Osmund had gone very white. "I am no swordsman, messire--"
"Now, this is not handsome of you," Camoys began. "I warn you thatpeople will speak harshly of us if we lose this opportunity of gaininghonor. And besides, the woman will be burned. Plainly, you owe it toall three of us to fight."
"--but I refer my cause to God. I am quite at your service."
"No, my Osmund!" Dame Alianora then cried. "It means your death."
He spread out his hands. "That is God's affair, madame."
"Are you not afraid?" she breathed.
"Of course I am afraid," said Messire Heleigh, irritably.
After that he unarmed Camoys, and presently they faced each other intheir tunics. So for the first time in the journey Osmund's longfalchion saw daylight. He had thrown away his dagger, as Camoys had none.
The combat was sufficiently curious. Camoys raised his left hand. "Sohelp me God and His saints, I have upon me neither bone, stone, norwitchcraft wherethrough the power and the word of God might be diminishedor the devil's power increased."
Osmund made similar oath. "Judge Thou this woman's cause!" he cried,likewise.
Then Gui Camoys shouted, as a herald might have done, "Laissez les aller,laissez les aller, laissez les aller, les bons combatants!" and warilyeach moved toward the other.
On a sudden Osmund attacked, desperately apprehensive of his owncowardice. Camoys lightly eluded him and slashed his undefended thigh,drawing much blood. Osmund gasped. He flung away his sword, and in theinstant catching Camoys under the arms, threw him to the ground. MessireHeleigh fell with his opponent, who in stumbling had lost his sword, andthus the two struggled unarmed, Osmund atop. But Camoys was the youngerman, and Osmund's strength was ebbing rapidly by reason of his wound.Now Camoys' tethered horse, rearing with nervousness, tumbled hismaster's flat-topped helmet into the road. Osmund caught it up and withit battered Camoys in the face, dealing severe blows.
"God!" Camoys cried, his face all blood.
"Do you acknowledge my quarrel just?" said Osmund, between horrid sobs.
"What choice have I?" said Gui Camoys, very sensibly.
So Osmund rose, blind with tears and shivering. The Queen bound up theirwounds as best she might, but Camoys was much dissatisfied.
"For reasons of His own, madame," he observed, "and doubtless forsufficient ones, God has singularly favored your cause. I am neither afool nor a pagan to question His decision, and you two may go your wayunhampered. But I have had my head broken with my own helmet, and this Iconsider to be a proceeding very little conducive toward enhancing myreputation. Of your courtesy, messire, I must entreat another meeting."
Osmund shrank as from a blow. Then, with a short laugh, he conceded thatthis was Camoys' right, and they fixed upon the following Saturday, withPoges Copse as the rendezvous.
"I would suggest that the combat be a outrance," Gui Camoys said, "inconsideration of the fact it was my own helmet. You must undoubtedly beaware, Messire Osmund, that such an affront is practically without anyparallel."
This, too, was agreed upon, and they bade one another farewell.
Then, after asking if they needed money, which was courteously declined,Gui Camoys rode away, and sang as he went. Osmund Heleigh remainedmotionless. He raised quivering hands to the sky.
"Thou hast judged!" he cried. "Thou hast judged, O puissant Emperor ofHeaven! Now pardon! Pardon us twain! Pardon for unjust stewards of Thygifts! Thou hast loaned this woman dominion over England, allinstruments to aid Thy cause, and this trust she has abused. Thou hastloaned me life and manhood, agility and wit and strength, all instrumentsto aid Thy cause. Talents in a napkin, O God! Repentant we cry to Thee.Pardon for unjust stewards! Pardon for the ungirt loin, for the serviceshirked, for all good deeds undone! Pardon and grace, O King of kings!"
Thus he prayed, while Gui Camoys sang, riding deeper into the tattered,yellowing forest. By an odd chance Camoys had lighted on that song madeby Thibaut of Champagne, beginning _Signor, saciez, ki or ne s'en ira_,and this he sang with a lilt gayer than the matter of it countenanced.Faintly there now came to them the sound of his singing, and they foundit, in the circumstances, ominously adapt.
Sang Camoys:
"_Et vos, par qui je n'oi onques aie, Descendez tuit en infer le par font._"
Dame Alianora shivered. "No, no!" she cried. "Is He less pitiful thanwe?"
