infamy?'
He rose. 'And yet, for all that, you love me.'
She could not find words with which to answer him at the first effort, but presently she said, quite simply, 'To see you lying in your coffin I would willingly give up my hope of heaven, for heaven can afford no sight more desirable.'
'You loved Alain.'
'I loved the husk of a man. You can never comprehend how utterly I loved him.'
Now I have to record of this great king a piece of magnanimity which bears the impress of more ancient times. 'That you love me is indisputable,' he said, 'and this I propose to demonstrate. You will observe that I am quite unarmed save for this dagger, which I now throw out of the window—' with the word it jangled in the courtyard below. 'I am in Troyes alone among some thousand Frenchmen, any one of whom would willingly give his life for the privilege of taking mine. You have but to sound the gong beside you, and in a few moments I shall be a dead man. Strike, then! for with me dies the English power in France. Strike, Katharine! if you see in me but the King of England.'
She was rigid; and his heart leapt when he saw it was because of terror.
'You came alone! You dared!'
He answered, with a wonderful smile, 'Proud spirit! how else might I conquer you?'
'You have not conquered!' Katharine lifted the baton beside the gong, poising it. God had granted her prayer—to save France. Now might the past and the ignominy of the past be merged in Judith's nobler guilt. But I must tell you that in the supreme hour, Destiny at her beck, her main desire was to slap the man for his childishness. Oh, he had no right thus to besot himself with adoration! This dejection at her feet of his high destiny awed her, and pricked her, too, with her inability to understand him. Angrily she flung away the baton. 'Go! ah, go!' she cried, as one strangling. 'There has been enough of bloodshed, and I must spare you, loathing you as I do, for I cannot with my own hand murder you.'
But the King was a kindly tyrant, crushing independence from his associates as lesser folk squeeze water from a sponge. 'I cannot go thus. Acknowledge me to be Alain, the man you love, or else strike upon the gong.'
'You are cruel!' she wailed, in her torture.
'Yes, I am cruel.'
Katharine raised straining arms above her head in a hard gesture of despair. 'You have conquered. You know that I love you. Oh, if I could find words to voice my shame, to shriek it in your face, I could better endure it! For I love you. Body and heart and soul I am your slave. Mine is the agony, for I love you! and presently I shall stand quite still and see little Frenchmen scramble about you as hounds leap about a stag, and afterward kill you. And after that I shall live! I preserve France, but after I have slain you, Henry, I must live. Mine is the agony, the enduring agony.' She stayed motionless for an interval. 'God, God! let me not fail!' Katharine breathed; and then: 'O fair sweet friend, I am about to commit a vile action, but it is for the sake of France that I love next to God. As Judith gave her body to Holofernes, I crucify my heart for France's welfare.' Very calmly she struck upon the gong.
If she could have found any reproach in his eyes during the ensuing silence, she could have borne it; but there was only love. And with all that, he smiled as one knowing the upshot of the matter.
A man-at-arms came into the room. 'Germain—' Katharine said, and then again, 'Germain—' She gave a swallowing motion and was silent. When she spoke it was with crisp distinctness. 'Germain, fetch a harp. Messire Alain here is about to play for me.'
At the man's departure she said: 'I am very pitiably weak. Need you have dragged my soul, too, in the dust? God heard my prayer, and you have forced me to deny His favor, as Peter denied Christ. My dear, be very kind to me, for I come to you naked of honor.' She fell at the King's feet, embracing his knees. 'My master, be very kind to me, for there remains only your love.'
He raised her to his breast. 'Love is enough,' he said.
Next day the English entered Troyes and in the cathedral church these two were betrothed. Henry was there magnificent in a curious suit of burnished armor; in place of his helmet-plume he wore a fox-brush ornamented with jewels, which unusual ornament afforded great matter of remark among the busy bodies of both armies.
The Epilogue
'Et je fais scavoir a tous lecteurs de ce Livret que les
chases que je dis avoir vues et sues sont enregistres icy, afin
que vous pouviez les regarder selon vostre ban sens, s'il vous
plaist.'
HERE IS APPENDED THE EPILOGUE THAT MESSIRE NICOLAS
DE CAEN MADE FOR THE BOOK WHICH CONTAINED THE
SOUL OF HIM; AND WHICH (IN CONSEQUENCE) HE MIGHT NOT
VIEW AS HE DID ANYTHING THAT CONVEYED ABOUT THIS
WORLD MERE FLESH AND BLOOD AND THE SOUL OF ANOTHER
PERSON.
Intrepidly depart, my little book, into the presence of that most illustrious lady who bade me compile you. Bow down before her judgment patiently. And if her sentence be that of death I counsel you to grieve not at what cannot be avoided.
But, if by any miracle that glorious, strong fortress of the weak consider it advisable, pass thence to every man who may desire to purchase you, and live out your little hour among these very credulous persons; and at your appointed season die and be forgotten. For thus only may you share your betters' fate, and be at one with those famed comedies of Greek Menander and all the poignant songs of Sappho.
Yet even in your brief existence you may chance to meet with those who will affirm that the stories you narrate are not verily true and erroneously protest too many assertions which are only fables. To these you will reply that I, your maker, was in my youth the quite unworthy servant of the most high and noble lady, Dame Jehane, and in this period, at and about her house of Havering-Bower, conversed in my own person with Dame Katharine, then happily remarried to a private gentleman of Wales; and so obtained the matter of the ninth story and of the tenth authentically. You will say also that Messire de Montbrison afforded me the main matter of the sixth and seventh stories; and that, moreover, I once journeyed to Caer Idion and talked for some two hours with Richard Holland (whom I found a very old and garrulous and cheery person), and got of him the matter of the eighth tale in this dizain, together with much information as concerns the sixth and the seventh. And you will add that the matter of the fourth and fifth tales was in every detail related to me by my most illustrious mistress, Madame Isabella of Portugal, who had it from her mother, an equally veracious and immaculate lady, and one that was in youth Dame Philippa's most dear associate. For the rest you must admit, unwillingly, the first three stories in this book to be a thought less solidly confirmed; although (as you will say) even in these I have not ever deviated from what was at odd times narrated to me by the aforementioned persons, and have always endeavored honestly to piece together that which they told me.
Also, my little book, you will encounter more malignant people who will jeer at you, and say that you and I have cheated them of your purchase-money. To these you will reply, with Plutarch,
