In the year of grace 1399 (Nicolas begins) dwelt in a hut near Caer
Dathyl in Arvon, as he had done for some five years, a gaunt hermit,
notoriously consecrate, whom neighboring Welshmen revered as the
Blessed Evrawc. There had been a time when people called him Edward
Maudelain, but this period he dared not often remember.
For though in macerations of the flesh, in fasting, and in hour-long
prayers he spent his days, this holy man was much troubled by devils.
He got little rest because of them. Sometimes would come into his hut
Belphegor in the likeness of a butler, and whisper, "Sire, had you been
King, as was your right, you had drunk to-day not water but the wines
of Spain and Hungary." Or Asmodeus saying, "Sire, had you been King,
as was your right, you had lain now on cushions of silk."
One day in early spring came a more cunning devil, named Bembo, in the
likeness of a fair woman with yellow hair and large blue eyes. She
wore a massive crown which seemed too heavy for her frailness to
sustain. Soft tranquil eyes had lifted from her book. "You are my
cousin now, messire," this phantom had appeared to say.
[Illustration: "IN THE LIKENESS OF A FAIR WOMAN" _Painting by Howard
Pyle_]
That was the worst, and Maudelain began to fear he was a little mad
because even this he had resisted with many aves.
There came also to his hut, through a sullen snowstorm, upon the
afternoon of All Soul's day, a horseman in a long cloak of black. He
tethered his black horse without and strode softly through the door,
and upon his breast and shoulders the snow was white as the bleached
bones of those women that died in Merlin's youth.
"Greetings in God's name, Messire Edward Maudelain," the stranger said.
Since the new-comer spoke intrepidly of holy things a cheerier
Maudelain knew that this at least was no demon. "Greetings!" he
answered. "But I am Evrawc. You name a man long dead."
"But it is from a certain Bohemian woman I come. What matter, then, if
the dead receive me?" And thus speaking, the stranger dropped his
cloak.
In flame-colored satin he was clad, which shimmered with each movement
like a high flame, and his countenance had throughout the color and the
glow of amber. His eyes were dark and very tender, and the tears
somehow had come to Maudelain's eyes because of a sudden and great love
for this tall stranger. "Eh, from the dead to the dead I travel, as
ever, with a message and a token. My message runs, _Time is, O fellow
satrap!_ and my token is this."
And in this packet, wrapped with white parchment and tied with a golden
cord, was only a lock of hair. It lay like a little yellow serpent in
Maudelain's palm. "And yet five years ago," he mused, "this hair was
turned to dust. God keep us all!" Then he saw the tall lean emissary
puffed out like a candle-flame; and upon the floor he saw the huddled
cloak waver and spread like ink, and the white parchment slowly
dwindle, as snow melts under the open sun. But in his hand remained
the lock of yellow hair.
"O my only friend," said Maudelain, "I may not comprehend, but I know
that by no unhallowed art have you won back to me." Hair by hair he
scattered what he held upon the floor. "_Time is!_ and I have not need
of any token wherewith to spur my memory." He prized up a corner of
the hearthstone, took out a small leather bag, and that day purchased a
horse and a sword.
At dawn the Blessed Evrawc rode eastward in this novel guise. It was
two weeks later when he came to Sunninghill; and it happened that the
same morning the Earl of Salisbury, who had excellent reason to
consider...
_Follows a lacuna of fourteen pages. Maudelain's successful imposture
of Richard the Second, so strangely favored by their physical
resemblance, and the subsequent fiasco at Circencester, are now,
however, tolerably notorious. It would seem evident, from the Argument
of the story in hand, that Nicolas attributes a large part of this
mysterious business to the co-operancy of Isabel of Valois, King
Richard's infant wife. And (should one have a taste for the deductive)
the foregoing mention of Bembo, when compared with_ "THE STORY OF THE
SCABBARD," _would certainly hint that Owain Glyndwyr had a finger in
the affair_.
_It is impossible to divine by what method, according to Nicolas, this
Edward Maudelain was eventually substituted for his younger brother.
Nicolas, if you are to believe his_ "EPILOGUE," _had the best of
reasons for knowing that the prisoner locked up in Pontefract Castle in
the February of_ 1400 _was not Richard Plantagenet: and this contention
is strikingly attested, also, by the remaining fragment of this same_
"STORY OF THE HERITAGE."
... and eight men-at-arms followed him.
Quickly Maudelain rose from the table, pushing his tall chair aside,
and in the act one fellow closed the door securely. "Nay, eat your
fill, Sire Richard," said Piers Exton, "since you will not ever eat
again."
"Is it so?" the trapped man answered quietly. "Then indeed you come in
a good hour." Once only he smote upon his breast. "_Mea culpa!_ O
Eternal Father, do Thou shrive me very quickly of all those sins I have
committed, both in thought and deed, for now the time is very short."
And Exton spat upon the dusty floor. "Foh, they had told me I would
find a king here. I discover only a cat that whines."
"Then 'ware his claws!" As a viper leaps Maudelain sprang upon the
nearest fellow and wrested away his halberd. "Then 'ware his claws, my
men! For I come of an accursed race. And now let some of you lament
that fearful hour wherein Foulques the Querulous held traffic with a
demon and on her begot the first of us Plantagenets! For of ice and of
lust and of hell-fire are all we sprung; old records attest it; and
fickle and cold and ravenous and without fear are all we Plantagenets
until the end. Ay, until the end! O God of Gods!" this Maudelain
cried, with a great voice, "wilt Thou dare bid a man die patiently,
having aforetime filled his veins with such a venom! Nay, I lack the
grace to die as all Thy saints, without one carnal blow struck in my
own defence. I lack the grace, my Father, for even at the last the
devil's blood You gave me is not quelled. I dare atone for that old
sin done by my father in the flesh, but yet I must atone as a
Plantagenet!"
Then it was he and not they who pressed to the attack. Their meeting
was a bloody business, for in that dark and crowded room Maudelain
raged among his nine antagonists as an angered lion among wolves.
They struck at random and cursed shrilly, for they were now half-afraid
of this prey they had entrapped; so that presently he was all hacked
and bleeding, though as yet he had no mortal wound. Four of these men
he had killed by this, and Piers Exton also lay at his feet.
Then the other four drew back a little. "Are ye tired so soon?" said
Maudelain, and he laughed terribly. "What, even you! Why, look ye, my
bold veterans, I never killed before to-day, and I am not breathed as
yet."
Thus he boasted, exultant in his strength. But the other men saw that
behind him Piers Exton had crawled into the chair from which (they
thought) King Richard had just risen, and stood erect upon the cushions
of it. They saw this Exton strike the King with his pole-axe, from
behind, and once only, and they knew no more was needed.
"By God!" said one of them in the ensuing stillness, and it was he who
bled the most, "that was a felon's blow."
But the dying man who lay before them made as though to smile. "I
charge you all to witness," he faintly said, "how willingly I render to
Caesar's daughter that which was ever hers."
Then Exton fretted, as with a little trace of shame: "Who would have
thought the rascal had remembered that first wife of his so long?
Caesar's daughter, saith he! and dares _in extremis_ to pervert Holy
Scripture like any Wycliffite! Well, he is as dead as that first
Caesar now, and our gracious King, I think, will sleep the better for
it. And yet--God only knows! for they are an odd race, even as he
said--these Plantagenets."