In the year of grace 1298, a little before Candlemas (thus Nicolas
begins), came letters to the first King Edward of England from his
kinsman and ambassador to France, Earl Edmund of Lancaster. It was
perfectly apparent, the Earl wrote, that the French King meant to
surrender to the Earl's lord and brother neither the duchy of Guienne
nor the Lady Blanch.
The courier found Sire Edward at Ipswich, midway in celebration of his
daughter's marriage to the Count of Holland. The King read the letters
through and began to laugh; and presently broke into a rage such as was
possible to the demon-tainted blood of Anjou. So that next day the
keeper of the privy purse entered upon the household-books a
considerable sum "to make good a large ruby and an emerald lost out of
his coronet when the King's Grace was pleased to throw it into the
fire"; and upon the same day the King recalled Lancaster, and more
lately despatched yet another embassy into France to treat about Sire
Edward's second marriage. This last embassy was headed by the Earl of
Aquitaine.
The Earl got audience of the French King at Mezelais. Walking alone
came this Earl of Aquitaine, with a large retinue, into the hall where
the barons of France stood according to their rank; in russet were the
big Earl and his attendants, but upon the scarlets and purples of the
French lords many jewels shone; as through a corridor of gayly painted
sunlit glass came the grave Earl to the dais where sat King Philippe.
The King had risen at close sight of the new envoy, and had gulped once
or twice, and without speaking, hurriedly waved his lords out of
ear-shot. His perturbation was very extraordinary.
"Fair cousin," the Earl now said, without any prelude, "four years ago
I was affianced to your sister, Dame Blanch. You stipulated that
Gascony be given up to you in guaranty, as a settlement on any children
I might have by that incomparable lady. I assented, and yielded you
the province, upon the understanding, sworn to according to the faith
of loyal kings, that within forty days you assign to me its seignory as
your vassal. And I have had of you since then neither the enfeoffment
nor the lady, but only excuses, Sire Philippe."
With eloquence the Frenchman touched upon the emergencies to which the
public weal so often drives men of high station, and upon his private
grief over the necessity--unavoidable, alas!--of returning a hard
answer before the council; and become so voluble that Sire Edward
merely laughed, in that big-lunged and disconcerting way of his, and
afterward lodged for a week at Mezelais, nominally passing by his
lesser title of Earl of Aquitaine, and as his own ambassador.
And negotiations became more swift of foot, since a man serves himself
with zeal. In addition, the French lords could make nothing of a
politician so thick-witted that he replied to every consideration of
expediency with a parrot-like reiteration of the trivial circumstance
that already the bargain was signed and sworn to; and, in consequence,
while daily they fumed over his stupidity, daily he gained his point.
During this period he was, upon one pretext or another, very largely in
the company of his affianced wife, Dame Blanch.
This lady, I must tell you, was the handsomest of her day; there could
nowhere be found a creature more agreeable to every sense; and she
compelled the eye, it is recorded, not gently but in a superb fashion.
And Sire Edward, who, till this, had loved her merely by report, and,
in accordance with the high custom of old, through many perusals of her
portrait, now appeared besotted. He was an aging man, near sixty; huge
and fair he was, with a crisp beard, and stalwart as a tower; and the
better-read at Mezelais likened the couple to Sieur Hercules at the
feet of Queen Omphale when they saw the two so much together.
The ensuing Wednesday the court hunted and slew a stag of ten in the
woods of Ermenoueïl, which stand thick about the chateau; and upon that
day these two had dined at Rigon the forester's hut, in company with
Dame Meregrett, the French King's younger sister. She sat a little
apart from the betrothed, and stared through the hut's one window. We
know nowadays it was not merely the trees she considered.
Dame Blanch, it seemed, was undisposed to mirth. "For we have slain
the stag, beau sire," she said, "and have made of his death a brave
diversion. To-day we have had our sport of death,--and presently the
gay years wind past us, as our cavalcade came toward the stag, and
God's incurious angel slays us, much as we slew the stag. And we will
not understand, and we will wonder, as the stag did, in helpless
wonder. And Death will have his sport of us, as in atonement." Here
her big eyes shone, as the sun glints upon a sand-bottomed pool. "Ohé,
I have known such happiness of late, beau sire, that I am hideously
afraid to die." And again the heavily fringed eyelids lifted, and
within the moment sank contentedly.
For the King had murmured "Happiness!" and his glance was rapacious.
