In this place we have to do with the opening tale of the Dizain of
Queens. I abridge, as afterward, at discretion; and an initial account
of the Barons' War, among other superfluities, I amputate as more
remarkable for veracity than interest. The result, we will agree at
outset, is that to the Norman cleric appertains whatever these tales may
have of merit, whereas what you find distasteful in them you must impute
to my delinquencies in skill rather than in volition.
Within the half hour after de Giars' death (here one overtakes Nicolas
mid-course in narrative) Dame Alianora thus stood alone in the corridor
of a strange house. Beyond the arras the steward and his lord were at
irritable converse.
First, "If the woman be hungry," spoke a high and peevish voice, "feed
her. If she need money, give it to her. But do not annoy me."
"This woman demands to see the master of the house," the steward then
retorted.
"O incredible Boeotian, inform her that the master of the house has no
time to waste upon vagabonds who select the middle of the night as an
eligible time to pop out of nowhere. Why did you not do so in the
beginning, you dolt?" The speaker got for answer only a deferential
cough, and very shortly continued: "This is remarkably vexatious. _Vox
et praeterea nihil_--which signifies, Yeck, that to converse with women
is always delightful. Admit her." This was done, and Dame Alianora came
into an apartment littered with papers, where a neat and shriveled
gentleman of fifty-odd sat at a desk and scowled.
He presently said, "You may go, Yeck." He had risen, the magisterial
attitude with which he had awaited her entrance cast aside. "Oh, God!"
he said; "you, madame!" His thin hands, scholarly hands, were plucking
at the air.
Dame Alianora had paused, greatly astonished, and there was an interval
before she said, "I do not recognize you, messire."
"And yet, madame, I recall very clearly that some thirty years ago the
King-Count Raymond Bérenger, then reigning in Provence, had about his
court four daughters, each one of whom was afterward wedded to a king.
First, Meregrett, the eldest, now regnant in France; then Alianora, the
second and most beautiful of these daughters, whom troubadours hymned as
the Unattainable Princess. She was married a long while ago, madame, to
the King of England, Lord Henry, third of that name to reign in these
islands."
Dame Alianora's eyes were narrowing. "There is something in your voice,"
she said, "which I recall."
He answered: "Madame and Queen, that is very likely, for it is a voice
which sang a deal in Provence when both of us were younger. I concede
with the Roman that I have somewhat deteriorated since the reign of
Cynara. Yet have you quite forgotten the Englishman who made so many
songs of you? They called him Osmund Heleigh."
"He made the Sestina of Spring which won the violet crown at my
betrothal," the Queen said; and then, with eagerness: "Messire, can it
be that you are Osmund Heleigh?" He shrugged assent. She looked at him
for a long time, rather sadly, and demanded if he were the King's man or
of the barons' party.
The nervous hands were raised in deprecation. "I have no politics,"
Messire Heleigh began, and altered it, gallantly enough, to, "I am the
Queen's man, madame."
"Then aid me, Osmund," she said.
He answered with a gravity which singularly became him, "You have reason
to understand that to my fullest power I will aid you."
"You know that at Lewes these swine overcame us." He nodded assent. "Now
they hold the King, my husband, captive at Kenilworth. I am content
that he remain there, for he is of all the King's enemies the most
dangerous. But, at Wallingford, Leicester has imprisoned my son, Prince
Edward. The Prince must be freed, my Osmund. Warren de Basingbourne
commands what is left of the royal army, now entrenched at Bristol, and
it is he who must liberate my son. Get me to Bristol, then. Afterward we
will take Wallingford." The Queen issued these orders in cheery,
practical fashion, and did not admit opposition into the account, for
she was a capable woman.
"But you, madame?" he stammered. "You came alone?"
"I come from France, where I have been entreating--and vainly
entreating--succor from yet another monkish king, the holy Lewis of that
realm. Eh, what is God about when He enthrones these whining pieties!
