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 THE LIFE AND DEATH OF 
 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 EARTHWORK OUT OF TUSCANY 
 PAN AND THE YOUNG SHEPHERD 
 THE FOREST LOVERS 
 LITTLE NOVELS OF ITALY
 
 The Life and Death 
 
 OF 
 
 Richard Yea -and -Nay 
 
 BY 
 
 MAURICE HEWLETT 
 
 Si che a bene sperar mi era cagione 
 Di quella r'era alia gaietta pelle. 
 
 Inf. i. 41. 
 
 Hcmti0tt 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1900 
 
 A I! rights reserved
 
 
 Copyright in the United States of America 1900 
 First Edition October 1900 
 Reprinted November 1900
 
 TO 
 HIS FRIEND 
 
 EDMUND GOSSE 
 
 (always benevolent to his invention) 
 
 this chronicle of 
 
 anjou and a noble lady 
 
 is dedicated 
 
 BY 
 
 M. H.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 BOOK I.— THE BOOK OF YEA 
 
 EXORDIUM 
 
 The Abbot Milo urbi et orbi, concerning the Nature 
 of the Leopard ..... 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Of Count Richard, and the Fires by Night . . 6 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 How the Fair Jehane bestowed herself . . 20 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 In what Harbour they found the Old Lion . . 31 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 How Jehane stroked what Alois had made Fierce . 44 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 How Bertran de Born and Count Richard strove in a 
 
 Tenzoj? ...... 60
 
 viii RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Fruits of the Tenzon : the Back of Saint-Pol, and the 
 
 Front of Montferrat . . . -73 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Of the Crackling of Thorns under Pots . . 89 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 How they held Richard off from his Father's Throat . 98 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Wild Work in the Church of Gisors . . .108 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Night-work by the Dark Tower . . .117 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Of Prophecy ; and Jehane in the Perilous Bed . 129 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 How they bayed the Old Lion . . . 141 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 How they met at Fontevrault . . • *53
 
 CONTENTS ix 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Of what King Richard said to the Bowing Rood; and 
 
 what Jehane to King Richard . . .165 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 Last Tenzon of Bertran de Born . . .177 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Conversation in England of Jehane the Fair . .189 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Frozen Heart and Red Heart : Cahors . . 204. 
 
 BOOK II.— THE BOOK OF NAY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The Chapter called Mate-Grifon . . .221 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Of what Jehane looked for, and what Berengere had . 233 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Who fought at Acre ..... 24.8
 
 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 PACE 
 
 Concerning the Tower of Flies, Saint-Pol, and the 
 
 Marquess of Montferrat . . . . 262 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 The Chapter of Forbidding : how De Gurdun looked, 
 
 and King Richard hid his Face . . - 276 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 The Chapter called Clytemnestra . . . 297 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 The Chapter of the Sacrifice on Lebanon ; also called 
 
 Cassandra ..... 309 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Of the Going-up and Going-down of the Marquess . 318 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 How King Richard reaped what Jehane had sowed, 
 
 and the Soldan was Gleaner . . . 328 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 The Chapter called Bonds .... 344 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 The Chapter called A Latere . . 356
 
 CONTENTS xi 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 The Chapter of Strife in the Dark . . . 368 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 Of the Love of Women .... 381 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 How the Leopard was loosed . . .388 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 (Economic Reflections of the Old Man of Musse . 399 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 The Chapter called Chaluz .... 405 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 The Keening . . . . .415 
 
 Epilogue of the Abbot Milo . . . 427
 
 BOOK I 
 THE BOOK OF YEA 
 
 m
 
 EXORDIUM 
 
 THE ABBOT MILO URBI ET ORBI, CONCERNING THE 
 NATURE OF THE LEOPARD 
 
 I like this good man's account of leopards, and 
 find it more pertinent to my matter than you 
 might think. Milo was a Carthusian monk, abbot 
 of the cloister of Saint Mary -of- the -Pine by 
 Poictiers ; it was his distinction to be the life- 
 long friend of a man whose friendships were 
 few : certainly it may be said of him that he 
 knew as much of leopards as any one of his time 
 and nation, and that his knowledge was better 
 grounded. 
 
 ' Your leopard,' he writes, ' is alleged in the 
 books to be offspring of the Lioness and the Pard ; 
 and his name, if the Realists have any truth on 
 their side, establishes the fact. But I think he 
 should be called Leolupe, which is to say, got by 
 lion out of bitch-wolf, since two essences burn in 
 him as well as two sorts. This is the nature of 
 the leopard : it is a spotted beast, having two 
 souls, a bright soul and a dark soul. It is black 
 and golden, slim and strong, cat and dog. Hunger
 
 4 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. 
 
 drives a dog to hunt, so the leopard ; passion the 
 cat, so the leopard. A cat is sufficient unto him- 
 self, and a leopard is so ; but a dog hangs on a 
 man's nod, and a leopard can so be beguiled. A 
 leopard is sleek as a cat and pleased by stroking ; 
 like a cat he will scratch his friend on occasion. 
 Yet again, he has a dog's intrepidity, knows no 
 fear, is single - purposed, not to be called off, 
 longanimous. But the cat in him makes him 
 wary, tempts him to treacherous dealing, keeps 
 him apart from counsels, advises him to keep his 
 own. So the leopard is a lonely beast.' This is 
 interesting, and may be true. But mark him as 
 he goes on. 
 
 ' I knew the man, my dear master and a great 
 king, who brought the leopards into the shield of 
 England, more proper to do it than his father, 
 being more the thing he signified. Of him, there- 
 fore, torn by two natures, cast in two moulds, 
 sport of two fates ; the hymned and reviled, the 
 loved and loathed, spendthrift and a miser, king 
 and a beggar, the bond and the free, god and 
 man ; of King Richard Yea-and-Nay, so made, so 
 called, and by that unmade, I thus prepare my 
 account.' 
 
 So far the abbot with much learning and no little 
 verbosity casts his net. He has the weakness of 
 his age, you observe, and must begin at the begin- 
 ning ; but this is not our custom. Something of 
 Time is behind us ; we are conscious of a world re- 
 plete, and may assume that we have digested part 
 of it. Milo, indeed, like all candid chroniclers, 
 has his value. He is excellent upon himself, a
 
 i ABBOT MILO ON LEOPARDS 5 
 
 good relish with your meal. However, as we are 
 concerned with King Richard, you shall dip into 
 his bag for refreshment, but must leave the 
 victualling to me.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 OF COUNT RICHARD, AND THE FIRES BY NIGHT 
 
 I choose to record how Richard Count of Poictou 
 rode all through one smouldering night to see 
 Jehane Saint -Pol a last time. It had so been 
 named by the lady ; but he rode in his hottest 
 mood of Nay to that, yet careless of first or last so 
 he could see her again. Nominally to remit his 
 master's sins, though actually (as he thought) to 
 pay for his own, the Abbot Milo bore him company, 
 if company you can call it which left the good 
 man, in pitchy dark, some hundred yards behind. 
 The way, which was long, led over Saint Andrew's 
 Plain, the bleakest stretch of the Norman march ; 
 the pace, being Richard's, was furious, a pounding 
 gallop ; the prize, Richard's again, showed fitfully 
 and afar, a twinkling point of light. Count Richard 
 knew it for Jehane's torch, and saw no other spark ; 
 but Milo, faintly curious on the lady's account, 
 was more concerned with the throbbing glow which 
 now and again shuddered in the northern sky. 
 Nature had no lamps that night, and made no sign 
 by cry of night-bird or rustle of scared beast : there 
 was no wind, no rain, no dew ; she offered nothing
 
 ch. i THE FIRES BY NIGHT 7 
 
 but heat, dark, and dense oppression. Topping the 
 ridge of sand, where was the Fosse des Noyees, 
 place of shameful death, the solitary torch showed 
 a steady beam ; and there also, ahead, could be seen 
 on the northern horizon that rim of throbbing 
 
 ' God pity the poor ! ' said Count Richard, and 
 scourged forward. 
 
 ' God pity me ! ' said gasping Milo ; ' I believe 
 my stomach is in my head.' So at last they 
 crossed the pebbly ford and found the pines, then 
 cantered up the path of light which streamed from 
 the Dark Tower. As core of this they saw the 
 lady stand with a torch above her head ; when 
 they drew rein she did not move. Her face, 
 moon-shaped, was as pale as a moon ; her loose 
 hair, catching light, framed it with gold. She was 
 all white against the dark, seemed to loom in it 
 taller than she was or could have been. She was 
 Jehane Saint-Pol, Jehane ' of the Fair Girdle,' so 
 called by her lovers and friends, to whom for a 
 matter of two years this hot-coloured, tallest, and 
 coldest of the Angevins had been light of the 
 world. 
 
 The check upon their greeting was the most 
 curious part of a curious business, that one should 
 have travelled and the other watched so long, and 
 neither urge the end of desire. The Count sat 
 still upon his horse, so for duty's sake did the 
 aching abbot ; the girl stood still in the 
 entry-way, holding up her dripping torch. Then, 
 'Child, child,' cried the Count, 'how is it with 
 thee ? ' His voice trembled, and so did he.
 
 8 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 She looked at him, slow to answer, though the 
 hand upon her bosom swayed up and down. 
 
 ' Do you see the fires? ' she said. ' They have 
 been there six nights.' He was watching them 
 then through the pine-woods, how they shot into 
 the sky great ribbons of light, flickered, fainted 
 out, again glowed steadily as if gathering volume, 
 again leaped, again died, ebbing and flowing like 
 a tide of fire. 
 
 ' The King will be at Louviers,' said Richard. 
 He gave a short laugh. ' Well, he shall light us 
 to bed. Heart of a man, I am sick of all this. 
 Let me in.' 
 
 She stood aside, and he rode bodily into the 
 tower, stooping as he passed her to touch her 
 cheek. She looked up quickly, then let in the 
 abbot, who, with much ceremony, came bowing, 
 his horse led by the bridle. She shut the door 
 behind them and drove home the great bolts. 
 Servants came tumbling out to take the horses 
 and do their duty ; Count Eustace, a brother of 
 Jehane's, got up from the hearth, where he had 
 been asleep on a bearskin, rubbed his eyes, gulped 
 a yawn, knelt, and was kissed by Richard. Jehane 
 stood apart, mistress of herself as it seemed, but 
 conscious, perhaps, that she was being watched. 
 So she was. In the bustle of salutation the Abbot 
 Milo found eyes to see what manner of sulky, 
 beautiful girl this was. 
 
 He watched shrewdly, and has described her 
 for us with the meticulous particularity of his 
 time and temper. He runs over her parts like 
 a virtuoso. The iris of her eyes, for instance, was
 
 ch. i THE FIRES BY NIGHT 9 
 
 wet grey, but ringed with black and shot with 
 yellow, giving so the effect of hot green ; her 
 mouth was of an extraordinary dark red colour, 
 very firm in texture, close - grained, ' like the 
 darker sort of strawberries,' says he. The upper 
 lip had the sulky curve ; she looked discontented, 
 and had reason to be, under such a scrutiny of 
 the microscope. Her hair was colour of raw 
 silk, eyebrows set rather high, face a thinnish 
 oval, complexion like a pink rose's, neck thinnish 
 again, feet, hands, long and nervous, ' good work- 
 ing members,' etc. etc. None of this helps very 
 much ; too detailed. But he noticed how tall she 
 was and how slim, save for a very beautiful 
 bosom, too full for Dian's (he tells us), whom else 
 she resembled ; how she was straight as a birch- 
 tree ; how in walking it seemed as if her skirts 
 clung about her knees. There was an air of 
 mingled surprise and defiance about her ; she 
 was a silent girl. ' Fronted like Juno,' he ap- 
 pears to cry, ' shaped like Hebe, and like Demeter 
 in stature ; sullen with most, but with one most 
 sweetly apt, she looked watchful but was really 
 timid, looked cold but was secretly afire. I knew 
 soon enough how her case stood, how hope and 
 doubt strove in her and choked her to silence. I 
 guessed how within those reticent members swift 
 love ran like wine ; but because of this proud, 
 brave mask of hers I was slow to understand her 
 worth. God help me, I thought her a thing of 
 snow ! ' 
 
 He records her dress at this time, remarkable 
 if becoming. It was all white, and cut wedge-
 
 io RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 shaped in front, very deep ; but an undervest of 
 crimson crossed the V in the midst and saved her 
 modesty, and his. Her hair, which was long, was 
 plaited in two plaits with seed-pearls, brought 
 round her neck like a scarf and the two ends 
 joined between her breasts, thus denning a great 
 beauty of hers and making a gold collar to her 
 gown. Round her smooth throat was a little 
 chain with a red jewel ; on her head another 
 jewel (a carbuncle) set in a flower, with three 
 heron's plumes falling back from it. She had a 
 broad belt of gold and sapphire stones, and 
 slippers of vair. ' Oh, a fine straight maid,' 
 says Milo in conclusion, ' golden and delicate, 
 with strangely shaded eyes. They knew her as 
 Jehane of the Fair Girdle.' 
 
 The brother, Count Eustace as they called him 
 (to distinguish him from an elder brother, Eudo, 
 Count of Saint-Pol), was a blunt copy of his sister, 
 redder than she was, lighter in the hair, much 
 lighter in the eyes. He seemed an affectionate 
 youth, and clung to the great Count Richard like 
 ivy to a tree. Richard gave him the sort of 
 scornful affection one has for a little dog, between 
 patting and slapping ; but clearly wanted to be rid 
 of him. No reference was made to the journey, 
 much was taken for granted ; Eustace talked of 
 his hawks, Richard ate and drank, Jehane sat up 
 stiffly, looking into the fire ; Milo watched her 
 between his mouthfuls. The moment supper was 
 done, up jumps Richard and claps hands on the 
 two shoulders of young Eustace. ' To bed, to bed, 
 my falconer ! It grows late,' cries he. Eustace
 
 ch. i THE FIRES BY NIGHT n 
 
 pushed his chair back, rose, kissed the Count's 
 hand and his sister's forehead, saluted Milo, and 
 went out humming a tune. Milo withdrew, the 
 servants bowed themselves away. Richard stood up, 
 a loose-limbed young giant, and narrowed his eyes. 
 ' Nest thee, nest thee, my bird,' he said low ; 
 and Jehane's lips parted. Slowly she left her stool 
 by the fire, but quickened as she went ; and at 
 last ran tumbling into his arms. 
 
 His right hand embraced her, his left at her 
 chin held her face at discretion. Like a woman, 
 she reproached him for what she dearly loved. 
 
 ' Lord, lord, how shall I serve the cup and 
 platter if you hold me so fast ? ' 
 
 'Thou art my cup, thou art my supper.' 
 'Thin fare, poor soul,' she said ; but was glad 
 of his foolishness. 
 
 Later, they sat by the hearth, Jehane on 
 Richard's knee, but doubtfully his, being troubled 
 by many things. He had no retrospects nor 
 after-thoughts ; he tried to coax her into pliancy. 
 It was the fires in the north that distressed her. 
 Richard made light of them. 
 
 ' Dear,' he said, ' the King my father is come 
 up with a host to drive the Count his son to bed. 
 Now the Count his son is master of a good bed, to 
 which he will presently go ; but it is not the bed 
 of the King his father. That, as you know, is of 
 French make, neither good Norman, nor good 
 Angevin, nor seethed in the English mists. By 
 Saint Maclou and the astonishing works he did, I 
 should be bad Norman, and worse Angevin, and 
 less English than I am, if I loved the French.'
 
 T2 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 He tried to draw her in ; but she, rather, 
 strained away from him, elbowed her knee, and 
 rested her chin upon her hand. She looked 
 gravely down to the whitening logs, where the 
 ashes were gaining on the red. 
 
 ' My lord loves not the French,' she said, ' but 
 he loves honour. He is the King's son, loving his 
 father.' 
 
 'By my soul, I do not,' he assured her, with 
 perfect truth, then caught her round the waist and 
 turned her bodily to face him. After he had kissed 
 her well he began to speak more seriously. 
 
 ' Jehane,' he said, ' I have thought all this 
 stifling night upon the heath, Homing to her I am 
 seeking my best. My best ? You are all I have 
 in the world. If honour is in my hand, do I not 
 owe it to you ? Or shall a man use women like 
 dogs, to play with them in idle moods, toss them 
 bones under the table, afterwards kick them out of 
 doors ? Child, you know me better. What ! ' 
 he cried out, with his head very high, ' Shall a man 
 not choose his own wife ? ' 
 
 ' No,' said Jehane, ready for him ; * no, Richard, 
 unless the people shall choose their own king.' 
 
 ' God chooses the king,' says Richard, ' or so 
 we choose to believe.' 
 
 ' Then God must appoint the wife,' Jehane said, 
 and tried to get free. But this could not be 
 allowed, as she knew. 
 
 She was gentle with him, reasoning. ' The King 
 your father is an old man, Richard. Old men 
 love their way.' 
 
 ' God knows, he is old, and passionate, and
 
 ch. i THE FIRES BY NIGHT 13 
 
 indifferent wicked,' said Richard, and kissed 
 Jehane. ' Look, my girl, there were four of us : 
 Henry, and me, and Geoffrey, and John, whom 
 he sought to drive in team by a sop to-day and 
 a stick to-morrow. A good way, done by a 
 judging hand. What then? I will tell you how 
 the team served the teamster. Henry gave sop 
 for sop, and it was found well. Might he not 
 give stick for stick ? He thought so : God rest 
 him, he is dead of that. There was much 
 simplicity in Henry. I got no sop at all. Why 
 should I have stick then ? I saw no reason ; but 
 I took what came. If I cried out, it is a more 
 harmless vent than many. Let me alone. Geoffrey, 
 I think, was a villain. God help him if He can : 
 he is dead too. He took sop and gave stick : 
 ungentle in Geoffrey, but he paid for it. He was 
 a cross-bred dog with much of the devil in him ; 
 he bit himself and died barking. Last, there is 
 John. I desire to speak reasonably of John ; but 
 he is too snug, he gets all sop. This is not fair. 
 He should have some stick, that we may judge 
 what mettle he has. There, my Jehane, you have 
 the four of us, a fretful team ; whereof one has 
 rushed his hills and broken his heart ; and one, 
 kicking his yoke-fellows, squealing, playing the 
 jade, has broken his back ; and one, poor Richard, 
 does collar-work and gets whip ; and one, young 
 Master John, eases his neck and is cajoled with, 
 "So then, so then, boy!" Then comes pretty 
 Jehane to the ear of the collar-horse, whispering, 
 " Good Richard, get thee to stall, but not here. 
 Stable thee snug with the King of France his
 
 i 4 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 sister." Hey ! ' laughed Richard, ' what a word 
 for a chosen bride ! ' He pinched her cheek and 
 looked gaily at her, triumphant in his own 
 eloquence. He was most dangerous when that 
 devil was awake, so she dared not look at him 
 back. Eagerly and low she replied. 
 
 ' Yes, Richard, yes, yes, my king ! The king 
 must have the king's sister, and Jehane go back 
 to the byre. Eagles do not mate with buzzards.' 
 Hereupon he snatched her up altogether and hid 
 her face in his breast. 
 
 ' Never, never, never ! ' he swore to the rafters. 
 ' As God lives and reigns, so live thou and so 
 reign, queen of me, my Picardy rose.' 
 
 She tried no more that night, fearing that his 
 love so keen -edged might make his will ride 
 rough. The watch-fires at Louviers trembled and 
 streamed up in the north. There was no need for 
 candles in the Dark Tower. 
 
 They rose up early to a fair dawn. The cloud- 
 wrack was blown off, leaving the sky a lake of 
 burnt yellow, pure, sweet, and cool. Thus the 
 world entered upon the summer of Saint Luke, to 
 a new -risen sun, to thin mists stealing off the 
 moor, to wet flowers hearted anew, to blue air, 
 and hope left for those who would go gleaning. 
 While Eustace Saint-Pol was snoring abed and 
 the Abbot Milo at his Sursum Corda, Richard had 
 Jehane by the hand. ' Come forth, my love ; we 
 have the broad day before us and an empty 
 kingdom to roam in. Come, my red rose, let me 
 set you among the flowers.' What could she do 
 but harbour up her thoughts ?
 
 ch. i THE FIRES BY NIGHT 
 
 l S 
 
 He took her afield, where flowers made the 
 earth still a singing-place, and gathered of these 
 to deck her bosom and hair. Of the harebells he 
 made knots, the ground-colour of her eyes ; but 
 autumn loves the yellow, so she was stuck with 
 gold like a princess. She sat enthroned by his 
 command, this young girl in a high place, with 
 downcast eyes and a face all fire-colour, while he 
 worshipped her to his fancy. I believe he had no 
 after-thought ; but she saw the dun smoke of the 
 fires at Louviers, and knew they would make 
 the night shudder again. Yet her sweetness, 
 patience, staid courtesy, humility, never failed 
 her ; out of the deep wells of her soul she drew 
 them forth in a stream. Richard adored. 
 ' Oueen Jehane, Queen Jehane ! ' he cried out, 
 with his arms straightly round her — ' Was ever 
 man in the world blest so high since God said, 
 " Behold thy mother " ? And so art thou 
 mother to me, O bride. Bride and queen as 
 thou shalt be.' 
 
 This was great invention. She put her hand 
 upon his head. ' My Richard, my Richard Yea- 
 and-Nay,' she said, as if pitying his wild heart. 
 The nickname jarred. 
 
 ' Never call me that,' he told her. ' Leave that 
 to Bertran de Born, a fool's word to the fool who 
 made it.' 
 
 ' If I could, if I could ! ' thought Jehane, and 
 sighed. There were tears in her eyes, also, as 
 she remembered what generosity in him must 
 be frozen up, and what glory of her own. But 
 she did not falter in what she had to do, while
 
 1 6 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 he, too exalted to be pitied, began to sing a 
 Southern song — 
 
 Al' entrada del tems clair, cya \ 
 
 When their hair commingled in their love, 
 when they were close together, there was little 
 distinguishing between them ; he was more her 
 pair than Eustace her blood -brother, in stature 
 and shape, in hue and tincture of gold. Jehane you 
 know, but not Richard. Of him, son of a king, 
 heir of a king, if you wish some bodily sign, I will 
 say shortly that he was a very tall young man, 
 high-coloured and calm in the face, straight-nosed, 
 blue-eyed, spare of flesh, lithe, swift in movement. 
 He was at once bold and sleek, eager and cold 
 as ice — an odd combination, but not more odd 
 than the blend of Norman dog and Angevin cat 
 which had made him so. Furtive he was not, yet 
 seeming to crouch for a spring ; not savage, yet 
 primed for savagery ; not cruel, yet quick on 
 the affront, and on the watch for it. He was 
 neither a rogue nor a madman ; and yet he was as 
 cunning as the one and as heedless as the other, 
 if that is a possible thing. He was arrogant, but 
 his smile veiled the fault ; you saw it best in a 
 sleepy look he had. His blemishes were many, 
 his weaknesses two. He trusted to his own force 
 too much, and despised everybody else in the 
 world. Not that he thought them knaves ; he 
 was certain they were fools. And so most of 
 them were, no doubt, but not all. The first flush 
 of him moved your admiration : great height, 
 great colour, the red and the yellow ; his beard
 
 ch. r THE FIRES BY NIGHT 17 
 
 which ran jutting to a point and gave his jaw the 
 clubbed look of a big cat's ; his shut mouth, and 
 cold considering eyes ; the eager set of his head, 
 his soft, padding motions- — a leopard, a hunting 
 leopard, quick to strike, but quick to change 
 purpose. This, then, was Richard Yea-and-Nay, 
 whom all women loved, and very few men. 
 These require to be trusted before they love ; 
 and full trust Richard gave to no man, because 
 he could not believe him worth it. Women are 
 more generous givers, expecting not again. 
 
 Here was Jehane Saint-Pol, a girl of two-and- 
 twenty to his two -and -thirty, well born, well 
 formed, greatly desired among her peers, who, 
 having let her soul be stolen, was prepared to 
 cut it out of herself for his sake who took it, 
 and let it die. She was the creature of his love, 
 in and out by now the work of his hands. God 
 had given her a magnificent body, but Richard 
 had made it glow. God had made her soul a 
 fair room ; but his love had filled it with light, 
 decked it with flowers and such artful furniture. 
 He, in fact, as she very well knew, had given 
 her the grace to deal queenly with herself. She 
 knew that she would have strength to deny him, 
 having learned the hardihood to give him her 
 soul. Fate had carried her too young into the 
 arms of the most glorious prince in the world. 
 Her brother, Eudo the Count, built castles on 
 that in his head. Now she was to tumble them 
 down. Her younger brother, Eustace, loved 
 this splendid Richard. Now she was to hurt him. 
 What was to become of herself? Mercy upon 
 
 c
 
 1 8 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 her, I believe she never thought of that. His 
 honour was her necessity : the watch-fires in the 
 north told her the hour was at hand. The old 
 King was come up with a host to drive his son 
 to bed. Richard must go, and she woo him out. 
 Son of a king, heir of a king, he must go to the 
 king his father ; and he knew he must go. Two 
 days' maddening delight, two nights' biting of 
 nails, miserable entreaty from Jehane, grown newly 
 pinched and grey in the face, and he owned it. 
 
 He said to her the last night, 'When I saw 
 you first, my Queen of Snows, in the tribune at 
 Vezelay, when the knights rode by for the 
 melee, the green light from your eyes shot me, 
 and wounded I cried out, " That maid or none ! ' 
 
 She bowed her head ; but he went on. ' When 
 they throned you queen of them all because 
 you were so proud and still, and had such a high 
 untroubled head ; and when your sleeve was in 
 my helm, and my heart in your lap, and men 
 fallen to my spear were sent to kneel before you 
 — what caused your cheek to burn and your eyes 
 to shine so bright ? ' 
 
 She hid her face. ' Homage of the knights ! 
 The love of me ! ' he cried ; and then, ' Ah, Jehane 
 of the Fair Girdle, when I took you from the 
 pastures of Gisors, when I taught you love and 
 learned from your young mouth what love might 
 be, I was made man. But now you ask me to 
 become dog.' And he swore yet again he could 
 never leave her. But she smiled proudly, being in 
 pain. ' Nay, my lord, but the man in you is 
 awake, and not to leave you. You shall go because
 
 ch. i THE FIRES BY NIGHT 19 
 
 you are the king's son, and I shall pray for the 
 new king.' So she beat him, and had him weeping 
 terribly, his face in her lap. She wept no more, 
 but dry-eyed kissed him, and dry-lipped went 
 to bed. ' He said Yea that time,' records the 
 Abbot Milo, ' but I never knew then what she 
 paid for it. That was later.' He went next 
 morning, and she saw. him go.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 HOW THE FAIR JEHANE BESTOWED HERSELF 
 
 Betimes is best for an ugly business ; your man 
 of spirit will always rush what he loathes but yet 
 must do. Count Richard of Poictou, having made 
 up his mind and confessed himself overnight, must 
 leave with the first cock of the morning, yet must 
 take the sacrament. Before it was grey in the 
 east he did so, fully armed in mail, with his red 
 surcoat of leopards upon him, his sword girt, his 
 spurs strapped on. Outside the chapel in the 
 weeping mirk a squire held his shield, another his 
 helm, a groom walked his horse. Milo the Abbot 
 was celebrant, a snuffling boy served ; the Count 
 knelt before the housel-cloth haloed by the light 
 of two thin candles. Hardly had the priest begun 
 his introibo when Jehane Saint-Pol, who had been 
 awake all night, stole in with a hood on her head, 
 and holding herself very stiffly, knelt on the floor. 
 She joined her hands and stuck them up before 
 her, so that the tips of her fingers, pointing upwards 
 as her thoughts would fly, were nearly level with 
 her chin. Thus frozen in prayer she remained 
 throughout the office ; nor did she relax when at
 
 ch. ii JEHANE'S BESTOWING 21 
 
 the elevation of the Host Richard bowed himself 
 to the earth. It seemed as if she too, bearing 
 between her hands her own heart, was lifting it 
 up for sacrifice and for worship. 
 
