Chapter 3

"A prize! ho, an imperial prize!" Camoys shouted. "A peasant woman with the Queen's face, who speaks French! And who, madame, is this? Have you by any chance brought pious Lewis from oversea? Have I bagged a brace of monarchs?"

Here was imminent danger, for Camoys had known the Queen some fifteen years. Messire Heleigh rose, his five days' beard glinting like hoar-frost as his mouth twitched.

"I am Osmund Heleigh, messire, younger brother to the Earl of Brudenel."

"I have heard of you, I believe--the fellow who spoils parchment. This is odd company, however, Messire Osmund, for Brudenel's brother."

"A gentleman must serve his Queen, messire. As Cicero very justly observes--"

"I am inclined to think that his political opinions are scarcely to our immediate purpose. This is a high matter, Messire Heleigh. To let the sorceress pass is, of course, out of the question; upon the other hand, I observe that you lack weapons of defence. Yet if you will have the kindness to assist me in unarming, your courtesy will place our commerce on more equal footing."

Osmund had turned very white. "I am no swordsman, messire--"

"Now, this is not handsome of you," Camoys began. "I warn you that people will speak harshly of us if we lose this opportunity of gaining honor. And besides, the woman will be burned at the stake. Plainly, you owe it to all three of us to fight."

"--But I refer my cause to God. I am quite at your service." "No, my Osmund!" Dame Alianora then cried. "It means your death."

He spread out his hands. "That is God's affair, madame."

"Are you not afraid?" she breathed.

"Of course I am afraid," said Messire Heleigh, irritably.

After that he unarmed Camoys, and presently they faced each other in their tunics. So for the first time in the journey Osmund's long falchion saw daylight. He had thrown away his dagger, as Camoys had none.

The combat was sufficiently curious. Camoys raised his left hand. "So help me God and His saints, I have upon me neither bone, stone, nor witchcraft wherethrough the power and the word of God might be diminished or the devil's power increased."

Osmund made similar oath. "Judge Thou this woman's cause!" he cried, likewise.

Then Gui Camoys shouted, as a herald might have done, "Laissez les aller, laissez les aller, laissez les aller, les bons combatants!" and warily each moved toward the other.

On a sudden Osmund attacked, desperately apprehensive of his own cowardice. Camoys lightly eluded him and slashed at Osmund's undefended thigh, drawing much blood. Osmund gasped. He flung away his sword, and in the instant catching Camoys under the arms, threw him to the ground. Messire Heleigh fell with his opponent, who in stumbling had lost his sword, and thus the two struggled unarmed, Osmund atop. But Camoys was the younger man, and Osmund's strength was ebbing rapidly by reason of his wound. Now Camoys' tethered horse, rearing with nervousness, tumbled his master's flat-topped helmet into the road. Osmund caught up this helmet and with it battered Camoys in the face, dealing severe blows.

"God!" Camoys cried, his face all blood.

"Do you acknowledge my quarrel just?" said Osmund, between horrid sobs.

"What choice have I?" said Gui Camoys, very sensibly.

So Osmund rose, blind with tears and shivering. The Queen bound up their wounds as best she might, but Camoys was much dissatisfied.

"For private purposes of His own, madame," he observed, "and doubtless for sufficient reasons, God has singularly favored your cause. I am neither a fool nor a pagan to question His decision, and you two may go your way unhampered. But I have had my head broken with my own helmet, and this I consider to be a proceeding very little conducive toward enhancing my reputation. Of your courtesy, messire, I must entreat another meeting."

Osmund shrank as if from a blow. Then, with a short laugh, he conceded that this was Camoys' right, and they fixed upon the following Saturday, with Poges Copse as the rendezvous.

"I would suggest that the combat be to the death," Gui Camoys said, "in consideration of the fact it was my own helmet. You must undoubtedly be aware, Messire Osmund, that such an affront is practically without any parallel."

This, too, was agreed upon.

Then, after asking if they needed money, which was courteously declined, Gui Camoys rode away, and sang as he went. Osmund Heleigh remained motionless. He raised quivering hands to the sky.

"Thou hast judged!" he cried. "Thou hast judged, O puissant Emperor of Heaven! Now pardon! Pardon us twain! Pardon for unjust stewards of Thy gifts! Thou hast loaned this woman dominion over England, with all instruments to aid Thy cause, and this trust she has abused. Thou hast loaned me life and manhood, agility and wit and strength, all instruments to aid Thy cause. Talents in a napkin, O God! Repentant we cry to Thee. Pardon for unjust stewards! Pardon for the ungirt loin, for the service shirked, for all good deeds undone! Pardon and grace, O King of kings!"

Thus he prayed, while Gui Camoys sang, riding deeper into the tattered, yellowing forest. By an odd chance Camoys had lighted on that song made by Thibaut of Champagne, beginning _Signor, saciez, ki or ne s'en ira_, which denounces all half-hearted servitors of Heaven; and this he sang with a lilt gayer than his matter countenanced. Faintly there now came to Osmund and the Queen the sound of Camoys' singing, and they found it, in the circumstances, ominously apt.

Sang Camoys:

"Et vos, par qui je n'ci onques aïe, Descendez luit en infer le parfont."

Dame Alianora shivered. But she was a capable woman, and so she said: "I may have made mistakes. But I am sure I never meant any harm, and I am sure, too, that God will be more sensible about it than are you poets."

