Chivalry

by James Branch Cabell

  Richard had taken just two strides, and toward this fair girl. Branwenstayed motionless, her lips a little parted. The affairs of earth andheaven were motionless throughout the moment, attendant, it seemed tohim; and his whole life was like a wave, to him, that trembled now atfull height, and he was aware of a new world all made of beauty and ofpity. Then the lute snapped between his fingers, and Richardshuddered, and his countenance was the face of a man only.

  "There is a task," he said, hoarsely--"it is God's work, I think. ButI do not know--I only know that you are very beautiful, Branwen," hesaid, and in the name he found a new and piercing loveliness.

  More lately he said: "Go! For I have loved so many women, and, Godhelp me! I know that I have but to wheedle you and you, too, willyield! Yonder is God's work to be done, and within me rages acommonwealth of devils. Child! child!" he cried in agony, "I am, andever was, a coward, too timid to face life without reserve, and alwaysI laughed because I was afraid to concede that anything is serious!"

  For a long while Richard lay at his ease in the lengthening shadows ofthe afternoon.

  "I love her. She thinks me an elderly imbecile with a flat and reedysinging-voice, and she is perfectly right. She has never evenentertained the notion of loving me. That is well, for to-morrow, or,it may be, the day after, we must part forever. I would not have theparting make her sorrowful--or not, at least, too unalterablysorrowful. It is very well that Branwen does not love me.

  "How should she? I am almost twice her age, an old fellow now,battered and selfish and too indolent to love her--say, as Gwyllem did.I did well to kill that Gwyllem. I am profoundly glad I killed him,and I thoroughly enjoyed doing it; but, after all, the man loved her inhis fashion, and to the uttermost reach of his gross nature. I loveher in a rather more decorous and acceptable fashion, it is true, butonly a half of me loves her; and the other half of me remembers that Iam aging, that Caradawc's hut is leaky, that, in fine, bodily comfortis the single luxury of which one never tires. I am a verycontemptible creature, the handsome scabbard of a man, precisely asOwain said." This settled, Richard whistled to his dog.

  The sun had set, but it was not more than dusk. There were no shadowsanywhere as Richard and his sheep went homeward, but on every side thecolors of the world were more sombre. Twice his flock roused a coveyof partridges which had settled for the night. The screech-owl hadcome out of his hole, and bats were already blundering about, and theair was more cool. There was as yet but one star in the green andcloudless heaven, and this was very large, like a beacon, and itappeared to him symbolical that he trudged away from it.

  Next day the Welshmen came, and now the trap was ready for Henry ofLancaster.

  It befell just two days later, about noon, that while Richard idlytalked with Branwen a party of soldiers, some fifteen in number, rodedown the river's bank from the ford above. Their leader paused, thengave an order. The men drew rein. He cantered forward.

  "God give you joy, fair sir," said Richard, when the cavalier was athis elbow.

  The new-comer raised his visor. "God give you eternal joy, my faircousin," he said, "and very soon. Now send away this woman before thathappens which must happen."

  "You design murder?" Richard said.

  "YOU DESIGN MURDER? RICHARD ASKED" _Painting by HowardPyle_]

  "I design my own preservation," King Henry answered, "for while youlive my rule is insecure."

  "I am sorry," Richard said, "because in part my blood is yours."

  Twice he sounded his horn, and everywhere from rustling underwoodsarose the half-naked Welshmen. "Your men are one to ten. You areimpotent. Now, now we balance our accounts!" cried Richard. "Thesepersons here will first deal with your followers. Then will theyconduct you to Glyndwyr, who has long desired to deal with you himself,in privacy, since that WhitMonday when you stabbed his son."

  The King began: "In mercy, sire--!" and Richard laughed a little.

  "That virtue is not overabundant among us Plantagenets, as both weknow. Nay, Fate and Time are merry jesters. See, now, their latestmockery! You the King of England ride to Sycharth to your death, and Ithe tender of sheep depart into London, without any hindrance, to reignhenceforward over all these islands. To-morrow you are worm's-meat;and to-morrow, as aforetime, I am King of England."

  Then Branwen gave one sharp, brief cry, and Richard forgot all thingssaving this girl, and strode to her. He had caught up either of herhard, lithe hands; against his lips he strained them close and veryclose.

  "Branwen--!" he said. His eyes devoured her.

