"Oy Dieus, messire! have I not slain your escort? Why, in common reason,
equity demands that I afford you my protection so far as Burgos,
messire, just as plainly as equity demands I slay de Gâtinais and fetch
back my wife to England."
The page wrung exquisite hands with a gesture which was but partially
tinged with anguish, and presently began to laugh. Afterward these two
rode southerly, in the direction of Castile.
For it appeared to the intriguing little woman a diverting jest that in
this fashion her husband should be the promoter of her evasion. It
appeared to her more diverting when in two days' space she had become
fond of him. She found him rather slow of comprehension, and she was
humiliated by the discovery that not an eyelash of the man was irritated
by his wife's decampment; he considered, to all appearances, that some
property of his had been stolen, and he intended, quite without passion,
to repossess himself of it, after, of course, punishing the thief.
This troubled the Princess somewhat; and often, riding by her stolid
husband's side, the girl's heart raged at memory of the decade so newly
overpast which had kept her always dependent on the charity of this or
that ungracious patron--on any one who would take charge of her while
the truant husband fought out his endless squabbles in England. Slights
enough she had borne during the period, and squalor, and physical hunger
also she had known, who was the child of a king and a saint.[2] But now
she rode toward the dear southland; and presently she would be rid of
this big man, when he had served her purpose; and afterward she meant to
wheedle Alphonso, just as she had always wheedled him, and later still,
she and Etienne would be very happy: in fine, to-morrow was to be a new
day.
So these two rode southward, and always Prince Edward found this new
page of his--this Miguel de Rueda,--a jolly lad, who whistled and sang
inapposite snatches of balladry, without any formal ending or beginning,
descanting always with the delicate irrelevancy of a bird-trill.
Sang Miguel de Rueda:
"Man's Love, that leads me day by day
Through many a screened and scented way,
Finds to assuage my thirst.
"No love that may the old love slay,
None sweeter than the first.
"Fond heart of mine, that beats so fast
As this or that fair maid trips past,
Once, and with lesser stir
We viewed the grace of love, at last,
And turned idolater.
"Lad's Love it was, that in the spring
When all things woke to blossoming
Was as a child that came
Laughing, and filled with wondering,
Nor knowing his own name--"
"And still I would prefer to think," the big man interrupted, heavily,
"that Sicily is not the only allure. I would prefer to think my wife so
beautiful.--And yet, as I remember her, she was nothing extraordinary."
The page a little tartly said that people might forget a deal within a
decade.
The Prince continued his unriddling of the scheme hatched in Castile.
"When Manfred is driven out of Sicily they will give the throne to de
Gâtinais. He intends to get both a kingdom and a handsome wife by this
neat affair. And in reason, England must support my Uncle Richard's
claim to the German crown, against El Sabio--Why, my lad, I ride
southward to prevent a war that would devastate half Europe."
"You ride southward in the attempt to rob a miserable woman of her sole
chance of happiness," Miguel de Rueda estimated.
"That is undeniable, if she loves this thrifty Prince, as indeed I do
not question my wife does. Yet our happiness here is a trivial matter,
whereas war is a great disaster. You have not seen--as I, my little
Miguel, have often seen--a man viewing his death-wound with a face of
stupid wonder, a bewildered wretch in point to die in his lord's quarrel
and understanding never a word of it. Or a woman, say--a woman's twisted
and naked body, the breasts yet horribly heaving, in the red ashes of
some village, or the already dripping hoofs which will presently crush
this body. Well, it is to prevent many such ugly spectacles hereabout
that I ride southward."
Miguel de Rueda shuddered. But, "She has her right to happiness," the
page stubbornly said.
"She has only one right," the Prince retorted; "because it has pleased
the Emperor of Heaven to appoint us twain to lofty stations, to entrust
to us the five talents of the parable; whence is our debt to Him, being
fivefold, so much the greater than that of common persons. Therefore
the more is it our sole right, being fivefold, to serve God without
faltering, and therefore is our happiness, or our unhappiness, the more
an inconsiderable matter. For, as I have read in the Annals of the
Romans--" He launched upon the story of King Pompey and his daughter,
whom a certain duke regarded with impure and improper emotions. "My
little Miguel, that ancient king is our Heavenly Father, that only
daughter is the rational soul of us, which is here delivered for
protection to five soldiers--that is, to the five senses,--to preserve
it from the devil, the world, and the flesh. But, alas! the
too-credulous soul, desirous of gazing upon the gaudy vapors of this
world--"
"You whine like a canting friar," the page complained; "and I can assure
you that the Lady Ellinor was prompted rather than hindered by her
God-given faculties of sight and hearing and so on when she fell in love
with de Gâtinais. Of you two, he is, beyond any question, the handsomer
and the more intelligent man, and it was God who bestowed on her
sufficient wit to perceive the superiority of de Gâtinais. And what am I
to deduce from this?"
The Prince reflected. At last he said: "I have also read in these same
Gestes how Seneca mentions that in poisoned bodies, on account of the
malignancy and the coldness of the poison, no worm will engender; but if
the body be smitten by lightning, in a few days the carcass will abound
with vermin. My little Miguel, both men and women are at birth
empoisoned by sin, and then they produce no worm--that is, no virtue.
But once they are struck with lightning--that is, by the grace of
God,--they are astonishingly fruitful in good works."
The page began to laugh. "You are hopelessly absurd, my Prince, though
you will never know it,--and I hate you a little,--and I envy you a
great deal."
"Ah, but," Prince Edward said, in misapprehension, for the man was never
quick-witted,--"but it is not for my own happiness that I ride
southward."