 The Count was communicated. He was a very 
 religious man, who would sooner have gone with- 
 out his sword than his Saviour upon any affairs. 
 Jehane saw him fed without a twitch of the lips. 
 She was in a great mood, a rapt and pillared saint ; 
 but when mass was over and his thanksgiving to 
 make, she got up and hid herself away from him 
 in the shades. There she lurked darkling, and he, 
 lunging out, swept with his sword's point the very 
 edge of her gown. She did not hear him go, for 
 he trod like a cat ; but she felt him touch her with 
 the sword, and shuddered once or twice. He went 
 out of the courtyard at a gallop. 
 
 While the abbot was reciting his own thanks- 
 giving Jehane came out of her corner, minded to 
 speak with him. So much he divined, needing not 
 the beckoning look she sent him from her guarded 
 eyes. He sat himself down by the altar of Saint 
 Remy, and she knelt beside him. 
 
 ' Well, my daughter ? ' says Milo. 
 
 ' I think it is well,' she took him up. 
 
 The Abbot Milo, a red-faced, watery-eyed old 
 man, rheumy and weathered well, then opened his 
 mouth and spake such wisdom as he knew. He 
 held up his forefinger like a claw, and used it as 
 if describing signs and wonders in the air. 
 
 ' Hearken, Madame Jehane,' he said. ' I say 
 that you have done well, and will maintain it. 
 That great prince, whom I love like my own son,
 
 22 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 is not for you, nor for another. No, no. He is 
 married already.' 
 
 He hoped to startle her, the old rhetorician ; 
 but he failed. Jehane was too dreary. 
 
 ' He is married, my daughter,' he repeated ; 
 ' and to whom ? Why, to himself. That man 
 from the birth has been a lonely soul. He can 
 never wed, as you understand it. You think him 
 your lover ! Believe me, he is not. He is his 
 own lover. He is called. He has a destiny. 
 And what is that ? you ask me.' 
 
 She did not, but rhetoric bade him suppose it. 
 ' Salem is his destiny ; Salem is his bride, the elect 
 lady in bonds. He will not wed Madame Alois 
 of France, nor you, nor any virgin in Christendom 
 until that spiritual wedlock is consummate. I 
 should not love him as I do if I did not believe it. 
 For why ? Shall I call my own son apostate ? 
 He is signed with the Cross, a married man, by 
 our Saviour ! ' 
 
 He leaned back in his chair, peering down at 
 her to see how she took it. She took it stilly, 
 and turned him a marble, storm-purged face, a 
 pair of eyes which seemed all black. 
 
 ' What shall I do to be safe ? ' Her voice 
 sounded worn. 
 
 ' Safe, my child ? ' He wondered. ' Bless me, 
 is not the Cross safety ? ' 
 
 ' IsTot with him, father.' 
 
 This was perfectly true, though tainted with 
 scandal, he thought. The abbot, who was trained 
 to blink all such facts, had to learn that this girl 
 blinked none. True to his guidance, he blinked.
 
 ch. n JEHANE'S BESTOWING 23 
 
 ' Go home to your brother, my daughter ; go 
 home to Saint -Pol- la -Marche. At the worst, 
 remember that there are always two arks for a 
 woman in flood-time, a convent and a bed.' 
 
 ' I shall never choose a convent,' said Jehane. 
 
 ' I think,' said the abbot, ' that you are perfectly 
 wise.' 
 
 I suppose the alternative struck a sudden terror 
 into her ; for the abbot abruptly records in his 
 book that ' here her spirit seemed to flit out of 
 her, and she began to tremble very much, and in 
 vain to contend with tears. I had her all dissolved 
 at my feet within a few moments. She was very 
 young, and seemed lost.' 
 
 ' Come, come,' he said, ' you have shown your- 
 self a brave girl these two days. It is not every maid 
 can sacrifice herself for a Count of Poictou, the 
 eldest son of a king. Come, come, let us have 
 no more of this.' He hoped, no doubt, to brace 
 her by a roughness which was far from his nature ; 
 and it is possible that he succeeded in heading off 
 a mutiny of the nerves. She was not violent under 
 her despair, but went on crying very miserably, 
 saying, ' Oh, what shall I do ? what shall I do ? ' 
 
 ' God knoweth,' says the abbot, ' this was a 
 bad case ; but I had a good thought for it.' He 
 began to speak of Richard, of what he had done 
 and what would live to do. ' They say that the 
 strain of the fiend is in that race, my dear,' he 
 told her. ' They say that Geoffrey Grey-Gown 
 had intercourse with a demon. And certain it is 
 that in Richard, as in all his brothers, that stinging 
 grain lives in the blood. For testimony look at
 
 24 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 their cognisance of Jeopards, and advise yourself, 
 whether any house in Christendom ever took that 
 device but had known familiarly the devil in some 
 shape ? And look again at the deeds of these 
 princes. What turned the young king to riot and 
 death, and Geoffrey to rapine and death ? What 
 else will turn John Sansterre to treachery and 
 death, or our tall Richard to violence and death ? 
 Nothing else, nothing else. But before he dies 
 you shall see him glorious ' 
 
 ' He is glorious already,' said Jehane, wiping 
 her eyes. 
 
 ' Keep him so, then,' said the abbot testily, who 
 did not love to have his periods truncated. 
 
 ' If I go back to Saint-Pol,' said Jehane, ' I shall 
 fall in with Gilles de Gurdun, who has sworn to 
 have me.' 
 
 ' Well,' replied the abbot, ' why should he 
 not? Does he receive the assurance of your 
 brother the Count ? ' 
 
 Jehane shook her head. ' No, no. My brother 
 wished me to be my lord Richard's. But Gilles 
 needs no assurance. He will buy my marriage from 
 the King of France. He is very sufficient.' 
 
 ' Hath he substance ? Hath he lands ? Is he 
 noble, then, Jehxne ? ' 
 
 ' He hath knighthood, a Church fief — oh, 
 enough ! ' 
 
 ' God forgive me if I did amiss,' writes the 
 abbot here ; ' but seeing her in a melting mood, 
 dewy, soft, and adorable, I kissed that beautiful 
 person, and she left the Chapel of Saint Remy 
 somewhat comforted.'
 
 ch. ii JEHANE'S BESTOWING 25 
 
 Not only so, but the same day she left the 
 Dark Tower with her brother Count Eustace, 
 and rode towards Gisors and Saint-Pol-la-Marche. 
 Nothing she could do could be shamefully done, 
 because of her silence, and the high head upon which 
 she carried it ; yet the Count of Saint-Pol, when he 
 heard her story, sitting bulky in his chair (like a 
 stalled red bull), did his best to put shame upon 
 her, that so he might cover his own bitterness. It 
 was Eustace, a generous ardent youth in those days, 
 who saved her from most of Eudo's wrath by draw- 
 ing it upon himself. 
 
 The Count of Saint-Pol swore a great oath. 
 
 ' By the teeth of God, Jehane,' he roared, ' I 
 see how it is. He hath made thee a piece of ruin, 
 and now runs wasting elsewhere.' 
 
 ' You shall never say that of my sister, my 
 lord,' cries Eustace, very red in the face, ' nor 
 yet of the greatest knight in the world.' 
 
 ' Why, you egg,' says the Count, * what have 
 you to do in this? Tell me the rights of it before 
 you put me in the wrong. Is my house to be the 
 sport of Anjou ? Is that long son of pirates and 
 the devil to batten on our pastures, tread under- 
 foot, bruise and blacken, rout as he will, break 
 hedge and away? By my father's soul, Eustace, 
 I shall see her righted.' He turned to the still 
 girl. ' You tell me that you sent him away r 
 Where did you send him ? Where did he go ? ' 
 
 ' He went to the King of England at Louviers, 
 and to the camp,' said Jehane. * The King sent 
 for him. I sent him not.' 
 
 * Who is there beside the King of England ? '
 
 26 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 ' Madame Alois of France is there.' 
 
 The Count of Saint-Pol put his tongue in his 
 cheek. 
 
 ' Oho ! ' he said, ' Oho ! That is how it stands ? 
 So she is to be cuckoo, hey ? ' He sat square and 
 intent for a moment or two, working his mouth 
 like a man who chews a straw. Then he slapped 
 his big hand on his knee, and rose up. ' If I 
 cannot spike this wheel of vice, trust me never. 
 By my soul, a plot indeed. Oh, horrible, horrible 
 thief ! ' He turned gnashing upon his brother. 
 ' Now, Eustace, what do you say to your greatest 
 knight in the world ? And what now of your 
 sister, hey ? Little fool, do you not catch the 
 measure of it now ? Two honey years of Jehane 
 Saint-Pol, gossamer pledges of mouth and mouth, 
 of stealing fingers, kiss and clasp ; but for the 
 French King's daughter- — pish ! the thing of naught 
 they have made her — the sacrament of marriage, 
 the treaty, the dowry-fee. Oh, heaven and earth, 
 Eustace, answer me if you can.' 
 
 All three were moved in their several ways : 
 the Count red and blinking, Eustace red and 
 trembling, Jehane white as a cloth, trembling also, 
 but very silent. The word was with the younger 
 man. 
 
 ' I know nothing of all this, upon my word, 
 my lord,' he said, confused. ' I love Count 
 Richard, I love my sister. There may have been 
 that which, had I loved but one, I had condemned 
 in the other. I know not, but ' — he saw Jehane's 
 marble face, and lifted his hand up — ' by my hope, 
 I will never believe it. In love they came together,
 
 ch. ii JEHANE'S BESTOWING 27 
 
 my lord ; in love, says Jehane, they have parted. I 
 have heard little of Madame Alois, but my thought 
 is, that kings and the sons of kings may marry 
 kings' daughters, yet not in the way of love.' 
 
 The Count fumed. ' You are a fool, I see, 
 and therefore not to my purpose. I must talk 
 with men. Stay you here, Eustace, and watch 
 over her till I return. Let none get at her, on 
 your dear life. There are those who — sniffing 
 rogues, climbers, boilers of their pots — keep them 
 out, Eustace, keep them out. As for you' — he 
 turned hectoring to the proud girl — 'As for you, 
 mistress, keep the house. You are not in the 
 market, you are spoilt goods. You shall go 
 where you should be. I am still lord of these 
 lands ; there shall be no rebellion here. Keep 
 the house, I say. I return ere many days.' He 
 stamped out of the hall ; they heard him next 
 rating the grooms at the gate. 
 
 Saint-Pol was a great house, a noble house, no 
 doubt of it. Its counts drew no limits in the 
 way of pedigree, but built themselves a fair temple 
 in that kind, with the Twelfth Apostle himself 
 for head of the corner. So far as estate went, 
 seeing their country was fruitful, compact, snugly 
 bounded between France and Normandy (owing 
 fealty to the first), they might have been sovereign 
 counts, like the house of Blois, like that of 
 Aquitaine, like that even of Anjou, which, from 
 nothing, had risen to be so high. More : by 
 marriage, by robbery on that great plan where 
 it ceases to be robbery and is called warfare, by 
 treaty and nice use of the balances, there was
 
 28 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 no reason why kingship should not have been 
 theirs, or in their blood. Kingship, even now, 
 was not far off. They called the Marquess of 
 Montferrat cousin, and he (it was understood) 
 intended to be throned at Jerusalem. The 
 Emperor himself might call, and once (being 
 in liquor) did call Count Eudo of Saint -Pol 
 ' cousin ' ; for the fact was so. You must under- 
 stand that in the Gaul of that day things were 
 in this ticklish state, that a man (as they say) 
 was worth the scope of his sword : reiver yester- 
 day, warrior to-morrow ; yesterday wearing a 
 hemp collar, to-day a count's belt, and to- 
 morrow, may be, a king's crown. You climbed in 
 various ways, by the field, by the board, by the 
 bed. A handsome daughter was nearly worth 
 a stout son. Count Eudo reckoned himself stout 
 enough, and reckoned Eustace was so ; but the 
 beauty of Jehane, that stately maid who might 
 uphold a cornice, that still wonder of ivory and 
 gold, was an emblement which he, the tenant, 
 meant to profit by ; and so for an hour (two years 
 by the clock) he saw his profit fair. The infatua- 
 tion of the girl for this man or that man was 
 nothing ; but the infatuation of the great Count 
 of Poictou for her set Eudo's heart ablaze. 
 God willing, Saint Maclou assisting, he might 
 live to call Jehane ' My Lady Oueen.' He shut 
 his ears to report ; there were those who called 
 Richard a rake, and others who called him ' Yea- 
 and-Nay ' ; that was Bertran de Born's name 
 for him, and all Paris knew it. He shut his eyes 
 to Richard's galling unconcern with himself and
 
 ch. ii JEHANE'S BESTOWING 29 
 
 his dignity. Dignity of Saint -Pol ! He would 
 wait for his dignity. He shut his mind to 
 Jehane's blown fame, to the threatenings of his 
 dreadful Norman neighbour, Henry the old king, 
 who had had an archbishop pole-axed like a 
 steer ; he dared the anger of his suzerain, in 
 whose hands lay Jehane's marriage ; a heady 
 gambler, he staked the fortunes of his house 
 upon this clinging of a girl to a wild prince. 
 And now to tell himself that he deserved what 
 he had got was but to feed his rage. Again he 
 swore by God's teeth that he would have his 
 way ; and when he left his castle of Saint-Pol-la- 
 Marche it was for Paris. 
 
 The head of his house, under the Emperor 
 Henry, was there, Conrad of Montferrat, trying 
 to negotiate the crown of Jerusalem. There must 
 be a conference before the house of Saint -Pol 
 could be let to fall. Surely the Marquess would 
 never allow it ! He must spike the wheel. Was 
 not Alois of France within the degrees? She was 
 sister to the French King : well, but what was 
 Richard's mother ? She had been wife to Louis, 
 wife to Alois' father. Was this decency ? What 
 would the Pope say — an Italian ? Was the 
 Marquess Conrad an Italian for nothing ? Was 
 ' our cousin ' the Emperor of no account, King 
 of the Romans ? The Pope Italian, the Marquess 
 Italian, the Emperor on his throne, and God in 
 His heaven — eh, eh! there should be a con- 
 ference of these high powers. So, and with such 
 whirl of question and answer, did the Count of 
 Saint-Pol beat out to Paris.
 
 30 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 But Jehane remained at Saint-Pol-la-Marche, 
 praying much, going little abroad, seeing few 
 persons. Then came (since rumour is a gadabout) 
 Sir Gilles de Gurdun, as she knew he would, and 
 knelt before her, and kissed her hand. Gilles 
 was a square -shouldered, thick-set youth of the 
 black Norman sort, ruddy, strong-jawed, small- 
 eyed, low in the brow, bullet-headed. He was 
 no taller than she, looked shorter, and had 
 nothing to say. He had loved her since the time 
 when she was an overgrown girl of twelve years, 
 and he a squire about her father's house learning 
 mannishness. The King of England had dubbed 
 him a knight, but she had made him a man. 
 She knew him to be a good one ; as dull as a 
 mud-flat, but honest, wholesome, and of decent 
 estate. In a moment, when he was come again, 
 she saw that he was a long lover who would 
 treat her well. 
 
 ' God help me, and him also,' she thought ; 
 ' it may be that I shall need him before long.'
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 IN WHAT HARBOUR THEY FOUND THE 
 OLD LION 
 
 At Evreux, across the heath, Count Richard 
 found his company : the Viscount Adhemar of 
 Limoges (called for the present the Good 
 Viscount), the Count of Perigord, Sir Gaston of 
 Beam (who really loved him), the Bishop of 
 Castres, and the Monk of Montauban (a singing- 
 bird) ; some dozen of knights with their esquires, 
 pages, and men-at-arms. He waited two days 
 there for Abbot Milo to come up with last news of 
 Jehane ; then at the head of sixty spears he rode 
 fleetly over the marshes towards Louviers. After 
 his first, ' You are well met, my lords,' he had said 
 very little, showing a cold humour ; after a colloquy 
 with Milo, which he had before he left his bed, he 
 said nothing at all. Alone, as became one of his 
 race, he rode ahead of his force ; not even the 
 chirping Monk (who remembered his brother 
 Henry and often sighed for him) cared to risk a 
 shot from his strong eyes. They were like blue 
 stones, full of the cold glitter of their fire. It was 
 at times like this, when a man stands naked con-
 
 32 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 fronting his purpose, that one saw the hag riding 
 on the back of Anjou. 
 
 He was not thinking of it now, but the truth 
 is that there had hardly been a time in his short 
 life when he had not been his father's open enemy. 
 He could have told you that it had not been 
 always his fault, though he would never have told 
 you. But I say that what he, a youth of thirty, 
 had made of his inheritance was as nothing to that 
 elder's wasting of his. In moments of hot rage 
 Richard knew this, and justified himself; but the 
 melting hour came again when he heaped all 
 reproach upon himself, believing that but for such 
 and such he might have loved this rooted, terrible 
 old man who assuredly loved not him. Richard 
 was neither mule nor jade ; he was open to 
 persuasion on two sides. Compunction was one : 
 you could touch him on the heart and bring him 
 weeping to his knees ; affection was another : if 
 he loved the petitioner he yielded handsomely. 
 Now, this time it was Jehane and not his conscience 
 which had sent him to Louviers. First of all 
 Jehane had pleaded the Sepulchre, his old father, 
 filial obedience, and he had laughed at the sweet 
 fool. But when she, grown wiser, urged him to 
 pleasure her by treading on the heart she had given 
 him, he could not deny her. He was converted, 
 not convinced. So he rode alone, three hundred 
 yards from his lieges, reasoning out how he could 
 preserve his honour and yet yield. ■ The more he 
 thought the less he liked it, but all the more he 
 felt necessity at his throat. And, as always with 
 him, when he thought he seemed as if turned to
 
 ch. in THE OLD LION 33 
 
 stone. ' One way or another,' Milo tells us, ' every 
 man of the House of Anjou had his unapproachable 
 side, so accustomed were they to the fortress-life.' 
 
 A broad plain, watered by many rivers, showed 
 the towers of Louviers and red roofs cinctured by 
 the greatest of them ; short of the walls were the 
 ranked white tents, columned smoke, waggons, with 
 men and horses, as purposeless, little, and busy as 
 a swarm of bees. In the midst of this array was a 
 red pavilion with a standard at the side, too heavy 
 for the wind. All was set in the clear sunless air 
 of an autumn day in Normandy ; the hour, one 
 short of noon. Richard reined up for his company, 
 on a little hill. 
 
 ' The powers of England, my lords,' he said, 
 pointing with his hand. All stayed beside him. 
 Gaston of Beam tweaked his black beard. 
 
 ' Let us be done with the business, Richard,' 
 said this knight, ' before the irons can get out.' 
 
 ' What ! ' cried the Count, ' shall a father smite 
 his son ? ' No one answered : in a moment he 
 was ashamed of himself. ' Before God,' he said, 
 ' I mean no impiety. I will do what I have under- 
 taken as gently as may be. Come, gentlemen.' 
 He rode on. 
 
 The camp was defended by fosse and bridge. 
 At the barbican all the Aquitanians except Richard 
 dismounted, and all stayed about him while a 
 herald went forward to tell the King who was 
 come in. The King knew very well who it was, 
 but chose not to know it ; he kept the herald 
 long enough to make his visitors chafe, then sent 
 word that the Count of Poictou would be received, 
 
 D
 
 34 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 but alone. Claiming his right to ride in, Richard 
 followed the heralds at a foot's pace, alone, 
 ungreeted by any. At the mount of the standard 
 he got off his horse, found the ushers of the King's 
 door, and went swiftly to the entry of the pavilion 
 (which they held open for him), as though, like 
 some forest beast, he saw his prey. There in the 
 entry he stiffened suddenly, and stiffly went down 
 on his two knees. Midway of the great tent, 
 square and rugged before him, with working jaws 
 and restless little fired eyes, sat the old King his 
 father, hands on knees, between them a long bare 
 sword. Beside him was his son John, thin and 
 flushed, and about, a circle of peers : two bishops 
 in purple, a pock-marked monk of Cluny, Bohun, 
 Grantmesnil, Drago de Merlou, and a few more. 
 On the ground was a secretary biting his pen. 
 
 The King looked his best on a throne, for his 
 upper part was his best. It was, at least, the 
 mannish part. With scanty red hair much 
 rubbed into disorder, a seamed red face, blotched 
 and shining ; with a square jaw awry, the neck 
 and shoulders of a bull ; with gnarled gross hands 
 at the end of arms long out of measure, a cruel 
 mouth and a nose like a bird's beak — his features 
 seemed to have been hacked coarsely out of wood 
 and as coarsely painted ; but what might have 
 passed by such means for a man was transformed 
 by his burning eyes, with their fuel of pain, into 
 the similitude of a fallen angel. The devil of 
 Anjou sat eating King Henry's eyes, and you 
 saw him at his meal. It gave the man the look 
 of a wild boar easing his tusk against a tree,
 
 ch. in THE OLD LION 3S 
 
 horrible, yet content to be abhorred, splendid, 
 because so strong and lonely. But the prospect 
 was not comfortable. Little as he knew of his 
 father, Richard could make no mistake here. 
 The old King was in a picksome mood, fretted 
 by rage ; angry that his son should kneel there, 
 more than angry that he had not knelt before. 
 
 The play began, like a farce. The King affected 
 not to see him, let him kneel on. Richard did 
 kneel on, as stiff as a rod. The King talked with 
 obscene jocosity, every snap betraying his humour, 
 to Prince John ; he scandalised even his bishops, 
 he abashed even his barons. He infinitely de- 
 graded himself, yet seemed to wallow in disgrace. 
 So Richard's gorge (a tender organ) rose to hear 
 him. ' God, what wast Thou about, to let such 
 a hog be made ? ' he muttered, loud enough for at 
 least three people to hear. The King heard it 
 and was pleased ; the Prince heard it, and with 
 a scared eye perceived that Bohun had heard 
 it. The King went grating on, John fidgeted ; 
 Bohun, greatly daring, whispered in his master's 
 ear. 
 
 The King replied with a roar which all the 
 camp might have heard. ' Ha ! Sacred Face, let 
 him kneel, Bohun. That is a new custom for 
 him, useful science for a man of his trade. All 
 men of the sword come to it sooner or later — 
 sooner or later, by God ! ' 
 
 Hereupon Richard, very deliberately, rose to 
 his feet and stepped forward to the throne. His 
 great height was a crowning abomination. The 
 King blinked up at him, showing his tushes.
 
 36 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 ' What now, sir ? ' he said. 
 
 ' Later for me, sire, if kneeling is to be done 
 by soldiers,' said Richard. The King controlled 
 himself by swallowing. 
 
 ' And yet, Richard,' he said, dry as dust, ' And 
 yet, Richard, you have knelt to the French lad 
 soon enough.' 
 
 ' To my liege-lord, sire ? Yes, it is true.' 
 
 ' He is not your liege-lord, man,' roared the 
 King. ' I am your liege -lord, by heaven. I 
 gave and I can take away. Heed me now.' 
 
 * Fair sire,' says Richard, ' observe that I have 
 knelt to you. I am not here for any other reason, 
 and least of all to try conclusions of the voice. I 
 have come out of my lands with my company to 
 give you obedience. Be sure that they, on their 
 part, will pay you proper honour (as I do) if you 
 will let them.' 
 
 ' You come from lands I have given you, as 
 Henry came, as Geoffrey came, to defy me,' said 
 the old man, trembling in his chair. ' What is 
 your obedience worth when I have measured 
 theirs : Henry's obedience ! Geoffrey's obedi- 
 ence ! Pish, man, what words you use.' He 
 got up and stamped about the tent like an irri- 
 table dwarf, crook-legged and long-armed, pricked, 
 maddened at every point. ' And you tell me of 
 your men, your lands, your company ! Good 
 men all, a fair company, by the Rood of Grace ! 
 Tell me now, Richard, have you Raimon of 
 Toulouse in that company ? Have you Beziers ? ' 
 
 ' No, sire,' said Richard, looking serenely down 
 at the working face.
 
 ch. in THE OLD LION 37 
 
 ' Nor ever will have,' snarled the King. ' Have 
 you the Knight of Beam ? ' 
 
 ' I have, sire.' 
 
 ' 111 company, Richard. It is a white-faced, 
 lying beast, with a most goatish beard. Have 
 you your singing monk ? ' 
 
 ' I have, sire.' 
 
 ' Shameful company. Have you Adhemar of 
 Limoges ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, sire.' 
 
 'Silly company. Leave him with his women. 
 Have you your Abbot Milo ? ' 
 
 'Yes.' 
 
 'Sick company.' His head sank into his 
 breast ; he found himself suddenly tired, even 
 of reviling, and had to sit down again. Richard 
 felt a tide of pity ; looking down at the huddled 
 old man, he held out his hand. 
 
 ' Let us not quarrel, father,' he said ; but that 
 brought up the King's head, like a call to arms. 
 
 ' A last question, Richard. Have you dared 
 bring here Bertran de Born ? ' He was on his 
 feet again for the reply, and the two men faced 
 each other. Everybody knew how serious the 
 question was. It sobered the Count, but drove 
 the pity out of him. 
 
 ' Dare is not a word for Anjou, sire,' he 
 replied, picking his phrases , ' but Bertran is 
 not with me.' Before the old man could break 
 again into savagery he went on to his main 
 purpose. ' Sire, short speeches are best. You 
 seek to draw my ill-humours, but you shall not 
 draw them. As son and servant of your Grace
 
 3 8 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 I came in, and so will go out. As a son I have 
 knelt to the King my father, as servant I am 
 ready to obey him. Let that marriage, designed 
 in the cradle by the French King and you, go on. 
 I will do my part if Madame Alois will do hers.' 
 
