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[Illustration: Ornate lettering/text The MM Co.]




THE LIFE AND DEATH
OF
RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY

BY
MAURICE HEWLETT


AUTHOR OF "THE FOREST LOVERS," "LITTLE NOVELS
OF ITALY," ETC.


Sì che a bene sperar mi era cagione
Di quella fera alla gaietta pelle.
_Inf._ i. 41.


NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON; MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1901

Set up and electrotyped October, 1900. Reprinted November,
December, twice, 1900; January, February, twice, 1901

Norwood Press
J.B. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith
Norwood Mass. U.S.A.

TO
HIS FRIEND
EDMUND GOSSE
(ALWAYS BENEVOLENT TO HIS INVENTION)


THIS CHRONICLE OF
ANJOU AND A NOBLE LADY
IS DEDICATED
BY
M.H.




CONTENTS

BOOK I--THE BOOK OF YEA

EXORDIUM                                                      PAGE

The Abbot Milo _urbi el orbi_, concerning the Nature of
    the Leopard                                                  3

CHAPTER I

Of Count Richard, and the Fires by Night                         5

CHAPTER II

How the Fair Jehane bestowed herself                            18

CHAPTER III

In what Harbour they found the Old Lion                         29

CHAPTER IV

How Jehane stroked what Alois had made Fierce                   41

CHAPTER V

How Bertran de Born and Count Richard strove in a
_Tenzon_                                                        56

CHAPTER VI

Fruits of the Tenzon: the Back of Saint-Pol, and the
Front of Montferrat                                             69

CHAPTER VII

Of the Crackling of Thorns under Pots                           84

CHAPTER VIII

How they held Richard off from his Father's Throat              93

CHAPTER IX

Wild Work in the Church of Gisors                              102

CHAPTER X

Night-work by the Dark Tower                                   111

CHAPTER XI

Of Prophecy; and Jehane in the Perilous Bed                    123

CHAPTER XII

How they bayed the Old Lion                                    134

CHAPTER XIII

How they met at Fontevrault                                    145

CHAPTER XIV

Of what King Richard said to the Bowing Rood; and
what Jehane to King Richard                                    156

CHAPTER XV

Last _Tenzon_ of Bertran de Born                               168

CHAPTER XVI

Conversation in England of Jehane the Fair                     179

CHAPTER XVII

Frozen Heart and Red Heart: Cahors                             193

       *       *       *       *       *

BOOK II--THE BOOK OF NAY


CHAPTER I

The Chapter called Mate-Grifon                                 209

CHAPTER II

Of what Jehane looked for, and what Berengère had              220

CHAPTER III

Who Fought at Acre                                             235

CHAPTER IV

Concerning the Tower of Flies, Saint-Pol, and the Marquess
of Montferrat                                                  248

CHAPTER V

The Chapter of Forbidding: how De Gurdun looked,
and King Richard hid his Face                                  262

CHAPTER VI

The Chapter called Clytemnestra                                282

CHAPTER VII

The Chapter of the Sacrifice on Lebanon; also called
Cassandra                                                      293

CHAPTER VIII

Of the Going-up and Going-down of the Marquess                 302

CHAPTER IX

How King Richard reaped what Jehane had sowed, and
the Soldan was Gleaner                                         311

CHAPTER X

The Chapter called Bonds                                       327

CHAPTER XI

The Chapter called _A Latere_                                  338

CHAPTER XII

The Chapter of Strife in the Dark                              350

CHAPTER XIII

Of the Love of Women                                           362

CHAPTER XIV

How the Leopard was loosed                                     369

CHAPTER XV

Oeconomic Reflections of the Old Man of Musse                  380

CHAPTER XVI

The Chapter called Chaluz                                      386

CHAPTER XVII

The Keening                                                    396

EPILOGUE OF THE ABBOT MILO                                     408



BOOK I

THE BOOK OF YEA




EXORDIUM

THE ABBOT MILO _URBI ET ORBI_, CONCERNING THE NATURE OF THE LEOPARD


I like this good man's account of leopards, and find it more pertinent
to my matter than you might think. Milo was a Carthusian monk, abbot of
the cloister of Saint Mary-of-the-Pine by Poictiers; it was his
distinction to be the life-long friend of a man whose friendships were
few: certainly it may be said of him that he knew as much of leopards as
any one of his time and nation, and that his knowledge was better
grounded.

'Your leopard,' he writes, 'is alleged in the books to be offspring of
the Lioness and the Pard; and his name, if the Realists have any truth
on their side, establishes the fact. But I think he should be called
Leolupé, which is to say, got by lion out of bitch-wolf, since two
essences burn in him as well as two sorts. This is the nature of the
leopard: it is a spotted beast, having two souls, a bright soul and a
dark soul. It is black and golden, slim and strong, cat and dog. Hunger
drives a dog to hunt, so the leopard; passion the cat, so the leopard. A
cat is sufficient unto himself, and a leopard is so; but a dog hangs on
a man's nod, and a leopard can so be beguiled. A leopard is sleek as a
cat and pleased by stroking; like a cat he will scratch his friend on
occasion. Yet again, he has a dog's intrepidity, knows no fear, is
single-purposed, not to be called off, longanimous. But the cat in him
makes him wary, tempts him to treacherous dealing, keeps him apart from
counsels, advises him to keep his own. So the leopard is a lonely
beast.' This is interesting, and may be true. But mark him as he goes
on.

'I knew the man, my dear master and a great king, who brought the
leopards into the shield of England, more proper to do it than his
father, being more the thing he signified. Of him, therefore, torn by
two natures, cast in two moulds, sport of two fates; the hymned and
reviled, the loved and loathed, spendthrift and a miser, king and a
beggar, the bond and the free, god and man; of King Richard Yea-and-Nay,
so made, so called, and by that unmade, I thus prepare my account.'

So far the abbot with much learning and no little verbosity casts his
net. He has the weakness of his age, you observe, and must begin at the
beginning; but this is not our custom. Something of Time is behind us;
we are conscious of a world replete, and may assume that we have
digested part of it. Milo, indeed, like all candid chroniclers, has his
value. He is excellent upon himself, a good relish with your meal.
However, as we are concerned with King Richard, you shall dip into his
bag for refreshment, but must leave the victualling to me.




CHAPTER I

OF COUNT RICHARD, AND THE FIRES BY NIGHT


I choose to record how Richard Count of Poictou rode all through one
smouldering night to see Jehane Saint-Pol a last time. It had so been
named by the lady; but he rode in his hottest mood of Nay to that, yet
careless of first or last so he could see her again. Nominally to remit
his master's sins, though actually (as he thought) to pay for his own,
the Abbot Milo bore him company, if company you can call it which left
the good man, in pitchy dark, some hundred yards behind. The way, which
was long, led over Saint Andrew's Plain, the bleakest stretch of the
Norman march; the pace, being Richard's, was furious, a pounding gallop;
the prize, Richard's again, showed fitfully and afar, a twinkling point
of light. Count Richard knew it for Jehane's torch, and saw no other
spark; but Milo, faintly curious on the lady's account, was more
concerned with the throbbing glow which now and again shuddered in the
northern sky. Nature had no lamps that night, and made no sign by cry of
night-bird or rustle of scared beast: there was no wind, no rain, no
dew; she offered nothing but heat, dark, and dense oppression. Topping
the ridge of sand, where was the Fosse des Noyées, place of shameful
death, the solitary torch showed a steady beam; and there also, ahead,
could be seen on the northern horizon that rim of throbbing light.

'God pity the poor!' said Count Richard, and scourged forward.

'God pity me!' said gasping Milo; 'I believe my stomach is in my head.'
So at last they crossed the pebbly ford and found the pines, then
cantered up the path of light which streamed from the Dark Tower. As
core of this they saw the lady stand with a torch above her head; when
they drew rein she did not move. Her face, moon-shaped, was as pale as a
moon; her loose hair, catching light, framed it with gold. She was all
white against the dark, seemed to loom in it taller than she was or
could have been. She was Jehane Saint-Pol, Jehane 'of the Fair Girdle,'
so called by her lovers and friends, to whom for a matter of two years
this hot-coloured, tallest, and coldest of the Angevins had been light
of the world.

The check upon their greeting was the most curious part of a curious
business, that one should have travelled and the other watched so long,
and neither urge the end of desire. The Count sat still upon his horse,
so for duty's sake did the aching abbot; the girl stood still in the
entry-way, holding up her dripping torch. Then, 'Child, child,' cried
the Count, 'how is it with thee?' His voice trembled, and so did he.

She looked at him, slow to answer, though the hand upon her bosom swayed
up and down.

'Do you see the fires?' she said. 'They have been there six nights.' He
was watching them then through the pine-woods, how they shot into the
sky great ribbons of light, flickered, fainted out, again glowed
steadily as if gathering volume, again leaped, again died, ebbing and
flowing like a tide of fire.

'The King will be at Louviers,' said Richard. He gave a short laugh.
'Well, he shall light us to bed. Heart of a man, I am sick of all this.
Let me in.'

She stood aside, and he rode boldly into the tower, stooping as he
passed her to touch her cheek. She looked up quickly, then let in the
abbot, who, with much ceremony, came bowing, his horse led by the
bridle. She shut the door behind them and drove home the great bolts.
Servants came tumbling out to take the horses and do their duty; Count
Eustace, a brother of Jehane's, got up from the hearth, where he had
been asleep on a bearskin, rubbed his eyes, gulped a yawn, knelt, and
was kissed by Richard. Jehane stood apart, mistress of herself as it
seemed, but conscious, perhaps, that she was being watched. So she was.
In the bustle of salutation the Abbot Milo found eyes to see what manner
of sulky, beautiful girl this was.

He watched shrewdly, and has described her for us with the meticulous
particularity of his time and temper. He runs over her parts like a
virtuoso. The iris of her eyes, for instance, was wet grey, but ringed
with black and shot with yellow, giving so the effect of hot green; her
mouth was of an extraordinary dark red colour, very firm in texture,
close-grained, 'like the darker sort of strawberries,' says he. The
upper lip had the sulky curve; she looked discontented, and had reason
to be, under such a scrutiny of the microscope. Her hair was colour of
raw silk, eyebrows set rather high, face a thinnish oval, complexion
like a pink rose's, neck thinnish again, feet, hands, long and nervous,
'good working members,' etc. etc. None of this helps very much; too
detailed. But he noticed how tall she was and how slim, save for a very
beautiful bosom, too full for Dian's (he tells us), whom else she
resembled; how she was straight as a birch-tree; how in walking it
seemed as if her skirts clung about her knees. There was an air of
mingled surprise and defiance about her; she was a silent girl. 'Fronted
like Juno,' he appears to cry, 'shaped like Hebe, and like Demeter in
stature; sullen with most, but with one most sweetly apt, she looked
watchful but was really timid, looked cold but was secretly afire. I
knew soon enough how her case stood, how hope and doubt strove in her
and choked her to silence. I guessed how within those reticent members
swift love ran like wine; but because of this proud, brave mask of hers
I was slow to understand her worth. God help me, I thought her a thing
of snow!'

He records her dress at this time, remarkable if becoming. It was all
white, and cut wedge-shaped in front, very deep; but an undervest of
crimson crossed the V in the midst and saved her modesty, and his. Her
hair, which was long, was plaited in two plaits with seed-pearls,
brought round her neck like a scarf and the two ends joined between her
breasts, thus defining a great beauty of hers and making a gold collar
to her gown. Round her smooth throat was a little chain with a red
jewel; on her head another jewel (a carbuncle) set in a flower, with
three heron's plumes falling back from it. She had a broad belt of gold
and sapphire stones, and slippers of vair. 'Oh, a fine straight maid,'
says Milo in conclusion, 'golden and delicate, with strangely shaded
eyes. They knew her as Jehane of the Fair Girdle.'

The brother, Count Eustace as they called him (to distinguish him from
an elder brother, Eudo Count of Saint-Pol), was a blunt copy of his
sister, redder than she was, lighter in the hair, much lighter in the
eyes. He seemed an affectionate youth, and clung to the great Count
Richard like ivy to a tree. Richard gave him the sort of scornful
affection one has for a little dog, between patting and slapping; but
clearly wanted to be rid of him. No reference was made to the journey,
much was taken for granted; Eustace talked of his hawks, Richard ate and
drank, Jehane sat up stiffly, looking into the fire; Milo watched her
between his mouthfuls. The moment supper was done, up jumps Richard and
claps hands on the two shoulders of young Eustace. 'To bed, to bed, my
falconer! It grows late,' cries he. Eustace pushed his chair back, rose,
kissed the Count's hand and his sister's forehead, saluted Milo, and
went out humming a tune. Milo withdrew, the servants bowed themselves
away. Richard stood up, a loose-limbed young giant, and narrowed his
eyes.

'Nest thee, nest thee, my bird,' he said low; and Jehane's lips parted.
Slowly she left her stool by the fire, but quickened as she went; and at
last ran tumbling into his arms.

His right hand embraced her, his left at her chin held her face at
discretion. Like a woman, she reproached him for what she dearly loved.

'Lord, lord, how shall I serve the cup and platter if you hold me so
fast?'

'Thou art my cup, thou art my supper.'

'Thin fare, poor soul,' she said; but was glad of his foolishness.

Later, they sat by the hearth, Jehane on Richard's knee, but doubtfully
his, being troubled by many things. He had no retrospects nor
afterthoughts; he tried to coax her into pliancy. It was the fires in
the north that distressed her. Richard made light of them.

'Dear,' he said, 'the King my father is come up with a host to drive the
Count his son to bed. Now the Count his son is master of a good bed, to
which he will presently go; but it is not the bed of the King his
father. That, as you know, is of French make, neither good Norman, nor
good Angevin, nor seethed in the English mists. By Saint Maclou and the
astonishing works he did, I should be bad Norman, and worse Angevin, and
less English than I am, if I loved the French.'

He tried to draw her in; but she, rather, strained away from him,
elbowed her knee, and rested her chin upon her hand. She looked gravely
down to the whitening logs, where the ashes were gaining on the red.

'My lord loves not the French,' she said, 'but he loves honour. He is
the King's son, loving his father.'

'By my soul, I do not,' he assured her, with perfect truth, then he
caught her round the waist and turned her bodily to face him. After he
had kissed her well he began to speak more seriously.

'Jehane,' he said, 'I have thought all this stifling night upon the
heath, Homing to her I am seeking my best. My best? You are all I have
in the world. If honour is in my hand, do I not owe it to you? Or shall
a man use women like dogs, to play with them in idle moods, toss them
bones under the table, afterwards kick them out of doors? Child, you
know me better. What!' he cried out, with his head very high, 'Shall a
man not choose his own wife?'

'No,' said Jehane, ready for him; 'no, Richard, unless the people shall
choose their own king.'

'God chooses the king,' says Richard, 'or so we choose to believe.'

'Then God must appoint the wife,' Jehane said, and tried to get free.
But this could not be allowed, as she knew.

She was gentle with him, reasoning. 'The King your father is an old man,
Richard. Old men love their way.'

'God knows, he is old, and passionate, and indifferent wicked,' said
Richard, and kissed Jehane. 'Look, my girl, there were four of us:
Henry, and me, and Geoffrey, and John, whom he sought to drive in team
by a sop to-day and a stick to-morrow. A good way, done by a judging
hand. What then? I will tell you how the team served the teamster.
Henry gave sop for sop, and it was found well. Might he not give stick
for stick? He thought so: God rest him, he is dead of that. There was
much simplicity in Henry. I got no sop at all. Why should I have stick
then? I saw no reason; but I took what came. If I cried out, it is a
more harmless vent than many. Let me alone. Geoffrey, I think, was a
villain. God help him if He can: he is dead too. He took sop and gave
stick: ungentle in Geoffrey, but he paid for it. He was a cross-bred dog
with much of the devil in him; he bit himself and died barking. Last,
there is John. I desire to speak reasonably of John; but he is too snug,
he gets all sop. This is not fair. He should have some stick, that we
may judge what mettle he has. There, my Jehane, you have the four of us,
a fretful team; whereof one has rushed his hills and broken his heart;
and one, kicking his yoke-fellows, squealing, playing the jade, has
broken his back; and one, poor Richard, does collar-work and gets whip;
and one, young Master John, eases his neck and is cajoled with, "So
then, so then, boy!" Then comes pretty Jehane to the ear of the
collar-horse, whispering, "Good Richard, get thee to stall, but not
here. Stable thee snug with the King of France his sister." 'Hey!'
laughed Richard, 'what a word for a chosen bride!' He pinched her cheek
and looked gaily at her, triumphant in his own eloquence. He was most
dangerous when that devil was awake, so she dared not look at him back.
Eagerly and low she replied.

'Yes, Richard, yes, yes, my king! The king must have the king's sister,
and Jehane go back to the byre. Eagles do not mate with buzzards.'
Hereupon he snatched her up altogether and hid her face in his breast.

'Never, never, never!' he swore to the rafters. 'As God lives and
reigns, so live thou and so reign, queen of me, my Picardy rose.'

She tried no more that night, fearing that his love so keen-edged might
make his will ride rough. The watch-fires at Louviers trembled and
streamed up in the north. There was no need for candles in the Dark
Tower.

They rose up early to a fair dawn. The cloud-wrack was blown off,
leaving the sky a lake of burnt yellow, pure, sweet, and cool. Thus the
world entered upon the summer of Saint Luke, to a new-risen sun, to thin
mists stealing off the moor, to wet flowers hearted anew, to blue air,
and hope left for those who would go gleaning. While Eustace Saint-Pol
was snoring abed and the Abbot Milo at his _Sursum Corda_, Richard had
Jehane by the hand. 'Come forth, my love; we have the broad day before
us and an empty kingdom to roam in. Come, my red rose, let me set you
among the flowers.' What could she do but harbour up her thoughts?

He took her afield, where flowers made the earth still a singing-place,
and gathered of these to deck her bosom and hair. Of the harebells he
made knots, the ground-colour of her eyes; but autumn loves the yellow,
so she was stuck with gold like a princess. She sat enthroned by his
command, this young girl in a high place, with downcast eyes and a face
all fire-colour, while he worshipped her to his fancy. I believe he had
no after-thought; but she saw the dun smoke of the fires at Louviers,
and knew they would make the night shudder again. Yet her sweetness,
patience, staid courtesy, humility, never failed her; out of the deep
wells of her soul she drew them forth in a stream. Richard adored.
'Queen Jehane, Queen Jehane!' he cried out, with his arms straightly
round her--'Was ever man in the world blest so high since God said,
"Behold thy mother"? And so art thou mother to me, O bride. Bride and
queen as thou shalt be.'

This was great invention. She put her hand upon his head. 'My Richard,
my Richard Yea-and-Nay,' she said, as if pitying his wild heart. The
nickname jarred.

'Never call me that,' he told her. 'Leave that to Bertran de Born, a
fool's word to the fool who made it.'

'If I could, if I could!' thought Jehane, and sighed. There were tears
in her eyes, also, as she remembered what generosity in him must be
frozen up, and what glory of her own. But she did not falter in what she
had to do, while he, too exalted to be pitied, began to sing a Southern
song--

     Al' entrada del tems clair, eya!

When their hair commingled in their love, when they were close together,
there was little distinguishing between them; he was more her pair than
Eustace her blood-brother, in stature and shape, in hue and tincture of
gold. Jehane you know, but not Richard. Of him, son of a king, heir of a
king, if you wish some bodily sign, I will say shortly that he was a
very tall young man, high-coloured and calm in the face, straight-nosed,
blue-eyed, spare of flesh, lithe, swift in movement. He was at once bold
and sleek, eager and cold as ice--an odd combination, but not more odd
than the blend of Norman dog and Angevin cat which had made him so.
Furtive he was not, yet seeming to crouch for a spring; not savage, yet
primed for savagery; not cruel, yet quick on the affront, and on the
watch for it. He was neither a rogue nor a madman; and yet he was as
cunning as the one and as heedless as the other, if that is a possible
thing. He was arrogant, but his smile veiled the fault; you saw it best
in a sleepy look he had. His blemishes were many, his weaknesses two. He
trusted to his own force too much, and despised everybody else in the
world. Not that he thought them knaves; he was certain they were fools.
And so most of them were, no doubt, but not all. The first flush of him
moved your admiration: great height, great colour, the red and the
yellow; his beard which ran jutting to a point and gave his jaw the
clubbed look of a big cat's; his shut mouth, and cold considering eyes;
the eager set of his head, his soft, padding motions--a leopard, a
hunting leopard, quick to strike, but quick to change purpose. This,
then, was Richard Yea-and-Nay, whom all women loved, and very few men.
These require to be trusted before they love; and full trust Richard
gave to no man, because he could not believe him worth it. Women are
more generous givers, expecting not again.

Here was Jehane Saint-Pol, a girl of two-and-twenty to his
two-and-thirty, well born, well formed, greatly desired among her peers,
who, having let her soul be stolen, was prepared to cut it out of
herself for his sake who took it, and let it die. She was the creature
of his love, in and out by now the work of his hands. God had given her
a magnificent body, but Richard had made it glow. God had made her soul
a fair room; but his love had filled it with light, decked it with
flowers and such artful furniture. He, in fact, as she very well knew,
had given her the grace to deal queenly with herself. She knew that she
would have strength to deny him, having learned the hardihood to give
him her soul. Fate had carried her too young into the arms of the most
glorious prince in the world. Her brother, Eudo the Count, built castles
on that in his head. Now she was to tumble them down. Her younger
brother, Eustace, loved this splendid Richard. Now she was to hurt him.
What was to become of herself? Mercy upon her, I believe she never
thought of that. His honour was her necessity: the watch-fires in the
north told her the hour was at hand. The old King was come up with a
host to drive his son to bed. Richard must go, and she woo him out. Son
of a king, heir of a king, he must go to the king his father; and he
knew he must go. Two days' maddening delight, two nights' biting of
nails, miserable entreaty from Jehane, grown newly pinched and grey in
the face, and he owned it.

He said to her the last night, 'When I saw you first, my Queen of Snows,
in the tribune at Vézelay, when the knights rode by for the melée, the
green light from your eyes shot me, and wounded I cried out, "That maid
or none!"'

She bowed her head; but he went on. 'When they throned you queen of them
all because you were so proud and still, and had such a high untroubled
head; and when your sleeve was in my helm, and my heart in your lap, and
men fallen to my spear were sent to kneel before you--what caused your
cheek to burn and your eyes to shine so bright?'

She hid her face. 'Homage of the knights! The love of me!' he cried; and
then, 'Ah, Jehane of the Fair Girdle, when I took you from the pastures
of Gisors, when I taught you love and learned from your young mouth what
love might be, I was made man. But now you ask me to become dog.' And he
swore yet again he could never leave her. But she smiled proudly, being
in pain. 'Nay, my lord, but the man in you is awake, and not to leave
you. You shall go because you are the king's son, and I shall pray for
the new king.' So she beat him, and had him weeping terribly, his face
in her lap. She wept no more, but dry-eyed kissed him, and dry-lipped
went to bed. 'He said Yea that time,' records the Abbot Milo, 'but I
never knew then what she paid for it. That was later.' He went next
morning, and she saw him go.




CHAPTER II

HOW THE FAIR JEHANE BESTOWED HERSELF


Betimes is best for an ugly business; your man of spirit will always
rush what he loathes but yet must do. Count Richard of Poictou, having
made up his mind and confessed himself overnight, must leave with the
first cock of the morning, yet must take the sacrament. Before it was
grey in the east he did so, fully armed in mail, with his red surcoat of
leopards upon him, his sword girt, his spurs strapped on. Outside the
chapel in the weeping mirk a squire held his shield, another his helm, a
groom walked his horse. Milo the Abbot was celebrant, a snuffling boy
served; the Count knelt before the housel-cloth haloed by the light of
two thin candles. Hardly had the priest begun his _introibo_ when Jehane
Saint-Pol, who had been awake all night, stole in with a hood on her
head, and holding herself very stiffly, knelt on the floor. She joined
her hands and stuck them up before her, so that the tips of her fingers,
pointing upwards as her thoughts would fly, were nearly level with her
chin. Thus frozen in prayer she remained throughout the office; nor did
she relax when at the elevation of the Host Richard bowed himself to the
earth. It seemed as if she too, bearing between her hands her own heart,
was lifting it up for sacrifice and for worship.

The Count was communicated. He was a very religious man, who would
sooner have gone without his sword than his Saviour upon any affairs.
Jehane saw him fed without a twitch of the lips. She was in a great
mood, a rapt and pillared saint; but when mass was over and his
thanksgiving to make, she got up and hid herself away from him in the
shades. There she lurked darkling, and he, lunging out, swept with his
sword's point the very edge of her gown. She did not hear him go, for he
trod like a cat; but she felt him touch her with the sword, and
shuddered once or twice. He went out of the courtyard at a gallop.

While the abbot was reciting his own thanksgiving Jehane came out of her
corner, minded to speak with him. So much he divined, needing not the
beckoning look she sent him from her guarded eyes. He sat himself down
by the altar of Saint Remy, and she knelt beside him.

'Well, my daughter?' says Milo.

'I think it is well,' she took him up.

The Abbot Milo, a red-faced, watery-eyed old man, rheumy and weathered
well, then opened his mouth and spake such wisdom as he knew. He held up
his forefinger like a claw, and used it as if describing signs and
wonders in the air.

'Hearken, Madame Jehane,' he said. 'I say that you have done well, and
will maintain it. That great prince, whom I love like my own son, is not
for you, nor for another. No, no. He is married already.'

He hoped to startle her, the old rhetorician; but he failed. Jehane was
too dreary.

'He is married, my daughter,' he repeated; 'and to whom? Why, to
himself. That man from the birth has been a lonely soul. He can never
wed, as you understand it. You think him your lover! Believe me, he is
not. He is his own lover. He is called. He has a destiny. And what is
that? you ask me.'

She did not, but rhetoric bade him suppose it. 'Salem is his destiny;
Salem is his bride, the elect lady in bonds. He will not wed Madame
Alois of France, nor you, nor any virgin in Christendom until that
spiritual wedlock is consummate. I should not love him as I do if I did
not believe it. For why? Shall I call my own son apostate? He is signed
with the Cross, a married man, by our Saviour!'

He leaned back in his chair, peering down at her to see how she took it.
She took it stilly, and turned him a marble, storm-purged face, a pair
of eyes which seemed all black.

'What shall I do to be safe?' Her voice sounded worn.

'Safe, my child?' He wondered. 'Bless me, is not the Cross safety?'

'Not with him, father.'

This was perfectly true, though tainted with scandal, he thought. The
abbot, who was trained to blink all such facts, had to learn that this
girl blinked none. True to his guidance, he blinked.

'Go home to your brother, my daughter; go home to Saint-Pol-la-Marche.
At the worst, remember that there are always two arks for a woman in
flood-time, a convent and a bed.'

'I shall never choose a convent,' said Jehane.

'I think,' said the abbot, 'that you are perfectly wise.'

I suppose the alternative struck a sudden terror into her; for the abbot
abruptly records in his book that 'here her spirit seemed to flit out of
her, and she began to tremble very much, and in vain to contend with
tears. I had her all dissolved at my feet within a few moments. She was
very young, and seemed lost.'

'Come, come,' he said, 'you have shown yourself a brave girl these two
days. It is not every maid can sacrifice herself for a Count of Poictou,
the eldest son of a king. Come, come, let us have no more of this.' He
hoped, no doubt, to brace her by a roughness which was far from his
nature; and it is possible that he succeeded in heading off a mutiny of
the nerves. She was not violent under her despair, but went on crying
very miserably, saying, 'Oh, what shall I do? what shall I do?'

'God knoweth,' says the abbot, 'this was a bad case; but I had a good
thought for it.' He began to speak of Richard, of what he had done and
what would live to do. 'They say that the strain of the fiend is in that
race, my dear,' he told her. 'They say that Geoffrey Grey-Gown had
intercourse with a demon. And certain it is that in Richard, as in all
his brothers, that stinging grain lives in the blood. For testimony look
at their cognisance of leopards, and advise yourself, whether any house
in Christendom ever took that device but had known familiarly the devil
in some shape? And look again at the deeds of these princes. What turned
the young king to riot and death, and Geoffrey to rapine and death? What
else will turn John Sansterre to treachery and death, or our tall
Richard to violence and death? Nothing else, nothing else. But before
he dies you shall see him glorious--'

'He is glorious already,' said Jehane, wiping her eyes.

'Keep him so, then,' said the abbot testily, who did not love to have
his periods truncated.

'If I go back to Saint-Pol,' said Jehane, 'I shall fall in with Gilles
de Gurdun, who has sworn to have me.'

'Well,' replied the abbot, 'why should he not? Does he receive the
assurance of your brother the Count?'

Jehane shook her head. 'No, no. My brother wished me to be my lord
Richard's. But Gilles needs no assurance. He will buy my marriage from
the King of France. He is very sufficient.'

'Hath he substance? Hath he lands? Is he noble, then, Jehane?'

'He hath knighthood, a Church fief--oh, enough!'

'God forgive me if I did amiss,' writes the abbot here; 'but seeing her
in a melting mood, dewy, soft, and adorable, I kissed that beautiful
person, and she left the Chapel of Saint Remy somewhat comforted.'

Not only so, but the same day she left the Dark Tower with her brother
Count Eustace, and rode towards Gisors and Saint-Pol-la-Marche. Nothing
she could do could be shamefully done, because of her silence, and the
high head upon which she carried it; yet the Count of Saint-Pol, when he
heard her story, sitting bulky in his chair (like a stalled red bull),
did his best to put shame upon her, that so he might cover his own
bitterness. It was Eustace, a generous ardent youth in those days, who
saved her from most of Eudo's wrath by drawing it upon himself.

The Count of Saint-Pol swore a great oath.

'By the teeth of God, Jehane,' he roared, 'I see how it is. He hath made
thee a piece of ruin, and now runs wasting elsewhere.'

'You shall never say that of my sister, my lord,' cries Eustace, very
red in the face, 'nor yet of the greatest knight in the world.'

'Why, you egg,' says the Count, 'what have you to do in this? Tell me
the rights of it before you put me in the wrong. Is my house to be the
sport of Anjou? Is that long son of pirates and the devil to batten on
our pastures, tread underfoot, bruise and blacken, rout as he will,
break hedge and away? By my father's soul, Eustace, I shall see her
righted.' He turned to the still girl. 'You tell me that you sent him
away? Where did you send him? Where did he go?'

'He went to the King of England at Louviers, and to the camp,' said
Jehane. 'The King sent for him. I sent him not.'

'Who is there beside the King of England?'

'Madame Alois of France is there.'

The Count of Saint-Pol put his tongue in his cheek.

'Oho!' he said, 'Oho! That is how it stands? So she is to be cuckoo,
hey?' He sat square and intent for a moment or two, working his mouth
like a man who chews a straw. Then he slapped his big hand on his knee,
and rose up. 'If I cannot spike this wheel of vice, trust me never. By
my soul, a plot indeed. Oh, horrible, horrible thief!' He turned
gnashing upon his brother. 'Now, Eustace, what do you say to your
greatest knight in the world? And what now of your sister, hey? Little
fool, do you not catch the measure of it now? Two honey years of Jehane
Saint-Pol, gossamer pledges of mouth and mouth, of stealing fingers,
kiss and clasp; but for the French King's daughter--pish! the thing of
naught they have made her--the sacrament of marriage, the treaty, the
dowry-fee. Oh, heaven and earth, Eustace, answer me if you can.'

All three were moved in their several ways: the Count red and blinking,
Eustace red and trembling, Jehane white as a cloth, trembling also, but
very silent. The word was with the younger man.

'I know nothing of all this, upon my word, my lord,' he said, confused.
'I love Count Richard, I love my sister. There may have been that which,
had I loved but one, I had condemned in the other. I know not, but'--he
saw Jehane's marble face, and lifted his hand up--'by my hope, I will
never believe it. In love they came together, my lord; in love, says
Jehane, they have parted. I have heard little of Madame Alois, but my
thought is, that kings and the sons of kings may marry kings' daughters,
yet not in the way of love.'

The Count fumed. 'You are a fool, I see, and therefore not to my
purpose. I must talk with men. Stay you here, Eustace, and watch over
her till I return. Let none get at her, on your dear life. There are
those who--sniffing rogues, climbers, boilers of their pots--keep them
out, Eustace, keep them out. As for you'--he turned hectoring to the
proud girl--'As for you, mistress, keep the house. You are not in the
market, you are spoilt goods. You shall go where you should be. I am
still lord of these lands; there shall be no rebellion here. Keep the
house, I say. I return ere many days.' He stamped out of the hall; they
heard him next rating the grooms at the gate.

Saint-Pol was a great house, a noble house, no doubt of it. Its counts
drew no limits in the way of pedigree, but built themselves a fair
temple in that kind, with the Twelfth Apostle himself for head of the
corner. So far as estate went, seeing their country was fruitful,
compact, snugly bounded between France and Normandy (owing fealty to the
first), they might have been sovereign counts, like the house of Blois,
like that of Aquitaine, like that even of Anjou, which, from nothing,
had risen to be so high. More: by marriage, by robbery on that great
plan where it ceases to be robbery and is called warfare, by treaty and
nice use of the balances, there was no reason why kingship should not
have been theirs, or in their blood. Kingship, even now, was not far
off. They called the Marquess of Montferrat cousin, and he (it was
understood) intended to be throned at Jerusalem. The Emperor himself
might call, and once (being in liquor) did call Count Eudo of Saint-Pol
'cousin'; for the fact was so. You must understand that in the Gaul of
that day things were in this ticklish state, that a man (as they say)
was worth the scope of his sword: reiver yesterday, warrior to-morrow;
yesterday wearing a hemp collar, to-day a count's belt, and to-morrow,
may be, a king's crown. You climbed in various ways, by the field, by
the board, by the bed. A handsome daughter was nearly worth a stout son.
Count Eudo reckoned himself stout enough, and reckoned Eustace was so;
but the beauty of Jehane, that stately maid who might uphold a cornice,
that still wonder of ivory and gold, was an emblement which he, the
tenant, meant to profit by; and so for an hour (two years by the clock)
he saw his profit fair. The infatuation of the girl for this man or that
man was nothing; but the infatuation of the great Count of Poictou for
her set Eudo's heart ablaze. God willing, Saint Maclou assisting, he
might live to call Jehane 'My Lady Queen.' He shut his ears to report;
there were those who called Richard a rake, and others who called him
'Yea-and-Nay'; that was Bertran de Born's name for him, and all Paris
knew it. He shut his eyes to Richard's galling unconcern with himself
and his dignity. Dignity of Saint-Pol! He would wait for his dignity. He
shut his mind to Jehane's blown fame, to the threatenings of his
dreadful Norman neighbour, Henry the old king, who had had an archbishop
pole-axed like a steer; he dared the anger of his suzerain, in whose
hands lay Jehane's marriage; a heady gambler, he staked the fortunes of
his house upon this clinging of a girl to a wild prince. And now to tell
himself that he deserved what he had got was but to feed his rage. Again
he swore by God's teeth that he would have his way; and when he left his
castle of Saint-Pol-la-Marche it was for Paris.

The head of his house, under the Emperor Henry, was there, Conrad of
Montferrat, trying to negotiate the crown of Jerusalem. There must be a
conference before the house of Saint-Pol could be let to fall. Surely
the Marquess would never allow it! He must spike the wheel. Was not
Alois of France within the degrees? She was sister to the French King:
well, but what was Richard's mother? She had been wife to Louis, wife to
Alois' father. Was this decency? What would the Pope say--an Italian?
Was the Marquess Conrad an Italian for nothing? Was 'our cousin' the
Emperor of no account, King of the Romans? The Pope Italian, the
Marquess Italian, the Emperor on his throne, and God in His heaven--eh,
eh! there should be a conference of these high powers. So, and with such
whirl of question and answer, did the Count of Saint-Pol beat out to
Paris.

But Jehane remained at Saint-Pol-la-Marche, praying much, going little
abroad, seeing few persons. Then came (since rumour is a gadabout) Sir
Gilles de Gurdun, as she knew he would, and knelt before her, and kissed
her hand. Gilles was a square-shouldered, thick-set youth of the black
Norman sort, ruddy, strong-jawed, small-eyed, low in the brow,
bullet-headed. He was no taller than she, looked shorter, and had
nothing to say. He had loved her since the time when she was an
overgrown girl of twelve years, and he a squire about her father's house
learning mannishness. The King of England had dubbed him a knight, but
she had made him a man. She knew him to be a good one; as dull as a
mud-flat, but honest, wholesome, and of decent estate. In a moment,
when he was come again, she saw that he was a long lover who would treat
her well.

'God help me, and him also,' she thought; 'it may be that I shall need
him before long.'




CHAPTER III

IN WHAT HARBOUR THEY FOUND THE OLD LION


At Evreux, across the heath, Count Richard found his company: the
Viscount Adhémar of Limoges (called for the present the Good Viscount),
the Count of Perigord, Sir Gaston of Béarn (who really loved him), the
Bishop of Castres, and the Monk of Montauban (a singing-bird); some
dozen of knights with their esquires, pages, and men-at-arms. He waited
two days there for Abbot Milo to come up with last news of Jehane; then
at the head of sixty spears he rode fleetly over the marshes towards
Louviers. After his first, 'You are well met, my lords,' he had said
very little, showing a cold humour; after a colloquy with Milo, which he
had before he left his bed, he said nothing at all. Alone, as became one
of his race, he rode ahead of his force; not even the chirping Monk (who
remembered his brother Henry and often sighed for him) cared to risk a
shot from his strong eyes. They were like blue stones, full of the cold
glitter of their fire. It was at times like this, when a man stands
naked confronting his purpose, that one saw the hag riding on the back
of Anjou.

He was not thinking of it now, but the truth is that there had hardly
been a time in his short life when he had not been his father's open
enemy. He could have told you that it had not been always his fault,
though he would never have told you. But I say that what he, a youth of
thirty, had made of his inheritance was as nothing to that elder's
wasting of his. In moments of hot rage Richard knew this, and justified
himself; but the melting hour came again when he heaped all reproach
upon himself, believing that but for such and such he might have loved
this rooted, terrible old man who assuredly loved not him. Richard was
neither mule nor jade; he was open to persuasion on two sides.
Compunction was one: you could touch him on the heart and bring him
weeping to his knees; affection was another: if he loved the petitioner
he yielded handsomely. Now, this time it was Jehane and not his
conscience which had sent him to Louviers. First of all Jehane had
pleaded the Sepulchre, his old father, filial obedience, and he had
laughed at the sweet fool. But when she, grown wiser, urged him to
pleasure her by treading on the heart she had given him, he could not
deny her. He was converted, not convinced. So he rode alone, three
hundred yards from his lieges, reasoning out how he could preserve his
honour and yet yield. The more he thought the less he liked it, but all
the more he felt necessity at his throat. And, as always with him, when
he thought he seemed as if turned to stone. 'One way or another,' Milo
tells us, 'every man of the House of Anjou had his unapproachable side,
so accustomed were they to the fortress-life.'

A broad plain, watered by many rivers, showed the towers of Louviers and
red roofs cinctured by the greatest of them; short of the walls were
the ranked white tents, columned smoke, waggons, with men and horses, as
purposeless, little, and busy as a swarm of bees. In the midst of this
array was a red pavilion with a standard at the side, too heavy for the
wind. All was set in the clear sunless air of an autumn day in Normandy;
the hour, one short of noon. Richard reined up for his company, on a
little hill.

'The powers of England, my lords,' he said, pointing with his hand. All
stayed beside him. Gaston of Béarn tweaked his black beard.

'Let us be done with the business, Richard,' said this knight, 'before
the irons can get out.'

'What!' cried the Count, 'shall a father smite his son?' No one
answered: in a moment he was ashamed of himself. 'Before God,' he said,
'I mean no impiety. I will do what I have undertaken as gently as may
be. Come, gentlemen.' He rode on.

The camp was defended by fosse and bridge. At the barbican all the
Aquitanians except Richard dismounted, and all stayed about him while a
herald went forward to tell the King who was come in. The King knew very
well who it was, but chose not to know it; he kept the herald long
enough to make his visitors chafe, then sent word that the Count of
Poictou would be received, but alone. Claiming his right to ride in,
Richard followed the heralds at a foot's pace, alone, ungreeted by any.
At the mount of the standard he got off his horse, found the ushers of
the King's door, and went swiftly to the entry of the pavilion (which
they held open for him), as though, like some forest beast, he saw his
prey. There in the entry he stiffened suddenly, and stiffly went down on
his two knees. Midway of the great tent, square and rugged before him,
with working jaws and restless little fired eyes, sat the old King his
father, hands on knees, between them a long bare sword. Beside him was
his son John, thin and flushed, and about, a circle of peers: two
bishops in purple, a pock-marked monk of Cluny, Bohun, Grantmesnil,
Drago de Merlou, and a few more. On the ground was a secretary biting
his pen.

The King looked his best on a throne, for his upper part was his best.
It was, at least, the mannish part. With scanty red hair much rubbed
into disorder, a seamed red face, blotched and shining; with a square
jaw awry, the neck and shoulders of a bull; with gnarled gross hands at
the end of arms long out of measure, a cruel mouth and a nose like a
bird's beak--his features seemed to have been hacked coarsely out of
wood and as coarsely painted; but what might have passed by such means
for a man was transformed by his burning eyes, with their fuel of pain,
into the similitude of a fallen angel. The devil of Anjou sat eating
King Henry's eyes, and you saw him at his meal. It gave the man the look
of a wild boar easing his tusks against a tree, horrible, yet content to
be abhorred, splendid, because so strong and lonely. But the prospect
was not comfortable. Little as he knew of his father, Richard could make
no mistake here. The old King was in a picksome mood, fretted by rage:
angry that his son should kneel there, more than angry that he had not
knelt before.

The play began, like a farce. The King affected not to see him, let him
kneel on. Richard did kneel on, as stiff as a rod. The King talked with
obscene jocosity, every snap betraying his humour, to Prince John; he
scandalised even his bishops, he abashed even his barons. He infinitely
degraded himself, yet seemed to wallow in disgrace. So Richard's gorge
(a tender organ) rose to hear him. 'God, what wast Thou about, to let
such a hog be made?' he muttered, loud enough for at least three people
to hear. The King heard it and was pleased; the Prince heard it, and
with a scared eye perceived that Bohun had heard it. The King went
grating on, John fidgeted; Bohun, greatly daring, whispered in his
master's ear.

The King replied with a roar which all the camp might have heard. 'Ha!
Sacred Face, let him kneel, Bohun. That is a new custom for him, useful
science for a man of his trade. All men of the sword come to it sooner
or later--sooner or later, by God!'

Hereupon Richard, very deliberately, rose to his feet and stepped
forward to the throne. His great height was a crowning abomination. The
King blinked up at him, showing his tushes.

'What now, sir?' he said.

'Later for me, sire, if kneeling is to be done by soldiers,' said
Richard. The King controlled himself by swallowing.

'And yet, Richard,' he said, dry as dust, 'And yet, Richard, you have
knelt to the French lad soon enough.'

'To my liege-lord, sire? Yes, it is true.'

'He is not your liege-lord, man,' roared the King. 'I am your
liege-lord, by heaven. I gave and I can take away. Heed me now.'

'Fair sire,' says Richard, 'observe that I have knelt to you. I am not
here for any other reason, and least of all to try conclusions of the
voice. I have come out of my lands with my company to give you
obedience. Be sure that they, on their part, will pay you proper honour
(as I do) if you will let them.'

'You come from lands I have given you, as Henry came, as Geoffrey came,
to defy me,' said the old man, trembling in his chair. 'What is your
obedience worth when I have measured theirs: Henry's obedience!
Geoffrey's obedience! Pish, man, what words you use.' He got up and
stamped about the tent like an irritable dwarf, crook-legged and
long-armed, pricked, maddened at every point. 'And you tell me of your
men, your lands, your company! Good men all, a fair company, by the Rood
of Grace! Tell me now, Richard, have you Raimon of Toulouse in that
company? Have you Béziers?'

'No, sire,' said Richard, looking serenely down at the working face.

'Nor ever will have,' snarled the King. 'Have you the Knight of Béarn?'

'I have, sire.'

'Ill company, Richard. It is a white-faced, lying beast, with a most
goatish beard. Have you your singing monk?'

'I have, sire.'

'Shameful company. Have you Adhémar of Limoges?'

'Yes, sire.'

'Silly company. Leave him with his women. Have you your Abbot Milo?'

'Yes.'

'Sick company.' His head sank into his breast; he found himself suddenly
tired, even of reviling, and had to sit down again. Richard felt a tide
of pity; looking down at the huddled old man, he held out his hand.

'Let us not quarrel, father,' he said; but that brought up the King's
head, like a call to arms.

'A last question, Richard. Have you dared bring here Bertran de Born?'
He was on his feet again for the reply, and the two men faced each
other. Everybody knew how serious the question was. It sobered the
Count, but drove the pity out of him.

'Dare is not a word for Anjou, sire,' he replied, picking his phrases;
'but Bertran is not with me.' Before the old man could break again into
savagery he went on to his main purpose. 'Sire, short speeches are best.
You seek to draw my ill-humours, but you shall not draw them. As son and
servant of your Grace I came in, and so will go out. As a son I have
knelt to the King my father, as servant I am ready to obey him. Let that
marriage, designed in the cradle by the French King and you, go on. I
will do my part if Madame Alois will do hers.'

Richard folded his arms; the King sat down again. A queer exchange of
glances had passed between his father and brother at the mention of that
lady's name. Richard, who saw it, got the feeling of some secret between
them, the feeling of being in a trap; but he said nothing. The King
began his old harping.

'Attend to me now, Richard,' he said, with much work of the eyebrows;
'if that ill-gotten beast Bertran had been of your meinie our last words
had been said. Beast! He is a toothed snake, that crawled into my boy's
bed and bit passion into him. Lord Jesus, if ever again I meet Bertran,
help Thou me to redden his face! But as it is, I am content. Rest you
here with me, if so rough a lodging may content your nobility. As for
Madame Alois, she shall be sent for; but I think I will not meet your
bevy of joglars from the south. I have a proud stomach o' these days; I
doubt pastry from Languedoc would turn me sour; and liking monks little
enough as it is, your throstle-cock of Montauban might cause me to
blaspheme. See them entertained, Drago; or better, let them entertain
each other--with singing games, holy God! Go you, Bohun'--and he
turned--'fetch in Madame Alois.' Bohun went through a curtain behind
him, and the King sat in thought, biting his thumbs.

Madame Alois of France came out of the inner tent, a slinking, thin
girl, with the white and tragic face of the fool in a comedy set in
black hair. Richard thought she was mad by the way she stared about her
from one man to another; but he went down on his knee in a moment.
Prince John turned stiff, the old King bent his brows to watch Richard.
The lady, who was dressed in black, and looked to be half fainting,
shrank in an odd way towards the wall, as if to avoid a whip. 'Too long
in England, poor soul,' Richard thought; 'but why did she come from the
King's tent?'

It was not a cheerful meeting, nor did the King show any desire to make
it better. When by roundabout and furtive ways Madame Alois at last
stood drooping by his chair, he began to talk to her in English, a
language unknown to Richard, though familiar enough, he saw, to his
father and brother. 'It seems to be his Grace's desire to make me
ridiculous,' he went on to say to himself: 'what a dead-level of grim
words! In English, it appears, you do not talk. You stab with the
tongue.' In truth, there was no conversation. The King or the Prince
spoke, and Madame Alois moistened her lips; she looked nowhere but at
the old tyrant, not at his eyes, but above them, at his forehead, and
with a trepitant gaze, like a watched hare's. 'The King has her in
thrall, soul and body,' Richard considered. Then his knee began to ache,
and he released it. 'Fair sire,' he began in his own tongue. Madame
Alois gave a start, and 'Ha, Richard,' says the King, 'art thou still
there, man?'

'Where else, my lord?' asked the son. The father looked at Alois.

'Deign to recognise in this baron, Madame,' he said, 'my son the Count
of Poictou. Let him salute, Madame, that which he has sought from so
far, and with such humility, pardieu; your white hand, Alois.' The
strange girl quivered, then put her hand out. Richard, kissing it, found
it horribly cold.

'Lady,' he said, 'I pray we may be better acquainted; but I must tell
you that I have no English. Let me hope that in this good land you may
recover your French.' He got no answer from the lady, but, by heaven, he
made his father angry.

'We hope, Richard, that you will teach Madame better things than that,'
sniffed the old man, nosing about for battle.

'I pray that I may teach her no worse, my lord,' replied the other. 'You
will perhaps allow that for a daughter of France the tongue may have its
uses.'

'As English, Count, for the son of England!' cried his father; 'or for
his wife, by the mass, if he is fit to have one.'

'Of that, sire, we must talk at your Grace's leisure,' said Richard
slowly. 'Jesus!' he asked himself, 'will he put me to a block of ice?
What is the matter with this woman?' The King put an end to his
questions by dismissing Madame Alois, breaking up the assembly, and
himself retiring. He was dreadfully fatigued, quite white and
breathless. Richard saw him follow the lady through the inner curtain,
and again was uncomfortably suspicious. But when his brother John made
to slip in also he thought there must be an end of it. He tapped the
young man on the shoulder.

'Brother, a word with you,' says he; and John came twittering back. The
two were alone in the tent.

This John--Sansterre, Landlos, Lackland, so they variously called
him--was a timid copy of his brother, a wry-necked reedy Richard with a
sniff. Not so tall, yet more spare, with blue eyes more pallid than his
brother's, and protruding where Richard's were inset, the difference lay
more in degree than kind. Richard was of heroic build, but a well-knit,
well-shaped hero; in John the arms were too long, the head too small,
the brow too narrow. Richard's eyes were perhaps too wide apart; no
doubt John's were too near together. Richard twitched his fingers when
he was moved, John bit his cheek. Richard stooped from the neck, John
from the shoulders. When Richard threw up his head you saw the lion;
John at bay reminded you of a wolf in a corner. John snarled at such
times, Richard breathed through his nose. John showed his teeth when he
was crossed, Richard when he was merry. So many thousand points of
unlikeness might be named, all small: the Lord knows here are enough.
The Angevin cat-and-dog nature was fairly divided between these two.
Richard had the sufficiency of the cat, John the dependence of a dog;
John had the cat's secretiveness, Richard the dog's dash. At heart John
was a thief.

He feared and hated his brother; so when Richard said, 'Brother, a word
with you,' John tried to disguise apprehension in disgust. The result
was a very sick smile.

'Willingly, dear brother, and the more so--' he began; but Richard cut
him short.

'What under the light of the sky is the matter with that lady?' he asked
him.

John had been preparing for that. He raised his eyebrows and splayed out
both his hands. 'Can you ask? Eh, our Lord! Emotion--a stranger in a
strange land--an access of the shudders--who knows women? So long from
France-dreadful of her brother--dreadful of you--so many things! a silly
mind--ah, my brother!'

Richard checked him testily. 'Put a point, put a point, you drown me in
phrases; your explanations explain nothing. One more word. What in the
devil's name is she doing in there?' He had a short way. John began to
stammer.

'A second father--a tender guardian--'

'Pish!' said Count Richard, and turned to leave the pavilion. Prince
John slipped through the curtains, and at that moment Richard heard a
little fretful cry within, not the cry of mortal lady. 'What under
heaven have they got in there, this family?' he asked himself.
Shrugging, he went out into the fresh air.

The abbot notes that his lord and master came running into his quarters,
'and tumbled upon me, like a lover who finds his mistress after many
days. "Milo, Milo, Milo," he began to cry, three times over, as if the
name helped him, "Thou wilt live to see a puddock upon the throne of
England!" Thus he strangely said.'




CHAPTER IV

HOW JEHANE STROKED WHAT ALOIS HAD MADE FIERCE


When the Count of Saint-Pol came to Paris he found the going very
delicate. For it is a delicate matter to confer in a king's capital,
with a king's allies, how best to throw obstacles in that king's way. As
a matter of fact he found that he could do little or nothing in the
business. King Philip was in great feather concerning his sister's
arrival; the heralds were preparing to go out to meet her. Nicholas d'Eu
and the Baron of Quercy were to accompany them; King Philip thought
Saint-Pol the very man to make a third, but this did not suit the Count
at all. He sought out his kinsman the Marquess of Montferrat, a heavy
Italian, who gave him very little comfort. All he could suggest was that
his 'good cousin' would do better to help him to the certain throne of
Jerusalem. 'What do you want with more than one king in a family?' asked
the Marquess. Saint-Pol grew rather dry as he assured him that one king
would suffice, and that Anjou was nearer than Jerusalem. He went on to
hint at various strange speculations rife concerning the history of
Madame Alois. 'If you want garbage, Eudo,' said Montferrat to this,
'come not to me. But I know a rat who might be of service.'

'The name of your rat, Marquess! It is all I ask.'

'Bertran de Born: who else?' said Montferrat. Now, Bertran de Born was
the thorn in the flesh of Anjou, a rankling addition to their state whom
they were never without. Saint-Pol knew his value very well, and decided
to go down to see the man in his own country. So he would have gone, no
doubt, had not his sovereign judged otherwise. Saint-Pol received
commands to accompany the heralds to Louviers, so had to content himself
with a messenger to the trobador and a letter which announced the
extreme happiness of the great Count of Poictou. This, he knew, would
draw the poison-bag.

The Frenchmen arrived at Louviers none too soon. As well mix fire and
ice as Poictevin with Norman or Angevin with Angevin. The princes
stalked about with claws out of velvet, the nobles bickered fiercely,
and the men-at-arms did after their kind. There was open fighting.
Gaston of Béarn picked a quarrel with John Botetort, and they fought it
out with daggers in the fosse. Then Count Richard took one of his
brother's goshawks and would not give it up. Over the long body of that
bird half a score noblemen engaged with swords; the Count of Poictou
himself accounted for six, and ended by pommelling his brother into a
red jelly. There was a week or more of this, during which the old King
hunted like a madman all day and revelled in gloomy vices all night.
Richard saw little of him and little of the lady of France. She, a pale
shade, flitted dismally out when evoked by the King, dismally in again
at a nod from him. Whenever she did appear Prince John hovered about,
looking tormented; afterwards the pock-marked Cluniac might be heard
lecturing her on theology and the soul's business in passionless
monologue. It was very far from gay. As for her, Richard believed her
melancholy mad; he himself grew fretful, irritable, most quarrelsome.
Thus it was that he first plundered and then punched his brother.

After that Prince John disappeared for a little to nurse his sores, and
Richard got within fair speaking distance of Madame Alois. In fact, she
sent for him late one night when the King, as he knew, was away,
munching the ashes of charred pleasure in some stews or other. He obeyed
the summons with a half-shrug.

They received him with consternation. The distracted lady was in a
chair, hugging herself; the Cluniac stood by, a mortified emblem; a
scared woman or two fled behind the throne. Madame Alois, when she saw
who the visitor was, began to shake.

'Oh, oh!' she said in a whisper, 'have you come to murder me, my lord?'

'Why, Madame,' Richard made haste to say, 'I would serve you any other
way but that, and supposed I had the right. But I came because you sent
for me.'

She passed her hand once or twice over her face, as if to brush cobwebs
away; one of the women made a piteous appeal of the eyes to Richard, who
took no notice of it; the monk said something to himself in a low voice,
then to the Count, 'Madame is overwrought, my lord.'

'Yes, you rascal,' thought Richard; 'your work.' Aloud he said, 'I hope
her Grace will give you leave to retire, sir.' Madame hereupon waved her
people away, and went on waving long after they had gone. Thus she was
alone with her future lord. There was the wreck of fine beauty about her
drawn race, beauty of the black-and-white, sheeted sort; but she looked
as if she walked with ghosts. Richard was very gentle with her. He drew
near, saying, 'I grieve to see you thus, Madame'; but she stopped him
with a question--

'They seek to have you marry me?'

He smiled: 'Our masters desire it, Madame.'

'Are you very sure of that?'

'I am here,' he explained, 'because I am so sure.'

'And you desire--'

'I, Madame,' he said quickly and shortly, 'desire two things--the good
of my country and your good. If I desire anything else, God knows it is
to keep my promise.'

'What is your promise?'

'Madame,' said Richard, 'I bear the Cross on my shoulder, as you see.'

'Why,' she said, fearfully regarding it, 'that is God's work!'

She began to walk about the room quickly, and to talk to herself. He
could not catch properly what she said. Religion came into it, and a
question of time. 'Now it should be done, now it should be done!' and
then, 'Hear, O thou Shepherd of Israel!' and then with a wild look into
Richard's face--'That was a strange thing to do to a lady. They can
never lay that to me!' Afterwards she began to wring her hands, with a
cry of 'Fie, poison, poison, poison!' looking at Richard all the time.

'This poor lady,' he told himself, 'is possessed by a devil, therefore
no wife for me, who have devil enough and to spare.'

'What ails you, Madame?' he asked her. 'Tell me your grief, and upon my
life I will amend it if I can.'

'You cannot,' she said. 'Nothing can mend it.'

'Then, with leave'--he went to the curtains--'I will call your Grace's
people. Our discussions can be later; there is time enough.'

She would have stopped him had she dared, or had the force; but
literally she was spent. There was just time to get the women in before
she tumbled. Richard, in his perplexity, determined to wrangle out the
matter with the King on the morrow, cost what it might. So he did; and
to his high surprise the King reasoned instead of railing. Madame Alois,
he said, was weakly, un-wholesome indeed. In his opinion she wanted,
what all young women want, a husband. She was too much given to the
cloister, she had visions, she was feared to use the discipline, she ate
nothing, was more often on her knees than on her feet. 'All this, my
son,' said King Henry, 'you shall correct at your discretion. Humours,
vapours, qualms, fantasies--pouf! You can blow them away with a kiss.
Have you tried it? No? Too cold? Nay, but you should.' And so on, and so
on. That day, none too soon, the French ambassadors arrived, and
Richard saw the Count of Saint-Pol among them.

He had never liked the Count of Saint-Pol; or perhaps it would be truer
to say that he disliked him more than ordinary. But he belonged to, had
even a tinge of, Jehane; some of her secret fragrance hung about him, he
walked in some ray of her glory. It seemed to Richard, bothered, sick,
fretted, a little disconcerted as he was now, that the Count of
Saint-Pol had an air which none other of this people had. He greeted him
therefore with more than usual affability, very much to Saint-Pol's
concern. Richard observed this, and suddenly remembered that he was
doing the man what the man must certainly believe to be a cruel wrong.
'_Mort de Dieu!_ What am I about?' his heart cried. 'I ought to be
ashamed to look this fellow in the face, and here I am making a brother
of him.'

'Saint-Pol,' he said immediately, 'I should like to speak with you. I
owe you that.'

'Your Grace's servant,' said Eudo, with a stiff reverence, 'when and
where you will.'

'Follow me,' said Richard, 'as soon as you have done with all this
foppery.'

In about an hour's time he was obeyed. After his fashion he took a
straight plunge.

'Saint-Pol,' he said, 'I think you know where my heart is, whether here
or elsewhere. I desire you to understand that in this case I am acting
against my own will and judgment.'

The frankness of this lordly creature was unmistakable, even to
Saint-Pol.

'Hey, sire--,' he began spluttering, honesty in arms with rage. Richard
took him up.

'If you doubt that, as you have my leave to do, I am ready to convince
you. I will ride with you wherever you choose, and place myself at your
discretion. Subject to this, mind you, that the award is final. Once
more I will do it. Will you abide by that? Will you come with me?'

Saint-Pol cursed his fate. Here he was, tied to the French girl.

'My lord,' he said, 'I cannot obey you. My duty is to take Madame to
Paris. That is my master's command.'

'Well,' said Richard, 'then I shall go alone. Once more I shall go. I am
sick to death of this business.'

'My lord Richard,' cried Saint-Pol, 'I am no man to command you. Yet I
say, Go. I know not what has passed between your Grace and my sister
Jehane; but this I know very well. It will be a strange thing'--he
laughed, not pleasantly--'a strange thing, I say, if you cannot bend
that arbiter to your own way of thinking.' Richard looked at him coldly.

'If I could do that, my friend,' he said, 'I should not suffer
arbitration at all.'

'The proposition was not mine, my lord,' urged Saint-Pol.

'It could not be, sir,' Richard said sharply. 'I proposed it myself,
because I consider that a lady has the right to dispose of her own
person. She loved me once.'

'I believe that she is yours at this hour, sire.'

'That is what I propose to find out,' said Richard. 'Enough. What news
have they in Paris?'

Saint-Pol could not help himself; he was bursting with a budget he had
received from the south. 'They greatly admire a sirvente of Bertran de
Born's, sire.'

'What is the stuff of the sirvente?'

'It is a scandalous subject, sire. He calls it the Sirvente of Kings,
and speaks much evil of your Order.' Richard laughed.

'I will warrant him to do that better than any man alive, and allow him
some reason for it. I think I will go to see Bertran.'

'Ha, sire,' said Saint-Pol with meaning, 'he will tell you many things,
some good, and some not so good.'

'Be sure he will,' said Richard. 'That is Bertran's way.'

He would trust no one with his present reflections, and seek no outside
strength against his present temptations. He had always had his way; it
had seemed to come to him by right, by the _droit de seigneur_, the
natural law which puts the necks of fools under the heels of strong men.
No need to consider of all that: he knew that the thing desired lay to
his hand; he could make Jehane his again if he would, and neither King
of England nor King of France, nor Council of Westminster nor Diet of
the Empire could stop him--if he would. But that, he felt now, was just
what he would not. To beat her down with torrents of love-cries; to have
her trembling, cowed, drummed out of her wits by her own heart-beats; to
compel, to dominate, to tame, when her young pride and young strength
were the things most beautiful in her: never, by the Cross of Christ!
That, I suppose, is as near to true love as a man can get, to reverence
in a girl that which holds her apart. Richard got so near precisely
because he was less lover than poet. You may doubt, if you choose (with
Abbot Milo), whether he had love in him. I doubt. But certainly he was a
poet. He saw Jehane all glorious, and gave thanks for the sight. He felt
to touch heaven when he neared her; but he did not covet her possession,
at the moment. Perhaps he felt that he did possess her: it is a poet's
way. So little, at any rate, did he covet, that, having made up his mind
what he would do, he sent Gaston of Béarn to Saint-Pol-la-Marche with a
letter for Jehane, in which he said: 'In two days I shall see you for
the last or for all time, as you will'--and then possessed himself in
patience the appointed number of hours.

Gaston of Béarn, romantic figure in those grey latitudes, pale,
black-eyed, freakishly bearded, dressed in bright green, rode his way
singing, announced himself to the lady as the Child of Love; and when he
saw her kissed her foot.

'Starry Wonder of the North,' he said, kneeling, 'I bring fuel to your
ineffable fires. Our King of Lovers and Lover among Kings is all at your
feet, sighing in this paper.' He seemed to talk in capitals, with a
flourish handed her the scroll. He had the gratification to see her clap
a hand to her side directly she touched it; but no more. She perused it
with unwavering eyes in a stiff head.

'Farewell, sir,' she said then; 'I will prepare for my lord.'

'And I, lady,' said Gaston, 'in consequence of a vow I have vowed my
saint, will await his coming in the forest, neither sleeping nor eating
until he has his enormous desires. Farewell, lady.'

He went out backwards, to keep his promise. The brown woodland was gay
with him for a day and a night; for he sang nearly all the time with
unflagging spirits. But Jehane spent part of the interval in the chapel,
with her hands crossed upon her fine bosom. The God in her heart fought
with Him on the altar. She said no prayers; but when she left the place
she sent a messenger for Gilles de Gurdun, the blunt-nosed Norman knight
who loved her so much that he said nothing about it.

This Gurdun, pricking through the woods, came upon Gaston of Béarn,
dazzling as a spring tree and singing like an inspired machine. He
pulled up at the wonderful sight, and scowled. It is the proper Norman
greeting. Gaston treated him as part of the landscape, like the rest of
it mournful, but provocative of song.

'Give you good-day, beau sire,' said Gilles; Gaston waved his hand and
went on singing at the top of his voice. Then Gilles, who was pressed,
tried to pass; and Gaston folded his arms.

'Ha, beef,' said he, 'none pass here but the brave.'

'Out, parrot,' quoth Gilles, and plunged through the wood.

Because of Gaston's vow there was no blood shed at the moment, but he
had hopes that he might be released in time. 'There goes a dead man,'
was therefore his comment before he resumed.

