CHAPTER XVII.
Were every hair upon his head a life, And every life were to be supplicated By numbers equal to those hairs quadrupled, Life after life should out like waning stars Before the daybreak--or as festive lamps, Which have lent lustre to the midnight revel, Each after each are quench'd when guests depart! OLD PLAY
The entrance of Queen Berengaria into the interior of Richard's pavilionwas withstood--in the most respectful and reverential manner indeed, butstill withstood--by the chamberlains who watched in the outer tent. Shecould hear the stern command of the King from within, prohibiting theirentrance.
"You see," said the Queen, appealing to Edith, as if she had exhaustedall means of intercession in her power; "I knew it--the King will notreceive us."
At the same time, they heard Richard speak to some one within:--"Go,speed thine office quickly, sirrah, for in that consists thy mercy--tenbyzants if thou dealest on him at one blow. And hark thee, villain,observe if his cheek loses colour, or his eye falters; mark me thesmallest twitch of the features, or wink of the eyelid. I love to knowhow brave souls meet death."
"If he sees my blade waved aloft without shrinking, he is the first everdid so," answered a harsh, deep voice, which a sense of unusual awe hadsoftened into a sound much lower than its usual coarse tones.
Edith could remain silent no longer. "If your Grace," she said to theQueen, "make not your own way, I make it for you; or if not for yourMajesty, for myself at least.--Chamberlain, the Queen demands to seeKing Richard--the wife to speak with her husband."
"Noble lady," said the officer, lowering his wand of office, "it grievesme to gainsay you, but his Majesty is busied on matters of life anddeath."
"And we seek also to speak with him on matters of life and death," saidEdith. "I will make entrance for your Grace." And putting aside thechamberlain with one hand, she laid hold on the curtain with the other.
"I dare not gainsay her Majesty's pleasure," said the chamberlain,yielding to the vehemence of the fair petitioner; and as he gave way,the Queen found herself obliged to enter the apartment of Richard.
The Monarch was lying on his couch, and at some distance, as awaitinghis further commands, stood a man whose profession it was not difficultto conjecture. He was clothed in a jerkin of red cloth, which reachedscantly below the shoulders, leaving the arms bare from about half wayabove the elbow; and as an upper garment, he wore, when about as atpresent to betake himself to his dreadful office, a coat or tabardwithout sleeves, something like that of a herald, made of dressed bull'shide, and stained in the front with many a broad spot and speckle ofdull crimson. The jerkin, and the tabard over it, reached the knee; andthe nether stocks, or covering of the legs, were of the same leatherwhich composed the tabard. A cap of rough shag served to hide the upperpart of a visage which, like that of a screech owl, seemed desirous toconceal itself from light, the lower part of the face being obscured bya huge red beard, mingling with shaggy locks of the same colour. Whatfeatures were seen were stern and misanthropical. The man's figure wasshort, strongly made, with a neck like a bull, very broad shoulders,arms of great and disproportioned length, a huge square trunk, and thickbandy legs. This truculent official leant on a sword, the blade of whichwas nearly four feet and a half in length, while the handle of twentyinches, surrounded by a ring of lead plummets to counterpoise the weightof such a blade, rose considerably above the man's head as he rested hisarm upon its hilt, waiting for King Richard's further directions.
On the sudden entrance of the ladies, Richard, who was then lying on hiscouch with his face towards the entrance, and resting on his elbow as hespoke to his grisly attendant, flung himself hastily, as if displeasedand surprised, to the other side, turning his back to the Queen and thefemales of her train, and drawing around him the covering of his couch,which, by his own choice, or more probably the flattering selection ofhis chamberlains, consisted of two large lions' skins, dressed in Venicewith such admirable skill that they seemed softer than the hide of thedeer.