  "Yes, King," she answered. "O King of England! O fool that I had beento think you less!"

  In a while Richard said: "Now I choose between a peasant wench andEngland. Now I choose, and, ah, how gladly! O Branwen, help me to bemore than King of England!"

  Low and very low he spoke, and long and very long he gazed at her andneither seemed to breathe. Of what she thought I cannot tell you; butin Richard there was no power of thought, only a great wonderment.Why, between this woman and aught else there was no choice for him, heknew upon a sudden, and could never be! He was very glad. He lovedthe tiniest content of the world.

  Meanwhile, as from an immense distance, came to this Richard the doggedvoice of Henry of Lancaster. "It is of common report in these islandsthat I have a better right to the throne than you. As much was toldour grandfather, King Edward of happy memory, when he educated you andhad you acknowledged heir to the crown, but his love was so strong forhis son the Prince of Wales that nothing could alter his purpose. Andindeed if you had followed even the example of the Black Prince youmight still have been our King; but you have always acted so contrarilyto his admirable precedents as to occasion the rumor to be generallybelieved throughout England that you were not, after all, his son--"

  Richard had turned impatiently. "For the love of Heaven, truncate yourabominable periods. Be off with you. Yonder across that river is thethrone of England, which you appear, through some hallucination, toconsider a desirable possession. Take it, then; for, praise God! thesword has found its sheath."

  The King answered: "I do not ask you to reconsider your dismissal,assuredly--Richard," he cried, a little shaken, "I perceive that untilyour death you will win contempt and love from every person."

  "Ay, for many years I have been the playmate of the world," saidRichard; "but to-day I wash my hands, and set about another and morelaudable business. I had dreamed certain dreams, indeed--but what hadI to do with all this strife between the devil and the tiger? Nay,Glyndwyr will set up Mortimer against you now, and you two must fightit out. I am no more his tool, and no more your enemy, mycousin--Henry," he said with quickening voice, "there was a time whenwe were boys and played together, and there was no hatred between us,and I regret that time!"

  "As God lives, I too regret that time!" the bluff King said. He staredat Richard for a while wherein each understood. "Dear fool," he said,"there is no man in all the world but hates me saving only you." Thenthe proud King clapped spurs to his proud horse and rode away.

  More lately Richard dismissed his wondering marauders. Now were onlyhe and Branwen left, alone and yet a little troubled, since either wasafraid of that oncoming moment when their eyes must meet.

  So Richard laughed. "Praise God!" he wildly cried, "I am the greatestfool unhanged!"

  She answered: "I am the happier. I am the happiest of God'screatures," Branwen said.

  And Richard meditated. "Faith of a gentleman!" he declared; "but youare nothing of the sort, and of this fact I happen to be quitecertain." Their lips met then and afterward their eyes; and either wastoo glad for laughter.

  THE END OF THE EIGHTH NOVEL

  IX

  The Story of the Navarrese

  "_J'ay en mon cueur joyeusement Escript, afin que ne l'oublie, Ce refrain qu'ayme chierement, C'estes vous de qui suis amye._"

  THE NINTH NOVEL.--JEHANE OF NAVARRE, AFTER A SHREWD WITHSTANDING OF ALL OTHER A
SSAULTS, IS IN A LONG DUEL WHEREIN TIME AND COMMON-SENSE ARE FLOUTED, AND TWO KINGDOMS SHAKEN, ALIKE DETHRONED AND RECOMPENSED BY AN ENDURING LUNACY.

  The Story of the Navarrese

  In the year of grace 1386, upon the feast of Saint Bartholomew (thusNicolas begins), came to the Spanish coast Messire Peyre de Lesnerac,in a war-ship sumptuously furnished and manned by many persons ofdignity and wealth, in order they might suitably escort the PrincessJehane into Brittany, where she was to marry the Duke of that province.There were now rejoicings throughout Navarre, in which the Princesstook but a nominal part and young Antoine Riczi none at all.

  This Antoine Riczi came to Jehane that August twilight in the hedgedgarden. "King's daughter!" he sadly greeted her. "Duchess ofBrittany! Countess of Rougemont! Lady of Nantes and of Guerrand! ofRais and of Toufon and Guerche!"

  "Nay," she answered, "Jehane, whose only title is the Constant Lover."And in the green twilight, lit as yet by one low-hanging star alone,their lips met, as aforetime.

