FullReads

The ensuing Wednesday the court hunted and slew a stag of ten in the woods of Ermenoueil, which stand thick about the chateau; and upon that day these two had dined at Rigon the forester’s hut, in company with Dame Meregrett, the French King’s younger sister. She sat a little apart from the betrothed, and stared through the hut’s one window. We know nowadays it was not merely the trees she considered.

Dame Blanch, it seemed, was undisposed to mirth. “For we have slain the stag, beau sire,” she said, “and have made of his death a brave diversion. To-day we have had our sport of death,–and presently the gay years wind past us, as our cavalcade came toward the stag, and God’s incurious angel slays us, much as we slew the stag. And we will not understand, and we will wonder, as the stag did, in helpless wonder. And Death will have his sport of us, as in atonement.” Here her big eyes shone, as the sun glints upon a sand-bottomed pool. “Ohe, I have known such happiness of late, beau sire, that I am hideously afraid to die.” And again the heavily fringed eyelids lifted, and within the moment sank contentedly.

For the King had murmured “Happiness!” and his glance was rapacious.

“But I am discourteous,” Blanch said, “to prate of death thus drearily. Let us flout him, then, with some gay song.” And toward Sire Edward she handed Rigon’s lute.

The King accepted it. “Death is not reasonably mocked,” Sire Edward said, “since in the end he conquers, and of the very lips that gibed at him remains but a little dust. Nay, rather should I who already stand beneath a lifted sword make for my immediate conqueror a Sirvente, which is the Song of Service.”

Sang Sire Edward:

“I sing of Death, that cometh to the king,
And lightly plucks him from the cushioned throne,
And drowns his glory and his warfaring
In unrecorded dim oblivion,
And girds another with the sword thereof,
And sets another in his stead to reign,
What time the monarch nakedly must gain
Styx’ hither shore and nakedly complain
‘Midst twittering ghosts lamenting life and love.

“For Death is merciless: a crack-brained king
He raises in the place of Prester John,
Smites Priam, and mid-course in conquering
Bids Caesar pause; the wit of Salomon,
The wealth of Nero and the pride thereof,
And prowess of great captains–of Gawayne,
Darius, Jeshua, and Charlemaigne–
Wheedle and bribe and surfeit Death in vain
And get no grace of him nor any love.

“Incuriously he smites the armored king
And tricks his wisest counsellor–“

“True, O God!” murmured the tiny woman, who sat beside the window yonder. And Dame Meregrett rose and in silence passed from the room.

The two started, and laughed in common, and afterward paid little heed to her outgoing. For Sire Edward had put aside the lute and sat now regarding the Princess. His big left hand propped the bearded chin; his grave countenance was flushed, and his intent eyes shone under their shaggy brows, very steadily, like the tapers before an altar.

And, irresolutely, Dame Blanch plucked at her gown; then rearranged a fold of it, and with composure awaited the ensuing action, afraid at bottom, but not at all ill-pleased; and always she looked downward.

The King said: “Never before were we two alone, madame. Fate is very gracious to me this morning.”

“Fate,” the lady considered, “has never denied much to the Hammer of the Scots.”

“She has denied me nothing,” he sadly said, “save the one thing that makes this business of living seem a rational proceeding. Fame and power and wealth she has accorded me, no doubt, but never the common joys of life. And, look you, my Princess, I am of aging person now. During some thirty years I have ruled England according to my interpretation of God’s will as it was anciently made manifest by the holy Evangelists; and during that period I have ruled England not without odd by-ends of commendation: yet behold, to-day I forget the world-applauded, excellent King Edward, and remember only Edward Plantagenet–hot-blooded and desirous man!–of whom that much-commended king has made a prisoner all these years.”