Chivalry

constructed an agreeable fire. In its glow these two sat, eating bread and cheese.

But talk languished at the outset. The Queen had complained of an ague, and Messire Heleigh was sedately suggesting three spiders hung about the neck as an infallible corrective for this ailment, when Dame Alianora rose to her feet.

'Eh, my God!' she said; 'I am wearied of such ungracious aid! Not an inch of the way but you have been thinking of your filthy books and longing to be back at them! No; I except the moments when you were frightened into forgetfulness—first by Falmouth, then by the trooper. O Eternal Father! fraid of a single dirty soldier!'

'Indeed, I was very much afraid,' said Messire Heleigh, with perfect simplicity; 'timidus perire, madame.'

'You have not even the grace to be ashamed! Yet I am shamed, messire, that Osmund Heleigh should have become the book-muddled pedant you are. For I loved him—do you understand?—I loved young Osmund Heleigh.'

He also had risen in the firelight, and now its convulsive shadows marred two dogged faces. 'I think it best not to recall that boy and girl who are so long dead. And, frankly, madame and Queen, the merit of the business I have in hand is questionable. It is you who have set all England by the ears, and I am guiding you toward opportunities for further mischief. I must serve you. Understand, madame, that ancient folly in Provence yonder has nothing to do with the affair. Remember that I cry nihil ad Andromachen! I must serve you because you are a woman and helpless; yet I cannot forget that he who spares the wolf is the sheep's murderer. It would be better for all England if you were dead. Hey, your gorgeous follies, madame! Silver peacocks set with sapphires! Cloth of fine gold—'

'Would you have me go unclothed?' Dame Alianora demanded, pettishly.

'Not so,' Osmund retorted; 'again I say to you with Tertullian, 'Let women paint their eyes with the tints of chastity, insert into their ears the Word of God, tie the yoke of Christ about their necks, and adorn their whole person with the silk of sanctity and the damask of devotion.' And I say to you—'

But Dame Alianora was yawning quite frankly. 'You will say to me that I brought foreigners into England, that I misguided the King, that I stirred up strife between the King and his barons. Eh, my God! I am sufficiently familiar with the harangue. Yet listen, my Osmund: They sold me like a bullock to a man I had never seen. I found him a man of wax, and I remoulded him. They gave me England as a toy; I played with it. I was the Queen, the source of honor, the source of wealth—the trough, in effect, about which swine gathered. Never in all my English life, Osmund, has man or woman loved me; never in all my English life have I loved man or woman. Do you understand, my Osmund?—the Queen has many flatterers, but no friends. Not a friend in the world, my Osmund! And so the Queen makes the best of it and amuses herself.'

Somewhat he seemed to understand, for he answered without asperity:

'Mon bel esper, I do not find it anywhere in Holy Writ that God requires it of us to amuse ourselves; but upon many occasions we have been commanded to live righteously. We are tempted in divers and insidious ways. And we cry with the Psalmist, 'My strength is dried up like a potsherd.' But God intends this, since, until we have here demonstrated our valor upon Satan, we are manifestly unworthy to be enregistered in His army. The great Captain must be served by proven soldiers. We may be tempted, but we may not yield, O daughter of the South! we may not yield!' he cried, with an unheralded, odd wildness.

'Again you preach,' Dame Alianora said. 'That is a venerable truism.'

'Ho, madame,' he returned, 'is it on that account the less true?'

Pensively the Queen considered this. 'You are a good man, my Osmund,' she said at last, with a fine irrelevance, 'though you are very droll. Ohime! it is a pity that I was born a princess! Had it been possible for me to be your wife, I would have been a better woman. I shall sleep now and dream of that good and stupid and contented woman I might have been.' So presently these two slept in Chantrell Wood.

Followed four days of journeying. As Messer Dante had not yet surveyed Malebolge, they lacked a parallel for that which they encountered; their traverse discovered England razed, charred, and depopulate—picked bones of an island, a vast and absolute ruin about which passion-wasted men skulked like rats. They went without molestation; malice and death had journeyed on their road aforetime, as heralds, and had swept it clear.

