ways parted. She desired only to be avenged on you, and very crudely.
That did not accord with my plan. I fell to bargaining. I purchased
with--O rarity of rarities!--a little rational advice and much gold as
well. Thus in due season I betrayed Callistion. Well, who forbids it?"
She said:
"God is asleep. Therefore you live, and I--alas!--must live for a
while longer."
"Yes, you must live for a while longer--oh, and I, too, must live for a
while longer!" the Jew returned. His voice had risen in a curious
quavering wail. It was the first time Melicent ever knew him to display
any emotion.
But the mood passed, and he said only:
"Who forbids it? In any event, there is a venerable adage concerning
the buttering of parsnips. So I content myself with asking you to
remember that I have not ever faltered. I shall not falter now. You
loathe me. Who forbids it? I have known from the first that you
detested me, and I have always considered your verdict to err upon the
side of charity. Believe me, you will never loathe Ahasuerus as I do.
And yet I coddle this poor knave sometimes--oh, as I do to-day!" he
said.
And thus they parted.
28.
_How Perion Saw Melicent_
The manner of the torment of Melicent was this: A little before dawn
she was conducted by Ahasuerus and Orestes to the outermost turrets of
Nacumera, which were now beginning to take form and colour. Very
suddenly a flash of light had flooded the valley, the big crimson sun
was instantaneously apparent as though he had leaped over the bleeding
night-mists. Darkness and all night's adherents were annihilated.
Pelicans and geese and curlews were in uproar, as at a concerted
signal. A buzzard yelped thrice like a dog, and rose in a long spiral
from the cliff to Melicent's right hand. He hung motionless, a speck in
the clear zenith, uncannily anticipative. Warmth flooded the valley.
Now Melicent could see the long and narrow plain beneath her. It was
overgrown with a tall coarse grass which, rippling in the dawn-wind,
resembled moving waters from this distance, save where clumps of palm
trees showed like islands. Farther off, the tents of the Free
Companions were as the white, sharp teeth of a lion. Also she could
see--and did not recognise--the helmet-covered head of Perion catch and
reflect the sunrays dazzlingly, where he knelt in the shimmering grass
just out of bowshot.
Now Perion could see a woman standing, in the new-born sunlight, under
many gaily coloured banners. The maiden was attired in a robe of white
silk, and about her wrists were heavy bands of silver. Her hair blazed
in the light, bright as the sunflower glows; her skin was whiter than
milk; the down of a fledgling bird was not more grateful to the touch
than were her hands. There was never anywhere a person more delightful
to gaze upon, and whosoever beheld her forthwith desired to render love
and service to Dame Melicent. This much could Perion know, whose fond
eyes did not really see the woman upon the battlements but, instead,
young Melicent as young Perion had first beheld her walking by the sea
at Bellegarde.
Thus Perion, who knelt in adoration of that listless girl, all white
and silver, and gold, too, where her blown hair showed like a halo.
Desirable and lovelier than words may express seemed Melicent to Perion
as she stood thus in lonely exaltation, and behind her, glorious
banners fluttered, and the blue sky took on a deeper colour. What
Perion saw was like a church window when the sun shines through it.
Ahasuerus perfectly understood the baiting of a trap.
Perion came into the open plain before the castle and called on her
dear name three times. Then Perion, naked to his enemies, and at the
disposal of the first pagan archer that chose to shoot him down, sang
cheerily the waking-song which Melicent had heard a mimic Amphitryon
make in Dame Alcmena's honour, very long ago, when people laughed and
Melicent was young and ignorant of misery.
Sang Perion, "_Rei glorios, verais lums e clardatz--_" or, in other
wording:
"Thou King of glory, veritable light, all-powerful deity! be pleased to
succour faithfully my fair, sweet friend. The night that severed us has
been long and bitter, the darkness has been shaken by bleak winds, but
now the dawn is near at hand.
"My fair sweet friend, be of good heart! We have been tormented long
enough by evil dreams. Be of good heart, for the dawn is approaching!
The east is astir. I have seen the orient star which heralds day. I
discern it clearly, for now the dawn is near at hand."
The song was no great matter; but the splendid futility of its
performance amid such touch-and-go surroundings Melicent considered to
be august. And consciousness of his words' poverty, as Perion thus
lightly played with death in order to accord due honour to the lady he
served, was to Dame Melicent in her high martyrdom as is the twist of a
dagger in an already fatal wound; and made her love augment.
