"Je suis voix au désert criant
Que chascun soyt rectifiant
La voye de Sauveur; non suis,
Et accomplir je ne le puis."
THE SIXTH NOVEL.--ANNE OF BOHEMIA HAS ONE SOLE FRIEND, AND BY HIM
PLAYS THE FRIEND'S PART; AND IN DOING SO ACHIEVES THEIR COMMON
ANGUISH, AS WELL AS THE CONFUSION OF STATECRAFT AND THE POULTICING OF
A GREAT DISEASE.
_The Story of the Satraps_
In the year of grace 1381 (Nicolas begins) was Dame Anne magnificently
fetched from remote Bohemia, and at Westminster married to Sire
Richard, the second monarch of that name to reign in England. This
king, I must tell you, had succeeded while he was yet an infant, to
the throne of his grandfather, the third King Edward, about whom I
have told you in the story preceding this.
Queen Anne had presently noted a certain priest who went forbiddingly
about her court, where he was accorded a provisional courtesy, and who
went also into many hovels, where pitiable wrecks of humankind
received his alms and ministrations.
Queen Anne made inquiries. This young cleric was amanuensis to the
Duke of Gloucester, she learned, and was notoriously a by-blow of the
Duke's brother, dead Lionel of Clarence. She sent for this Edward
Maudelain. When he came her first perception was, "How wonderful is
his likeness to the King!" while the thought's commentary ran,
unacknowledged, "Yes, as an eagle resembles a falcon!" For here, to
the observant eye, was a more zealous person, already passion-wasted,
and a far more dictatorial and stiff-necked person than the lazy and
amiable King; also, this Maudelain's face and nose were somewhat too
long and high: the priest was, in a word, the less comely of the pair
by a very little, and to an immeasurable extent the more kinglike.
"You are my cousin now, messire," the Queen told him, and innocently
offered to his lips her own.
He never moved; but their glances crossed, and for that instant she
saw the face of a man who has just stepped into a quicksand. She grew
red, without knowing why. Then he spoke, composedly, of trivial
matters.
Thus began the Queen's acquaintance with Edward Maudelain. She was by
this time the loneliest woman in the island. Her husband granted her a
bright and fresh perfection of form and color, but desiderated any
appetizing tang, and lamented, in his phrase, a certain kinship to the
impeccable loveliness of some female saint in a jaunty tapestry;
bright as ice in sunshine, just so her beauty chilled you, he
complained: moreover, this daughter of the Caesars had been fetched
into England, chiefly, to breed him children, and this she had never
done. Undoubtedly he had made a bad bargain,--he was too easy-going,
people presumed upon it. His barons snatched their cue and esteemed
Dame Anne to be negligible; whereas the clergy, finding that she
obstinately read the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, under the
irrelevant plea of not comprehending Latin, began to denounce her from
their pulpits as a heretic and as the evil woman prophesied by
Ezekiel.
It was the nature of this desolate child to crave affection, as a
necessary, and pitifully she tried to purchase it through almsgiving.
In the attempt she could have found no coadjutor more ready than
Edward Maudelain. Giving was with these two a sort of obsession,
though always he gave in a half scorn of his fellow creatures which
was not more than half concealed. This bastard was charitable and
pious because he knew his soul, conceived in double sin, to be doubly
evil, and therefore doubly in need of redemption through good works.
Now in and about the Queen's lonely rooms the woman and the priest met
daily to discuss now this or that point of theology, or now (to cite a
single instance) Gammer Tudway's obstinate sciatica. Considerate
persons found something of the pathetic in their preoccupation by
these matters while, so clamantly, the dissension between the young
King and his uncles gathered to a head. The King's uncles meant to
continue governing England, with the King as their ward, as long as
they could; he meant to relieve himself of this guardianship, and them
of their heads, as soon as he was able. War seemed inevitable, the air
was thick with portents; and was this, then, an appropriate time, the
judicious demanded of high Heaven, for the Queen of imperilled England
to concern herself about a peasant's toothache?
