The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay
by Maurice Hewlett · English · Gutenberg #14813 · 605,624 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay
Author: Maurice Hewlett
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Most recently updated: October 28, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE AND DEATH OF RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY ***
[Illustration: Ornate lettering/text The MM Co.]
THE LIFE AND DEATH
OF
RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY
BY
MAURICE HEWLETT
AUTHOR OF "THE FOREST LOVERS," "LITTLE NOVELS
OF ITALY," ETC.
Sì che a bene sperar mi era cagione
Di quella fera alla gaietta pelle.
_Inf._ i. 41.
NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON; MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1901
Set up and electrotyped October, 1900. Reprinted November,
December, twice, 1900; January, February, twice, 1901
Norwood Press
J.B. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith
Norwood Mass. U.S.A.
TO
HIS FRIEND
EDMUND GOSSE
(ALWAYS BENEVOLENT TO HIS INVENTION)
THIS CHRONICLE OF
ANJOU AND A NOBLE LADY
IS DEDICATED
BY
M.H.
CONTENTS
BOOK I--THE BOOK OF YEA
EXORDIUM PAGE
The Abbot Milo _urbi el orbi_, concerning the Nature of
the Leopard 3
CHAPTER I
Of Count Richard, and the Fires by Night 5
CHAPTER II
How the Fair Jehane bestowed herself 18
CHAPTER III
In what Harbour they found the Old Lion 29
CHAPTER IV
How Jehane stroked what Alois had made Fierce 41
CHAPTER V
How Bertran de Born and Count Richard strove in a
_Tenzon_ 56
CHAPTER VI
Fruits of the Tenzon: the Back of Saint-Pol, and the
Front of Montferrat 69
CHAPTER VII
Of the Crackling of Thorns under Pots 84
CHAPTER VIII
How they held Richard off from his Father's Throat 93
CHAPTER IX
Wild Work in the Church of Gisors 102
CHAPTER X
Night-work by the Dark Tower 111
CHAPTER XI
Of Prophecy; and Jehane in the Perilous Bed 123
CHAPTER XII
How they bayed the Old Lion 134
CHAPTER XIII
How they met at Fontevrault 145
CHAPTER XIV
Of what King Richard said to the Bowing Rood; and
what Jehane to King Richard 156
CHAPTER XV
Last _Tenzon_ of Bertran de Born 168
CHAPTER XVI
Conversation in England of Jehane the Fair 179
CHAPTER XVII
Frozen Heart and Red Heart: Cahors 193
* * * * *
BOOK II--THE BOOK OF NAY
CHAPTER I
The Chapter called Mate-Grifon 209
CHAPTER II
Of what Jehane looked for, and what Berengère had 220
CHAPTER III
Who Fought at Acre 235
CHAPTER IV
Concerning the Tower of Flies, Saint-Pol, and the Marquess
of Montferrat 248
CHAPTER V
The Chapter of Forbidding: how De Gurdun looked,
and King Richard hid his Face 262
CHAPTER VI
The Chapter called Clytemnestra 282
CHAPTER VII
The Chapter of the Sacrifice on Lebanon; also called
Cassandra 293
CHAPTER VIII
Of the Going-up and Going-down of the Marquess 302
CHAPTER IX
How King Richard reaped what Jehane had sowed, and
the Soldan was Gleaner 311
CHAPTER X
The Chapter called Bonds 327
CHAPTER XI
The Chapter called _A Latere_ 338
CHAPTER XII
The Chapter of Strife in the Dark 350
CHAPTER XIII
Of the Love of Women 362
CHAPTER XIV
How the Leopard was loosed 369
CHAPTER XV
Oeconomic Reflections of the Old Man of Musse 380
CHAPTER XVI
The Chapter called Chaluz 386
CHAPTER XVII
The Keening 396
EPILOGUE OF THE ABBOT MILO 408
BOOK I
THE BOOK OF YEA
EXORDIUM
THE ABBOT MILO _URBI ET ORBI_, CONCERNING THE NATURE OF THE LEOPARD
I like this good man's account of leopards, and find it more pertinent
to my matter than you might think. Milo was a Carthusian monk, abbot of
the cloister of Saint Mary-of-the-Pine by Poictiers; it was his
distinction to be the life-long friend of a man whose friendships were
few: certainly it may be said of him that he knew as much of leopards as
any one of his time and nation, and that his knowledge was better
grounded.
'Your leopard,' he writes, 'is alleged in the books to be offspring of
the Lioness and the Pard; and his name, if the Realists have any truth
on their side, establishes the fact. But I think he should be called
Leolupé, which is to say, got by lion out of bitch-wolf, since two
essences burn in him as well as two sorts. This is the nature of the
leopard: it is a spotted beast, having two souls, a bright soul and a
dark soul. It is black and golden, slim and strong, cat and dog. Hunger
drives a dog to hunt, so the leopard; passion the cat, so the leopard. A
cat is sufficient unto himself, and a leopard is so; but a dog hangs on
a man's nod, and a leopard can so be beguiled. A leopard is sleek as a
cat and pleased by stroking; like a cat he will scratch his friend on
occasion. Yet again, he has a dog's intrepidity, knows no fear, is
single-purposed, not to be called off, longanimous. But the cat in him
makes him wary, tempts him to treacherous dealing, keeps him apart from
counsels, advises him to keep his own. So the leopard is a lonely
beast.' This is interesting, and may be true. But mark him as he goes
on.
'I knew the man, my dear master and a great king, who brought the
leopards into the shield of England, more proper to do it than his
father, being more the thing he signified. Of him, therefore, torn by
two natures, cast in two moulds, sport of two fates; the hymned and
reviled, the loved and loathed, spendthrift and a miser, king and a
beggar, the bond and the free, god and man; of King Richard Yea-and-Nay,
so made, so called, and by that unmade, I thus prepare my account.'
So far the abbot with much learning and no little verbosity casts his
net. He has the weakness of his age, you observe, and must begin at the
beginning; but this is not our custom. Something of Time is behind us;
we are conscious of a world replete, and may assume that we have
digested part of it. Milo, indeed, like all candid chroniclers, has his
value. He is excellent upon himself, a good relish with your meal.
However, as we are concerned with King Richard, you shall dip into his
bag for refreshment, but must leave the victualling to me.
CHAPTER I
OF COUNT RICHARD, AND THE FIRES BY NIGHT
I choose to record how Richard Count of Poictou rode all through one
smouldering night to see Jehane Saint-Pol a last time. It had so been
named by the lady; but he rode in his hottest mood of Nay to that, yet
careless of first or last so he could see her again. Nominally to remit
his master's sins, though actually (as he thought) to pay for his own,
the Abbot Milo bore him company, if company you can call it which left
the good man, in pitchy dark, some hundred yards behind. The way, which
was long, led over Saint Andrew's Plain, the bleakest stretch of the
Norman march; the pace, being Richard's, was furious, a pounding gallop;
the prize, Richard's again, showed fitfully and afar, a twinkling point
of light. Count Richard knew it for Jehane's torch, and saw no other
spark; but Milo, faintly curious on the lady's account, was more
concerned with the throbbing glow which now and again shuddered in the
northern sky. Nature had no lamps that night, and made no sign by cry of
night-bird or rustle of scared beast: there was no wind, no rain, no
dew; she offered nothing but heat, dark, and dense oppression. Topping
the ridge of sand, where was the Fosse des Noyées, place of shameful
death, the solitary torch showed a steady beam; and there also, ahead,
could be seen on the northern horizon that rim of throbbing light.
'God pity the poor!' said Count Richard, and scourged forward.
'God pity me!' said gasping Milo; 'I believe my stomach is in my head.'
So at last they crossed the pebbly ford and found the pines, then
cantered up the path of light which streamed from the Dark Tower. As
core of this they saw the lady stand with a torch above her head; when
they drew rein she did not move. Her face, moon-shaped, was as pale as a
moon; her loose hair, catching light, framed it with gold. She was all
white against the dark, seemed to loom in it taller than she was or
could have been. She was Jehane Saint-Pol, Jehane 'of the Fair Girdle,'
so called by her lovers and friends, to whom for a matter of two years
this hot-coloured, tallest, and coldest of the Angevins had been light
of the world.
The check upon their greeting was the most curious part of a curious
business, that one should have travelled and the other watched so long,
and neither urge the end of desire. The Count sat still upon his horse,
so for duty's sake did the aching abbot; the girl stood still in the
entry-way, holding up her dripping torch. Then, 'Child, child,' cried
the Count, 'how is it with thee?' His voice trembled, and so did he.
She looked at him, slow to answer, though the hand upon her bosom swayed
up and down.
'Do you see the fires?' she said. 'They have been there six nights.' He
was watching them then through the pine-woods, how they shot into the
sky great ribbons of light, flickered, fainted out, again glowed
steadily as if gathering volume, again leaped, again died, ebbing and
flowing like a tide of fire.
'The King will be at Louviers,' said Richard. He gave a short laugh.
'Well, he shall light us to bed. Heart of a man, I am sick of all this.
Let me in.'
She stood aside, and he rode boldly into the tower, stooping as he
passed her to touch her cheek. She looked up quickly, then let in the
abbot, who, with much ceremony, came bowing, his horse led by the
bridle. She shut the door behind them and drove home the great bolts.
Servants came tumbling out to take the horses and do their duty; Count
Eustace, a brother of Jehane's, got up from the hearth, where he had
been asleep on a bearskin, rubbed his eyes, gulped a yawn, knelt, and
was kissed by Richard. Jehane stood apart, mistress of herself as it
seemed, but conscious, perhaps, that she was being watched. So she was.
In the bustle of salutation the Abbot Milo found eyes to see what manner
of sulky, beautiful girl this was.
He watched shrewdly, and has described her for us with the meticulous
particularity of his time and temper. He runs over her parts like a
virtuoso. The iris of her eyes, for instance, was wet grey, but ringed
with black and shot with yellow, giving so the effect of hot green; her
mouth was of an extraordinary dark red colour, very firm in texture,
close-grained, 'like the darker sort of strawberries,' says he. The
upper lip had the sulky curve; she looked discontented, and had reason
to be, under such a scrutiny of the microscope. Her hair was colour of
raw silk, eyebrows set rather high, face a thinnish oval, complexion
like a pink rose's, neck thinnish again, feet, hands, long and nervous,
'good working members,' etc. etc. None of this helps very much; too
detailed. But he noticed how tall she was and how slim, save for a very
beautiful bosom, too full for Dian's (he tells us), whom else she
resembled; how she was straight as a birch-tree; how in walking it
seemed as if her skirts clung about her knees. There was an air of
mingled surprise and defiance about her; she was a silent girl. 'Fronted
like Juno,' he appears to cry, 'shaped like Hebe, and like Demeter in
stature; sullen with most, but with one most sweetly apt, she looked
watchful but was really timid, looked cold but was secretly afire. I
knew soon enough how her case stood, how hope and doubt strove in her
and choked her to silence. I guessed how within those reticent members
swift love ran like wine; but because of this proud, brave mask of hers
I was slow to understand her worth. God help me, I thought her a thing
of snow!'
He records her dress at this time, remarkable if becoming. It was all
white, and cut wedge-shaped in front, very deep; but an undervest of
crimson crossed the V in the midst and saved her modesty, and his. Her
hair, which was long, was plaited in two plaits with seed-pearls,
brought round her neck like a scarf and the two ends joined between her
breasts, thus defining a great beauty of hers and making a gold collar
to her gown. Round her smooth throat was a little chain with a red
jewel; on her head another jewel (a carbuncle) set in a flower, with
three heron's plumes falling back from it. She had a broad belt of gold
and sapphire stones, and slippers of vair. 'Oh, a fine straight maid,'
says Milo in conclusion, 'golden and delicate, with strangely shaded
eyes. They knew her as Jehane of the Fair Girdle.'
The brother, Count Eustace as they called him (to distinguish him from
an elder brother, Eudo Count of Saint-Pol), was a blunt copy of his
sister, redder than she was, lighter in the hair, much lighter in the
eyes. He seemed an affectionate youth, and clung to the great Count
Richard like ivy to a tree. Richard gave him the sort of scornful
affection one has for a little dog, between patting and slapping; but
clearly wanted to be rid of him. No reference was made to the journey,
much was taken for granted; Eustace talked of his hawks, Richard ate and
drank, Jehane sat up stiffly, looking into the fire; Milo watched her
between his mouthfuls. The moment supper was done, up jumps Richard and
claps hands on the two shoulders of young Eustace. 'To bed, to bed, my
falconer! It grows late,' cries he. Eustace pushed his chair back, rose,
kissed the Count's hand and his sister's forehead, saluted Milo, and
went out humming a tune. Milo withdrew, the servants bowed themselves
away. Richard stood up, a loose-limbed young giant, and narrowed his
eyes.
'Nest thee, nest thee, my bird,' he said low; and Jehane's lips parted.
Slowly she left her stool by the fire, but quickened as she went; and at
last ran tumbling into his arms.
His right hand embraced her, his left at her chin held her face at
discretion. Like a woman, she reproached him for what she dearly loved.
'Lord, lord, how shall I serve the cup and platter if you hold me so
fast?'
'Thou art my cup, thou art my supper.'
'Thin fare, poor soul,' she said; but was glad of his foolishness.
Later, they sat by the hearth, Jehane on Richard's knee, but doubtfully
his, being troubled by many things. He had no retrospects nor
afterthoughts; he tried to coax her into pliancy. It was the fires in
the north that distressed her. Richard made light of them.
'Dear,' he said, 'the King my father is come up with a host to drive the
Count his son to bed. Now the Count his son is master of a good bed, to
which he will presently go; but it is not the bed of the King his
father. That, as you know, is of French make, neither good Norman, nor
good Angevin, nor seethed in the English mists. By Saint Maclou and the
astonishing works he did, I should be bad Norman, and worse Angevin, and
less English than I am, if I loved the French.'
He tried to draw her in; but she, rather, strained away from him,
elbowed her knee, and rested her chin upon her hand. She looked gravely
down to the whitening logs, where the ashes were gaining on the red.
'My lord loves not the French,' she said, 'but he loves honour. He is
the King's son, loving his father.'
'By my soul, I do not,' he assured her, with perfect truth, then he
caught her round the waist and turned her bodily to face him. After he
had kissed her well he began to speak more seriously.
'Jehane,' he said, 'I have thought all this stifling night upon the
heath, Homing to her I am seeking my best. My best? You are all I have
in the world. If honour is in my hand, do I not owe it to you? Or shall
a man use women like dogs, to play with them in idle moods, toss them
bones under the table, afterwards kick them out of doors? Child, you
know me better. What!' he cried out, with his head very high, 'Shall a
man not choose his own wife?'
'No,' said Jehane, ready for him; 'no, Richard, unless the people shall
choose their own king.'
'God chooses the king,' says Richard, 'or so we choose to believe.'
'Then God must appoint the wife,' Jehane said, and tried to get free.
But this could not be allowed, as she knew.
She was gentle with him, reasoning. 'The King your father is an old man,
Richard. Old men love their way.'
'God knows, he is old, and passionate, and indifferent wicked,' said
Richard, and kissed Jehane. 'Look, my girl, there were four of us:
Henry, and me, and Geoffrey, and John, whom he sought to drive in team
by a sop to-day and a stick to-morrow. A good way, done by a judging
hand. What then? I will tell you how the team served the teamster.
Henry gave sop for sop, and it was found well. Might he not give stick
for stick? He thought so: God rest him, he is dead of that. There was
much simplicity in Henry. I got no sop at all. Why should I have stick
then? I saw no reason; but I took what came. If I cried out, it is a
more harmless vent than many. Let me alone. Geoffrey, I think, was a
villain. God help him if He can: he is dead too. He took sop and gave
stick: ungentle in Geoffrey, but he paid for it. He was a cross-bred dog
with much of the devil in him; he bit himself and died barking. Last,
there is John. I desire to speak reasonably of John; but he is too snug,
he gets all sop. This is not fair. He should have some stick, that we
may judge what mettle he has. There, my Jehane, you have the four of us,
a fretful team; whereof one has rushed his hills and broken his heart;
and one, kicking his yoke-fellows, squealing, playing the jade, has
broken his back; and one, poor Richard, does collar-work and gets whip;
and one, young Master John, eases his neck and is cajoled with, "So
then, so then, boy!" Then comes pretty Jehane to the ear of the
collar-horse, whispering, "Good Richard, get thee to stall, but not
here. Stable thee snug with the King of France his sister." 'Hey!'
laughed Richard, 'what a word for a chosen bride!' He pinched her cheek
and looked gaily at her, triumphant in his own eloquence. He was most
dangerous when that devil was awake, so she dared not look at him back.
Eagerly and low she replied.
'Yes, Richard, yes, yes, my king! The king must have the king's sister,
and Jehane go back to the byre. Eagles do not mate with buzzards.'
Hereupon he snatched her up altogether and hid her face in his breast.
'Never, never, never!' he swore to the rafters. 'As God lives and
reigns, so live thou and so reign, queen of me, my Picardy rose.'
She tried no more that night, fearing that his love so keen-edged might
make his will ride rough. The watch-fires at Louviers trembled and
streamed up in the north. There was no need for candles in the Dark
Tower.
They rose up early to a fair dawn. The cloud-wrack was blown off,
leaving the sky a lake of burnt yellow, pure, sweet, and cool. Thus the
world entered upon the summer of Saint Luke, to a new-risen sun, to thin
mists stealing off the moor, to wet flowers hearted anew, to blue air,
and hope left for those who would go gleaning. While Eustace Saint-Pol
was snoring abed and the Abbot Milo at his _Sursum Corda_, Richard had
Jehane by the hand. 'Come forth, my love; we have the broad day before
us and an empty kingdom to roam in. Come, my red rose, let me set you
among the flowers.' What could she do but harbour up her thoughts?
He took her afield, where flowers made the earth still a singing-place,
and gathered of these to deck her bosom and hair. Of the harebells he
made knots, the ground-colour of her eyes; but autumn loves the yellow,
so she was stuck with gold like a princess. She sat enthroned by his
command, this young girl in a high place, with downcast eyes and a face
all fire-colour, while he worshipped her to his fancy. I believe he had
no after-thought; but she saw the dun smoke of the fires at Louviers,
and knew they would make the night shudder again. Yet her sweetness,
patience, staid courtesy, humility, never failed her; out of the deep
wells of her soul she drew them forth in a stream. Richard adored.
'Queen Jehane, Queen Jehane!' he cried out, with his arms straightly
round her--'Was ever man in the world blest so high since God said,
"Behold thy mother"? And so art thou mother to me, O bride. Bride and
queen as thou shalt be.'
This was great invention. She put her hand upon his head. 'My Richard,
my Richard Yea-and-Nay,' she said, as if pitying his wild heart. The
nickname jarred.
'Never call me that,' he told her. 'Leave that to Bertran de Born, a
fool's word to the fool who made it.'
'If I could, if I could!' thought Jehane, and sighed. There were tears
in her eyes, also, as she remembered what generosity in him must be
frozen up, and what glory of her own. But she did not falter in what she
had to do, while he, too exalted to be pitied, began to sing a Southern
song--
Al' entrada del tems clair, eya!
When their hair commingled in their love, when they were close together,
there was little distinguishing between them; he was more her pair than
Eustace her blood-brother, in stature and shape, in hue and tincture of
gold. Jehane you know, but not Richard. Of him, son of a king, heir of a
king, if you wish some bodily sign, I will say shortly that he was a
very tall young man, high-coloured and calm in the face, straight-nosed,
blue-eyed, spare of flesh, lithe, swift in movement. He was at once bold
and sleek, eager and cold as ice--an odd combination, but not more odd
than the blend of Norman dog and Angevin cat which had made him so.
Furtive he was not, yet seeming to crouch for a spring; not savage, yet
primed for savagery; not cruel, yet quick on the affront, and on the
watch for it. He was neither a rogue nor a madman; and yet he was as
cunning as the one and as heedless as the other, if that is a possible
thing. He was arrogant, but his smile veiled the fault; you saw it best
in a sleepy look he had. His blemishes were many, his weaknesses two. He
trusted to his own force too much, and despised everybody else in the
world. Not that he thought them knaves; he was certain they were fools.
And so most of them were, no doubt, but not all. The first flush of him
moved your admiration: great height, great colour, the red and the
yellow; his beard which ran jutting to a point and gave his jaw the
clubbed look of a big cat's; his shut mouth, and cold considering eyes;
the eager set of his head, his soft, padding motions--a leopard, a
hunting leopard, quick to strike, but quick to change purpose. This,
then, was Richard Yea-and-Nay, whom all women loved, and very few men.
These require to be trusted before they love; and full trust Richard
gave to no man, because he could not believe him worth it. Women are
more generous givers, expecting not again.
Here was Jehane Saint-Pol, a girl of two-and-twenty to his
two-and-thirty, well born, well formed, greatly desired among her peers,
who, having let her soul be stolen, was prepared to cut it out of
herself for his sake who took it, and let it die. She was the creature
of his love, in and out by now the work of his hands. God had given her
a magnificent body, but Richard had made it glow. God had made her soul
a fair room; but his love had filled it with light, decked it with
flowers and such artful furniture. He, in fact, as she very well knew,
had given her the grace to deal queenly with herself. She knew that she
would have strength to deny him, having learned the hardihood to give
him her soul. Fate had carried her too young into the arms of the most
glorious prince in the world. Her brother, Eudo the Count, built castles
on that in his head. Now she was to tumble them down. Her younger
brother, Eustace, loved this splendid Richard. Now she was to hurt him.
What was to become of herself? Mercy upon her, I believe she never
thought of that. His honour was her necessity: the watch-fires in the
north told her the hour was at hand. The old King was come up with a
host to drive his son to bed. Richard must go, and she woo him out. Son
of a king, heir of a king, he must go to the king his father; and he
knew he must go. Two days' maddening delight, two nights' biting of
nails, miserable entreaty from Jehane, grown newly pinched and grey in
the face, and he owned it.