Sang Perion:
"My fair sweet friend, it is I, your servitor, who cry to you, _Be of
good heart!_ Regard the sky and the stars now growing dim, and you will
see that I have been an untiring sentinel. It will presently fare the
worse for those who do not recognise that the dawn is near at hand.
"My fair sweet friend, since you were taken from me I have not ever
been of a divided mind. I have kept faith, I have not failed you.
Hourly I have entreated God and the Son of Mary to have compassion upon
our evil dreams. And now the dawn is near at hand."
"My poor, bruised, puzzled boy," thought Melicent, as she had done so
long ago, "how came you to be blundering about this miry world of ours?
And how may I be worthy?"
Orestes spoke. His voice disturbed the woman's rapture thinly, like the
speech of a ghost, and she remembered now that a bustling world was her
antagonist.
"Assuredly," Orestes said, "this man is insane. I will forthwith
command my archers to despatch him in the middle of his caterwauling.
For at this distance they cannot miss him."
But Ahasuerus said:
"No, seignior, not by my advice. If you slay this Perion of the Forest,
his retainers will speedily abandon a desperate siege and retreat to
the coast. But they will never retreat so long as the man lives and
sways them, and we hold Melicent, for, as you plainly see, this
abominable reprobate is quite besotted with love of her. His death
would win you praise; but the destruction of his armament will purchase
you your province. Now in two days at most our troops will come, and
then we will slay all the Free Companions."
"That is true," said Orestes, "and it is remarkable how you think of
these things so quickly."
So Orestes was ruled by Ahasuerus, and Perion, through no merit of his
own, departed unharmed.
Then Melicent was conducted to her own apartments; and eunuchs guarded
her, while the battle was, and men she had not ever seen died by the
score because her beauty was so great.
29.
_How a Bargain Was Cried_
Now about sunset Melicent knelt in her oratory and laid all her grief
before the Virgin, imploring counsel.
This place was in reality a chapel, which Demetrios had builded for
Melicent in exquisite enjoyment. To furnish it he had sacked towns she
never heard of, and had rifled two cathedrals, because the notion that
the wife of Demetrios should own a Christian chapel appeared to him
amusing. The Virgin, a masterpiece of Pietro di Vicenza, Demetrios had
purchased by the interception of a free city's navy. It was a painted
statue, very handsome.
The sunlight shone on Melicent through a richly coloured window wherein
were shown the sufferings of Christ and the two thieves. This siftage
made about her a welter of glowing and intermingling colours, above
which her head shone with a clear halo.
This much Ahasuerus noted. He said, "You offer tears to Miriam of
Nazara. Yonder they are sacrificing a bull to Mithras. But I do not
make either offering or prayer to any god. Yet of all persons in
Nacumera I alone am sure of this day's outcome." Thus spoke the Jew
Ahasuerus.
The woman stood erect now. She asked, "What of the day, Ahasuerus?"
"It has been much like other days that I have seen. The sun rose
without any perturbation. And now it sinks as usual. Oh, true, there
has been fighting. The sky has been clouded with arrows, and horses,
nicer than their masters, have screamed because these soulless beasts
were appalled by so much blood. Many women have become widows, and
divers children are made orphans, because of two huge eyes they never
saw. Puf! it is an old tale."
She said, "Is Perion hurt?"
"Is the dog hurt that has driven a cat into a tree? Such I estimate to
be the position of Orestes and Perion. Ah, no, this Perion who was my
captain once is as yet a lord without any peer in the fields where men
contend in battle. But love has thrust him into a bag's end, and his
fate is certain."
She spoke her steadfast resolution. "And my fate, too. For when Perion
is trapped and slain I mean to kill myself."
"I am aware of that," he said. "Oh, women have these notions! Yet when
the hour came, I think, you would not dare. For I know your beliefs
concerning hell's geography, and which particular gulf of hell is
reserved for all self-murderers."
Then Melicent waited for a while. She spoke later without any apparent
emotion. "And how should I fear hell who crave a bitterer fate! Listen,
Ahasuerus! I know that you desire me as a plaything very greatly. The
infamy in which you wade attests as much. Yet you have schemed to no
purpose if Perion dies, because the ways of death are always open. I
would die many times rather than endure the touch of your finger.
