Figures of Earth: A Comedy of Appearances

by James Branch Cabell

  X

  Alianora

  They of Poictesme narrate that after dinner King Raymond sent messengersto his wife, who was spending that Christmas with their daughter, QueenMeregrett of France, to bid Dame Beatrice return as soon as might beconvenient, so that they might marry off their daughter Alianora to thefamous Count Manuel. They tell also how the holiday season passed withevery manner of festivity, and how Dom Manuel got on splendidly with hisPrincess, and how it appeared to onlookers that for both of them, evenfor the vaguely condescending boy, love-making proved a very marvelousand dear pursuit.

  Dom Manuel confessed, in reply to jealous questionings, that he did notthink Alianora quite so beautiful nor so clever as Niafer had been, butthis, as Manuel pointed out, was hardly a matter which could beremedied. At all events, the Princess was a fine-looking and intelligentgirl, as Dom Manuel freely conceded to her: and the magic of theApsarasas, in which she was instructing him, Dom Manuel declared to bevery interesting if you cared for that sort of thing.

  The Princess humbly admitted, in reply, that of course her magic did notcompare with his, since hers was powerful only over the bodies of menand beasts, whereas Dom Manuel's magic had so notably controlled thehearts and minds of kings. Still, as Alianora pointed out, she couldblight corn and cattle, and raise tempests very handily, and, giventime, could smite an enemy with almost any physical malady you selected.She could not kill outright, to be sure, but even so, these lessermischiefs were not despicable accomplishments in a young girl. Anyhow,she said in peroration, it was atrocious to discourage her by laughingat the best she could do.

  "Ah, but come now, my dear," says Manuel, "I was only teasing. I reallythink your work most promising. You have but to continue. Practise, thatis the thing, they say, in all the arts."

  "Yes, and with you to help me--"

  "No, I have graver matters to attend to than devil-mongering," saysManuel, "and a bond to lift from myself before I can lay miseries onothers."

  For because of the geas that was on him to make a figure in the world,Dom Manuel had unpacked his two images, and after vexedly consideringthem, he had fallen again to modeling in clay, and had made a thirdimage. This image also was in the likeness of a young man, but it hadthe fine proud features and the loving look of Alianora.

  Manuel confessed to being fairly well pleased with this figure, but evenso, he did not quite recognize in it the figure he desired to make, andtherefore, he said, he deduced that love was not the thing which wasessential to him.

  Alianora did not like the image at all.

  "To have made an image of me," she considered, "would have been a verypretty compliment. But when it comes to pulling about my features, as ifthey did not satisfy you, and mixing them up with your features, untilyou have made the appearance of a young man that looks like both of us,it is not a compliment. Instead, it is the next thing but one toegotism."

  "Perhaps, now I think of it, I am an egotist. At all events, I amManuel."

  "Nor, dearest," says she, "is it quite befitting that you, who are nowbetrothed to a princess, and who are going to be Lord of Provence andKing of Arles, as soon as I can get rid of Father, should be alwaysmessing with wet mud."

  "I know that very well," Manuel replied, "but, none the less, a geas ison me to honor my mother's wishes, and to make an admirable andsignificant figure in the world. Apart from that, though, Alianora, Irepeat to you, this scheme of yours, about poisoning your father as soonas we are married, appears to me for various reasons ill-advised. I amin no haste to be King of Arles, and, in fact, I am not sure that I wishto be king at all, because my geas is more important."

  "Sweetheart, I love you very much, but my love does not blind me to thefact that, no matter, what your talents at sorcery, you are in everydaymatters a hopelessly unpractical person. Do you leave this affair to me,and I will manage it with every regard to appearances."

  "Ah, and does one have to preserve appearances even in such matters asparricide?"

  "But certainly it looks much better for Father to be supposed to die ofindigestion. People would be suspecting all sorts of evil of the poordear if it were known that his own daughter could not put up with him.In any event, sweetheart, I am resolved that, since very luckily Fatherhas no sons, you shall be King of Arles before this new year is out."

  "No, I am Manuel: and it means more to me to be Manuel than to be Kingof Arles, and Count of Provence, and seneschal of Aix and Brignoles andGrasse and Massilia and Draguignan and so on."

  "Oh, you are breaking my heart with this neglect of your true interests!And it is all the doing of these three vile images, which you value morethan the old throne of Boson and Rothbold, and oceans more than you dome!"