They slept that night in Ousley Meadow, and the next afternoon camesafely to Bristol. You may learn elsewhere with what rejoicing the royalarmy welcomed the Queen's arrival, how courage quickened at sight of thegenerous virago. In the ebullition Messire Heleigh was submerged, andDame Alianora saw nothing more of him that day. Friday there werecounsels, requisitions, orders signed, a memorial despatched to PopeUrban, chief of all a letter (this in the Queen's hand throughout)privily conveyed to the Lady Maude de Mortemer--much sowing of a seed, infine, that eventually flowered victory. There was, however, no sign ofOsmund Heleigh, though by Dame Alianora's order he was sought.
On Saturday at seven in the morning he came to her lodging in completearmor. From the open helmet his wrinkled face, showing like a wizenednut in a shell, smiled upon her questionings.
"I go to fight Gui Camoys, madame and Queen."
Dame Alianora wrung her hands. "You go to your death."
He answered: "That is very likely. Therefore I am come to bid youfarewell."
The Queen stared at him for a while; on a sudden she broke into a curiousfit of deep but tearless sobbing.
"Mon bel esper," said Osmund Heleigh, very gently, "what is there in allthis worthy of your sorrow? The man will kill me; granted, for he is myjunior by some fifteen years, and in addition a skilled swordsman. Ifail to see that this is lamentable. Back to Longaville I cannot goafter recent happenings; there a rope's end awaits me. Here I must inany event shortly take to the sword, since a beleaguered army has verylittle need of ink-pots; and shortly I must be slain in some skirmish,dug under the ribs perhaps by a greasy fellow I have never seen. Iprefer a clean death at a gentleman's hands."
"It is I who bring about your death!" she wailed. "You gave me gallantservice, and I have requited you with death!"
"Indeed the debt is on the other side. The trivial services I renderedyou were such as any gentleman must render a woman in distress. Naughtelse have I afforded you, madame, save very anciently a Sestina. Ho, aSestina! And in return you have given me a Sestina of fairer make--aSestina of days, six days of life." His eyes were fervent now.
She kissed him on either cheek. "Farewell, my champion!"
"Ay, your champion. In the twilight of life old Osmund Heleigh ridesforth to defend the quarrel of Alianora of Provence. Reign wisely, myQueen, that hereafter men may not say I was slain in an evil cause. Donot shame my maiden venture."
"I will not shame you," the Queen proudly said; and then, with a changeof voice: "O my Osmund! My Osmund!"
He caught her by each wrist. "Hush!" he bade her, roughly; and stoodcrushing both her hands to his lips, with fierce staring. "Wife of myKing! wife of my King!" he babbled; and then flung her from him, crying,with a great lift of speech: "I have not failed you! Praise God, I havenot failed you!"
From her window she saw him ride away, a rich flush of glitter and color.In new armor with a smart emblazoned surcoat the lean pedant satconspicuously erect, though by this the fear of death had gripped him tothe marrow; and as he went he sang defiantly, taunting the weakness ofhis flesh.
Sang Osmund Heleigh:
"_Love sows, and lovers reap; and ye will see The loved eyes lighten, feel the loved lips cling Never again when in the grave ye be Incurious of your happiness in spring, And get no grace of Love there, whither he That bartered life for love no love may bring._"
So he rode away and thus out of our history. But in the evening GuiCamoys came into Bristol under a flag of truce, and behind him heaved alitter wherein lay Osmund Heleigh's body.
> "For the man was a brave one," Camoys said to the Queen, "and in thematter of the reparation he owed me acted very handsomely. It is fittingthat he should have honorable interment."
"That he shall not lack," the Queen said, and gently unclasped fromOsmund's neck the thin gold chain, now locketless. "There was a portraithere," she said; "the portrait of a woman whom he loved in his youth,Messire Camoys. And all his life it lay above his heart."
Camoys answered stiffly: "I imagine this same locket to have been theobject which Messire Heleigh flung into the river, shortly before webegan our combat. I do not rob the dead, madame."
"The act was very like him," the Queen said. "Messire Camoys, I thinkthat this day is a festival in heaven."
