In this place we have to do with the opening tale of the Dizain of
Queens. I abridge, as afterward, at discretion; and an initial account
of the Barons' War, among other superfluities, I amputate as more
remarkable for veracity than interest. The result, we will agree at
outset, is that to the Norman cleric appertains whatever these tales may
have of merit, whereas what you find distasteful in them you must impute
to my delinquencies in skill rather than in volition.
Within the half-hour after de Giars' death (here one overtakes Nicolas
mid-course in narrative) Dame Alianora thus stood alone in the corridor
of a strange house. Beyond the arras the steward and his lord were at
irritable converse.
First, "If the woman be hungry," spoke a high and peevish voice, "feed
her. If she need money, give it to her. But do not annoy me."
"This woman demands to see the master of the house," the steward then
retorted.
"O incredible Boeotian, inform her that the master of the house has no
time to waste upon vagabonds who select the middle of the night as an
eligible time to pop out of nowhere. Why did you not do so in the
beginning, you dolt?" He got for answer only a deferential cough, and
very shortly continued: "This is remarkably vexatious. _Vox et praeterea
nihil_,--which signifies, Yeck, that to converse with women is always
delightful. Admit her." This was done, and Dame Alianora came into an
apartment littered with papers, where a neat and shrivelled gentleman of
fifty-odd sat at a desk and scowled.
He presently said, "You may go, Yeck." He had risen, the magisterial
attitude with which he had awaited her advent cast aside. "O God!" he
said; "you, madame!" His thin hands, scholarly hands, were plucking at
the air.
Dame Alianora had paused, greatly astonished, and there was an interval
before she said, "I do not recognize you, messire."
"And yet, madame, I recall very clearly that some thirty years ago Count
Bérenger, then reigning in Provence, had about his court four daughters,
each one of whom was afterward wedded to a king. First, Margaret, the
eldest, now regnant in France; then Alianora, the second and most
beautiful of these daughters, whom troubadours hymned as La Belle. She
was married a long while ago, madame, to the King of England, Lord Henry,
third of that name to reign in these islands."
Dame Alianora's eyes were narrowing. "There is something in your voice,"
she said, "which I recall."
He answered: "Madame and Queen, that is very likely, for it is a voice
which sang a deal in Provence when both of us were younger. I concede
with the Roman that I have somewhat deteriorated since the reign of good
Cynara. Yet have you quite forgotten the Englishman who made so many
songs of you? They called him Osmund Heleigh."
"He made the Sestina of Spring which my father envied," the Queen said;
and then, with a new eagerness: "Messire, can it be that you are Osmund
Heleigh?" He shrugged assent. She looked at him for a long time, rather
sadly, and afterward demanded if he were the King's man or of the barons'
party. The nervous hands were raised in deprecation.
"I have no politics," he began, and altered it, gallantly enough, to, "I
am the Queen's man, madame."
"Then aid me, Osmund," she said; and he answered with a gravity which
singularly became him:
"You have reason to understand that to my fullest power I will aid you."
"You know that at Lewes these swine overcame us." He nodded assent.
"And now they hold the King my husband captive at Kenilworth. I am
content that he remain there, for he is of all the King's enemies the
most dangerous. But, at Wallingford, Leicester has imprisoned my son,
Prince Edward. The Prince must be freed, my Osmund. Warren de
Basingbourne commands what is left of the royal army, now entrenched at
Bristol, and it is he who must liberate him. Get me to Bristol, then.
Afterward we will take Wallingford." The Queen issued these orders in
cheery, practical fashion, and did not admit opposition into the account,
for she was a capable woman.
"But you, madame?" he stammered. "You came alone?"
"I come from France, where I have been entreating--and vainly
entreating--succor from yet another monkish king, the pious Lewis of that
realm. Eh, what is God about when He enthrones these cowards, Osmund?
Were I a king, were I even a man, I would drive these smug English out of
their foggy isle in three days' space! I would leave alive not one of
these curs that dare yelp at me! I would--" She paused, the sudden
anger veering into amusement. "See how I enrage myself when I think of
what your people have made me suffer," the Queen said, and shrugged her
shoulders. "In effect, I skulked back to this detestable island in
disguise, accompanied by Avenel de Giars and Hubert Fitz-Herveis.
To-night some half-dozen fellows--robbers, thorough knaves, like all you
English,--suddenly attacked us on the common yonder and slew the men of
our party. While they were cutting de Giars' throat I slipped away in
the dark and tumbled through many ditches till I spied your light. There
you have my story. Now get me an escort to Bristol."
