“I know,” she answered. “Give me water, Etienne.” She washed and bound the Prince’s head with a vinegar-soaked napkin. Ellinor sat upon the floor, the big man’s head upon her knee. “He will not die of this, for he is of strong person. Look you, Messire de Gâtinais, you and I are not strong. We are so fashioned that we can enjoy only the pleasant things of life. But this man can enjoy—enjoy, mark you—the commission of any act, however distasteful, if he think it to be his duty. There is the difference. I cannot fathom him. But it is now necessary that I become all which he loves—since he loves it—and that I be in thought and deed all which he desires. For I have heard the Tenson through.”
“You love him!” said de Gâtinais.
She glanced upward with a pitiable smile. “No, it is you whom I love, my Etienne. You cannot understand how at this very moment every fibre of me—heart, soul, and body—may be longing just to comfort you, and to give you all which you desire, my Etienne, and to make you happy, my handsome Etienne, at however dear a cost. No; you will never understand that. And since you may not understand, I merely bid you go and leave me with my husband.”
And then there fell between these two an infinite silence.
“Listen,” de Gâtinais said; “grant me some little credit for what I do. You are alone; the man is powerless. My fellows are within call. A word secures the Prince’s death; a word gets me you and Sicily. And I do not speak that word, for you are my lady as well as his, and your will is my one law.”
But there was no mercy in the girl, no more for him than for herself. The big head lay upon her breast; she caressed the gross hair of it ever so lightly. “These are tinsel oaths,” she crooned, as if rapt with incurious content; “these are the old empty protestations of all you strutting poets. A word gets you what you desire! Then why do you not speak that word? Why do you not speak many words, and become again as eloquent and as magnificent as you were when you contrived that adultery about which you were just now telling my husband?”
De Gâtinais raised clenched hands. “I am shamed,” he said; and then he said, “It is just.”
He left the room and presently rode away with his men. I say that, here at last, he had done a knightly deed, but she thought little of it, never raised her head as the troop clattered from Mauléon, with a lessening beat which lapsed now into the blunders of an aging fly who doddered about the window yonder.
She stayed thus, motionless, her meditations adrift in the future; and that which she foreread left her not all sorry nor profoundly glad, for living seemed by this, though scarcely the merry and colorful business which she had esteemed it, yet immeasurably the more worth while.
III
The Story of the Rattrap
“Leixant a part le stil dels trobados,
Dos grans dezigs ban combatut ma pensa,
Mas lo voler vers un seguir dispensa:
Yo l’vos publich, amar dretament vos.”
The third novel.—Meregrett of France, thinking to preserve a hoodwinked gentleman, annoys a spider; and by the grace of destiny the web of that cunning insect entraps a butterfly, a wasp, and then a god; who shatters it.
In the year of grace 1298, a little before Candlemas (thus Nicolas begins), came letters to the first King Edward of England from his kinsman and ambassador to France, Earl Edmund of Lancaster. It was perfectly apparent, the Earl wrote, that the French King meant to surrender to the Earl’s lord and brother neither the duchy of Guienne nor the Lady Blanch. This lady, I must tell you, was now affianced to King Edward, whose first wife, Dame Ellinor, had died eight years before this time.
The courier found Sire Edward at Ipswich, midway in celebration of his daughter’s marriage to the Count of Holland. The King read the letters through and began to laugh; and presently broke into a rage such as was possible (men whispered) only to the demon-tainted blood of Oriander’s descendants. Next day the keeper of the privy purse entered upon the household-books a considerable sum “to make good a large ruby and an emerald lost out of his coronet when the King’s Grace was pleased to throw it into the fire”; and upon the same day the King recalled Lancaster. The King then despatched yet another embassy into France to treat about Sire Edward’s marriage. This last embassy was headed by the Earl of Aquitaine: his lieutenant was Lord Pevensey, the King’s natural son by Hawise Bulmer.
The Earl got audience of the French King at Mezelais. Walking alone came this Earl of Aquitaine, with a large retinue, into the hall where the barons of France stood according to their rank; in unadorned russet were the big Earl and his attendants, but upon the scarlets and purples of the French lords many jewels shone: it was as though through a corridor of gayly painted sunlit glass that the grave Earl came to the dais where sat King Philippe.
The King had risen at close sight of the new envoy, and had gulped once or twice, and without speaking, had hurriedly waved his lords out of earshot. The King’s perturbation was very extraordinary.
“Fair cousin,” the Earl now said, without any prelude, “four years ago I was affianced to your sister, Dame Blanch. You stipulated that Gascony be given up to you in guaranty, as a settlement on any children I might have by that incomparable lady. I assented, and yielded you the province, upon the understanding, sworn to according to the faith of loyal kings, that within forty days you assign to me its seignory as your vassal.