"But I am discourteous," Blanch said, "to prate of death thus drearily.
Let us flout him, then, with some gay song." And toward Sire Edward
she handed Rigon's lute.
The King accepted it. "Death is not reasonably mocked," Sire Edward
said, "since in the end he conquers, and of the very lips that gibed at
him remains but a little dust. Nay, rather should I who already stand
beneath a lifted sword make for my immediate conqueror a Sirvente,
which is the Song of Service."
Sang Sire Edward:
"_I sing of Death, that cometh to the king,
And lightly plucks him from the cushioned throne,
And drowns his glory and his warfaring
In unrecorded dim oblivion,
And girds another with the sword thereof,
And sets another in his stead to reign,
What time the monarch nakedly must gain
Styx' hither shore and nakedly complain
'Midst twittering ghosts lamenting life and love._
"_For Death is merciless: a crack-brained king
He raises in the place of Prester John,
Smites Priam, and mid-course in conquering
Bids Caesar pause; the wit of Salomon,
The wealth of Nero and the pride thereof,
And prowess of great captains--of Gawayne,
Darius, Jeshua, and Charlemaigne--
Wheedle and bribe and surfeit Death in vain
And get no grace of him nor any love._
"_Incuriously he smites the armored king
And tricks his wisest counsellor--_"
"True, O God!" murmured the tiny woman, who sat beside the window
yonder. And Dame Meregrett rose and in silence passed from the room.
The two started, and laughed in common, and afterward paid little heed
to her outgoing. For Sire Edward had put aside the lute and sat now
regarding the Princess. His big left hand propped the bearded chin;
his grave countenance was flushed, and his intent eyes shone under
their shaggy brows, very steadily, like the tapers before an altar.
And, irresolutely, Dame Blanch plucked at her gown; then rearranged a
fold of it, and with composure awaited the ensuing action, afraid at
bottom, but not at all ill-pleased; and always she looked downward.
The King said: "Never before were we two alone, madame. Fate is very
gracious to me this morning."
"Fate," the lady considered, "has never denied much to the Hammer of
the Scots."
"She has denied me nothing," he sadly said, "save the one thing that
makes this business of living seem a rational proceeding. Fame and
power and wealth she has accorded me, no doubt, but never the common
joys of life. And, look you, my Princess, I am of aging person now.
During some thirty years I have ruled England according to my
interpretation of God's will as it was anciently made manifest by the
holy Evangelists; and during that period I have ruled England not
without odd by-ends of commendation: yet behold, to-day I forget the
world-applauded, excellent King Edward, and remember only Edward
Plantagenet--hot-blooded and desirous man!--of whom that much-commended
king has made a prisoner all these years."
"It is the duty of exalted persons," Blanch unsteadily said, "to put
aside such private inclinations as their breasts may harbor--"
He said, "I have done what I might for the happiness of every
Englishman within my realm saving only Edward Plantagenet; and now I
think his turn to be at hand." Then the man kept silence; and his hot
appraisal daunted her.
"Lord," she presently faltered, "lord, in sober verity Love cannot
extend his laws between husband and wife, since the gifts of love are
voluntary, and husband and wife are but the slaves of duty--"
"Troubadourish nonsense!" Sire Edward said; "yet it is true that the
gifts of love are voluntary. And therefore-- Ha, most beautiful, what
have you and I to do with all this chaffering over Guienne?" The two
stood very close to each other now.
Blanch said, "It is a high matter--" Then on a sudden the full-veined
girl was aglow with passion. "It is a trivial matter." He took her in
his arms, since already her cheeks flared in scarlet anticipation of
the event.
And thus holding her, he wooed the girl tempestuously. Here, indeed,
was Sieur Hercules enslaved, burned by a fiercer fire than that of
Nessus, and the huge bulk of the unconquerable visibly shaken by his
adoration. In the disordered tapestry of verbiage, passion-flapped as
a flag is by the wind, she presently beheld herself prefigured by
Balkis, the Judean's lure, and by the Princess of Cyprus (in
Aristotle's time), and by Nicolette, the King's daughter of
Carthage--since the first flush of morning was as a rush-light before
her resplendency, the man swore; and in conclusion, by the Countess of
Tripolis, for love of whom he had cleft the seas, and losing whom he
must inevitably die as Rudel did. He snapped his fingers now over any
consideration of Guienne. He would conquer for her all Muscovy and all
Cataia, too, if she desired mere acreage. Meanwhile he wanted her, and
his hard and savage passion beat down opposition as with a bludgeon.
