"Mistress, the letter of our lord has been delivered. I think it may go hard with the Melek."
"What, Cogia? Does the Archduke dare?"
"The Archduke, mistress, desires not the Melek"s death. He is a worthy man. But many do desire it--kings of the West, kinsmen of the Marquess, above all the Melek"s blood-brother. One of that prince"s men, as I judge him, is with him now--one of your country, mistress."
In a vision she saw the leper again, a dull smear in the sunny waste, scratching himself on a white stone. She saw him come hopping from rock to rock, his wagging finger, shapeless face, tongueless voice.
"Mistress--" said Cogia. She turned blank eyes upon him. "I pray," she said; "I pray. Has G.o.d no pity?"
Cogia shrugged. "What has G.o.d to do with pity? The end of the world is in His hand already. The Melek is a king, and the Norman dung in his sight. Who knows the end but G.o.d, and how shall He pity what He hath decreed for wisdom? This I say, if the King dies the man dies."
Jehane threw up her head. "The King will not die, Cogia. Yet to-morrow, if the man comes not out, I will go to seek him."
Early in the morning Gilles did come out, turned the angle of the ditch, and shuffled towards her, his head hung. Jehane moved swiftly out from the shadow of the b.u.t.tress and confronted him. She folded her arms over her breast; and at that moment the shadow of Richard"s tower was capped with the shadow of Richard himself. But she saw nothing of this. "Halt there, Sir Gilles," she said. The Norman gave a squeal, like a hog startled at his trough, and went dead-fire colour.
"Ha, Heart of Jesus!" said Gilles de Gurdun.
CHAPTER XII
THE CHAPTER OF STRIFE IN THE DARK
One very great power of King Richard"s had never served him better than now, the power of immense quiescence, whereunder he could sit by day or by night as inert as a stone, a block hewn into shape of a man, neither to be moved by outside fret nor by the workings of his own mind. Into this rapt state he fell when the prison doors shut on him, and so remained for three or four weeks, alone while the Fates were spinning.
The Archduke came daily to him with speeches, injuries to relate, injuries to impart. King Richard hardly winked an eyelid. The Archduke hinted at ransom, and Richard watched the wall behind his head; he spoke of letters received from this great man or that, which made ransom not to be thought of; and Richard went to sleep. What are you to do with a man who meets your offers and threats with the same vast unconcern? If it is matter for resentment, Richard gave it; if it is a matter which money may leaven, it is to be observed that while Richard offered no money his enemies offered much.
These letters to the Archduke were not of the sort which fill the austere folios of the Codex Diplomaticus as bins with bran, or make Rymer"s book as dry as Ezekiel"s valley. They were pungent, pertinent, allusive, succinct, supplementing, as with meat, those others. The Count of Saint-Pol wrote, for instance, "Kinsman, kill the killer of your kin," and could hardly have expressed himself better under the circ.u.mstances. King Philip of France sent two letters: one by a herald, very long, and chiefly in the language of the Epistle of Saint James, designed for the Codex. The other lay in the vest of a Savigniac monk, and was to this effect: "In a ridded acre the husbandman can sow with hopes of good harvesting. When the corn is garnered he calleth about him his friends and fellow-labourers, and cheer abounds. Labour and pray. I pray." Last came a limping pilgrim from Aquitaine, whose hat was covered with metal saints, and in his left shoe a wad of parchment, which had made him limp. This proved to be a letter from John Count of Mortain, which said, "Now I see in secret. But when I am come into my kingdom I will reward openly." The Archduke was by no means a wise man; but it was not easy to know something of European politics and mistake the meaning of letters like these. If it was a question of money, here was money.
And imagine now the Archduke, bursting with the urgent secrets of so many princes, making speeches about them--through all of which King Richard slumbered! "d.a.m.n it, he flouts me, does he?" said Austria at last; and left him alone. From that moment Richard began to sing.
Let us do no wrong to Luitpold: it was not merely a question of money, but money turned the scale. Not only had Richard mortally affronted his gaoler; he had innumerably offended him. The Archduke was punctilious; Richard with his petulant foot stamped on every little point he laboured, or else, like a b.u.t.tress, let him labour them in vain. He did not for a moment disguise his fatigue in Luitpold"s presence, his relief at his absence, or his unconcern with his properties. This galled the man. He could not, for the life of him, affect indifference to Richard"s indifference. When the messenger, therefore, arrived from the Old Man of Musse, the insolence of the message was most unfortunate. The Archduke, angry as he was, could afford to be cool. He played on the Old Man the very part which Richard had played on him--that is, treated him and his letter as though they were not.
Then he broke with Richard altogether; and then came Gilles de Gurdun with secret words and offers.
The Archduke drained his beer-horn, and with his big hand wrung his beard dry. He winked hard at Gilles, whom he thought to be a hired a.s.sa.s.sin of deplorable address sent, probably, by Count John.
"Are you angry enough to do what you propose?" he asked him. "I am not, let me tell you."
"I have been trying to kill him for four years," said Gilles.
"And are you man enough, my fellow?" Gilles cast down his eyes.
"I have not been man enough yet, since he still lives. I think I am now." Then there was a pause.
"What is your price?" asked Luitpold after this.
Gilles said, "I have no price"; and the Archduke, "You suit my humour exactly."
Richard, I say, had begun to sing from the day he was sure that the Archduke had given him up. Physical relief may have had something to do with that, but moral certainty had more. What made him fume or freeze was doubt. There was very little room for doubt just now but that his enemies would prove too many for Austria"s scruples. His friends? He was not aware that he had any friends. Des Barres, Gaston, Auvergne, Milo?
