Chapter 2

_A room in the Queen’s apartments_.

_Enter_ ROSAMUND.

ROSAMUND.

I am yet alive to question if I live And wonder what may ever bid me die. But live I will, being yet not dead with thee, Father. Thou knowest in Paradise my heart. I feel thy kisses breathing on my lips, Whereto the dead cold relic of thy face Was pressed at bidding of thy slayer last night, And yet they were not withered: nay, they are red As blood is—blood but newly spilt—not thine. How good thou wast and sweet of spirit—how dear, Father! None lives that knew thee now save one, And none loves me but thou nor thee but I, That was till yesternight thy daughter: now That very name is tainted, and my tongue Tastes poison as I speak it. There is nought Left in the range and record of the world For me that is not poisoned: even my heart Is all envenomed in me. Death is life, Or priesthood lies that swears it: then I give The man my husband and thy homicide Life, if I slay him—the life he gave thee.

_Enter_ HILDEGARD.

Girl, I sent for thee, I think: stand near me. Child, Thou art fairer than thou knowest, I doubt: thou art fair As the awless maidenhood of morning: truth Should live upon thy lips, though truth were dead On all men’s tongues and women’s born save thine. Dawn lies not when it laughs on us. Thy queen I am not now: thy friend I would be. Tell Thy friend if love sleep or awake in thee Toward any man. Thou art silent. Tell me this, Dost thou not think, where thought scarce knows itself— Think in the subtle sense too deep for thought— That Almachildes loves thee?

HILDEGARD.

More than I Love Almachildes.

ROSAMUND.

Thus a maid should speak. Dost thou love me?

HILDEGARD.

Thou knowest it, queen.

ROSAMUND.

It lies Now in thy power to show me more of love Than ever yet hath man or woman. Swear, If thou dost love me, thou wilt show it.

HILDEGARD.

I swear.

ROSAMUND.

By all our fathers’ great forsaken gods Who smiled on all their battles, and by him Who clomb or crept or leapt upon their throne And signed us Christian, swear it, then.

HILDEGARD.

I swear.

ROSAMUND.

What if I bid thee give thyself to shame— Yield up thy soul and body—play such parts As shameless fame records of women crowned Imperial in the tale of lust and Rome?

HILDEGARD.

Thou couldst not bid me do it.

ROSAMUND.

Thou hast sworn.

HILDEGARD.

I have sworn. Queen, I would do it, and die.

ROSAMUND.

Thou shalt not. Yet This must thou do, and live. Thou shalt not be Shamed. Thou shalt bid thine Almachildes come And speak with thee by nightfall. Say, the queen Will give not up the maiden so beloved —And truth it is, I love thee—willingly To the arms of one her husband loves: but were it Shame, utter shame, that he should wed not her, The shamefast queen could choose not. Then shall he Plead. Then shalt thou turn gentler than the snow That softens at the strong sun’s kiss, and yield. But needs must night be close about your love And darkness whet your kisses. Light were death. Hast thou no heart to guess now? Fear not then. Not thou but I must put on shame. I lack A hand for mine to grasp and strike with. His I have chosen.

HILDEGARD.

I see but as by lightning. Queen, What should I do but warn the king—or him?

ROSAMUND.

Thou hast sworn. I hold thee by thy word.

HILDEGARD.

My Christ, Help me!

ROSAMUND.

No God can break thine oath in twain And leave thee less than perjured. Thou must bid him Make thee to-night his bride.

HILDEGARD.

I could not say it.

ROSAMUND.

Thou shalt, or God shall smite thee down to hell. What, art thou godless?

HILDEGARD.

Art not thou?

ROSAMUND.

Not I. I find him just and gracious, girl: he gives me My right by might set fast on thine and thee.

HILDEGARD.

For love of mercy, queen—for honour’s sake, Bid me not shame myself before a man— The man I love—who gives me back at least Honour, if love he gives not.

ROSAMUND.

Ay, my maid? And yet he loves thee, or thy maiden thought Errs with no gracious error, more than thou Him?

HILDEGARD.

Art thou woman born, to cast me back My maiden shame for shame upon my face? I would not say I loved him more than man Loved ever woman since the light of love Lit them alive together. Let us be.

ROSAMUND.

I will not. Mine are both by God’s own gift. I will not cast it from me. Ye may live Hereafter happy: never now shall I.

HILDEGARD.

Have mercy. Nay, I cannot do it. And thou, Albeit thine heart be hot with hate as hell, Couldst say not, nor fold round with fairer speech, Those foul three words the Egyptian woman said Who tempted and could tempt not Joseph.