But Jehane, when she heard the horse, ran out to meet his rider. Her
face was alight. 'Come in, come in,' she said, and took him by the hand.
He followed her with a beating heart, neither daring nor knowing how to
say anything. She led him into the little dark chapel.

'Gilles, Gilles,' she said panting, 'do you love me, Gilles?'

He was hoarse, could hardly speak for the crack in his throat. 'O God,'
he said under his breath, 'O God, Jehane, how I love you!'

Here, because of a certain flicker in her eyes, he made forward; but she
put out her two hands the length of her arms and fenced him off. 'No,
no, Gilles, not yet.' Pain sharpened her voice. 'Listen first to me. I
do not love you; but I am frightened. Some one is coming; you must be
here to help me. I give myself to you--I will be yours--I must--there is
no other way.'

She stopped; you could have heard the thudding of her heart.

'Give then,' said Gilles with a croak, and took her.

She felt herself engulfed in a sea of fire, but set her teeth and
endured the burning of that death. The poor fellow did but kiss her once
or twice, and kissed no closer than the Angevin; but the grace is one
that goes by favour. Gilles, nevertheless, took primer seisin and was
content. Afterwards, hand in hand, trembling each, the possessed and the
possessing, they stood before the twinkling lamp which hinted at the Son
of God, and waited what must happen.

In about half an hour's time Jehane heard the long padding tread she
knew so well, and took a deep breath. Next Gilles heard something.

'One comes. Who comes?' he said whispering.

'Richard of Anjou. I need you now.'

'Do you want me to--?' Gilles honestly thought he was to kill the Count.
She undeceived him soon.

'To kill Richard, Gilles? Nay, man, he is not for your killing.' She
gave a short laugh, not very pleasant for her lover to hear. But Gilles,
for all that, put hand to hilt. The Count of Poictou stooped at the
entry and saw them together.

It wanted but that to blow the embers. Something tigerish surged in him,
some gust of jealousy, some arrogant tide in the blood not all clean. He
moved forward like a wind and caught the girl up in his arms, lifted her
off her feet, smothered her cry. 'My Jehane, my Jehane, who dares--?'
Gilles touched him on the shoulder, and he turned like lightning with
Jehane held fast. His breath came quick and short through his nose:
Gilles believed his last hour at hand, but made the most of it.

'What now, dog?' thus the lean Richard.

'Set down the lady, my lord,' said doughty Gilles. 'She is promised to
me.'

'Heart of God, what is this?' He held back his head, like a snake, that
he might see what he would strike at. 'Is it true, girl?' Jehane looked
up from his shoulder, where she had been hiding her face. She could not
speak, but she nodded.

'It is true? Thou art promised?'

'I am promised, my lord,' said Jehane. 'Let me go.'

He put her down at once, between himself and Gurdun. Gurdun went to take
up her hand again, but at a look from Richard forbore. The Count went on
with his interrogatories, outwardly as calm as a field of snow.

'In whose name art thou promised to this knight, Jehane? In thy
brother's?'

'No, lord. In my own.'

'Am I nothing?' She began to cry.

'Oh, oh!' she wailed, 'You are everything, everything in the world.'

He turned away from her, and stood facing the altar, with folded arms,
considering. Gilles had the wit to be silent; the girl fought for
breath. Richard, in fact, was touched to the heart, and capable of any
sacrifice which could seem the equivalent of this. He must always lead,
even in magnanimity; but it was a better thing than emulation moved him
now. When he next turned with a calm, true face to Jehane there was not
a shred of the Angevin in him; all was burnt away.

'What is the name of this knight, Jehane?' She told him, Gilles de
Gurdun.

Then he said, 'Come hither, De Gurdun,' and Gilles knelt down before the
son of his overlord. Jehane would have knelt to him too, but that he
held her by the hand and would not suffer it.

'Now, Gilles, listen to what I shall tell you,' said Richard. 'There is
no lady in the world more noble than this one, and no man living who
means more faithfully by her than I. I will do her will this day, and
that speedily, lest the devil be served. Are you a true man, Gilles?'

'Lord,' said Gurdun, 'I try to be so. Your father made me a knight. I
have loved this lady since she was twelve years old.'

'Are you a man of substance, my friend?'

'We have a good fief, my lord. My father holds of the Church of Rouen,
and the Church of the Duke. I serve with a hundred spears where I may, a
_routier_ if nothing better offer.'

'If I give you Jehane, what do you give me?'

'Thanks, my good lord, and faith, and long service.'

'Get up, Gilles,' said Richard.

Gilles kissed his knee, and rose. Richard put Jehane's hand into his and
held the two together.

'God serve me as I shall serve you, Gilles, if any harm come of this,'
he said shrewdly, with words that whistled in the air; and as Gilles
looked him squarely in the face, Richard ran an eye over him. Gilles was
found honest. Richard kissed Jehane on the forehead, and went out
without a look back. At the edge of the wood he found Gaston of Béarn
sucking his fingers.

'There went by here,' said the gay youth, 'a black knight with a face of
a raw meat colour, and the most villainous scowl ever you saw. I
consider him to be dead already.'

'I have given him something which should cure him of the scowl and
justify his colour,' answered him the Count. 'Moreover, I have given him
the chance of eternal life.' Then with a cry--'Oh, Gaston, let us get
to the South, see the sun fleck the roads, smell the oranges! Let us get
to the South, man! It seems I have entertained an angel. And now that I
have given her wings, and now that she is gone, I know how much I love
her. Speed, Gaston! We will go to the South, see Bertran, and make some
songs of good women and men in want!'

'Pardieu,' said Gaston. 'I am with you, Richard, for I am in want. I
have eaten nothing for two days.'

So they rode out of the woods of Saint-Pol-la-Marche, and Richard began
to sing songs of Jehane the Fair-Girdled; never truly her lover until he
might love her no more.




CHAPTER V

HOW BERTRAN DE BORN AND COUNT RICHARD STROVE IN A _TENZON_


Day-long and night-long he sang of her, being now in the poetic mood,
highly exalted, out of himself. The country took tints of Jehane, her
shape, her fine nobility. The thrust hills of the Vexin were her
breasts; the woods, being hot gold, her russet hair; in still green
water he read the secrets of her eyes; in the milk of October dawns her
calm brows had been dipped. The level light of the Beauce, so beneficent
yet so austere, figured her soul. Fair-girdled was Touraine by Vienne
and Loire; fair-girdled Jehane, who wore virgin candour about her loins
and over her heart a shield of blue ice. As far southwards as Tours the
dithyrambic prevailed; Richard was untiring in the hunt for analogues.
Thence on to Poictiers, where the country (being his own) was perhaps
more familiar; indeed, while he was climbing the grey peaks of
Montagrier with his goal almost in sight, he turned scholiast and
glossed his former raptures.

'You are not to tell me, Gaston,' he declared, 'that my Jehane has been
untrue. She was never more wholly mine than when she gave herself to
that other, never loved me more dearly. Such power is given to women to
lead this world. It is the power of the Word, who cut Himself off and
made us His butchers in pure love. I shall do my part. I shall wed the
French girl, who in my transports will never guess that in reality
Jehane will be in my arms.' Tears filled his eyes. 'For we shall be
wedded in the sight of heaven,' he said sighing.

'Deus!' cried Gaston here, 'Such marriages may be more to the taste of
heaven than of men, Richard. Man is a creature of sense.'

'He hath a spiritual part,' said Richard, 'so rarely hidden that only
the thin fingers of a girl may get in to touch it. Then, being touched,
he knows that it is quick. Let me alone; I am not all mud nor all devil.
I shall do my duty, marry the French girl, and love my golden Jehane
until I die.'

'That is the saying of a poet and king at once, said Gaston, and really
believed it.

So they came at dusk to Autafort, a rock castle on the confines of
Perigord, held by Bertran de Born.

It looked, and was, a robber's hold, although it had a poet for
castellan. Its walls merely prolonged the precipices on which they were
founded, its towers but lifted the mountain spurs more sharply to the
sky. It dominated two watersheds, was accessible only on one side, and
then by a ridgeway; from it the valley roads and rockstrewn hillsides
could be seen for many leagues. Long before Richard was at the gate the
Lord of Autafort had had warning, and had peered down upon his suzerain
at his clambering. 'The crows shall have Richard before Richard me,'
said Bertran de Born; so he had his bridge pulled up and portcullis let
down, and Autafort showed a bald face to the newcomers.

Gaston grinned. 'Hospitality of Aquitaine! Hospitality of your duchy,
Richard.'

'By my head,' said the Count, 'if I sleep under the stars I sleep at
Autafort this night. But hear me charm this plotter.' He called at the
top of his voice, 'Ha, Bertran! Come you down, man.' The surrounding
hills echoed his cries, the jackdaws wheeled about the turrets; but
presently came one and put his eye to the grille. Richard saw him.

'Is that you, then, Bertran?' he shouted. There was no answer, but the
spyer was heard breathing hard at his vent.

'Come out of your earth, red fox,' Richard chid him. 'Show your grievous
snout to the hills; do your snuffling abroad to the clear sky. I have
whipped off the hounds; my father is not here. Will you let starve your
liege-lord?'

At this the bolts were drawn, the bridge went down with a clatter, and
Bertran de Born came out--a fine stout man, all in a pother, with a red,
perplexed face, angry eyes, hair and beard cut in blocks, a body too big
for his clothes--a man of hot blood, fumes and rages. Richard at sight
of him, this unquiet sniffer of offences, this whirled about with
stratagems, threw back his head and laughed long and loud.

'O thou plotter of thine own dis-ease! O rider of nightmares, what harm
can I do thee? Not, believe me, a tithe of thy desert. Come thou here
straightly, Master Bertran, and take what I shall give thee.'

'By God, Lord Richard--' said Bertran, and boggled horribly; but the
better man waited, and in the end he came up sideways. Richard swung
from his horse, took his host by the shoulders, shook him well, and
kissed him on both cheeks. 'Spinner of mischief, red robber, singer of
the thoughts of God!' he said, 'I swear I love thee through it all,
Bertran, though I should do better to wring thy neck. Now give us food
and drink and clean beds, for Gaston at least is a dead man without
them. Afterwards we will sing songs.'

'Come in, come in, Richard,' said Bertran de Born.

       *       *       *       *       *

For a day or two Richard was bathed in golden calm, hugging his darling
thought, full of Jehane, fearful to share her. Often he remembered it in
later life; it held a place and commanded a mood which no hour of his
wildest possession could outvie. The mountain air, still, but latently
nimble, the great mountains themselves dreaming in the sunlight, the
sailing birds, hinted a peace to his soul whither his last conquest of
his baser part assured him he might soar. Now he could guess (thought
he) that quality in love which it borrows from God and shares with the
angels, ministers of God, the steady burning of a flame keen and hard.
So on an afternoon of weather serene beyond all belief of the North,
mild, tired, softly radiant, still as a summer noon; as he sat with
Bertran in a courtyard where were lemon-trees and a fountain, and above
the old white walls, and above the strutting pigeons, a square of blue,
he began to speak of his affairs, of what he had done and of what was to
do.

Bertran's was a grudging spirit: you shall hear the Abbot Milo upon that
matter anon, than whom there are few better qualified to speak. He
grudged Richard everything--his beauty, his knit and graceful body, his
brain like a sword, his past exploits, his present content. What it was
contented him he knew not altogether, though a letter from Saint-Pol had
in part advised him; but he was sure he had wherewithal to discontent
him. 'Foh! a juicy orange indeed,' he said to himself, 'but I can wring
him dry.' If Richard hugged one thought, Bertran hugged another, and
took it to bed with him o' nights. Now, therefore, when Richard spoke of
Jehane, Bertran said nothing, waiting his time; but when he went on to
Madame Alois and his duty (which really coloured all the former thought)
Bertran made a grimace.

'Rascal,' says Richard, shamming rough, 'why do you make faces at me?'

Bertran began jerking about like the lid of a boiling pot, and presently
sends a boy for his viol. At this, when it came, he snatched, and set to
plucking a chord here and a chord there, grinning fearfully all the
time.

'A _tenzon!_ A _tenzon!_ beau sire!' cries he. 'Now a _tenzon_ between
you and me!'

'Let it be so,' says Richard; 'have at you. I sing of the calm day, of
the sweets of true love.'

'Accorded,' says the other. 'And I sing of the sours of false love. Do
you set the mode, prince of blood royal as you are.'

Richard took the viol without after-thought and struck a few chords. A
great tenderness was in his heart; he saw Duty and himself hand in hand
walking a long road by night; two large stars beaconed the way; these
were Jehane's eyes. A watcher or two stole into the upper gallery,
leaned on the parapet and listened, for both men were renowned singers.
Richard began to sing of green-eyed Jehane, who wore the gold girdle,
whose hair was red gold. His song was--

     Li dous consire
     Quem don' Amors soven--

but I English it thus--

'That gentle thought which love will give sometimes is like a plait of
silk and gold, and so is this song of mine to be; wherein you shall find
a red deep cry which cometh from the heart, and a thin blue cry which is
the cry of what is virgin in my soul, and a golden long cry, the cry of
the King, and a cry clear as crystal and colder than a white moon: and
that is the cry of Jehane.'

Bertran, trembling, snatched at the viol. 'Mine to sing, Richard, mine
to sing! Ha, love me no more!'

     Cantar d' Amors non voilh,

he began--

'Your strands are warped and will not accord, for love will warp any
song. It turneth the heart of a man black, and the soul it eateth up. At
fourteen goes the virgin first a-wallowing; and soon the King croaks
like a hog. A plait! Love is a fetter of hot iron; so my song shall be
iron-cruel like the bidding of Jehane. Say now, shall I set the song?
The love-cry is the cry of a man who drags his way with his side torn;
and the colour of it is dry red, like old blood; and the sound thereof
maketh the hearers ache, so it quavers and shrills. For it cries only
two things: sorrow and shame.'

He misconceived his adversary who thought to quell him by such vapours.
Richard took the viol.

'Bertran, it is well seen that thou art pinched and have a torn side;
but ask of thy itching fingers who graved the wound. Dry thou art,
Bertran, for thy trough is dry; the husks prick thy gums, but there is
no other meat. Well may the hearers' ears go aching; for thy cry, man,
proceedeth from thy aching belly. But now I will set the song again, and
tell thee of a lady girdled with fine gold. Beneath the girdle beats a
red heart; but her spirit is like a spire of blue smoke, that comes from
a fire, indeed, but strains up to heaven. Warmed by that fire, like that
smoke I fly up; and so I lie among the stars with Jehane.'

Bertran's jaw was at work, mashing his tongue. 'Ah, Richard, is it so
with thee? Wait now while I strike a blow.' He made the viol scream.

'What if I twist the song awry, and give thee good cause to limp the
sorrowful way? What if for my aching belly I give thee an aching heart?
Eh, if my fingers scratch my side, there are worse talons at thine.
Watch for the Lion's claw, Richard, which tears not flesh but honour,
and gives more pain than any knife. Pain! He is King of Pain! Mend
that, then face sorrow and shame.'

Ending with a snap, he grinned more knowledge out of his red eyes than
he pronounced with his mouth. His terrible excitement, the labour and
sweat of it, set Richard's brows knitting. He stretched out his hand for
the viol slowly; and his eyes were cold on Bertran, and never off him
for a moment as he sang to this enemy, and judged him while he sang. The
note was changed.

'The Lion is a royal beast, a king, whose son am I. We maul not each
other in Anjou, save when the jackal from the South cometh snarling
between. Then, when we see the unclean beast, saith one, "Faugh! is this
your friend?" and the other, "Thou dost ill to say so." Then the blood
may flow and the jackal get a meal. But here there is none to come
licking blood. The prize is the White Roe of France, fed on the French
lilies, and now in safe harbour. She shall lie by the Leopard, and the
Lion rule the forest in peace because of the peace about him; and like a
harvest moon above us, clear of the trees, will be Jehane.'

'Listen, Richard, I will be clearer yet,' came from between Bertran's
teeth. He fairly ground them together. Having the viol, he struck but
one note upon it, with such rudeness that the string broke. He threw the
thing away and sang without it, leaning his hands on his knees, and
craning forward that he might spit the words.

'This is the bite of the song: she is forsworn. Harbour? She kept
harbour too long; she is mangled, she is torn. Touch not the Lion's
prey, Leopard. You go hunting too late--for all but sorrow and shame.'

Richard stretched not his hand again; his jaw dropped and most of the
strong colour died down in his face. Turned to stone, stiff and
immovable, he sat staring at the singer, while Bertran, biting his lip,
still grinning and twitching with his late effort, watched him.

'Give me the truth, thou.' His voice was like an old man's, hollow.

'As God is in heaven that is the truth, Richard,' said Bertran de Born.

The Count's head went up, as when a hound yelps to the sky: laughter
ensued, barking laughter--not mirth, not grief disguised, but mockery,
the worst of all. One on the gallery nudged his fellow; that other
shrugged him off. Richard stretched his long arms, his clenched fists to
the dumb sky. 'Have I bent the knee to good issues or not? Have I abased
my head? O clement prince! O judge in Israel! O father of kings! Hear
now a parable of the Prodigal: Father, I have sinned against heaven and
before thee, and thou art no more worthy to be called my father. O
glutton! O filching dog!'

'By the torch of the Gospel, Count Richard, what I sang is true,' said
Bertran, still tensely grinning, and now also wringing at his
hang-nails. Richard, checked by the voice, turned blazing upon him.

'Why, thou school-boy rhymester, that is the only merit thou hast, and
that not thine own! Thy japes are nought, thy tragics the mewing of
cats; but thy news, fellow, thy news is too rich matter for thy sewer
of a throat. Tragic? No, it is worse: it is comic, O heaven! Heed you
now--' In his bitter shame he began pantomiming with his fingers:--'Here
are two persons, father by the Grace of God, son by the grace of the
father. Saith father, "Son, thou art sprung from kings; take this woman
that is sprung from kings, for I have no further use for her." Anon
cometh a white rag thinly from the inner tent--mark her provenance. Son
kneeleth down. "Wilt thou have my son, cony?" saith father. "Yea, dear
heart," saith she. "'Tis my counterpart, mark you," saith father.
"Better than nothing at all," saith she. Benevolent father, supple-kneed
son, convenient lady. Here is agreement. And thus it ends.' Again he
laughed outright at the steel-blue face of the sky, then jumped in a
flash from his seat to the throat of Bertran. Bertran tumbled backwards
with a strangled cry, and Richard pegged him to the ground.

'Thou yapping cur, Bertran,' he grated, 'thou sick dog of my kennel, if
this snarl of thine goes true thou hast done a service to me and mine
thou knowest not of. There is little to do before I am the richest man
in Christendom. Why, dull rogue, thou hast set me free!' He looked up
exulting from his work at the man's throat to shout this word. 'But if
it is not true, Bertran'--he shook him like a rat--'if it is not true, I
return, O Bertran, and tear this false gullet out of its case, and with
thy speckled heart feed the crows of Périgord.' Bertran had foam on his
lips, but Richard showed him no mercy. 'As it is, Bertran,' he went on
with his teeth on edge, 'I am minded to finish thee. But that I need
something from thee I think I should do it. Tell me now whence came thy
news. Tell me, Bertran, or thou art in hell in a moment.'

He had to let him up to win from him after a time that his informant was
the Count of Saint-Pol. Little matter that this was untrue, the bringing
in of his name set wild alarums clanging in Richard's head. It was only
too likely to have been Saint-Pol's doing; there was obvious reason; but
by the same token Saint-Pol might be a liar. He saw that he must by all
means find Saint-Pol, and find him at once. He began to shout for
Gaston. 'To horse, to horse, Gaston!' The court rang with his voice; to
the clamour he made, which might betoken murder, arson, pillage, or the
sin against the Holy Ghost, out came the vassals in a swarm. 'To horse,
to horse, Béarnais! Where out of hell is Gaston of Béarn?' The devil of
Anjou was loose in Autafort that day.

Gaston came delicately last, drawing his beard through his fist, to see
Bertran de Born lie helpless in a lemon-bush hard by the wall. Richard,
quite beyond himself, exploded with his story, and so was sobered. While
Gaston made his comments, he, instead of listening, made comments of his
own.

'Dear Lord Richard,' said Gaston reasonably, 'if you do not know Bertran
by this time it is a strange thing and a pitiful thing. For it shows you
without any wit. He was appointed, it would seem, to be the thorn in
your rosebed of Anjou. What has he done since he was let be made but
set you all by the ears? What did he do by the young King but
miserably? What by Geoffrey? Is there a man in the world he hates more
than the old King? Yes, there is one: you. Take a token. The last time
they two met was in this very castle; and then the King your father
kissed him, and forgiving him Henry's death, gave him back his Autafort;
and Bertran too gave a kiss, that love might abound. Judas, Judas! And
what did Judas next? Dear Richard, let us think awhile, but not here.
Let us go to Limoges and think with the Viscount. But let us by all
means kill Bertran de Born first.'

During this speech, which had much to recommend it, Richard, as I have
told you, did his thinking by himself. He always cooled as suddenly as
he boiled over; and now, warily regarding the right hand and the left of
this monstrous fable, he saw that, though Saint-Pol might have played
fox in it, another must have played goat. He could not fail to remember
Louviers, and certain horrid mysteries which had offended him then with
only vague disgust, as for matters which were outside his own care. Now
they all took shape satyric, like hideous heads thrust out of the dark
to loll their tongues at him. To the shock of his first dismay succeeded
the onset of rage, white and cold and deadly as a night frost. Eh, but
he would meet his teeth in some throat! But he would go slowly to work,
clear the ground and stalk his prey. The leopard devises creeping death.
He made up his mind. Gaston he sent to the South, to Angoulesme, to
Périgord, to Auvergne, to Cahors. The horn must be heard at the head of
every brown valley, the armed men shadow every white road. He himself
went to his city of Poietiers.

Bertran de Born saw him go, and rubbed his hair till it stood like reeds
shaken by the wind. Whether he loved mischief or not (and some say he
breathed it); whether he had a grudge against Anjou not yet assuaged;
whether he was in league with Prince John, or had indeed thought to do
Prince Richard a service, let philosophers, experts of mankind,
determine. If he had a turn for dramatics he had certainly indulged it
now, and given himself strong meat for a new Sirvente of Kings. At least
he was very busy after Richard's departure, himself preparing for a long
journey to the South.




CHAPTER VI

FRUITS OF _THE TENZON_: THE BACK OF SAINT-POL, AND THE FRONT OF
MONTFERRAT


Count Richard found time, while he was at Poietiers awaiting the
Aquitanian levies, to write six letters to Jehane Saint-Pol. Of these
some, with their bearers, fell by the wayside. As luck would have it,
Jehane received but two, the first and the last. The first said: 'I am
in the way of liberty, but by a red road. Have hopes of me.' Jehane was
long in answering. One may picture the poor soul taking the dear and
wicked thing into the little chapel, laying it on the altar-stone warm
from her vest, restoring it after office done to that haven whence she
must banish its writer. Fortified, she replied with, 'Alas, my lord, the
way of liberty leads not to me; nor can I serve you otherwise than in
bonds. I pray you, make my yoke no heavier.--Your servant, in little
ease, Jehane.' This wistful unhappy letter gave him heartache; he could
scarcely keep himself at home. Yet he must, being as yet sure of
nothing. He replied in a second and third, a fourth and a fifth letter,
which never reached her. The last was sent when he had begun what he
thought fit to do at Tours, saying, 'I make war, but the cause is
righteous. Never misjudge me, Jehane.' There were many reasons why she
should not answer this.

Returning to his deeds at Poietiers, I pick up the story from the Abbot
Milo, whom he found there. The Count, you may judge, kept his own
counsel. Milo was his confessor, but at this time Richard was not in a
confessing humour; therefore Milo had to gather scandal as he could.
There was very little difficulty about this. 'In the city of Tours,' he
writes, 'in those middle days of Advent, it appears that rumour, still
gadding, was adrift with names almost too high for the writing. There
were many there who had no business; the Count of Blois, for instance,
the Baron of Chateaudun, the fighting Bishop of Durham (I fear, a
hireling shepherd), Geoffrey Talebot, Hugh of Saint-Circ. One reason of
this was that King Henry was in England, not yet come to an agreement
with the French King, nor likely to it if what we heard was true, yea,
or a tenth part of it. God forbid that I should write what these ears
heard; but this I will say. It was I who told the shocking tale to my
lord Richard, adding also this hint, that his former friend was involved
in it, Eudo Count of Saint-Pol. If you will believe me, not the tale of
iniquity moved him; but he received it with shut mouth, and eyes fixed
upon mine. But at the name of the Count of Saint-Pol he took a breath,
at the mention of his part in the business he took a deep breath, and
when he heard that this man was yet at Tours, he got up from his chair
and struck the table with his closed fist. Knowing him as I did, I
considered that the weather looked black for Saint-Pol.

'Next day Count Richard moved his hosts out of the fields by Poietiers
to the very borders of his country, and calling a halt at Saint-Gilles
and making snug against alarms, himself, with my lord Gaston of Béarn,
with the Dauphin of Auvergne also, and the Viscount of Béziers, crossed
the march into Touraine, and so came to Tours about a week before
Christmas, the weather being bright and frosty.'

It seems he did not take the abbot with him, for the rest of the good
man's record is full of morality, a certain sign that facts failed him.
There may have been reasons; at any rate the Count went into Tours in a
trenchant humour, with ears keen and wide for all shreds of report. And
he got enough and to spare. In the wet market-place, on the flags of the
great churchyard, by the pillars of the nave, in the hall, in the
chambers, in the inn-galleries; wherever men met or women whispered in
each other's necks, there flew the names of Alois, King Philip's sister,
and of King Henry, Count Richard's father. Richard made short work,
short and dry. It was in mid-hall in the Bishop's palace, one day after
dinner, that he met and stopped the Count of Saint-Pol.

'What now, beau sire?' says the Count, out of breath. Richard's eyes
were alight. 'This,' says he, 'that you lie in your throat.'

Count Eudo looked about him, and everywhere saw the faces of men risen
from the board intent on him. 'Strange words, beau sire,' says he, very
white. Richard raised his voice till the metal rang in it.

'But not strange doing, I think, on your part. This has been going on,
how long?'

Saint-Pol was stung. 'Ah, it becomes you very ill to reproach me, my
lord.'

'I think it becomes me excellently,' said Richard. 'You have lied for a
vile purpose; you have disgraced your name. You seek to drive me by
slander whither I may not go in honour. You lie like a broker. You are a
shameful liar.'

No man could stand this from another, however great that other; and
Saint-Pol was not a coward. He looked up at his adversary, still white,
but steady.

'How then?' he asked him, 'how then if I lie not, Count of Poictou? And
how if you know that I lie not?'

'Then,' said Richard, 'you use insult, which is worse.'

Saint-Pol took off his glove of mail and flung it with a clatter on the
floor.

'Since it has come to this, my lord--' Richard spiked the glove with his
sword, tossed it to the hammer-beams of the roof, and caught it as it
fell.

'It shall come nearer, Count, I take it.' Thus he finished the other's
phrase, then stalked out of the Bishop's house. It was then and there
that he wrote to Jehane that sixth letter, which she received: 'I make
war, but the cause is righteous. Never misjudge me, Jehane.'

The end of it was a combat _à outrance_ in the meads by the Loire, with
all Tours on the walls to behold it. Richard was quite frank about the
part he proposed to himself. 'The man must die,' he told the Dauphin of
Auvergne, 'even though he have spoken the truth. As to that I am not
sure, I am not yet informed. But he is not fit to live on any ground. By
these slanders of his he has disgraced the name and outraged the honour
of the most lovely lady in the world, whose truest misfortune is to be
his sister; by the same token I must punish him for the dignity of the
lady I am (at present) designed to wed. She is always the daughter of
his liege-lord. What!'--he threw his head up--'Is not a daughter of
France worth a broken back?'

'Tu-dieu, yes,' says the Dauphin; 'but it is a stoutish back, Richard.
It is a back which ranks high. Kings clap it familiarly. Conrad of
Montferrat calls it a cousin's back. The Emperor has embraced it at an
Easter fair.'

'I would as soon break Conrad's back as his, Dauphin, believe me,'
Richard replied; 'but Conrad has said nothing. And there is another
reason.'

'I have thought myself of a reason against it,' the Dauphin said
quickly, yet with a flutter of timidity. 'This man's name is Saint-Pol.'

Richard grew bleak in a moment. 'That,' he said, 'is why I shall kill
him. He seeks to drive us to marriage. Injurious beast! His name is
Pandarus.' Then he left the Dauphin and shut himself up until the day of
battle.

They had formed lists in the Loire meads: a red pavilion with leopards
upon it for the Count of Poictou, a blue pavilion streaked with
basilisks in silver for the Count of Saint-Pol. The crowd was very
great, for the city was full of people; in the tribune the King of
England's throne was left empty save for a drawn sword; but one sat
beside it as arbiter for the day of life and death, and that was Prince
John, Richard's brother, by Richard summoned from Paris, and most
unwillingly there. Bishop Hugh of Durham sat next him, and marvelled to
see the sweat glisten on his forehead on a day when all the world else
felt the north wind to their bones. 'Are you suffering, dear lord?' 'Eh,
Bishop Hugh, Bishop Hugh, this is a mad day for me!' 'By God,' thought
Hugh of Durham, 'and so it might prove, my man!'

They blew trumpets; and at the second sounding Saint-Pol, the
challenger, rode out on a big grey horse, himself in a hauberk of chain
mail with a coif of the same, and a casque wherein three grey heron's
feathers. This was the badge of the house: Jehane wore heron's feathers.
He had a blue surcoat and blue housings for his horse. Behind him,
esquire of honour, rode the young Amadeus of Savoy, carrying his banner,
a white basilisk on a blue field. Saint-Pol was a burly man, bearing his
honours squarely on breast and back.

They sounded for the Count of Poictou, who came presently out of his
tent and lightly swung himself into the saddle--a feat open to very few
men armed in mail. As he came cantering down the long lists no man could
fail to mark the size and splendid ease he had; but some said, 'He is
younger by five years than Saint-Pol, and not so stout a man.' He had a
red plume above his leopard crest, a white surcoat over his hauberk,
with three red leopards upon it. His shield was of the same blazon, so
also the housings of his horse. The Dauphin of Auvergne carried his
banner. The two men came together, saluted with ceremony, then turned
with spears uplift to the tribune, the throned sword, the sweating
prince beside it.

This one now rose up and caught at his chair, to give the signal. 'Oh,
Richard of Anjou, do thou on the body of Saint-Pol what thy faith
requires of thee; and do thou, Eudo, uphold the right thou hast, in the
name of God in Trinity and of our Lady.' The Bishop of Tours blessed
them both and the issue, they wheeled apart, and the battle began. It
was short, three careers long. At the first shock Richard unhorsed his
man; at the second he unhelmed him with a deep flesh-furrow in the
cheek; at the third he drove down horse and man together and broke the
Count's back. Saint-Pol never moved again.

The moment it was over, in the silence of all, Prince John came down
from the tribune and fell upon Richard's neck. 'Oh, dearest brother,'
cried he, 'what should I have done if the worst had befallen you? I
cannot bear to think of it.'

'Oh, brother,' Richard said very quietly, 'I think you would have borne
it very well. You would have married Madame Alois, and paid for a mass
or two for me out of the dowry.'

This raking shot was heard by everybody. John grew red as fire. 'Why,
what do you mean, Richard?' he stammered.

And Richard, 'Are my words so encumbered? Think them over, get them by
heart. So doing, be pleased to ride with me to Paris.' At this the
colour left John's face.

'Ah! To Paris?' He looked as if he saw death under a bush.

'That is where we must go,' said Richard, 'so soon as we have prayed for
that poor blind worm on the ground, who now haply sees wherein he has
offended.'

'Conrad of Montferrat, cousin of this dead, is there, Richard,' said the
other with intention; but Richard laughed.

'In a very good hour we shall find him. I have to give him news of his
cousin Saint-Pol. What is he there for?'

'It is in the matter of the kingdom of Jerusalem. He seeks Sibylla and
that crown, and is like to get them.'

'I think not, John, I think not. We will fill his head with other
thoughts; we will set it wanting mine. Your chance is a fair one yet,
brother.'

Prince John laughed, but not comfortably. 'Your tongue bites, Richard.'

'Pooh,' says Richard, 'what else are you worth? I save my teeth'; and
went his ways.

In Paris Richard repaired to the tower of his kinsman the Count of
Angoulesme, but his brother to the Abbey of Saint-Germain. The Poictevin
herald bore word to King Philip-Augustus on Richard's part; Prince John,
as I suppose, bore his own word whither he had most need for it to go.
It is believed that he contrived to see Madame Alois in private; and if
that great purple cape that held him in talk for nearly an hour by a
windy corner of the Prè-aux-Clercs did not cover the back of Montferrat,
then Gossip is a liar, Richard, for his part, took no account of John
and his shifts; a wave of disgust for the creeping youth had filled the
stronger man, and having got him into Paris there seemed nothing better
to do with him than to let him alone. But that sensitive gorge of
Richard's was one of his worst enemies: if he did not mean to hold the
snake in the stick, he had better not have cleft the stick. As for John
and his writhing, I am only half concerned with them; but let me tell
you this. Whatever he did or did not sprang not from hatred of this or
that man, but from fear, or from love of his own belly. Every prince of
the house of Anjou loved inordinately some member of himself, some a
noble member nobly, and others basely a base member. If John loved his
belly, Richard loved his royal head: but enough. To be done with all
this, Richard was summoned to the French King hot-foot, within a day or
two of his coming; went immediately with his chaplain Anselm and other
one or two, and was immediately received. He had, in fact, obeyed in
such haste that he found two in the audience-chamber instead of one.
With Philip of France was Conrad of Montferrat, a large, pale,
ruminating Italian, full of bluster and thick blood. The French King was
a youth, just the age of Jehane, of the thin, sharp, black-and-white
mould into which had run the dregs of Capet. He was smooth-faced like a
girl, and had no need to shave; his lips were very thin, set crooked in
his face. So far as he was boy he loved and admired Richard, so far as
he was Capet he distrusted him with all the rest of the world.

Richard knelt to his suzerain and was by him caught up and kissed.
Philip made him sit at his side on the throne. This put Montferrat, who
was standing, sadly out of countenance, for he considered himself (as
perhaps he was) the superior of any man uncrowned.

It seems that some news had drifted in on the west wind. 'Richard, oh,
Richard!' the King began, half whimsical and half vexed, 'What have you
been doing in Touraine?'

'Fair sire,' answered Richard, 'I have been doing what will, I fear,
give pain to our cousin Montferrat. I have been breaking the back of the
Count of Saint-Pol.' At this the Marquess, suffused with dark blood till
he was colour of lead, broke out, pointing his finger as well as his
words. As the bilge-water jets from a ketch when the hold is surcharged,
so did the Marquess jet his expletives.

'Ha, sire! Ha, King of France! Now give me leave to break this brigand's
back, who robs and reviles in one breath. Touch of the Gospel, is it to
be borne?' Foaming with rage, he lunged forward a step or two, his hand
upon his long sword. Richard slowly got up from the throne and stood his
full height.

'Marquess, you use words I will not hear--'

King Philip broke in--'Fair lords, sweet lords--'; but Richard put his
hand up, having a kingly way with him which even kings observed.

'Dear sire,'--his voice was level and cool--'let me say my whole mind
before the Marquess recovers his. The Count of Saint-Pol, for beastly
reasons, spoke in my hearing either true things or false things
concerning Madame Alois. If they were true I was ready to die; if they
were false I hope he was. Believing them false, I had punished one man
for them before; but he had them from Saint-Pol. Therefore I called
Saint-Pol a liar, and other proper things. This gave him occasion to
save his credit at the risk of his back. He broke the one and I the
other. Now I will hear the Marquess.'

The Marquess tugged at his sword. 'And I, Count of Poictou--'; but King
Philip held out his sceptre, he too very much a king.

'And we, Count of Poictou,' he said, 'command you by your loyalty to
tell us what Saint-Pol dared say of our sister Dame Alois.' Although his
thin boy's voice quavered, he seemed the more royal for the human
weakness. Richard was greatly moved, thawed in a moment.

'God forgive me, Philip, but I cannot tell thee--' Pity broke up his
tones.

The young king almost whimpered: 'Oh, Richard, what is this?' But
Richard turned away his face. It was now the chance of the great
Italian.

'Now listen, King Philip,' he said, grim and square, 'and listen you,
Count of Poictou, whose account is to be quieted presently. Of this
business I happen to know something. If it serve not your honour I
cannot help it. It serves my murdered cousin's honour--therefore
listen.'

Richard's head was up. 'Peace, hound,' he said, and the Marquess snarled
like an old dog; but Philip, with a quivering lip, put out his hand till
it touched Richard's shoulder. 'I must hear it, Richard,' he said.
Richard put his arm round the lad's neck: so the Marquess told his
story. At the end of it Richard dared look down into Philip's marred
eyes. Then he kissed his forehead, and 'Oh, Philip,' says he, 'let him
who is hardy enough to tell this tale believe it, and let us who hear it
do as we must. But now you understand why I made an end of Saint-Pol,
and why, by heaven and earth, I will make an end of this brass pot.' He
turned upon Montferrat with his teeth bare. 'Conrad, Conrad, Conrad!' he
cried terribly, 'mark your goings about this slippery world; for if when
I get you alone I do not send you quick into hell, may I go down myself
beyond redemption of the Church!'

'That you will surely do, my lord,' says the Marquess of Montferrat,
greatly disturbed.

'If I get you there also I shall be reasonably entertained for a short
time,' Richard answered, already cooled and ashamed of his heat. Then
King Philip dismissed the Marquess, and as soon as he was rid of him
jumped into Richard's arms, and cried his heart away.

Richard, who was fond of the youth, comforted him as well as he was
able, but on one point was a rock. He would not hear the word 'marriage'
until he had seen the lady. 'Oh, Richard, marry her quick, marry her
quick! So we can face the world,' the young King had blubbered, thinking
that course the simplest answer to the affront upon his house. It did
not seem so simple to the Count, or (rather) it seemed too simple by
half. In his private mind he knew perfectly well that he could not marry
Madame Alois. So, for that matter, did King Philip by this time. 'I
must see Alois, Philip, I must see her alone,' was all Richard had to
say; and really it could not be gainsaid.

He went to her after proper warning, and saw the truth the moment he had
view of her. Then also he knew that he had really seen it before. That
white, furtive, creeping girl, from whose loose hair peered out a pair
of haunted eyes; that drooped thing backing against the wall, feeling
for it, flat against it, with open shocked mouth, astare but seeing
nothing: the whole truth flared before him monstrously naked. He loathed
the sight of her, but had to speak her smoothly.

'Princess--' he said, and came forward to touch her hand; but she
slipped away from him, crouching to the wall. The torment of breath in
her bosom was bad to see.

'Touch me not, Count of Poictou;' she whispered the words, and then
moaned, 'O God, what will become of me?'

'Madame,' said Richard, rather dry, 'God may answer your question, since
He knows all things, but certainly I cannot, unless you first tell me
what has hitherto become of you.'

She steadied herself by the wall, her palms flat upon it, and leaned her
body forward like one who searches in a dark place. Then, shaking her
head, she let it fall to her breast. 'Is there any sorrow like my
sorrow?' says she to herself, as though he had not been there.

Richard grew stern. 'So asked in His agony the Son of high God,' he
reproved her. 'If you dare ask Him that in His own words your sorrow
must be deep.'

She said, 'It is most deep.'

'But His,' said Richard, 'was bitter shame.' She said, 'And mine is
bitter.'

'But His was undeserved.' He spoke scorn; so then she lifted up her
head, and with eyes most piteous searched his face. 'But mine, Richard,'
she said, 'but mine is deserved.'

'The hearing is pertinent,' said Richard. 'As a son and man affianced it
touches me pretty close.'

Out of the hot and desperate struggle for breath, sounds came from her,
but no words. But she ran forward blindly, and kneeling, caught him by
the knees; he could not but find pity in his heart for the witless poor
wretch, who seemed to be fighting, not with regret nor for need of his
pity, but with some maggot in the brain which drove her deeper into the
fiery centre of the storm. Richard did what he could. A religious man
himself, he pointed her to the Christ on the wall; but she waved it out
of sight, shook her wild hair back, and clung to him still, asking some
unguessed mercy with her eyes and sobbing breath. 'God help this
tormented soul, for I cannot,' he prayed; and said aloud, 'I will call
your women; let me go.' So he tried to undo her hands, but she clenched
her teeth together and held on with frenzy, whining, grunting, like some
pounded animal. Dumbly they strove together for a little panting space
of time.

'Ah, but you shall let me go,' he said then, much distressed, and
forcibly unknotted her mad hands. She fell back upon her heels, and
looked up at him. Such hopeless, grinning misery he had never seen on a
face before. He was certain now that she was out of her wits.

Yet once again she brushed her hands over her face, as he had seen her
do before, like one who sweeps gossamers away on autumn mornings; and
though she was all in a shiver and shake with the fever she had, she
found her voice at last. 'Ah, thanks! Ah, my thanks, O Christ my
Saviour!' she sighed. 'O sweet Saviour Christ, now I will tell him all
the truth.'

If he had listened to her then it had been well for him. But he did not.
The struggle had fretted him likewise; if she was mad he was maddened.
He got angry where he should have been most patient. 'The truth, by
heaven!' he snapped. 'Ah, if I have not had enough of this truth!' And
so he left her shuddering. As he went down the long corridor he heard
shriek after shriek, and then the scurrying of many feet. Turning, he
saw carried lights, women running. The sounds were muffled, they had her
safe. Richard went to his house over the river, and slept for ten hours.




CHAPTER VII

OF THE CRACKLING OF THORNS UNDER POTS


Just as no two pots will boil alike, so with men; they seethe in trouble
with a difference. With one the grief is taken inly: this was Richard's
kind. The French King was feverish, the Marquess explosive, John of
England all eyes and alarms. So Richard's remedy for trouble was action,
Philip's counsel, the Marquess's a glut of hatred, and John's plotting.
The consequence is, that in the present vexed state of things Richard
threw off his discontent with his bedclothes, and at once took the lead
of the others, because it could be done at once. He declared open war
against the King his father, despatching heralds with the cartel the
same day; he gave King Philip to understand that the French power might
be for him or against him as seemed fitting, but that no power in heaven
or on earth would engage him to marry Dame Alois. King Philip, still
clinging to his friend, made a treaty of alliance with him against Henry
of England. That done, sealed and delivered, Richard sent for his
brother John. 'Brother,' he said, 'I have declared war against my
father, and Philip is to be of our party. In his name and my own I am to
tell you that one of two things you must do. You may stay in our lands
or leave them; but if you stay you must sign our treaty of alliance.'
Too definite for John, all this: he asked for time, and Richard gave him
till nightfall. At dusk he sent for him again. John chose to stay in
Paris. Then Richard thought he would go home to Poictou. The moment his
back was turned began various closetings of the magnates left behind,
with which I mean to fatigue the reader as little as possible.

One such chamber-business I must record. To Paris in the black February
weather came pelting the young Count Eustace, now by his brother's death
Count of Saint-Pol. Misfortune, they say, makes of one a man or a saint.
Of Eustace Saint-Pol it had made a man. After his homage done, this
youth still kneeling, his hands still between Philip's hands, looked
fixedly into his sovereign's face, and 'A boon, fair sire!' he said. 'A
boon to your new man!'

'What now, Saint-Pol?' asked King Philip.

'Sire,' he said, 'my sister's marriage is in you. I beg you to give her
to Messire Gilles de Gurdun, a good knight of Normandy.'

'That is a poor marriage for her, Saint-Pol,' said the King,
considering, 'and a poor marriage for me, by Saint Mary. Why should I
enrich the King of England, with whom I am at war? You must give me
reason for that.'

'I will give you this reason,' said young Saint-Pol; 'it is because that
devil who slew my brother will have her else.'

King Philip said, 'Why, I can give her to one who will hold her fast.
Your Gurdun is a Norman, you say? Well, but Count Richard in a little
while will have him under his hand; and how are you served then?'

'I doubt, sire,' replied Saint-Pol. 'Moreover, there is this, if it
please you to hear it. When the Count of Poictou repudiated (as he most
villainously did) my sister, he himself gave her to Gurdun. But I fear
him, lest seeing her any other's he should take her again.'

'What is this, man?' asked King Philip.

'Sire, he writes letters to my sister that he is a free man, and she
keeps them by her and often reads them in secret. So she was caught but
lately by my lady aunt, reading one in bed.'

The King's brow grew very black, for though he knew that Richard would
never marry Madame, he did not choose (but resented) that any other
should know it. At this moment Montferrat came in, and stood by his
kinsman.

'Ah, sire,' said he, in those bloodhound tones of his, 'give us leave to
deal in this business with free hands.'

'What would you do in it, Marquess?' asked the King fretfully.

'Kill him, by God,' said the Marquess; and young Saint-Pol added, 'Give
us his life, O lord King.'

King Philip thought. He was fresh from making a treaty with Richard; but
that was in a war of requital only, and would be ended so soon as the
last drop had been drained from the old King. What would follow the war?
He was by this time cooler towards Richard, very much vexed at what he
had just heard; he could not help remembering that marriage with Alois
would have been the proper reply to scandalous report. Should he be
able, when the war was done, to squeeze Richard into marriage or an
equivalent in lands? He wondered, he doubted greatly. On the other hand,
if he and Richard could crush old Henry, and Saint-Pol afterwards bruise
Richard--why, what was Philip but a gainer?

Chewing the fringe of his mantle as he considered this and that,'If I
give Madame Jehane in marriage to your Gurdun,' he said dubiously, 'what
will Gurdun do?'

Saint-Pol named the sum, a fair one.

'But what part will he take in the quarrel?' asked the King.

'He will take my part, as he is bound, sire.'

'Pest!' cried Philip, 'let us get at it. What is this part of yours?'

'The part of him who has a blood-feud, my lord,' said young Saint-Pol;
and the Marquess said, 'That is my part also.'

'Have it according to your desires, my lords,' then said King Philip. 'I
give you this marriage. Make it as speedily as may be, but let not Count
Richard have news until it is done. There is a fire, I tell you, hidden
in that tall man. Remember this too, Saint-Pol. You shall not make war
on the side of England against Richard, for that will be against me.
Your feud must wait its turn. For this present I have an account to
settle in which Poictou is on my side. Marquess, you likewise are in my
debt. See to it that you give my enemies no advantage.'

The Marquess and his cousin gave their words, holding up the hilts of
their swords before their faces.

Richard, in his city of Poictiers, was calmly forwarding his plans. His
first act, since he now considered himself perfectly free, had been to
send Gaston of Béarn with letters to Saint-Pol-la-Marche; his second,
seeing no reason why he should wait for King Philip or any possible
ally, to cross the frontier of Touraine in force. He took castle after
castle in that rich land, clearing the way for the investiture of Tours,
which was his first great objective.

I leave him at this employment and follow Gaston on his way to the
North. It was early in March when that young man started, squally, dusty
weather; but perfect trobador as he was, the nature of his errand warmed
him; he composed a whole nosegay of scented songs in honour of Richard
and the crocus-haired lady of the March who wore the broad girdle.
Riding as he did through the realm of France, by Chateaudun, Chartres,
and Pontoise, he narrowly missed Eustace of Saint-Pol, who was galloping
the opposite way upon an errand dead opposed to his own. Gaston would
have fought him, of course, but would have been killed to a certainty;
for Saint-Pol rode as became his lordship, with a company, and the other
was alone. He was spared any such mischance, however, and arrived in the
highest spirits, with an _alba_ (song of the dawn) for what he supposed
to be Jehane's window. It shows what an eye he had for a lady's chamber
that he was very nearly right. A lady did put her head out; not Jehane,
but a rock-faced matron of vast proportions with grey hair plastered to
her cheeks.

'Behold, behold the dawn, my tender heart!' breathed Gaston.

'Out, you cockerel,' said the old lady, and Gaston wooed her in vain. It
appeared that she was an aunt, sworn to the service of the Count, and
had Jehane safe in a tower under lock and key. Gaston retired into the
woods to meditate. There he wrote five identic notes to the prisoner.
The first he gave to a boy whom he found birds'-nesting. 'Take a
turtle's nest, sweet boy,' said Gaston, 'to my lady Jehane; say it is
first-fruits of the year, and win a silver piece. Beware of an old lady
with a jaw like a flat-iron.' The second he gave to a woodman tying
billets for the Castle ovens; the third a maid put in her placket, and
he taught her the fourth by heart in a manner quite his own and very
much to her taste. With the fifth he was most adroit. He demanded an
interview with the duenna, whose name was Dame Gudule. She accorded.
Gaston spilled his very soul out before her; he knelt to her, he kissed
her large velvet feet. The lady was touched, I mean literally, for
Gaston as he stooped fitted his fifth note into the braid of her ample
skirt. The only one to arrive was the boy's in the bird's nest. The boy
wanted his silver piece, and got it. So Jehane had another note to
cherish.

But she had to answer it first. It said, '_Vera Copia_. Ma mye, I set on
to the burden you gave me, but it failed of breaking my back. I have
punished some of the wicked, and have some still to punish. When this is
done I shall come to you. Wait for me. I regret your brother's death.
He deserved it. The fight was fair. Learn of me from Gaston.--Richard of
Anjou.' Her answer was leaping in her heart; she led the boy to the
window.

'Look down, boy, and tell me what you can see.'

'_Dame_!' said the boy, 'I see the moat, and ducks on it.'

'Look again, dear, and tell me what you see.'

'I see an old fish on his back. He is dead.'

Jehane laughed quietly. 'He has been there many days. Tell the knight
who sent you to stand thereabout, looking up. Tell him not to be there
at any hour save that of mass, or vespers. Will you do this, dear boy?'

'Certain sure,' said the boy. Jehane gave him money and a kiss, then
fastened herself to the window.

Gaston excelled in pantomime. Every day for a week he saw Jehane at her
window, and enacted many strange plays. He showed her the old King
stormy in his tent, the meagre white unrest of Alois, the outburst at
Autafort and Bertran de Born with his tongue out; the meeting at Tours,
the battle, the death of the Count her brother. He was admirable on
Richard's love-desires. There could be no doubt at all about them.
Pricked by his feats in this sort, Jehane overcame her reserve and
turned her members into marionettes. She puffed her cheeks, hung her
head, scowled upwards: there was Gilles de Gurdun to the life. She
looped finger and thumb of the right hand and pierced them with the ring
finger: ohè! her fate. Gaston in reply to this drew his sword and ran a
cypress-tree through the body. Jehane shook a sorrowful head, but he
waved all such denials away with a hand so expressive that Jehane broke
the window and leaned her body out. Gaston uttered a cheerful cry.

Have no fear, lovely prisoner. If that is his intention he is gone. I
kill him. It is arranged.'

'My brother Eustace is in Paris,' says Jehane in a low but carrying
voice, 'to get my marriage from the King.'

'Again I say, fear nothing,' Gaston cried; but Jehane strained out as
far as she could.

'You must go away from here. The window is broken now, and they will
find me out. Take a message to my lord. If he is free indeed, he knows
me his in life or death. I seek to do him service. Wed or unwed, what is
that to me? I am still Jehane.'

'Your name is Red Heart, and Golden Rose, and Loiale Amye! Farewell,
Star of the North,' said Gaston on his knees. 'I seek this Gurdun of
yours.'

He found him after some days' perilous prowling of the Norman march.
Gilles had received the summons of his Duke to be _vi et armis_ at
Rouen; a little later Gaston might have met him in the field of broad
battle, but such delay was not to his mind. He met him instead in a
woodland glade near Gisors, alone (by a great chance), sword on thigh.

'Beef, thou diest,' said the Béarnais, peaking his beard. Gilles made no
reply that can be written, for what letters can shape a Norman grunt?
Perhaps 'Wauch!' comes nearest. They fought on horseback, with swords,
from noon to sunset, and having hacked one another out of the similitude
of men, there was nothing left them to do but swoon side by side on the
sodden leaves. In the morning Gaston, unclogging one eye, perceived that
his enemy had gone. 'No matter,' said the spent hero to himself. 'I will
wait till he comes back, and have at him again.'

He waited an unconscionable time, a month in fact, during which he
delighted to watch the shy oncoming of a Northern spring, so different
from the sudden flooding of the South. He found the wood-sorrel, he
measured the crosiers of the brake, and saw the blue mist of the
hyacinth carpet the glades. All this charmed him quite, until he
learned, by hazard, that the Sieur de Gurdun was to be married to Dame
Jehane Saint-Pol on Palm Sunday in the church of Saint Sulpice of
Gisors. 'God ha' mercy!' he thought, with a stab at the heart; 'there is
merely time.' He rode South on the wind's wings.




CHAPTER VIII

HOW THEY HELD RICHARD OFF FROM HIS FATHER'S THROAT


Long before the pink flush on the almond announced the earth a bride, on
all Gaulish roads had been heard the tramp of armed men, the ring of
steel on steel. This new war splintered Gaul. Aquitaine held for
Richard, who, though he had quelled and afterwards governed that great
duchy with an iron whip, had made himself respected there. So the Count
of Provence sent him a company, the Count of Toulouse and Dauphin of
Auvergne each brought a company; from Périgord, from Bertram Count of
Roussillon, from Béarn, and (for reasons) from the wise King of Navarre,
came pikemen and slingers, and long-bowmen, and knights with their
esquires and banner-bearers. The Duke of Burgundy and Count of Champagne
came from the east to fill the battles of King Philip; in the west the
Countess of Brittany sent about the war-torch. All the extremes of Gaul
were in arms against the red old Angevin who sat at her heart, who was
now still snarling in England, and sending message after secret message
to his son John. That same John, alone in Paris, headed no spears,
partly because he had none of his own, partly because he dared not
declare himself openly. He had taken a side, driven by his vehement
brother; for the first time in his life he had put pen to parchment.
God knew (he thought) that was committal enough. So he stayed in Paris,
shifting his body about to get comfort as the winds veered. Nobody
inquired of him, least of all his brother Richard, who, beyond requiring
his signature, cared little what he did with his person. This was
characteristic of Richard. He would drive a man into a high place and
then forget him. Reminded of his neglect, he would shrug and say, 'Yes.
But he is a fool.' Insufficient answer: he did not see or did not choose
to see that there are two sorts of fools. Stranded on his peak, one man
might be fool enough to stop there, another to try a descent. Prince
John (no fool either) was of this second quality. How he tried to get
down, and where else he tried to go, will be made clear in time. You and
I must go to the war in the west.

War showed Count Richard entered into his birthright. As a strategist he
was superb, the best of his time. What his eye took in his mind snapped
up--like a steel gin. And his eye was the true soldier's eye,
comprehending by signs, investing with life what was tongueless else.
Over great stretches of barren country--that limitless land of
France--he could see massed men on the move; creeping forward in snaky
columns, spread fanwise from clump to woody clump; here camping snugly
under the hill, there lining the river bluffs with winged death; checked
here, helped there by a moraine--as well as you or I may foresee the
conduct of a chess-board. He omitted nothing, judged times and seasons,
reckoned defences at their worth, knew all the fordable places by the
lie of the land, timed cavalry and infantry to rendezvous, forestalled
communications, provided not only for his own base, but against the
enemy's. All this, of course, without maps, and very much against the
systems of his neighbours. It was thus he had outwitted the heady barons
of Aquitaine when little more than a lad, and had turned the hill forts
into death-traps against their tenants. He had the secret of swift
marching by night, of delivering assault upon assault, so that while you
staggered under one blow you received another full. He could be as
patient as Death, that inchmeal stalker of his prey; he could be as
ruthless as the sea, and incredibly generous upon occasion. To the men
he led he was a father, known and beloved as such; it was as a ruler
they found him too lonely to be loved. In war he was the very footboy's
friend. Personally, when the battles joined, he was rash to a fault; but
so blithe, so ready, and so gracefully strong, that to think of wounds
upon so bright a surface was an impiety. No one did think of them: he
seemed to play with danger as a cat with whirling leaves. 'I have seen
him,' Milo writes somewhere, 'ride into a serry of knights, singing,
throwing up and catching again his great sword Gaynpayn; then, all of a
sudden, stiffen as with a gush of sap in his veins, dart his head
forward, gather his horse together under him, and fling into the midst
of them like a tiger into a herd of bulls. One saw nothing but tossing
steel; yet Richard ever emerged, red but scatheless, on the further
side.

Upon this man the brunt of war fell naturally: having begun, he did not
hold his hand. By the beginning of February he had laid his plans, by
the end of it he had taken Saumur, cut Angers off from Tours, and turned
all the valley of the Loire into a scorched cinder-bed. In the early
days of March he sat down before Tours with his siege-engines,
petraries, mangonels, and towers, and daily battered at the walls, with
intent to reduce it before the war was really afloat. The city of Saint
Martin was doomed; no help from Anjou could save it, for none could come
that way. Meantime the King his father had landed at Honfleur, assembled
his Normans at Rouen, and was working his way warily down through the
duchy, feeling for the French on his left, and for the Bretons on his
right. He never found the French; they were far south of him, pushing
through Orleans to join Richard at Le Mans. But the Countess of
Brittany's men, under Hugh of Dinan, were sacking Avranches when old
Henry heard the bad news from Touraine. That country and Maine were as
the apple of his eye; yet he dared not leave Avranches fated behind him.
All he could do was to send William the Marshal with a small force into
Anjou, while he himself spread out westward to give Hugh of Dinan battle
and save Avranches, if that might be. So it was that King Philip slipped
in between him and Le Mans. By this time Richard was master of Tours,
and himself on the way to Le Mans, nosing the air for William the
Marshal. This was in the beginning of April. Then on one and the same
day he risked all he had won for the sake of a girl's proud face, and
nearly lost his life into the bargain.

He had to cross the river Aune above La Flèche. That river, a sluggish
but deep little stream, moves placidly among osiers on its way to swell
the Loire. On either side the water-meadows stretch for three-quarters
of a mile; low chalk-hills, fringed at the top, are ramparts to the
sleepy valley. Creeping along the eastern spurs at dawn, Richard came in
touch with his enemy, William the Marshal and his force of Normans and
English. These had crossed the bridge at La Flèche, and came pricking
now up the valley to save Le Mans. Heading them boldly, Richard threw
out his archers like a waterspray over the flats, and while these
checked the advance and had the van in confusion, thundered down the
slopes with his knights, caught the Marshal on the flank, smote him hip
and thigh, and swept the core of his army into the river. The Marshal's
battle was thus destroyed; but the wedge had made too clean a cleft.
Front and rear joined up and held; so Richard found himself in danger.
The Viscount of Béziers, who led the rearguard, engaged the enemy, and
pushed them slowly back towards the Aune; Richard wheeled his men and
charged, to take them in the rear. His horse, stumbling on the rotten
ground, fell badly and threw him: there were cries, 'Holà! Count Richard
is down!' and some stayed to rescue and some pushed on. William the
Marshal, on a white horse, came suddenly upon him as he lay. 'Mort de
dieu!' shrilled this good soldier, and threw up his spear arm. 'God's
feet, Marshal, kill one or other of us!' said Richard lightly: he was
pinned down by his struggling beast. 'I leave you to the devil, my lord
Richard,' said the Marshal, and drove his spear into the horse's chest.
The beast's death-plunge freed his master. Richard jumped up: even on
foot his head was level with the rider's shield. 'Have at you now!' he
cried; but the Marshal shook his head, and rode after his flying men.
The day was with Poictou, Le Mans must fall.

It fell, but not yet; nor did Richard see it fall. Gaston of Béarn
joined his master the next day. 'Hasten, hasten, fair lord!' he cried
out as soon as he saw him. Richard looked as if he had never known the
word.

'What news of Normandy, Gaston?'

'The English are through, Richard. The country swarms with them. They
hold Avranches, and now are moving south.'

'They are too late,' said Richard. 'Tell me what message you have from
the Fair-Girdled.'

'Wed or unwed, she is yours. But she is kept in a tower until Palm
Sunday. Then they bring her out and marry her to what remains of a black
Normandy pig. Not very much remains, but (they tell me) enough for the
purpose.'

'Spine of God,' said Richard, examining his finger-nails.

'Swear by His heart, rather, my Count,' Gaston said, 'for you have a red
heart in your keeping. Eh, eh, what a beautiful person is there! She
leaned her body out of the window--what a shape that girdle confines!
Bowered roses! Dian and the Nymphs! Bosomed familiars of old Pan! And
what emerald fires! What molten hair! The words came shortly from her,
and brokenly, as if her carved lips disdained such coarse uses! Richard,
her words were so: "Take a message to my lord," quoth she. "I am his in
life or death. I seek to do him service. Wed or unwed, what is that to
me? I am still Jehane." Thus she--but I? Well, well, my sword spake for
me when I carved that beef-bone bare.' The Béarnais pulled his goatee,
and looked at the ends of it for split hairs. But Richard sat very
still.

'Do you know, Gaston, whom you have seen?' he said presently, in a
trembling whisper.

'Perfectly well,' said the other. 'I have seen a pale flower ripe for
the sun.'

'You have seen the Countess of Poictou, Gaston,' said Richard, and took
to his prayers.

Through these means, for the time, he was held off his father's throat.
But for Jehane and her urgent affairs these two had grappled at Le Mans.
As it was, not Richard's hand was to fire the cradle-city which had seen
King Henry at the breast. Before nightfall he had made his dispositions
for a very risky business. He set aside the Viscount of Béziers, Bertram
Count of Roussillon, Gaston of Béarn, to go with him, not because they
were the best men by any means, but so that he might leave the best men
in charge. These were certainly the Dauphin, the Viscount of Limoges,
and the Count of Angoulesme, each of whom he had proved as an enemy in
his day. 'Gentlemen,' he said to these three, 'I am about to go upon a
journey. Of you I shall require a little attention, certain patience,
exact obedience. It will be necessary that you be before the walls of Le
Mans in three days. Invest them, my lords, keep up your communications,
and wait for the French King. Give no battle, offer no provocation, let
hunger do your affair. I know where the King of England is, and shall be
with you before him.' He went on to be more precise, but I omit the
details. It was difficult for them to go wrong, but if the truth is to
be known, he was in a mood which made him careless about that. He was
free. He was going on insensate adventure; but he saw his road before
him once again, like a long avenue of light, which Jehane made for him
with a torch uplifted. Before it was day, armed from head to foot in
chain mail, with a plain shield, and a double-bladed Norman axe in his
saddle-bucket, he and his three companions set out on their journey.
They rode leisurely, with loose reins and much turning in the saddle to
talk, as if for a meet of the hounds.

Now was that vernal season of the year when winds are boon, the gentle
rain never far off, the stars in heaven (like the flowers on earth)
washed momently to a freshness which urges men to be pure. Riding day
and night through the green breadth of France, though he had been
plucked from the roaring pit of war, Richard (I know) went with a single
aim before him--to see Jehane again. Nothing else in his heart, I say.
Whatever purpose may have lurked in his mind, in heart he went clean,
single in desire, chanting the canticles of Mary and the Virgin Saints.
It was so. He had been seethed in wicked doings from his boyhood--I
give him you no better than he was: wild work in Poictou, the scour of
hot blood; devil's work in Touraine, riotous work in Paris, tyrannous in
Aquitaine. He had been blown upon by every ill report; hatred against
blood, blasphemy against God's appointment, violence, clamour, scandal
against charitable dealing: all these were laid to his name. He had
behind him a file of dead ancestors, cut-throats and worse. He had faced
unnameable sin and not blenched, laughed where he should have wept,
promised and broken his promise; to be short, he had been a creature of
his house and time, too young acquainted with pride and too proud
himself to deny it. But now, with eyes alight like a boy's because his
heart was uplift, he was riding between the new-budded woods, the
melodies of a singing-boy on his lips, and swaying before his heart's
eye the figure of a tall girl with green eyes and a sulky, beautiful
mouth. 'Lord, what is man?' cried the Psalmist in dejection. 'Lord, what
is man not?' cry we, who know more of him.

His traverse took him four days and nights. He rested at La Ferté, at
Nogent-le-Rotrou, outside Dreux, and at Rosny. Here he stayed a day, the
Vigil of the Feast of Palms. He had it in his mind not to see Jehane
again until the very moment when he might lose her.