At every trace of these hideous precessors Osmund Heleigh would say, 'By a day's ride I might have prevented this.' Or, 'By a day's ride I might have saved this woman.' Or, 'By two days' riding I might have fed this child.'

The Queen kept Spartan silence, but daily you saw the fine woman age. In their slow advance every inch of misery was thrust before her as for inspection; meticulously she observed and appraised her handiwork.

Bastling the royal army had recently sacked. There remained of this village the skeletons of two houses, and for the rest a jumble of bricks, rafters half-burned, many calcined fragments of humanity, and ashes. At Bastling, Messire Heleigh turned to the Queen toiling behind.

'Oh, madame!' he said, in a dry whisper, 'this was the home of so many men!'

'I burned it,' Dame Alianora replied. 'That man we passed just now I killed. Those other men and women— my folly killed them all. And little children, my Osmund! The hair like corn-floss, blood-dabbled!'

'Oh, madame!' he wailed, in the extremity of his pity.

For she stood with eyes shut, all gray. The Queen demanded: 'Why have they not slain me? Was there no man in England to strangle the proud wanton? Are you all cowards here?'

'Not cowards!' he cried. 'Your men and Leicester's ride about the world, and draw sword and slay and die for the right as they see it. And you for the right as ye see it. But I, madame! I! I, who sat snug at home spilling ink and trimming rose-bushes! God's world, madame, and I in it afraid to speak a word for Him! God's world, and a curmudgeon in it grudging God the life He gave!' The man flung out his soft hands and snarled: 'We are tempted in divers and insidious ways. But I, who rebuked you! behold, now, with how gross a snare was I entrapped!'

'I do not understand, my Osmund.'

'I was afraid, madame,' he returned, dully. 'Everywhere men fight and I am afraid to die.'

So they stood silent in the ruins of Bastling.

'Of a piece with our lives,' Dame Alianora said at last. 'All ruin, my Osmund.'

But Messire Heleigh threw back his head and laughed, new color in his face. 'Presently men will build here, my Queen. Presently, as in legend the Arabian bird, arises from these ashes a lordlier and more spacious town.'

Then they went forward. The next day Fate loosed upon them Gui Camoys, lord of Bozon, Foliot, and Thwenge, who, riding alone through Poges Copse, found there a man and a woman over their limited supper. The woman had thrown back her hood, and Camoys drew rein to stare at her. Lispingly he spoke the true court dialect.

'Ma belle,' said this Camoys, in friendly condescension, 'n'estez vous pas jongleurs?'

Dame Alianora smiled up at him. 'Ouais, messire; mon mary faict les chancons—' Here she paused, with dilatory caution, for Camoys had leaped from his horse, giving a great laugh.

'A prize! ho, an imperial prize!' Camoys shouted. 'A peasant woman with the Queen's face, who speaks French! And who, madame, is this? Have you by any chance brought pious Lewis from oversea? Have I bagged a brace of monarchs?'

Here was imminent danger, for Camoys had known the Queen some fifteen years. Messire Heleigh rose to his feet, his five days' beard glinting like hoar-frost as his mouth twitched.

'I am Osmund Heleigh, messire, younger brother to the Earl of Brudenel.'

'I have heard of you, I believe—the fellow who spoils parchment. This is odd company, however, Messire Osmund, for Brudenel's brother.'

'A gentleman must serve his Queen, messire. As Cicero very justly observes—'

'I am inclined to think that his political opinions are scarcely to our immediate purpose. This is a high matter, Messire Heleigh. To let the sorceress pass is, of course, out of the question; upon the other hand, I observe that you lack weapons of defence. Yet if you will have the kindness to assist me in unarming, your courtesy will place our commerce on more equal footing.'

Osmund had gone very white. 'I am no swordsman, messire—'

'Now, this is not handsome of you,' Camoys began. 'I warn you that people will speak harshly of us if we lose this opportunity of gaining honor. And besides, the woman will be burned. Plainly, you owe it to all three of us to fight.'