 Richard folded his arms ; the King sat down 
 again. A queer exchange of glances had passed 
 between his father and brother at the mention of 
 that lady's name. Richard, who saw it, got the 
 feeling of some secret between them, the feeling of 
 being in a trap ; but he said nothing. The King 
 began his old harping. 
 
 ' Attend to me now, Richard,' he said, with 
 much work of the eyebrows ; ' if that ill-gotten 
 beast Bertran had been of your meinie our last 
 words had been said. Beast ! He is a toothed 
 snake, that crawled into my boy's bed and bit 
 passion into him. Lord Jesus, if ever again I 
 meet Bertran, help Thou me to redden his face ! 
 But as it is, I am content. Rest you here with 
 me, if so rough a lodging may content your nobility. 
 As for Madame Alois, she shall be sent for ; but 
 I think I will not meet your bevy of joglars from 
 the south. I have a proud stomach o' these days ; 
 I doubt pastry from Languedoc would turn me 
 sour ; and liking monks little enough as it is, 
 your throstle -cock of Montauban might cause 
 me to blaspheme. See them entertained, Drago ; 
 or better, let them entertain each other — with 
 singing games, holy God ! Go you, Bohun '— 
 and he turned — 'fetch in Madame Alois.' 
 Bohun went through a curtain behind him, and 
 the King sat in thought, biting his thumbs.
 
 ch. in THE OLD LION 39 
 
 Madame Alois of France came out of the 
 inner tent, a slinking, thin girl, with the white 
 and tragic face of the fool in a comedy set in 
 black hair. Richard thought she was mad by 
 the way she stared about her from one man to 
 another ; but he went down on his knee in a 
 moment. Prince John turned stiff, the old King 
 bent his brows to watch Richard. The lady, who 
 was dressed in black, and looked to be half fainting, 
 shrank in an odd way towards the wall, as if to 
 avoid a whip. * Too long in England, poor soul,' 
 Richard thought ; * but why did she come from 
 the King's tent ? ' 
 
 It was not a cheerful meeting, nor did the 
 King show any desire to make it better. When 
 by roundabout and furtive ways Madame Alois 
 at last stood drooping by his chair, he began to 
 talk to her in English, a language unknown to 
 Richard, though familiar enough, he saw, to his 
 father and brother. ' It seems to be his Grace's 
 desire to make me ridiculous,' he went on to say 
 to himself : ' what a dead-level of grim words ! 
 In English, it appears, you do not talk. You 
 stab with the tongue.' In truth, there was no 
 conversation. The King or the Prince spoke, 
 and Madame Alois moistened her lips ; she 
 looked nowhere but at the old tyrant, not at 
 his eyes, but above them, at his forehead, and 
 with a trepitant gaze, like a watched hare's. 
 ' The King has her in thrall, soul and body,' 
 Richard considered. Then his knee began to 
 ache, and he released it. 
 
 ' Fair sire,' he began in his own tongue. Madame
 
 4 o RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 Alois gave a start, and * Ha, Richard,' says the 
 King, ' art thou still there, man ? ' 
 
 ' Where else, my lord ? ' asked the son. The 
 father looked at Alois. 
 
 * Deign to recognise in this baron, Madame,' 
 he said, ' my son the Count of Poictou. Let him 
 salute, Madame, that which he has sought from so 
 far, and with such humility, pardieu ; your white 
 hand, Alois.' The strange girl quivered, then put 
 her hand out. Richard, kissing it, found it 
 horribly cold. 
 
 ' Lady,' he said, ' I pray we may be better 
 acquainted ; but I must tell you that I have no 
 English. Let me hope that in this good land 
 you may recover your French.' He got no 
 answer from the lady, but, by heaven, he made 
 his father angry. 
 
 * We hope, Richard, that you will teach Madame 
 better things than that,' sniffed the old man, nosing 
 about for battle. 
 
 * I pray that I may teach her no worse, my lord,' 
 replied the other. ' You will perhaps allow that 
 for a daughter of France the tongue may have its 
 uses.' 
 
 ' As English, Count, for the son of England ! ' 
 cried his father ; ' or for his wife, by the mass, if 
 he is fit to have one.' 
 
 ' Of that, sire, we must talk at your Grace's 
 leisure,' said Richard slowly. ' Jesus ! ' he asked 
 himself, ' will he put me to a block of ice ? What 
 is the matter with this woman ? ' The King put 
 an end to his questions by dismissing Madame 
 Alois, breaking up the assembly, and himself
 
 ch. in THE OLD LION 41 
 
 retiring. He was dreadfully fatigued, quite white 
 and breathless. Richard saw him follow the lady 
 through the inner curtain, and again was un- 
 comfortably suspicious. But when his brother 
 John made to slip in also he thought there must 
 be an end of it. He tapped the young man on 
 the shoulder. 
 
 ' Brother, a word with you,' says he ; and John 
 came twittering back. The two were alone in the 
 tent. 
 
 This John — Sansterre, Landlos, Lackland, so 
 they variously called him — was a timid copy of 
 his brother, a wry-necked reedy Richard with a 
 sniff. Not so tall, yet more spare, with blue eyes 
 more pallid than his brother's, and protruding 
 where Richard's were inset, the difference lay 
 more in degree than kind. Richard was of 
 heroic build, but a well-knit, well-shaped hero ; 
 in John the arms were too long, the head too 
 small, the brow too narrow. Richard's eyes were 
 perhaps too wide apart ; no doubt John's were too 
 near together. Richard twitched his fingers when 
 he was moved, John bit his cheek. Richard 
 stooped from the neck, John from the shoulders. 
 When Richard threw up his head you saw the 
 lion ; John at bay reminded you of a wolf in 
 a corner. John snarled at such times, Richard 
 breathed through his nose. John showed his 
 teeth when he was crossed, Richard when he was 
 merry. So many thousand points of unlikeness 
 might be named, all small : the Lord knows here 
 are enough. The Angevin cat-and-dog nature 
 was fairly divided between these two. Richard
 
 42 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 had the sufficiency of the cat, John the depend- 
 ence of a dog ; John had the cat's secretiveness, 
 Richard the dog's dash. At heart John was a 
 thief. 
 
 He feared and hated his brother ; so when 
 Richard said, * Brother, a word with you,' John 
 tried to disguise apprehension in disgust. The 
 result was a very sick smile. 
 
 ' Willingly, dear brother, and the more so ' 
 
 he began ; but Richard cut him short. 
 
 * What under the light of the sky is the matter 
 with that lady ? ' he asked him. 
 
 John had been preparing for that. He raised 
 his eyebrows and splayed out both his hands. 
 
 ' Can you ask ? Eh, our Lord ! Emotion — a 
 stranger in a strange land — an access of the 
 shudders — who knows women? So long from 
 France — dreadful of her brother — dreadful of 
 you — so many things! a silly mind — ah, my 
 brother ! ' 
 
 Richard checked him testily. 'Put a point, 
 put a point, you drown me in phrases ; your 
 explanations explain nothing. One more word. 
 What in the devil's name is she doing in there ?' 
 He had a short way. John began to stammer. 
 
 1 A second father — a tender guardian ' 
 
 ' Pish ! ' said Count Richard, and turned to 
 leave the pavilion. Prince John slipped through 
 the curtains, and at that moment Richard heard 
 a little fretful cry within, not the cry of mortal 
 lady. 'What under heaven have they got in 
 there, this family ? ' he asked himself. Shrugging, 
 he went out into the fresh air.
 
 ch. in THE OLD LION 43 
 
 The abbot notes that his lord and master came 
 running into his quarters, ' and tumbled upon me, 
 like a lover who finds his mistress after many days. 
 " Milo, Milo, Milo," he began to cry, three times 
 over, as if the name helped him, "Thou wilt live 
 to see a puddock upon the throne of England ! ' 
 Thus he strangely said.'
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 HOW JEHANE STROKED WHAT ALOIS HAD MADE 
 
 FIERCE 
 
 When the Count of Saint-Pol came to Paris he 
 found the going very delicate. For it is a deli- 
 cate matter to confer in a king's capital, with a 
 king's allies, how best to throw obstacles in that 
 king's way. As a matter of fact he found that he 
 could do little or nothing in the business. King 
 Philip was in great feather concerning his sister's 
 arrival ; the heralds were preparing to go out to 
 meet her. Nicholas d'Eu and the Baron of Quercy 
 were to accompany them ; King Philip thought 
 Saint-Pol the very man to make a third, but this 
 did not suit the Count at all. He sought out his 
 kinsman the Marquess of Montferrat, a heavy 
 Italian, who gave him very little comfort. All 
 he could suggest was that his ' good cousin ' would 
 do better to help him to the certain throne of 
 Jerusalem. * What do you want with more than 
 one king in a family?' asked the Marquess. 
 Saint -Pol grew rather dry as he assured him 
 that one king would suffice, and that Anjou was 
 nearer than Jerusalem. He went on to hint at
 
 ch. rv THE LEOPARD STROKED 45 
 
 various strange speculations rife concerning the 
 history of Madame Alois. ' If you want garbage, 
 Eudo,' said Montferrat to this, ' come not to me. 
 But I know a rat who might be of service.' 
 
 ' The name of your rat, Marquess ! It is all 
 I ask.' 
 
 * Bertran de Born : who else ? ' said Montferrat. 
 Now, Bertran de Born was the thorn in the flesh 
 of Anjou, a rankling addition to their state whom 
 they were never without. Saint -Pol knew his 
 value very well, and decided to go down to see the 
 man in his own country. So he would have gone, 
 no doubt, had not his sovereign judged otherwise. 
 Saint -Pol received commands to accompany the 
 heralds to Louviers, so had to content himself 
 with a messenger to the trobador and a letter 
 which announced the extreme happiness of the 
 great Count of Poictou. This, he knew, would 
 draw the poison-bag. 
 
 The Frenchmen arrived at Louviers none too 
 soon. As well mix fire and ice as Poictevin with 
 Norman or Angevin with Angevin. The princes 
 stalked about with claws out of velvet, the nobles 
 bickered fiercely, and the men-at-arms did after 
 their kind. There was open fighting. Gaston of 
 Beam picked a quarrel with John Botetort, and 
 they fought it out with daggers in the fosse. 
 Then Count Richard took one of his brother's 
 goshawks and would not give it up. Over the 
 long body of that bird half a score noblemen 
 engaged with swords ; the Count of Poictou him- 
 self accounted for six, and ended by pommelling 
 his brother into a red jelly. There was a week or
 
 46 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 more of this, during which the old King hunted 
 like a madman all day and revelled in gloomy 
 vices all night. Richard saw little of him and 
 little of the lady of France. She, a pale shade, 
 flitted dismally out when evoked by the King, 
 dismally in again at a nod from him. Whenever 
 she did appear Prince John hovered about, looking 
 tormented ; afterwards the pock-marked Cluniac 
 might be heard lecturing her on theology and the 
 soul's business in passionless monologue. It was 
 very far from gay. As for her, Richard believed 
 her melancholy mad ; he himself grew fretful, 
 irritable, most quarrelsome. Thus it was that 
 he first plundered and then punched his brother. 
 
 After that Prince John disappeared for a little 
 to nurse his sores, and Richard got within fair 
 speaking distance of Madame Alois. In fact, she 
 sent for him late one night when the King, as he 
 knew, was away, munching the ashes of charred 
 pleasure in some stews or other. He obeyed the 
 summons with a half-shrug. 
 
 They received him with consternation. The 
 distracted lady was in a chair, hugging herself; 
 the Cluniac stood by, a mortified emblem ; a scared 
 woman or two fled behind the throne. Madame 
 Alois, when she saw who the visitor was, began to 
 shake. 
 
 * Oh, oh ! ' she said in a whisper, ' have you 
 come to murder me, my lord ? ' 
 
 ' Why, Madame,' Richard made haste to say, 
 1 1 would serve you any other way but that, and 
 supposed I had the right. But I came because 
 you sent for me.'
 
 ch. rv THE LEOPARD STROKED 47 
 
 She passed her hand once or twice over her 
 face, as if to brush cobwebs away ; one of the 
 women made a piteous appeal of the eyes to 
 Richard, who took no notice of it ; the monk said 
 something to himself in a low voice, then to the 
 Count, ' Madame is overwrought, my lord.' 
 
 ' Yes, you rascal,' thought Richard ; ' your 
 work.' Aloud he said, ' I hope her Grace will 
 give you leave to retire, sir.' Madame hereupon 
 waved her people away, and went on waving long 
 after they had gone. Thus she was alone with 
 her future lord. There was the wreck of fine 
 beauty about her drawn face, beauty of the black 
 and white, sheeted sort ; but she looked as if 
 she walked with ghosts. Richard was very gentle 
 with her. He drew near, saying, ' I grieve to see 
 you thus, Madame ' ; but she stopped him with a 
 question — 
 
 * They seek to have you marry me ? ' 
 
 He smiled : ' Our masters desire it, Madame.' 
 ' Are you very sure of that ? ' 
 ' I am here,' he explained, ' because I am so 
 sure.' 
 
 * And you desire ' 
 
 * I, Madame,' he said quickly and shortly, 
 ' desire two things — the good of my country and 
 your good. If I desire anything else, God knows 
 it is to keep my promise.' 
 
 ' What is your promise ? ' 
 
 ' Madame,' said Richard, ' I bear the Cross on 
 my shoulder, as you see.' 
 
 ' Why,' she said, fearfully regarding it, * that is 
 God's work ! '
 
 48 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 She began to walk about the room quickly, and 
 to talk to herself. He could not catch properly 
 what she said. Religion came into it, and a 
 question of time. ' Now it should be done, now 
 it should be done!' and then, 'Hear, O thou 
 Shepherd of Israel ! ' and then with a wild look 
 into Richard's face — ' That was a strange thing to 
 do to a lady. They can never lay that to me ! ' 
 Afterwards she began to wring her hands, with a 
 cry of ' Fie, poison, poison, poison ! ' looking at 
 Richard all the time. 
 
 1 This poor lady,' he told himself, ' is possessed 
 by a devil, therefore no wife for me, who have 
 devil enough and to spare.' 
 
 ' What ails you, Madame ? ' he asked her. 
 ' Tell me your grief, and upon my life I will 
 amend it if I can.' 
 
 'You cannot,' she said. 'Nothing can mend 
 
 it; 
 
 ' Then, with leave ' — he went to the curtains — 
 ' I will call your Grace's people. Our discussions 
 can be later ; there is time enough.' 
 
 She would have stopped him had she dared, or 
 had the force ; but literally she was spent. There 
 was just time to get the women in before she 
 tumbled. Richard, in his perplexity, determined 
 to wrangle out the matter with the King on the 
 morrow, cost what it might. So he did ; and to 
 his high surprise the King reasoned instead of 
 railing. Madame Alois, he said, was weakly, un- 
 wholesome indeed. In his opinion she wanted, 
 what all young women want, a husband. She was 
 too much given to the cloister, she had visions,
 
 ch. iv THE LEOPARD STROKED 49 
 
 she was feared to use the discipline, she ate 
 nothing, was more often on her knees than on 
 her feet. 'All this, my son,' said King Henry, 
 * you shall correct at your discretion. Humours, 
 vapours, qualms, fantasies — pouf ! You can blow 
 them away with a kiss. Have you tried it ? No ? 
 Too cold? Nay, but you should.' And so on, 
 and so on. That day, none too soon, the French 
 ambassadors arrived, and Richard saw the Count 
 of Saint-Pol among them. 
 
 He had never liked the Count of Saint-Pol ; 
 or perhaps it would be truer to say that he dis- 
 liked him more than ordinary. But he belonged 
 to, had even a tinge of, Jehane ; some of her 
 secret fragrance hung about him, he walked in 
 some ray of her glory. It seemed to Richard, 
 bothered, sick, fretted, a little disconcerted as he 
 was now, that the Count of Saint-Pol had an air 
 which none other of this people had. He greeted 
 him therefore with more than usual affability, 
 very much to Saint -Pol's concern. Richard 
 observed this, and suddenly remembered that he 
 was doing the man what the man must certainly 
 believe to be a cruel wrong. ' Mort de Dieu ! 
 What am I about ? ' his heart cried. ' I ought to 
 be ashamed to look this fellow in the face, and 
 here I am making a brother of him.' 
 
 ' Saint-Pol,' he said immediately, ' I should like 
 to speak with you. I owe you that.' 
 
 ' Your Grace's servant,' said Eudo, with a stiff 
 reverence, ' when and where you will.' 
 
 ' Follow me,' said Richard, ' as soon as you 
 have done with all this foppery.'
 
 So RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 In about an hour's time he was obeyed. After 
 his fashion he took a straight plunge. 
 
 ' Saint-Pol,' he said, * I think you know where 
 my heart is, whether here or elsewhere. I desire 
 you to understand that in this case I am acting 
 against my own will and judgment.' 
 
 The frankness of this lordly creature was un- 
 mistakable, even to Saint-Pol. 
 
 'Hey, sire ,' he began spluttering, honesty 
 
 in arms with rage. Richard took him up. 
 
 ' If you doubt that, as you have my leave to 
 do, I am ready to convince you. I will ride with 
 you wherever you choose, and place myself at 
 your discretion. Subject to this, mind you, 
 that the award is final. Once more I will do 
 it. Will you abide by that ? Will you come 
 with me ? ' 
 
 Saint-Pol cursed his fate. Here he was, tied 
 to the French girl. 
 
 4 My lord,' he said, ' I cannot obey you. My 
 duty is to take Madame to Paris. That is my 
 master's command.' 
 
 ' Well,' said Richard, ' then I shall go alone. 
 Once more I shall go. I am sick to death of this 
 business.' 
 
 ' My lord Richard,' cried Saint-Pol, ' I am no 
 man to command you. Yet I say, Go. I know 
 not what has passed between your Grace and my 
 sister Jehane ; but this I know very well. It will 
 be a strange thing ' — he laughed, not pleasantly — 
 ' a strange thing, I say, if you cannot bend that 
 arbiter to your own way of thinking.' Richard 
 looked at him coldly.
 
 ch. iv THE LEOPARD STROKED 51 
 
 ' If I could do that, my friend,' he said, ' I 
 should not suffer arbitration at all.' 
 
 'The proposition was not mine, my lord,' urged 
 Saint-Pol. 
 
 'It could not be, sir,' Richard said sharply. 'I 
 proposed it myself, because I consider that a lady 
 has the right to dispose of her own person. She 
 loved me once.' 
 
 ' I believe that she is yours at this hour, sire.' 
 
 ' That is what I propose to find out,' said 
 Richard. ' Enough. What news have they in 
 Paris ? ' 
 
 Saint -Pol could not help himself; he was 
 bursting with a budget he had received from the 
 south. 'They greatly admire a sirvente of Bertran 
 de Born's, sire.' 
 
 ' What is the stuff" of the sirvente ? ' 
 
 'It is a scandalous subject, sire. He calls it 
 the Sirvente of Kings, and speaks much evil of 
 your Order.' Richard laughed. 
 
 ' I will warrant him to do that better than any 
 man alive, and allow him some reason for it. I 
 think I will go to see Bertran.' 
 
 ' Ha, sire,' said Saint-Pol with meaning, ' he 
 will tell you many things, some good, and some 
 not so good.' 
 
 ' Be sure he will,' said Richard. ' That is 
 Bertran's way.' 
 
 He would trust no one with his present reflec- 
 tions, and seek no outside strength against his 
 present temptations. He had always had his way ; 
 it had seemed to come to him by right, by the droit 
 de seigneur \ the natural law which puts the necks of
 
 52 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 fools under the heels of strong men No need to 
 consider of all that : he knew that the thing 
 desired lay to his hand ; he could make Jehane 
 his again if he would, and neither King of England 
 nor King of France, nor Council of Westminster 
 nor Diet of the Empire could stop him — if he 
 would. But that, he felt now, was just what he 
 would not. To beat her down with torrents 
 of love -cries ; to have her trembling, cowed, 
 drummed out of her wits by her own heart-beats ; 
 to compel, to dominate, to tame, when her young 
 pride and young strength were the things most 
 beautiful in her : never, by the Cross of Christ ! 
 That, I suppose, is as near to true love as a man 
 can get, to reverence in a girl that which holds 
 her apart. Richard got so near precisely because 
 he was less lover than poet. You may doubt, if 
 you choose (with Abbot Milo), whether he had 
 love in him. I doubt. But certainly he was a 
 poet. He saw Jehane all glorious, and gave 
 thanks for the sight. He felt to touch heaven 
 when he neared her ; but he did not covet her 
 possession, at the moment. Perhaps he felt that 
 he did possess her : it is a poet's way. So little, 
 at any rate, did he covet, that, having made up his 
 mind what he would do, he sent Gaston of Beam 
 to Saint-Pol-la-Marche with a letter for Jehane, in 
 which he said : ' In two days I shall see you for 
 the last or for all time, as you will ' — and then 
 possessed himself in patience the appointed number 
 of hours. 
 
 Gaston of Beam, romantic figure in those grey 
 latitudes, pale, black-eyed, freakishly bearded,
 
 ch. iv THE LEOPARD STROKED 53 
 
 dressed in bright green, rode his way singing, 
 announced himself to the lady as the Child of 
 Love ; and when he saw her kissed her foot. 
 
 ' Starry Wonder of the North,' he said, kneeling, 
 ' I bring fuel to your ineffable fires. Our King of 
 Lovers and Lover among Kings is all at your feet, 
 sighing in this paper.' He seemed to talk in 
 capitals, with a flourish handed her the scroll. 
 He had the gratification to see her clap a hand to 
 her side directly she touched it ; but no more. 
 She perused it with unwavering eyes in a stiff 
 head. 
 
 ' Farewell, sir,' she said then ; ' I will prepare 
 for my lord.' 
 
 ' And I, lady,' said Gaston, ' in consequence of 
 a vow I have vowed my saint, will await his 
 coming in the forest, neither sleeping nor eating 
 until he has his enormous desires. Farewell, 
 lady.' 
 
 He went out backwards, to keep his promise. 
 The brown woodland was gay with him for a day 
 and a night ; for he sang nearly all the time with 
 unflagging spirits. But Jehane spent part of the 
 interval in the chapel, with her hands crossed upon 
 her fine bosom. The God in her heart fought 
 with Him on the altar. She said no prayers ; 
 but when she left the place she sent a messenger 
 for Gilles de Gurdun, the blunt -nosed Norman 
 knight who loved her so much that he said 
 nothing about it. 
 
 This Gurdun, pricking through the woods, 
 came upon Gaston of Beam, dazzling as a spring 
 tree and singing like an inspired machine. He
 
 54 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 pulled up at the wonderful sight, and scowled. It 
 is the proper Norman greeting. Gaston treated 
 him as part of the landscape, like the rest of it 
 mournful, but provocative of song. 
 
 ' Give you good-day, beau sire,' said Gilles ; 
 Gaston waved his hand and went on singing at 
 the top of his voice. Then Gilles, who was 
 pressed, tried to pass ; and Gaston folded his 
 arms. 
 
 ' Ha, beef,' said he, ' none pass here but the 
 brave.' 
 
 'Out, parrot,' quoth Gilles, and plunged 
 through the wood. 
 
 Because of Gaston's vow there was no blood 
 shed at the moment, but he had hopes that he 
 might be released in time. ' There goes a dead 
 man,' was therefore his comment before he 
 resumed. 
 
 But Jehane, when she heard the horse, ran out 
 to meet his rider. Her face was alight. ' Come 
 in, come in,' she said, and took him by the hand. 
 He followed her with a beating heart, neither 
 daring nor knowing how to say anything. She 
 led him into the little dark chapel. 
 
 ' Gilles, Gilles,' she said, panting, ' do you love 
 me, Gilles ? ' 
 
 He was hoarse, could hardly speak for the 
 crack in his throat. ' O God,' he said under his 
 breath, ' O God, Jehane, how I love you ! ' 
 
 Here, because of a certain flicker in her eyes, 
 he made forward ; but she put out her two hands 
 the length of her arms and fenced him off. ' No, 
 no, Gilles, not yet.' Pain sharpened her voice.
 
 ch. iv THE LEOPARD STROKED 55 
 
 ' Listen first to me. I do not love you ; but 
 I am frightened. Some one is coming ; you must 
 be here to help me. I give myself to you — I will 
 be yours— I must — there is no other way.' 
 
 She stopped ; you could have heard the thud- 
 ding of her heart. 
 
 ' Give then,' said Gilles with a croak, and took 
 her. 
 
 She felt herself engulfed in a sea of fire, but 
 set her teeth and endured the burning of that 
 death. The poor fellow did but kiss her once or 
 twice, and kissed no closer than the Angevin ; 
 but the grace is one that goes by favour. Gilles, 
 nevertheless, took primer seisin and was content. 
 Afterwards, hand in hand, trembling each, the 
 possessed and the possessing, they stood before the 
 twinkling lamp which hinted at the Son of God, 
 and waited what must happen. 
 
 In about half an hour's time Jehane heard the 
 long padding tread she knew so well, and took 
 a deep breath. Next Gilles heard something. 
 
 ' One comes. Who comes ? ' he said whis- 
 pering. 
 
 ' Richard of Anjou. I need you now/ 
 
 ' Do you want me to ? ' Gilles honestly 
 
 thought he was to kill the Count. She undeceived 
 him soon. 
 
 'To kill Richard, Gilles? Nay, man, he is 
 not for your killing.' She gave a short laugh, 
 not very pleasant for her lover to hear. But 
 Gilles, for all that, put hand to hilt. The Count 
 of Poictou stooped at the entry and saw them 
 together.
 
 56 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 It wanted but that to blow the embers. Some- 
 thing tigerish surged in him, some gust of 
 jealousy, some arrogant tide in the blood not 
 all clean. He moved forward like a wind and 
 caught the girl up in his arms, lifted her off 
 her feet, smothered her cry. ' My Jehane, 
 
 my Jehane, who dares ? ' Gilles touched 
 
 him on the shoulder, and he turned like light- 
 ning with Jehane held fast. His breath came 
 quick and short through his nose : Gilles be- 
 lieved his last hour at hand, but made the most 
 of it. 
 
 ' What now, dog ? ' thus the lean Richard. 
 
 ' Set down the lady, my lord,' said doughty 
 Gilles. ' She is promised to me.' 
 
 ' Heart of God, what is this ? ' He held back 
 his head, like a snake, that he might see what 
 he would strike at. ' Is it true, girl ? ' Jehane 
 looked up from his shoulder, where she had 
 been hiding her face. She could not speak, but 
 she nodded. 
 
 ' It is true ? Thou art promised ? ' 
 
 ' I am promised, my lord,' said Jehane. ' Let 
 me go.' 
 
 He put her down at once, between himself 
 and Gurdun. Gurdun went to take up her hand 
 again, but at a look from Richard forbore. The 
 Count went on with his interrogatories, outwardly 
 as calm as a field of snow. 
 
