"Nay, my little Miguel, I do but paint the world as the Eternal Father
made it. The laws of the place are written large, so that all may read
them; and we know that every path, whether it be my trodden one or some
byway through your gayer meadows, yet leads in the end to God. We have
our choice--or to come to Him as a laborer comes at evening for the
day's wages fairly earned, or to come as some roisterer haled before
the magistrate."
"I consider you to be in the right," the boy said, after a lengthy
interval, "although I decline--and emphatically--to believe you."
The Prince laughed. "There spoke Youth," he said, and he sighed as
though he were a patriarch; "but we have sung, we two, the Eternal
Tenson of God's will and of man's desires. And I claim the prize, my
little Miguel."
Suddenly the page kissed one huge hand. "You have conquered, my very
dull and very glorious Prince. Concerning that Hawise--" but Miguel de
Rueda choked. "Oh, I understand! in part I understand!" the page
wailed, and now it was Prince Edward who comforted Miguel de Rueda.
For the Prince laid one hand upon his page's hair, and smiled in the
darkness to note how soft it was, since the man was less a fool than at
first view you might have taken him to be, and said:
"One must play the game, my lad. We are no little people, she and I,
the children of many kings, of God's regents here on earth; and it was
never reasonable, my Miguel, that gentlefolk should cog at dice."
The same night Miguel de Rueda sobbed through the prayer which Saint
Theophilus made long ago to the Mother of God:
"_Dame, je n'ose,
Flors d'aiglentier et lis et rose,
En qui li filz Diex se repose,_"
and so on. Or, in other wording: "Hearken, O gracious Lady! thou that
art more fair than any flower of the eglantine, more comely than the
blossoming of the rose or of the lily! thou to whom was confided the
very Son of God! Hearken, for I am afraid! afford counsel to me that
am ensnared by Satan and know not what to do! Never will I make an end
of praying. O Virgin débonnaire! O honored Lady! Thou that wast once
a woman--!"
You would have said the boy was dying; and in sober verity a deal of
Miguel de Rueda died upon this night of clearer vision.
Yet he sang the next day as these two rode southward, although half as
in defiance.
Sang Miguel:
"_And still, whate'er the years may send--
Though Time be proven a fickle friend,
And Love be shown a liar--
I must adore until the end
That primal heart's desire._
"_I may not 'hear men speak of her
Unmoved, and vagrant pulses stir
Whene'er she passes by,
And I again her worshipper
Must serve her till I die._
"_Not she that is doth pass, but she
That Time hath riven away from me
And in the darkness set--
The maid that I may never see,
Or gain, or e'er forget._"
It was on the following day, near Bazas, these two encountered Adam de
Gourdon, a Provençal knight, with whom the Prince fought for a long
while, without either contestant giving way; and in consequence a
rendezvous was fixed for the November of that year, and afterward the
Prince and de Gourdon parted, highly pleased with each other.
Thus the Prince and his attendant came, in late September, to Mauléon,
on the Castilian frontier, and dined there at the _Fir Cone_. Three or
four lackeys were about--some exalted person's retinue? Prince Edward
hazarded to the swart little landlord as the Prince and Miguel lingered
over the remnants of their meal.
Yes, the fellow informed them: the Prince de Gâtinais had lodged there
for a whole week, watching the north road, as circumspect of all
passage as a cat over a mouse-hole. Eh, monseigneur expected some one,
doubtless--a lady, it might be--the gentlefolk had their escapades like
every one else. The innkeeper babbled vaguely, for on a sudden he was
very much afraid of his gigantic patron.
"You will show me to his room," Prince Edward said, with a politeness
that was ingratiating.
The host shuddered and obeyed.
Miguel de Rueda, left alone, sat quite silent, his fingertips drumming
upon the table. He rose suddenly and flung back his shoulders, all
resolution to the tiny heels. On the stairway he passed the black
little landlord.
"I think," the little landlord considered, "that Saint Michael must
have been of similar appearance when he went to meet the Evil One. Ho,
messire, will there be bloodshed?"
But Miguel de Rueda had passed to the room above. The door was ajar.
He paused there.
De Gâtinais had risen from his dinner and stood facing the door. He,
too, was a blond man and the comeliest of his day. And at sight of him
awoke in the woman's heart all of the old tenderness; handsome and
brave and witty she knew him to be, past reason, as indeed the whole
world knew him to be distinguished by every namable grace; and the
innate weakness of de Gâtinais, which she alone suspected, made him now
seem doubly dear. Fiercely she wanted to shield him, less from carnal
injury than from that self-degradation she cloudily apprehended to be
at hand; the test was come, and Etienne would fail. Thus much she knew
with a sick, illimitable surety, and she loved de Gâtinais with a
passion which dwarfed comprehension.
"O Madame the Virgin!" prayed Miguel de Rueda, "thou that wast once a
woman, even as I am now a woman! grant that the man may slay him
quickly! grant that he may slay Etienne very quickly, honored Lady, so
that my Etienne may die unshamed!"
"I must question, messire," de Gâtinais was saying, "whether you have
been well inspired. Yes, quite frankly, I do await the arrival of her
who is your nominal wife; and your intervention at this late stage, I
take it, can have no outcome save to render you absurd. Nay, rather be
advised by me, messire--"