sat upon a cathedral spire and white doves flew about him. Monks came and told him to begone. 'Do not the spires show you, O son of darkness' they clamored, 'that the place is holy?' And Satan (in this old tale) replied that these spires were capable of various interpretations. I speak of symbols, John. Yet I also have loved, in my own fashion,--and, it would seem, I win the same reward as you."
The King said more lately: "And so she is at Stirling now? hobnob with my armed enemies, and cajoling that red lecher Robert Stewart?" He laughed, not overpleasantly. "Eh, yes, it needed a bold person to bring all your tidings! But you Brabanters are a very thorough-going people."
The King rose and flung back his high head. "John, the loyal service you have done us and our esteem for your valor are so great that they may well serve you as an excuse. May shame fall on those who bear you any ill-will! You will now return home, and take your prisoner, the King of Scotland, and deliver him to my wife, to do with as she may elect. You will convey to her my entreaty--not my orders, John,--that she come to me here at Calais. As remuneration for this evening's insolence, I assign lands as near your house as you can choose them to the value of 500 a year for you and for your heirs."
You must know that John Copeland fell upon his knees before King Edward. "Sire--" he stammered.
But the King raised him. "No, no," he said, "you are the better man. Were there any equity in fate, John Copeland, your lady had loved you, not me. As it is, I must strive to prove not altogether unworthy of my fortune. But I make no large promises," he added, squinting horribly, "because the most generous person cannot render to love any more than that person happens to possess. So be off with you, John Copeland,--go, my squire, and bring me back my Queen!"
Presently he heard John Copeland singing without. And through that instant, they say, his youth returned to Edward Plantagenet, and all the scents and shadows and faint sounds of Valenciennes on that ancient night when a tall girl came to him, running, stumbling in her haste to bring him kingship. "She waddles now," he thought forlornly. "Still, I am blessed." But Copeland sang, and the Brabanter's heart was big with joy.
Sang John Copeland:
"Long I besought thee, nor vainly, Daughter of Water and Air-- Charis! Idalia! Hortensis! Hast thou not heard the prayer, When the blood stood still with loving, And the blood in me leapt like wine, And I cried on thy name, Melaenis?-- That heard me, (the glory is thine!) And let the heart of Atys, At last, at last, be mine!
"Falsely they tell of thy dying, Thou that art older than Death, And never the Hrselberg hid thee, Whatever the slanderer saith, For the stars are as heralds forerunning, When laughter and love combine At twilight, in thy light, Melaenis-- That heard me, (the glory is thine!) And let the heart of Atys, At last, at last, be mine!"
THE END OF THE FIFTH NOVEL
VI
THE STORY OF THE SATRAPS
"Je suis voix au dsert criant Que chascun soyt rectifiant La voye de Sauveur; non suis, Et accomplir je ne le puis."
THE SIXTH NOVEL.--ANNE OF BOHEMIA HAS ONE SOLE FRIEND, AND BY HIM PLAYS THE FRIEND'S PART; AND IN DOING SO ACHIEVES THEIR COMMON ANGUISH, AS WELL AS THE CONFUSION OF STATECRAFT AND THE POULTICING OF A GREAT DISEASE.
_The Story of the Satraps_
In the year of grace 1381 (Nicolas begins) was Dame Anne magnificently fetched from remote Bohemia, and at Westminster married to Sire Richard, the second monarch of that name to reign in England. This king, I must tell you, had succeeded while he was yet an infant, to the throne of his grandfather, the third King Edward, about whom I have told you in the story preceding this.
Queen Anne had presently noted a certain priest who went forbiddingly about her court, where he was accorded a provisional courtesy, and who went also into many hovels, where pitiable wrecks of humankind received his alms and ministrations.
Queen Anne made inquiries. This young cleric was amanuensis to the Duke of Gloucester, she learned, and was notoriously a by-blow of the Duke's brother, dead Lionel of Clarence. She sent for this Edward Maudelain. When he came her first perception was, "How wonderful is his likeness to the King!" while the thought's commentary ran, unacknowledged, "Yes, as an eagle resembles a falcon!" For here, to the observant eye, was a more zealous person, already passion-wasted, and a far more dictatorial and stiff-necked person than the lazy and amiable King; also, this Maudelain's face and nose were somewhat too long and high: the priest was, in a word, the less comely of the pair by a very little, and to an immeasurable extent the more kinglike.
"You are my cousin now, messire," the Queen told him, and innocently offered to his lips her own.
He never moved; but their glances crossed, and for that instant she saw the face of a man who has just stepped into a quicksand. She grew red, without knowing why. Then he spoke, composedly, of trivial matters.
Thus began the Queen's acquaintance with Edward Maudelain. She was by this time the loneliest woman in the island. Her husband granted her a bright and fresh perfection of form and color, but desiderated any appetizing tang, and lamented, in his phrase, a certain kinship to the impeccable loveliness of some female saint in a jaunty tapestry; bright as ice in sunshine, just so her beauty chilled you, he complained: moreover, this daughter of the Caesars had been fetched into England, chiefly, to breed him children, and this she had never done. Undoubtedly he had made a bad bargain,--he was too easy-going, people presumed upon it. His barons snatched their cue and esteemed Dame Anne to be negligible; whereas the clergy, finding that she obstinately read the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, under the irrelevant plea of not comprehending Latin, began to denounce her from their pulpits as a heretic and as the evil woman prophesied by Ezekiel.
It was the nature of this desolate child to crave affection, as a necessary, and pitifully she tried to purchase it through almsgiving. In the attempt she could have found no coadjutor more ready than Edward Maudelain. Giving was with these two a sort of obsession, though always he gave in a half scorn of his fellow creatures which was not more than half concealed. This bastard was charitable and pious because he knew his soul, conceived in double sin, to be doubly evil, and therefore doubly in need of redemption through good works.
Now in and about the Queen's lonely rooms the woman and the priest met daily to discuss now this or that point of theology, or now (to cite a single instance) Gammer Tudway's obstinate sciatica. Considerate persons found something of the pathetic in their preoccupation by these matters while, so clamantly, the dissension between the young King and his uncles gathered to a head. The King's uncles meant to continue governing England, with the King as their ward, as long as they could; he meant to relieve himself of this guardianship, and them of their heads, as soon as he was able. War seemed inevitable, the air was thick with portents; and was this, then, an appropriate time, the judicious demanded of high Heaven, for the Queen of imperilled England to concern herself about a peasant's toothache?
Long afterward was Edward Maudelain to remember this quiet and amiable period of his life, and to wonder over the man that he had been through this queer while. Embittered and suspicious she had found him, noted for the carping tongue he lacked both power and inclination to bridle; and she had, against his nature, made Maudelain see that every person is at bottom lovable, and that human vices are but the stains of a traveller midway in a dusty journey; and had incited the priest no longer to do good for his soul's health, but simply for his fellow's benefit.
In