Afterward she set to work on requisitions in the King's name. But OsmundHeleigh she had interred at Ambresbury, commanding it to be written onhis tomb that he died in the Queen's cause.
How the same cause prospered (Nicolas concludes), how presently DameAlianora reigned again in England and with what wisdom, and how in theend this great Queen died a nun at Ambresbury and all England wepttherefor--this you may learn elsewhere. I have chosen to record six daysof a long and eventful life; and (as Messire Heleigh might have done) Isay modestly with him of old, _Majores majora sonent_. Nevertheless, Iassert that many a forest was once a pocketful of acorns.
THE END OF THE FIRST NOVEL
II
The Story of the Tenson
"_Plagues a Dieu ja la nueitz non falhis, Ni 'l mieus amicx lonc de mi no s partis, Ni la gayta jorn ni alba ne vis. Oy Dieus! oy Dieus! de l' alba tan tost ve!_"
THE SECOND NOVEL.--ELLINOR OF CASTILE, BEING ENAMORED OF A HANDSOME PERSON, IS IN HER FLIGHT FROM MARITAL OBLIGATIONS ASSISTED BY HER HUSBAND, AND IS IN THE END BY HIM CONVINCED OF THE RATIONALITY OF ALL ATTENDANT CIRCUMSTANCES.
The Story of the Tenson
In the year of grace 1265 (Nicolas begins), about the festival of SaintPeter _ad Vincula_, the Prince de Gatinais came to Burgos. Before thishe had lodged for three months in the district of Ponthieu; and theobject of his southern journey was to assure the tenth Alphonso, thenruling in Castile, that the latter's sister Ellinor, now resident atEntrechat, was beyond any reasonable doubt the transcendent lady whoseexistence old romancers had anticipated, however cloudily, when theyfabled in remote time concerning Queen Heleine of Sparta.
There was a postscript to his news, and a pregnant one. The world knewthat the King of Leon and Castile desired to be King of Germany aswell, and that at present a single vote in the Diet would decidebetween his claims and those of his competitor, Earl Richard ofCornwall. De Gatinais chaffered fairly; he had a vote, Alphonso had asister. So that, in effect--ohe, in effect, he made no question thathis Majesty understood!
The Astronomer twitched his beard and demanded if the fact that Ellinorhad been a married woman these ten years past was not an obstacle tothe plan which his fair cousin had proposed?
Here the Prince was accoutred cap-a-pie, and in consequence hauled outa paper. Dating from Viterbo, Clement, Bishop of Rome, servant to theservants of God, desirous of all health and apostolical blessing forhis well-beloved son in Christ, stated that a compact between a boy offifteen and a girl of ten was an affair of no particular moment; andthat in consideration of the covenanters never having clapped eyes uponeach other since the wedding-day--even had not the precontract ofmarriage between the groom's father and the bride's mother rendered aconsummation of the childish oath an obvious and a most heinousenormity--why, that, in a sentence, and for all his coy verbosity, thenew pontiff was perfectly amenable to reason.
So in a month it was settled. Alphonso would give his sister to deGatinais, and in exchange get the latter's vote; and Gui Foulques ofSabionetta--now Clement, fourth Pope to assume that name--would annulthe previous marriage, they planned, and in exchange get an armament toserve him against Manfred, the late and troublesome tyrant of Sicilyand Apulia. The scheme promised to each one of them that which he inparticular desired, and messengers were presently sent into Ponthieu.
It is now time we put aside these Castilian matters and speak of otherthings. In England, Prince Edward had fought, and won, a shrewd battleat Evesham; the barons' power was demolished, there would be no moreinternecine war; and spurred by the unaccustomed idleness, he began tothink of the foreign girl he had not seen since the day he wedded her.She would be a woman by this, and it was befitting that he claim hiswife. He rode with Hawise d'Ebernoe to Ambresbury, and at the gate ofthe nunnery they parted, with what agonies are immaterial to thishistory's progression; the tale merely tells that latterly the Princewent into Lower Picardy alone, riding at adventure as he loved to do,and thus came to Entrechat, where his wife resided with her mother, theCountess Johane.
