_The Story of the Fox-Brush_
In the year of grace 1417, about Martinmas (thus Nicolas begins),Queen Isabeau fled with her daughter the Lady Katharine to Chartres.There the Queen was met by the Duke of Burgundy, and these two laidtheir heads together to such good effect that presently they got backinto Paris, and in its public places massacred some three thousandArmagnacs. That, however, is a matter which touches history; the rootof our concernment is that, when the Queen and the Duke rode off toattend to this butcher's business, the Lady Katharine was left behindin the Convent of Saint Scholastica, which then stood upon theoutskirts of Chartres, in the bend of the Eure just south of thatcity. She dwelt for a year in this well-ordered place.
There one finds her upon the day of the decollation of Saint John theBaptist, the fine August morning that starts the tale. Katharine theFair, men called her, with considerable show of reason. She was verytall, and slim as a rush. Her eyes were large and black, having anextreme lustre, like the gleam of undried ink,--a lustre at some timesuncanny. Her abundant hair, too, was black, and to-day seemed doublysombre by contrast with the gold netting which confined it. Her mouthwas scarlet, all curves, and her complexion was famous for itsbrilliancy; only a precisian would have objected that she possessedthe Valois nose, long and thin and somewhat unduly overhanging themouth.
To-day as she came through the orchard, crimson garbed, she pausedwith lifted eyebrows. Beyond the orchard wall there was a hodgepodgeof noises, among which a nice ear might distinguish the clatter ofhoofs, a yelping and scurrying, and a contention of soft bodies, andabove all a man's voice commanding the turmoil. She was seventeen, soshe climbed into the crotch of an apple-tree and peered over the wall.
He was in rusty brown and not unshabby; but her regard swept over thisto his face, and there noted how his eyes shone like blue winter starsunder the tumbled yellow hair, and noted the flash of his big teeth ashe swore between them. He held a dead fox by the brush, which he wascutting off; two hounds, lank and wolfish, were scaling his huge bodyin frantic attempts to get at the carrion. A horse grazed close athand.
So for a heart-beat she saw him. Then he flung the tailless body tothe hounds, and in the act spied two black eyes peeping through theapple-leaves. He laughed, all mirth to the heels of him."Mademoiselle, I fear we have disturbed your devotions. But I had notheard that it was a Benedictine custom to rehearse aves in tree-tops."Then, as she leaned forward, both elbows resting more comfortably uponthe wall, and thereby disclosing her slim body among the foliage likea crimson flower green-calyxed, he said, "You are not a nun--Blood ofGod! you are the Princess Katharine!"
The nuns, her present guardians, would have declared the ensuingaction horrific, for Katharine smiled frankly at him and asked howcould he thus recognise her at one glance.
He answered slowly: "I have seen your portrait. Hah, your portrait!"he jeered, head flung back and big teeth glinting in the sunlight."There is a painter who merits crucifixion."
She considered this indicative of a cruel disposition, but also of afine taste in the liberal arts. Aloud she stated:
"You are not a Frenchman, messire. I do not understand how you canhave seen my portrait."
The man stood for a moment twiddling the fox-brush. "I am a harper, myPrincess. I have visited the courts of many kings, though never thatof France. I perceive I have been woefully unwise."
This trenched upon insolence--the look of his eyes, indeed, carried itwell past the frontier,--but she found the statement interesting.Straightway she touched the kernel of those fear-blurred legendswhispered about Dom Manuel's reputed descendants.
"You have, then, seen the King of England?"
"Yes, Highness."
"Is it true that in him, the devil blood of Oriander has gone mad, andthat he eats children--like Agrapard and Angoulaffre of the BrokenTeeth?"
His gaze widened. "I have heard a deal of scandal concerning the man.But certainly I never heard that."
Katharine settled back, luxuriously, in the crotch of the apple-tree."Tell me about him."
