The Line of Love; Dizain des Mariages Part 4

"Thus many and many an artful-artless strain Is fas.h.i.+oned all in vain: Sound proves unsound; and even her name, that is To me more glorious than the glow of fire Or dawn or love's desire Or opals interlinked with turquoises, Mocks utterance.

"So, lacking skill to praise That perfect bodily beauty which is hers, Even as those wors.h.i.+ppers Who bore rude offerings of honey and maize, Their all, into the gold-paved ministers Of Aphrodite, I have given her these My faltering melodies, That are Love's lean and ragged messengers."_

When he had ended, Adhelmar cast aside the lute, and caught up both of Melite's hands, and strained them to his lips. There needed no wizard to read the message in his eyes.

Melite sat silent for a moment. Presently, "Ah, cousin, cousin!" she sighed, "I cannot love you as you would have me love. G.o.d alone knows why, true heart, for I revere you as a strong man and a proven knight and a faithful lover; but I do not love you. There are many women who would love you, Adhelmar, for the world praises you, and you have done brave deeds and made good songs and have served your King potently; and yet"--she drew her hands away and laughed a little wearily--"yet I, poor maid, must needs love Hugues, who has done nothing. This love is a strange, unreasoning thing, my cousin."

"But do you in truth love Hugues?" asked Adhelmar, in a harsh voice.

"Yes," said Melite, very softly, and afterward flushed and wondered dimly if she had spoken the truth. Then, somehow, her arms clasped about Adhelmar's neck, and she kissed him, from pure pity, as she told herself; for Melite's heart was tender, and she could not endure the anguish in his face.

This was all very well. But Hugues d'Arques, coming suddenly out of a pleached walk, at this juncture, stumbled upon them and found their postures distasteful. He bent black brows upon the two.

"Adhelmar," said he, at length, "this world is a small place."

Adhelmar rose. "Indeed," he a.s.sented, with a wried smile, "I think there is scarce room in it for both of us, Hugues."

"That was my meaning," said the Sieur d'Arques.

"Only," Adhelmar pursued, somewhat wistfully, "my sword just now, Hugues, is vowed to my King's quarrel. There are some of us who hope to save France yet, if our blood may avail. In a year, G.o.d willing, I shall come again to Puysange; and till then you must wait."

Hugues conceded that, perforce, he must wait, since a vow was sacred; and Adhelmar, who suspected Hugues' natural appet.i.te for battle to be lamentably squeamish, grinned. After that, in a sick rage, Adhelmar struck Hugues in the face, and turned about.

The Sieur d'Arques rubbed his cheek ruefully. Then he and Melite stood silent for a moment, and heard Adhelmar in the court-yard calling his men to ride forth; and Melite laughed; and Hugues scowled.

2. _Nicolas as Chorus_

The year pa.s.sed, and Adhelmar did not return; and there was much fighting during that interval, and Hugues began to think the knight was slain and would never return to fight with him. The reflection was borne with equanimity.

So Adhelmar was half-forgot, and the Sieur d'Arques turned his mind to other matters. He was still a bachelor, for Reinault considered the burden of the times in ill-accord with the c.h.i.n.king of marriage-bells.

They were grim times for Frenchmen: right and left the English pillaged and killed and sacked and guzzled and drank, as if they would never have done; and Edward of England began, to subscribe himself _Rex Franciae_ with some show of excuse.

In Normandy men acted according to their natures. Reinault swore l.u.s.tily and looked to his defences; Hugues, seeing the English everywhere triumphant, drew a long face and doubted, when the will of G.o.d was made thus apparent, were it the part of a Christian to withstand it? Then he began to write letters, but to whom no man at either Arques or Puysange knew, saving One-eyed Peire, who carried them.

