry nor profoundly glad, for living seemed by this, though scarcely the merry and colorful business which she had esteemed it, yet immeasurably the more worth while.