Composedly he sat down upon the grass and began to acquaint her withhis knowledge and opinions concerning Henry, the fifth of that name toreign in England, and the son of that squinting Harry of Derby aboutwhom I have told you so much before.
Katharine punctuated the harper's discourse with eager questionings,which are not absolutely to our purpose. In the main, this harperthought the man now buffeting France a just king, and he had heard,when the crown was laid aside, Sire Henry was sufficiently jovial, andeven prankish. The harper educed anecdotes. He considered that theKing would manifestly take Rouen, which the insatiable man was nowbesieging. Was the King in treaty for the hand of the Infanta ofAragon? Yes, he undoubtedly was.
Katharine sighed her pity for this ill-starred woman. "And now tell meabout yourself."
He was, it appeared, Alain Maquedonnieux, a harper by vocation, and bybirth a native of Ireland. Beyond the fact that it was a savagekingdom adjoining Cataia, Katharine knew nothing of Ireland. Theharper assured her that in this she was misinformed, since the kingsof England claimed Ireland as an appanage, though the Irish themselveswere of two minds as to the justice of these pretensions; all in all,he considered that Ireland belonged to Saint Patrick, and that theholy man had never accredited a vicar.
"Doubtless, by the advice of God," Alain said: "for I have read inMaster Roger de Wendover's Chronicles of how at the dread day ofjudgment all the Irish are to muster before the high and piousPatrick, as their liege lord and father in the spirit, and by him beconducted into the presence of God; and of how, by virtue of SaintPatrick's request, all the Irish will die seven years to an hourbefore the second coming of Christ, in order to give the blessed saintsufficient time to marshal his company, which is considerable."Katharine admitted the convenience of this arrangement, as well as theneglect of her education. Alain gazed up at her for a long while, asif in reflection, and presently said: "Doubtless the Lady Heleine ofArgos also was thus starry-eyed and found in books less divertingreading than in the faces of men." It flooded Katharine's cheeks witha livelier hue, but did not vex her irretrievably; if she chose toread this man's face, the meaning was plain enough.
I give you the gist of their talk, and that in all conscience istrivial. But it was a day when one entered love's wardship with aplunge, not in more modern fashion venturing forward bit by bit, asthough love were so much cold water. So they talked for a long while,with laughter mutually provoked and shared, with divers eloquent anddangerous pauses. The harper squatted upon the ground, the Princessleaned over the wall; but to all intent they sat together upon theloftiest turret of Paradise, and it was a full two hours beforeKatharine hinted at departure.
Alain rose, approaching the wall. "To-morrow I ride for Milan to takeservice with Duke Filippo. I had broken my journey these three dayspast at Chateauneuf yonder, where this fox has been harrying my host'schickens. To-day I went out to slay him, and he led me, his murderer,to the fairest lady earth may boast. Do you not think that, inreturning good for evil, this fox was a true Christian, my Princess?"
Katharine said: "I lament his destruction. Farewell, Messire Alain!And since chance brought you hither--"
"Destiny brought me hither," Alain affirmed, a mastering hunger in hiseyes. "Destiny has been kind; I shall make a prayer to her that shecontinue so." But when Katharine demanded what this prayer would be,Alain shook his tawny head. "Presently you shall know, Highness, butnot now. I return to Chateauneuf on certain necessary businesses;to-morrow I set out at cockcrow for Milan and the Visconti's livery.Farewell!" He mounted and rode away in the golden August sunlight, thehounds frisking about him. The fox-brush was fastened in his hat. ThusTristran de Leonois may have ridden a-hawking in drowned Cornwall,thus statelily and composedly, Katharine thought, gazing after him.She went to her apartments, singing an inane song about the amorousand joyful time of spring when everything and everybody is happy,--
"El tems amoreus plein de joie, El tems ou tot
e riens s'esgaie,--"
and burst into a sudden passion of tears. There were born every day,she reflected, such hosts of women-children, who were not princesses,and therefore compelled to marry detestable kings.