Long afterward was Edward Maudelain to remember this quiet and amiable
period of his life, and to wonder over the man that he had been
through this queer while. Embittered and suspicious she had found him,
noted for the carping tongue he lacked both power and inclination to
bridle; and she had, against his nature, made Maudelain see that every
person is at bottom lovable, and that human vices are but the stains
of a traveller midway in a dusty journey; and had incited the priest
no longer to do good for his soul's health, but simply for his
fellow's benefit.
In place of that monstrous passion which had at first view of her
possessed the priest, now, like a sheltered taper, glowed an adoration
which made him yearn, in defiance of common-sense, to suffer somehow
for this beautiful and gracious comrade; though very often pity for
her loneliness and knowledge that she dared trust no one save him
would throttle Maudelain like two assassins, and would move the
hot-blooded young man to a rapture of self-contempt and exultation.
Now Maudelain made excellent songs, it was a matter of common report.
Yet but once in their close friendship did the Queen command him to
make a song for her. This had been at Dover, about vespers, in the
starved and tiny garden overlooking the English Channel, upon which
her apartments faced; and the priest had fingered his lute for an
appreciable while before he sang, more harshly than was his custom.
Sang Maudelain:
"Ave Maria! now cry we so
That see night wake and daylight go.
"Mother and Maid, in nothing incomplete,
This night that gathers is more light and fleet
Than twilight trod alway with stumbling feet,
Agentes semper uno animo.
"Ever we touch the prize we dare not take!
Ever we know that thirst we dare not slake!
Yet ever to a dreamed-of goal we make--
Est tui coeli in palatio!
"Long, long the road, and set with many a snare;
And to how small sure knowledge are we heir
That blindly tread, with twilight everywhere!
Volo in toto; sed non valeo!
"Long, long the road, and very frail are we
That may not lightly curb mortality,
Nor lightly tread together steadfastly,
Et parvum carmen unum facio:
"Mater, ora filium,
Ut post hoc exilium
Nobis donet gaudium
Beatorum omnium!"
Dame Anne had risen. She said nothing. She stayed in this posture for
a lengthy while, one hand yet clasping each breast. Then she laughed,
and began to speak of Long Simon's recent fever. Was there no method
of establishing him in another cottage? No, the priest said, the
peasants, like the cattle, were always deeded with the land, and Simon
could not lawfully be taken away from his owner.
One day, about the hour of prime, in that season of the year when
fields smell of young grass, the Duke of Gloucester sent for Edward
Maudelain. The court was then at Windsor. The priest came quickly to
his patron. He found the Duke in company with the King's other uncle
Edmund of York and bland Harry of Derby, who was John of Gaunt's
oldest son, and in consequence the King's cousin. Each was a proud and
handsome man: Derby alone (who was afterward King of England) had
inherited the squint that distinguished this family. To-day Gloucester
was gnawing at his finger nails, big York seemed half-asleep, and the
Earl of Derby appeared patiently to await something as yet ineffably
remote.
"Sit down!" snarled Gloucester. His lean and evil countenance was that
of a tired devil. The priest obeyed, wondering that so high an honor
should be accorded him in the view of three great noblemen. Then
Gloucester said, in his sharp way: "Edward, you know, as England
knows, the King's intention toward us three and our adherents. It has
come to our demolishment or his. I confess a preference in the matter.
I have consulted with the Pope concerning the advisability of taking
the crown into my own hands. Edmund here does not want it, and my
brother John is already achieving one in Spain. Eh, in imagination I
was already King of England, and I had dreamed--Well! to-day the
prosaic courier arrived. Urban--the Neapolitan swine!--dares give me
no assistance. It is decreed I shall never reign in these islands. And
I had dreamed--Meanwhile, de Vere and de la Pole are at the King day
and night, urging revolt. As matters go, within a week or two, the
three heads before you will be embellishing Temple Bar. You, of
course, they will only hang."
"We must avoid England, then, my noble patron," the priest considered.