 ' In whose name art thou promised to this 
 knight, Jehane ? In thy brother's ? ' 
 
 ' No, lord. In my own.' 
 
 ' Am I nothing ? ' She began to cry.
 
 ch. iv THE LEOPARD STROKED 57 
 
 ' Oh, oh ! ' she wailed, ' You are everything, 
 everything in the world.' 
 
 He turned away from her, and stood facing 
 the altar, with folded arms, considering. Gilles 
 had the wit to be silent ; the girl fought for 
 breath. Richard, in fact, was touched to the 
 heart, and capable of any sacrifice which could 
 seem the equivalent of this. He must always 
 lead, even in magnanimity ; but it was a better 
 thing than emulation moved him now. When 
 he next turned with a calm, true face to Jehane 
 there was not a shred of the Angevin in him ; all 
 was burnt away. 
 
 ' What is the name of this knight, Jehane ? ' 
 She told him, Gilles de Gurdun. 
 
 Then he said, ' Come hither, De Gurdun,' and 
 Gilles knelt down before the son of his overlord. 
 Jehane would have knelt to him too, but that he 
 held her by the hand and would not suffer it. 
 
 ' Now, Gilles, listen to what I shall tell you,' 
 said Richard. * There is no lady in the world 
 more noble than this one, and no man living who 
 means more faithfully by her than I. I will do 
 her will this day, and that speedily, lest the devil 
 be served. Are you a true man, Gilles ? ' 
 
 ' Lord,' said Gurdun, ' I try to be so. Your 
 father made me a knight. I have loved this lady 
 since she was twelve years old.' 
 
 ' Are you a man of substance, my friend ? ' 
 
 ' We have a good fief, my lord. My father 
 holds of the Church of Rouen, and the Church 
 of the Duke. I serve with a hundred spears 
 where I may, a routier if nothing better offer.'
 
 58 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 ' If I give you Jehane, what do you give 
 me ? 
 
 ' Thanks, my good lord, and faith, and long 
 service.' 
 
 ' Get up, Gilles,' said Richard. 
 
 Gilles kissed his knee, and rose. Richard put 
 Jehane's hand into his and held the two to- 
 gether. 
 
 ' God serve me as I shall serve you, Gilles, if 
 any harm come of this,' he said shrewdly, with 
 words that whistled in the air ; and as Gilles 
 looked him squarely in the face, Richard ran an 
 eye over him. Gilles was found honest. Richard 
 kissed Jehane on the forehead, and went out 
 without a look back. At the edge of the wood 
 he found Gaston of Beam sucking his fingers. 
 
 ' There went by here,' said the gay youth, ' a 
 black knight with a face of a raw meat colour, 
 and the most villainous scowl ever you saw. I 
 consider him to be dead already.' 
 
 ' I have given him something which should 
 cure him of the scowl and justify his colour,' 
 answered him the Count. ' Moreover, I have given 
 him the chance of eternal life.' Then with a cry 
 — ''Oh, Gaston, let us get to the South, see the 
 sun fleck the roads, smell the oranges ! Let us 
 get to the South, man ! It seems I have enter- 
 tained an angel. And now that I have given her 
 wings, and now that she is gone, I know how 
 much I love her. Speed, Gaston ! We will go 
 to the South, see Bertran, and make some songs 
 of good women and men in want ! ' 
 
 ' Pardieu,' said Gaston. ' I am with you,
 
 ch. iv THE LEOPARD STROKED 59 
 
 Richard, for I am in want. I have eaten nothing 
 for two days.' 
 
 So they rode out of the woods of Saint-Pol- 
 la-Marche, and Richard began to sing songs of 
 Jehane the Fair -Girdled ; never truly her lover 
 until he might love her no more.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 HOW BERTRAN DE BORN AND COUNT RICHARD 
 STROVE IN A TENZON 
 
 Day-long and night-long he sang of her, being 
 now in the poetic mood, highly exalted, out of 
 himself. The country took tints of Jehane, her 
 shape, her fine nobility. The thrust hills of the 
 Vexin were her breasts ; the woods, being hot 
 gold, her russet hair ; in still green water he read 
 the secrets of her eyes ; in the milk of October 
 dawns her calm brows had been dipped. The 
 level light of the Eeauce, so beneficent yet so 
 austere, figured her soul. Fair -girdled was 
 Touraine by Vienne and Loire ; fair -girdled 
 Jehane, who wore virgin candour about her loins 
 and over her heart a shield of blue ice. As far 
 southwards as Tours the dithyrambic prevailed ; 
 Richard was untiring in the hunt for analogues. 
 Thence on to Poictiers, where the country (being 
 his own) was perhaps more familiar ; indeed, while 
 he was climbing the grey peaks of Montagrier 
 with his goal almost in sight, he turned scholiast 
 and glossed his former raptures. 
 
 * You are not to tell me, Gaston,' he declared,
 
 ch. v THE TENZON AT AUTAFORT 61 
 
 ' that my Jehane has been untrue. She was never 
 more wholly mine than when she gave herself to 
 that other, never loved me more dearly. Such 
 power is given to women to lead this world. It is 
 the power of the Word, who cut Himself off and 
 made us His butchers in pure love. I shall do 
 my part. I shall wed the French girl, who in my 
 transports will never guess that in reality Jehane 
 will be in my arms.' Tears filled his eyes. ' For 
 we shall be wedded in the sight of heaven,' he 
 said sighing. 
 
 ' Deus ! ' cried Gaston here, ' Such marriages 
 may be more to the taste of heaven than of men, 
 Richard. Man is a creature of sense.' 
 
 'He hath a spiritual part,' said Richard, 'so 
 rarely hidden that only the thin fingers of a girl 
 may get in to touch it. Then, being touched, he 
 knows that it is quick. Let me alone ; I am not 
 all mud nor all devil. I shall do my duty, marry 
 the French girl, and love my golden Jehane until 
 I die.' 
 
 ' That is the saying of a poet and king at 
 once,' said Gaston, and really believed it. 
 
 So they came at dusk to Autafort, a rock castle 
 on the confines of Perigord, held by Bertran de 
 Born. 
 
 It looked, and was, a robber's hold, although 
 it had a poet for castellan. Its walls merely pro- 
 longed the precipices on which they were founded, 
 its towers but lifted the mountain spurs more 
 sharply to the sky. It dominated two watersheds, 
 was accessible only on one side, and then by a 
 ridgeway ; from it the valley roads and rock-
 
 62 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 strewn hillsides could be seen for many leagues. 
 Long before Richard was at the gate the Lord of 
 Autafort had had warning, and had peered down 
 upon his suzerain at his clambering. * The crows 
 shall have Richard before Richard me,' said 
 Bertran de Born ; so he had his bridge pulled up 
 and portcullis let down, and Autafort showed a 
 bald face to the newcomers. 
 
 Gaston grinned. ' Hospitality of Aquitaine ! 
 Hospitality of your duchy, Richard.' 
 
 * By my head,' said the Count, ' if I sleep under 
 the stars I sleep at Autafort this night. But hear 
 me charm this plotter.' He called at the top of 
 his voice, ' Ha, Bertran ! Come you down, 
 man.' The surrounding hills echoed his cries, 
 the jackdaws wheeled about the turrets ; but 
 presently came one and put his eye to the grille. 
 Richard saw him. 
 
 ' Is that you, then, Bertran ? ' he shouted. 
 There was no answer, but the spyer was heard 
 breathing hard at his vent. 
 
 ' Come out of your earth, red fox,' Richard chid 
 him. ' Show your grievous snout to the hills ; do 
 your snuffling abroad to the clear sky. I have 
 whipped off the hounds ; my father is not here. 
 Will you let starve your liege-lord ? ' 
 
 At this the bolts were drawn, the bridge went 
 down with a clatter, and Bertran de Born came 
 out — a fine stout man, all in a pother, with a red, 
 perplexed face, angry eyes, hair and beard cut in 
 blocks, a body too big for his clothes — a man of hot 
 blood, fumes and rages. Richard at sight of him, 
 this unquiet sniffer of offences, this whirled about
 
 ch. v THE TENZON AT AUTAFORT 63 
 
 with stratagems, threw back his head and laughed 
 long and loud. 
 
 ' O thou plotter of thine own dis-ease ! O 
 rider of nightmares, what harm can I do thee ? 
 Not, believe me, a tithe of thy desert. Come 
 thou here straightly, Master Bertran, and take 
 what I shall give thee.' 
 
 ' By God, Lord Richard ' said Bertran, 
 
 and boggled horribly ; but the better man waited, 
 and in the end he came up sideways. Richard 
 swung from his horse, took his host by the 
 shoulders, shook him well, and kissed him on both 
 cheeks. ' Spinner of mischief, red robber, singer 
 of the thoughts of God ! ' he said, ' I swear I love 
 thee through it all, Bertran, though I should do 
 better to wring thy neck. Now give us food and 
 drink and clean beds, for Gaston at least is a 
 dead man without them. Afterwards we will sing 
 songs.' 
 
 ' Come in, come in, Richard,' said Bertran de 
 Born. 
 
 For a day or two Richard was bathed in golden 
 calm, hugging his darling thought, full of Jehane, 
 fearful to share her. Often he remembered it in 
 later life ; it held a place and commanded a mood 
 which no hour of his wildest possession could outvie. 
 The mountain air, still, but latently nimble, the 
 great mountains themselves dreaming in the sun- 
 light, the sailing birds, hinted a peace to his soul 
 whither his late conquest of his baser part assured 
 him he might soar. Now he could guess (thought 
 he) that quality in love which it borrows from
 
 64 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 God and shares with the angels, ministers of God, 
 the steady burning of a flame keen and hard. So 
 on an afternoon of weather serene beyond all 
 belief of the North, mild, tired, softly radiant, 
 still as a summer noon ; as he sat with Bertran in a 
 courtyard where were lemon-trees and a fountain, 
 and above the old white walls, and above the 
 strutting pigeons, a square of blue, he began to 
 speak of his affairs, of what he had done and of 
 what was to do. 
 
 Bertran's was a grudging spirit : you shall hear 
 the Abbot Milo upon that matter anon, than 
 whom there are few better qualified to speak. He 
 grudged Richard everything — his beauty, his knit 
 and graceful body, his brain like a sword, his past 
 exploits, his present content. What it was con- 
 tented him he knew not altogether, though a 
 letter from Saint-Pol had in part advised him ; 
 but he was sure he had wherewithal to discontent 
 him. ' Foh ! a juicy orange indeed,' he said to 
 himself, ' but I can wring him dry.' If Richard 
 hugged one thought, Bertran hugged another, and 
 took it to bed with him o' nights. Now, there- 
 fore, when Richard spoke of Jehane, Bertran said 
 nothing, waiting his time ; but when he went on 
 to Madame Alois and his duty (which really 
 coloured all the former thought) Bertran made a 
 grimace. 
 
 ' Rascal,' says Richard, shamming rough, ' why 
 do you make faces at me ? ' 
 
 Bertran began jerking about like the lid of a 
 boiling pot, and presently sends a boy for his viol. 
 At this, when it came, he snatched, and set to
 
 ch.v THE TENZON AT AUTAFORT 65 
 
 plucking a chord here and a chord there, grinning 
 fearfully all the time. 
 
 ' A tenzon ! A tenzon ! beau sire ! ' cries he. 
 ' Now a tenzon between you and me ! 
 
 ' Let it be so,' says Richard ; ' have at you. 
 I sing of the calm day, of the sweets of true 
 love.' 
 
 'Accorded,' says the other. 'And I sing of 
 the sours of false love. Do you set the mode, prince 
 of blood royal as you are.' 
 
 Richard took the viol without after-thought and 
 struck a few chords. A great tenderness was in 
 his heart ; he saw Duty and himself hand in hand 
 walking a long road by night ; two large stars 
 beaconed the way ; these were Jehane's eyes. A 
 watcher or two stole into the upper gallery, leaned 
 on the parapet and listened, for both men were 
 renowned singers. Richard began to sing of 
 green-eyed Jehane, who wore the gold girdle, 
 whose hair was red gold. His song was — 
 
 Li dous consire 
 
 Quern don' Amors soven — 
 
 but I English it thus — 
 
 ' That gentle thought which love will give 
 sometimes is like a plait of silk and gold, and so 
 is this song of mine to be ; wherein you shall find 
 a red deep cry which cometh from the heart, and 
 a thin blue cry which is the cry of what is virgin 
 in my soul, and a golden long cry, the cry of the 
 King, and a cry clear as crystal and colder than a 
 white moon : and that is the cry of Jehane.' 
 
 Bertran, trembling, snatched at the viol. 
 
 F
 
 66 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 ' Mine to sing, Richard, mine to sing ! Ha, love 
 me no more ! ' 
 
 Cantar d' Amors non voilh, 
 
 he began — 
 
 ' Your strands are warped and will not accord, 
 for love will warp any song. It turneth the heart 
 of a man black, and the soul it eateth up. At 
 fourteen goes the virgin first a-wallowing ; and 
 soon the King croaks like a hog. A plait ! Love 
 is a fetter of hot iron ; so my song shall be iron- 
 cruel like the bidding of Jehane. Say now, shall I 
 set the song ? The love-cry is the cry of a man 
 who drags his way with his side torn ; and the 
 colour of it is dry red, like old blood ; and the 
 sound thereof maketh the hearers ache, so it 
 quavers and shrills. For it cries only two things : 
 sorrow and shame.' 
 
 He misconceived his adversary who thought to 
 quell him by such vapours. Richard took the 
 viol. 
 
 ' Bertran, it is well seen that thou art pinched 
 and have a torn side ; but ask of thy itching 
 fingers who graved the wound. Dry thou art, 
 Bertran, for thy trough is dry ; the husks prick 
 thy gums, but there is no other meat. Well may 
 the hearers' ears go aching ; for thy cry, man, pro- 
 ceedeth from thy aching belly. But now I will 
 set the song again, and tell thee of a lady girdled 
 with fine gold. Beneath the girdle beats a red heart ; 
 but her spirit is like a spire of blue smoke, that 
 comes from a fire, indeed, but strains up to heaven. 
 Warmed by that fire, like that smoke I fly up ; 
 and so I lie among the stars with Jehane,'
 
 ch. v THE TENZON AT AUTAFORT 67 
 
 Bertran's jaw was at work, mashing his tongue. 
 ' Ah, Richard, is it so with thee ? Wait now while 
 I strike a blow.' He made the viol scream. 
 
 ' What if I twist the song awry, and give thee 
 good cause to limp the sorrowful way? What if 
 for my aching belly I give thee an aching heart ? 
 Eh, if my fingers scratch my side, there are worse 
 talons at thine. Watch for the Lion's claw, 
 Richard, which tears not flesh but honour, and 
 gives more pain than any knife. Pain ! He is 
 King of Pain ! Mend that, then face sorrow and 
 shame.' 
 
 Ending with a snap, he grinned more knowledge 
 out of his red eyes than he pronounced with his 
 mouth. His terrible excitement, the labour and 
 sweat of it, set Richard's brows knitting. He 
 stretched out his hand for the viol slowly ; and his 
 eyes were cold on Bertran, and never off him for 
 a moment as he sang to this enemy, and judged 
 him while he sang. The note was changed. 
 
 ' The Lion is a royal beast, a king, whose son 
 am I. We maul not each other in Anjou, save 
 when the jackal from the South cometh snarling 
 between. Then, when we see the unclean beast, 
 saith one, " Faugh ! is this your friend ? ' and the 
 other, " Thou dost ill to say so." Then the blood 
 may flow and the jackal get a meal. But here there 
 is none to come licking blood. The prize is the 
 White Roe of France, fed on the French lilies, and 
 now in safe harbour. She shall lie by the Leopard, 
 and the Lion rule the forest in peace because of the 
 peace about him ; and like a harvest moon above 
 us, clear of the trees, will be jehane.'
 
 68 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 ' Listen, Richard, I will be clearer yet,' came from 
 between Bertran's teeth. He fairly ground them 
 together. Having the viol, he struck but one note 
 upon it, with such rudeness that the string broke. 
 He threw the thing away and sang without it, 
 leaning his hands on his knees, and craning forward 
 that he might spit the words. 
 
 ' This is the bite of the song : she is forsworn. 
 Harbour ? She kept harbour too long ; she is 
 mangled, she is torn. Touch not the Lion's prey, 
 Leopard. You go hunting too late — for all but 
 sorrow and shame.' 
 
 Richard stretched not his hand again ; his jaw 
 dropped and most of the strong colour died down 
 in his face. Turned to stone, stiff and immovable, 
 he sat staring at the singer, while Bertran, biting 
 his lip, still grinning and twitching with his late 
 effort, watched him. 
 
 ' Give me the truth, thou.' His voice was like 
 an old man's, hollow. 
 
 ' As God is in heaven that is the truth, Richard,' 
 said Bertran de Born. 
 
 The Count's head went up, as when a hound 
 yelps to the sky : laughter ensued, barking 
 laughter — not mirth, not grief disguised, but 
 mockery, the worst of all. One on the gallery 
 nudged his fellow ; that other shrugged him off. 
 Richard stretched his long arms, his clenched fists 
 to the dumb sky. ' Have I bent the knee to good 
 issues or not ? Have I abased my head ? O clement 
 prince ! O judge in Israel ! O father of kings ! 
 Hear now a parable of the Prodigal : Father, I 
 have sinned against heaven and before thee, and
 
 ch. v THE TENZON AT AUTAFORT 69 
 
 thou art no more worthy to be called my father. 
 O glutton ! O niching dog ! ' 
 
 'By the torch of the Gospel, Count Richard, 
 what I sang is true,' said Bertran, still tensely 
 grinning, and now also wringing at his hang-nails. 
 Richard, checked by the voice, turned blazing upon 
 him. 
 
 ' Why, thou school-boy rhymester, that is the 
 only merit thou hast, and that not thine own ! 
 Thy japes are nought, thy tragics the mewing of 
 cats ; but thy news, fellow, thy news is too rich 
 matter for thy sewer of a throat. Tragic ? No, 
 it is worse : it is comic, O heaven ! Heed you 
 now ' In his bitter shame he began panto- 
 miming with his fingers : — ' Here are two persons, 
 father by the Grace of God, son by the grace of 
 the father. Saith father, "Son, thou art sprung 
 from kings ; take this woman that is sprung from 
 kings, for I have no further use for her." Anon 
 cometh a white rag thinly from the inner tent — 
 mark her provenance. Son kneeleth down. " Wilt 
 thou have my son, cony ?" saith father. "Yea, 
 dear heart," saith she. " 'Tis my counterpart, mark 
 you," saith father. "Better than nothing at all," 
 saith she. Benevolent father, supple-kneed son, 
 convenient lady. Here is agreement. And thus 
 it ends.' Again he laughed outright at the steel- 
 blue face of the sky, then jumped in a flash from 
 his seat to the throat of Bertran. Bertran tumbled 
 backwards with a strangled cry, and Richard 
 pegged him to the ground. 
 
 ' Thou yapping cur, Bertran,' he grated, ' thou 
 sick dog of my kennel, if this snarl of thine goes
 
 7 o RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 true thou hast done a service to me and mine 
 thou knowest not of. There is little to do before 
 I am the richest man in Christendom. Why, dull 
 rogue, thou hast set me free ! ' He looked up 
 exulting from his work at the man's throat to 
 shout this word. ' But if it is not true, Bertran '- 
 he shook him like a rat — 'if it is not true, I 
 return, O Bertran, and tear this false gullet out of 
 its case, and with thy speckled heart feed the 
 crows of Perigord.' Bertran had foam on his lips, 
 but Richard showed him no mercy. ' As it is, 
 Bertran,' he went on with his teeth on edge, ' I am 
 minded to finish thee. But that I need something 
 from thee I think I should do it. Tell me now 
 whence came thy news. Tell me, Bertran, or 
 thou art in hell in a moment.' 
 
 He had to let him up to win from him after 
 a time that his informant was the Count of Saint- 
 Pol. Little matter that this was untrue, the 
 bringing in of his name set wild alarums clanging 
 in Richard's head. It was only too likely to have 
 been Saint-Pol's doing ; there was obvious reason ; 
 but by the same token Saint-Pol might be a liar. 
 He saw that he must by all means find Saint-Pol, 
 and find him at once. He began to shout for 
 Gaston. ' To horse, to horse, Gaston ! ' The 
 court rang with his voice ; to the clamour he 
 made, which might betoken murder, arson, pillage, 
 or the sin against the Holy Ghost, out came the 
 vassals in a swarm. ' To horse, to horse, Bearnais ! 
 Where out of hell is Gaston of Beam ? ' The 
 devil of Anjou was loose in Autafort that day. 
 
 Gaston came delicately last, drawing his beard
 
 ch. v THE TENZON AT AUTAFORT 71 
 
 through his fist, to see Bertran de Born lie 
 helpless in a lemon -bush hard by the wall. 
 Richard, quite beyond himself, exploded with 
 his story, and so was sobered. While Gaston 
 made his comments, he, instead of listening, made 
 comments of his own. 
 
 ' Dear Lord Richard,' said Gaston reasonably, 
 ' if you do not know Bertran by this time it is 
 a strange thing and a pitiful thing. For it shows 
 you without any wit. He was appointed, it would 
 seem, to be the thorn in your rosebed of Anjou. 
 What has he done since he was let be made but 
 set you all by the ears? What did he do by the 
 young King but miserably ? What by Geoffrey ? 
 Is there a man in the world he hates more than 
 the old King ? Yes, there is one : you. Take 
 a token. The last time they two met was in this 
 very castle ; and then the King your father kissed 
 him, and forgiving him Henry's death, gave him 
 back his Autafort ; and Bertran too gave a kiss, 
 that love might abound. Judas, Judas ! And 
 what did Judas next ? Dear Richard, let us think 
 awhile, but not here. Let us go to Limoges and 
 think with the Viscount. But let us by all means 
 kill Bertran de Born first.' 
 
 During this speech, which has much to recom- 
 mend it, Richard, as I have told you, did his think- 
 ing by himself. He always cooled as suddenly 
 as he boiled over ; and now, warily regarding 
 the right hand and the left of this monstrous 
 fable, he saw that, though Saint -Pol might have 
 played fox in it, another must have played goat. 
 He could not fail to remember Louviers, and
 
 72 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 certain horrid mysteries which had offended him 
 then with only vague disgust, as for matters which 
 were outside his own care. Now they all took 
 shape satyric, like hideous heads thrust out of the 
 dark to loll their tongues at him. To the shock 
 of his first dismay succeeded the onset of rage, 
 white and cold and deadly as a night frost. Eh, 
 but he would meet his teeth in some throat ! But 
 he would go slowly to work, clear the ground and 
 stalk his prey. The leopard devises creeping 
 death. He made up his mind. Gaston he sent 
 to the South, to Angoulesme, to Perigord, to 
 Auvergne, to Cahors. The horn must be heard 
 at the head of every brown valley, the armed men 
 shadow every white road. He himself went to 
 his city of Poictiers. 
 
 Bertran de Born saw him go, and rubbed his 
 hair till it stood like reeds shaken by the wind. 
 Whether he loved mischief or not (and some say 
 he breathed it) ; whether he had a grudge against 
 Anjou not yet assuaged ; whether he was in league 
 with Prince John, or had indeed thought to do 
 Prince Richard a service, let philosophers, experts 
 of mankind, determine. If he had a turn for 
 dramatics he had certainly indulged it now, and 
 given himself strong meat for a new Sirvente of 
 Kings. At least he was very busy after Richard's 
 departure, himself preparing for a long journey to 
 the South.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 FRUITS OF THE TENZON : THE BACK OF SAINT- 
 POL, AND THE FRONT OF MONTFERRAT 
 
 Count Richard found time, while he was at 
 Poictiers awaiting the Aquitanian levies, to write six 
 letters to Jehane Saint-Pol. Of these some, with 
 their bearers, fell by the wayside. As luck would 
 have it, Jehane received but two, the first and 
 the last. The first said : ' I am in the way of 
 liberty, but by a red road. Have hopes of me.' 
 Jehane was long in answering. One may picture 
 the poor soul taking the dear and wicked thing 
 into the little chapel, laying it on the altar-stone 
 warm from her vest, restoring it after office done 
 to that haven whence she must banish its writer. 
 Fortified, she replied with, ' Alas, my lord, the 
 way of liberty leads not to me ; nor can I serve 
 you otherwise than in bonds. I pray you, make 
 my yoke no heavier. — Your servant, in little ease, 
 Jehane.' This wistful unhappy letter gave him 
 heartache ; he could scarcely keep himself at 
 home. Yet he must, being as yet sure of nothing. 
 He replied in a second and third, a fourth and a 
 fifth letter, which never reached her. The last
 
 74 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 was sent when he had begun what he thought 
 fit to do at Tours, saying, ' I make war, but the 
 cause is righteous. Never misjudge me, Jehane.' 
 There were many reasons why she should not 
 answer this. 
 
 Returning to his deeds at Poictiers, I pick up 
 the story from the Abbot Milo, whom he found 
 there. The Count, you may judge, kept his own 
 counsel. Milo was his confessor, but at this~time 
 Richard was not in a confessing humour ; there- 
 fore Milo had to gather scandal as he could. 
 There was very little difficulty about this. ' In 
 the city of Tours,' he writes, ' in those middle 
 days of Advent, it appears that rumour, still 
 gadding, was adrift with names almost too high 
 for the writing. There were many there who had 
 no business ; the Count of Blois, for instance, 
 the Baron of Chateaudun, the fighting Bishop of 
 Durham (I fear, a hireling shepherd), Geoffrey 
 Talebot, Hugh of Saint-Circ. One reason of this 
 was that King Henry was in England, not yet 
 come to an agreement with the French King, nor 
 likely to it if what we heard was true, yea, or 
 a tenth part of it. God forbid that I should write 
 what these ears heard ; but this I will say. It 
 was I who told the shocking tale to my lord 
 Richard, adding also this hint, that his former 
 friend was involved in it, Eudo Count of Saint- 
 Pol. If you will believe me, not the tale of 
 iniquity moved him ; but he received it with 
 shut mouth, and eyes fixed upon mine. But at 
 the name of the Count of Saint-Pol he took a 
 breath, at the mention of his part in the business
 
 ch.vi FRUITS OF THE TENZON 75 
 
 he took a deep breath, and when he heard that 
 this man was yet at Tours, he got up from his 
 chair and struck the table with his closed fist. 
 Knowing him as I did, I considered that the 
 weather looked black for Saint-Pol. 
 
 ' Next day Count Richard moved his hosts 
 out of the fields by Poictiers to the very borders 
 of his country, and calling a halt at Saint-Gilles 
 and making snug against alarms, himself, with 
 my lord Gaston of Beam, with the Dauphin of 
 Auvergne also, and the Viscount of Beziers, crossed 
 the march into Touraine, and so came to Tours 
 about a week before Christmas, the weather being 
 bright and frosty.' 
 