They slept that night in Ousley Meadow, and the next afternoon came safely to Bristol. You may learn elsewhere with what rejoicing the royal army welcomed the Queen's arrival, how courage quickened at sight of the generous virago. In the ebullition Messire Heleigh was submerged, and Dame Alianora saw nothing more of him that day. Friday there were counsels, requisitions, orders signed, a memorial despatched to Pope Urban, chief of all a letter (this in the Queen's hand throughout) privily conveyed to the Lady Maude de Mortemer, who shortly afterward contrived Prince Edward's escape from her husband's gaolership. There was much sowing of a seed, in fine, that eventually flowered victory. There was, however, no sign of Osmund Heleigh, though by Dame Alianora's order he was sought.

On Saturday at seven in the morning he came to her lodging, in complete armor. From the open helmet his wrinkled face, showing like a wizened nut in a shell, smiled upon her questionings.

"I go to fight Gui Camoys, madame and Queen."

Dame Alianora wrung her hands. "You go to your death."

He answered: "That is true. Therefore I am come to bid you farewell."

The Queen stared at him for a while; on a sudden she broke into a curious fit of deep but tearless sobbing, which bordered upon laughter, too.

"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 God, 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 assert that many a forest was once a pocketful of acorns.

THE END OF THE FIRST NOVEL

II

THE STORY OF THE TENSON

"Plagues à 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 ASSISTED BY HER HUSBAND, AND IS IN THE END BY HIM CONVINCED OF THE RATIONALITY OF ALL ATTENDANT CIRCUMSTANCES.

_The Story of the Tenson_

In the year of grace 1265 (Nicolas begins), about the festival of Saint Peter _ad Vincula_, the Prince de Gâtinais 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 assure the tenth Alphonso, then ruling in Castile, that the latter's sister Ellinor, now resident at Entréchat, was beyond any reasonable doubt the transcendent lady whose existence old romancers had anticipated, 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 competitor, Earl Richard of Cornwall. De Gâtinais chaffered fairly; he had a vote, Alphonso had a sister. So that, in effect--ohé, 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-à-pie, and hauled out a paper. Dating from Viterbo, Clement, Bishop of Rome, servant to the servants of God, 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 Gâtinais, and in exchange get the latter's vote to make Alphonso King of Germany; and Gui Foulques of Sabionetta--now Clement, fourth Pope to assume 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 embarrassing 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 Entréchat, 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. "God 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 carcass. "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, God 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 Gâtinais came a-wooing--and he is a handsome man." The page made known all which de Gâtinais 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 lustily, 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 Gâtinais 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' space 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 passion, 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.

So these two rode southward, and always Prince Edward found this new page of his--this Miguel de Rueda,--a jolly lad, who whistled and sang inapposite snatches of balladry, without any formal ending or beginning, descanting always with the delicate irrelevancy of a bird-trill.

Sang Miguel de Rueda:

"Man's Love, that leads me day by day Through many a screened and scented way, Finds to assuage my thirst.

"No love that may the old love slay, None sweeter than the first.

"Fond heart of mine, that beats so fast As this or that fair maid trips past, Once, and with lesser stir We viewed the grace of love, at last, And turned idolater.

"Lad's Love it was, that in the spring When all things woke to blossoming Was as a child that came Laughing, and filled with wondering, Nor knowing his own name--"

"And still I would prefer to think," the big man interrupted, heavily, "that Sicily is not the only allure. I would prefer to think my wife so beautiful.--And yet, as I remember her, she was nothing extraordinary."

The page a little tartly said that people might forget a deal within a decade.

The Prince continued his unriddling of the scheme hatched in Castile. "When Manfred is driven out of Sicily they will give the throne to de Gâtinais. He intends to get both a kingdom and a handsome wife by this neat affair. And in reason, England must support my Uncle Richard's claim to the German crown, against El Sabio--Why, my lad, I ride southward to prevent a war that would devastate half Europe."

"You ride southward in the attempt to rob a miserable woman of her sole chance of happiness," Miguel de Rueda estimated.

"That is undeniable, if she loves this thrifty Prince, as indeed I do not question my wife does. Yet our happiness here is a trivial matter, whereas war is a great disaster. You have not seen--as I, my little Miguel, have often seen--a man viewing his death-wound with a face of stupid wonder, a bewildered wretch in point to die in his lord's quarrel and understanding never a word of it. Or a woman, say--a woman's twisted and naked body, the breasts yet horribly heaving, in the red ashes of some village, or the already dripping hoofs which will presently crush this body. Well, it is to prevent many such ugly spectacles hereabout that I ride southward."

Miguel de Rueda shuddered. But, "She has her right to happiness," the page stubbornly said.

"She has only one right," the Prince retorted; "because it has pleased the Emperor of Heaven to appoint us twain to lofty stations, to entrust to us the five talents of the parable; whence is our debt to Him, being fivefold, so much the greater than that of common persons. Therefore the more is it our sole right, being fivefold, to serve God without faltering, and therefore is our happiness, or our unhappiness, the more an inconsiderable matter. For, as I have read in the Annals of the Romans--" He launched upon the story of King Pompey and his daughter, whom a certain duke regarded with impure and improper emotions. "My little Miguel, that ancient king is our Heavenly Father, that only daughter is the rational soul of us, which is here delivered for protection to five soldiers--that is, to the five senses,--to preserve it from the devil, the world, and the flesh. But, alas! the too-credulous soul, desirous of gazing upon the gaudy vapors of this world--"