In the year of grace 1326, upon Walburga's Eve, some three hours after
sunset (thus Nicolas begins), had you visited a certain garden on the
outskirts of Valenciennes, you might there have stumbled upon a big,
handsome boy, prone on the turf, where by turns he groaned and vented
himself in sullen curses. The profanity had its poor palliation. Heir
to England though he was, you must know that his father in the flesh
had hounded him from England, as more recently his uncle Charles the
Handsome had driven him from France. Now had this boy's mother and he
come as suppliants to the court of that stalwart nobleman Sire William
(Count of Hainault, Holland, and Zealand, and Lord of Friesland), where
their arrival had evoked the suggestion that they depart at their
earliest convenience. To-morrow, then, these footsore royalties, the
Queen of England and the Prince of Wales, would be thrust out-o'-doors
to resume the weary beggarship, to knock again upon the obdurate gates
of this unsympathizing king or that deaf emperor.
Accordingly the boy aspersed his destiny. At hand a nightingale
carolled as though an exiled prince were the blithest spectacle the
moon knew.
There came through the garden a tall girl, running, stumbling in her
haste. "Hail, King of England!" she panted.
"Do not mock me, Philippa!" the boy half-sobbed. Sulkily he rose to
his feet.
"No mockery here, my fair sweet friend. Nay, I have told my father all
which happened yesterday. I pleaded for you. He questioned me very
closely. And when I had ended, he stroked his beard, and presently
struck one hand upon the table. 'Out of the mouth of babes!' he said.
Then he said: 'My dear, I believe for certain that this lady and her
son have been driven from their kingdom wrongfully. If it be for the
good of God to comfort the afflicted, how much more is it commendable
to help and succor one who is the daughter of a king, descended from
royal lineage, and to whose blood we ourselves are related!' And
accordingly he and your mother have their heads together yonder,
planning an invasion of England, no less, and the dethronement of your
wicked father, my Edward. And accordingly--hail, King of England!"
The girl clapped her hands gleefully, what time the nightingale sang on.
But the boy kept momentary silence. Even in youth the Plantagenets
were never handicapped by excessively tender hearts; yesterday in the
shrubbery the boy had kissed this daughter of Count William, in part
because she was a healthy and handsome person, and partly, and with
consciousness of the fact, as a necessitated hazard of futurity. Well!
he had found chance-taking not unfortunate. With the episode as
foundation, Count William had already builded up the future queenship
of England. A wealthy count could do--and, as it seemed, was now in
train to do--indomitable deeds to serve his son-in-law; and now the
beggar of five minutes since foresaw himself, with this girl's love as
ladder, mounting to the high habitations of the King of England, the
Lord of Ireland, and the Duke of Aquitaine. Thus they would herald him.
So he embraced the girl. "Hail, Queen of England!" said the Prince;
and then, "If I forget--" His voice broke awkwardly. "My dear, if
ever I forget--!" Their lips met now, what time the nightingale
discoursed as on a wager.
Presently was mingled with the bird's descant low singing of another
kind. Beyond the yew-hedge as these two stood silent, breast to
breast, passed young Jehan Kuypelant, the Brabant page, fitting to the
accompaniment of a lute his paraphrase of the song which Archilochus of
Sicyon very anciently made in honor of Venus Melaenis, the tender Venus
of the Dark.
At a gap in the hedge the Brabanter paused. His melody was hastily
gulped. You saw, while these two stood heart hammering against heart,
his lean face silvered by the moonlight, his mouth a tiny abyss.
Followed the beat of lessening footsteps, while the nightingale
improvised his envoi.
But earlier Jehan Kuypelant also had sung, as though in rivalry with
the bird.
Sang Jehan Kuypelant:
"_Hearken and heed, Melaenis!
For all that the litany ceased
When Time had taken the victim,
And flouted thy pale-lipped priest,
And set astir in the temple
Where burned the fire of thy shrine
The owls and wolves of the desert--
Yet hearken, (the issue is thine!)
And let the heart of Atys,
At last, at last, be mine!_
"_For I have followed, nor faltered--
Adrift in a land of dreams
Where laughter and loving and wonder
Contend as a clamor of streams,
I have seen and adored the Sidonian,
Implacable, fair and divine--
And bending low, have implored thee
To hearken, (the issue is thine!)
And let the heart of Atys,
At last, at last, be mine!_"
It is time, however, that we quit this subject and speak of other
matters. Just twenty years later, on one August day in the year of
grace 1346, Master John Copeland--as men now called the Brabant page,
now secretary to the Queen of England--brought his mistress the
unhandsome tidings that David Bruce had invaded her realm with forty
thousand Scots to back him. The Brabanter found the Queen in company
with the kingdom's arbitress--Dame Catherine de Salisbury, whom King
Edward, third of that name to reign in Britain, and now warring in
France, very notoriously adored and obeyed.
This king, indeed, had been despatched into France chiefly, they
narrate, to release the Countess' husband, William de Montacute, from
the French prison of the Chatelet. You may appraise her dominion by
this fact: chaste and shrewd, she had denied all to King Edward, and in
consequence he could deny her nothing; so she sent him to fetch back
her husband, whom she almost loved. That armament had sailed from
Southampton on Saint George's day.
These two women, then, shared the Brabanter's execrable news. Already
Northumberland, Westmoreland, and Durham were the broken meats of King
David.
The Countess presently exclaimed: "Let me pass, sir! My place is not
here."