"Oy Dieus, messire! have I not slain your escort? Why, in common
reason, equity demands that I afford you my protection so far as
Burgos, messire, just as equity demands I on arrival slay de Gâtinais
and fetch back my wife to England."
The page wrung exquisite hands with a gesture which was but partially
tinged with anguish and presently began to laugh. Afterward these two
rode southerly, in the direction of Castile.
For it appeared to the intriguing little woman a diverting jest that in
this fashion her husband should be the promoter of her evasion. It
appeared to her more diverting when in two days' space she had become
genuinely fond of him. She found him rather slow of comprehension, and
was namelessly humiliated by the discovery that not an eyelash of the
man was irritated by his wife's decampment; he considered, to all
appearances, that some property of his had been stolen, and he
intended, quite without passion, to repossess himself of it, after, of
course, punishing the thief.
This troubled the Princess somewhat; and often, riding by his more
stolid side, the girl's heart raged at memory of the decade so newly
overpast which had kept her always dependent on the charity of this or
that ungracious patron--on any one who would take charge of her while
the truant husband fought out his endless squabbles in England.
Slights enough she had borne during the period, and squalor, and hunger
even. But now at last she rode toward the dear southland; and
presently she would be rid of this big man, when he had served her
purpose; and afterward she meant to wheedle Alphonso, just as she had
always done, and later still she and Etienne would be very happy; and,
in fine, to-morrow was to be a new day.
So these two rode ever southward, and always Prince Edward found this
new page of his--this Miguel de Rueda--a jolly lad, who whistled and
sang inapposite snatches of balladry, without any formal ending or
beginning, descanting always with the delicate irrelevancy of a
bird-trill.
Sang Miguel de Rueda:
"_Lord Love, that leads me day by day
Through many a screened and scented way,
Finds to assuage my thirst
No love that may the old love slay,
None sweeter than the first._
"_Ah, heart of mine, that beats so fast
As this or that fair maid trips past,
Once and with lesser stir
We spied the heart's-desire, at last,
And turned, and followed her._
"_For Love had come that in the spring
When all things woke to blossoming
Was as a child that came
Laughing, and filled with wondering,
Nor knowing his own name--_"
"And still I would prefer to think," the big man interrupted, heavily,
"that Sicily is not the only allure. I would prefer to think my wife
so beautiful-- And yet, as I remember her, she was nothing
extraordinary."
The page a little tartly said that people might forget a deal within a
decade.
For the Prince had quickly fathomed the meaning of the scheme hatched
in Castile. "When Manfred is driven out of Sicily they will give the
throne to de Gâtinais. He intends to get both a kingdom and a handsome
wife by this neat affair. And in reason England must support my uncle
against El Sabio. Why, my lad, I ride southward to prevent a war that
would convulse half Europe."
"You ride southward in the attempt to rob a miserable woman of her sole
chance of happiness," Miguel de Rueda estimated.
"That is undeniable, if she loves this thrifty Prince, as indeed I do
not question my wife does. Yet is our happiness here a trivial matter,
whereas war is a great disaster. You have not seen--as I have done, my
little Miguel--a man viewing his death-wound with a face of stupid
wonder?--a man about to die in his lord's quarrel and understanding
never a word of it? Or a woman, say--a woman's twisted and naked body,
the breasts yet horribly heaving, in the red ashes of some village? or
the already dripping hoofs which will presently crush this body? Well,
it is to prevent a many such spectacles hereabout that I ride
southward."
Miguel de Rueda shuddered. But, "She has her right to happiness," the
page stubbornly said.
"Not so," the Prince retorted; "since it hath pleased the Emperor of
Heaven to appoint us twain to lofty stations, to intrust to us the five
talents of the parable; whence is our debt to Him, being fivefold, so
much the greater than that of common persons. And therefore the more
is it our sole right, being fivefold, to serve God without faltering,
and therefore is our happiness, or our unhappiness, the more an
inconsiderable matter. For as I have read in the Annals of the
Romans--" He launched upon the story of King Pompey and his daughter,
whom a certain duke regarded with impure and improper emotions. "My
little Miguel, that ancient king is our Heavenly Father, that only
daughter is the rational soul of us, which is here delivered for
protection to five soldiers--that is, to the five senses--to preserve
it from the devil, the world, and the flesh. But, alas! the
too-credulous soul, desirous of gazing upon the gaudy vapors of this
world--"
"You whine like a canting friar," the page complained; "and I can
assure you that the Lady Ellinor was prompted rather than hindered by
her God-given faculties of sight and hearing and so on when she fell in
love with de Gâtinais. Of you two, he is, beyond any question, the
handsomer and the more intelligent man, and it was God who bestowed on
her sufficient wit to perceive the fact. And what am I to deduce from
this?"
The Prince reflected. At last he said: "I have also read in these same
Gestes how Seneca mentions that in poisoned bodies, on account of the
malignancy and the coldness of the poison, no worm will engender; but
if the body be smitten by lightning, in a few days the carcass will
abound with vermin. My little Miguel, both men and women are at birth
empoisoned by sin, and then they produce no worm--that is, no virtue;
but struck with lightning--that is, by the grace of God--they are
astonishingly fruitful in good works."
The page began to laugh. "You are hopelessly absurd, my Prince, though
you will never know it--and I hate you a little--and I envy you a great
deal."
"Nay," Prince Edward said, in misapprehension, for the man was never
quick-witted--"nay, it is not for my own happiness that I ride
southward."