The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay Part 15

CHAPTER XV

LAST _TENZON_ OF BERTRAN DE BORN

I wish to be done with Bertran de Born, that lagging fox; but the dogs of my art must make a backward cast if they are to kill him in the open.

I beg the reader, then, to remember that when Richard left him half-throttled in his own house, and when he had recovered wind enough to stir his gall, he made preparations for a long journey to the South.

In that scandal concerning Alois of France he believed he had stuff which might wreck Count Richard more disastrously than Count Richard could wreck him. He hoped to raise the South, and thither he went, his own dung-fly, buzzing over the offal he had blown; and the first point he headed for was Pampluna across the Pyrenees. It is folly to dig into the mind of a man diseased by malice; better treat such like sour ground, burn with lime (or let G.o.d burn) and abide the event in faith.

If of all men in the world Bertran hated Richard of Anjou, it was not because Richard had misused him, but because he had used him too lightly. Richard, offended with Bertran, gave him a flick on the ear and sent him to the devil with his j.a.pes. He did no more because he valued him no more. He thought him a perverse rascal, glorious poet, ill-conditioned va.s.sal, untimely parasite of his father's realm. He knew he had caused endless mischief, but he could not hate such a cork on a waterspray. Now, it fretted Bertran to white heat that he should be despised by a great man. It seemed that at last he could do him considerable harm. He could embroil him with two kings, France and England, and induce a third to hara.s.s him from the South. So he crossed the mountains and went into Navarre.

Over those stony ridges and bare fields Don Sancho was king, the seventh of his name; and he kept his state in the city of Pampluna. Reputed the wisest prince of his day, it is certain that he had need to be so, such neighbours as he had. West of him was Santiago, south of him Castile.

These two urgent kings, edging (as it were) on the same bench with him, made his seat a s.h.i.+fty comfort. No sooner had he warmed himself a place than he was hoist to a cold one. In front of him, over against the sun, he saw Philip of France pinched to the same degree between England and Burgundy, eager to stretch his extremities since he could not broaden his sides. Don Sancho had no call to love France; but he feared England greatly--the horrible old brindled Lion, and Richard, offspring of the Lion and the Pard, Richard the Leopard, who made more songs and fought more quarrels out than any Christian prince. Here were quodlibets for Don Sancho's logic. In appearance he was a pale vexed man, with anxious eyes and a thin beard, at which (in his troubles) he plucked as often as he could afford the hairs. Next to his bleached lands he loved minstrels and physicians. Averrhoes was often at his court; so were Guillem of Cabestaing and Peire Vidal. He knew and went so far as to love Bertran de Born. Perhaps he was not too good a Christian, certainly he was a very hungry one; and kings, with the rest of the world, are to be judged by their necessities, not their professions. So much will suffice, I hope, concerning Don Sancho the Wise.

In those days which saw Count Richard's back turned on Autafort, and Saint-Pol's broken at Tours, Bertran de Born came to Pampluna, asking to be received by the King of Navarre. Don Sancho was glad to see him.

'Now, Bertran,' says he, 'you shall give me news of poets and the food of poets. All the talk here is of bad debts.'

'Oy, sire,' says Bertran, 'what can I tell you? The land is in flames, the women have streaked faces, far and wide travels the torch of war.'

'I am sorry to hear it,' says King Sancho, 'and trust that you have not brought one of those torches with you.'

Bertran shook his head; interruptions worried him, for he lived maddeningly, like a man that has a drumming in his ear.

'Sire,' he said, 'there is a new strife between the Count of Poictou, "Yea-and-Nay," and the French King on this account: the Count repudiates Madame Alois.'

'Now, why does he do that, Bertran?' cried King Sancho, opening his eyes wide.

'Sire, it is because he pretends that his father, the old King, has done him dishonour. Says the Count, Madame Alois might be my stepmother, never my wife.'

'Deus!' said the King. 'Bertran, is this the truth?'

That was a question for which Bertran was fully prepared. He always had it put, and always gave the same answer. 'As I am a Christian, sire,' he said, 'the Gospel is no truer.'

To which King Sancho replied, 'I do most devoutly believe in the Holy Gospel, whatever any Arabian may say to the contrary. But is it for this, pray, that you propose to light candles of war in Navarre?'

'Ah,' said Bertran, with his hand scratching in his vest, 'I light no candles, my lord; but I counsel you to light them.'

'Phew!' said King Sancho, and stuck his arms out; 'on whose account, Bertran, on whose account?'

Bertran replied savagely, 'On account of Dame Alois slandered, of her brother France deceived in his hope, of the English King strangely accused, of his son John (a hopeful prince, Benjamin of a second Israel), and of Queen Eleanor of England, of whose kindred your Grace is.'

'Deus! Oy, Deus!' cried King Sancho, pale with amazement, 'and are all these thrones in arms, lighting candles against Count Richard?'

'It is so indeed, sire,' says Bertran; and King Sancho frowned, with this comment--'There seems little chivalry here, take it as you will.'

Next he inquired, where was the Count of Poictou?

Bertran was ready. 'He rages his lands, sire, like a leopard caged. Now and again he raids the marches, harries France or Anjou, and withdraws.'

'And the King his father, Bertran, where is he? Far off, I hope.'

'He,' said Bertran, 'is in Normandy with a host, seeking the head of his son Richard on a charger.'

'The great man that he is!' cried Don Sancho. Bertran could not contain himself.

'Great or not, he is to pay his debts! The old rascal stag is rotten with fever.'

I suppose Don Sancho was not called Wise for nothing. At any rate he sat for a while considering the man before him. Then he asked, where was King Philip?

'Sire,' replied Bertran, 'he is in his city of Paris, comforting Dame Alois, and a.s.sembling his estates for Count Richard's flank.'