  Presently the girl spoke. Her soft mouth was lax and tremulous, andher gray eyes were more brilliant than the star yonder. The boy's armswere about her, so that neither could be quite unhappy; and besides, asorrow too noble for any bitterness had mastered them, and a vastdesire whose aim they could not word, or even apprehend save cloudily.

  "Friend," said Jehane, "I have no choice. I must wed with this deMontfort. I think I shall die presently. I have prayed God that I maydie before they bring me to the dotard's bed."

  Young Riczi held her now in an embrace more brutal. "Mine! mine!" hesnarled toward the obscuring heavens.

  "Yet it may be I must live. Friend, the man is very old. Is it wickedto think of that? For I cannot but think of his great age."

  Then Riczi answered: "My desires--may God forgive me!--have clutchedlike starving persons at that sorry sustenance. Friend! ah, fair,sweet friend! the man is human and must die, but love, we read, isimmortal. I am fain to die, Jehane. But, oh, Jehane! dare you to bidme live?"

  "Friend, as you love me, I entreat you live. Friend, I crave of theEternal Father that if I falter in my love for you I may be denied eventhe bleak night of ease which Judas knows." The girl did not weep;dry-eyed she winged a perfectly sincere prayer toward incorruptiblesaints. He was to remember the fact, and through long years.

  For even as Riczi left her, yonder behind the yew-hedge a shrilljoculatrix sang, in rehearsal for Jehane's bridal feast.

  Sang the joculatrix:

  "_When the morning broke before us Came the wayward Three astraying, Chattering a trivial chorus-- Hoidens that at handball playing (When they wearied of their playing), Cast the Ball where now it whirls Through the coil of clouds unstaying, For the Fates are merry girls!_"

  And upon the next day de Lesnerac bore young Jehane from Pampeluna andpresently to Saille, where old Jehan the Brave took her to wife. Shelived as a queen, but she was a woman of infrequent laughter.

  She had Duke Jehan's adoration, and his barons' obeisancy, and hisvillagers applauded her passage with stentorian shouts. She passedinterminable days amid bright curious arrasses and trod listlessly overpavements strewn with flowers. Fiery-hearted jewels she had, andshimmering purple cloths, and much furniture adroitly carven, and manytapestries of Samarcand and Baldach upon which were embroidered, bybrown fingers time turned long ago to Asian dust, innumerable asps anddeer and phoenixes and dragons and all the motley inhabitants of airand of the thicket: but her memories, too, she had, and for a drearywhile she got no comfort because of them. Then ambition quickened.

  Young Antoine Riczi likewise nursed his wound as best he might; butabout the end of the second year his uncle, the Vicomte deMontbrison--a gaunt man, with preoccupied and troubled eyes--hadsummoned Antoine into Lyonnois and, after appropriate salutation, hadinformed the lad that, as the Vicomte's heir, he was to marry theDemoiselle Gerberge de Nerac upon the ensuing Michaelmas.

  "That I may not do," said Riczi; and since a chronicler that wouldtempt fortune should never stretch the fabric of his wares too thin,unlike Sir Hengist, I merely tell you these two dwelt together atMontbrison for a decade, and always the Vicomte swore at his nephew andpredicted this or that disastrous destination so often as Antoinedeclined to marry the latest of his uncle's candidates--in whom theVicomte was of an astonishing fertility.

  In the year of grace 1401 came the belated news that Duke Jehan hadclosed his final day. "You will be leaving me!" the Vicomte growled;"now, in my decrepitude, you will be leaving me! It is abominable, andI shall in all likelihood disinherit you this very night."

  "Yet it is necessary," Riczi answered; and, filled with no unhallowedjoy, rode not long afterward for Vannes, in Brittany, where theDuchess-Regent held her court. Dame Jehane had within that fortnightput aside her mourning, and sat beneath a green canopy, gold-fringedand powdered with many golden stars, upon the night when he first cameto her, and the rising saps of spring were exercising their august andformidable influence. She sat alone, by prearrangement, to one end ofthe high-ceiled and radiant apartment; midway in the hall her lords anddivers ladies were gathered about a saltatrice and a jongleur, whodiverted them to the mincing accompaniment of a lute; but Jehane satapart from these, frail, and splendid with many jewels, and a littlesad, and, as ever (he thought), was hers a beauty clarified of its meresubstance--the beauty, say, of a moonbeam which penetrates full-grownleaves.