"Heart's emperor," the trembling girl more lately said, "I think that
you were cast in some larger mould than we of France. Oh, none of us
may dare resist you! and I know that nothing matters, nothing in all
the world, save that you love me. Then take me, since you will it--and
not as King, since you will otherwise, but as Edward Plantagenet. For
listen! by good luck you have this afternoon despatched Rigon for
Chevrieul, where tomorrow we hunt the great boar. And in consequence
to-night this hut will be unoccupied."
The man was silent. He had a gift that way when occasion served.
"Here, then, beau sire! here, then, at nine, you are to meet me with my
chaplain. Behold, he marries us, as glibly as though we two were
peasants. Poor king and princess!" cried Dame Blanch, and in a voice
which thrilled him, "shall ye not, then, dare to be but man and woman?"
"Ha!" the King said. He laughed. "The King is pleased to loose his
prisoner; and I will do it." He fiercely said this, for the girl was
very beautiful.
So he came that night, without any retinue, and habited as a forester,
a horn swung about his neck, into the unlighted hut of Rigon the
forester, and found a woman there, though not the woman whom he had
perhaps expected.
"Treachery, beau sire! Horrible treachery!" she wailed.
"I have encountered it ere this," the big man said.
"Presently comes not Blanch but Philippe, with many men to back him.
And presently they will slay you. You have been trapped, beau sire.
Ah, for the love of God, go! Go, while there is yet time!"
Sire Edward reflected. Undoubtedly, to light on Edward Longshanks
alone in a forest would appear to King Philippe, if properly attended,
a tempting chance to settle divers disputations, once for all; and Sire
Edward knew the conscience of his old opponent to be invulnerable. The
act would violate all laws of hospitality and knighthood--oh, granted!
but its outcome would be a very definite gain to France, and for the
rest, merely a dead body in a ditch. Not a monarch in Christendom,
Sire Edward reflected, but feared and in consequence hated the Hammer
of the Scots, and in further consequence would not lift a finger to
avenge him; and not a being in the universe would rejoice at Philippe's
achievement one-half so heartily as would Sire Edward's son and
immediate successor, the young Prince Edward of Caernarvon. So that,
all in all, ohimé! Philippe had planned the affair with forethought.
What Sire Edward said was, "Dame Blanch, then, knew of this?" But
Meregrett's pitiful eyes had already answered him, and he laughed a
little.
"In that event I have to-night enregistered my name among the goodly
company of Love's Lunatics--
"_Sots amoureux, sots privez, sots sauvages,
Sots vieux, nouveaux, et sots de tous âges,_"
thus he scornfully declaimed, "and as yokefellow with Dan Merlin in his
thorn-bush, and with wise Salomon when he capered upon the high places
of Chemosh, and with Duke Ares sheepishly agrin within the net of
Mulciber. Rogues all, madame! fools all! yet always the flesh trammels
us, and allures the soul to such sensual delights as bar its passage
toward the eternal life wherein alone lies the empire and the heritage
of the soul. And why does this carnal prison so impede the soul?
Because Satan once ranked among the sons of God, and the Eternal
Father, as I take it, has not yet forgotten the antique
relationship--and hence it is permitted even in our late time that
always the flesh rebel against the spirit, and always these so tiny and
so thin-voiced tricksters, these highly tinted miracles of iniquity, so
gracious in demeanor and so starry-eyed--"
Then he turned and pointed, no longer the zealot but the expectant
captain now. "Look, my Princess!" For in the pathway from which he
had recently emerged stood a man in full armor like a sentinel. "Mort
de Dieu, we can but try," Sire Edward said.
"Too late," said Meregrett; and yet she followed him. And presently,
in a big splash of moonlight, the armed man's falchion glittered across
their way. "Back," he bade them, "for by the King's orders no man
passes."
"It were very easy now to strangle this herring," Sire Edward reflected.
"But scarcely a whole school of herring," the fellow retorted. "Nay,
Messire d'Aquitaine, the bushes of Ermenoueïl are alive with my
associates. The hut yonder, in effect, is girdled by them--and we have
our orders."
"Concerning women?" the King said.
The man deliberated. Then Sire Edward handed him three gold pieces.
"There was assuredly no specific mention of petticoats," the soldier
now reflected, "and in consequence I dare to pass the Princess."
"And in that event," Sire Edward said, "we twain had as well bid each
other adieu."