'And Prince John?'

'Oh, sire, he has friends. He waits. Watch for him presently.'

King Sancho frowned his forehead into furrows, and allowed himself a hair or two of his beard. 'We will think of it, Bertran,' he said presently. 'Yes, we will think of it, after our own fas.h.i.+on. G.o.d rest you, Bertran, pray go refresh yourself.' So he dismissed him.

When he was alone he went on frowning, and between whiles tapped his teeth with his beard-comb. He knew that Bertran had not come lying for nothing to Pampluna; he must find out on whose account he was lying, and upon what rock of truth (if any at all) he had built up his lies. Was it because he hated the father, or because he hated the son? Or because he served Prince John? Let that alone for a moment. This story of Alois: it must be, he thought, either true or false, but was no invention of Bertran's. Whichever it was, King Philip would make war upon King Henry, not upon Richard; since, wanting timber, you cut at the trunk, not at the branches. He believed Bertran so far, that the Count of Poictou was in his country, and King Henry with a host in his. War between Philip and the Count was a foolishness. Peace between the Count and King Henry was another. Don Sancho believed (since he believed in G.o.d) that old King Henry was at death's door; and he saw above all things that, if the scandal was reasonably founded, there would be a bachelor prince spoiling for wedlock. On all grounds, therefore, he decided to write privily to his kinswoman, Queen Eleanor of England.

And so he did, to a very different tune from that imagined by Bertran, the letter which follows:--

'Madame (Sister and Aunt),' he wrote, 'this day has brought tidings to my private ear whereat in part I mourn with you, and rejoice in part, as a wise physician who, hearing of some great lover in the article of death, knows that he has both the wit and the remedy to work his cure.

Madame, with a hand upon my heart I may certify the flow of my blood for the causes, serious and horrific, which have led to strife between your exalted lord and most dear consort in Christ Jesus, my lord Henry the pious King of England (whom G.o.d a.s.soil) and his august neighbour of France. But, Madame (Sister and Aunt), it is no less my comfort to affirm that the estate of your n.o.ble son, the Count of Poictou, no less moves my anguish. What, Madame! So fierce a youth and so strenuous, widowed of his hopeful bed! The face of Paris with the fate of Menelaus!

The sweet accomplishments of King David (chief of trobadors) and the ignominy of the husband of Bathsheba! You see that my eloquence burns me up; and verily, Madame (Sister and Aunt), the hot coal of the wrath of your son has touched my mouth, so that at the last I speak with my tongue.

'I ask myself, Madame, why do not the virgins of Christendom arise and offer their unrifled zones to his n.o.ble fingers? Sister and Aunt, there is one at least, in Navarre, who so arises. I offer my child Berengere, called by trobadors (because of her chaste seclusion) Frozen Heart, to be thawed in the sun of your son. I offer, moreover, my great fiefs of Oliocastro, Cingovilas, Monte Negro, and Sierra Alba as far as Agreda; and a dowry also of 60,000 marks in gold of Byzance, to be numbered by three bishops, one each of our choosing, and the third to be chosen by Our lord and ghostly father the Pope. And I offer to you, Madame (Sister and Aunt), the devotion of a brother and nephew, the right hand of concord, and the kiss of peace. I pray G.o.d daily to preserve your Celsitude.--From our court of Pampluna, etc. Under the Privy Signet of the King himself--Sanchius Navarrensium Rex, Sapiens, Pater Patriae, Pius, Catholicus.'

This done, and means taken for sure despatch, he sends for the virgin in question, and embracing her with one arm, holds her close to his knee.

'My child,' he says, 'you are to be wedded to the greatest prince now on life, the pattern of chivalry, the mirror of manly beauty, heir to a great throne. What do you say to this?'

The virgin kept her eyes down; a very faint flush of rose troubled her cheek.

'I am in your hands, sire,' she said, whereupon Don Sancho enfolded her.

'You are in my arms, dear child,' he testified. 'Your lord will be King of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Anjou, Poictou, and Maine, and lord of some island in the western sea whose name I have forgotten. He is also the subject of prophecy, which (as the Arabians know very well) declares that he will rule such an empire as Alexander never saw, nor the mighty Charles dreamed of. Does this please you, my child?'

'He is a very great lord,' said Berengere, 'and will be a great king. I hope to serve him faithfully.'

'By Saint James, and so you shall!' cried the happy Don Sancho. 'Go, my child, and say your prayers. You will have something to pray about at last.'

She was the only daughter he had left, exorbitantly loved; a little creature too much brocaded to move, cold as snow, pious as a virgin enclosed, with small regular features like a fairy queen's. She had a narrow mind, and small heart for meeting tribulation, which, indeed, she seemed never likely to know. Sometimes, being in her robes of state, crusted with gems, crowned, coifed, ringed, she looked like nothing so much as a stiff doll-G.o.ddess set in gla.s.s over an altar. It was thus she showed her best, when with fixed eyes and a frigid smile she stood above the court, an unapproachable glittering star set in the clear sky of a night to give men hopes of an ordered heaven. It was thus Bertran de Born had seen her, when for a time his hot and wrong heart was at rest, and he could look on a creature of this world without desire to mar it.

Half in mockery, half in love, he called her Frozen Heart. Later on, you remember, he called Jehane Bel Vezer. He was the nicknamer of Europe in his day.

So now, or almost so, he saw her new come from her father's side--a little flushed, but very much the great small lady, ma dame Berengere of Navarre.

'The sun s.h.i.+nes upon my Frozen Heart,' said Bertran. She gave him her hand to kiss.

'No heart of yours am I, Bertran,' she said; 'but chosen for a king.'