"In that war the nobles will ride abroad with banners and gay surcoats,
and kill and ravish in the pauses of their songs; while daily in that
war the naked peasants will kill the one the other, without knowing
why."
His thought had forerun hers. "Many would die, but in the end I would
be King, and the general happiness would rest at my disposal. The
adventure of this world is wonderful, and it goes otherwise than under
the strict tutelage of reason."
"Not yours, but Gloucester's and his barons'. Friend, they would set
you on the throne to be their puppet and to move only as they pulled
the strings. Thwart them and they will fling you aside, as the barons
have dealt aforetime with every king that dared oppose them. Nay, they
desire to live pleasantly, to have fish o' Fridays, and white bread and
the finest wine the whole year through, and there is not enough for
all, say they. Can you alone contend against them? and conquer them?
then only do I bid you reign."
The sun had grown too bright, too merciless, but as always she drew the
truth from him, even to his agony. "I cannot. I would not endure a
fortnight. Heaven help us, nor you nor I nor any one may transform of
any personal force this bitter time, this piercing, cruel day of frost
and sun. Charity and Truth are excommunicate, and the King is only an
adorned and fearful person who leads wolves toward their quarry, lest,
lacking it, they turn and devour him. Everywhere the powerful labor to
put one another out of worship, and each to stand the higher with the
other's corpse as his pedestal; and always Lechery and Hatred sway
these proud and inconsiderate fools as winds blow at will the gay
leaves of autumn. We but fight with gaudy shadows, we but aspire to
overpass a mountain of unstable sand! We two alone of all the
scuffling world! Oh, it is horrible, and I think that Satan plans the
jest! We dream a while of refashioning this bleak universe, and we
know that we alone can do it! and we are as demigods, you and I, in
those gallant dreams! and at the end we can but poultice some dirty
rascal!"
The Queen answered sadly: "Once did God tread the tangible world, for a
very little while, and, look you, to what trivial matters He devoted
that brief space! Only to chat with fishermen, and to reason with lost
women, and habitually to consort with rascals, till at last He might
die between two cutpurses, ignominiously! Were the considerate persons
of His day moved at all by the death of this fanatic? I bid you now
enumerate through what long halls did the sleek heralds proclaim His
crucifixion! and the armament of great-jowled emperors that were
distraught by it?"
He answered: "It is true. Of anise even and of cumin the Master
estimates His tithe--" Maudelain broke off with a yapping laugh.
"Puf! He is wiser than we. I am King of England. It is my heritage."
"It means war. Many will die, many thousands will die, and to no
betterment of affairs."
"I am King of England. I am Heaven's satrap here, and answerable to
Heaven alone. It is my heritage." And now his large and cruel eyes
flamed as he regarded her.
And visibly beneath their glare the woman changed. "My friend, must I
not love you any longer? You would be content with happiness? I am
jealous of that happiness! for you are the one friend that I have had,
and so dear to me-- Look you!" she said, with a light, wistful laugh,
"there have been times when I was afraid of everything you touched, and
I hated everything you looked at. I would not have you stained; I
desired but to pass my whole life between the four walls of some dingy
and eternal gaol, forever alone with you, lest you become as other men.
I would in that period have been the very bread you eat, the least
perfume which delights you, the clod you touch in crushing it, and
often I have loathed some pleasure I derived from life because I might
not transfer it to you undiminished. For I wanted somehow to make you
happy to my own anguish.... It was wicked, I suppose, for the
imagining of it made me happy, too."
Throughout she spoke as simply as a child.
And beside him Maudelain's hands had fallen like so much lead, and
remembering his own nature, he longed for annihilation only, before she
had appraised his vileness. In consequence he said:
"With reason Augustine crieth out against the lust of the eyes. 'For
pleasure seeketh objects beautiful, melodious, fragrant, savory, and
soft; but this disease those contrary as well, not for the sake of
suffering annoyance, but out of the lust of making trial of them!' Ah!
ah! too curiously I planned my own damnation, too presumptuously I had
esteemed my soul a worthy scapegoat, and I had gilded my enormity with
many lies. Yet indeed, indeed, I had believed brave things, I had
planned a not ignoble bargain--! Ey, say, is it not laughable,
madame?--as my birthright Heaven accords me a penny, and with that only
penny I must anon be seeking to bribe Heaven."
Presently he said: "Yet are we indeed God's satraps, as but now I cried
in my vainglory, and we hold within our palms the destiny of many
peoples. Depardieux! He is wiser than we are, it may be! And as
always Satan offers no unhandsome bribes--bribes that are tangible and
sure."
They stood like effigies, lit by the broad, unsparing splendor of the
morning, but again their kindling eyes had met, and again the man
shuddered visibly, convulsed by a monstrous and repulsive joy.
"Decide! oh, decide very quickly, my only friend!" he wailed, "for
throughout I am all filth!"
Closer she drew to him and without hesitancy laid one hand on either
shoulder. "O my only friend!" she breathed, with red lax lips which
were very near to his, "throughout so many years I have ranked your
friendship as the chief of all my honors! and I pray God with an entire
heart that I may die so soon as I have done what I must do to-day!"
