Figures of Earth: A Comedy of Appearances

by James Branch Cabell

  XXXV

  The Troubling Window

  It seemed, in a word, that trouble had forgotten Count Manuel. None theless, Dom Manuel opened a window, at his fine home at Storisende, on afine, sunlit, warmish morning (for this was the last day of April) toconfront an outlook more perturbing than his hard vivid eyes had yetlighted on.

  So he regarded it for a while. Considerately Dom Manuel now madeexperiments with three windows in this Room of Ageus, and found how, inso far as one's senses could be trusted, the matter stood. Thereafter,as became an intelligent person, he went back to his writing-table, andset about signing the requisitions and warrants and other papers whichRuric the clerk had left there.

  Yet all the while Dom Manuel's gaze kept lifting to the windows. Therewere three of them, set side by side, each facing south. They were ofthick clear glass, of a sort whose manufacture is a lost art, for thesewindows had been among the spoils brought back by Duke Asmund fromnefarious raidings of Philistia, in which country these windows had oncebeen a part of the temple of Ageus, an immemorial god of thePhilistines. For this reason the room was called the Room of Ageus.

  Through these windows Count Manuel could see familiar fields, the longavenue of poplars and the rising hills beyond. All was as it had beenyesterday, and as all had been since, nearly three years ago, CountManuel first entered Storisende. All was precisely as it had been,except, to be sure, that until yesterday Dom Manuel's table had stood bythe farthest window. He could not remember that until to-day this windowhad ever been opened, because since his youth had gone out of him CountManuel was becoming more and more susceptible to draughts.

  "It is certainly very curious," Dom Manuel said, aloud, when he hadfinished with his papers.

  He was again approaching the very curious window when his daughterMelicent, now nearly three years old, came noisily, and in anappallingly soiled condition, to molest him. She had bright beautylater, but at three she was one of those children whom human powerscannot keep clean for longer than three minutes.

  Dom Manuel kept for her especial delectation a small flat paddle on hiswriting-table, and this he now caught up.

  "Out of the room with you, little pest!" he blustered, "for I am busy."

  So the child, as was her custom, ran back into the hallway, and stoodthere, no longer in the room, but with one small foot thrust beyond thedoorsill, while she laughed up at her big father, and derisively stuckout a tiny curved red tongue at the famed overlord of Poictesme. ThenDom Manuel, as was his custom, got down upon the floor to slap with hispaddle at the intruding foot, and Melicent squealed with delight, andpulled back her foot in time to dodge the paddle, and thrust out herother foot beyond the sill, and tried to withdraw that too before it wasspanked.

  So it was they gave over a quarter of an hour to rioting, and so it wasthat grave young Ruric found them. Count Manuel rather sheepishly arosefrom the floor, and dusted himself, and sent Melicent into the butteryfor some sugar cakes. He told Ruric what were the most favorable termshe could offer the burgesses of Narenta, and he gave Ruric the signedrequisitions.

  Presently, when Ruric had gone, Dom Manuel went again to the farthestwindow, opened it, and looked out once more. He shook his head, as onewho gives up a riddle. He armed himself, and rode over to Perdigon,whither sainted King Ferdinand had come to consult with Manuel aboutcontriving the assassination of the Moorish general, Al-Mota-wakkil.This matter Dom Manuel deputed to Guivric the Sage; and so was rid ofit.

  In addition, Count Manuel had on hand that afternoon an appeal to thejudgment of God, over some rather valuable farming lands; but it wasremarked by the spectators that he botched the unhorsing and severewounding of Earl Ladinas, and conducted it rather as though Dom Manuel'sheart were not in the day's business. Indeed, he had reason, for whilesupernal mysteries were well enough if one were still a hare-brainedlad, or even if one set out in due form to seek them, to find suchmysteries obtruding themselves unsought into the home-life of awell-thought-of nobleman was discomposing, and to have the windows ofhis own house playing tricks on him seemed hardly respectable.

  All that month, too, some memory appeared to trouble Dom Manuel, in theback of his mind, while the lords of the Silver Stallion were busied inthe pursuit of Othmar and Othmar's brigands in the Taunenfels: and assoon as Dom Manuel had captured and hanged the last squad of theseknaves, Dom Manuel rode home and looked out of the window, to findmatters unchanged.

  Dom Manuel meditated. He sounded the gong for Ruric. Dom Manuel talkedwith the clerk about this and that. Presently Dom Manuel said: "But onestifles here. Open that window."

  The clerk obeyed. Manuel at the writing-table watched him intently. Butin opening the window the clerk had of necessity stood with his backtoward Count Manuel, and when Ruric turned, the dark young face of Ruricwas impassive.

  Dom Manuel, playing with the jeweled chain of office about his neck,considered Ruric's face. Then Manuel said: "That is all. You may go."