Dawn found her in the orchard. She was to remember that it was acloudy morning, and that mist-tatters trailed from the more distanttrees. In the slaty twilight the garden's verdure was lustreless, thegrass and foliage were uniformly sombre save where dewdrops showedlike beryls. Nowhere in the orchard was there absolute shadow, nowherea vista unblurred; in the east, half-way between horizon and zenith,two belts of coppery light flared against the gray sky like embersswaddled by ashes. The birds were waking; there were occasionalscurryings in tree-tops and outbursts of peevish twittering to attestas much; and presently came a singing, less musical than that of manya bird perhaps, but far more grateful to the girl who heard it, heartin mouth. A lute accompanied the song demurely.
Sang Alain:
"O Madam Destiny, omnipotent, Be not too obdurate to us who pray That this our transient grant of youth be spent In laughter as befits a holiday, From which the evening summons us away, From which to-morrow wakens us to strife And toil and grief and wisdom,--and to-day Grudge us not life!
"O Madam Destiny, omnipotent, Why need our elders trouble us at play? We know that very soon we shall repent The idle follies of our holiday, And being old, shall be as wise as they: But now we are not wise, and lute and fife Plead sweetlier than axioms,--so to-day Grudge us not life!
"O Madam Destiny, omnipotent, You have given us youth--and must we cast away The cup undrained and our one coin unspent Because our elders' beards and hearts are gray? They have forgotten that if we delay Death claps us on the shoulder, and with knife Or cord or fever flouts the prayer we pray-- 'Grudge us not life!'
"Madam, recall that in the sun we play But for an hour, then have the worm for wife, The tomb for habitation--and to-day Grudge us not life!"
Candor in these matters is best. Katharine scrambled into the crotchof the apple-tree. The dew pattered sharply about her, but thePrincess was not in a mood to appraise discomfort.
"You came!" this harper said, transfigured; and then again, "Youcame!"
She breathed, "Yes."
So for a long time they stood looking at each other. She foundadoration in his eyes and quailed before it; and in the man's mind nota grimy and mean incident of the past but marshalled to leer at hisunworthiness: yet in that primitive garden the first man and woman,meeting, knew no sweeter terror.
It was by the minstrel that a familiar earth and the grating speech ofearth were earlier regained. "The affair is of the suddenest," Alainobserved, and he now swung the lute behind him. He indicated nointention of touching her, though he might easily have done so as hesat there exalted by the height of his horse. "A meteor arrives withmore prelude. But Love is an arbitrary lord; desiring my heart, he hasseized it, and accordingly I would now brave hell to come to you, andfinding you there, would esteem hell a pleasure-garden. I have alreadymade my prayer to Destiny that she concede me love. Now of God, ourFather and Master, I entreat quick death if I am not to win you. For,God willing, I shall come to you again, even if in order to do this Ihave to split the world like a rotten orange."
"Madness! Oh, brave, sweet madness!" Katharine said. "You are aminstrel and I am a king's daughter."
"Is it madness? Why, then, I think sane persons are to becommiserated. And indeed I spy in all this some design. Across halfthe earth I came to you, led by a fox. Hey, God's face!" Alain swore;"the foxes which Samson, that old sinewy captain, loosed among thecorn of heathenry kindled no disputation such as this fox has setafoot. That was an affair of standing corn and olives spoilt, a bushelor so of disaster; now poised kingdoms topple on the brink of ruin.There will be martial argument shortly if you bid me come again."
"I bid you come," said Katharine; and after they had stared at eachother for a long while, he rode away in silence. It was through a dankand tear-flawed world that she stumbled conventward, while out of theeast the sun came bathed in mists, a watery sun no brighter than asilver coin.
