The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay Part 2

'G.o.d forgive me if I did amiss,' writes the abbot here; 'but seeing her in a melting mood, dewy, soft, and adorable, I kissed that beautiful person, and she left the Chapel of Saint Remy somewhat comforted.'

Not only so, but the same day she left the Dark Tower with her brother Count Eustace, and rode towards Gisors and Saint-Pol-la-Marche. Nothing she could do could be shamefully done, because of her silence, and the high head upon which she carried it; yet the Count of Saint-Pol, when he heard her story, sitting bulky in his chair (like a stalled red bull), did his best to put shame upon her, that so he might cover his own bitterness. It was Eustace, a generous ardent youth in those days, who saved her from most of Eudo's wrath by drawing it upon himself.

The Count of Saint-Pol swore a great oath.

'By the teeth of G.o.d, Jehane,' he roared, 'I see how it is. He hath made thee a piece of ruin, and now runs wasting elsewhere.'

'You shall never say that of my sister, my lord,' cries Eustace, very red in the face, 'nor yet of the greatest knight in the world.'

'Why, you egg,' says the Count, 'what have you to do in this? Tell me the rights of it before you put me in the wrong. Is my house to be the sport of Anjou? Is that long son of pirates and the devil to batten on our pastures, tread underfoot, bruise and blacken, rout as he will, break hedge and away? By my father's soul, Eustace, I shall see her righted.' He turned to the still girl. 'You tell me that you sent him away? Where did you send him? Where did he go?'

'He went to the King of England at Louviers, and to the camp,' said Jehane. 'The King sent for him. I sent him not.'

'Who is there beside the King of England?'

'Madame Alois of France is there.'

The Count of Saint-Pol put his tongue in his cheek.

'Oho!' he said, 'Oho! That is how it stands? So she is to be cuckoo, hey?' He sat square and intent for a moment or two, working his mouth like a man who chews a straw. Then he slapped his big hand on his knee, and rose up. 'If I cannot spike this wheel of vice, trust me never. By my soul, a plot indeed. Oh, horrible, horrible thief!' He turned gnas.h.i.+ng upon his brother. 'Now, Eustace, what do you say to your greatest knight in the world? And what now of your sister, hey? Little fool, do you not catch the measure of it now? Two honey years of Jehane Saint-Pol, gossamer pledges of mouth and mouth, of stealing fingers, kiss and clasp; but for the French King's daughter--pis.h.!.+ the thing of naught they have made her--the sacrament of marriage, the treaty, the dowry-fee. Oh, heaven and earth, Eustace, answer me if you can.'

All three were moved in their several ways: the Count red and blinking, Eustace red and trembling, Jehane white as a cloth, trembling also, but very silent. The word was with the younger man.

'I know nothing of all this, upon my word, my lord,' he said, confused.

'I love Count Richard, I love my sister. There may have been that which, had I loved but one, I had condemned in the other. I know not, but'--he saw Jehane's marble face, and lifted his hand up--'by my hope, I will never believe it. In love they came together, my lord; in love, says Jehane, they have parted. I have heard little of Madame Alois, but my thought is, that kings and the sons of kings may marry kings' daughters, yet not in the way of love.'

The Count fumed. 'You are a fool, I see, and therefore not to my purpose. I must talk with men. Stay you here, Eustace, and watch over her till I return. Let none get at her, on your dear life. There are those who--sniffing rogues, climbers, boilers of their pots--keep them out, Eustace, keep them out. As for you'--he turned hectoring to the proud girl--'As for you, mistress, keep the house. You are not in the market, you are spoilt goods. You shall go where you should be. I am still lord of these lands; there shall be no rebellion here. Keep the house, I say. I return ere many days.' He stamped out of the hall; they heard him next rating the grooms at the gate.