CHAPTER IX

WILD WORK IN THE CHURCH OF GISORS


When in March the chase is up, and the hunting wind searches out the
fallow places of the earth, love also comes questing, desire is awake;
man seeks maid, and maid seeks to be sought. If man or maid have loved
already the case is worse; we hear love crying, but cannot tell where he
is, how or with what honesty to let him in. All those ranging days
Jehane--whether in bed cuddling her letters, or at the window of her
tower, watching with brimmed eyes the pairing of the birds--showed a
proud front of sufferance, while inly her heart played a wild tune. Not
a crying girl, nor one capable of any easy utterance, she could do no
more than stand still, and wonder why she was most glad when most
wretched. She ought to have felt the taint, to love the man who had
slain her brother; she might have known despair: she did neither. She
sat or stood, or lay in her bed, and pressed to her heart with both
hands the words that said, 'Never doubt me, Jehane,' or 'Ma mye, I shall
come to you.' When he came, as he surely would, he would find her a
wife--ah, let him come, let him come in his time, so only she saw him
again!

March went out in dusty squalls, and April came in to the sound of the
young lamb's bleat. Willow-palm was golden in the hedges when the King
of England's men filled Normandy, and Gilles de Gurdun, having been
healed of his wounds, rode towards Rouen at the head of his levy. He
went not without an understanding with Saint-Pol that he should have his
sister on Palm Sunday in the church of Gisors. They could not marry at
Saint-Pol-la-Marche, because Gilles was on his service and might not win
so far; nor could they have married before he went, because of his
ill-treatment at the hands of the Béarnais. Of this Gilles had made
light. 'He got worse than he gave,' he told Saint-Pol. 'I left him dead
in the wood.'

'Would you see Jehane, Gilles?' Saint-Pol had asked him before he went
out. 'She is in her turret as meek as a mouse.'

'Time enough for that,' said Gilles quietly. 'She loves me not. But I,
Eustace, love her so hot that I have fear of myself. I think I will not
see her.'

'As you will,' said Saint-Pol. 'Farewell.'

In Gisors, then a walled town, trembling like a captive at the knees of
a huge castle, there was a long grey church which called Saint Sulpice
lord. It stood in a little square midway between the South Gate and the
citadel, a narrow oblong place where they held the cattle market on
Tuesdays, flagged and planted with pollard-limes. The west door of Saint
Sulpice, resting on a stepped foundation, formed a solemn end to this
humble space, and the great gable flanked by turrets threatened the
huddled tenements of the craftsmen. On this morning of Palm Sunday the
shaven crowns of the limes were budded gold and pink, the sky a fair
sea-blue over Gisors, with a scurrying fleece of clouds like foam; the
poplars about the meadows were in their first flush, all the quicksets
veiled in green. The town was early afoot, for the wedding party of the
Sieur de Gurdun was to come in; and Gurdun belonged to the Archbishop,
and the Archbishop to the Duke. The bride also was reported unwilling,
which added zest to the public appetite for her known beauty. Some knew
for truth that she was the cast-off mistress of a very great man, driven
into Gurdun's arms to dispose of scandal and of her. 'Eh, the minion!'
said certain sniggering old women to whom this was told, 'she'll not
find so soft a lap at Gurdun!' But others said, 'Gurdun is the Duke's,
and will one day be the Duke's son's. What will Sieur Gilles do then
with his straining wife? You cannot keep your hawk on the cadge for
ever--ah, nor hood her for ever!' And so on.

All this points to some public excitement. The town gate was opened full
early, the booths about it did a great trade; at a quarter before seven
Sir Gilles de Gurdun rode in, with his father on his right hand, the
prior of Rouen on his left, and half a dozen of his kindred, fair and
solid men all. They were lightly armed, clothed in soft leather, without
shields or any heavy war-furniture: old Gurdun a squarely built,
red-faced man like his son, but with a bush of white hair all about his
face, and eyebrows like curved snowdrifts; the prior (old Gurdun's
brother's son) with a big nose, long and pendulous; Gilles' brother
Bartholomew, and others whom it would be tedious to mention. Gilles
himself looked well knit for the business in hand; all the old women
agreed that he would make a masterful husband. They stabled their horses
in the inn-yard, and went into the church porch to await the bride's
party.

A trumpet at the gate announced her coming. She rode on a little ambling
horse beside her brother Saint-Pol. With them were the portentous old
lady, Dame Gudule, William des Barres, a very fine French knight,
Nicholas d'Eu, and a young boy called Eloy de Mont-Luc, a cousin of
Jehane's, to bear her train. The gossips at the gate called her a wooden
bride; others said she was like a doll, a big doll; and others that they
read in her eyes the scorn of death. She took no notice of anything or
anybody, but looked straight before her and followed where she was led.
This was straightway into the church by her brother, who had her by the
hand and seemed in a great hurry. The marriage was to be made in the
Lady Chapel, behind the high altar.

Twenty minutes later yet, or maybe a little less, there was another
surging to the gate about the arrival of four knights, who came posting
in, spattered with mud and the sweat and lather of their horses. They
were quite unknown to the people of Gisors, but seen for great men, as
indeed they were. Richard of Anjou was the first of them, a young man of
inches incredible to Gisors. 'He had a face like King Arthur's of
Britain,' says one: 'A red face, a tawny beard, eyes like stones.'
Behind him were three abreast: Roussillon, a grim, dark, heavy-eyed
man, bearded like a Turk; Béziers, sanguine and loose-limbed, a man with
a sharp tongue; Gaston of Béarn, airy hunter of fine phrases, looking
now like the prince of a fairy-tale, with roving eyes all a-scare for
adventure. The warders of the gate received them with a flourish. They
knew nothing of them, but were certain of their degree.

By preconcerted action they separated there. Roussillon and Béziers sat
like statues within the gate, one on each side of the way, actually upon
the bridge; and so remained, the admired of all the booths. Gaston, like
a yeoman-pricker in this hunting of the roe, went with Richard to the
edge of the covert, that is, to the steps of Saint Sulpice, and stood
there holding his master's horse. What remained to be done was done with
extreme swiftness. Richard alone, craning his head forward, stooping a
little, swaying his scabbarded sword in his hand, went with long soft
strides into the church.

At the entry he kneeled on one knee, and looked about him from under his
brows. Three or four masses were proceeding; out of the semi-darkness
shone the little twinkling lights, and illuminated faintly the kneeling
people, a priest's vestment, a silver chalice. But here was neither
marriage nor Jehane. He got up presently, and padded down the nave,
kneeling to every altar as he went. Many an eye followed him as he
pushed on and past the curtain of the ambulatory. They guessed him for
the wedding, and so (God knows) he was. In the shadow of a great pillar
he stopped short, and again went down on his knee; from here he could
see the business in train.

He saw Jehane at prayer, in green and white, kneeling at her faldstool
like a painted lady on an altar tomb; he just saw the pure curve of her
cheek, the coiled masses of her hair, which seemed to burn it. All the
world with the lords thereof was at his feet, but this treasure which he
had held and put away was denied him. By his own act she was denied. He
had said Yea, when Nay had been the voice of heart and head, of honour
and love and reason at once; and now (close up against her) he knew that
he was to forbid his own grant. He knew it, I say; but until he saw her
there he had not clearly known it. Go on, I will show you the deeps of
the man for good or bad. Not lust of flesh, but of dominion, ravened in
him. This woman, this Jehane Saint-Pol, this hot-haired slip of a girl
was his. The leopard had laid his paw upon her shoulder, the mark was
still there; he could not suffer any other beast of the forest to touch
that which he had printed with his own mark, for himself.

Twi-form is the leopard; twi-natured was Richard of Anjou, dog and cat.
Now here was all cat. Not the wolf's lust, but the lion's jealous rage
spurred him to the act. He could see this beautiful thing of flesh
without any longing to lick or tear; he could have seen the frail soul
of it, but half-born, sink back into the earth out of sight; he could
have killed Jehane or made her as his mother to him. But he could not
see one other get that which was his. His by all heaven she was. When
Gurdun squared himself and puffed his cheeks, and stood up; when
Jehane, touched by Saint-Pol on the shoulder, shivered and left staring,
and stood up in turn, swaying a little, and held out her thin hand; when
the priest had the ring on his book, and the two hands, the red and the
white, trembled to the touch--Richard rose from his knee and stole
forward with his long, soft, crouching stride.

So softly he trod that the priest, old and blear-eyed as he was, saw him
first: the others had heard nothing. With Jehane's hand in his own, the
priest stopped and blinked. Who was this prowler, afoot when all else
were on their knees? His jaw dropped; you saw that he was toothless.
Inarticulate sounds, crackling and dry, came from his throat. Richard
had stopped too, tense, quivering for a spring. The priest gave a
prodigious sniff, turned to his book, looked up again: the crouching man
was still there--but imminent. 'Wine of Jesus!' said the priest, and
dropped Jehane's hand. Then she turned. She gave a short cry; the whole
assembly started and huddled together as the mailed man made his spring.

It was done in a flash. From his crouched attitude he went, as it
seemed, at one bound. That same shock drove Gilles de Gurdun back among
his people, and the same found Jehane caged in a hoop of steel. So he
affronting and she caught up stood together, for a moment. With one
mailed hand he held her fast under the armpit, with the other he held a
fidgety sword. His head was thrown back; through glimmering eyelids he
watched them--as one who says, What next?--breathing short through his
nose. It was the attitude of the snatching lion, sudden, arrogant,
shockingly swift; a gross deed, done in a flash which was its wonderful
beauty. While the company was panting at the shock--for barely a
minute--he stood thus; and Jehane, quiet under so fierce a hold, leaned
not upon him, but stood her own feet fairly, her calm brows upon a level
with his chin. Shameful if it was, at that moment of rude conquest she
had no shame, and he no thought of shame.

Nor was there much time for thought at all. Gurdun cried on the name of
God and started forward; at the same instant Saint-Pol made a rush, and
with him Des Barres. Richard, with Jehane held close, went backwards on
the way he had come in. His long arm and long sword kept his distance;
he worked them like a scythe. None tackled him there, though they
followed him up as dogs a boar in the forest; but old Gurdun, the
father, ran round the other way to hold the west door. Richard, having
gained the nave and open country (as it were), went swiftly down it,
carrying Jehane with ease; he found the strenuous old man before the
door. 'Out of my way, De Gurdun,' he cried in a high singing voice, 'or
I shall do that which I shall be sorry for.'

'Bloody thief,' shouted old Gurdun, 'add murder to the rest!' Richard
stretched his sword arm stiffly and swept him aside. He tumbled back;
the crowd received him--priests, choristers, peasants, knights, all
huddled together, baying like dogs. Count Richard strode down the
steps.

'Alavi! Alavia!' sang Gaston, 'this is a swift marriage!' Richard,
cooler than circumstances warranted, set Jehane on his saddle, vaulted
up behind her, and as his pursuers were tumbling down the steps,
cantered over the flags into the street. Roussillon and Béziers, holding
the bridge, saw him come. 'He has snatched his Sabine woman,' said
Béziers. 'Humph,' said Roussillon; 'now for beastly war.' Richard rode
straight between them at a hand-gallop; Gaston followed close, cheering
his beast like a maniac. Then the iron pair turned inwards and rode out
together, taking the way he led them, the way of the Dark Tower.

The wonder of Gisors was all dismay when it was learned who this tall
stranger was. The Count of Poictou had ridden into his father's country
and robbed his father's man of his wife. We are ruled by devils in
Normandy, then! There was no immediate pursuit. Saint-Pol knew where to
find him; but (as he told William des Barres) it was useless to go there
without some force.




CHAPTER X

NIGHT-WORK BY THE DARK TOWER


I chronicle wild doings in this place, and have no time for the sweets
of love long denied. But strange as the bridal had been, so the nuptials
were strange, one like the other played to a steel undertone. When
Richard had his Jehane, at first he could not enjoy her. He rode away
with her like a storm; the way was long, the pace furious. Not a word
had passed between them, at least not a reasoned word. Once or twice at
first he leaned forward over her shoulder and set his cheek to her
glowing cheek. Then she, as if swayed by a tide, strained back to him,
and felt his kisses hot and eager, his few and pelting words, 'My
bride--at last--my bride!' and the pressure of his hand upon her heart.
That hand knows what tune the heart drummed out. Mostly she sat up
before him stiff as a sapling, with eyes and ears wide for any hint of
pursuit. But he felt her tremble, and knew she would be glad of him yet.

After all, they had six burning days for a honeymoon, days which made
those three who with them held the tower wonder how such a match could
continue. Richard's love rushed through him like a river in flood, that
brims its banks and carries down bridges by its turbid mass; but hers
was like the sea, unresting, ebbing, flowing, without aim or sure
direction. As is usual with reserved persons, Jehane's transports, far
from assuaging, tormented her, or seemed a torment. She loved uneasily,
by hot and cold fits; now melting, now dry, now fierce in demand, next
passionate in refusal. To snatch of love succeeded repulsion of love.
She would fling herself headlong into Richard's arms, and sob there,
feverish; then, as suddenly, struggle for release, as one who longs to
hide herself, and finding that refused, lie motionless like a woman of
wax. Whether embraced or not, out of touch with him she was desperate.
She could not bear that, but sought (unknown to him) to have hold of
some part of him--the edge of his tunic, the tip of his sword, his
glove--something she must have. Without it she sat quivering, throbbing
all over, looking at him from under her brows and biting her dumb lips.
If at such a time as this some other addressed her the word (as, to free
her from her anguish, one would sometimes do), she would perhaps answer
him, Yes or No, but nothing more. Usually she would shake her head
impatiently, as if all the world and its affairs (like a cloud of flies)
were buzzing about her, shutting out sound or sight of her Richard. Love
like this, so deep, outwardly still, inwardly ravening (because
insatiable), is a dreadful thing. No one who saw Jehane with Richard in
those days could hope for the poor girl's happiness. As for him, he was
more expansive, not at all tortured by love, master of that as of
everything else. He teased her after the first day, pinched her ear,
held her by the chin. He used his strange powers against her; stole up
on his noiseless feet, caught her hands behind her, held her fast, and
pulled her back to be kissed. Once he lifted her up, a sure prisoner, to
the top shelf of a cupboard, whence there was no escape but by the way
she had gone. She stayed there quite silent, and when he opened the
cupboard doors was found in the same tremulous, expectant state, her
eyes still fixed upon him. Neither he nor she, publicly at least,
discussed the past, the present or future; but it was known that he
meant to make her his Countess as soon as he could reach Poictiers. To
the onlookers, at any rate to one of them, it seemed that this could
never be, and that she knew very well that the hours of this sharp,
sweet, piercing intercourse were numbered. How could it last? How could
she find either reason or courage to hope it? It seemed to Béziers, on
the watch, that she was awaiting the end already. One is fretted to a
rag by waiting. So Jehane dared not lose a moment of Richard, yet could
enjoy not one, knowing that she must soon lose all.

Those six clear days of theirs had been wiselier spent upon the west
road; but Richard's desire outmastered every thought. Having snatched
Jehane from the very horns of the altar, he must hold her, make her his
irrevocably at the first breathing place. Dealing with any but Normans,
he had never had his six days. But the Norman people, as Abbot Milo
says, 'slime-blooded, slow-bellies, are withal great eaters of beef,
which breeds in them, as well as a heaviness of motion, a certain
slumbrous rage very dangerous to mankind. They crop grief after grief,
chewing the cud of grievance; for when they are full of it they disgorge
and regorge the abhorred sum, and have stuff for their spleens for many
a year.' Even more than this smouldering nursed hate they love a
punctilio; they walk by forms, whether the road is to a lady's heart or
an enemy's throat. And so Saint-Pol found, and so Des Barres, Frenchmen
both and fiery young men, who shook their fists in the faces of the
Gurduns and the dust of such blockish hospitallers off their feet, when
they saw the course affairs were to run. Gilles de Gurdun, if you will
believe it, with the advice of his father and the countenance of his
young brother Bartholomew, would not budge an inch towards the recovery
of his wife or her ravisher's punishment until he had drawn out his
injury fair on parchment. This he then proposed to carry to his Duke,
old King Henry. 'Thus,' said the swart youth, 'I shall be within the law
of my land, and gain the engines of the law on my side.' He seemed to
think this important.

'With your accursed scruples,' cried Saint-Pol, smiting the table, 'you
will gain nothing else. Within your country's law, blockhead! Why, my
sister is within the Count's country by this time!'

'Oh, leave him, leave him, Eustace,' said Des Barres, 'and come with me.
We shall meet him in the fair way yet, you and I together.' So the
Frenchmen rode away, and Gilles, with his father and his parchments and
his square forehead, went to Evreux, where King Henry then was.
Kneeling before their Duke, expounding their gravamens as if they were
suing out a writ of _Mort d'Ancestor_, they very soon found out that he
was no more a Norman than Saint-Pol. The old King made short work of
their '_ut predictum ests_' and '_Quaesumus igiturs_.'

'Good sirs,' says he, knitting his brows, 'where is this lord who has
done you so much injury?'

'My lord,' they report, 'he has her in his strong tower on the plain of
Saint-André, some ten leagues from here.'

Then cries the old King, 'Smoke him out, you fools! What! a badger. Draw
the thief.'

Then Gilles the elder flattened his lips together and afterwards pursed
them. 'Lord,' he said, 'that we dare not do without your express
commandment.'

'Why, why,' snaps the King, 'if I give it you, my solemn fools?'

Young Gilles stood up, a weighty youth. 'Lord Duke,' he said, 'this lord
is the Count of Poictou, your son.' It had been a fine sight for sinful
men to see the eyes of the old King strike fire at this word. His
speech, they tell me, was terrible, glutted with rage.

'Ha, God!' he spluttered, cracking his fingers, 'so my Richard is the
badger, ha? So then I have him, ha? If I do not draw him myself, by the
Face!'

It is said that Longespée (a son of his by Madame Rosamund) and Geoffrey
(another bastard), with Bohun and De Lacy and some more, tried to hinder
him in this design, wherein (said they) he set out to be a second
Thyestes; but they might as well have bandied words with destiny. 'War
is war,' said the foaming old man, 'whether with a son or a grandmother
you make it. Shall my enemy range the field and I sit at home and lap
caudle? That is not the way of my house.' He would by all means go that
night, and called for volunteers. His English barons, to their credit,
flatly refused either to entrap the son of their master or to abandon
the city at a time so critical. 'What, sire!' cried they, 'are private
resentments, like threadworms, to fret the dams of the state? The floods
are out, my lord King, and brimming at the sluices. Be advised
therefore.'

No wearer of the cap of Anjou was ever advised yet. I can hear in fancy
the gnashing of the old lion's fangs, in fancy see the foam he churned
at the corners of his mouth. He went out with such men as he could
gather in his haste, nineteen of them in all. There were old Gilles and
young Gilles with their men; eight of the King's own choosing, namely,
Drago de Merlou, Armand Taillefer, the Count of Ponthieu, Fulk
Perceforest, Fulk D'Oilly, Gilbert FitzReinfrid, Ponce the bastard of
Caen, and a butcher called Rolf, to whom the King, mocking all chivalry,
gave the gilt spurs before he started. He did not wear them long. The
nineteenth was that great king, bad man, and worse father, Henry
Curtmantle himself.

It was a very dark night, without moon or stars, a hot and still night
wherein a man weather-wise might smell the rain. The going upon the moor
was none too good in a good light; yet they tell me that the old King
went spurring over brush and scrub, over tufted roots, through ridge and
hollow, with as much cheer as if the hunt was up in Venvil Wood and
himself a young man. When his followers besought him to take heed, all
he would do was snap his fingers, the reins dangling loose, and cry to
the empty night, 'Hue, Brock, hue!' as if he was baiting a badger. This
badger was the heir to his crown and dignity.

In the Dark Tower they heard him coming three miles away. Roussillon was
on the battlements, and came down to report horsemen on the plain.
'Lights out,' said Richard, and gave Jehane a kiss as he set her down.
They blew out all the lights, and stood two to each door; no one spoke
any more. Jehane sat by the darkened fire with a torch in her hand,
ready to light it when she was bid.

Thus when the Normans drew near they found the tower true to its name,
without a glimmer of light. 'Let alone for that,' said the King, whose
grating voice they heard above all the others; 'very soon we will have a
fire.' He sent some of his men to gather brushwood, ling, and dead
bracken; meantime he began to beat at the door with his axe, crying like
a madman, 'Richard! Richard! Thou graceless wretch, come out of thy
hold.'

Presently a little window-casement opened above him; Gaston of Béarn
poked out his head.

'Beau sire,' he says, 'what entertainment is this for the Count your
son?'

'No son of mine, by the Face!' cried the King. 'Let that woman I have
caged at home answer for him, who defies me for ever. Let me in, thou
sickly dog.'

Gaston said, 'Beau sire, you shall come in if you will, and if you come
in peace.'

Says the King, 'I will come in, by God, and as I will.'

'Foul request, King,' said Gaston, and shut the window.

'Have it as you will; it shall be foul by and by,' the King shouted to
the night. He bid them fire the place.

To be short, they heaped a wood-stack before the door and set it ablaze.
The crackling, the tossed flames, the leaping light, made the King
drunk. He and his companions began capering about the fire with linked
arms, hounding each other on with the cries of countrymen who draw a
badger--'Loo, loo, Vixen! Slip in, lass! Hue, Brock, hue, hue!' and
similar gross noises, until for very shame Gilles and his kindred drew
apart, saying to each other, 'We have let all hell loose, Legion and his
minions.' So the two companies, the grievous and the aggrieved, were
separate; and Richard, seeing this state of the case, took Roussillon
and Béziers out by the other door, got behind the dancers, attacked
suddenly, and drove three of them into the fire. 'There,' says the
chronicler, 'the butcher Sir Rolf got a taste of his everlasting
torments, there FitzReinfrid lay and charred; there Ponce of Caen, ill
born, made a foul smoke as became him.' Turning to go in again, the
three were confronted with the Norman segregates. Great work ensued by
the light of the fire. Gilles the elder was slain with an axe, and if
with an axe, then Richard slew him, for he alone was so armed. Gilles
the younger was wounded in the thigh, but that was Roussillon's work;
his brother Bartholomew was killed by the same terrific hitter; Béziers
lost a finger of his sword hand, and indeed the three barely got in with
their lives. The old King set up howling like a wolf in famine at this
loss; what comforted him was that the fire had eaten up the southern
door and disclosed the entry of the tower--Jehane holding up a torch,
and before her Gaston, Richard, and Bertram of Roussillon, their shields
hiding their breasts.

'Lords,' said Richard, 'we await your leisures.' None cared to attack:
there was the fire to cross, and in that narrow entry three desperate
blades. What could the old King do? He threatened hell and death, he
cursed his son more dreadfully, and (you may take it) with far less
reason, than Almighty God cursed Sodom and Gomorrah, cities of the
plain; but Richard made no answer, and when, quite beside himself, the
old man leaped the fire and came hideously on to the swords, the points
dropped at his son's direction. Almost crying, the King turned to his
followers. 'Taillefer, will you see me dishonoured? Where is Ponthieu?
Where is Drago?' So at last they all attacked together, coming on with
their shields before them, in a phalanx. This was a device that needs
must fail; they could not drive a wedge where they could not get in the
point. The three defending shields were locked in the entry. Two men
fell at the first assault, and Richard's terrible axe crashed into
Perceforest's skull and scattered his brains wide. Red and breathless
work as it was, it was not long adoing. The King was dismayed at the
killing of Perceforest, and dared risk no more lives at such long odds.
'Fire the other door, Drago,' he said grimly. 'We'll have the place down
upon them.' The Normans were set to engage the three while others went
to find fuel.

The Viscount of Béziers had had his hand dressed by Jehane, and was now
able to take his turn. It was by a ruse of his that Richard got away
without a life lost. With Jehane to help him, he got the horses trapped
and housed. 'Now, Richard,' he said, 'listen to my proposals. I am going
to open the north door and make away before they fire it. I shall have
half of them after me as I reckon; but whereas I shall have a good start
on a fresh horse, I doubt not of escape. Do you manage the rest: there
will be three of you.'

Richard approved. 'Go, Raimon,' he said. 'We will join you on the edge
of the plain.'

This was done. Jehane, when Béziers was ready, flung open the door. Out
he shot like a bolt, and she shut it behind him. The old King got wind
of him, spurred off with five or six at his heels, such as happened to
be mounted. Richard fell back from the entry, got out his horse, and
came forward. As he came he stooped and picked up Jehane, who, with a
quick nestling movement, settled into his shield arm. Roussillon and
Gaston in like manner got their horses; then at a signal they drove out
of the tower into the midst of the Normans. There was a wild scuffle.
Richard got a side blow on the knee, but in return he caught Drago de
Merlou under the armpit and well-nigh cut him in half. Taillefer and
Gilles de Gurdun set upon him together, and one of them wounded him in
the shoulder. But Taillefer got more than he gave, for he fell almost as
he delivered his blow, and broke his jaw against a rock. As for Gurdun,
Richard hurtled full into him, bore him backwards, and threw him also.
Jehane safe in arms, he rode over him where he lay. But lastly, pounding
through the tussocks in the faint grey light, he met his father charging
full upon him, intent to cut him off. 'Avoid me, father,' he cried out.
'By God,' said the King, 'I will not. I am for you, traitorous beast.'
They came together, and Richard heard the old man's breath roaring like
a foundered horse's. He held his sword arm out stiffly to parry the
blow. The King's sword shivered and fell harmless as Richard shot by
him. Turning as he rode (to be sure he had done him no more hurt), he
saw the wicked grey face of his father cursing him beyond redemption;
and that was the last living sight of it he had.

They got clean away without the loss of a man of theirs, reached the
lands of the Count of Perche, and there found a company of sixty knights
come out to look for Richard. With them he rode down through Maine to Le
Mans, which had fallen, and now held the French King. Richard's
triumphant humour carried him strange lengths. As they came near to the
gates of Le Mans, 'Now,' he said, 'they shall see me, like a pious
knight, bear my holy banner before me.' He made Jehane stand up in the
saddle in front of him; he held her there firmly by one long arm. So he
rode in the midst of his knights through the thronged streets to the
church of Saint-Julien, Jehane Saint-Pol pillared before him like a
saint. The French king made much of him, and to Jehane was respectful.
Prince John was there, the Duke of Burgundy, the Dauphin of Auvergne,
all the great men. To Richard was given the Bishop's house; Jehane
stayed with the Canonesses of Prémonstre. But he saw her every day.




CHAPTER XI

OF PROPHECY; AND JEHANE IN THE PERILOUS BED


Well may the respectable Abbot Milo despond over this affair. Hear him,
and conceive how he shook his head. 'O too great power of princes,' he
writes, 'lodged in a room too frail! O wagging bladder that serves as
cushion for a crown! O swayed by idle breath, seeming god that yet is a
man, man driven by windy passion, that has yet to ape the god's estate!
Because Richard craved this French girl, therefore he must take her, as
it were, from the lap of her mother. Because he taught her his nobility,
which is the mere wind in a prince's nose, she taught him nobility
again. Then because a prince must not be less noble than his nobles (but
always _primus inter pares_), he, seeing her nobly disposed, gave her
over to a man of her own choosing; and immediately after, unable to bear
it that a common person should have what he had touched, took her away
again, doing slaughter to get her, to say nothing of outrage in the
church. Last of all, as you are now to hear, thinking that too much
handling was dishonour to the thin vessel of her body, touched on the
generous spot, he made bad worse; he added folly to force; he made a
marriage where none could be; he made immortal enmities, blocked up
appointed roads, and set himself to walk others with a clog on his leg.
Better far had she been a wanton of no account, a piece of dalliance, a
pastime, a common delight! She was very much other than that. Dame
Jehane was a good girl, a noble girl, a handsome girl of inches and
bright blood; but by the Lord God of Israel (Who died on the Tree),
these virtues cost her dear.'

All this, we may take it, is true; the pity is that the thing promised
so fair. Those who had not known Jehane before were astonished at her
capacity, discretion, and dignity. She had a part to play at Le Mans,
where Richard kept his Easter, which would have taxed a wiser head. She
moved warily, a poor thing of gauze, amid those great lights. King
Philip had a tender nose; a very whiff of offence might have drawn
blood. Prince John had a shrewd eye and an evil way of using it; he
stroked women, but they seldom liked it, and never found good come of
it. The Duke of Burgundy ate and drank too much. He resembled a sponge,
when empty too rough a customer, when full too juicy. It was on one of
the days when he was very full that, tilting at the ring, he won, or
said he won, forty pounds of Richard. Empty, he claimed them, but
Richard discerned a rasp in his manner of asking, and laughed at him.
The Duke of Burgundy took this ill. He was never quite the same to
Richard again; but he made great friends with Prince John.

With all these, and with their courtiers, who took complexion from their
masters, Jehane had to hold the fair way. As a mistress who was to be a
wife, the veiled familiarity with which she was treated was always
preaching to her. How dare she be a Countess who was of so little
account already? The poor girl felt herself doomed beforehand. What
king's mistress had ever been his wife? And how could she be Richard's
wife, betrothed to Gilles de Gurdun? Richard was much afield in these
days, making military dispositions against his coming absence in
Poictou. She saw him rarely; but in return she saw his peers, and had to
keep her head high among the women of the French court. And so she did
until one day, as she was walking back from mass with her ladies, she
saw her brother Saint-Pol on horseback, him and William des Barres.
Timidly she would have slipped by; but Saint-Pol saw her, reined up his
horse in the middle of the street, and stared at her as if she had been
less than nothing to him. She felt her knees fail her, she grew vividly
red, but she kept her way. After this terrible meeting she dared not
leave the convent.

Of course she was quite safe. Saint-Pol could not do anything against
the conqueror of Touraine, the ally of his master; but she felt tainted,
and had thoughts (not for the first time) of taking the veil. One woman
had already taken it; she heard much concerning Madame Alois from the
Canonesses, how she had a little cell at Fontevrault among the nuns
there, how she shivered with cold in the hottest sun, how she shrieked
o' nights, how chattered to herself, and how she used a cruel
discipline. All these things working upon Jehane's mind made her love an
agony. Many and many a time when her royal lover came to visit her she
clung to him with tears, imploring him to cast her off again; but the
more she bewailed the more he pursued his end. In truth he was master by
this time, and utterly misconceived her. Nothing she might say or do
could stay him from his intent, which was to wed and afterwards crown
her Countess of Poictou. This was to be done at Pentecost, as the only
reparation he could make her.

Not even what befell on the way to Poictiers for this very thing could
alter him. Again he misread her, or was too full of what he read in
himself to read her at all. They left Le Mans a fortnight before
Pentecost with a great train of lords and ladies, Richard looking like a
young god, with the light of easy mastery shining in his eyes. She, poor
girl, might have been going to the gallows--and before the end of the
journey would thankfully have gone there; and no wonder. Listen to this.

Midway between Châtelherault and Poictiers is a sandy waste covered with
scrub of juniper and wild plum, which contrives a living by some means
between great bare rocks. It is a disconsolate place, believed to be the
abode of devils and other damned spirits. Now, as they were riding over
this desert, picking their way among the boulders at the discretion of
their animals, it so happened that Richard and Jehane were in front by
some forty paces. Riding so, presently Jehane gave a short gasping cry,
and almost fell off her horse. She pointed with her hand, and 'Look,
look, look!' she said in a dry whisper. There at a little distance from
them was a leper, who sat scratching himself on a rock.

'Ride on, ride on, my heart,' said Richard; but she, 'No, no, he is
coming. We must wait.' Her voice was full of despair.

The leper came jumping from rock to rock, a horrible thing of rags and
sores, with a loose lower jaw, which his disease had fretted to
dislocation. He stood in their mid path, in full sun, and plucking at
his disastrous eyes, peered upon the gay company. By this time all the
riders were clustered together before him, and he fingered them out one
after another--Richard, whom he called the Red Count, Gaston, Béziers,
Auvergne, Limoges, Mercadet; but at Jehane he pointed long, and in a
voice between a croak and a clatter (he had no palate), said thrice,
'Hail thou!'

She replied faintly, 'God be good to thee, brother.' He kept his finger
still upon her as he spoke again: every one heard his words.

'Beware (he said) the Count's cap and the Count's bed; for so sure as
thou liest in either thou art wife of a dead man, and of his killer.'
Jehane reeled, and Richard held her up.

'Begone, thou miserable,' he cried in his high voice, 'lest I pity thee
no more.' But the leper was capering away over the rocks, hopping and
flapping his arms like an old raven. At a safe distance he squatted down
and watched them, his chin on his bare knees.

This frightened Jehane so much that in the refectory of a convent, where
they stayed the night, she could hardly see her victual for tears, nor
eat it for choking grief. She exhausted herself by entreaties. Milo says
that she was heard crying out at Richard night after night, conjur ing
him by Christ on the Cross, and Mary at the foot of the Cross, not to
turn love into a stabbing blade; but all to no purpose. He soothed and
petted her, he redoubled her honours, he compelled her to love him; and
the more she agonised the more he was confident he would right her.

Very definitely and with unexampled profusion he provided for her
household and estate as soon as he was at home. Kings' daughters were
among her honourable women, at least, counts' daughters, daughters of
viscounts and castellans. She had Lady Saill of Ventadorn, Lady Elis of
Montfort, Lady Tibors, Lady Maent, Lady Beatrix, all fully as noble, and
two of them certainly more beautiful than she. Lady Saill and Lady Elis
were the most lovely women of Aquitaine, Saill with a face like a flame,
Elis clear and cold as spring water in the high rocks. He gave her a
chancellor of her seal, a steward of the household, a bishop for
chaplain. Viscount Ebles of Ventadorn was her champion, and Bertran de
Born (who had been doing secret mischief in the south, as you will learn
by and by), if you will believe it, Bertran de Born was forgiven and
made her trobador. It was at a great Court of Love which Richard caused
to be held in the orchards outside Poictiers, with pavilions and a
Chastel d'Amors, that Bertran came in and was forgiven for the sake of
his great singing. On a white silk tribune before the castle sat Jehane,
in a red gown, upon her golden head a circlet of dull silver, with the
leaves and thorns which made up the coronet of a countess. Richard bade
sound the silver trumpets, and his herald proclaim her three times, to
the north, to the east, and to the south, as 'the most puissant and
peerless princess, Madame Jehane, by the grace of God Countess of
Poictou, Duchess of Aquitaine, consort of our illustrious dread lord
Monsire Richard, Count and Duke of the same.' Himself, gloriously
attired in a bliaut of white velvet and gold, with a purple cloak over
his shoulder, sustained in a _tenzon_ with the chief trobadors of
Languedoc, that she was 'the most pleasant lovely lady now on earth, or
ever known there since the days of Madame Dido, Queen of Carthage, and
Madame Cleopatra, Empress of Babylon'--unfortunate examples both, as
some thought.

Minstrels and poets of the greatest contended with him; Saill had her
champion in Guillem of Cabestaing, Elis in Girault of Borneilh; the
Dauphin of Auvergne sang of Tibors, and Peire Vidal of Lady Maent.
Towards the end came sideways in that dishevelled red fox (whom nothing
shamed), Bertran de Born himself, looked askance at the Count, puffed
out his cheeks to give himself assurance, and began to sing of Jehane in
a way that brought tears to Richard's eyes. It was Bertran who dubbed
her with the name she ever afterwards went by throughout Poictou and the
south, the name of Bel Vezer. Richard at the end clipped him in his
arms, and with one arm still round his wicked neck led him to the
tribune where Jehane sat blushing. 'Take him into your favour, Lady Bel
Vezer,' he said to her. 'Whatever his heart may be, he hath a golden
tongue.' Jehane, stooping, lent him her cheek, and Bertran fairly kissed
her whom he had sought to undo. Then turning, fired with her favour, he
let his shrill voice go spiring to heaven in her praise.

For these feats Bertran was appointed to her household, as I have said.
He made no secret of his love for her, but sang of her night and day,
and delighted Richard's generous heart. But indeed Jehane won the favour
of most. If she was not so beautiful as Saill, she was more courteous,
if not so pious as Elis, more the woman for that. There were many,
misled by her petulant lips and watchful eyes, to call her sulky: these
did not judge her silence favourably. They thought her cold, and so she
was to all but one; their eyes might have told them what she was to him,
and how when they met in love, to kiss or cling, their two souls burned
together. And if she made a sweet lover, she promised to be a rare
Countess. Her judgment was never at fault; she was noble, and her sedate
gravity showed her to be so. She was no talker, and had great command
over herself; but she was more pale than by ordinary, and her eyes were
burning bright. The truth was, she was in a fever of apprehension,
restless, doomed, miserable; devouringly in love, yet dreading to be
loved. So, more and more evidently in pain, she walked her part through
the blare of festival as Pentecost drew nigh.

'Upon that day,' to quote the mellifluous abbot, 'Upon that day when in
leaping tongues the Spirit of God sat upon the heads of the Holy
Apostles, and gave letters to the unlettered and to the speechless Its
own nature, Count Richard wedded Dame Jehane, and afterwards crowned her
Countess with his own hands.

'They put her, crying bitterly, into the Count's bed in the Castle of
Poictiers on the evening of the same feast. Weeping also, but at a later
day, I saw her crowned again at Angers with the Count's cap of Anjou. So
to right her and himself Count Richard did both the greatest wrong of
all.'

Much more pageantry followed the marriage. I admire Milo's account. 'He
held a tournament after this, when the Count and the party of the castle
maintained the field against all corners. There was great jousting for
six days, I assure you; for I saw the whole of it. No English knights
were there, nor any from Anjou; but a few French (without King Philip's
goodwill), many Gascons and men of Toulouse and the Limousin; some from
over the mountains, from Navarre, and Santiago, and Castile; there also
came the Count of Champagne with his friends. King Sancho of Navarre was
excessively friendly, with a gift of six white stallions, all housed,
for Dame Jehane; nobody knew why or wherefore at the time, except
Bertran de Born (O thief unrepentant!).

'Countess Jehane, with her ladies, being set in a great balcony of red
and white roses, herself all in rose-coloured silk with a chaplet of
purple flowers, the first day came Count Richard in green armour and a
surcoat of the same embroidered with a naked man, a branch of yellow
broom in his helm. None held up against him that day; the Duke of
Burgundy fell and brake his collar-bone. The second day he drove into
the mêlée suddenly, when there was a great press of spears, all in red
with a flaming sun on his breast. He sat a blood-horse of Spain, bright
chestnut colour and housed in red. Then, I tell you, we saw horses and
men sunder their loves. The third day Pedro de Vaqueiras, a knight from
Santiago, encountered him in his silver armour, when he rode a horse
white as the Holy Ghost. By a chance blow the Spaniard bore him back on
to the crupper. There was a great shout, "The Count is down! Look to the
castle, Poictou!" Dame Jehane turned colour of ash, for she remembered
the leper's prophecy, and knew that De Vaqueiras loved her. But Richard
recovered himself quickly, crying, "Have at you again, Don Pedro." So
they brought fresh spears, and down went De Vaqueiras on his back, his
horse upon him. To be plain, not Hector raging over the field with
shouts for Achilles, nor flamboyant Achilles spying after Hector, nor
Hannibal at Cannae, Roland in the woody pass of Roncesvalles, nor the
admired Lancelot, nor Tristram dreadful in the Cornish isle--not one of
these heroes was more gloriously mighty than Count Richard. Like the
war-horse of Job (the prophet and afflicted man) he stamped with his
foot and said among the captains "ha ha!" His nostrils scented the
battle from very far off; he set on like the quarrell of a bow, and
gathering force as he went, came rocking into his adversary like galley
against galley. With all this he was gentle, had a pleasant laugh. It
was good to be struck down by such a man, if it ever can be good. He
bore away opposition as he bore away the knights.'

If one half of this were true, and no man in steel could withstand him,
how could circumstance, how could she, this slim and frightened girl?
Mad indeed with love and pride, quite beside herself, she forgot for
once her tremors and qualms. On the last day she fell panting upon his
breast; and he, a great lover, kissed her before them all, and lifted
her high in his hands. 'Oyez, my lords!' he cried with a mighty voice,
'Is this a lovely wife I have won, or not?' They answered him with a
shout.

He took her a progress about his country afterwards. From Poictiers they
went to Limoges, thence westward to Angoulesme, and south to Périgueux,
to Bazas, to Cahors, Agen, even to Dax, which is close to the country of
the King of Navarre. Wherever he led her she was hailed with joy. Young
girls met her with flowers in their hands, wise men came kneeling,
offering the keys of their towns; the youth sang songs below her
balcony, the matrons made much of her and asked her searching questions.
They saw in her a very superb and handsome Duchess, Jehane of the Fair
Girdle, now acclaimed in the soft syllables of Aquitaine as Bel Vezer.
When they were at Dax the wise King of Navarre sent ambassadors
beseeching from them a visit to his city of Pampluna; but Richard would
not go. Then they came back to Poictiers and shocking news. This was of
the death of King Henry of England, the old lion, 'dead (Milo is bold to
say) in his sin.'




CHAPTER XII

HOW THEY BAYED THE OLD LION


I must report what happened to the King of England when (like a falcon
foiled in his stoop) he found himself outpaced and outgeneralled on the
moor. Shaken off by those he sought to entrap, baited by the badger he
hoped to draw, he took on something not to be shaken off, namely death,
and had drawn from him what he would ill spare, namely the breath of his
nostrils. To have done with all this eloquence, he caught a chill,
which, working on a body shattered by rages and bad living, smouldered
in him--a slow-eating fever which bit him to the bones, charred and
shrivelled him up. In the clutches of this crawling disease he joined
his forces with those of his Marshal, and marched to the relief of Le
Mans, where the French King was taking his ease. Philip fired the place
when he heard of his approach; so Henry got near enough to see the sky
throbbing with red light, and over all a cloud of smoke blacker than his
own despair. It is said that he had a fit of hard sobbing when he saw
this dreadful sight. He would not suffer the host to approach the
burning city, but took to his bed, turned his face to the tent-wall, and
refused alike housel and meat. News, and of the worst, came fast. The
French were at Châteaudun, the Countess of Brittany's men were
threatening Anjou from the north; all Touraine with Saumur and a chain
of border castles were subject to Richard his son. These things he heard
without moving from his bed or opening his eyes.

After a week of this misery two of his lords, the Marshal, namely, and
Bishop Hugh of Durham, came to his bedside and told him, 'Sire, here are
come ambassadors from France speaking of a peace. How shall it be?'

'As you will,' said the King; 'only let me sleep.' He spoke drowsily, as
if not really awake, but it is thought that he was more watchful than he
chose to appear.

They held a hasty conference, Geoffrey his bastard, the Marshal, the
Bishop: these and the French ambassadors. On the King's part they made
but one request; and Geoffrey made that. The King was dying: let him be
taken down to his castle of Chinon, not die in the fields like an old
hunting dog. This was allowed. He took no sort of notice, let them do
what they would with him, slept incessantly all the way to Chinon.

They brought him the parchments, sealed with his great seal; and he,
quite broken, set his hand to them without so much as a curse on the
robbery done his kingdom. But as the bearers were going out on tiptoe he
suddenly sat up in bed. 'Hugh,' he grumbled, 'Bishop Hugh, come thou
here.' The Bishop turned back eagerly, for those two had loved each
other in their way, and knelt by his bed.

'Read me the signatures to these damned things,' said the King; and
Hugh rejoiced that he was better, yet feared to make him worse.

'Ah, dear sire,' he began to say; but 'Read, man,' said the old King,
jerking his foot under the bedclothes. So Hugh the Bishop began to read
them over, and the sick man listened with a shaky head, for by now the
fever was running high.

'Philip the August, King of the Franks,' says the Bishop; and 'A dog's
name,' the old King muttered in his throat. 'Sanchez, Catholic King of
Navarre,' says Hugh; and 'Name of an owl,' King Henry. To the same
ground-bass he treated the themes of the illustrious Duke of Burgundy,
Henry Count of Champagne, and others of the French party. With these the
Bishop would have stopped, but the King would have the whole. 'Nay,
Hugh,' he said--and his teeth chattered as if it had been bitter
cold--'out with the name of my beloved son. So you shall see what joyful
agreement there is in my house.' The Bishop read the name of Richard
Count of Poictou, and the King grunted his 'Traitor from the womb,' as
he had often done before.

'Who follows Richard?' he asked.

'Oh, our Lady, is he not enough, sire?' said the Bishop in fear. The old
King sat bolt upright and steadied his head on his knees. 'Read,' he
said again.

'I cannot read!' cried Hugh with a groan. The King said, 'You are a
fool. Give me the parchment.'

He pored over it, with dim eyes almost out of his keeping, searching for
the names at the top. So he found what he had dreaded--'John Count of
Mortain.' Shaking fearfully, he began to point at the wall as if he saw
the man before him. 'Jesu! Count by me, King by me, and Judas by me!
Now, God, let me serve Thee as Thou deservest. Thou hast taken away all
my sons. Now then the devil may have my soul, for Thou shalt never have
it.' The death-rattle was heard in his throat, and Hugh sprang forward
to help him: he was still stiffly upright, still looking (though with
filmy eyes) at the wall, still trying to shape in words his wicked
vaunts. No words came from him; his jaw dropped before his strong old
body. They brought him the Sacrament; his soul rejected it--too clean
food. Hugh and others about him, all in a sweat, got him down at last.
They anointed him and said a few prayers, for they were in a desperate
hurry when it came to the end. It was near midnight when he died, and at
that hour, they terribly report, the wind sprang up and howled about the
turrets of Chinon, as if all hell was out hunting for that which he had
promised them. But, if the truth must be told, he had never kept his
promises, and there is no reason to suppose that he kept that one
either. Milo adds, So died this great, puissant, and terrible king,
cursing his children, cursed in them, as they in him. All power was
given over to him from his birth, save one only, power over himself. He
was indeed a slave more wretched than those hinds, _glebæ ascriptitii_,
whom at a distance he ruled in his lands: he was slave of his baser
parts. With God he was always at war, and with God's elect. What of
blessed Thomas? Let Thomas answer on the Last Day. I deny him none of
his properties; he was open-handed, open-minded, as bold as a lion. But
his vices ate him up. Peace be with the man; he was a mighty king. He
left a wife in prison, two sons in arms against him, and many bastards.'

As soon as he was dead his people came about like flies and despoiled
the Castle of Chinon, the bed where he lay (smiling grimly, as if death
had made him a cynic), his very body of the rings on its fingers, the
gold circlet, the Christ round his neck. Such flagrancy was the penalty
of death, who had made himself too cheap in those days; nor were there
any left with him who might have said, Honour my dead father, or dead
master. William the Marshal had gone to Rouen, afraid of Richard;
Geoffrey was half way to Angers after treasure; the Bishop of Durham
(for purposes) had hastened off to Poictiers to be the first to hail the
new King. All that remained faithful in that den of thieves were a
couple of poor girls with whom the old sinner had lately had to do.
Seeing he was left naked on his bed, one of these--Nicolete her name
was, from Harfleur--touched the other on the shoulder--Kentish Mall they
called her--and said, 'They have robbed our master of so much as a shirt
to be buried in. What shall we do?'

Mall said, 'If we are found with him we shall be hanged, sure enough.
Yet the old man was kind to me.'

'And to me he was kind,' said Nicolete, 'God wot.'

Then they looked at each other. 'Well?' said Nicolete. And Mall, 'What
you do I will do.' So they kissed together, knowing it was a gallows
matter, and went in to the dead body of the King. They washed it
tenderly, and anointed it, composed the hands and shut down the horrible
sightless eyes, then put upon it the only shirt they could find, which
(being a boy's) was a very short one. Afterwards came the Chancellor,
Stephen of Turon, called up in a great hurry from a merry-making, with
one or two others, and took some order in the affair.

The Chancellor knew perfectly well that King Henry had desired to be
buried in the church of the nuns at Fontevrault. There had been an old
prophecy that he should lie veiled among the veiled women which had
pleased him very much, though it had often been his way to scoff at it.
But no one dared move him without the order of the new King, whoever
that might happen to be. Who could tell when Anjou was claiming a crown?
Messengers therefore were sent out hot-foot to Count Richard at
Poictiers, and to Count John, who was supposed to be in Paris. He,
however, was at Tours with the French King, and got the news first.

It caught him in the wind, so to put it. Alain, a Canon of Tours, came
before him kneeling, and told him. 'Lord Christ, Alain, what shall we
do?' says he, as white as a cheese-cloth. They fell talking of this or
that, that might or might never be done, when in burst King Philip,
Saint-Pol, Des Barres, and the purple-faced Duke of Burgundy. King
Philip ran up to John and clapped him on the back.

'King John! King John of England!' screamed the young man, like a witch
in the air; then Burgundy began his grumble of thunder.

'I stand for you, by God. I am for you, man.' But Saint-Pol knelt and
touched his knee.

'Sire, do me right, and I become your man!' So said Des Barres also.
Count John looked about him and wrung his hands.

'Heh, my lords! Heh, sirs! What shall I do now?' He was liquid; fear and
desire frittered his heart to water.

They held a great debate, all talking at once, except the subject of the
bother. He could only bite his nails and look out of the window. To
them, then, came creeping Alois of France, deadly pale, habited in the
grey weeds of a nun. How she got in, I know not; but they parted this
way and that before her, and so she came very close to John in his
chair, and touched him on the shoulder. 'What now, traitor?' she said
hoarsely. 'Whom next? The sister betrayed; the father; and now the
brother and king?'

John shook. 'No, no, Alois, no no!' he said in a whisper. 'Go to bed. We
think not of it.' But she still stood looking at him, with a wry smile
on that face of hers, pinched with grief and old before its time.
Saint-Pol stamped his foot. 'Whom shall we trust in Anjou?' he said to
Des Barres. Des Barres shrugged. The Duke of Burgundy grumbled something
about 'd----d women,' and King Philip ordered his sister to bed. They
got her out of the room after a painful scene, and fell to wrangling
again, trying to screw some resolution into the white prince whom they
all intended to use as a cat's-paw. About eight o'clock in the
morning--they still at it--came a shatter of hoofs in the courtyard,
which made Count John jump in his skin. A herald was announced.

Reeking he stood, and stood covered, in the presence of so much majesty.

'Speak, sir,' said King Philip; and 'Uncover before France, you dog,'
said young Saint-Pol. The herald kept his cap where it was.

'I speak from England to the English. This is the command of my master,
Richard King of the English, Duke of Normandy, Count of Anjou. Bid our
brother, the illustrious Count of Mortain, attend us at Fontevrault with
all speed for the obsequies of the King our father. And those who owe
him obedience, let them come also.'

There was low murmuring in the chamber, which grew in volume, until at
last Burgundy thundered out, 'England is here! Cut down that man.' But
the herald stood his ground, and no one drew a sword. John dismissed him
with a few smooth words; but he could not get rid of his friends so
easily. Nor could they succeed with him. If Montferrat had been there
they might have screwed him to the pitch. Montferrat had a clear course:
any king of England who would help him to the throne of Jerusalem was
the king of England he would serve. But Philip would not commit himself,
and Burgundy waited on Philip. As for Saint-Pol, he was nothing but a
sword or two and an unquenchable grudge. And forbidding in the
background stood Alois, with reproach in her sunken eyes. The end of it
was that Count John, after a while, rode out towards Fontevrault with
all the pomp he could muster. Thither also, it is clear, went Madame
Alois.

'I was with my master,' says Milo in his book, 'when they brought him
the news. He was not long home from the South, had been hawking in the
meadows all day, and was now in great fettle, sitting familiarly among
his intimates, Jehane on his knee. Bertran de Born was in there singing
some free song, and the gentle Viscount of Béziers, and Lady Elis of
Montfort (who sat on a cushion and played with Dame Jehane's hand), and
Gaston of Béarn, and (I think) Lady Tibors of Vézelay. Then came the
usher suddenly into the room with his wand, and by the door fell upon
one knee, a sort of state which Count Richard had always disliked. It
made him testy.

'"Well, Gaucelm, well," he said; "on your two legs, my man, if you are
to please me."

'"Lord King--" Gaucelm began, then stopped. My lord bayed at him.

'"Oy Deus!" he said in our tongue, below his breath; and Jehane slid off
his knee and on to her own. So fell kneeling the whole company, till
Gaston of Béarn, more mad than most, sprang up, shouting, "Hail, King of
the English!" and better, "Hail, Count of Anjou!" We all began on that
cry; but he stopped us with a poignant look.

'"God have mercy on me: I am very wicked," he said, and covered up his
face. No one spoke. Jehane bent herself far down and kissed his foot.

'Then he sent for the heralds, and in burst Hugh Puiset, Bishop of
Durham, with his flaming face, outstripping all the others and decency
at once. By this time King Richard had recovered himself. He heard the
tale without moving a feature, and gave a few short commands. The first
was that the body of the dead King should be carried splendidly to
Fontevrault; and the next that a pall should be set up in his private
chapel here at Poictiers, and tall candles set lighted about it. So soon
as this was done he left the chamber, all standing, and went alone to
the chapel. He spent the night there on his knees, himself only with a
few priests. He neither sent for Countess Jehane, nor did she presume to
seek him. Her women tell me that she prayed all night before a Christ in
her bed-chamber; and well she might, with a queen's crown in fair view.
In two or three days' time King Richard pressed out, very early, for
Fontevrault. I went with him, and so did Hugh of Durham, the Bishop of
Poictiers, and the Dauphin of Auvergne. These, with the Chancellor of
Poictou, the household servants and guards, were all we had with us. The
Countess was to be ready upon word from him to go with her ladies and
the court whithersoever he should appoint. Bertran de Born went away in
the night, and King Richard never saw him again; but I shall have to
speak of his last _tenzon_, and his last Sirvente of Kings, by heaven!

'Before he went King Richard kissed the Countess Jehane twice in the
great hall. "Farewell, my queen," he said plainly, and, as some think,
but not I, deliberately. "God be thy good friend. I shall see thee
before many days." If the man was changed already, she was not at all
changed. She was very grave, but not crying, and put up her face for
his kisses as meek as any baby. She said nothing at all, but stood
palely at the door with her women as King Richard rode over the bridge.

'For my part,' he concludes, 'when I consider the youth and fierce
untutored blood of this noblest of his race; or when I remember their
terrible names, Tortulf Forester, and Ingelger, Fulke the Black and
Fulke the Red, and Geoffrey Greygown and Geoffrey the Fair, and that old
Henry, the wickedest of all; their deeds also, how father warred upon
his sons, and sons conspired against their fathers; how they hated
righteousness and loved iniquity, and spurned monks and priests, and
revelled in the shambles they had made: then I say to myself, Good Milo,
how wouldst thou have received thy calling to be king and sovereign
count? Wouldst thou have said, as Count John said, "Lord Christ, Alain,
what shall we do?" Or rather, "God have mercy, I am very wicked." It is
true that Count John was not called to those estates, and that King
Richard was. But I choose sooner to think that each was confronted with
his dead father, and not the emptied throne. In which case Count John
thought of his safety and King Richard of his sin. Such musing is a
windy business, suitable to old men. But I suppose that you who read are
very young.'




CHAPTER XIII.

HOW THEY MET AT FONTEVRAULT


Communing with himself as he rode alone over the broomy downs, King
Richard reined up shortly and sent back a messenger for Milo the Abbot;
so Milo flogged his old mule. Directly he was level with his master,
that master spoke in a quiet voice, like one who is prepared for the
worst: 'Milo, what should a man do who has slain his own father? Is
repentance possible for such a one?'

Milo looked up first at the blue sky, then about at the earth, all green
and gold. He wrinkled close his eyes and let the sun play upon his face.
The air was soft, the turf springy underfoot. He found it good to be
there. 'Sire,' he said, 'it is a hard matter; yet there have been worse
griefs than that in the world.'

'Name one, my friend,' says the King, whose eyes were fixed on the edge
of the hill.

Milo said, 'There was a Father, my lord King Richard, who slew His own
Son that the world might be the better. That was a terrible grief, I
suppose.' The King was silent for a few paces; then he asked--

'And was the world much the better?'

'Beau sire,' replied Milo, 'not very much. But that was not God's fault;
for it had, and still has, the chance of being the better for it.'

'And do you dare, Milo,' said the King, turning him a stern face, 'set
my horrible offence beside the Divine Sacrifice?'

'Not so, my lord King,' said Milo at large; 'but I draw this
distinction. You are not so guilty as you suppose; for in this world the
father maketh the son, both in the way of nature and of precept. In
heaven it is otherwise. There the Son was from the beginning, co-eternal
with the Father, begotten but not made. In the divine case there was
pure sacrifice, and no guilt at all. In the earthly case there was much
guilt, but as yet no sacrifice.'

'That guilt was mine, Milo,' said Richard with a sob.

'Lord, I think not,' answered the old priest. 'You are what your fathers
have made you. But now mark me well: in doing sacrifice you can be very
greatly otherwise. Then if no more guilt be upon you than hangs by the
misfortunes of tainted man, you can please Almighty God by doing what
you only among men can do, wholesome sacrifice.'

'Why, what sacrifice shall I do?' says the King.

Milo stood up in his stirrups, greatly exalted in the spirit.

'My lord,' he said, 'behold, it is for two years that you have borne the
sign of that sacrifice upon you, but yet have done nothing of it. During
these years God's chosen seat hath lain dishonoured, become the wash-pot
of the heathen. The Holy Tree, stock beyond price, Rod of Grace, figure
of freedom, is in bonds. The Sepulchre is ensepulchred; Antichrist
reigns. Lord, Lord,'--here the Abbot shook his lifted finger,--'how long
shall this be? You ask me of sin and sacrifice. Behold the way.'

King Richard jerked his head, then his horse's. Get back, Milo, and
leave me,' he said curtly, struck in the spurs, and galloped away over
the grey down.

The cavalcade halted at Thouars, and lay the night in a convent of the
Order of Savigny. King Richard kept himself to himself, ate little,
spoke less. He prayed out the night, or most of it, kneeling in his
shirt in the sanctuary, with his bare sword held before him like a
cross. Next morning he called up his household by the first cock, had
them out on the road before the sun, and pushed forward with such haste
that it was one hour short of noon when they saw the great church of the
nuns of Fontevrault like a pile of dim rock in their way.

At a mile's distance from the walls the King got off his horse, and bid
his squires strip him. He ungirt his sword, took off helm and circlet,
cloak, blazoned surcoat, the girdle of his county. Beggared so of all
emblems of his grace, clad only in hauberk of steel, bareheaded, without
weapon, and on foot, he walked among his mounted men into the little
town of Fontevrault. That which he could not do off, his sovereign
inches, sovereign eye, gait of mastery, prevailed over all other robbery
of his estate. The people bent their knees as he passed; not a
few--women with babies in their shawls, lads and girls--caught at his
hand or hauberk's edge, to kiss it and get the virtue out of him that
is known to reside in a king. When he came within sight of the church he
knelt and let his head sink down to his breast. But his grief seemed to
strike inwards like a frost; he stiffened and got up, and went forward.
No one would have guessed him a penitent then, who saw him mount the
broad steps to meet his brother. Before the shut doors of the abbey was
Count John, very splendid in a purple cloak, his crown of a count upon
his yellow hair. He stood like a king among his peers, but flushed and
restless, twiddling his fingers as kings do not twiddle theirs.

Irresolution kept him where he was until Richard had topped the first
flight of steps. But then he came down to meet him in too much of a
hurry, tripping, blundering the degrees, nodding and poking his head,
with hands stretched out and body bent, like his who supplicates what he
does not deserve.

'Hail, King of England, O hail!' he said, wheedling, royally vested,
royally above, yet grovelling there to the prince below him. King
Richard stopped with his foot on the next step, and let the Count come
down.

'How lies he?' were his first words; the other's face grew fearful.

'Eh, I know not,' he said, shuddering. 'I have not seen him.' Now, he
must have been in Fontevrault for a day or more.

'Why not?' asked Richard; and John stretched out his arms again.

'Oh, brother, I waited for you!' he cried, then added lower, 'I could
not face him alone.' This was perfectly evident, or he would never have
said it.

'Pish!' said King Richard, that is no way to mend matters. But it is
written, "They shall look on him whom they pierced." Come you in.' He
mounted the steps to his brother's level; and men saw that he was nearly
a hand taller, though John was a fine tall man.

'With you, Richard, with you--but never without you!' said John, in a
hush, rolling his eyes about. Richard, taking no notice, bid them set
open the doors. This was done: the chill taint of the dark, of wax and
damp and death came out. John shivered, but King Richard left him to
shiver, and passed out of the sun into the echoing nave. Lightly and
fiercely he went in, like a brave man who is fretful until he meets his
danger's face; and John caught at his wrist, and went tiptoe after him.
All the rest, Poictevins and Frenchmen together, followed in a pack;
then the two bishops vested.

At the far end of the church, beyond the great Rood, they saw the
candles flare about a bier. Before that was a little white altar with a
priest saying his mass in a whisper. The high altar was all dark, and
behind a screen in the north transept the nuns were singing the Office
for the Dead. King Richard pushed on quickly, the others trooping
behind. There in the midst of all this chilly state, grim and
sour-faced, as he had always been, but now as unconcerned as all the
dead are, lay the empty majesty of England, careless (as it seemed) of
the full majesty; and dead Anjou a stranger to the living.

It was not so altogether, if we are to believe those who saw it. The
hatred of the dead is a fearful thing: of that which followed be God the
only judge, and I not even the reporter. Milo saw it, and Milo (who got
some comfort out of it at last) shall tell you the tale; 'for I know,'
says he, 'that in the end the hidden things are to be made plain, and
even so, things which then I guessed darkly have since been opened out
to my understanding. Behold!' he goes on, 'I tell you a mystery. Lightly
and adventuring came King Richard to his dead father, and Count John
dragging behind him like a load of care. Reverently he knelt him down
beside the bier, prayed for a little, then, looking up, touched the grey
old face. Before God, I say, it was the act of a boy. But slowly,
slowly, we who watched quaking saw a black stream well at the nostril of
the dead, and slowly drag a snake's way down the jaw: a sight to shake
those fraught with God--and what to men in their trespasses? But while
all the others fell back gasping, or whispering their prayers, scarce
knowing what I was or did (save that I loved King Richard), I whipt
forward with a handkerchief to cover the horror out of sight. This I
would have done, though all had seen it; the King had seen it, and that
white-hearted traitor Count had seen it, and sprung away with a wail, "O
Christ! O Christ!" The King stood up, and with his lifted hand stopped
me in the pious act. All held their breaths. I saw the priest at the
altar peer round the corner, his mouth making a ring. King Richard was
very pale and serious. He began to talk to his father, while the Count
lay cowering on the pavement.

'"Thou thinkest me thy slayer, father," he said, "pointing at me the
murder-sign. Well, I am content to take it; for be thou sure of this,
that if that last war between us was rightfully begun it was rightfully
ended. And of righteousness I think I am as good a judge as ever thou
wert. Thy work is done, and mine is to do. If I may be as kingly as thou
wert, I shall please thee yet; and if I fail in that I shall never blame
thee, father. Now, Abbot Milo," he concluded, "cover the face." So I
did, and Count John got up to his knees again, and looked at his
brother.

'This was not the end. Madame Alois of France came into the church
through the nuns' door, dressed all in grey, with a great grey hood on
her head, and after her women in the same habit. She came hastily, with
a quick shuffling motion of the feet, as if she was gliding; and by the
bier she stood still, questing with her eyes from side to side, like a
hunted thing. King Richard she saw, for he was standing up; but still
she looked about and about. Now Count John was kneeling in the shadow,
so she saw him last; but once meeting his deplorable eyes with her own
she never left go again. Whatever she did (and it was much), or whatever
said (and her mouth was pregnant), was with a fixed gaze on him.

'Being on the other side of the bier from him she watched, she put her
arms over the dead body, as a priest at mass broods upon the Host he is
making. And looking shrewdly at the Count, "If the dead could speak,
John," she said, "if the dead could speak, how think you it would report
concerning you and me?"

'"Ha, Madame!" says Count John, shaking like a leafy tree, "what is
this?" Madame Alois removed my handkerchief. The horror was still there.

'"He did me kindness," she said, looking wistfully at the empty face;
"he tried to serve me this way and that way." She stroked it, then
looked again at the Count. "But then you came, John; and you he loved
above all. How have you served him, John, my bonny lad? Eh, Saviour!"
She looked up on high--"Eh, Saviour, if the dead could speak!"

'No more than the dead could John speak; but King Richard answered her.

'"Madame," he said, "the dead hath spoken, and I have answered it. That
is the kingly office, I think, to stand before God for the people. Let
no other speak. All is said."

