infinite love.
"What is there to forgive?" she whispered. "You were snared; you were
betrayed; you believed me no more than the sweet-seeming of a dream.
But because I was sure that you loved me, who loved you with all my
heart, I came to set you free."
"Dear love," said Rainouart, "you are the bravest and the fairest of
women, and I worship you with my soul. Your life is mine, my life is
yours from now to the end of ends."
"Come from here," wooed Argathona softly; "quit the desecrated city,
quit its shameful, shameless citizens. Come to the sweet, clean
greenwood, my lover, for there we shall dwell together, free from
ache and care, skilled in the secrets of the seasons, the promise of
spring, and the gladness of summer, and the rapture of autumn; and the
sun shall be our comfort by day, and the stars shall be our torches
by night, and the green grass shall be our couch, and the leaves our
curtains, and the free air our friend. And when winter comes with
its snows and its rains, and its fury of winds, we shall hide in
caves or the ruins of temples, and build us fires to warm us, and I
will sing you songs of the world before the flight of the gods, and
tell you tales of the days of gold. And we shall feed on the fruits
of the earth, and all the beasts and birds of the forest shall be
our companions, and the glory and the holiness of love shall be our
inheritance for all our days."
Now while she spoke it seemed to the charmed senses of Rainouart that
his spirit had achieved its best, and that he had passed forever from
the mystic rose-garden holding the noble rose to his heart. And the
rose of the world was a maiden, and her face was the face of Argathona.
"I will come with you to the greenwood," Rainouart answered, exultant.
"Honor and truth and purity and the simple life abide there, and there
we shall live and love till our pulses cease to beat. I love you
forever."
And Argathona echoed him, radiant, "I love you forever," and she forgot
that he was mortal and she immortal, and her face was near to his,
and the lips of the lovers met. Them seemed they were already in the
greenwood; them seemed they were alone; in their joy they had forgotten
Athens; in their joy they had forgotten Esclaramonde.
Slowly the woman on the floor had edged her way nearer and nearer
to the pair, and now her fingers closed upon the hilt of the fallen
dagger. Argathona, her first kiss taken and given, released herself
from her lover's clasp, and holding him by the hand turned and made to
lead him towards the turret door. At that moment Esclaramonde gripped
the dagger, and, leaping to her feet, sprang forward and stabbed the
Prince of Athens in the side. Rainouart, taken unawares, under the
impact of the duchess's body flung so fiercely against him, reeled,
and, making to turn, tripped and fell towards the table, striking his
head against it and dropping thence to the ground. Esclaramonde stooped
over him to repeat her stroke, but she had not time. Argathona was upon
her, eagle-swift, eagle-fierce, eagle-strong. She plucked the dagger
from the duchess's clutch, and flung her across the room to fall in a
heap by the door. Then Argathona, paying no more heed to her enemy,
bent over Rainouart. He was unconscious from the head stroke; his wound
was bleeding freely, and Argathona busied herself to stanch the flow,
making little moans over him the while, like a mother over an ailing
child. Their second meeting, like their first, was stained with blood.
As for Esclaramonde, when she found herself unheeded she crawled to
her feet and beat furiously upon the gong.
"Help! help! help!" she cried, and the sound of her screaming voice and
the sound of the beaten brass reverberated horridly through the night.
XXIII
SIMON'S CHARGE
While the duchess was hammering at the gong and screaming furiously for
help, and while from the rooms below, where revelry was toward, came
now the noise of answering cries and clamor, the arras that masked the
door of the turret was dashed aside and Simon sprang into the room.
From where he waited for Argathona, below in the shadow of the tower,
the shrieking of the duchess had reached his ears, and he lost no time
in leaping up the turret stairs to see what had happened. In a moment
his eyes took in the scene--the blood-stained weapon on the floor, the
duchess screaming and beating on the gong, the young Lord of Athens
stretched his length in blood, and Argathona bowed in care above him.
Simon sprang to her side.
"Heaven's pity, maiden," he ejaculated, anxiously. "How are you
betrayed?"
Argathona looked up at him with calm, melancholy eyes.
"My love is wounded," she answered quietly, "and he has swooned from
his fall, being still weakened by the onslaught in the wood, but there
is no fear for him."
The dryad had to speak close into Simon's ear, for the continued
calling of the duchess and the growing clamor in the now aroused palace
made it hard for him to hear.
