Chivalry Part 23

In May he came to her. A truce was patched up, and French and English met amicably in a great plain near Meulan. A square s.p.a.ce was staked out and on three sides boarded in, the fourth side being the river Seine. This enclosure the Queen-Regent, Jehan of Burgundy, and Katharine entered from the French side. Simultaneously the English King appeared, accompanied by his brothers the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester, and followed by the Earl of Warwick. Katharine raised her eyes with I know not what lingering hope; but it was he, a young Zeus now, triumphant and uneager. In his helmet in place of a plume he wore a fox-brush spangled with jewels.

These six entered the tent pitched for the conference--the hanging of blue velvet embroidered with fleurs-de-lys of gold blurred before the girl's eyes,--and there the Earl of Warwick embarked upon a sea of rhetoric. His French was indifferent, his periods were interminable, and his demands exorbitant; in brief, the King of England wanted Katharine and most of France, with a reversion at the French King's death of the entire kingdom. Meanwhile Sire Henry sat in silence, his eyes glowing.

"I have come," he said, under cover of Warwick's oratory--"I have come again, my lady."

Katharine's gaze flickered over him. "Liar!" she said, very softly.

"Has G.o.d no thunders remaining in His armory that this vile thief still goes unblasted? Would you steal love as well as kingdoms?"

His ruddy face was now white. "I love you, Katharine."

"Yes," she answered, "for I am your pretext. I can well believe, messire, that you love your pretext for theft and murder."

Neither spoke after this, and presently the Earl of Warwick having come to his peroration, the matter was adjourned till the next day.

The party separated. It was not long before Katharine had informed her mother that, G.o.d willing, she would never again look upon the King of England's face uncoffined. Isabeau found her a madwoman. The girl swept opposition before her with gusts of demoniacal fury, wept, shrieked, tore at her hair, and eventually fell into a sort of epileptic seizure; between rage and terror she became a horrid, frenzied beast. I do not dwell upon this, for it is not a condition in which the comeliest maid shows to advantage. But, for the Valois, insanity always lurked at the next corner, and they knew it; to save the girl's reason the Queen was forced to break off all discussion of the match. Accordingly, the Duke of Burgundy went next day to the conference alone. Jehan began with "ifs," and over these flimsy barriers Henry, already fretted by Katharine's scorn, presently vaulted to a towering fury.

"Fair cousin," the King said, after a deal of vehement bickering, "we wish you to know that we will have the daughter of your King, and that we will drive both him and you out of this kingdom."

The Duke answered, not without spirit, "Sire, you are pleased to say so; but before you have succeeded in ousting my lord and me from this realm, I am of the opinion that you will be very heartily tired."

At this the King turned on his heel; over his shoulder he flung: "I am tireless; also, I am agile as a fox in the pursuit of my desires. Say that to your Princess." Then he went away in a rage.

It had seemed an approvable business to win love incognito, according to the example of many ancient emperors, but in practice he had tripped over an ugly outgrowth from the legendary custom. The girl hated him, there was no doubt about it; and it was equally certain he loved her. Particularly caustic was the reflection that a twitch of his finger would get him Katharine as his wife, for before long the Queen-Regent was again attempting secret negotiations to bring this about. Yes, he could get the girl's body by a couple of pen-strokes, and had he been older that might have contented him: as it was, what he wanted was to rouse the look her eyes had borne in Chartres orchard that tranquil morning, and this one could not readily secure by fiddling with seals and parchments. You see his position: this high-spirited young man now loved the Princess too utterly to take her on lip-consent, and this marriage was now his one possible excuse for ceasing from victorious warfare. So he bl.u.s.tered, and the fighting recommenced; and he slew in a despairing rage, knowing that by every movement of his arm he became to her so much the more detestable.

Then the Vicomte de Montbrison, as you have heard, betrayed France, and King Henry began to strip the French realm of provinces as you peel the layers from an onion. By the May of the year of grace 1420 France was, and knew herself to be, not beaten but demolished. Only a f.a.g-end of the French army lay entrenched at Troyes, where King Charles and his court awaited Henry's decision as to the morrow's action. If he chose to destroy them root and branch, he could; and they knew such mercy as was in the man to be quite untarnished by previous using. Sire Henry drew up a small force before the city and made no overtures toward either peace or throat-cutting.

This was the posture of affairs on the evening of the Sunday after Ascension day, when Katharine sat at cards with her father in his apartments at the Hotel de Ville. The King was pursing his lips over an alternative play, when somebody began singing below in the courtyard.