'"No, no, Richard," said Madame Alois, "all is not nearly said. So sure
as I live in torment, you will rue it if you do not listen to me now."

'"Madame," replied the King, "I shall not listen. I require your
silence. If I have it in me, I command it. I know what I have done."

'"You know nothing," said the lady, beginning to tremble. "You are a
fool."

'"May be," said King Richard, with a little shrug, "but I am a king in
Fontevrault."

'The Count of Mortain began to wag his head about and pluck at the morse
of his cope. "Air, air!" he gasped; "I strangle! I suffocate!" They
carried him out of church to his, lodging, and there bled him.

'"Once more, King Richard," said Madame, "will you hear the truth from
me?"

'The king turned fiercely, saying, "Madame, I will hear nothing from
you. My purpose is to take the Cross here in this church, and to set
about our Lord's business as soon as may be. I urge you, therefore, to
depart and, if you have time, to consider your soul's health--as I
consider mine and my kingdom's."

'She began to cry, being overwrought with this terrible affair. "O
Richard," she said, "forgive me my trespasses. I am most wretched."

'He stepped forward, and across the dead man kissed her on the forehead.
"God knows, I forgive thee, Alois," he said.

'So then she went away with her people, and no long time afterwards took
(as I believe) the whole vow in the convent of Fontevrault.' Thus Milo
records a scene too high for me.

When they had buried the old King, Richard sent letters to his brother
of France, reminding him of what they had both undertaken to do, namely,
to redeem the Sepulchre and set up again in Jerusalem the True Cross.
'As for me,' he wrote, 'I do most earnestly purpose to set about that
business as soon as I may; and I require of you, sire and my brother, to
witness my resumption of the Cross in this church of Fontevrault upon
the feast of Monsire Saint John Baptist next coming. Let them also who
are in your allegiance, the illustrious Duke of Burgundy, Conrad
Marquess of Montferrat, and my cousin Count Henry, be of your party and
sharers with you in the new vow.' This done, he went to Chinon to secure
his father's treasure, and then made preparations for his coronation as
Count of Anjou, and for Jehane's coronation.

When she got his word that she was to meet him at Angers by a certain
day there was no thought of disobedience; the pouting mouth meant no
mutiny. It meant sickening fear. In Angers they crown the Count of Anjou
with the red cap, and put upon his feet the red shoes. That would make
Richard the Red Count indeed, whose cap and bed the leper had bid her
beware. Beware she might, but how avoid? She knew Richard by this time
for master. A year ago she had subjugated him in the Dark Tower; but
since then he had handled her, moulded her, had but to nod and she
served his will. With what heart of lead she came, come she did to await
him in black Angers, steep and hardy little city of slate; and the
meeting of the two brought tears to many eyes. She fell at his feet,
clasped his knees, could not speak nor cease from looking up; and he,
tall and kingly, stoops, lifts her, holds her upon his breast, strokes
her face, kisses her eyes and sorrowful mouth. 'Child,' he says, 'art
thou glad of me?' asking, as lovers love best to do, the things they
know best already. 'O Richard! O Richard!' was all she could say, poor
fond wretch; however, we go not by the sense of a bride's language, but
by the passion that breaks it up. Every agony of self-reproach, of fear
of him, of mistrust, of lurking fate, lay in those sobbed words, 'O
Richard! O Richard!'

When he had her alone at night, and she had found her voice, she began
to woo him and softly to beguile him with a hand to his chin, judging it
a propitious time, while one of his held her head. All the arts of woman
were hers that night, but his were the new purposes of a man. He had had
a rude shock, was full of the sense of his sin; that grim old mocking
face, grey among the candle-flames, was plain across the bed-chamber
where they lay. To himself he made oath that he would sin no more. No,
no: a king, he would do kingly. To her, clasped close in his arms, he
gave kisses and sweet words. Alas, she wanted not the sugar of his
tongue; she would have had him bitter, though it cost her dear. Lying
there, lulled but not convinced, her sobs grew weaker. She cried herself
to sleep, and he kissed her sleeping.

In the cathedral church of his fathers he did on, by the hands of the
Archbishop, the red cap and girdle and shoes of Anjou; there he held up
the leopard shield for all to see. There also upon the bent head of
Jehane--she kneeling before him--he laid for a little while the same
cap, then in its room a circlet of golden leaves. If he was sovereign
Count, girt with the sword, then she was Countess of Anjou before her
grudging world. What more was she? Wife of a dead man and his killer!
The words stayed by her, and tinged the whole of her life.




CHAPTER XIV

OF WHAT KING RICHARD SAID TO THE BOWING ROOD; AND WHAT JEHANE TO KING
RICHARD


Miracles, as a plain man, I hold to be the peculiar of the Church. This
chapter must be Milo's on that ground, if there were no other. But there
is one strong other. Milo set the tune which caused King Richard to
dance. And a very good tune it is--according to Milo. Therefore let him
speak.

'The office of Abbot,' he writes, 'is a solemn, great office, being no
less than that of spiritual father to a family of men consecrate (as it
is written, _Abba_, father); yet not on that account should vainglory
puff the cheeks of a pious man. God knows that I am no boaster. He,
therefore, will not misjudge me, as certain others have done, when I
record in this place (for positive cause and reason good) the exorbitant
honours I received on the day of my lord Saint John Baptist in this year
of thankful redemption eleven hundred and eighty-nine. Forsooth, I
myself, this Milo of Saint Mary-of-the-Pine, was chosen to preach in the
church of the nuns of Fontevrault before a congregation thus
composed:--Two kings (one crowned), one legate _a latere_, a reigning
duke (him of Burgundy, I mean), five cinctured counts, twice three
bishops, abbots without number; Jehane Countess of Anjou and wife to
the King of England, the Countess of Roussillon, the two Countesses of
Angoulesme (the old and the young), Lady Elis of Montfort (reputed the
most witty lady in Languedoc), thirteen pronounced poets, and the
hairdresser of the King of France--to name no more. That sermon of
mine--I shame not to report it-was found worthy the inscription in the
Register of Fontevrault; and in the initial letter thereof, garlanded in
gold work very beautiful to be seen, is the likeness of myself vested,
with a mitre on my head, all done by that ingenious craftsman and
faithful Christian man, Aristarchus of Byzantium, _suspirante deo_.
There the curious may consult it, as indeed they do. I hope I know the
demands of history upon proportion better than to write it all here.
Briefly then, a second Peter, I stood up before that crowned assembly
and was bold.

'What, I said, is Pharaoh but a noise? How else is Father Abraham but
dusty in his cave? Duke Lot hath a monument less durable than his wicked
wife's; and as for Noë, that great admiral, the waters of oblivion have
him whom the waters of God might not drown. Conquered lies unconquered
Agamemnon; how else lies Julius Cæsar? Nabuchodonosor, eater of grass,
what is he? Kings pass, and their royal seat gathereth a little dust.
Anon with a besom of feathers cometh. Time the chamberlain, and scareth
to his hiding-place the lizard on the wall. Think soberly, O ye kings!
how your crowns are but yellow metal, and your purple robes the food of
moths, and the sceptres of your power no better than hedge-twigs for the
driving of rats. Round about your crystal orbs scurry the fleas at play
in the night-time; in a little while the joints of your legs will
grapple the degrees of your thrones with no more zest than an old
bargeman's his greasy poop.

'At this King Philip said Tush, and fidgeted in his chair. He might have
put me out of countenance, but that I saw King Richard clasp his knee
and smile into the rafters, and knew by the peaking of his beard that I
had pleased him.

'Thus by precept, by trope and flower of speech, I gaufred the edges of
my discourse; then turning eastward with a cry, I grasped the pulpit
firmly with one hand, the while I raised the other. Sorrow, I said, is
more enduring than the pride of life, my lords, and to renounce than to
heap riches. Behold the King of Sorrows! Behold the Man beggared! Ai,
ai, my lords! is there to be no end to His sorrows, or shall He be
stripped for ever? Yesterday He put off life itself, and to-day ye bid
Him do away with the price of life. Yesterday He hung upon the Tree; and
to-day ye hear it said, Down with the Tree; let Mahomet kindle his
hearth with it. Let us be done, say you, with dead Lords and wooden
stocks: we are kings, and our stocks golden. It is well said, my lords,
after the fashion this world holds honourable. But I ask, did Job fear
God for nought? But I say, consider the Maccabees. All your broad lands
are not worth the rent of that little garden enclosed, where among
ranked lilies sat Mary singing, God rest Thee, babe, I am Thy mother and
daughter. You wag the head and an enemy dieth. You say, Come up, and
some wretch getteth title to make others wretched. But no power of life
and member, no fountain of earthly honour, no great breath nor
acclamation of trumpets, nor bearing of swords naked, nor chrism, nor
broad seal, nor homage, nor fealty done, is worth that doom of the Lord
to a man; saying, I was naked (Christ is naked!) and ye clothed Me; I
was anhungered (Christ is hungry!) and ye gave Me meat; I was in prison
(so is Christ!) and ye visited Me. Therefore again I say unto you,
Kings, by the spirit of the Lord which is in me, Let us now go even unto
Bethlehem. Awake, do on your panoplies, shake your sceptres over the
armied earth! So Hierusalem, that bride among brides, that exalted
virgin, that elect lady crowned with stars, shall sit no longer wasted
in the brothel of the heathen: Amen!

'I said; and a great silence fell on all the length and breadth of the
church. King Richard sat up stiff as a tree, staring at the Holy Rood as
though he had a vision of something at work. King Philip of France,
moody, was watching his greater brother. Count John of Mortain had his
head sunk to his breast-bone, his thin hands not at rest, but one finger
picking ever at another. Even the Duke of Burgundy, the burly eater, was
moved, as could be seen by the working of his cheek-bones. Two nuns were
carried out for dead. All this I saw between my hands as I knelt in
prayer. But much more I saw: it seems that I had called down testimony
from on high. I saw Countess Jehane, half-risen from her seat, white in
the face, open-mouthed, gaping at the Cross. "Saviour, the Rood! the
Rood!" she cried out, choking, then fell back and lay quite still. Many
rose to their feet, some dropped to their knees; all looked.

'We saw the great painted Christ on the Rood stoop His head forward
thrice. At the first and second times, amid cries of wonder, men looked
to see whither He bent His head. But at the third time all with one
consent fell upon their faces, except only Richard King of England. He,
indeed, rose up and stood to his full height. I saw his blue eyes shine
like sapphires as he began to speak to the Christ. Though he spoke
measuredly and low, you could mark the exultation singing behind his
tones.

'"Ah, now, my Lord God," said he, "I perceive that Thou hast singled me
out of all these peers for a work of Thine; which is a thing so glorious
for me that, if I glory in it, I am justified, since the work is
glorious. I take it upon me, my Lord, and shall not falter in it nor be
slow. Enough said: Thou askest not words of me. Now let me go, that the
work may begin." After which, very devoutly kneeling, he signed to the
Archbishop of Tours, who sat in the sedilia of the sanctuary, to affix
the Cross to his shoulder. Which was done, and afterwards to most of the
company then present--to King Philip, to the Duke of Burgundy, to Henry
Count of Champagne, Bertram Count of Roussillon, and Raymond Count of
Toulouse; to many bishops; also to James d'Avesnes, William des Barres,
and to Eustace Count of Saint-Pol, the brother of Countess Jehane. But
Count John took no Cross, nor did Geoffrey the bastard of Anjou.
Afterwards, I believe, these two worked the French King into a fury
because Richard should have taken upon him the chief place in this
miraculous adventure. The Duke of Burgundy was not at all pleased
either. But everybody else knew that it was to King Richard the Holy
Rood had pointed; and he knew it himself, and events proved it so.

'But that night after supper he and King Philip kissed each other, and
swore brotherhood on their sword-hilts before all the peers. I am not
one to deny generous moments to that politic prince; this I consider to
have been one, evoked certainly by the nobility of King Richard. That
appointed champion's exaltation still burned in him; he was fiercely
excited, his eyes were bright with fever of fire. "Hey, Philip," he
laughed, "now you and I must cross the sea! And you a bad sailor,
Philip!"

'"'Tis so, indeed, Richard," says King Philip, looking rather foolish.
King Richard clapped him on the shoulder. "A stout heart, my Philip," he
says, "is betokened by your high stomach. That shall stand us in a good
stead in Palestine." Then it was that King Philip kissed him, and him
King Richard again.

'He was in great heart that day, full to the neck with hope and
adventure. I would like to see the man or woman to have denied him
anything. At times like these he was (I do not seek to disguise it) a
frank lover, _Non omnia possumus omnes_; if any man think he must have
been Galahad the Bloodless Knight because he had been singled out by the
questing Rood, he knows little how high ventures foment rich blood.
Lancelot he never was, to love broadcast; but Tristram, rather, lover
of one woman. Hope, pride, knowledge of his force, ran tingling in him;
perhaps he saw her fairer than any woman could have been; perhaps he saw
her rosy through his sanguine eyes. He clipped her in his arms in full
hall that night in a way that made her rosy enough. Not that she denied
him: good heaven, who was she to do that? There as he had her close upon
his breast he kissed her a dozen times, and "Jehane, wilt thou fare with
me to England?" he asked her fondly, "or must I leave thee peaking here,
my Countess of Anjou?"

'She would have had her own answer ready to that, good soul, but that
the leper gave her another. In a low, urgent voice she answered, "Ah,
sweet lord, I must never leave thee now"--as if to ask, Was there need?
So he went on talking to her, lover talk, teasing talk, to see what she
would say; and all the while Jehane stood very near him, with her face
held between his two hands as closely as wine is held by a cup. To
whatever he chose to say, and in whatever fashion, whether strokingly
(as to a beloved child), or gruffly (in sport) as one speaks to a pet
dog, she replied in very meek manner, eyeing him intently, "Yea,
Richard," or "Nay, Richard," agreeing with him always. This he observed.
"They call me Yea-and-Nay, dear girl," he said, "and thou hast learned
it of them. But I warn thee, Jehane, _ma mie_, I am in a mood of Yea
this night. Therefore deny me not."

'"Lord, I shall never deny thee," says Jehane, red as a rose. And reason
enough! I remembered the words; for while she said them, it is certain
she was praying how best she might make herself a liar, like Saint
Peter.

'Pretty matters! on the faith I profess. And if a man, who is king of
men, may not play with his young wife, I know not who may play with her.
That is my answer to King Philip Augustus, who fretted and chafed at
this harmless performance. As for Saint-Pol, who ground his teeth over
it, I would have a different answer for him.'

I have given Milo his full tether; but there are things to say which he
knew nothing about. Richard was changed, for all his wild mood of that
night; nor was Jehane slow to perceive it. Perhaps, indeed, she was too
quick, with her wit oversharpened by her uneasy conscience. But that
night she saw, or thought she saw this in Richard: that whereas the
righting of her had been his only concern before the day of the bowing
Rood, now he had another concern. And the next day, when at dawn he left
her and was with his Council until dinner, she knew it for sure. After
dinner (which he scarcely ate) he rose and visited King Philip. With
him, the Legate and the Archbishops, he remained till late at night. Day
succeeded day in this manner. The French King, the Duke, and their
trains went to Paris. Then came Guy of Lusignan, King (and no king) of
Jerusalem, for help. Richard promised him his, not because he liked him
any better than the Marquess (who kept him out), but because Guy's title
seemed to him a good one. At bottom Richard was as deliberate as a pair
of scales; and just now was acting the perfect king, the very
touchstone of justice. Through all this time of great doings Jehane
stayed quaking at home, sitting strangely among her women--a countess
who knew she was none, a queen by nature who dreaded to be queen by law.
Yet one thing she dreaded more. She was in a horrible pass. Wife of a
dead man and his killer! Why, what should she do? She dared not go on
playing wife to the champion of heaven, and yet she dared not leave him
lest she should be snatched into the arms of his assassin. On which horn
should she impale her poor heart? She tried to wring prayers out of it,
she tried to moisten her aching eyes with the dew of tears. Slowly, by
agony of effort, she approached her bosom to the steel. One night
Richard came to her, and she drove herself to speak. He came, and she
fenced him off.

'Richard, O Richard, touch me not!'

'God on the Cross, what is this?'

'Touch me not, touch me never; but never leave me!'

'O my pale rose! O fair-girdled!' She stood up, white as her gown,
transfigured, very serious.

'I am not thy wife, Richard; I am no man's wife. No, but I am thy slave,
bound to thee by a curse, held from thee by thy high calling. I dare not
leave thee, my Richard, nor dare stay by thee so close, lest ruin come
of it.'

Richard watched her, frowning. He was much moved, but thought of what
she said.

'Ruin, Jehane, ruin?'

'Ruin of thy venture, my knight of God! Ah, chosen, elect, comrade of
the Rood, gossip of Jesus Christ, duke dedicate!' She was hued like
flame as the great thoughts leaped in her. 'Ah, my Christian King, it is
so little a thing I ask of thee, to set me apart! What am I to thee,
whose bride is the virgin city, the holy place? What is Jehane, a poor
thing handed about, to vex heaven, or be a stumbling-block in the way of
the Cross? Put me away, Richard, let me go; have done with me, sweet
lord.' And then swiftly she ran and clasped his knees: 'But ask me not
to leave thee--no, but I dare not indeed!' Her tears streamed freely
now. When Richard with a cry snatched her up, she lay weeping like a
lost child in his arms.

He laid her on the bed, worn frail by the strife she had endured; she
had no strength to open her eyes, but moved her lips to thank him for
his pains. At first she turned her head from side to side, seeking a
cool place on the pillow; later she fell into a heavy, drugged sleep. He
watched her till it was nearly light, brooding over her unconscious
face. No thoughts of a king were his, I think; but once more he lapped
them in that young girl's bosom, and let them sway, ebb and flow, with
it.

On the flow, great with her theme, he saw her inspired, standing with
her torch of flame to point his road. A splintry way leads to the Cross,
where even kings consecrate must tear their feet. If he knew himself, as
at such naked hours he must, he knew whither his heart was set. He was
to lead the armies of Christendom, because no other man could do it. Had
he any other pure and stern desire but that? None. If he could win back
the Sepulchre, new plant the Holy Cross, set a Christian king on the
throne below Golgotha, keep word with God Who had bowed to him from the
Rood, give the heathen sword for sword, and hold the armed world like a
spear in his hand, to shake as he shook--God of all power and might, was
this not worthy his heart?

His heart and Jehane's! The flowing bosom ebbed, and drained him of all
but pity. He saw her like a dead flower, wan, bruised, thrown away.
Robbery! He had stolen her by force. He clenched his two hands about his
knee and shook himself to and fro. Thief! Damned thief! Had he made her
amends? He groaned. Not yet. Should she not be crowned? She prayed that
she might not be. She meant that; all her soul came sobbing to her lips
as she prayed him. He could not deny her that prayer. If she would not
mount his throne, she should not--he was King. But that other bidding:
Touch me not, she said. He looked at her sleeping; her bosom filled and
lifted his hand. God have no mercy on him if he denied her that either.
'So take Thou, God, my heart's desire, if I give her not hers.' Then he
stooped and kissed her forehead; she opened her eyes and smiled feebly,
half awake.

He was not a man, I say it again, at the mercy of women's lure. Milo was
right; he was Tristram, not Galahad nor Lancelot; a man of cold
appetite, a man whose head was master, touched rarely, and then stirred
only to certain deeps. So far as he could love woman born he loved
Jehane, saw her exceedingly lovely, loved her proud remote spirit, her
nobility, her sobriety. He saw her bodily perfections too, how splendid
a person, how sumptuous in hue and light. Admiring, taking glory in
these, yet he required the sting of another man's hand upon her to seize
her for himself. For purposes of policy, for ends which seemed to him
good, he could have lived with Jehane as a brother with a sister: one
thing provided, Let no other man touch.

Now this policy was imperative, this end God said was good. Jehane
implored with tears, Christ called from the Cross; so King Richard fell
upon his knees and kissed the girl's forehead. When he left her that
morning he sought out Milo and confessed his sins. Shriven he arose, to
do what remained in the west before he could be crowned in Rouen, and
crowned in Westminster.




CHAPTER XV

LAST _TENZON_ OF BERTRAN DE BORN


I wish to be done with Bertran de Born, that lagging fox; but the dogs
of my art must make a backward cast if they are to kill him in the open.
I beg the reader, then, to remember that when Richard left him
half-throttled in his own house, and when he had recovered wind enough
to stir his gall, he made preparations for a long journey to the South.
In that scandal concerning Alois of France he believed he had stuff
which might wreck Count Richard more disastrously than Count Richard
could wreck him. He hoped to raise the South, and thither he went, his
own dung-fly, buzzing over the offal he had blown; and the first point
he headed for was Pampluna across the Pyrenees. It is folly to dig into
the mind of a man diseased by malice; better treat such like sour
ground, burn with lime (or let God burn) and abide the event in faith.
If of all men in the world Bertran hated Richard of Anjou, it was not
because Richard had misused him, but because he had used him too
lightly. Richard, offended with Bertran, gave him a flick on the ear and
sent him to the devil with his japes. He did no more because he valued
him no more. He thought him a perverse rascal, glorious poet,
ill-conditioned vassal, untimely parasite of his father's realm. He
knew he had caused endless mischief, but he could not hate such a cork
on a waterspray. Now, it fretted Bertran to white heat that he should be
despised by a great man. It seemed that at last he could do him
considerable harm. He could embroil him with two kings, France and
England, and induce a third to harass him from the South. So he crossed
the mountains and went into Navarre.

Over those stony ridges and bare fields Don Sancho was king, the seventh
of his name; and he kept his state in the city of Pampluna. Reputed the
wisest prince of his day, it is certain that he had need to be so, such
neighbours as he had. West of him was Santiago, south of him Castile.
These two urgent kings, edging (as it were) on the same bench with him,
made his seat a shifty comfort. No sooner had he warmed himself a place
than he was hoist to a cold one. In front of him, over against the sun,
he saw Philip of France pinched to the same degree between England and
Burgundy, eager to stretch his extremities since he could not broaden
his sides. Don Sancho had no call to love France; but he feared England
greatly--the horrible old brindled Lion, and Richard, offspring of the
Lion and the Pard, Richard the Leopard, who made more songs and fought
more quarrels out than any Christian prince. Here were quodlibets for
Don Sancho's logic. In appearance he was a pale vexed man, with anxious
eyes and a thin beard, at which (in his troubles) he plucked as often as
he could afford the hairs. Next to his bleached lands he loved minstrels
and physicians. Averrhoes was often at his court; so were Guillem of
Cabestaing and Peire Vidal. He knew and went so far as to love Bertran
de Born. Perhaps he was not too good a Christian, certainly he was a
very hungry one; and kings, with the rest of the world, are to be judged
by their necessities, not their professions. So much will suffice, I
hope, concerning Don Sancho the Wise.

In those days which saw Count Richard's back turned on Autafort, and
Saint-Pol's broken at Tours, Bertran de Born came to Pampluna, asking to
be received by the King of Navarre. Don Sancho was glad to see him.

'Now, Bertran,' says he, 'you shall give me news of poets and the food
of poets. All the talk here is of bad debts.'

'Oy, sire,' says Bertran, 'what can I tell you? The land is in flames,
the women have streaked faces, far and wide travels the torch of war.'

'I am sorry to hear it,' says King Sancho, 'and trust that you have not
brought one of those torches with you.'

Bertran shook his head; interruptions worried him, for he lived
maddeningly, like a man that has a drumming in his ear.

'Sire,' he said, 'there is a new strife between the Count of Poictou,
"Yea-and-Nay," and the French King on this account: the Count repudiates
Madame Alois.'

'Now, why does he do that, Bertran?' cried King Sancho, opening his eyes
wide.

'Sire, it is because he pretends that his father, the old King, has done
him dishonour. Says the Count, Madame Alois might be my stepmother,
never my wife.'

'Deus!' said the King. 'Bertran, is this the truth?'

That was a question for which Bertran was fully prepared. He always had
it put, and always gave the same answer. 'As I am a Christian, sire,' he
said, 'the Gospel is no truer.'

To which King Sancho replied, 'I do most devoutly believe in the Holy
Gospel, whatever any Arabian may say to the contrary. But is it for
this, pray, that you propose to light candles of war in Navarre?'

'Ah,' said Bertran, with his hand scratching in his vest, 'I light no
candles, my lord; but I counsel you to light them.'

'Phew!' said King Sancho, and stuck his arms out; 'on whose account,
Bertran, on whose account?'

Bertran replied savagely, 'On account of Dame Alois slandered, of her
brother France deceived in his hope, of the English King strangely
accused, of his son John (a hopeful prince, Benjamin of a second
Israel), and of Queen Eleanor of England, of whose kindred your Grace
is.'

'Deus! Oy, Deus!' cried King Sancho, pale with amazement, 'and are all
these thrones in arms, lighting candles against Count Richard?'

'It is so indeed, sire,' says Bertran; and King Sancho frowned, with
this comment--'There seems little chivalry here, take it as you will.'
Next he inquired, where was the Count of Poictou?

Bertran was ready. 'He rages his lands, sire, like a leopard caged. Now
and again he raids the marches, harries France or Anjou, and
withdraws.'

'And the King his father, Bertran, where is he? Far off, I hope.'

'He,' said Bertran, 'is in Normandy with a host, seeking the head of his
son Richard on a charger.'

'The great man that he is!' cried Don Sancho. Bertran could not contain
himself.

'Great or not, he is to pay his debts! The old rascal stag is rotten
with fever.'

I suppose Don Sancho was not called Wise for nothing. At any rate he sat
for a while considering the man before him. Then he asked, where was
King Philip?

'Sire,' replied Bertran, 'he is in his city of Paris, comforting Dame
Alois, and assembling his estates for Count Richard's flank.'

'And Prince John?'

'Oh, sire, he has friends. He waits. Watch for him presently.'

King Sancho frowned his forehead into furrows, and allowed himself a
hair or two of his beard. 'We will think of it, Bertran,' he said
presently. 'Yes, we will think of it, after our own fashion. God rest
you, Bertran, pray go refresh yourself.' So he dismissed him.

When he was alone he went on frowning, and between whiles tapped his
teeth with his beard-comb. He knew that Bertran had not come lying for
nothing to Pampluna; he must find out on whose account he was lying, and
upon what rock of truth (if any at all) he had built up his lies. Was it
because he hated the father, or because he hated the son? Or because he
served Prince John? Let that alone for a moment. This story of Alois: it
must be, he thought, either true or false, but was no invention of
Bertran's. Whichever it was, King Philip would make war upon King Henry,
not upon Richard; since, wanting timber, you cut at the trunk, not at
the branches. He believed Bertran so far, that the Count of Poictou was
in his country, and King Henry with a host in his. War between Philip
and the Count was a foolishness. Peace between the Count and King Henry
was another. Don Sancho believed (since he believed in God) that old
King Henry was at death's door; and he saw above all things that, if the
scandal was reasonably founded, there would be a bachelor prince
spoiling for wedlock. On all grounds, therefore, he decided to write
privily to his kinswoman, Queen Eleanor of England.

And so he did, to a very different tune from that imagined by Bertran,
the letter which follows:--

'Madame (Sister and Aunt),' he wrote, 'this day has brought tidings to
my private ear whereat in part I mourn with you, and rejoice in part, as
a wise physician who, hearing of some great lover in the article of
death, knows that he has both the wit and the remedy to work his cure.
Madame, with a hand upon my heart I may certify the flow of my blood for
the causes, serious and horrific, which have led to strife between your
exalted lord and most dear consort in Christ Jesus, my lord Henry the
pious King of England (whom God assoil) and his august neighbour of
France. But, Madame (Sister and Aunt), it is no less my comfort to
affirm that the estate of your noble son, the Count of Poictou, no less
moves my anguish. What, Madame! So fierce a youth and so strenuous,
widowed of his hopeful bed! The face of Paris with the fate of Menelaus!
The sweet accomplishments of King David (chief of trobadors) and the
ignominy of the husband of Bathsheba! You see that my eloquence burns me
up; and verily, Madame (Sister and Aunt), the hot coal of the wrath of
your son has touched my mouth, so that at the last I speak with my
tongue.

'I ask myself, Madame, why do not the virgins of Christendom arise and
offer their unrifled zones to his noble fingers? Sister and Aunt, there
is one at least, in Navarre, who so arises. I offer my child Berengère,
called by trobadors (because of her chaste seclusion) Frozen Heart, to
be thawed in the sun of your son. I offer, moreover, my great fiefs of
Oliocastro, Cingovilas, Monte Negro, and Sierra Alba as far as Agreda;
and a dowry also of 60,000 marks in gold of Byzance, to be numbered by
three bishops, one each of our choosing, and the third to be chosen by
Our lord and ghostly father the Pope. And I offer to you, Madame (Sister
and Aunt), the devotion of a brother and nephew, the right hand of
concord, and the kiss of peace. I pray God daily to preserve your
Celsitude.--From our court of Pampluna, etc. Under the Privy Signet of
the King himself--Sanchius Navarrensium Rex, Sapiens, Pater Patriæ,
Pius, Catholicus.'

This done, and means taken for sure despatch, he sends for the virgin
in question, and embracing her with one arm, holds her close to his
knee.

'My child,' he says, 'you are to be wedded to the greatest prince now on
life, the pattern of chivalry, the mirror of manly beauty, heir to a
great throne. What do you say to this?'

The virgin kept her eyes down; a very faint flush of rose troubled her
cheek.

'I am in your hands, sire,' she said, whereupon Don Sancho enfolded her.

'You are in my arms, dear child,' he testified. 'Your lord will be King
of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Anjou, Poictou, and
Maine, and lord of some island in the western sea whose name I have
forgotten. He is also the subject of prophecy, which (as the Arabians
know very well) declares that he will rule such an empire as Alexander
never saw, nor the mighty Charles dreamed of. Does this please you, my
child?'

'He is a very great lord,' said Berengère, 'and will be a great king. I
hope to serve him faithfully.'

'By Saint James, and so you shall!' cried the happy Don Sancho. 'Go, my
child, and say your prayers. You will have something to pray about at
last.'

She was the only daughter he had left, exorbitantly loved; a little
creature too much brocaded to move, cold as snow, pious as a virgin
enclosed, with small regular features like a fairy queen's. She had a
narrow mind, and small heart for meeting tribulation, which, indeed, she
seemed never likely to know. Sometimes, being in her robes of state,
crusted with gems, crowned, coifed, ringed, she looked like nothing so
much as a stiff doll-goddess set in glass over an altar. It was thus she
showed her best, when with fixed eyes and a frigid smile she stood above
the court, an unapproachable glittering star set in the clear sky of a
night to give men hopes of an ordered heaven. It was thus Bertran de
Born had seen her, when for a time his hot and wrong heart was at rest,
and he could look on a creature of this world without desire to mar it.
Half in mockery, half in love, he called her Frozen Heart. Later on, you
remember, he called Jehane Bel Vezer. He was the nicknamer of Europe in
his day.

So now, or almost so, he saw her new come from her father's side--a
little flushed, but very much the great small lady, ma dame Berengère of
Navarre.

'The sun shines upon my Frozen Heart,' said Bertran. She gave him her
hand to kiss.

'No heart of yours am I, Bertran,' she said; 'but chosen for a king.'

'A king, lady! Whom then?'

She answered, 'A king to be. My lord Richard of Poictou.'

He clacked his tongue on his palate, and bolted this pill as best he
could. Bad was best. He saw himself made newly so great a fool that he
dared not think of it. If he had known at that time of Richard's dealing
with Jehane Saint-Pol, you may be sure he would have squirted some
venom. But he knew nothing at all about it; and as to the other affair,
even he dared not speak.

'A great lord, a hot lord, a very strenuous lord!' he said in jerks. It
was all there was to say.

'He is a prince who might claim a lady's love, I suppose,' said
Berengère, with considering looks.

'Ho ho! And so he has!' cried Bertran. 'I assure your Grace he is no
novice. Many he has claimed, and many have claimed him. Shall I number
them?'

'I beg that you will not,' she said, stiffening herself. So Bertran
grinned his rage. But he had one thing to say.

'This much I will tell you, Princess. The name I give him is
Yea-and-Nay: beware of it. He is ever of two minds: hot head and cold
heart, flaming heart and chilled head. He will be for God and the enemy
of God; will expect heaven and tamper with hell. With rage he will go
up, laughing come down. Ho! He will be for you and against you; eager,
slow; a wooer, a scorner; a singer of madrigals, ah, and a croaker
afterwards. There is no stability in him, neither length of love nor of
hate, no bottom, little faith.' Berengère rose.

'You vex yourself, Bertran, and me also,' she said. 'It is ill talking
between a prince and his friend.'

'Am I not your friend then, my lady?' he asked her with bitterness.

'You cannot be the friend of a prince, Bertran,' said Berengère calmly.
His muttered 'O God, the true word!' sufficed him for thought all his
road from Navarre. He went, as you know already, to Poictiers, where
Richard was making festival with Jehane.

But when, unhappy liar, he found out the truth, it came too late to be
of service to his designs. Don Sancho, he learned, was beforehand with
him even there, fully informed of the outrage at Gisors and the marriage
at Poictiers, with very clear views of the worth of each performance.
Bertran, gnashing his teeth, took up the service of the man he loathed;
gnashing his teeth, he let Richard kiss him in the lists and shower
favours upon him. When presents of stallions came from Navarre he began
to see what Don Sancho was about. Any meeting of Richard and that
profound schemer would have been Bertran's ruin. So when Richard was
King, he judged it time to be off.

'Now here,' says Abbot Milo, dealing with the same topics, 'I make an
end of Bertran de Born, who did enough mischief in his life to give
three kings wretchedness--the young King Henry, and the old King Henry,
and the new King Richard. If he was not the thorn of Anjou, whose thorn
was he? Some time afterwards he died alone and miserable, having seen
(as he thought) all his plots miscarry, the object of his hatred do the
better for his evil designs, and the object of his love the better
without them. He was cast off. His peers were at the Holy War, his enemy
on a throne. There had arisen a generation which shrugged at his eld,
and remained one which still thought him a misgoverned youth. Great poet
he was, great thief, and a silly fool. So there's an end of him: let him
be.'




CHAPTER XVI

CONVERSATION IN ENGLAND OF JEHANE THE FAIR


It was in the gules of August, we read, that King Richard set out for
his duchy and kingdom, on horseback, riding alone, splendid in red and
gold; Countess Jehane in a litter; his true brother and his
half-brother, his bishops, his chancellor, and his friends with him,
each according to his degree. They went by Alençon, Lisieux, and Pont
l'Evèque to Rouen; and there they found the Queen-Mother, an
unquenchable spirit. One of Richard's first acts had been to free her
from the fortress in which, for ten years or more, the old King had kept
her. There were no prison-traces upon her when she met her son, and
fixed her son's mistress with a calculating eye. A low-browed, swarthy
woman, heavily built, with the wreck of great beauty upon her, having
fingers like the talons of a bird and a trap-mouth; it was not hard to
see that into the rocky mortice where Richard had been cast there went
some grains of flint from her. She had slow, deliberate movements of the
body, but a darting mind; she was a most passionate woman, but frugal of
her passion, eking it out to cover long designs. Whether she loved or
hated--and she could glow with either lust until she seemed
incandescent--she went slowly to work. The quicker she saw, the slower
she was reducing sight into possession. With all this, like her son
Richard, she was capable of strong revulsions. Thus she had loved, then
hated King Henry; thus she was to spurn, then to cling to Jehane.

At Rouen she did her best to crush the young girl to the pavement with
her intolerable flat-lidded eyes. When Jehane saw her stand on the steps
of the church amidst the pomp of Normandy and England--three archbishops
by her, William Marshal, William Longchamp, the earls, the baronage, the
knights, heralds, blowers of trumpets; when at her example all this
glory of Church and State bent the knee to Richard of Anjou, and he,
kneeling in turn, kissed his mother's hand, then rose and to the others
gave his to be kissed; when he, vowed to her, pledged to her, known of
her more secretly than of any, passed through the blare of horns alone
into the soaring nave--Jehane shivered and crossed herself, faltered a
little, and might have fallen. Her King was doing by her as she had
prayed him; but the scrutiny of the Queen-Mother had been a dry gloss to
the text. She had been able to bear her forsaking with a purer heart,
but for the narrow eyes that witnessed it and gleamed. One of her
ladies, Magdalène Coucy, put an arm about her; so Countess Jehane
stiffened and jerked up her head, and after that walked with no more
faltering. If she had seen, as Milo saw, Gilles de Gurdun glowering at
her from a corner, it might have gone hard with her. But she did not.

They crowned Richard Duke of Normandy, and to him came all the barons of
the duchy one by one, to do him homage. And first the Archbishop of
Rouen, in whose allegiance was that same Sir Gilles. But Gilles knew
very well that there could be no fealty from him to this robber of a
duke. Gilles had seen Jehane; and when he could bear the sight no more
for fear his eyes should bleed, he went and walked about the streets to
cool his head. He swore by all the saints in the calendar of Rouen--and
these are many--that he would close this account. Let him be torn apart
by horses, he would kill the man who had stolen his wife and killed his
father and brother, were he duke, king, or Emperor of the West.
Meantime, in the church that golden-haired duke, set high on the throne
of Normandy, received between his hands the hands of the Normans; and in
a stall of the choir Jehane prayed fervently for him, with her arms
enfolding her bosom.

Gilles was seen again at Harfleur, when the King embarked for England.
He had a hood over his head; but Milo knew him by the little steady eyes
and bar of black above. When the great painted sails bellied to the
off-shore wind and the dragon-standard of England pointed the sea-way
northward into the haze, Milo saw Gilles standing on the mole, a little
apart from his friends, watching the galley which took Jehane out of
reach.

       *       *       *       *       *

If Milo found the Normans like ginger in the mouth, it is not to be
supposed that the English suited him any better. He calls them
'fog-stewed,' says that they ate too much, and were as proud of that as
of everything else they did. Luckily, he had very little to do with
them, though not much less, perhaps, than his master. Dry facts content
him: how the King disembarked at Southampton and took horse; how he rode
through forests to Winchester; how there he was met by the bishop, heard
mass in the minster, and departed for Guildford; thence again, how
through wood and heath they came to Westminster 'and a fair church set
in meadows by a broad stream'--to tell this rapidly contents him. But
once in London the story begins to concentrate. It is clear there was
danger for Jehane. King Richard, it seems, caused her to be lodged 'in a
place of nuns over the river, in a place which is called in English
Lamehithe.'

This was quite true; danger there was, as Richard saw, who knew his
mother. But he did not then know how quick with danger the times were.
The Queen-Mother had upon her the letter of Don Sancho the Wise, and to
her the politics of Europe were an open book. One holy war succeeded
another, and one king; but what king that might be depended neither upon
holiness nor war so much as on the way each was used. Marriage with
Navarre might push Anjou across the mountains; the holy war might lift
it across the sea. Who was the 'yellow-haired King of the West' whom
they of the East foretold, if not her goodly son? Should God be thwarted
by a ----? She hesitated not for a word, but I hesitate.

If the Queen-Mother was afraid of anything in the world, it was of the
devil in the race she had mothered. It had thwarted her in their father,
but it cowed her in her sons. Most of all, I think, in Richard she
feared it, because Richard could be so cold. A flamy devil as in young
Henry, or a brimstone devil as in Geoffrey of Brittany, or a spitfire
devil as was John's--with these she could cope, her lord had had them
all. But in Richard she was shy of the bleak isolation, the
self-sufficing, the hard, chill core. She dreaded it, yet it drew her;
she was tempted to beat vainly at it for the passion's sake; and so in
this case she dared to do. She would cheerfully have killed the minion,
but she dared the King first.

When she opened to him the matter of Don Sancho's letter, none knew
better than Richard that the matter might have been good. Yet he would
have nothing to say to it. 'Madame,' his words were, 'this is an idle
letter, if not impertinent. Don Sancho knows very well that I am married
already.'

'Eh, sire! Eh, Richard!' said the Queen-Mother, 'then he knows more than
I.'

'I think not, Madame,' the King replied, 'since I have this moment
informed you.'

The Queen swallowed this; then said, 'This wife of yours, Richard, who
is not Duchess of Normandy, will not be Queen, I doubt?'

Richard's face grew haggard; for the moment he looked old. 'Such again
is the fact, Madame.'

'But--' the Queen began. Richard looked at her, so she ended there.

Afterwards she talked with the Archbishop of Canterbury, with the
Marshal, with Longchamp of Ely, and her son John. All these worthies
were pulling different ways, each trying to get the rope to himself.
With that rope John hoped to hang his brother yet. 'Dearest Madame,' he
said, 'Richard cannot marry in Navarre even if he were willing. Once he
has been betrothed, and has broken plight; once he saw his mistress
betrothed, and broke her plight. Now he is wedded, or says that he is.
Suppose that you get him to break this wedlock, will you give him
another woman to deceive? There is no more faithless beast in the world
than Richard.'

'Your words prove that there is one at least,' said the Queen-Mother
with heat. 'You speak very ill, my son.'

Said John, 'And he does very ill, by the Bread!'

William Marshal interposed. 'I have seen much of the Countess of Anjou,
Madame,' said this honest gentleman. 'Let me tell your Grace that she is
a most exalted lady.' He would have said more had the Queen-Mother
endured it, but she cried out upon him.

'Anjou! Who dares put her up there?'

'Madame,' said William, 'it was my lord the King.' The Queen fumed.

Then the Archbishop said, 'She is nobly born, of the house of Saint-Pol.
I understand that she has a clear mind.'

'More,' cried the Marshal, 'she has a clear heart!'

'If she had nothing clear about her I have that which would bleach her
white enough,' said the Queen-Mother; and Longchamp, who had said
nothing at all, grinned.

In the event, the Queen one day took to her barge, crossed the river,
and confronted the girl who stood between England and Navarre.

Jehane, who was sitting with her ladies at needlework, was not so scared
as they were. Like the nymphs of the hunting Maid they all clustered
about her, showing the Queen-Mother how tall she was and how nobly
figured. She flushed a little and breathed a little faster; but making
her reverence she recovered herself, and stood with that curious look on
her face, half surprise, half discontent, which made men call her the
sulky fair. So the Queen-Mother read the look.

'No pouting with me, mistress,' she said. 'Send these women away. It is
with you I have to deal.'

'Do we deal singly, Madame?' said Jehane. 'Then my ladies shall seek for
yours the comforts of a discomfortable lodging. I am sorry I have no
better.' The Queen-Mother nodded her people out of the room; so she and
Jehane were left alone together.

'Mistress,' said the Queen-Mother, 'what is this between you and my son?
Playing and kissing are to be left below the degrees of a throne. Let
there be no more of it. Do you dare, are you so hardy in the eyes, as to
look up to a kingly seat, or measure your head for a king's crown?'

Jehane had plenty of spirit, which a very little of this sort of talk
would have fanned into a flame; but she had irony too.

'Madame, alas!' she said, with a hint of shrugging; 'if I have worn the
Count's cap I know the measure of my head.'

The Queen-Mother took her by the wrist 'My girl,' said she, 'you know
very well that you are no Countess at all in my son's right, but are
what one of your nurture should not be. And you shall understand that I
am a plain-dealer in such affairs when they concern this realm, and have
bled little heifers like you whiter than veal and as cold as most of the
dead; and will do it again if need be.'

Jehane did not flinch nor turn her eyes from considering her whitening
wrist.

'Oh, Madame,' she says, 'you will never bleed me; I am quite sure of
that. Alas, it would be well if you could, without offence.'

'Why, whom should I offend then?' the Queen said, sniffing--'your
ladyship?'

'A greater,' said Jehane.

'You think the King would be offended?'

'Madame,' Jehane said, 'he could be offended; but so would you be.'

The Queen-Mother tightened hold. 'I am not easily offended, mistress,'
she said, and smiled rather bleakly.

Jehane also smiled, but with patience, not trying to get free her wrist.

'My blood would offend you. You dare not bleed me.'

'Death in life!' the Queen cried, 'is there any but the King to stop me
now?'

'Madame,' Jehane answered, 'there is the spoken word against you, the
spirit of prophecy.'

Then her jailer saw that Jehane's eyes were green, and very steady. This
checked her.

'Who speaks? Who prophesies?'

Jehane told her, 'The leper in a desert place, saying, "Beware the
Count's cap and the Count's bed; for so sure as thou liest in either
thou art wife of a dead man and of his killer."'

The Queen-Mother, a very religious woman, took this saying soberly. She
dropped Jehane's wrist, stared at and about her, looked up, looked down;
then said, 'Tell me more of this, my girl.'

'Hey, Madame,' said Jehane, 'I will gladly tell you the whole. The
saying of the leper was very dreadful to me, for I thought, here is a
man punished by God indeed, but so near death as to be likely familiar
with the secrets of death. Such a one cannot be a liar, nor would he
speak idly who has so little time left to pray in. Therefore I urged my
lord Richard by his good love for me to forgo his purpose of wedding me
in Poictiers. But he would not listen, but said that, as he had stolen
me from my betrothed, it comported not with his honour to dishonour me.
So he wedded me, and fulfilled both terms of the leper's prophecy. Then
I saw myself in peril, and was not at all comforted by the advice of
certain nuns, which was that, although I had lain in the Count's bed, I
had not lain, but had knelt, in the Count's cap; and that therefore the
terms were not fulfilled. I thought that foolishness, and still think
so. But this is my own thought. I have never rightly been in either as
the leper intended, for I do not think the marriage a good one. If I am
no wife, then, God pity me, I have done a great sin; but I am no
Countess of Anjou. So I give the prophet the lie. On the other hand, if
I am put away by my lord the King that he may make a good marriage, I
shall be claimed again by the man to whom I was betrothed before, and so
the doom be in danger of fulfilment. For, look now, Madame, the leper
said, "Wife of a dead man and his killer"; and there is none so sure to
kill the King as Sir Gilles de Gurdun. Alas, alas, Madame, to what a
strait am I come, who sought no one's hurt! I have considered night and
day what it were best to do since the King, at my prayer, left me; and
now my judgment is this. I must be with the King, though not the King's
_mie_; because so surely as he sends me away, so surely will Gilles de
Gurdun have me.'

She stopped, out of breath, feeling some shame to have spoken so much.
The Queen-Mother came to her at once, with her hands out. 'By my soul,
Jehane,' she said, 'you are a good woman. Never leave my son.'

'I never mean to leave him,' said Jehane. 'That is my punishment, and (I
think) his also.'

'His punishment, my child?'

'Why, Madame,' said Jehane, 'you think that the King must wed.'

'Yes, yes.'

'And to wed, he must put me away.'

'Yes, yes, child.'

'Therefore, although he loves me, he may never have his dear desire; and
although I love him, I may give him no comfort. Yet we can never leave
each other for fear of the leper's prophecy; but he must always long and
I grieve. That, I think, is punishment for a man and woman.'

The Queen-Mother sobbed. Terrible punishment for a little pleasant sin!
Yet I doubt'--she said, politic through all--'yet I doubt my son, being
a fierce lover, will have his way with thee.'

Jehane shook her head. 'No means,' she said, drawing in her breath, 'no
means, Madame. I have his life to think of.' Here, pitying herself, she
turned away her face. The Queen-Mother came suddenly and kissed her.
They cried together, Jehane and the flinty old shrew of Aquitaine.

A pact was made, and sealed with kisses, between these two women who
loved King Richard, that Jehane should do her best to further the
Navarrese match. Circumstance was her friend in this pious robbery of
herself: Richard, who stood so deep engaged in honour to God Almighty,
could get no money.

Busy as he was with one shift after another to redeem his credit, busy
also pushing on his coronation, he yet continued to see his mistress
most days, either walking with her in the garden of the nuns' house
where she lodged, or sitting by her within doors. At these snatched
moments there was a beautiful equality between them; the girl no longer
subject to the man, the man more master of himself for being less master
of her. As often as not he sat on the floor at her feet while she worked
at those age-long tapestries which her generation loved; leaning his
head back to her knee, he would so lie and search her face, and wonder
to himself what the world to come could have more fair to show than this
calm treasurer of lovely flesh. This was, at the time, her chief glory,
that with all her riches--fragrant allure, soft warmth, the delicacy,
nice luxury of her every part, the glow, the tincture, the throbbing
fire--she could keep a strong hand upon herself; sway herself modestly;
have so much and give so little; be so apt for a bridal, and yet without
a sigh play the nun! 'If she, being devirginate through me, can cry
herself virgin again--then cannot I, by the King of Heaven?' This was
Richard's day-thought, a very mannish thought; for women do not consider
their own beauties so closely, see no divinity in themselves, and find a
man to be a glorious fool to think one of them more desirable than
another. He never spoke this thought, but worshipped her silently for
the most part; and she, reading the homage of his upturned face, steeled
herself against the sweet flattery, held her peace, and in her fierce
proud mind made endless plots against his.

In silence their souls conversed upon a theme never mentioned between
them. His restless quest of her face taught him much, disposed him; she,
with all the good guile of women to her hand, waited, judging the time.
Then one day as they sat together in a window she suddenly slipped away
from his hand, dropped to her knees, and began to pray.

For a while he let her alone, finding the act as lovely as she. But
presently he stooped his face till it almost touched her cheek, and
'Tell me thy prayer, dear heart! Let me pray also!' he whispered.

'I pray for my lord the King,' she said. 'Let me pray.' But as he
insisted, urging, leaning to her, she drew her head back and lifted to
his view her face, blanched with pure patience.

'O King Christ,' she prayed, 'take from my soiled hand this sacrifice!'

She prayed to Christ, but looked at Richard. He dared speak for Christ.

'What sacrifice, my child?'

'I give Thee the hero who has lain upon my breast; I give Thee the
marriage-bed, the cap of the Count. I give Thee the kisses, the clinging
together, the vows, the long bliss where none may speak. I give Thee the
language of love, the strife, the after-calm, the assurance, the hope
and the promise. But I keep, Lord, the memory of love as a hostage of
Thine.'

King Richard, breathless now, looked in her face. It was that of a mild
angel, steadfast, grave, hued like fire, acquainted with grief. 'O
God-fraught! O saint in the battle! O dipped in the flame! Jehane,
Jehane, Jehane! Quicken me!' So he cried in anguish of spirit.

'Quicken thee, Richard?' she said. 'Nay, but thou art quick, my King.
The Cross hath made thee quick; thou hast given more than I.'

'I will give all by thy direction,' he said, 'for I know that thou wilt
save my honour.'

'Trust me there,' said Jehane, and let him kiss her cheek.

She got a great hold upon him by these means. Quick with the Holy Ghost
or not, there was no doubting the quickness of his mind. Here Jehane's
wit had not played her false; he read her whole meaning; she never let
go the footing she had gained, but in all her commerce with him walked a
saint, a maid ravished only by a great thought. Visibly to him she stood
symbol of belief, sacramental, the fire on the altar, the fine shy
spirit of love lurking (like a rock-flower) at the Cross's foot. And so
this fire with which she led him, like the torch she had held up to show
him his earlier way, lifted her; and so she became indeed what she
signified.

She stood very near the Queen-Mother when Richard was crowned and
anointed King of the English, unearthly pure, with eyes like stars,
robed in dull red, crowned herself with silver. All those about her,
marking the respect which the old Queen paid her, scarce dared lift
their eyes to her face. The tall King, stripped to the shirt, was
anointed, then robed, then crowned; afterwards sat with orb and sceptre
to receive homage. Jehane came in her turn to kneel before him. But her
work had been done. That icy stream in the blood, which is cause and
proof at once of the kingly isolation, was doubly in Richard, first of
that name. He beheld her kneeling at his knee, knew her and knew her
not. She with her cold lips kissed his cold hand. That day had love, by
her own desire, been frozen; and that which was to awaken it was itself
numb in sleep.

On the third of September they crowned him King, and found that he was
to be King indeed. On the same day the citizens of London killed all the
Jews they could find; and Richard banished his brother John from his
dominions in England and France for three years and three days.




CHAPTER XVII

FROZEN HEART AND RED HEART: CAHORS


I suppose that the present relations of King Richard and the Countess of
Poictou (as she chose to call herself now) were as singular as could
subsist between a strong man and beautiful woman, both in love. I am not
to extenuate or explain, but say once for all to the curious that she
was never again to him (nor had been since that day at Fontevrault) what
a sister might not have been. Yet, with all that, it was evident to the
world at large that he was a lover, and she mistress of his mind. Not
only implicitly so, as witnessed their long intercourse of the eyes,
their quick glances, stealthy watching of each other, the little tender
acts (as the giving or receiving of a flower), the brooding silences,
the praying at the same time or place; but explicitly he pronounced
himself her knight. All his songs were of her; he wrote to her many
times a day, and she answered his letters by her page, and kept the
latest of them always within her vest, over against her heart. She
allowed herself more scope than he, trusting herself further: it is
known that she treasured discarded things of his, and went so far as to
wear (she, the Fair-Girdled!) a studded belt of his made to fit her. She
was never without this rude monument of her former grace. But this was
the sum-total of their bodily intercourse, apart from speech. Of their
spiritual ecstasies I have no warrant to speak, though I believe these
were very innocent. She would not dare, nor he care, to indulge in so
laxative a joy.

He conversed with her freely upon all affairs of moment; there was no
constraint on either side. He was even merry in her company, and
astonishingly frank. Singular man! the Navarrese marriage was a common
subject of their talk; she spoke of it with serious mockery and he with
mock seriousness. From Richard it was, 'Countess Jehane, when the
chalk-faced Spaniard reigns you must mend your manners.' And she might
say, 'Beau sire, Madame Berengère will never like your songs unless you
sing of her.' All this served the girl's private ends. Gradually and
gradually she led him to see that thing as fixed. She did it, as it
were, on tiptoe, for she knew what a shyer he was; but luckily for her
schemes, the Queen-Mother trusted her to the bottom, said nothing and
allowed nothing to be said.

Meantime the affairs of the Crusade conspired with Jehane to drive
Richard once more to church. If he got little money in England, where
abbeys were rich in corn but poor in pelf, and the barons had been so
prompt to rob each other that they could not be robbed by the King,--he
got less in Gaul, eaten up by war for a hundred years. You cannot bleed
a stuck pig, as King Richard found. England was empty of money. He got
men enough; from one motive or another every English knight was willing
to rifle the East. He had ships enough. But of what use ships and men
if there was no food for them nor money to buy it? He tried to borrow,
he tried to beg, he tried what in a less glorious cause a plain man
would call stealing. King Richard came not of a squeamish race, and
would have sold anything to any buyer, pawned his crown or taken another
man's to get the worth of a company's pay out of it. Fines, escheats,
reliefs, forfeitures, wardships, marriages--he heaped exaction on
exaction, with mighty little result. When his mind was set he was
inexorable, insatiable, without scruple. What he got only sharpened his
appetite for more. King Tancred of Sicily owed the dowry of Richard's
sister Joan. He swore he would wring that out of him to the last doit.
He offered the city of London to the highest bidder, and lamented the
slaughter of the Jews when the tenders were few. Here was a position to
be in! His Englishmen lay rotting in Southampton town, his ships in
Southampton water. His Normans and Poictevins were over-ripe; he as dry
as an unpinched pear. He saw, to his infinite vexation, his honour again
in pawn, and no means of redeeming it. Jehane, with tears in her voice,
plied the Navarrese marriage with more passion than she would ever have
allowed herself to urge her own. Richard said he would think of it. 'Now
I have him half-way,' Jehane told the Queen-Mother. He was driven the
other half by his banished brother John.

Prince John, bundled out of the country within a week of the coronation,
went to Paris and a pocketful of mischief in which to put his hand.
King Philip, who should have been preparing for the East, was listening
to counsels much more to his liking. Conrad of Montferrat was there,
with large white fingers explaining on the table, and a large white face
set as lightly as a mouse-trap. His Italian mind, with that strange
capacity for subserving business with passion, had a task of election
here. The Marquess knew that Richard would sooner help the devil than
him to Jerusalem; not only on this account, but on every conceivable
account did he hate Richard. If he could embroil the two leaders of the
Crusade, there was his affair: Philip would need him. In Paris also was
Saint-Pol, fizzling with mischief, and behind him, where-ever he went,
stalked Gilles de Gurdun, murder in his heart. The massive Norman was a
fine foil to the Count: they were the two poles of hatred. The Duke of
Burgundy was not there, but Conrad knew that he could be counted.
Richard owed him (so he said) forty pounds; besides, Richard had called
him a sponge--and it was true. There, lastly, was Des Barres, that fine
Frenchman, ready to hate anybody who was not French, and most ready to
hate Richard, who had broken up the Gisors wedding and put,
single-handed, all the guests to shame. Now, this was a company after
Prince John's own heart. Standing next to the English throne, he was an
excellent footstool; he felt the delicate position, he was flattered at
every turn. The Marquess found him most useful, not only because he was
on better terms with Philip than himself could hope to be, but because
he understood him better. John knew that there were two tender spots in
that moody King, and he knew which was the tenderer, pardieu! So
Conrad's gross finger, guided by John's, probed the raw of Philip's
self-esteem, and found a rankling wound, very proud flesh. Oh,
intolerable affront to the House of Capet, that a tall Angevin robber
should take up and throw away a daughter of France, and then whistle you
to a war in the East! Prince John, you perceive, knew where to rub in
the salt.

The storm broke when King Richard was again at Chinon. King Philip sent
messengers--William des Barres, the Bishop of Beauvais, and Stephen of
Meaux--about the homage due to him for Normandy and all the French
fiefs. So far well; King Richard was very urbane, as bland as such an
incisive dealer could be. He would do homage for Normandy, Anjou, and
the rest on such and such a day. 'But,' he added quietly, 'I attach the
condition that it be done at Vézelay, when I am there with my army for
the East, and he with his army.'

The ambassadors demurred, talking among themselves: Richard sat on
immovable, his hands on his knees. Presently the Bishop of Beauvais,
better soldier than priest, stood out from his fellows and made this
remarkable speech:--

'Beau sire, our lord the august King takes it very ill that you have so
long delayed the marriage agreed upon solemnly between your Grace and
Madame Alois his sister. Therefore--' Milo (who was present) says that
he saw his master narrow his eyes so much that he seemed to have none at
all, but 'sockets and blank balls in them, like statues.' The Bishop of
Beauvais, apparently, did not observe it. 'Therefore,' he went on,
orotund, 'our lord the King desires that the marriage may be celebrated
before he sets out for Acre and the blessed work in those parts. Other
matters there are for settlement, such as the title of the most
illustrious Marquess of Montferrat to the holy throne, in which my
master is persuaded your Grace will conform to his desires. This and
other matters a many.'

The King got up. 'Too many matters, Bishop of Beauvais,' he said, 'for
my appetite, which is poor just now. There is no debate. Say this to
your master, I pay homage where it is due. If by his own act he prove
that it is not due, I will not be blamed. As to the Marquess, I will
never get a kingdom for him, and I marvel that King Philip can make no
better choice than of a man whose only title is rape, and can get no
better ally than the slanderer of his sister. And upon the subject of
that unhappy lady, I tell you this upon the Holy Gospels, that I will
marry King Philip himself before I will marry her; and so much he very
well knows. I am upon the point to depart in the fulfilment of my vows.
Let your master please himself. He is a bad sailor, he tells me. Am I to
think him a bad soldier? And if so, in such a cause, what sort of a
Christian, what sort of a king, am I to think him?'

The Bishop, his diplomacy at an end, grew very red. He had nothing to
say. Des Barres must needs put in his word.

'Bethink you, fair sire,' he says: 'the Marquess is of my kindred.'

'Oh, I do think, Des Barres,' the King answered him; 'and I am very
sorry for you. But I am not answerable for the trespasses of your
ancestry.'

Des Barres glared about him, as if he hoped to find a reply among the
joists.

'My lord,' he began again, 'it is laid in charge upon us to speak the
mind of France. Our master is greatly put about in his sister's affair,
and not he only, but his allies with him. Among whom, sire, you must be
pleased to reckon my lord John of Mortain.'

He had done better to leave John out; Richard's eyes burnt him, and his
voice cut. 'Let my brother John have her, who knows her rights and
wrongs. As for you, Des Barres, take back to your master your windy
conversation, and this also, that I allow no man to dictate marriages to
me.' So said, he broke up the audience, and would see no more of the
ambassadors. They, in two or three days, departed with what grace they
had in them.

The immediate effect of this, you may perhaps expect, was to drive
Richard all the road to Navarre. He was profoundly offended, so much so
that not Jehane herself dared speak to him. As he always did when his
heart mastered his head, he acted now alone and at once. In the heart we
choose to seat rage of all sorts, the purest and the most base, the most
fervent and the most cold. It so happened that there was business for
our King in Gascony, congenial business. Guillem de Chisi, a vassal of
his, had been robbing pilgrims, so Guillem was to be hanged. Richard
went swift-foot to Cahors, hanged Guillem in front of his own
gatehouse, then wrote letters to Pampluna inviting King Sancho to a
conference 'upon many affairs touching Almighty God and ourselves.' Thus
he put it, and King Sancho needed no accents to the vowels. The wise man
set out with a great train, his virgin with him.

       *       *       *       *       *

The day of his expectation, King Richard heard mass in a most
unchristian frame of mind. There was no _Sursum Corda_ for him; but he
knelt like a stone image, inert and cold from breast to backbone; said
nothing, moved not. How differently do men and women stand at the gate
of sorrows! Not far off him knelt Countess Jehane, who in her hands
again (it may be said) held up her bleeding heart. The luxury of this
strange sacrifice made the girl glow like a fire opal; she was in a
fierce ecstasy, her lips parted, eyes half-shut; she breathed short, she
panted. There is no moralising over these things: love is a hearty
feeder, and thrives on a fast-day as well as on a gaudy. By fasting come
visions, tremors, swoonings and such like, dainty perversions of sense.
But part of Jehane's exaltation, you must know, came of another spur.
She had a sure and certain hope; she knew what she knew, though no other
even guessed it. With that to carry she could lift up her head. No woman
in the world need grudge the usurper of place while she may go on,
carrying her title below the heart. More of this presently. Two hours
before noon, in that clear October weather, over the brown hills came a
company of knights on white destriers, with their pennons flying and
white cloaks over their mail, the outriders of Navarre. They were met
in the meadow of the Charterhouse and escorted to their quarters, which
were on the right of the King's pavilion. That same pavilion was of
purple silk, worked over with gold leopards the size of life. It had two
standards beside it, the dragon of the English, the leopards of Anjou.
The pavilion of King Sancho was of green silk with silver emblems--a
heart, a castle, a stag; Saint George, Saint Michael, Saint James the
Great, and Saint Martin with his split cloak--a shining place before
whose door stood twenty ladies in white, their hair let loose, to
receive Madame Berengère and minister to her. Chief among these was
Countess Jehane. King Richard was not in his own pavilion, but would
greet his brother king in the hail of the citadel.

So in due time, after three soundings on the silver trumpets and much
curious ceremony of bread and salt, came Don Sancho the Wise in a meinie
of his peers, very noble on a roan horse; and Dame Berengère his
daughter in a wine-coloured litter, with her ladies about her on ambling
palfreys, the colour of burnt grass. When they took this little princess
out of her silken cage the first face she looked for and the first she
saw was that of Jehane Saint-Pol, who received her courteously.

Jehane always wore sumptuous clothing, being aware, no doubt, that her
person justified the display. For this time she had dressed herself in
silver brocade, let her bosom go bare, and brought the strong golden
plaits round about in her favourite fashion. Upon her head she had a
coronet of silver flowers, in her neck a blue jewel. All the colour she
had lay in her hue of faint rose, in her hair like corn in the sun, in
her eyes of green, in her deep red lips. But her height, free build, and
liberal curves marked her out of a bevy that glowed in a more Southern
fashion. She had to stoop overmuch to kiss Berengère's hand; and this
made the little Spaniard bite her lip.

Berengère herself was like a bell, in a stiff dress of crimson sewn with
great pearls in leaf and scroll-work. From the waist upwards she was the
handle of the bell. This immoderation of her clothes, the fright she was
in--so nervous at first that she could hardly stand--became her very
ill. She was quite white in the face, with solemn black eyes, glazed and
expressionless; her little hands stuck out from her sides like a
puppet's. Handsome as no doubt she was, she looked a doll beside the
tall Jehane, who could have dandled her comfortably on her knee. She
spoke no language but her own, and that not the _langue d'oc_, but a
blurred dialect of it, rougher even than Gascon. Conversation was very
difficult on these terms. At first the Princess was shy; then (when she
grew curious and forgot her qualms) Jehane was shy. Berengère fingered
the jewel in the other's neck, turned it about, wanted to know whence it
had come, whose gift it was, etc., etc. Jehane blushed to report it the
gift of a friend; whereupon the Princess looked her up and down in a way
that made her hot all over.