From her bosom she drew a handful of leaves, and pressed them into
Simon's palms.
"These are leaves of the herb of healing," she whispered. "I have set
some on his hurt to stop the blood. Renew them soon, bruise them in his
drink, and he will be whole within a day. I think it may prove that I
cannot wait here, so you must tend him."
"I have sworn to serve you and stay with you--" Simon began, but
Argathona stopped him.
"You serve me best in serving him," she remonstrated, "and when he is
hale you must bring him to me safe and sound in the greenwood."
Simon promised with his heart, and would have promised with his lips
but there was no time to say more. The billows of sound in the palace
had swelled to a mighty rush and trampling of feet, and in another
instant the door was flung open, and many knights came into the
room--Count Ernault, Sir Guy, Sir Jaufre, Fernand Ximenes, and others
who had been tasting the duke's cheer.
"Who calls for help?" Count Ernault asked, looking around him in
amazement.
The Duchess Esclaramonde was standing full height with her hands
extended in appeal.
"I call for help," she cried. "Where is the Duke of Athens?"
Count Ernault sprang forward to where Rainouart lay with Argathona and
Simon supporting him.
"What ails the prince?" he asked, and as Simon growled back, "The
she-devil from Thebes has stabbed him," Ernault turned to the knights
who were hot upon his heels and bade them keep back and let the prince
have air. The gentlemen of Thebes among the throng separated themselves
from the others and ranged themselves behind their duchess, questioning
her and whispering together. Fernand Ximenes was already by her side.
"Fear nothing," he said, softly, "I am your friend," and then he stood
apart, silent and watchful. Along the corridor came the thunder of
heavy feet.
"Here is the duke," cried Jaufre de Brabant, and even as he spoke Duke
Baldwin staggered into the room. He had been eating hugely, he had been
drinking deeply, he was flushed with meat and wine, and furious at the
interruption which had taken him from table. He glared around him like
a baited bull, seeing little at first, for his eyes swam with the drink
he carried and the confusion of the shifting lights.
"What is the matter?" he bellowed, his raging face turning from one
to other of those about him. Then catching sight of his son upon the
ground, and the duchess standing apart, and the blood-stained dagger
upon the floor between them, he veered to her in a hot fury.
"Woman, what have you done?" he vociferated. Esclaramonde fell on her
knees and stretched out her hands to him, but her voice was full of
menace, though her words were words of entreaty.
"Justice, great duke," she shrilled, "justice on my false lord.
Although he is your son, he is still your subject, and amenable to all
the laws of chivalry and honor."
The duke moved upon the kneeling woman, lifting his great hands as if
to strike her, whereat there was murmur among the Thebans and many
hands set to sword-hilts.
"Woman, what have you done?" he asked again, and again she answered him
defiantly, conscious of her backing, conscious of the neighborhood of
Fernand Ximenes, conscious of the chivalry of the duke.
"Justice," she answered again, "justice on my false lord, who sought
to drug my senses on my wedding night that he might entertain his
paramour."
The duke stood instantly still, rigid as an image. "His paramour!" he
echoed, glancing round the room, for to him, as to all the others, the
only woman present was the Duchess of Esclaramonde herself, and by his
son he only saw as all the others saw Simon the soldier of fortune and
the young knight of Eleusis. The duke strode to where his son lay.
"Is my son dead?" he asked. Argathona, kneeling by Rainouart's seeming
lifeless body, whispered to Count Ernault that he was little hurt,
although stunned by his fall, and would soon recover, and Count
Ernault, turning to the duke, repeated her message.
"Bear him to his chamber and summon my physician," the duke ordered,
and in a moment the strong arms of the young prince's friends--Guy,
Jaufre, Ambrose, and Raymond--lifted him unconscious from the floor
and bore him to the adjoining room and laid him on the marriage bed.
Then glaring round him with the face that all men feared who saw it so,
Baldwin commanded:
"Tell me what has happened?"
Esclaramonde rose to her feet and pointed at Argathona, who was
standing, now tranquil, with Simon by her side.
"That is a woman," she cried. "That cup contains the wine of sleep.
It was poured that I might drink it and might sleep while he gave his
false love the kisses due to me. But I was warned and did not drink,
and when this woman came I stabbed him in her arms to avenge my honor."
