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 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, like herded sheep, so that in the outcome their carcasses might manure the soil of France yonder or of more barren 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. The vivid fields would blacken under their sluggish ploughs, and 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 him like a winter landscape. The thing was questionless. He must tread henceforward without fear among frenzied beasts, and to their ultimate welfare. On a sudden Maudelain knew himself to be strong and admirable throughout, and hesitancy ebbed.
True, Richard, poor fool, must die. Squarely the priest faced that stark and hideous circumstance; to spare Richard was beyond his power, and the boy was his brother; yes, this oncoming king would be in effect a fratricide, and after death irrevocably damned. To burn, and eternally to burn, and, worst of all, to know that the torment was eternal! ay, it would be hard; but, at the cost of one ignoble life and one inconsiderable soul, to win so many men to manhood bedazzled his every faculty, in anticipation of the exploit.
The tale tells that Maudelain went toward the little garden he knew so well which adjoined Dame Anne's apartments. He found the Queen there, alone, as nowadays she was for the most part, and he paused to wonder at her bright and singular beauty. How vaguely odd it was, he reflected, too, how alien in its effect to that of any other woman in sturdy England, and how associable it was, somehow, with every wild and gracious denizen of the woods which blossomed yonder.
In this place the world was all sunlight, temperate but undiluted. They had met in a wide, unshaded plot of grass, too short to ripple, which everywhere glowed steadily, like a gem. Right and left birds sang as in a contest. The sky was cloudless, a faint and radiant blue throughout, save where the sun stayed as yet in the zenith, so that the Queen's brows cast honey-colored shadows upon either cheek. The priest was greatly troubled by the proud and heatless brilliancies, the shrill joys, of every object within the radius of his senses.
She was splendidly clothed, in a kirtle of very bright green, tinted like the verdancy of young ferns in sunlight, and over all a gown of white, cut open on either side as far as the hips. This garment was embroidered with golden leopards and trimmed with ermine. About her yellow hair was a chaplet of gold, wherein emeralds glowed. Her blue eyes were as large and bright and changeable (he thought) as two oceans in midsummer; and Maudelain stood motionless and seemed to himself but to revere, as the Earl Ixion did, some bright and never stable wisp of cloud, while somehow all elation departed from him as water does from a wetted sponge compressed. He laughed discordantly; but within the moment his sun-lit face was still and glorious, like that of an image.
'Wait—! O my only friend—!' said Maudelain. Then in a level voice he told her all, unhurriedly and without any sensible emotion.
She had breathed once, with an aweful inhalation. She had screened her countenance from his gaze what while you might have counted fifty. More lately the lithe body of Dame Anne was alert, as one suddenly aroused from dreaming. 'This means more war, for de Vere and Tressilian and de la Pole and Bramber and others of the barons know that the King's fall signifies their ruin. Many thousands die to-morrow.'
He answered, 'It means a brief and cruel war.'
'In that war the nobles will ride abroad with banners and gay surcoats, and kill and ravish in the pauses of their songs; while daily in that war the naked peasants will kill the one the other, without knowing why.'
His thought had forerun hers. 'Many would die, but in the end I would be King, and the general happiness would rest at my disposal. The adventure of this world is wonderful, and it goes otherwise than under the strict tutelage of reason.'
'Not yours, but Gloucester's and his barons'. Friend, they would set you on the throne to be their puppet and to move only as they pulled the strings. Thwart them and they will fling you aside, as the barons have dealt aforetime with every king that dared oppose them. Nay, they desire to live pleasantly, to have fish o' Fridays, and white bread and the finest wine the whole year through, and there is not enough for all, say they. Can you alone contend against them? and conquer them? then only do I bid you reign.'
The sun had grown too bright, too merciless, but as always she drew the truth from him, even to his agony. 'I cannot. I would not endure a fortnight. Heaven help us, nor you nor I nor any one may transform of any personal force this bitter time, this piercing, cruel day of frost and sun. Charity and Truth are excommunicate, and the King is only an adorned and fearful person who leads wolves toward their quarry, lest, lacking it, they turn and devour him. Everywhere the powerful labor to put one another out of worship, and each to stand the higher with the other's corpse as his pedestal; and always Lechery and Hatred sway these proud and inconsiderate fools as winds blow at will the gay leaves of autumn. We but fight with gaudy shadows, we but aspire to overpass a mountain of unstable sand! We two alone of all the scuffling world! Oh, it is horrible, and I think that Satan plans the jest! We dream a while of refashioning this bleak universe, and we know that we alone can do it! and we are as demigods, you and I, in those gallant dreams! and at the end we can but poultice some dirty rascal!'
The Queen answered sadly: 'Once did God tread the tangible world, for a very little while, and, look you, to what trivial matters He devoted that brief space! Only to chat with fishermen, and to reason with lost women, and habitually to consort with rascals, till at last He might die between two cutpurses, ignominiously! Were the considerate persons of His day moved at all by the death of this fanatic? I bid you now enumerate through what long halls did the sleek heralds proclaim His crucifixion! and the armament of great-jowled emperors that were distraught by it?'
He answered: 'It is true. Of anise even and of cumin the Master estimates His tithe—' Maudelain broke off with a yapping laugh. 'Puf! He is wiser than we. I am King of England. It is my heritage.'
'It means war. Many will die, many thousands will die, and to no betterment of affairs.'
'I am King of England. I am Heaven's satrap here, and answerable to Heaven alone. It is my heritage.' And now his large and cruel eyes flamed as he regarded her.
And visibly beneath their glare the woman changed. 'My friend, must I not love you any longer? You would be content with happiness? I am jealous of that happiness! for you are the one friend that I have had, and so dear to me— Look you!' she said, with a light, wistful laugh, 'there have been times when I was afraid of everything you touched, and I hated everything you looked at. I would not have you stained; I desired but to pass my whole life between the four walls of some dingy and eternal gaol, forever alone with you, lest you become as other men. I would in that period have been the very bread you eat, the least perfume which delights you, the clod you touch in crushing it, and often I have loathed some pleasure I derived from life because I might not transfer it to you undiminished. For I wanted somehow to make you happy to my own anguish.... It was wicked, I suppose, for the imagining of it made me happy, too.'
Throughout she spoke as simply as a child.
And beside him Maudelain's hands had fallen like so much lead, and remembering his own nature, he longed for annihilation only, before she had appraised his vileness. In consequence he said:
'With reason Augustine crieth out against the lust of the eyes. 'For pleasure seeketh objects beautiful, melodious, fragrant, savory, and soft; but this disease those contrary as well, not for the sake of suffering annoyance, but out of the lust of making trial of them!' Ah! ah! too curiously I planned my own damnation, too presumptuously I had esteemed my soul a worthy scapegoat, and I had gilded my enormity with many lies. Yet indeed, indeed, I had believed brave things, I had planned a not ignoble bargain—! Ey, say, is it not laughable, madame?—as my birthright Heaven accords me a penny, and with that only penny I must anon be seeking to bribe Heaven.'
Presently he said: 'Yet are we indeed God's satraps, as but now I cried in my vainglory, and we hold within our palms the destiny of many peoples. Depardieux! He is wiser than we are, it may be! And as always Satan offers no unhandsome bribes—bribes that are tangible and sure.'