Angrily the Duke struck a clenched fist upon the table. "By the Cross!
we remain in England, you and I and all of us. Others avoid. The Pope
and the Emperor will have none of me. They plead for the Black
Prince's heir, for the legitimate heir. Dompnedex! they shall have
him!"
Maudelain recoiled, for he thought this twitching man insane.
"Besides, the King intends to take from me my fief at Sudbury," said
the Duke of York, "in order to give it to de Vere. That is both absurd
and monstrous and abominable."
Openly Gloucester sneered. "Listen!" he rapped out toward Maudelain;
"when they were drawing up the Great Peace at Brétigny, it happened,
as is notorious, that the Black Prince, my brother, wooed in this town
the Demoiselle Alixe Riczi, whom in the outcome he abducted. It is not
so generally known, however, that, finding this sister of the Vicomte
de Montbrison a girl of obdurate virtue, my brother had prefaced the
action by marriage."
"And what have I to do with all this?" said Edward Maudelain.
Gloucester retorted: "More than you think. For this Alixe was conveyed
to Chertsey, here in England, where at the year's end she died in
childbirth. A little before this time had Sir Thomas Holland seen his
last day,--the husband of that Joane of Kent whom throughout life my
brother loved most marvellously. The disposition of the late
Queen-Mother is tolerably well known. I make no comment save that to
her moulding my brother was as so much wax. In fine, the two lovers
were presently married, and their son reigns to-day in England. The
abandoned son of Alixe Riczi was reared by the Cistercians at
Chertsey, where some years ago I found you."
He spoke with a stifled voice, wrenching forth each sentence; and now
with a stiff forefinger flipped a paper across the table. "_In
extremis_ my brother did more than confess. He signed,--your Majesty,"
said Gloucester. The Duke on a sudden flung out his hands, like a
wizard whose necromancy fails, and the palms were bloodied where his
nails had cut the flesh.
"Moreover, my daughter was born at Sudbury," said the Duke of York.
And of Maudelain's face I cannot tell you. He made pretence to read
the paper carefully, but his eyes roved, and he knew that he stood
among wolves. The room was oddly shaped, with eight equal sides: the
ceiling was of a light and brilliant blue, powdered with many golden
stars, and the walls were hung with smart tapestries which
commemorated the exploits of Theseus. "Then I am King," this Maudelain
said aloud, "of France and England, and Lord of Ireland, and Duke of
Aquitaine! I perceive that Heaven loves a jest." He wheeled upon
Gloucester and spoke with singular irrelevance, "And what is to be
done with the present Queen?"
Again the Duke shrugged. "I had not thought of the dumb wench. We have
many convents."
Now Maudelain twisted the paper between his long, wet fingers and
appeared to meditate.
"It would be advisable, your Grace," observed the Earl of Derby,
suavely, and breaking his silence for the first time, "that you
yourself should wed Dame Anne, once the Apostolic See has granted the
necessary dispensation. Treading too close upon the fighting requisite
to bring about the dethronement and death of our nominal lord the
so-called King, a war with Bohemia, which would be only too apt to
follow this noble lady's assassination, would be highly inconvenient,
and, lacking that, we would have to pay back her dowry."
Then these three princes rose and knelt before the priest; they were
clad in long bright garments, and they glittered with gold and many
jewels. He standing among them shuddered in his sombre robe. "Hail,
King of England!" cried these three.
"Hail, ye that are my kinsmen!" he answered; "hail, ye that spring of
an accursed race, as I! And woe to England for that hour wherein
Manuel of Poictesme held traffic with the Sorceress of Provence, and
the devil's son begot an heir for England! Of ice and of lust and of
hell-fire are all we sprung; old records attest it; and fickle and
cold and ravenous and without shame are all our race until the end. Of
your brother's dishonor ye make merchandise to-day, and to-day
fratricide whispers me, and leers, and, Heaven help me! I attend. O
God of Gods! wilt Thou dare bid a man live stainless, having aforetime
filled his veins with such a venom? Then haro, will I cry from Thy
deepest hell.... Oh, now let the adulterous Redeemer of Poictesme
rejoice in his tall fires, to note that his descendants know of what
wood to make a crutch! You are very wise, my kinsmen. Take your
measures, messieurs who are my kinsmen! Though were I of any other
race, with what expedition would I now kill you, I that recognize
within me the strength to do it! Then would I slay you! without any
animosity, would I slay you then, just as I would kill as many
splendid snakes!"