Were I a king, were I even a man, I would drive these smug English out
of their foggy isle in three days' space! I would leave alive not one of
these curs that dare yelp at me! I would--" She paused, anger veering
into amusement. "See how I enrage myself when I think of what your
people have made me suffer," the Queen said, and shrugged her shoulders.
"In effect, I skulked back in disguise to this detestable island,
accompanied by Avenel de Giars and Hubert Fitz-Herveis. To-night some
half-dozen fellows--robbers, thorough knaves, like all you
English,--attacked us on the common yonder and slew the men of our
party. While they were cutting de Giars' throat I slipped away in the
dark and tumbled through many ditches till I spied your light. There you
have my story. Now get me an escort to Bristol."
It was a long while before Messire Heleigh spoke. Then, "These men," he
said--"this de Giars and this Fitz-Herveis--they gave their lives for
yours, as I understand it,--_pro caris amicis_. And yet you do not
grieve for them."
"I shall regret de Giars," the Queen acknowledged, "for he made
excellent songs. But Fitz-Herveis?--foh! the man had a face like a
horse." Again her mood changed. "Many persons have died for me, my
friend. At first I wept for them, but now I am dry of tears."
He shook his head. "Cato very wisely says, 'If thou hast need of help,
ask it of thy friends.' But the sweet friend that I remember was a clean
eyed girl, joyous and exceedingly beautiful. Now you appear to me one of
those ladies of remoter times--Faustina, or Jael, or Artemis, the King's
wife of Tauris,--they that slew men, laughing. I am somewhat afraid of
you, madame."
She was angry at first; then her face softened. "You English!" she said,
only half mirthful. "Eh, my God! you remember me when I was a high
hearted young sorceress. Now the powers of the Apsarasas have departed
from me, and time has thrust that Alianora, who was once the
Unattainable Princess, chin deep in misery. Yet even now I am your
Queen, messire, and it is not yours to pass judgment upon me." "I do
not judge you," he returned. "Rather I cry with him of old, _Omnia
incerta ratione!_ and I cry with Salomon that he who meddles with the
strife of another man is like to him that takes a hound by the ears. Yet
listen, madame and Queen. I cannot afford you an escort to Bristol. This
house, of which I am in temporary charge, is Longaville, my brother's
manor. Lord Brudenel, as you doubtless know, is of the barons' party
and--scant cause for grief!--is with Leicester at this moment. I can
trust none of my brother's people, for I believe them to be of much the
same opinion as those Londoners who not long ago stoned you and would
have sunk your barge in Thames River. Oh, let us not blink the fact that
you are not overbeloved in England. So an escort is out of the question.
Yet I, madame, if you so elect, will see you safe to Bristol."
"You? Singly?" the Queen demanded.
"My plan is this: Singing folk alone travel whither they will. We will
go as jongleurs, then. I can yet manage a song to the viol, I dare
affirm. And you must pass as my wife."
He said this with simplicity. The plan seemed unreasonable, and at first
Dame Alianora waved it aside. Out of the question! But reflection
suggested nothing better; it was impossible to remain at Longaville, and
the man spoke sober truth when he declared any escort other than himself
to be unprocurable. Besides, the lunar madness of the scheme was its
strength; that the Queen would venture to cross half England
unprotected--and Messire Heleigh on the face of him was a paste-board
buckler--was an event which Leicester would neither anticipate nor on
report credit. There you were! these English had no imagination. The
Queen snapped her fingers and said: "Very willingly will I be your wife,
my Osmund. But how do I know that I can trust you? Leicester would give
a deal for me; he would pay any price for the pious joy of burning the
Sorceress of Provence. And you are not wealthy, I suspect."
"You may trust me, mon bel esper,"--his eyes here were those of a beaten
child--"because my memory is better than yours." Messire Osmund Heleigh
gathered his papers into a neat pile. "This room is mine. To-night I
keep guard in the corridor, madame. We will start at dawn."
When he had gone, Dame Alianora laughed contentedly. "Mon bel esper! my
fairest hope! The man called me that in his verses--thirty years ago!