3. _Treats of Huckstering_

It was in the dusk of a rain-sodden October day that Adhelmar rode to the gates of Puysange, with some score men-at-arms behind him. They came from Poictiers, where again the English had conquered, and Adhelmar rode with difficulty, for in that disastrous business in the field of Maupertuis he had been run through the chest, and his wound was scarce healed.

Nevertheless, he came to finish his debate with the Sieur d'Arques, wound or no wound.

But at Puysange he heard a strange tale of Hugues. Reinault, whom Adhelmar found in a fine rage, told the story as they sat over their supper.

It had happened, somehow, (Reinault said), that the Marshal Arnold d'Andreghen--newly escaped from prison and with his disposition unameliorated by Lord Audley's gaolers.h.i.+p,--had heard of these letters that Hugues wrote so constantly; and the Marshal, being no scholar, had frowned at such doings, and waited presently, with a company of horse, on the road to Arques. Into their midst, on the day before Adhelmar came, rode Peire, the one-eyed messenger; and it was not an unconscionable while before Peire was bound hand and foot, and d'Andreghen was reading the letter they had found in Peire's jerkin. "Hang the carrier on that oak," said d'Andreghen, when he had ended, "but leave that largest branch yonder for the writer. For by the Blood of Christ, our common salvation!

I will hang him there on Monday!"

So Peire swung in the air ere long and stuck out a black tongue at the crows, who cawed and waited for supper; and presently they feasted while d'Andreghen rode to Arques, carrying a rope for Hugues.

For the Marshal, you must understand, was a man of sudden action. Only two months ago, he had taken the Comte de Harcourt with other gentlemen from the Dauphin's own table to behead them that afternoon in a field behind Rouen. It was true they had planned to resist the _gabelle_, the King's immemorial right to impose a tax on salt; but Harcourt was Hugues'

cousin, and the Sieur d'Arques, being somewhat of an epicurean disposition, esteemed the dessert accorded his kinsman unpalatable.

There was no cause for great surprise to d'Andreghen, then, to find that the letter Hugues had written was meant for Edward, the Black Prince of England, now at Bordeaux, where he held the French King, whom the Prince had captured at Poictiers, as a prisoner; for this prince, though he had no particular love for a rogue, yet knew how to make use of one when kingcraft demanded it,--and, as he afterward made use of Pedro the Castilian, he was now prepared to make use of Hugues, who hung like a ripe pear ready to drop into Prince Edward's mouth. "For," as the Sieur d'Arques pointed out in his letter, "I am by nature inclined to favor you brave English, and so, beyond doubt, is the good G.o.d. And I will deliver Arques to you; and thus and thus you may take Normandy and the major portion of France; and thus and thus will I do, and thus and thus must you reward me."

Said d'Andreghen, "I will hang him at dawn; and thus and thus may the devil do with his soul!"

Then with his company d'Andreghen rode to Arques. A herald declared to the men of that place how the matter stood, and bade Hugues come forth and dance upon nothing. The Sieur d'Arques spat curses, like a cat driven into a corner, and wished to fight, but the greater part of his garrison were not willing to do so in such a cause: and so d'Andreghen took him and carried him off.

In anger having sworn by the Blood of Christ to hang Hugues d'Arques to a certain tree, d'Andreghen had no choice in calm but to abide by his oath.

This day being the Sabbath, he deferred the matter; but the Marshal promised to see to it that when morning broke the Sieur d'Arques should dangle side by side with his messenger.

Thus far the Vicomte de Puysange. He concluded his narrative with a dry chuckle. "And I think we are very well rid of him, Adhelmar. Holy Maclou!

that I should have taken the traitor for a true man, though! He would sell France, you observe,--chaffered, they tell me, like a pedlar over the price of Normandy. Heh, the huckster, the triple-d.a.m.ned Jew!"

"And Melite?" asked Adhelmar, after a little.