He went away, laughing horribly. Gloucester drummed upon the table,
his brows contracted. But the lean Duke said nothing; big York seemed
to drowse; and Henry of Derby smiled as he sounded a gong for that
scribe who would draw up the necessary letters. The Earl's time was
not yet come, but it was nearing.
In the antechamber the priest encountered two men-at-arms dragging a
dead body from the castle. The Duke of Kent, Maudelain was informed,
had taken a fancy to a peasant girl, and in remonstrance her misguided
father had actually tugged at his Grace's sleeve.
Maudelain went into the park of Windsor, where he walked for a long
while alone. It was a fine day in the middle spring; and now he seemed
to understand for the first time how fair was his England. For all
England was his fief, held in vassalage to God and to no man alive,
his heart now sang; allwhither his empire spread, opulent in grain and
metal and every revenue of the earth, and in stalwart men (his
chattels), and in strong orderly cities, where the windows would be
adorned with scarlet hangings, and women (with golden hair and red lax
lips) would presently admire as King Edward rode slowly by at the head
of a resplendent retinue. And always the King would bow, graciously
and without haste, to his shouting people.... He laughed to find
himself already at rehearsal of the gesture.
It was strange, though, that in this glorious fief of his so many
persons should, as yet, live day by day as cattle live, suspicious of
all other moving things (with reason), and roused from their incurious
and filthy apathy only when some glittering baron, like a resistless
eagle, swept uncomfortably near as he passed on some by-errand of the
more bright and windy upper-world. East and north they had gone
yearly, for so many centuries, these dumb peasants, to fight out their
master's uncomprehended quarrel, and to manure with their carcasses
the soil of France and of Scotland. Give these serfs a king, now, who
(being absolute), might dare to deal in perfect equity with rich and
poor, who with his advent would bring Peace into England as his bride,
as Trygaeus did very anciently in Athens--"And then," the priest
paraphrased, "may England recover all the blessings she has lost, and
everywhere the glitter of active steel will cease." For everywhere men
would crack a rustic jest or two, unhurriedly. Virid fields would
heave brownly under their ploughs; they would find that with practice
it was almost as easy to chuckle as it was to cringe.
Meanwhile on every side the nobles tyrannized in their degree, well
clothed and nourished, but at bottom equally comfortless in condition.
As illuminate by lightning Maudelain saw the many factions of his
barons squabbling for gross pleasures, like wolves over a corpse, and
blindly dealing death to one another to secure at least one more
delicious gulp before that inevitable mangling by the teeth of some
burlier colleague. The complete misery of England showed before
Maudelain like a winter landscape. The thing was questionless. He must
tread henceforward without fear among frenzied beasts, and to their
ultimate welfare. On a sudden Maudelain knew himself to be invincible
and fine, and hesitancy ebbed.
True, Richard, poor fool, must die. Squarely the priest faced that
stark and hideous circumstance; to spare Richard was beyond his power,
and the boy was his brother; yes, this oncoming King Edward would be a
fratricide, and after death would be irrevocably damned. To burn, and
eternally to burn, and, worst of all, to know that the torment was
eternal! ay, it would be hard; but, at the cost of Richard's ignoble
life and of Edward's inconsiderable soul, to win so many men to
manhood was not a bargain to be refused.
The tale tells that Maudelain went toward the little garden which
adjoined Dame Anne's apartments. He found the Queen there, alone, as
nowadays she was for the most part, and he paused to wonder at her
bright and singular beauty. How vaguely odd was this beauty, he
reflected, too; how alien in its effect to that of any other woman in
sturdy England, and how associable it was, somehow, with every wild
and gracious denizen of the woods which blossomed yonder.