Berengaria, such as we have described her, knew well--what woman knowsnot?--her own road to victory. After a hurried glance of undisguisedand unaffected terror at the ghastly companion of her husband's secretcounsels, she rushed at once to the side of Richard's couch, dropped onher knees, flung her mantle from her shoulders, showing, as they hungdown at their full length, her beautiful golden tresses, and while hercountenance seemed like the sun bursting through a cloud, yet bearingon its pallid front traces that its splendours have been obscured, sheseized upon the right hand of the King, which, as he assumed his wontedposture, had been employed in dragging the covering of his couch, andgradually pulling it to her with a force which was resisted, though butfaintly, she possessed herself of that arm, the prop of Christendomand the dread of Heathenesse, and imprisoning its strength in both herlittle fairy hands, she bent upon it her brow, and united to it herlips.
"What needs this, Berengaria?" said Richard, his head still averted, buthis hand remaining under her control.
"Send away that man, his look kills me!" muttered Berengaria.
"Begone, sirrah," said Richard, still without looking round, "Whatwait'st thou for? art thou fit to look on these ladies?"
"Your Highness's pleasure touching the head," said the man.
"Out with thee, dog!" answered Richard--"a Christian burial!" The mandisappeared, after casting a look upon the beautiful Queen, in herderanged dress and natural loveliness, with a smile of admiration morehideous in its expression than even his usual scowl of cynical hatredagainst humanity.
"And now, foolish wench, what wishest thou?" said Richard, turningslowly and half reluctantly round to his royal suppliant.
But it was not in nature for any one, far less an admirer of beautylike Richard, to whom it stood only in the second rank to glory, tolook without emotion on the countenance and the tremor of a creature sobeautiful as Berengaria, or to feel, without sympathy, that her lips,her brow, were on his hand, and that it was wetted by her tears. Bydegrees, he turned on her his manly countenance, with the softestexpression of which his large blue eye, which so often gleamed withinsufferable light, was capable. Caressing her fair head, and minglinghis large fingers in her beautiful and dishevelled locks, he raised andtenderly kissed the cherub countenance which seemed desirous to hideitself in his hand. The robust form, the broad, noble brow and majesticlooks, the naked arm and shoulder, the lions' skins among which he lay,and the fair, fragile feminine creature that kneeled by his side,might have served for a model of Hercules reconciling himself, after aquarrel, to his wife Dejanira.
"And, once more, what seeks the lady of my heart in her knight'spavilion at this early and unwonted hour?"
"Pardon, my most gracious liege--pardon!" said the Queen, whose fearsbegan again to unfit her for the duty of intercessor.
"Pardon--for what?" asked the King.
"First, for entering your royal presence too boldly and unadvisedly--"
She stopped.
"THOU too boldly!--the sun might as well ask pardon because his raysentered the windows of some wretch's dungeon. But I was busied with workunfit for thee to witness, my gentle one; and I was unwilling, besides,that thou shouldst risk thy precious health where sickness had been solately rife."
"But thou art now well?" said the Queen, still delaying thecommunication which she feared to make.
"Well enough to break a lance on the bold crest of that champion whoshall refuse to acknowledge thee the fairest dame in Christendom."
"Thou wilt not then refuse me one boon--only one--only a poor life?"
"Ha!--proceed," said King Richard, bending his brows.
"This unhappy Scottish knight--" murmured the Queen.
"Speak not of him, madam," exclaimed Richard sternly; "he dies--his doomis fixed."
"Nay, my royal liege and love, 'tis but a silken banner neglected.Berengaria will give thee another broidered with her own hand, and richas ever dallied with the wind. Every pearl I have
shall go to bedeck it,and with every pearl I will drop a tear of thankfulness to my generousknight."
"Thou knowest not what thou sayest," said the King, interrupting her inanger. "Pearls! can all the pearls of the East atone for a speck uponEngland's honour--all the tears that ever woman's eye wept wash away astain on Richard's fame? Go to, madam, know your place, and your time,and your sphere. At present we have duties in which you cannot be ourpartner."
"Thou hearest, Edith," whispered the Queen; "we shall but incense him."
"Be it so," said Edith, stepping forward.--"My lord, I, your poorkinswoman, crave you for justice rather than mercy; and to the cry ofjustice the ears of a monarch should be open at every time, place, andcircumstance."
"Ha! our cousin Edith?" said Richard, rising and sitting upright onthe side of his couch, covered with his long camiscia. "She speaksever kinglike, and kinglike will I answer her, so she bring no requestunworthy herself or me."