 It seems he did not take the abbot with him, 
 for the rest of the good man's record is full of 
 morality, a certain sign that facts failed him. There 
 may have been reasons ; at any rate the Count went 
 into Tours in a trenchant humour, with ears keen 
 and wide for all shreds of report. And he got 
 enough and to spare. In the wet market-place, 
 on the flags of the great churchyard, by the 
 pillars of the nave, in the hall, in the chambers, 
 in the inn-galleries ; wherever men met or women 
 whispered in each other's necks, there flew the 
 names of Alois, King Philip's sister, and of King 
 Henry, Count Richard's father. Richard made 
 short work, short and dry. It was in mid-hall 
 in the Bishop's palace, one day after dinner, that 
 he met and stopped the Count of Saint-Pol. 
 
 ' What now, beau sire ? ' says the Count, out 
 of breath. Richard's eyes were alight. ' This,' 
 says he, ' that you lie in your throat.'
 
 76 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 Count Eudo looked about him, and everywhere 
 saw the faces of men risen from the board intent 
 on him. ' Strange words, beau sire,' says he, very 
 white. Richard raised his voice till the metal 
 rang in it. 
 
 ' But not strange doing, I think, on your part. 
 This has been going on, how long ? ' 
 
 Saint- Pol was stung. 'Ah, it becomes you 
 very ill to reproach me, my lord.' 
 
 ' I think it becomes me excellently,' said 
 Richard. ' You have lied for a vile purpose ; 
 you have disgraced your name. You seek to 
 drive me by slander whither I may not go in 
 honour. You lie like a broker. You are a shame- 
 ful liar.' 
 
 No man could stand this from another, how- 
 ever great that other ; and Saint-Pol was not a 
 coward. He looked up at his adversary, still 
 white, but steady. 
 
 ' How then ? ' he asked him, ' how then if I 
 lie not, Count of Poictou ? And how if you 
 know that I lie not ? ' 
 
 ' Then,' said Richard, ' you use insult, which is 
 worse.' 
 
 Saint-Pol took off his glove of mail and flung 
 it with a clatter on the floor. 
 
 ' Since it has come to this, my lord . ' Richard 
 
 spiked the glove with his sword, tossed it to the 
 hammer-beams of the roof, and caught it as it fell. 
 
 ' It shall come nearer, Count, I take it.' Thus 
 he finished the other's phrase, then stalked out 
 of the Bishop's house. It was then and there 
 that he wrote to Jehane that sixth letter, which
 
 ch. vi FRUITS OF THE TENZON 77 
 
 she received : ' I make war, but the cause is 
 righteous. Never misjudge me, Jehane.' 
 
 The end of it was a combat a outrance in the 
 meads by the Loire, with all Tours on the walls 
 to behold it. Richard was quite frank about the 
 part he proposed to himself. ' The man must 
 die,' he told the Dauphin of Auvergne, ' even 
 though he have spoken the truth. As to that I 
 am not sure, I am not yet informed. But he is 
 not fit to live on any ground. By these slanders 
 of his he has disgraced the name and outraged 
 the honour of the most lovely lady in the world, 
 whose truest misfortune is to be his sister ; by 
 the same token I must punish him for the dignity 
 of the lady I am (at present) designed to wed. 
 She is always the daughter of his liege -lord. 
 What ! ' — he threw his head up — ' Is not a daughter 
 of France worth a broken back ? ' 
 
 ' Tu-dieu, yes,' says the Dauphin ; ' but it is a 
 stoutish back, Richard. It is a back which ranks 
 high. Kings clap it familiarly. Conrad of Mont- 
 ferrat calls it a cousin's back. The Emperor has 
 embraced it at an Easter fair.' 
 
 ' I would as soon break Conrad's back as his, 
 Dauphin, believe me,' Richard replied ; ' but 
 Conrad has said nothing. And there is another 
 reason.' 
 
 ' I have thought myself of a reason against it,' 
 the Dauphin said quickly, yet with a flutter of 
 timidity. ' This man's name is Saint-Pol.' 
 
 Richard grew bleak in a moment. 'That,' he 
 said, ' is why I shall kill him. He seeks to drive 
 us to marriage. Injurious beast ! His name is
 
 78 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 Pandarus.' Then he left the Dauphin and shut 
 himself up until the day of battle. 
 
 They had formed lists in the Loire meads : a 
 red pavilion with leopards upon it for the Count 
 of Poictou, a blue pavilion streaked with basilisks 
 in silver for the Count of Saint-Pol. The crowd 
 was very great, for the city was full of people ; 
 in the tribune the King of England's throne was 
 left empty save for a drawn sword ; but one sat 
 beside it as arbiter for the day of life and death, 
 and that was Prince John, Richard's brother, by 
 Richard summoned from Paris, and most un- 
 willingly there. Bishop Hugh of Durham sat 
 next him, and marvelled to see the sweat glisten 
 on his forehead on a day when all the world else 
 felt the north wind to their bones. ' Are you 
 suffering, dear lord ? ' ' Eh, Bishop Hugh, Bishop 
 Hugh, this is a mad day for me ! ' 'By God,' 
 thought Hugh of Durham, ' and so it might 
 prove, my man ! ' 
 
 They blew trumpets ; and at the second sound- 
 ing Saint-Pol, the challenger, rode out on a big 
 grey horse, himself in a hauberk of chain mail with 
 a coif of the same, and a casque wherein three 
 grey heron's feathers. This was the badge of the 
 house : Jehane wore heron's feathers. He had a 
 blue surcoat and blue housings for his horse. 
 Behind him, esquire of honour, rode the young 
 Amadeus of Savoy, carrying his banner, a white 
 basilisk on a blue field. Saint-Pol was a burly 
 man, bearing his honours squarely on breast and 
 back. 
 
 They sounded for the Count of Poictou, who
 
 ch.vi FRUITS OF THE TENZON 79 
 
 came presently out of his tent and lightly swung 
 himself into the saddle — a feat open to very few 
 men armed in mail. As he came cantering down 
 the long lists no man could fail to mark the size 
 and splendid ease he had ; but some said, ' He is 
 younger by five years than Saint-Pol, and not so 
 stout a man.' He had a red plume above his 
 leopard crest, a white surcoat over his hauberk, 
 with three red leopards upon it. His shield was 
 of the same blazon, so also the housings of his 
 horse. The Dauphin of Auvergne carried his 
 banner. The two men came together, saluted 
 with ceremony, then turned with spears uplift 
 to the tribune, the throned sword, the sweating 
 prince beside it. 
 
 This one now rose up and caught at his chair, 
 to give the signal. ' Oh, Richard of Anjou, do 
 thou on the body of Saint -Pol what thy faith 
 requires of thee ; and do thou, Eudo, uphold the 
 right thou hast, in the name of God in Trinity 
 and of our Lady.' The Bishop of Tours blessed 
 them both and the issue, they wheeled apart, and 
 the battle began. It was short, three careers long. 
 At the first shock Richard unhorsed his man ; at 
 the second he unhelmed him with a deep flesh- 
 furrow in the cheek ; at the third he drove down 
 horse and man together and broke the Count's 
 back. Saint-Pol never moved again. 
 
 The moment it was over, in the silence of all, 
 Prince John came down from the tribune and fell 
 upon Richard's neck. ' Oh, dearest brother,' cried 
 he, ' what should I have done if the worst had 
 befallen you ? I cannot bear to think of it.'
 
 8o RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 ' Oh, brother,' Richard said very quietly, ' I 
 think you would have borne it very well. You 
 would have married Madame Alois, and paid for 
 a mass or two for me out of the dowry.' 
 
 This raking shot was heard by everybody. 
 John grew red as fire. ' Why, what do you 
 mean, Richard ? ' he stammered. 
 
 And Richard, ' Are my words so encumbered ? 
 Think them over, get them by heart. So doing, 
 be pleased to ride with me to Paris.' At this the 
 colour left John's face. 
 
 ' Ah ! To Paris ? ' He looked as if he saw 
 death under a bush. 
 
 ' That is where we must go,' said Richard, ' so 
 soon as we have prayed for that poor blind worm 
 on the ground, who now haply sees wherein he 
 has offended.' 
 
 ' Conrad of Montferrat, cousin of this dead, is 
 there, Richard,' said the other with intention ; but 
 Richard laughed. 
 
 ' In a very good hour we shall find him. I 
 have to give him news of his cousin Saint-Pol. 
 What is he there for ? ' 
 
 ' It is in the matter of the kingdom of Jeru- 
 salem. He seeks Sibylla and that crown, and is 
 like to get them.' 
 
 ' I think not, John, I think not. We will fill 
 his head with other thoughts ; we will set it want- 
 ing mine. Your chance is a fair one yet, brother.' 
 
 Prince John laughed, but not comfortably. 
 ' Your tongue bites, Richard.' 
 
 ' Pooh,' says Richard, ' what else are you worth ? 
 I save my teeth ' ; and went his ways.
 
 ch.vi FRUITS OF THE TENZON 81 
 
 In Paris Richard repaired to the tower of his 
 kinsman the Count of Angoulesme, but his brother 
 to the Abbey of Saint-Germain. The Poictevin 
 herald bore word to King Philip -Augustus on 
 Richard's part ; Prince John, as I suppose, bore 
 his own word whither he had most need for it to 
 go. It is believed that he contrived to see Madame 
 Alois in private ; and if that great purple cape 
 that held him in talk for nearly an hour by a 
 windy corner of the Pre-aux-Clercs did not cover 
 the back of Montferrat, then Gossip is a liar. 
 Richard, for his part, took no account of John 
 and his shifts ; a wave of disgust for the creeping 
 youth had filled the stronger man, and having got 
 him into Paris there seemed nothing better to do 
 with him than to let him alone. But that sensitive 
 gorge of Richard's was one of his worst enemies : 
 if he did not mean to hold the snake in the stick, 
 he had better not have cleft the stick. As for 
 John and his writhing, I am only half concerned 
 with them ; but let me tell you this. Whatever 
 he did or did not sprang not from hatred of this 
 or that man, but from fear, or from love of his 
 own belly. Every prince of the house of Anjou 
 loved inordinately some member of himself, some 
 a noble member nobly, and others basely a base 
 member. If John loved his belly, Richard loved 
 his royal head : but enough. To be done with 
 all this, Richard was summoned to the French 
 King hot-foot, within a day or two of his coming ; 
 went immediately with his chaplain Anselm and 
 other one or two, and was immediately received. 
 He had, in fact, obeyed in such haste that he 
 
 G
 
 82 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 found two in the audience -chamber instead of 
 one. With Philip of France was Conrad of 
 Montferrat, a large, pale, ruminating Italian, full 
 of bluster and thick blood. The French King 
 was a youth, just the age of Jehane, of the thin, 
 sharp, black-and-white mould into which had run 
 the dregs of Capet. He was smooth-faced like a 
 girl, and had no need to shave ; his lips were very- 
 thin, set crooked in his face. So far as he was 
 boy he loved and admired Richard, so far as he 
 was Capet he distrusted him with all the rest of 
 the world. 
 
 Richard knelt to his suzerain and was by him 
 caught up and kissed. Philip made him sit at his 
 side on the throne. This put Montferrat, who 
 was standing, sadly out of countenance, for he 
 considered himself (as perhaps he was) the superior 
 of any man uncrowned. 
 
 It seems that some news had drifted in on the 
 west wind. ' Richard, oh, Richard ! ' the King 
 began, half whimsical and half vexed, ' What have 
 you been doing in Touraine ? ' 
 
 ' Fair sire,' answered Richard, ' I have been 
 doing what will, I fear, give pain to our cousin 
 Montferrat. I have been breaking the back of 
 the Count of Saint-Pol.' At this the Marquess, 
 suffused with dark blood till he was colour of 
 lead, broke out, pointing his finger as well as his 
 words. As the bilge-water jets from a ketch when 
 the hold is surcharged, so did the Marquess jet his 
 expletives. 
 
 ' Ha, sire ! Ha, King of France ! Now give 
 me leave to break this brigand's back, who robs
 
 ch.vi FRUITS OF THE TENZON 83 
 
 and reviles in one breath. Torch of the Gospel, 
 is it to be borne ? ' Foaming with rage, he lunged 
 forward a step or two, his hand upon his long 
 sword. Richard slowly got up from the throne 
 and stood his full height. 
 
 ' Marquess, you use words I will not hear ' 
 
 King Philip broke in — 'Fair lords, sweet 
 
 lords ■' ; but Richard put his hand up, having 
 
 a kingly way with him which even kings observed. 
 
 'Dear sire,' — his voice was level and cool — 
 ' let me say my whole mind before the Marquess 
 recovers his. The Count of Saint-Pol, for beastly 
 reasons, spoke in my hearing either true things or 
 false things concerning Madame Alois. If they 
 were true I was ready to die ; if they were false I 
 hope he was. Believing them false, I had punished 
 one man for them before ; but he had them from 
 Saint -Pol. Therefore I called Saint -Pol a liar, 
 and other proper things. This gave him occasion 
 to save his credit at the risk of his back. He 
 broke the one and I the other. Now I will hear 
 the Marquess.' 
 
 The Marquess tugged at his sword. ' And I, 
 
 Count of Poictou ' ; but King Philip held out 
 
 his sceptre, he too very much a king. 
 
 ' And we, Count of Poictou,' he said, ' command 
 you by your loyalty to tell us what Saint-Pol dared 
 say of our sister Dame Alois.' Although his thin 
 boy's voice quavered, he seemed the more royal for 
 the human weakness. Richard was greatly moved, 
 thawed in a moment. 
 
 ' God forgive me, Philip, but I cannot tell 
 thee ' Pity broke up his tones.
 
 84 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 The young king almost whimpered : ' Oh, 
 Richard, what is this ? ' But Richard turned awav 
 his face. It was now the chance of the great 
 Italian. 
 
 ' Now listen, King Philip/ he said, grim and 
 square, ' and listen you, Count of Poictou, whose 
 account is to be quieted presently. Of this 
 business I happen to know something. If it serve 
 not your honour I cannot help it. It serves my 
 murdered cousin's honour — therefore listen.' 
 
 Richard's head was up. * Peace, hound,' he 
 said, and the Marquess snarled like an old dog ; 
 but Philip, with a quivering lip, put out his hand 
 till it touched Richard's shoulder. ' I must hear 
 it, Richard,' he said. Richard put his arm round 
 the lad's neck : so the Marquess told his story. 
 At the end of it Richard dared look down into 
 Philip's marred eyes. Then he kissed his forehead, 
 and ' Oh, Philip,' says he, ' let him who is hardy 
 enough to tell this tale believe it, and let us who 
 hear it do as we must. But now you understand 
 why I made an end of Saint-Pol, and why, by 
 heaven and earth, I will make an end of this 
 brass pot.' He turned upon Montferrat with his 
 teeth bare. ' Conrad, Conrad, Conrad ! ' he cried 
 terribly, ' mark your goings about this slippery 
 world ; for if when I get you alone I do not send 
 you quick into hell, may I go down myself 
 beyond redemption of the Church ! ' 
 
 ' That you will surely do, my lord,' says the 
 Marquess of Montferrat, greatly disturbed. 
 
 ' If I get you there also I shall be reasonably 
 entertained for a short time,' Richard answered,
 
 ch.vi FRUITS OF THE TENZON 85 
 
 already cooled and ashamed of his heat. Then 
 King Philip dismissed the Marquess, and as soon 
 as he was rid of him jumped into Richard's arms, 
 and cried his heart away. 
 
 Richard, who was fond of the youth, comforted 
 him as well as he was able, but on one point was 
 a rock. He would not hear the word ' marriage ' 
 until he had seen the lady. ' Oh, Richard, marry 
 her quick, marry her quick ! So we can face the 
 world,' the young King had blubbered, thinking 
 that course the simplest answer to the affront upon 
 his house. It did not seem so simple to the 
 Count, or (rather) it seemed too simple by half. 
 In his private mind he knew perfectly well that 
 he could not marry Madame Alois. So, for that 
 matter, did King Philip by this time. ' I must 
 see Alois, Philip, I must see her alone,' was all 
 Richard had to say ; and really it could not be 
 gainsaid. 
 
 He went to her after proper warning, and saw 
 the truth the moment he had view of her. Then 
 also he knew that he had really seen it before. 
 That white, furtive, creeping girl, from whose 
 loose hair peered out a pair of haunted eyes ; that 
 drooped thing backing against the wall, feeling for 
 it, flat against it, with open shocked mouth, a-stare 
 but seeing nothing : the whole truth flared before 
 him monstrously naked. He loathed the sight of 
 her, but had to speak her smoothly. 
 
 'Princess ' he said, and came forward to 
 
 touch her hand ; but she slipped away from him, 
 crouching to the wall. The torment of breath in 
 her bosom was bad to see.
 
 86 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 ' Touch me not, Count of Poictou ' ; she whis- 
 pered the words, and then moaned, ' O God, what 
 will become of me ? ' 
 
 ' Madame,' said Richard, rather dry, ' God may 
 answer your question, since He knows all things, 
 but certainly I cannot, unless you first tell me 
 what has hitherto become of you.' 
 
 She steadied herself by the wall, her palms flat 
 upon it, and leaned her body forward like one 
 who searches in a dark place. Then, shaking her 
 head, she let it fall to her breast. ' Is there any 
 sorrow like my sorrow ? ' says she to herself, as 
 though he had not been there. 
 
 Richard grew stern. ' So asked in His agony 
 the Son of high God,' he reproved her. ' If you 
 dare ask Him that in His own words your sorrow 
 must be deep.' 
 
 She said, ' It is most deep.' 
 
 ' But His,' said Richard, ' was bitter shame.' 
 
 She said, ' And mine is bitter.' 
 
 ' But His was undeserved.' He spoke scorn ; 
 so then she lifted up her head, and with eyes most 
 piteous searched his face. ' But mine, Richard,' 
 she said, ' but mine is deserved.' 
 
 ' The hearing is pertinent,' said Richard. ' As 
 a son and man affianced it touches me pretty 
 close.' 
 
 Out of the hot and desperate struggle for 
 breath, sounds came from her, but no words. 
 But she ran forward blindly, and kneeling, caught 
 him by the knees ; he could not but find pity in 
 his heart for the witless poor wretch, who seemed 
 to be fighting, not with regret nor for need of his
 
 ch. vi FRUITS OF THE TENZON 87 
 
 pity, but with some maggot in the brain which 
 drove her deeper into the fiery centre of the storm. 
 Richard did what he could. A religious man him- 
 self, he pointed her to the Christ on the wall ; but 
 she waved it out of sight, shook her wild hair back, 
 and clung to him still, asking some unguessed 
 mercy with her eyes and sobbing breath. ' God 
 help this tormented soul, for I cannot,' he prayed ; 
 and said aloud, ' I will call your women ; let me 
 go.' So he tried to undo her hands, but she 
 clenched her teeth together and held on with 
 frenzy, whining, grunting, like some pounded 
 animal. Dumbly they strove together for a little 
 panting space of time. 
 
 'Ah, but you shall let me go,' he said then, 
 much distressed, and forcibly unknotted her mad 
 hands. She fell back upon her heels, and looked 
 up at him. Such hopeless, grinning misery he had 
 never seen on a face before. He was certain now 
 that she was out of her wits. 
 
 Yet once again she brushed her hands over her 
 face, as he had seen her do before, like one who 
 sweeps gossamers away on autumn mornings ; 
 and though she was all in a shiver and shake 
 with the fever she had, she found her voice at last. 
 ' Ah, thanks ! Ah, my thanks, O Christ my 
 Saviour ! ' she sighed. ' O sweet Saviour Christ, 
 now I will tell him all the truth.' 
 
 If he had listened to her then it had been well 
 for him. But he did not. The struggle had 
 fretted him likewise ; if she was mad he was 
 maddened. He got angry where he should have 
 been most patient. ' The truth, by heaven ! ' he
 
 88 RICHARD YEA- AND-N AY bk. i 
 
 snapped. ' Ah, if I have not had enough of this 
 truth ! ' And so he left her shuddering. As he 
 went down the long corridor he heard shriek after 
 shriek, and then the scurrying of many feet. 
 Turning, he saw carried lights, women running. 
 The sounds were muffled, they had her safe. 
 Richard went to his house over the river, and 
 slept for ten hours.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 OF THE CRACKLING OF THORNS UNDER POTS 
 
 Just as no two pots will boil alike, so with 
 men ; they seethe in trouble with a difference. 
 With one the grief is taken inly : this was 
 Richard's kind. The French King was feverish, 
 the Marquess explosive, John of England all eyes 
 and alarms. So Richard's remedy for trouble was 
 action, Philip's counsel, the Marquess's a glut of 
 hatred, and John's plotting. The consequence 
 is, that in the present vexed state of things 
 Richard threw off his discontent with his bed- 
 clothes, and at once took the lead of the others, 
 because it could be done at once. He declared 
 open war against the King his father, despatching 
 heralds with the cartel the same day ; he gave 
 King Philip to understand that the French power 
 might be for him or against him as seemed fitting, 
 but that no power in heaven or on earth would 
 engage him to marry Dame Alois. King Philip, 
 still clinging to his friend, made a treaty of alli- 
 ance with him against Henry of England. That 
 done, sealed and delivered, Richard sent for his 
 brother John. ' Brother,' he said, ' I have de-
 
 9 o RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 clared war against my father, and Philip is to be 
 of our party. In his name and my own I am 
 to tell you that one of two things you must do. 
 You may stay in our lands or leave them ; but if 
 you stay you must sign our treaty of alliance.' 
 Too definite for John, all this: he asked for time, 
 and Richard gave him till nightfall. At dusk he 
 sent for him again. John chose to stay in Paris. 
 Then Richard thought he would go home to 
 Poictou. The moment his back was turned 
 began various closetings of the magnates left 
 behind, with which I mean to fatigue the reader 
 as little as possible. 
 
 One such chamber-business I must record. To 
 Paris in the black February weather came pelting 
 the young Count Eustace, now by his brother's 
 death Count of Saint-Pol. Misfortune, they say, 
 makes of one a man or a saint. Of Eustace Saint- 
 Pol it had made a man. After his homage done, 
 this youth, still kneeling, his hands still between 
 Philip's hands, looked fixedly into his sovereign's 
 face, and ' A boon, fair sire ! ' he said. ' A boon 
 to your new man ! ' 
 
 ' What now, Saint-Pol ? ' asked King Philip. 
 
 ' Sire,' he said, ' my sister's marriage is in you. 
 I beg you to give her to Messire Gilles de Gurdun, 
 a good knight of Normandy.' 
 
 ' That is a poor marriage for her, Saint-Pol,' 
 said the King, considering, ' and a poor marriage 
 for me, by Saint Mary. Why should I enrich the 
 King of England, with whom I am at war ? You 
 must give me reason for that.' 
 
 ' I will give you this reason,' said young Saint-
 
 ch.vii THE CRACKLING OF THORNS 91 
 
 Pol ; ' it is because that devil who slew my brother 
 will have her else.' 
 
 King Philip said, ' Why, I can give her to 
 one who will hold her fast. Your Gurdun is a 
 Norman, you say ? Well, but Count Richard in 
 a little while will have him under his hand ; and 
 how are you served then ? ' 
 
 ' I doubt, sire,' replied Saint-Pol. ' Moreover, 
 there is this, if it please you to hear it. When 
 the Count of Poictou repudiated (as he most 
 villainously did) my sister, he himself gave her 
 to Gurdun. But I fear him, lest seeing her any 
 other's he should take her again.' 
 
 ' What is this, man ? ' asked King Philip. 
 
 ' Sire, he writes letters to my sister that he is a 
 free man, and she keeps them by her and often 
 reads them in secret. So she was caught but 
 lately by my lady aunt, reading one in bed.' 
 
 The King's brow grew very black, for though 
 he knew that Richard would never marry Madame, 
 he did not choose (but resented) that any other 
 should know it. At this moment Montferrat 
 came in, and stood by his kinsman. 
 
 ' Ah, sire,' said he, in those bloodhound tones 
 of his, * give us leave to deal in this business with 
 free hands.' 
 
 ' What would you do in it, Marquess ? ' asked 
 the King fretfully. 
 
 ' Kill him, by God,' said the Marquess ; and 
 young Saint-Pol added, ' Give us his life, O lord 
 King.' 
 
 King Philip thought. He was fresh from 
 making a treaty with Richard ; but that was in
 
 92 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 a war of requital only, and would be ended so 
 soon as the last drop had been drained from the 
 old King. What would follow the war ? He 
 was by this time cooler towards Richard, very 
 much vexed at what he had just heard ; he could 
 not help remembering that marriage with Alois 
 would have been the proper reply to scandalous 
 report. Should he be able, when the war was 
 done, to squeeze Richard into marriage or an 
 equivalent in lands ? He wondered, he doubted 
 greatly. On the other hand, if he and Richard 
 could crush old Henry, and Saint-Pol afterwards 
 bruise Richard — why, what was Philip but a 
 gainer ? 
 
 Chewing the fringe of his mantle as he con- 
 sidered this and that, ' If I give Madame Jehane in 
 marriage to your Gurdun,' he said dubiously, ' what 
 will Gurdun do ? ' 
 
 Saint-Pol named the sum, a fair one. 
 
 ' But what part will he take in the quarrel ? ' 
 asked the King. 
 
 ' He will take my part, as he is bound, sire.' 
 
 ' Pest ! ' cried Philip, ' let us get at it. What 
 is this part of yours ? ' 
 
 ' The part of him who has a blood - feud, my 
 lord,' said young Saint -Pol ; and the Marquess 
 said, 'That is my part also.' 
 
 ' Have it according to your desires, my lords,' 
 then said King Philip. ' I give you this marriage. 
 Make it as speedily as may be, but let not Count 
 Richard have news until it is done. There is a 
 fire, I tell you, hidden in that tall man. Remember 
 this too, Saint-Pol. You shall not make war on
 
 ch. vii THE CRACKLING OF THORNS 93 
 
 the side of England against Richard, for that will 
 be against me. Your feud must wait its turn. For 
 this present I have an account to settle in which 
 Poictou is on my side. Marquess, you likewise 
 are in my debt. See to it that you give my 
 enemies no advantage.' 
 
 The Marquess and his cousin gave their words, 
 holding up the hilts of their swords before their 
 faces. 
 
 Richard, in his city of Poictiers, was calmly 
 forwarding his plans. His first act, since he now 
 considered himself perfectly rree, had been to send 
 Gaston of Beam with letters to Saint -Pol- la - 
 Marche ; his second, seeing no reason why he 
 should wait for King Philip or any possible ally, 
 to cross the frontier of Touraine in force. He 
 took castle after castle in that rich land, clearing 
 the way for the investiture of Tours, which was 
 his first great objective. 
 