In this place the world was all sunlight, temperate but undiluted.
They had met in a wide, unshaded plot of grass, too short to ripple,
which everywhere glowed steadily, like a gem. Right and left, birds
sang as if in a contest. The sky was cloudless, a faint and radiant
blue throughout, save where the sun stayed as yet in the zenith, so
that the Queen's brows cast honey-colored shadows upon either cheek.
The priest was greatly troubled by the proud and heatless
brilliancies, the shrill joys, of every object within the radius of
his senses.
She was splendidly clothed, in a kirtle of very bright green, tinted
like the verdancy of young ferns in sunlight, and wore over all a gown
of white, cut open on each side as far as the hips. This garment was
embroidered with golden leopards and was trimmed with ermine. About
her yellow hair was a chaplet of gold, wherein emeralds glowed. Her
blue eyes were as large and shining and changeable (he thought) as two
oceans in midsummer; and Maudelain stood motionless and seemed to
himself but to revere, as the Earl Ixion did, some bright unstable
wisp of cloud, while somehow all elation departed from him as water
does from a wetted sponge compressed. He laughed discordantly.
"Wait--! O my only friend--!" said Maudelain. Then in a level voice he
told her all, unhurriedly and without any apparent emotion.
She had breathed once, with a deep inhalation. She had screened her
countenance from his gaze the while you might have counted fifty.
Presently she said: "This means more war, for de Vere and Tressilian
and de la Pole and Bramber and others of the barons know that the
King's fall signifies their ruin. Many thousands die to-morrow."
He answered, "It means a war which will make me King of England, and
will make you my wife."
"In that war the nobles will ride abroad with banners and gay
surcoats, and will kill and ravish in the pauses of their songs; while
daily in that war the naked peasants will kill the one the other,
without knowing why."
His thought had forerun hers. "Yes, some must die, so that in the end
I may be King, and the general happiness may rest at my disposal. The
adventure of this world is wonderful, and it goes otherwise than under
the strict tutelage of reason."
"It would not be yours, but Gloucester's and his barons'. Friend, they
would set you on the throne to be their puppet and to move only as
they pulled the strings. Thwart them in their maraudings and they will
fling you aside, as the barons have pulled down every king that dared
oppose them. No, they desire to live pleasantly, to have fish on
Fridays, and white bread and the finest wine the whole year through,
and there is not enough for all, say they. Can you alone contend
against them? and conquer them? for not unless you can do this may I
dare bid you reign."
The sun had grown too bright, too merciless, but as always she drew
the truth from him. "I could not venture to oppose in anything the
barons who supported my cause: for if I did, I would not endure a
fortnight. Heaven help us, nor you nor I nor any one may transform
through any personal force this bitter world, this piercing, cruel
place of frost and sun. Charity and Truth are excommunicate, and a
king is only an adorned and fearful person who leads wolves toward
their quarry, lest, lacking it, they turn and devour him. Everywhere
the powerful labor to put one another out of worship, and each to
stand the higher with the other's corpse as his pedestal; and Lechery
and Greed and Hatred sway these proud and inconsiderate fools as winds
blow at will the gay leaves of autumn. We walk among shining vapors,
we aspire to overpass a mountain of unstable sparkling sand! We two
alone in all the scuffling world! Oh, it is horrible, and I think that
Satan plans the jest! We dream for a while of refashioning this bright
desolation, and know that we alone can do it! we are as demigods, you
and I, in those gallant dreams! and at the end we can but poultice
some dirty rascal!"
The Queen answered sadly: "Once and only once did God tread this
tangible world, for a very little while, and, look you, to what
trivial matters He devoted that brief space! Only to chat with
fishermen, and to talk with light women, and to consort with rascals,
and at last to die between two cutpurses, ignominiously! If Christ
Himself achieved so little that seemed great and admirable, how should
we two hope to do any more?"