He said to her the last night, 'When I saw you first, my Queen of Snows,
in the tribune at Vézelay, when the knights rode by for the melée, the
green light from your eyes shot me, and wounded I cried out, "That maid
or none!"'
She bowed her head; but he went on. 'When they throned you queen of them
all because you were so proud and still, and had such a high untroubled
head; and when your sleeve was in my helm, and my heart in your lap, and
men fallen to my spear were sent to kneel before you--what caused your
cheek to burn and your eyes to shine so bright?'
She hid her face. 'Homage of the knights! The love of me!' he cried; and
then, 'Ah, Jehane of the Fair Girdle, when I took you from the pastures
of Gisors, when I taught you love and learned from your young mouth what
love might be, I was made man. But now you ask me to become dog.' And he
swore yet again he could never leave her. But she smiled proudly, being
in pain. 'Nay, my lord, but the man in you is awake, and not to leave
you. You shall go because you are the king's son, and I shall pray for
the new king.' So she beat him, and had him weeping terribly, his face
in her lap. She wept no more, but dry-eyed kissed him, and dry-lipped
went to bed. 'He said Yea that time,' records the Abbot Milo, 'but I
never knew then what she paid for it. That was later.' He went next
morning, and she saw him go.
CHAPTER II
HOW THE FAIR JEHANE BESTOWED HERSELF
Betimes is best for an ugly business; your man of spirit will always
rush what he loathes but yet must do. Count Richard of Poictou, having
made up his mind and confessed himself overnight, must leave with the
first cock of the morning, yet must take the sacrament. Before it was
grey in the east he did so, fully armed in mail, with his red surcoat of
leopards upon him, his sword girt, his spurs strapped on. Outside the
chapel in the weeping mirk a squire held his shield, another his helm, a
groom walked his horse. Milo the Abbot was celebrant, a snuffling boy
served; the Count knelt before the housel-cloth haloed by the light of
two thin candles. Hardly had the priest begun his _introibo_ when Jehane
Saint-Pol, who had been awake all night, stole in with a hood on her
head, and holding herself very stiffly, knelt on the floor. She joined
her hands and stuck them up before her, so that the tips of her fingers,
pointing upwards as her thoughts would fly, were nearly level with her
chin. Thus frozen in prayer she remained throughout the office; nor did
she relax when at the elevation of the Host Richard bowed himself to the
earth. It seemed as if she too, bearing between her hands her own heart,
was lifting it up for sacrifice and for worship.
The Count was communicated. He was a very religious man, who would
sooner have gone without his sword than his Saviour upon any affairs.
Jehane saw him fed without a twitch of the lips. She was in a great
mood, a rapt and pillared saint; but when mass was over and his
thanksgiving to make, she got up and hid herself away from him in the
shades. There she lurked darkling, and he, lunging out, swept with his
sword's point the very edge of her gown. She did not hear him go, for he
trod like a cat; but she felt him touch her with the sword, and
shuddered once or twice. He went out of the courtyard at a gallop.
While the abbot was reciting his own thanksgiving Jehane came out of her
corner, minded to speak with him. So much he divined, needing not the
beckoning look she sent him from her guarded eyes. He sat himself down
by the altar of Saint Remy, and she knelt beside him.
'Well, my daughter?' says Milo.
'I think it is well,' she took him up.
The Abbot Milo, a red-faced, watery-eyed old man, rheumy and weathered
well, then opened his mouth and spake such wisdom as he knew. He held up
his forefinger like a claw, and used it as if describing signs and
wonders in the air.
'Hearken, Madame Jehane,' he said. 'I say that you have done well, and
will maintain it. That great prince, whom I love like my own son, is not
for you, nor for another. No, no. He is married already.'
He hoped to startle her, the old rhetorician; but he failed. Jehane was
too dreary.
'He is married, my daughter,' he repeated; 'and to whom? Why, to
himself. That man from the birth has been a lonely soul. He can never
wed, as you understand it. You think him your lover! Believe me, he is
not. He is his own lover. He is called. He has a destiny. And what is
that? you ask me.'
She did not, but rhetoric bade him suppose it. 'Salem is his destiny;
Salem is his bride, the elect lady in bonds. He will not wed Madame
Alois of France, nor you, nor any virgin in Christendom until that
spiritual wedlock is consummate. I should not love him as I do if I did
not believe it. For why? Shall I call my own son apostate? He is signed
with the Cross, a married man, by our Saviour!'
He leaned back in his chair, peering down at her to see how she took it.
She took it stilly, and turned him a marble, storm-purged face, a pair
of eyes which seemed all black.
'What shall I do to be safe?' Her voice sounded worn.
'Safe, my child?' He wondered. 'Bless me, is not the Cross safety?'
'Not with him, father.'
This was perfectly true, though tainted with scandal, he thought. The
abbot, who was trained to blink all such facts, had to learn that this
girl blinked none. True to his guidance, he blinked.
'Go home to your brother, my daughter; go home to Saint-Pol-la-Marche.
At the worst, remember that there are always two arks for a woman in
flood-time, a convent and a bed.'
'I shall never choose a convent,' said Jehane.
'I think,' said the abbot, 'that you are perfectly wise.'
I suppose the alternative struck a sudden terror into her; for the abbot
abruptly records in his book that 'here her spirit seemed to flit out of
her, and she began to tremble very much, and in vain to contend with
tears. I had her all dissolved at my feet within a few moments. She was
very young, and seemed lost.'
'Come, come,' he said, 'you have shown yourself a brave girl these two
days. It is not every maid can sacrifice herself for a Count of Poictou,
the eldest son of a king. Come, come, let us have no more of this.' He
hoped, no doubt, to brace her by a roughness which was far from his
nature; and it is possible that he succeeded in heading off a mutiny of
the nerves. She was not violent under her despair, but went on crying
very miserably, saying, 'Oh, what shall I do? what shall I do?'
'God knoweth,' says the abbot, 'this was a bad case; but I had a good
thought for it.' He began to speak of Richard, of what he had done and
what would live to do. 'They say that the strain of the fiend is in that
race, my dear,' he told her. 'They say that Geoffrey Grey-Gown had
intercourse with a demon. And certain it is that in Richard, as in all
his brothers, that stinging grain lives in the blood. For testimony look
at their cognisance of leopards, and advise yourself, whether any house
in Christendom ever took that device but had known familiarly the devil
in some shape? And look again at the deeds of these princes. What turned
the young king to riot and death, and Geoffrey to rapine and death? What
else will turn John Sansterre to treachery and death, or our tall
Richard to violence and death? Nothing else, nothing else. But before
he dies you shall see him glorious--'
'He is glorious already,' said Jehane, wiping her eyes.
'Keep him so, then,' said the abbot testily, who did not love to have
his periods truncated.
'If I go back to Saint-Pol,' said Jehane, 'I shall fall in with Gilles
de Gurdun, who has sworn to have me.'
'Well,' replied the abbot, 'why should he not? Does he receive the
assurance of your brother the Count?'
Jehane shook her head. 'No, no. My brother wished me to be my lord
Richard's. But Gilles needs no assurance. He will buy my marriage from
the King of France. He is very sufficient.'
'Hath he substance? Hath he lands? Is he noble, then, Jehane?'
'He hath knighthood, a Church fief--oh, enough!'
'God forgive me if I did amiss,' writes the abbot here; 'but seeing her
in a melting mood, dewy, soft, and adorable, I kissed that beautiful
person, and she left the Chapel of Saint Remy somewhat comforted.'
Not only so, but the same day she left the Dark Tower with her brother
Count Eustace, and rode towards Gisors and Saint-Pol-la-Marche. Nothing
she could do could be shamefully done, because of her silence, and the
high head upon which she carried it; yet the Count of Saint-Pol, when he
heard her story, sitting bulky in his chair (like a stalled red bull),
did his best to put shame upon her, that so he might cover his own
bitterness. It was Eustace, a generous ardent youth in those days, who
saved her from most of Eudo's wrath by drawing it upon himself.
The Count of Saint-Pol swore a great oath.
'By the teeth of God, Jehane,' he roared, 'I see how it is. He hath made
thee a piece of ruin, and now runs wasting elsewhere.'
'You shall never say that of my sister, my lord,' cries Eustace, very
red in the face, 'nor yet of the greatest knight in the world.'
'Why, you egg,' says the Count, 'what have you to do in this? Tell me
the rights of it before you put me in the wrong. Is my house to be the
sport of Anjou? Is that long son of pirates and the devil to batten on
our pastures, tread underfoot, bruise and blacken, rout as he will,
break hedge and away? By my father's soul, Eustace, I shall see her
righted.' He turned to the still girl. 'You tell me that you sent him
away? Where did you send him? Where did he go?'
'He went to the King of England at Louviers, and to the camp,' said
Jehane. 'The King sent for him. I sent him not.'
'Who is there beside the King of England?'
'Madame Alois of France is there.'
The Count of Saint-Pol put his tongue in his cheek.
'Oho!' he said, 'Oho! That is how it stands? So she is to be cuckoo,
hey?' He sat square and intent for a moment or two, working his mouth
like a man who chews a straw. Then he slapped his big hand on his knee,
and rose up. 'If I cannot spike this wheel of vice, trust me never. By
my soul, a plot indeed. Oh, horrible, horrible thief!' He turned
gnashing upon his brother. 'Now, Eustace, what do you say to your
greatest knight in the world? And what now of your sister, hey? Little
fool, do you not catch the measure of it now? Two honey years of Jehane
Saint-Pol, gossamer pledges of mouth and mouth, of stealing fingers,
kiss and clasp; but for the French King's daughter--pish! the thing of
naught they have made her--the sacrament of marriage, the treaty, the
dowry-fee. Oh, heaven and earth, Eustace, answer me if you can.'
All three were moved in their several ways: the Count red and blinking,
Eustace red and trembling, Jehane white as a cloth, trembling also, but
very silent. The word was with the younger man.
'I know nothing of all this, upon my word, my lord,' he said, confused.
'I love Count Richard, I love my sister. There may have been that which,
had I loved but one, I had condemned in the other. I know not, but'--he
saw Jehane's marble face, and lifted his hand up--'by my hope, I will
never believe it. In love they came together, my lord; in love, says
Jehane, they have parted. I have heard little of Madame Alois, but my
thought is, that kings and the sons of kings may marry kings' daughters,
yet not in the way of love.'
The Count fumed. 'You are a fool, I see, and therefore not to my
purpose. I must talk with men. Stay you here, Eustace, and watch over
her till I return. Let none get at her, on your dear life. There are
those who--sniffing rogues, climbers, boilers of their pots--keep them
out, Eustace, keep them out. As for you'--he turned hectoring to the
proud girl--'As for you, mistress, keep the house. You are not in the
market, you are spoilt goods. You shall go where you should be. I am
still lord of these lands; there shall be no rebellion here. Keep the
house, I say. I return ere many days.' He stamped out of the hall; they
heard him next rating the grooms at the gate.
Saint-Pol was a great house, a noble house, no doubt of it. Its counts
drew no limits in the way of pedigree, but built themselves a fair
temple in that kind, with the Twelfth Apostle himself for head of the
corner. So far as estate went, seeing their country was fruitful,
compact, snugly bounded between France and Normandy (owing fealty to the
first), they might have been sovereign counts, like the house of Blois,
like that of Aquitaine, like that even of Anjou, which, from nothing,
had risen to be so high. More: by marriage, by robbery on that great
plan where it ceases to be robbery and is called warfare, by treaty and
nice use of the balances, there was no reason why kingship should not
have been theirs, or in their blood. Kingship, even now, was not far
off. They called the Marquess of Montferrat cousin, and he (it was
understood) intended to be throned at Jerusalem. The Emperor himself
might call, and once (being in liquor) did call Count Eudo of Saint-Pol
'cousin'; for the fact was so. You must understand that in the Gaul of
that day things were in this ticklish state, that a man (as they say)
was worth the scope of his sword: reiver yesterday, warrior to-morrow;
yesterday wearing a hemp collar, to-day a count's belt, and to-morrow,
may be, a king's crown. You climbed in various ways, by the field, by
the board, by the bed. A handsome daughter was nearly worth a stout son.
Count Eudo reckoned himself stout enough, and reckoned Eustace was so;
but the beauty of Jehane, that stately maid who might uphold a cornice,
that still wonder of ivory and gold, was an emblement which he, the
tenant, meant to profit by; and so for an hour (two years by the clock)
he saw his profit fair. The infatuation of the girl for this man or that
man was nothing; but the infatuation of the great Count of Poictou for
her set Eudo's heart ablaze. God willing, Saint Maclou assisting, he
might live to call Jehane 'My Lady Queen.' He shut his ears to report;
there were those who called Richard a rake, and others who called him
'Yea-and-Nay'; that was Bertran de Born's name for him, and all Paris
knew it. He shut his eyes to Richard's galling unconcern with himself
and his dignity. Dignity of Saint-Pol! He would wait for his dignity. He
shut his mind to Jehane's blown fame, to the threatenings of his
dreadful Norman neighbour, Henry the old king, who had had an archbishop
pole-axed like a steer; he dared the anger of his suzerain, in whose
hands lay Jehane's marriage; a heady gambler, he staked the fortunes of
his house upon this clinging of a girl to a wild prince. And now to tell
himself that he deserved what he had got was but to feed his rage. Again
he swore by God's teeth that he would have his way; and when he left his
castle of Saint-Pol-la-Marche it was for Paris.
The head of his house, under the Emperor Henry, was there, Conrad of
Montferrat, trying to negotiate the crown of Jerusalem. There must be a
conference before the house of Saint-Pol could be let to fall. Surely
the Marquess would never allow it! He must spike the wheel. Was not
Alois of France within the degrees? She was sister to the French King:
well, but what was Richard's mother? She had been wife to Louis, wife to
Alois' father. Was this decency? What would the Pope say--an Italian?
Was the Marquess Conrad an Italian for nothing? Was 'our cousin' the
Emperor of no account, King of the Romans? The Pope Italian, the
Marquess Italian, the Emperor on his throne, and God in His heaven--eh,
eh! there should be a conference of these high powers. So, and with such
whirl of question and answer, did the Count of Saint-Pol beat out to
Paris.
But Jehane remained at Saint-Pol-la-Marche, praying much, going little
abroad, seeing few persons. Then came (since rumour is a gadabout) Sir
Gilles de Gurdun, as she knew he would, and knelt before her, and kissed
her hand. Gilles was a square-shouldered, thick-set youth of the black
Norman sort, ruddy, strong-jawed, small-eyed, low in the brow,
bullet-headed. He was no taller than she, looked shorter, and had
nothing to say. He had loved her since the time when she was an
overgrown girl of twelve years, and he a squire about her father's house
learning mannishness. The King of England had dubbed him a knight, but
she had made him a man. She knew him to be a good one; as dull as a
mud-flat, but honest, wholesome, and of decent estate. In a moment,
when he was come again, she saw that he was a long lover who would treat
her well.
'God help me, and him also,' she thought; 'it may be that I shall need
him before long.'
CHAPTER III
IN WHAT HARBOUR THEY FOUND THE OLD LION
At Evreux, across the heath, Count Richard found his company: the
Viscount Adhémar of Limoges (called for the present the Good Viscount),
the Count of Perigord, Sir Gaston of Béarn (who really loved him), the
Bishop of Castres, and the Monk of Montauban (a singing-bird); some
dozen of knights with their esquires, pages, and men-at-arms. He waited
two days there for Abbot Milo to come up with last news of Jehane; then
at the head of sixty spears he rode fleetly over the marshes towards
Louviers. After his first, 'You are well met, my lords,' he had said
very little, showing a cold humour; after a colloquy with Milo, which he
had before he left his bed, he said nothing at all. Alone, as became one
of his race, he rode ahead of his force; not even the chirping Monk (who
remembered his brother Henry and often sighed for him) cared to risk a
shot from his strong eyes. They were like blue stones, full of the cold
glitter of their fire. It was at times like this, when a man stands
naked confronting his purpose, that one saw the hag riding on the back
of Anjou.
He was not thinking of it now, but the truth is that there had hardly
been a time in his short life when he had not been his father's open
enemy. He could have told you that it had not been always his fault,
though he would never have told you. But I say that what he, a youth of
thirty, had made of his inheritance was as nothing to that elder's
wasting of his. In moments of hot rage Richard knew this, and justified
himself; but the melting hour came again when he heaped all reproach
upon himself, believing that but for such and such he might have loved
this rooted, terrible old man who assuredly loved not him. Richard was
neither mule nor jade; he was open to persuasion on two sides.
Compunction was one: you could touch him on the heart and bring him
weeping to his knees; affection was another: if he loved the petitioner
he yielded handsomely. Now, this time it was Jehane and not his
conscience which had sent him to Louviers. First of all Jehane had
pleaded the Sepulchre, his old father, filial obedience, and he had
laughed at the sweet fool. But when she, grown wiser, urged him to
pleasure her by treading on the heart she had given him, he could not
deny her. He was converted, not convinced. So he rode alone, three
hundred yards from his lieges, reasoning out how he could preserve his
honour and yet yield. The more he thought the less he liked it, but all
the more he felt necessity at his throat. And, as always with him, when
he thought he seemed as if turned to stone. 'One way or another,' Milo
tells us, 'every man of the House of Anjou had his unapproachable side,
so accustomed were they to the fortress-life.'
A broad plain, watered by many rivers, showed the towers of Louviers and
red roofs cinctured by the greatest of them; short of the walls were
the ranked white tents, columned smoke, waggons, with men and horses, as
purposeless, little, and busy as a swarm of bees. In the midst of this
array was a red pavilion with a standard at the side, too heavy for the
wind. All was set in the clear sunless air of an autumn day in Normandy;
the hour, one short of noon. Richard reined up for his company, on a
little hill.
'The powers of England, my lords,' he said, pointing with his hand. All
stayed beside him. Gaston of Béarn tweaked his black beard.
'Let us be done with the business, Richard,' said this knight, 'before
the irons can get out.'
'What!' cried the Count, 'shall a father smite his son?' No one
answered: in a moment he was ashamed of himself. 'Before God,' he said,
'I mean no impiety. I will do what I have undertaken as gently as may
be. Come, gentlemen.' He rode on.
The camp was defended by fosse and bridge. At the barbican all the
Aquitanians except Richard dismounted, and all stayed about him while a
herald went forward to tell the King who was come in. The King knew very
well who it was, but chose not to know it; he kept the herald long
enough to make his visitors chafe, then sent word that the Count of
Poictou would be received, but alone. Claiming his right to ride in,
Richard followed the heralds at a foot's pace, alone, ungreeted by any.
At the mount of the standard he got off his horse, found the ushers of
the King's door, and went swiftly to the entry of the pavilion (which
they held open for him), as though, like some forest beast, he saw his
prey. There in the entry he stiffened suddenly, and stiffly went down on
his two knees. Midway of the great tent, square and rugged before him,
with working jaws and restless little fired eyes, sat the old King his
father, hands on knees, between them a long bare sword. Beside him was
his son John, thin and flushed, and about, a circle of peers: two
bishops in purple, a pock-marked monk of Cluny, Bohun, Grantmesnil,
Drago de Merlou, and a few more. On the ground was a secretary biting
his pen.
The King looked his best on a throne, for his upper part was his best.
It was, at least, the mannish part. With scanty red hair much rubbed
into disorder, a seamed red face, blotched and shining; with a square
jaw awry, the neck and shoulders of a bull; with gnarled gross hands at
the end of arms long out of measure, a cruel mouth and a nose like a
bird's beak--his features seemed to have been hacked coarsely out of
wood and as coarsely painted; but what might have passed by such means
for a man was transformed by his burning eyes, with their fuel of pain,
into the similitude of a fallen angel. The devil of Anjou sat eating
King Henry's eyes, and you saw him at his meal. It gave the man the look
of a wild boar easing his tusks against a tree, horrible, yet content to
be abhorred, splendid, because so strong and lonely. But the prospect
was not comfortable. Little as he knew of his father, Richard could make
no mistake here. The old King was in a picksome mood, fretted by rage:
angry that his son should kneel there, more than angry that he had not
knelt before.
The play began, like a farce. The King affected not to see him, let him
kneel on. Richard did kneel on, as stiff as a rod. The King talked with
obscene jocosity, every snap betraying his humour, to Prince John; he
scandalised even his bishops, he abashed even his barons. He infinitely
degraded himself, yet seemed to wallow in disgrace. So Richard's gorge
(a tender organ) rose to hear him. 'God, what wast Thou about, to let
such a hog be made?' he muttered, loud enough for at least three people
to hear. The King heard it and was pleased; the Prince heard it, and
with a scared eye perceived that Bohun had heard it. The King went
grating on, John fidgeted; Bohun, greatly daring, whispered in his
master's ear.
The King replied with a roar which all the camp might have heard. 'Ha!
Sacred Face, let him kneel, Bohun. That is a new custom for him, useful
science for a man of his trade. All men of the sword come to it sooner
or later--sooner or later, by God!'
Hereupon Richard, very deliberately, rose to his feet and stepped
forward to the throne. His great height was a crowning abomination. The
King blinked up at him, showing his tushes.
'What now, sir?' he said.
'Later for me, sire, if kneeling is to be done by soldiers,' said
Richard. The King controlled himself by swallowing.
'And yet, Richard,' he said, dry as dust, 'And yet, Richard, you have
knelt to the French lad soon enough.'
'To my liege-lord, sire? Yes, it is true.'
'He is not your liege-lord, man,' roared the King. 'I am your
liege-lord, by heaven. I gave and I can take away. Heed me now.'
'Fair sire,' says Richard, 'observe that I have knelt to you. I am not
here for any other reason, and least of all to try conclusions of the
voice. I have come out of my lands with my company to give you
obedience. Be sure that they, on their part, will pay you proper honour
(as I do) if you will let them.'
'You come from lands I have given you, as Henry came, as Geoffrey came,
to defy me,' said the old man, trembling in his chair. 'What is your
obedience worth when I have measured theirs: Henry's obedience!