  And Antoine Riczi found no power of speech within him at the first.Silent he stood before her for an obvious interval, still as an effigy,while meltingly the jongleur sang.

  "Jehane!" said Antoine Riczi, "have you, then, forgotten, O Jehane?"

  Nor had the resplendent woman moved at all. It was as though she weresome tinted and lavishly adorned statue of barbaric heathenry, and heher postulant; and her large eyes appeared to judge an immeasurablepath, beyond him. Now her lips had fluttered somewhat. "The Duchessof Brittany am I," she said, and in the phantom of a voice. "TheCountess of Rougemont am I. The Lady of Nantes and of Guerrand! ofRais and of Toufon and Guerche! ... Jehane is dead."

  The man had drawn one audible breath. "You are Jehane, whose onlytitle is the Constant Lover!"

  "Friend, the world smirches us," she said half-pleadingly. "I havetasted too deep of wealth and power. Drunk with a deadly wine am I,and ever I thirst--I thirst--"

  "Jehane, do you remember that May morning in Pampeluna when first Ikissed you, and about us sang many birds? Then as now you wore a gownof green, Jehane."

  "Friend, I have swayed kingdoms since."

  "Jehane, do you remember that August twilight in Pampeluna when last Ikissed you? Then as now you wore a gown of green, Jehane."

  "But no such chain as this about my neck," the woman answered, andlifted a huge golden collar garnished with emeralds and sapphires andwith many pearls. "Friend, the chain is heavy, yet I lack the will tocast it off. I lack the will, Antoine." And with a sudden roar ofmirth her courtiers applauded the evolutions of the saltatrice.

  "King's daughter!" said Riczi then; "O perilous merchandise! a god cameto me and a sword had pierced his breast. He touched the gold hilt ofit and said, 'Take back your weapon.' I answered, 'I do not know you.''I am Youth,' he said; 'take back your weapon.'"

  "It is true," she responded, "it is lamentably true that after to-nightwe are as different persons, you and I."

  He said: "Jehane, do you not love me any longer? Remember old yearsand do not break your oath with me, Jehane, since God abhors nothing somuch as perfidy. For your own sake, Jehane--ah, no, not for your sakenor for mine, but for the sake of that blithe Jehane, whom, so you tellme, time has slain!"

  Once or twice she blinked, as dazzled by a light of intolerablesplendor, but otherwise sat rigid. "You have dared, messire, toconfront me with the golden-hearted, clean-eyed Navarrese that once wasI! and I requite." The austere woman rose. "Messire, you swore to me,long since, an eternal service. I claim my bond. Yonder primman--gray-bearded, the m
an in black and silver--is the Earl ofWorcester, the King of England's ambassador, in common with whom thewealthy dowager of Brittany has signed a certain contract. Go you,then, with Worcester into England, as my proxy, and in that island, asmy proxy, wed the King of England. Messire, your audience is done."

  Latterly Riczi said this: "Can you hurt me any more, Jehane?--nay, evenin hell they cannot hurt me now. Yet I, at least, keep faith, and inyour face I fling faith like a glove--old-fashioned, it may be, butclean--and I will go, Jehane."

  Her heart raged. "Poor, glorious fool!" she thought; "had you but thewit even now to use me brutally, even now to drag me from this dais--!"Instead he went from her smilingly, treading through the hall with manyaffable salutations, while always the jongleur sang.

  Sang the jongleur:

  "_There is a land the rabble rout Knows not, whose gates are barred By Titan twins, named Fear and Doubt, That mercifully guard The land we seek--the land so fair!-- And all the fields thereof,_

  "_Where daffodils grow everywhere About the Fields of Love-- Knowing that in the Middle-Land A tiny pool there lies And serpents from the slimy strand Lift glittering cold eyes._

  "_Now, the parable all may understand, And surely you know the name o' the land! Ah, never a guide or ever a chart May safely lead you about this land,-- The Land of the Human Heart!_"

  And the following morning, being duly empowered, Antoine Riczi sailedfor England in company with the Earl of Worcester, and upon SaintRichard's day the next ensuing was, at Eltham, as proxy of Jehane,married in his own person to the bloat King of England. First had SireHenry placed the ring on Riczi's finger, and then spoke Antoine Riczi,very loud and clear: