“But how can there be any magic in a goose-feather?”
“There is this magic, that, possessing it, King Helmas has faith in, and has stopped bothering about, himself.”
“Is not to bother about yourself the highest wisdom?”
“Oh, no! Oh, dear me, no! I merely said it is the highest of which man is capable.”
“But the sages and philosophers, sir, that had such fame in the old time, and made the maxims for you birds! Why, did King Solomon, for example, rise no higher than that?”
“Yes, yes, to be sure!” said the Zhar-Ptitza, sighing again, “now that was a sad error. The poor fellow was endowed with, just as an experiment, considerable wisdom. And it caused him to perceive that a man attains to actual contentment only when he is drunk or when he is engaged in occupations not very decorously described. So Sulieman-ben-Daoud gave over all the rest of his time to riotous living and to coeducational enterprises. It was logic, but it led to a most expensive seraglio and to a very unbecoming appearance, and virtually wrecked the man’s health. Yes, that was the upshot of one of you being endowed with actual wisdom, just as an experiment, to see what would come of it: so the experiment, of course, has never been repeated. But of living persons, I dare assert that you will find King Helmas appreciably freed from a thousand general delusions by his one delusion about himself.”
“Very well, then,” says Manuel. “I suspect a wilful paradox and a forced cynicism in much of what you have said, but I shall consult with King Helmas about human life and about the figure I have to make in the world.”
So they bid each other farewell, and the Zhar-Ptitza picked up his nest of cassia and sprigs of incense, and flew away with it: and as he rose in the air the Zhar-Ptitza cried, “Fine feathers make fine birds.”
“But that is not the true proverb, sir,” Manuel called up toward the resplendent creature, “and such perversions too, they tell me, are a mark of would-be cleverness.”
“So it may seem to you now, my lad, but time is a very transforming fairy. Therefore do you wait until you are older,” the bird replied, from on high, “and then you will know better than to doubt my cry or to repeat it.”
XII
Ice and Iron
Then came from oversea the Bishops of Ely and Lincoln, the prior of Hurle, and the Master of the Temple, asking that King Raymond send one of his daughters, with a suitable dowry, to be the King of England’s wife. “Very willingly,” says Raymond Bérenger; and told them they could have his third daughter Sancha, with a thousand marks.
“But, Father,” said Alianora, “Sancha is nothing but a child. A fine queen she would make!”
“Still, my dear,” replied King Raymond, “you are already bespoke.”
“I was not thinking about myself. I was thinking about Sancha’s true welfare.”
“Of course you were, my dear, and everybody knows the sisterly love you have for her.”
“The pert little mess is spoilt enough as it is, Heaven knows. And if things came to the pass that I had to stand up whenever Sancha came into the room, and to sit on a footstool while she lolled back in a chair the way Meregrett does, it would be the child’s ruin.”
Raymond Bérenger said: “Now certainly it will be hard on you to have two sisters that are queens, and with perhaps little Beatrice also marrying some king or another when her time comes, and you staying only a countess, who are the best-looking of the lot.”
“My father, I see what you would be at!” cried Alianora, aghast. “You think it is my duty to overcome my private inclinations, and to marry the King of England for ruthless and urgent political reasons!”
“I only said, my darling—”
“—For you have seen at once that I owe this great sacrifice to the future welfare of our beloved Provence. You have noted, with that keenness which nothing escapes, that with the aid of your wisdom and advice I would know very well how to manage this high King that is the master of no pocket handkerchief place like Provence but of England and of Ireland too.”
“Also, by rights, of Aquitaine and Anjou and Normandy, my precious. Still, I merely observed—”
“Oh, but believe me, I am not arguing with you, my dear father, for I know that you are much wiser than I,” says Alianora, bravely wiping away big tears from her lovely eyes.
“Have it your own way, then,” replied Raymond Bérenger, with outspread hands. “But what is to be done about you and Count Manuel here?”
The King looked toward the tapestry of Jephthah’s sacrifice, beside which Manuel sat, just then realtering the figure of the young man with the loving look of Alianora that Manuel had made because of the urgency of his geas, and could not seem to get exactly right.
“I am sure, Father, that Manuel also will be self-sacrificing and magnanimous and sensible about it.”
“Ah, yes! but what is to happen afterward? For anyone can see that you and this squinting long-legged lad are fathoms deep in love with each other.”
“I think that after I am married, Father, you or King Ferdinand or King Helmas can send Count Manuel into England on some embassy, and I am sure that he and I will always be true and dear friends without affording any handle to gossip.”
“Oho!” King Raymond said, “I perceive your drift, and it is toward a harbor that is the King of England’s affair, and not mine. My part is to go away now, so that you two may settle the details of that ambassadorship in which Dom Manuel is to be the vicar of so many kings.”
Raymond Bérenger took up his sceptre and departed, and