  But Count Manuel's face was troubled, and for the rest of this day hekept an eye on Ruric the young clerk. In the afternoon it was noticeablethat this Ruric went often, on one pretext and another, into the Room ofAgeus when nobody else was there. The next afternoon, in broad daylight,Manuel detected Ruric carrying into the Room of Ageus, of all things, alantern. The Count waited a while, then went into the room through itsone door. The room was empty. Count Manuel sat down and drummed with hisfingers upon the top of his writing-table.

  After a while the third window was opened. Ruric the clerk climbed overthe sill. He blew out his lantern.

  "You are braver than I," Count Manuel said, "it may be. It is certainyou are younger. Once, Ruric, I would not have lured any dark andprim-voiced young fellow into attempting this adventure, but would haveessayed it myself post-haste. Well, but I have other duties now, andappearances to keep up: and people would talk if they saw awell-thought-of nobleman well settled in life climbing out of his ownwindows, and there is simply no telling what my wife would think of it"

  The clerk had turned, startled, dropping his lantern with a small crash.His hands went jerkily to his smooth chin, clutching it. His face waswhite as a leper's face, and his eyes now were wild and glittering, andhis head was drawn low between his black-clad shoulders, so that heseemed a hunchback as he confronted his master. Another queer thingManuel could notice, and it was that a great lock had been sheared awayfrom the left side of Ruric's black hair.

  "What have you learned," says Manuel, "out yonder?"

  "I cannot tell you," replied Ruric, laughing sillily, "but in place ofit, I will tell you a tale. Yes, yes, Count Manuel, I will tell you amerry story of how a great while ago our common grandmother Eve waswashing her children one day near Eden when God called to her. She hidaway the children that she had not finished washing: and when the goodGod asked her if all her children were there, with their meek littleheads against His knees, to say their prayers to Him, she answered, Yes.So God told her that what she had tried to hide from God should behidden from men: and He took away the unwashed children, and made aplace for them where everything stays young, and where there is neithergood nor evil, because these children are unstained by human sin andunredeemed by Christ's dear blood."

  The Count said, frowning: "What drunken nonsense are you talking atbroad noon? It is not any foolish tatter of legend that I am requiringof you, my boy, but civil information as to what is to be encounteredout yonder."

  "All freedom and all delight," young Ruric told him wildly, "and allhorror and all rebellion."

  Then he talked for a while. When Ruric had ended this talking, CountManuel laughed scornfully, and spoke as became a well-thought-ofnobleman.

  Ruric whipped out a knife, and attacked his master, crying, "I followafter my own thinking and my own desires, you old, smug, squintinghypocrite!"

  So Count Manuel caught Ruric by the throat, and with naked hands DomManuel strangled the young clerk.

  "Now I have ridded the world of much poison, I think," Dom Manuel said,al
oud, when Ruric lay dead at Manuel's feet. "In any event, I cannothave that sort of talking about my house. Yet I wish I had not trappedthe boy into attempting this adventure, which by rights was myadventure. I did not always avoid adventures."

  He summoned two to take away the body, and then Manuel went to hisbedroom, and was clothed by his lackeys in a tunic of purple silk, and acoronet was placed on his gray head, and the trumpets sounded as CountManuel sat down to supper. Pages in ermine served him, bringing Manuel'sfood upon gold dishes, and pouring red wine and white from goldenbeakers into Manuel's gold cup. Skilled music-men played upon viols andharps and flutes while the high Count of Poictesme ate richly seasonedfood and talked sedately with his wife.

  They had not fared thus when Manuel had just come from herding swine,and Niafer was a servant trudging on her mistress' errands, and whenthese two had eaten very gratefully the Portune's bread and cheese. Theyhad not any need to be heartened with rare wines when they endured somany perils upon Vraidex and in Dun Vlechlan because of their love foreach other. For these two had once loved marvelously. Now minstrelseverywhere made songs about their all-conquering love, which had derideddeath; and nobody denied that, even now, these two got on togetheramicably.

  But to-night Dame Niafer was fretted, because the pastry-cook was youngRuric's cousin, and was, she feared, as likely as not to fling off in ahuff on account of Dom Manuel's having strangled the clerk.

  "Well, then do you raise the fellow's wages," said Count Manuel.

  "That is easily said, and is exactly like a man. Why, Manuel, you surelyknow that then the meat-cook, and the butler, too, would be demandingmore, and that there would be no end to it."

  "But, my dear, the boy was talking mad blasphemy, and was for cutting mythroat with a great horn-handled knife."

  "Of course that was very wrong of him," said Dame Niafer, comfortably,"and not for an instant, Manuel, am I defending his conduct, as I trustyou quite understand. But even so, if you had stopped for a moment tothink how hard it is to replace a servant nowadays, and how unreliableis the best of them, I believe you would have seen how completely we areat their mercy."

  Then she told him all about her second waiting-woman, while Manuel said,"Yes," and "I never heard the like," and "You were perfectly right, mydear," and so on, and all the while appeared to be thinking aboutsomething else in the back of his mind.