Chivalry

carcass. 'Felons, my Prince! You have slain some eight yards of felony which might have cheated the gallows had they got the Princess Ellinor safe to Burgos. Only two days ago this chalk-eyed fellow conveyed to her a letter.'

Prince Edward said, 'You appear, lad, to be somewhat over heels in the confidence of my wife.'

Now the boy arose and defiantly flung back his head in shrill laughter. 'Your wife! Oh, God ha' mercy! Your wife, and for ten years left to her own devices! Why, look you, to-day you and your wife would not know each other were you twain brought face to face.'

Prince Edward said, 'That is very near the truth.' But, indeed, it was the absolute truth, and as concerned himself already attested.

'Sire Edward,' the boy then said, 'your wife has wearied of this long waiting till you chose to whistle for her. Last summer the young Prince de Gatinais came a-wooing—and he is a handsome man.' The page made known all which de Gatinais and King Alphonso planned, the words jostling as they came in torrents, but so that one might understand. 'I am her page, my lord. I was to follow her. These fellows were to be my escort, were to ward off possible pursuit. Cry haro, beau sire! Cry haro, and lustily, for your wife in company with six other knaves is at large between here and Burgos—that unreasonable wife who grew dissatisfied after a mere ten years of neglect.'

'I have been remiss,' the Prince said, and one huge hand strained at his chin; 'yes, perhaps I have been remiss. Yet it had appeared to me— But as it is, I bid you mount, my lad!' he cried, in a new voice.

The boy demanded, 'And to what end?'

'Oy Dieus, messire! have I not slain your escort? Why, in common reason, equity demands that I afford you my protection so far as Burgos, messire, just as equity demands I on arrival slay de Gatinais and fetch back my wife to England.'

The page wrung exquisite hands with a gesture which was but partially tinged with anguish and presently began to laugh. Afterward these two rode southerly, in the direction of Castile.

For it appeared to the intriguing little woman a diverting jest that in this fashion her husband should be the promoter of her evasion. It appeared to her more diverting when in two days' space she had become genuinely fond of him. She found him rather slow of comprehension, and was namelessly humiliated by the discovery that not an eyelash of the man was irritated by his wife's decampment; he considered, to all appearances, that some property of his had been stolen, and he intended, quite without passion, to repossess himself of it, after, of course, punishing the thief.

This troubled the Princess somewhat; and often, riding by his more stolid side, the girl's heart raged at memory of the decade so newly overpast which had kept her always dependent on the charity of this or that ungracious patron—on any one who would take charge of her while the truant husband fought out his endless squabbles in England. Slights enough she had borne during the period, and squalor, and hunger even. But now at last she rode toward the dear southland; and presently she would be rid of this big man, when he had served her purpose; and afterward she meant to wheedle Alphonso, just as she had always done, and later still she and Etienne would be very happy; and, in fine, to-morrow was to be a new day.

So these two rode ever southward, and always Prince Edward found this new page of his—this Miguel de Rueda—a jolly lad, who whistled and sang inapposite snatches of balladry, without any formal ending or beginning, descanting always with the delicate irrelevancy of a bird-trill.

Sang Miguel de Rueda:

'Lord Love, that leads me day by day 
Through many a screened and scented way, 
Finds to assuage my thirst 
No love that may the old love slay, 
None sweeter than the first. 

'Ah, heart of mine, that beats so fast 
As this or that fair maid trips past, 
Once and with lesser stir 
We spied the heart's-desire, at last, 
And turned, and followed her.

'For Love had come that in the spring 
When all things woke to blossoming 
Was as a child that came 
Laughing, and filled with wondering, 
Nor knowing his own name—'

'And still I would prefer to think,' the big man interrupted, heavily, 'that Sicily is not the only allure. I would prefer to think my wife so beautiful— And yet, as I remember her, she was nothing extraordinary.'

The page a little tartly said that people might forget a deal within a decade.

For the Prince had quickly fathomed the meaning of the scheme hatched in Castile. 'When Manfred is driven out of Sicily they will give the throne to de Gatinais. He intends to get both a kingdom and a handsome wife by this neat affair. And in reason England must support my uncle against El Sabio. Why, my lad, I ride southward to prevent a war that would convulse half Europe.'

'You ride southward in the attempt to rob a miserable woman of her sole chance of happiness,' Miguel de Rueda estimated.

'That is undeniable, if she loves this thrifty Prince, as indeed I do not question my wife does. Yet is our happiness here a trivial matter, whereas war is a great disaster. You have not seen—as I have done, my little Miguel—a man viewing his death-wound with a face of stupid wonder?—a man about to die in his lord's quarrel and understanding never a word of it? Or a woman, say—a woman's twisted and naked body, the breasts yet horribly heaving, in the red ashes of some village? or the already dripping hoofs which will presently crush this body? Well, it is to prevent a many such spectacles hereabout that I ride southward.'

Miguel de Rueda shuddered. But, 'She has her right to happiness,' the page stubbornly said.

'Not so,' the Prince retorted; 'since it hath pleased the Emperor of Heaven to appoint us twain to lofty stations, to intrust to us the five talents of the parable; whence is our debt to Him, being fivefold, so much the greater than that of common persons. And therefore the more is it our sole right, being fivefold, to serve God without faltering, and therefore is our happiness, or our unhappiness, the more an inconsiderable matter. For as I have read in the Annals of the Romans—' He launched upon the story of King Pompey and his daughter, whom a certain duke regarded with impure and improper emotions. 'My little Miguel, that ancient king is our Heavenly Father, that only daughter is the rational soul of us, which is here delivered for protection to five soldiers—that is, to the five senses—to preserve it from the devil, the world, and the flesh. But, alas! the too-credulous soul, desirous of gazing upon the gaudy vapors of this world—'

'You whine like a canting friar,' the page complained; 'and I can assure you that the Lady Ellinor was prompted rather than hindered by her God-given faculties of sight and hearing and so on when she fell in love with de Gatinais. Of you two, he is, beyond any question, the handsomer and the more intelligent man, and it was God who bestowed on her sufficient wit to perceive the fact. And what am I to deduce from this?'

The Prince reflected. At last he said: 'I have also read in these same Gestes how Seneca mentions that in poisoned bodies, on account of the malignancy and the coldness of the poison, no worm will engender; but if the body be smitten by lightning, in a few days the carcass will abound with vermin. My little Miguel, both men and women are at birth empoisoned by sin, and then they produce no worm—that is, no virtue; but struck with lightning—that is, by the grace of God—they are astonishingly fruitful in good works.'

The page began to laugh. 'You are hopelessly absurd, my Prince, though you will never know it—and I hate you a little—and I envy you a great deal.'

'Nay,' Prince Edward said, in misapprehension, for the man was never quick-witted—'nay, it is not for my own