And of Maudelain’s face I cannot tell you. He made pretence to read the paper carefully, but his eyes roved, and he knew that he stood among wolves. The room was oddly shaped, with eight equal sides: the ceiling was of a light and brilliant blue, powdered with many golden stars, and the walls were hung with smart tapestries which commemorated the exploits of Theseus. “Then I am King,” this Maudelain said aloud, “of France and England, and Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine! I perceive that Heaven loves a jest.” He wheeled upon Gloucester and spoke with singular irrelevance, “And what is to be done with the present Queen?”
Again the Duke shrugged. “I had not thought of the dumb wench. We have many convents.”
Now Maudelain twisted the paper between his long, wet fingers and appeared to meditate.
“It would be advisable, your Grace,” observed the Earl of Derby, suavely, and breaking his silence for the first time, “that you yourself should wed Dame Anne, once the Apostolic See has granted the necessary dispensation. Treading too close upon the fighting requisite to bring about the dethronement and death of our nominal lord the so-called King, a war with Bohemia, which would be only too apt to follow this noble lady’s assassination, would be highly inconvenient, and, lacking that, we would have to pay back her dowry.”
Then these three princes rose and knelt before the priest; they were clad in long bright garments, and they glittered with gold and many jewels. He standing among them shuddered in his sombre robe. “Hail, King of England!” cried these three.
“Hail, ye that are my kinsmen!” he answered; “hail, ye that spring of an accursed race, as I! And woe to England for that hour wherein Manuel of Poictesme held traffic with the Sorceress of Provence, and the devil’s son begot an heir for England! Of ice and of lust and of hellfire are all we sprung; old records attest it; and fickle and cold and ravenous and without shame are all our race until the end. Of your brother’s dishonor ye make merchandise today, and today fratricide whispers me, and leers, and, Heaven help me! I attend. O God of Gods! wilt Thou dare bid a man live stainless, having aforetime filled his veins with such a venom? Then haro, will I cry from Thy deepest hell. … Oh, now let the adulterous Redeemer of Poictesme rejoice in his tall fires, to note that his descendants know of what wood to make a crutch! You are very wise, my kinsmen. Take your measures, messieurs who are my kinsmen! Though were I of any other race, with what expedition would I now kill you, I that recognize within me the strength to do it! Then would I slay you! without any animosity, would I slay you then, just as I would kill as many splendid snakes!”
He went away, laughing horribly. Gloucester drummed upon the table, his brows contracted. But the lean Duke said nothing; big York seemed to drowse; and Henry of Derby smiled as he sounded a gong for that scribe who would draw up the necessary letters. The Earl’s time was not yet come, but it was nearing.
In the antechamber the priest encountered two men-at-arms dragging a dead body from the castle. The Duke of Kent, Maudelain was informed, had taken a fancy to a peasant girl, and in remonstrance her misguided father had actually tugged at his Grace’s sleeve.
Maudelain went into the park of Windsor, where he walked for a long while alone. It was a fine day in the middle spring; and now he seemed to understand for the first time how fair was his England. For all England was his fief, held in vassalage to God and to no man alive, his heart now sang; allwhither his empire spread, opulent in grain and metal and every revenue of the earth, and in stalwart men (his chattels), and in strong orderly cities, where the windows would be adorned with scarlet hangings, and women (with golden hair and red lax lips) would presently admire as King Edward rode slowly by at the head of a resplendent retinue. And always the King would bow, graciously and without haste, to his shouting people. … He laughed to find himself already at rehearsal of the gesture.
It was strange, though, that in this glorious fief of his so many persons should, as yet, live day by day as cattle live, suspicious of all other moving things (with reason), and roused from their incurious and filthy apathy only when some glittering baron, like a resistless eagle, swept uncomfortably near as he passed on some by-errand of the more bright and windy upper-world. East and north they had gone yearly, for so many centuries, these dumb peasants, to fight out their master’s uncomprehended quarrel, and to manure with their carcasses the soil of France and of Scotland. Give these serfs a king, now, who (being absolute), might dare to deal in perfect equity with rich and poor, who with his advent would bring Peace into England as his bride, as Trygaeus did very anciently in Athens—“And then,” the priest paraphrased, “may England recover all the blessings she has lost, and everywhere the glitter of active steel will cease.” For everywhere men would crack a rustic jest or two, unhurriedly. Virid fields would heave brownly under their ploughs; they would find that with practice it was almost as easy to chuckle as it was to cringe.
Meanwhile on every side the nobles tyrannized in their degree, well clothed and nourished, but at bottom equally comfortless in condition. As illuminate by lightning Maudelain saw the many factions of his barons squabbling for gross pleasures, like wolves over a corpse, and blindly dealing death to one another to secure at least one more delicious gulp before that inevitable mangling by the teeth of some burlier colleague. The complete misery of England showed before Maudelain like a winter landscape. The thing was