In a wood near the castle he approached a company of Spaniards, four innumber, their horses tethered while these men (Oviedans, as they toldhim) drank about a great stone which served them for a table. Beingthirsty, he asked and was readily accorded hospitality, so that withinthe instant these five fell into an amicable discourse. One fellowasked his name and business in those parts, and the Prince gave eachwithout hesitancy as he reached for the bottle, and afterward droppedit just in time to catch, cannily, with his naked left hand, theknife-blade with which the rascal had dug at the unguarded ribs. ThePrince was astounded, but he was never a subtle man: here were fourknaves who, for reasons unexplained--but to them of undoubtedcogency--desired the death of Sire Edward, the King of England's son:and manifestly there was here an actionable difference of opinion; sohe had his sword out and presently killed the four of them.
Anon there came to him an apple-cheeked boy, habited as a page, who,riding jauntily through the forest, lighted upon the Prince, now inbottomless vexation. The lad drew rein, and his lips outlined awhistle. At his feet were several dead men in a very untidy condition.And seated among them, as throned upon the boulder, was a gigantic andflorid person, so tall that the heads of few people reached to hisshoulder; a person of handsome exterior, blond, and chested like astallion, whose left eyebrow drooped so oddly that even in anger thestupendous man appeared to assure you, quite confidentially, that thedilapidation he threatened was an excellent jest.
"Fair friend," said the page. "God give you joy! and why have youconverted this forest into a shambles?"
The Prince told him of the half-hour's action as has been narrated. "Ihave perhaps been rather hasty," he considered by way of peroration,"and it vexes me that I did not spare, say, one of these lankSpaniards, if only long enough to ascertain why, in the name ofTermagaunt, they should have desired my destruction."
But midway in his talc the boy had dismounted with a gasp, and he wasnow inspecting the features of one carcass. "Felons, my Prince! Youhave slain some eight yards of felony which might have cheated thegallows had they got the Princess Ellinor safe to Burgos. Only twodays ago this chalk-eyed fellow conveyed to her a letter."
Prince Edward said, "You appear, lad, to be somewhat over heels in theconfidence 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 toher own devices! Why, look you, to-day you and your wife would notknow each other were you twain brought face to face."
Prince Edward said, "That is very near the truth." But, indeed, it wasthe absolute truth, and as concerned himself already attested.
"Sire Edward," the boy then said, "your wife has wearied of this longwaiting till you chose to whistle for her. Last summer the youngPrince de Gatinais came a-wooing--and he is a handsome man." The pagemade known all which de Gatinais and King Alphonso planned, the wordsjostling 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 tobe my escort, were to ward off possible pursuit. Cry haro, beau sire!Cry haro, and lustily, for your wife in company with six other knavesis at large between here and Burgos--that unreasonable wife who grewd
issatisfied after a mere ten years of neglect."
"I have been remiss," the Prince said, and one huge hand strained athis chin; "yes, perhaps I have been remiss. Yet it had appeared tome-- 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 commonreason, equity demands that I afford you my protection so far asBurgos, messire, just as equity demands I on arrival slay de Gatinaisand fetch back my wife to England."
The page wrung exquisite hands with a gesture which was but partiallytinged with anguish and presently began to laugh. Afterward these tworode southerly, in the direction of Castile.
For it appeared to the intriguing little woman a diverting jest that inthis fashion her husband should be the promoter of her evasion. Itappeared to her more diverting when in two days' space she had becomegenuinely fond of him. She found him rather slow of comprehension, andwas namelessly humiliated by the discovery that not an eyelash of theman was irritated by his wife's decampment; he considered, to allappearances, that some property of his had been stolen, and heintended, quite without passion, to repossess himself of it, after, ofcourse, punishing the thief.
This troubled the Princess somewhat; and often, riding by his morestolid side, the girl's heart raged at memory of the decade so newlyoverpast which had kept her always dependent on the charity of this orthat ungracious patron--on any one who would take charge of her whilethe truant husband fought out his endless squabbles in England.Slights enough she had borne during the period, and squalor, and hungereven. But now at last she rode toward the dear southland; andpresently she would be rid of this big man, when he had served herpurpose; and afterward she meant to wheedle Alphonso, just as she hadalways done, and later still she and Etienne would be very happy; and,in fine, to-morrow was to be a new day.