And for a month the world seemed no less dreary, but about Michaelmasthe Queen-Regent sent for her. At the Hotel de Saint-Pol matters weremuch the same. Katharine found her mother in foul-mouthed rage overthe failure of a third attempt to poison the Dauphin of Vienne, asQueen Isabeau had previously poisoned her two elder sons; I might heretrace out a curious similitude between the Valois and thatdragon-spawned race which Jason very anciently slew at Colchis, sincethe world was never at peace so long as any two of them existed. ButKing Charles greeted his daughter with ampler deference, esteeming herto be the wife of Presbyter John, the tyrant of Aethiopia. However,ingenuity had just suggested card-playing for King Charles' amusement,and he paid little attention nowadays to any one save his opponent atthis new game.
So the French King chirped his senile jests over the card-table, whilethe King of England was besieging the French city of Rouen sedulouslyand without mercy. In late autumn an armament from Ireland joinedHenry's forces. The Irish fought naked, it was said, with long knives.Katharine heard discreditable tales of these Irish, and reflected howgross are the exaggerations of rumor.
In the year of grace 1419, in January, the burgesses of Rouen, havingconsumed their horses, and finding frogs and rats unpalatable, yieldedthe town. It was the Queen-Regent who brought the news to Katharine.
"God is asleep," the Queen said; "and while He nods, the Butcher ofAgincourt has stolen our good city of Rouen." She sat down andbreathed heavily. "Never was any poor woman so pestered as I! Thepuddings to-day were quite uneatable, as you saw for yourself, and onSunday the Englishman entered Rouen in great splendor, attended by hischief nobles; but the Butcher rode alone, and before him went a pagecarrying a fox-brush on the point of his lance. I put it to you, isthat the contrivance of a sane man? Euh! euh!" Dame Isabeau squealedon a sudden; "you are bruising me."
Katharine had gripped her by the shoulder. "The King of England--atall, fair man? with big teeth? a tiny wen upon his neck--here--andwith his left cheek scarred? with blue eyes, very bright, bright astapers?" She poured out her questions in a torrent, and awaited theanswer, seeming not to breathe at all.
"I believe so," the Queen said, "and they say, too, that he has thedamned squint of old Manuel the Redeemer."
"O God!" said Katharine.
"Ay, our only hope now. And may God show him no more mercy than hasthis misbegotten English butcher shown us!" the good lady desired,with fervor. "The hog, having won our Normandy, is now advancing onParis itself. He repudiated the Aragonish alliance last August; anduntil last August he was content with Normandy, they tell us, but nowhe swears to win all France. The man is a madman, and ScythianTamburlaine was more lenient. And I do not believe that in all Francethere is a cook who understands his business." She went awaywhimpering, and proceeded to get tipsy.
The Princess remained quite still, as Dame Isabeau had left her; youmay see a hare crouch so at sight of the hounds. Finally the girlspoke aloud. "Until last August!" Katharine said. "Until last August!_Poised kingdoms topple on the brink of ruin, now that you bid me cometo you again_. And I bade this devil's grandson come to me, as mylover!" Presently she went into her oratory and began to pray.
In the midst of her invocation she wailed: "Fool, fool! How could Ihave thought him less than a king!"
You are to imagine her breast thus adrum with remorse and hatred ofherself, the while that town by town fell before the invader likecard-houses. Every rumor of defeat--and the news of some fresh defeatcame daily--was her arraignment; impotently she cowered at God'sknees, knowing herself a murderess, whose infamy was still afoot,outpacing her prayers, whose victims were battalions. Tarpeia andPisidice and Rahab were her sisters; she hungered in her abasement forJudith's nobler guilt.
In May he came to her. A truce was patched up, and French and Englishmet amicably in a great plain near Meulan. A square space was stakedou
t and on three sides boarded in, the fourth side being the riverSeine. This enclosure the Queen-Regent, Jehan of Burgundy, andKatharine entered from the French side. Simultaneously the EnglishKing appeared, accompanied by his brothers the Dukes of Clarence andGloucester, and followed by the Earl of Warwick. Katharine raised hereyes with I know not what lingering hope; but it was he, a young Zeusnow, triumphant and uneager. In his helmet in place of a plume he worea fox-brush spangled with jewels.