Saint-Pol was a great house, a n.o.ble house, no doubt of it. Its counts drew no limits in the way of pedigree, but built themselves a fair temple in that kind, with the Twelfth Apostle himself for head of the corner. So far as estate went, seeing their country was fruitful, compact, snugly bounded between France and Normandy (owing fealty to the first), they might have been sovereign counts, like the house of Blois, like that of Aquitaine, like that even of Anjou, which, from nothing, had risen to be so high. More: by marriage, by robbery on that great plan where it ceases to be robbery and is called warfare, by treaty and nice use of the balances, there was no reason why kings.h.i.+p should not have been theirs, or in their blood. Kings.h.i.+p, even now, was not far off. They called the Marquess of Montferrat cousin, and he (it was understood) intended to be throned at Jerusalem. The Emperor himself might call, and once (being in liquor) did call Count Eudo of Saint-Pol 'cousin'; for the fact was so. You must understand that in the Gaul of that day things were in this ticklish state, that a man (as they say) was worth the scope of his sword: reiver yesterday, warrior to-morrow; yesterday wearing a hemp collar, to-day a count's belt, and to-morrow, may be, a king's crown. You climbed in various ways, by the field, by the board, by the bed. A handsome daughter was nearly worth a stout son.

Count Eudo reckoned himself stout enough, and reckoned Eustace was so; but the beauty of Jehane, that stately maid who might uphold a cornice, that still wonder of ivory and gold, was an emblement which he, the tenant, meant to profit by; and so for an hour (two years by the clock) he saw his profit fair. The infatuation of the girl for this man or that man was nothing; but the infatuation of the great Count of Poictou for her set Eudo's heart ablaze. G.o.d willing, Saint Maclou a.s.sisting, he might live to call Jehane 'My Lady Queen.' He shut his ears to report; there were those who called Richard a rake, and others who called him 'Yea-and-Nay'; that was Bertran de Born's name for him, and all Paris knew it. He shut his eyes to Richard's galling unconcern with himself and his dignity. Dignity of Saint-Pol! He would wait for his dignity. He shut his mind to Jehane's blown fame, to the threatenings of his dreadful Norman neighbour, Henry the old king, who had had an archbishop pole-axed like a steer; he dared the anger of his suzerain, in whose hands lay Jehane's marriage; a heady gambler, he staked the fortunes of his house upon this clinging of a girl to a wild prince. And now to tell himself that he deserved what he had got was but to feed his rage. Again he swore by G.o.d's teeth that he would have his way; and when he left his castle of Saint-Pol-la-Marche it was for Paris.

The head of his house, under the Emperor Henry, was there, Conrad of Montferrat, trying to negotiate the crown of Jerusalem. There must be a conference before the house of Saint-Pol could be let to fall. Surely the Marquess would never allow it! He must spike the wheel. Was not Alois of France within the degrees? She was sister to the French King: well, but what was Richard's mother? She had been wife to Louis, wife to Alois' father. Was this decency? What would the Pope say--an Italian?

Was the Marquess Conrad an Italian for nothing? Was 'our cousin' the Emperor of no account, King of the Romans? The Pope Italian, the Marquess Italian, the Emperor on his throne, and G.o.d in His heaven--eh, eh! there should be a conference of these high powers. So, and with such whirl of question and answer, did the Count of Saint-Pol beat out to Paris.

But Jehane remained at Saint-Pol-la-Marche, praying much, going little abroad, seeing few persons. Then came (since rumour is a gadabout) Sir Gilles de Gurdun, as she knew he would, and knelt before her, and kissed her hand. Gilles was a square-shouldered, thick-set youth of the black Norman sort, ruddy, strong-jawed, small-eyed, low in the brow, bullet-headed. He was no taller than she, looked shorter, and had nothing to say. He had loved her since the time when she was an overgrown girl of twelve years, and he a squire about her father's house learning mannishness. The King of England had dubbed him a knight, but she had made him a man. She knew him to be a good one; as dull as a mud-flat, but honest, wholesome, and of decent estate. In a moment, when he was come again, she saw that he was a long lover who would treat her well.

