Chivalry

added, somewhat wistfully, 'that you might be afraid to die, O huge and righteous man! and would entreat me to spare you. To spurn the weeping conqueror of Llewellyn, say ... But these sins which damn one's soul are in actual performance very tedious affairs; and I begin to grow aweary of the game. He bien! now kill this man for me, messieurs.'

The English King strode forward. 'O shallow trickster!' Sire Edward thundered. 'Am I not afraid? You baby, would you ensnare a lion with a flimsy rat-trap? Not so; for it is the nature of a rat-trap, fair cousin, to ensnare not the beast which imperiously desires and takes in daylight, but the tinier and the filthier beast that covets and under darkness pilfers—as you and your seven skulkers!' The man was rather terrible; not a Frenchman within the hut but had drawn back a little.

'Listen!' Sire Edward said, and came yet farther toward the King of France and shook at him one forefinger; 'when you were in your cradle I was leading armies. When you were yet unbreeched I was lord of half Europe. For thirty years I have driven kings before me as Fierabras did. Am I, then, a person to be hoodwinked by the first big- bosomed huzzy that elects to waggle her fat shoulders and to grant an assignation in a forest expressively designed for stabbings? You baby, is the Hammer of the Scots the man to trust a Capet? Ill-mannered infant,' the King said, with bitter laughter, 'it is now necessary that I summon my attendants and remove you to a nursery which I have prepared in England.' He set the horn to his lips and blew three blasts.

There came many armed warriors into the hut, bearing ropes. Here was the entire retinue of the Earl of Aquitaine; and, cursing, Sire Philippe sprang upon the English King, and with a dagger smote at the impassive big man's heart. The blade broke against the mail armor under the tunic. 'Have I not told you,' Sire Edward wearily said, 'that one may never trust a Capet? Now, messieurs, bind these carrion and convey them whither I have directed you. Nay, but, Roger—' He conversed apart with his lieutenant, and what Sire Edward commanded was done. The French King and seven lords of France went from that hut trussed like chickens.

And now Sire Edward turned toward Meregrett and chafed his big hands gleefully. 'At every tree-bole a tethered horse awaits us; and a ship awaits our party at Fecamp. To-morrow we sleep in England—and, Mort de Dieu! do you not think, madame, that within the Tower your brother and I may more quickly come to some agreement over Guienne?'

She had shrunk from him. 'Then the trap was yours? It was you that lured my brother to this infamy!'

'I am vile!' was the man's thought. And, 'In effect, I planned it many months ago at Ipswich yonder,' Sire Edward gayly said. 'Faith of a gentleman! your brother has cheated me of Guienne, and was I to waste an eternity in begging him to restore it? Nay, for I have a many spies in France, and have for some two years known your brother and your sister to the bottom. Granted that I came hither incognito, to forecast your kinfolk's immediate endeavors was none too difficult; and I wanted Guienne—and, in consequence, the person of your brother. Mort de ma vie! Shall not the seasoned hunter adapt his snare aforetime to the qualities of his prey, and take the elephant through his curiosity, as the snake through his notorious treachery?' Now the King of England blustered.

But the little Princess wrung her hands. 'I am this night most hideously shamed. Beau sire, I came hither to aid a brave man infamously trapped, and instead I find an alert spider, snug in his cunning web, and patiently waiting until the gnats of France fly near enough. Eh, the greater fool was I to waste my labor on the shrewd and evil thing which has no more need of me than I of it! And now let me go hence, sire, and unmolested, for the sake of chivalry. Could I have come to you but as to the brave man I had dreamed of, I had come through the murkiest lane of hell; as the more artful knave, as the more judicious trickster'—and here she thrust him from her—'I spit upon you. Now let me go hence.'

He took her in his brawny arms. 'Fit mate for me,' he said. 'Little vixen, had you done otherwise I had devoted you to the devil.'

Anon, still grasping her, and victoriously lifting Dame Meregrett, so that her feet swung quite clear of the floor, Sire Edward said: 'Look you, in my time I have played against Fate for considerable stakes—for fortresses, and towns, and strong citadels, and for kingdoms even. And it was only to-night I perceived that the one stake worth playing for is love. It were easy enough to get you for my wife; but I want more than that.... Pschutt! I know well enough how women have these notions: and carefully I weighed the issue—Meregrett and Guienne to boot? or Meregrett and Meregrett's love to boot?—and thus the final destination of my captives was but the courtyard of Mezelais, in order I might come to you with hands—well! not intolerably soiled.'

'Oh, now I love you!' she cried, a-thrill with disappointment. 'Yet you have done wrong, for Guienne is a king's ransom.'

He smiled whimsically, and presently one arm swept beneath her knees, so that presently he held her as one dandles a baby; and presently his stiff and yellow beard caressed her burning cheek. Masterfully he said: 'Then let it serve as such and ransom for a king his glad and common manhood. Ah, m'amye, I am both very wise and abominably selfish. And in either capacity it appears expedient that I leave France without any unwholesome delay. More lately—he, already I have within my pocket the Pope's dispensation permitting me to marry the sister of the King of France, so that I dare to hope.'

Very shyly Dame Meregrett lifted her little mouth toward his hot and bearded lips. 'Patience,' she said, 'is a virtue; and daring is a virtue; and hope, too, is a virtue: and otherwise, beau sire, I would not live.'

And in consequence, after a deal of political tergiversation (Nicolas concludes), in the year of grace 1299, on the day of our Lady's nativity, and in the twenty-seventh year of King Edward's reign, came to the British realm, and landed at Dover, not Dame Blanch, as would have been in consonance with seasoned expectation, but Dame Meregrett, the other daughter of King Philippe the Bold; and upon the following day proceeded to Canterbury, whither on the next Thursday after came Edward, King of England, into the Church of the Trinity at Canterbury, and therein espoused the aforesaid Dame Meregrett.

THE END OF THE THIRD NOVEL

IV The Story of the Choices

'Sest fable es en aquest mon
Semblans al homes que i son;
Que el mager sen qu'om pot aver
So es amar Dieu et sa mer,
E gardar sos comendamens.'

THE FOURTH NOVEL.—YSABEAU OF FRANCE, DESIROUS OF

DISTRACTION, LOOKS FOR RECREATION IN THE TORMENT

OF A CERTAIN KNIGHT, WHOM SHE PROVES TO BE NO MORE

THAN HUMAN; BUT IN THE OUTCOME OF HER HOLIDAY

HE CONFOUNDS THIS QUEEN BY THE WIT OF HIS REPLY.

In the year of grace 1327 (thus Nicolas begins) you could have found in all England no lovers more ardent in affection or in despair more affluent than Rosamund Eastney and Sir Gregory Darrell. She was Lord Berners' only daughter, a brown beauty, and of extensive repute, thanks to such among her retinue of lovers as were practitioners of the Gay Science and had scattered broadcast innumerable Canzons in her honor; and Lord Berners was a man who accepted the world as he found it.

'Dompnedex!' the Earl was wont to say; 'in sincerity I am fond of Gregory Darrell, and if he chooses to make love to my daughter that is none of my affair. The eyes and the brain preserve a proverbial warfare, which is the source of all amenity, for without lady-service there would be no songs and tourneys, no measure and no good