It was a long while before Messire Heleigh spoke. Then, "These men," he
said--"this de Giars and this Fitz-Herveis--they gave their lives for
yours, as I understand it,--_pro caris amicis_. And yet you do not
grieve for them."
"I shall regret de Giars," the Queen said, "for he made excellent songs.
But Fitz-Herveis?--foh! the man had a face like a horse." Then again her
mood changed. "Many men have died for me, my friend. At first I wept
for them, but now I am dry of tears."
He shook his head. "Cato very wisely says, 'If thou hast need of help,
ask it of thy friends.' But the sweet friend that I remember was a
clean-eyed girl, joyous and exceedingly beautiful. Now you appear to me
one of those ladies of remoter times--Faustina, or Jael, or Artemis, the
King's wife of Tauris,--they that slew men, laughing. I am somewhat
afraid of you, madame."
She was angry at first; then her face softened. "You English!" she said,
only half mirthful. "Eh, my God! you remember me when I was happy. Now
you behold me in my misery. Yet even now I am your Queen, messire, and
it is not yours to pass judgment upon me."
"I do not judge you," he hastily returned. "Rather I cry with him of
old, _Omnia incerta ratione_! and I cry with Salomon that he who meddles
with the strife of another man is like to him that takes a hound by the
ears. Yet listen, madame and Queen. I cannot afford you an escort to
Bristol. This house, of which I am in temporary charge, is Longaville,
my brother's manor. And Lord Brudenel, as you doubtless know, is of the
barons' party and--scant cause for grief!--with Leicester at this moment.
I can trust none of my brother's people, for I believe them to be of much
the same opinion as those Londoners who not long ago stoned you and would
have sunk your barge in Thames River. Oh, let us not blink the fact that
you are not overbeloved in England. So an escort is out of the question.
Yet I, madame, if you so elect, will see you safe to Bristol."
"You? singly?" the Queen demanded.
"My plan is this: Singing folk alone travel whither they will. We will
go as jongleurs, then. I can yet manage a song to the viol, I dare
affirm. And you must pass as my wife."
He said this with a very curious simplicity. The plan seemed
unreasonable, and at first Dame Alianora waved it aside. Out of the
question! But reflection suggested nothing better; it was impossible to
remain at Longaville, and the man spoke sober truth when he declared any
escort other than himself to be unprocurable. Besides, the lunar madness
of the scheme was its strength; that the Queen would venture to cross
half England unprotected--and Messire Heleigh on the face of him was a
paste-board buckler,--was an event which Leicester would neither
anticipate nor on report credit. There you were! these English had no
imagination. The Queen snapped her fingers and said: "Very willingly
will I be your wife, my Osmund. But how do I know that I can trust you?
Leicester would give a deal for me,--any price in reason for the
Sorceress of Provence. And you are not wealthy, I suspect."
"You may trust me, mon bel esper"--his eyes here were those of a beaten
child,--"since my memory is better than yours." Messire Osmund Heleigh
gathered his papers into a neat pile. "This room is mine. To-night I
keep guard in the corridor, madame. We will start at dawn."
When he had gone, Dame Alianora laughed contentedly. "Mon bel esper! my
fairest hope! The man called me that in his verses--thirty years ago!
Yes, I may trust you, my poor Osmund."
So they set out at cockcrow. He had procured a viol and a long falchion
for himself, and had somewhere got suitable clothes for the Queen; and in
their aging but decent garb the two approached near enough to the
similitude of what they desired to be esteemed. In the courtyard a knot
of servants gaped, nudged one another, but openly said nothing. Messire
Heleigh, as they interpreted it, was brazening out an affair of gallantry
before the countryside; and they appeared to consider his casual
observation that they would find a couple of dead men on the common
exceedingly diverting.
When the Queen asked him the same morning: "And what will you sing, my
Osmund? Shall we begin with the Sestina of Spring"? Osmund Heleigh
grunted.
"I have forgotten that rubbish long ago. _Omnis amans, amens_, saith the
satirist of Rome town, and with some show of reason."
Followed silence.
One sees them thus trudging the brown, naked plains under a sky of steel.
In a pageant the woman, full-veined and comely, her russet gown girded up
like a harvester's, might not inaptly have prefigured October; and for
less comfortable November you could nowhere have found a symbol more
precise than her lank companion, humorously peevish under his white
thatch of hair, and so constantly fretted by the sword tapping at his
ankles.
They made Hurlburt prosperously and found it vacant, for the news of
Falmouth's advance had driven the villagers hillward. There was in this
place a child, a naked boy of some two years, lying on a doorstep,
overlooked in their gross terror. As the Queen with a sob lifted this
boy the child died.
