"Pour vous je suis en prison mise,
En ceste chambre à voulte grise,
Et traineray ma triste vie
Sans que jamais mon cueur varie,
Car toujours seray vostre amye."
THE SEVENTH NOVEL.--ISABEL OF VALOIS, BEING FORSAKEN BY ALL OTHERS, IS
BEFRIENDED BY A PRIEST, WHO IN CHIEF THROUGH A CHILD'S INNOCENCE,
CONTRIVES AND EXECUTES A LAUDABLE IMPOSTURE, AND WINS THEREBY TO
DEATH.
_The Story of the Heritage_
In the year of grace 1399 (Nicolas begins) dwelt in a hut near Caer
Dathyl in Arvon, as he had dwelt for some five years, a gaunt hermit,
notoriously consecrate, whom neighboring Welshmen revered as the
Blessed Evrawc. There had been a time when people called him Edward
Maudelain, but this period he dared not often remember.
For though in macerations of the flesh, in fasting, and in hour-long
prayers he spent his days, this holy man was much troubled by devils.
He got little rest because of them. Sometimes would come into his hut
Belphegor in the likeness of a butler, and whisper, "Sire, had you
been King, as was your right, you had drunk to-day not water but the
wines of Spain and Hungary." Or Asmodeus saying, "Sire, had you been
King, as was your right, you had lain now not upon the bare earth but
on cushions of silk."
One day in early spring, they say, the spirit called Orvendile sent
the likeness of a fair woman with yellow hair and large blue eyes. She
wore a massive crown which seemed too heavy for her frailness to
sustain. Soft tranquil eyes had lifted from her book. "You are my
cousin now, messire," this phantom had appeared to say.
That was the worst, and Maudelain began to fear he was a little mad
because even this he had resisted with many aves.
There came also to his hut, through a sullen snowstorm, upon the
afternoon of All Soul's day, a horseman in a long cloak of black. He
tethered his black horse and he came noiselessly through the doorway
of the hut, and upon his breast and shoulders the snow was white as
the bleached bones of those women that died in Merlin's youth.
"Greetings in God's name, Messire Edward Maudelain," the stranger
said.
Since the new-comer spoke intrepidly of holy things a cheerier
Maudelain knew that this at least was no demon. "Greetings!" he
answered. "But I am Evrawc. You name a man long dead."
"But it is from a certain Bohemian woman I come. What matter, then, if
the dead receive me?" And thus speaking, the stranger dropped his
cloak.
He was clad, as you now saw, in flame-colored satin, which shimmered
with each movement like a high flame. He had the appearance of a tall,
lean youngster, with crisp, curling, very dark red hair. He now
regarded Maudelain. He displayed peculiarly wide-set brown eyes; and
their gaze was tender, and the tears somehow had come to Maudelain's
eyes because of his great love for this tall stranger. "Eh, from the
dead to the dead I travel, as ever," said the new-comer, "with a
message and a token. My message runs, _Time is, O fellow satrap!_ and
my token is this."
In this packet, wrapped with white parchment and tied with a golden
cord, was only a lock of hair. It lay like a little yellow serpent in
Maudelain's palm. "And yet five years ago," he mused, "this hair was
turned to dust. God keep us all!" Then he saw the tall lean emissary
puffed out like a candle-flame; and upon the floor he saw the huddled
cloak waver and spread like ink, and he saw the white parchment slowly
dwindle, as snow melts under the open sun. But in his hand remained
the lock of yellow hair.
"O my only friend," said Maudelain, "I may not comprehend, but I know
that by no unhallowed art have you won back to me." Hair by hair he
scattered upon the floor that which he held. "_Time is!_ and I have
not need of any token to spur my memory." He prized up a corner of the
hearthstone, took out a small leather bag, and that day purchased a
horse and a sword.
At dawn the Blessed Evrawc rode eastward in secular apparel. Two weeks
later he came to Sunninghill; and it happened that the same morning
the Earl of Salisbury, who had excellent reason to consider ...
