"Mon bel esper," said Osmund Heleigh, gently, "what is there in all this worthy of your sorrow? The man will kill me; granted, for he is my junior by some fifteen years, and is 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 said. "You gave me gallant service, and I have requited you with death, and it is a great pity."
"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 manly common living." His eyes were fervent.
She kissed him on either cheek. "Farewell, my champion!"
"Ay, your champion. In the twilight of life old Osmund Heleigh rides forth to defend the quarrel of Alianora of Provence. Reign wisely, my Queen, so that hereafter men may not say I was slain in an evil cause.
Do not, I pray you, shame my maiden venture at a man"s work."
"I will not shame you," the Queen proudly said; and then, with a change of voice: "O my Osmund! My Osmund, you have a folly that is divine, and I lack it."
He caught her by each wrist, and stood crushing both her hands to his lips, with fierce staring. "Wife of my King! wife of my King!" he babbled; and then put her from him, crying, "I have not failed you!
Praise G.o.d, 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 emblazoned surcoat the lean pedant sat conspicuously erect; and as he went he sang defiantly, taunting the weakness of his flesh.
Sang Osmund Heleigh:
"Love sows, but lovers reap; and ye will see The loved eyes lighten, feel the loved lips cling Never again when in the grave ye be 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 this man was frank and courteous," 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 wrinkled neck the thin gold chain, now locketless. "There was a portrait here," she said; "the 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."
"Well," the Queen said, "he always did queer things, and so, I shall always wonder what sort of lady he picked out to love, but it is none of my affair."
Afterward she set to work on requisitions in the King"s name. But Osmund Heleigh she had interred at Ambresbury, commanding it to be written 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 majora sonent._ Nevertheless, I a.s.sert that many a forest was once a pocketful of acorns.
THE END OF THE FIRST NOVEL
II
THE STORY OF THE TENSON
"Plagues a Dieu ja la nueitz non falhis, Ni"l mieus amicx lone de mi nos partis, Ni la gayta jorn ni alba ne vis.
Oy Dieus! oy Dieus! de l"alba tan tost we!"
THE SECOND NOVEL.--ELLINOR OF CASTILE, BEING ENAMORED OF A HANDSOME PERSON, IS IN HER FLIGHT FROM MARITAL OBLIGATIONS a.s.sISTED BY HER HUSBAND, AND IS IN THE END BY HIM CONVINCED OF THE RATIONALITY OF ALL ATTENDANT CIRc.u.mSTANCES.
_The Story of the Tenson_
In the year of grace 1265 (Nicolas begins), about the festival of Saint Peter _ad Vincula_, the Prince de Gatinais came to Burgos. Before this he had lodged for three months in the district of Ponthieu; and the object of his southern journey was to a.s.sure the tenth Alphonso, then ruling in Castile, that the latter"s sister Ellinor, now resident at Entrechat, was beyond any reasonable doubt the transcendent lady whose existence old romancers had antic.i.p.ated, however cloudily, when they fabled in remote time concerning Queen Heleine of Sparta.
There was a postscript to this news. The world knew that the King of Leon and Castile 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 compet.i.tor, 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 was not an obstacle to the plan which his fair cousin had proposed?
Here the Prince was accoutred cap-a-pie, and hauled out a paper. Dating from Viterbo, Clement, Bishop of Rome, servant to the servants of G.o.d, 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 particular moment; and that in consideration of the covenantors 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 rendered 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 perfectly 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 to make Alphonso King of Germany; and Gui Foulques of Sabionetta--now Clement, fourth Pope to a.s.sume that name--would annul the previous marriage, 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 particular 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. People said, of course, that such behavior was less in the manner of his nominal father, King Henry, than reminiscent of Count Manuel of Poictesme, whose portraits certainly the Prince resembled to an embarra.s.sing extent. Either way, the barons" power was demolished, there would be no more internecine war; and spurred by the unaccustomed idleness, Prince Edward began to think of the foreign girl he had not seen since the day he wedded her. She would be a woman by this, and it was befitting that he claim his wife. He rode with Hawise Bulmer and her baby 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, having thus decorously rid himself of his mistress, the Prince went into Lower Picardy alone, riding at adventure as he loved to do, and thus came to Entrechat, where his wife resided with her mother, 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, and these five fell into amicable discourse. 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 unguarded ribs. The Prince was astounded, but he was never a subtle man: here were four knaves who, for reasons unexplained--but to them of undoubted cogency--desired his death: manifestly there was here an actionable difference of opinion; so he had his sword out and killed the four of them.
Presently came to him an apple-cheeked boy, habited 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 various conditions of dismemberment. And seated among them, as if throned upon this boulder, was a gigantic and florid person, so tall that the heads of few men reached to his shoulder; a person of handsome exterior, high-featured and blond, having a narrow, small head, and vivid light blue eyes, and the chest of a stallion; a person whose left eyebrow had an odd oblique droop, so that the stupendous man appeared to be winking the information that he was in jest.
"Fair friend," said the page. "G.o.d give you joy! and why have you converted this forest into a shambles?"
The Prince told him as much 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 carca.s.s. "Felons, my Prince! You have slain some eight yards of felony which might have cheated the gallows 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 somewhat overheels in the confidence of my wife."
Now the boy arose and defiantly flung back his head in shrill laughter.
"Your wife! Oh, G.o.d have 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 two brought face to face."
Prince Edward said, "That is very near the truth." But, indeed, it was the absolute truth, and as it concerned him was 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 haro, and shout it l.u.s.tily, for your wife in company with six other knaves is at large between here and Burgos,--that unreasonable wife who 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!"
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 plainly as equity demands I 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 began to laugh. Afterward these two rode southerly, in the direction of Castile.
For it appeared to the intriguing little woman a diverting jest that in this fashion her husband should be the promoter of her evasion. It appeared to her more diverting when in two days" s.p.a.ce she had become fond of him. She found him rather slow of comprehension, and she was humiliated by the discovery 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 intended, quite without pa.s.sion, to repossess himself of it, after, of course, punishing the thief.
This troubled the Princess somewhat; and often, riding by her stolid husband"s side, the girl"s heart raged at memory of the decade so newly overpast which had kept her always dependent on the charity of this or that ungracious patron--on any one who would take charge of her while the truant husband fought out his endless squabbles in England. Slights enough she had borne during the period, and squalor, and physical hunger also she had known, who was the child of a king and a saint.[2] But now she rode toward the dear southland; and presently she would be rid of this big man, when he had served her purpose; and afterward she meant to wheedle Alphonso, just as she had always wheedled him, and later still, she and Etienne would be very happy: in fine, to-morrow was to be a new day.