"Starved!" said Osmund Heleigh; "and within a stone's-throw of my snug
home!"
The Queen laid down the tiny corpse, and, stooping, lightly caressed its
sparse flaxen hair. She answered nothing, though her lips moved.
Past Vachel, scene of a recent skirmish, with many dead in the gutters,
they were overtaken by Falmouth himself, and stood at the roadside to
afford his troop passage. The Marquess, as he went by, flung the Queen a
coin, with a jest sufficiently high-flavored. She knew the man her
inveterate enemy, knew that on recognition he would have killed her as he
would a wolf; she smiled at him and dropped a curtsey.
[Illustration: "THEY WERE OVERTAKEN BY FALMOUTH HIMSELF" _Painting by
Howard Pyle_]
"That is very remarkable," Messire Heleigh observed. "I was hideously
afraid, and am yet shaking. But you, madame, laughed."
The Queen replied: "I laughed because I know that some day I shall have
Lord Falmouth's head. It will be very sweet to see it roll in the dust,
my Osmund."
Messire Heleigh somewhat dryly observed that tastes differed.
At Jessop Minor a more threatening adventure befell. Seeking food at the
_Cat and Hautbois_ in that village, they blundered upon the same troop at
dinner in the square about the inn. Falmouth and his lieutenants were
somewhere inside the house. The men greeted the supposed purveyors of
amusement with a shout; and one among them--a swarthy rascal with his
head tied in a napkin--demanded that the jongleurs grace their meal with
a song.
At first Osmund put him off with a tale of a broken viol.
But, "Haro!" the fellow blustered; "by blood and by nails! you will sing
more sweetly with a broken viol than with a broken head. I would have
you understand, you hedge-thief, that we gentlemen of the sword are not
partial to wordy argument." Messire Heleigh fluttered inefficient hands
as the men-at-arms gathered about them, scenting some genial piece of
cruelty. "Oh, you rabbit!" the trooper jeered, and caught him by the
throat, shaking him. In the act this rascal tore open Messire Heleigh's
tunic, disclosing a thin chain about his neck and a small locket, which
the fellow wrested from its fastening. "Ahoi!" he continued. "Ahoi, my
comrades, what species of minstrel is this, who goes about England all
hung with gold like a Cathedral Virgin! He and his sweetheart"--the
actual word was grosser--"will be none the worse for an interview with
the Marquess."
The situation smacked of awkwardness, for Lord Falmouth was familiar with
the Queen, and to be brought specifically to his attention meant death
for two detected masqueraders. Hastily Osmund Heleigh said:
"Messire, the locket contains the portrait of a lady whom in youth I
loved very greatly. Save to me, it is valueless. I pray you, do not rob
me of it."
But the trooper shook his head with drunken solemnity. "I do not like
the looks of this. Yet I will sell it to you, as the saying is, for a
song."
"It shall be the king of songs," said Osmund--"the song that Arnaut
Daniel first made. I will sing for you a Sestina, messieurs--a Sestina
in salutation of Spring."
The men disposed themselves about the dying grass, and presently he sang.
Sang Messire Heleigh:
"_Awaken! for the servitors of Spring
Marshal his triumph! ah, make haste to see
With what tempestuous pageantry they bring
Mirth back to earth! hasten, for this is he
That cast out Winter and the woes that cling
To Winter's garments, and bade April be!_
"_And now that Spring is master, let us be
Content, and laugh as anciently in Spring
The battle-wearied Tristan laughed, when he
Was come again Tintagel-ward--to bring
Glad news of Arthur's victory and see
Ysoude, with parted lips, that waver and cling._
"_Anon in Brittany must Tristan cling
To this or that sad memory, and be
Alone, as she in Cornwall, for in Spring
Love sows, and lovers reap anon--and he
Is blind, and scatters baleful seed that bring
Such fruitage as blind Love lacks eyes to see!_"
Osmund paused here for an appreciable interval, staring at the Queen.
You saw his flabby throat a-quiver, his eyes melting, saw his cheeks
kindle, and youth ebb back into the lean man like water over a crumbling
dam. His voice was now big and desirous.