The beauty of Edith was of a more intellectual and less voluptuouscast than that of the Queen; but impatience and anxiety had givenher countenance a glow which it sometimes wanted, and her mien had acharacter of energetic dignity that imposed silence for a moment evenon Richard himself, who, to judge by his looks, would willingly haveinterrupted her.
"My lord," she said, "this good knight, whose blood you are about tospill, hath done, in his time, service to Christendom. He has fallenfrom his duty through a snare set for him in mere folly and idleness ofspirit. A message sent to him in the name of one who--why should I notspeak it?--it was in my own--induced him for an instant to leave hispost. And what knight in the Christian camp might not have thus fartransgressed at command of a maiden, who, poor howsoever in otherqualities, hath yet the blood of Plantagenet in her veins?"
"And you saw him, then, cousin?" replied the King, biting his lips tokeep down his passion.
"I did, my liege," said Edith. "It is no time to explain wherefore. I amhere neither to exculpate myself nor to blame others."
"And where did you do him such a grace?"
"In the tent of her Majesty the Queen."
"Of our royal consort!" said Richard. "Now by Heaven, by Saint Georgeof England, and every other saint that treads its crystal floor, thisis too audacious! I have noticed and overlooked this warrior's insolentadmiration of one so far above him, and I grudged him not that one ofmy blood should shed from her high-born sphere such influence as thesun bestows on the world beneath. But, heaven and earth! that you shouldhave admitted him to an audience by night, in the very tent of our royalconsort!--and dare to offer this as an excuse for his disobedience anddesertion! By my father's soul, Edith, thou shalt rue this thy life longin a monastery!"
"My liege," said Edith, "your greatness licenses tyranny. My honour,Lord King, is as little touched as yours, and my Lady the Queen canprove it if she think fit. But I have already said I am not here toexcuse myself or inculpate others. I ask you but to extend to one, whosefault was committed under strong temptation, that mercy, which even youyourself, Lord King, must one day supplicate at a higher tribunal, andfor faults, perhaps, less venial."
"Can this be Edith Plantagenet?" said the King bitterly--"EdithPlantagenet, the wise and the noble? Or is it some lovesick woman whocares not for her own fame in comparison of the life of her paramour?Now, by King Henry's soul! little hinders but I order thy minion's skullto be brought from the gibbet, and fixed as a perpetual ornament by thecrucifix in thy cell!"
"And if thou dost send it from the gibbet to be placed for ever in mysight," said Edith, "I will say it is a relic of a good knight, cruellyand unworthily done to death by" (she checked herself)--"by one of whomI shall only say, he should have known better how to reward chivalry.Minion callest thou him?" she continued, with increasing vehemence. "Hewas indeed my lover, and a most true one; but never sought he grace fromme by look or word--contented with such humble observance as men pay tothe saints. And the good--the valiant--the faithful must die for this!"
"Oh, peace, peace, for pity's sake," whispered the Queen, "you do butoffend him more!"
"I care not," said Edith; "the spotless virgin fears not the raginglion. Let him work his will on this worthy knight. Edith, for whom hedies, will know how to weep his memory. To me no one shall speak more ofpolitic alliances to be sanctioned with this poor hand. I could not--Iwould not--have been his bride living--our degrees were too distant. Butdeath unites the high and the low--I am henceforward the spouse of thegrave."
The King was about to answer with much anger, when a Carmelite monkentered the apartment hastily, his head and person muffled in thelong mantle and hood of striped cloth of the coarsest texture whichdistinguished his order, and, flinging himself on his knees before theKing, conjured him, by every holy word and sign, to stop the execution.
"Now, by both sword and sceptre," said Richard, "the world is leagued todrive me mad!--fools, women, and monks cross me at every step. How comeshe to live still?"
"My gracious liege," said the monk, "I entreated of the Lord of Gilslandto stay the execution until I had thrown myself at your royal--"
"And he was wilful enough to grant thy request," said the King; "butit is of a piece with his wonted obstinacy. And what is it thou hast tosay? Speak, in the fiend's name!"
