James Cabell - Chivalry

His palms clutched at heaven. "That Ysabeau is dead! and all true joy is destroyed, and the world lies under a blight wherefrom God has averted an unfriendly face in displeasure! yet of all wretched persons existent I am he who endures the most grievous anguish, for daily I partake of life without any relish, and I would in truth deem him austerely kind who slew me now that the maiden Ysabeau is dead."

She shrugged, although but wearily. "I scent the raw stuff of a Planh," the Queen observed; " benedicite! it was ever your way, my friend, to love a woman chiefly for the verses she inspired." And she began to sing, as they rode through Baverstock Thicket.

Sang Ysabeau:

So to Ordish in that twilight came the Countess of Farrington, with a retinue of twenty men-at-arms, and her brother Sir Gregory Darrell. Lord Berners received the party with boisterous hospitality.

"And the more for that your sister is a very handsome woman," was Rosamund Eastney's comment. The period appears to have been after supper, and she sat with Gregory Darrell in not the most brilliant corner of the main hall.

The wretched man leaned forward, bit his nether-lip, and then with a sudden splurge of speech informed her of the sorry masquerade. "The she-devil designs some horrible and obscure mischief, she plans I know not what."

"Yet I—" said Rosamund. The girl had risen, and she continued with an odd inconsequence. "You have told me you were Pembroke's squire when long ago he sailed for France to fetch this woman into England—"

"Which you never heard!" Lord Berners shouted at this point. "Jasper, a lute!" And then he halloaed, more lately, "Gregory, Madame de Farrington demands that racy song you made against Queen Ysabeau during your last visit."

Thus did the Queen begin her holiday.

It was a handsome couple which came forward, hand quitting hand a shade too tardily, and the blinking eyes yet rapt; but these two were not overpleased at being disturbed, and the man in particular was troubled, as in reason he well might be, by the task assigned him.

"Is it, indeed, your will, my sister," he said, "that I should sing—this song?"

"It is my will," the Countess said.

And the knight flung back his comely head and laughed. "What I have written I shall not disown in any company. It is not, look you, of my own choice that I sing, my sister. Yet if she bade me would I sing this song as willingly before Queen Ysabeau, for, Christ aid me! the song is true."

Sang Sir Gregory:

and so on. It was a lengthy ditty and in its wording not oversqueamish; the Queen's career in England was detailed without any stuttering, and you would have found the catalogue unhandsome. Yet Sir Gregory sang it with an incisive gusto, though it seemed to him to countersign his death-warrant; and with the vigor that a mangled snake summons for its last hideous stroke, it seemed to Ysabeau regretful of an ancient spring.

Nicolas gives this ballad in full, but, and for obvious reasons, his translator would prefer to do otherwise.

Only the minstrel added, though Lord Berners did not notice it, a fire-new peroration.

Sang Sir Gregory:

And when Darrell had ended, the Countess of Farrington, without speaking, swept her left hand toward her cheek and by pure chance caught between thumb and forefinger the autumn-numbed fly that had annoyed her. She drew the little dagger from her girdle and meditatively cut the buzzing thing in two. Then she flung the fragments from her, and resting the dagger's point upon the arm of her chair, one forefinger upon the summit of the hilt, considerately twirled the brilliant weapon.

"This song does not err upon the side of clemency," she said at last, "nor by ordinary does Queen Ysabeau."

"That she-wolf!" said Lord Berners, comfortably. "Hoo, Madame Gertrude! since the Prophet Moses wrung healing waters from a rock there has been no such miracle recorded."

"We read, Messire de Berners, that when the she-wolf once acknowledges a master she will follow him as faithfully as any dog. Nay, my brother, I do not question your sincerity, yet you sing with the voice of an unhonored courtier. Suppose Queen Ysabeau had heard your song all through and then had said—for she is not as the run of women—'Messire, I had thought till this there was no thorough man in England saving Roger Mortimer. I find him tawdry now, and—I remember. Come you, then, and rule the England that you love as you may love no woman, and rule me, messire, for I find even in your cruelty—England! bah, we are no pygmies, you and I!'" the Countess said with a great voice; "'yonder is squabbling Europe and all the ancient gold of Africa, ready for our taking! and past that lies Asia, too, and its painted houses hung with bells, and cloud-wrapt Tartary, wherein we twain may yet erect our equal thrones, whereon to receive the tributary emperors! For we are no pygmies, you and I.'" She paused and more lately shrugged. "Suppose Queen Ysabeau had said this much, my brother?"

Darrell was more pallid, as the phrase is, than a sheet, and the lute had dropped unheeded, and his hands were clenched.

"I would answer, my sister, that as she has found in England but one man, I have found in England but one woman—the rose of all the world." His eyes were turned at this toward Rosamund Eastney. "And yet," the man stammered, "for that I, too, remember—"

"Nay, in God's name! I am answered," the Countess said. She rose, in dignity almost a queen. "We have ridden far to-day, and to-morrow we must travel a deal farther—eh, my brother? I am a trifle overspent, Messire de Berners." And her face had now the weary beauty of an idol's.

So the men and women parted. Madame de Farrington kissed her brother in leaving him, as was natural; and under her caress his stalwart person shuddered, but not in repugnance; and the Queen went bedward regretful of an ancient spring and singing hushedly.

Sang Ysabeau:

Ysabeau would have slept that night within the chamber of Rosamund Eastney had either slept at all. As concerns the older I say nothing. The girl, though soon aware of frequent rustlings near at hand, lay quiet, half-forgetful of the poisonous woman yonder. The girl was now fulfilled with a great blaze of exultation; to-morrow Gregory must die, and then perhaps she might find time for tears; but meanwhile, before her eyes, the man had flung away a kingdom and life itself for love of her, and the least nook of her heart ached to be a shade more worthy of the sacrifice.