These six entered the tent pitched for the conference--the hanging ofblue velvet embroidered with fleurs-de-lys of gold blurred before thegirl's eyes,--and there the Earl of Warwick embarked upon a sea ofrhetoric. His French was indifferent, his periods were interminable,and his demands exorbitant; in brief, the King of England wantedKatharine and most of France, with a reversion at the French King'sdeath of the entire kingdom. Meanwhile Sire Henry sat in silence, hiseyes glowing.
"I have come," he said, under cover of Warwick's oratory--"I have comeagain, my lady."
Katharine's gaze flickered over him. "Liar!" she said, very softly."Has God no thunders remaining in His armory that this vile thiefstill goes unblasted? Would you steal love as well as kingdoms?"
His ruddy face was now white. "I love you, Katharine."
"Yes," she answered, "for I am your pretext. I can well believe,messire, that you love your pretext for theft and murder."
Neither spoke after this, and presently the Earl of Warwick havingcome to his peroration, the matter was adjourned till the next day.The party separated. It was not long before Katharine had informed hermother that, God willing, she would never again look upon the King ofEngland's face uncoffined. Isabeau found her a madwoman. The girlswept opposition before her with gusts of demoniacal fury, wept,shrieked, tore at her hair, and eventually fell into a sort ofepileptic seizure; between rage and terror she became a horrid,frenzied beast. I do not dwell upon this, for it is not a condition inwhich the comeliest maid shows to advantage. But, for the Valois,insanity always lurked at the next corner, and they knew it; to savethe girl's reason the Queen was forced to break off all discussion ofthe match. Accordingly, the Duke of Burgundy went next day to theconference alone. Jehan began with "ifs," and over these flimsybarriers Henry, already fretted by Katharine's scorn, presentlyvaulted to a towering fury.
"Fair cousin," the King said, after a deal of vehement bickering, "wewish you to know that we will have the daughter of your King, and thatwe will drive both him and you out of this kingdom."
The Duke answered, not without spirit, "Sire, you are pleased to sayso; but before you have succeeded in ousting my lord and me from thisrealm, I am of the opinion that you will be very heartily tired."
At this the King turned on his heel; over his shoulder he flung: "I amtireless; also, I am agile as a fox in the pursuit of my desires. Saythat to your Princess." Then he went away in a rage.
It had seemed an approvable business to win love incognito, accordingto the example of many ancient emperors, but in practice he hadtripped over an ugly outgrowth from the legendary custom. The girlhated him, there was no doubt about it; and it was equally certain heloved her. Particularly caustic was the reflection that a twitch ofhis finger would get him Katharine as his wife, for before long theQueen-Regent was again attempting secret negotiations to bring thisabout. Yes, he could get the girl's body by a couple of pen-strokes,and had he been older that might have contented him: as it was, whathe wanted was to rouse the look her eyes had borne in Chartres orchardthat tranquil morning, and this one could not readily secure byfiddling with seals and parchments. You see his position: thishigh-spirited young man now loved the Princess too utterly to take heron lip-consent, and this marriage was now his one possible excuse forceasing from victorious warfare. So he blustered, and the fightingrecommenced; and he slew in a despairing rage, knowing that by everymovement of his arm he became to her so much the more detestable.
Then the Vicomte de Montbrison, as you have heard, betrayed France,and King Henry began to strip the French realm of provinces as youpeel the layers from an onion. By the May of the year of grace 1420France was, and knew herself to be, not beaten but demolished. Only afag-end of the French army lay entrenched at Troyes, where KingCharles and his court awaited Henry's decision as to the morrow'saction. If he chose to destroy them root and branch, he could; andthey knew such mercy as was in the man to be quite untarnished byprevious using. Sire Henry drew up a small force before the city andmade no overtures toward either peace or throat-cutting.
This was the posture of affairs on the evening of the Sunday afterAscension day, when Katharine sat at cards with her father in hisapartments at the Hotel de Ville. The King was pursing his lips overan alternative play, when somebody began singing below in thecourtyard.