 I leave him at this employment and follow 
 Gaston on his way to the North. It was early in 
 March when that young man started, squally, 
 dusty weather ; but perfect trobador as he was, the 
 nature of his errand warmed him ; he composed 
 a whole nosegay of scented songs in honour of 
 Richard and the crocus-haired lady of the March 
 who wore the broad girdle. Riding as he did 
 through the realm of France, by Chateaudun, 
 Chartres, and Pontoise, he narrowly missed Eustace 
 of Saint-Pol, who was galloping the opposite way 
 upon an errand dead opposed to his own. Gaston 
 would have fought him, of course, but would have 
 been killed to a certainty ; for Saint-Pol rode as
 
 94 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 became his lordship, with a company, and the other 
 was alone. He was spared any such mischance, 
 however, and arrived in the highest spirits, with 
 an alba (song of the dawn) for what he supposed 
 to be Jehane's window. It shows what an eye he 
 had for a lady's chamber that he was very nearly 
 right. A lady did put her head out ; not Jehane, 
 but a rock-faced matron of vast proportions with 
 grey hair plastered to her cheeks. 
 
 ' Behold, behold the dawn, my tender heart ! ' 
 breathed Gaston. 
 
 ' Out, you cockerel,' said the old lady, and 
 Gaston wooed her in vain. It appeared that she 
 was an aunt, sworn to the service of the Count, 
 and had Jehane safe in a tower under lock and 
 key. Gaston retired into the woods to meditate. 
 There he wrote five identic notes to the prisoner. 
 The first he gave to a boy whom he found birds'- 
 nesting. ' Take a turtle's nest, sweet boy,' said 
 Gaston, ' to my lady Jehane ; say it is first-fruits 
 of the year, and win a silver piece. Beware of an 
 old lady with a jaw like a flat-iron.' The second 
 he gave to a woodman tying billets for the Castle 
 ovens ; the third a maid put in her placket, and 
 he taught her the fourth by heart in a manner 
 quite his own and very much to her taste. With 
 the fifth he was most adroit. He demanded an 
 interview with the duenna, whose name was Dame 
 Gudule. She accorded. Gaston spilled his very 
 soul out before her ; he knelt to her, he kissed her 
 large velvet feet. The lady was touched, I mean 
 literally, for Gaston as he stooped fitted his fifth 
 note into the braid of her ample skirt. The only
 
 ch. vii THE CRACKLING OF THORNS 95 
 
 one to arrive was the boy's in the bird's nest. The 
 boy wanted his silver piece, and got it. So Jehane 
 had another note to cherish. 
 
 But she had to answer it first. It said, ' Vera 
 Copia. Ma mye, I set on to the burden you gave 
 me, but it failed of breaking my back. I have 
 punished some of the wicked, and have some still 
 to punish. When this is done I shall come to you. 
 Wait for me. I regret your brother's death. He 
 deserved it. The fight was fair. Learn of me 
 from Gaston. — Richard of Anjou.' Her answer 
 was leaping in her heart ; she led the boy to the 
 window. 
 
 ' Look down, boy, and tell me what you can 
 see.' 
 
 ' Dame ! ' said the boy, ' I see the moat, and 
 ducks on it.' 
 
 ' Look again, dear, and tell me what you see.' 
 
 ' I see an old fish on his back. He is dead.' 
 
 Jehane laughed quietly. ' He has been there 
 many days. Tell the knight who sent you to 
 stand thereabout, looking up. Tell him not to 
 be there at any hour save that of mass, or vespers. 
 Will you do this, dear boy ? ' 
 
 ' Certain sure,' said the boy. Jehane gave him 
 money and a kiss, then fastened herself to the 
 window. 
 
 Gaston excelled in pantomime. Every day for 
 a week he saw Jehane at her window, and enacted 
 many strange plays. He showed her the old King 
 stormy in his tent, the meagre white unrest of 
 Alois, the outburst at Autafort and Bertran de 
 Born with his tongue out ; the meeting at Tours,
 
 96 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 the battle, the death of the Count her brother. He 
 was admirable on Richard's love-desires. There 
 could be no doubt at all about them. Pricked by 
 his feats in this sort, Jehane overcame her reserve 
 and turned her members into marionettes. She 
 puffed her cheeks, hung her head, scowled up- 
 wards : there was Gilles de Gurdun to the life. 
 She looped finger and thumb of the right hand 
 and pierced them with the ring finger : ohe ! her 
 fate. Gaston in reply to this drew his sword and 
 ran a cypress-tree through the body. Jehane shook 
 a sorrowful head, but he waved all such denials 
 away with a hand so expressive that Jehane broke 
 the window and leaned her body out. Gaston 
 uttered a cheerful cry. 
 
 ' Have no fear, lovely prisoner. If that is his 
 intention he is gone. I kill him. It is arranged.' 
 
 ' My brother Eustace is in Paris,' says Jehane 
 in a low but carrying voice, ' to get my marriage 
 from the King.' 
 
 ' Again I say, fear nothing,' Gaston cried ; but 
 Jehane strained out as far as she could. 
 
 * You must go away from here. The window 
 is broken now, and they will find me out. Take 
 a message to my lord. If he is free indeed, he 
 knows me his in life or death. I seek to do him 
 service. Wed or unwed, what is that to me ? 
 I am still Jehane.' 
 
 ' Your name is Red Heart, and Golden Rose, 
 and Loiale Amye ! Farewell, Star of the North,' 
 said Gaston on his knees. ' I seek this Gurdun of 
 yours.' 
 
 He found him after some days' perilous
 
 ch.vii THE CRACKLING OF THORNS 97 
 
 prowling of the Norman march. Gilles had 
 received the summons of his Duke to be vi et 
 armis at Rouen ; a little later Gaston might have 
 met him in the field of broad battle, but such 
 delay was not to his mind. He met him instead 
 in a woodland glade near Gisors, alone (by a great 
 chance), sword on thigh. 
 
 'Beef, thou diest,' said the Bearnais, peaking 
 his beard. Gilles made no reply that can be 
 written, for what letters can shape a Norman 
 grunt ? Perhaps ' Wauch ! ' comes nearest. They 
 fought on horseback, with swords, from noon to 
 sunset, and having hacked one another out of the 
 similitude of men, there was nothing left them to 
 do but swoon side by side on the sodden leaves. 
 In the morning Gaston, unclogging one eye, per- 
 ceived that his enemy had gone. ' No matter,' 
 said the spent hero to himself. ' I will wait till he 
 comes back, and have at him again.' 
 
 He waited an unconscionable time, a month in 
 fact, during which he delighted to watch the shy 
 oncoming of a Northern spring, so different from 
 the sudden flooding of the South. He found the 
 wood-sorrel, he measured the crosiers of the brake, 
 and saw the blue mist of the hyacinth carpet the 
 glades. All this charmed him quite, until he 
 learned, by hazard, that the Sieur de Gurdun was 
 to be married to Dame Jehane Saint-Pol on Palm 
 Sunday in the church of Saint Sulpice of Gisors. 
 ' God ha' mercy ! ' he thought, with a stab at the 
 heart ; ' there is merely time.' He rode South on 
 the wind's wings. 
 
 H
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 HOW THEY HELD RICHARD OFF FROM HIS 
 
 father's THROAT 
 
 Long before the pink flush on the almond an- 
 nounced the earth a bride, on all Gaulish roads 
 had been heard the tramp of armed men, the ring 
 of steel on steel. This new war splintered Gaul. 
 Aquitaine held for Richard, who, though he had 
 quelled and afterwards governed that great duchy 
 with an iron whip, had made himself respected 
 there. So the Count of Provence sent him a 
 company, the Count of Toulouse and Dauphin 
 of Auvergne each brought a company ; from 
 Perigord, from Bertram Count of Roussillon, from 
 Beam, and (for reasons) from the wise King ot 
 Navarre, came pi Icemen and slingers, and long- 
 bowmen, and knights with their esquires and 
 banner-bearers. The Duke of Burgundy and 
 Count of Champagne came from the east to fill 
 the battles of King Philip ; in the west the 
 Countess of Brittany sent about the war -torch. 
 All the extremes of Gaul were in arms against the 
 red old Angevin who sat at her heart, who was 
 now still snarling in England, and sending message
 
 ch.viii WAR IN THE WEST 99 
 
 after secret message to his son John. That same 
 John, alone in Paris, headed no spears, partly 
 because he had none of his own, partly because he 
 dared not declare himself openly. He had taken 
 a side, driven by his vehement brother ; for the 
 first time in his life he had put pen to parchment. 
 God knew (he thought) that was committal 
 enough. So he stayed in Paris, shifting his body 
 about to get comfort as the winds veered. 
 Nobody inquired of him, least of all his brother 
 Richard, who, beyond requiring his signature, cared 
 little what he did with his person. This was 
 characteristic of Richard. He would drive a man 
 into a high place and then forget him. Reminded 
 of his neglect, he would shrug and say, ' Yes. But 
 he is a fool.' Insufficient answer : he did not see 
 or did not choose to see that there are two sorts 
 of fools. Stranded on his peak, one man might 
 be fool enough to stop there, another to try a 
 descent. Prince John (no fool either) was of this 
 second quality. How he tried to get down, and 
 where else he tried to go, will be made clear in 
 time. You and I must go to the war in the 
 west. 
 
 War showed Count Richard entered into his 
 birthright. As a strategist he was superb, the 
 best of his time. What his eye took in his mind 
 snapped up — like a steel gin. And his eye was 
 the true soldier's eye, comprehending by signs, 
 investing with life what was tongueless else. Over 
 great stretches of barren country — that limitless 
 land of France — he could see massed men on the 
 move ; creeping forward in snaky columns, spread
 
 ioo RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 fanwise from clump to woody clump ; here camp- 
 ing snugly under the hill, there lining the river 
 bluffs with winged death ; checked here, helped 
 there by a moraine— as well as you or I may fore- 
 see the conduct of a chess-board. He omitted 
 nothing, judged times and seasons, reckoned de- 
 fences at their worth, knew all the fordable places 
 by the lie of the land, timed cavalry and infantry 
 to rendezvous, forestalled communications, pro- 
 vided not only for his own base, but against the 
 enemy's. All this, of course, without maps, and 
 very much against the systems of his neighbours. 
 It was thus he had outwitted the heady barons of 
 Aquitaine when little more than a lad, and had 
 turned the hill forts into death-traps against their 
 tenants. He had the secret of swift marching by 
 night, of delivering assault upon assault, so that 
 while you staggered under one blow you received 
 another full. He could be as patient as Death, 
 that inchmeal stalker of his prey ; he could be as 
 ruthless as the sea, and incredibly generous upon 
 occasion. To the men he led he was a father, 
 known and beloved as such ; it was as a ruler they 
 found him too lonely to be loved. In war he was 
 the very footboy's friend. Personally, when the 
 battles joined, he was rash to a fault ; but so 
 blithe, so ready, and so gracefully strong, that to 
 think of wounds upon so bright a surface was an 
 impiety. No one did think of them : he seemed 
 to play with danger as a cat with whirling leaves. 
 ' I have seen him,' Milo writes somewhere, ' ride 
 into a serry of knights, singing, throwing up 
 and catching again his great sword Gaynpayn ;
 
 ch.viii WAR IN THE WEST 101 
 
 then, all of a sudden, stiffen as with a gush of 
 sap in his veins, dart his head forward, gather 
 his horse together under him, and fling into the 
 midst of them like a tiger into a herd of bulls. 
 One saw nothing but tossing steel ; yet Richard 
 ever emerged, red but scatheless, on the further 
 side.' 
 
 Upon this man the brunt of war fell naturally : 
 having begun, he did not hold his hand. By the 
 beginning of February he had laid his plans, by 
 the end of it he had taken Saumur, cut Angers 
 off from Tours, and turned all the valley of the 
 Loire into a scorched cinder -bed. In the early 
 days of March he sat down before Tours with 
 his siege-engines, petraries, mangonels, and towers, 
 and daily battered at the walls, with intent to 
 reduce it before the war was really afloat. The 
 city of Saint Martin was doomed ; no help from 
 Anjou could save it, for none could come that 
 way. Meantime the King his father had landed 
 at Honfleur, assembled his Normans at Rouen, 
 and was working his way warily down through 
 the duchy, feeling for the French on his left, and 
 for the Bretons on his right. He never found 
 the French ; they were far south of him, pushing 
 through Orleans to join Richard at Le Mans. 
 But the Countess of Brittany's men, under 
 Hugh of Dinan, were sacking Avranches when 
 old Henry heard the bad news from Touraine. 
 That country and Maine were as the apple 
 of his eye ; yet he dared not leave Avranches 
 fated behind him. All he could do was to send 
 William the Marshal with a small force into
 
 102 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 Anjou, while he himself spread out westward to 
 give Hugh of Dinan battle and save Avranches, 
 if that might be. So it was that King Philip 
 slipped in between him and Le Mans. By this 
 time Richard was master of Tours, and himself 
 on the way to Le Mans, nosing the air for 
 William the Marshal. This was in the beginning 
 of April. Then on one and the same day he 
 risked all he had won for the sake of a girl's 
 proud face, and nearly lost his life into the 
 bargain. 
 
 He had to cross the river Aune above La 
 Fleche. That river, a sluggish but deep little 
 stream, moves placidly among osiers on its way 
 to swell the Loire. On either side the water- 
 meadows stretch for three-quarters of a mile; 
 low chalk -hills, fringed at the top, are ramparts 
 to the sleepy valley. Creeping along the eastern 
 spurs at dawn, Richard came in touch with his 
 enemy, William the Marshal and his force of 
 Normans and English. These had crossed the 
 bridge at La Fleche, and came pricking now 
 up the valley to save Le Mans. Heading them 
 boldly, Richard threw out his archers like a 
 waterspray over the flats, and while these checked 
 the advance and had the van in confusion, thun- 
 dered down the slopes with his knights, caught 
 the Marshal on the flank, smote him hip and 
 thigh, and swept the core of his army into the 
 river. The Marshal's battle was thus destroyed ; 
 but the wedge had made too clean a cleft. Front 
 and rear joined up and held ; so Richard found 
 himself in danger. The Viscount of Beziers,
 
 ch. viii WAR IN THE WEST 103 
 
 who led the rearguard, engaged the enemy, and 
 pushed them slowly back towards the Aune ; 
 Richard wheeled his men and charged, to take 
 them in the rear. His horse, stumbling on the 
 rotten ground, fell badly and threw him : there 
 were cries, ' Hola ! Count Richard is down ! ' 
 and some stayed to rescue and some pushed on. 
 William the Marshal, on a white horse, came 
 suddenly upon him as he lay. ' Mort de dieu ! ' 
 shrilled this good soldier, and threw up his spear 
 arm. ' God's feet, Marshal, kill one or other 
 of us ! ' said Richard lightly : he was pinned 
 down by his struggling beast. ' I leave you to 
 the devil, my lord Richard,' said the Marshal, 
 and drove his spear into the horse's chest. The 
 beast's death-plunge freed his master. Richard 
 jumped up : even on foot his head was level with 
 the rider's shield. ' Have at you now ! ' he cried ; 
 but the Marshal shook his head, and rode after 
 his flying men. The day was with Poictou, Le 
 Mans must fall. 
 
 It fell, but not yet ; nor did Richard see it fall. 
 Gaston of Beam joined his master the next day. 
 ' Hasten, hasten, fair lord ! ' he cried out as soon as 
 he saw him. Richard looked as if he had never 
 known the word. 
 
 ' What news of Normandy, Gaston ? ' 
 
 ' The English are through, Richard. The 
 country swarms with them. They hold Avranches, 
 and now are moving south.' 
 
 ' They are too late,' said Richard. ' Tell me 
 what message you have from the Fair-Girdled.' 
 
 ' Wed or unwed, she is yours. But she is kept
 
 io 4 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 in a tower until Palm Sunday. Then they bring 
 her out and marry her to what remains of a black 
 Normandy pig. Not very much remains, but (they 
 tell me) enough for the purpose.' 
 
 ' Spine of God,' said Richard, examining his 
 finger-nails. 
 
 * Swear by His heart, rather, my Count,' Gaston 
 said, ' for you have a red heart in your keeping. 
 Eh, eh, what a beautiful person is there ! She 
 leaned her body out of the window — v/hat a shape 
 that girdle confines ! Bowered roses ! Dian and 
 the Nymphs ! Bosomed familiars of old Pan ! 
 And what emerald fires ! What molten hair ! 
 The words came shortly from her, and brokenly, 
 as if her carved lips disdained such coarse uses ! 
 Richard, her words were so : " Take a message to 
 my lord," quoth she. " I am his in life or death. 
 I seek to do him service. Wed or unwed, what 
 is that to me? I am still Jehane." Thus she — 
 but I ? Well, well, my sword spake for me when 
 I carved that beef- bone bare.' The Bearnais 
 pulled his goatee, and looked at the ends of it for 
 split hairs. But Richard sat very still. 
 
 ' Do you know, Gaston, whom you have seen ? ' 
 he said presently, in a trembling whisper. 
 
 ' Perfectly well,' said the other. ' I have seen 
 a pale flower ripe for the sun.' 
 
 ' You have seen the Countess of Poictou, 
 Gaston,' said Richard, and took to his prayers. 
 
 Through these means, for the time, he was 
 held off his father's throat. But for Jehane and 
 her urgent affairs these two had grappled at Le 
 Mans. As it was, not Richard's hand was to fire
 
 ch. vin WAR IN THE WEST 105 
 
 the cradle-city which had seen King Henry at the 
 breast. Before nightfall he had made his disposi- 
 tions for a very risky business. He set aside the 
 Viscount of Beziers, Bertram Count of Roussillon, 
 Gaston of Beam, to go with him, not because they 
 were the best men by any means, but so that he 
 might leave the best men in charge. These were 
 certainly the Dauphin, the Viscount of Limoges, 
 and the Count of Angoulesme, each of whom he 
 had proved as an enemy in his day. ' Gentlemen,' 
 he said to these three, ' I am about to go upon a 
 journey. . Of you I shall require a little atten- 
 tion, certain patience, exact obedience. It will be 
 necessary that you be before the walls of Le Mans 
 in three days. Invest them, my lords, keep up 
 your communications, and wait for the French 
 King. Give no battle, offer no provocation, let 
 hunger do your affair. I know where the King 
 of England is, and shall be with you before him.' 
 He went on to be more precise, but I omit the 
 details. It was difficult for them to go wrong, 
 but if the truth is to be known, he was in a mood 
 which made him careless about that. He was free. 
 He was going on insensate adventure ; but he saw 
 his road before him once again, like a long avenue 
 of light, which Jehane made for him with a torch 
 uplifted. Before it was day, armed from head to 
 foot in chain mail, with a plain shield, and a 
 double-bladed Norman axe in his saddle-bucket, 
 he and his three companions set out on their 
 journey. They rode leisurely, with loose reins 
 and much turning in the saddle to talk, as if for a 
 meet of the hounds.
 
 106 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 Now was that vernal season of the year when 
 winds are boon, the gentle rain never far off, the 
 stars in heaven (like the flowers on earth) washed 
 momently to a freshness which urges men to be 
 pure. Riding day and night through the green 
 breadth of France, though he had been plucked 
 from the roaring pit of war, Richard (I know) 
 went with a single aim before him — to see Jehane 
 again. Nothing else in his heart, I say. What- 
 ever purpose may have lurked in his mind, in heart 
 he went clean, single in desire, chanting the canticles 
 of Mary and the Virgin Saints. It was so. He 
 had been seethed in wicked doings from his boy- 
 hood — I give him you no better than he was : 
 wild work in Poictou, the scour of hot blood ; 
 devil's work in Touraine, riotous work in Paris, 
 tyrannous in Aquitaine. He had been blown 
 upon by every ill report ; hatred against blood, 
 blasphemy against God's appointment, violence, 
 clamour, scandal against charitable dealing : all 
 these were laid to his name. He had behind him 
 a file of dead ancestors, cut -throats and worse. 
 He had faced unnameable sin and not blenched, 
 laughed where he should have wept, promised and 
 broken his promise ; to be short, he had been a 
 creature of his house and time, too young ac- 
 quainted with pride and too proud himself to deny 
 it. But now, with eyes alight like a boy's because 
 his heart was uplift, he was riding between the new- 
 budded woods, the melodies of a singing-boy on 
 his lips, and swaying before his heart's eye the 
 figure of a tall girl with green eyes and a sulky, 
 beautiful mouth. ' Lord, what is man? ' cried the
 
 ch.viii WAR IN THE WEST 107 
 
 Psalmist in dejection. ' Lord, what is man not ? ' 
 cry we, who know more of him. 
 
 His traverse took him four days and nights. 
 He rested at La Ferte, at Nogent-le-Rotrou, out- 
 side Dreux, and at Rosny. Here he stayed a day, 
 the Vigil of the Feast of Palms. He had it in 
 his mind not to see Jehane again until the very 
 moment when he might lose her.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 WILD WORK IN THE CHURCH OF GISORS 
 
 When in March the chase is up, and the hunting 
 wind searches out the fallow places of the earth, 
 love also comes questing, desire is awake ; man 
 seeks maid, and maid seeks to be sought. If man 
 or maid have loved already the case is worse ; we 
 hear love crying, but cannot tell where he is, how 
 or with what honesty to let him in. All those 
 ranging days Jehane — whether in bed cuddling her 
 letters, or at the window of her tower, watching 
 with brimmed eyes the pairing of the birds — 
 showed a proud front of sufferance, while inly her 
 heart played a wild tune. Not a crying girl, nor 
 one capable of any easy utterance, she could do 
 no more than stand still, and wonder why she was 
 most glad when most wretched. She ought to 
 have felt the taint, to love the man who had slain 
 her brother ; she might have known despair : she 
 did neither. She sat or stood, or lay in her bed, 
 and pressed to her heart with both hands the words 
 that said, ' Never doubt me, Jehane,' or ' Ma mye, 
 I shall come to you.' When he came, as he surely 
 would, he would find her a wife — ah, let him
 
 ch. ix WILD WORK 109 
 
 come, let him come in his time, so only she saw 
 him again ! 
 
 March went out in dusty squalls, and April 
 came in to the sound of the young lamb's bleat. 
 Willow-palm was golden in the hedges when the 
 King of England's men filled Normandy, and 
 Gilles de Gurdun, having been healed of his 
 wounds, rode towards Rouen at the head of his 
 levy. He went not without an understanding 
 with Saint-Pol that he should have his sister on 
 Palm Sunday in the church of Gisors. They 
 could not marry at Saint-Pol-la-Marche, because 
 Gilles was on his service and might not win so 
 far ; nor could they have married before he went, 
 because of his ill-treatment at the hands of the 
 Bearnais. Of this Gilles had made light. ' He 
 got worse than he gave,' he told Saint-Pol. ' I 
 left him dead in the wood.' 
 
 'Would you see Jehane, Gilles?' Saint -Pol 
 had asked him before he went out. ' She is in her 
 turret as meek as a mouse.' 
 
 ' Time enough for that,' said Gilles quietly. 
 ' She loves me not. But I, Eustace, love her so 
 hot that I have fear of myself. I think I will not 
 see her.' 
 
 ' As you will,' said Saint-Pol. ' Farewell.' 
 
 In Gisors, then a walled town, trembling like a 
 captive at the knees of a huge castle, there was a 
 long grey church which called Saint Sulpice lord. 
 It stood in a little square midway between the 
 South Gate and the citadel, a narrow oblong place 
 where they held the cattle market on Tuesdays, 
 flagged and planted with pollard -limes. The
 
 no RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 west door of Saint Sulpice, resting on a stepped 
 foundation, formed a solemn end to this humble 
 space, and the great gable flanked by turrets 
 threatened the huddled tenements of the craftsmen. 
 On this morning of Palm Sunday the shaven 
 crowns of the limes were budded gold and pink, 
 the sky a fair sea-blue over Gisors, with a scurrying 
 fleece of clouds like foam ; the poplars about the 
 meadows were in their first flush, all the quicksets 
 veiled in green. The town was early afoot, for 
 the wedding party of the Sieur de Gurdun was to 
 come in ; and Gurdun belonged to the Archbishop, 
 and the Archbishop to the Duke. The bride also 
 was reported unwilling, which added zest to the 
 public appetite for her known beauty. Some knew 
 for truth that she was the cast-off mistress of a very 
 great man, driven into Gurdun's arms to dispose 
 of scandal and of her. ' Eh, the minion ! ' said 
 certain sniggering old women to whom this was 
 told, * she'll not find so soft a lap at Gurdun ! ' 
 But others said, ' Gurdun is the Duke's, and will 
 one day be the Duke's son's. What will Sieur 
 Gilles do then with his straining wife ? You 
 cannot keep your hawk on the cadge for ever — 
 ah, nor hood her for ever ! ' And so on. 
 
 All this points to some public excitement. 
 The town gate was opened full early, the booths 
 about it did a great trade ; at a quarter before 
 seven Sir Gilles de Gurdun rode in, with his father 
 on his right hand, the Prior of Rouen on his left, 
 and half a dozen of his kindred, fair and solid 
 men all. They were lightly armed, clothed in 
 soft leather, without shields or any heavy war-
 
 ch. ix WILD WORK in 
 
 furniture : old Gurdun a squarely built, red-faced 
 man like his son, but with a bush of white hair all 
 about his face, and eyebrows like curved snow- 
 drifts ; the Prior (old Gurdun's brother's son) 
 with a big nose, long and pendulous ; Gilles' 
 brother Bartholomew, and others whom it would 
 be tedious to mention. Gilles himself looked 
 well knit for the business in hand ; all the old 
 women agreed that he would make a masterful 
 husband. They stabled their horses in the inn- 
 yard, and went into the church porch to await the 
 bride's party. 
 
 A trumpet at the gate announced her coming. 
 She rode on a little ambling horse beside her 
 brother Saint-Pol. With them were the portentous 
 old lady, Dame Gudule, William des Barres, a 
 very fine French knight, Nicholas d'Eu, and a 
 young boy called Eloy de Mont-Luc, a cousin of 
 Jehane's, to bear her train. The gossips at the 
 gate called her a wooden bride ; others said she 
 was like a doll, a big doll ; and others that they 
 read in her eyes the scorn of death. She took no 
 notice of anything or anybody, but looked straight 
 before her and followed where she was led. This 
 was straightway into the church by her brother, 
 who had her by the hand and seemed in a great 
 hurry. The marriage was to be made in the Lady 
 Chapel, behind the high altar. 
 