'G.o.d help me, and him also,' she thought; 'it may be that I shall need him before long.'

CHAPTER III

IN WHAT HARBOUR THEY FOUND THE OLD LION

At Evreux, across the heath, Count Richard found his company: the Viscount Adhemar of Limoges (called for the present the Good Viscount), the Count of Perigord, Sir Gaston of Bearn (who really loved him), the Bishop of Castres, and the Monk of Montauban (a singing-bird); some dozen of knights with their esquires, pages, and men-at-arms. He waited two days there for Abbot Milo to come up with last news of Jehane; then at the head of sixty spears he rode fleetly over the marshes towards Louviers. After his first, 'You are well met, my lords,' he had said very little, showing a cold humour; after a colloquy with Milo, which he had before he left his bed, he said nothing at all. Alone, as became one of his race, he rode ahead of his force; not even the chirping Monk (who remembered his brother Henry and often sighed for him) cared to risk a shot from his strong eyes. They were like blue stones, full of the cold glitter of their fire. It was at times like this, when a man stands naked confronting his purpose, that one saw the hag riding on the back of Anjou.

He was not thinking of it now, but the truth is that there had hardly been a time in his short life when he had not been his father's open enemy. He could have told you that it had not been always his fault, though he would never have told you. But I say that what he, a youth of thirty, had made of his inheritance was as nothing to that elder's wasting of his. In moments of hot rage Richard knew this, and justified himself; but the melting hour came again when he heaped all reproach upon himself, believing that but for such and such he might have loved this rooted, terrible old man who a.s.suredly loved not him. Richard was neither mule nor jade; he was open to persuasion on two sides.

Compunction was one: you could touch him on the heart and bring him weeping to his knees; affection was another: if he loved the pet.i.tioner he yielded handsomely. Now, this time it was Jehane and not his conscience which had sent him to Louviers. First of all Jehane had pleaded the Sepulchre, his old father, filial obedience, and he had laughed at the sweet fool. But when she, grown wiser, urged him to pleasure her by treading on the heart she had given him, he could not deny her. He was converted, not convinced. So he rode alone, three hundred yards from his lieges, reasoning out how he could preserve his honour and yet yield. The more he thought the less he liked it, but all the more he felt necessity at his throat. And, as always with him, when he thought he seemed as if turned to stone. 'One way or another,' Milo tells us, 'every man of the House of Anjou had his unapproachable side, so accustomed were they to the fortress-life.'

A broad plain, watered by many rivers, showed the towers of Louviers and red roofs cinctured by the greatest of them; short of the walls were the ranked white tents, columned smoke, waggons, with men and horses, as purposeless, little, and busy as a swarm of bees. In the midst of this array was a red pavilion with a standard at the side, too heavy for the wind. All was set in the clear sunless air of an autumn day in Normandy; the hour, one short of noon. Richard reined up for his company, on a little hill.

'The powers of England, my lords,' he said, pointing with his hand. All stayed beside him. Gaston of Bearn tweaked his black beard.

'Let us be done with the business, Richard,' said this knight, 'before the irons can get out.'

'What!' cried the Count, 'shall a father smite his son?' No one answered: in a moment he was ashamed of himself. 'Before G.o.d,' he said, 'I mean no impiety. I will do what I have undertaken as gently as may be. Come, gentlemen.' He rode on.

The camp was defended by fosse and bridge. At the barbican all the Aquitanians except Richard dismounted, and all stayed about him while a herald went forward to tell the King who was come in. The King knew very well who it was, but chose not to know it; he kept the herald long enough to make his visitors chafe, then sent word that the Count of Poictou would be received, but alone. Claiming his right to ride in, Richard followed the heralds at a foot's pace, alone, ungreeted by any.