Ahasuerus, I have not any words wherewith to tell you of my loathing--"
"Turn then to bargaining," he said, and seemed aware of all her
thoughts. "Oh, to a hideous bargain. Let Perion be warned of those
troops that will to-morrow outflank him. Let him escape. There is yet
time. Do this, dark hungry man, and I will live." She shuddered here.
"Yes, I will live and be obedient in all things to you, my purchaser,
until you shall have wearied of me, or, at the least, until God has
remembered."
His careful eyes were narrowed. "You would bribe me as you once bribed
Demetrios? And to the same purpose? I think that fate excels less in
invention than in cruelty."
She bitterly said, "Heaven help me, and what other wares have I to
vend!"
He answered:
"None. No woman has in this black age; and therefore comfort you, my
girl."
She hurried on. "Therefore anew I offer Melicent, who was a princess
once. I cry a price for red lips and bright eyes and a fair woman's
tender body without any blemish. I have no longer youth and happiness
and honour to afford you as your toys. These three have long been
strangers to me. Oh, very long! Yet all I have I offer for one
charitable deed. See now how near you are to victory. Think now how
gloriously one honest act would show in you who have betrayed each
overlord you ever served."
He said:
"I am suspicious of strange paths, I shrink from practising unfamiliar
virtues. My plan is fixed. I think I shall not alter it."
"Ah, no, Ahasuerus! think instead how beautiful I am. There is no
comelier animal in all this big lewd world. Indeed I cannot count how
many men have died because I am a comely animal--" She smiled as one
who is too tired to weep. "That, too, is an old tale. Now I abate in
value, it appears, very lamentably. For I am purchasable now just by
one honest deed, and there is none who will barter with me."
He returned:
"You forget that a freed Perion would always have a sonorous word or
two to say in regard to your bargainings. Demetrios bargained, you may
remember. Demetrios was a dread lord. It cost him daily warfare to
retain you. Now I lack swords and castles--I who dare love you much as
Demetrios did--and I would be able to retain neither Melicent nor
tranquil existence for an unconscionable while. Ah, no! I bear my
former general no grudge. I merely recognise that while Perion lives he
will not ever leave pursuit of you. I would readily concede the potency
of his spurs, even were there need to look on you a second time--It
happens that there is no need! Meanwhile I am a quiet man, and I abhor
dissension. For the rest, I do not think that you will kill yourself,
and so I think I shall not alter my fixed plan."
He left her, and Melicent prayed no more. To what end, she reflected,
need she pray, when there was no hope for Perion?
30.
_How Melicent Conquered_
Into Melicent's bedroom, about two o'clock in the morning, came
Ahasuerus the Jew. She sat erect in bed and saw him cowering over a
lamp which his long glistening fingers shielded, so that the lean face
of the man floated upon a little golden pool in the darkness. She
marvelled that this detestable countenance had not aged at all since
her first sight of it.
He smoothly said:
"Now let us talk. I have loved you for some while, fair Melicent."
"You have desired me," she replied.
"Faith, I am but as all men, whatever their age. Why, what the devil!
man may have Javeh's breath in him, but even Scripture proves that man
was made of clay." The Jew now puffed out his jaws as if in
recollection. "_You are a handsome piece of flesh_, I thought when I
came to you at Bellegarde, telling of Perion's captivity. I thought no
more than this, because in my time I have seen a greater number of
handsome women than you would suppose. Thereafter, on account of an odd
reason which I had, I served Demetrios willingly enough. This son of
Miramon Lluagor was able to pay me well, in a curious coinage. So I
arranged the bungling snare Demetrios proposed--too gross, I thought
it, to trap any woman living. Ohé, and why should I not lay an open and
frank springe for you? Who else was a king's bride-to-be, young,
beautiful, and blessed with wealth and honour and every other comfort
which the world affords?" Now the Jew made as if to fling away a robe
from his gaunt person. "And you cast this, all this, aside as nothing.
I saw it done."
"Ah, but I did it to save Perion," she wisely said.