Sang Messire Heleigh:
"_Love sows, and lovers reap; and ye will see
The loved eyes lighten, feel the loved lips cling
Never again when in the grave ye be
Incurious of your happiness in Spring,
And get no grace of Love there, whither he
That bartered life for love no love may bring._
"_Here Death is;--and no Heracles may bring
Alcestis hence, nor here may Roland see
The eyes of Aude, nor here the wakening spring
Vex any man with memory, for there be
No memories that cling as cerements cling,
No Love that baffles Death, more strong than he._
"_Us hath he noted, and for us hath he
An how appointed, and that hour will bring
Oblivion.--Then, laugh! Laugh, love, and see
The tyrant mocked, what time our bosoms cling,
What time our lips are red, what time we be
Exultant in our little hour of spring!_
"_Thus in the spring we mock at Death, though he
Will see our children perish and will bring
Asunder all that cling while love may be._"
Then Osmund put the viol aside and sat quite silent. The soldiery
judged, and with cordial frankness stated, that the difficulty of his
rhyming scheme did not atone for his lack of indecency, but when the
Queen of England went among them with Messire Heleigh's hat she found
them liberal. Even the fellow with the broken head admitted that a
bargain was proverbially a bargain, and returned the locket with the
addition of a coin. So for the present these two went safe, and quitted
the _Cat and Hautbois_ both fed and unmolested.
"My Osmund," Dame Alianora said, presently, "your memory is better than I
had thought."
"I remembered a boy and a girl," he returned. "And I grieved that they
were dead."
Afterward they plodded on toward Bowater, and the ensuing night rested in
Chantrell Wood. They had the good-fortune there to encounter dry and
windless weather and a sufficiency of brushwood, with which Osmund
constructed an agreeable fire. In its glow these two sat, eating bread
and cheese.
But talk languished at the outset. The Queen had complained of an ague,
and Messire Heleigh was sedately suggesting three spiders hung about the
neck as an infallible corrective for this ailment, when Dame Alianora
rose to her feet.
"Eh, my God!" she said; "I am wearied of such ungracious aid! Not an
inch of the way but you have been thinking of your filthy books and
longing to be back at them! No; I except the moments when you were
frightened into forgetfulness--first by Falmouth, then by the trooper. O
Eternal Father! fraid of a single dirty soldier!"
"Indeed, I was very much afraid," said Messire Heleigh, with perfect
simplicity; "_timidus perire_, madame."
"You have not even the grace to be ashamed! Yet I am shamed, messire,
that Osmund Heleigh should have become the book-muddled pedant you are.
For I loved him--do you understand?--I loved young Osmund Heleigh."
He also had risen in the firelight, and now its convulsive shadows marred
two dogged faces. "I think it best not to recall that boy and girl who
are so long dead. And, frankly, madame and Queen, the merit of the
business I have in hand is questionable. It is you who have set all
England by the ears, and I am guiding you toward opportunities for
further mischief. I must serve you. Understand, madame, that ancient
folly in Provence yonder has nothing to do with the affair. Remember
that I cry _nihil ad Andromachen_! I must serve you because you are a
woman and helpless; yet I cannot forget that he who spares the wolf is
the sheep's murderer. It would be better for all England if you were
dead. Hey, your gorgeous follies, madame! Silver peacocks set with
sapphires! Cloth of fine gold--"
"Would you have me go unclothed?" Dame Alianora demanded, pettishly.
"Not so," Osmund retorted; "again I say to you with Tertullian, 'Let
women paint their eyes with the tints of chastity, insert into their ears
the Word of God, tie the yoke of Christ about their necks, and adorn
their whole person with the silk of sanctity and the damask of devotion.'
And I say to you--"
But Dame Alianora was yawning quite frankly. "You will say to me that I
brought foreigners into England, that I misguided the King, that I
stirred up strife between the King and his barons. Eh, my God! I am
sufficiently familiar with the harangue. Yet listen, my Osmund: They
sold me like a bullock to a man I had never seen. I found him a man of
wax, and I remoulded him. They gave me England as a toy; I played with
it. I was the Queen, the source of honor, the source of wealth--the
trough, in effect, about which swine gathered. Never in all my English
life, Osmund, has man or woman loved me; never in all my English life
have I loved man or woman. Do you understand, my Osmund?--the Queen has
many flatterers, but no friends. Not a friend in the world, my Osmund!
And so the Queen makes the best of it and amuses herself."
Somewhat he seemed to understand, for he answered without asperity:
"Mon bel esper, I do not find it anywhere in Holy Writ that God requires
it of us to amuse ourselves; but upon many occasions we have been
commanded to live righteously. We are tempted in divers and insidious
ways. And we cry with the Psalmist, 'My strength is dried up like a
potsherd.' But God intends this, since, until we have here demonstrated
our valor upon Satan, we are manifestly unworthy to be enregistered in
His army. The great Captain must be served by proven soldiers. We may
be tempted, but we may not yield, O daughter of the South! we may not
yield!" he cried, with an unheralded, odd wildness.