But when it came to the time of meeting King Richard, Berengère's
nervous fears came crowding back; the poor little creature began to
shake, clung to Jehane. 'How tall is the king, how tall is he? Taller
than you?' she asked, looking up at the Picard girl.

'Oh, yes, Madame, he is taller than I.'

'They say he is cruel. Did you--do you think him cruel?'

'Madame, no, no.'

'He is a poet, they say. Has he made many songs of me?'

Jehane murmured her doubts, exquisitely confused.

'Fifty poets,' continued nestling Berengère, 'have made songs of me.
There is a wreath of songs. They call me Frozen Heart: do you know why?
They say I am too proud to love a poet. But if the poet is a king! I
have a certain fear just now. I think I will--' She took Jehane's
arm--'No! no!' She drew away. 'You are too tall--I will never take your
arm--I am ashamed. I beg you to go before me. Lead the way.'

So Jehane went first of all the ladies who led the Queen to the King.

King Richard, who himself loved to go splendidly, sat upon his throne in
the citadel looking like a statue of gold and ivory. Upon his head was a
crown of gold, he had a long tunic of white velvet, round his shoulders
a great cope of figured gold brocade, work of Genoa, and very curious.
His face and hands were paler than their wont was, his eyes frosty blue,
like a winter sea that is made bright, not warm, by the sun. He sat up
stiffly, hands on knees; and all about him stood the lords and prelates
of the most sumptuous court in the West. King Sancho the Wise was ready
to stoop all his wisdom and burden of years before such superb state as
this; but the moment his procession entered the hall Richard went down
from his daïs to meet it, kissed him on the cheek, asked how he did, and
set the careworn man at his ease. As for Berengère, he took from her of
both cheeks, held her small hand, spoke in her own language honourable
and cheerful words, drove a little colour into her face, screwed a word
or two out of her. Afterwards there was high mass, sung by the
Archbishop of Auch, and a great banquet, served in the cloister-garth of
the Charterhouse under a red canopy, because the hail of the citadel was
too small.

At this feast King Richard played a great part--cheerful, easy of
approach, making phrases like swords, giving and taking the talk without
any advantage of his rank. His jokes had a bite in them, as when he said
of Bertran that the best proof of the excellence of his verses was that
he had undoubtedly made them himself; or of Averrhoes, the Arabian
physician and infidel philosopher, that the man equalised his harms by
poisoning with his drugs the bodies of those whose minds had been
tainted by his heresies. But he was the first to set the laugh against
himself, and had a flash of Dame Berengère's fine teeth before he had
been ten minutes at table.

After dinner the Kings and their ministers went into debate; and then it
seemed that Richard had got up from his meat perverse. He would only
talk of one thing, namely, sixty thousand gold besants. On this he
harped maddeningly, with calculations of how much victual the sum would
buy, of the weight in ounces, of its content in sacks in a barn, of the
mileage of the coins set edge to edge, and so on, and so on. Don Sancho
sat winking and fidgeting in his chair, and talked of his illustrious
daughter.

'Milled edges they should have, these besants,' says King Richard,
'whereof, allowing (say) three hundred and fifty to a piece, we have a
surprising total of'--here he figured on the table, and King Sancho
pursued his drift until Richard brought his hand slamming down--'of
one-and-twenty million ridges of gold upon the treasure!' he concluded
with a waggish look. Agreement was as hard as to prolong parallels to a
point. Yet this went on for some two hours, until, worn frail by such
futilities, the Navarrese chancellor plumply asked his brother of
England if King Richard would marry. 'Marry!' cried he, when they
brought him down the question, 'yes, I am all for marrying. I will marry
one-and-twenty million milled edges, our Saviour!' They reported to King
Sancho the substance of these words, and asked him if such and such
would be the dowry of his lady daughter.

'Ask King Richard if he will have her with that in hand and the
territories demarked,' said Don Sancho.

This was done. Richard grew grave, made no more jokes. He turned to
Milo, who happened to be near him.

'Where is the little lady?' he asked him. Milo looked out of the
window.

'My lord,' he said, 'she is in the orchard at this moment; and I think
the Countess is with her.' Richard blenched, as if he had been struck
with a whip. Collecting himself, he turned and looked down through the
window to the leafy orchard below. He looked long, and saw (as Milo had
seen) the two girls, the tall and the little, the crimson and the white,
standing near together in the shade. Jehane had her head bent, for
Berengère had hold of the jewel in her bosom. Then Berengère put her
arms round the other's neck and leaned her head where the jewel lay.
Jehane stooped her head lower and lower, cheek touched cheek. At this
King Richard turned about; despair set hard was on his face. He said in
a dry voice, 'Tell the King I will do it.'

In the tedious negotiations of the next few days it was arranged that
the Princess should await the Queen-Mother at Bayonne, and sail with her
and the fleet to Sicily. There King Richard would meet and marry her.
What had passed between her and Jehane in the orchard, who knows? They
kissed at parting; but Jehane neither told Richard, nor did he ask her,
why Berengère had lain her cheek upon her bosom, or why herself had
stooped so low her head. Women's ways!

So Red Heart made her sacrifice, and Frozen Heart suffered the Sun; and
he they called later Lion-Heart went out to fight Saladin, and less open
foes than he.




BOOK II


THE BOOK OF NAY




CHAPTER I

THE CHAFFER CALLED MATE-GRIFON


Differing from the Mantuan as much in sort as degree, I sing less the
arms than the man, less the panoply of some Christian king offended than
the heart of one in its urgent private transports; less treaties than
the agony of treating, less personages than persons, the actors rather
than the scene. Arms pass like the fashion of them, to-day or to-morrow
they will be gone; but men live, their secret springs what they have
always been. How the two Kings, then, smeared over their strifes at
Vézelay; how John of Mortain was left biting his nails, and Alois
weeping at the foot of a cross; how Christian armies like dusty snakes
dragged their lengths down the white shores of Rhone, and how some took
ship at Marseilles, and some saved their stomachs at the cost of their
shoes; of King Richard's royal galley _Trenchemer_, a red ship with a
red bridge, and the dragon at the mast; of the shields that made her
bulwarks terrible; of who went adventurous and who remained; of a fleet
that lay upon the waters like a flock of sea-gulls--countless, now at
rest, now beating the sea into spumy wrath; of what way they made,
qualms they suffered, prayers they said in their extremity, vows they
made and afterwards broke, thoughts they had and afterwards were ashamed
of--of these and all such things I must be silent if I am to make a
good end to my history. It shall be enough for you that the red ship
held King Richard, and King Richard his own thoughts, and that never far
from him, in a ship called _Li Chastel Orgoilous_, sat Jehane with
certain women of hers, nursing her hope and a new and fearful wonder she
had. Prayer sits well in women, and age-long watching: one imagines that
Jehane never left the poop through those long white days, those burning
nights; but could always be seen or felt, a still figure sitting apart,
elbow on knee, chin in hand-like a Norn reading fate in the starred web
of the night. In the dark watches, when the ships lay drifting under the
stars, or lurched forward as the surges drove them on, and the tinkling
of the water against the side was all the sound, some woman's voice (not
Jehane's) would be heard singing faint and far off, some little shrill
and winding prayer.

     Saincte Catherine,
     Vélà la nuict qui gagne!

they would hear, and hang upon the cadence. At such times Richard,
stretched upon his lion-skin, would raise himself, and lift up his face
to the immense, and with his noble voice make the darkness tremble as he
sang--

     Domna, dels angels regina,
     Domna, roza ses espina,
     Domna, joves enfantina,
     Domna, estela marina,
     De las autras plus luzens!

But so soon as his voice filled the night, the woman's faltered and
died; and he, holding on for a stave or more, would stop on a note that
had a wailing fall, and the lapping of the waves or cry of hidden birds
take up the rule again. This did not often obtain. Mostly he watched out
the night, sleeping little, talking none, but revolving in his mind the
great deeds to do. By day he was master of the fleet, an admirable
seaman who, knowing nothing of ships' business before he embarked, dared
not confess so much to himself. Richard must be leader if he was to be
undertaker at all. So he led his fleet from his first hour with it, and
brought it safely into the roadstead.

       *       *       *       *       *

They made Messina prosperously, a white city cooped within walls, with
turrets and belfries and shining domes, stooping sharply to the violet
sea. King Philip with his legions was to have come by land as far as
Genoa, and was not expected yet awhile. Nor was there any sign of the
Queen-Mother, of Berengère, or of the convoy from Navarre.

A landing was made in the early morning. Before the Sicilians were well
awake Richard's army was in camp, the camp entrenched, and a most
salutary gallows set up just outside it, with a thief upon it as a
warning to his brothers of Sicily. So far good. The next thing was an
embassy to King Tancred, the Sicilian King, which demanded (1) the
person of Queen Joan (Richard's sister), (2) her dowry, (3) a golden
table twelve foot long, (4) a silk tent, and (5) a hundred galleys
fitted out for two years. This despatched, Richard entertained himself
with his hawks and dogs, and with short excursions into Calabria. On one
of these he went to visit the saintly Abbot Joachim, at once prophet and
philosopher and man of cool sense; and on another to kill wild boars.
When he came back in October from the second of these, he found matters
going rather ill.

King Tancred avoided seeing him, sent no tables, nor ships, nor dowry.
He did send Queen Joan, and Queen Joan's bed; moreover, because she had
been Queen of Sicily, he sent a sack of gold coins for her
entertainment; but he did not propose to go any further. Richard, seeing
what sort of courses his plans were likely to take, crossed once more
into Calabria, attacked a fortified town which the Sicilians had
settled, turned the settlers out, and established his sister there with
Jehane, her shipload of ladies, and a strong garrison. Then he returned
to Messina.

Certainly, he saw, his camp there could be of no long tenure. The
Grifons, as they called the inhabitants, were about it like hornets; not
a day passed without the murder of some man of his, or an ambush which
cost him a score. Thieving was a courtesy, raiding an amenity in a
Grifon, it appeared. Richard, hoping yet for the dowry and a peaceful
departing, had laid a strict command that no harm should be done to any
one of them unless he should be caught bloody-handed. 'Well and good!'
writes Milo; 'but this meant to say that no man might scratch himself
for fear he should kill a louse.' Nature could not endure such a
direction, so Richard then (whose own temper was none of the longest)
let himself go, fell upon a party of these brigands, put half to the
sword and hanged the other half in rows before the landward gate of
Messina. You will say that this did not advance his treaty with King
Tancred; but in a sense it did. When the Messenians came out of their
gates to attack him in open field, it was found and reported by Gaston
of Béarn, who drove them in with loss, that William des Barres and the
Count of Saint-Pol had been with them, each heading a company of
knights. Richard flew into a royal, and an Angevin, rage. He swore by
God's back that he would bring the walls flat; and so he did. 'This is
the work of that little pale devil of France, then,' he said. 'A likely
beginning, by my soul! Now let me see if I can bring two kings to reason
at once.'

He used the argument of the long arm. Bringing up his engines from the
ships, he pounded the walls of Messina to such purpose that he could
have walked in barefoot in two or three places. King Tancred came in
person to sue for peace; but Richard wanted more than dowry by this
time. 'The peace you shall have,' he said, 'is the peace of God which
passeth understanding, and for which, I take it, you are not yet ready,
unless you bring hither with you Philip of France.' This the unfortunate
Tancred really could not do; but he did bring proxies of Philip's.
Saint-Pol came, Des Barres, and the Bishop of Beauvais with his russet,
soldier's face. King Richard sat considering these worthy men.

'Ah, now, Saint-Pol, you are playing a good part in this Christian
adventure, I think!' he broke out after a time. Saint-Pol squared his
jaw. 'If I had caught you in your late sally, my friend,' Richard went
on, 'I should have hanged you on a tree, knight or no knight. Why, fool,
do you think your shameful brother worth so much treachery? With him
before your eyes can you do no better? I hope so. Get you back, and tell
King Philip this: He and I are vowed to honesty; but if he breaks faith
again, I have that in me which shall break him. As for you, Bishop of
Beauvais'--one saw the old war-priest blink--'I know nothing of your
part in this business, and am willing to think charitably. If you, an
old man, have any of the grace of God left in you, bestow some of it on
your master. Teach him to serve God as you serve Him, Beauvais. I will
try to be content with that.' He turned to Des Barres, the finest
soldier of the three. 'William,' he said more gently, for he really
liked the man, 'I hope to meet you in a better field, and side by side.
But if face to face again, William,' and he lifted his hand, 'beware of
me.'

None of them had a word to say, but with troubled faces left the
presence; which shows (to some men's thinking) that Richard's strength
lay in his cause. That was not the opinion of Des Barres, nor is it
mine. Meeting them afterwards, when he made a pact of friendship and
alliance with Tancred, and renewed that which he had had with Philip, he
showed them a perfectly open countenance. Nevertheless, he took
possession of Messina, as he had said he would, and built a great tower
upon the wall, which he called Mate-Grifon. Then he sent for his sister
and Jehane, and kept a royal Christmas in the conquered city.

Trouble was not over. There were constant strifes between nation and
nation, man and man. Winter storms delayed the Queen-Mother; Richard
fretted and fumed at the wasting of his force, but saw not the worst of
the matter. If vice was eating his army, jealousy was eating Philip's
sour little heart, and rage that of Saint-Pol. Saint-Pol, with Gurdun to
back him, had determined to kill the English King; with them went, or
was ready to go, Des Barres. He was not such a steady hater by any
means. Some men seek temptation, others fall under it; Des Barres was of
this kind.

Of temptation there was a plenty, since Richard was the most fearless of
men. When he had forgiven an injury it did not exist for him any more.
He was glad to see Des Barres, glad to play, talk, grumble, or swear
with him--a most excellent enemy. One day, idling home from a hawking
match, he got tilting with the Frenchman, with reeds for lances. Neither
seemed in earnest until Richard's horse slipped on a loose stone and
threw him. This was near the gate. You should have seen the change in
Des Barres. 'Hue! Hue! Passavant!' he yelled, possessed with the devil
of destruction; and came pounding at Richard as if he would ride over
him. At the battle-cry a swarm of fellows--Frenchmen and
Brabanters--came out and about with pikes. Richard was on his feet by
that time, perfectly advised what was astir. He was alone, but he had a
sword. This he drew, and took a stride or two towards Des Barres, who
had pulled up short of him, and was panting. The pikemen, who might have
hacked him to pieces, paused for another word. A second of time passed
without it, and Richard knew he was safe. He went up to Des Barres.

'Learn, Des Barres,' he said, 'that I allow no cries about my head save
those for Saint George.'

'Sire,' said Des Barres, 'I am no man of yours.'

'It is truly said,' replied Richard, 'but I will dub you one'; and he
smote him with the flat of his sword across the cheek. The blood leapt
after the sword.

'Soul of a virgin!' cried Des Barres, white as cloth, except for the
broad weal on his face.

'Your soul against mine, graceless dog,' said the King. 'Another word
and I pull you down.' Just then who should come riding out of the gate
but Gilles de Gurdun, armed cap-a-pie?

'Here, my lord,' said Des Barres, clearing his throat, 'comes a
gentleman who has sought your Grace with better cause than mine.'

'Who is your gentleman?' Richard asked him.

'It is De Gurdun, sire, a Norman knight whose name should be familiar.'

'I know him perfectly,' said Richard. He turned to one of the
bystanders, saying, 'Fetch that gentleman to me.' The man ran nimbly to
meet De Gurdun.

Des Barres, watching narrowly, saw Gilles start, saw him look, almost
saw the bracing of his nerves. What exactly followed was curious. Gilles
moved his horse forward slowly. King Richard, standing in leather
doublet and plumed cap, waited for him, his arms folded. Des Barres on
horseback, an enemy; the bystanders, tattered, savage, high-fed men,
enemies also; in front the most implacable enemy of all.

When De Gurdun was within spear-reach he stopped his horse and sat
looking at the King. Richard returned the look; it was an eyeing match,
soon over. Gurdun swung off the horse, threw the rein to a soldier, and
tried footing it. The steady duel of the eyes continued until Gilles was
actually within sword's distance. Here he stopped once more; finally
gave a queer little grunt, and went down on one knee. Des Barres sighed
as he eased his heart. The tension had been terrible.

Richard said, 'De Gurdun, stand up and answer me. You seek my life, as I
understand. Is it so?'

Sir Gilles began to stammer. 'No man has loved the law--no knight ever
loved lady--' and so on; but Richard cut him short.

'Answer me, man,' he said, in a voice which was nearly as dry as his
father's, 'do you wish for my life?'

'King,' said Gilles, his great emotion lending him dignity, 'if I do, is
it a strange matter? You have had my father's and brother's. You have
mine in your hand. You corrupted and then stole my beloved. Are these no
griefs?'

Richard grew impatient; he could never bear waiting.

'Do you wish my life?' he asked again. Gilles was overwrought. 'By God
on high, but I do wish it!' he cried out, almost whimpering.

King Richard threw down his sword. 'Take it then, you fool,' he said.
'You talk too much.'

A silence fell upon the party, so profound that the cicala in the dry
hedge shrilled to pierce the ear. Richard stood like a stock, with Des
Barres gaping at him. Gurdun was all of a tremble, but swung his sword
about in his sword-hand. After a while he took a deep breath, a fumbling
step forward; and Des Barres, leaning out over the saddle, caught him by
the surcoat.

'Drop that man, Des Barres,' said Richard, without moving his eyes from
the Norman. Des Barres obeyed; and as the silence resumed Gilles began
twitching his sword again. When a lizard rustled in the grass a man
started as if shot.

Gilles gave over first, threw his sword away with a sob. 'God ha' mercy,
I cannot! I cannot!' he fretted, and stood blinking the tears from his
eyes. Richard picked up his weapon and returned it to him. 'You are
brave enough, my friend,' he said, 'for better work. Go and do better in
Syria.'

'There is no better work for me, sir,' said Gurdun, 'unless you can
justify yourself.'

'I never justify myself,' said Richard. 'Give me my sword.' De Gurdun
gave it him. Richard sheathed it, went to his horse, mounted, rode away
at walking pace. Nobody moved till he was out of sight. Then said Des
Barres with a high oath, 'I could serve that King if he would let me.'

'God damn him,' said Gilles de Gurdun for his part.

It was near the end of January when they sighted over sea the painted
sails of the Queen. Mother's galley. Her fleet anchored in the roads,
and the lady came ashore. She had two interviews, one with her son, one
with Jehane. But she did not choose to see her daughter, Queen Joan, a
very handsome, free lady.

'Marriage!' cried King Richard, when this was broached. 'This is no time
to talk of marriage. I have waited six months, and now the lady must
wait a while, other six if needs be. We leave this accursed island in
two days. Between my friends and my enemies I have fought the length and
breadth of it twice over. Am I to spend my whole host killing
Christians? A little more inactivity, good mother, and I shall be in
league with the Soldan against Philip. Bring the lady to Acre, and I
will marry her there.'

'No, no, Richard,' said the Queen-Mother; 'I am needed in England. I
cannot come.'

'Then let Joan take her,' said the King.

The Queen-Mother, knowing him very well, tried him no further. She sent
for Jehane, and held her close in talk for nearly an hour.

'Never leave my son, Jehane,' was the string she harped on. 'Never leave
him for good or ill weather. Mated or unmated, never leave him.'

'Never in life, Madame,' said Jehane, then bit her lip lest she should
utter what her mind was full of. But the Queen-Mother had no eyes.

'Pray for him,' she said; and Jehane, 'I pray hourly, Madame.' Then the
Queen kissed her on both cheeks, and in such kindness they parted.




CHAPTER II

OF WHAT JEHANE LOOKED FOR, AND WHAT BERENGÈRE HAD


Milo the abbot writes, 'When the spring airs, moving warmly over the
earth, ruffled the surface of the deep, and that to a tune so winning
that there was no thought of the treachery below, we took to the ships
and steered a course south-east by south. This was in the quindenes of
Easter. The two queens (if I may call them so, of whom one had been and
one hoped to be of that estate), Joan and Berengère, went in a great
ship which they call a dromond, a heavy-timbered ship carrying a crowd
of sail. With them, by request of Madame Berengère, went Countess
Jehane, not by any request of her own. The King himself led her aboard,
and by the hand into the state pavilion on the poop.

'"Madame," he said to his affianced, "I bring you your desired mate. Use
her as you would use me, for if I have a friend upon earth it is she."

'"Oh, sire," says Berengère, "I am acquainted with this lady. She has
nothing to fear from me."

'Queen Joan said nothing, being afraid of her brother. So Madame Jehane
kissed the hands of the pair of queens, meekly kneeling to each in turn;
and so far as I know she did them faithful service through all the
mischances of a voyage whereon every woman and every other man was
horribly sick.

'Having made the Pharos in favourable weather, and kept Mount Gibello
and the wild Calabrian coast upon our lee (as is fitting), we stood out
for the straight course over the immense waste of water. Now was no more
land to be seen at either hand; but the sky fitted close upon the edges
of the sea like a dome of glass on a man's forehead. There was neither
cover from the sun nor hiding-place from the prying concourse of the
stars; the wind came searchingly, the waters stirred beneath it, or,
being driven, heaped themselves up into towers of ruin. The cordage
flacked, the strong ribs creaked; like a beast over-burdened the whole
ship groaned, wallowing in a sea-trough without breath to climb. So we
endured for many days, a straggling host of men, ordinarily capable,
powerless now beneath that dumb tyrant the sky. Where else could be our
refuge? We all looked to King Richard--by day to his royal ensign, by
night to the great wax candle which he always had lighted and stuck in a
lantern. His commands were shouted from ship to ship over two miles or
more of sea; if any strayed or dropped behind we lay-to that he might
come up. But very often, after a day's idle rolling, we knew that the
sea had claimed some boatload of our poor souls, and went on. The
galleys kept touch with the dromonds, enclosing them (as it were) within
the cusps of a new moon, and so driving them forward. To see this light
of our King's moving, now fast, now slow, now up, now down, restlessly
over the field of the night, was to remember the God of the Israelites,
who (for their sakes and ours) became a pillar of fire at that season,
and transformed himself into a tall cloud in the daytime. Busy as it
was, this point of light, it only figured the unresting spirit of the
King, careful of all these children of his, ordering the hosts of the
Lord.

'Storms drove us at length on to the island of Crete, where Minos once
had his kingly habitation, and his wife died of pleasure. Again they
drove us, more unfortunately, out of our course upon the inhospitable
coasts of Rhodes, where the salt wind suffers no trees to live, nor safe
anchorage to be, nor shelter from the ravage of the sea. In this vexed
place there was no sign of land but a long line of surf beating upon a
rocky shore, the mist of spray and blown sand, spars of drowned ships,
innumerable anxious flocks of birds. Here was no roadstead for us; yet
here, but for the signal providence of heaven, we had likely all have
perished (as many did perish), miserably failing at once of purpose, the
sacraments of Christ, and reasonable beds. The fleet was scattered wide,
no ship could see his neighbour; we called on the King, on the Saviour,
on the Father of all. But deep answered to deep, and the prayer of so
many Christians, as it appeared, skilled little to change the eternal
purposes of God.

'Then one inspired among us climbed up to the masthead, having in his
teeth a piece of the True Cross set in a silver heart; and called aloud
to the wild weather, "Save, Lord, we perish!" as was said of old by very
sacred persons. To which palpable truth so urgently declared an answer
was vouchsafed, not indeed according to our full desires, yet
(doubtless) level with our deserts. The wind veered to the north; and
though it abated nothing of its force, preserved us from the teeth of
the rocks. Before it now, under bare poles, without need of oars, we
drove to the southward; and while a little light still endured descried
a great mountainous and naked coast rising out of the heaped waters,
which we knew to be the land of Cyprus. Off the western face of this
dark shore, in a little shelter at last, we lay-to and tossed all night.
Next day in fairer weather, hoisting sail, we made a good haven defended
by stout sea-walls, a mole and two lighthouses: these were of a city
called Limasol. Upon my galley, at least, there was one who sang _Lauda
Sion_, whose tune before had been _Adhæsit pavimento_, when he rested
tired eyes upon the clustered spires of a white city, smokeless and
asleep in the early morning light.'

So far without weariness I hope Milo may have conducted the reader. In
relation to the sea you may take him for an expert in the terrors he
describes. Not so in Cyprus. War tempts him to prolixity, to classical
allusion, even to hexameters of astonishingly loose joints. Every stroke
of his hero's sword-arm seems to him of weight. No doubt it was, once;
but not in a chronicle of this sort, where the Cypriote gests must take
a lowly place among others fair and foul of this King-errant. Let me put
Milo on the shelf for a little, and abridge.

I tell you then that the Emperor of Cyprus, by name Isaac, was a
thin-faced man with high cheek-bones. A Greek of the Greeks, he
undervalued what he had never seen, precisely for that reason. When
heralds went up to Nikosia to announce the coming-in of King Richard,
Isaac mumbled his lips. 'Prutt!' he said, 'I am the Emperor. What have I
to do with your kings?' Richard showed him that with one king he had
plenty to do, by assaulting Limasol and putting armies to flight in the
plains about Nikosia. Shall I sing the battle of the fifty against five
thousand; tell how King Richard with precisely half a hundred knights
came cantering against the sun and a host, as gay and debonair as to a
driving of stags? They say that he himself led the charge, covered in a
wonderful silken surcoat, colour of a bullfinch's breast, and wrought
upon in black and white heraldry. They say that at the sight of the
pensils a-flutter, at the sound of the hunting-horns, the Grifons let
fly a shaft a-piece; then threw down their bows and scattered. But the
knights caught them. Isaac was on a hill to watch the battle. 'Who is
that marvellous tall knight who seems to be swimming among my horse?'
'Splendour, it is Rikardos, King of the West,' they told him, 'reputed a
fierce swimmer.' 'He drowns, he drowns!' cried the Emperor, as the red
plumes were whelmed in black. 'Nay, but he dives rather, Majesty.' He
heard the death-shouts, he saw white faces turned his way; then the mass
was cleft asunder, blown off and dispersed like the sparks from a
smithy. The thing was of little moment in a time of much; there was no
fighting left in the Cypriotes after that sunny morning's work. Nikosia
fell, and the Emperor Isaac, in silver chains, heard from his
prison-house the shouts which welcomed the Emperor Richard. These things
were accomplished by the first week in May. Then came Guy of Lusignan
with bad news of Acre and worse of himself. Philip was before the town,
Montferrat with him. Montferrat had the Archduke's of Austria as well as
French support; with these worthies, and the ravished wife of old King
Baldwin for title-deed, he claimed the throne of Jerusalem; and King Guy
of Lusignan (but for the name of the thing) was of no account at all.
Guy said that the siege of Acre was a foppery. King Philip was ill, or
thought he was; Montferrat was treating with Saladin; the French knights
openly visited the Saracen women; and the Duke of Burgundy got drunk.
'What else could he get, poor fool?' asked Richard; then said, 'But I
promise you this: Montferrat shall never be King of Jerusalem while I
live--not because I love you, my friend, but because I love the law. I
shall come as soon as I can to Acre, when I have done here the things
which must be done.' He meant his marriage.

Little Madame Berengère was lodged, as became her, in the Emperor's
palace at Limasol, having with her Queen Joan of Sicily, and among her
women the young fair lady Jehane, none too fair, poor girl, by this
time. Berengère herself, who was not very intelligent, remarked her, and
gave her the cold shoulder. As day swallowed up day, and Richard, at his
affairs, gave her no thought, or at least no sign, Jehane's condition
became an abominable eyesore to the Queendesignate; so Queen Joan
plucked up her courage age to the point, and seeking out her brother,
let him know that she had tidings for his private ear.

'I do not admit that I have such an ear,' said Richard. It is no part of
a king's baggage. Yet by all means name your tidings, my sister.'

'Dear sire,' said Joan, 'it appears that you have sown a seed, and must
look before long for the harvest.' The King laughed.

'God knows, I have sown enough seeds. But mostly they come up tares, I
am apt to find. My harvesting is of little worth. What now, sister?'

'Beau sire,' says the Queen, I know not how you will take it. Your
bonamy, the Picardy lady, is with child, and not so far from her time
neither. My sister Berengère is greatly offended.'

King Richard began to tremble; but whether from the ague which was never
long out of him, or from joy, or from trouble, who knows?

'Oh, sister,' he said, 'Oh, sister, are you very sure of this?

'I was sure of it,' replied the lady, 'the moment I saw her in the
autumn at Messina. But now your question is not worth the asking.'

The King abruptly left his sister and went over to the Queen's side of
the palace. Berengère was sitting upon a balcony, all her ladies with
her; but Jehane a little apart. When the King was announced all rose to
their feet. He looked neither right nor left of him, but fixedly at
Jehane, with a high bright flush upon his sharp face and fever sparks in
his eyes. To these signals Jehane, because of her great exaltation, flew
the answering flags. Richard touched Berengère's hand with the hair on
his lip: to Jehane he said, 'Come, ma mye,' and led her out of the
balcony.

This was not as it should have been; but Richard, used to his way, took
it, and Richard moved could move bigger mountains than those of
ceremony. He lunged forward along the corridors, Jehane following as she
might, led by the hand, but not against her will. No doubt she was with
child, no doubt she was glorious on that account. She was a very proud
girl.

Alone, those two who had loved so fondly gazed each at the work wrought
upon the other without a word said, the King all luminous with love, and
she all dewy. If soul spoke to soul ever in this world, said Richard's
soul, 'O Vase, that bearest the pledge of my love!' and hers, 'O Strong
Wine, that brimmest in my cup!'

He came forward and embraced her with his arm. He felt her heart beat,
he guessed her pride; he felt her thrill, he knew his own defeat. He
felt her so strong and salient under his hand--so strong, so
full-budded, so hopeful of fruit--that despair of her loss seized him
again, terrible rage. He sickened, while in her the warm blood leaped.
He wanted everything; she, nothing in the world. He, the king of men,
was the bond; she, the cast-off minion, she, this Jehane Saint-Pol, was
the free. So God, making war upon the great, rights the balances of this
world.

But he was extraordinarily gentle with her; he gripped himself and
throttled the animal close. Gaining grace as he went, his heart throve
upon its own blood. Balm was shed on his burning face, he sucked peace
as it fell. Then he, too, discerned the God near by; to him, too, came
with beating wings the pure young Love, that best of all, which hath no
needs save them of spending.

His voice was hushed to a boy's murmur.

'Jehane, ma mye, is it true?'

'I am the mother of a son,' she said.

'Give God the glory!'

But she said, 'He hath given it to me.' Her face was turned to where God
might be: Richard, looking down, kissed her on the mouth. Tremblingly
they kissed and long, not as young lovers, but as spouse and spouse,
drinking their common joy.

After a while his present troubles came thronging back, and he said
bitterly: 'Ah, child, thou art widowed of me while yet we both live. Yet
it was in thy power to be mother of a king.'

Said she, leaning her head on his breast, 'Every woman that beareth a
child is mother of a king; but not every woman's child hath a king to
his father. Thus it is with me, Richard, who am doubly blessed.'

'Ah, God!' he cried, poignantly concerned, 'Ah God, Jehane, see what
trammels I have enmeshed us in, thee in one net and me in another! So
that neither can I help thee, being roped down to this work, nor thou
thyself, trapped by my fault. How shall I do? Lo, my sin, my sin! I
cried Yea; and now cometh God, and, Nay, King Richard, He saith. The sin
is mine, and the burden of the sin is thine. Is this a horrible thing?

Jehane smiled up in his face. 'And dost thou think it, Richard, a
burden so grievous,' she said, 'to be mother of thy son? Dost thou think
that the world can be harsh to me after that; or that in the life to
come there will be no remembrance to make the long days sweet?' She
looked very proudly upon him, smiling all the time; she put her hands up
and crowned his head with them. 'Oh, my dear life, my pride and my
master,' said Jehane, 'let all come to me that must come now; I am rich
above all my desires, and my lowliness has been of no account with God.
Now let me go, blessing His name.'

He would not let her go, but still looked earnestly down at her,
struggling with himself against himself.

'I must be married, Jehane,' says he presently. And she, 'In a good
hour, my lord.'

'It is an accursed hour,' he said; 'nothing but ill can come of it.'

'Lord,' said she, 'thou art vowed to this work.'

'I know it very well,' he replied; 'but a man does as he can.'

'You, my King Richard, do as you will,' said Jehane. So he kissed her
and let her go.

Among the multitudinous affairs now heaped upon him--business of his new
empire and his old, business of Guy's, business of the war, business of
marriage--he set first and foremost this business of Jehane's. He
removed her from the Queen's house, gave her house and household of her
own. It was in Limasol, a pleasant place overlooking the sea and the
ships, a square white house set deep in myrtle woods and oleanders. Once
more the 'Countess of Poictou' had her seneschal, chaplain, ladies of
honour. That done, he fixed Saint Pancras' day for his marriage, had the
ships got out, furnished, and appointed for sea. The night before Saint
Pancras he sent for Abbot Milo in a hurry. Milo found him walking about
his room, taking long, carefully accurate strides from flagstone to
flagstone.

He continued this feverish devotion for some minutes after his
confessor's coming-in; and seeing him deep in thought, the good man
stood patient by the doorway. So presently Richard seemed aware of him,
stopped in mid walk, and looking at him, said--

'Milo, continence is, I suppose, of all virtues the most excellent?'
Milo prepared to expatiate.

'Undoubtedly, sire, it is so, because of all virtues the least
comfortable. Saint Chrysostom, indeed, goes so far as to declare--'; but
Richard broke in.

'And therefore, Milo, it is urged upon the clergy by the ordinances of
many honourable popes and patriarchs?'

'_Distinguo_, sire,' said Milo, '_distinguo_. There are other reasons.
It is written, So run that ye may obtain. Now, no man can run after the
prize we seek if he carrieth a woman on his back. And that for two
reasons: first, because she is so much dead weight; and second, because
a woman is so made that, if her bearer did achieve the reward, she would
immediately claim a share in it. But that is no part of the divine plan,
as I understand it.'

'Let us talk of the laity, Milo,' said the King, abstractedly. 'If one
of them set up for a runner, should he not be a virgin?'

'Lord,' replied the abbot, 'if he can. But that is not so convenient.'

'How not so?' asked King Richard.

'My lord,' Milo said, if all the laity were virgins there would soon be
no laity at all, and then there would be no priests--a state of affairs
not provided for by the Holy Church. Moreover, the laity have a kingdom
in this world; but the religious not of this world. Now, this world is
too excellent a good place not to be peopled; and God hath appointed a
pleasant way.'

Said the King, 'A way of sorrow and shame.'

'Not so, sire,' said Milo, 'but a way of honour. And if I rejoice that
the same way is before your Grace, I am not alone in happiness.'

'A king's business,' said Richard, 'is to govern himself wisely (having
paid his debts), and his people wisely. It may be that he should get
heirs if none are. But if heirs there be, then what is his business with
more? Why should his son be better king than his brother, for example?'

'Lord,' Milo admonished, 'a king who is sure of himself will make sure
of his issue. That too is a king's business.'

Said Richard moodily, 'Who is sure of himself?' He turned away his head,
bidding Milo a good night. As the abbot made his reverence he added, 'I
am to be married to-morrow.'

'I devoutly hope so,' said the good man. 'And then your Grace will have
a surer hope than in your Grace's brother.'

'Get you to bed, Milo,' Richard said, 'and let me be alone.'

Married he was, so far as the Church could provide, in the Basilica of
Limasol, with the Bishop of Salisbury to celebrate. Vassals of his, and
allies, great lords of three realms, bishops and noble knights filled
the church and saw the rites done. High above them afterwards, before
the altar, he sat crowned and vested in purple, holding in his right
hand the sceptre of his power, and the orb of his dominion in his left
hand. Then Berengère, daughter of Navarre, kneeling before him, was by
him thrice crowned: Queen of England, Empress of Cyprus, Duchess of
Normandy. But she never got upon her little dark head the red cap of
Anjou which had covered up Jehane's gold hair. Jehane was neither at the
church nor at the great feast that followed. She, on Richard's bidding,
was in her ship, _Li Chastel Orgoilous_, whose head swayed to the
running tide.

But a great feast was held, at which Queen Berengère sat by the King in
a gold chair, and was served on knees by the chief officers of the
household, the kingdom, and the duchy. Also, after dinner, full and free
homage was done her--a desperate long ceremony. The little lady had
great dignity; and if they found her stiff, it is to be hoped they
remembered her very young. But although everybody saw that Richard was
in the clutches of his ague throughout these performances, so much so
that when he was not talking his teeth chattered in his head, and his
hand spilt the wine on its way to the mouth--none were prepared for
what was to come, unless such intimates as Gaston of Béarn or Mercadet,
his Gascon con captain, may have known it. At the close of the
homage-giving he rose up in his throne, threw back his purple robe, and
showed to all beholders the wrinkled mail beneath it. He was, in fact,
in chain-armour from shoulders to feet. For a moment all looked
open-mouthed. He drew his sword with a great gesture, and held it on
high.

'Peers and noble vassals,' he called out in measured tones (in which,
nevertheless, deep down the shaking fit could be discerned, vibrating
the music), 'the work calls us; Acre is in peril. Kings, who are
servants of the King of Kings, put by their private concerns; queens,
who bow to one throne only, to that bow with haste. Now, you of the
Cross, who follows me to win the Cross? The ships are ready, my lords.
Shall we go?'

The great hall was struck dumb. Queen Berengère, only half
understanding, looked scared about her. One could not but pity the
extinguishment of her poor little great affairs. Queen Joan grew very
red. She had the spirit of her family, was angry, fiercely whispered in
her brother's ear. He barely heard her; he shook her words from his
ears, stamped on the pavement.

'Never, never! I am for the Cross! Lord Jesus, behold thy knight! The
work is ready, shall I not do it? I call Yea! for this turn. Ha, Anjou!
To the ships, to the ships!'

His sword flickered in the air; there followed it, leaping after the
beam, a great swish of steel, soon a forest of swords.

'Ha, Richard! Ha, Anjou! Ha, Saint George!' So they made the rafters
volley; and so headlong after King Richard tumbled out into the dusk and
sought the ships. The new Queen was crying miserably on the daïs, Queen
Joan tapping her foot beside her. Late at night they also put out to
sea. On his knees, facing the shrouded East, King Richard spent his
wedding night, with his bare sword for his partner.




CHAPTER III

WHO FOUGHT AT ACRE


After they had lost the harbour of Limasol, from that hasty dark hour of
setting out, the fleet sailed (it seemed) under new stars and
encountered a new strange air. All night they toiled at the oars; and in
the morning, very early, every eye was turned to the fired East, where,
in the sea-haze, lay the sacred places clothed (like the Sacrament) in
that gauzy veil. First of them _Trenchemer_ steered, the King's red
galley, in whose prow, stiff and hieratic as a figurehead, was the King
himself, watching for a sign. The great ships rolled and plunged, the
tide came racing by them, blue-green water lipped with foam, carrying
upon it unknown weeds, golden fruit floating, wreckage unfamiliar, a
dead fish scarlet-rayed, a basket strangely wrought--drifting heralds of
a country of dreams. About noon, when mass had been said upon his
galley, King Richard was seen to throw up his arms and stretch them
wide; the shout followed the sign--'Terra Sancta! Terra Sancta!' they
heard him cry. Voice after voice, tongue after tongue, took up the word
and lifted it from ship to ship. All fell upon their knees, save the
rowers. A dim coast, veiled in violet, lifted before their
eyes--mountain ranges, great hollows, clouded places, so far and silent,
so mysteriously wrapt, full of awe, no one could speak, no one had
thought to speak, but must look and search and wonder. A quick flight
of shore birds, flashing creatures that twittered as they swept by,
broke the spell. This then was a land where living things abode; it was
not only of the sacred dead. They drew nearer, their hearts comforted.

They saw Margat, a lonely tower high on a split rock; they saw Tortosa,
with a haven in the sea; Tripolis, a very white city; Neplyn. Botron
they saw, with a great terraced castle; afterwards Beyrout, cedars about
its skirt. Mountains rose up nearer to the sound of the surf; they saw
Lebanon capped with cloud-wreaths, then snowy Hermon gleaming in the
sun. They saw Mount Tabor with a grey head, and two mountains like
spires which stood separate and apart. Tyre they passed, and Sidon, rich
cities set in the sand, then Scandalion; at length after a long night of
watching a soft hill showed, covered with verdure and glossy dark woods,
Carmel, shaped like a woman's breast. Making this hallowed mount, in the
plain beyond they saw Acre, many-towered; and all about it the tents of
the Christian hosts, and before it in the blue waters of the bay ships
riding at anchor, more numerous than the sea-birds that haunt Monte
Gibello or swim sentinel about its base. Trumpets from the shore
answered to their trumpets; they heard a wild tattoo of drums within the
walls. On even keels in the motionless tide the ships took up their
moorings; and King Richard, throwing the end of his cloak over his
shoulder, jumped off the gunwale of _Trenchemer_, and waded breast-deep
to shore. He was the first of his realm to touch this storied Syrian
earth.

Now for affairs. The meeting of the Kings was cordial, or seemed so.
King Philip came out of his pavilion to meet his royal brother, and
Richard, kissing him, asked him how he did. 'Very vilely, Richard,' said
the young man. 'I think there is a sword in my head. The glaring sun
flattens me by day, and all night I shiver.'

'Fever, my poor coz,' said Richard, with a kind hand upon his shoulder.
Philip burst out with his symptoms, wailing like a child: 'The devil
bites me. I vomit black. My skin is as dry as a snake's. Yesterday they
bled me three ounces.' Richard walked back with him among the tents,
conversing cheerfully, and for a few days held his old ascendancy over
Philip; but only for a few. Other of the leaders he saw: some gave him
no welcome. The Marquess of Montferrat kept his quarters, the Duke of
Burgundy was in bed. The Archduke of Austria, Luitpold, a hairy man with
light red eyelashes, professed great civility; but Richard had a bad way
with strangers. Not being receptive, he took no pains to pretend that he
was. The Archduke made long speeches, Richard short replies; the
Archduke made longer speeches, Richard no replies. Then the Archduke
grew very red, and Richard nearly yawned. This was at the English King's
formal reception by the leaders of the Crusade. With the Grand Master of
the Temple he got on better, liking the looks of the man. He did not
observe Saint-Pol on King Philip's left hand; but there he was, flushed,
excited, and tensely observant of his enemy. That same night, when they
held a council of war, there was seen a smoulder of that fire which you
might have decently supposed put out. King Philip came down in a mighty
hurry, and sat himself in the throne; Montferrat, Burgundy, and others
of that faction serried round about him. The English and Angevin chiefs
were furious, and the Archduke halted between two opinions. By the time
(lateish) when King Richard was announced Gaston of Béarn and young
Saint-Pol had their swords half out. But Richard came and stood in the
doorway, a magnificent leisurely figure. All his party rose up. Richard
waited, watching. The Archduke (who really had not seen him before) rose
with apologies; then the French followed suit, singly, one here and one
there. There only remained seated King Philip and the Marquess of
Montferrat. Still Richard waited by the door; presently, in a quiet
voice, he said to the usher, 'Take your wand, usher, to that paralytic
over there. Tell him that he shall use it, or I will.' The message was
delivered: at an angry nod from King Philip the Marquess got darkly up,
and Richard came into the hall with King Guy of Jerusalem. These two sat
down one on each side of France; and so the council began.

It was hopeless from the outset--a _posse_ of hornets droned into fury
by the Archduke. While he talked the rest maddened, longing for each
other's blood, failing that of Luitpold. Richard, who as yet had no
plans of his own, took no interest whatever in plans. He acted
throughout as if the Marquess was not there, and as if he wished with
all his heart that the Archduke was not there. On his part, the Marquess
would have given nearly all he owned to have behaved so to Guy of
Lusignan set over him; but the Marquess had not that art of lazy scorn
which belongs to the royal among beasts: he glowered, he was sulky.
Meantime the Archduke buzzed his age-long periods, and Richard (clasping
his knee) looked at the ceiling. At last he sighed profoundly, and 'God
of heaven and earth!' escaped him. King Philip burst into a guffaw--his
first for many a day--and broke up the assembly. Richard had himself
rowed out to Jehane in her ship.

He had no business there, though his business was innocent enough; but
she could not tell him so now. The girl was dejected, ill, and very
nervous about herself. Moreover, she had suffered from sea-sickness. She
could not hide her comfort to have him; so he took her up and kissed her
as of old, and ended by settling her on his knee. There she cried,
quietly but freely. He stayed with her till she slept; then went back to
the shore and walked about the trenches, thinking out the business
before him. The dawn light found him at it. In a day or two, having got
his tackle ashore, he began the assault upon a plan of his own, without
reference to any other principality or power at all. By this time King
Philip lay heaped in his bed, and had had his distempered brain wrought
upon by Montferrat and his kind, Saint-Pol, Des Barres, and their kind.

       *       *       *       *       *

Richard had with him Poictevins and Angevins, men of Provence and
Languedoc, Normans and English, Scots and Welshry, black Genoese,
Sicilians, Pisans, and Grifons from Cyprus. The Count of Champagne had
his Flemings to hand; the Templars and the Hospitallers served him
gladly. It was an agglomerate, a horde, not an army, and nobody but he
could have wielded it. He, by the virtue in him, had them all at his
nod. The English, who love to be commanded, hauled stones for him all
day, though he had not a word of their language. The swart, praying
Italians raved themselves hoarse whenever he came into their lines; even
the Cypriotes, sullen and timorous creatures, whom no power among
themselves could have driven to the walls, fixed the great petraries and
mangonels, and ran grinning into the trap of death for this tawny-haired
hero who stood singing, bareheaded, within bow-shot of the Turks, and
laughed like a boy when some fellow slipped on to his back upon the dry
grass. He was everywhere, day after day--in the trenches, on the towers,
teaching the bowmen their business, crying 'Mort de Dieu!' when a
mangonel did its work, and some flung rock made the wall to fly; he
crouched under the tortoise-screens with the miners, took a mattock
himself as indifferently as an arbalest or a cross-bow. He could do
everything, and have (if not a word) a cheerful grin for every man who
did his duty. As it was evident that he knew what such duty should be,
and could have done it better himself, men sweated to win his praise. He
was nearly killed on a scaling-ladder, too early put up, or too long
left so. Three arrows struck him, and the defenders, calling on Allah,
rolled an enormous boulder to the edge of the wall, which must have
crushed him out of recognition on the Last Day. 'Garde, sire!' 'Dornna
del Ciel!' came the cries from below; but 'Lady Virgin!' growled a
shockhead from Bocton-under-Bleane, and pulled his King bodily off the
ladder. The poor fellow was shot in the throat at the next moment; the
stone fell harmless. King Richard took up his dead Englishman in his
arms and carried him to the trenches. He did no more fighting until he
had seen him buried, and ordained a mass for him. Things of those sort
tempted men to love him.

The siege lasted ten days or more with varying successes. Day and night
in the city they heard the drums beat to arms, the cries of the Sheiks,
and more piercing, drawn-out cries than theirs. To the nightly shrilled
pronouncement of the greatness of God came as answer the Christian's
wailing prayer, 'Save us, Holy Sepulchre!' The King of France had an
engine which he called The Bad Neighbour, and did well with it until the
Turks provided a Bad Kinsman, much bigger, which put the Neighbour to
shame, and finally burned him. King Richard had a belfry, and the Count
of Flanders could throw stones with his sling from the trenches into the
market-place; at any rate he said he could, and they all believed him.
The Christians caused the Accursed Tower to totter; they made a breach
below the Tower of Flies, in a most horrible part of the haven. Mine and
countermine, Richard on the north side worked night and day, denying
himself rest, food, reasonable care, for a week forgetful of Jehane and
her hope. The weather grew stiflingly hot, night and day there was no
breath of wind; the whole country reeked of death and abomination. Once,
indeed, a gate was set fire to and rushed. The Christians saw before
them for the first time the ghostly winding way of a street, where blind
pale houses heeled to each other, six feet apart. There was a breathless
fight in that pent way, a strangling, throttled business; Richard with
his peers of Normandy, swaying banners, the crashing sound of steel on
steel, the splash of split polls: but it could not be carried. The
Turks, surging down on them, a wall of men, bodily forced them out.
There was no room to swing an axe, no space for a horse to fall, least
of all for draught of the bow. Richard cried the retreat; they could not
turn, so walked backwards fighting, and the Turks repaired the gate.
Acre did not fall by the sword, but by starvation rather, and the
diligent negotiations of Saladin with our King. Richard's terms were,
Restore the True Cross, empty us Acre of men-at-arms, leave two thousand
hostages. This was accepted at last. The Kings rode into Acre on the
twelfth of July with their hosts, and the hollow-eyed courtesans watched
them furtively from upper windows. They knew their harvest was to reap.

Harvest with them was seed-time with others. It was seed-time with the
Archduke. King Richard set up his household in the Castle (with a good
lodging for Jehane in the Street of the Camel); King Philip, miserably
ill, went to the house of the Templars; with him, sedulously his friend,
the Marquess of Montferrat. But Luitpold of Austria proposed himself for
the Castle, and Richard endured him as well as he could. But then
Luitpold went further. He set up his banner on the tower, side by side
with Richard's Dragon, meaning no offence at all. Now King Richard's way
was a short way. He had found the Archduke a burdensome ass, but no
more. The world was full of such; one must take them as part of the
general economy of Providence. But he knew his own worth perfectly well,
and his own standing in the host; so when they told him where the
Austrian's flag flew, he said, 'Take it down.' They took it down.
Luitpold grew red, made a long speech in German at which Richard
frowned, and another (shorter) in Latin, at which he laughed. Luitpold
put up his flag again; again Richard said, 'Take it down.' Luitpold was
so angry that he made no speeches at all; he ran up his flag a third
time. When King Richard was told, he laughed, and on this occasion said,
'Throw it away.' Gaston of Béarn, more vivacious than discreet, did so
with ignominious detail. That day there was a council of the great
estates, at which King Philip presided in a furred gown; for though the
weather was suffocating his fever kept him chill to the bones. To the
Marquess, pale with his old grudge, was now added the Archduke, flaming
with his new one. The mottled Duke of Burgundy blinked approval of all
grudges, and young Saint-Pol poured fire into the fire. Richard was not
present, nor any of his faction; they, because they had not been
advertised, he, because he was in the Street of the Camel at the knees
of Jehane the Fair.

The Archduke began on the instant. 'By God, my lords,' he said, 'is
there in the world a beast more flagrant than the King of England not
killed already?' The Marquess showed the white rims of his eyes--'
Injurious, desperate, bloody villain,' was his commentary; and Saint-Pol
lifted up his hand to his master for leave to speak mischief. But King
Philip said fretfully, 'Well, well, we can all speak of something, I
suppose. He scorns me, he has always scorned me. He refuses me homage,
he shamed my sister; and now he takes the lead of me.'

The Marquess kept muttering to the table, 'Hopeless villain, hopeless
villain!' and the Archduke, after staring about him for sympathy,
claimed attention, if not that; for he brought his fist down with a
thump.

'By thunder, but I kill him!' he said deep in his throat. Saint-Pol came
running and kissed his knee, to Luitpold's great surprise.

Philip shivered in his furs. 'I must go home,' he fretted; 'I am smitten
to death. I must die in France.'

'Where is the King of England?' asked the, Marquess, knowing perfectly
well.

'Evil light upon him,' cried Saint-Pol, 'he is in my sister's house.
Between them they give me a nephew.'

'Oho!' Montferrat said. 'Is that it? Why, then, we know where to strike
him quickest. We should make Navarre of our party.'

'He has done that himself, by all accounts: said the Duke of Burgundy,
wide-awake.

The Archduke, returning to his new lodgings in the Bishop's house, sent
for his astrologers and asked them, Could he kill the King of England?

'My lord,' said they, 'you cannot.'

'How is that?' he asked.

'Lord,' they told him, 'by our arts we discover that he will live for a
hundred years.'

'It is very remarkable,' said the Archduke. 'What sort of years will
they be?'

'Lord,' said the astrologers, 'they are divers in complexion; but many
of them are red.'

'I will provide that they be,' said the Archduke. 'Go away.'

The Marquess sought no astrologers, but instead the Street of the Camel
and Jehane's house. He observed this with great care, watching from an
entry to see how King Richard would come out, whether attended or not.
He observed more than the house, for much more was forced upon him.
Human garbage filled the close ways of Acre, men and women marred by
themselves or a hideous begetting, hairless persons and snug little
chamberers, botch-faces, scald-heads, minions of many sorts,
silent-footed Arabians as shameless as dogs, Greeks, pimps and panders,
abominable women. Murder was swiftly and secretly done. Montferrat from
his entry saw the manner of it. A Norman knight called Hamon le Rotrou
came out of an infamous house in the dusk, and stepped into the Street
of the Camel with his cloak delicately round him. Fine as he was, he was
insanely a lover of the vile thing he had left; for he knelt down in the
street to kiss her well-worn doorstep. He knelt under the light of a
small lamp, and out of the shadow behind him stepped catfoot a tall
thin man, white from head to foot, who, saying 'All hail, master,'
stabbed Hamon deep in the side. Hamon jerked up his head, tottered, fell
without more than a tired man's sigh sideways into the arms of his
killer. This one eased his fall as tenderly as if he was upholding a
girl, let him down into the kennel, drew him thence by the shoulders
into the dark, and himself vanished. Montferrat swore softly to himself,
'That was neatly done. I must find out who this expert may be.' He went
away full of it, having forgotten his housed enemy.

There was a Sheik Moffadin in the jail, one of the Soldan's hostages for
the return of the True Cross. The Marquess went to see him.

'Who of your people,' he asked, 'is very tall and light-footed, robes
him from head to foot in white linen, and kills quietly, as if he loved
the dead, with an "All hail, master"?'

'We call him an Assassin in our language,' the Sheik replied; 'but he is
not of our people by any means. He is a servant of the Old Man who
dwells on Lebanon.'

'What old man is this, Moffadin?'

'I can tell you no more of him,' said the Sheik, 'save that he is master
of many such men, who serve him faithfully and in silence. But he hates
the Soldan, and the Soldan him.'

'How do they serve him, by killing?'

'Yes. They kill whomsoever he points out, and so receive (or think to
receive) a crown in Paradise.'

'Is this old man's name Death, by our Saviour?' cried the Marquess.

The Sheik answered, 'His name is Sinan. But the name of Death would suit
him very well.'

'Where should I get speech with some of his servants?' the Marquess
inquired; adding, 'For my life is in danger. I have enemies who are
irksome to me.'

'By the Tower of Flies you will find them,' said the Sheik, 'and late at
night. There are always some of his people walking there. Seek out such
a man as you have seen, and without fear accost him after his fashion,
kissing him and saying, "Ah, Ali. Ah, Abdallah, servant of Ali."

'I am very much obliged to you, Moffadin,' said the Marquess.

       *       *       *       *       *

That same night Jehane was in pain, and King Richard dared not leave
her, nor the physicians either. And in the morning early she was
delivered of a child, a strong boy, and then lay back and slept
profoundly. Richard set two black women to fan the flies off her without
stopping once under pain of death; and having seen to the proper care of
the child and other things, returned alone through the blanching
streets, glorifying and praising God.




CHAPTER IV

CONCERNING THE TOWER OF FLIES, SAINT-POL, AND THE MARQUESS OF MONTFERRAT


In the church of Saint Lazarus of the Knights, on Lammas Day, the son of
Richard and Jehane was made a Christian by the Abbot of Poictiers.
Gossips were the Count of Champagne, the Earl of Leicester, and (by
proxy) the Queen-Mother. He was named Fulke.

At the moment of anointing the church-bell was rung; and at that moment
Gilles de Gurdun spat upon the pavement outside. Saint-Pol said to him,
'We must do better than that, Gilles.'

And Gilles, 'I pray God may spit him out.'

'Oh, He!' said Saint-Pol with a bitter laugh; 'He helps those who are
helpful of themselves.'

'I cannot help myself, Eustace,' said Gurdun. 'I have tried. I had him
unarmed before me at Messina, and he looked me down, and I could not do
it.'

'Have at his back, then.'

'I hope it may not come to that, said Gilles; 'and yet it may, if it
must.'

'Come with me to-night to the Tower of Flies,' said Saint-Pol. 'Here is
my shameful sister brought out of church. I cannot stay.'

'I stay,' said Gilles de Gurdun. King Richard came out of church, and
Jehane, and the child carried on a shield.

Jehane, who had much ado to walk without falling, saw not Gilles; but
Gilles saw her, and the red in his face took a tinge of black. While she
was before him he gaped at her, with a dry tongue clacking in his mouth,
consumed by a dreadful despair; but when she had passed by, swaying in
her weakness, barely able to hold up her lovely head, he lifted his face
to the white sky, and looked unwinking at the sun, wondering where else
an equal cruelty could abide. In this golden king, as cruel as the sun,
and as swift, and as splendid! Ah, dastard, dastard! At the minute
Gilles could have leapt at him and mauled the great shoulders with a
dog's weapons. There was no solace for him but to bite. So he dashed his
forearm into his face, and sluiced his teeth in that.

But King Richard of the high head mounted his horse in the churchyard,
and rode among the people before Jehane's bearers to the Street of the
Camel. Squires of his threw silver coins among the crowds who filled the
ways.

Within the house, he laid her on her bed, and held up the child before
her, high in the air. He was in that great mood where nothing could
resist him. She, faint and fragrant on the bed, so frail as to seem
transparent, a disembodied sprite, smiled because she felt at ease, as
the feeble do when they first lie down.

'Lo, Fulke of Anjou!' sang Richard--'Fulke, son of Richard, the son of
Henry, the son of Geoffrey, the son of Fulke! Fulke, my son Fulke, I
will make thee a knight even now!' He held the babe in one hand, with
the free hand drew his long sword. The flat blade touched the nodding
little head.

'Rise up, Sir Fulke of Anjou, true knight of thine house, Sieur de
Cuigny when I have thee home again. By the Face!' he cried shortly, as
if remembering something, 'we must get him the badge: a switch of wild
broom!'

'Dear lord, sweet lord,' murmured Jehane, faint in bed, nearly gone: but
he raved on.

'When I lay, even as thou, Fulke, naked by my mother, my father sent for
a branch of the broom, and stuck it in the pillow against I could carry
it. And shalt thou go without it, boy? Art not thou of the
broom-bearers?' He put the child into the nurse's arm and went to the
door. He called for Gaston of Béarn, for the Dauphin of Auvergne, for
Mercadet, for the devil. The Bishop of Salisbury came running in.
'Bishop,' said King Richard, 'you must serve me to-day. You must take
ship, my friend, with speed; you must go to Bordeaux, thence a-horseback
to the moor above Angers. Pluck me a branch of the wild broom and
return. I must have it, I tell you; so go. Haste, Bishop. God be with
you.'

The Bishop began to splutter. 'Hey, sire--!'

'Never call me that again, Bishop, if your ship is within sight by
sunset,' he said. 'Call me rather the Prince of the Devils. See my
chancellor, take my ring to him, omit nothing. Off with you, and back
with all speed.'

'Ha, sire, look you now,' cried the desperate bishop, 'there will be no
broom before next Easter. Here we are at Lammas.'

'There will be a miracle,' said Richard; 'I am sure of it. Go.' Fairly
pushing him from the door, he returned to find Jehane in a dead faint.
This set him raving a new tune. He fell upon his knees incontinent,
raised her in his arms, carried her about, kissed her all over, cried
upon the saints and God, did every extravagance under the sun, omitted
the one wise thing of letting in the physicians. Abbot Milo at last,
coming in, saved Jehane from him for the deeper purposes of God.

The Count of Saint-Pol, going to the Castle, to the Queen's side, found
the Marquess with her. She also lay white and twisting on a couch,
crisping and uncrisping her little hands. Montferrat stood at her head;
three of her ladies knelt about her, whispering in her own tongue,
proffering orange water, sweetmeats, a feather whisk. Saint-Pol knelt in
her view.

'Madame, how is it with your Grace?' he said. The little lady quivered,
but took no notice.

'Madame,' said Saint-Pol again, 'I am a peer of France, but a knight
before all. I am come to serve your Grace with my manhood. I pray you
speak to me.' The Marquess folded his arms; his large white face was a
sight to see.

Queen Berengère's palms were bleeding a little where her nails had
broken the skin. She was quite white; but her eyes, burning black, had
no pupils. When Saint-Pol spoke for the second time she shook beyond all
control and threw her head about. Also she spoke.

'I suffer, I suffer horribly. It is cruel beyond understanding or
knowledge that a girl should suffer as I suffer. Where is God? Where is
Mary? Where are the angels?'

'Dearest Madame, dearest Madame,' said the cooing women, and one stroked
her face. But the Queen shook the hand off, and went wailing on, saying
more than she could have meant.

'Is it good usage of the daughter of a king, Lord Jesus? Is this the way
of marriage, that the bride be left on her wedding day?' She jumped up
on her couch and took hold of her bosom in the sight of men. 'She hath
given him a child! He is with her now. Am I not fit for children? Shall
there never be milk? Oh, oh, here is more shame than I can bear!' She
hid her face in her hands, and rocked herself about.

Montferrat (really moved) said low to Saint-Pol: 'Are we knights to
suffer these wrongs to be?' Said Saint-Pol with a sob in his voice, 'Ah,
God, mend it!'

'He will,' said Montferrat, 'if we help to mend.'

This reminded Saint-Pol of his own words to De Gurdun; so he made haste
to throw himself before the Queen, that he might still be pure in his
devotion. 'My lady Berengère,' he said ardently, 'take me for your
soldier. I am a bad man, but surely not so bad as this. Let me fight him
for you.'

The Queen shook her head, impatient. 'Hey! What can you do against so
glorious a man? He is the greatest in the world.'

'Ha, domeneddio!' said the Marquess with a snort. 'I have that which
will abate such glory. Dearest Madame, we go to pray for your health.'
He kissed her hand, and drew away with him Saint-Pol, who was trembling
under the thoughts that fired him.

'Oh, my soul, Marquess!' said the youth, when they were in the glare of
day again. 'What shall we do to mend this wretchedness?' The Marquess
looked shrewdly.

'End the wretch who wrought it.'

'Do we go clean to that, Marquess? Have we no back-thoughts of our own?'

'The work is clean enough. You come to-night to the Tower of Flies?'

'Yes, yes, I will come,' said Saint-Pol.

'I shall have one with me,' the Marquess went on, 'who will be of
service, mind you.'

'Ah,' said Saint-Pol, 'and so shall I.'

The Marquess stroked his nose. 'Hum,' he said, advising, 'who might your
man be, Saint-Pol?'

'One,' said Eustace, 'who has reason to hate Richard as much as that
poor lady in there.'

'Who is that?'

'My sister Jehane's lover.'

'By the visible Host,' said Montferrat,' we shall be a loving company,
all told.' So they parted for the time.

The Tower of Flies stands apart from the city on a spit of sand which
splays out into two flanges, and so embraces in two hooks a lagoon of
scummy ooze, of weeds and garbage, of all the waste and silt of a slack
water. In front of it only is the tidal sea, which there flows languidly
with a half-foot rise; on the other is the causeway running up to the
city wall. Above and all about this dead marsh you hear day and night
the buzzing of innumerable great flies, and in the daytime see them
hanging like gauze in the thick air. They say the reason is that
anciently the pagans sacrificed hecatombs hereabout to the idols they
worshipped; but another (more likely) is that the lagoon is a dead
slack, and stinks abominably. All dead things thrown from the city walls
come floating thither, and there stay rotting. The flies get what they
can, sharing with the creatures of land and sea; for great fish feed
there; and at night the jackals and hyænas come down, and bicker over
what they can drag out. But more than once or twice the sharks drag them
in, and have fresh meat, if their brother sharks allow it. However all
this may be, the place has a dreadful name, a dreadful smell, and a
dreadful sound, what with the humming of flies and dull rippling of the
sharks. These can seldom be seen, since the water is too thick; but you
can tell their movements by the long oily waves (like the heads of large
arrows) which their fins throw behind them as they quest from carcase to
carcase down there in the ooze.