Baldwin turned to Argathona.
"Are you a woman?" he asked, with wonder in his drunken voice.
Argathona answered him calmly:
"I am no man, great duke."
The duke clinched and unclinched his great fists. He was sobering
rapidly in his rage. "Are you my son's lover?" he questioned.
The dryad answered simply:
"I love him as a maid should love her bachelor, true heart and true
soul, and he loved me ere he was stolen from me."
"Do not listen to her," Esclaramonde clamored; "she is a filthy witch
and she has ensorcelled him."
Duke Baldwin lifted up his hand to command silence. Drunk or sober he
was the master here. Whatever had happened he was the judge. If his son
had sinned his son should suffer, but it was for Baldwin of the Rock to
sit in judgment. Some dim memory of an ancient tale of Brutus, a Roman,
troubled his muddled mind. While Esclaramonde was speaking, Fernand
Ximenes had moved a little nearer to her and lightly touched her on the
arm with a touch that meant reassurance, a touch that convinced her of
a friend.
"Silence, lady," Baldwin ordered, not uncivilly; then he turned again
to Argathona: "Boy, woman, witch," he demanded, "whatever you be, what
is your story?"
Argathona answered him as tranquilly as if she were telling an old tale
to old friends in the forest. Simon gaped in wonder at her, with his
hand ever at the hilt of his sword to help her.
"Your son was wounded by robbers in the wood. I tended his hurt, and we
changed loves and vows. While I went for healing herbs, in my absence
this lady came and bore him to Athens, persuading his sick senses that
it was she who had succored him."
The duke frowned horridly. "A strange tale!" he thundered. "A lying
tale!" the duchess cried eagerly. Then Simon came forward and faced
her, and in a clap she knew that he was the man that had escaped from
her in the wood, and she went pale for an instant and caught her breath.
"It is a true tale, by your leave," Simon asserted, "for I was by from
first to last."
The duke waved woman-interrupter and man-interrupter impatiently aside,
and still addressed Argathona.
"How came you here?" he asked, and again the dryad answered him as
calmly as if she had been singing a country-side song.
"In a boy's coat I came hither; in a man's mail I rode in the jousts,
and afterwards wooed and won that lady with a golden apple to send
her lord to sleep with a drowsy draught and welcome me as her lover
to-night." She stooped and picked the apple up as she spoke.
The duke's grim frown grew grimmer. "Why did not my son drink?" he
asked.
Argathona answered: "I warned him not to drink, but to make believe,
for I wished him to know the worth of the woman he had wedded."
The face of the duke was an ugly sight to see, as he glanced from the
slender girl in the boy's garb to the woman who had married his son
that day and striven to murder him that night.
"This is a tangled tale," he snarled, "and some here are lying their
way to hell at a hand-gallop, but this is no hour and this no mood for
judgment."
He pawed at his forehead with his huge hands as he spoke, as if he
hoped by physical effort to dispel the sudden troubles of the night.
Then he turned to Esclaramonde:
"Lady," he said, "if it be proved that my son has wronged you, you
shall have justice, for no man is son of mine who swerves in aught from
his knightly fealty, but it may prove that you have slandered my son,
in which case I shall deal justice upon you."
The duchess went pale anew at this threat, and those of her following
standing near her made speed to ease their swords in their sheaths,
seeing which act the partisans of Duke Baldwin did the like defiance.
Fernand Ximenes sidled to the duchess and breathed quickly in her ear,
"Defy him; I stand by you." And Esclaramonde chose defiance. With a
bold and angry countenance she made a step towards the Duke of Athens.
"Baldwin of Athens," she said, haughtily, "I am a sovereign prince even
as you are a sovereign prince, and you hold no right of judgment over
your peers. I ride hence to-night, I and my people, and from this hour,
in the name of my flouted womanhood, Thebes declares war upon Athens."
At this belligerent speech those of her company fell to drawing their
swords and calling out "Thebes! Thebes!" furiously, while the huge duke
grinned at them like a boar at bay.
"Are you so brave?" he raged--"then I begin the war by making you my
prisoner. Count Ernault, your duty." And he looked fiercely at the
lord-marshal as who should say, "Take this woman into your custody."