He answered: "It is true. Of anise and of cumin the Master gets His
tithe--" Maudelain broke off with a yapping laugh. "Puf! Heaven is
wiser than we. I am King of England. It is my heritage."
"It means war. Many will die, thousands will die, and to no betterment
of affairs."
"I am King of England. I am Heaven's satrap here, and answerable to
Heaven alone. It is my heritage." And now his large and cruel eyes
were aflame as he regarded her.
And visibly beneath their glare the woman changed. "My friend, must I
not love you any longer? You would be content with happiness? Then I
am jealous of that happiness! for you are the one friend that I have
had, and so dear to me--Look you!" she said, with a light, wistful
laugh, "there have been times when I was afraid of everything you
touched, and I hated everything you looked at. I would not have you
stained; I desired to pass my whole life between the four walls of
some dingy and eternal gaol, forever alone with you, lest you become
like other men. I would in that period have been the very bread you
eat, the least perfume which delights you, the clod you touch in
crushing it, and I have often loathed some pleasure I derived from
life because I might not transfer it to you undiminished. For I wanted
somehow to make you happy to my own anguish.... It was wicked, I
suppose, for the imagining of it made me happy, too."
Now while he listened to this dear and tranquil speaking, Edward
Maudelain's raised hands had fallen like so much lead, and remembering
his own nature, he longed for annihilation, before she had appraised
his vileness. He said:
"With reason Augustine crieth out against the lust of the eyes. 'For
pleasure seeketh objects beautiful, melodious, fragrant, savory, and
soft; but this disease those contrary as well, not for the sake of
suffering annoyance, but out of the lust of making trial of them!' Ah!
ah! too curiously I planned my own damnation, too presumptuously I had
esteemed my soul a worthy scapegoat, and I had gilded my enormity with
many lies. Yet indeed, indeed, I had believed brave things, I had
planned a not ignoble bargain--! Ey, say, is it not laughable,
madame?--as my birth-right Heaven accords me a penny, and with that
only penny I must presently be seeking to bribe Heaven."
Then he said: "Yet are we indeed God's satraps, as but now I cried in
my vainglory, and we hold within our palms the destiny of many
peoples. Depardieux! God is wiser than we are. Still, Satan offers no
unhandsome bribes--bribes that are tangible and sure. For Satan, too,
is wiser than we are."
They stood like effigies, lit by the broad, unsparing splendor of the
morning, but again their kindling eyes had met, and again the man
shuddered. "Decide! oh, decide very quickly, my only friend!" he said,
"for throughout I am all filth!"
Closer she drew to him, and laid one hand upon each shoulder. "O my
only friend!" she breathed, with red lax lips which were very near to
his, "through these six years I have ranked your friendship as the
chief of all my honors! and I pray God with an entire heart that I may
die so soon as I have done what I must do to-day!"
Now Maudelain was trying to smile, but he could not quite manage it.
"God save King Richard!" said the priest. "For by the cowardice and
greed and ignorance of little men is Salomon himself confounded, and
by them is Hercules lightly unhorsed. Were I Leviathan, whose bones
were long ago picked clean by pismires, I could perform nothing
against the will of many human pismires. Therefore do you pronounce my
doom."
"O King," then said Dame Anne, "I bid you go forever from the court
and live forever a landless man, friendless, and without even any
name. Otherwise, you can in no way escape being made an instrument to
bring about the misery and death of many thousands. This doom I dare
adjudge and to pronounce, because we are royal and God's satraps, you
and I."
Twice or thrice his dry lips moved before he spoke. He was aware of
innumerable birds that carolled with a piercing and intolerable
sweetness. "O Queen!" he hoarsely said, "O fellow satrap! Heaven has
many fiefs. A fair province is wasted and accords to Heaven no
revenue. So wastes beauty, and a shrewd wit, and an illimitable
charity, which of their pride go in fetters and achieve no increase.