Geoffrey's obedience! Pish, man, what words you use.' He got up and
stamped about the tent like an irritable dwarf, crook-legged and
long-armed, pricked, maddened at every point. 'And you tell me of your
men, your lands, your company! Good men all, a fair company, by the Rood
of Grace! Tell me now, Richard, have you Raimon of Toulouse in that
company? Have you Béziers?'
'No, sire,' said Richard, looking serenely down at the working face.
'Nor ever will have,' snarled the King. 'Have you the Knight of Béarn?'
'I have, sire.'
'Ill company, Richard. It is a white-faced, lying beast, with a most
goatish beard. Have you your singing monk?'
'I have, sire.'
'Shameful company. Have you Adhémar of Limoges?'
'Yes, sire.'
'Silly company. Leave him with his women. Have you your Abbot Milo?'
'Yes.'
'Sick company.' His head sank into his breast; he found himself suddenly
tired, even of reviling, and had to sit down again. Richard felt a tide
of pity; looking down at the huddled old man, he held out his hand.
'Let us not quarrel, father,' he said; but that brought up the King's
head, like a call to arms.
'A last question, Richard. Have you dared bring here Bertran de Born?'
He was on his feet again for the reply, and the two men faced each
other. Everybody knew how serious the question was. It sobered the
Count, but drove the pity out of him.
'Dare is not a word for Anjou, sire,' he replied, picking his phrases;
'but Bertran is not with me.' Before the old man could break again into
savagery he went on to his main purpose. 'Sire, short speeches are best.
You seek to draw my ill-humours, but you shall not draw them. As son and
servant of your Grace I came in, and so will go out. As a son I have
knelt to the King my father, as servant I am ready to obey him. Let that
marriage, designed in the cradle by the French King and you, go on. I
will do my part if Madame Alois will do hers.'
Richard folded his arms; the King sat down again. A queer exchange of
glances had passed between his father and brother at the mention of that
lady's name. Richard, who saw it, got the feeling of some secret between
them, the feeling of being in a trap; but he said nothing. The King
began his old harping.
'Attend to me now, Richard,' he said, with much work of the eyebrows;
'if that ill-gotten beast Bertran had been of your meinie our last words
had been said. Beast! He is a toothed snake, that crawled into my boy's
bed and bit passion into him. Lord Jesus, if ever again I meet Bertran,
help Thou me to redden his face! But as it is, I am content. Rest you
here with me, if so rough a lodging may content your nobility. As for
Madame Alois, she shall be sent for; but I think I will not meet your
bevy of joglars from the south. I have a proud stomach o' these days; I
doubt pastry from Languedoc would turn me sour; and liking monks little
enough as it is, your throstle-cock of Montauban might cause me to
blaspheme. See them entertained, Drago; or better, let them entertain
each other--with singing games, holy God! Go you, Bohun'--and he
turned--'fetch in Madame Alois.' Bohun went through a curtain behind
him, and the King sat in thought, biting his thumbs.
Madame Alois of France came out of the inner tent, a slinking, thin
girl, with the white and tragic face of the fool in a comedy set in
black hair. Richard thought she was mad by the way she stared about her
from one man to another; but he went down on his knee in a moment.
Prince John turned stiff, the old King bent his brows to watch Richard.
The lady, who was dressed in black, and looked to be half fainting,
shrank in an odd way towards the wall, as if to avoid a whip. 'Too long
in England, poor soul,' Richard thought; 'but why did she come from the
King's tent?'
It was not a cheerful meeting, nor did the King show any desire to make
it better. When by roundabout and furtive ways Madame Alois at last
stood drooping by his chair, he began to talk to her in English, a
language unknown to Richard, though familiar enough, he saw, to his
father and brother. 'It seems to be his Grace's desire to make me
ridiculous,' he went on to say to himself: 'what a dead-level of grim
words! In English, it appears, you do not talk. You stab with the
tongue.' In truth, there was no conversation. The King or the Prince
spoke, and Madame Alois moistened her lips; she looked nowhere but at
the old tyrant, not at his eyes, but above them, at his forehead, and
with a trepitant gaze, like a watched hare's. 'The King has her in
thrall, soul and body,' Richard considered. Then his knee began to ache,
and he released it. 'Fair sire,' he began in his own tongue. Madame
Alois gave a start, and 'Ha, Richard,' says the King, 'art thou still
there, man?'
'Where else, my lord?' asked the son. The father looked at Alois.
'Deign to recognise in this baron, Madame,' he said, 'my son the Count
of Poictou. Let him salute, Madame, that which he has sought from so
far, and with such humility, pardieu; your white hand, Alois.' The
strange girl quivered, then put her hand out. Richard, kissing it, found
it horribly cold.
'Lady,' he said, 'I pray we may be better acquainted; but I must tell
you that I have no English. Let me hope that in this good land you may
recover your French.' He got no answer from the lady, but, by heaven, he
made his father angry.
'We hope, Richard, that you will teach Madame better things than that,'
sniffed the old man, nosing about for battle.
'I pray that I may teach her no worse, my lord,' replied the other. 'You
will perhaps allow that for a daughter of France the tongue may have its
uses.'
'As English, Count, for the son of England!' cried his father; 'or for
his wife, by the mass, if he is fit to have one.'
'Of that, sire, we must talk at your Grace's leisure,' said Richard
slowly. 'Jesus!' he asked himself, 'will he put me to a block of ice?
What is the matter with this woman?' The King put an end to his
questions by dismissing Madame Alois, breaking up the assembly, and
himself retiring. He was dreadfully fatigued, quite white and
breathless. Richard saw him follow the lady through the inner curtain,
and again was uncomfortably suspicious. But when his brother John made
to slip in also he thought there must be an end of it. He tapped the
young man on the shoulder.
'Brother, a word with you,' says he; and John came twittering back. The
two were alone in the tent.
This John--Sansterre, Landlos, Lackland, so they variously called
him--was a timid copy of his brother, a wry-necked reedy Richard with a
sniff. Not so tall, yet more spare, with blue eyes more pallid than his
brother's, and protruding where Richard's were inset, the difference lay
more in degree than kind. Richard was of heroic build, but a well-knit,
well-shaped hero; in John the arms were too long, the head too small,
the brow too narrow. Richard's eyes were perhaps too wide apart; no
doubt John's were too near together. Richard twitched his fingers when
he was moved, John bit his cheek. Richard stooped from the neck, John
from the shoulders. When Richard threw up his head you saw the lion;
John at bay reminded you of a wolf in a corner. John snarled at such
times, Richard breathed through his nose. John showed his teeth when he
was crossed, Richard when he was merry. So many thousand points of
unlikeness might be named, all small: the Lord knows here are enough.
The Angevin cat-and-dog nature was fairly divided between these two.
Richard had the sufficiency of the cat, John the dependence of a dog;
John had the cat's secretiveness, Richard the dog's dash. At heart John
was a thief.
He feared and hated his brother; so when Richard said, 'Brother, a word
with you,' John tried to disguise apprehension in disgust. The result
was a very sick smile.
'Willingly, dear brother, and the more so--' he began; but Richard cut
him short.
'What under the light of the sky is the matter with that lady?' he asked
him.
John had been preparing for that. He raised his eyebrows and splayed out
both his hands. 'Can you ask? Eh, our Lord! Emotion--a stranger in a
strange land--an access of the shudders--who knows women? So long from
France-dreadful of her brother--dreadful of you--so many things! a silly
mind--ah, my brother!'
Richard checked him testily. 'Put a point, put a point, you drown me in
phrases; your explanations explain nothing. One more word. What in the
devil's name is she doing in there?' He had a short way. John began to
stammer.
'A second father--a tender guardian--'
'Pish!' said Count Richard, and turned to leave the pavilion. Prince
John slipped through the curtains, and at that moment Richard heard a
little fretful cry within, not the cry of mortal lady. 'What under
heaven have they got in there, this family?' he asked himself.
Shrugging, he went out into the fresh air.
The abbot notes that his lord and master came running into his quarters,
'and tumbled upon me, like a lover who finds his mistress after many
days. "Milo, Milo, Milo," he began to cry, three times over, as if the
name helped him, "Thou wilt live to see a puddock upon the throne of
England!" Thus he strangely said.'
CHAPTER IV
HOW JEHANE STROKED WHAT ALOIS HAD MADE FIERCE
When the Count of Saint-Pol came to Paris he found the going very
delicate. For it is a delicate matter to confer in a king's capital,
with a king's allies, how best to throw obstacles in that king's way. As
a matter of fact he found that he could do little or nothing in the
business. King Philip was in great feather concerning his sister's
arrival; the heralds were preparing to go out to meet her. Nicholas d'Eu
and the Baron of Quercy were to accompany them; King Philip thought
Saint-Pol the very man to make a third, but this did not suit the Count
at all. He sought out his kinsman the Marquess of Montferrat, a heavy
Italian, who gave him very little comfort. All he could suggest was that
his 'good cousin' would do better to help him to the certain throne of
Jerusalem. 'What do you want with more than one king in a family?' asked
the Marquess. Saint-Pol grew rather dry as he assured him that one king
would suffice, and that Anjou was nearer than Jerusalem. He went on to
hint at various strange speculations rife concerning the history of
Madame Alois. 'If you want garbage, Eudo,' said Montferrat to this,
'come not to me. But I know a rat who might be of service.'
'The name of your rat, Marquess! It is all I ask.'
'Bertran de Born: who else?' said Montferrat. Now, Bertran de Born was
the thorn in the flesh of Anjou, a rankling addition to their state whom
they were never without. Saint-Pol knew his value very well, and decided
to go down to see the man in his own country. So he would have gone, no
doubt, had not his sovereign judged otherwise. Saint-Pol received
commands to accompany the heralds to Louviers, so had to content himself
with a messenger to the trobador and a letter which announced the
extreme happiness of the great Count of Poictou. This, he knew, would
draw the poison-bag.
The Frenchmen arrived at Louviers none too soon. As well mix fire and
ice as Poictevin with Norman or Angevin with Angevin. The princes
stalked about with claws out of velvet, the nobles bickered fiercely,
and the men-at-arms did after their kind. There was open fighting.
Gaston of Béarn picked a quarrel with John Botetort, and they fought it
out with daggers in the fosse. Then Count Richard took one of his
brother's goshawks and would not give it up. Over the long body of that
bird half a score noblemen engaged with swords; the Count of Poictou
himself accounted for six, and ended by pommelling his brother into a
red jelly. There was a week or more of this, during which the old King
hunted like a madman all day and revelled in gloomy vices all night.
Richard saw little of him and little of the lady of France. She, a pale
shade, flitted dismally out when evoked by the King, dismally in again
at a nod from him. Whenever she did appear Prince John hovered about,
looking tormented; afterwards the pock-marked Cluniac might be heard
lecturing her on theology and the soul's business in passionless
monologue. It was very far from gay. As for her, Richard believed her
melancholy mad; he himself grew fretful, irritable, most quarrelsome.
Thus it was that he first plundered and then punched his brother.
After that Prince John disappeared for a little to nurse his sores, and
Richard got within fair speaking distance of Madame Alois. In fact, she
sent for him late one night when the King, as he knew, was away,
munching the ashes of charred pleasure in some stews or other. He obeyed
the summons with a half-shrug.
They received him with consternation. The distracted lady was in a
chair, hugging herself; the Cluniac stood by, a mortified emblem; a
scared woman or two fled behind the throne. Madame Alois, when she saw
who the visitor was, began to shake.
'Oh, oh!' she said in a whisper, 'have you come to murder me, my lord?'
'Why, Madame,' Richard made haste to say, 'I would serve you any other
way but that, and supposed I had the right. But I came because you sent
for me.'
She passed her hand once or twice over her face, as if to brush cobwebs
away; one of the women made a piteous appeal of the eyes to Richard, who
took no notice of it; the monk said something to himself in a low voice,
then to the Count, 'Madame is overwrought, my lord.'
'Yes, you rascal,' thought Richard; 'your work.' Aloud he said, 'I hope
her Grace will give you leave to retire, sir.' Madame hereupon waved her
people away, and went on waving long after they had gone. Thus she was
alone with her future lord. There was the wreck of fine beauty about her
drawn race, beauty of the black-and-white, sheeted sort; but she looked
as if she walked with ghosts. Richard was very gentle with her. He drew
near, saying, 'I grieve to see you thus, Madame'; but she stopped him
with a question--
'They seek to have you marry me?'
He smiled: 'Our masters desire it, Madame.'
'Are you very sure of that?'
'I am here,' he explained, 'because I am so sure.'
'And you desire--'
'I, Madame,' he said quickly and shortly, 'desire two things--the good
of my country and your good. If I desire anything else, God knows it is
to keep my promise.'
'What is your promise?'
'Madame,' said Richard, 'I bear the Cross on my shoulder, as you see.'
'Why,' she said, fearfully regarding it, 'that is God's work!'
She began to walk about the room quickly, and to talk to herself. He
could not catch properly what she said. Religion came into it, and a
question of time. 'Now it should be done, now it should be done!' and
then, 'Hear, O thou Shepherd of Israel!' and then with a wild look into
Richard's face--'That was a strange thing to do to a lady. They can
never lay that to me!' Afterwards she began to wring her hands, with a
cry of 'Fie, poison, poison, poison!' looking at Richard all the time.
'This poor lady,' he told himself, 'is possessed by a devil, therefore
no wife for me, who have devil enough and to spare.'
'What ails you, Madame?' he asked her. 'Tell me your grief, and upon my
life I will amend it if I can.'
'You cannot,' she said. 'Nothing can mend it.'
'Then, with leave'--he went to the curtains--'I will call your Grace's
people. Our discussions can be later; there is time enough.'
She would have stopped him had she dared, or had the force; but
literally she was spent. There was just time to get the women in before
she tumbled. Richard, in his perplexity, determined to wrangle out the
matter with the King on the morrow, cost what it might. So he did; and
to his high surprise the King reasoned instead of railing. Madame Alois,
he said, was weakly, un-wholesome indeed. In his opinion she wanted,
what all young women want, a husband. She was too much given to the
cloister, she had visions, she was feared to use the discipline, she ate
nothing, was more often on her knees than on her feet. 'All this, my
son,' said King Henry, 'you shall correct at your discretion. Humours,
vapours, qualms, fantasies--pouf! You can blow them away with a kiss.
Have you tried it? No? Too cold? Nay, but you should.' And so on, and so
on. That day, none too soon, the French ambassadors arrived, and
Richard saw the Count of Saint-Pol among them.
He had never liked the Count of Saint-Pol; or perhaps it would be truer
to say that he disliked him more than ordinary. But he belonged to, had
even a tinge of, Jehane; some of her secret fragrance hung about him, he
walked in some ray of her glory. It seemed to Richard, bothered, sick,
fretted, a little disconcerted as he was now, that the Count of
Saint-Pol had an air which none other of this people had. He greeted him
therefore with more than usual affability, very much to Saint-Pol's
concern. Richard observed this, and suddenly remembered that he was
doing the man what the man must certainly believe to be a cruel wrong.
'_Mort de Dieu!_ What am I about?' his heart cried. 'I ought to be
ashamed to look this fellow in the face, and here I am making a brother
of him.'
'Saint-Pol,' he said immediately, 'I should like to speak with you. I
owe you that.'
'Your Grace's servant,' said Eudo, with a stiff reverence, 'when and
where you will.'
'Follow me,' said Richard, 'as soon as you have done with all this
foppery.'
In about an hour's time he was obeyed. After his fashion he took a
straight plunge.
'Saint-Pol,' he said, 'I think you know where my heart is, whether here
or elsewhere. I desire you to understand that in this case I am acting
against my own will and judgment.'
The frankness of this lordly creature was unmistakable, even to
Saint-Pol.
'Hey, sire--,' he began spluttering, honesty in arms with rage. Richard
took him up.
'If you doubt that, as you have my leave to do, I am ready to convince
you. I will ride with you wherever you choose, and place myself at your
discretion. Subject to this, mind you, that the award is final. Once
more I will do it. Will you abide by that? Will you come with me?'
Saint-Pol cursed his fate. Here he was, tied to the French girl.
'My lord,' he said, 'I cannot obey you. My duty is to take Madame to
Paris. That is my master's command.'
'Well,' said Richard, 'then I shall go alone. Once more I shall go. I am
sick to death of this business.'
'My lord Richard,' cried Saint-Pol, 'I am no man to command you. Yet I
say, Go. I know not what has passed between your Grace and my sister
Jehane; but this I know very well. It will be a strange thing'--he
laughed, not pleasantly--'a strange thing, I say, if you cannot bend
that arbiter to your own way of thinking.' Richard looked at him coldly.
'If I could do that, my friend,' he said, 'I should not suffer
arbitration at all.'
'The proposition was not mine, my lord,' urged Saint-Pol.
'It could not be, sir,' Richard said sharply. 'I proposed it myself,
because I consider that a lady has the right to dispose of her own
person. She loved me once.'
'I believe that she is yours at this hour, sire.'
'That is what I propose to find out,' said Richard. 'Enough. What news
have they in Paris?'
Saint-Pol could not help himself; he was bursting with a budget he had
received from the south. 'They greatly admire a sirvente of Bertran de
Born's, sire.'
'What is the stuff of the sirvente?'
'It is a scandalous subject, sire. He calls it the Sirvente of Kings,
and speaks much evil of your Order.' Richard laughed.
'I will warrant him to do that better than any man alive, and allow him
some reason for it. I think I will go to see Bertran.'
'Ha, sire,' said Saint-Pol with meaning, 'he will tell you many things,
some good, and some not so good.'
'Be sure he will,' said Richard. 'That is Bertran's way.'
He would trust no one with his present reflections, and seek no outside
strength against his present temptations. He had always had his way; it
had seemed to come to him by right, by the _droit de seigneur_, the
natural law which puts the necks of fools under the heels of strong men.
No need to consider of all that: he knew that the thing desired lay to
his hand; he could make Jehane his again if he would, and neither King
of England nor King of France, nor Council of Westminster nor Diet of
the Empire could stop him--if he would. But that, he felt now, was just
what he would not. To beat her down with torrents of love-cries; to have
her trembling, cowed, drummed out of her wits by her own heart-beats; to
compel, to dominate, to tame, when her young pride and young strength
were the things most beautiful in her: never, by the Cross of Christ!
That, I suppose, is as near to true love as a man can get, to reverence
in a girl that which holds her apart. Richard got so near precisely
because he was less lover than poet. You may doubt, if you choose (with
Abbot Milo), whether he had love in him. I doubt. But certainly he was a
poet. He saw Jehane all glorious, and gave thanks for the sight. He felt
to touch heaven when he neared her; but he did not covet her possession,
at the moment. Perhaps he felt that he did possess her: it is a poet's
way. So little, at any rate, did he covet, that, having made up his mind
what he would do, he sent Gaston of Béarn to Saint-Pol-la-Marche with a
letter for Jehane, in which he said: 'In two days I shall see you for
the last or for all time, as you will'--and then possessed himself in
patience the appointed number of hours.
Gaston of Béarn, romantic figure in those grey latitudes, pale,
black-eyed, freakishly bearded, dressed in bright green, rode his way
singing, announced himself to the lady as the Child of Love; and when he
saw her kissed her foot.
'Starry Wonder of the North,' he said, kneeling, 'I bring fuel to your
ineffable fires. Our King of Lovers and Lover among Kings is all at your
feet, sighing in this paper.' He seemed to talk in capitals, with a
flourish handed her the scroll. He had the gratification to see her clap
a hand to her side directly she touched it; but no more. She perused it
with unwavering eyes in a stiff head.
'Farewell, sir,' she said then; 'I will prepare for my lord.'
'And I, lady,' said Gaston, 'in consequence of a vow I have vowed my
saint, will await his coming in the forest, neither sleeping nor eating
until he has his enormous desires. Farewell, lady.'
He went out backwards, to keep his promise. The brown woodland was gay
with him for a day and a night; for he sang nearly all the time with
unflagging spirits. But Jehane spent part of the interval in the chapel,
with her hands crossed upon her fine bosom. The God in her heart fought
with Him on the altar. She said no prayers; but when she left the place
she sent a messenger for Gilles de Gurdun, the blunt-nosed Norman knight
who loved her so much that he said nothing about it.
This Gurdun, pricking through the woods, came upon Gaston of Béarn,
dazzling as a spring tree and singing like an inspired machine. He
pulled up at the wonderful sight, and scowled. It is the proper Norman
greeting. Gaston treated him as part of the landscape, like the rest of
it mournful, but provocative of song.
'Give you good-day, beau sire,' said Gilles; Gaston waved his hand and
went on singing at the top of his voice. Then Gilles, who was pressed,
tried to pass; and Gaston folded his arms.
'Ha, beef,' said he, 'none pass here but the brave.'
'Out, parrot,' quoth Gilles, and plunged through the wood.
Because of Gaston's vow there was no blood shed at the moment, but he
had hopes that he might be released in time. 'There goes a dead man,'
was therefore his comment before he resumed.
But Jehane, when she heard the horse, ran out to meet his rider. Her
face was alight. 'Come in, come in,' she said, and took him by the hand.
He followed her with a beating heart, neither daring nor knowing how to
say anything. She led him into the little dark chapel.
'Gilles, Gilles,' she said panting, 'do you love me, Gilles?'
He was hoarse, could hardly speak for the crack in his throat. 'O God,'
he said under his breath, 'O God, Jehane, how I love you!'
Here, because of a certain flicker in her eyes, he made forward; but she
put out her two hands the length of her arms and fenced him off. 'No,
no, Gilles, not yet.' Pain sharpened her voice. 'Listen first to me. I
do not love you; but I am frightened. Some one is coming; you must be
here to help me. I give myself to you--I will be yours--I must--there is
no other way.'
She stopped; you could have heard the thudding of her heart.
'Give then,' said Gilles with a croak, and took her.
She felt herself engulfed in a sea of fire, but set her teeth and
endured the burning of that death. The poor fellow did but kiss her once
or twice, and kissed no closer than the Angevin; but the grace is one
that goes by favour. Gilles, nevertheless, took primer seisin and was
content. Afterwards, hand in hand, trembling each, the possessed and the
possessing, they stood before the twinkling lamp which hinted at the Son
of God, and waited what must happen.