_Follows a lacuna of fourteen pages. Maudelain's successful imposture
of his half-brother, Richard the Second, so strangely favored by their
physical resemblance, and the subsequent fiasco at Circencester, are
now, however, tolerably well known to students of history._
_In one way or another, Maudelain contrived to take the place of his
now dethroned brother, and therewith also the punishment designed for
Richard. It would seem evident, from the Argument of the story in
hand, that Nicolas de Caen attributes a large part of this mysterious
business to the co-operancy of Isabel of Valois, King Richard's eleven
year old wife. And (should one have a taste for the deductive) the
foregoing name of Orvendile, when compared with "THE STORY OF THE
SCABBARD," would certainly hint that Owain Glyndwyr had a finger in
the affair._
_It is impossible to divine by what method, according to Nicolas, this
Edward Maudelain was substituted for his younger brother. Nicolas, if
you are to believe his "EPILOGUE," had the best of reasons for knowing
that the prisoner locked up in Pontefract Castle in the February of
1400, after Harry of Derby had seized the crown of England, was not
Richard Plantagenet: as is attested, also, by the remaining fragment
of this same_ "STORY OF THE HERITAGE."
... and eight men-at-arms followed him.
Quickly Maudelain rose from the table, pushing his tall chair aside,
and as he did this, one of the soldiers closed the door securely.
"Nay, eat your fill, Sire Richard," said Piers Exton, "since you will
not ever eat again."
"Is it so?" the trapped man answered quietly. "Then indeed you come in
a good hour." Once only he smote upon his breast. "_Mea culpa!_ O
Eternal Father, do Thou shrive me very quickly of all those sins I
have committed, both in thought and deed, for now the time is very
short."
And Exton spat upon the dusty floor. "Foh, they had told me I would
find a king here. I discover only a cat that whines."
"Then 'ware his claws!" As a viper leaps Maudelain sprang upon the
nearest fellow and wrested away his halberd. "Then 'ware his claws, my
men! For I come of an accursed race. And now let some of you lament
that hour wherein the devil's son begot an heir for England! For 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 fear are all our race
until the end. Hah, until the end! O God of Gods!" this Maudelain
cried, with a great voice, "wilt Thou dare bid a man die patiently,
having aforetime filled his veins with such a venom? For I lack the
grace to die as all Thy saints have died, without one carnal blow
struck in my own defence. I lack the grace, my Father, for even at the
last the devil's blood You gave me is not quelled. I dare atone for
that old sin done by my father in the flesh, but yet I must atone as
befits the race of Oriander!"
Then it was he and not they who pressed to the attack. Their meeting
was a bloody business, for in that dark and crowded room Maudelain
raged among his nine antagonists like an angered lion among wolves.
They struck at random and cursed shrilly, for they were now
half-afraid of this prey they had entrapped; so that presently he was
all hacked and bleeding, though as yet he had no mortal wound. Four of
these men he had killed by this time, and Piers Exton also lay at his
feet.
Then the other four drew back a little. "Are ye tired so soon?" said
Maudelain, and he laughed terribly. "What, even you! Why, look ye, my
bold veterans, I never killed before to-day, and I am not breathed as
yet."
Thus he boasted, exultant in his strength. But the other men saw that
behind him Piers Exton had crawled into the chair from which (they
thought) King Richard had just risen, and they saw Exton standing
erect in this chair, with both arms raised. They saw this Exton strike
the King with his pole-axe, from behind, once only, and they knew no
more was needed.
"By God!" said one of them in the ensuing stillness, and it was he who
bled the most, "that was a felon's blow."
But the dying man who lay before them made as though to smile. "I
charge you all to witness," he faintly said, "how willingly I render
to Caesar's daughter that which was ever hers."
Then Exton fretted, as if with a little trace of shame: "Who would
have thought the rascal had remembered that first wife of his so long?
Caesar's daughter, saith he! and dares in extremis to pervert Holy
Scripture like any Wycliffite! Well, he is as dead as that first
Caesar now, and our gracious King, I think, will sleep the better for
it. And yet--God only knows! for they are an odd race, even as he
said--these men that have old Manuel's blood in them."