Sang the voice:

"I can find no meaning in life, That have weighed the world,--and it was Abundant with folly, and rife With sorrows brittle as gla.s.s, And with joys that flicker and pa.s.s Like dreams through a fevered head; And like the dripping of rain In gardens naked and dead Is the obdurate thin refrain Of our youth which is presently dead.

"And she whom alone I have loved Looks ever with loathing on me, As one she hath seen disproved And stained with such smirches as be Not ever cleansed utterly; And is both to remember the days When Destiny fixed her name As the theme and the goal of my praise; And my love engenders shame, And I stain what I strive for and praise.

"O love, most perfect of all, Just to have known you is well!

And it heartens me now to recall That just to have known you is well, And naught else is desirable Save only to do as you willed And to love you my whole life long;-- But this heart in me is filled With hunger cruel and strong, And with hunger unfulfilled.

"Fond heart, though thy hunger be As a flame that wanders unstilled, There is none more perfect than she!"

Malise now came into the room, and, without speaking, laid a fox-brush before the Princess.

Katharine twirled it in her hand, staring at the card-littered table.

"So you are in his pay, Malise? I am sorry. But you know that your employer is master here. Who am I to forbid him entrance?" The girl went away silently, abashed, and the Princess sat quite still, tapping the brush against the table.

"They do not want me to sign another treaty, do they?" her father asked timidly. "It appears to me they are always signing treaties, and I cannot see that any good comes of it. And I would have won the last game, Katharine, if Malise had not interrupted us. You know I would have won."

"Yes, Father, you would have won. Oh, he must not see you!" Katharine cried, a great tide of love mounting in her breast, the love that draws a mother fiercely to s.h.i.+eld her backward boy. "Father, will you not go into your chamber? I have a new book for you, Father--all pictures, dear. Come--" She was coaxing him when Sire Henry appeared in the doorway.

"But I do not wish to look at pictures," Charles said, peevishly; "I wish to play cards. You are an ungrateful daughter, Katharine. You are never willing to amuse me." He sat down with a whimper and began to pluck at his dribbling lips.

Katharine had moved a little toward the door. Her face was white. "Now welcome, sire!" she said. "Welcome, O great conqueror, who in your hour of triumph can find no n.o.bler recreation than to shame a maid with her past folly! It was valorously done, sire. See, Father; here is the King of England come to observe how low we sit that yesterday were lords of France."

"The King of England!" echoed Charles, and he rose now to his feet. "I thought we were at war with him. But my memory is treacherous. You perceive, brother of England, I am planning a new mouse-trap, and my mind is somewhat preempted. I recall now that you are in treaty for my daughter's hand. Katharine is a good girl, a fine upstanding girl, but I suppose--" He paused, as if to regard and hear some invisible counsellor, and then briskly resumed: "Yes, I suppose policy demands that she should marry you. We trammelled kings can never go free of policy--ey, my compere of England? No; it was through policy I wedded her mother; and we have been very unhappy, Isabeau and I. A word in your ear, son-in-law: Madame Isabeau's soul formerly inhabited a sow, as Pythagoras teaches, and when our Saviour cast it out at Gadara, the influence of the moon drew it hither."

Henry did not say anything. Steadily his calm blue eyes appraised Dame Katharine. And King Charles went on, very knowingly:

"Oho, these Latinists cannot hoodwink me, you observe, though by ordinary it chimes with my humor to appear content. Policy again, son-in-law: for once roused, I am terrible. To-day in the great hall-window, under the bleeding feet of Lazarus, I slew ten flies-- very black they were, the black shrivelled souls of parricides,--and afterward I wept for it. I often weep; the Mediterranean hath its sources in my eyes, for my daughter cheats at cards. Cheats, sir!--and I her father!" The incessant peering, the stealthy cunning with which Charles whispered this, the confidence with which he clung to his destroyer's hand, was that of a conspiring child.

"Come, Father," Katharine said. "Come away to bed, dear."

"Hideous basilisk!" he spat at her; "dare you rebel against me? Am I not King of France, and is it not blasphemy for a King of France to be mocked? Frail moths that flutter about my splendor," he shrieked, in an unheralded frenzy, "beware of me, beware! for I am omnipotent! I am King of France, Heaven's regent. At my command the winds go about the earth, and nightly the stars are kindled for my recreation. Perhaps I am mightier than G.o.d, but I do not remember now. The reason is written down and lies somewhere under a bench. Now I sail for England. Eia!

eia! I go to ravage England, terrible and merciless. But I must have my mouse-traps, Goodman Devil, for in England the cats of the middle-sea wait unfed." He went out of the room, giggling, and in the corridor began to sing:

"A hundred thousand times good-bye!