ROSAMUND.

No. He would not hearken. Joseph loved not her More than thine Almachildes me. But thou Shalt. Now no more may I debate with thee. Go.

HILDEGARD.

God requite thee!

ROSAMUND.

That shall he and I, Not thou, make proof of. If I plead with him, I crave of God but wrong’s requital. Go.

[_Exit_ HILDEGARD.

And yet, God help me! Can I do it? God’s will May no man thwart, or leave his righteousness Baffled. I would not say, ‘My will be done,’ Were God’s will not for righteousness as mine, If right be righteous, wrong be wrong, must be. How else may God work wrong’s requital? I Must be or none may be his minister. And yet what righteousness is his to cast Athwart my way toward right this wrong to me, A sin against the soul and honour? Why Must this vile word of _yet_ cross all my thought Always, a drifting doom or doubt that still Strikes up and floats against my purpose? God, Help me to know it! This weapon chosen of me, This Almachildes, were his face not fair, Were not his fame bright—were his aspect foul, His name dishonourable, his line through life A loathing and a spitting-stock for scorn, Could I do this? Am I then even as they Who queened it once in Rome’s abhorrent face An empress each, and each by right of sin Prostitute? All the life I have lived or loved Hath been, if snows or seas or wellsprings be, Pure as the spirit of love toward heaven is—chaste As children’s eyes or mothers’. Though I sinned As yet my soul hath sinned not, Albovine Must bear, if God abhor unrighteousness, The weight of penance heaviest laid on sin, Shame. Not on me may shame be set, though hell Take hold upon me dying. I would the deed Were done, the wreak of wrath were wroken, and I Dead.

_Enter_ ALBOVINE.

ALBOVINE.

Art thou sick at heart to see me?

ROSAMUND.

No.

ALBOVINE.

Thou art sweet and wise as ever God hath made Woman. I would not turn thine heart from me Or set thy spirit against the sense of mine For more than Rome’s old empire.

ROSAMUND.

That, albeit Thou wouldst, be sure thou canst not. God nor man Could wake within me toward my lord the king A new strange love or loathing. Fear not this.

ALBOVINE.

From thee can I fear nothing. Now I know How high thy heart is, and how true to me.

ROSAMUND.

Thou knowest it now.

ALBOVINE.

I know not if I should Repent me, or repent not, that I tried A heart so high so sorely—proved so true.

ROSAMUND.

Do not repent. I would not have thee now Repent.

ALBOVINE.

By Christ, if God forbade it not, I would have said within mine own fool’s heart, Of all vile things that fool the soul of man The vilest and the priestliest hath to name Repentance. Could it blot one hour’s work out, A wise thing and a manful thing it were, And profit were it none for priests to preach. This will I tell thee: what last night befell Rejoices not but irks me.

ROSAMUND.

Let it not Rejoice nor irk thee. Vex thou not thy soul With any thought thereon, if none may bid thee Rejoice: and that were harsh and hard of heart.

ALBOVINE.

I will not. Queen and wife, hell durst not say I do not love thee.

ROSAMUND.

Heaven has heard—and I.

ALBOVINE.

Forget then all this foolishness, and pray God may forget it.

ROSAMUND.

God forgets as I.

[_Exit_ ALBOVINE.

And had repentance helped him? Shall I think It might have molten in my burning heart The thrice-retempered iron of resolve? Yet well it is to know that penitence Lies further from that frozen heart of his Than mercy from the tiger’s. Ay, God knows, I had scorned him too had penitence bowed him down Before me: now I do but hate. I am not Abased as wholly, so supremely shamed, As though I had wedded one as hard as he Who yet might think to soften down with words What hardly might be cleansed with tears of blood, The monumental memory graven on steel That burns the naked spirit of sense within me Like the ardent sting of keen-edged ice, which makes The naked flesh feel fire upon it.

_Enter_ ALMACHILDES.

ALMACHILDES.

Queen, I come to crave a word of thee.

ROSAMUND.

I hear.

ALMACHILDES.

Thou knowest I love thy noble Hildegard: And rather would I give my soul to burn Than wrong in thought her flawless maidenhood. And now she hath told me what I dare not think Truth. And I dare not think her lips may lie.

ROSAMUND.

I have heard. And what is this to me? She hath not Said—hath not told thee, nor wouldst thou believe— That I have breathed a lie upon her lips Or taught them shamelessness by lesson?

ALMACHILDES.