  "Come, I did not say that."

  "Yes, and you think, too, a deal more about that dead heathen servantgirl than you do about me, who am a princess and the heir to a kingdom."

  Manuel looked at Alianora for a considerable while, before speaking. "Mydear, you are, as I have always told you, an unusually fine looking andintelligent girl. And yes, you are a princess, of course, though you areno longer the Unattainable Princess: that makes a differencecertainly--But, over and above all this, there was never anybody likeNiafer, and it would be nonsense to pretend otherwise."

  The Princess said: "I wonder at myself. You are schooled in strangesorceries unknown to the Apsarasas, there is no questioning that, afterthe miracles you wrought with Helmas and Ferdinand: even so, I too havea neat hand at magic, and it is not right for you to be treating me asthough I were the dirt under your feet. And I endure it! It is thatwhich puzzles me, it makes me wonder at myself, and my sole comfort isthat, at any rate, this wonderful Niafer of yours is dead and donewith."

  Manuel sighed. "Yes, Niafer is dead, and these images also are deadthings, and both these facts continually trouble me. Nothing can be doneabout Niafer, I suppose, but if only I could give some animation tothese images I think the geas upon me would be satisfied."

  "Such a desire is blasphemous, Manuel, for the Eternal Father did nomore than that with His primal sculptures in Eden."

  Dom Manuel blinked his vivid blue eyes as if in consideration. "Well,but," he said, gravely, "but if I am a child of God it is only natural,I think, that I should inherit the tastes and habits of my Father. No,it is not blasphemous, I think, to desire to make an animated and livelyfigure, somewhat more admirable and significant than that of the averageman. No, I think not. Anyhow, blasphemous or not, that is my need, and Imust follow after my own thinking and my own desire."

  "If that desire were satisfied," asks Alianora, rather queerly, "wouldyou be content to settle down to some such rational method of living asbecomes a reputable sorcerer and king?"

  "I think so, for a king has no master, and he is at liberty to traveleverywhither, and to see the ends of this world and judge them. Yes, Ithink so, in a world wherein nothing is certain."

  "If I but half way believed that, I would endeavor to obtain Schamir."

  "And what in the devil is this Schamir?"

  "A slip of the tongue," replied Alianora, smiling. "No, I shall havenothing to do with your idiotic mud figures, and I shall tell younothing further."

  "Come now, pettikins!" says Manuel. And he began coaxing the Princess ofProvence with just such cajoleries as the big handsome boy had formerlyexercised against the peasant girls of Rathgor.

  "Schamir," said Alianora, at last, "is set in a signet ring which isvery well known in the country on the other side of the fire. Schamirhas the appearance of a black pebble; and if, after performing the properceremonies, you were to touch one of these figures with it the figurewould become animated."

  "Well, but," says Manuel, "the difficulty is that if I attempt to passthrough the fire in order to reach the country behind it, I shall beburned to a cinder, and so I have no way of obtaining this talisman."

  "In order to obtain it," Alianora told him, "one must hard-boil an eggfrom the falcon's nest, then replace it in the nest, and secrete oneselfnea
r by with a crossbow, under a red and white umbrella, until themother bird, finding one of her eggs resists all her endeavors to infusewarmth into it, flies off, and plunges into the nearest fire, andreturns with this ring in her beak. With Schamir she will touch theboiled egg, and so restore the egg to its former condition. At thatmoment she must be shot, and the ring must be secured, before the falconcan return the talisman to its owner. I mean, to its dreadful owner, whois"--here Alianora made an incomprehensible sign,--"who is Queen Freydisof Audela."

  "Come," said Manuel, "what is the good of my knowing this in the dead ofwinter! It will be months before the falcons are nesting again."

  "Manuel, Manuel, there is no understanding you! Do you not see how badlyit looks for a grown man, and far more for a famed champion and a potentsorcerer, to be pouting and scowling and kicking your heels about likethat, and having no patience at all?"

  "Yes, I suppose it does look badly, but I am Manuel, and I follow--"

  "Oh, spare me that," cried Alianora, "or else, no matter how much I maylove you, dearest, I shall box your jaws!"

  "None the less, what I was going to say is true," declared Manuel, "andif only you would believe it, matters would go more smoothly betweenus."