In about half an hour's time Jehane heard the long padding tread she
knew so well, and took a deep breath. Next Gilles heard something.
'One comes. Who comes?' he said whispering.
'Richard of Anjou. I need you now.'
'Do you want me to--?' Gilles honestly thought he was to kill the Count.
She undeceived him soon.
'To kill Richard, Gilles? Nay, man, he is not for your killing.' She
gave a short laugh, not very pleasant for her lover to hear. But Gilles,
for all that, put hand to hilt. The Count of Poictou stooped at the
entry and saw them together.
It wanted but that to blow the embers. Something tigerish surged in him,
some gust of jealousy, some arrogant tide in the blood not all clean. He
moved forward like a wind and caught the girl up in his arms, lifted her
off her feet, smothered her cry. 'My Jehane, my Jehane, who dares--?'
Gilles touched him on the shoulder, and he turned like lightning with
Jehane held fast. His breath came quick and short through his nose:
Gilles believed his last hour at hand, but made the most of it.
'What now, dog?' thus the lean Richard.
'Set down the lady, my lord,' said doughty Gilles. 'She is promised to
me.'
'Heart of God, what is this?' He held back his head, like a snake, that
he might see what he would strike at. 'Is it true, girl?' Jehane looked
up from his shoulder, where she had been hiding her face. She could not
speak, but she nodded.
'It is true? Thou art promised?'
'I am promised, my lord,' said Jehane. 'Let me go.'
He put her down at once, between himself and Gurdun. Gurdun went to take
up her hand again, but at a look from Richard forbore. The Count went on
with his interrogatories, outwardly as calm as a field of snow.
'In whose name art thou promised to this knight, Jehane? In thy
brother's?'
'No, lord. In my own.'
'Am I nothing?' She began to cry.
'Oh, oh!' she wailed, 'You are everything, everything in the world.'
He turned away from her, and stood facing the altar, with folded arms,
considering. Gilles had the wit to be silent; the girl fought for
breath. Richard, in fact, was touched to the heart, and capable of any
sacrifice which could seem the equivalent of this. He must always lead,
even in magnanimity; but it was a better thing than emulation moved him
now. When he next turned with a calm, true face to Jehane there was not
a shred of the Angevin in him; all was burnt away.
'What is the name of this knight, Jehane?' She told him, Gilles de
Gurdun.
Then he said, 'Come hither, De Gurdun,' and Gilles knelt down before the
son of his overlord. Jehane would have knelt to him too, but that he
held her by the hand and would not suffer it.
'Now, Gilles, listen to what I shall tell you,' said Richard. 'There is
no lady in the world more noble than this one, and no man living who
means more faithfully by her than I. I will do her will this day, and
that speedily, lest the devil be served. Are you a true man, Gilles?'
'Lord,' said Gurdun, 'I try to be so. Your father made me a knight. I
have loved this lady since she was twelve years old.'
'Are you a man of substance, my friend?'
'We have a good fief, my lord. My father holds of the Church of Rouen,
and the Church of the Duke. I serve with a hundred spears where I may, a
_routier_ if nothing better offer.'
'If I give you Jehane, what do you give me?'
'Thanks, my good lord, and faith, and long service.'
'Get up, Gilles,' said Richard.
Gilles kissed his knee, and rose. Richard put Jehane's hand into his and
held the two together.
'God serve me as I shall serve you, Gilles, if any harm come of this,'
he said shrewdly, with words that whistled in the air; and as Gilles
looked him squarely in the face, Richard ran an eye over him. Gilles was
found honest. Richard kissed Jehane on the forehead, and went out
without a look back. At the edge of the wood he found Gaston of Béarn
sucking his fingers.
'There went by here,' said the gay youth, 'a black knight with a face of
a raw meat colour, and the most villainous scowl ever you saw. I
consider him to be dead already.'
'I have given him something which should cure him of the scowl and
justify his colour,' answered him the Count. 'Moreover, I have given him
the chance of eternal life.' Then with a cry--'Oh, Gaston, let us get
to the South, see the sun fleck the roads, smell the oranges! Let us get
to the South, man! It seems I have entertained an angel. And now that I
have given her wings, and now that she is gone, I know how much I love
her. Speed, Gaston! We will go to the South, see Bertran, and make some
songs of good women and men in want!'
'Pardieu,' said Gaston. 'I am with you, Richard, for I am in want. I
have eaten nothing for two days.'
So they rode out of the woods of Saint-Pol-la-Marche, and Richard began
to sing songs of Jehane the Fair-Girdled; never truly her lover until he
might love her no more.
CHAPTER V
HOW BERTRAN DE BORN AND COUNT RICHARD STROVE IN A _TENZON_
Day-long and night-long he sang of her, being now in the poetic mood,
highly exalted, out of himself. The country took tints of Jehane, her
shape, her fine nobility. The thrust hills of the Vexin were her
breasts; the woods, being hot gold, her russet hair; in still green
water he read the secrets of her eyes; in the milk of October dawns her
calm brows had been dipped. The level light of the Beauce, so beneficent
yet so austere, figured her soul. Fair-girdled was Touraine by Vienne
and Loire; fair-girdled Jehane, who wore virgin candour about her loins
and over her heart a shield of blue ice. As far southwards as Tours the
dithyrambic prevailed; Richard was untiring in the hunt for analogues.
Thence on to Poictiers, where the country (being his own) was perhaps
more familiar; indeed, while he was climbing the grey peaks of
Montagrier with his goal almost in sight, he turned scholiast and
glossed his former raptures.
'You are not to tell me, Gaston,' he declared, 'that my Jehane has been
untrue. She was never more wholly mine than when she gave herself to
that other, never loved me more dearly. Such power is given to women to
lead this world. It is the power of the Word, who cut Himself off and
made us His butchers in pure love. I shall do my part. I shall wed the
French girl, who in my transports will never guess that in reality
Jehane will be in my arms.' Tears filled his eyes. 'For we shall be
wedded in the sight of heaven,' he said sighing.
'Deus!' cried Gaston here, 'Such marriages may be more to the taste of
heaven than of men, Richard. Man is a creature of sense.'
'He hath a spiritual part,' said Richard, 'so rarely hidden that only
the thin fingers of a girl may get in to touch it. Then, being touched,
he knows that it is quick. Let me alone; I am not all mud nor all devil.
I shall do my duty, marry the French girl, and love my golden Jehane
until I die.'
'That is the saying of a poet and king at once, said Gaston, and really
believed it.
So they came at dusk to Autafort, a rock castle on the confines of
Perigord, held by Bertran de Born.
It looked, and was, a robber's hold, although it had a poet for
castellan. Its walls merely prolonged the precipices on which they were
founded, its towers but lifted the mountain spurs more sharply to the
sky. It dominated two watersheds, was accessible only on one side, and
then by a ridgeway; from it the valley roads and rockstrewn hillsides
could be seen for many leagues. Long before Richard was at the gate the
Lord of Autafort had had warning, and had peered down upon his suzerain
at his clambering. 'The crows shall have Richard before Richard me,'
said Bertran de Born; so he had his bridge pulled up and portcullis let
down, and Autafort showed a bald face to the newcomers.
Gaston grinned. 'Hospitality of Aquitaine! Hospitality of your duchy,
Richard.'
'By my head,' said the Count, 'if I sleep under the stars I sleep at
Autafort this night. But hear me charm this plotter.' He called at the
top of his voice, 'Ha, Bertran! Come you down, man.' The surrounding
hills echoed his cries, the jackdaws wheeled about the turrets; but
presently came one and put his eye to the grille. Richard saw him.
'Is that you, then, Bertran?' he shouted. There was no answer, but the
spyer was heard breathing hard at his vent.
'Come out of your earth, red fox,' Richard chid him. 'Show your grievous
snout to the hills; do your snuffling abroad to the clear sky. I have
whipped off the hounds; my father is not here. Will you let starve your
liege-lord?'
At this the bolts were drawn, the bridge went down with a clatter, and
Bertran de Born came out--a fine stout man, all in a pother, with a red,
perplexed face, angry eyes, hair and beard cut in blocks, a body too big
for his clothes--a man of hot blood, fumes and rages. Richard at sight
of him, this unquiet sniffer of offences, this whirled about with
stratagems, threw back his head and laughed long and loud.
'O thou plotter of thine own dis-ease! O rider of nightmares, what harm
can I do thee? Not, believe me, a tithe of thy desert. Come thou here
straightly, Master Bertran, and take what I shall give thee.'
'By God, Lord Richard--' said Bertran, and boggled horribly; but the
better man waited, and in the end he came up sideways. Richard swung
from his horse, took his host by the shoulders, shook him well, and
kissed him on both cheeks. 'Spinner of mischief, red robber, singer of
the thoughts of God!' he said, 'I swear I love thee through it all,
Bertran, though I should do better to wring thy neck. Now give us food
and drink and clean beds, for Gaston at least is a dead man without
them. Afterwards we will sing songs.'
'Come in, come in, Richard,' said Bertran de Born.
* * * * *
For a day or two Richard was bathed in golden calm, hugging his darling
thought, full of Jehane, fearful to share her. Often he remembered it in
later life; it held a place and commanded a mood which no hour of his
wildest possession could outvie. The mountain air, still, but latently
nimble, the great mountains themselves dreaming in the sunlight, the
sailing birds, hinted a peace to his soul whither his last conquest of
his baser part assured him he might soar. Now he could guess (thought
he) that quality in love which it borrows from God and shares with the
angels, ministers of God, the steady burning of a flame keen and hard.
So on an afternoon of weather serene beyond all belief of the North,
mild, tired, softly radiant, still as a summer noon; as he sat with
Bertran in a courtyard where were lemon-trees and a fountain, and above
the old white walls, and above the strutting pigeons, a square of blue,
he began to speak of his affairs, of what he had done and of what was to
do.
Bertran's was a grudging spirit: you shall hear the Abbot Milo upon that
matter anon, than whom there are few better qualified to speak. He
grudged Richard everything--his beauty, his knit and graceful body, his
brain like a sword, his past exploits, his present content. What it was
contented him he knew not altogether, though a letter from Saint-Pol had
in part advised him; but he was sure he had wherewithal to discontent
him. 'Foh! a juicy orange indeed,' he said to himself, 'but I can wring
him dry.' If Richard hugged one thought, Bertran hugged another, and
took it to bed with him o' nights. Now, therefore, when Richard spoke of
Jehane, Bertran said nothing, waiting his time; but when he went on to
Madame Alois and his duty (which really coloured all the former thought)
Bertran made a grimace.
'Rascal,' says Richard, shamming rough, 'why do you make faces at me?'
Bertran began jerking about like the lid of a boiling pot, and presently
sends a boy for his viol. At this, when it came, he snatched, and set to
plucking a chord here and a chord there, grinning fearfully all the
time.
'A _tenzon!_ A _tenzon!_ beau sire!' cries he. 'Now a _tenzon_ between
you and me!'
'Let it be so,' says Richard; 'have at you. I sing of the calm day, of
the sweets of true love.'
'Accorded,' says the other. 'And I sing of the sours of false love. Do
you set the mode, prince of blood royal as you are.'
Richard took the viol without after-thought and struck a few chords. A
great tenderness was in his heart; he saw Duty and himself hand in hand
walking a long road by night; two large stars beaconed the way; these
were Jehane's eyes. A watcher or two stole into the upper gallery,
leaned on the parapet and listened, for both men were renowned singers.
Richard began to sing of green-eyed Jehane, who wore the gold girdle,
whose hair was red gold. His song was--
Li dous consire
Quem don' Amors soven--
but I English it thus--
'That gentle thought which love will give sometimes is like a plait of
silk and gold, and so is this song of mine to be; wherein you shall find
a red deep cry which cometh from the heart, and a thin blue cry which is
the cry of what is virgin in my soul, and a golden long cry, the cry of
the King, and a cry clear as crystal and colder than a white moon: and
that is the cry of Jehane.'
Bertran, trembling, snatched at the viol. 'Mine to sing, Richard, mine
to sing! Ha, love me no more!'
Cantar d' Amors non voilh,
he began--
'Your strands are warped and will not accord, for love will warp any
song. It turneth the heart of a man black, and the soul it eateth up. At
fourteen goes the virgin first a-wallowing; and soon the King croaks
like a hog. A plait! Love is a fetter of hot iron; so my song shall be
iron-cruel like the bidding of Jehane. Say now, shall I set the song?
The love-cry is the cry of a man who drags his way with his side torn;
and the colour of it is dry red, like old blood; and the sound thereof
maketh the hearers ache, so it quavers and shrills. For it cries only
two things: sorrow and shame.'
He misconceived his adversary who thought to quell him by such vapours.
Richard took the viol.
'Bertran, it is well seen that thou art pinched and have a torn side;
but ask of thy itching fingers who graved the wound. Dry thou art,
Bertran, for thy trough is dry; the husks prick thy gums, but there is
no other meat. Well may the hearers' ears go aching; for thy cry, man,
proceedeth from thy aching belly. But now I will set the song again, and
tell thee of a lady girdled with fine gold. Beneath the girdle beats a
red heart; but her spirit is like a spire of blue smoke, that comes from
a fire, indeed, but strains up to heaven. Warmed by that fire, like that
smoke I fly up; and so I lie among the stars with Jehane.'
Bertran's jaw was at work, mashing his tongue. 'Ah, Richard, is it so
with thee? Wait now while I strike a blow.' He made the viol scream.
'What if I twist the song awry, and give thee good cause to limp the
sorrowful way? What if for my aching belly I give thee an aching heart?
Eh, if my fingers scratch my side, there are worse talons at thine.
Watch for the Lion's claw, Richard, which tears not flesh but honour,
and gives more pain than any knife. Pain! He is King of Pain! Mend
that, then face sorrow and shame.'
Ending with a snap, he grinned more knowledge out of his red eyes than
he pronounced with his mouth. His terrible excitement, the labour and
sweat of it, set Richard's brows knitting. He stretched out his hand for
the viol slowly; and his eyes were cold on Bertran, and never off him
for a moment as he sang to this enemy, and judged him while he sang. The
note was changed.
'The Lion is a royal beast, a king, whose son am I. We maul not each
other in Anjou, save when the jackal from the South cometh snarling
between. Then, when we see the unclean beast, saith one, "Faugh! is this
your friend?" and the other, "Thou dost ill to say so." Then the blood
may flow and the jackal get a meal. But here there is none to come
licking blood. The prize is the White Roe of France, fed on the French
lilies, and now in safe harbour. She shall lie by the Leopard, and the
Lion rule the forest in peace because of the peace about him; and like a
harvest moon above us, clear of the trees, will be Jehane.'
'Listen, Richard, I will be clearer yet,' came from between Bertran's
teeth. He fairly ground them together. Having the viol, he struck but
one note upon it, with such rudeness that the string broke. He threw the
thing away and sang without it, leaning his hands on his knees, and
craning forward that he might spit the words.
'This is the bite of the song: she is forsworn. Harbour? She kept
harbour too long; she is mangled, she is torn. Touch not the Lion's
prey, Leopard. You go hunting too late--for all but sorrow and shame.'
Richard stretched not his hand again; his jaw dropped and most of the
strong colour died down in his face. Turned to stone, stiff and
immovable, he sat staring at the singer, while Bertran, biting his lip,
still grinning and twitching with his late effort, watched him.
'Give me the truth, thou.' His voice was like an old man's, hollow.
'As God is in heaven that is the truth, Richard,' said Bertran de Born.
The Count's head went up, as when a hound yelps to the sky: laughter
ensued, barking laughter--not mirth, not grief disguised, but mockery,
the worst of all. One on the gallery nudged his fellow; that other
shrugged him off. Richard stretched his long arms, his clenched fists to
the dumb sky. 'Have I bent the knee to good issues or not? Have I abased
my head? O clement prince! O judge in Israel! O father of kings! Hear
now a parable of the Prodigal: Father, I have sinned against heaven and
before thee, and thou art no more worthy to be called my father. O
glutton! O filching dog!'
'By the torch of the Gospel, Count Richard, what I sang is true,' said
Bertran, still tensely grinning, and now also wringing at his
hang-nails. Richard, checked by the voice, turned blazing upon him.
'Why, thou school-boy rhymester, that is the only merit thou hast, and
that not thine own! Thy japes are nought, thy tragics the mewing of
cats; but thy news, fellow, thy news is too rich matter for thy sewer
of a throat. Tragic? No, it is worse: it is comic, O heaven! Heed you
now--' In his bitter shame he began pantomiming with his fingers:--'Here
are two persons, father by the Grace of God, son by the grace of the
father. Saith father, "Son, thou art sprung from kings; take this woman
that is sprung from kings, for I have no further use for her." Anon
cometh a white rag thinly from the inner tent--mark her provenance. Son
kneeleth down. "Wilt thou have my son, cony?" saith father. "Yea, dear
heart," saith she. "'Tis my counterpart, mark you," saith father.
"Better than nothing at all," saith she. Benevolent father, supple-kneed
son, convenient lady. Here is agreement. And thus it ends.' Again he
laughed outright at the steel-blue face of the sky, then jumped in a
flash from his seat to the throat of Bertran. Bertran tumbled backwards
with a strangled cry, and Richard pegged him to the ground.
'Thou yapping cur, Bertran,' he grated, 'thou sick dog of my kennel, if
this snarl of thine goes true thou hast done a service to me and mine
thou knowest not of. There is little to do before I am the richest man
in Christendom. Why, dull rogue, thou hast set me free!' He looked up
exulting from his work at the man's throat to shout this word. 'But if
it is not true, Bertran'--he shook him like a rat--'if it is not true, I
return, O Bertran, and tear this false gullet out of its case, and with
thy speckled heart feed the crows of Périgord.' Bertran had foam on his
lips, but Richard showed him no mercy. 'As it is, Bertran,' he went on
with his teeth on edge, 'I am minded to finish thee. But that I need
something from thee I think I should do it. Tell me now whence came thy
news. Tell me, Bertran, or thou art in hell in a moment.'
He had to let him up to win from him after a time that his informant was
the Count of Saint-Pol. Little matter that this was untrue, the bringing
in of his name set wild alarums clanging in Richard's head. It was only
too likely to have been Saint-Pol's doing; there was obvious reason; but
by the same token Saint-Pol might be a liar. He saw that he must by all
means find Saint-Pol, and find him at once. He began to shout for
Gaston. 'To horse, to horse, Gaston!' The court rang with his voice; to
the clamour he made, which might betoken murder, arson, pillage, or the
sin against the Holy Ghost, out came the vassals in a swarm. 'To horse,
to horse, Béarnais! Where out of hell is Gaston of Béarn?' The devil of
Anjou was loose in Autafort that day.
Gaston came delicately last, drawing his beard through his fist, to see
Bertran de Born lie helpless in a lemon-bush hard by the wall. Richard,
quite beyond himself, exploded with his story, and so was sobered. While
Gaston made his comments, he, instead of listening, made comments of his
own.
'Dear Lord Richard,' said Gaston reasonably, 'if you do not know Bertran
by this time it is a strange thing and a pitiful thing. For it shows you
without any wit. He was appointed, it would seem, to be the thorn in
your rosebed of Anjou. What has he done since he was let be made but
set you all by the ears? What did he do by the young King but
miserably? What by Geoffrey? Is there a man in the world he hates more
than the old King? Yes, there is one: you. Take a token. The last time
they two met was in this very castle; and then the King your father
kissed him, and forgiving him Henry's death, gave him back his Autafort;
and Bertran too gave a kiss, that love might abound. Judas, Judas! And
what did Judas next? Dear Richard, let us think awhile, but not here.
Let us go to Limoges and think with the Viscount. But let us by all
means kill Bertran de Born first.'
During this speech, which had much to recommend it, Richard, as I have
told you, did his thinking by himself. He always cooled as suddenly as
he boiled over; and now, warily regarding the right hand and the left of
this monstrous fable, he saw that, though Saint-Pol might have played
fox in it, another must have played goat. He could not fail to remember
Louviers, and certain horrid mysteries which had offended him then with
only vague disgust, as for matters which were outside his own care. Now
they all took shape satyric, like hideous heads thrust out of the dark
to loll their tongues at him. To the shock of his first dismay succeeded
the onset of rage, white and cold and deadly as a night frost. Eh, but
he would meet his teeth in some throat! But he would go slowly to work,
clear the ground and stalk his prey. The leopard devises creeping death.
He made up his mind. Gaston he sent to the South, to Angoulesme, to
Périgord, to Auvergne, to Cahors. The horn must be heard at the head of
every brown valley, the armed men shadow every white road. He himself
went to his city of Poietiers.
Bertran de Born saw him go, and rubbed his hair till it stood like reeds
shaken by the wind. Whether he loved mischief or not (and some say he
breathed it); whether he had a grudge against Anjou not yet assuaged;
whether he was in league with Prince John, or had indeed thought to do
Prince Richard a service, let philosophers, experts of mankind,
determine. If he had a turn for dramatics he had certainly indulged it
now, and given himself strong meat for a new Sirvente of Kings. At least
he was very busy after Richard's departure, himself preparing for a long
journey to the South.
CHAPTER VI
FRUITS OF _THE TENZON_: THE BACK OF SAINT-POL, AND THE FRONT OF
MONTFERRAT
Count Richard found time, while he was at Poietiers awaiting the
Aquitanian levies, to write six letters to Jehane Saint-Pol. Of these
some, with their bearers, fell by the wayside. As luck would have it,
Jehane received but two, the first and the last. The first said: 'I am
in the way of liberty, but by a red road. Have hopes of me.' Jehane was
long in answering. One may picture the poor soul taking the dear and
wicked thing into the little chapel, laying it on the altar-stone warm
from her vest, restoring it after office done to that haven whence she
must banish its writer. Fortified, she replied with, 'Alas, my lord, the
way of liberty leads not to me; nor can I serve you otherwise than in
bonds. I pray you, make my yoke no heavier.--Your servant, in little
ease, Jehane.' This wistful unhappy letter gave him heartache; he could
scarcely keep himself at home. Yet he must, being as yet sure of
nothing. He replied in a second and third, a fourth and a fifth letter,
which never reached her. The last was sent when he had begun what he
thought fit to do at Tours, saying, 'I make war, but the cause is
righteous. Never misjudge me, Jehane.' There were many reasons why she
should not answer this.
Returning to his deeds at Poietiers, I pick up the story from the Abbot
Milo, whom he found there. The Count, you may judge, kept his own
counsel. Milo was his confessor, but at this time Richard was not in a
confessing humour; therefore Milo had to gather scandal as he could.
There was very little difficulty about this. 'In the city of Tours,' he
writes, 'in those middle days of Advent, it appears that rumour, still
gadding, was adrift with names almost too high for the writing. There
were many there who had no business; the Count of Blois, for instance,
the Baron of Chateaudun, the fighting Bishop of Durham (I fear, a
hireling shepherd), Geoffrey Talebot, Hugh of Saint-Circ. One reason of
this was that King Henry was in England, not yet come to an agreement
with the French King, nor likely to it if what we heard was true, yea,
or a tenth part of it. God forbid that I should write what these ears
heard; but this I will say. It was I who told the shocking tale to my
lord Richard, adding also this hint, that his former friend was involved
in it, Eudo Count of Saint-Pol. If you will believe me, not the tale of
iniquity moved him; but he received it with shut mouth, and eyes fixed
upon mine. But at the name of the Count of Saint-Pol he took a breath,
at the mention of his part in the business he took a deep breath, and
when he heard that this man was yet at Tours, he got up from his chair
and struck the table with his closed fist. Knowing him as I did, I
considered that the weather looked black for Saint-Pol.
'Next day Count Richard moved his hosts out of the fields by Poietiers
to the very borders of his country, and calling a halt at Saint-Gilles
and making snug against alarms, himself, with my lord Gaston of Béarn,
with the Dauphin of Auvergne also, and the Viscount of Béziers, crossed
the march into Touraine, and so came to Tours about a week before
Christmas, the weather being bright and frosty.'
It seems he did not take the abbot with him, for the rest of the good
man's record is full of morality, a certain sign that facts failed him.
There may have been reasons; at any rate the Count went into Tours in a
trenchant humour, with ears keen and wide for all shreds of report. And
he got enough and to spare. In the wet market-place, on the flags of the
great churchyard, by the pillars of the nave, in the hall, in the
chambers, in the inn-galleries; wherever men met or women whispered in
each other's necks, there flew the names of Alois, King Philip's sister,
and of King Henry, Count Richard's father. Richard made short work,
short and dry. It was in mid-hall in the Bishop's palace, one day after
dinner, that he met and stopped the Count of Saint-Pol.
'What now, beau sire?' says the Count, out of breath. Richard's eyes
were alight. 'This,' says he, 'that you lie in your throat.'
Count Eudo looked about him, and everywhere saw the faces of men risen
from the board intent on him. 'Strange words, beau sire,' says he, very
white. Richard raised his voice till the metal rang in it.
'But not strange doing, I think, on your part. This has been going on,
how long?'
Saint-Pol was stung. 'Ah, it becomes you very ill to reproach me, my
lord.'
'I think it becomes me excellently,' said Richard. 'You have lied for a
vile purpose; you have disgraced your name. You seek to drive me by
slander whither I may not go in honour. You lie like a broker. You are a
shameful liar.'
No man could stand this from another, however great that other; and
Saint-Pol was not a coward. He looked up at his adversary, still white,
but steady.
'How then?' he asked him, 'how then if I lie not, Count of Poictou? And
how if you know that I lie not?'
'Then,' said Richard, 'you use insult, which is worse.'
Saint-Pol took off his glove of mail and flung it with a clatter on the
floor.
'Since it has come to this, my lord--' Richard spiked the glove with his
sword, tossed it to the hammer-beams of the roof, and caught it as it
fell.
'It shall come nearer, Count, I take it.' Thus he finished the other's
phrase, then stalked out of the Bishop's house. It was then and there
that he wrote to Jehane that sixth letter, which she received: 'I make
war, but the cause is righteous. Never misjudge me, Jehane.'
The end of it was a combat _à outrance_ in the meads by the Loire, with
all Tours on the walls to behold it. Richard was quite frank about the
part he proposed to himself. 'The man must die,' he told the Dauphin of
Auvergne, 'even though he have spoken the truth. As to that I am not
sure, I am not yet informed. But he is not fit to live on any ground. By
these slanders of his he has disgraced the name and outraged the honour
of the most lovely lady in the world, whose truest misfortune is to be
his sister; by the same token I must punish him for the dignity of the
lady I am (at present) designed to wed. She is always the daughter of
his liege-lord. What!'--he threw his head up--'Is not a daughter of
France worth a broken back?'
'Tu-dieu, yes,' says the Dauphin; 'but it is a stoutish back, Richard.
It is a back which ranks high. Kings clap it familiarly. Conrad of
Montferrat calls it a cousin's back. The Emperor has embraced it at an
Easter fair.'
'I would as soon break Conrad's back as his, Dauphin, believe me,'
Richard replied; 'but Conrad has said nothing. And there is another
reason.'
'I have thought myself of a reason against it,' the Dauphin said
quickly, yet with a flutter of timidity. 'This man's name is Saint-Pol.'
Richard grew bleak in a moment. 'That,' he said, 'is why I shall kill
him. He seeks to drive us to marriage. Injurious beast! His name is
Pandarus.' Then he left the Dauphin and shut himself up until the day of
battle.
They had formed lists in the Loire meads: a red pavilion with leopards
upon it for the Count of Poictou, a blue pavilion streaked with
basilisks in silver for the Count of Saint-Pol. The crowd was very
great, for the city was full of people; in the tribune the King of
England's throne was left empty save for a drawn sword; but one sat
beside it as arbiter for the day of life and death, and that was Prince
John, Richard's brother, by Richard summoned from Paris, and most
unwillingly there. Bishop Hugh of Durham sat next him, and marvelled to
see the sweat glisten on his forehead on a day when all the world else
felt the north wind to their bones. 'Are you suffering, dear lord?' 'Eh,
Bishop Hugh, Bishop Hugh, this is a mad day for me!' 'By God,' thought
Hugh of Durham, 'and so it might prove, my man!'
They blew trumpets; and at the second sounding Saint-Pol, the
challenger, rode out on a big grey horse, himself in a hauberk of chain
mail with a coif of the same, and a casque wherein three grey heron's
feathers. This was the badge of the house: Jehane wore heron's feathers.
He had a blue surcoat and blue housings for his horse. Behind him,
esquire of honour, rode the young Amadeus of Savoy, carrying his banner,
a white basilisk on a blue field. Saint-Pol was a burly man, bearing his
honours squarely on breast and back.
They sounded for the Count of Poictou, who came presently out of his
tent and lightly swung himself into the saddle--a feat open to very few
men armed in mail. As he came cantering down the long lists no man could
fail to mark the size and splendid ease he had; but some said, 'He is
younger by five years than Saint-Pol, and not so stout a man.' He had a
red plume above his leopard crest, a white surcoat over his hauberk,
with three red leopards upon it. His shield was of the same blazon, so
also the housings of his horse. The Dauphin of Auvergne carried his
banner. The two men came together, saluted with ceremony, then turned
with spears uplift to the tribune, the throned sword, the sweating
prince beside it.
This one now rose up and caught at his chair, to give the signal. 'Oh,
Richard of Anjou, do thou on the body of Saint-Pol what thy faith
requires of thee; and do thou, Eudo, uphold the right thou hast, in the
name of God in Trinity and of our Lady.' The Bishop of Tours blessed
them both and the issue, they wheeled apart, and the battle began. It
was short, three careers long. At the first shock Richard unhorsed his
man; at the second he unhelmed him with a deep flesh-furrow in the
cheek; at the third he drove down horse and man together and broke the
Count's back. Saint-Pol never moved again.
The moment it was over, in the silence of all, Prince John came down
from the tribune and fell upon Richard's neck. 'Oh, dearest brother,'
cried he, 'what should I have done if the worst had befallen you? I
cannot bear to think of it.'
'Oh, brother,' Richard said very quietly, 'I think you would have borne
it very well. You would have married Madame Alois, and paid for a mass
or two for me out of the dowry.'
This raking shot was heard by everybody. John grew red as fire. 'Why,
what do you mean, Richard?' he stammered.
And Richard, 'Are my words so encumbered? Think them over, get them by
heart. So doing, be pleased to ride with me to Paris.' At this the
colour left John's face.
'Ah! To Paris?' He looked as if he saw death under a bush.
'That is where we must go,' said Richard, 'so soon as we have prayed for
that poor blind worm on the ground, who now haply sees wherein he has
offended.'
'Conrad of Montferrat, cousin of this dead, is there, Richard,' said the
other with intention; but Richard laughed.
'In a very good hour we shall find him. I have to give him news of his
cousin Saint-Pol. What is he there for?'
'It is in the matter of the kingdom of Jerusalem. He seeks Sibylla and
that crown, and is like to get them.'
'I think not, John, I think not. We will fill his head with other
thoughts; we will set it wanting mine. Your chance is a fair one yet,
brother.'
Prince John laughed, but not comfortably. 'Your tongue bites, Richard.'
'Pooh,' says Richard, 'what else are you worth? I save my teeth'; and
went his ways.
In Paris Richard repaired to the tower of his kinsman the Count of
Angoulesme, but his brother to the Abbey of Saint-Germain. The Poictevin
herald bore word to King Philip-Augustus on Richard's part; Prince John,
as I suppose, bore his own word whither he had most need for it to go.
It is believed that he contrived to see Madame Alois in private; and if
that great purple cape that held him in talk for nearly an hour by a
windy corner of the Prè-aux-Clercs did not cover the back of Montferrat,
then Gossip is a liar, Richard, for his part, took no account of John
and his shifts; a wave of disgust for the creeping youth had filled the
stronger man, and having got him into Paris there seemed nothing better
to do with him than to let him alone. But that sensitive gorge of
Richard's was one of his worst enemies: if he did not mean to hold the
snake in the stick, he had better not have cleft the stick. As for John
and his writhing, I am only half concerned with them; but let me tell
you this. Whatever he did or did not sprang not from hatred of this or
that man, but from fear, or from love of his own belly. Every prince of
the house of Anjou loved inordinately some member of himself, some a
noble member nobly, and others basely a base member. If John loved his
belly, Richard loved his royal head: but enough. To be done with all
this, Richard was summoned to the French King hot-foot, within a day or
two of his coming; went immediately with his chaplain Anselm and other
one or two, and was immediately received. He had, in fact, obeyed in
such haste that he found two in the audience-chamber instead of one.
With Philip of France was Conrad of Montferrat, a large, pale,
ruminating Italian, full of bluster and thick blood. The French King was
a youth, just the age of Jehane, of the thin, sharp, black-and-white
mould into which had run the dregs of Capet. He was smooth-faced like a
girl, and had no need to shave; his lips were very thin, set crooked in
his face. So far as he was boy he loved and admired Richard, so far as
he was Capet he distrusted him with all the rest of the world.
Richard knelt to his suzerain and was by him caught up and kissed.
Philip made him sit at his side on the throne. This put Montferrat, who
was standing, sadly out of countenance, for he considered himself (as
perhaps he was) the superior of any man uncrowned.
It seems that some news had drifted in on the west wind. 'Richard, oh,
Richard!' the King began, half whimsical and half vexed, 'What have you
been doing in Touraine?'
'Fair sire,' answered Richard, 'I have been doing what will, I fear,
give pain to our cousin Montferrat. I have been breaking the back of the
Count of Saint-Pol.' At this the Marquess, suffused with dark blood till
he was colour of lead, broke out, pointing his finger as well as his
words. As the bilge-water jets from a ketch when the hold is surcharged,
so did the Marquess jet his expletives.
'Ha, sire! Ha, King of France! Now give me leave to break this brigand's
back, who robs and reviles in one breath. Touch of the Gospel, is it to
be borne?' Foaming with rage, he lunged forward a step or two, his hand
upon his long sword. Richard slowly got up from the throne and stood his
full height.
'Marquess, you use words I will not hear--'
King Philip broke in--'Fair lords, sweet lords--'; but Richard put his
hand up, having a kingly way with him which even kings observed.
'Dear sire,'--his voice was level and cool--'let me say my whole mind
before the Marquess recovers his. The Count of Saint-Pol, for beastly
reasons, spoke in my hearing either true things or false things
concerning Madame Alois. If they were true I was ready to die; if they
were false I hope he was. Believing them false, I had punished one man
for them before; but he had them from Saint-Pol. Therefore I called
Saint-Pol a liar, and other proper things. This gave him occasion to
save his credit at the risk of his back. He broke the one and I the
other. Now I will hear the Marquess.'
The Marquess tugged at his sword. 'And I, Count of Poictou--'; but King
Philip held out his sceptre, he too very much a king.
'And we, Count of Poictou,' he said, 'command you by your loyalty to
tell us what Saint-Pol dared say of our sister Dame Alois.' Although his
thin boy's voice quavered, he seemed the more royal for the human
weakness. Richard was greatly moved, thawed in a moment.
'God forgive me, Philip, but I cannot tell thee--' Pity broke up his
tones.
The young king almost whimpered: 'Oh, Richard, what is this?' But
Richard turned away his face. It was now the chance of the great
Italian.
'Now listen, King Philip,' he said, grim and square, 'and listen you,
Count of Poictou, whose account is to be quieted presently. Of this
business I happen to know something. If it serve not your honour I
cannot help it. It serves my murdered cousin's honour--therefore
listen.'
Richard's head was up. 'Peace, hound,' he said, and the Marquess snarled
like an old dog; but Philip, with a quivering lip, put out his hand till
it touched Richard's shoulder. 'I must hear it, Richard,' he said.
Richard put his arm round the lad's neck: so the Marquess told his
story. At the end of it Richard dared look down into Philip's marred
eyes. Then he kissed his forehead, and 'Oh, Philip,' says he, 'let him
who is hardy enough to tell this tale believe it, and let us who hear it
do as we must. But now you understand why I made an end of Saint-Pol,
and why, by heaven and earth, I will make an end of this brass pot.' He
turned upon Montferrat with his teeth bare. 'Conrad, Conrad, Conrad!' he
cried terribly, 'mark your goings about this slippery world; for if when
I get you alone I do not send you quick into hell, may I go down myself
beyond redemption of the Church!'
'That you will surely do, my lord,' says the Marquess of Montferrat,
greatly disturbed.
'If I get you there also I shall be reasonably entertained for a short
time,' Richard answered, already cooled and ashamed of his heat. Then
King Philip dismissed the Marquess, and as soon as he was rid of him
jumped into Richard's arms, and cried his heart away.
Richard, who was fond of the youth, comforted him as well as he was
able, but on one point was a rock. He would not hear the word 'marriage'
until he had seen the lady. 'Oh, Richard, marry her quick, marry her
quick! So we can face the world,' the young King had blubbered, thinking
that course the simplest answer to the affront upon his house. It did
not seem so simple to the Count, or (rather) it seemed too simple by
half. In his private mind he knew perfectly well that he could not marry
Madame Alois. So, for that matter, did King Philip by this time. 'I
must see Alois, Philip, I must see her alone,' was all Richard had to
say; and really it could not be gainsaid.
He went to her after proper warning, and saw the truth the moment he had
view of her. Then also he knew that he had really seen it before. That
white, furtive, creeping girl, from whose loose hair peered out a pair
of haunted eyes; that drooped thing backing against the wall, feeling
for it, flat against it, with open shocked mouth, astare but seeing
nothing: the whole truth flared before him monstrously naked. He loathed
the sight of her, but had to speak her smoothly.
'Princess--' he said, and came forward to touch her hand; but she
slipped away from him, crouching to the wall. The torment of breath in
her bosom was bad to see.
'Touch me not, Count of Poictou;' she whispered the words, and then
moaned, 'O God, what will become of me?'
'Madame,' said Richard, rather dry, 'God may answer your question, since
He knows all things, but certainly I cannot, unless you first tell me
what has hitherto become of you.'
She steadied herself by the wall, her palms flat upon it, and leaned her
body forward like one who searches in a dark place. Then, shaking her
head, she let it fall to her breast. 'Is there any sorrow like my
sorrow?' says she to herself, as though he had not been there.
Richard grew stern. 'So asked in His agony the Son of high God,' he
reproved her. 'If you dare ask Him that in His own words your sorrow
must be deep.'
She said, 'It is most deep.'
'But His,' said Richard, 'was bitter shame.' She said, 'And mine is
bitter.'
'But His was undeserved.' He spoke scorn; so then she lifted up her
head, and with eyes most piteous searched his face. 'But mine, Richard,'
she said, 'but mine is deserved.'
'The hearing is pertinent,' said Richard. 'As a son and man affianced it
touches me pretty close.'
Out of the hot and desperate struggle for breath, sounds came from her,
but no words. But she ran forward blindly, and kneeling, caught him by
the knees; he could not but find pity in his heart for the witless poor
wretch, who seemed to be fighting, not with regret nor for need of his
pity, but with some maggot in the brain which drove her deeper into the
fiery centre of the storm. Richard did what he could. A religious man
himself, he pointed her to the Christ on the wall; but she waved it out
of sight, shook her wild hair back, and clung to him still, asking some
unguessed mercy with her eyes and sobbing breath. 'God help this
tormented soul, for I cannot,' he prayed; and said aloud, 'I will call
your women; let me go.' So he tried to undo her hands, but she clenched
her teeth together and held on with frenzy, whining, grunting, like some
pounded animal. Dumbly they strove together for a little panting space
of time.
'Ah, but you shall let me go,' he said then, much distressed, and
forcibly unknotted her mad hands. She fell back upon her heels, and
looked up at him. Such hopeless, grinning misery he had never seen on a
face before. He was certain now that she was out of her wits.
Yet once again she brushed her hands over her face, as he had seen her
do before, like one who sweeps gossamers away on autumn mornings; and
though she was all in a shiver and shake with the fever she had, she
found her voice at last. 'Ah, thanks! Ah, my thanks, O Christ my
Saviour!' she sighed. 'O sweet Saviour Christ, now I will tell him all
the truth.'
If he had listened to her then it had been well for him. But he did not.
The struggle had fretted him likewise; if she was mad he was maddened.
He got angry where he should have been most patient. 'The truth, by
heaven!' he snapped. 'Ah, if I have not had enough of this truth!' And
so he left her shuddering. As he went down the long corridor he heard
shriek after shriek, and then the scurrying of many feet. Turning, he
saw carried lights, women running. The sounds were muffled, they had her
safe. Richard went to his house over the river, and slept for ten hours.
CHAPTER VII
OF THE CRACKLING OF THORNS UNDER POTS
Just as no two pots will boil alike, so with men; they seethe in trouble
with a difference. With one the grief is taken inly: this was Richard's
kind. The French King was feverish, the Marquess explosive, John of
England all eyes and alarms. So Richard's remedy for trouble was action,
Philip's counsel, the Marquess's a glut of hatred, and John's plotting.
The consequence is, that in the present vexed state of things Richard
threw off his discontent with his bedclothes, and at once took the lead
of the others, because it could be done at once. He declared open war
against the King his father, despatching heralds with the cartel the
same day; he gave King Philip to understand that the French power might
be for him or against him as seemed fitting, but that no power in heaven
or on earth would engage him to marry Dame Alois. King Philip, still
clinging to his friend, made a treaty of alliance with him against Henry
of England. That done, sealed and delivered, Richard sent for his
brother John. 'Brother,' he said, 'I have declared war against my
father, and Philip is to be of our party. In his name and my own I am to
tell you that one of two things you must do. You may stay in our lands
or leave them; but if you stay you must sign our treaty of alliance.'
Too definite for John, all this: he asked for time, and Richard gave him
till nightfall. At dusk he sent for him again. John chose to stay in
Paris. Then Richard thought he would go home to Poictou. The moment his
back was turned began various closetings of the magnates left behind,
with which I mean to fatigue the reader as little as possible.
One such chamber-business I must record. To Paris in the black February
weather came pelting the young Count Eustace, now by his brother's death
Count of Saint-Pol. Misfortune, they say, makes of one a man or a saint.
Of Eustace Saint-Pol it had made a man. After his homage done, this
youth still kneeling, his hands still between Philip's hands, looked
fixedly into his sovereign's face, and 'A boon, fair sire!' he said. 'A
boon to your new man!'
'What now, Saint-Pol?' asked King Philip.
'Sire,' he said, 'my sister's marriage is in you. I beg you to give her
to Messire Gilles de Gurdun, a good knight of Normandy.'
'That is a poor marriage for her, Saint-Pol,' said the King,
considering, 'and a poor marriage for me, by Saint Mary. Why should I
enrich the King of England, with whom I am at war? You must give me
reason for that.'
'I will give you this reason,' said young Saint-Pol; 'it is because that
devil who slew my brother will have her else.'
King Philip said, 'Why, I can give her to one who will hold her fast.
Your Gurdun is a Norman, you say? Well, but Count Richard in a little
while will have him under his hand; and how are you served then?'
'I doubt, sire,' replied Saint-Pol. 'Moreover, there is this, if it
please you to hear it. When the Count of Poictou repudiated (as he most
villainously did) my sister, he himself gave her to Gurdun. But I fear
him, lest seeing her any other's he should take her again.'
'What is this, man?' asked King Philip.
'Sire, he writes letters to my sister that he is a free man, and she
keeps them by her and often reads them in secret. So she was caught but
lately by my lady aunt, reading one in bed.'
The King's brow grew very black, for though he knew that Richard would
never marry Madame, he did not choose (but resented) that any other
should know it. At this moment Montferrat came in, and stood by his
kinsman.
'Ah, sire,' said he, in those bloodhound tones of his, 'give us leave to
deal in this business with free hands.'
'What would you do in it, Marquess?' asked the King fretfully.
