"And yet Zoraida loved you once! loved you as people love where I was
born!" The Saracen's voice had altered. His speech was like the
rustle of papers. "You did not love Zoraida. And so it came about
that upon Walburga's Eve, at midnight, Zoraida hanged herself beside
your doorway. Thus we love where I was born. . . . And I, I cut the
rope--with my left hand. I had my other arm about that frozen thing
which yesterday had been Zoraida, you understand, so that it might not
fall. And in the act a tear dropped from that dead woman's cheek and
wetted my forehead. Ice is not so cold as was that tear. . . . Ho,
that tear did not fall upon my forehead but on my heart, because I
loved that dancing-girl, Zoraida, as you do this princess here. I
think you will understand," Makrisi said, calmly as one who states a
maxim.
The Sire de Vaquieras replied, in the same tone: "I understand. You
have contrived my death?"
"Ey, messire, would that be adequate? I could have managed that any
hour within the last score of years. Oh no! for I have studied you
carefully. Oh no! instead, I have contrived this plight. For the
Prince of Orange is manifestly murdered. Who killed him?--why, Madona
Biatritz, and none other, for I will swear to it. I, I will swear to
it, who saw it done. Afterward both you and I must be questioned upon
the rack, as possibly concerned in the affair, and whether innocent or
guilty we must die very horribly. Such is the gentle custom of your
Christian country when a prince is murdered. That is not the point of
the jest, however. For first Sire Philibert will put this woman to the
Question by Water, until she confesses her confederates, until she
confesses that every baron whom Philibert distrusts was one of them.
Oh yes, assuredly they will thrust a hollow cane into the mouth of your
Biatritz, and they will pour water a little by a little through this
cane, until she confesses what they desire. Ha, Philibert will see to
this confession! And through this woman's torment he will rid himself
of every dangerous foe he has in Venaissin. You must stand by and wait
your turn. You must stand by, in fetters, and see this done--you, you,
my master!--you, who love this woman as I loved that dead Zoraida who
was not fair enough to please you!"
Raimbaut, trapped, impotent, cried out: "This is not possible----" And
for all that, he knew the Saracen to be foretelling the inevitable.
Makrisi went on, quietly: "After the Question men will parade her,
naked to the middle, through all Orange, until they reach the
Marketplace, where will be four horses. One of these horses they will
harness to each arm and leg of your Biatritz. Then they will beat
these horses. These will be strong horses. They will each run in a
different direction."
This infamy also was certain. Raimbaut foresaw what he must do. He
clutched the dagger which Makrisi fondled. "Belhs Cavaliers, this
fellow speaks the truth. Look now, the moon is old--is it not strange
to know it will outlive us?"
And Biatritz came close to Sire Raimbaut and said: "I understand. If I
leave this room alive it will purchase a hideous suffering for my poor
body, it will bring about the ruin of many brave and innocent
chevaliers. I know. I would perforce confess all that the masked men
bade me. I know, for in Prince Conrat's time I have seen persons who
had been put to the Question----" She shuddered; and she re-began,
without any agitation: "Give me the knife, Raimbaut."
"Pardieu! but I may not obey you for this once," he answered, "since we
are informed by those in holy orders that all such as lay violent hands
upon themselves must suffer eternally." Then, kneeling, he cried, in
an extremity of adoration: "Oh, I have served you all my life. You
may not now deny me this last service. And while I talk they dig your
grave! O blind men, making the new grave, take heed lest that grave be
too narrow, for already my heart is breaking in my body. I have drunk
too deep of sorrow. And yet I may not fail you, now that honor and
mercy and my love for you demand I kill you before I also die--in such
a fashion as this fellow speaks of."
She did not dispute this. How could she when it was an axiom in all
Courts of Love that Heaven held dominion in a lover's heart only as an
underling of the man's mistress?
And so she said, with a fond smile: "It is your demonstrable
privilege. I would not grant it, dear, were my weak hands as clean as
yours. Oh, but it is long you have loved me, and it is faithfully you
have served Heaven, and my heart too is breaking in my body now that
your service ends!"
And he demanded, wearily: "When we were boy and girl together what had
we said if any one had told us this would be the end?"
"We would have laughed. It is a long while since those children
laughed at Montferrat. . . . Not yet, not yet!" she said. "Ah, pity
me, tried champion, for even now I am almost afraid to die."
She leaned against the window yonder, shuddering, staring into the
night. Dawn had purged the east of stars. Day was at hand, the day
whose noon she might not hope to witness. She noted this incuriously.
Then Biatritz came to him, very strangely proud, and yet all tenderness.
"See, now, Raimbaut! because I have loved you as I have loved nothing
else in life, I will not be unworthy of your love. Strike and have
done."
Raimbaut de Vaquieras raised an already bloodied dagger. As emotion
goes, he was bankrupt. He had no longer any dread of hell, because he
thought that, a little later, nothing its shrewdest overseer could plan
would have the power to vex him. She, waiting, smiled. Makrisi,
seated, stretched his legs, put fingertips together with the air of an
attendant amateur. This was better than he had hoped. In such a
posture they heard a bustle of armored men, and when all turned, saw
how a sword protruded through the arras.
"Come out, Guillaume!" people were shouting. "Unkennel, dog! Out,
out, and die!" To such a heralding Mahi de Vernoil came into the room
with mincing steps such as the man affected in an hour of peril. He
first saw what a grisly burden the chest sustained. "Now, by the
Face!" he cried, "if he that cheated me of quieting this filth should
prove to be of gentle birth I will demand of him a duel to the death!"
The curtains were ripped from their hangings as he spoke, and behind
him the candlelight was reflected by the armor of many followers.
Then de Vernoil perceived Raimbaut de Vaquieras, and the spruce little
man bowed ceremoniously. All were still. Composedly, like a
lieutenant before his captain, Mahi narrated how these hunted remnants
of Lovain's army had, as a last cast, that night invaded the chateau,
and had found, thanks to the festival, its men-at-arms in uniform and
inefficient drunkenness. "My tres beau sire," Messire de Vernoil
ended, "will you or nill you, Venaissin is yours this morning. My
knaves have slain Philibert and his bewildered fellow-tipplers with
less effort than is needed to drown as many kittens."