Yes, I may trust you, my poor Osmund."
So they set out at cockcrow. He had procured for himself a viol and a
long falchion, and had somewhere got suitable clothes for the Queen; and
in their aging but decent garb the two approached near enough to the
appearance of what they desired to be thought. In the courtyard a knot
of servants gaped, nudged one another, but openly said nothing. Messire
Heleigh, as they interpreted it, was brazening out an affair of
gallantry before the countryside; and they esteemed his casual
observation that they would find a couple of dead men on the common
exceedingly diverting.
When the Queen asked him the same morning, "And what will you sing, my
Osmund? Shall we begin the practise of our new profession with the
Sestina of Spring?"--old Osmund Heleigh grunted out: "I have forgotten
that rubbish long ago. _Omnis amans, amens_, saith the satirist of Rome
town, and with reason."
Followed silence.
One sees them thus trudging the brown, naked plains under a sky of
steel. In a pageant the woman, full-veined and comely, her russet gown
girded up like a harvester's might not inaptly have prefigured October;
and for less comfortable November you could nowhere have found a symbol
more precise than her lank companion, humorously peevish under his white
thatch of hair, and constantly fretted by the sword tapping at his
ankles.
They made Hurlburt prosperously and found it vacant, for the news of
Falmouth's advance had driven the villagers hillward. There was in this
place a child, a naked boy of some two years, lying on a doorstep,
overlooked in his elders' gross terror. As the Queen with a sob lifted
this boy the child died.
"Starved!" said Osmund Heleigh; "and within a stone's throw of my snug
home!"
The Queen laid down the tiny corpse, and, stooping, lightly caressed
its sparse flaxen hair. She answered nothing, though her lips moved.
Past Vachel, scene of a recent skirmish, with many dead in the gutters,
they were overtaken by Falmouth himself, and stood at the roadside to
afford his troop passage. The Marquess, as he went by, flung the Queen a
coin, with a jest sufficiently high flavored. She knew the man her
inveterate enemy, knew that on recognition he would have killed her as
he would a wolf; she smiled at him and dropped a curtsey.
"This is remarkable," Messire Heleigh observed. "I was hideously afraid,
and am yet shaking. But you, madame, laughed."
The Queen replied: "I laughed because I know that some day I shall have
Lord Falmouth's head. It will be very sweet to see it roll in the dust,
my Osmund."
Messire Heleigh somewhat dryly observed that tastes differed.
At Jessop Minor befell a more threatening adventure. Seeking food at the
_Cat and Hautbois_ in that village, they blundered upon the same troop
at dinner in the square about the inn. Falmouth and his lieutenants were
somewhere inside the house. The men greeted the supposed purveyors of
amusement with a shout; and one of these soldiers--a swarthy rascal with
his head tied in a napkin--demanded that the jongleurs grace their meal
with a song.
Osmund tried to put him off with a tale of a broken viol.
But, "Haro!" the fellow blustered; "by blood and by nails! you will sing
more sweetly with a broken viol than with a broken head. I would have
you understand, you hedge thief, that we gentlemen of the sword are not
partial to wordy argument." Messire Heleigh fluttered inefficient hands
as the men-at-arms gathered about them, scenting some genial piece of
cruelty. "Oh, you rabbit!" the trooper jeered, and caught at Osmund's
throat, shaking him. In the act this rascal tore open Messire Heleigh's
tunic, disclosing a thin chain about his neck and a handsome locket,
which the fellow wrested from its fastening. "Ahoi!" he continued.
"Ahoi, my comrades, what sort of minstrel is this, who goes about
England all hung with gold like a Cathedral Virgin! He and his
sweetheart"--the actual word was grosser--"will be none the worse for an
interview with the Marquess."