'Kill him, by God,' said the Marquess; and young Saint-Pol added, 'Give
us his life, O lord King.'
King Philip thought. He was fresh from making a treaty with Richard; but
that was in a war of requital only, and would be ended so soon as the
last drop had been drained from the old King. What would follow the war?
He was by this time cooler towards Richard, very much vexed at what he
had just heard; he could not help remembering that marriage with Alois
would have been the proper reply to scandalous report. Should he be
able, when the war was done, to squeeze Richard into marriage or an
equivalent in lands? He wondered, he doubted greatly. On the other hand,
if he and Richard could crush old Henry, and Saint-Pol afterwards bruise
Richard--why, what was Philip but a gainer?
Chewing the fringe of his mantle as he considered this and that,'If I
give Madame Jehane in marriage to your Gurdun,' he said dubiously, 'what
will Gurdun do?'
Saint-Pol named the sum, a fair one.
'But what part will he take in the quarrel?' asked the King.
'He will take my part, as he is bound, sire.'
'Pest!' cried Philip, 'let us get at it. What is this part of yours?'
'The part of him who has a blood-feud, my lord,' said young Saint-Pol;
and the Marquess said, 'That is my part also.'
'Have it according to your desires, my lords,' then said King Philip. 'I
give you this marriage. Make it as speedily as may be, but let not Count
Richard have news until it is done. There is a fire, I tell you, hidden
in that tall man. Remember this too, Saint-Pol. You shall not make war
on the side of England against Richard, for that will be against me.
Your feud must wait its turn. For this present I have an account to
settle in which Poictou is on my side. Marquess, you likewise are in my
debt. See to it that you give my enemies no advantage.'
The Marquess and his cousin gave their words, holding up the hilts of
their swords before their faces.
Richard, in his city of Poictiers, was calmly forwarding his plans. His
first act, since he now considered himself perfectly free, had been to
send Gaston of Béarn with letters to Saint-Pol-la-Marche; his second,
seeing no reason why he should wait for King Philip or any possible
ally, to cross the frontier of Touraine in force. He took castle after
castle in that rich land, clearing the way for the investiture of Tours,
which was his first great objective.
I leave him at this employment and follow Gaston on his way to the
North. It was early in March when that young man started, squally, dusty
weather; but perfect trobador as he was, the nature of his errand warmed
him; he composed a whole nosegay of scented songs in honour of Richard
and the crocus-haired lady of the March who wore the broad girdle.
Riding as he did through the realm of France, by Chateaudun, Chartres,
and Pontoise, he narrowly missed Eustace of Saint-Pol, who was galloping
the opposite way upon an errand dead opposed to his own. Gaston would
have fought him, of course, but would have been killed to a certainty;
for Saint-Pol rode as became his lordship, with a company, and the other
was alone. He was spared any such mischance, however, and arrived in the
highest spirits, with an _alba_ (song of the dawn) for what he supposed
to be Jehane's window. It shows what an eye he had for a lady's chamber
that he was very nearly right. A lady did put her head out; not Jehane,
but a rock-faced matron of vast proportions with grey hair plastered to
her cheeks.
'Behold, behold the dawn, my tender heart!' breathed Gaston.
'Out, you cockerel,' said the old lady, and Gaston wooed her in vain. It
appeared that she was an aunt, sworn to the service of the Count, and
had Jehane safe in a tower under lock and key. Gaston retired into the
woods to meditate. There he wrote five identic notes to the prisoner.
The first he gave to a boy whom he found birds'-nesting. 'Take a
turtle's nest, sweet boy,' said Gaston, 'to my lady Jehane; say it is
first-fruits of the year, and win a silver piece. Beware of an old lady
with a jaw like a flat-iron.' The second he gave to a woodman tying
billets for the Castle ovens; the third a maid put in her placket, and
he taught her the fourth by heart in a manner quite his own and very
much to her taste. With the fifth he was most adroit. He demanded an
interview with the duenna, whose name was Dame Gudule. She accorded.
Gaston spilled his very soul out before her; he knelt to her, he kissed
her large velvet feet. The lady was touched, I mean literally, for
Gaston as he stooped fitted his fifth note into the braid of her ample
skirt. The only one to arrive was the boy's in the bird's nest. The boy
wanted his silver piece, and got it. So Jehane had another note to
cherish.
But she had to answer it first. It said, '_Vera Copia_. Ma mye, I set on
to the burden you gave me, but it failed of breaking my back. I have
punished some of the wicked, and have some still to punish. When this is
done I shall come to you. Wait for me. I regret your brother's death.
He deserved it. The fight was fair. Learn of me from Gaston.--Richard of
Anjou.' Her answer was leaping in her heart; she led the boy to the
window.
'Look down, boy, and tell me what you can see.'
'_Dame_!' said the boy, 'I see the moat, and ducks on it.'
'Look again, dear, and tell me what you see.'
'I see an old fish on his back. He is dead.'
Jehane laughed quietly. 'He has been there many days. Tell the knight
who sent you to stand thereabout, looking up. Tell him not to be there
at any hour save that of mass, or vespers. Will you do this, dear boy?'
'Certain sure,' said the boy. Jehane gave him money and a kiss, then
fastened herself to the window.
Gaston excelled in pantomime. Every day for a week he saw Jehane at her
window, and enacted many strange plays. He showed her the old King
stormy in his tent, the meagre white unrest of Alois, the outburst at
Autafort and Bertran de Born with his tongue out; the meeting at Tours,
the battle, the death of the Count her brother. He was admirable on
Richard's love-desires. There could be no doubt at all about them.
Pricked by his feats in this sort, Jehane overcame her reserve and
turned her members into marionettes. She puffed her cheeks, hung her
head, scowled upwards: there was Gilles de Gurdun to the life. She
looped finger and thumb of the right hand and pierced them with the ring
finger: ohè! her fate. Gaston in reply to this drew his sword and ran a
cypress-tree through the body. Jehane shook a sorrowful head, but he
waved all such denials away with a hand so expressive that Jehane broke
the window and leaned her body out. Gaston uttered a cheerful cry.
Have no fear, lovely prisoner. If that is his intention he is gone. I
kill him. It is arranged.'
'My brother Eustace is in Paris,' says Jehane in a low but carrying
voice, 'to get my marriage from the King.'
'Again I say, fear nothing,' Gaston cried; but Jehane strained out as
far as she could.
'You must go away from here. The window is broken now, and they will
find me out. Take a message to my lord. If he is free indeed, he knows
me his in life or death. I seek to do him service. Wed or unwed, what is
that to me? I am still Jehane.'
'Your name is Red Heart, and Golden Rose, and Loiale Amye! Farewell,
Star of the North,' said Gaston on his knees. 'I seek this Gurdun of
yours.'
He found him after some days' perilous prowling of the Norman march.
Gilles had received the summons of his Duke to be _vi et armis_ at
Rouen; a little later Gaston might have met him in the field of broad
battle, but such delay was not to his mind. He met him instead in a
woodland glade near Gisors, alone (by a great chance), sword on thigh.
'Beef, thou diest,' said the Béarnais, peaking his beard. Gilles made no
reply that can be written, for what letters can shape a Norman grunt?
Perhaps 'Wauch!' comes nearest. They fought on horseback, with swords,
from noon to sunset, and having hacked one another out of the similitude
of men, there was nothing left them to do but swoon side by side on the
sodden leaves. In the morning Gaston, unclogging one eye, perceived that
his enemy had gone. 'No matter,' said the spent hero to himself. 'I will
wait till he comes back, and have at him again.'
He waited an unconscionable time, a month in fact, during which he
delighted to watch the shy oncoming of a Northern spring, so different
from the sudden flooding of the South. He found the wood-sorrel, he
measured the crosiers of the brake, and saw the blue mist of the
hyacinth carpet the glades. All this charmed him quite, until he
learned, by hazard, that the Sieur de Gurdun was to be married to Dame
Jehane Saint-Pol on Palm Sunday in the church of Saint Sulpice of
Gisors. 'God ha' mercy!' he thought, with a stab at the heart; 'there is
merely time.' He rode South on the wind's wings.
CHAPTER VIII
HOW THEY HELD RICHARD OFF FROM HIS FATHER'S THROAT
Long before the pink flush on the almond announced the earth a bride, on
all Gaulish roads had been heard the tramp of armed men, the ring of
steel on steel. This new war splintered Gaul. Aquitaine held for
Richard, who, though he had quelled and afterwards governed that great
duchy with an iron whip, had made himself respected there. So the Count
of Provence sent him a company, the Count of Toulouse and Dauphin of
Auvergne each brought a company; from Périgord, from Bertram Count of
Roussillon, from Béarn, and (for reasons) from the wise King of Navarre,
came pikemen and slingers, and long-bowmen, and knights with their
esquires and banner-bearers. The Duke of Burgundy and Count of Champagne
came from the east to fill the battles of King Philip; in the west the
Countess of Brittany sent about the war-torch. All the extremes of Gaul
were in arms against the red old Angevin who sat at her heart, who was
now still snarling in England, and sending message after secret message
to his son John. That same John, alone in Paris, headed no spears,
partly because he had none of his own, partly because he dared not
declare himself openly. He had taken a side, driven by his vehement
brother; for the first time in his life he had put pen to parchment.
God knew (he thought) that was committal enough. So he stayed in Paris,
shifting his body about to get comfort as the winds veered. Nobody
inquired of him, least of all his brother Richard, who, beyond requiring
his signature, cared little what he did with his person. This was
characteristic of Richard. He would drive a man into a high place and
then forget him. Reminded of his neglect, he would shrug and say, 'Yes.
But he is a fool.' Insufficient answer: he did not see or did not choose
to see that there are two sorts of fools. Stranded on his peak, one man
might be fool enough to stop there, another to try a descent. Prince
John (no fool either) was of this second quality. How he tried to get
down, and where else he tried to go, will be made clear in time. You and
I must go to the war in the west.
War showed Count Richard entered into his birthright. As a strategist he
was superb, the best of his time. What his eye took in his mind snapped
up--like a steel gin. And his eye was the true soldier's eye,
comprehending by signs, investing with life what was tongueless else.
Over great stretches of barren country--that limitless land of
France--he could see massed men on the move; creeping forward in snaky
columns, spread fanwise from clump to woody clump; here camping snugly
under the hill, there lining the river bluffs with winged death; checked
here, helped there by a moraine--as well as you or I may foresee the
conduct of a chess-board. He omitted nothing, judged times and seasons,
reckoned defences at their worth, knew all the fordable places by the
lie of the land, timed cavalry and infantry to rendezvous, forestalled
communications, provided not only for his own base, but against the
enemy's. All this, of course, without maps, and very much against the
systems of his neighbours. It was thus he had outwitted the heady barons
of Aquitaine when little more than a lad, and had turned the hill forts
into death-traps against their tenants. He had the secret of swift
marching by night, of delivering assault upon assault, so that while you
staggered under one blow you received another full. He could be as
patient as Death, that inchmeal stalker of his prey; he could be as
ruthless as the sea, and incredibly generous upon occasion. To the men
he led he was a father, known and beloved as such; it was as a ruler
they found him too lonely to be loved. In war he was the very footboy's
friend. Personally, when the battles joined, he was rash to a fault; but
so blithe, so ready, and so gracefully strong, that to think of wounds
upon so bright a surface was an impiety. No one did think of them: he
seemed to play with danger as a cat with whirling leaves. 'I have seen
him,' Milo writes somewhere, 'ride into a serry of knights, singing,
throwing up and catching again his great sword Gaynpayn; then, all of a
sudden, stiffen as with a gush of sap in his veins, dart his head
forward, gather his horse together under him, and fling into the midst
of them like a tiger into a herd of bulls. One saw nothing but tossing
steel; yet Richard ever emerged, red but scatheless, on the further
side.
Upon this man the brunt of war fell naturally: having begun, he did not
hold his hand. By the beginning of February he had laid his plans, by
the end of it he had taken Saumur, cut Angers off from Tours, and turned
all the valley of the Loire into a scorched cinder-bed. In the early
days of March he sat down before Tours with his siege-engines,
petraries, mangonels, and towers, and daily battered at the walls, with
intent to reduce it before the war was really afloat. The city of Saint
Martin was doomed; no help from Anjou could save it, for none could come
that way. Meantime the King his father had landed at Honfleur, assembled
his Normans at Rouen, and was working his way warily down through the
duchy, feeling for the French on his left, and for the Bretons on his
right. He never found the French; they were far south of him, pushing
through Orleans to join Richard at Le Mans. But the Countess of
Brittany's men, under Hugh of Dinan, were sacking Avranches when old
Henry heard the bad news from Touraine. That country and Maine were as
the apple of his eye; yet he dared not leave Avranches fated behind him.
All he could do was to send William the Marshal with a small force into
Anjou, while he himself spread out westward to give Hugh of Dinan battle
and save Avranches, if that might be. So it was that King Philip slipped
in between him and Le Mans. By this time Richard was master of Tours,
and himself on the way to Le Mans, nosing the air for William the
Marshal. This was in the beginning of April. Then on one and the same
day he risked all he had won for the sake of a girl's proud face, and
nearly lost his life into the bargain.
He had to cross the river Aune above La Flèche. That river, a sluggish
but deep little stream, moves placidly among osiers on its way to swell
the Loire. On either side the water-meadows stretch for three-quarters
of a mile; low chalk-hills, fringed at the top, are ramparts to the
sleepy valley. Creeping along the eastern spurs at dawn, Richard came in
touch with his enemy, William the Marshal and his force of Normans and
English. These had crossed the bridge at La Flèche, and came pricking
now up the valley to save Le Mans. Heading them boldly, Richard threw
out his archers like a waterspray over the flats, and while these
checked the advance and had the van in confusion, thundered down the
slopes with his knights, caught the Marshal on the flank, smote him hip
and thigh, and swept the core of his army into the river. The Marshal's
battle was thus destroyed; but the wedge had made too clean a cleft.
Front and rear joined up and held; so Richard found himself in danger.
The Viscount of Béziers, who led the rearguard, engaged the enemy, and
pushed them slowly back towards the Aune; Richard wheeled his men and
charged, to take them in the rear. His horse, stumbling on the rotten
ground, fell badly and threw him: there were cries, 'Holà! Count Richard
is down!' and some stayed to rescue and some pushed on. William the
Marshal, on a white horse, came suddenly upon him as he lay. 'Mort de
dieu!' shrilled this good soldier, and threw up his spear arm. 'God's
feet, Marshal, kill one or other of us!' said Richard lightly: he was
pinned down by his struggling beast. 'I leave you to the devil, my lord
Richard,' said the Marshal, and drove his spear into the horse's chest.
The beast's death-plunge freed his master. Richard jumped up: even on
foot his head was level with the rider's shield. 'Have at you now!' he
cried; but the Marshal shook his head, and rode after his flying men.
The day was with Poictou, Le Mans must fall.
It fell, but not yet; nor did Richard see it fall. Gaston of Béarn
joined his master the next day. 'Hasten, hasten, fair lord!' he cried
out as soon as he saw him. Richard looked as if he had never known the
word.
'What news of Normandy, Gaston?'
'The English are through, Richard. The country swarms with them. They
hold Avranches, and now are moving south.'
'They are too late,' said Richard. 'Tell me what message you have from
the Fair-Girdled.'
'Wed or unwed, she is yours. But she is kept in a tower until Palm
Sunday. Then they bring her out and marry her to what remains of a black
Normandy pig. Not very much remains, but (they tell me) enough for the
purpose.'
'Spine of God,' said Richard, examining his finger-nails.
'Swear by His heart, rather, my Count,' Gaston said, 'for you have a red
heart in your keeping. Eh, eh, what a beautiful person is there! She
leaned her body out of the window--what a shape that girdle confines!
Bowered roses! Dian and the Nymphs! Bosomed familiars of old Pan! And
what emerald fires! What molten hair! The words came shortly from her,
and brokenly, as if her carved lips disdained such coarse uses! Richard,
her words were so: "Take a message to my lord," quoth she. "I am his in
life or death. I seek to do him service. Wed or unwed, what is that to
me? I am still Jehane." Thus she--but I? Well, well, my sword spake for
me when I carved that beef-bone bare.' The Béarnais pulled his goatee,
and looked at the ends of it for split hairs. But Richard sat very
still.
'Do you know, Gaston, whom you have seen?' he said presently, in a
trembling whisper.
'Perfectly well,' said the other. 'I have seen a pale flower ripe for
the sun.'
'You have seen the Countess of Poictou, Gaston,' said Richard, and took
to his prayers.
Through these means, for the time, he was held off his father's throat.
But for Jehane and her urgent affairs these two had grappled at Le Mans.
As it was, not Richard's hand was to fire the cradle-city which had seen
King Henry at the breast. Before nightfall he had made his dispositions
for a very risky business. He set aside the Viscount of Béziers, Bertram
Count of Roussillon, Gaston of Béarn, to go with him, not because they
were the best men by any means, but so that he might leave the best men
in charge. These were certainly the Dauphin, the Viscount of Limoges,
and the Count of Angoulesme, each of whom he had proved as an enemy in
his day. 'Gentlemen,' he said to these three, 'I am about to go upon a
journey. Of you I shall require a little attention, certain patience,
exact obedience. It will be necessary that you be before the walls of Le
Mans in three days. Invest them, my lords, keep up your communications,
and wait for the French King. Give no battle, offer no provocation, let
hunger do your affair. I know where the King of England is, and shall be
with you before him.' He went on to be more precise, but I omit the
details. It was difficult for them to go wrong, but if the truth is to
be known, he was in a mood which made him careless about that. He was
free. He was going on insensate adventure; but he saw his road before
him once again, like a long avenue of light, which Jehane made for him
with a torch uplifted. Before it was day, armed from head to foot in
chain mail, with a plain shield, and a double-bladed Norman axe in his
saddle-bucket, he and his three companions set out on their journey.
They rode leisurely, with loose reins and much turning in the saddle to
talk, as if for a meet of the hounds.
Now was that vernal season of the year when winds are boon, the gentle
rain never far off, the stars in heaven (like the flowers on earth)
washed momently to a freshness which urges men to be pure. Riding day
and night through the green breadth of France, though he had been
plucked from the roaring pit of war, Richard (I know) went with a single
aim before him--to see Jehane again. Nothing else in his heart, I say.
Whatever purpose may have lurked in his mind, in heart he went clean,
single in desire, chanting the canticles of Mary and the Virgin Saints.
It was so. He had been seethed in wicked doings from his boyhood--I
give him you no better than he was: wild work in Poictou, the scour of
hot blood; devil's work in Touraine, riotous work in Paris, tyrannous in
Aquitaine. He had been blown upon by every ill report; hatred against
blood, blasphemy against God's appointment, violence, clamour, scandal
against charitable dealing: all these were laid to his name. He had
behind him a file of dead ancestors, cut-throats and worse. He had faced
unnameable sin and not blenched, laughed where he should have wept,
promised and broken his promise; to be short, he had been a creature of
his house and time, too young acquainted with pride and too proud
himself to deny it. But now, with eyes alight like a boy's because his
heart was uplift, he was riding between the new-budded woods, the
melodies of a singing-boy on his lips, and swaying before his heart's
eye the figure of a tall girl with green eyes and a sulky, beautiful
mouth. 'Lord, what is man?' cried the Psalmist in dejection. 'Lord, what
is man not?' cry we, who know more of him.
His traverse took him four days and nights. He rested at La Ferté, at
Nogent-le-Rotrou, outside Dreux, and at Rosny. Here he stayed a day, the
Vigil of the Feast of Palms. He had it in his mind not to see Jehane
again until the very moment when he might lose her.
CHAPTER IX
WILD WORK IN THE CHURCH OF GISORS
When in March the chase is up, and the hunting wind searches out the
fallow places of the earth, love also comes questing, desire is awake;
man seeks maid, and maid seeks to be sought. If man or maid have loved
already the case is worse; we hear love crying, but cannot tell where he
is, how or with what honesty to let him in. All those ranging days
Jehane--whether in bed cuddling her letters, or at the window of her
tower, watching with brimmed eyes the pairing of the birds--showed a
proud front of sufferance, while inly her heart played a wild tune. Not
a crying girl, nor one capable of any easy utterance, she could do no
more than stand still, and wonder why she was most glad when most
wretched. She ought to have felt the taint, to love the man who had
slain her brother; she might have known despair: she did neither. She
sat or stood, or lay in her bed, and pressed to her heart with both
hands the words that said, 'Never doubt me, Jehane,' or 'Ma mye, I shall
come to you.' When he came, as he surely would, he would find her a
wife--ah, let him come, let him come in his time, so only she saw him
again!
March went out in dusty squalls, and April came in to the sound of the
young lamb's bleat. Willow-palm was golden in the hedges when the King
of England's men filled Normandy, and Gilles de Gurdun, having been
healed of his wounds, rode towards Rouen at the head of his levy. He
went not without an understanding with Saint-Pol that he should have his
sister on Palm Sunday in the church of Gisors. They could not marry at
Saint-Pol-la-Marche, because Gilles was on his service and might not win
so far; nor could they have married before he went, because of his
ill-treatment at the hands of the Béarnais. Of this Gilles had made
light. 'He got worse than he gave,' he told Saint-Pol. 'I left him dead
in the wood.'
'Would you see Jehane, Gilles?' Saint-Pol had asked him before he went
out. 'She is in her turret as meek as a mouse.'
'Time enough for that,' said Gilles quietly. 'She loves me not. But I,
Eustace, love her so hot that I have fear of myself. I think I will not
see her.'
'As you will,' said Saint-Pol. 'Farewell.'
