Chivalry | Page 8

morning, "And what will you sing,
my Osmund? Shall we begin the practise of our new profession with
the Sestina of Spring?"--old Osmund Heleigh grunted out: "I have
forgotten that rubbish long ago. _Omnis amans, amens_, saith the
satirist of Rome town, and with reason."
Followed silence.
One sees them thus trudging the brown, naked plains under a sky of
steel. In a pageant the woman, full-veined and comely, her russet gown
girded up like a harvester's might not inaptly have prefigured October;
and for less comfortable November you could nowhere have found a
symbol more precise than her lank companion, humorously peevish
under his white thatch of hair, and constantly fretted by the sword
tapping at his ankles.
They made Hurlburt prosperously and found it vacant, for the news of
Falmouth's advance had driven the villagers hillward. There was in this
place a child, a naked boy of some two years, lying on a doorstep,
overlooked in his elders' gross terror. As the Queen with a sob lifted
this boy the child died.
"Starved!" said Osmund Heleigh; "and within a stone's throw of my
snug home!"
The Queen laid down the tiny corpse, and, stooping, lightly caressed its
sparse flaxen hair. She answered nothing, though her lips moved.
Past Vachel, scene of a recent skirmish, with many dead in the gutters,
they were overtaken by Falmouth himself, and stood at the roadside to
afford his troop passage. The Marquess, as he went by, flung the Queen

a coin, with a jest sufficiently high flavored. She knew the man her
inveterate enemy, knew that on recognition he would have killed her as
he would a wolf; she smiled at him and dropped a curtsey.
"This is remarkable," Messire Heleigh observed. "I was hideously
afraid, and am yet shaking. But you, madame, laughed."
The Queen replied: "I laughed because I know that some day I shall
have Lord Falmouth's head. It will be very sweet to see it roll in the
dust, my Osmund."
Messire Heleigh somewhat dryly observed that tastes differed.
At Jessop Minor befell a more threatening adventure. Seeking food at
the Cat and Hautbois in that village, they blundered upon the same
troop at dinner in the square about the inn. Falmouth and his lieutenants
were somewhere inside the house. The men greeted the supposed
purveyors of amusement with a shout; and one of these soldiers--a
swarthy rascal with his head tied in a napkin--demanded that the
jongleurs grace their meal with a song.
Osmund tried to put him off with a tale of a broken viol.
But, "Haro!" the fellow blustered; "by blood and by nails! you will sing
more sweetly with a broken viol than with a broken head. I would have
you understand, you hedge thief, that we gentlemen of the sword are
not partial to wordy argument." Messire Heleigh fluttered inefficient
hands as the men-at-arms gathered about them, scenting some genial
piece of cruelty. "Oh, you rabbit!" the trooper jeered, and caught at
Osmund's throat, shaking him. In the act this rascal tore open Messire
Heleigh's tunic, disclosing a thin chain about his neck and a handsome
locket, which the fellow wrested from its fastening. "Ahoi!" he
continued. "Ahoi, my comrades, what sort of minstrel is this, who goes
about England all hung with gold like a Cathedral Virgin! He and his
sweetheart"--the actual word was grosser--"will be none the worse for
an interview with the Marquess."
The situation smacked of awkwardness, because Lord Falmouth was

familiar with the Queen, and to be brought specifically to his attention
meant death for two detected masqueraders. Hastily Osmund Heleigh
said:
"Messire, the locket contains the portrait of a lady whom in my youth I
loved very greatly. Save to me, it is valueless. I pray you, do not rob
me of it."
But the trooper shook his head with drunken solemnity. "I do not like
the looks of this. Yet I will sell it to you, as the saying is, for a song."
"It shall be the king of songs," said Osmund,--"the song that Arnaut
Daniel first made. I will sing for you a Sestina, messieurs,--a Sestina in
salutation of Spring."
The men disposed themselves about the dying grass, and presently he
sang.
Sang Messire Heleigh:
"Awaken! for the servitors of Spring Proclaim his triumph! ah, make
haste to see With what tempestuous pageantry they bring The victor
homeward! haste, for this is he That cast out Winter and all woes that
cling To Winter's garments, and bade April be!
"And now that Spring is master, let us be Content, and laugh, as
anciently in spring The battle-wearied Tristan laughed, when he Was
come again Tintagel-ward, to bring Glad news of Arthur's victory--and
see Ysoude, with parted lips, that waver and cling.
"Not yet in Brittany must Tristan