All was now in an uproar. The Theban knights were a line of lifted
steel by the side of their lady, crying the name of their city, and
behind Duke Baldwin the Athenian nobles shook their swords and hurled
back their battle-cry of "Athens" against the "Thebes" of their
antagonists. Argathona, standing apart, and for the moment forgotten,
watched the turmoil with pitying eyes, and Simon beside her stared
indifferent, resting upon his great sword.
To Duke Baldwin the Theban menace seemed meaningless; for he knew very
well that the duchess had but a handful of knights and men-at-arms in
her service within his city, and that he could crush them all at a blow
as easily as dance handy-dandy. And indeed the menace would have been
meaningless if the duchess had no more help to rely on to carry her out
of Athens than the escort she had brought with her from Thebes. But it
seemed that she had much more to rely on, for now beneath the angry
arch of lifted blades Fernand Ximenes advanced slowly and addressed the
duke.
"Magnificence," he began, blandly, smiling into the astonished face of
Baldwin, "surely you wrong your honor if you attempt to restrain the
departure of the Theban lady. She is, as she says, a sovereign prince,
over whom you can claim no shade of vassalage."
This unexpected intervention amazed Duke Baldwin as much as if a
miracle had taken place. Here was a leader of his hirelings, a man of
the Catalan Grand Company, presuming to advise him, Baldwin of the
Rock. He tried to speak, but the words choked in his throat, and he
glared inarticulate at Fernand Ximenes, who went on with his speech in
perfect composure.
"By my advice she shall be suffered to go free hence, as she came free
hither, and if war ensues between Athens and Thebes thereafter, then
may Heaven defend the one that best deserves the defence of Heaven."
As Fernand Ximenes ended his ambiguous speech, Duke Baldwin found his
voice.
"You are over ready with unasked-for counsel," he shouted, "but here in
Athens I follow my own rede."
"Surely, surely," Ximenes answered, with unchanged tranquillity of face
and bearing, "a man can do no more, however big he be, and for my own
part, little as I am, I can do no less. But I say my mind and in saying
it I say the mind of the Catalan Grand Company."
As he spoke he drew his sword very softly from its scabbard, for all
the world as if he were no more than curious to look upon its shining
blade, and when it was naked in his hand he employed it to no other
purpose than the tracing of imaginary lines upon the floor between him
and the duke. But all his comrades of the company that were in the room
drew their swords too, and ranged themselves with the fellowship of
Esclaramonde of Thebes.
Duke Baldwin saw that he was trapped and baffled. He could not defy
Ximenes out of hand, glad as he would have been to do so, for he knew
that the games and festals had brought every man of the Catalan Grand
Company into the capital, and that to provoke a conflict with their
leader just then, however confident he might be of his superior forces
and of the inevitable result, would be the very top of foolhardiness,
while to start strife now in the crowded palace, where the opponents
would be wellnigh man to man, would turn the place into a shambles. He
made a great gulp of his discomfiture.
"Friend," he said to Ximenes, with a suddenly commanded dignity that
well became his bulk, "you remind me betimes and wisely."
He turned from the enigmatical Spaniard and faced the duchess, paying
her a grave salutation.
"Lady, Athens accepts your challenge. Go your way in peace till we meet
again in war. Look to the walls of your city, for in a week they will
need rebuilding."
He made her another reverence, throttling his choler, but Esclaramonde
laughed at his anger and his gravity.
"Thebes has no fear of Athens, great duke," she answered, mockingly.
He paid no heed to her, but, turning to Ernault, bade him see that
the duchess and her people were suffered to quit the city unopposed.
Ernault instantly left the room. The duchess smiled at him as he passed
her, but she won no answering smile from his grave face. Esclaramonde
made the duke a bow.
"We thank you for your reluctant courtesy," she sneered. Then, turning,
she moved slowly from the room with her head high and a triumphant
smile, followed by her Theban knights. Fernand Ximenes sheathed his
sword, saluted the duke with changeless visage, and followed quietly
in her wake. As he passed out his quick eye noted the pale face of one
that stood on the fringe of Duke Baldwin's fellowship, gazing eagerly
at him, so as without ever showing to attract his attention. The
Catalan leader exchanged a glance with Demetrius of Epirus, and knew
that Thebes had another adherent in the league against Athens. Ximenes
was very well content to understand this, and Demetrius of Epirus was
very well content to be understood. And so Ximenes went his way.