In Gisors, then a walled town, trembling like a captive at the knees of
a huge castle, there was a long grey church which called Saint Sulpice
lord. It stood in a little square midway between the South Gate and the
citadel, a narrow oblong place where they held the cattle market on
Tuesdays, flagged and planted with pollard-limes. The west door of Saint
Sulpice, resting on a stepped foundation, formed a solemn end to this
humble space, and the great gable flanked by turrets threatened the
huddled tenements of the craftsmen. On this morning of Palm Sunday the
shaven crowns of the limes were budded gold and pink, the sky a fair
sea-blue over Gisors, with a scurrying fleece of clouds like foam; the
poplars about the meadows were in their first flush, all the quicksets
veiled in green. The town was early afoot, for the wedding party of the
Sieur de Gurdun was to come in; and Gurdun belonged to the Archbishop,
and the Archbishop to the Duke. The bride also was reported unwilling,
which added zest to the public appetite for her known beauty. Some knew
for truth that she was the cast-off mistress of a very great man, driven
into Gurdun's arms to dispose of scandal and of her. 'Eh, the minion!'
said certain sniggering old women to whom this was told, 'she'll not
find so soft a lap at Gurdun!' But others said, 'Gurdun is the Duke's,
and will one day be the Duke's son's. What will Sieur Gilles do then
with his straining wife? You cannot keep your hawk on the cadge for
ever--ah, nor hood her for ever!' And so on.
All this points to some public excitement. The town gate was opened full
early, the booths about it did a great trade; at a quarter before seven
Sir Gilles de Gurdun rode in, with his father on his right hand, the
prior of Rouen on his left, and half a dozen of his kindred, fair and
solid men all. They were lightly armed, clothed in soft leather, without
shields or any heavy war-furniture: old Gurdun a squarely built,
red-faced man like his son, but with a bush of white hair all about his
face, and eyebrows like curved snowdrifts; the prior (old Gurdun's
brother's son) with a big nose, long and pendulous; Gilles' brother
Bartholomew, and others whom it would be tedious to mention. Gilles
himself looked well knit for the business in hand; all the old women
agreed that he would make a masterful husband. They stabled their horses
in the inn-yard, and went into the church porch to await the bride's
party.
A trumpet at the gate announced her coming. She rode on a little ambling
horse beside her brother Saint-Pol. With them were the portentous old
lady, Dame Gudule, William des Barres, a very fine French knight,
Nicholas d'Eu, and a young boy called Eloy de Mont-Luc, a cousin of
Jehane's, to bear her train. The gossips at the gate called her a wooden
bride; others said she was like a doll, a big doll; and others that they
read in her eyes the scorn of death. She took no notice of anything or
anybody, but looked straight before her and followed where she was led.
This was straightway into the church by her brother, who had her by the
hand and seemed in a great hurry. The marriage was to be made in the
Lady Chapel, behind the high altar.
Twenty minutes later yet, or maybe a little less, there was another
surging to the gate about the arrival of four knights, who came posting
in, spattered with mud and the sweat and lather of their horses. They
were quite unknown to the people of Gisors, but seen for great men, as
indeed they were. Richard of Anjou was the first of them, a young man of
inches incredible to Gisors. 'He had a face like King Arthur's of
Britain,' says one: 'A red face, a tawny beard, eyes like stones.'
Behind him were three abreast: Roussillon, a grim, dark, heavy-eyed
man, bearded like a Turk; Béziers, sanguine and loose-limbed, a man with
a sharp tongue; Gaston of Béarn, airy hunter of fine phrases, looking
now like the prince of a fairy-tale, with roving eyes all a-scare for
adventure. The warders of the gate received them with a flourish. They
knew nothing of them, but were certain of their degree.
By preconcerted action they separated there. Roussillon and Béziers sat
like statues within the gate, one on each side of the way, actually upon
the bridge; and so remained, the admired of all the booths. Gaston, like
a yeoman-pricker in this hunting of the roe, went with Richard to the
edge of the covert, that is, to the steps of Saint Sulpice, and stood
there holding his master's horse. What remained to be done was done with
extreme swiftness. Richard alone, craning his head forward, stooping a
little, swaying his scabbarded sword in his hand, went with long soft
strides into the church.
At the entry he kneeled on one knee, and looked about him from under his
brows. Three or four masses were proceeding; out of the semi-darkness
shone the little twinkling lights, and illuminated faintly the kneeling
people, a priest's vestment, a silver chalice. But here was neither
marriage nor Jehane. He got up presently, and padded down the nave,
kneeling to every altar as he went. Many an eye followed him as he
pushed on and past the curtain of the ambulatory. They guessed him for
the wedding, and so (God knows) he was. In the shadow of a great pillar
he stopped short, and again went down on his knee; from here he could
see the business in train.
He saw Jehane at prayer, in green and white, kneeling at her faldstool
like a painted lady on an altar tomb; he just saw the pure curve of her
cheek, the coiled masses of her hair, which seemed to burn it. All the
world with the lords thereof was at his feet, but this treasure which he
had held and put away was denied him. By his own act she was denied. He
had said Yea, when Nay had been the voice of heart and head, of honour
and love and reason at once; and now (close up against her) he knew that
he was to forbid his own grant. He knew it, I say; but until he saw her
there he had not clearly known it. Go on, I will show you the deeps of
the man for good or bad. Not lust of flesh, but of dominion, ravened in
him. This woman, this Jehane Saint-Pol, this hot-haired slip of a girl
was his. The leopard had laid his paw upon her shoulder, the mark was
still there; he could not suffer any other beast of the forest to touch
that which he had printed with his own mark, for himself.
Twi-form is the leopard; twi-natured was Richard of Anjou, dog and cat.
Now here was all cat. Not the wolf's lust, but the lion's jealous rage
spurred him to the act. He could see this beautiful thing of flesh
without any longing to lick or tear; he could have seen the frail soul
of it, but half-born, sink back into the earth out of sight; he could
have killed Jehane or made her as his mother to him. But he could not
see one other get that which was his. His by all heaven she was. When
Gurdun squared himself and puffed his cheeks, and stood up; when
Jehane, touched by Saint-Pol on the shoulder, shivered and left staring,
and stood up in turn, swaying a little, and held out her thin hand; when
the priest had the ring on his book, and the two hands, the red and the
white, trembled to the touch--Richard rose from his knee and stole
forward with his long, soft, crouching stride.
So softly he trod that the priest, old and blear-eyed as he was, saw him
first: the others had heard nothing. With Jehane's hand in his own, the
priest stopped and blinked. Who was this prowler, afoot when all else
were on their knees? His jaw dropped; you saw that he was toothless.
Inarticulate sounds, crackling and dry, came from his throat. Richard
had stopped too, tense, quivering for a spring. The priest gave a
prodigious sniff, turned to his book, looked up again: the crouching man
was still there--but imminent. 'Wine of Jesus!' said the priest, and
dropped Jehane's hand. Then she turned. She gave a short cry; the whole
assembly started and huddled together as the mailed man made his spring.
It was done in a flash. From his crouched attitude he went, as it
seemed, at one bound. That same shock drove Gilles de Gurdun back among
his people, and the same found Jehane caged in a hoop of steel. So he
affronting and she caught up stood together, for a moment. With one
mailed hand he held her fast under the armpit, with the other he held a
fidgety sword. His head was thrown back; through glimmering eyelids he
watched them--as one who says, What next?--breathing short through his
nose. It was the attitude of the snatching lion, sudden, arrogant,
shockingly swift; a gross deed, done in a flash which was its wonderful
beauty. While the company was panting at the shock--for barely a
minute--he stood thus; and Jehane, quiet under so fierce a hold, leaned
not upon him, but stood her own feet fairly, her calm brows upon a level
with his chin. Shameful if it was, at that moment of rude conquest she
had no shame, and he no thought of shame.
Nor was there much time for thought at all. Gurdun cried on the name of
God and started forward; at the same instant Saint-Pol made a rush, and
with him Des Barres. Richard, with Jehane held close, went backwards on
the way he had come in. His long arm and long sword kept his distance;
he worked them like a scythe. None tackled him there, though they
followed him up as dogs a boar in the forest; but old Gurdun, the
father, ran round the other way to hold the west door. Richard, having
gained the nave and open country (as it were), went swiftly down it,
carrying Jehane with ease; he found the strenuous old man before the
door. 'Out of my way, De Gurdun,' he cried in a high singing voice, 'or
I shall do that which I shall be sorry for.'
'Bloody thief,' shouted old Gurdun, 'add murder to the rest!' Richard
stretched his sword arm stiffly and swept him aside. He tumbled back;
the crowd received him--priests, choristers, peasants, knights, all
huddled together, baying like dogs. Count Richard strode down the
steps.
'Alavi! Alavia!' sang Gaston, 'this is a swift marriage!' Richard,
cooler than circumstances warranted, set Jehane on his saddle, vaulted
up behind her, and as his pursuers were tumbling down the steps,
cantered over the flags into the street. Roussillon and Béziers, holding
the bridge, saw him come. 'He has snatched his Sabine woman,' said
Béziers. 'Humph,' said Roussillon; 'now for beastly war.' Richard rode
straight between them at a hand-gallop; Gaston followed close, cheering
his beast like a maniac. Then the iron pair turned inwards and rode out
together, taking the way he led them, the way of the Dark Tower.
The wonder of Gisors was all dismay when it was learned who this tall
stranger was. The Count of Poictou had ridden into his father's country
and robbed his father's man of his wife. We are ruled by devils in
Normandy, then! There was no immediate pursuit. Saint-Pol knew where to
find him; but (as he told William des Barres) it was useless to go there
without some force.
CHAPTER X
NIGHT-WORK BY THE DARK TOWER
I chronicle wild doings in this place, and have no time for the sweets
of love long denied. But strange as the bridal had been, so the nuptials
were strange, one like the other played to a steel undertone. When
Richard had his Jehane, at first he could not enjoy her. He rode away
with her like a storm; the way was long, the pace furious. Not a word
had passed between them, at least not a reasoned word. Once or twice at
first he leaned forward over her shoulder and set his cheek to her
glowing cheek. Then she, as if swayed by a tide, strained back to him,
and felt his kisses hot and eager, his few and pelting words, 'My
bride--at last--my bride!' and the pressure of his hand upon her heart.
That hand knows what tune the heart drummed out. Mostly she sat up
before him stiff as a sapling, with eyes and ears wide for any hint of
pursuit. But he felt her tremble, and knew she would be glad of him yet.
After all, they had six burning days for a honeymoon, days which made
those three who with them held the tower wonder how such a match could
continue. Richard's love rushed through him like a river in flood, that
brims its banks and carries down bridges by its turbid mass; but hers
was like the sea, unresting, ebbing, flowing, without aim or sure
direction. As is usual with reserved persons, Jehane's transports, far
from assuaging, tormented her, or seemed a torment. She loved uneasily,
by hot and cold fits; now melting, now dry, now fierce in demand, next
passionate in refusal. To snatch of love succeeded repulsion of love.
She would fling herself headlong into Richard's arms, and sob there,
feverish; then, as suddenly, struggle for release, as one who longs to
hide herself, and finding that refused, lie motionless like a woman of
wax. Whether embraced or not, out of touch with him she was desperate.
She could not bear that, but sought (unknown to him) to have hold of
some part of him--the edge of his tunic, the tip of his sword, his
glove--something she must have. Without it she sat quivering, throbbing
all over, looking at him from under her brows and biting her dumb lips.
If at such a time as this some other addressed her the word (as, to free
her from her anguish, one would sometimes do), she would perhaps answer
him, Yes or No, but nothing more. Usually she would shake her head
impatiently, as if all the world and its affairs (like a cloud of flies)
were buzzing about her, shutting out sound or sight of her Richard. Love
like this, so deep, outwardly still, inwardly ravening (because
insatiable), is a dreadful thing. No one who saw Jehane with Richard in
those days could hope for the poor girl's happiness. As for him, he was
more expansive, not at all tortured by love, master of that as of
everything else. He teased her after the first day, pinched her ear,
held her by the chin. He used his strange powers against her; stole up
on his noiseless feet, caught her hands behind her, held her fast, and
pulled her back to be kissed. Once he lifted her up, a sure prisoner, to
the top shelf of a cupboard, whence there was no escape but by the way
she had gone. She stayed there quite silent, and when he opened the
cupboard doors was found in the same tremulous, expectant state, her
eyes still fixed upon him. Neither he nor she, publicly at least,
discussed the past, the present or future; but it was known that he
meant to make her his Countess as soon as he could reach Poictiers. To
the onlookers, at any rate to one of them, it seemed that this could
never be, and that she knew very well that the hours of this sharp,
sweet, piercing intercourse were numbered. How could it last? How could
she find either reason or courage to hope it? It seemed to Béziers, on
the watch, that she was awaiting the end already. One is fretted to a
rag by waiting. So Jehane dared not lose a moment of Richard, yet could
enjoy not one, knowing that she must soon lose all.
Those six clear days of theirs had been wiselier spent upon the west
road; but Richard's desire outmastered every thought. Having snatched
Jehane from the very horns of the altar, he must hold her, make her his
irrevocably at the first breathing place. Dealing with any but Normans,
he had never had his six days. But the Norman people, as Abbot Milo
says, 'slime-blooded, slow-bellies, are withal great eaters of beef,
which breeds in them, as well as a heaviness of motion, a certain
slumbrous rage very dangerous to mankind. They crop grief after grief,
chewing the cud of grievance; for when they are full of it they disgorge
and regorge the abhorred sum, and have stuff for their spleens for many
a year.' Even more than this smouldering nursed hate they love a
punctilio; they walk by forms, whether the road is to a lady's heart or
an enemy's throat. And so Saint-Pol found, and so Des Barres, Frenchmen
both and fiery young men, who shook their fists in the faces of the
Gurduns and the dust of such blockish hospitallers off their feet, when
they saw the course affairs were to run. Gilles de Gurdun, if you will
believe it, with the advice of his father and the countenance of his
young brother Bartholomew, would not budge an inch towards the recovery
of his wife or her ravisher's punishment until he had drawn out his
injury fair on parchment. This he then proposed to carry to his Duke,
old King Henry. 'Thus,' said the swart youth, 'I shall be within the law
of my land, and gain the engines of the law on my side.' He seemed to
think this important.
'With your accursed scruples,' cried Saint-Pol, smiting the table, 'you
will gain nothing else. Within your country's law, blockhead! Why, my
sister is within the Count's country by this time!'
'Oh, leave him, leave him, Eustace,' said Des Barres, 'and come with me.
We shall meet him in the fair way yet, you and I together.' So the
Frenchmen rode away, and Gilles, with his father and his parchments and
his square forehead, went to Evreux, where King Henry then was.
Kneeling before their Duke, expounding their gravamens as if they were
suing out a writ of _Mort d'Ancestor_, they very soon found out that he
was no more a Norman than Saint-Pol. The old King made short work of
their '_ut predictum ests_' and '_Quaesumus igiturs_.'
'Good sirs,' says he, knitting his brows, 'where is this lord who has
done you so much injury?'
'My lord,' they report, 'he has her in his strong tower on the plain of
Saint-André, some ten leagues from here.'
Then cries the old King, 'Smoke him out, you fools! What! a badger. Draw
the thief.'
Then Gilles the elder flattened his lips together and afterwards pursed
them. 'Lord,' he said, 'that we dare not do without your express
commandment.'
'Why, why,' snaps the King, 'if I give it you, my solemn fools?'
Young Gilles stood up, a weighty youth. 'Lord Duke,' he said, 'this lord
is the Count of Poictou, your son.' It had been a fine sight for sinful
men to see the eyes of the old King strike fire at this word. His
speech, they tell me, was terrible, glutted with rage.
'Ha, God!' he spluttered, cracking his fingers, 'so my Richard is the
badger, ha? So then I have him, ha? If I do not draw him myself, by the
Face!'
It is said that Longespée (a son of his by Madame Rosamund) and Geoffrey
(another bastard), with Bohun and De Lacy and some more, tried to hinder
him in this design, wherein (said they) he set out to be a second
Thyestes; but they might as well have bandied words with destiny. 'War
is war,' said the foaming old man, 'whether with a son or a grandmother
you make it. Shall my enemy range the field and I sit at home and lap
caudle? That is not the way of my house.' He would by all means go that
night, and called for volunteers. His English barons, to their credit,
flatly refused either to entrap the son of their master or to abandon
the city at a time so critical. 'What, sire!' cried they, 'are private
resentments, like threadworms, to fret the dams of the state? The floods
are out, my lord King, and brimming at the sluices. Be advised
therefore.'
No wearer of the cap of Anjou was ever advised yet. I can hear in fancy
the gnashing of the old lion's fangs, in fancy see the foam he churned
at the corners of his mouth. He went out with such men as he could
gather in his haste, nineteen of them in all. There were old Gilles and
young Gilles with their men; eight of the King's own choosing, namely,
Drago de Merlou, Armand Taillefer, the Count of Ponthieu, Fulk
Perceforest, Fulk D'Oilly, Gilbert FitzReinfrid, Ponce the bastard of
Caen, and a butcher called Rolf, to whom the King, mocking all chivalry,
gave the gilt spurs before he started. He did not wear them long. The
nineteenth was that great king, bad man, and worse father, Henry
Curtmantle himself.
It was a very dark night, without moon or stars, a hot and still night
wherein a man weather-wise might smell the rain. The going upon the moor
was none too good in a good light; yet they tell me that the old King
went spurring over brush and scrub, over tufted roots, through ridge and
hollow, with as much cheer as if the hunt was up in Venvil Wood and
himself a young man. When his followers besought him to take heed, all
he would do was snap his fingers, the reins dangling loose, and cry to
the empty night, 'Hue, Brock, hue!' as if he was baiting a badger. This
badger was the heir to his crown and dignity.
In the Dark Tower they heard him coming three miles away. Roussillon was
on the battlements, and came down to report horsemen on the plain.
'Lights out,' said Richard, and gave Jehane a kiss as he set her down.
They blew out all the lights, and stood two to each door; no one spoke
any more. Jehane sat by the darkened fire with a torch in her hand,
ready to light it when she was bid.
Thus when the Normans drew near they found the tower true to its name,
without a glimmer of light. 'Let alone for that,' said the King, whose
grating voice they heard above all the others; 'very soon we will have a
fire.' He sent some of his men to gather brushwood, ling, and dead
bracken; meantime he began to beat at the door with his axe, crying like
a madman, 'Richard! Richard! Thou graceless wretch, come out of thy
hold.'
Presently a little window-casement opened above him; Gaston of Béarn
poked out his head.
'Beau sire,' he says, 'what entertainment is this for the Count your
son?'
'No son of mine, by the Face!' cried the King. 'Let that woman I have
caged at home answer for him, who defies me for ever. Let me in, thou
sickly dog.'
Gaston said, 'Beau sire, you shall come in if you will, and if you come
in peace.'
Says the King, 'I will come in, by God, and as I will.'
'Foul request, King,' said Gaston, and shut the window.
'Have it as you will; it shall be foul by and by,' the King shouted to
the night. He bid them fire the place.
To be short, they heaped a wood-stack before the door and set it ablaze.
The crackling, the tossed flames, the leaping light, made the King
drunk. He and his companions began capering about the fire with linked
arms, hounding each other on with the cries of countrymen who draw a
badger--'Loo, loo, Vixen! Slip in, lass! Hue, Brock, hue, hue!' and
similar gross noises, until for very shame Gilles and his kindred drew
apart, saying to each other, 'We have let all hell loose, Legion and his
minions.' So the two companies, the grievous and the aggrieved, were
separate; and Richard, seeing this state of the case, took Roussillon
and Béziers out by the other door, got behind the dancers, attacked
suddenly, and drove three of them into the fire. 'There,' says the
chronicler, 'the butcher Sir Rolf got a taste of his everlasting
torments, there FitzReinfrid lay and charred; there Ponce of Caen, ill
born, made a foul smoke as became him.' Turning to go in again, the
three were confronted with the Norman segregates. Great work ensued by
the light of the fire. Gilles the elder was slain with an axe, and if
with an axe, then Richard slew him, for he alone was so armed. Gilles
the younger was wounded in the thigh, but that was Roussillon's work;
his brother Bartholomew was killed by the same terrific hitter; Béziers
lost a finger of his sword hand, and indeed the three barely got in with
their lives. The old King set up howling like a wolf in famine at this
loss; what comforted him was that the fire had eaten up the southern
door and disclosed the entry of the tower--Jehane holding up a torch,
and before her Gaston, Richard, and Bertram of Roussillon, their shields
hiding their breasts.
'Lords,' said Richard, 'we await your leisures.' None cared to attack:
there was the fire to cross, and in that narrow entry three desperate
blades. What could the old King do? He threatened hell and death, he
cursed his son more dreadfully, and (you may take it) with far less
reason, than Almighty God cursed Sodom and Gomorrah, cities of the
plain; but Richard made no answer, and when, quite beside himself, the
old man leaped the fire and came hideously on to the swords, the points
dropped at his son's direction. Almost crying, the King turned to his
followers. 'Taillefer, will you see me dishonoured? Where is Ponthieu?
Where is Drago?' So at last they all attacked together, coming on with
their shields before them, in a phalanx. This was a device that needs
must fail; they could not drive a wedge where they could not get in the
point. The three defending shields were locked in the entry. Two men
fell at the first assault, and Richard's terrible axe crashed into
Perceforest's skull and scattered his brains wide. Red and breathless
work as it was, it was not long adoing. The King was dismayed at the
killing of Perceforest, and dared risk no more lives at such long odds.
'Fire the other door, Drago,' he said grimly. 'We'll have the place down
upon them.' The Normans were set to engage the three while others went
to find fuel.
The Viscount of Béziers had had his hand dressed by Jehane, and was now
able to take his turn. It was by a ruse of his that Richard got away
without a life lost. With Jehane to help him, he got the horses trapped
and housed. 'Now, Richard,' he said, 'listen to my proposals. I am going
to open the north door and make away before they fire it. I shall have
half of them after me as I reckon; but whereas I shall have a good start
on a fresh horse, I doubt not of escape. Do you manage the rest: there
will be three of you.'
Richard approved. 'Go, Raimon,' he said. 'We will join you on the edge
of the plain.'
This was done. Jehane, when Béziers was ready, flung open the door. Out
he shot like a bolt, and she shut it behind him. The old King got wind
of him, spurred off with five or six at his heels, such as happened to
be mounted. Richard fell back from the entry, got out his horse, and
came forward. As he came he stooped and picked up Jehane, who, with a
quick nestling movement, settled into his shield arm. Roussillon and
Gaston in like manner got their horses; then at a signal they drove out
of the tower into the midst of the Normans. There was a wild scuffle.