Sang the voice:
"I can find no meaning in life, That have weighed the world,--and it was Abundant with folly, and rife With sorrows brittle as glass, And with joys that flicker and pass Like dreams through a fevered head; And like the dripping of rain In gardens naked and dead Is the obdurate thin refrain Of our youth which is presently dead.
"And she whom alone I have loved Looks ever with loathing on me, As one she hath seen disproved And stained with such smirches as be Not ever cleansed utterly; And is both to remember the days When Destiny fixed her name As the theme and the goal of my praise; And my love engenders shame, And I stain what I strive for and praise.
"O love, most perfect of all, Just to have known you is well! And it heartens me now to recall That just to have known you is well, And naught else is desirable Save only to do as you willed And to love you my whole life long;-- But this heart in me is filled With hunger cruel and strong, And with hunger unfulfilled.
"Fond heart, though thy hunger be As a flame that wanders unstilled, There is none more perfect than she!"
Malise now came into the room, and, without speaking, laid a fox-brushbefore the Princess.
Katharine twirled it in her hand, staring at the card-littered table."So you are in his pay, Malise? I am sorry. But you know that youremployer is master here. Who am I to forbid him entrance?" The girlwent away silently, abashed, and the Princess sat quite still, tappingthe brush against the table.
"They do not want me to sign another treaty, do they?" her fatherasked timidly. "It appears to me they are always signing treaties, andI cannot see that any good comes of it. And I would have won the lastgame, Katharine, if Malise had not interrupted us. You know I wouldhave won."
"Yes, Father, you would have won. Oh, he must not see you!" Katharinecried, a great tide of love mounting in her breast, the love thatdraws a mother fiercely to shield her backward boy. "Father, will younot go into your chamber? I have a new book for you, Father--allpictures, dear. Come--" She was coaxing him when Sire Henry appearedin the doorway.
"But I do not wish to look at pictures," Charles said, peevishly; "Iwish to play cards. You are an ungrateful daughter, Katharine. You arenever willing to amuse me." He sat down with a whimper and began topluck at his dribbling lips.
Katharine had moved a little toward the door. Her face was white. "Nowwelcome, sire!" she said. "Welcome, O great conqueror, who in yourhour of triumph can find no nobler recreation than to shame a maidwith her past folly! It was valorously done, sire. See, Father; hereis the King of England come to observe how low we sit that yesterdaywere lords of France."
"The King of England!" echoed Charles, and he rose now to his feet. "Ithought we were at war with him. But my memory is treacherous. Youperceive, brother of England, I am planning a new mouse-trap, and mymind is somewhat preempted. I recall now that you are in treaty for mydaughter's hand. Katharine is a good girl, a fine upstanding girl, butI suppose--" He paused, as if to regard and hear some invisiblecounsellor, and then briskly resumed: "Yes, I suppose policy demandsthat she should marry you. We trammelled kings can never go free ofpolicy--ey, my compere of England? No; it was through policy I weddedher mother; and we have been very unhappy, Isabeau and I.
A word inyour ear, son-in-law: Madame Isabeau's soul formerly inhabited a sow,as Pythagoras teaches, and when our Saviour cast it out at Gadara, theinfluence of the moon drew it hither."
Henry did not say anything. Steadily his calm blue eyes appraised DameKatharine. And King Charles went on, very knowingly:
"Oho, these Latinists cannot hoodwink me, you observe, though byordinary it chimes with my humor to appear content. Policy again,son-in-law: for once roused, I am terrible. To-day in the greathall-window, under the bleeding feet of Lazarus, I slew ten flies--very black they were, the black shrivelled souls of parricides,--andafterward I wept for it. I often weep; the Mediterranean hath itssources in my eyes, for my daughter cheats at cards. Cheats, sir!--andI her father!" The incessant peering, the stealthy cunning with whichCharles whispered this, the confidence with which he clung to hisdestroyer's hand, was that of a conspiring child.