"Unfathomable liar," he returned, "you boldly and unscrupulously bought
of life the thing which you most earnestly desired. Nor Solomon nor
Periander has won more. And thus I saw that which no other man has
seen. I saw the shrewd and dauntless soul of Melicent. And so I loved
you, and I laid my plan--"
She said, "You do not know of love--"
"Yet I have builded him a temple," the Jew considered. He continued,
with that old abhorrent acquiescence, "Now, a temple is admirable, but
it is not builded until many labourers have dug and toiled waist-deep
in dirt. Here, too, such spatterment seemed necessary. So I played, in
fine, I played a cunning music. The pride of Demetrios, the jealousy of
Callistion, and the greed of Orestes--these were as so many stops of
that flute on which I played a cunning deadly music. Who forbids it?"
She motioned him, "Go on." Now she was not afraid.
"Come then to the last note of my music! You offer to bargain, saying,
_Save Perion and have my body as your chattel_. I answer _Click_! The
turning of a key solves all. Accordingly I have betrayed the castle of
Nacumera, I have this night admitted Perion and his broad-shouldered
men. They are killing Orestes yonder in the Court of Stars even while I
talk with you." Ahasuerus laughed noiselessly. "Such vanity does not
become a Jew, but I needs must do the thing with some magnificence.
Therefore I do not give Sire Perion only his life. I give him also
victory and much throat-cutting and an impregnable rich castle. Have I
not paid the price, fair Melicent? Have I not won God's masterpiece
through a small wire, a purse, and a big key?"
She answered, "You have paid."
He said:
"You will hold to your bargain? Ah, you have but to cry aloud, and you
are rid of me. For this is Perion's castle."
She said, "Christ help me! You have paid my price."
Now the Jew raised his two hands in very horrible mirth. Said he:
"Oh, I am almost tempted to praise Javeh, who created the invincible
soul of Melicent. For you have conquered: you have gained, as always,
and at whatever price, exactly that which you most desired, and you do
not greatly care about anything else. So, because of a word said you
would arise and follow me on my dark ways if I commanded it. You will
not weight the dice, not even at this pinch, when it would be so easy!
For Perion is safe; and nothing matters in comparison with that, and
you will not break faith, not even with me. You are inexplicable, you
are stupid, and you are resistless. Again I see my Melicent, who is not
just a pair of purple eyes and so much lovely flesh."
His face was as she had not ever known it now, and very tender.
Ahasuerus said:
"My way to victory is plain enough. And yet there is an obstacle. For
my fancy is taken by the soul of Melicent, and not by that handsome
piece of flesh which all men--even Perion, madame!--have loved so long
with remarkable infatuation. Accordingly I had not ever designed that
the edifice on which I laboured should be the stable of my lusts.
Accordingly I played my cunning music--and accordingly I give you
Perion. I that am Ahasuerus win for you all which righteousness and
honour could not win. At the last it is I who give you Perion, and it
is I who bring you to his embrace. He must still be about his
magnanimous butchery, I think, in the Court of Stars."
Ahasuerus knelt, kissing her hand.
"Fair Melicent, such abominable persons as Demetrios and I are fatally
alike. We may deny, deride, deplore, or even hate, the sanctity of any
noble lady accordingly as we elect; but there is for us no possible
escape from worshipping it. Your wind-fed Ferions, who will not ever
acknowledge what sort of world we live in, are less quick to recognise
the soul of Melicent. Such is our sorry consolation. Oh, you do not
believe me yet. You will believe in the oncoming years. Meanwhile, O
all-enduring and all-conquering! go now to your last labour; and--if
my Brother dare concede as much--do you now conquer Perion."
Then he vanished. She never saw him any more.
She lifted the Jew's lamp. She bore it through the Women's Garden,
wherein were many discomfortable shadows and no living being. She came
to its outer entrance. Men were fighting there. She skirted a hideous
conflict, and descended the Queen's Stairway, which led (as you have
heard) toward the balcony about the Court of Stars. She found this
balcony vacant.
Below her men were fighting. To the farther end of the court Orestes
sprawled upon the red and yellow slabs--which now for the most part
were red--and above him towered Perion of the Forest. The conqueror had
paused to cleanse his sword upon the same divan Demetrios had occupied
when Melicent first saw the proconsul; and as Perion turned, in the act
of sheathing his sword, he perceived the dear familiar denizen of all
his dreams. A tiny lamp glowed in her hand quite steadily.
"O Melicent," said Perion, with a great voice, "my task is done. Come
now to me."
