It was on the following day, near Bazas, these two encountered Adam de Gourdon, a Provencal knight, with whom the Prince fought for a long while, without either contestant giving way; and in consequence a rendezvous was fixed for the November of that year, and afterward the Prince and de Gourdon parted, highly pleased with each other.
Thus the Prince and his attendant came, in late September, to Mauleon, on the Castilian frontier, and dined there at the
Yes, the fellow informed them: the Prince de Gatinais had lodged there for a whole week, watching the north road, as circumspect of all passage as a cat over a mouse-hole. Eh, monseigneur expected some one, doubtless—a lady, it might be—the gentlefolk had their escapades like every one else. The innkeeper babbled vaguely, for on a sudden he was very much afraid of his gigantic patron.
'You will show me to his room,' Prince Edward said, with a politeness that was ingratiating.
The host shuddered and obeyed.
Miguel de Rueda, left alone, sat quite silent, his fingertips drumming upon the table. He rose suddenly and flung back his shoulders, all resolution to the tiny heels. On the stairway he passed the black little landlord.
'I think,' the little landlord considered, 'that Saint Michael must have been of similar appearance when he went to meet the Evil One. Ho, messire, will there be bloodshed?'
But Miguel de Rueda had passed to the room above. The door was ajar. He paused there.
De Gatinais had risen from his dinner and stood facing the door. He, too, was a blond man and the comeliest of his day. And at sight of him awoke in the woman's heart all of the old tenderness; handsome and brave and witty she knew him to be, past reason, as indeed the whole world knew him to be distinguished by every namable grace; and the innate weakness of de Gatinais, which she alone suspected, made him now seem doubly dear. Fiercely she wanted to shield him, less from carnal injury than from that self-degradation she cloudily apprehended to be at hand; the test was come, and Etienne would fail. Thus much she knew with a sick, illimitable surety, and she loved de Gatinais with a passion which dwarfed comprehension.
'O Madame the Virgin!' prayed Miguel de Rueda, 'thou that wast once a woman, even as I am now a woman! grant that the man may slay him quickly! grant that he may slay Etienne very quickly, honored Lady, so that my Etienne may die unshamed!'
'I must question, messire,' de Gatinais was saying, 'whether you have been well inspired. Yes, quite frankly, I do await the arrival of her who is your nominal wife; and your intervention at this late stage, I take it, can have no outcome save to render you absurd. Nay, rather be advised by me, messire—'
Prince Edward said, 'I am not here to talk.'
'For, messire, I grant you that in ordinary disputation the cutting of one gentleman's throat by another gentleman is well enough, since the argument is unanswerable. Yet in this case we have each of us too much to live for; you to govern your reconquered England, and I—you perceive that I am candid—to achieve in turn the kingship of another realm. And to secure this, possession of the Lady Ellinor is to me essential; to you she is nothing.'
'She is a woman whom I have deeply wronged,' Prince Edward said, 'and to whom, God willing, I mean to make atonement. Ten years ago they wedded us, willy-nilly, to avert the impending war 'twixt Spain and England; to-day El Sabio intends to purchase all Germany, with her body as the price, you to get Sicily as her husband. Mort de Dieu! is a woman thus to be bought and sold like hog's-flesh! We have other and cleaner customs, we of England.'
'Eh, and who purchased the woman first?' de Gatinais spat at him, and viciously, for the Frenchman now saw his air-castle shaken to the corner-stone.
'They wedded me to the child in order a great war might be averted. I acquiesced, since it appeared preferable that two people suffer inconvenience rather than many thousands be slain. And still this is my view of the matter. Yet afterward I failed her. Love had no clause in our agreement; but I owed her more protection than I have afforded. England has long been no place for women. I thought she would comprehend that much. But I know very little of women. Battle and death are more wholesome companions, I now perceive, than such folk as you and Alphonso. Woman is the weaker vessel—the negligence was mine—I may not blame her.' The big and simple man was in an agony of repentance.
On a sudden he strode forward, his sword now shifted to his left hand and his right hand outstretched. 'One and all, we are but weaklings in the net of circumstance. Shall one herring, then, blame his fellow if his fellow jostle him? We walk as in a mist of error, and Belial is fertile in allurements; yet always it is granted us to behold that sin is sin. I have perhaps sinned through anger, Messire de Gatinais, more deeply than you have planned to sin through luxury and through ambition. Let us then cry quits, Messire de Gatinais, and afterward part in peace, and in common repentance, if you so elect.'
'And yield you Ellinor?' de Gatinais said. 'Nay, messire, I reply to you with Arnaud de Marveil, that marvellous singer of eld, 'They may bear her from my presence, but they can never untie the knot which unites my heart to her; for that heart, so tender and so constant, God alone divides with my lady, and the portion which God possesses He holds but as a part of her domain, and as her vassal.''
'This is blasphemy,' Prince Edward now retorted, 'and for such observations alone you merit death. Will you always talk and talk and talk? I perceive that the devil is far more subtle than you, messire, and leads you like a pig with a ring in his nose toward gross iniquity. Messire, I tell you that for your soul's health I doubly mean to kill you now. So let us make an end of this.'
De Gatinais turned and took up his sword. 'Since you will have it,' he rather regretfully said; 'yet I reiterate that you play an absurd part. Your wife has deserted you, has fled in abhorrence of you. For three weeks she has been tramping God knows whither or in what company—'
He was here interrupted. 'What the Lady Ellinor has done,' Prince Edward crisply said, 'was at my request. We were wedded at Burgos; it was most natural that we should desire our reunion to take place at Burgos; and she came to Burgos with an escort which I provided.'
De Gatinais sneered. 'So that is the tale you will deliver to the world?'
'When I have slain you,' the Prince said, 'yes. Yes, since she is a woman, and woman is the weaker vessel.'
'The reservation is wise. For once I am dead, Messire Edward, there will be none to know that you risk all for a drained goblet, for an orange already squeezed—quite dry, messire.'
'Face of God!' the Prince said.
But de Gatinais flung back both arms in a great gesture, so that he knocked a flask of claret from the table at his rear. 'I am candid, my Prince. I would not see any brave gentleman slain in a cause so foolish. And in consequence I kiss and tell. In effect, I was eloquent, I was magnificent—so that in the end her reserve was shattered like the wooden flask yonder at our feet. Is it worth while, think you, that our blood flow like this flagon's contents?'