"Come, Father," Katharine said. "Come away to bed, dear."
"Hideous basilisk!" he spat at her; "dare you rebel against me? Am Inot King of France, and is it not blasphemy for a King of France to bemocked? Frail moths that flutter about my splendor," he shrieked, inan unheralded frenzy, "beware of me, beware! for I am omnipotent! I amKing of France, Heaven's regent. At my command the winds go about theearth, and nightly the stars are kindled for my recreation. Perhaps Iam mightier than God, but I do not remember now. The reason is writtendown and lies somewhere under a bench. Now I sail for England. Eia!eia! I go to ravage England, terrible and merciless. But I must havemy mouse-traps, Goodman Devil, for in England the cats of themiddle-sea wait unfed." He went out of the room, giggling, and in thecorridor began to sing:
"A hundred thousand times good-bye! I go to seek the Evangelist, For here all persons cheat and lie ..."
All this while Henry remained immovable, his eyes fixed uponKatharine. Thus (she meditated) he stood among Frenchmen; he was theboulder, and they the waters that babbled and fretted about him. Butshe turned and met his gaze squarely. She noted now for the first timehow oddly his left eyebrow drooped. Katharine said: "And that is theking whom you have conquered! Is it not a notable conquest to overcomeso wise a king? to pilfer renown from an idiot? There are cut-throatsin Troyes, rogues doubly damned, who would scorn the action. Now shallI fetch my mother, sire? the commander of that great army which youovercame? As the hour is late, she is by this time tipsy, but she willcome. Or perhaps she is with some paid lover, but if this conqueror,this second Alexander, wills it she will come. O God!" the girlwailed, on a sudden; "O just and all-seeing God! are not we of Valoisso contemptible that in conquering us it is the victor who is shamed?"
"Flower of the marsh!" he said, and his voice pulsed with tendercadences--"flower of the marsh! it is not the King of England who nowcomes to you, but Alain the harper. Henry Plantagenet God has ledhither by the hand to punish the sins of this realm, and to reign init like a true king. Henry Plantagenet will cast out the Valois fromthe throne they have defiled, as Darius cast out Belshazzar, for suchis the desire and the intent of God. But to you comes Alain theharper, not as a conqueror but as a suppliant,--Alain who has lovedyou whole-heartedly these two years past, and who now kneels beforeyou entreating grace."
Katharine looked down into his countenance, for to his speech he hadfitted action. Suddenly and for the first time she understood that hebelieved France to be his by Divine favor and Heaven's peculiarintervention. He thought himself God's factor, not His rebel. He wasrather stupid, this huge, handsome, squinting boy; and as shecomprehended this, her hand went to his shoulder, half maternally.
"It is nobly done, sire. But I understand. You must marry me in orderto uphold your claim to France. You sell, and I with my body purchase,peace for France. There is no need of a lover's posture when huckstersmeet."
"So changed!" he said, and he was silent for an interval, stillkneeling. Then he began: "You force me to point out that I do not needany pretext for holding France. France lies before me prostrate. ByGod's singular grace I reign in this fair kingdom, mine by right ofconquest, and an alliance with the house of Valois will neither makenor mar me." She was unable to deny this, unpalatable as was the fact."But I love you, and therefore as man wooes woman I sue to you. Do younot understand that there can be between us no question of expediency?Katharine, in Chartres orchard there met a man and a maid we know of;now in Troyes they meet again,--not as princess and king, but as manand maid, the wooer and the wooed. Once I touched your heart, I think.And now in all the world there is one thing I covet--to gain for thepoor king some portion of that love you would have squandered on theharper." His hand closed upon her hand.
At his touch the girl's composure vanished. "My lord, you woo tootimidly for one who comes with many loud-voiced advocates. I amdaughter to the King of France, and next to my soul's salvation Iesteem the welfare of France. Can I, then, fail to love the King ofEngland, who chooses the blood of my countrymen as a judicious garb tocome a-wooing in? How else, since you have ravaged my native land,since you have besmirched the name I bear, since yonder afield everywound in my dead and yet unburied Frenchmen is to me a mouth whichshrieks your infamy?"