What did they amount to? His sister Joan, his mother, his brothers? Here he shrugged, knowing his own race too well. He had never heard of the Angevin who helped any Angevin but himself. Lastly, Jehane. He had lost her by his own fault and her extreme n.o.bility. Let her go, glorious among women! He was alone. Odd creature, he began to sing.
Singing like a genius to the broad splash of sunlight on brickwork, Gilles de Gurdun found him. Richard was sitting on a bench against the wall, one knee clasped in his hands, his head thrown back, his throat rippling with the tide of his music. He looked as fresh and gallant a figure as ever in his life; his beard trimmed sharply, his strong hair brushed back, his doublet green, his trunks of fine leather, his shoes of yet finer. The song he was upon was _Li Chastel d" Amors_, which runs--
Las portas son de parlar Al eissir e al entrar: Qui gen non sab razonar,
Defors li ven a estar.
E las claus son de prejar: Ab cel obron li cortes--
and so on through many verses, made continuous by the fact that the end of each sixth line forms the rhyme of the next five. Now, Gilles knew nothing of Southern minstrelsy, and if he had, the pitch he was screwed to would have shrilled such knowledge out of him. At "_Defors li ven a estar_," he came in, and st.u.r.dily forward. Richard saw him and put up his hand: on went the hammered rhymes--
E las claus son de prejar: Ab cel obron li cortes.
Here was a little break. Gilles, very dark, took a step; up shot Richard"s warning hand--
Dedinz la clauson qu"i es Son las mazos dels borges ...
On went the exulting voice after the new rhymes, gayer and yet more gay.
_Li Chastel d"Amors_ has twelve linked verses, and King Richard, wound up in their music, sang them all. When at last he had stopped, he said, "Now, Gurdun, what do you want here?"
Gilles came a step or two of his way, and so again a step or two, and so again, by jerks. When he was so near that it was to be seen what he had in his right hand, the King got up. Gilles saw that he had light fetters on his ankles which could not stop his walking. Richard folded his arms.
"Oh, Gurdun," he said, "what a fool you are."
Gurdun vented a sob of rage, and flung himself forward at his enemy. He was a shorter man, but very thickset, with arms like steel. He had a knife, rage like a thirst, he was free. Richard, as he came on, hit him full on the chin, and sent him flying. Gurdun picked himself up again, his mouth twitching, his eyes so small as to be like slits. Knife in hand he leaned against the wall to fetch up his breath.
"Well," said Richard, "Have you had enough?"
"Yes, you wolf," said Gurdun, "I shall wait till it is dark."
"I think it may suit you better," was the King"s comment as he sat down on the bed. Gurdun squatted by the wall, watching him. After about an hour of humming airs to himself Richard lay full length, and in a short time Gilles ascertained that he was asleep. This brought tears into the man"s eyes; he began to cry freely. Virgin Mary! Virgin Mary! why could he not kill this frozen devil of a king? Was there a race in the world which bred such men, to sleep with the knife at the throat? He rose to his feet, went to look at the sleeper; but he knew he could not do his work. He ranged the room incessantly, and at every second or third turn brought up short by the bed. Sometimes he flashed up his long knife; it always stayed the length of his arm, then flapped down to his flank in dejection. "If he wakes not I must go away. I cannot do it so," he told himself, as finally he sat down by the wall. It grew dusk. He was tired, sick, giddy; his head dropped, he slept. When he woke up, as with a snort he did, it was inky dark. Now was the time, not even G.o.d could see him now. He turned himself about; inch by inch he crept forward, edging along by the bed"s edge. Painfully he got on his knees, threw up his head. "Jehane, my robbed lost soul!" he howled, and stabbed with all his might. King Richard, cat-like behind him, caught him by the hair, and cuffed his ears till they sang.
"Ah, dastard cur! Ah, mongrel! Ah, white-galled Norman eft! G.o.d"s feet, if I pommel you for this!" Pommel him he did; and, having drawn blood at his ears, he turned him over his knee as if he had been a schoolboy, and lathered his rump with a chair-leg. This humiliating punishment had humiliating effects. Gilles believed himself a boy in the cloister-school again, with his smock up. "Mea culpa, mea culpa! Hey, reverend father, have pity!" he began to roar. Dropping him at last, Richard tumbled him on to the bed. "Blubber yourself to sleep, clown,"
he told him. "Blessed a.s.s, I have heard you snoring these two hours, snoring and rootling over your jack-knife. Sleep, man. But if you rootle again I flog again: mind you that." Gilles slept long, and was awoken in full light by the sound of King Richard calling for his breakfast.
The gaoler came pale-faced in. "A thousand pardons, sire, a thousand pardons--"
"Bring my food, Dietrich," says Richard, "and send the barber. Also, the next time the Archduke desires murder done let him find a fellow who knows his trade. This one is a bungler. Here"s the third time to my knowledge he has missed. Off with you."
Gilles lay face downwards, abject on the bed. In came the King"s breakfast, a jug of wine, some white bread. The King"s beard was trimmed, his hair brushed, fresh clothes put on. He dismissed his attendants, crossed over the room like a stalking cat, and gave Gilles a clap behind which made him leap in the air.
"Get up, Gurdun," said Richard. "Tell me that you are ashamed of yourself, and then listen to me."
Gilles went down on one knee. "G.o.d knows, my lord King," he mumbled, "that I have done shamefully by you." He got up, his face clouded, his jaw went square. "But not more shamefully, by the same G.o.d, than you have done by me."