To-day the young King junkets with his flatterers, and but rarely
thinks of England. You have that beauty by which men are lightly
conquered, and the mere sight of which may well cause a man's voice to
tremble as my voice trembles now, and through desire of which--But I
tread afield! Of that beauty you have made no profit. O daughter of
the Caesars, I bid you now gird either loin for an unlovely traffic.
Old Legion must be fought with fire. True that the age is sick, true
that we may not cure, we can but salve the hurt--" His hand had torn
open his sombre gown, and the man's bared breast shone in the
sunlight, and on his breast heaved sleek and glittering beads of
sweat. Twice he cried the Queen's name. In a while he said: "I bid you
weave incessantly such snares of brain and body as may lure King
Richard to be swayed by you, until against his will you daily guide
this shallow-hearted fool to some commendable action. I bid you live
as other folk do hereabouts. Coax! beg! cheat! wheedle! lie!" he
barked like a teased dog, "and play the prostitute for him that wears
my crown, till you achieve in part the task which is denied me. This
doom I dare adjudge and to pronounce, because we are royal and God's
satraps, you and I."
She answered with a tiny, wordless sound. But presently, "I take my
doom," the Queen proudly said. "I shall be lonely now, my only friend,
and yet--it does not matter," the Queen said, with a little shiver.
"No, nothing will ever greatly matter now, I think, now that I may not
ever see you any more, my dearest."
Her eyes had filled with tears; she was unhappy, and, as always, this
knowledge roused in Maudelain a sort of frenzied pity and a hatred,
quite illogical, of all other things existent. She was unhappy, that
only he comprehended: and for her to be made unhappy was unjust.
So he stood thus for an appreciable silence, staying motionless save
that behind his back his fingers were bruising one another. Everywhere
was this or that bright color and an incessant melody. It was
unbearable. Then it was over; the ordered progress of all happenings
was apparent, simple, and natural; and contentment came into his heart
like a flight of linnets over level fields at dawn. He left her, and
as he went he sang.
Sang Maudelain:
"Christ save us all, as well He can,
A solis ortus cardine!
For He is both God and man,
Qui natus est de virgine,
And we but part of His wide plan
That sing, and heartily sing we,
'Gloria Tibi, Domine!'
"Between a heifer and an ass
Enixa est puerpera;
In ragged woollen clad He was
Qui régnât super aethera,
And patiently may we then pass
That sing, and heartily sing we,
'Gloria Tibi, Domine!'"
The Queen shivered in the glad sunlight. "I am, it must be, pitiably
weak," she said at last, "because I cannot sing as he does. And, since
I am not very wise, were he to return even now--But he will not
return. He will never return," the Queen repeated, carefully. "It is
strange I cannot comprehend that he will never return! Ah, Mother of
God!" she cried, with a steadier voice, "grant that I may weep! nay,
of thy infinite mercy let me presently find the heart to weep!" And
about the Queen of England many birds sang joyously.
She sent for the King that evening, after supper, and they may well
have talked of many matters, for he did not return to his own
apartments that night. Next day the English barons held a council, and
in the midst of it King Richard demanded to be told his age.
"Your Grace is in your twenty-second year," said the uneasy
Gloucester, who was now with reason troubled, since he had been vainly
seeking everywhere for the evanished Maudelain.
"Then I have been under tutors and governors longer than any other
ward in my dominion. My lords, I thank you for your past services, but
I need them no more." They had no check handy, and Gloucester in
particular foreread his death-warrant, but of necessity he shouted
with the others, "Hail, King of England!"
That afternoon the King's assumption of all royal responsibility was
commemorated by a tournament, over which Dame Anne presided. Sixty of
her ladies led as many knights by silver chains into the
tilting-grounds at Smithfield, and it was remarked that the Queen
appeared unusually mirthful. The King was in high good humor, a
pattern of conjugal devotion; and the royal pair retired at dusk to
the Bishop of London's palace at Saint Paul's, where was held a merry
banquet, with dancing both before and after supper.