 Twenty minutes later yet, or maybe a little less, 
 there was another surging to the gate about the 
 arrival of four knights, who came posting in, 
 spattered with mud and the sweat and lather of 
 their horses. They were quite unknown to the
 
 ii2 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 people of Gisors, but seen for great men, as in- 
 deed they were. Richard of Anjou was the first of 
 them, a young man of inches incredible to Gisors. 
 ' He had a face like King Arthur's of Britain,' says 
 one : ' A red face, a tawny beard, eyes like stones.' 
 Behind him were three abreast : Roussillon, a grim, 
 dark, heavy-eyed man, bearded like a Turk ; 
 Beziers, sanguine and loose-limbed, a man with a 
 sharp tongue ; Gaston of Beam, airy hunter of fine 
 phrases, looking now like the prince of a fairy-tale, 
 with roving eyes all a-scare for adventure. The 
 warders of the gate received them with a flourish. 
 They knew nothing of them, but were certain of 
 their degree. 
 
 By preconcerted action they separated there. 
 Roussillon and Beziers sat like statues within the 
 gate, one on each side of the way, actually upon 
 the bridge ; and so remained, the admired of all 
 the booths. Gaston, like a yeoman-pricker in this 
 hunting of the roe, went with Richard to the edge 
 of the covert, that is, to the steps of Saint Sulpice, 
 and stood there holding his master's horse. What 
 remained to be done was done with extreme swift- 
 ness. Richard alone, craning his head forward, 
 stooping a little, swaying his scabbarded sword in 
 his hand, went with long soft strides into the 
 church. 
 
 At the entry he kneeled on one knee, and looked 
 about him from under his brows. Three or four 
 masses were proceeding ; out of the semi-darkness 
 shone the little twinkling lights, and illuminated 
 faintly the kneeling people, a priest's vestment, a 
 silver chalice. But here was neither marriage nor
 
 ch.ix WILD WORK 113 
 
 Jehane. He got up presently, and padded down 
 the nave, kneeling to every altar as he went. Many 
 an eye followed him as he pushed on and past the 
 curtain of the ambulatory. They guessed him for 
 the wedding, and so (God knows) he was. In the 
 shadow of a great pillar he stopped short, and again 
 went down on his knee ; from here he could see 
 the business in train. 
 
 He saw Jehane at prayer, in green and white, 
 kneeling at her faldstool like a painted lady on an 
 altar tomb ; he just saw the pure curve of her 
 cheek, the coiled masses of her hair, which seemed 
 to burn it. All the world with the lords thereof 
 was at his feet, but this treasure which he had 
 held and put away was denied him. By his own 
 act she was denied. He had said Yea, when Nay 
 had been the voice of heart and head, of honour 
 and love and reason at once ; and now (close up 
 against her) he knew that he was to forbid his 
 own grant. He knew it, I say ; but until he 
 saw her there he had not clearly known it. Go 
 on, I will show you the deeps of the man for good 
 or bad. Not lust of flesh, but of dominion, 
 ravened in him. This woman, this Jehane Saint- 
 Pol, this hot-haired slip of a girl was his. The 
 leopard had laid his paw upon her shoulder, the 
 mark was still there ; he could not suffer any other 
 beast of the forest to touch that which he had 
 printed with his own mark, for himself. 
 
 Twi-form is the leopard ; twi-natured was 
 Richard of Anjou, dog and cat. Now here was 
 all cat. Not the wolf's lust, but the lion's jealous 
 rage spurred him to the act. He could see this
 
 ii 4 RICHARD YEA-AND-N AY bk.i 
 
 beautiful thing of flesh without any longing to lick 
 or tear ; he could have seen the frail soul of it, but 
 half-born, sink back into the earth out of sight ; 
 he could have killed Jehane or made her as his 
 mother to him. But he could not see one other 
 get that which was his. His by all heaven she 
 was. When Gurdun squared himself and puffed 
 his cheeks, and stood up ; when Jehane, touched 
 by Saint -Pol on the shoulder, shivered and left 
 staring, and stood up in turn, swaying a little, and 
 held out her thin hand ; when the priest had the 
 ring on his book, and the two hands, the red and 
 the white, trembled to the touch — Richard rose 
 from his knee and stole forward with his long, soft, 
 crouching stride. 
 
 So softly he trod that the priest, old and blear- 
 eyed as he was, saw him first : the others had heard 
 nothing. With Jehane's hand in his own, the priest 
 stopped and blinked. Who was this prowler, 
 afoot when all else were on their knees ? His jaw 
 dropped ; you saw that he was toothless. Inar- 
 ticulate sounds, crackling and dry, came from his 
 throat. Richard had stopped too, tense, quivering 
 for a spring. The priest gave a prodigious sniff, 
 turned to his book, looked up again : the crouch- 
 ing man was still there — but imminent. ' Wine 
 of Jesus ! ' said the priest, and dropped Jehane's 
 hand. Then she turned. She gave a short cry ; 
 the whole assembly started and huddled together 
 as the mailed man made his spring. 
 
 It was done in a flash. From his crouched 
 attitude he went, as it seemed, at one bound. 
 That same shock drove Gilles de Gurdun back
 
 ch. ix WILD WORK 115 
 
 among his people, and the same found Jehane 
 caged in a hoop of steel. So he affronting and she 
 caught up stood together, for a moment. With 
 one mailed hand he held her fast under the arm- 
 pit, with the other he held a fidgety sword. His 
 head was thrown back ; through glimmering eye- 
 lids he watched them — as one who says, What 
 next ? — breathing short through his nose. It was 
 the attitude of the snatching lion, sudden, arrogant, 
 shockingly swift ; a gross deed, done in a flash which 
 was its wonderful beauty. While the company 
 was panting at the shock — for barely a minute — 
 he stood thus ; and Jehane, quiet under so fierce a 
 hold, leaned not upon him, but stood her own 
 feet fairly, her calm brows upon a level with his 
 chin. Shameful if it was, at that moment of rude 
 conquest she had no shame, and he no thought of 
 shame. 
 
 Nor was there much time for thought at all. 
 Gurdun cried on the name of God and started 
 forward ; at the same instant Saint-Pol made a 
 rush, and with him Des Barres. Richard, with 
 Jehane held close, went backwards on the way he 
 had come in. His long arm and long sword kept 
 his distance ; he worked them like a scythe. 
 None tackled him there, though they followed 
 him up as dogs a boar in the forest ; but old 
 Gurdun, the father, ran round the other way to 
 hold the west door. Richard, having gained the 
 nave and open country (as it were), went swiftly 
 down it, carrying Jehane with ease ; he found the 
 strenuous old man before the door. ' Out of 
 my way, Dc Gurdun,' he cried in a high singing
 
 n6 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 voice, ' or I shall do that which I shall be sorry 
 for.' 
 
 ' Bloody thief,' shouted old Gurdun, ' add murder 
 to the rest ! ' Richard stretched his sword-arm stiffly 
 and swept him aside. He tumbled back ; the 
 crowd received him — priests, choristers, peasants, 
 knights, all huddled together, baying like dogs. 
 Count Richard strode down the steps. 
 
 ' Alavi ! Alavia ! ' sang Gaston, ' this is a swift 
 marriage ! ' Richard, cooler than circumstances 
 warranted, set Jehane on his saddle, vaulted up 
 behind her, and as his pursuers were tumbling 
 down the steps, cantered over the flags into the 
 street. Roussillon and Beziers, holding the bridge, 
 saw him come. ' He has snatched his Sabine 
 woman,' said Beziers. ' Humph,' said Roussillon ; 
 'now for beastly war.' Richard rode straight 
 between them at a hand-gallop ; Gaston followed 
 close, cheering his beast like a maniac. Then the 
 iron pair turned inwards and rode out together, 
 taking the way he led them, the way of the Dark 
 Tower. 
 
 The wonder of Gisors was all dismay when it 
 was learned who this tall stranger was. The 
 Count of Poictou had ridden into his father's 
 country and robbed his father's man of his wife. 
 We are ruled by devils in Normandy, then ! 
 There was no immediate pursuit. Saint-Pol knew 
 where to find him ; but (as he told William des 
 Barres) it was useless to go there without some 
 force.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 NIGHT-WORK BY THE DARK TOWER 
 
 I chronicle wild doings in this place, and have 
 no time for the sweets of love long denied. But 
 strange as the bridal had been, so the nuptials 
 were strange, one like the other played to a steel 
 undertone. When Richard had his Jehane, at 
 first he could not enjoy her. He rode away with 
 her like a storm ; the way was long, the pace 
 furious. Not a word had passed between them, 
 at least not a reasoned word. Once or twice at 
 first he leaned forward over her shoulder and set 
 his cheek to her glowing cheek. Then she, as 
 if swayed by a tide, strained back to him, and 
 felt his kisses hot and eager, his few and pelting 
 words, 'My bride- — at last — my bride!' and 
 the pressure of his hand upon her heart. That 
 hand knows what tune the heart drummed out. 
 Mostly she sat up before him stiff as a sapling, 
 with eyes and ears wide for any hint of pursuit. 
 But he felt her tremble, and knew she would be 
 glad of him yet. 
 
 After all, they had six burning days for a 
 honeymoon, days which made those three who
 
 n8 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 with them held the tower wonder how such a 
 match could continue. Richard's love rushed 
 through him like a river in flood, that brims its 
 banks and carries down bridges by its turbid 
 mass ; but hers was like the sea, unresting, 
 ebbing, flowing, without aim or sure direction. 
 As is usual with reserved persons, Jehane's trans- 
 ports, far from assuaging, tormented her, or 
 seemed a torment. She loved uneasily, by hot 
 and cold fits ; now melting, now dry, now 
 fierce in demand, next passionate in refusal. To 
 snatch of love succeeded repulsion of love. She 
 would fling herself headlong into Richard's arms, 
 and sob there, feverish ; then, as suddenly, struggle 
 for release, as one who longs to hide herself, and 
 finding that refused, lie motionless like a woman 
 of wax. Whether embraced or not, out of touch 
 with him she was desperate. She could not bear 
 that, but sought (unknown to him) to have hold 
 of some part of him — the edge of his tunic, the 
 tip of his sword, his glove — something she must 
 have. Without it she sat quivering, throbbing all 
 over, looking at him from under her brows and 
 biting her dumb lips. If at such a time as this 
 some other addressed her the word (as, to free 
 her from her anguish, one would sometimes do), 
 she would perhaps answer him, Yes or No, but 
 nothing more. Usually she would shake her head 
 impatiently, as if all the world and its affairs (like 
 a cloud of flies) were buzzing about her, shutting 
 out sound or sight of her Richard. Love like 
 this, so deep, outwardly still, inwardly ravening 
 (because insatiable), is a dreadful thing. No one
 
 ch. x NIGHT- WORK 119 
 
 who saw Jehane with Richard in those days could 
 hope for the poor girl's happiness. As for him, 
 he was more expansive, not at all tortured by love, 
 master of that as of everything else. He teased 
 her after the first day, pinched her ear, held her 
 by the chin. He used his strange powers against 
 her ; stole up on his noiseless feet, caught her 
 hands behind her, held her fast, and pulled her 
 back to be kissed. Once he lifted her up, a sure 
 prisoner, to the top shelf of a cupboard, whence 
 there was no escape but by the way she had gone. 
 She stayed there quite silent, and when he opened 
 the cupboard doors was found in the same tremu- 
 lous, expectant state, her eyes still fixed upon him. 
 Neither he nor she, publicly at least, discussed the 
 past, the present or future ; but it was known that 
 he meant to make her his Countess as soon as he 
 could reach Poictiers. To the onlookers, at any 
 rate to one of them, it seemed that this could never 
 be, and that she knew very well that the hours 
 of this sharp, sweet, piercing intercourse were 
 numbered. How could it last ? How could 
 she find either reason or courage to hope it ? It 
 seemed to Beziers, on the watch, that she was 
 awaiting the end already. One is fretted to a 
 rag by waiting. So Jehane dared not lose a 
 moment of Richard, yet could enjoy not one, 
 knowing that she must soon lose all. 
 
 Those six clear days of theirs had been wiselier 
 spent upon the west road ; but Richard's desire 
 outmastered every thought. Having snatched 
 Jehane from the very horns of the altar, he must 
 hold her, make her his irrevocably at the first
 
 120 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 breathing place. Dealing with any but Normans, 
 he had never had his six days. But the Norman 
 people, as Abbot Milo says, ' slime-blooded, slow- 
 bellies, are withal great eaters of beef, which breeds 
 in them, as well as a heaviness of motion, a certain 
 slumbrous rage very dangerous to mankind. They 
 crop grief after grief, chewing the cud of grievance ; 
 for when they are full of it they disgorge and re- 
 gorge the abhorred sum, and have stuff for their 
 spleens for many a year.' Even more than this 
 smouldering nursed hate they love a punctilio ; 
 they walk by forms, whether the road is 'to a lady's 
 heart or an enemy's throat. And so Saint-Pol 
 found, and so Des Barres, Frenchmen both and 
 fiery young men, who shook their fists in the 
 faces of the Gurduns and the dust of such 
 blockish hospitallers off their feet, when they 
 saw the course affairs were to run. Gilles de 
 Gurdun, if you will believe it, with the advice of his 
 father and the countenance of his young brother 
 Bartholomew, would not budge an inch towards 
 the recovery of his wife or her ravisher's punish- 
 ment until he had drawn out his injury fair on 
 parchment. This he then proposed to carry to 
 his Duke, old King Henry. ' Thus,' said the 
 swart youth, ' I shall be within the law of my 
 land, and gain the engines of the law on my 
 side.' He seemed to think this important. 
 
 ' With your accursed scruples,' cried Saint-Pol, 
 smiting the table, ' you will gain nothing else. 
 Within your country's law, blockhead ! Why, 
 my sister is within the Count's country by this 
 time ! '
 
 ch. x NIGHT-WORK 121 
 
 ' Oh, leave him, leave him, Eustace,' said Des 
 Barres, ' and come with me. We shall meet him 
 in the fair way yet, you and I together.' So the 
 Frenchmen rode away, and Gilles, with his father 
 and his parchments and his square forehead, went 
 to Evreux, where King Henry then was. Kneeling 
 before their Duke, expounding their gravamens as 
 if they were suing out a writ of Mort d 'Ancestor \ 
 they very soon found out that he was no more 
 a Norman than Saint-Pol. The old King made 
 
 m O 
 
 short work of their ' ut •predict um ests ' and ' Quae- 
 sumus igiturs? 
 
 ' Good sirs,' says he, knitting his brows, ' where 
 is this lord who has done you so much injury ? ' 
 
 ' My lord,' they report, ' he has her in his 
 strong tower on the plain of Saint-Andre, some 
 ten leagues from here.' 
 
 Then cries the old King, ' Smoke him out, you 
 fools ! What ! a badger. Draw the thief 
 
 Then Gilles the elder flattened his lips together 
 and afterwards pursed them. ' Lord,' he said, 
 ' that we dare not do without your express com- 
 mandment.' 
 
 ' Why, why,' snaps the King, ' if I give it you, 
 my solemn fools ? ' 
 
 Young Gilles stood up, a weighty youth. 
 ' Lord Duke,' he said, ' this lord is the Count of 
 Poictou, your son.' It had been a fine sight for 
 sinful men to see the eyes of the old King strike 
 fire at this word. His speech, they tell me, was 
 terrible, glutted with rage. 
 
 ' Ha, God ! ' he spluttered, cracking his fingers, 
 ' so my Richard is the badger, ha ? So then I
 
 122 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 have him, ha ? If I do not draw him myself, by 
 the Face ! ' 
 
 It is said that Longespee (a son of his by Madame 
 Rosamund) and Geoffrey (another bastard), with 
 Bohun and De Lacy and some more, tried to 
 hinder him in this design, wherein (said they) he 
 set out to be a second Thyestes ; but they might 
 as well have bandied words with destiny. ' War 
 is war,' said the foaming old man, ' whether with 
 a son or a grandmother you make it. Shall my 
 enemy range the field and I sit at home and lap 
 caudle ? That is not the way of my house.' He 
 would by all means go that night, and called for 
 volunteers. His English barons, to their credit, 
 flatly refused either to entrap the son of their 
 master or to abandon the city at a time so critical. 
 * What, sire ! ' cried they, ' are private resent- 
 ments, like threadworms, to fret the dams of the 
 state ? The floods are out, my lord King, and 
 brimming at the sluices. Be advised therefore.' 
 
 No wearer of the cap of Anjou was ever 
 advised yet. I can hear in fancy the gnashing of 
 the old lion's fangs, in fancy see the foam he 
 churned at the corners of his mouth. He went 
 out with such men as he could gather in his haste, 
 nineteen of them in all. There were old Gilles and 
 young Gilles with their men ; eight of the King's 
 own choosing, namely, Drago de Merlou, Armand 
 Taillefer, the Count of Ponthieu, Fulk Perceforest, 
 Fulk D'Oilly, Gilbert FitzReinfrid, Ponce the 
 bastard of Caen, and a butcher called Rolf, to 
 whom the King, mocking all chivalry, gave the 
 gilt spurs before he started. He did not wear
 
 ch. x NIGHT-WORK 123 
 
 them long. The nineteenth was that great king, 
 bad man, and worse father, Henry Curtmantle 
 himself. 
 
 It was a very dark night, without moon or 
 stars, a hot and still night wherein a man weather- 
 wise might smell the rain. The going upon the 
 moor was none too good in a good light ; yet 
 they tell me that the old King went spurring over 
 brush and scrub, over tufted roots, through ridge 
 and hollow, with as much cheer as if the hunt was 
 up in Venvil Wood and himself a young man. 
 When his followers besought him to take heed, 
 all he would do was snap his fingers, the reins 
 dangling loose, and cry to the empty night, ' Hue, 
 Brock, hue ! ' as if he was baiting a badger. This 
 badger was the heir to his crown and dignity. 
 
 In the Dark Tower they heard him coming 
 three miles away. Roussillon was on the battle- 
 ments, and came down to report horsemen on the 
 plain. ' Lights out,' said Richard, and gave 
 Jehane a kiss as he set her down. They blew 
 out all the lights, and stood two to each door ; no 
 one spoke any more. Jehane sat by the darkened 
 fire with a torch in her hand, ready to light it 
 when she was bid. 
 
 Thus when the Normans drew near they found 
 the tower true to its name, without a glimmer of 
 light. ' Let alone for that,' said the King, whose 
 grating voice they heard above all the others ; 
 ' very soon we will have a fire.' He sent some 
 of his men to gather brushwood, ling, and dead 
 bracken ; meantime he began to beat at the door 
 with his axe, crying like a madman, ' Richard !
 
 i2 4 RICHARD YEA- AND-N AY bk. i 
 
 Richard ! Thou graceless wretch, come out of thy 
 hold.' 
 
 Presently a little window -casement opened 
 above him ; Gaston of Beam poked out his head. 
 
 'Beau sire,' he says, 'what entertainment is 
 this for the Count your son ? ' 
 
 ' No son of mine, by the Face ! ' cried the 
 King. ' Let that woman I have caged at home 
 answer for him, who defies me for ever. Let me 
 in, thou sickly dog.' 
 
 Gaston said, ' Beau sire, you shall come in if 
 you will, and if you come in peace.' 
 
 Says the King, ' I will come in, by God, and as 
 I will.' 
 
 ' Foul request, King,' said Gaston, and shut 
 the window. 
 
 ' Have it as you will ; it shall be foul by-and- 
 by,' the King shouted to the night. He bid them 
 fire the place. 
 
 To be short, they heaped a wood-stack before 
 the door and set it ablaze. The crackling, the 
 tossed flames, the leaping light, made the King 
 drunk. He and his companions began capering 
 about the fire with linked arms, hounding each 
 other on with the cries of countrymen who draw a 
 badger — ' Loo, loo, Vixen ! Slip in, lass ! Hue, 
 Brock, hue, hue ! ' and similar gross noises, until 
 for very shame Gilles and his kindred drew apart, 
 saying to each other, ' We have let all hell loose, 
 Legion and his minions.' So the two companies, 
 the grievous and the aggrieved, were separate ; 
 and Richard, seeing this state of the case, took 
 Roussillon and Beziers out by the other door, got
 
 ch.x NIGHT-WORK 125 
 
 behind the dancers, attacked suddenly, and drove 
 three of them into the fire. ' There,' says the 
 chronicler, ' the butcher Sir Rolf got a taste of his 
 everlasting torments, there FitzReinfrid lay and 
 charred ; there Ponce of Caen, ill born, made a 
 foul smoke as became him.' Turning to go in 
 again, the three were confronted with the Norman 
 segregates. Great work ensued by the light of 
 the fire. Gilles the elder was slain with an axe, 
 and if with an axe, then Richard slew him, for 
 he alone was so armed. Gilles the younger was 
 wounded in the thigh, but that was Roussillon's 
 work ; his brother Bartholomew was killed by the 
 same terrific hitter ; Beziers lost a finger of his 
 sword hand, and indeed the three barelv got in 
 with their lives. The old King set up howling 
 like a wolf in famine at this loss ; what comforted 
 him was that the fire had eaten up the southern 
 door and disclosed the entry of the tower — 
 Jehane holding up a torch, and before her Gaston, 
 Richard, and Bertram of Roussillon, their shields 
 hiding their breasts. 
 
 'Lords,' said Richard, 'we await your leisures.' 
 None cared to attack : there was the fire to cross, 
 and in that narrow entry three desperate blades. 
 What could the old King do? He threatened hell 
 and death, he cursed his son more dreadfully, and 
 (you may take it) with far less reason, than Almighty 
 God cursed Sodom and Gomorrah, cities of the 
 plain ; but Richard made no answer, and when, 
 quite beside himself, the old man leaped the fire 
 and came hideously on to the swords, the points 
 dropped at his son's direction. Almost crying,
 
 126 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 the King turned to his followers. ' Taillefer, will 
 you see me dishonoured ? Where is Ponthieu ? 
 Where is Drago ? ' So at last they all attacked 
 together, coming on with their shields before 
 them, in a phalanx. This was a device that 
 needs must fail; they could not drive a wedge 
 where they could not get in the point. The 
 three defending shields were locked in the entry. 
 Two men fell at the first assault, and Richard's 
 terrible axe crashed into Perceforest's skull and 
 scattered his brains wide. Red and breathless 
 work as it was, it was not long a-doing. The 
 King was dismayed at the killing of Perceforest, 
 and dared risk no more lives at such long odds. 
 ' Fire the other door, Drago,' he said grimly. 
 'We'll have the place down upon them.' The 
 Normans were set to engage the three while 
 others went to find fuel. 
 
 The Viscount of Beziers had had his hand 
 dressed by Jehane, and was now able to take his 
 turn. It was by a ruse of his that Richard got 
 away without a life lost. With Jehane to help 
 him, he got the horses trapped and housed. 
 ' Now, Richard,' he said, ' listen to my pro- 
 posals. I am going to open the north door 
 and make away before they fire it. I shall have 
 half of them after me, as I reckon ; but whereas 
 I shall have a good start on a fresh horse, I doubt 
 not of escape. Do you manage the rest : there 
 will be three of you.' 
 
 Richard approved. ' Go, Raimon,' he said. 
 ' We will join you on the edge of the plain.' 
 
 This was done. Jehane, when Beziers was
 
 ch. x NIGHT-WORK 127 
 
 ready, flung open the door. Out he shot like a 
 bolt, and she shut it behind him. The old King 
 got wind of him, spurred ofF with five or six at 
 his heels, such as happened to be mounted. 
 Richard fell back from the entry, got out his 
 horse, and came forward. As he came he 
 stooped and picked up Jehane, who, with a 
 quick nestling movement, settled into his shield 
 arm. Roussillon and Gaston in like manner got 
 their horses ; then at a signal they drove out of 
 the tower into the midst of the Normans. There 
 was a wild scuffle. Richard got a side blow on 
 the knee, but in return he caught Drago de 
 Merlou under the armpit and well-nigh cut him 
 in half. Taillefer and Gilles de Gurdun set upon 
 him together, and one of them wounded him in 
 the shoulder. But Taillefer got more than he 
 gave, for he fell almost as he delivered his blow, 
 and broke his jaw against a rock. As for 
 Gurdun, Richard hurtled full into him, bore 
 him backwards, and threw him also. Jehane 
 safe in arms, he rode over him where he lay. 
 But lastly, pounding through the tussocks in the 
 faint grey light, he met his father charging full 
 upon him, intent to cut him off. ' Avoid me, 
 father,' he cried out. ' By God,' said the King, 
 ' I will not. I am for you, traitorous beast.' 
 They came together, and Richard heard the old 
 man's breath roaring like a foundered horse's. 
 He held his sword-arm out stiffly to parry the 
 blow. The King's sword shivered and fell harm- 
 less as Richard shot by him. Turning as he rode 
 (to be sure he had done him no more hurt), he
 
 128 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 saw the wicked grey face of his father cursing him 
 beyond redemption ; and that was the last living 
 sight of it he had. 
 
 They got clean away without the loss of a 
 man of theirs, reached the lands of the Count 
 of Perche, and there found a company of sixty 
 knights come out to look for Richard. With 
 them he rode down through Maine to Le Mans, 
 which had fallen, and now held the French King. 
 Richard's triumphant humour carried him strange 
 lengths. As they came near to the gates of Le 
 Mans, ' Now,' he said, ' they shall see me, like a 
 pious knight, bear my holy banner before me.' 
 He made Jehane stand up in the saddle in front 
 of him ; he held her there firmly by one long 
 arm. So he rode in the midst of his knights 
 through the thronged streets to the church of 
 Saint-Julien, Jehane Saint-Pol pillared before him 
 like a saint. The French King made much of 
 him, and to Jehane was respectful. Prince John 
 was there, the Duke of Burgundy, the Dauphin 
 of Auvergne, all the great men. To Richard was 
 given the Bishop's house ; Jehane stayed with the 
 Canonesses of Premonstre. But he saw her every 
 day.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 OF PROPHECY ; AND JEHANE IN THE PERILOUS 
 
 BED 
 
 Well may the respectable Abbot Milo despond 
 over this affair. Hear him, and conceive how he 
 shook his head. c O too great power of princes,' 
 he writes, ' lodged in a room too frail ! O wag- 
 ging bladder that serves as cushion for a crown ! 
 O swayed by idle breath, seeming god that yet is a 
 man, man driven by windy passion, that has yet 
 to ape the god's estate ! Because Richard craved 
 this French girl, therefore he must take her, as it 
 were, from the lap of her mother. Because he 
 taught her his nobility, which is the mere wind 
 in a prince's nose, she taught him nobility again. 
 Then because a prince must not be less noble than 
 his nobles (but always primus inter pares), he, 
 seeing her nobly disposed, gave her over to a man 
 of her own choosing ; and immediately after, un- 
 able to bear it that a common person should have 
 what he had touched, took her away again, doing 
 slaughter to get her, to say nothing of outrage in 
 the church. Last of all, as you are now to hear, 
 thinking that too much handling was dishonour to 
 
 K
 
 130 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 the thin vessel of her body, touched on the 
 generous spot, he made bad worse ; he added folly 
 to force ; he made a marriage where none could 
 be ; he made immortal enmities, blocked up 
 appointed roads, and set himself to walk others 
 with a clog on his leg. Better far had she been 
 a wanton of no account, a piece of dalliance, a 
 pastime, a common delight ! She was very 
 much other than that. Dame Jehane was a good 
 girl, a noble girl, a handsome girl of inches and 
 bright blood ; but by the Lord God of Israel 
 (Who died on the Tree), these virtues cost her 
 dear.' 
 