Again Reinault shrugged. "In the White Turret," he said; then, with a short laugh: "Oy Dieus, yes! The girl has been caterwauling for this shabby rogue all day. She would have me--me, the King's man, look you!--save Hugues at the peril of my seignory! And I protest to you, by the most high and pious Saint Nicolas the Confessor," Reinault swore, "that sooner than see this huckster go unpunished, I would lock h.e.l.l's gate on him with my own hands!"

For a moment Adhelmar stood with his jaws puffed out, as if in thought, and then he laughed like a wolf. Afterward he went to the White Turret, leaving Reinault smiling over his wine.

4. _Folly Diversely Attested_

He found Melite alone. She had robed herself in black, and had gathered her gold hair about her face like a heavy veil, and sat weeping into it for the plight of Hugues d'Arques.

"Melite!" cried Adhelmar; "Melite!" The Demoiselle de Puysange rose with a start, and, seeing him standing in the doorway, ran to him, incompetent little hands fluttering before her like frightened doves. She was very tired, by that day-long arguing with her brother's notions about honor and knightly faith and such foolish matters, and to her weariness Adhelmar seemed strength incarnate; surely he, if any one, could aid Hugues and bring him safe out of the grim marshal's claws. For the moment, perhaps, she had forgotten the feud which existed between Adhelmar and the Sieur d'Arques; but in any event, I am convinced, she knew that Adhelmar could refuse her nothing. So she ran toward him, her cheeks flus.h.i.+ng arbutus-like, and she was smiling through her tears.

Oh, thought Adhelmar, were it not very easy to leave Hugues to the dog's death he merits and to take this woman for my own? For I know that she loves me a little. And thinking of this, he kissed her, quietly, as one might comfort a sobbing child; afterward he held her in his arms for a moment, wondering vaguely at the pliant thickness of her hair and the sweet scent of it. Then he put her from him gently, and swore in his soul that Hugues must die, so that this woman might be Adhelmar's.

"You will save him?" Melite asked, and raised her face to his. There was that in her eyes which caused Adhelmar to muse for a little on the nature of women's love, and, subsequently, to laugh harshly and make vehement utterance.

"Yes!" said Adhelmar.

He demanded how many of Hugues' men were about. Some twenty of them had come to Puysange, Melite said, in the hope that Reinault might aid them to save their master. She protested that her brother was a coward for not doing so; but Adhelmar, having his own opinion on this subject, and thinking in his heart that Hugues' skin might easily be ripped off him without spilling a pint of honest blood, said, simply: "Twenty and twenty is two-score. It is not a large armament, but it may serve."

He told her his plan was to fall suddenly upon d'Andreghen and his men that night, and in the tumult to steal Hugues away; whereafter, as Adhelmar pointed out, Hugues might readily take s.h.i.+p for England, and leave the marshal to blaspheme Fortune in Normandy, and the French King to gnaw at his chains in Bordeaux, while Hugues toasts his s.h.i.+ns in comfort at London. Adhelmar admitted that the plan was a mad one, but added, reasonably enough, that needs must when the devil drives. And so firm was his confidence, so cheery his laugh--he managed to laugh somehow, though it was a stiff piece of work,--that Melite began to be comforted somewhat, and bade him go and G.o.dspeed.

So then Adhelmar left her. In the main hall he found the vicomte still sitting over his wine of Anjou.

"Cousin," said Adhelmar, "I must ride hence to-night."

Reinault stared at him: a mastering wonder woke in Reinault's face.

"Ta, ta, ta!" he clicked his tongue, very softly. Afterward he sprang to his feet and clutched Adhelmar by both arms. "No, no!" Reinault cried. "No, Adhelmar, you must not try that! It is death, lad,--sure death! It means hanging, boy!" the vicomte pleaded, for, hard man that he was, he loved Adhelmar.

"That is likely enough," Adhelmar conceded.

"They will hang you,"' Reinault said again: "d'Andreghen and the Count Dauphin of Vienna will hang you as blithely as they would Iscariot."

"That, too," said Adhelmar, "is likely enough, if I remain in France."