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“J’ay en mon cueur joyeusement
Escript, afin que ne l’oublie,
Ce refrain qu’ayme chierement,
C’estes vous de qui suis amye.”

JEHANE OF NAVARRE, AFTER A SHREWD WITHSTANDING
OF ALL OTHER ASSAULTS, IS IN A LONG
DUEL WHEREIN TIME AND COMMON-SENSE ARE FLOUTED,
AND TWO KINGDOMS SHAKEN, ALIKE DETHRONED AND
RECOMPENSED BY AN ENDURING LUNACY.

In the year of grace 1386, upon the feast of Saint Bartholomew (thus Nicolas begins), came to the Spanish coast Messire Peyre de Lesnerac, in a war-ship sumptuously furnished and manned by many persons of dignity and wealth, in order they might suitably escort the Princess Jehane into Brittany, where she was to marry the Duke of that province. There were now rejoicings throughout Navarre, in which the Princess took but a nominal part and young Antoine Riczi none at all.

This Antoine Riczi came to Jehane that August twilight in the hedged garden. “King’s daughter!” he sadly greeted her. “Duchess of Brittany! Countess of Rougemont! Lady of Nantes and of Guerrand! of Rais and of Toufon and Guerche!”

“Nay,” she answered, “Jehane, whose only title is the Constant Lover.” And in the green twilight, lit as yet by one low-hanging star alone, their lips met, as aforetime.

Presently the girl spoke. Her soft mouth was lax and tremulous, and her gray eyes were more brilliant than the star yonder. The boy’s arms were about her, so that neither could be quite unhappy; and besides, a sorrow too noble for any bitterness had mastered them, and a vast desire whose aim they could not word, or even apprehend save cloudily.

“Friend,” said Jehane, “I have no choice. I must wed with this de Montfort. I think I shall die presently. I have prayed God that I may die before they bring me to the dotard’s bed.”

Young Riczi held her now in an embrace more brutal. “Mine! mine!” he snarled toward the obscuring heavens.

“Yet it may be I must live. Friend, the man is very old. Is it wicked to think of that? For I cannot but think of his great age.”

Then Riczi answered: “My desires–may God forgive me!–have clutched like starving persons at that sorry sustenance. Friend! ah, fair, sweet friend! the man is human and must die, but love, we read, is immortal. I am fain to die, Jehane. But, oh, Jehane! dare you to bid me live?”

“Friend, as you love me, I entreat you live. Friend, I crave of the Eternal Father that if I falter in my love for you I may be denied even the bleak night of ease which Judas knows.” The girl did not weep; dry-eyed she winged a perfectly sincere prayer toward incorruptible saints. He was to remember the fact, and through long years.

For even as Riczi left her, yonder behind the yew-hedge a shrill joculatrix sang, in rehearsal for Jehane’s bridal feast.

Sang the joculatrix:

“When the morning broke before us
Came the wayward Three astraying,
Chattering a trivial chorus–
Hoidens that at handball playing
(When they wearied of their playing),
Cast the Ball where now it whirls
Through the coil of clouds unstaying,
For the Fates are merry girls!”

And upon the next day de Lesnerac bore young Jehane from Pampeluna and presently to Saille, where old Jehan the Brave took her to wife. She lived as a queen, but she was a woman of infrequent laughter.

She had Duke Jehan’s adoration, and his barons’ obeisancy, and his villagers applauded her passage with stentorian shouts. She passed interminable days amid bright curious arrasses and trod listlessly over pavements strewn with flowers. Fiery-hearted jewels she had, and shimmering purple cloths, and much furniture adroitly carven, and many tapestries of Samarcand and Baldach upon which were embroidered, by brown fingers time turned long ago to Asian dust, innumerable asps and deer and phoenixes and dragons and all the motley inhabitants of air and of the thicket: but her memories, too, she had, and for a dreary while she got no comfort because of them. Then ambition quickened.