Thither in the murk of night came Montferrat in a black cloak, holding
his nose, but made feverish through his ears by the veiled chorus of the
flies. By the starshine and glow of the putrid water he saw a tall man
in a white robe, who stood at the extreme edge of the spit and looked at
the sharks. Montferrat hid his guards behind the Tower, crossed himself,
drew his sword to hack a way through the monstrous flies, and so came
swishing forward, like a man who mows a swathe.

The tall man saw him, but did not move. The Marquess came quite close.

'What are you looking at, my friend?' he asked, in the Arabian tongue.

'I am looking at the sharks, which have a new corpse in there,' said the
man. 'See what a turmoil there is in the water. There must be six
monsters together in that swirl. See, see, there speeds another!'

The Marquess turned sick. 'God help, I cannot look,' he said.

'Why,' said the Arabian, 'It is a dead man they fight over.'

'May be, may be,' said the Marquess. 'You, my friend, are very familiar
with death. So am I; nor do I fear living man. But these great fish
terrify me.'

'You are a fool,' returned the other. 'They seek only their meat. But
you and I, and our like, seek nicer things than that. We have our souls
to feed; and the soul of a man is a free eater, of stranger appetite
than a shark.'

The Marquess looked at the flies. 'O God, Arabian, let us go away from
this place! Is there no rest from the flies?

'None at all,' said the Arabian; 'for thousands have been slain here;
and the flies also must be fed.'

'Pah, horrible!' said the Marquess, all in a sweat. The Arabian turned;
but his face was hidden, with a horrible appearance, as if a hooded
cloak stood up by itself and a voice proceeded from a fleshless garb.
'You, Marquess of Montferrat,' it said, 'what do you want with me by the
Tower of Flies?'

The Marquess remembered his needs. 'I want the death of a man,' he said;
'but not here, O Christ.'

'Who sent you?' asked the Arabian.

'The Sheik Moffadin, a captive, in the name of Ali, and of Abdallah,
servant of Ali.' So the Marquess, and would have kissed the man, but
that he saw no face under the hood, and dared not kiss emptiness.

'Come with me,' said the Arabian.

       *       *       *       *       *

An hour later the Marquess came into the Tower of Flies, shaking. He
found Saint-Pol there, the Archduke of Austria, and Gilles de Gurdun.
There were no greetings.

'Where is your man, Marquess?' asked Saint-Pol of the pale Italian.

'He is out yonder looking at the sharks,' said the Marquess, in a
whisper; 'but he will serve us if we dare use him.' He struck at the
flies weaving about his head. 'This is a horrible place, Saint-Pol,' he
said, staring. Saint-Pol shrugged.

'The deed we compass, dear Marquess, is none of the choicest, remember,'
said he. The Marquess then saw that Austria's broad leather back was
covered with flies. This quickened his loathing.

'By our Saviour,' he said, 'one must hate a man very much to talk
against him here.'

'Do you hate enough?' asked Saint-Pol.

The Marquess stared about him. He saw the Archduke peacefully twiddle
his thumbs. He saw De Gurdun, who stood moodily, looking at the floor.

'Oh, content you,' Saint-Pol answered him. 'That man hates more than you
or I. And with more reason.'

'What are your reasons, Eustace?' asked Montferrat, still in a whisper.

'I hate him,' said Saint-Pol, 'for my brother's sake, whose back he
broke; for my sister's sake, whose heart he must break before he has
done with her; for my house's sake, to which (in Eudo's person) he gave
the lie; because he is of Anjou, cruel as a cat and savage as a dog;
because he is a ruthless, swift, treacherous, secret, unconscionable
beast. Are these enough reasons for you?'

'By God, Eustace,' said the breathless Montferrat, 'I cannot think it.
Not here!'

'Then,' said Saint-Pol, 'I hate him for Berengère's sweet sake. That is
a good and clean hatred, I believe. That wasted lady, writhing white on
a bed, moved me to pure pity. If I loved her before I will love her now
with whole service, not daring belie my knighthood. I love that queen
and intend to serve her. I have never seen such pitiful beauty before.
What! Is the man insatiate? Shall he have everything? He shall have
nothing. That will serve for me, I hope. Now, Marquess, it is your
turn.'

The Marquess struck out at the flies. 'I hate him,' he said, 'because,
before the King of France, he called me a liar and threatened me with
ignominious death.' He gasped here, and looked round him to see what
effect he had made. Saint-Pol's eyes (green-grey like his sister's) were
upon him, rather coldly; Gurdun's on the floor still. The Archduke was
scratching in his beard; and the chorus of flies swelled and shrilled.
The Marquess needed alliances.

'Eh, my friends,' he said, almost praying, 'will this not serve me?'

Said Saint-Pol, 'Marquess, listen to this man. Speak, Gilles.'

Gilles looked up. 'I have tried to kill him. I had my chance fair. I
could not do it. I shall try again, for the law is on my side. To you,
lords, I shall say nothing, for I am a man ashamed to speak of what I
desire to do, not yet certain whether I can accomplish it. This I say,
the man is my liege lord, but a thief for all that. I loved my Lady
Jehane when she was twelve years old and I a page in her father's house.
I have never loved any other woman, and never shall. There are no other
women. She gave herself to me for good reason, and he himself gave her
into my hand for good reason. And then he robbed me of her on my wedding
day, and has slain my father and young brother to keep her. He has given
her a child: enough of this. Dastard! I will follow and follow until I
dare to strike. Then I will kill him. Let me alone.' Gilles, red and
gloomy, had to jerk the words out: he was no speaker. The Marquess had a
fierce eye.

'Ha, De Gurdun,' he said, 'we need thee, good knight. But come out of
this accursed fly-roost, and we shall show thee a better way than thine.
It is the flies that make thee afraid.'

'Eh, damn the flies,' said Gilles. 'They will never disturb me. They do
but seek their meat.'

'They disturb me horribly,' said the Marquess, with Italian candour.

Saint-Pol laughed. 'I told you that I could bring you in a man,' he
said. 'Now, Marquess, you have our two clean reasons. What is yours?'

'I have given you mine,' said Montferrat, shifting his feet. 'He called
me a liar.'

'It lacks cogency,' said Saint-Pol. 'One must have clean reasons in an
unclean place.' The Marquess broke out into blasphemy.

'May hell scorch us all if I have no reasons! What! Has he not kept me
from my kingdom? Guy of Lusignan will be king by his means. What is
Philip against Richard? What am I? What is the Archduke?' He had
forgotten that the Archduke was there.

'By Beelzebub, the god of this place,' said that deep-voiced hairy man,
'you shall see what the Archduke is when you want him. But I am no
murderer. I am going home. I know what is due to a prince, and from a
prince.'

'Do as you please, my lord,' said Saint-Pol; 'but our schemes are like
to be endangered by such goings.'

'I have so little liking for your schemes, to be plain with you,'
replied the Archduke, 'that they may fail and fail again for me. How I
deal with the King of England, who has insulted me beyond hope, is a
matter for him and me to determine.'

'Cousin,' said Montferrat, 'you desert me.'

'Cousin again,' said the Archduke, 'do you wonder?' And so he walked
out.

'Punctilious boar!' cried Saint-Pol in a fume, 'who can only get his
tushes in one way! Now, Marquess, what are we to do?'

The Marquess smiled darkly, and tapped his nose. 'I have my business in
good train. I have an ancient friend on Lebanon. Stand in with me, the
pair of you, and I have all done smoothly.'

'You hire?' asked Saint-Pol, drily. Then he shrugged--'Oh, but we may
trust you!'

'Per la Madonna!' said the Marquess.

'What will you do, Gilles?' Saint-Pol asked the Norman. 'Will you leave
it to the Marquess of Montferrat?'

'I will not,' said Gilles. 'I follow King Richard from point to point. I
hire nobody.'

The Marquess's hands went up, desperate of such folly. 'You only with
me, my Eustace!' he said.

Saint-Pol looked up. 'I differ from either. I have a finer plan than
either. You are satisfied with a sword-stroke in the back--'

'By my soul, it shall not be in the back!' cried De Gurdun. Saint-Pol
shrugged again.

'That is the Marquess's way. But what matter? You want to see him down.
So do I, by heaven, but in hell, not on the earth. I will see him
tormented. I will see him ashamed. I will wreck his hopes. I will make
him a mockery of all kings, drag his high spirit through the mud of
disastrousness. Pouf! Do you think him all flesh? He is finer stuff than
that. What he makes others I seek to make him-soiled, defiled, a blown
rag. There is work to be done in that kind here and at home. King Philip
will see to one; I stay with the host.'

'It is a good plan,' said the Marquess; 'I admire it exceedingly. But
steel is safer for a common man. I go to Lebanon, for my part, to my
friends there. But I think we are in agreement.'

Before they went away, they cut their arms with a dagger, and mingled
their blood. The Marquess wrapped his wound deep in his cloak to keep
the flies from it. Across the silence of the night, as they made their
way into the city, came the cry of the watchman from a belfry: 'Save us,
Holy Sepulchre!' It floated from tower to tower, from land far out to
sea. Jehane, dry in her hot bed, heard it; Richard, on his knees in an
oratory, heard it, crossed himself, and repeated the words. Queen
Berengère moaned in her sleep; the Duke of Burgundy snored; and the
Arabian spat into the lagoon.




CHAPTER V

THE CHAPTER OF FORBIDDING: HOW DE GURDUN LOOKED, AND KING RICHARD HID
HIS FACE


Since the Soldan broke his pledges, King Richard swore that he would
keep his. So he had all the two thousand hostages killed, except the
Sheik Moffadin, whom the Marquess had enlarged. He has been blamed for
this, and I (if it were my business) should blame him too. He asked no
counsel, and allowed no comment: by this time he was absolute over the
armies in Acre. If I am to say anything upon the red business it shall
be this, that he knew very well where his danger lay. It was his
friends, not his enemies, he had reason to fear; and upon these the
effect of what he did was instantaneous, and perhaps well-timed. The
Count of Flanders had died of the camp-sickness; King Philip was
stricken to the bones with the same crawling disease. Nothing now could
keep Philip away from France. Acre was full of rumours, meetings of
kings and princes, spies, racing messengers. Who should stay and who go
was the matter of debate. Philip meant to go: his friend, Prince John of
England, had been writing to him. Flanders must be occupied, and
Flanders, near England, was nearer yet to Normandy. The Marquess also
meant to go--to Sidon for Lebanon. He had things to do up there on
Richard's and his own account, as you shall hear. But the Archduke chose
to stay in Acre--and so on.

King Richard heard of each of these hasty discussions with a shrug, and
only put his hand down when they were all concluded. He said that unless
French hostages were left in his keeping for the fulfilment of
covenants, he should know what to do.

'And what is that, King of England?' asked Philip.

'What becomes me,' was the short answer, given in full hail before the
magnates. They looked at each other and askance at the sanguine-hued
King, who drove them all huddling before him by mere magnanimity. What
could they do but leave hostages? They left Burgundy, Beauvais, and
Henry of Champagne--one friend, one enemy, and one blockhead. Now you
see a reason for drawing the sword upon the wretched Turks. If Richard
had planted, they, poor devils, had to water.

So King Philip went home, and the Marquess to Sidon for Lebanon; and
Richard, knowing full well that they meant him ill here and at home,
turned his face towards Jerusalem.

       *       *       *       *       *

When the time came for ordering the goings of his host, he grew very
nervous about what he must leave behind him in Acre. Whether he was a
good man or not, a good husband, a good lover or not, he was
passionately a father. In every surge and cry of his wild heart he
showed this. The heart is a generous inn, keeps open house, grows wide
to meet all corners. The company is divers. In King Richard's heart sat
three guests: Christ and His lost Cross, Jehane and her lost honour, and
little Fulke upon her breast. Christ was a dumb guest, but the most
eloquent still. There had been no nods from Him since the great day of
Fontevrault; but Richard watched Him daily and held himself bound to be
His footboy. See these desperate shifts of the great-hearted man! Here
were his two other guests: little Fulke, who claimed everything, and
still Jehane, who claimed nothing; and outside the door stood Berengère,
crisping and uncrisping her small hands. To serve Christ he had married
the Queen; to serve the Queen he had put away Jehane; to honour Jehane
(who had given him her honour) he had abjured the Queen. Now lastly, he
prayed Christ to save him Fulke, his first and only son. 'My Saviour
Christ,' he prayed on his last night at Acre, 'let Thine honour be the
first end of this adventure. But if honour come to Thee, my Lord,
through me, let honour stay with me and my son through Thee. I cannot
think I do amiss to ask so much. One other thing I ask before I go out.
Watch over these treasures of mine that I leave in pawn, for I know very
well that I shall get no more of them.' Then he kissed the mother and
the child, comforting them, and went out, not trusting himself to look
back at the house.

He had made the defences of Acre as good as he knew, which was very good
indeed. He had bettered the harbour; he left ships in it, established a
post between it and Beyrout, between Beyrout and Cyprus. He sent Guy of
Lusignan to be his regent in that island, Emperor if he chose. He left
Abbot Milo to comfort Jehane, the Viscount of Béziers to rule the town
and garrison. Shriven, fortified with the Sacrament, he spent his last
night in Acre on the 21st of August. Next morning, as soon as it was
day, he led his army out on its march to Jerusalem.

Joppa was his immediate object, to which place a road ran between the
mountains and the sea, never far from either. He had little or no
transport, nor could expect food by the way, for Saladin had seen to
that. The ships had to work down level with him, with reserves of men
and stores; and even so the thing had an ugly look. The mountains of
Ephraim, not very lofty, were covered with a thick growth of holm-oak:
excellent cover, wherein, as he knew quite well, the Saracens could move
as he moved, choose their time, and attack him on front, rear, or left
flank, wherever chance offered. It was a journey of peril, harassing,
slow, and without glory.

For six weeks he led and held a running battle, wherein the powers of
earth and air, the powers of Mahomet, and dark forces within his own
lines all strove against him. He met them alone, with a blank face, eyes
bare, teeth hard-set. Whatever provocation was offered from without or
within, he would not attack, nor let his friends attack, until the enemy
was in his hand. You, who know what longanimity may be and how hard a
thing to come at, may admire him for this.

Directly the Christians were over the brook Belus, their difficulties
were upon them. The way was through a pebbly waste of beach and
salt-grass, and a sea-scrub of grey bushes. A mile to their left the
rocks began, spurs of the mountains; the shrubs became stunted trees;
the rocks climbed, the trees with them; then the forest rose, first
sparsely, then thick and dark; lastly, into the deep blue of the sky
soared the toothed ridges, grey, scarred, and splintry. Scurrying
horsemen, on beasts incredibly sure of foot, hung on the edge of these
fastnesses, yelling, whirling their lances, white-clad, swarthy and
hoarse. They came by fifties, or in clouds they came, swept by like a
windstorm, and were gone. And in each shrill and terrible rush some
stragglers, be sure, would call upon Christ in vain. Or sometimes great
companies of Mamelukes in mail, massed companies in blocks of men, stood
covered by their bowmen as if offering battle. If the Christians opened
out to attack (as at first they did), or some party of knights, more
adventurous than another, pricked forward at a canter, and hastening as
their hearts grew high cried at last the charge, 'Passavant!' or 'Sauve
Anjou!' out of the wood with cries would come the black cavalry, sweep
up behind our men, and cut off one company or another. And if so by day,
by night there was no long peace under the large stars. Desperate
stampedes, the scattering of camp-fires, trampling, grunting in the
dark; ghostly horsemen looming and vanishing suddenly in the half-light;
and in the lull the querulous howling of wild beasts disappointed.

To their full days succeeded their empty days, when they were alone with
the desert and the sun. Then hunger and thirst assailed them, serpents
bit them, stinging flies drove men mad, the sand burnt their feet
through steel and leather. They lost more this way than by Saracen
ambush, and lost more hearts than men. This was a time for private
grudges to awaken. Hatred feeds on such dry meat. In the empty watches
of the night, in the blistering daytime, under the white sky or the deep
violet, Des Barres remembered his struck face, De Gurdun his stolen
wife, Saint-Pol his dead brother, and the Duke of Burgundy his forty
pounds.

It must be said that Richard stretched his authority as far as it would
go. His direct aim was to reach Joppa with speed, and thence to strike
inward over the hills to the Holy City. It was against sense to attack
this enemy hugging the woody heights; but as time went on, as he lost
men and heard the muttering of those who saw them go, he understood that
if he could tempt Saladin into close battle upon chosen ground it would
be well. This was a difficult matter, for though (as he knew) the
Saracen army followed him in the woods, it kept well out of sight. None
but the light horsemen showed near at hand, and their tactics were to
sting like wasps, and fly--never to join battle. At last, in the swamp
of Arsûf, where the Dead River splays over broad marshes, and goes in a
swamp to the sea-edge, he saw his chance, and took it.

Here a feint, carried out by Gaston of Béarn with great spirit, brought
Saladin into the open. The Christians continued their toilsome march,
Saladin attacked their rear; and for six hours or more that rearguard
fought a retreating battle, meeting shock after shock, striking no
blow, while the centre and the van watched them. This was one of the
tensest days of Richard's iron rule. De Charron, commanding the rear,
sent imploring messengers--'For Christ's love let us charge, sire, we
can bear no more of this.' He was answered, 'Let them come on again.'
Then Saint-Pol, seeing one of the chances of his life, was in open
mutiny of the tongue. 'Are we sheep, then?' Thus he to the French with
Burgundy. 'Is the King a drover of cattle? Where is the chivalry of
France?' Even Richard's friends grew fretful: Champagne tossing his
head, muttering curses to himself, Gaston of Béarn pale and serious,
chewing his beard. Two more wild assaults the rearguard took stiffly, at
the third they broke in two places, but repelled the Turks. Richard,
watching like a hawk, saw his opportunity. He sent down a message to the
Duke of Burgundy, to Saint-Pol and De Charron--'Hold them yet once more;
at six blasts of my trumpet, charge.' The Duke of Burgundy, block though
he was, was prepared to obey. About him came buzzing Saint-Pol and his
friends: 'Impossible, my lord Duke, we cannot keep in our men. Attack,
attack.' Saladin was then coming on, one of his thunderous charges. 'God
strike blind those French mules!' cried Richard. 'They are out!' This
was true: from left to centre the Christian bowmen were out, the knights
pricking after them to the charge. Richard cursed them from his heart.
'Sound trumpets!' he shouted, 'we must let go.' They sounded; they ran
forward: the English first, then the Normans, Poictevins, men of Anjou
and Pisa, black Genoese--but the left had moved before them, and made
doubtful Richard's échelon. They knelt, pulled bowstrings to the ear.
The sky grew dun as the long shafts flew; the oncoming tide of men
flickered and tossed like a broken sea, and the Soldan's green banner
dipped like a reed in it. A second time the blast of arrows, like a gust
of death, smote them flat: Richard's voice rang sharply out--'Passavant,
chivalers! Sauve Anjou!'--and a young Poictevin knight, stooping low in
his saddle, went rocking down the line with words for Henry of
Champagne, who ruled the centre. The archers ran back and crouched;
Richard and his chivalry on the extreme right moved out, the next
company after him, and the next, and the next, company following
company, until, in echelon, all the long fluttering array galloped over
the marsh, overlapped and enfolded the Saracen hordes in their bright
embrace. A frenzied cry from some emir by the standard gave notice of
the danger; the bodyguard about the Soldan were seen urging him. Saladin
gave some hasty order as he rode off; Richard saw it, and tasted the
bitterness of folly. 'By God, we shall lose him--oh, bemused hog of
Burgundy!' He sent a man flying to the Duke; but it was too late.
Saladin gained the woods, and with him his bodyguard, the flower of his
state.

The Mamelukes also turned to fly. To right, to left, the mad horsemen
drove--the black, the plumed, the Nubians in yellow, the Turcomans with
spotted skins over their mail, the men of Syria, knighthood of
Egypt--trampling underfoot their own kind. But the steel chain held
most of these; the knights had bound horse to horse: wide on the left
the Templars and Hospitallers fanned out and swept all stragglers into
the net. So within hoops of iron, as it were, the slaughter began,
silent, breathless, wet work. Here James d'Avesnes was killed, a good
knight; and here Des Barres went down in a huddle of black men, and had
infallibly perished but that King Richard himself with his axe dug him
out. 'Your pardon, King of the World,' sobbed Des Barres, kissing his
enemy's knee. 'Pooh,' says Richard, 'we are all kings here. Take my
sword and get crowns'; and so he turned again into battle, and Des
Barres pressed after him. That was the beginning of a firm friendship
between the two. Des Barres eschewed the counsels of Saint-Pol from that
day.

But there was treachery still awake and about. When the rout was begun
Richard reined up for a minute, to breathe his horse and watch the way
of the field. He sat apart from his friends, seeing the lines ride by.
All in a moment inexplicably, as when in a race of the tide comes a
sudden thwart gust of wind and changes the face of the day, there was a
scurry, a babble of voices, the stampede of men fighting to kill: the
Turks with Christians on their backs came trampling, struggling
together. A sword glinted close to Richard--'Death to the Angevin
devil!' he heard, and turning received in mid shield De Gurdun's sword.
At the same moment a knight ran full tilt into the assailant, knocked
him off his horse, and himself reeled, powerless to strike. This was
Des Barres, paying his debts. The King smiled grimly to see the
wholesome treachery, and Gurdun's dismay at it. 'Gilles, Gilles,' says
he, 'be sure you get me alone in the world when next you strike at my
back. Now get you up, Norman, and fight a flying enemy, if you please. I
will await your return.' De Gurdun saluted, but avoided his lord's face,
and rode after the Turks. Des Barres stood, deep-breathing, by the King.

'Will he come back, sire?' asked the French knight.

'Not he,' said Richard; 'he is ashamed of himself.' He added, 'That is a
very honest man, to whom I have done a wrong. But listen to this, Des
Barres; if I had not wronged him, I was so placed that I should have
injured a most holy innocent soul. Let be. I shall meet De Gurdun again.
He may have me yet if he do not tire.'

He had been speaking as if to himself so far, but now turned his
hawk-eyes upon Des Barres. 'Tell me now,' he said, 'who gave the order
to the rear to charge, against my order?'

'Sire,' replied Des Barres, 'it was the Duke of Burgundy.'

'You do not understand me,' said Richard. 'It came through the Duke of
Burgundy's windpipe. But who put it into his thick head?'

Des Barres looked troubled. 'Ah, sire, must I answer you?'

Considering him, King Richard said, 'No, Des Barres, you need not. For
now I know who it was. Well, he has lost me my game, and won a part of
his, I doubt.' Then he rode off, bidding Des Barres sound the recall.

'Of the pagans that day,' writes Milo by hearsay, 'we made hecatombs two
score five: yet the King my master took no pleasure of that, as I
gather, deeming that he should have had Saladin's head in a bag. Also we
gained a clear road to Joppa.' So they did; but Joppa was a heap of
stones.

       *       *       *       *       *

They held a great council there. Richard put out his views. There were
two things to be done: repair Joppa and march at once on Jerusalem,
there to find and have again at Saladin; or pursue the coast road to
Ascalon and raise the siege of that city. 'I, my lords, am for Ascalon,'
Richard said. 'It is the key of Egypt. While the Soldan holds us cooped
up in Ascalon he can get his pack-mules through. If we relieve it, after
the battery we have done him we can hold Jerusalem at our whim. What do
you say to this, Duke of Burgundy?'

In the natural order of things the Duke would have said nothing. But he
had been filled to the neck by Saint-Pol. Richard being for Ascalon, the
key of Egypt, the Duke declared himself for Jerusalem, 'the key,' as he
rather flatly said, 'of the world.' To this Richard contented himself
with replying, that a key was little worth unless you could open the
door with it. All the French stood by their leader, except Des Barres.
He, with Richard's party, leaned to the King's side. But the Duke of
Burgundy would not budge, sat like a lump. He would not go to Ascalon,
and none of his battle should go. Richard cursed all Frenchmen, but gave
in. The truth was, he dared not leave Saint-Pol behind him.

They repaired the walls and towers of Joppa, garrisoned the place. Then
late in the autumn (truthfully, too late) they struck inland over a
rolling grass country towards Blanchegarde, a white castle on a green
hill. Moving slowly and cautiously, they pushed on to Ramleh, thence to
Bêtenoble, which is actually within two days' march of Jerusalem. The
month was October, mellow autumn weather. King Richard, moved by the
sacred influences, the level peace of the fair land, filled day and
night with the thought that he was on the threshold of that soil which
bore the very footmarks of our blessed Saviour--King Richard, I say, was
in great heart. He had been against the enterprise thus to do; he would
have approached from Ascalon; the enterprise was folly. But it was
glorious folly, for which a man might well die. He was ready to die,
though he hoped and believed that he should not. Saladin, once bitten,
would be shy: he had been badly bitten at Arsûf. Then came the Bishop of
Beauvais with Burgundy to his tent--Saint-Pol stayed behind--with
speeches, saying that the winter season was at hand; that it would be
more prudent to withdraw to Joppa, or even to go down to Ascalon.
Ascalon needed succours, it seemed. Richard's heart stood still at this
treachery; then he blazed out in fury. 'Are we hare or hounds, by
heaven? Do you presume--?' He mastered himself. 'What part, pray, does
Almighty God take in these pastimes of yours?'

The Duke of Burgundy looked heavily at the Bishop. The Bishop said,
'Sire, Ascalon is besieged.'

Said Richard, 'You old fool, do you not know the Soldan better than
that? Or do you put him on a parity with this Duke? It was under siege
three weeks ago, as you remember perfectly well.'

The Duke still looked at the Bishop. Driven again to say something, the
latter began--'Sire, your words are injurious; but I have spoken
advisedly. The Count of Saint-Pol--'

'Ah,' said Richard, 'the Count of Saint-Pol? Now I begin to understand
you. Please to fetch in your Count of Saint-Pol.'

Saint-Pol was sent for, and he came, darkly smiling, respectful, but
aware. King Richard held his voice, but not his hand, on the curb. The
hand shook a little.

'Saint-Pol,' he said, 'the Duke of Burgundy refers me to the Bishop, the
Bishop to you. This seems the order of command in King Philip's host.
Between the three of you I conceive to lie the honour of France. Now
observe me. Three weeks ago I was for Ascalon, and you for Jerusalem.
Now that I have brought you within two days of your desire--two days,
observe--you are for Ascalon, and I for Jerusalem. What is the meaning
of this?'

'Sire,' said Saint-Pol, reasonably, 'it means that we believe the Holy
City impregnable at this season, or untenable; and Ascalon still
pregnable.'

The King put a hand to the table. 'It means nothing of the sort, man.
You do not believe Ascalon can be taken. It is eight days' journey, and
was in straits a month ago. You make me ashamed of the men I am forced
to lead. What faith have you? What religion? The faith of your sick
master the Runagate! The religion of your white Marquess of Montferrat!
And I had taken you for men. Foh! you are rats.'

This was dreadful hearing: Saint-Pol bit his lip, but made no other
answer.

'Sire,' said the Bishop with heat, 'my manhood has never been reproached
before. When you carried war into my country in the King your father's
time, I met you in a hauberk of mail. If I met your Grace, judge if I
should fear the Soldan. It is my devout hope to kiss the Holy Sepulchre
and touch the Holy Cross, but before I die, not afterwards.'

'Pish!' said King Richard.

'Sire,' Beauvais ventured again, 'our master King Philip set us over his
host as foster-fathers of his children. We dare not imperil so many
lives unadvisedly.'

'Unadvisedly!' the King thundered at him, red to the roots of his hair.

'I withdraw the word, sire,' said the Bishop in a hurry; 'yet it is the
mature opinion of us all that we should seek the coast for
winter-quarters, not the high lands. We claim, at least, the duty of
choosing for those whose guardians we are.'

If Richard had been himself of two years earlier he would have killed
then and there a second Count of Saint-Pol; and for a pulse or two the
young man saw his death bright in the King's eyes. That the angry man
commanded himself is, I think, to his credit. As it was, he did what he
had certainly never done before: he tried to reason with the Duke of
Burgundy.

'Duke of Burgundy,' he said, leaning over his chair and talking low,
'you are no Frenchman, and the more of a man on that account. You and I
have had our differences. I have blamed you, and you me. But I have
never found you a laggard when there was work for the sword or adventure
for the heart. Now, of all adventures in the world the highest in which
a man may engage is here. Across those hills lies the city of God, of
which (I suppose) no soul among us might, unhelped, dare hope the sight,
much less the touch, least of all the redemption. I tell you, Duke of
Burgundy, there is that within me (not my own) which will lead you
thither with profit, glory and honour. Will you trust me? So far as I
have gone along with you I have done reasonably well. Did I scatter the
heathen at Arsûf? No thanks to you, Burgundy, but I did. Did I hold a
safe course to Joppa? Have I then brought you so near, and myself so
near, for nothing at all? If I have been a fool in my day, I am not a
fool now. I speak what I know. With this host I can save the city.
Without the best of it, I can do nothing. What do you say, my lord? Will
you let Beauvais take his Frenchmen to dishonour, and you and your
Burgundians play for honour with me? The prize is great, the reward
sure, here or in heaven. What do you say, Duke of Burgundy?'

His voice shook by now, and all the bystanders watched without breath
the heavy, brooding, mottled man over against him. He, faithful to his
nature, looked at the Bishop of Beauvais. But Beauvais was looking at
his ring.

'What do you say, my lord?' again asked King Richard.

The Duke of Burgundy was troubled: he blinked, looking at Saint-Pol. But
Saint-Pol was looking at the tent-roof.

'Be pleased to look at me,' said Richard; and the man did look, working
under his wrongs.

'By God, Richard,' said the Duke of Burgundy, 'you owe me forty pound!'

King Richard laughed till he was helpless.

'It may be, it may well be,' he gasped between the throes of his mirth.
'O lump of clay! O wonderful half-man! O most expressive river-horse!
You shall be paid and sent about your business. Archbishop, be pleased
to pay this man his bill. I will content you, Burgundy, with money; but
I will be damned before I take you to Jerusalem. My lords,' he said,
altering voice and look in a moment, 'I will conduct you to the ships.
Since I am not strong enough for Jerusalem I will go to Ascalon. But
you! By the living God, you shall go back to France.' He dismissed them
all, and next day broke up his camp.

But before that, very early in the morning, after a night spent with his
head in his hands, he rode out with Gaston and Des Barres to a hill
which they call Montjoy, because from there the pilgrims, tending south,
see first among the folded hills Jerusalem itself lie like a dove in a
nest. The moon was low and cold, the sun not up; but the heavens and
earth were full of shadowless light; every hill-top, every black rock
upon it stood sharply cut out, as with a knife. King Richard rode
silently, his face covered in a great hood; neither man with him dared
speak, but kept the distance due. So they skirted hill after hill, wound
in and out of the deep valleys, until at last Gaston pricked forward and
touched his master on the arm. Richard started, not turned.

'Montjoy, dear master,' said Gaston.

There before them, as out of a cup, rose a dark conical hill with
streamers of white light behind and, as might be, leaping from it. 'The
light shines on Jerusalem,' said Gaston: Richard, looking up at the
glory, uncovered his head. Sharp against the light stood a single man on
Montjoy, who faced the full sun. They who saw him there were still deep
in shade.

'Gaston and Des Barres,' said King Richard, when they had reached the
foot of the wet hill, 'stay you here. Let me go on alone.'

Gaston demurred. 'The hill is manned, sire. Beware an ambush. You have
enemies close by.' He hinted at Saint-Pol.

'I have only one enemy that I fear, Gaston,' said the King; 'and he
rides my horse. Do as I tell you.'

They obeyed; so he went under their anxious eyes. Slowly he toiled up
the bridle-path which the feet of many pilgrims had worn into the turf;
slowly they saw him dip from the head downwards into the splendour of
the dawn. But when horse and man were bathed full in light, those two
below touched each other and held hands; for they saw him hoist his
great shield from his shoulder and hold it before his face. So as he
stayed, screening himself from what he sought but dared not touch, the
solitary watcher turned, and came near him, and spoke.

'Why does the great King cover his face?' said Gilles de Gurdun; 'and
why does he, of his own will, keep the light of God from him? Is he at
the edge of his dominion? Hath he touched the limit of his power? Then I
am stronger than my Duke; for I see the towers shine in the sun; I see
the Mount of Olives, Calvary also, and the holy temple of God. I see the
Church of the Sepulchre, the battlements and great gates of the city.
Look, my lord King. See that which you desire, that you may take it.
Fulke of Anjou was King of Jerusalem; and shall not Richard be a king?
What is lacking? What is amiss? For kings may desire that which they
see, and take that which they desire, though other men go cursing and
naked.'

Said King Richard from behind his shield, 'Is that you, Gurdun, my
enemy?'

'I am that man,' said Gilles, 'and bolder than you are, since I can look
unoffended upon the place where our Lord God suffered as a man.
Suffering, it seems, maketh me sib with God.'

'I will never look upon the city, though I have risked all for the sake
of it,' said Richard; 'for now I know that it was no design of God's to
allow me to take it, although it was certainly His desire that I should
come into this country. Perhaps He thought me other than now I am. I
will not look. For if I look upon it I shall lead my men up against it;
and then they will be cut off and destroyed, since we are too few. I
will never see what I cannot save.'

Said Gilles between his teeth, 'You robber, you have seen my wife, and
cannot save her now' Richard laughed softly.

'God bless her,' he said, 'she is my true wife, and will be saved sure
enough. Yet I will tell you this, Gurdun. If she was not mine she should
be yours; and what is more, she may be so yet.'

'You speak idly,' said Gurdun, 'of things which no man knows.'

'Ah,' said the King, 'but I do know them. Leave me: I wish to pray.'

Gilles moved off, and sat himself on the edge of the hill looking
towards Jerusalem. If Richard prayed, it was with the heart, for his
lips never opened. But I believe that his heart, in this hour of clear
defeat, was turned to stone. He took his joys with riot, his triumphs
calmly; his griefs he shut in a trap. Such a nature as his, I suppose,
respects no persons. Whether God beat him, or his enemy, he would take
it the same way. All that Gilles heard him say aloud was this: 'What I
have done I have done: deliver us from evil.' He bade no farewell to his
hope, he asked no greeting for his altered way. When he had turned his
back upon the sacred places he lowered his shield; and then rode down
the hill into the cold shadow of the valley.

If he was changed, or if his soul, naked of hope, was stricken bleak, so
was the road he had to go. That day he broke up his camp and fared for
Ascalon and the sea. Stormy weather set in, the rains overtook him; he
was quagged, blighted with fever, lost his way, his men, his men's
love. Camp-sickness came and spread like a fungus. Men, rotten through
to the brain, died shrieking, and as they shrieked they cursed his name.
One, a Poictevin named Rolf, whom he knew well, turned away his
blackened face when Richard came to visit him.

'Ah, Rolf,' said the King, 'dost thou turn away from me, man?'

'I do that, by our Lord,' said Rolf, 'since by these deeds of thine my
wife and children will starve, or she become a whore.'

'As God lives,' said Richard, 'I will see to it.'

'I do not think He can be living any more,' said Rolf, 'if He lets thee
live, King Richard.' Richard went away. The time dragged, the rain fell
pitilessly, without end. He found rivers in floods, fords roaring
torrents, all ways choked. At every turn the Duke of Burgundy and
Saint-Pol worked against him.

Also he found Ascalon in ruins, but grimly set about rebuilding it. This
took him all the winter, because the French (judging, perhaps, that they
had done their affair) took to the ships and sailed back to Acre. There
they heard, what came more slowly to King Richard, strange news of the
Marquess of Montferrat, and terrible news of Jehane Saint-Pol.




CHAPTER VI

THE CHAPTER CALLED CLYTEMNESTRA


At Acre, by the time September was set, the sun had put all the air to
the sword, so that the city lay stifled, stinking in its own vice; and
the nights were worse than the days. Then was the great harvest of the
flies, when men died so quickly that there was no time to bury them. So
also mothers saw their children flag or felt their force grow thin: one
or another swooned suddenly and woke no more; or a woman found a dead
child at the breast, or a child whimpered to find his mother so cold. At
this time, while Jehane lay panting in bed, awake hour by hour and
fretting over what she should do when the fountains of her milk should
be dry, and this little Fulke, royal glutton, crave without getting of
her--she heard the women set there to fan her talking to each other in
drowsy murmurs, believing that she slept. By now she knew their speech.

Said one between the slow passes of the fans, 'Giafar ibn Mulk hath come
into the city secretly.' And the other, 'Then we have a thief the more.'

'Peace,' said the first, 'thou grudger. He is one of my lovers, and
telleth me whatsoever I seek to know. He is come in from Lebanon; so
much, and more, I know already.'

'What ill report doth he bring of his master?' asked the second, a lazy
girl, whose name was Misra, as the first was called Fanoum.

Fanoum answered, 'Very ill report of the Melek'--that was King Richard's
name here--'but it is according to the desires of the Marquess.'

'Ohè!' said Misra, 'we must tell this sleeper. She is moon of the
Melek.'

'Thou art a fool to think me a fool,' said Fanoum. 'Why, then, shall I
be one to turn the horn of a mad cow, to pierce my own thigh? Let the
Franks kill each other, what have we but gain? They are dogs alike.'

Misra said, 'Hearken thou, O Fanoum, the Melek is no dog. Nay, he is
more than a man. He is the yellow-haired King of the West, riding a
white horse, who was foretold by various prophets, that he should come
up against the Sultan. That I know.'

'Then he will have more than a man's death,' said Fanoum. 'The Marquess
goeth with Giafar to Lebanon, to see the Old Man of Musse, whom he
serveth. The Melek must die, for of all men living or dead the Marquess
hateth him.'

'Oh, King of Kings!' said Misra, with a little sob, 'and thou wilt stand
by, thou sorrowful, while the Marquess kills the Melek!'

Fanoum answered, 'Certainly I will; for any of our lord's people can
kill the Marquess; but it needeth the guile of the Old Man to kill the
Melek. Let the wolf slay the lion while he sleepeth: anon cometh the
shepherd and slayeth the gorged wolf. That is good sense.'

'Well,' said Misra, 'it may be so. But I am sorry for his favourite
here. There are no daughters of Au so goodly as this one. The Melek is
a wise lover of women.'

'Let be for that,' replied Fanoum comfortably; 'the Old Man of Musse is
a wiser. He will come and have her, and we do well enough in Lebanon.'

They would have said more, had Jehane needed any more. But it seemed to
her that she knew enough. There was danger brewing for King Richard,
whom she, faithless wretch, had let go without her. As she thought of
the leper, of her promise to the Queen-Mother, of Richard towering but
to fall, her heart grew cold in her bosom, then filled with fire and
throbbed as if to burst. It is extraordinary, however, how soon she saw
her way clear, and on how small a knowledge. Who this Old Man might be,
who lived on Lebanon and was most wise in the matter of women, she could
have no guess; but she was quite sure of him, was certain that he was
wise. She knew something of the Marquess, her cousin. Any ally of his
must be a murdermonger. A wise lover of women, the Old Man of Musse, who
dwelt on Lebanon! Wiser than Richard! And she more goodly than the
daughters of Au! Who were the daughters of Ali? Beautiful women? What
did it matter if she excelled them? God knew these things; but Jehane
knew that she must go to market with the Old Man of Musse. So much she
calmly revolved in her mind as she lay her length, with shut eyes, in
her bed.

With the first cranny of light she had herself dressed by her sulky,
sleepy women, and went abroad. There were very few to see her, none to
dare her any harm, so well as she was known. Two eunuchs at a wicked
door spat as she passed; she saw the feet of a murdered man sticking out
of a drain, the scurry of a little troop of rats. Mostly, the dogs of
the city had it to themselves. No women were about, but here and there a
guarded light betrayed sin still awake, and here and there a bell,
calling the faithful to church, sounded a homely note of peace. The
morning was desperately close, without a waft of air. She found the
Abbot Milo at his lodging, in the act of setting off to mass at the
church of Saint Martha. The sight of her wild face stopped him.

'No time to lose, my child,' he said, when he had heard her. 'We must go
to the Queen: it is due to her. Saviour of mankind!' he cried with
flacking arms, 'for what wast Thou content to lay down Thy life!' They
hurried out together just as the sun broke upon the tiles of the domed
churches, and Acre began to creep out of bed.

The Queen was not yet risen, but sent them word that she would receive
the abbot, 'but on no account Madame de Saint-Pol.' Jehane pushed off
the insult just as she pushed her hot hair from her face. She had no
thoughts to spare for herself. The abbot went into the Queen's house.

Berengère looked very drowned, he thought, in her great bed. One saw a
sharp white oval floating in the black clouds which were her hair. She
looked younger than any bride could be, childish, a child ill of a
fever, wilful, querulous, miserable. All the time she listened to what
Milo had to say her lips twitched, and her fingers plucked gold threads
out of the cherubim on the coverlet.

'Kill the King of England? Kill my lord' Montferrat? Eh, they cannot
kill him! Oh, oh, oh!'--she moaned shudderingly--'I would that they
could! Then perhaps I should sleep o' nights.' Her strained eyes pierced
him for an answer. What answer could he give?

'My news is authentic, Madame. I came at once, as my duty was, to your
Grace, as to the proper person--' Here she sat right up in her bed,
wide-eyed, all alight.

'Yes, yes, I am the proper person. I will do it, if no other can. Virgin
Mary!'--she stretched her arms out, like one crucified--'Look at me. Am
I worthy of this?' If she addressed the Virgin Mary her invitation was
pointedly to the abbot, a less proper spectator. He did look, however,
and pitied her deeply; at her lips dry with hatred, which should have
been freshly kissed, at her drawn cheeks, into her amazed young heart:
eh, God, he knew her loveworthy once, and now most pitiful. He had
nothing to say; she went on breathless, gathering speed.

'He has spurned me whom he chose. He has left me on my wedding day. I
have never seen him alone--do you heed me? never, never once. Ah, now,
he has chosen for his minion: let her save him if she can. What have I
to do with him? I am the daughter of a king; and what is he to me, who
treats me so? If I am not to be mother of England, I am still daughter
of Navarre. Let him die, let them kill him: what else can serve me now?'
She fell back, and lay staring up at him. In every word she said there
was sickening justice: what could Milo do? In his private mind he
confirmed a suspicion--being still loyal to his King--that one and the
same thing may be at one and the same time all black and all white. He
did his best to put this strange case.

'Madame,' he said, 'I cannot excuse our lord the King, nor will I; but I
can defend that noble lady whose only faults are her beauty and strong
heart.' Mentioning Jehane's beauty, he saw the Queen look quickly at
him, her first intelligent look. 'Yes, Madame, her beauty, and the love
she has been taught to give our lord. The King married her,
uncanonically, it is true; but who was she to hold up church law before
his face? Well, then she, by her own pure act, caused herself to be put
away by the King, abjuring thus his kingly seat. Hey, but it is so, that
by her own prayers, her proper pleading, her proper tears, she worked
against her proper honour, and against the child in her womb. What more
could she do? What more could any wife, any mother, than that? Ah, say
that you hate her without stint, would you have her die? Why, no! for
what pain can be worse than to live as she lives? My lady, she prevailed
against the King; but she could not prevail against her own holy nature
working upon the King's great heart. No! When the King found out that
she was to be mother of his child, he loved her so well that, though he
must respect her prayers, he must needs respect her person also. The
King thought within himself, "I have promised Madame de Saint-Pol that
I will never strive with her in love; and I will not. Now must I promise
Almighty God that, in her life, I will not strive so at all." Alas,
Madame, and alas! Here the King was too strong for the girl; here her
own nobility rose up against her. Pity her, not blame her; and for the
King--I dare to say it--find pity as well as blame. All those who love
his high heart, his crowned head, find pity for him in theirs. For many
there are who do better, having no occasion to do as ill; but there can
be none who mean better, for none have such great motions.'

Milo might have spared his breath. The Queen had heard one phrase of all
his speech, and during the rest had pondered that. When he had done, she
said, 'Fetch me in this lady. I would speak with her.'

'Breast shall touch breast here,' said Milo to himself, full of hope,
'and mouth meet mouth. Courage, old heart.'

When the tall girl was brought in Queen Berengère did not look at her,
nor make any response to her deep reverence; but bade her fetch a mirror
from the table. In this she looked at herself steadily for some time,
smoothing and coiling back her hair, arranging her neck-covering so as
to show something of her bosom, and so on. She sent Jehane for boxes of
unguent, her colour-boxes, brush for the eyebrows, powder for the face.
Finally she had brought to her a little crown of diamonds, and set it in
her hair. After patting her head and turning it about and about, she put
the glass down and made a long survey of Jehane.

'They do well,' she said, 'who call you sulky: you have a sulky mouth.
I allow your shape; but there are reasons for that. You are very tall;
you have a long throat. Green eyes are my detestation--fie, turn them
from me. Your hair is wonderful, and your skin. I suppose women of the
North are so commonly. Come nearer.' Jehane obeying, the Queen touched
her neck, then her cheek. 'Show me your teeth,' she said. 'They are
strong and good, but much larger than mine. Your hands are big, and so
are your ears; you do well to cover them. Let me see your foot.' She
peeped over the edge of the bed; Jehane put her foot out. 'It is not so
large as I expected,' said the Queen, 'but much larger than mine.' Then
she sighed and threw herself back. 'You are certainly a very tall girl.
And twenty-three years old? I am not twenty yet, and have had fifty
lovers. The Abbot of Poictiers said you were beautiful. Do you think
yourself so?'

'It is not my part to think of it, Madame,' said Jehane, holding herself
rather stiffly.

'You mean that you know it too well,' said Berengère. 'I suppose it is
true. You have a fine colour and a fine person--but that is a woman's.
Now look at me carefully, and say how you find me. Put your hand here,
and here, and here. Touch my hair; look well at my eyes. My hair reaches
to my knees when I stand up, to the floor when I sit down. I am a king's
daughter. Do you not think me beautiful?'

'Yes, Madame. Oh, Madame--!' Jehane, trembling before her visions, could
hardly stand still; but the Queen (who had no visions now the mirror was
put by) went plaining on.

'When I was in my father's court his poets called me Frozen Heart,
because I was cold in loving. Messire Bertran de Born loved me, and so
did my cousin the Count of Provence, and the Count of Orange, and
Raimbaut, and Gaucelm, and Ebles of Ventadorn. Now I have found one
colder than ever I was, and I am burning. Are you a great lover of the
King?'

At this question, put so quietly, Jehane grew grave. It took her above
her sense of dangers, being in itself a dignity. 'I love the King so
well, Queen Berengère,' she said, 'that I think I shall make him hate me
in time.'

'Folly,' snapped the Queen, 'or guile. You would spur him. Is it true
what the Abbot Milo told me?'

'I know not what he has told you,' said Jehane; 'but it is true that I
have not dared let the King love me, and now dare least of all.'

The Queen clenched her hands and teeth. 'You devil,' she said, 'how I
hate you. You reject what I long for, and he loathes me for your sake.
You a creature of nought, and I a king's daughter.'

From the nostrils of Jehane the breath came fluttering and quick; in her
splendid bosom stirred a storm that, if she had chosen to let it loose,
could have shrivelled this little prickly leaf: but she replied nothing
to the Queen's hatred. Instead, with eyes fixed in vacancy, and one hand
upon her neck, she spoke her own purpose and lifted the talk to high
matters.

'I touch not again your King and mine, O Queen. But I go to save him.'

'Woman,' said Berengère, 'do you dare tell me this? Are my miseries
nothing to you? Have you not worked woe enough?'

Jehane suddenly threw her hair back, fell upon her knees, lifted her
chin. 'Madame, Madame, Madame! I must save him if I die. I implore your
pardon--I must go!'

'Why, what can you do against Montferrat?' The Queen shivered a little:
Jehane looked fixedly at her, solemn as a dying nun.

'You say that I am handsome,' she said, then stopped. Then in a very low
voice--'Well, I will do what I can.' She hung her golden head.

The Queen, after a moment of shock, laughed cruelly. 'I suppose I could
not wish you anything worse than that. I hate you above all people in
the world, mother of a bastard. Oh, it will be enough punishment. Go,
you hot snake; leave me.'

Jehane rose to her feet, bowed her head and went out. Next moment the
Queen must have whipped out of bed, for she caught her before she could
shut the door, and clung to her neck, sobbing desperately. 'O God,
Jehane, save Richard! Have mercy on me, I am most wretched.' Now the
other seemed to be queen.

'My girl,' said Jehane, 'I will do what I promised.' She kissed the
scorching forehead, and went away with Milo to find Giafar ibn Mulk.

To get at him it was necessary to put the girl Fanoum to the question.
This was done. Giafar ibn Mulk, enticed into the house, proved to be a
young man of prudence and resource. He could not, he said, conduct them
to his master, because he had been told to conduct the Marquess; but an
equally sure guide could be found, and there were no objections to his
delaying his own illustrious convoy for a week or more. Further than
that he could not go, nor did the near prospect of death, which the
abbot exhibited to him, prove any inducement to the alteration of his
mind. 'Death?' he said, when the implements of that were before him. 'If
I am to die, I am to die: not twice it happens to a man. But I recommend
to these priests the expediency of first finding El Safy.' As this was
to be their guide up Lebanon, those priests agreed. El Safy also agreed,
when they had him. A galley was got ready for sea; the provisional Grand
Master of the Temple wrote a commendatory letter to his 'beloved friend
in the one God, Sinan, Lord of the Assassins, _Vetus de Monte_'; and
then, in two days' time, Milo the abbot, Jehane with her little Fulke, a
few women, and El Safy (their master in the affair), left Acre for
Tortosa, whence they must climb on mule-back to Lebanon.




CHAPTER VII

THE CHAPTER OF THE SACRIFICE ON LEBANON; ALSO CALLED CASSANDRA


From the haven at Acre to the bill of Tortosa is two days' sailing with
a fair wind. Thence, climbing the mountains, you reach Musse in four
days more, if the passes are open. If they are shut you do not reach it
at all. High on Lebanon, above the frozen gorge where Orontes and
Leontes, rivers of Syria, separate in their courses; above the terrace
of cedars, above Shurky the clouded mountain, lies a deep green valley
sentinelled on all sides by snow peaks and by the fortresses upon their
tops. In the midst of that, among cedars and lines of cypress trees, is
the white palace of the Lord of the Assassins, as big as a town. A man
may climb from pass to pass of Lebanon without striking upon the place;
sighting it from some dangerous crag, he may yet never approach it. None
visit the Old Man of Musse but those who court Death in one of his
shapes; and to such he never denies it. Dazzling snow-curtains, black
hanging-woods, sheer walls of granite, frame it in: looking up on all
sides you see the soaring pikes; and deep under a coffer-lid of blue it
lies, greener than an emerald, a valley of easy sleep. There in the
great chambers young men lie dreaming of women, and sleek boys stand
about the doorways with cups of madness held close to their breasts.
They are eaters and drinkers of hemp, these people, which causes them to
sleep much and wake up mad. Then, when the Old Man calls one or another
and says, Go down the mountains into the cities of the seaboard, and
when thou seest such-a-one, kiss him and strike deep--he goes out then
and there with fixed eyeballs, and never turns them about until he finds
whom he seeks, nor ever shuts them until his work is done. This is the
custom of Musse in the enclosed valley of Lebanon.

Thither on mules from Tortosa came El Safy, leading the Abbot Milo and
Jehane, and brought them easily through all the defiles to that castle
on a spur which is called Mont-Ferrand, but in the language of the
Saracens, Bārin. From that height they looked down upon the domes and
gardens of Musse, and knew that half their work was done.

What immediately followed was due to the insistence of El Safy, who said
that if Jehane was not suitably attired and veiled she would fail of her
mission. Jehane did not like this.

'It is not the custom of our women to be veiled, El Safy,' she said,
'except at the hour when they are to be married.'

'And it is not the custom of our men,' replied the Assassin, 'to choose
unveiled women. And this for obvious reasons.'

'What are your reasons, my son?' asked the abbot.

'I will tell you,' said El Safy. 'If a man should come to our master
with a veiled woman, saying, My lord, I have here a woman faced like
the moon, and more melting than the peach that drops from the wall, the
Old Man would straightway conceive what manner of beauty this was, and
picture it more glorious than the truth could ever be; and then the
reality would climb up to meet his imagining. But otherwise if he saw
her barefaced before him; for eyesight is destructive to mind-sight if
it precede it. The eye must be servant. So then he, dreaming of the
veiled treasure, weds her and finds that she is just what was predicted
of her by the merchant. For women and other delights, as we understand
the affair, are according to our zest; and our zest is a thing of the
mind's devising, added unto desire as the edge of a sword is superadded
to the sword. So the fair woman must certainly be veiled.'

'The saying hath meat in it,' said the abbot; 'but here is no question
of merchants, nor of marriage, pardieu.'

'If there is no question of marriage, of what is there question in this
company?' asked El Safy. 'Let me tell you that two questions only
concern the Old Man of Musse.'

Jehane, who had stood pouting, with a very high head, throughout this
little colloquy, said nothing; but now she allowed El Safy his way. So
she was dressed.

They put on her a purple vest, thickly embroidered with gold and pearls,
underdrawers of scarlet silk, and gauze trousers (such as Eastern women
wear) of many folds. Her hair was plaited and braided with pearls, a
broad silk girdle tied about her waist. Over all was put a thick white
veil, heavily fringed with gold. Round her ankles they put anklets of
gold, with little bells on them which tinkled as she walked; last,
scarlet slippers. They would have painted her face and eyebrows, but
that El Safy decided that this was not at all necessary. When all was
done she turned to one of her women and demanded her baby. El Safy, to
Milo's surprise, made no demur. Then they put her in a gold cage on a
mule's back, and so let her down by a steep path into the region of
birds and flowering trees. There was very little conversation, except
when the abbot hit his foot against a rock. In the valley they passed
through a thick cedar grove, and so came to the first of four gates of
approach.

Half a score handsome boys, bare-legged and in very short white tunics,
led them from hall to hall, even to the innermost, where the Old Man
kept his state. The first hall was of cedar painted red; the second was
of green wood, with a fountain in the middle; the third was deep blue,
and the fourth colour of fire. But the next hall, which was long and
very lofty, was white like snow, except for the floor, which had a
blood-red carpet; and there, on a white throne, sat the Old Man of
Musse, himself as blanched as a swan, robed all in white, white-bearded;
and about him his Assassins as colourless as he.

The ten boys knelt down and crossed their arms upon their bosoms; El
Safy fell flat upon his face, and crawling so, like a worm, came at
length to the steps of the throne. The Old Man let him lie while he
blinked solemnly before him. Not the Pope himself, as Milo had once seen
him, hoar with sanctity, looked more remotely, more awfully pure than
this king of murder, snowy upon his blood-red field. What gave closer
mystery was that the light came strange and milky through agate windows,
and that when the Old Man spoke it was in a dry, whispering voice which,
with the sound of a murmur in the forest, was in tune with the silence
of all the rest. El Safy stood up, and was rigid. There ensued a
passionless flow of question and answer. The Old Man murmured to the
roof, scarcely moving his lips; El Safy answered by rote, not moving any
other muscles but his jaw's. As for the Assassins, they stayed squat
against the walls, as if they had been dead men, buried sitting.

At a sign from El Safy the abbot with veiled Jehane came down the hail,
and stood before the white spectre on his throne. Jehane saw that this
was really a man. There was a faint tinge of red at his nostrils, his
eyes were yellowish and very bright, his nails coloured red. The shape
of his head was that of an old bird. She judged him bald under his high
cap; but his beard came below his breast-bone. When he opened his mouth
to speak she observed that his teeth were the whitest part of him, and
his lips rather grey. He did not seem to look at her, but said to the
abbot, 'Tell me why you have come into my country, being a Frank and a
Christian dog; and why you have brought with you this fair woman.'

'My lord,' said the abbot, after clearing his throat, 'we are lovers and
servants of the great king whom you call the Melek Richard, a lion
indeed in the paths of the Moslems, who makes bitter war upon your enemy
the Soldan; and in defence of him we are come. For it appears that a
servant of your lordship's, called Giafaribn Mulk, is now in Acre, which
is King Richard's good town, conspiring with the Marquess the death of
our lord.'

'It is the first I have heard of it,' said the Old Man. 'He was sent for
a different purpose, but his hand is otherwise free. What else have you
to say?'

'Why, this, my lord,' said the abbot, 'that our lord the King has too
many enemies not declared, who compass his destruction while he
compasses their soul's health. This is so shameful that we think it no
time for the King's lovers to be asleep. Therefore I, with this woman,
who, of all persons living in the world, is most dear to him (as he to
her), have come to warn your lordship of the Marquess his abominable
design, in the sure hope that your lordship will lend it no favour. King
Richard, we believe, is besieging the Holy City, and therefore (no
doubt) hath the countenance of Almighty God. But if the devil (who loves
the Marquess, and is sure to have him) may reckon your lordship also
upon his side, we doubt that he may prevail.'

'And do you also think,' asked the Old Man, scarcely audible, 'That the
Melek Richard will thank you for these precautions of yours?'

'My lord,' said Milo, 'we seek not his thanks, nor his good opinion, but
his safety.

'It is one thing to seek safety,' said the Old Man, 'but another thing
to find or keep it. Get you back to the doorway.'

So they did, and the lord of the place sat for a long time in a stare,
not moving hand or foot. Now it happened that the child in Jehane's arm
woke up, and began to stretch itself, and whimper, and nozzle about for
food. Jehane tried to hush it by rocking herself to and fro gently on
one foot. The abbot, horrified, frowned and shook his head; but Jehane,
who knew but one lord now Richard was away, took no notice. Presently
young Fulke set up a howl which sounded piercing in that still place.
Milo began to say his prayers; but no one moved except Jehane, whose
course, to her own mind, was clear. She put the great veil back over her
head, and bared her beauty; she unfastened the purple vest, and bared
her bosom. This she gave to the child's searching mouth. The free
gesture, the bent head, the unconscious doing, made the act as lovely as
the person. Fulke murmured his joy, and Jehane looking presently up saw
the Old Man's solemn eyes blinking at her. This did not disconcert her
very much, for she thought, 'If he is correctly reported he has seen a
mother before now.'

It might seem that he had or had not: his action reads either way. After
three minutes' blinking he sent an old Assassin (not El Safy) down the
hall to the door.

'Thus,' he reported, 'saith the Old Man of Musse, Lord of the Assassins.
Tell the Sheik of the Nazarenes that the Marquess of Montferrat shall
come up and go down, and after that come up no more. Also, let the Sheik
depart in peace and with all speed, lest I repent and put him suddenly
to death. As for the fair woman, she must remain among my ladies, and
become my dutiful wife, as a ransom price.'

The abbot, as one thunderstruck, raised his hands on high. 'O sack of
sin!' he groaned, 'O dross for the melting-pot! O unspeakable
sacrifice!' But Jehane, gravely smiling, checked him. 'Why, Lord Abbot,
is any sacrifice too great for King Richard?' she asked, gently
reproving him. 'Nay, go, my father; I shall do very well. I am not at
all afraid. Now do what I shall tell you. Kiss the hand of my lord
Richard from me when you see him, bidding him remember the vows we made
to each other on the day at Fontevrault when he took up the Cross, and
again before the lifted Host at Cahors. And to my lady Queen Berengère
say this, that from this day forth I am wife of a man, and stand not
between her bed and the King, as God knows I have never meant to stand.
Kiss me now, my father, and pray diligently for me.' He tells us that he
did, and records the day long ago when he had first kissed the poor girl
in the chapel of the Dark Tower, the day when, as she hoped, she had
taught her great lover to tread upon her heart.

At this time a great black, the chief of the eunuchs, came and touched
her on the shoulder. 'Whither now, friend?' said Jehane. He pointed the
way, being a deaf-mute. 'Lead,' said she; 'I will follow.' And so she
did.

She turned no more her head, nor did she go with it lowered, but carried
it cheerfully, as if her business was good. The black led her by many
winding ways to a garden filled with orange-trees, and across this to a
bronze door. There stood two more blacks on guard, with naked swords in
their hands. The eunuch struck twice on the lintel. The door was opened
from within, and they entered. An old lady dressed in black came to meet
them; to her the eunuch handed Jehane, made a reverence, and retired.
They shut the bronze doors. What more? After the bath, and putting on of
habits more sumptuous than she had ever heard tell of, she was taken by
slaves into the Hall of Felicity. There, among the heavy-eyed languid
women, Jehane sat herself staidly down, and suckled her child.




CHAPTER VIII

OF THE GOING-UP AND GOING-DOWN OF THE MARQUESS


The Marquess of Montferrat travelled splendidly from Acre to Sidon with
six galleys in his convoy. So many, indeed, did not suffice him; for at
Sidon he took off his favourite wife with her women, eunuchs and
janissaries, and thus with twelve ships came to Tripolis. Thence by the
Aleppo road he went to Karak of the Knights, thence again, after a rest
of two days, he started--he, the knights and esquires of his body in
cloth of gold, with scarlet housings for the mules, litters for his
womenkind; with his poets, his jongleurs, his priest, his Turcopoles and
favourites; all this gaudy company, for the great ascent of
Mont-Ferrand.

His mind was to impress the Old Man of Musse, but it fell out otherwise.
The Old Man was not easily impressed, because he was so accustomed to
impressing. You do not prophesy to prophets, or shake priests with
miracles. When he reached the top of Mont-Ferrand he was met by a grave
old Sheik, who informed him quietly that he must remain there. The
Marquess was very angry, the Sheik very grave. The Marquess stormed, and
talked of armed hosts. 'Look up, my lord,' said the Sheik. The
mountain-ridges were lined with bowmen; in the hanging-woods he saw the
gleam of spears; between them and the sky, on all sides as far as one
could see, gloomed the frozen peaks. The Marquess felt a sinking. He
arose chastened on the morrow, and negotiations were resumed on the
altered footing. Finally, he begged for but three persons, without whose
company he said he could not do. He must have his chaplain, his fool,
and his barber. Impossible, the Sheik said; adding that if they were so
necessary to the Marquess he might 'for the present' remain with them at
Mont-Ferrand. In that case, however, he would not see the Lord of the
Assassins.

'But that, very honourable sir,' said the Marquess, with ill-concealed
impatience, 'is the simple object of my journey.'

'So it was reported,' the Sheik observed. 'It is for you to consider.
For my own part I should say that these persons cannot be indispensable
for a short visit.'

'I can give his lordship a week,' said the Marquess.

'My master,' replied the Sheik, 'may give you an hour, but considers
that half that time should be ample. To be sure, there is the waiting
for audience, which is always wearisome.'

'My friend,' the Marquess said, opening his eyes, 'I am the King-elect
of Jerusalem.'

'I know nothing of such things,' replied the Sheik. 'I think we had
better go down.' Three only went down: the Sheik, the Marquess, and
Giafar ibn Mulk.

When at last they were in the garden-valley, and better still had
reached the third of the halls of degree, they were met by the chief of
the eunuchs, who told them his master was in the harem, and could not be
disturbed. The Marquess, who so far had been all smiles and interest,
was now greatly annoyed; but there was no help for that. In the blue
court he must needs wait for nearly three hours. By the time he was
ushered into the milky light of the audience chamber he was faint with
rage and apprehension; he was dazzled, he stumbled over the blood-red
carpet, arrived fainting at the throne. There he stayed, tongue-cloven,
while the colourless Lord of Assassins blinked inscrutably upon him,
with eyes so narrow that he could not tell whether he so much as saw
him; and the adepts, rigid by the tribune-wall, stared at their own
knees.

'What do you need of me, Marquess of Montferrat? 'asked the old hierarch
in his most remote voice. The Marquess gulped some dignity into himself.

'Excellent sir,' he said, 'I seek the amity of one king to another,
alliance in a common good cause, the giving and receiving of benefits,
and similar courtesies.'

These propositions were written down on tablets, and carefully
scrutinized by the Old Man of Musse, who said at last--

'Let us take these considerations in order. Of what kings do you
propound the amity?'

'Of yourself, sir,' replied the Marquess, 'and of myself.'

'I am not a king,' said Sinan, 'and had not heard that you were one
either.'

'I am King-elect of Jerusalem,' the Marquess replied with stiffness.
The Old Man raised his wrinkled forehead.

'Well,' he said, 'let us get on. What is your common good cause?'

'Eh, eh,' said the Marquess, brightening, 'it is the cause of righteous
punishment. I strike at your enemy the Soldan through his friend King
Richard.' The Old Man pondered him.

'Do you strike, Marquess?' he asked at length.