There was heavy silence in the room as the Theban party passed out, and
the silence brooded over the room for a while as the footsteps of the
seceders died away along the passages and down the stairs. Already,
below in the great court-yard, could be heard faintly the bustle of men
and horses where Count Ernault was taking orders for the departure of
the Duchess of Thebes. The knights in the room sheathed their swords
and stared into one another's faces, marvelling at these untoward
events and the shifts of fortune. As for Duke Baldwin, he stood quite
still for a little, stupid with fury to be thus bearded and deceived.
But presently he remembered another enemy, and turned fiercely to
Argathona as to one on whom he could safely ease his spleen.
"As for you," he shouted, "you woman out of a wood, who claim to love
my son and to be loved by him, it seems very sure that you have by some
manner of sorcery bewitched the boy, and to practise sorcery is to
covet death in Athens. Wherefore I shall this now clap you into prison,
and to-morrow will hand you over to Mother-Church, who will know best
how to deal with a witch."
Simon made ready for the swinging of his great sword. Ere any one of
them all should lay hands upon the damsel there would be a headless
duke in Athens. But Argathona's face remained as changelessly grave as
befits in danger one who claims a kinship with the high gods, and she
spoke out loud and clear.
"Aliens of Athens, you live hateful lives, you live shameful lives, and
my spirit is weary of you. I came a stranger into the ways of men, and
I go hence very grateful to be stranger to their ways to the end. For
you cannot hold me here against my will, and of my own will I come not
again to your borders. Fear, for there is a curse upon you; fear, for
you have polluted the beautiful city, and dreadful is the vengeance of
the gods."
All the while she was speaking to the astounded hearers, a high wind
seemed to be rising in the night, and even as she made an end of her
speech, a great squalling gust rushed through the open window, and in a
clap every torch and candle in the great room was puffed out, and for
the space of a moment all was heavy blackness. When lights were found,
and the room bright again, there was no sign nor trace of the girl from
the greenwood who had fought in the lists as the Prince of Eleusis.
XXIV
THE HONOR OF THE ROCK
When Simon saw that Argathona was clean gone from the room where the
others were blinking at the change from light to dark and from dark to
light again, he guessed that she had slipped away by the turret-stair,
and he knew that it would not take her long, with her cunning, to get
clear of the city. Yet, to make assurance surer, he set his back to the
arras that masked the turret-door, and stood there with his sword bare
waiting composedly for the trouble that seemed very likely to ensue.
Indeed, the trouble came quickly, for as soon as Duke Baldwin had
winked his eyes clear of the dazzle and saw that Argathona was gone,
he was very wroth with Simon for shielding her retreat, calling him a
companion of witches and other ill names, while he bade those about
him fling the rascal from the path. But Simon silenced him with words
few indeed, but fiercer and fouler than even the duke could compass,
and the duke's orders were so incoherent that none knew, or, indeed,
greatly desired to know, what he wished. For while Simon stood there
at vantage, with his back against the door, with his mighty sword
before him, there were few of those by Duke Baldwin's side that liked
the looks of him well enough to covet a closer acquaintanceship without
need. For though they were valiant knights all, they remembered Simon's
play with the Varangian, and esteemed him no less terrible than the
giant Fierabras, with whom Ogier combated in the tale of Ogier the Dane.
Now while they stood aloof, uncertain what to do, Simon shouted anew at
the duke:
"Duke of dotards, duke of donkeys, you are a foul-lipped fool to call
your own son's sweetheart a witch, for she shows as one of God's angels
before the sluts and trulls you cherish. So if you have the pluck of
your bulk, you will fight this quarrel out with me, sword to sword or
fist to fist, I care not which, and we shall see who is the better man
and who serves the better kind of woman."
Outside in the court-yard, and beyond on the high-road down the
hill, could be heard the rattle and clatter of the men and horses of
Esclaramonde's escort starting on their departure for Thebes. In the
room a silence like a stupor fell on those that heard their great duke
so flouted by a common man-at-arms. But the great duke himself, whose
moods veered like the vane, was only tickled with Simon's insolence,
and he laughed a wild laugh, for he prized courage in others as much as
he prided himself on his own courage, and he was mightily minded to try
a fall with the big man.
"Now, by the beard of King Philip," he shouted, "I have a mind to meet
your wishes. I had an itch to come to grips with you this morning, and
I cherish no desire to deny myself twice in the same day."