"Again you preach," Dame Alianora said. "That is a venerable truism."
"Ho, madame," he returned, "is it on that account the less true?"
Pensively the Queen considered this. "You are a good man, my Osmund,"
she said at last, with a fine irrelevance, "though you are very droll.
Ohimé! it is a pity that I was born a princess! Had it been possible for
me to be your wife, I would have been a better woman. I shall sleep now
and dream of that good and stupid and contented woman I might have been."
So presently these two slept in Chantrell Wood.
Followed four days of journeying. As Messer Dante had not yet surveyed
Malebolge, they lacked a parallel for that which they encountered; their
traverse discovered England razed, charred, and depopulate--picked bones
of an island, a vast and absolute ruin about which passion-wasted men
skulked like rats. They went without molestation; malice and death had
journeyed on their road aforetime, as heralds, and had swept it clear.
At every trace of these hideous precessors Osmund Heleigh would say, "By
a day's ride I might have prevented this." Or, "By a day's ride I might
have saved this woman." Or, "By two days' riding I might have fed this
child."
The Queen kept Spartan silence, but daily you saw the fine woman age. In
their slow advance every inch of misery was thrust before her as for
inspection; meticulously she observed and appraised her handiwork.
Bastling the royal army had recently sacked. There remained of this
village the skeletons of two houses, and for the rest a jumble of bricks,
rafters half-burned, many calcined fragments of humanity, and ashes. At
Bastling, Messire Heleigh turned to the Queen toiling behind.
"Oh, madame!" he said, in a dry whisper, "this was the home of so many
men!"
"I burned it," Dame Alianora replied. "That man we passed just now I
killed. Those other men and women--my folly killed them all. And little
children, my Osmund! The hair like corn-floss, blood-dabbled!"
"Oh, madame!" he wailed, in the extremity of his pity.
For she stood with eyes shut, all gray. The Queen demanded: "Why have
they not slain me? Was there no man in England to strangle the proud
wanton? Are you all cowards here?"
"Not cowards!" he cried. "Your men and Leicester's ride about the world,
and draw sword and slay and die for the right as they see it. And you
for the right as ye see it. But I, madame! I! I, who sat snug at home
spilling ink and trimming rose-bushes! God's world, madame, and I in it
afraid to speak a word for Him! God's world, and a curmudgeon in it
grudging God the life He gave!" The man flung out his soft hands and
snarled: "We are tempted in divers and insidious ways. But I, who
rebuked you! behold, now, with how gross a snare was I entrapped!"
"I do not understand, my Osmund."
"I was afraid, madame," he returned, dully. "Everywhere men fight and I
am afraid to die."
So they stood silent in the ruins of Bastling.
"Of a piece with our lives," Dame Alianora said at last. "All ruin, my
Osmund."
But Messire Heleigh threw back his head and laughed, new color in his
face. "Presently men will build here, my Queen. Presently, as in legend
the Arabian bird, arises from these ashes a lordlier and more spacious
town."
Then they went forward. The next day Fate loosed upon them Gui Camoys,
lord of Bozon, Foliot, and Thwenge, who, riding alone through Poges
Copse, found there a man and a woman over their limited supper. The
woman had thrown back her hood, and Camoys drew rein to stare at her.
Lispingly he spoke the true court dialect.
"Ma belle," said this Camoys, in friendly condescension, "n'estez vous
pas jongleurs?"
Dame Alianora smiled up at him. "Ouais, messire; mon mary faict les
chançons--" Here she paused, with dilatory caution, for Camoys had
leaped from his horse, giving a great laugh.
"A prize! ho, an imperial prize!" Camoys shouted. "A peasant woman with
the Queen's face, who speaks French! And who, madame, is this? Have you
by any chance brought pious Lewis from oversea? Have I bagged a brace of
monarchs?"
Here was imminent danger, for Camoys had known the Queen some fifteen
years. Messire Heleigh rose to his feet, his five days' beard glinting
like hoar-frost as his mouth twitched.
"I am Osmund Heleigh, messire, younger brother to the Earl of Brudenel."
"I have heard of you, I believe--the fellow who spoils parchment. This
is odd company, however, Messire Osmund, for Brudenel's brother."
"A gentleman must serve his Queen, messire. As Cicero very justly
observes--"
"I am inclined to think that his political opinions are scarcely to our
immediate purpose. This is a high matter, Messire Heleigh. To let the
sorceress pass is, of course, out of the question; upon the other hand, I
observe that you lack weapons of defence. Yet if you will have the
kindness to assist me in unarming, your courtesy will place our commerce
on more equal footing."