I go to seek the Evangelist, For here all persons cheat and lie ..."

All this while Henry remained immovable, his eyes fixed upon Katharine. Thus (she meditated) he stood among Frenchmen; he was the boulder, and they the waters that babbled and fretted about him. But she turned and met his gaze squarely. She noted now for the first time how oddly his left eyebrow drooped. Katharine said: "And that is the king whom you have conquered! Is it not a notable conquest to overcome so wise a king? to pilfer renown from an idiot? There are cut-throats in Troyes, rogues doubly d.a.m.ned, who would scorn the action. Now shall I fetch my mother, sire? the commander of that great army which you overcame? As the hour is late, she is by this time tipsy, but she will come. Or perhaps she is with some paid lover, but if this conqueror, this second Alexander, wills it she will come. O G.o.d!" the girl wailed, on a sudden; "O just and all-seeing G.o.d! are not we of Valois so contemptible that in conquering us it is the victor who is shamed?"

"Flower of the mars.h.!.+" he said, and his voice pulsed with tender cadences--"flower of the mars.h.!.+ it is not the King of England who now comes to you, but Alain the harper. Henry Plantagenet G.o.d has led hither by the hand to punish the sins of this realm, and to reign in it like a true king. Henry Plantagenet will cast out the Valois from the throne they have defiled, as Darius cast out Belshazzar, for such is the desire and the intent of G.o.d. But to you comes Alain the harper, not as a conqueror but as a suppliant,--Alain who has loved you whole-heartedly these two years past, and who now kneels before you entreating grace."

Katharine looked down into his countenance, for to his speech he had fitted action. Suddenly and for the first time she understood that he believed France to be his by Divine favor and Heaven's peculiar intervention. He thought himself G.o.d's factor, not His rebel. He was rather stupid, this huge, handsome, squinting boy; and as she comprehended this, her hand went to his shoulder, half maternally.

"It is n.o.bly done, sire. But I understand. You must marry me in order to uphold your claim to France. You sell, and I with my body purchase, peace for France. There is no need of a lover's posture when hucksters meet."

"So changed!" he said, and he was silent for an interval, still kneeling. Then he began: "You force me to point out that I do not need any pretext for holding France. France lies before me prostrate. By G.o.d's singular grace I reign in this fair kingdom, mine by right of conquest, and an alliance with the house of Valois will neither make nor mar me." She was unable to deny this, unpalatable as was the fact.

"But I love you, and therefore as man wooes woman I sue to you. Do you not understand that there can be between us no question of expediency?

Katharine, in Chartres orchard there met a man and a maid we know of; now in Troyes they meet again,--not as princess and king, but as man and maid, the wooer and the wooed. Once I touched your heart, I think.

And now in all the world there is one thing I covet--to gain for the poor king some portion of that love you would have squandered on the harper." His hand closed upon her hand.

At his touch the girl's composure vanished. "My lord, you woo too timidly for one who comes with many loud-voiced advocates. I am daughter to the King of France, and next to my soul's salvation I esteem the welfare of France. Can I, then, fail to love the King of England, who chooses the blood of my countrymen as a judicious garb to come a-wooing in? How else, since you have ravaged my native land, since you have besmirched the name I bear, since yonder afield every wound in my dead and yet unburied Frenchmen is to me a mouth which shrieks your infamy?"

He rose. "And yet, for all that, you love me."

She could not at the first effort find words with which to answer him, but presently she said, quite simply, "To see you lying in your coffin I would willingly give up my hope of heaven, for heaven can afford no sight more desirable."

"You loved Alain."

"I loved the husk of a man. You can never comprehend how utterly I loved him."

"You are stubborn. I shall have trouble with you. But this notion of yours is plainly a mistaken notion. That you love me is indisputable, and this I propose to demonstrate. You will observe that I am quite unarmed except for this dagger, which I now throw out of the window--" with the word it jangled in the courtyard below. "I am in Troyes alone among some thousand Frenchmen, any one of whom would willingly give his life for the privilege of taking mine. You have but to sound the gong beside you, and in a few moments I shall be a dead man. Strike, then! For with me dies the English power in France.

Strike, Katharine! If you see in me but the King of England."

She was rigid; and his heart leapt when he saw it was because of terror.

"You came alone! You dared!"

He answered, with a wonderful smile, "Proud spirit! How else might I conquer you?"