James Cabell - Chivalry

"Fate," the lady considered, "has never denied much to the Hammer of the Scots."

"She has denied me nothing," he sadly said, "save the one thing that makes this business of living seem a rational proceeding. Fame and power and wealth she has accorded me, no doubt, but never the common joys of life. And, look you, my Princess, I am of aging person now. During some thirty years I have ruled England according to my interpretation of God's will as it was anciently made manifest by the holy Evangelists; and during that period I have ruled England not without odd by-ends of commendation: yet behold, to-day I forget the world-applauded, excellent King Edward, and remember only Edward Plantagenet—hot-blooded and desirous man!—of whom that much-commended king has made a prisoner all these years."

"It is the duty of exalted persons," Blanch unsteadily said, "to put aside such private inclinations as their breasts may harbor—"

He said, "I have done what I might for the happiness of every Englishman within my realm saving only Edward Plantagenet; and now I think his turn to be at hand." Then the man kept silence; and his hot appraisal daunted her.

"Lord," she presently faltered, "lord, in sober verity Love cannot extend his laws between husband and wife, since the gifts of love are voluntary, and husband and wife are but the slaves of duty—"

"Troubadourish nonsense!" Sire Edward said; "yet it is true that the gifts of love are voluntary. And therefore— Ha, most beautiful, what have you and I to do with all this chaffering over Guienne?" The two stood very close to each other now.

Blanch said, "It is a high matter—" Then on a sudden the full-veined girl was aglow with passion. "It is a trivial matter." He took her in his arms, since already her cheeks flared in scarlet anticipation of the event.

And thus holding her, he wooed the girl tempestuously. Here, indeed, was Sieur Hercules enslaved, burned by a fiercer fire than that of Nessus, and the huge bulk of the unconquerable visibly shaken by his adoration. In the disordered tapestry of verbiage, passion-flapped as a flag is by the wind, she presently beheld herself prefigured by Balkis, the Judean's lure, and by the Princess of Cyprus (in Aristotle's time), and by Nicolette, the King's daughter of Carthage—since the first flush of morning was as a rush-light before her resplendency, the man swore; and in conclusion, by the Countess of Tripolis, for love of whom he had cleft the seas, and losing whom he must inevitably die as Rudel did. He snapped his fingers now over any consideration of Guienne. He would conquer for her all Muscovy and all Cataia, too, if she desired mere acreage. Meanwhile he wanted her, and his hard and savage passion beat down opposition as with a bludgeon.

"Heart's emperor," the trembling girl more lately said, "I think that you were cast in some larger mould than we of France. Oh, none of us may dare resist you! and I know that nothing matters, nothing in all the world, save that you love me. Then take me, since you will it—and not as King, since you will otherwise, but as Edward Plantagenet. For listen! by good luck you have this afternoon despatched Rigon for Chevrieul, where tomorrow we hunt the great boar. And in consequence to-night this hut will be unoccupied."

The man was silent. He had a gift that way when occasion served.

"Here, then, beau sire! here, then, at nine, you are to meet me with my chaplain. Behold, he marries us, as glibly as though we two were peasants. Poor king and princess!" cried Dame Blanch, and in a voice which thrilled him, "shall ye not, then, dare to be but man and woman?"

"Ha!" the King said. He laughed. "The King is pleased to loose his prisoner; and I will do it." He fiercely said this, for the girl was very beautiful.

So he came that night, without any retinue, and habited as a forester, a horn swung about his neck, into the unlighted hut of Rigon the forester, and found a woman there, though not the woman whom he had perhaps expected.

"Treachery, beau sire! Horrible treachery!" she wailed.

"I have encountered it ere this," the big man said.

"Presently comes not Blanch but Philippe, with many men to back him. And presently they will slay you. You have been trapped, beau sire. Ah, for the love of God, go! Go, while there is yet time!"

Sire Edward reflected. Undoubtedly, to light on Edward Longshanks alone in a forest would appear to King Philippe, if properly attended, a tempting chance to settle divers disputations, once for all; and Sire Edward knew the conscience of his old opponent to be invulnerable. The act would violate all laws of hospitality and knighthood—oh, granted! but its outcome would be a very definite gain to France, and for the rest, merely a dead body in a ditch. Not a monarch in Christendom, Sire Edward reflected, but feared and in consequence hated the Hammer of the Scots, and in further consequence would not lift a finger to avenge him; and not a being in the universe would rejoice at Philippe's achievement one-half so heartily as would Sire Edward's son and immediate successor, the young Prince Edward of Caernarvon. So that, all in all, ohimé! Philippe had planned the affair with forethought.

What Sire Edward said was, "Dame Blanch, then, knew of this?" But Meregrett's pitiful eyes had already answered him, and he laughed a little.

"In that event I have to-night enregistered my name among the goodly company of Love's Lunatics—

thus he scornfully declaimed, "and as yokefellow with Dan Merlin in his thorn-bush, and with wise Salomon when he capered upon the high places of Chemosh, and with Duke Ares sheepishly agrin within the net of Mulciber. Rogues all, madame! fools all! yet always the flesh trammels us, and allures the soul to such sensual delights as bar its passage toward the eternal life wherein alone lies the empire and the heritage of the soul. And why does this carnal prison so impede the soul? Because Satan once ranked among the sons of God, and the Eternal Father, as I take it, has not yet forgotten the antique relationship—and hence it is permitted even in our late time that always the flesh rebel against the spirit, and always these so tiny and so thin-voiced tricksters, these highly tinted miracles of iniquity, so gracious in demeanor and so starry-eyed—"

Then he turned and pointed, no longer the zealot but the expectant captain now. "Look, my Princess!" For in the pathway from which he had recently emerged stood a man in full armor like a sentinel. "Mort de Dieu, we can but try," Sire Edward said.

"Too late," said Meregrett; and yet she followed him. And presently, in a big splash of moonlight, the armed man's falchion glittered across their way. "Back," he bade them, "for by the King's orders no man passes."

"It were very easy now to strangle this herring," Sire Edward reflected.

"But scarcely a whole school of herring," the fellow retorted. "Nay, Messire d'Aquitaine, the bushes of Ermenoueïl are alive with my associates. The hut yonder, in effect, is girdled by them—and we have our orders."

"Concerning women?" the King said.

The man deliberated. Then Sire Edward handed him three gold pieces. "There was assuredly no specific mention of petticoats," the soldier now reflected, "and in consequence I dare to pass the Princess."

"And in that event," Sire Edward said, "we twain had as well bid each other adieu."

But Meregrett only said, "You bid me go?"

He waved his hand. "Since there is no choice. For that which you have done—however tardily—I thank you. Meantime I can but return to Rigon's hut to rearrange my toga as King Caesar did when the assassins fell upon him, and to encounter whatever Dame Luck may send with due decorum."