'Sir,' the Marquess made haste to answer, 'your question is just. It so
happens that I cannot strike King Richard because I cannot reach him. I
admit it: I am quite frank. But you can strike him, I believe. In so
doing, let me observe, you will deal a mortal blow at Saladin, who loves
him, and makes treaties with him to your detriment and the scandal of
Christendom.'

'Do you speak of the scandal of Christendom?' asked Sinan, twinkling.

'Alas, I must,' said the Marquess, very mournful.

'The cause is near to your heart, I see, Marquess.'

'It is in it,' replied the Marquess. The Old Man considered him afresh;
then inquired where the Melek might be found.

The Marquess told him. 'We believe he is at Ascalon, separate from the
Duke of Burgundy.'

'Giafar ibn Mulk and Cogia Hassan,' said the Old Man, as if talking in
his sleep, 'come hither.' The two young men rose from the wall and fell
upon their faces before the throne. Their master spoke to them in the
tone of one ordering a meal.

Return with the Marquess to the coast by the way of Emesa and Baalbek;
and when you are within sight of Sidon, strike. One of you will be
burned alive. I think it will be Giafar. Let the other return speedily
with a token. The audience is finished.'

The Old Man closed his eyes. At a touch from another the two prostrate
Assassins crept up and kissed his foot, then rose, waiting for the
Marquess. He, pale as death, saw, felt, heard nothing. At another sign a
man put his hand on either shoulder.

'Ha, Jesus-God!' grunted the Marquess, as the sweat dripped off him.

'Stop bleating, silly sheep, you will awaken the Master,' said Giafar in
a quick whisper. They led him away, and the Old Man slept in peace.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Marquess saw nothing of his people at Mont-Ferrand, for (to begin
with) they were not there, and (secondly) he was led another way. By the
desolate crag of Masyaf, where a fortress, hung (as it seems) in
mid-air, watches the valleys like a little cloud; through fields of
snow, by terraces cut in the ice where the sheer rises and drops a
thousand feet either way; so to Emesa, a mountain village huddled in
perpetual shadows; thence down to Baalbek, and by foaming river-gorges
into the sun and sight of the dimpling sea: thus they led the doomed
Italian. He by this time knew the end was coming, and had braced himself
to meet it stolidly.

The towers of Sidon rose chastely white above the violet; they saw the
golden sands rimmed with foam; they saw the ships. Going down a lane,
luxuriant with flowers and scented shrubs, where steep cactus hedges
shut out the furrowed fields and olive gardens, and the cicalas made
hissing music, Giafar ibn Mulk broke the silence of the three men.

'Is it time?' he asked of his brother, without turning his head.

'Not yet,' Cogia replied. The Marquess prayed vehemently, but with shut
lips.

They reached an open moor, where there were rocks covered with cistus
and wild vine. Here the air was very sweet and pure, the sun pleasant.
The Marquess's ass grew frisky, pricked up his ears and brayed. Giafar
ibn Mulk edged up close, and put his arm round the Marquess's neck.

'The signal is a good one,' he said. 'Strike, Cogia.'

Cogia drove his knife in up to the heft. The Marquess coughed. Giafar
lifted him from his ass, quite dead.

'Now,' says he, 'go thou back, Cogia. I will stay here. For so the Old
Man plainly desired.'

'I think with you,' said Cogia. 'Give me the token.' So they cut off the
Marquess's right hand, and Cogia, after shaking it, put it in his vest.
When he was well upon his way to the mountain road, Giafar sat down on a
bank of violets, ate some bread and dates, then went to sleep in the
sun. So afterwards he was found by a picket of soldiers from Sidon, who
also found all of their lord but his right hand. They took Giafar ibn
Mulk and burned him alive.

The Old Man of Musse was extremely kind to Jehane, who pleased him so
well that he was seldom out of her company. He thought Fulke a fine
little boy, as he could hardly fail to be, owning such parents. All the
liberty that was possible to the favourite of such a great prince she
had. One day, about six weeks after she had first come into the valley,
he sent for her. When she had come in and made her reverence he drew her
near to his throne, put his arm round her, and kissed her. He observed
with satisfaction that she was looking very well.

'My child,' he said kindly, 'I have news which I am sure will please
you. Very much of the Marquess of Montferrat is by this time lying
disintegrate in a vault.'

Jehane's green eyes faltered for a moment as she gazed into his wise old
face.

'Sir,' she asked, by habit, 'is this true?' 'It is quite true,' said the
Old Man. 'In proof of it regard his hand, which one of my Assassins, the
survivor, has brought me.' He drew from his bosom a pale hand, and would
have laid it in Jehane's lap if she had let him. As she would not, he
placed it beside him on the floor. Pursuing his discourse, he said--

'I might fairly claim my reward for that. And so I should if I had not
got it already.'

Again Jehane pondered him gravely. 'What reward more have you, sire?'

The Old Man, smiling very wisely, pressed her waist. Jehane thought.

'Why, what will you do with me now, sire?' she inquired. 'Will you kill
me?'

'Can you ask?' said the Old Man. Then he went on more seriously to say
that he supposed the life of King Richard to be safe for the immediate
future, but that he foresaw great difficulties in his way before he
could be snug at home. 'The Marquess of Montferrat was by no means his
only enemy,' he told her. 'The Melek suffers, what all great men suffer,
from the envy of others who are too obviously fools for him to suppose
them human creatures. But there is nothing a fool dislikes so much as to
behold his own folly; and as your Melek is a looking-glass for these
kind, you may depend upon it they will smudge him if they can. He is the
bravest man in the world, and one of the best rulers; but he has no
discretion. He is too absolute and loves too little.'

Jehane opened her eyes very wide. 'Why, do you know my lord, sire?' she
asked. The Old Man took her hand.

'There are very few personages in the world of whom I do not know
something,' he said; 'and I tell you that there are terms to the Melek's
government. A man cannot say Yea and Nay as he chooses without paying
the price. The debt on either hand mounts up. He may choose with whom he
will settle--those he has favoured or those he has denied. As a rule one
finds the former more insatiable. Let him then beware of his brother.'

Jehane leaned towards him, pleading with eyes and mouth. 'Oh, sire,' she
said, trembling at the lips, 'if you have any regard for me, tell me
when any danger threatens King Richard. For then I must leave you.'

'Why, that is as it may be,' said her master; 'but I will let you know
what I think good for you to know, and that must content you.'

Jehane's beauty, enhanced as it was now by the sumptuous attire which
she loved and by her bodily well-being, was great, and her modesty
greater; but her heart was the greatest thing she had. She raised her
eyes again to the twinkling eyes of her possessor, and kept them there
for a few steady seconds, while she turned over his words in her mind.
Then she looked down, saying, 'I will certainly stay with you till my
lord's danger is at hand. It is a good air for my baby.'

'It is good for all manner of things,' said the Old Man; 'and remarkably
good for you, my Garden of Exhaustless Pleasure. And I will see to it
that it continues to water the roses in your cheeks, beautiful child.'
Jehane folded her hands.

'You will do as you choose, my lord,' said she, 'I doubt not.'

'Be quite sure of it, dear child,' said the Old Man.

Then he sent her back into the harem.




CHAPTER IX

HOW KING RICHARD REAPED WHAT JEHANE HAD SOWED, AND THE SOLDAN WAS
GLEANER


'Consider with anxious care the marrow of your master when he is
fortunate,' writes Milo of Poictiers: 'if it lasts him, he is a slow
spender of his force; but on that account all the more dangerous in
adversity, having the deeper funds. By this I would be understood to
imply that the devil of Anjou, turned to fighting uses in King Richard's
latter years, found him a habitable fortalice.' With the best reasons in
life for the reflection, he might have said it more simply; for it is
simply true. Deserted by his allies, balked of his great aspiration,
within a day's march of the temple of God, yet as far from that as from
his castle of Chinon; eaten with fever; having death, lost purpose,
murmurings, fed envy reproach, upon his conscience--he yet fought his
way through sullen leagues of mud to Ascalon; besieged it, drove his
enemy out, regained it. Thence, pushing quickly south, he surprised
Darum, and put the garrison to the sword. By this act he cut Saladin in
two, and drove such a wedge into the body of his empire as might leave
either lung of it at his mercy. The time seemed, indeed, ripe for
negotiation. Saladin sent his brother down from Jerusalem with presents
of hawks; Richard, sitting in armed state at Darum, received him
affably. There was still a chance that treaty might win for Jesus Christ
what the sword had not won.

Then, as if in mockery of the greatness of men, came ill news apace. The
Frenchmen, back in Acre, heard tell of Montferrat's doings and undoing.
Pretty work of this sort perturbed the allies. The Duke of Burgundy
charged Saladin with the murder; Saint-Pol loudly charged King Richard,
and the Duke's death, coming timely, left him in the field. He made the
most of his chance, wrote to the Emperor, to King Philip, to his cousin
the Archduke of Austria (at home by now), of this last shameful deed of
the red Angevin. He even sent messengers to Richard himself with open
letters of accusal. Richard laughed, but for all that broke off
negotiations with Saladin until he could prove Saint-Pol as great a liar
as he himself knew him to be. Then rose up again the question of the
Crown of Jerusalem. The Count of Champagne took ship and came to Darum
to beg it of Richard. He too brought news with him. The Duke of Burgundy
was dead of an apoplexy. 'It seems that God is still faintly on my
side,' said Richard, 'There went out a sooty candle.'

The next words gave his boast the lie. 'Beau sire,' said Count Henry, 'I
grieve to tell you something more. Before I left Acre I saw the Abbot
Milo.'

Richard had grey streaks in his face. 'Ah,' he says hoarsely, 'go on,
cousin.' The young man stammered.

'Beau sire, God strikes in divers places, but always finds out the
joints of our harness.'

'Go on,' says King Richard, sitting very still.

'Dear sire, my cousin, the Abbot Milo went out of Acre three weeks
before the death of the Marquess. With him also went Madame Jehane; but
he returned without her. This is all I know, though it is not all that
the abbot knows.'

At the mention of her name the King took a sharp breath, as you or I do
when quick pain strikes us. To the rest he listened without a sign; and
asked at the end, 'Where is Milo?'

'He is at Acre, sire,' says the Count; 'and in prison.'

'Who put him there?'

'Myself, sire.'

'You did wrong, Count. Get you back to Acre and bring him to me.'
Champagne went away.

       *       *       *       *       *

Great trouble, as you know, always made Richard dumb; the grief struck
inwards and congealed. He became more than ever his own councillor, the
worst in the world. Lucky for the Abbot Milo that he was in bonds; but
now you see why he penned the aphorism with which I began this chapter.

After that short, stabbing flash across his face, he shut down misery in
a vice. The rest of his talk with the Count might have been held with a
groom. Henry of Champagne, knowing the man, left him the moment he got
the word; and King Richard sat down by the table, and for three hours
never stirred. He was literally motionless. Straightly rigid, a little
grey about the face, white at the cheek-bones; his clenched hand stiff
on the board, white also at the knuckles; his eyes fixed on the
door--men came in, knelt and said their say, then encountering his blank
eyes bent their heads and backed out quietly. If he thought, none may
learn his thought; if he felt, none may touch the place; if he prayed,
let those who are able imagine his prayers. What Jehane had been to him
this book may have shadowed out: this only I say, that he knew, from the
very first hint of the fact, why she had gone out with Milo and sent
Milo home alone. The Queen knew, because Jehane had told her; but he
knew with no telling at all. She had gone away to save him from herself.
Needing him not, because she so loved him, it was her beauty which was
hungry for his desire. Not daring to mar her beauty, she had sought to
hide it. Greater love hath none than this. If he thought of that it
should have softened him. He did not think of it: he knew it.

At the end of his grim vigil he got up and went out of his house. He was
served with his horse, his esquires came at call to the routine of
garrison days and nights. He rode round the walls, out at one of the
gates, on a sharp canter of reconnaissance in the hills. Perhaps he
spoke more shortly than usual, and more drily; there may have been a
dead quality in his voice, usually so salient. There was no other sign.
At supper he sat before them all, ate and drank at his wont. Once only
he startled the hallful of them. He dropped his great gold cup, and it
split.

But as day followed night, all men saw the change in him, Christians and
Saracens alike. A spirit of quiet savagery seemed to possess him; the
cunning, with the mad interludes, of a devil. He set patient traps for
the Saracens in the hills, and slaughtered all he took. One day he fell
upon a great caravan of camels coming from Babylon to Jerusalem, and
having cut the escort to pieces, slew also the merchants and travellers.
He seemed to give the sword the more heartily in that he sought it for
himself, but could never get it. No doubt he deserved to get it. He
performed deeds of impossible foolhardy gallantry, the deeds of a
knight-errant; rode solitary, made single-handed rescues, suffered
himself to be cut off from his posts, and then with a handful of
knights, or alone, indeed, carved his way back to Darum. Des Barres, the
Earl of Leicester and the Grand Master, never left his side; Gaston of
Béarn used to sleep at the foot of his bed and creep about after him
like a cat; but this terrible mood of his wore them out. Then, at last,
the Count of Champagne came back with Milo and more bad news. Joppa was
in sore straits, again besieged; the Bishop of Sarum was returned from
the West, having a branch of dead broom in his hand and stories of a
throttled kingdom on his lips.

Before any other Richard had Milo alone. The good abbot is very reticent
about the interview in his book. What he omits is more significant than
what he says. 'I found my master,' he writes, 'sitting up in his bed in
his _hauberk of mail_. They told me he had eaten nothing for two days,
yet vomited continually. He had killed five hundred Saracens meantime. I
suppose he knew who I was. "Tell me, my good man," he said (strange
address!), "the name of the person to whom Madame d'Anjou took you."

'I said, "Sire, we went to the Lord of the Assassins, whom they call Old
Man of Musse."

'"Why did you go, monk?" he asked, and felt about for his sword, but
could not find it. Yet it was close by. I said, "Sire, because of a
report which had reached the ears of Madame that the Marquess and the
Old Man were in league to have you murdered." To this he made no reply,
except to call me a fool. Later he asked, "How died the Marquess?"

'"Sire," I answered, "most miserably. He went up Lebanon to see the Old
Man, and came presently down again with two of the Assassins in his
company, but none of his train. These persons, being near his city of
Sidon, at a signal agreed upon stabbed him with their long knives, then
cut off his right hand and despatched it to the Old Man by one of them.
The other stayed by the corpse, and was so found peacefully sleeping,
and burned."

'The King said nothing, but gave me money and a little jewel he used to
wear, as if I had done him a service. Then he nodded a dismissal, and I,
wondering, left him. He did not speak to me again for many weeks.'

       *       *       *       *       *

You may collect that Richard was very ill. He was. The disease of his
mind fed fat upon the disease of his body, and from the spoils of the
feast savagery reared its clotted head. Syrian mothers still quell
their children with the name of Melek Richard, a reminiscence of the
dreadful time when he was without ruth or rest. He spoke of his purposes
to none, listened to none. The Bishop of Sarum had come in with a budget
of disastrous news: Count John had England under his heel, Philip of
France had entered Normandy in force, the lords of Aquitaine were in
revolt. If God had no use for him in the East, here was work to do in
the West. But had He none? What of Joppa, shuddering under the sword?
What of Acre, where the French army wallowed in sloth, with two queens
at its mercy and Saint-Pol in the mercy-seat? What, indeed, of Jehane?

Nobody breathed her name; yet night and day the image of her floated,
half-hid in scarlet clouds, before King Richard. These clouds, a torn
regiment, raced across his vision, like cavalry broken, in mad retreat.
Out of the tumbled mass two hands would throw up, white, long, thin
hands, Jehane's hands drowned in frothy blood. Then, in his waking
dream, when he drove in the spurs and started to save, the colours
changed, black swam over the blood; and one hand only would stay, held
up warningly, saying, 'Forbear, I am separate, fenced, set apart.' Thus
it was always: menace, wicked endeavour, shipwreck, ruin; always so, her
agony and denial, his wrath and defeat.

But this was wholesome torment. There was other not so
purgatorial--damned torment. That was when the sudden thought of her
possession by another man, of his own robbery, his own impotence to
regain, came upon him in a surging flood and made his neck swell with
the rage of a beast. And no crouching to spring, no flash through the
air, no snatching here. Here was no Gilles de Gurdun to deal with. Only
the beast's resource was his, who had the beast's desire without his
power. At such times of obsession he lashed up and down his chamber or
the flat roof of his house, all the tragic quest of a leopard in a cage
making blank his desperate hunting eyes. 'Lord, Lord, Lord, how long can
this endure?' Alas, the cage was wider than any room, and stronger by
virtue of his own fashioning of the locks. But to do him justice,
Jehane's grave face would sail like a moon among the storm-clouds sooner
or later, and humble him to the dust.

Sometimes, mostly at dawn, when a cool wind stole through the trees, he
saw the trail of events more clearly, and knew whom to blame and whom to
praise. Generous as he was through and through, at these times he did
not spare the whip. But the image he set up before whom to scourge
himself was Jehane Saint-Pol, that pure cold saint, offering up her
proud body for his needs; and so sure as he did that he desired her, and
so sure as he desired he raged that he had been robbed. Robber as he
owned himself, now he had been robbed. So the old black strife began
again. Many and many a dawn, as he thought of these things, he went out
alone into the shadowless places of the land, to the quiet lapping sea,
to the gardens, or to the housetop fronting the new-born day, with
prayer throbbing for utterance, but a tongue too dry to pray. Despair
seized on him, and he led his men out to death-dealing, that so haply
he might find death for himself. The time wore to early summer, while he
was nightly visited by the thought of his sin, and daily winning more
stuff for repentance. Then, one morning, instead of going out singly to
battle with his own soul, he went in to the Abbot Milo. What follows
shall be told in his own words.

'The King came to me very early in the morning of Saints Primus and
Felician, while I yet lay in my bed. "Milo, Milo," said he, "what must I
do to be saved?" He was very white and wild, shaking all over. I said,
"Dear Master, save thy people. On all sides they cry to thee--from
England, from Normandy, from Anjou, from Joppa also, and Acre. There is
no lack of entreaty." He shook his head. "Here," he said, "I can do no
more. God is against me, the work too holy for such a wretch." "Lord," I
said, "we are all wretches, Heaven save us! If your Grace is held off
God's inheritance, you can at least hold others from your own. Here, may
be, you took a charge too heavy; but there, at home, the charge was laid
upon you. Renouncing here, you shall gain there. It cannot be
otherwise." I believed in what I said; but he gripped the caps of his
knees and rocked himself about. "They have beaten me, Milo. Saint-Pol,
Burgundy, Beauvais--I am bayed by curs. What am I, Milo?" "Sire," I
said, "your father's son. As they bayed the old lion, so they bay the
young." He gaped at me, open-mouthed. "By God. Milo," he said, "I bayed
him myself, and believed that he deserved it." "Lord," I answered, "who
am I to judge a great king? For my part I never believed that monstrous
sin was upon him." Here he jumped up. "I am going home, Milo," he said;
"I am going home. I am going to my father's tomb. I will do penance
there, and serve my people, and live clean. Look now, Milo, shrive me if
thou hast the power, for my need is great." The thought was blessed to
him. He confessed his sins then and there, all a huddle of them, weeping
so bitterly that I should have wept myself had I not been ready rather
to laugh and crack my fingers to see the breaking up of his long and
deadly frost. Before I shrived him, moreover, I dared to speak of Madame
Jehane, how he had now lost her for ever, and why; how she was now at
last a man's wife, and that by her own deliberate will; and how also he
must do his duty by the Queen. To all of which he gave heed and promises
of quiet endurance. Then I shrived him, and that very morning gave him
the Lord's sacred body in the Church of the Sepulchre. I believed him
sane; and so for a long time he was, as he testified by deeds of
incredible valour.'

It was not long after this that the fleet put out to sea, shaping course
for Acre. Message after message came in from beleaguered Joppa; but King
Richard paid little heed to them, pending the issue of new treating with
Saladin. He certainly sailed with a single eye on Acre. But Joppa lay on
his course, and it is probable, he being what he was, that the sight of
no means to do great deeds made great deeds done. When his red galley
sighted Joppa, standing in for the purpose, all seemed over with the
doomed city. This, no doubt (since his mood was hot), urged him to one
of those impossible acts, 'incredible deeds of valour,' as Milo calls
them, for which his name lives, while those of many better kings are
forgotten.

The country about Joppa slopes sharply to the sea, and gives little or
no shelter for ships; but so quick is the slope that a galley may ride
under the very walls of the town and take in provision from the seaward
windows. On the landward side it is dangerously placed, seeing that the
stoop of the country runs from the mountains to it. The few outlying
forts, the stone bridge over the river, cannot be held against a
resolute foe. When King Richard's fleet drew near enough to see, it was
plain what had been done. The Saracens had carried the outworks; they
held the bridge. At leisure they had broached the walls and swarmed in.
The flag on the citadel still flew; battle or carnage was raging in the
streets all about it. Its fall was a matter of hours.

Now King Richard stood on the poop of his galley, watching all this. He
saw a man come running down the mole chased by half a dozen horsemen in
yellow, a priest by the look of him; you could see the gleam of his
tonsure as he plunged. For so he did, plunged into the sea and swam for
his life. The pursuers drew up on the verge and shot at him with their
long bows. They were of Saladin's bodyguard, fine marksmen who should
never have missed him. But the priest swam like a fish, and they did
miss him. King Richard himself hooked him out by the gown, and then
clipped him in his arms like a lover. 'Oh, brave priest! Oh, hardy
heart!' he cried, full of the man's bravery. 'Give him room there. Let
him cough up the salt. By my soul, barons, I wish that any draught of
wine may be so glorious sweet.'

The priest sat up and told his tale. The city was a shambles; every man,
woman, or child had been put to the sword. Only the citadel held out;
there was no time to lose. No time was lost; for King Richard, in his
tunic and breeches as he was, in his deck shoes, without a helm,
unmailed in any part, snatched up shield and axe. 'Who follows Anjou?'
he called out, then plunged into the sea. Des Barres immediately
followed him, then Gaston of Béarn (with a yell) and the Earl of
Leicester neck and neck; then the Bishop of Salisbury, a stout-hearted
prince, Auvergne, Limoges, and Mercadet. These eight were all the men in
authority that _Trenchemer_ held, except some clerks, fat men who loved
not water. But as soon as the other ships saw what was afoot, a man here
and there followed his King. The rest rowed closer to the shore and
engaged the Saracen horsemen with their archers. Long before any men
could be got off the eight were on dry land, and had found a way into
the sacked city.

How they did what they did the God of Battles knows best; but that they
did it is certain. All accounts of the fray agree, Bohadin with Vinsauf,
Moslem and Christian alike. What pent rage, what storm curbed up short,
what gall, what mortification, what smoulder of resentment, bit into
King Richard, we may guess who know him. Such it was as to nerve his
arm, nerve his following to be his lovers, make him unassailable, make a
devil of him. Not a devil of blind fury, but a cold devil who could
devise a scope for his malice, choose how to do his stabbing work
wiseliest. Inside the town gate they took up close order, wedgewise,
linked and riveted; a shield before, shields beside, Richard with his
double-axe for the wedge's beak. They took the steep street at a brisk
pace, turning neither right nor left, but heading always for the
citadel, boring through and trampling down what met them. This at first
was not very much, only at one corner a company of Nubian spears came
pelting down a lane, hoping to cut them off by a flank movement. Richard
stopped his wedge; the blacks buffeted into their shields with a shock
that scattered and tossed them up like spray. The wedge held firm; red
work for axe and swords while it lasted. They killed most of the
Nubians, drove bodily through the rabble at their heels; then into the
square of the citadel they came. It was packed with a shrieking horde,
whose drums made the day a hell, whose great banners wagged and rocked
like osiers in a flood-water. They were trying to fire the citadel, and
some were swarming the walls from others' backs. The square was like a
whirlpool in the sea, a sea of tense faces whose waves were surging men
and the flying wrack their gonfanons.

King Richard saw how matters lay in this horrible hive; these men could
not fight so close. Cavalry can do nothing in a dense mass of foot,
bowmen cannot shoot confined; spearmen against swords are little worth,
javelins sped once. So much he saw, and also the straining crowd, the
lifted, threatening arms, the stretched necks about the citadel. 'O
Lord, the heathen are come into Thine inheritance. At the word, sirs,
cleave a way.' And then he cried above the infernal riot, 'Save, Holy
Sepulchre! Save, Saint George!' and the wedge drove into the thick of
them.

This work was butcher's work, like sawing through live flesh. Too much
blood in the business: after a while the haft of the King's axe got
rotten with it, and at a certain last blow gave way and bent like a
pulpy stock. He helped himself to a beheaded Mameluke's scimitar, and
did his affair with that. Once, twice, thrice, and four times they
furrowed that swarm of men; nothing broke their line. Richard himself
was only cut in the feet, where he trod on mailed bodies or broken
swords; the others (being themselves in mail) were without scathe. They
held the square until the Count of Champagne came up with knights and
Pisan arbalestiers, and then the day was won. They drove out the
invaders; on the Templars' house they ran up the English dragon-flag.
King Richard rested himself.

Two days later a pitched battle was fought on the slopes above Joppa.
Saladin met Richard for the last time, and the Melek worsted him. Our
King with fifteen knights played the wedge again when his enemy was
packed to his taste; and this time (being known) with less carnage. But
the left wing of the invading army re-entered the town, the garrison had
a panic. Richard wheeled and scoured them out at the other end; so they
perished in the sea. Men say, who saw him, that he did it alone. So
terrible a name he had with the Saracens, this may very well be. There
had never been seen, said they, such a fighter before. Like sheep they
huddled at his sight, and like sheep his onset scattered them. 'Let God
arise,' says Milo with a shaking pen: 'and lo! He arose. O lion in the
path, who shall stand up against thee?'

He drove Saladin into the hills, and set him manning once more the
watch-towers of Jerusalem. But he had reached his limit; sickness
fastened on him, and on the ebb of his fury came lagging old despair.
For a week he lay in his bed delirious, babbling breathless foolish
things of Jehane and the Dark Tower, of the broomy downs by Poictiers,
the hills of Languedoc, of Henry his handsome brother, of Bertran de
Born and the falcon at Le Puy. Then followed a pleasant thing. Saladin,
the noble foe, heard of it, and sent Saphadin his brother to visit him.
They brought the great Emir into the tent of his great enemy.

'O God of the Christians!' cried he with tears, 'what is this work of
thine, to make such a mirror of thy might, and then to shatter the
glass?' He kissed King Richard's burning forehead, then stood facing the
standers-by.

'I tell you, my lords, there has been no such king as this in our
country. My brother the Sultan would rather lose Jerusalem than have
such a man to die.'

At this Richard opened his eyes. 'Eh, Saphadin, my friend,' he says,
'death is not mine yet, nor Jerusalem either. Make me a truce with my
brother Saladin for three years. Then with the grace of God I will come
and fight him again. But for this time I am spent.'

'Are you wounded, dear sire?' asked Saphadin.

'Wounded?' said the King in a whisper. 'Yes, wounded in the soul, and in
the heart--sick, sick, sick.'

Saphadin, kneeling down, kissed his ring. 'May the God whom in secret we
both worship, the God of Gods, do well by you, my brother.' So he said,
and Richard nodded and smiled at him kindly.

When peace was made they carried him to his ship. The fleet went to
Acre.




CHAPTER X

THE CHAPTER CALLED BONDS


King Richard sent for his sister Joan of Sicily on the morrow of his
coming to Acre, and thus addressed her: 'Let me hear now, sister, the
truth of what passed when the Queen saw Madame d'Anjou.'

'Madame d'Anjou!' cried Joan, who (as you know) had plenty of spirit; 'I
think you rob the Queen of a title there.'

'I cannot rob her of what she never had,' said King Richard; 'but I will
repeat my question if you do not remember it.'

'No need, sire,' replied the lady, and told him all she knew. She added,
'Sire and my brother, if I may dare to say so, I think the Queen has a
grief. Madame Jehane made no pretensions--I hope I do her full
justice--but remember that the Queen made none either. You took her of
your royal will; she was conscious of the honour. But of what you gave
you took away more than half. The Queen loves you, Richard; she is a
most miserable lady, yet there is time still. Make a wife of your queen,
brother Richard, and all will be well. For what other reason in the
world did Madame Jehane what she did? For love of an old man whom she
had never seen, do you think?'

The King's brow grew dark red. He spoke deliberately. 'I will never make
her my wife. I will never willingly see her again. I should sin against
religion or honour if I did either. I will never do that. Let her go to
her own country.'

'Sire, sire,' said Joan, 'how is she to do that?'

'As she will,' says the King; 'but, for my part of it, with every proper
accompaniment.'

'Sire, the dowry--'

'I return it, every groat.'

'The affront--'

'The affront is offered. I prevent a greater affront.'

'Is this fixed, Richard?'

'Irrevocably.'

'She loves you, sire!'

'She loves ill. Get up on your feet.'

'Sire, I beseech you pity her.'

'I pity her deeply. I think I pity everybody with whom I have had to
deal. I do not choose to have any more pitiful persons about me. Fare
you well, sister. Go, lest I pity you.' She pleaded.

'Ah, sire!'

'The audience is at an end,' said the King; and the Queen of Sicily rose
to take leave.

       *       *       *       *       *

He kept his word, never saw Berengère again but once, and that was not
yet. What remained for him to do in Syria he did, patched up a truce
with Saladin, saw to Henry of Champagne's election, to Guy of Lusignan's
establishment; dealt out such rewards and punishments as lay in his
power, sent the two queens with a convoy to Marseilles. Then, two years
from his hopeful entry into Acre as a conqueror, he left it a defeated
man. He had won every battle he had fought and taken every city he had
invested. His allies had beaten him, not the heathen.

They were to beat him again, with help. The very skies took their part.
He was beset by storms from the day he launched on the deep, separated
from his convoy, driven from one shore to another, fatally delayed. His
enemies had time to gather at home: Eustace of Saint-Pol, Beauvais,
Philip of France; and behind all these was John of Mortain, moving
heaven and earth and them to get him a realm. By a providence, as he
thought it, Richard put into Corsica under stress of weather, and there
heard how the land lay in Gaul. Philip had won over Raymond of Toulouse,
Saint-Pol heading a joint-army of theirs was near Marseilles, ready to
destroy him. King Richard was to walk into a trap. By this time, you
must know, he had no more to his power than the galley he rode in, and
three others. He had no Des Barres, no Gaston, no Béziers; he had not
even Mercadet his captain, and no thought where they might be. The trap
would have caught him fast.

'Pretty work,' he said, 'pretty work. But I will better it.' He put
about, and steered round Sicily for the coast of Dalmatia; here was
caught again by furious gales, lost three ships out of the four he had,
and finally sought haven at Gazara, a little fishing village on that
empty shore. His intention was to travel home by way of Germany and the
Low Countries, and so land in England while his brother John was still
in France. Either he had forgotten, or did not care to remember, that
all this country was a fief of the Archduke Luitpold's. He knew, of
course, that Luitpold hated him, but not that he held him guilty of
Montferrat's murder. Suspecting no great difficulty, he sent up
messengers to the lord of Gazara for a safe-conduct for certain
merchants, pilgrims. This man was an Austrian knight called Gunther.

'Who are your pilgrims?' Gunther asked; and was told, Master Hugh, a
merchant of Alost, he and his servants.

'What manner of a merchant?' was Gunther's next question.

'My lord,' they said, who had seen him, 'a fine man, tall as a tree, and
strong and straight, having keen blue eyes, and a reddish beard on his
chin, as the men of Flanders do not use.'

Gunther said, 'Let me see this merchant,' and went down to the inn where
King Richard was.

Now Richard was sitting by the fire, warming himself. When Gunther came
in, furred and portly, he did not rise up; which was unfortunate in a
pretended merchant.

'Are you Master Hugh of Alost?' Gunther asked, looking him over.

'That is the name I bear,' said Richard. 'And who are you, my friend?'

The Austrian stammered. 'Hey, thou dear God, I am Lord Gunther of this
castle and town!' he said, raising his voice. Then the King got up to
make a reverence, and in so doing betrayed his stature.

'I should have guessed it, sir, by your gentleness in coming to visit me
here. I ask your pardon.' Thus the King, while Gunther wondered.

'You are a very tall merchant, Hugh,' says he. 'Do they make your sort
in Alost?' King Richard laughed.

'It is the only advantage I have of your lordship. For the rest, my
countrywomen make straight men, I think.'

'Were you bred in Alost, Master Hugh?' asked Gunther suspiciously; and
again Richard laughed as he said, 'Ah, you must ask my mother, Lord
Gunther.'

'Lightning!' was the Austrian's thought; 'here is a pretty easy
merchant.'

He raised some little difficulties, vexations of routine, which King
Richard persistently laughed at, while doing his best to fulfil them.
Gunther did not relish this. He named the Archduke as his overlord, hard
upon strangers. Richard let it slip that he did not greatly esteem the
Archduke. However, in the end he got his safe-conduct, and all would
have been well if, on leaving Gazara, he had not overpaid the bill.

Overpay is not the word: he drowned the bill. In a hurry for the road,
the innkeeper fretted him. 'Reckoning, landlord!' he cried, with one
foot in the stirrup: 'how the devil am I to reckon half-way up a horse?
Here, reckon yourself, my man, and content you with these.' He threw a
fistful of gold besants on the flags, turned his horse sharply and
cantered out of the yard. 'Colossal man!' gasped the innkeeper. 'King or
devil, but no merchant under the sun.' So the news spread abroad, and
Gunther puffed his cheeks over it. A six-foot-two man, a monstrous
leisurely merchant, who rose not to the lord of a castle and town, who
did not wait for his lordship's humour, but found laughable matter in
his own; who was taller than the Archduke and thought his Grace a dull
dog; who made a Danaë of his landlord! Was this man Jove? Who could
think the Archduke a dull dog except an Emperor, or, perhaps, a great
king? A king: stay now. There were wandering kings abroad. How if
Richard of England had lost his way? Here he slapped his thigh: but this
must be Richard of England--what other king was so tall? And in that
case, O thunder in the sky, he had let slip his Archduke's deadly enemy!
He howled for his lanzknechts, his boots, helmet, great sword; he set
off at once, and riding by forest ways, cut off the merchant in a day
and a night. He ran him to earth in the small wooden inn of a small
wooden village high up in the Carinthian Alps, Blomau by name, which
lies in a forest clearing on the road to Gratz.

King Richard was drinking sour beer in the kitchen, and not liking it.
The lanzknechts surrounded the house; Gunther with two of them behind
him came clattering in. Glad of the diversion, Richard looked up.

'Ha, here is Lord Gunther again,' said he. 'Better than beer.'

'King Richard of England,' said the Austrian, white by nature, heat, and
his feelings, 'I make you my prisoner.'

'So it seems,' replied the King; 'sit down, Gunther. I offer you beer
and a most indifferent cheese.'

But Gunther would by no means sit down in the presence of an anointed
king for one bidding.

'Ah, sire, it is proper that I should stand before you,' he said
huskily, greatly excited.

'It is not at all proper when I tell you to be seated,' returned King
Richard. So Gunther sat down and wiped his head, Richard finished his
beer; and then they went to sleep on the floor. Early in the morning the
prisoner woke up his gaoler.

'Come, Gunther,' he says, 'we had better take the road.'

'I am ready, sire,' says Gunther, manifestly unready. He rose and shook
himself.

'Lead, then,' Richard said.

'I follow you, sire.'

'Lead, you white dog,' said the King, and showed his teeth for a moment.
The Austrian obeyed. One of Richard's few attendants, a Norman called
Martin Vaux, adopted for his own salvation the simple expedient of
staying behind; and Gunther was in far too exalted a mood to notice such
a trifle. When he and his troop had rounded the forest road, Martin Vaux
rounded it also, but in the opposite direction. He was rather a fool,
though not fool enough to go to prison if he could help it. Being a
seaman by grace, he smelt for his element, and by grace found it after
not many days. More of him presently.

Archduke Luitpold was in his good town of Gratz when news was brought
him, and the man. 'Du lieber Gott!' he crowed. 'Ach, mein Gunther!' and
embraced his vassal.

His fiery little eyes burned red, as Mars when he flickers; but he was a
gentleman. He took Richard's proffered hand, and after some fumbling
about, kissed it.

'Ha, sire!' came the words, deeply exultant, from his big throat. 'Now
we are on more equal terms, it appears.'

'I agree with you, Luitpold,' said the King; and then, even as the
Archduke was wetting his lips for the purpose, he added, 'But I hope you
will not stretch your privilege so far as to make me a speech.'

Austria swallowed hard. 'Sire, it would take many speeches to wipe out
the provocations I have received at your hands. All the speeches in the
councils of the world could not excuse the deaths of my second cousin
the Count of Saint-Pol and of my first cousin the Marquess of
Montferrat.'

'That is true,' replied Richard, 'but neither could they restore them to
life.'

'Sire, sire!' cried the Archduke, 'upon my soul I believe you guilty of
the Marquess's death.'

'I assumed that you did,' was the King's answer; 'and your protestation
adds no weight to my theory, but otherwise.'

'Do you admit it, King Richard?' The Archduke, an amazed man, looked
foolish. His mouth fell open and his hair stuck out; this gave him the
appearance of a perturbed eagle in a bush.

'I am far from denying it,' says Richard. 'I never deny any charges, and
never make any unless I am prepared to pursue them; which is not the
case at present.'

'I must keep you in safe hold, sire,' the Archduke said. 'I must
communicate with my lord the Roman Emperor.'

'You are in your right, Luitpold,' said King Richard.

The end of the day's work was that the King of England was lodged in a
high tower, some sixty feet above the town wall.

       *       *       *       *       *

Now consider the acts of Martin Vaux, smelling for the sea. In a little
time he did better than that, for he saw it from the top of a high
mountain, shining far off in the haze, and then had nothing to do but
follow down a river-bed, which brought him duly to Trieste. Thence he
got a passage to Venice, where the wineshops were too good or too many
for him. He talked of his misfortunes, of his broken shoes, of Austrian
beer, of his exalted master, of his extreme ingenuity and capacity for
all kinds of faithful service. Now Venice was, as it is now, a place
_colluvies gentium_. Gaunt, lonely Arabs stalked the narrow streets, or
dreamed motionless by the walls of the quay. The city was full of
strayed Crusaders, disastrous broken blades, of renegade Christians,
renegade Moslems, adaptable Jews, of pilgrims, and chafferers of relics
from the holy places. Martin's story spread like the plague, but not
(unhappily) to any advantage of King Richard imperturbable in his tower.
Martin Vaux then, having drunk up the charity of Venice, shipped for
Ancona. There too he met with attentions, for there he met a countryman
of his, the Sieur Gilles de Gurdun, a Norman knight.

When Sir Gilles heard that King Richard was in prison, but that Jehane
was not with him, he grew very red. That he had never learned of her
deeds at Acre need not surprise you. He had not heard because he had not
been to Acre with the French host, but instead had gone pilgrim to
Jerusalem, and thence with Lusignan to Cyprus. So now he took Martin
Vaux by the windpipe and shook him till his eyes stared like agate
balls. 'Tell me where Madame Jehane is, you clot, or I finish what I
have begun,' he said terribly. But Martin could tell him no more, for he
was quite dead. It was proper, even in Ancona, to be moving after that;
and Gilles was very ready to move. The hunger and thirst for Jehane,
which had never left him for long, came aching back to such a pitch that
he felt he must now find her, see her, touch her, or die. The King was
her only clue; he must hunt him out wherever he might be. One of two
things had occurred: either Richard had tired of her, or he had lost her
by mischance of travel. There was a third possible thing, that the Queen
had had her murdered. He put that from him, being sure she was not dead.
'Death,' said Gilles, 'is great, but not great enough to have Jehane in
her beauty.' He really believed this. So he came back to his two
positions. If the King had tired of her, he would not scruple (being as
he was) to admit as much to Gilles. If he had lost her, he was safe in
prison; and Gilles knew that with time he could find her. But he must
be sure. He thought of another thing. 'If he is in prison, in chains, he
might be stabbed with certain ease.' His heart exulted at the hot
thought.

It was not hard to follow back on Martin's dallying footsteps. He traced
him to Venice, to Trieste, up the mountains as far as Blomau. There he
lost him, and shot very wide of the mark. In fact, the slow-witted young
man went to Vienna on a false rumour--but it boots not recount his
wanderings. Six months after he left Ancona, ragged, hatless, unkempt,
hungry, he came within sight of the strong towers of Gratz; and as he
went limping by the town ditch he heard a clear, high voice singing--

     Li dous consire
     Quem don' Ainors soven--

and knew that he had run down his man.

One other, crouching under the wall, most intent watcher, saw him stop
as if hit, clap his hand to his shock-head, then listen, brooding,
working his jaws from side to side. The voice stayed; Gilles turned and
slowly went his way back. He limped under the gateway into the town, and
the croucher by the wall peered at him between the meshes of her
dishevelled hair.




CHAPTER XI

THE CHAPTER CALLED _A LATERE_


The Old Man of Musse, Lord of all the Assassins, descendant of Ali,
Fulness of Light, Master of them that eat hemp, and many things beside,
wedded Jehane and made her his principal wife. He valued in her, apart
from her bodily perfections, her discretion, obedience, good sense, and
that extraordinary sort of pride which makes its possessor humble, so
inset it is; too proud, you may say, to give pride a thought. Esteeming
her at this price, it is not remarkable if she came to be his only wife.

This was the manner of her life. When her husband left her, which was
very early in the morning, she generally slept for an hour, then rose
and went to the bath. Her boy was brought to her in the pavilion of the
Garden of Fountains; she spent two hours or more with him, teaching him
his prayers, the honour of his father, love and duty to his mother,
respect for the long purposes of God. At ten o'clock she broke her fast,
and afterwards her women sat with her at needlework; and one would sing,
or one tell a good tale; or, leave being given, they would gossip among
themselves, with a look ever at her for approval or (what rarely
happened) disapproval. There was not a soul among her slaves who did not
love her, nor one who did not fear her. She talked no more than she had
ever done, but she judged no less. Many times a day the Old Man sent for
her, or sometimes came to her room, to discuss his affairs. He never
found her out of humour, dull, perverse, or otherwise than well-disposed
to all his desires. Far from that, every Friday he gave thanks in the
mosque for the gift of such an admirable wife--grave, discreet, pious,
amorous, chaste, obedient, nimble, complaisant, and most beautiful, as
he hereby declared that he found her. Being a man of the greatest
possible experience, this was high praise; nor had he been slow in
making up his mind that she was to be trusted. He was about to prove his
deed as good as his opinion.

Word was brought her on a day, as she sat in the harem with her boy on
her knee, singing to herself and him some winding song of France, that
this redoubtable lord of hers was waiting to see her in her chamber. She
put the child down and followed the eunuch. Entering the room where the
Old Man sat, she knelt down, as was customary, and kissed his knee. He
touched her bent head. 'Rise up, my child,' says he, 'sit with me for a
little. I have matters of concernment for you.' She sat at once by his
side; he took her hand and began to talk to her in this manner.

'It appears, Jehane, that I am something of a prophet. Your late master,
the Melek Richard, has fallen into the power of his enemies; he is now a
prisoner of the Archduke's on many charges: first, the killing of your
brother Eudo, Count of Saint-Pol; but that is a very trifling affair,
which occurred, moreover, in fair battle. Next, they accuse
him--falsely, as you know--of the death of Montferrat. We may have our
own opinion about that. But the prime matter, as I guess, is ransom, and
whether those who wish him ill (not for what he has done to them, but
for what he has not allowed them to do to him) will suffer him to be
ransomed. Now, what have you to say, my child? I see that it affects
you.'

Jehane was affected, but not as you might expect. With great
self-possession she had a very practical mind. There were neither tears
nor heart-beatings, neither panic nor flying of colours. Her eyes sought
the Old Man's and remained steadily on them; her lips were firm and red.

'What are you willing to do, sire?' she asked him. Sinan stroked his
fine beard.

'I can dispose of the business of Montferrat in a few lines,' he said,
considering. 'More, I can reach the Melek and assure him of comfort.
What I cannot do so easily, though I admit no failure, mind, is to
induce his enemies at home to allow of a ransom.'

'I can do that,' said Jehane, 'if you will do the rest.' The Old Man
patted her cheek.

'It is not the custom of my nation to allow wives abroad. You, moreover,
are not of that nation. How can I trust the Melek, who (I know) loves
you? How can I trust you, who (I know) love the Melek?'

'Oh, sire,' says Jehane, looking him full in the face, 'I came here
because I loved my lord Richard; and when I have assured his safety I
shall return here.' She looked down, as she added--'For the same
reason, and for no other.'

'I quite understand you, child,' said the Old Man, and put his hand
under her chin. This made her blush, and brought up her face again
quickly.

'Dear sire,' she said shyly, 'you are very kind to me. If I had another
reason for returning it would be that.' Sinan kissed her.

'And so it shall be, my dear,' he assured her. 'There is time enough.
You shall certainly go, due regard being had to my dignity, and your
health, which is delicate just now.'

'Have no fear for me, my lord,' she said. 'I am very strong.' He kissed
her again, saying, 'I have never known a woman at once so beautiful and
so strong.'

He wrote two letters, sealing them with his own signet and that of King
Solomon. To the Archduke he said curtly--

'To the Archduke Luitpold, _Vetus de Monte_ sends greeting. If the Melek
Richard be any way let in the matter of his life and renown, I bid you
take heed that as I served the Marquess of Montferrat, so also I shall
serve your Serenity.'

But the Emperor demanded more civil advertisement: he got a remarkably
fine letter.

'To the most exalted man, Henry, by the grace of God Emperor of the
Romans, happy, pious, ever august, the invincible Conqueror, _Vetus de
Monte_, by the same great Chief of the Assassins, sends greeting with
the kiss of peace. Let your Celsitude make certain acquaintance with
error in regard to the most illustrious person whom you have in hold.
Not that Melek Richard caused the death of the Marquess Conrad; but I,
the Ancient, the Lord of Assassins, Fulness of Light, for good cause,
namely to save my friend the same Melek from injurious death at the
hands of the Marquess. And him, the said Melek, I am resolved at all
hazards to defend by means of the silent smiters who serve me. So
farewell; and may He protect your Celsitude whom we diversely worship.'

As with every business of the Old Man's, preparations were soon and
silently made. In three or four days' time Jehane strained the young
Fulke to her bosom, took affectionate humble leave of her master, and
left the green valley of Lebanon on her embassy.

She was sent down to the coast in the manner becoming the estate of a
Sultan's favourite wife. She never set foot on the ground, never even
saw it. She was in a close-curtained litter, herself veiled to the eyes.
Sitting with her was a vast old Turkish woman, whom in the harem they
called the Mother of Flowers. Mules bore the litter, eunuchs on mules
surrounded it. On all sides, a third line of defence, rode the
janissaries, hooded in white, on white Arabian horses. So they came
swiftly to Tortosa, whose lord, in strict alliance with him of Musse,
little knew that in paying homage to the shrouded cage he was
cap-in-hand to Jehane of Picardy. Long galleys took up the burden of the
mountain roads, dipped and furrowed across the Ægean, and touched land
at Salonika. Hence by relays of bearers Jehane was carried darkly to
Marburg in Styria, where at last she saw the face of the sky.

They took her to the inn and unveiled her. Then the chief of the eunuchs
handed her a paper which he had written himself, being deprived of a
tongue:--'Madame, Fragrance of the Harem, Gulzareen (which is to say,
Golden Rose), thus I am commanded by my dreadful master. From this hour
and place you are free to do what seems best to your wisdom. The letters
of our lord will be sent forward by the proper bearers of them, one to
Gratz, where the Archduke watches the Melek, and one to the Emperor of
the Romans, wherever he may be found. In Gratz is he whom you seek. This
day six months I shall be here to attend your Sufficiency.' He bowed
three times, and went away.

'Now, mother,' said Jehane to the old duenna, 'do for me what I bid you,
and quickly. Get me brown juice for my skin, and a ragged kirtle and
bodice, such as the Egyptians wear. Give me money to line it, and then
let me go.' All this was done. Jehane put on vile raiment which barely
covered her, stained her fair face, neck, and arms brown, and let her
hair droop all about her. Then she went barefoot out, hugging herself
against the cold, being three months gone with child, and took the road
over barren moorland to Gratz.

She had not seen King Richard for nearly two years, at the thought of
which thing and of him the hot blood leapt up, to thrust and tingle in
her face. She did not mean to see him now if she could help it, for she
knew just how far she could withstand him; she would save him and then
go back. Thus she reasoned with herself as she trudged: 'Jehane, ma mye,
thou art wife now to a wise old man, who is good to thee, and has
exalted thee above all his women. Thou must have no lovers now. Only
save him, save him, save him, Lord Jesus, Lady Mary!' She treated this
as a prayer, and kept it very near her lips all the way to Gratz, except
when she felt herself flush all over with the thought, 'School of God!
Is so great a king to be prayed for, as if he were a sick monk?'
Nevertheless, she prayed more than she flushed. Nothing disturbed her;
she slept in woods, in byres, in stackyards; bought what she needed for
food, attracted no attention, and got no annoyance worthy the name. At
the closing in of the fifth day she saw the walls of the city rise above
the black moors into the sky, and the towers above them. The dome of a
church, gilded, caught the dying sun's eye; its towers were monstrous
tall, round, and peaked with caps of green copper. On the walls she
counted seven other towers, heavy, squat, flat-roofed fortresses with
huge battlements. A great flag hung in folds, motionless about a staff.
All was a uniform dun, muffled in stormy sky, lowering, remote from
knowledge, and alien.

But Jehane herself was of the North, and not impressionable. Grey skies
were familiar tents to her, moorlands roomy places, one heap of stones
much like another. But her heart beat high to know Richard half a league
away; all her trouble was how she should find him in such a great town.
It was dusk when she reached it; they were about to shut the gates. She
let them, having seen that there were booths and hovels at the
barriers, even a little church. It was there she spent the night,
huddled in a corner by the altar.

Dawn is a laggard in Styria. She awoke before it was really light, and
crept out, munching a crust. The suburb was dead asleep, a little breeze
ruffled the poplars, and blew wrinkles on the town ditch. About and
about the walls she went, peering up at their ragged edge, at the huge
crumbling towers, at the storks on steep roofs. 'Eh, Lord God, here lies
in torment my lovely king!' she cried to herself. The keen breeze
freshened, the cloud-wrack went racing westward; it left the sky clean
and bare. Out of the east came the red sun, and struck fire upon the
dome of Saint Stanislas. Out of a high window then came the sound of a
man singing, a sharp strong voice, tremulous in the open notes. She held
her bosom as she heard--

     Al entrada del tems clar, eya!
     Per joja recomençar, eya!
     Vol la regina mostrar
     Qu'el' es si amoroza.

The sun kindled her lifted face, filled her wet eyes with light, and
glistened on her praying lips.

After that her duty was clear, as she conceived it. She dared not
attempt the tower: that would reveal her to him. But she could not leave
it. She must wait to learn the effect of her lord's letter, wait to see
the bearer of it: here she would wait, where she could press the stones
which bore up the stones pressed by Richard. So she did, crouching on
the earth by the wall, sheltered against the wind or the wet by either
side of a buttress, getting her food sparingly from the booths at the
gate, or of charity. The townsmen of Gratz, hoarse-voiced touzleheads
mostly, divined her to be an anchoress, a saint, or an unfortunate. She
was not of their country, for her hair was burnt yellow like a
Lombard's, and her eyes green; her face, tanned and searching, was like
a Hungarian's; they thought that she wove spells with her long hands. On
this account at first she was driven away on to the moors; but she
always returned to her place in the angle, and counted that a day gained
when she knew by Richard's strong singing that he yet lived. His songs
told her more than that: they were all of love, and if her name came not
in her image did. She knew by the mere pitch of his voice--who so
well?--when he was occupied with her and when not. Mostly he sang all
the morning from the moment the sun struck his window. Thus she judged
him a light sleeper. From noon to four there was no sound; surely then
he slept. He sang fitfully in the evening, not so saliently; more at
night, if there was a moon; and generally he closed his eyes with a
stave of _Li dous consire_, that song which he had made of and for her.

When she had been sitting there for upwards of a month, and still no
sign from the bearer of the letter, she saw Gilles de Gurdun come
halting up the poplar avenue and pry about the walls, much as she
herself had done. She knew him at once for all his tatters, this
square-faced, low-browed Norman. How he came there, if not as a
slot-hound comes, she could not guess; but she knew perfectly well what
he was about. The blood-instinct had led him, inflexible man, from far
Acre across the seas, over the sharp mountains and enormous plains; the
blood-instinct had brought him as truly as ever love led her--more
truly, indeed. Here he was, with murder still in his heart.

Watching him through the meshes of her hair, elbowing her arms on her
knees, she thought, What should she do? Plead? Nay, dare she plead for
so royal a head, for so great a heart, so great a king, for one so
nearly god that, for a sacrifice, she could have yielded up no more to
very God? This strife tore her to pieces, while Gurdun snuffled round
the walls, actually round the buttress where she crouched, spying out
the entries. On one side she feared Gilles, on the other scorned what he
could do. There was the leper! He made Gilles terrible; even her
sacrifice on Lebanon might not avail against such as he. But King
Richard! But this strong singer! But this god of war! Gilles came round
the walls for a second time, nosing here and there, stopping, shaking
his head, limping on. Then she heard the King's voice singing, high and
sharp and spiring; his glorious voice, keener than any man's, as pure as
any boy's, singing with astounding gaiety, _'Al entrada del tems clar,
eya!'_

Gilles stopped as one struck, and gaped up at the tower. To see his
stupid mouth open, Jehane's bosom heaved with pride well-nigh
insufferable. Had any woman, since Mary conceived, such a lover as hers!
'Oh, Gilles, Gilles, go you on with your knife in your vest. What can
you do, little oaf, against King Richard?' Gilles went in by the gate,
and she let him go. He was away two days, by which time she had cause to
alter her mind. The prisoner sang nothing; and presently a man dressed
like a Bohemian came out of the town and spoke to her. This was Cogia,
the Assassin, bearer of the letter.

'Well, Cogia?' said Jehane, holding herself.

'Mistress, the letter of our lord has been delivered. I think it may go
hard with the Melek.'

'What, Cogia? Does the Archduke dare?'

'The Archduke, mistress, desires not the Melek's death. He is a worthy
man. But many do desire it--kings of the West, kinsmen of the Marquess,
above all the Melek's blood-brother. One of that prince's men, as I
judge him, is with him now--one of your country, mistress.'

In a vision she saw the leper again, a dull smear in the sunny waste,
scratching himself on a white stone. She saw him come hopping from rock
to rock, his wagging finger, shapeless face, tongueless voice.

'Mistress--' said Cogia. She turned blank eyes upon him. 'I pray,' she
said; 'I pray. Has God no pity?'

Cogia shrugged. 'What has God to do with pity? The end of the world is
in His hand already. The Melek is a king, and the Norman dung in his
sight. Who knows the end but God, and how shall He pity what He hath
decreed for wisdom? This I say, if the King dies the man dies.'

Jehane threw up her head. 'The King will not die, Cogia. Yet to-morrow,
if the man comes not out, I will go to seek him.'

       *       *       *       *       *

Early in the morning Gilles did come out, turned the angle of the ditch,
and shuffled towards her, his head hung. Jehane moved swiftly out from
the shadow of the buttress and confronted him. She folded her arms over
her breast; and at that moment the shadow of Richard's tower was capped
with the shadow of Richard himself. But she saw nothing of this. 'Halt
there, Sir Gilles,' she said. The Norman gave a squeal, like a hog
startled at his trough, and went dead-fire colour.

'Ha, Heart of Jesus!' said Gilles de Gurdun.




CHAPTER XII

THE CHAPTER OF STRIFE IN THE DARK


One very great power of King Richard's had never served him better than
now, the power of immense quiescence, whereunder he could sit by day or
by night as inert as a stone, a block hewn into shape of a man, neither
to be moved by outside fret nor by the workings of his own mind. Into
this rapt state he fell when the prison doors shut on him, and so
remained for three or four weeks, alone while the Fates were spinning.
The Archduke came daily to him with speeches, injuries to relate,
injuries to impart. King Richard hardly winked an eyelid. The Archduke
hinted at ransom, and Richard watched the wall behind his head; he spoke
of letters received from this great man or that, which made ransom not
to be thought of; and Richard went to sleep. What are you to do with a
man who meets your offers and threats with the same vast unconcern? If
it is matter for resentment, Richard gave it; if it is a matter which
money may leaven, it is to be observed that while Richard offered no
money his enemies offered much.

These letters to the Archduke were not of the sort which fill the
austere folios of the Codex Diplomaticus as bins with bran, or make
Rymer's book as dry as Ezekiel's valley. They were pungent, pertinent,
allusive, succinct, supplementing, as with meat, those others. The Count
of Saint-Pol wrote, for instance, 'Kinsman, kill the killer of your
kin,' and could hardly have expressed himself better under the
circumstances. King Philip of France sent two letters: one by a herald,
very long, and chiefly in the language of the Epistle of Saint James,
designed for the Codex. The other lay in the vest of a Savigniac monk,
and was to this effect: 'In a ridded acre the husbandman can sow with
hopes of good harvesting. When the corn is garnered he calleth about him
his friends and fellow-labourers, and cheer abounds. Labour and pray. I
pray.' Last came a limping pilgrim from Aquitaine, whose hat was covered
with metal saints, and in his left shoe a wad of parchment, which had
made him limp. This proved to be a letter from John Count of Mortain,
which said, 'Now I see in secret. But when I am come into my kingdom I
will reward openly.' The Archduke was by no means a wise man; but it was
not easy to know something of European politics and mistake the meaning
of letters like these. If it was a question of money, here was money.
And imagine now the Archduke, bursting with the urgent secrets of so
many princes, making speeches about them--through all of which King
Richard slumbered! 'Damn it, he flouts me, does he?' said Austria at
last; and left him alone. From that moment Richard began to sing.

Let us do no wrong to Luitpold: it was not merely a question of money,
but money turned the scale. Not only had Richard mortally affronted his
gaoler; he had innumerably offended him. The Archduke was punctilious;
Richard with his petulant foot stamped on every little point he
laboured, or else, like a buttress, let him labour them in vain. He did
not for a moment disguise his fatigue in Luitpold's presence, his relief
at his absence, or his unconcern with his properties. This galled the
man. He could not, for the life of him, affect indifference to Richard's
indifference. When the messenger, therefore, arrived from the Old Man of
Musse, the insolence of the message was most unfortunate. The Archduke,
angry as he was, could afford to be cool. He played on the Old Man the
very part which Richard had played on him--that is, treated him and his
letter as though they were not.

Then he broke with Richard altogether; and then came Gilles de Gurdun
with secret words and offers.

The Archduke drained his beer-horn, and with his big hand wrung his
beard dry. He winked hard at Gilles, whom he thought to be a hired
assassin of deplorable address sent, probably, by Count John.

'Are you angry enough to do what you propose?' he asked him. 'I am not,
let me tell you.'

'I have been trying to kill him for four years,' said Gilles.

'And are you man enough, my fellow?' Gilles cast down his eyes.

'I have not been man enough yet, since he still lives. I think I am
now.' Then there was a pause.

'What is your price?' asked Luitpold after this.

Gilles said, 'I have no price'; and the Archduke, 'You suit my humour
exactly.'

       *       *       *       *       *

Richard, I say, had begun to sing from the day he was sure that the
Archduke had given him up. Physical relief may have had something to do
with that, but moral certainty had more. What made him fume or freeze
was doubt. There was very little room for doubt just now but that his
enemies would prove too many for Austria's scruples. His friends? He was
not aware that he had any friends. Des Barres, Gaston, Auvergne, Milo?
What did they amount to? His sister Joan, his mother, his brothers? Here
he shrugged, knowing his own race too well. He had never heard of the
Angevin who helped any Angevin but himself. Lastly, Jehane. He had lost
her by his own fault and her extreme nobility. Let her go, glorious
among women! He was alone. Odd creature, he began to sing.

Singing like a genius to the broad splash of sunlight on brickwork,
Gilles de Gurdun found him. Richard was sitting on a bench against the
wall, one knee clasped in his hands, his head thrown back, his throat
rippling with the tide of his music. He looked as fresh and gallant a
figure as ever in his life; his beard trimmed sharply, his strong hair
brushed back, his doublet green, his trunks of fine leather, his shoes
of yet finer. The song he was upon was _Li Chastel d' Amors_, which
runs--

     Las portas son de parlar
     Al eissir e al entrar:
     Qui gen non sab razonar,

     Defors li ven a estar.
     E las claus son de prejar:
     Ab cel obron li cortes--

and so on through many verses, made continuous by the fact that the end
of each sixth line forms the rhyme of the next five. Now, Gilles knew
nothing of Southern minstrelsy, and if he had, the pitch he was screwed
to would have shrilled such knowledge out of him. At '_Defors li ven a
estar_,' he came in, and sturdily forward. Richard saw him and put up
his hand: on went the hammered rhymes--

     E las claus son de prejar:
     Ab cel obron li cortes.

Here was a little break. Gilles, very dark, took a step; up shot
Richard's warning hand--

     Dedinz la clauson qu'i es
     Son las mazos dels borges . . .

On went the exulting voice after the new rhymes, gayer and yet more gay.
_Li Chastel d'Amors_ has twelve linked verses, and King Richard, wound
up in their music, sang them all. When at last he had stopped, he said,
'Now, Gurdun, what do you want here?'

Gilles came a step or two of his way, and so again a step or two, and so
again, by jerks. When he was so near that it was to be seen what he had
in his right hand, the King got up. Gilles saw that he had light fetters
on his ankles which could not stop his walking. Richard folded his arms.

'Oh, Gurdun,' he said, 'what a fool you are.'

Gurdun vented a sob of rage, and flung himself forward at his enemy. He
was a shorter man, but very thickset, with arms like steel. He had a
knife, rage like a thirst, he was free. Richard, as he came on, hit him
full on the chin, and sent him flying. Gurdun picked himself up again,
his mouth twitching, his eyes so small as to be like slits. Knife in
hand he leaned against the wall to fetch up his breath.

'Well,' said Richard, 'Have you had enough?'

'Yes, you wolf,' said Gurdun, 'I shall wait till it is dark.'

'I think it may suit you better,' was the King's comment as he sat down
on the bed. Gurdun squatted by the wall, watching him. After about an
hour of humming airs to himself Richard lay full length, and in a short
time Gilles ascertained that he was asleep. This brought tears into the
man's eyes; he began to cry freely. Virgin Mary! Virgin Mary! why could
he not kill this frozen devil of a king? Was there a race in the world
which bred such men, to sleep with the knife at the throat? He rose to
his feet, went to look at the sleeper; but he knew he could not do his
work. He ranged the room incessantly, and at every second or third turn
brought up short by the bed. Sometimes he flashed up his long knife; it
always stayed the length of his arm, then flapped down to his flank in
dejection. 'If he wakes not I must go away. I cannot do it so,' he told
himself, as finally he sat down by the wall. It grew dusk. He was tired,
sick, giddy; his head dropped, he slept. When he woke up, as with a
snort he did, it was inky dark. Now was the time, not even God could
see him now. He turned himself about; inch by inch he crept forward,
edging along by the bed's edge. Painfully he got on his knees, threw up
his head. 'Jehane, my robbed lost soul!' he howled, and stabbed with all
his might. King Richard, cat-like behind him, caught him by the hair,
and cuffed his ears till they sang.

'Ah, dastard cur! Ah, mongrel! Ah, white-galled Norman eft! God's feet,
if I pommel you for this!' Pommel him he did; and, having drawn blood at
his ears, he turned him over his knee as if he had been a schoolboy, and
lathered his rump with a chair-leg. This humiliating punishment had
humiliating effects. Gilles believed himself a boy in the
cloister-school again, with his smock up. 'Mea culpa, mea culpa! Hey,
reverend father, have pity!' he began to roar. Dropping him at last,
Richard tumbled him on to the bed. 'Blubber yourself to sleep, clown,'
he told him. 'Blessed ass, I have heard you snoring these two hours,
snoring and rootling over your jack-knife. Sleep, man. But if you rootle
again I flog again: mind you that.' Gilles slept long, and was awoken in
full light by the sound of King Richard calling for his breakfast.

The gaoler came pale-faced in. 'A thousand pardons, sire, a thousand
pardons--'

'Bring my food, Dietrich,' says Richard, 'and send the barber. Also, the
next time the Archduke desires murder done let him find a fellow who
knows his trade. This one is a bungler. Here's the third time to my
knowledge he has missed. Off with you.'