The situation smacked of awkwardness, because Lord Falmouth was familiar
with the Queen, and to be brought specifically to his attention meant
death for two detected masqueraders. Hastily Osmund Heleigh said:
"Messire, the locket contains the portrait of a lady whom in my youth I
loved very greatly. Save to me, it is valueless. I pray you, do not rob
me of it."
But the trooper shook his head with drunken solemnity. "I do not like
the looks of this. Yet I will sell it to you, as the saying is, for a
song."
"It shall be the king of songs," said Osmund,--"the song that Arnaut
Daniel first made. I will sing for you a Sestina, messieurs,--a Sestina
in salutation of Spring."
The men disposed themselves about the dying grass, and presently he
sang.
Sang Messire Heleigh:
"Awaken! for the servitors of Spring
Proclaim his triumph! ah, make haste to see
With what tempestuous pageantry they bring
The victor homeward! haste, for this is he
That cast out Winter and all woes that cling
To Winter's garments, and bade April be!
"And now that Spring is master, let us be
Content, and laugh, as anciently in spring
The battle-wearied Tristan laughed, when he
Was come again Tintagel-ward, to bring
Glad news of Arthur's victory--and see
Ysoude, with parted lips, that waver and cling.
"Not yet in Brittany must Tristan cling
To this or that sad memory, and be
Alone, as she in Cornwall; for in spring
Love sows against far harvestings,--and he
Is blind, and scatters baleful seed that bring
Such fruitage as blind Love lacks eyes to see!"
Osmund paused here for an appreciable interval, staring at the Queen.
You saw his flabby throat a-quiver, his eyes melting, saw his cheeks
kindle, and youth seeping into the lean man like water over a crumbling
dam. His voice was now big and desirous.
Sang Messire Heleigh:
"Love sows, but lovers reap; and ye will see
The loved eyes lighten, feel the loved lips cling,
Never again when in the grave ye be
Incurious of your happiness in spring,
And get no grace of Love there, whither he
That bartered life for love no love may bring.
"No braggart Heracles avails to bring
Alcestis hence; nor here may Roland see
The eyes of Aude; nor here the wakening spring
Vex any man with memories: for there be
No memories that cling as cerements cling,
No force that baffles Death, more strong than he.
"Us hath he noted, and for us hath he
An hour appointed; and that hour will bring
Oblivion.--Then, laugh! Laugh, dear, and see
The tyrant mocked, while yet our bosoms cling,
While yet our lips obey us, and we be
Untrammeled in our little hour of spring!
"Thus in the spring we jeer at Death, though he
Will see our children perish and will briny
Asunder all that cling while love may be."
Then Osmund put the viol aside and sat quite silent. The soldiery
judged, and with cordial frankness stated, that the difficulty of his
rhyming scheme did not atone for his lack of indecency, but when the
Queen of England went among them with Messire Heleigh's faded green hat
she found them liberal. Even the fellow with the broken head admitted
that a bargain was proverbially a bargain, and returned the locket with
the addition of a coin. So for the present these two went safe, and
quitted the _Cat and Hautbois_ fed and unmolested.
"My Osmund," Dame Alianora said, presently, "your memory is better than
I had thought."
"I remembered a boy and a girl," he returned. "And I grieved that they
were dead."
Afterward they plodded on toward Bowater, and the ensuing night rested
in Chantrell Wood. They had the good fortune there to encounter dry and
windless weather and a sufficiency of brushwood, with which Osmund
constructed an agreeable fire. In its glow these two sat, eating bread
and cheese.
But talk languished at the outset. The Queen had complained of an ague,
and Messire Heleigh was sedately suggesting three spiders hung about the
neck as an infallible corrective for this ailment, when Dame Alianora
rose to her feet. "Eh, my God!" she said; "I am wearied of such
ungracious aid! Not an inch of the way but you have been thinking of
your filthy books and longing to be back at them! No; I except the
moments when you were frightened into forgetfulness--first by Falmouth,
then by the trooper. O Eternal Father! afraid of a single dirty
soldier!"
