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The Satraps
by
Sang Maudelain:
“Christ save us all, as well He can,
A solis ortus cardine!
For He is both God and man,
Qui natus est de virgine,
And we but part of His wide plan
That sing, and heartily sing we,
‘Gloria Tibi, Domine!’
“Between a heifer and an ass
Enixa est puerpera;
In ragged woollen clad He was
Qui regnat super aethera,
And patiently may we then pass
That sing, and heartily sing we,
‘Gloria Tibi, Domine!”
The Queen shivered in the glad sunlight. “I am, it must be, pitiably weak,” she said at last, “because I cannot sing as he does. And, since I am not very wise, were he to return even now– But he will not return. He will never return,” the Queen repeated, carefully, and over and over again. “It is strange I cannot comprehend that he will never return! Ah, Mother of God!” she cried, with a steadier voice, “grant that I may weep! nay, of thy infinite mercy let me presently find the heart to weep!” And about the Queen of England many birds sang joyously.
Next day the English barons held a council, and in the midst of it King Richard demanded to be told his age.
“Your Grace is in your twenty-second year,” said the uneasy Gloucester, and now with reason troubled, since he had been seeking all night long for the evanished Maudelain.
“Then I have been under tutors and governors longer than any other ward in my dominion. My lords, I thank you for your past services, but I need them no more.” They had no check handy, and Gloucester in particular foreread his death-warrant, but of necessity he shouted with the others, “Hail, King of England!”
That afternoon the King’s assumption of all royal responsibility was commemorated by a tournament, over which Dame Anne presided. Sixty of her ladies led as many knights by silver chains into the tilting-grounds at Smithfield, and it was remarked that the Queen appeared unusually mirthful. The King was in high good humor, already a pattern of conjugal devotion; and the royal pair retired at dusk to the Bishop of London’s palace at Saint Paul’s, where was held a merry banquet, with dancing both before and after supper.