He rose. "And yet, for all that, you love me."
She could not at the first effort find words with which to answer him,but presently she said, quite simply, "To see you lying in your coffinI would willingly give up my hope of heaven, for heaven can afford nosight more desirable."
"You loved Alain."
"I loved the husk of a man. You can never comprehend how utterly Iloved him."
"You are stubborn. I shall have trouble with you. But this notion ofyours is plainly a mistaken notion. That you love me is indisputable,and this I propose to demonstrate. You will observe that I am quiteunarmed except for this dagger, which I now throw out of thewindow--" with the word it jangled in the courtyard below. "I am inTroyes alone among some thousand Frenchmen, any one of whom wouldwillingly give his life for the privilege of taking mine. You have butto sound the gong beside you, and in a few moments I shall be a deadman. 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 ofterror.
"You came alone! You dared!"
He answered, with a wonderful smile, "Proud spirit! How else might Iconquer you?"
"You have not conquered!" Katharine lifted the baton beside the gong,poising it. God had granted her prayer--to save France. Now the pastand the ignominy of the past might be merged in Judith's nobler guilt.But I must tell you that in the supreme hour, Destiny at her beck, hermain desire was to slap the man for his childishness. Oh, he had noright thus to besot himself with adoration! This dejection at her feetof his high destiny awed her, and pricked her, too, with her inabilityto understand him. Angrily she flung away the baton. "Go! Ah, go!" shecried, like one strangling. "There has been enough of bloodshed, and Imust spare you, loathing you as I do, for I cannot with my own handmurder you."
But the King was a kindly tyrant, crushing independence from hisassociates as lesser folk squeeze water from a sponge. "I cannot gothus. Acknowledge me to be Alain, the man you love, or else strikeupon 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 ofdespair. "You have conquered. You know that I love you. Oh, if I couldfind words to voice my shame, to shriek it in your face, I couldbetter endure it! For I love you. With all my body and heart and soulI love you. Mine is the agony, for I love you! and presently I shallstand quite still and see little Frenchmen scramble about you ashounds leap about a stag, and afterward kill you. And after that Ishall live! I preserve France, but after I have slain you, Henry, Imust live. Mine is the agony, the enduring agony." She stayedmotionless for an interval. "God, God! Let me not fail!" Katharinebreathed; and then: "O fair sweet friend, I am about to commit a vileaction, but it is for the sake of the France that
I love next to God.As Judith gave her body to Holofernes, I crucify my heart for thepreservation of France." Very calmly she struck upon the gong.
If she could have found any reproach in his eyes during the ensuingsilence, she could have borne it; but there was only love. And withall that, he smiled like one who knew the upshot of this matter.
A man-at-arms came into the room. "Germain--" said Katharine, and thenagain, "Germain--" She gave a swallowing motion and was silent. Whenshe 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 youhave dragged my soul, too, in the dust? God heard my prayer, and youhave forced me to deny His favor, as Peter denied Christ. My dear, bevery kind to me, for I come to you naked of honor." She fell at theKing's feet, embracing his knees. "My master, be very kind to me, forthere remains only your love."
He raised her to his breast. "Love is enough," he said.
She was conscious, as he held her thus, of the chain mail under hisjerkin. He had come armed; he had his soldiers no doubt in thecorridor; he had tricked her, it might be from the first. But that didnot matter now.
"Love is enough," she told her master docilely.
Next day the English entered Troyes and in the cathedral church thesetwo were betrothed. Henry was there magnificent in a curious suit ofburnished armor; in place of his helmet-plume he wore a fox-brushornamented with jewels, which unusual ornament afforded great matterof remark among the busybodies of both armies.
THE END OF THE TENTH NOVEL