"Indeed, I was very much afraid," said Messire Heleigh, with perfect
simplicity; "_timidus perire, madame._"
"You have not even the grace to be ashamed! Yet I am shamed, messire,
that Osmund Heleigh should have become the book-muddled pedant you are.
For I loved young Osmund Heleigh."
He also had risen in the firelight, and now its convulsive shadows
marred two dogged faces. "I think it best not to recall that boy and
girl who are so long dead. And, frankly, madame and Queen, the merit of
the business I have in hand is questionable. It is you who have set all
England by the ears, and I am guiding you toward opportunities for
further mischief. I must serve you. Understand, madame, that ancient
folly in Provence yonder has nothing to do with the affair. Count Manuel
left you: and between his evasion and your marriage you were pleased to
amuse yourself with me--"
"You were more civil then, my Osmund--"
"I am not uncivil, I merely point out that this old folly constitutes
no overwhelming obligation, either way. I cry _nihil ad Andromachen!_
For the rest, I must serve you because you are a woman and helpless; yet
I cannot forget that he who spares the wolf is the sheep's murderer. It
would be better for all England if you were dead. Hey, your gorgeous
follies, madame! Silver peacocks set with sapphires! Cloth of fine
gold--"
"Would you have me go unclothed?" Dame Alianora demanded, pettishly.
"Not so," Osmund retorted; "again I say to you with Tertullian, 'Let
women paint their eyes with the tints of chastity, insert into their
ears the Word of God, tie the yoke of Christ about their necks, and
adorn their whole person with the silk of sanctity and the damask of
devotion.' I say to you that the boy you wish to rescue from
Wallingford, and make King of England, is freely rumored to be not
verily the son of Sire Henry but the child of tall Manuel of Poictesme.
I say to you that from the first you have made mischief in England. And
I say to you--"
But Dame Alianora was yawning quite frankly. "You will say to me that I
brought foreigners into England, that I misguided the King, that I
stirred up strife between the King and his barons. Eh, my God! I am
sufficiently familiar with the harangue. Yet listen, my Osmund: They
sold me like a bullock to a man I had never seen. I found him a man of
wax, and I remoulded him. They asked of me an heir for England: I
provided that heir. They gave me England as a toy; I played with it. I
was the Queen, the source of honor, the source of wealth--the trough, in
effect, about which swine gathered. Never since I came into England,
Osmund, has any man or woman loved me; never in all my English life have
I loved man or woman. Do you understand, my Osmund?--the Queen has many
flatterers, but no friends. Not a friend in the world, my Osmund! And so
the Queen made the best of it and amused herself."
Somewhat he seemed to understand, for he answered without asperity:
"Mon bel esper, I do not find it anywhere in Holy Writ that God requires
it of us to amuse ourselves; but upon many occasions we have been
commanded to live righteously. We are tempted in divers and insidious
ways. And we cry with the Psalmist, 'My strength is dried up like a
potsherd.' But God intends this, since, until we have here demonstrated
our valor upon Satan, we are manifestly unworthy to be enregistered in
God's army. The great Captain must be served by proven soldiers. We may
be tempted, but we may not yield. O daughter of the South! we must not
yield!"
"Again you preach," Dame Alianora said. "That is a venerable truism."
"Ho, madame," he returned, "is it on that account the less true?"
Pensively the Queen considered this. "You are a good man, my Osmund,"
she said, at last, "though you are very droll. Ohimé! it is a pity that
I was born a princess! Had it been possible for me to be your wife, I
would have been a better woman. I shall sleep now and dream of that good
and stupid and contented woman I might have been." So presently these
two slept in Chantrell Wood.
Followed four days of journeying. As Messer Dante had not yet surveyed
Malebolge, Osmund Heleigh and Dame Alianora lacked a parallel for that
which they encountered; their traverse discovered England razed,
charred, and depopulate--picked bones of an island, a vast and absolute
ruin about which passion-wasted men skulked like rats. Messire Heleigh
and the Queen traveled without molestation; malice and death had
journeyed before them on this road, and had swept it clear.