At the mount of the standard he got off his horse, found the ushers of the King's door, and went swiftly to the entry of the pavilion (which they held open for him), as though, like some forest beast, he saw his prey. There in the entry he stiffened suddenly, and stiffly went down on his two knees. Midway of the great tent, square and rugged before him, with working jaws and restless little fired eyes, sat the old King his father, hands on knees, between them a long bare sword. Beside him was his son John, thin and flushed, and about, a circle of peers: two bishops in purple, a pock-marked monk of Cluny, Bohun, Grantmesnil, Drago de Merlou, and a few more. On the ground was a secretary biting his pen.

The King looked his best on a throne, for his upper part was his best.

It was, at least, the mannish part. With scanty red hair much rubbed into disorder, a seamed red face, blotched and s.h.i.+ning; with a square jaw awry, the neck and shoulders of a bull; with gnarled gross hands at the end of arms long out of measure, a cruel mouth and a nose like a bird's beak--his features seemed to have been hacked coa.r.s.ely out of wood and as coa.r.s.ely painted; but what might have pa.s.sed by such means for a man was transformed by his burning eyes, with their fuel of pain, into the similitude of a fallen angel. The devil of Anjou sat eating King Henry's eyes, and you saw him at his meal. It gave the man the look of a wild boar easing his tusks against a tree, horrible, yet content to be abhorred, splendid, because so strong and lonely. But the prospect was not comfortable. Little as he knew of his father, Richard could make no mistake here. The old King was in a picksome mood, fretted by rage: angry that his son should kneel there, more than angry that he had not knelt before.

The play began, like a farce. The King affected not to see him, let him kneel on. Richard did kneel on, as stiff as a rod. The King talked with obscene jocosity, every snap betraying his humour, to Prince John; he scandalised even his bishops, he abashed even his barons. He infinitely degraded himself, yet seemed to wallow in disgrace. So Richard's gorge (a tender organ) rose to hear him. 'G.o.d, what wast Thou about, to let such a hog be made?' he muttered, loud enough for at least three people to hear. The King heard it and was pleased; the Prince heard it, and with a scared eye perceived that Bohun had heard it. The King went grating on, John fidgeted; Bohun, greatly daring, whispered in his master's ear.

The King replied with a roar which all the camp might have heard. 'Ha!

Sacred Face, let him kneel, Bohun. That is a new custom for him, useful science for a man of his trade. All men of the sword come to it sooner or later--sooner or later, by G.o.d!'

Hereupon Richard, very deliberately, rose to his feet and stepped forward to the throne. His great height was a crowning abomination. The King blinked up at him, showing his tushes.

'What now, sir?' he said.

'Later for me, sire, if kneeling is to be done by soldiers,' said Richard. The King controlled himself by swallowing.

'And yet, Richard,' he said, dry as dust, 'And yet, Richard, you have knelt to the French lad soon enough.'

'To my liege-lord, sire? Yes, it is true.'

'He is not your liege-lord, man,' roared the King. 'I am your liege-lord, by heaven. I gave and I can take away. Heed me now.'

'Fair sire,' says Richard, 'observe that I have knelt to you. I am not here for any other reason, and least of all to try conclusions of the voice. I have come out of my lands with my company to give you obedience. Be sure that they, on their part, will pay you proper honour (as I do) if you will let them.'

'You come from lands I have given you, as Henry came, as Geoffrey came, to defy me,' said the old man, trembling in his chair. 'What is your obedience worth when I have measured theirs: Henry's obedience!

Geoffrey's obedience! Pish, man, what words you use.' He got up and stamped about the tent like an irritable dwarf, crook-legged and long-armed, p.r.i.c.ked, maddened at every point. 'And you tell me of your men, your lands, your company! Good men all, a fair company, by the Rood of Grace! Tell me now, Richard, have you Raimon of Toulouse in that company? Have you Beziers?'

'No, sire,' said Richard, looking serenely down at the working face.

'Nor ever will have,' snarled the King. 'Have you the Knight of Bearn?'

'I have, sire.'

'Ill company, Richard. It is a white-faced, lying beast, with a most goatish beard. Have you your singing monk?'

'I have, sire.'

'Shameful company. Have you Adhemar of Limoges?'