Chivalry | Page 6

whereas what you find distasteful in them you must impute to
my delinquencies in skill rather than in volition.
Within the half hour after de Giars' death (here one overtakes Nicolas
mid-course in narrative) Dame Alianora thus stood alone in the corridor
of a strange house. Beyond the arras the steward and his lord were at
irritable converse.
First, "If the woman be hungry," spoke a high and peevish voice, "feed
her. If she need money, give it to her. But do not annoy me."
"This woman demands to see the master of the house," the steward then

retorted.
"O incredible Boeotian, inform her that the master of the house has no
time to waste upon vagabonds who select the middle of the night as an
eligible time to pop out of nowhere. Why did you not do so in the
beginning, you dolt?" The speaker got for answer only a deferential
cough, and very shortly continued: "This is remarkably vexatious.
_Vox et praeterea nihil_--which signifies, Yeck, that to converse with
women is always delightful. Admit her." This was done, and Dame
Alianora came into an apartment littered with papers, where a neat and
shriveled gentleman of fifty-odd sat at a desk and scowled.
He presently said, "You may go, Yeck." He had risen, the magisterial
attitude with which he had awaited her entrance cast aside. "Oh, God!"
he said; "you, madame!" His thin hands, scholarly hands, were
plucking at the air.
Dame Alianora had paused, greatly astonished, and there was an
interval before she said, "I do not recognize you, messire."
"And yet, madame, I recall very clearly that some thirty years ago the
King-Count Raymond Bérenger, then reigning in Provence, had about
his court four daughters, each one of whom was afterward wedded to a
king. First, Meregrett, the eldest, now regnant in France; then Alianora,
the second and most beautiful of these daughters, whom troubadours
hymned as the Unattainable Princess. She was married a long while ago,
madame, to the King of England, Lord Henry, third of that name to
reign in these islands."
Dame Alianora's eyes were narrowing. "There is something in your
voice," she said, "which I recall."
He answered: "Madame and Queen, that is very likely, for it is a voice
which sang a deal in Provence when both of us were younger. I
concede with the Roman that I have somewhat deteriorated since the
reign of Cynara. Yet have you quite forgotten the Englishman who
made so many songs of you? They called him Osmund Heleigh."

"He made the Sestina of Spring which won the violet crown at my
betrothal," the Queen said; and then, with eagerness: "Messire, can it be
that you are Osmund Heleigh?" He shrugged assent. She looked at him
for a long time, rather sadly, and demanded if he were the King's man
or of the barons' party.
The nervous hands were raised in deprecation. "I have no politics,"
Messire Heleigh began, and altered it, gallantly enough, to, "I am the
Queen's man, madame."
"Then aid me, Osmund," she said.
He answered with a gravity which singularly became him, "You have
reason to understand that to my fullest power I will aid you."
"You know that at Lewes these swine overcame us." He nodded assent.
"Now they hold the King, my husband, captive at Kenilworth. I am
content that he remain there, for he is of all the King's enemies the most
dangerous. But, at Wallingford, Leicester has imprisoned my son,
Prince Edward. The Prince must be freed, my Osmund. Warren de
Basingbourne commands what is left of the royal army, now
entrenched at Bristol, and it is he who must liberate my son. Get me to
Bristol, then. Afterward we will take Wallingford." The Queen issued
these orders in cheery, practical fashion, and did not admit opposition
into the account, for she was a capable woman.
"But you, madame?" he stammered. "You came alone?"
"I come from France, where I have been entreating--and vainly
entreating--succor from yet another monkish king, the holy Lewis of
that realm. Eh, what is God about when He enthrones these whining
pieties! Were I a king, were I even a man, I would drive these smug
English out of their foggy isle in three days' space! I would leave alive
not one of these curs that dare yelp at me! I would--" She paused, anger
veering into amusement. "See how I enrage myself when I think of
what your people have made me suffer," the Queen said, and shrugged
her shoulders. "In effect, I skulked back in disguise to this detestable
island, accompanied by Avenel de Giars and Hubert Fitz-Herveis.

To-night some half-dozen fellows--robbers, thorough knaves, like all
you English,--attacked us on the common yonder and slew the men of
our party. While they were cutting