Richard got a side blow on the knee, but in return he caught Drago de
Merlou under the armpit and well-nigh cut him in half. Taillefer and
Gilles de Gurdun set upon him together, and one of them wounded him in
the shoulder. But Taillefer got more than he gave, for he fell almost as
he delivered his blow, and broke his jaw against a rock. As for Gurdun,
Richard hurtled full into him, bore him backwards, and threw him also.
Jehane safe in arms, he rode over him where he lay. But lastly, pounding
through the tussocks in the faint grey light, he met his father charging
full upon him, intent to cut him off. 'Avoid me, father,' he cried out.
'By God,' said the King, 'I will not. I am for you, traitorous beast.'
They came together, and Richard heard the old man's breath roaring like
a foundered horse's. He held his sword arm out stiffly to parry the
blow. The King's sword shivered and fell harmless as Richard shot by
him. Turning as he rode (to be sure he had done him no more hurt), he
saw the wicked grey face of his father cursing him beyond redemption;
and that was the last living sight of it he had.
They got clean away without the loss of a man of theirs, reached the
lands of the Count of Perche, and there found a company of sixty knights
come out to look for Richard. With them he rode down through Maine to Le
Mans, which had fallen, and now held the French King. Richard's
triumphant humour carried him strange lengths. As they came near to the
gates of Le Mans, 'Now,' he said, 'they shall see me, like a pious
knight, bear my holy banner before me.' He made Jehane stand up in the
saddle in front of him; he held her there firmly by one long arm. So he
rode in the midst of his knights through the thronged streets to the
church of Saint-Julien, Jehane Saint-Pol pillared before him like a
saint. The French king made much of him, and to Jehane was respectful.
Prince John was there, the Duke of Burgundy, the Dauphin of Auvergne,
all the great men. To Richard was given the Bishop's house; Jehane
stayed with the Canonesses of Prémonstre. But he saw her every day.
CHAPTER XI
OF PROPHECY; AND JEHANE IN THE PERILOUS BED
Well may the respectable Abbot Milo despond over this affair. Hear him,
and conceive how he shook his head. 'O too great power of princes,' he
writes, 'lodged in a room too frail! O wagging bladder that serves as
cushion for a crown! O swayed by idle breath, seeming god that yet is a
man, man driven by windy passion, that has yet to ape the god's estate!
Because Richard craved this French girl, therefore he must take her, as
it were, from the lap of her mother. Because he taught her his nobility,
which is the mere wind in a prince's nose, she taught him nobility
again. Then because a prince must not be less noble than his nobles (but
always _primus inter pares_), he, seeing her nobly disposed, gave her
over to a man of her own choosing; and immediately after, unable to bear
it that a common person should have what he had touched, took her away
again, doing slaughter to get her, to say nothing of outrage in the
church. Last of all, as you are now to hear, thinking that too much
handling was dishonour to the thin vessel of her body, touched on the
generous spot, he made bad worse; he added folly to force; he made a
marriage where none could be; he made immortal enmities, blocked up
appointed roads, and set himself to walk others with a clog on his leg.
Better far had she been a wanton of no account, a piece of dalliance, a
pastime, a common delight! She was very much other than that. Dame
Jehane was a good girl, a noble girl, a handsome girl of inches and
bright blood; but by the Lord God of Israel (Who died on the Tree),
these virtues cost her dear.'
All this, we may take it, is true; the pity is that the thing promised
so fair. Those who had not known Jehane before were astonished at her
capacity, discretion, and dignity. She had a part to play at Le Mans,
where Richard kept his Easter, which would have taxed a wiser head. She
moved warily, a poor thing of gauze, amid those great lights. King
Philip had a tender nose; a very whiff of offence might have drawn
blood. Prince John had a shrewd eye and an evil way of using it; he
stroked women, but they seldom liked it, and never found good come of
it. The Duke of Burgundy ate and drank too much. He resembled a sponge,
when empty too rough a customer, when full too juicy. It was on one of
the days when he was very full that, tilting at the ring, he won, or
said he won, forty pounds of Richard. Empty, he claimed them, but
Richard discerned a rasp in his manner of asking, and laughed at him.
The Duke of Burgundy took this ill. He was never quite the same to
Richard again; but he made great friends with Prince John.
With all these, and with their courtiers, who took complexion from their
masters, Jehane had to hold the fair way. As a mistress who was to be a
wife, the veiled familiarity with which she was treated was always
preaching to her. How dare she be a Countess who was of so little
account already? The poor girl felt herself doomed beforehand. What
king's mistress had ever been his wife? And how could she be Richard's
wife, betrothed to Gilles de Gurdun? Richard was much afield in these
days, making military dispositions against his coming absence in
Poictou. She saw him rarely; but in return she saw his peers, and had to
keep her head high among the women of the French court. And so she did
until one day, as she was walking back from mass with her ladies, she
saw her brother Saint-Pol on horseback, him and William des Barres.
Timidly she would have slipped by; but Saint-Pol saw her, reined up his
horse in the middle of the street, and stared at her as if she had been
less than nothing to him. She felt her knees fail her, she grew vividly
red, but she kept her way. After this terrible meeting she dared not
leave the convent.
Of course she was quite safe. Saint-Pol could not do anything against
the conqueror of Touraine, the ally of his master; but she felt tainted,
and had thoughts (not for the first time) of taking the veil. One woman
had already taken it; she heard much concerning Madame Alois from the
Canonesses, how she had a little cell at Fontevrault among the nuns
there, how she shivered with cold in the hottest sun, how she shrieked
o' nights, how chattered to herself, and how she used a cruel
discipline. All these things working upon Jehane's mind made her love an
agony. Many and many a time when her royal lover came to visit her she
clung to him with tears, imploring him to cast her off again; but the
more she bewailed the more he pursued his end. In truth he was master by
this time, and utterly misconceived her. Nothing she might say or do
could stay him from his intent, which was to wed and afterwards crown
her Countess of Poictou. This was to be done at Pentecost, as the only
reparation he could make her.
Not even what befell on the way to Poictiers for this very thing could
alter him. Again he misread her, or was too full of what he read in
himself to read her at all. They left Le Mans a fortnight before
Pentecost with a great train of lords and ladies, Richard looking like a
young god, with the light of easy mastery shining in his eyes. She, poor
girl, might have been going to the gallows--and before the end of the
journey would thankfully have gone there; and no wonder. Listen to this.
Midway between Châtelherault and Poictiers is a sandy waste covered with
scrub of juniper and wild plum, which contrives a living by some means
between great bare rocks. It is a disconsolate place, believed to be the
abode of devils and other damned spirits. Now, as they were riding over
this desert, picking their way among the boulders at the discretion of
their animals, it so happened that Richard and Jehane were in front by
some forty paces. Riding so, presently Jehane gave a short gasping cry,
and almost fell off her horse. She pointed with her hand, and 'Look,
look, look!' she said in a dry whisper. There at a little distance from
them was a leper, who sat scratching himself on a rock.
'Ride on, ride on, my heart,' said Richard; but she, 'No, no, he is
coming. We must wait.' Her voice was full of despair.
The leper came jumping from rock to rock, a horrible thing of rags and
sores, with a loose lower jaw, which his disease had fretted to
dislocation. He stood in their mid path, in full sun, and plucking at
his disastrous eyes, peered upon the gay company. By this time all the
riders were clustered together before him, and he fingered them out one
after another--Richard, whom he called the Red Count, Gaston, Béziers,
Auvergne, Limoges, Mercadet; but at Jehane he pointed long, and in a
voice between a croak and a clatter (he had no palate), said thrice,
'Hail thou!'
She replied faintly, 'God be good to thee, brother.' He kept his finger
still upon her as he spoke again: every one heard his words.
'Beware (he said) the Count's cap and the Count's bed; for so sure as
thou liest in either thou art wife of a dead man, and of his killer.'
Jehane reeled, and Richard held her up.
'Begone, thou miserable,' he cried in his high voice, 'lest I pity thee
no more.' But the leper was capering away over the rocks, hopping and
flapping his arms like an old raven. At a safe distance he squatted down
and watched them, his chin on his bare knees.
This frightened Jehane so much that in the refectory of a convent, where
they stayed the night, she could hardly see her victual for tears, nor
eat it for choking grief. She exhausted herself by entreaties. Milo says
that she was heard crying out at Richard night after night, conjur ing
him by Christ on the Cross, and Mary at the foot of the Cross, not to
turn love into a stabbing blade; but all to no purpose. He soothed and
petted her, he redoubled her honours, he compelled her to love him; and
the more she agonised the more he was confident he would right her.
Very definitely and with unexampled profusion he provided for her
household and estate as soon as he was at home. Kings' daughters were
among her honourable women, at least, counts' daughters, daughters of
viscounts and castellans. She had Lady Saill of Ventadorn, Lady Elis of
Montfort, Lady Tibors, Lady Maent, Lady Beatrix, all fully as noble, and
two of them certainly more beautiful than she. Lady Saill and Lady Elis
were the most lovely women of Aquitaine, Saill with a face like a flame,
Elis clear and cold as spring water in the high rocks. He gave her a
chancellor of her seal, a steward of the household, a bishop for
chaplain. Viscount Ebles of Ventadorn was her champion, and Bertran de
Born (who had been doing secret mischief in the south, as you will learn
by and by), if you will believe it, Bertran de Born was forgiven and
made her trobador. It was at a great Court of Love which Richard caused
to be held in the orchards outside Poictiers, with pavilions and a
Chastel d'Amors, that Bertran came in and was forgiven for the sake of
his great singing. On a white silk tribune before the castle sat Jehane,
in a red gown, upon her golden head a circlet of dull silver, with the
leaves and thorns which made up the coronet of a countess. Richard bade
sound the silver trumpets, and his herald proclaim her three times, to
the north, to the east, and to the south, as 'the most puissant and
peerless princess, Madame Jehane, by the grace of God Countess of
Poictou, Duchess of Aquitaine, consort of our illustrious dread lord
Monsire Richard, Count and Duke of the same.' Himself, gloriously
attired in a bliaut of white velvet and gold, with a purple cloak over
his shoulder, sustained in a _tenzon_ with the chief trobadors of
Languedoc, that she was 'the most pleasant lovely lady now on earth, or
ever known there since the days of Madame Dido, Queen of Carthage, and
Madame Cleopatra, Empress of Babylon'--unfortunate examples both, as
some thought.
Minstrels and poets of the greatest contended with him; Saill had her
champion in Guillem of Cabestaing, Elis in Girault of Borneilh; the
Dauphin of Auvergne sang of Tibors, and Peire Vidal of Lady Maent.
Towards the end came sideways in that dishevelled red fox (whom nothing
shamed), Bertran de Born himself, looked askance at the Count, puffed
out his cheeks to give himself assurance, and began to sing of Jehane in
a way that brought tears to Richard's eyes. It was Bertran who dubbed
her with the name she ever afterwards went by throughout Poictou and the
south, the name of Bel Vezer. Richard at the end clipped him in his
arms, and with one arm still round his wicked neck led him to the
tribune where Jehane sat blushing. 'Take him into your favour, Lady Bel
Vezer,' he said to her. 'Whatever his heart may be, he hath a golden
tongue.' Jehane, stooping, lent him her cheek, and Bertran fairly kissed
her whom he had sought to undo. Then turning, fired with her favour, he
let his shrill voice go spiring to heaven in her praise.
For these feats Bertran was appointed to her household, as I have said.
He made no secret of his love for her, but sang of her night and day,
and delighted Richard's generous heart. But indeed Jehane won the favour
of most. If she was not so beautiful as Saill, she was more courteous,
if not so pious as Elis, more the woman for that. There were many,
misled by her petulant lips and watchful eyes, to call her sulky: these
did not judge her silence favourably. They thought her cold, and so she
was to all but one; their eyes might have told them what she was to him,
and how when they met in love, to kiss or cling, their two souls burned
together. And if she made a sweet lover, she promised to be a rare
Countess. Her judgment was never at fault; she was noble, and her sedate
gravity showed her to be so. She was no talker, and had great command
over herself; but she was more pale than by ordinary, and her eyes were
burning bright. The truth was, she was in a fever of apprehension,
restless, doomed, miserable; devouringly in love, yet dreading to be
loved. So, more and more evidently in pain, she walked her part through
the blare of festival as Pentecost drew nigh.
'Upon that day,' to quote the mellifluous abbot, 'Upon that day when in
leaping tongues the Spirit of God sat upon the heads of the Holy
Apostles, and gave letters to the unlettered and to the speechless Its
own nature, Count Richard wedded Dame Jehane, and afterwards crowned her
Countess with his own hands.
'They put her, crying bitterly, into the Count's bed in the Castle of
Poictiers on the evening of the same feast. Weeping also, but at a later
day, I saw her crowned again at Angers with the Count's cap of Anjou. So
to right her and himself Count Richard did both the greatest wrong of
all.'
Much more pageantry followed the marriage. I admire Milo's account. 'He
held a tournament after this, when the Count and the party of the castle
maintained the field against all corners. There was great jousting for
six days, I assure you; for I saw the whole of it. No English knights
were there, nor any from Anjou; but a few French (without King Philip's
goodwill), many Gascons and men of Toulouse and the Limousin; some from
over the mountains, from Navarre, and Santiago, and Castile; there also
came the Count of Champagne with his friends. King Sancho of Navarre was
excessively friendly, with a gift of six white stallions, all housed,
for Dame Jehane; nobody knew why or wherefore at the time, except
Bertran de Born (O thief unrepentant!).
'Countess Jehane, with her ladies, being set in a great balcony of red
and white roses, herself all in rose-coloured silk with a chaplet of
purple flowers, the first day came Count Richard in green armour and a
surcoat of the same embroidered with a naked man, a branch of yellow
broom in his helm. None held up against him that day; the Duke of
Burgundy fell and brake his collar-bone. The second day he drove into
the mêlée suddenly, when there was a great press of spears, all in red
with a flaming sun on his breast. He sat a blood-horse of Spain, bright
chestnut colour and housed in red. Then, I tell you, we saw horses and
men sunder their loves. The third day Pedro de Vaqueiras, a knight from
Santiago, encountered him in his silver armour, when he rode a horse
white as the Holy Ghost. By a chance blow the Spaniard bore him back on
to the crupper. There was a great shout, "The Count is down! Look to the
castle, Poictou!" Dame Jehane turned colour of ash, for she remembered
the leper's prophecy, and knew that De Vaqueiras loved her. But Richard
recovered himself quickly, crying, "Have at you again, Don Pedro." So
they brought fresh spears, and down went De Vaqueiras on his back, his
horse upon him. To be plain, not Hector raging over the field with
shouts for Achilles, nor flamboyant Achilles spying after Hector, nor
Hannibal at Cannae, Roland in the woody pass of Roncesvalles, nor the
admired Lancelot, nor Tristram dreadful in the Cornish isle--not one of
these heroes was more gloriously mighty than Count Richard. Like the
war-horse of Job (the prophet and afflicted man) he stamped with his
foot and said among the captains "ha ha!" His nostrils scented the
battle from very far off; he set on like the quarrell of a bow, and
gathering force as he went, came rocking into his adversary like galley
against galley. With all this he was gentle, had a pleasant laugh. It
was good to be struck down by such a man, if it ever can be good. He
bore away opposition as he bore away the knights.'
If one half of this were true, and no man in steel could withstand him,
how could circumstance, how could she, this slim and frightened girl?
Mad indeed with love and pride, quite beside herself, she forgot for
once her tremors and qualms. On the last day she fell panting upon his
breast; and he, a great lover, kissed her before them all, and lifted
her high in his hands. 'Oyez, my lords!' he cried with a mighty voice,
'Is this a lovely wife I have won, or not?' They answered him with a
shout.
He took her a progress about his country afterwards. From Poictiers they
went to Limoges, thence westward to Angoulesme, and south to Périgueux,
to Bazas, to Cahors, Agen, even to Dax, which is close to the country of
the King of Navarre. Wherever he led her she was hailed with joy. Young
girls met her with flowers in their hands, wise men came kneeling,
offering the keys of their towns; the youth sang songs below her
balcony, the matrons made much of her and asked her searching questions.
They saw in her a very superb and handsome Duchess, Jehane of the Fair
Girdle, now acclaimed in the soft syllables of Aquitaine as Bel Vezer.
When they were at Dax the wise King of Navarre sent ambassadors
beseeching from them a visit to his city of Pampluna; but Richard would
not go. Then they came back to Poictiers and shocking news. This was of
the death of King Henry of England, the old lion, 'dead (Milo is bold to
say) in his sin.'
CHAPTER XII
HOW THEY BAYED THE OLD LION
I must report what happened to the King of England when (like a falcon
foiled in his stoop) he found himself outpaced and outgeneralled on the
moor. Shaken off by those he sought to entrap, baited by the badger he
hoped to draw, he took on something not to be shaken off, namely death,
and had drawn from him what he would ill spare, namely the breath of his
nostrils. To have done with all this eloquence, he caught a chill,
which, working on a body shattered by rages and bad living, smouldered
in him--a slow-eating fever which bit him to the bones, charred and
shrivelled him up. In the clutches of this crawling disease he joined
his forces with those of his Marshal, and marched to the relief of Le
Mans, where the French King was taking his ease. Philip fired the place
when he heard of his approach; so Henry got near enough to see the sky
throbbing with red light, and over all a cloud of smoke blacker than his
own despair. It is said that he had a fit of hard sobbing when he saw
this dreadful sight. He would not suffer the host to approach the
burning city, but took to his bed, turned his face to the tent-wall, and
refused alike housel and meat. News, and of the worst, came fast. The
French were at Châteaudun, the Countess of Brittany's men were
threatening Anjou from the north; all Touraine with Saumur and a chain
of border castles were subject to Richard his son. These things he heard
without moving from his bed or opening his eyes.
After a week of this misery two of his lords, the Marshal, namely, and
Bishop Hugh of Durham, came to his bedside and told him, 'Sire, here are
come ambassadors from France speaking of a peace. How shall it be?'
'As you will,' said the King; 'only let me sleep.' He spoke drowsily, as
if not really awake, but it is thought that he was more watchful than he
chose to appear.
They held a hasty conference, Geoffrey his bastard, the Marshal, the
Bishop: these and the French ambassadors. On the King's part they made
but one request; and Geoffrey made that. The King was dying: let him be
taken down to his castle of Chinon, not die in the fields like an old
hunting dog. This was allowed. He took no sort of notice, let them do
what they would with him, slept incessantly all the way to Chinon.
They brought him the parchments, sealed with his great seal; and he,
quite broken, set his hand to them without so much as a curse on the
robbery done his kingdom. But as the bearers were going out on tiptoe he
suddenly sat up in bed. 'Hugh,' he grumbled, 'Bishop Hugh, come thou
here.' The Bishop turned back eagerly, for those two had loved each
other in their way, and knelt by his bed.
'Read me the signatures to these damned things,' said the King; and
Hugh rejoiced that he was better, yet feared to make him worse.
'Ah, dear sire,' he began to say; but 'Read, man,' said the old King,
jerking his foot under the bedclothes. So Hugh the Bishop began to read
them over, and the sick man listened with a shaky head, for by now the
fever was running high.
'Philip the August, King of the Franks,' says the Bishop; and 'A dog's
name,' the old King muttered in his throat. 'Sanchez, Catholic King of
Navarre,' says Hugh; and 'Name of an owl,' King Henry. To the same
ground-bass he treated the themes of the illustrious Duke of Burgundy,
Henry Count of Champagne, and others of the French party. With these the
Bishop would have stopped, but the King would have the whole. 'Nay,
Hugh,' he said--and his teeth chattered as if it had been bitter
cold--'out with the name of my beloved son. So you shall see what joyful
agreement there is in my house.' The Bishop read the name of Richard
Count of Poictou, and the King grunted his 'Traitor from the womb,' as
he had often done before.
'Who follows Richard?' he asked.
'Oh, our Lady, is he not enough, sire?' said the Bishop in fear. The old
King sat bolt upright and steadied his head on his knees. 'Read,' he
said again.
'I cannot read!' cried Hugh with a groan. The King said, 'You are a
fool. Give me the parchment.'
He pored over it, with dim eyes almost out of his keeping, searching for
the names at the top. So he found what he had dreaded--'John Count of
Mortain.' Shaking fearfully, he began to point at the wall as if he saw
the man before him. 'Jesu! Count by me, King by me, and Judas by me!
Now, God, let me serve Thee as Thou deservest. Thou hast taken away all
my sons. Now then the devil may have my soul, for Thou shalt never have
it.' The death-rattle was heard in his throat, and Hugh sprang forward
to help him: he was still stiffly upright, still looking (though with
filmy eyes) at the wall, still trying to shape in words his wicked
vaunts. No words came from him; his jaw dropped before his strong old
body. They brought him the Sacrament; his soul rejected it--too clean
food. Hugh and others about him, all in a sweat, got him down at last.
They anointed him and said a few prayers, for they were in a desperate
hurry when it came to the end. It was near midnight when he died, and at
that hour, they terribly report, the wind sprang up and howled about the
turrets of Chinon, as if all hell was out hunting for that which he had
promised them. But, if the truth must be told, he had never kept his
promises, and there is no reason to suppose that he kept that one
either. Milo adds, So died this great, puissant, and terrible king,
cursing his children, cursed in them, as they in him. All power was
given over to him from his birth, save one only, power over himself. He
was indeed a slave more wretched than those hinds, _glebæ ascriptitii_,
whom at a distance he ruled in his lands: he was slave of his baser
parts. With God he was always at war, and with God's elect. What of
blessed Thomas? Let Thomas answer on the Last Day. I deny him none of
his properties; he was open-handed, open-minded, as bold as a lion. But
his vices ate him up. Peace be with the man; he was a mighty king. He
left a wife in prison, two sons in arms
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