Almost did Edward Maudelain smile, but now his stiffening mouth could
not complete the brave attempt. "God save King Richard!" said the
priest. "For by the cowardice and greed and ignorance of little men
were Salomon himself confounded, and by them is Hercules lightly
unhorsed. Were I Leviathan, whose bones were long ago picked clean by
pismires, I could perform nothing. Therefore do you pronounce my doom."
"O King," then said Dame Anne, "I bid you go forever from the court and
live forever a landless man, and friendless, and without even name. I
bid you dare to cast aside all happiness and wealth and comfort and
each common tie that even a pickpocket may boast, like tawdry and
unworthy garments. In fine, I bid you dare be King and absolute, yet
not of England--but of your own being, alike in motion and in thought
and even in wish. This doom I dare adjudge and to pronounce, since we
are royal and God's satraps, you and I."
Twice or thrice his dry lips moved before he spoke. He was aware of
innumerable birds that carolled with a piercing and intolerable
sweetness. "O Queen!" he hoarsely said, "O fellow satrap! Heaven has
many fiefs. A fair province is wasted and accords no revenue. Therein
waste beauty and a shrewd wit and an illimitable charity which of their
pride go in fetters and achieve no increase. To-day the young King
junkets with his flatterers, and but rarely thinks of England. You
have that beauty in desire of which many and many a man would blithely
enter hell, and the mere sight of which may well cause a man's voice to
tremble as my voice trembles now, and in desire of which-- But I tread
afield! Of that beauty you have made no profit. O daughter of the
Caesars, I bid you now gird either loin for an unlovely traffic. Old
Legion must be fought with fire. True that the age is sick, that we
may not cure, we can but salve the hurt--" Now had his hand torn open
his sombre gown, and the man's bared breast shone in the sunlight, and
everywhere heaved on it sleek and glittering beads of sweat. Twice he
cried the Queen's name aloud, without prefix. In a while he said: "I
bid you weave incessantly such snares of brain and body as may lure
King Richard to be swayed by you, until against his will you daily
guide this shallow-hearted fool to some commendable action. I bid you
live as other folk do hereabouts. Coax! beg! cheat! wheedle! lie!" he
barked like a teased dog, "till you achieve in part the task which is
denied me. This doom I dare adjudge and to pronounce, since we are
royal and God's satraps, you and I."
She answered with a tiny, wordless sound. He prayed for even horror as
he appraised his handiwork. But presently, "I take my doom," the Queen
proudly said. "I shall be lonely now, my only friend, and yet--it does
not matter," the Queen said, with a little shiver. "No, nothing will
ever greatly matter now, I think."
Her eyes had filled with tears; she was unhappy, and as always this
knowledge roused in Maudelain a sort of frenzied pity and a hatred,
quite illogical, of all other things existent. She was unhappy, that
only he realized; and half way he had strained a soft and groping hand
toward his lips when he relinquished it. "Nay, not even that," said
Edward Maudelain, very proudly, too, and now at last he smiled; "since
we are God's satraps, you and I."
Afterward he stood thus for an appreciable silence, with ravenous eyes,
motionless save that behind his back his fingers were bruising one
another. Everywhere was this or that bright color and an incessant
melody. It was unbearable. Then it was over; the ordered progress of
all happenings was apparent, simple, and natural; and contentment came
into his heart like a flight of linnets over level fields at dawn. He
left her, and as he went he sang.
Sang Maudelain:
"_Christ save us all, as well He can,
A solis ortus cardine!
For He is both God and man,
Qui natus est de virgine,
And we but part of His wide plan
That sing, and heartily sing we,
'Gloria Tibi, Domine!'_
"_Between a heifer and an ass
Enixa est puerpera;
In ragged woollen clad He was
Qui regnat super aethera,
And patiently may we then pass
That sing, and heartily sing we,
'Gloria Tibi, Domine!_"
The Queen shivered in the glad sunlight. "I am, it must be, pitiably
weak," she said at last, "because I cannot sing as he does. And, since
I am not very wise, were he to return even now-- But he will not
return. He will never return," the Queen repeated, carefully, and over
and over again. "It is strange I cannot comprehend that he will never
return! Ah, Mother of God!" she cried, with a steadier voice, "grant
that I may weep! nay, of thy infinite mercy let me presently find the
heart to weep!" And about the Queen of England many birds sang
joyously.
Next day the English barons held a council, and in the midst of it King
Richard demanded to be told his age.
"Your Grace is in your twenty-second year," said the uneasy Gloucester,
and now with reason troubled, since he had been seeking all night long
for the evanished Maudelain.
"Then I have been under tutors and governors longer than any other ward
in my dominion. My lords, I thank you for your past services, but I
need them no more." They had no check handy, and Gloucester in
particular foreread his death-warrant, but of necessity he shouted with
the others, "Hail, King of England!"
That afternoon the King's assumption of all royal responsibility was
commemorated by a tournament, over which Dame Anne presided. Sixty of
her ladies led as many knights by silver chains into the
tilting-grounds at Smithfield, and it was remarked that the Queen
appeared unusually mirthful. The King was in high good humor, already
a pattern of conjugal devotion; and the royal pair retired at dusk to
the Bishop of London's palace at Saint Paul's, where was held a merry
banquet, with dancing both before and after supper.