No. But she came forth from thee to me—from thee— And spake with quivering mouth and quailing eyes And face whose fire turned ashen, and again Rekindling from that ashen agony Flamed, what no heart could think to hear her speak, Mine least of all, who love her.

ROSAMUND.

Ay?

ALMACHILDES.

Not she, I know it as sure as night is known from day And surelier than I know mine own soul’s truth, Spake what she spake in broken bursts of breath Out of her own heart and its love for me.

ROSAMUND.

Didst thou so answer her?

ALMACHILDES.

I might not well Answer at all.

ROSAMUND.

Poor maid, she hath loved amiss. Belike she thought to find in thee a man’s Love.

ALMACHILDES.

That she hath found; nought meaner than a man’s; No wolfish lust of ravenous insolence To soil and spoil her of her noblest name.

ROSAMUND.

I do not ask thee what she said. I know.

ALMACHILDES.

I knew thou didst.

ROSAMUND.

To make your bridal sure She bade thee make thy bride of her to-night.

ALMACHILDES.

She bade me as a slave might bid the scourge Fall.

ROSAMUND.

Such a scourge no slave might shrink from; nay, No free-born woman, Almachildes.

ALMACHILDES.

Queen, I crave thy queenly mercy though I say My maid, my bride that will be, shrank, and showed In all the rosebright anguish of her face A shuddering shame that wrung my heart. And thou Hast surely set thereon that seal of shame. I know it as thou dost.

ROSAMUND.

Ay, and more she said, Surely: she said I would not yield her up To the arms of one my husband loves and holds Honoured at heart—I hate my husband so, She told thee—were the need avoidable Save by her sacrifice to shame.

ALMACHILDES.

Thou knowest All, as I knew, and lacked not from thy lips Confession.

ROSAMUND.

Warrior though thou be, and boy Though my lord call thee, brainless art thou not— No sword with man’s face carven on the heft For mockery more than truth or help in fight. I do not and I durst not play with thee. Thy bride spake truth: I knew not she might need So much of truth to tempt thee toward her. Now Thou knowest, and I know. If this imminent night Make not thy darkling bride of her, by day Thy bride she may be never. She hath sworn.

ALMACHILDES.

Why wouldst thou shame her?

ROSAMUND.

Shamed she cannot be If thou be found not shameless. Plead no more Against thine own love’s surety. Doubt thou not I wish thee well, and love her. Make not thou Out of her shamefast maidenhood and fear A sword to cleave your happiness in twain. What if some oath constrain me, sworn in haste, Infrangible for shame’s sake, sealed in heaven Inevitable? Ask now no more of me. Nightfall is here upon us. Nought on earth May set the season of your bridal back If thou be true as she must. Wait awhile Here till a sign be sent thee—till a bell Strike softly from this chamber here at hand. I have sworn to her she shall not see thy face, So sore she prayed she might not: and for thee I swore that ere the darkling air grew grey Thou shouldst arise and leave her, and behold Thy midnight bride but when thou art bidden again To meet her here to-morrow. Strange it were, More strange than aught of all, that thou shouldst prove Dishonourable: and except thou be, these things Must all be wrought in this wise, lest her oath And mine, at peril of her soul and life, By passionate forgetfulness of thine Disloyally be broken. Swear to us now Thou wilt not break our oath and thine, or think To look to-night upon thy bride.

ALMACHILDES.

I swear.

ROSAMUND.

I take thine oath. I bid not thee take heed That I or thou or each of us at once, Couldst thou play false, may die: I bid thee think Thy bride will die, shamed. Swear me not again She shall not: all our trust is set on thee. What eyes and ears are keen about us here Thou knowest not. Love, my love and thine for her, Shall deafen and shall blind them. Be but thou A bridegroom blind and dumb—speak soft as love, And ask not answer louder than a sigh— And when to-morrow sets thy bride and thee Here face to face again, thy soul shall stand Amazed: thy joy shall turn to wonder. This Thy queen, whose power may seal her promise fast, Swears for thine oath again to thee. Good night.

[_Exit_.

ALMACHILDES.

I cannot think I live. Our Sigurd loved not Brynhild as I love her, and even this hour Shall make us great as they. No spell to break, No fire to pass, divides us. Blind and dumb, Love knows, would I be ever while I live For love’s sake rather than forego the joy That makes one godlike power of spirit and sense, One godhead born of manhood. God requite The queen who loves my love and cares for me Thus! How may man or God requite her? Ah!

[_Bell rings softly from without_.

There sounds the note that opens heaven on me, And how should man dare heaven? But love may dare.

[_Exit_.