She instantly obeyed whose only joy was to please Perion. Descending
the enclosed stairway, she thought how like its gloom was to the
temporal unhappiness she had passed through in serving Perion.
He stood a dripping statue, for he had fought horribly. She came to
him, picking her way among the slain. He trembled who was fresh from
slaying. A flood of torchlight surged and swirled about them, and
within a stone's cast Perion's men were despatching the wounded.
These two stood face to face and did not speak at all.
I think that he knew disappointment first. He looked to find the girl
whom he had left on Fomor Beach.
He found a woman, the possessor still of a compelling beauty. Oh, yes,
past doubt: but this woman was a stranger to him, as he now knew with
an odd sense of sickness. Thus, then, had ended the quest of Melicent.
Their love had flouted Time and Fate. These had revenged this
insolence, it seemed to Perion, by an ironical conversion of each rebel
into another person. For this was not the girl whom Perion had loved in
far red-roofed Poictesme; this was not the girl for whom Perion had
fought ten minutes since: and he--as Perion for the first time
perceived--was not and never could be any more the Perion that girl had
bidden return to her. It were as easy to evoke the Perion who had loved
Mélusine....
Then Perion perceived that love may be a power so august as to bedwarf
consideration of the man and woman whom it sways. He saw that this is
reasonable. I cannot justify this knowledge. I cannot even tell you
just what great secret it was of which Perion became aware. Many men
have seen the sunrise, but the serenity and awe and sweetness of this
daily miracle, the huge assurance which it emanates that the beholder
is both impotent and greatly beloved, is not entirely an affair of the
sky's tincture. And thus it was with Perion. He knew what he could not
explain. He knew such joy and terror as none has ever worded. A curtain
had lifted briefly; and the familiar world which Perion knew, for the
brief instant, had appeared to be a painting upon that curtain.
Now, dazzled, he saw Melicent for the first time....
I think he saw the lines already forming in her face, and knew that,
but for him, this woman, naked now of gear and friends, had been
to-night a queen among her own acclaiming people. I think he worshipped
where he did not dare to love, as every man cannot but do when starkly
fronted by the divine and stupendous unreason of a woman's choice,
among so many other men, of him. And yet, I think that Perion recalled
what Ayrart de Montors had said of women and their love, so long ago:--
"They are more wise than we; and always they make us better by
indomitably believing we are better than in reality a man can ever be."
I think that Perion knew, now, de Montors had been in the right. The
pity and mystery and beauty of that world wherein High God had--
scornfully?--placed a smug Perion, seemed to the Comte de la Forêt, I
think, unbearable. I think a new and finer love smote Perion as a sword
strikes.
I think he did not speak because there was no scope for words. I know
that he knelt (incurious for once of victory) before this stranger who
was not the Melicent whom he had sought so long, and that all
consideration of a lost young Melicent departed from him, as mists
leave our world when the sun rises.
I think that this was her high hour of triumph.
CAETERA DESUNT
THE AFTERWORD
_These lives made out of loves that long since were
Lives wrought as ours of earth and burning air,
Was such not theirs, the twain I take, and give
Out of my life to make their dead life live
Some days of mine, and blow my living breath
Between dead lips forgotten even of death?
So many and many of old have given my twain
Love and live song and honey-hearted pain._
Thus, rather suddenly, ends our knowledge of the love-business between
Perion and Melicent. For at this point, as abruptly as it began, the
one existing chronicle of their adventures makes conclusion, like a bit
of interrupted music, and thereby affords conjecture no inconsiderable
bounds wherein to exercise itself. Yet, in view of the fact that
deductions as to what befell these lovers afterward can at best result
in free-handed theorising, it seems more profitable in this place to
speak very briefly of the fragmentary _Roman de Lusignan_, since the
history of Melicent and Perion as set forth in this book makes no
pretensions to be more than a rendering into English of this
manuscript, with slight additions from the earliest known printed
version of 1546.
2
M. Verville, in his monograph on Nicolas de
Caen,[1: Paul Verville, _Notice sur la vie de Nicolas de Caen_, p. 112
(Rouen, 1911)] considers it probable that the _Roman de Lusignan_ was
printed in Bruges by Colard Mansion at about the same time Mansion
published the _Dizain des Reines_. This is possible; but until a copy
of the book is discovered, our sole authority for the romance must
continue to be the fragmentary MS. No. 503 in the Allonbian Collection.