Gilles lay face downwards, abject on the bed. In came the King's
breakfast, a jug of wine, some white bread. The King's beard was
trimmed, his hair brushed, fresh clothes put on. He dismissed his
attendants, crossed over the room like a stalking cat, and gave Gilles a
clap behind which made him leap in the air.

'Get up, Gurdun,' said Richard. 'Tell me that you are ashamed of
yourself, and then listen to me.'

Gilles went down on one knee. 'God knows, my lord King,' he mumbled,
'that I have done shamefully by you.' He got up, his face clouded, his
jaw went square. 'But not more shamefully, by the same God, than you
have done by me.'

The King looked at him. 'I have never justified myself to any man,' he
said quietly, 'nor shall I now to you. I take the consequences of all my
deeds when and as they come. But from the like of you none will ever
come. I speak of men. Now I will tell you this very plainly. The next
time you cross my path adversely, I shall kill you. You are a nuisance,
not because you desire my life, but because you never get it. Try no
more, Gurdun.'

'Where is Jehane, my lord?' said Gurdun, very black.

'I cannot tell you where the Countess of Anjou may be,' he was answered.
'She is not here, and is not in France. I believe she is in Palestine.'

'Palestine! Palestine! Lord Christ, have you turned her away?' Gilles
cried, beside himself. Again King Richard looked at him, but afterwards
shrugged.

'You speak after your kind. Now, Gurdun, get you home. Go to my friends
in Normandy, to my brother Mortain, to my brother of Rouen; bid them
raise a ransom. I must go back. You have disturbed me, sickened me of
assassination, reminded me of what I intended to forget. If I get any
more assassins I shall break prison and the Archduke's head, and I
should be sorry to do that, as I have no grudge against him. Find Des
Barres, Gurdun, raise all Normandy. Find above all Mercadet, and set him
to work in Poictou. As for England, my brother Geoffrey will see to it.
Aquitaine I leave to the Lord of Béarn. Off now, Gurdun, do as I bid
you. But if you speak another word to me of Madame d'Anjou, by God's
death I will wring your neck. You are not fit to speak of me: how should
you dare speak of her? You! A stab-i'-the-dark, a black-entry cutter of
throats, a hedgerow knifer! Foh, you had better speak nothing, but be
off. Stay, I will call the castellan.' And so he did, roaring through
the key-hole. The gaoler came up flying.

'Conduct this animal into the fresh air, Dietrich,' said King Richard;
'send him about his business. Tell your master he will now do better.
And when that is done, let me go on to the leads that I may walk a
little.'

Gurdun followed his guide speechless; but the Archduke was very vexed,
and declined to see him. 'I decide to be a villain, and he makes me a
vain villain,' said the great man. 'Bid him go to the devil.' So then
Gilles with head hanging came out of the gate, and Jehane leaped from
her angle to confront him.

To say that he dropped like a shot bird is to say wrong; for a bird
drops compact, but Gilles went down disjunct. His jaw dropped, his hands
dropped, his knees, last his head. 'Ha, Heart of Jesus!' he said, and
covered his eyes. She began to talk like a hissing snake.

'What have you done with the King? What have you done?' King Richard on
the roof peered down and saw her. He turned quite grey.

'I could do nothing, Jehane,' Gilles whimpered; 'I went to kill him.'

'You fool, I know it. I saw you go. I could have stayed you as I do now.
But I would not.'

'Why not, Jehane?'

She spurned him with a look. 'Because I love King Richard, and know you,
Gilles, what you can do and what not. Pshutt! You are a rat.'

'Rat,' says Gilles, 'I may be, but a rat may be offended. This king
robbed me of you, and slew my father and brothers. Therefore I hated
him. Is it not enough reason?'

Her eyes grew cold with scorn. 'Your father? Your brothers?' she echoed
him. 'Pooh, I have given him more than that. I have burned my heart
quite dry. I have accepted shame, I have sold my body and counted as
nothing my soul. Robbed you? Nay, but I robbed myself, and robbed him
also, when I cut him out of my own flesh. From the day when, through my
prayers against blood, he was affianced to the Spanish woman, I held him
off me, though I drained more blood to do it. Then, that not sufficing
to save him, I gave myself to the Old Man of Musse; to be his wife, one
of his women, do you understand? His wife, I say. And you talk now of
father and brothers and your robbery, to me who am become an old man's
toy, one of many? What are they to my soul, and my heart's blood, to my
life and light, and the glory that I had from Richard? Oh, you fool, you
fool, what do you know of love? You think it is embracing, clipping,
playing with a chin: you fool, it is scorching your heart black, it is
welling blood by drops, it is fasting in sight of food, death where
sweet life offers, shame held more honourable than honour. Oh, Saint
Mary, star of women, what do men know of love?' Dry-eyed and pinched,
she looked about her as if to find an answer in the sullen moors. If she
had looked up to the heavy skies she might have had one; for on the
tower's top stood King Richard like a ghost.

'Listen now to me, Jehane,' said Gilles, red as fire. 'I have hated your
King for four years, and three times sought his life. But now he has
beaten me altogether. Too strong, too much king, for a man to dare
anything singly against him. What! he slept, and I could not do it; and
then I slept, and he awoke and let me lie. Then once again I woke and
thought him still sleeping, and stabbed the bed; and he came behind me,
stealthy as a cat, and trounced me over his knee like a child. Oh, oh,
Jehane, he is more than man, and I by so much less. And now, and now, he
sends me out to win his ransom as if I were an old lover of his, and I
am going to do it! Why, God in glory look down upon us, what is the
force that he hath?'

Gilles now shivered and looked about him; but Jehane, having mastered
her breath, smiled.

'He is King,' she said. 'Come, Gilles, I will go with you. You shall
find the Abbot Milo, and I the Queen-Mother. I have the ear of her.'

'I will do as I am bid, Jehane,' said the cowed man, 'because I needs
must.'

As they went away together, King Richard on the roof threw up his arms
to the sky, howling like a night wolf. 'Now, God, Thou hast stricken me
enough. Now listen Thou, I shall strike if I can.'

       *       *       *       *       *

After a while came Cogia the Assassin; to whom Jehane said, 'Cogia, I
must take a journey with this man. You shall put us on the way, and wait
for me until I come again.'

'Mistress,' replied Cogia, 'I am your slave. Do as you will.'

She put on the dress of a religious, Gilles the weeds of a pilgrim from
Jerusalem. Then Cogia bought them asses in Gratz and led them down to
Trieste. They found a ship going to Bordeaux, went on board, had a fair
passage, passed the Pillars of Hercules on their tenth day out, and were
in the Gironde in five more. At Bordeaux they separated. Gilles went to
Poictiers in a company of pilgrims; Jehane, having learned that Queen
Berengère was at Cahors, turned her face to the Gascon hills. But she
had left behind her a prisoner to whom death could bring the only ransom
worth a thought.




CHAPTER XIII

OF THE LOVE OF WOMEN


'Ask me no more how I did in those days,' writes Abbot Milo. 'Mercy
smile upon me in the article of death, but I worked for the ransom of
King Richard as (I hope) I should for that of King Christ. Many an abbey
of Touraine goes lean now because of me; many a mass is wrought in a
pewter chalice that Richard might come home. Yet I soberly believe that
Madame Alois, King Philip's sister, was precious above rubies in the
work.'

I think he is right. That stricken lady, in the habit of a grey nun of
Fontevrault, came by night to Paris, and found her brother with John of
Mortain. They had been upon the very business. Philip, not all knave,
had been moved by the news of Richard's immobility. He had had some of
De Gurdun's report.

'Christ-dieu,' he said, 'a great king calm in chains! And my brother
Richard. Yet God knows I hate him.' So he went muttering on. The Count
edged in his words as he could.

'He hates you, indeed, sire. He hates me. He hates all of us.'

'I think we could find him reasons for that, my friend, if he lacked
them,' said Philip shrewdly. 'Do you know that De Gurdun is in Poictou
come from Styria?'

Count John said nothing; but he did know it very well. When they
announced Madame Alois the King started, and the Count went sick white.

'We will receive her Grace,' said Philip, and advanced towards the door
for the purpose. In she came in her old eager, stumbling, secret way,
knelt in a hurry to kiss her brother's hand, then rose and looked
intently at John of Mortain.

The King said, 'You visit us late, sister; but your occasions may drive
you.'

'They do drive me, sire. I have seen the Sieur Gilles de Gurdun. King
Richard is in hold at Gratz, and must be delivered.'

'By you, sister?'

'By me, sire.'

'You grow Christian, Madame.'

'It is my need, sire. I have done King Richard a great wrong. This is
not tolerable to me.'

'Eh,' says Philip, 'not so fast. Was no wrong done to you?'

'Wrong was done me,' said the white girl, 'but not by him.'

'The wrong lies in his blood. What though the wrong-doer is dead? His
blood must answer it.'

Alois shivered, and so, for that matter, did one other there. She
answered, 'I pray for his death. Dying or dead, his blood shall answer
it.'

'You speak darkly, sister.'

'I live in the dark,' said Alois.

'King Richard has affronted my house in you sister.'

But she said, 'I have affronted King Richard through his house.'

'Is this all you have to say, Alois?'

'No, sire,' she told him, with a fierce and biting look at Mortain; 'but
it is all I need say now.'

It was. A cry broke strangling from the Count. 'Ha, Jesus! Sire! Save my
brother!' The wretch could bear no more. The woman's eyes were like
swords.

King Philip marvelled. 'You!' he said, 'you!' John put out his hands.
Oh, sire, Madame is in the right. I am a wicked man. I must make my
brother amends. He must be saved.'

King Philip scratched his head. 'Who is in the dark if not I? I will
deal with you presently, Mortain. But you, Madame,' he turned hotly on
the lady, 'you must be plainer. What is your zeal for the King of
England? He is your cousin, and might have been your husband.' Alois
flinched, but Philip went roughly on. 'Do you owe him thanks that he is
not? Is this what spurs you?'

She looked doubtfully. 'I owe him honour, Philip,' she said slowly. 'He
is a great king.'

'Great king, great king!' Philip broke out; 'pest! and great rascal.
There is no truth in him, no bottom, no thanks, no esteem. He counts me
as nothing.'

'To him,' said Alois, 'you are nothing.'

'Madame,' said Philip, 'I am King of France, your brother and lord. He
is my vassal; owes fealty and breaks it, signs treaties and levies war;
hectors me and laughs, kills my servants and laughs. He is my cousin,
but I am his suzerain. I do not choose to be mocked. There will be no
rest for this kingdom while he is in it.' He stopped, then turned to the
shaking man. 'As for you, Count of Mortain, I must have an explanation.
My sister loves her enemies: it is a Christian virtue. I have not found
it one of yours. You, perhaps, fear your enemies, even caged. Is this
your thought? You have made yourself snug in Aquitaine, Count; you are
not unknown in Anjou, I think. Do you begin to wish that you might be?
Are you, by chance, a little oversnug? I candidly say that I prefer you
for my neighbour in those parts. I can deal with you. Do me the
obedience to speak.'

'Sire,' said the Count, spreading out his hands, 'Madame Alois has
turned me. I am a sinner, but I can restore. My brother is my lord, a
clement prince--'

'Pish!' said King Philip, and gave him his back.

'Madame, go to bed,' he said to his sister. 'I shall pay dear for it,
but I will not oppose my cousin's ransom. Be content with that.' Alois
slipped out. Then he turned upon John like a flash of flame.

'Now, Mortain,' he said, 'what proof is there of that old business of my
sister's?'

John showed him a scared eye--the milky eye of a drowned man. 'Ah, God,
sire, there is none at all--none--none!' He had no breath. Philip raised
his voice.

'Look to yourself; I shall not help you. Leave my lands, go where you
will, hide, bury your head, drown yourself. If I spoke what lies
bottomed in my heart I should kill you with mere words. But there is
worse for you in store. There will be war in France, if I know Richard;
but mark what I say, after that there shall be war in England.' The
thought of Richard overwhelmed him: he gave a queer little sigh. 'See,
now, how much love and what lives of women are spent for one tall man,
who gives nothing, and asks nothing, but waits, looking lordly, while
they give and give and give. Let Richard come, since women cry for
wounds. But you!' He flamed again. 'Get you to hell: you are all a liar.
Avoid me, lest I learn more of you.'

'Dear sire,' John began. Philip loathed him. 'Ah, get you gone, snake,
or I tread upon you,' he said; and the prince avoided. So much was
wrought by Alois of France.

       *       *       *       *       *

No visitation of a dead woman could have shocked Queen Berengère more
suddenly than the apparition of a tall nun, when she saw it was Jehane.
She put her hand upon her heart.

'Ah,' she said, 'you trouble me again, Jehane? Am I never to rest from
you?'

jehane did not falter. 'Do I have any rest? The King is chained in
Styria; he must be redeemed. It is your turn. I saved his life for you
once by selling my own. Now I am the wife of an old man, with nothing
more to sell. Do you sell something.'

'Sell? Sell? What can I sell that he will buy?' whined Berengère. 'He
loves me not.'

'Well,' said Jehane, 'what has that to do with it? Do you not love
him?'

'I am his miserable wife. I have nothing to sell.

'Sell your pride, Berengère,' says Jehane. Berengère bit her lip.

'You speak strangely to me, woman.'

Says Jehane, 'I am grown strange. Once I was a girl dishonoured because
I loved. Now I am a wife greatly honoured because I do not love.'

'You do not love your husband?'

'How should I,' said Jehane, 'when I love yours? But I honour my
husband, and watch over his honour: he is good to me.'

'You dare to tell me that you love the King? Ah, you have been with him
again!' Jehane looked critically at her.

'I have not seen him, nor ever shall till he is dead. But we must save
him, you and I, Berengère.'

Berengère, the little toy woman, when she saw how noble the other stood,
and how inflexible, came wheedling to her, with hands to touch her chin.

'Jehane, sister, let it be my part to save Richard. Indeed I love him.
You have done so much, to you now he should be nothing. Let me do it,
let me do it, please, Jehane!' So she stroked and coaxed. The tall nun
smiled.

'Must I always be giving, and my well never be dry? Yes, yes, I will
trust you. No; you shall not kiss me yet; I have not done. Go to the
Queen-Mother, go to the King your brother. Go not to the French King,
nor to Count John. He is more cruel than hyænas, and more a coward. Find
the Abbot Milo, find the Lord of Béarn, find the Sieur des Barres, find
Mercadet. Raise England, sell your jewels, your crown; eh, God of Gods,
sell your pretty self. The Queen-Mother is a fierce woman, but she will
help you. Do these things faithfully, and I leave King Richard's life in
your hands. May I trust you?' The other girl looked up at her,
wistfully, still touching her chin.

'Kiss me, Jehane!'

'Yes, yes, I will kiss you now, Frozen Heart. You are thawed.'

Jehane, going back to Bordeaux, found Cogia with a ship, wherein she
sailed for Tortosa. But Berengère, Queen of England, played a queen's
part.




CHAPTER XIV

HOW THE LEOPARD WAS LOOSED


The burning thought of Jehane cut off, sixty feet below him, yet far as
she could ever be, swept across Richard's mind like a roaring wind, and
ridded the room for wilder guests. In came stalking Might-have-been and
No-more, holding each by a shrinking shoulder the delicate maid of his
first delight, Jehane, lissom in a thin gown; Jehane like a bud, with
her long hair alight. Her hair was loose, her face aflame; she was very
young, very much to be kissed, fresh and tall--Oh, God, the mere
loveliness of her! In came the scent of wet stubbles, the fresh salt air
of Normandy, the pale gold of the shaws, the pale sky, the mild October
sun. He felt again the stoop, again the lift of her to his horse, again
the stern ride together; saw again the Dark Tower, and all the love and
sweet pleasure that they made. The bride in the church turning her proud
shy head, the bride in his arm, clinging as they flew, the bride in the
tower, the crowned Countess, the nestling mate--oh, impossibly lost!
Inconceivably put away! Eternally his lover and bride!

Pity, if you can, this lonely heart, this king in chains, this hot
Angevin, son of Henry, son of Geoffrey, son of Fulke, this Yea-and-Nay.
He who dared not look upon the city, lest, seeing, he should risk all
to take it, had now looked upon the bride unaware, and could not touch
her. The fragrance of her, the sacred air in which a loved woman moves,
had floated up to him: his by all the laws of hell, in spite of heaven;
but his no more. Such nearness and such deprivation--to see, to desire,
and not to seize--flung his wits abroad; from that hour his was a lost
soul. Hungry, empty-eyed, ranging, feverish, he lashed up and down his
prison-room, with bare teeth gleaming, and desperate soft strides. No
thought he had but mere despair, no hope but the mere ravin of a beast.
He was across the room in four; he turned, he lunged back; at the wall
he threw up his head, turned and lunged, turned and lunged again. He was
always at it, or rocking on his bed. No hope, nor thought, nor reckoning
had he, but to say Yea against God, Who said him Nay.

So, many times, had he stood, fatal enemy of himself. His Yea would hold
fast while none accepted it, his Nay while no one obeyed. But the supple
knees of men sickened him of his own decree. 'These fools accept my
bidding: the bidding then is foolishness.' So when Fate, so when God,
underwrote his bill, _Le Roy le veult_, he scorned himself and the bill,
and risked wide heaven to make either nought.

If Austria had murdered him then, it had perhaps been well; but his
enemies being silenced, his friends did enemies' work unknowing, by
giving him scope to mar himself. The ransom was raised at the price of
blood and prayers, the ransom was paid. The Earl of Leicester and
Bishop of Salisbury brought it; so the Leopard was loosed. With a quick
shake of the head, as if doing violence to himself, he turned his face
westward and pushed through the Low Countries to the sea. There he was
met by his English peers, by Longchamp, by his brother of Rouen, by men
who loved and men who feared; but he had no word for any. Grim and
hungry he stalked through the lane they made him, on to the galley;
folded in his cloak there, lonely he paced the bridge. He was rowed to
the west with his eyes fixed always on the east, away from his kingdom
to where he supposed his longing to be. His mother met him at Dunwich:
it seemed he knew her not. 'My son, my son Richard,' she said as she
knelt to him. 'Get up, Madame,' he bid her; 'I have work to do.' He rode
savagely to London through the grey Essex flats; had himself crowned
anew; went north with a force to lay Lincolnshire waste; levelled
castles, exacted relentless punishment, exorbitant tribute, the last
acquittance. He set a red smudge over the middle of England, being
altogether in that country three months, a total to his name and reign
of a poor six. Then he left it for good and all, carrying away with him
grudging men and grudged money, and leaving behind the memory of a stone
face which always looked east, a sword, a heart aloof, the myth of a
giant knight who spoke no English and did no charity, but was without
fear, cruelly just, and as cold as an outland grave. If you ask an
Englishman what he thinks of Richard Yea-and-Nay, he will tell
you:--That was a king without pity or fear or love, considering neither
God, nor the enemy of God, nor unhappy men. If the fear of God is the
beginning of wisdom, the love of Him is the end of it. How could King
Richard love God, who did not fear enough; or we, who feared too much?

He crossed into Normandy, and at Honfleur was met by them who loved him
well; but he repaid them ill. Here also they seemed remote from his
acquaintance. Gaston of Béarn, with eyes alight, came dancing down the
quay, to be the first to kiss him. Richard, shaking with fever (or what
was like fever), gave him a burning dry hand, but looked away from him,
always hungrily to the east. Des Barres, who had thrown off allegiance
for his love, got no thanks for it. He may have known Abbot Milo again,
or Mercadet, his lean good captain: he said nothing to either of them.
His friends were confounded: here was the gallant shell of King Richard
with a new insatiable tenant. So indeed they found it. There was great
business to be done: war, the holding of Assise, the redressing of
wrongs from the sea to the Pyrenees. He did it, but in a terrible, hasty
way. It appeared that every formal act required fretted him to waste,
that every violent act allowed gave him little solace. It appeared that
he was living desperately fast, straining to fill up time, rather than
use it, towards some unknown, but (to him) certain end. His first act in
Normandy, after new coronation, was to besiege the border castles which
the French had filched in his absence. One of these was Gisors. He
would not go near Gisors; but conducted the leaguer from Rouen, as a
blindfold man plays chess; and from Rouen he reduced the great castle in
six weeks. One thing more he did there, which gave Gaston a clue to his
mood. He sent a present of money, a great sum, to an old priest, curate
of Saint-Sulpice; and when they told him that the man was dead, and a
great part of the church he had served burnt out by King Philip, his
face grew bleak and withered, and he said, 'Then I will burn Philip
out.' He had Gisors, castle, churches, burgher-holds, the whole town,
burned level with the ground. There was not to be a stone on a stone:
and it was so. Gaston of Béarn slapped his thigh when he heard of this:
'Now,' he said, 'now at last I know what ails my King. He has seen his
lost mistress.'

He did so ruthlessly in Normandy that he went far to make his power a
standing dread to the fair duchy. On the rock at Les Andelys he built a
huge castle, to hang there like a thunder-cloud scowling over the flats
of the Seine. He called it, what his temper gave no hint of (so dry with
fever he was), the galliard hold. 'Let me see Chastel-Gaillard stand
ready in a year,' he said. 'Put on every living man in Normandy if need
be.' He planned it all himself; rock of the rock it was to be, making
the sheer yet more sheer. He called it again his daughter, daughter of
his conception of Death. 'Build,' said he, 'my daughter Gaillarda. As I
have conceived her let the great birth be.' And it was so. For a bitter
christening, when all was done, he had his French prisoners thrown down
into the fosse; and they say that it rained blood upon him and his
artificers as they stood by that accursed font. The man was mad. Nothing
stayed him: for the first time since they who still loved him had had
him back, they heard him laugh, when his daughter Gaillarda was brought
forth. And, 'Spine of God,' he cried, 'this is a saucy child of mine,
and saucily shall she do by the French power.' Then his face was
wrenched by pain, as with a sob he said, 'I had a son Fulke.' Gaillarda
did saucily enough, to tyrannise over ten years of Philip's life; in the
end, as all know, she played the strumpet, and served the enemies of her
father's house, but not while Richard lived to rule her.

He drove Philip into a truce of years, pushed down into Touraine, and
thence went to Anjou, but not to sit still. He was never still, never
seemed to sleep, or get any of the solace of a man. He ate voraciously,
but was not nourished, drank long, but was never drunken, revelled
without mirth, hunted, fought, but got no joy. He utterly refused to see
the Queen, who was at Cahors in the south. 'She is no wife of mine,' he
said; 'let her go home.' Tentative messages were brought by very
tentative messengers from his brother John. Good service, such and such,
had been done in Languedoc; so and so had been hanged, or gibbeted, so
and so rewarded: what had our dear and royal brother to say? To each he
said the same thing: 'Let my good brother come.' But John never came.

No one knew what to make of him; he spoke to none of his affairs, none
dared speak to him. Milo writes in his book, 'The King came back from
Styria as one who should arise from the grave with all the secrets of
the chattering ghosts to brood upon. Some worm gnawed his vitals, some
maggot had drilled a hole in his brain. I know not what possessed him or
what could possess him beside a devil. This I know, he never sent to me
for direction in spiritual affairs, nor (so far as I could learn) to any
other religious man. He never took the Sacrament, nor seemed to want it.
But be sure he wanted it most grievously.' So, insanely ridden, he lived
for three years, one of which would have worn a common man to the bones.
But the fire still crackled, freely fed; his eyes were burning bright,
his mind (when he gave it) was keen, his head (when he lent it) seemed
cool. What was he living for? Did Death himself look askance at such a
man? Or find him a good customer who sent him so many souls? Two things
only were clear: he sent messenger after messenger to Rome, and he
returned his wife's dowry. Those must mean divorce or repudiation of
marriage. Certainly the Queen's party took it so, though the Queen
herself clung pitifully to her throne; and the Queen's party grew the
larger for the belief.

Such as it was, the Queen's party nested in Aquitaine and the Limousin,
with all the turbulent lords of that duchy under its flag. Prince John
himself was with Berengère at Cahors, biting his nails as was usual with
him, one eye watching for Richard's vengeance, one eye wide for any
peace-offering from the French King. He dared not act overtly against
Richard, nor dared to take up arms for him. So he waited. The end was
not very far off.

Count Eustace of Saint-Pol was the moving spirit in these parts, grown
to be an astute, unscrupulous man of near thirty years. His spies kept
him well informed of Richard's intolerable state; he knew of the
embassies to Rome, of the fierce murdering moods, of the black moods, of
the cheerless revelry and fruitless energy of this great stricken
Angevin. 'In some such hag-ridden day my enemy may be led to overtax
himself,' he considered. To that end he laid a trap. He seized and
fortified two hill-castles in the Limousin, between which lay straggling
a village called Chaluz. 'Let us get Richard down here,' was his plan.
'He will think the job a light one, and we shall nip him in the hills.'
The Bishop of Beauvais lent a hand, so did Adhémar Viscount of Limoges,
and Achard the lord of Chaluz, not because he desired, but because he
was forced by Limoges his suzerain. Another forced labourer was Sir
Gilles de Gurdun, who had been found by Saint-Pol doing work in Poictou
and won over after a few trials.

Now, when King Richard had been some four, nearly five, years at home,
neither nearer to his rest nor fitter for it than he had been when he
landed, he got word from the south that a great treasure had been found
in the Limousin. A man driving the plough on a hillside by Chaluz had
upturned a gold table, at which sat an emperor, Charles or another, with
his wife and children and the lords of his council, all wrought in fine
gold. 'I will have that golden emperor,' said Richard, 'having just made
one out of clay. Let him be sent to me.' He spoke carelessly, as they
all thought, simply to get in his gibe at the new Emperor of the Romans,
his nephew, whom he had caused to be chosen; and seeing that that was
not the treasure he craved, it is like enough. But somebody took his
word into Languedoc, and somebody brought back word (Saint-Pol's word)
that the Viscount of Limoges, as suzerain of Chaluz, claimed
treasure-trove in it. 'Then I will have the Viscount of Limoges as
well,' said Richard. 'Let him be sent to me, and the table with him.'

The Viscount did not go. 'We have him, eh, we have him!' cheered
Saint-Pol, rubbing his hands together.

But the Viscount, 'Be not so very sure. He may send Gaston or Mercadet.
Or if the fit is on him he may come in force. We cannot support that. I
believe that you have played a fool's part, Saint-Pol.'

'I am playing a gentleman's part,' replied the other, 'to entrap a
villain.'

'Your villain is six foot two inches, and hath arms to agree,' said the
Viscount, a dry man.

'We will lay him by the heels, Viscount; we will lop those long arms,
cold-blooded, desperate tyrant. He has brought two lovely ladies to
misery. Now let him know misery.' Thus Saint-Pol, feeling very sure of
himself.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Queen was at Cahors all this time, living in a convent of white
nuns, probably happier than she had ever been in her life before. Count
John kept her informed of all Richard's offences; Saint-Pol, you may
take my word for it, was so exuberantly on her side that it must be
almost an offence in her to refuse him. But she, in a pure mood of
abnegation, would hear nothing against King Richard. Even when she was
told, with proof positive, that he was in treaty with Rome, she said not
a word to her friends. Secretly she hugged herself, beginning (like most
women) to find pleasure in pain. 'Let him deny me, let him deny me
thrice, even as Thou wert denied, sweet Lord Jesus!' she prayed to
Christ on the wall. 'So denied, Thou didst not cease from loving. I
think the woman in Thee outcried the man.' She got a piercing bliss out
of each new knife stuck in her little jumping heart. Once or twice she
wrote to Alois of France, who was at Fontevrault, in her King's country.
'Dear lady,' she wrote, 'they seek to enrage my lord against me. If you
see him, tell him that I believe nothing that I hear until I receive the
word from his own glorious mouth.' Alois, chilly in her cell, took no
steps to get speech with King Richard. 'Let her suffer: I suffer,' she
would say. And then, curiously jealous lest more pain should be
Berengère's than was hers, a daughter's of France, she made haste to
send assuring messages to Cahors. Still Berengère sweetly agonised.
Saint-Pol sent her letters full of love and duty, enthusiastic,
breathing full arms against her wrongs. But she always replied, 'Count
of Saint-Pol, you do me injury in seeking to redress your own. I admit
nothing against my lord the King. Many hate him, but I love him. My will
is to be meek. Meekness would become you very well also.' Saint-Pol
could not think so.

Lastly came the intelligence that King Richard in person was moving
south with a great force to win the treasure of Chaluz. The news was
true. Not only did he dwell with the nervous persistency of the
afflicted upon the wretched gold Cæsar, but with clearer political
vision saw a chance of subduing all Aquitaine. 'Any stick will do, even
Adhémar of Limoges,' he said, not suspecting Saint-Pol's finger in the
dish; and told Mercadet to summon the knights, and the knights their
array. Before he set out he sent two messengers more--one to Rome, and
one much further east. Then he began his warlike preparations with great
heart.




CHAPTER XV

OECONOMIC REFLECTIONS OF THE OLD MAN OF MUSSE


Jehane, called Gulzareen, the Golden Rose, had borne three children to
the Old Man of Musse. She was suckling the third, and teaching her
eldest, the young Fulke of Anjou, his Creed, or as much of it as she
could remember, when there came up a herald from Tortosa who bore upon
his tabard the three leopards of England. He delivered a sealed letter
thus superscribed--

'La très-haulte et ma très chère dame, Madame Jehane, Comtesse d'Anjou,
de la part le Roy Richard. Hastez tousjours.'

The letter was brought to the Old Man as he sat in his white hail among
his mutes.

'Fulness of Light,' said the Vizier, after prostrations, 'here is come a
letter from the Melek Richard, sealed, for her Highness the Golden
Rose.'

'Give it to me, Vizier,' said the Old Man, and broke the seal, and
read--

'Madame, most dear lady, in a very little while I shall be free from my
desperate nets; and then you shall be freed from yours. Keep a great
heart. After five years of endeavour at last I come quickly.--Richard of
Anjou.'

The Old Man sat stroking his fine beard for some time after he had
dismissed his Vizier. Looking straight before him down the length of his
hail, no sound broke the immense quiet under which he accomplished his
meditations of life and death. The Assassins dreaming by the walls
breathed freely through their noses.

As a small voice heard from far off in these dreams of theirs, the voice
of one calling from a distant height, came his words, 'Cogia ibn Hassan
ibn Alnouk, come and hearken.' A slim young man rose, ran forward and
fell upon his face before the throne. Once more the faint far cry came
floating, 'Bohadin son of Falmy of Balsora, come and hearken'; and
another white-robed youth followed Cogia.

'My sons,' said the Old Man, 'the word is upon you. Go to the West for
forty days. In the country of the Franks, in the south parts thereof,
but north of the great mountains, you shall find the Melek Richard,
admirable man, whom Allah longs for. Strike, my sons, but from afar (for
not otherwise shall ye dare him), and gain the gates of Paradise and the
soft-bosomed women of your dreams. Go quickly, prepare yourselves.' The
two young men crawled to kiss his foot; then they went out, and silence
folded the hail of audience once more like a wrapping.

Later in the day a slave-girl told Jehane that her master was waiting
for her. The baby was asleep in the cradle under a muslin veil; she
kissed Fulke, a fine tall boy, six and a half years old, and followed
the messenger.

The Old Man embraced her very affectionately, kissed her forehead and
raised her from her knees. 'Come and sit with me, beautiful and pious
wife, mother of my sons,' said he. 'I have many things to say to you.'

When they were close together on the cushions of the window, Sinan put
his arm round her waist, and said, 'For a good and happy marriage, my
Gulzareen, it is well that the woman should not love her husband too
much, but rather be meek, show obedience to his desires, and alacrity,
and give courtesy. The man must love her, and honour that in her which
makes her worth, her beauty, to wit, the bounty of her fruitfulness, and
her discretion. But for her it is enough that she suffer herself to be
loved, and give him her duty in return. The love that seeds in her she
shall bestow upon her children. That is how peace of mind grows in the
world, and happiness, for without the first there can never be the
second. You, my child, have a peaceful mind: is it not so?'

'My lord,' Jehane replied, with no sign of the old discontent upon her
red mouth, 'I am at peace. For I have your affection; you tell me that I
deserve it. And I give my children love.'

'And you are happy, Jehane?'

She sighed, ever so lightly. 'I should be happy, my lord. But sometimes,
even now, I think of King Richard, and pray for him.'

'I believe that you do,' said the Old Man. 'And because I desire your
happiness in all things, I desire you to see him again.'

A bright blush flooded Jehane, whose breath also became a trouble. By a
quick movement she drew her veil about her, lest he should see her
unquiet breast. So the mother of Proserpine might have been startled
into new maidenhood when, in her wanderings, some herd had claimed her
in love. Her husband watched her keenly, not unkindly. Jehane's trouble
increased; he left her alone to fight it. So at last she did; then
touched his hand, looking deeply into his face. He, loving her greatly,
held her close.

'Well, Joy of my Joy?'

'Lord,' she said, speaking hurriedly and low, 'let me not see him, ask
it not of me. It is more than I dare. It is more than would be right; I
ask it for his sake, not for mine. For he has a great heart, the
greatest heart that ever man had in the world; also he is sudden to
change, as I know very well; and the sight of me denied him might move
him to a desperate act, as once before it did.' She lowered her head
lest he should see all she had to show. He smiled gravely, stroking her
hand and playing with it, up and down.

'No, child, no,' he said, 'it will do you no harm now. The harm, I take
it, has been done: soon it will be ended. You shall hear from his own
lips that he will not hurt you.'

Jehane looked at him in wonder, startled out of confusion of face.

'Do you know more of him than I do, sire?' she asked, with a quick
heart.

'I believe that I do,' replied the Old Man; 'and take my word for it,
dear child, that I wish him no ill. I wish him,' he continued very
deliberately, 'less ill than he has sought to do himself. I wish him
most heartily well. And you, my girl, whom I have grown wisely and
tenderly to love; you, my Golden Rose, Moon of the Caliph, my stem, my
vine, my holy vase, my garden of endless delight--for you I wish, above
all things, rest after labour, refreshment and peace. Well, I believe
that I shall gain them for you. Go, therefore, since I bid you, and take
with you your son Fulke, that his father may see and bless him, and (if
he think fit) provide for him after the custom of his own country. And
when you have learned, as learn you will, from his mouth what I am sure
he will tell you, come back to me, my Pleasant Joy, and rest upon my
heart.'

Jehane sighed, and wrought with her fingers in her lap. 'If it must be,
sire--'

'Why, of course it must be,' said the Old Man briskly.

He sent her away to the harem with a kiss on her mouth, and had in
Cogia, and Bohadin son of Falmy of Balsora. To these two rapt Assassins
he gave careful instructions, which there was no mistaking. The Golden
Rose, properly attended, would accompany them as far as Marseilles. She
would journey on to Pampluna and abide in the court of the King of
Navarre (who loved Arabians, as his father before him) until such time
as word was brought her by one of them, the survivor, that they had
found King Richard, and that he would see her. Then she would set out,
attended by the Vizier, the chief of the eunuchs, and the Mother of
Flowers, and act as she saw proper.

Very soon after this the galley left the marble quay of Tortosa upon a
prosperous voyage through blue water. Jehane, her son Fulke of Anjou,
and the other persons named, were in a great green pavilion on the
poop. But she saw nothing, and knew nothing, of Cogia ibn Hassan ibn
Alnouk or of Bohadin son of Falmy of Balsora.




CHAPTER XVI

THE CHAPTER CALLED CHALUZ


When King Richard said, without any confirmatory oath, that he should
hang Adhémar of Limoges and the Count of Saint-Pol, all who heard him
believed it. The Abbot Milo believed it for one. Figuratively, you can
see his hands up as you read him. 'To hang two knights of such eminent
degree and parts,' he writes, 'were surely a great scandal in any
Christian king. Not that the punishment were undeserved or the
executioner insufficient, God knoweth! But very often true policy points
out the wisdom of the mean; and this is its deliberative, that to hang a
bad man when another vengeance is open--such as burning in his castle,
killing on his walls, or stabbing by apparent mistake for a common
person--to hang him, I say, suggests to the yet unhanged a way of
treating his betters. There are more ways of killing a dog than choking
him with butter; and so it is with lords and other rebels against kings.
In this particular case King Richard only thought to follow his great
father (whom at this time he much resembled): what in the end he did was
very different from any act of that monarch's that I ever heard tell of,
to remember which makes me weep tears of blood. But so he fully purposed
at that time, being in his hottest temper of Yea.'

He said Yea to the hanging of Saint-Pol and Limoges, and made ready a
host which must infallibly crush Chaluz were it twenty times prepared.
But he said Nay to the sacrifice of Jehane on Lebanon, and to that end
increased his arms to overawe all the kingdoms of the South which had
sanctioned it. Vanguard, battle and rear, he mustered fifteen thousand
men. Des Barres led the van, English bowmen, Norman knights. Battle was
his, all arms from Anjou, Poictou, and Touraine. Rearguard the Earl of
Leicester took, his viceroy in Aquitaine. When the garrison of Chaluz
saw the forested spears on the northern heights, the great engines piled
against the sky-line, the train of followers, pennons of the knights,
Dragon of England, Leopards of Anjou, the single Lion of Normandy, the
wise among them were for instant surrender.

'Here is an empery come out against us!' cried Adhémar. 'If I was not
right when I told you that I knew King Richard.'

'The filched empery of a thief,' said Saint-Pol. 'Honesty is ours. I
fight for my lady Berengère, the glory of two realms, my sovereign
mistress till I die.'

'Vastly well,' returned the other; 'but I do not fight for this lady,
but for a gold table with gold dolls sitting at it.' Such also was the
reflection of Achard, castellan of Chaluz, looking ruefully at his crazy
walls.

       *       *       *       *       *

Two grassy hills rise, like breasts, out of a rolling plain of grass.
Each is crowned with a tower; between them are the church and village
of Chaluz, which form a straggling street. Wall and ditch pen in these
buildings and tie tower to tower: as Richard saw, it was the easiest
thing in the world to cut the line in the middle, isolate, then reduce
the towers at leisure. Adhémar saw that too, and got no comfort from it,
until it occurred to him that if he occupied one tower and left the
other to Saint-Pol, he would be free to act at his own discretion, that
is, not act at all against the massed power of England and Anjou.
Saint-Pol, you see, fought for the life of Richard, and Adhémar for a
gold table, which makes a great difference. He effected this separation
of garrisons; however, some show of resistance was made by manning the
walls and daring the day with banners.

King Richard went softly to work, as he always ways did when actually
hand in hand with war. Warfare was an art to him, neither a sport nor a
counter-irritant; he was never impetuous over it. For a week he
satisfied himself with a close investiture of the town on all sides. No
supplies could get in nor fugitives out. Then, when everything was
according to his liking, he advanced his engines, brought forward his
towers, set sappers to work, and delivered assault in due form and at
the weakest point. He succeeded exquisitely. There was no real defence.
The two hill-towers were stranded, Chaluz was his.

He put the garrison to the sword, and set the village on fire. At once
Viscount Adhémar and his men surrendered. Richard took the treasure--it
was found that the golden Cæesar had no head--and kept his word with the
finders, hanging the Viscount and castellan on one gibbet within sight
of the other tower. 'Oh, frozen villain,' swore Saint-Pol between his
teeth, 'so shalt thou never hang me.' But when he looked about him at
his dozen of thin-faced men he believed that if Richard was not to hang
him it might be necessary for him to hang himself. More, it came into
his mind that there was a hand or two under him which might be anxious
to save him the trouble. Being, however, a man of abundant spirit, he
laughed at the summons to surrender so long as there was a horse to eat,
man to shoot, or arrow for the shooting. As for fire, he believed
himself impregnable by that arm; and any day succour might come from the
South. Surely his Queen would not throw him to the dogs! Where was Count
John if not hastening to win a realm; where King Philip if not hopeful
to chastise a vassal? Daily King Richard, in no hurry, but desperately
reckless, rode close to the tower and met the hardy eyes of Saint-Pol
watching him from the top. Richard was a galliard fighter, as he had
always been.

'Come down, Saint-Pol,' he would say, 'and dance with Limoges.'

'When I come down, sire,' the answer would be, 'there will be no dancing
in your host.'

Richard took his time, and also intolerable liberties with his life.
Milo lost his hair with anxiety, not daring to speak; Gaston of Béarn
did dare, but was shaken off by his mad master. Des Barres, who loved
him, perhaps, as well as any, never left him for long together, and wore
his brain out devising shifts which might keep him away from the walls.
But Richard, for this present whim of his, chose out a companion devil
as heedless as himself, Mercadet namely, his brown Gascon captain, of
like proportions, like mettle, like foolhardiness; and with him made the
daily round, never omitting an exchange of grim banter with Saint-Pol.
It was terrible to see him, without helm on his head, or reason in it,
canter within range of the bow.

'Oh, Saint-Pol,' he said one day, 'if thou wert worth my pains, I would
have thee down and serve thee as I did thy brother Eudo. But no; thou
must be hanged, it seems.' And Saint-Pol, grinning cheerfully, answered,
'Have no fear, King, thou wilt never hang me.'

'By my soul,' said Richard back again, 'a little more of this bold gut
of thine, my man, and I let thee go free.'

'Sire,' said Saint-Pol soberly, 'that were the worst of all.'

'How so, boy?'

'Because, if you forgave me, I should be required by my knighthood to
forgive you; and that I will never do if I can help it. So I should live
and be damned.'

'Have it then as it must be,' said Richard laughing, and turned his
back. Saint-Pol could have shot him dead, but would not. 'Look, De
Gurdun,' he says, 'there goes the King unmailed. Wilt thou shoot him in
the back, and so end all?'

'By God, Eustace,' says Gilles, 'that I will not.'

'Why not, then?'

Gurdun said, 'Because I dare not. I am more afraid of him when he scorns
me thus than when his face is upon me. Let him lead an assault upon the
walls, and I will split his headpiece if I may; but I will never again
try him unarmed.'

'Pouf!' said Saint-Pol; but he was of the same mind.

       *       *       *       *       *

Then came a day when Des Barres was out upon the neighbouring hills with
a company of knights, scouting. There had been rumours of hostile
movement from the South, from Provence and Roussillon; of a juncture of
Prince John, known to be in Gascony, with the Queen's brother of
Navarre. Nothing was known certainly, but Richard judged that John might
be tempted out. It was a bright cold day, cloudless, with a most bitter
north-east wind singing in the bents. Des Barres, sitting his horse on
the hill, blew upon his ungauntleted hand, then flacked it against his
side to drive the blood back. Surveying the field with a hunter's eye,
he saw King Richard ride out of the lines on his chestnut horse,
Mercadet with him, and (in a green cloak) Gaston of Béarn. Richard had a
red surcoat and a blown red plume in his cap. He carried no shield, and
by the ease with which he turned his body to look behind him, one hand
on the crupper, Des Barres was sure that he was not in mail.

'Folly of a fool!' he snorted to his neighbour, Savaric de Dreux: 'there
pricks our lord the King, as if to a party of hawks.'

'Wait,' said Savaric. 'Where away now?

'To bandy gibes with Saint-Pol, pardieu. Where else should he go at this
hour?'

'Saint-Pol will never do him a villainy,' said Savaric.

'No, no. But De Gurdun is there.'

'Wait now,' says Savaric again. 'Look, look! Who comes out of the
smoke?'

They could see the beleaguered tower perfectly, brown and warm-looking
in the sun; below it, still smoking, the village of Chaluz, a heap of
charred brickwork. They saw a man in clean white come creeping out of
the smoke, stooping at a run. He hid wherever he could behind the broken
wall, but always ran nearer, stooped and ran with bent body over his
bent knees. He worked his way thus, gradually nearer and nearer to the
tower; and Des Barres watched him anxiously.

'Some camp-thief making off--'

'Look, look!' cried Savaric. The white man had come out by the tower,
was now kneeling in the open; at the same moment a man slipped down a
rope from the tower-top. Before he had touched earth they saw the
kneeling man pull a bowstring to his ear and let fly. Next the fellow on
the rope, touching ground, ran fleetly forward and, springing on the
white-robed man, drove him to the earth. They saw the flash of a blade.

'That is strange warfare,' said Des Barres, greatly interested.

'There is warfare in heaven also,' said Savaric. 'See those two eagles.'
Two great birds were battling in the cold blue. Feathers fell idly, like
black snow-flakes; then one of the eagles heeled over, and down he
came.

But when they looked towards the tower again they saw a great commotion.
Men running, horses huddled together, one in red held up by one in
green. Then a riderless chestnut horse looked about him and neighed. Des
Barres gave a short cry. 'O God! They have shot King Richard between
them. Come, Savaric, we must go down.'

'Stop again,' said that other. 'Let us sweep up those assassins as we
go. There I see another thief in white.' Des Barres saw him too. 'Spur,
spur!' he called to his knights; 'follow me.' He got his line in motion,
they all galloped across the sunny slopes like a light cloud. But as
they drove forward the play was in progress; they saw it done, as it
were, in a scene. One white figure lay heaped upon the ground, another
was running by the wall towards him, furtively and bent, as the first
had come. The third actor, he of the tower, had not heard the runner,
but was still stooped over the man he had evidently killed, groping
probably for marks or papers upon him.

'Spur, spur!' cried Des Barres, and the line went rattling down. They
were not in time. The white runner was too quick for the killer of his
mate: he did, indeed, look round; but the other was upon him before he
could rise. There was a short tussle; the two rolled over and over. Then
the white-clad man got up, raised his fallen comrade, shouldered him,
and sped away into the smoke of Chaluz. When Des Barres and his friends
were within bowshot of the tower one man only was below it; and he lay
where he had been stabbed. The white-robed murderers, the living and
the dead, were lost in smoke. The King and his party were gone. Out of
the tower came Saint-Pol with his men, unarmed, bareheaded, and waited
silently in rank for Des Barres.

This one came up at a gallop. 'My prisoner, Count of Saint-Pol,' he
called out as he came; then halted his line by throwing up his hand.

'The King has been shot, Sir Guilhem,' Saint-Pol said gravely; 'not by
me. I am the King's prisoner. Take me to him, lest he die before I see
his eyes.'

'Who is that dead man of yours over there?' asked Des Barres.

'His name is Sieur Gilles de Gurdun, a knight of Normandy and enemy of
the King's, but dead (if dead he be) on the King's account. He killed
the assassin.'

'I know that very well,' says Des Barres, 'for I saw the deed, which was
a good one. I must hunt for those white-gowns. Who might they be?'

'I know nothing of them. They are no men of mine. Their robes were all
white, their faces all dark, and they ran like Turks. But what can Turks
do here?'

'They must be found,' said Des Barres, and sent out Savaric with half of
his men.

They picked up Gilles, quite dead of two wounds, one in the back of the
neck, another below the heart. Des Barres put him over his saddlebow;
then took his prisoners into camp.

King Richard had been carried to his pavilion and put to bed. His
physicians were with him, and the Abbot Milo, quite unmanned. Gaston of
Béarn was crying like a girl at the door. The Earl of Leicester had
ridden off for the Queen, Yvo Tibetot for the Count of Mortain. Des
Barres learned that they had pulled out the arrow, a common one of
Genoese make, but feared poison. King Richard had been shot in the right
lung.




CHAPTER XVII

THE KEENING


In the wan hours left to him came three women, one after another, and
spoke the truth so far as they knew it each.

The first was Alois of France in the habit of a grey lady of
Fontevrault, with a face more dead than her cowl, and hair like wet
weed, but in her hollow eyes the fire of her mystery; who said to the
watchers by the door: 'Let me in. I am the voice of old sorrow.' So they
held back the curtains of the tent, and she came shuffling forward to
the long body on the bed. At the sound of her skirts the King turned his
altered face her way, then rolled his head back to the dark.

'Take her away,' he said in a whisper; so Des Barres stood up between
him and the woman.

But Alois put her hands out, as a blind man does.

'Soul's health, Des Barres; I purge old sins. Avoid, all of you,' she
said, 'and leave me with him. Save only his confessor. What I have to
say must be said in secret, as it was done secretly.'

Richard sighed. 'Let her stay; and let Milo stay,' he said. The rest
went out on tip-toe. Alois came and knelt at the head of the bed.

'Listen now, Richard,' said she; 'for thy last hour is near, and mine
also. Twice over I have sought to tell thee, but was denied. Each time
I might have done thee a service; now I will do thee good service. Thou
art not guilty of thy father's death, nor he of my despair.'

The King did not turn his head, but looked up sideways, so that she saw
his eye shining. His lips moved, then stuck together; so Milo put a
sponge with wine upon them. Then he whispered, 'Tell me, Alois, who was
guilty with thee?'

She said, 'Thy brother John of Mortain was that man. A villain is he.'

A moaning sigh escaped the King, long-drawn, shuddering, very piteous.
'Eh, Alois, Alois! Which of us four was not a villain?'

Said Alois, 'What is past is past, and I have told thee. What is to come
I cannot tell thee, for the past swallows me up. Yet I say again, thy
brother John is a sick villain, a secret villain, and a thief.'

'God help him, God judge him,' said Richard with another sigh. 'I can do
neither, nor will not.' He moaned again, but so hopelessly, as being so
weary and fordone, that Abbot Milo began to blubber out loud. Alois
lifted up her drawn face, and struck her breast.

'Ah, would to God, Richard,' she cried, 'would to God I had come to thee
clean! I had saved thee then from this most bitter death. For if I love
thee now, judge how I had loved thee then.'

He said, with shut eyes, 'None could love me long, since none could
trust me, and not I myself.' Then he said fretfully to the abbot, 'Take
her away, Milo; I am tired.'

Alois, kneeling, kissed his dry forehead. 'Farewell,' she said, 'King
Richard, most a king when most in bonds, and most merciful when most in
need of mercy. My work is done. Remains to pray and prepare.' She went
out noiselessly, as she had come in, and no man of them saw her again.

       *       *       *       *       *

Next came Queen Berengère, about the time of sunset. She came stiffly,
as if holding herself in a trap, with much formal bowing to Death; quite
white, like ivory, in a black robe; in her hands a great crucifix. At
the door she paused for a minute, the Earl of Leicester being with her.

'Grief is quick in me, Leicester,' she said; then to the ushers of the
door, 'Does he live? Will he know me? Does he wake? Does he not cry for
me now?'

'Madame, the King sleeps,' they told her.

'I go to pray for him,' said the Queen, and went in.

Stiffly she knelt at his bedhead, and with both hands held up the
crucifix to her face. She began to talk to it in a low worn voice, as
though she were asking the Christ to reckon her misery.

'Thou Christ,' she complained, 'Thou Christ, look upon me, the daughter
of a king, crucified terribly with Thee. This dying man is the King my
husband, who denied me as Thou, Christ, wert denied; who sought to put
me by, and yet is loved. Yet I love him, Christ; yet I have worked for
him against my honour, holding it as cheap as he did. When he was in
prison I humbled myself to set him loose; when he was loosed I held his
enemies back, while he, cruelly, held me back. I have prayed for him,
and pray now, while he lies there, struck secretly, and dies not knowing
me; and leaves me alone, careless whether I live or die. Ah, Saviour of
the world, do I suffer or not?'

She awoke the sick man, who opened his eyes and stared about him. He
signed to Milo to draw nigh, which the snuffling old man did.

'Who is here?' he whispered. 'Not--?'

'No, no, dearest lord,' said Milo quickly. 'But the Queen is here.'

'Ah,' said he, 'poor wretch!' And he sighed. Then he said, 'Turn me
over, Milo.' It was done, with a flux of blood to the mouth. They stayed
that and brought him round with aqua vitæ.

The Queen was terribly moved to see his ravaged face. No doubt she loved
him. But she had nothing to say. For some time their eyes were fixed,
each on the other; the Queen's misty, the King's fever-bright, terribly
searching, terribly intelligent. He read her soul.

'Madame,' he said, but she could scarcely hear him, 'I have done you
great wrong, yet greater wrong elsewhere. I cannot die in comfort
without your pardon; but I cannot ask it of you, for if I still had
years to live, I should do as I have done.' A sob of injury shook the
Queen.

'Richard! Richard! Richard!' she wailed, 'I suffer! You have my heart;
you have always had it. And what have I? Nothing, O God! Nothing at
all.'

'Madame,' said he, 'the wrong I did you was that I gave you the right to
anything. That was the first and greatest wrong. To give it you I
thieved, and in taking it again I thieved again. God knoweth--' He shut
his eyes, and kept them shut. She called to him more urgently, 'Richard,
Richard!' but he made no answer, and appeared to sleep. The Queen
shivered and sniffed, turned to her Christ, and so spent the night.

       *       *       *       *       *

The last to come was Jehane in a white gown; and she came with the dawn.
Eager and flushed she was, with dawn-colour in her face; and stepped
lightly over the dewy grass, her lips parted and hair blown back. She
came in exalted with grief, so that no wardens of the door, nor queens,
nor college of queens, could have stayed her. She was as tall as any
there, and went past the guard at the door without question or word
said, and so lightly and fiercely to the bed. There she stood, dilating
and glowing, looking not back on her spent life, but on to the glory of
the dying.

The Queen knew that she was there, but went on with her prayers, or
seemed to go on. Jehane knelt suddenly, put her arms out over Richard,
stooped and kissed his cheek. Then she looked up, desperately
triumphing, for any one to question her right. None did. Berengère
prayed incessantly, and Jehane panted. The words broke from her at last.
'Dost thou question my right, Berengère,' she said fiercely, 'to kiss a
dead man, to love the dead and speak greatly of the dead? Which of us
three women, thinkest thou, knoweth best what report to make concerning
this beloved, thou, or Alois, or I? Alois came, speaking of old sins;
and you are here, plaining of new sins: what shall I do, now I am here?
Am I to speak of sin to come? Thou dear knight,' and she touched his
head, 'there is no more room for thy great sins, alas! But I think thou
shalt leave behind thee some spark of a fire.' She looked again at
Berengère, who saw the glint of her green eyes and the old proud
discontent twisting her lip, but did nothing. 'Look, Berengère,' said
Jehane, 'I speak as mother of his child Fulke of Anjou. I had rather my
son Fulke sinned as his fathers have sinned, so that he sinned greatly
like them, than that he should grow pale, scheming safety in a cloister,
and make the Man in our Saviour ashamed of His choice. I had rather the
bad blood stay, so it stay great blood, than that it should be thin like
thine. What is there to fear, girl? A sword? I have had a sword in my
heart eight years, and made no sound. Let the son pierce what the father
pierced before. I am a lover, saying not to my beloved, "Stroke my
heart, dearest lord"; but instead, "Stab if thou wilt, my King, and let
me bleed for thee." So I have bled, sweet Lord Jesus, and so shall bleed
again!' She stooped and kissed his head, saying, 'Amen. Let the poor
bleed if the King ask.' The Queen went on praying; but Richard opened
his eyes without start or quiver, looked at Jehane leaning over him, and
smiled.

'Well, my girl, well,' he said, 'thou art in good time. What of the
lad?'

'He is here, Richard.'

'Bring him to me,' says the King. So Des Barres stole out to the Moslems
at the door, and came back leading Fulke by the hand, a slim, tall boy,
fair-haired, and frank in the face, with his father's delicate mouth and
bold grey eyes. Jehane turned to take him.

'This is thy father, boy.'

'I know it, ma'am,' says young Fulke, and knelt down by the bed. King
Richard put his hand on his head.

'What a rough pelt, Fulke,' he says, 'like thy father's. God send thee a
better inside to it, my boy. God make a man of thee.'

'He will never make me a great king, sire,' says Fulke.

'He can make thee better than that,' said his father.

'I think not,' answered Fulke. 'You are the greatest king in the whole
world, sire. The Old Man of Musse said it.'

'Kiss me, Fulke,' said Richard. The boy put his face up quickly and
kissed his father's lips. 'What a lover!' the King laughed; and Jehane
said, 'He always kisses on the lips.' Richard sighed, suddenly tired;
Fulke looked about, frightened at all the solemnity, and took his
mother's hand. She gave him over to Des Barres, who led him away.

The King signed to Jehane to bend down her head. So she did, and even
thus could barely hear him.

'I must die in peace if I can, sweet soul,' he muttered. They all saw
that the end was not far off. 'Tell me what will become of thee when I
am gone.' She stroked his cheek.

'I shall go back to my husband and children, dear one. I have left three
behind me, all sons.'

'Are they good to thee? Art thou happy?'

'I am at peace with myself, wife of a wise old man; I love my children,
and have the memory of thee, Richard. These will suffice me.'

'There is one more thing for thee to give me, my Jehane.' She smiled
pityingly.

'Why, what is left to give, Richard?' He said in her ear, 'Our boy
Fulke.'

'Ah,' said Jehane. The Queen was now watching her intently between her
hands.

'Jehane, Jehane,' said King Richard, sweating with the effort to be
heard, 'all our life together thou hast been giving and I spending, thou
miser that I might play the prodigal. For the last time I ask of thee:
deny me not. Wilt thou stay here with Fulke our son?'

Jehane could not speak; she shook her head, and showed him her eyes all
blind with tears. The tears came freely, from more eyes than hers.
Richard's head dropped back, and for a full minute they thought him
gone. But no. He opened his eyes again and moved his lips. They strained
to hear him. 'The sponge, the sponge,' he said: then, 'Bring me in
Saint-Pol.' The cold light began to steal in through the crannies of the
tent.

The young man was brought in by Des Barres, in chains. Jehane, now
behind Richard's head, lifted him up in her arms.

'Knock off those fetters,' says the King. Saint-Pol was free.

'Eustace,' says Richard, 'you and I have bandied hard words enough, and
blows enough. My chains will be off before sunrise, and yours are off
already. Answer me, is Gurdun dead?'

Saint-Pol dropped to his knees. 'Oh, my lord, he died where he fell. But
as God knows, he had no hand in this, nor had I.'

'If I know it, I suppose God knows it too,' said Richard, smiling rather
thinly. 'Now, Eustace, I have a word to say. I have done much against
your name; to your brother because he spoke against a great lady and ill
of my house; to your sister here, because I loved her not well enough
and myself too well. Eustace, you shall kiss her before I go.'

Saint-Pol got up and went to her. Brother and sister kissed each other
above the King's head. Then said Richard, 'Now I will tell you that I
had nothing to do with the death of your cousin Montferrat.'

'Oh, sire! oh, sire!' cried Saint-Pol; but Jehane looked at her brother.

'I had to do with that, Eustace,' she said. 'He laid the death of the
King, and I laid his death at the price of my marriage. He deserved it.'

'Sister,' said Saint-Pol, 'he did deserve it; and I deserve what he had.
Oh, sire,' he urged with tears, 'take my life, as your right is, but
forgive me first.'

'What have I to forgive you, brother?' said Richard. 'Come, kiss me. We
were good friends in the old days.' Saint-Pol, with tears, kissed him.
Richard sat up.

'I require you now, Saint-Pol and Des Barres, that between you you
defend my son Fulke. Milo has the deeds of his lands of Cuigny. Bring
him up a good knight, and let him think gentlier of his father than that
father ever did of his. Will you do this? Make haste, make haste!'

The Queen broke in with a cry. 'Oh, sire! oh, sire! Is there nothing for
me? Madame!' she turned to Jehane and held her fast by the knees, 'have
pity, spare me a little, a very little work! O Christ! O Christ!'--she
rocked herself about--'Can I do nothing in the world for my King?'

Jehane stooped to take her up. 'Madame, watch over my little Fulke, when
his father is gone, and I am gone.' The Queen was crying bitterly.

'I will never leave him if you will trust me,' she began to say. Richard
put his band out. 'Let it be so. My lords, serve the Queen and me in
this matter.' The two lords bowed their heads, and the Queen tumbled to
her sobbed prayers again.

The King's eyes were almost gone; certainly he could not see out of
them. They understood his moving lips, 'A sponge, quick.'

Jehane brought it and wiped his mouth; she could not see either for
tears. He gave a strong movement, wrenched his head up from her arm,
then gave a great gasp, 'Christ! I am done!' There followed on this a
rush of blood which made all hearts stand still. They wiped it away. But
Jehane saw that with that hot blood had gone his spirit. She lifted high
her head and let them read the truth from her eyes. Then she put her
lips upon his, and so stayed, and felt him grow cold below her warmth.
The fire was out.

They buried him at Fontevrault as he had directed, at the feet of his
father. King John was there with the peers of England, Normandy, and
Anjou. The Queen was there; but not Alois (unless behind the grille),
and not King Philip, because he hated King John much worse than he ever
hated Richard. And Jehane was not there, nor Fulke of Anjou with his
governors, because they had another business to perform.

Not all of King Richard was buried there, where the great effigy still
marks the place of great dust. Jehane had his heart in a casket, and
with Fulke her son, Des Barres, her brother Saint-Pol, Gaston of Béarn,
and the Abbot Milo, took it to the church of Rouen and saw it laid among
the dead Dukes of Normandy; fitting sepulture for a heart as bold as any
of theirs, and capable of more gentle music when the fine hand plucked
the chords. After this Jehane kissed Fulke and left him with the Queen,
his uncle, and Guilhem des Barres. Then she went back to her ship.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the white palace in the green valley of Lebanon the Old Man of Musse
embraced his wife. 'Moon of my soul, my Garden, my Treasure-house!' he
called her, and kissed her all over.

'The King died in peace, my lord,' she said, 'and I have peace because
of that.'

'Thy children shall call thee blessed, my beloved, as I call thee.'

'The prophecy of the leper was not fulfilled, sir,' says Jehane.

Ah,' replied the Old Man of Musse, all these things are in the hands of
the Supreme Disposer, Who with His forefinger points us the determined
road.'

Then Jehane went in to her children, and other duties which her station
required of her.




EPILOGUE OF THE ABBOT MILO


'When I consider,' writes the Abbot Milo on his last page, 'that I have
lived to see the deaths of three Kings of England, wearers of the
broom-switch, and of the manner of those deaths, I am led to admire the
wonderful ordering of Almighty God, Who accorded to each of them an end
illustrative of his doings in the world, and so wrote, as it were, in
blood for our learning. King Henry produced strife, King Richard induced
strife, and King John deduced it. King Henry died cursing and accursed;
King Richard forgiving and forgiven; King John blaspheming, and not held
worthy of reproof. The first did evil, meaning evilly; the second evil,
meaning well; the third was evil. So the first was wretched in death,
the second pitiful, the third shameful. The first loved a few, the
second loved one, the third none. So the death of the first was gain to
a few, that of the second to one, that of the third to none; for he that
loves not, neither can he hate: he is negligible in the end. But observe
now, the chief woe of these kings of the House of Anjou was that they
hurt whom they loved more than whom they hated.

'King Henry was a great prince, who did evil to many both in his life
and death. My dear master, lord, and friend might have been a greater,
had not his head gone counter to his heart, his generosity not been
tripped up by his pride. So generous as he was, all the world might have
loved him, as one loved him; and yet so arrogant of mind that the very
largess he bestowed had a sting beneath it, as though he scorned to give
less to creatures that lacked so much. All his faults and most of his
griefs sprang from this rending apart of his nature. His heart cried
Yea! to a noble motion. Then came his haughty head to suggest trickery,
and bid him say Nay! to the heart's urgency.

'He was a religious man, a pious man, the hottest fighter with the
coolest judgment of any I have ever known; a great lover of one woman.
He might have been a happy man if she had been let have her way. But he
thwarted her, he played with her whole-heart love, blew hot and cold;
neither let her alone nor clove to her through all. So she had to pay.
And of him, my friend and king howsoever, I say from the bottom of my
soul, if his death did not benefit poor Jehane, then it is a happy thing
for a woman to go bleeding in the side. But I know that she was
fortunate in his death, and believe that he was also. For he had space
for reparation, died with his lovers about him, having been saved in
time from a great disgrace. And it is a very wise man who reports: _Illi
Mors gravis incubat, qui notus nimis omnibus, ignotus moritur sibi_. But
King Richard knew himself in those last keen hours, and (as we believe)
won forgiveness of God.

'God be good to him where he is! They say that when he died, that same
day his soul was solved from purgatorial fires (by reason, one may
suppose, of his glorious captaincy of the armies of the Cross), and he
drawn up to heaven in a flamy cloud. I know nothing certainly of this,
which was not revealed to me; but my prayer is that he may be now with
Hannibal and Judas Maccabæus and Charles the great Emperor; and by this
time of writing (if there be no offence in it) with Jehane to sit upon
his knee.

'UPON WHOSE TWO SOULS, JESU, HAVE MERCY!'


EXPLICIT