"My lord, there is a weighty secret, but it rests under the seal ofconfession. I dare not tell or even whisper it; but I swear to theeby my holy order, by the habit which I wear, by the blessed Elias, ourfounder, even him who was translated without suffering the ordinarypangs of mortality, that this youth hath divulged to me a secret, which,if I might confide it to thee, would utterly turn thee from thy bloodypurpose in regard to him."
"Good father," said Richard, "that I reverence the church, let the armswhich I now wear for her sake bear witness. Give me to know this secret,and I will do what shall seem fitting in the matter. But I am noblind Bayard, to take a leap in the dark under the stroke of a pair ofpriestly spurs."
"My lord," said the holy man, throwing back his cowl and upper vesture,and discovering under the latter a garment of goatskin, and from beneaththe former a visage so wildly wasted by climate, fast, and penance, asto resemble rather the apparition of an animated skeleton than a humanface, "for twenty years have I macerated this miserable body in thecaverns of Engaddi, doing penance for a great crime. Think you I, who amdead to the world, would contrive a falsehood to endanger my own soul;or that one, bound by the most sacred oaths to the contrary--one suchas I, who have but one longing wish connected with earth, to wit,the rebuilding of our Christian Zion--would betray the secrets of theconfessional? Both are alike abhorrent to my very soul."
"So," answered the King, "thou art that hermit of whom men speak somuch? Thou art, I confess, like enough to those spirits which walk indry places; but Richard fears no hobgoblins. And thou art he, too, asI bethink me, to whom the Christian princes sent this very criminal toopen a communication with the Soldan, even while I, who ought to havebeen first consulted, lay on my sick-bed? Thou and they may contentthemselves--I will not put my neck into the loop of a Carmelite'sgirdle. And, for your envoy, he shall die the rather and the sooner thatthou dost entreat for him."
"Now God be gracious to thee, Lord King!" said the hermit, with muchemotion; "thou art setting that mischief on foot which thou wilthereafter wish thou hadst stopped, though it had cost thee a limb. Rash,blinded man, yet forbear!"
"Away, away," cried the King, stamping; "the sun has risen on thedishonour of England, and it is not yet avenged.--Ladies and priest,withdraw, if you would not hear orders which would displease you; for,by St. George, I swear--"
"Swear NOT!" said the voice of one who had just then entered thepavilion.
"Ha! my learned Hakim," said the King, "come, I hope, to tax ourgenerosity."
"I come to request instant speech with you--instant--and touchingmatters of deep interest."
"First look on my wife, Hakim, and let her know in you the preserver ofher husband."
"It is not for me," said the p
hysician, folding his arms with an air ofOriental modesty and reverence, and bending his eyes on the ground--"itis not for me to look upon beauty unveiled, and armed in itssplendours."
"Retire, then, Berengaria," said the Monarch; "and, Edith, do you retirealso;--nay, renew not your importunities! This I give to them thatthe execution shall not be till high noon. Go and be pacified--dearestBerengaria, begone.--Edith," he added, with a glance which struck terroreven into the courageous soul of his kinswoman, "go, if you are wise."
The females withdrew, or rather hurried from the tent, rank and ceremonyforgotten, much like a flock of wild-fowl huddled together, against whomthe falcon has made a recent stoop.
They returned from thence to the Queen's pavilion to indulge in regretsand recriminations, equally unavailing. Edith was the only one whoseemed to disdain these ordinary channels of sorrow. Without a sigh,without a tear, without a word of upbraiding, she attended upon theQueen, whose weak temperament showed her sorrow in violent hystericalecstasies and passionate hypochondriacal effusions, in the course ofwhich Edith sedulously and even affectionately attended her.
"It is impossible she can have loved this knight," said Florise toCalista, her senior in attendance upon the Queen's person. "We have beenmistaken; she is but sorry for his fate, as for a stranger who has cometo trouble on her account."
"Hush, hush," answered her more experienced and more observant comrade;"she is of that proud house of Plantagenet who never own that a hurtgrieves them. While they have themselves been bleeding to death, under amortal wound, they have been known to bind up the scratches sustainedby their more faint-hearted comrades. Florise, we have done frightfullywrong, and, for my own part, I would buy with every jewel I have thatour fatal jest had remained unacted."