At every trace of these hideous precessors Osmund Heleigh would say, "By
a day's ride I might have prevented this." Or, "By a day's ride I might
have saved this woman." Or, "By two days' riding I might have fed this
child."
The Queen kept Spartan silence, but daily you saw the fine woman age. In
their slow advance every inch of misery was thrust before her for
inspection; meticulously she observed and evaluated her handiwork.
Enthroned, she had appraised from a distance the righteous wars she set
afoot; trudging thus among the débris of these wars, she found they had
unsuspected aspects. Bastling the royal army had recently sacked.
There remained of this village the skeletons of two houses, and for the
rest a jumble of bricks, rafters half-burned, many calcined fragments of
humanity, and ashes. At Bastling, Messire Heleigh turned to the Queen
toiling behind.
"Oh, madame!" he said, in a dry whisper, "this was the home of so many
men!"
"I burned it," Dame Alianora replied. "That man we passed just now I
killed. Those other men and women--my folly slew them all. And little
children, my Osmund! The hair like flax, blood-dabbled!"
"Oh, madame!" he wailed, in the extremity of his pity.
For she stood with eyes shut, all gray. The Queen demanded: "Why have
they not slain me? Was there no man in England to strangle the proud
wanton? Are you all cowards here?"
He said: "I detect only one coward in the affair. Your men and
Leicester's men also ride about the world, and draw sword and slay and
die for the right as they see it. And you and Leicester contend for the
right as ye see it. But I, madame! I! I, who sat snug at home spilling
ink and trimming rose-bushes! God's world, madame, and I in it afraid to
speak a word for Him! God's world, and a curmudgeon in it grudging God
the life He gave!" The man flung out his soft hands and snarled: _"We
are tempted in divers and insidious ways._ But I, who rebuked you!
behold, now, with how gross a snare was I entrapped!" "I do not
understand, my Osmund."
"I was afraid, madame," he returned, dully. "Everywhere men fight, and I
am afraid to die."
So they stood silent in the ruins of Bastling.
"Of a piece with our lives," Dame Alianora said at last. "All ruin, my
Osmund."
But Messire Heleigh threw back his head and laughed, new color in his
face. "Presently men will build here, my Queen. Presently, as in legend
was re-born the Arabian bird, arises from these ashes a lordlier and
more spacious town."
They went forward. The next day chance loosed upon them Gui Camoys, lord
of Bozon, Foliot, and Thwenge, who, riding alone through Poges Copse,
found there a man and a woman over their limited supper. The woman had
thrown back her hood, and Camoys drew rein to stare at her. Lispingly he
spoke the true court dialect.
"Ma belle," said this Camoys, in friendly condescension, "n'estez vous
pas jongleurs?"
Dame Alianora smiled up at him. "Ouais, messire; mon mary faict les
chançons--" She paused, with dilatory caution, for Camoys had leaped
from his horse, giving a great laugh.
"A prize! ho, an imperial prize!" Camoys shouted. "A peasant woman with
the Queen's face, who speaks French! And who, madame, is this? Have you
by any chance brought pious Lewis from oversea? Have I bagged a brace
of monarchs?"
Here was imminent danger, for Camoys had known the Queen some fifteen
years. Messire Heleigh rose, his five days' beard glinting like
hoar-frost as his mouth twitched.
"I am Osmund Heleigh, messire, younger brother to the Earl of Brudenel."
"I have heard of you, I believe--the fellow who spoils parchment. This
is odd company, however, Messire Osmund, for Brudenel's brother."
"A gentleman must serve his Queen, messire. As Cicero very justly
observes--"
"I am inclined to think that his political opinions are scarcely to our
immediate purpose. This is a high matter, Messire Heleigh. To let the
sorceress pass is, of course, out of the question; upon the other hand,
I observe that you lack weapons of defence. Yet if you will have the
kindness to assist me in unarming, your courtesy will place our commerce
on more equal footing."