 All this, we may take it, is true ; the pity is 
 that the thing promised so fair. Those who had 
 not known Jehane before were astonished at her 
 capacity, discretion, and dignity. She had a part 
 to play at Le Mans, where Richard kept his Easter, 
 which would have taxed a wiser head. She moved 
 warily, a poor thing of gauze, amid those great 
 lights. King Philip had a tender nose ; a very 
 whiff of offence might have drawn blood. Prince 
 John had a shrewd eye and an evil way of using 
 it ; he stroked women, but they seldom liked it, 
 and never found good come of it. The Duke of 
 Burgundy ate and drank too much. He resembled 
 a sponge, when empty too rough a customer, 
 when full too juicy. It was on one of the days 
 when he was very full that, tilting at the ring, he 
 won, or said he won, forty pounds of Richard. 
 Empty, he claimed them, but Richard discerned a 
 rasp in his manner of asking, and laughed at him. 
 The Duke of Burgundy took this ill. He was
 
 ch. xi PROPHECY 131 
 
 never quite the same to Richard again ; but he 
 made great friends with Prince John. 
 
 With all these, and with their courtiers, who 
 took complexion from their masters, Jehane had 
 to hold the fair way. As a mistress who was to 
 be a wife, the veiled familiarity with which she was 
 treated was always preaching to her. How dare 
 she be a Countess who was of so little account 
 already ? The poor girl felt herself doomed 
 beforehand. What king's mistress had ever been 
 his wife ? And how could she be Richard's wife, 
 betrothed to Gilles de Gurdun? Richard was 
 much afield in these days, making military dis- 
 positions against his coming absence in Poictou. 
 She saw him rarely ; but in return she saw his 
 peers, and had to keep her head high among the 
 women of the French court. And so she did 
 until one day, as she was walking back from mass 
 with her ladies, she saw her brother Saint-Pol on 
 horseback, him and William des Barres. Timidly 
 she would have slipped by ; but Saint-Pol saw her, 
 reined up his horse in the middle of the street, and 
 stared at her as if she had been less than nothing 
 to him. She felt her knees fail her, she grew 
 vividly red, but she kept her way. After this 
 terrible meeting she dared not leave the convent. 
 
 Of course she was quite safe. Saint-Pol could 
 not do anything against the conqueror of Touraine, 
 the ally of his master ; but she felt tainted, and 
 had thoughts (not for the first time) of taking the 
 veil. One woman had already taken it ; she 
 heard much concerning Madame Alois from the 
 Canonesses, how she had a little cell at Fontevrault
 
 1 32 RICHARD YEA-AND-N AY bk. i 
 
 among the nuns there, how she shivered with cold 
 in the hottest sun, how she shrieked o' nights, how 
 chattered to herself, and how she used a cruel dis- 
 cipline. All these things working upon Jehane's 
 mind made her love an agony. Many and many 
 a time when her royal lover came to visit her she 
 clung to him with tears, imploring him to cast her 
 off again ; but the more she bewailed the more he 
 pursued his end. In truth he was master by this 
 time, and utterly misconceived her. Nothing she 
 might say or do could stay him from his intent, 
 which was to wed and afterwards crown her 
 Countess of Poictou. This was to be done at 
 Pentecost, as the only reparation he could make 
 her. 
 
 Not even what befell on the way to Poictiers 
 for this very thing could alter him. Again he 
 misread her, or was too full of what he read in 
 himself to read her at all. They left Le Mans a 
 fortnight before Pentecost with a great train of 
 lords and ladies, Richard looking like a young 
 god, with the light of easy mastery shining in his 
 eyes. She, poor girl, might have been going to 
 the gallows — and before the end of the journey 
 would thankfully have gone there ; and no wonder. 
 Listen to this. 
 
 Midway between Chatelherault and Poictiers 
 is a sandy waste covered with scrub of juniper 
 and wild plum, which contrives a living by some 
 means between great bare rocks. It is a discon- 
 solate place, believed to be the abode of devils 
 and other damned spirits. Now, as they were 
 riding over this desert, picking their way among
 
 ch.xi PROPHECY 133 
 
 the boulders at the discretion of their animals, 
 it so happened that Richard and Jehane were in 
 front by some forty paces. Riding so, presently 
 Jehane gave a short gasping cry, and almost fell 
 off her horse. She pointed with her hand, and 
 ' Look, look, look ! ' she said in a dry whisper. 
 There at a little distance from them was a leper, 
 who sat scratching himself on a rock. 
 
 ' Ride on, ride on, my heart,' said Richard ; 
 but she, ' No, no, he is coming. We must wait.' 
 Her voice was full of despair. 
 
 The leper came jumping from rock to rock, 
 a horrible thing of rags and sores, with a loose 
 lower jaw, which his disease had fretted to dis- 
 location. He stood in their mid path, in full sun, 
 and plucking at his disastrous eyes, peered upon 
 the gay company. By this time all the riders were 
 clustered together before him, and he fingered 
 them out one after another — Richard, whom he 
 called the Red Count, Gaston, Beziers, Auvergne, 
 Limoges, Mercadet ; but at Jehane he pointed 
 long, and in a voice between a croak and a 
 clatter (he had no palate), said thrice, ' Hail 
 thou ! ' 
 
 She replied faintly, ' God be good to thee, 
 brother.' He kept his finger still upon her as he 
 spoke again : every one heard his words. 
 
 ' Beware (he said) the Count's cap and the 
 Count's bed ; for so sure as thou liest in either 
 thou art wife of a dead man, and of his killer.' 
 Jehane reeled, and Richard held her up. 
 
 ' Begone, thou miserable,' he cried in his high 
 voice, ' lest I pity thee no more.' But the leper
 
 134 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY br.i 
 
 was capering away over the rocks, hopping and 
 flapping his arms like an old raven. At a safe 
 distance he squatted down and watched them, 
 his chin on his bare knees. 
 
 This frightened Jehane so much that in the 
 refectory of a convent, where they stayed the 
 night, she could hardly see her victual for tears, 
 nor eat it for choking grief. She exhausted her- 
 self by entreaties. Milo says that she was heard 
 crying out at Richard night after night, conjur- 
 ing him by Christ on the Cross, and Mary at the 
 foot of the Cross, not to turn love into a stabbing 
 blade ; but all to no purpose. He soothed and 
 petted her, he redoubled her honours, he com- 
 pelled her to love him ; and the more she agonised 
 the more he was confident he would right her. 
 
 Very definitely and with unexampled profusion 
 he provided for her household and estate as soon 
 as he was at home. Kings' daughters were among 
 her honourable women, at least, counts' daughters, 
 daughters of viscounts and castellans. She had 
 Lady Saill of Ventadorn, Lady Elis of Mont- 
 fort, Lady Tibors, Lady Maent, Lady Beatrix, all 
 fully as noble, and two of them certainly more 
 beautiful than she. Lady Saill and Lady Elis 
 were the most lovely women of Aquitaine, Saill 
 with a face like a flame, Elis clear and cold as 
 spring water in the high rocks. He gave her a 
 chancellor of her seal, a steward of the household, 
 a bishop for chaplain. Viscount Ebles of Venta- 
 dorn was her champion, and Bertran de Born 
 (who had been doing secret mischief in the south, 
 as you will learn by-and-by), if you will believe
 
 ch. xi PROPHECY 135 
 
 it, Bertran de Born was forgiven and made her 
 trobador. It was at a great Court of Love which 
 Richard caused to be held in the orchards 
 outside Poictiers, with pavilions and a Chastel 
 d' Amors, that Bertran came in and was forgiven 
 for the sake of his great singing. On a white 
 silk tribune before the castle sat Jehane, in a 
 red gown, upon her golden head a circlet of dull 
 silver, with the leaves and thorns which made up 
 the coronet of a countess. Richard bade sound 
 the silver trumpets, and his herald proclaim her 
 three times, to the north, to the east, and to 
 the south, as ' the most puissant and peerless 
 princess, Madame Jehane, by the grace of God 
 Countess of Poictou, Duchess of Aquitaine, con- 
 sort of our illustrious dread lord Monsire Richard, 
 Count and Duke of the same.' Himself, gloriously 
 attired in a bliaut of white velvet and gold, with 
 a purple cloak over his shoulder, sustained in a 
 tenzon with the chief trobadors of Languedoc, 
 that she was ' the most pleasant lovely lady now 
 on earth, or ever known there since the days of 
 Madame Dido, Queen of Carthage, and Madame 
 Cleopatra, Empress of Babylon ' — unfortunate 
 examples both, as some thought. 
 
 Minstrels and poets of the greatest contended 
 with him ; Saill had her champion in Guillem of 
 Cabestaing, Elis in Girault of Borneilh ; the Dauphin 
 of Auvergne sang of Tibors, and Peire Vidal of 
 Lady Maent. Towards the end came sideways in 
 that dishevelled red fox (whom nothing shamed), 
 Bertran de Born himself, looked askance at the 
 Count, puffed out his cheeks to give himself
 
 136 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 assurance, and began to sing of Jehane in a way that 
 brought tears to Richard's eyes. It was Bertran 
 who dubbed her with the name she ever after- 
 wards went by throughout Poictou and the south, 
 the name of Bel Vezer. Richard at the end clipped 
 him in his arms, and with one arm still round his 
 wicked neck led him to the tribune where Jehane 
 sat blushing. ' Take him into your favour, Lady 
 Bel Vezer,' he said to her. * Whatever his heart 
 may be, he hath a golden tongue.' Jehane, stoop- 
 ing, lent him her cheek, and Bertran fairly kissed 
 her whom he had sought to undo. Then turning, 
 fired with her favour, he let his shrill voice go 
 spiring to heaven in her praise. 
 
 For these feats Bertran was appointed to her 
 household, as I have said. He made no secret of 
 his love for her, but sang of her night and day, and 
 delighted Richard's generous heart. But indeed 
 Jehane won the favour of most. If she was not so 
 beautiful as Saill, she was more courteous, if not so 
 pious as Elis, more the woman for that. There 
 were many, misled by her petulant lips and 
 watchful eyes, to call her sulky : these did not 
 judge her silence favourably. They thought her 
 cold, and so she was to all but one ; their eyes 
 might have told them what she was to him, and 
 how when they met in love, to kiss or cling, their 
 two souls burned together. And if she made a 
 sweet lover, she promised to be a rare Countess. 
 Her judgment was never at fault ; she was noble, 
 and her sedate gravity showed her to be so. She 
 was no talker, and had great command over her- 
 self ; but she was more pale than by ordinary, and
 
 ch.xi PROPHECY 137 
 
 her eyes were burning bright. The truth was, she 
 was in a fever of apprehension, restless, doomed, 
 miserable ; devouringly in love, yet dreading to be 
 loved. So, more and more evidently in pain, she 
 walked her part through the blare of festival as 
 Pentecost drew nigh. 
 
 ' Upon that day,' to quote the mellifluous 
 abbot, ' Upon that day when in leaping tongues 
 the Spirit of God sat upon the heads of the Holy 
 Apostles, and gave letters to the unlettered and 
 to the speechless Its own nature, Count Richard 
 wedded Dame Jehane, and afterwards crowned her 
 Countess with his own hands. 
 
 ' They put her, crying bitterly, into the Count's 
 bed in the Castle of Poictiers on the evening of the 
 same feast. Weeping also, but at a later day, I 
 saw her crowned again at Angers with the Count's 
 cap of Anjou. So to right her and himself Count 
 Richard did both the greatest wrong of all.' 
 
 Much more pageantry followed the marriage. 
 I admire Milo's account. ' He held a tournament 
 after this, when the Count and the party of the 
 castle maintained the field against all comers. 
 There was great jousting for six days, I assure 
 you ; for I saw the whole of it. No English 
 knights were there, nor any from Anjou ; but a 
 few French (without King Philip's goodwill), many 
 Gascons and men of Toulouse and the Limousin ; 
 some from over the mountains, from Navarre, and 
 Santiago, and Castile ; there also came the Count 
 of Champagne with his friends. King Sancho of 
 Navarre was excessively friendly, with a gift of 
 six white stallions, all housed, for Dame Jehane ;
 
 138 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 nobody knew why or wherefore at the time, except 
 Bertran de Born (O thief unrepentant ! ). 
 
 ' Countess Jehane, with her ladies, being set in a 
 great balcony of red and white roses, herself all in 
 rose-coloured silk with a chaplet of purple flowers, 
 the first day came Count Richard in green armour 
 and a surcoat of the same embroidered with a 
 naked man, a branch of yellow broom in his 
 helm. None held up against him that day ; the 
 Duke of Burgundy fell and brake his collar-bone. 
 The second day he drove into the melee suddenly, 
 when there was a great press of spears, all in red 
 with a flaming sun on his breast. He sat a blood- 
 horse of Spain, bright chestnut colour and housed 
 in red. Then, I tell you, we saw horses and men 
 sunder their loves. The third day Pedro de 
 Vaqueiras, a knight from Santiago, encountered 
 him in his silver armour, when he rode a horse 
 white as the Holy Ghost. By a chance blow the 
 Spaniard bore him back on to the crupper. There 
 was a great shout, " The Count is down ! Look 
 to the castle, Poictou ! ' Dame Jehane turned 
 colour of ash, for she remembered the leper's 
 prophecy, and knew that De Vaqueiras loved her. 
 But Richard recovered himself quickly, crying, 
 "Have at you again, Don Pedro." So they 
 brought fresh spears, and down went De Vaqueiras 
 on his back, his horse upon him. To be plain, not 
 Hector raging over the field with shouts for Achilles, 
 nor flamboyant Achilles spying after Hector, nor 
 Hannibal at Cannae, Roland in the woody pass 
 of Roncesvalles, nor the admired Lancelot, nor 
 Tristram dreadful in the Cornish isle — not one of
 
 ch.xi PROPHECY 139 
 
 these heroes was more gloriously mighty than 
 Count Richard. Like the war-horse of Job (the 
 prophet and afflicted man) he stamped with his 
 foot and said among the captains "ha ha ! ' His 
 nostrils scented the battle from very far off ; he 
 set on like the quarrell of a bow, and gathering 
 force as he went, came rocking into his adversary 
 like galley against galley. With all this he was 
 gentle, had a pleasant laugh. It was good to be 
 struck down by such a man, if it ever can be good. 
 He bore away opposition as he bore away the 
 knights.' 
 
 If one half of this were true, and no man in 
 steel could withstand him, how could circumstance, 
 how could she, this slim and frightened girl ? Mad 
 indeed with love and pride, quite beside herself, 
 she forgot for once her tremors and qualms. On 
 the last day she fell panting upon his breast ; and 
 he, a great lover, kissed her before them all, and 
 lifted her high in his hands. ' Oyez, my lords ! ' 
 he cried with a mighty voice, ' Is this a lovely wife 
 I have won, or not? ' They answered him with a 
 shout. 
 
 He took her a progress about his country after- 
 wards. From Poictiers they went to Limoges, 
 thence westward to Angoulesme, and south to 
 Perigueux, to Bazas, to Cahors, Agen, even to 
 Dax, which is close to the country of the King 
 of Navarre. Wherever he led her she was hailed 
 with joy. Young girls met her with flowers in 
 their hands, wise men came kneeling, offering 
 the keys of their towns ; the youth sang songs 
 below her balcony, the matrons made much of her
 
 i 4 o RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 and asked her searching questions. They saw 
 in her a very superb and handsome Duchess, 
 Jehane of the Fair Girdle, now acclaimed in the 
 soft syllables of Aquitaine as Bel Vezer. When 
 they were at Dax the wise King of Navarre sent 
 ambassadors beseeching from them a visit to his 
 city of Pampluna ; but Richard would not go. 
 Then they came back to Poictiers and shocking 
 news. This was of the death of King Henry of 
 England, the old lion, * dead (Milo is bold to say) 
 in his sin.'
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 HOW THEY BAYED THE OLD LION 
 
 I must report what happened to the King of 
 England when (like a falcon foiled in his stoop) 
 he found himself outpaced and outgeneralled on 
 the moor. Shaken off by those he sought to 
 entrap, baited by the badger he hoped to draw, 
 he took on something not to be shaken off, 
 namely death, and had drawn from him what he 
 would ill spare, namely the breath of his nostrils. 
 To have done with all this eloquence, he caught 
 a chill, which, working on a body shattered by 
 rages and bad living, smouldered in him— a slow- 
 eating fever which bit him to the bones, charred 
 and shrivelled him up. In the clutches of this 
 crawling disease he joined his forces with those 
 of his Marshal, and marched to the relief of Le 
 Mans, where the French King was taking his ease. 
 Philip fired the place when he heard of his 
 approach ; so Henry got near enough to see the 
 sky throbbing with red light, and over all a cloud 
 of smoke blacker than his own despair. It is said 
 that he had a fit of hard sobbing when he saw this 
 dreadful sight. He would not suffer the host to
 
 1 42 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 approach the burning city, but took to his bed, 
 turned his face to the tent-wall, and refused alike 
 housel and meat. News, and of the worst, came 
 fast. The French were at Chateaudun, the 
 Countess of Brittany's men were threatening 
 Anjou from the north ; all Touraine with 
 Saumur and a chain of border castles were 
 subject to Richard his son. These things he 
 heard without moving from his bed or opening 
 his eyes. 
 
 After a week of this misery two of his lords, 
 the Marshal, namely, and Bishop Hugh of Durham, 
 came to his bedside and told him, ' Sire, here are 
 come ambassadors from France speaking of a peace. 
 How shall it be ? ' 
 
 ' As you will,' said the King ; ' only let me 
 sleep.' He spoke drowsily, as if not really awake, 
 but it is thought that he was more watchful than 
 he chose to appear. 
 
 They held a hasty conference, Geoffrey his 
 bastard, the Marshal, the Bishop : these and the 
 French ambassadors. On the King's part they 
 made but one request, and Geoffrey made that. 
 The King was dying : let him be taken down to 
 his castle of Chinon, not die in the fields like an 
 old hunting dog. This was allowed. He took 
 no sort of notice, let them do what they would 
 with him, slept incessantly all the way to 
 Chinon. 
 
 They brought him the parchments, sealed with 
 his great seal ; and he, quite broken, set his hand 
 to them without so much as a curse on the robbery 
 done his kingdom. But as the bearers were going
 
 ch.xii THEY BAY THE OLD LION 143 
 
 out on tiptoe he suddenly sat up in bed. ' Hugh,' 
 he grumbled, ' Bishop Hugh, come thou here.' 
 The Bishop turned back eagerly, for those two 
 had loved each other in their way, and knelt by 
 his bed. 
 
 ' Read me the signatures to these damned 
 things,' said the King ; and Hugh rejoiced that 
 he was better, yet feared to make him worse. 
 
 ' Ah, dear sire,' he began to say ; but ' Read, 
 man,' said the old King, jerking his foot under 
 the bedclothes. So Hugh the Bishop began to 
 read them over, and the sick man listened with 
 a shaky head, for by now the fever was running 
 high. 
 
 * Philip the August, King of the Franks,' says 
 the Bishop ; and ' A dog's name,' the old King 
 muttered in his throat. ' Sanchez, Catholic King 
 of Navarre,' says Hugh ; and ' Name of an owl,' 
 King Henry. To the same ground-bass he treated 
 the themes of the illustrious Duke of Burgundy, 
 Henry Count of Champagne, and others of the 
 French party. With these the Bishop would have 
 stopped, but the King would have the whole. 
 ' Nay, Hugh,' he said — and his teeth chattered 
 as if it had been bitter cold — 'out with the name 
 of my beloved son. So you shall see what joyful 
 agreement there is in my house.' The Bishop 
 read the name of Richard Count of Poictou, and 
 the King grunted his ' Traitor from the womb,' as 
 he had often done before. 
 
 ' Who follows Richard ? ' he asked. 
 
 ' Oh, our Lady, is he not enough, sire ? ' said 
 the Bishop in fear. The old King sat bolt upright
 
 i 4 4 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 and steadied his head on his knees. ' Read,' he 
 said again. 
 
 ' I cannot read ! ' cried Hugh with a groan. 
 The King said, ' You are a fool. Give me the 
 parchment.' 
 
 He pored over it, with dim eyes almost out of 
 his keeping, searching for the names at the top. 
 So he found what he had dreaded — 'John Count 
 of Mortain.' Shaking fearfully, he began to point 
 at the wall as if he saw the man before him. 
 ' Jesu ! Count by me, King by me, and Judas by 
 me ! Now, God, let me serve Thee as Thou 
 deservest. Thou hast taken away all my sons. 
 Now then the devil may have my soul, for Thou 
 shalt never have it.' The death-rattle was heard 
 in his throat, and Hugh sprang forward to help 
 him : he was still stiffly upright, still looking 
 (though with filmy eyes) at the wall, still trying 
 to shape in words his wicked vaunts. No words 
 came from him ; his jaw dropped before his strong 
 old body. They brought him the Sacrament ; his 
 soul rejected it — too clean food. Hugh and others 
 about him, all in a sweat, got him down at last. 
 They anointed him and said a few prayers, for 
 they were in a desperate hurry when it came to 
 the end. It was near midnight when he died, 
 and at that hour, they terribly report, the wind 
 sprang up and howled about the turrets of Chinon, 
 as if all hell was out hunting for that which he 
 had promised them. But, if the truth must be 
 told, he had never kept his promises, and there 
 is no reason to suppose that he kept that one 
 either. Milo adds, ' So died this great, puissant,
 
 ch. xii THEY BAY THE OLD LION 145 
 
 and terrible king, cursing his children, cursed in 
 them, as they in him. All power was given over 
 to him from his birth, save one only, power over 
 himself. He was indeed a slave more wretched 
 than those hinds, gleb<e ascriptitii^ whom at a 
 distance he ruled in his lands : he was slave of 
 his baser parts. With God he was always at 
 war, and with God's elect. What of blessed 
 Thomas ? Let Thomas answer on the Last Day. 
 I deny him none of his properties ; he was open- 
 handed, open-minded, as bold as a lion. But his 
 vices ate him up. Peace be with the man ; he was 
 a mighty king. He left a wife in prison, two 
 sons in arms against him, and many bastards.' 
 
 As soon as he was dead his people came about 
 like flies and despoiled the Castle of Chinon, the 
 bed where he lay (smiling grimly, as if death had 
 made him a cynic), his very body of the rings on 
 its ringers, the gold circlet, the Christ round his 
 neck. Such flagrancy was the penalty of death, 
 who had made himself too cheap in those days ; 
 nor were there any left with him who might have 
 said, Honour my dead father, or dead master. 
 William the Marshal had gone to Rouen, afraid of 
 Richard ; Geoffrey was half way to Angers after 
 treasure ; the Bishop of Durham (for purposes) 
 had hastened off to Poictiers to be the first to hail 
 the new King. All that remained faithful in that 
 den of thieves were a couple of poor girls with 
 whom the old sinner had lately had to do. Seeing 
 he was left naked on his bed, one of these — Nicolete 
 her name was, from Harfleur — touched the other 
 on the shoulder — Kentish Mall they called her— and
 
 146 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 said, ' They have robbed our master of so much as 
 a shirt to be buried in. What shall we do ? ' 
 
 Mall said, ' If we are found with him we shall 
 be hanged, sure enough. Yet the old man was 
 kind to me.' 
 
 ' And to me he was kind,' said Nicolete, ' God 
 wot.' 
 
 Then they looked at each other. ' Well ? ' said 
 Nicolete. And Mall, 'What you do I will do.' 
 So they kissed together, knowing it was a gallows 
 matter, and went in to the dead body of the King. 
 They washed it tenderly, and anointed it, composed 
 the hands and shut down the horrible sightless 
 eyes, then put upon it the only shirt they could 
 find, which (being a boy's) was a very short one. 
 Afterwards came the Chancellor, Stephen of Turon, 
 called up in a great hurry from a merry-making, 
 with one or two others, and took some order in 
 the affair. 
 
 The Chancellor knew perfectly well that King 
 Henry had desired to be buried in the church of 
 the nuns at Fontevrault. There had been an old 
 prophecy that he should lie veiled among the veiled 
 women which had pleased him very much, though 
 it had often been his way to scoff at it. But no 
 one dared move him without the order of the new 
 King, whoever that might happen to be. Who 
 could tell when Anjou was claiming a crown ? 
 Messengers therefore were sent out hotfoot to 
 Count Richard at Poictiers, and to Count John, 
 who was supposed to be in Paris. He, however, 
 was at Tours with the French King, and got the 
 news first.
 
 ch. xii THEY BAY THE OLD LION 147 
 
 It caught him in the wind, so to put it. Alain, 
 a Canon of Tours, came before him kneeling, and 
 told him. ' Lord Christ, Alain, what shall we 
 do ? ' says he, as white as a cheese-cloth. They 
 fell talking of this or that, that might or might 
 never be done, when in burst King Philip, Saint- 
 Pol, Des Barres, and the purple -faced Duke of 
 Burgundy. King Philip ran up to John and 
 clapped him on the back. 
 
 ' King John ! King John of England ! ' screamed 
 the young man, like a witch in the air ; then 
 Burgundy began his grumble of thunder. 
 
 ' I stand for you, by God. I am for you, man.' 
 But Saint-Pol knelt and touched his knee. 
 
 ' Sire, do me right, and I become your man ! ' 
 So said Des Barres also. Count John looked about 
 him and wrung his hands. 
 
 ' Heh, my lords ! Heh, sirs ! What shall I do 
 now ? ' He was liquid ; fear and desire frittered 
 his heart to water. 
 
 They held a great debate, all talking at once, 
 except the subject of the bother. He could only 
 bite his nails and look out of the window. To 
 them, then, came creeping Alois of France, deadly 
 pale, habited in the grey weeds of a nun. How she 
 got in, I know not ; but they parted this way and 
 that before her, and so she came very close to John 
 in his chair, and touched him on the shoulder. 
 ' What now, traitor ? ' she said hoarsely. ' Whom 
 next ? The sister betrayed ; the father ; and now 
 the brother and king ? ' 
 
 John shook. ' No, no, Alois, no, no ! ' he said 
 in a whisper. ' Go to bed. We think not of it.'
 
 148 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 But she still stood looking at him, with a wry- 
 smile on that face of hers, pinched with grief and 
 old before its time. Saint-Pol stamped his foot. 
 ' Whom shall we trust in Anjou ? ' he said to Des 
 Barres. Des Barres shrugged. The Duke of Bur- 
 gundy grumbled something about ' d — d women,' 
 and King Philip ordered his sister to bed. They 
 got her out of the room after a painful scene, and 
 fell to wrangling again, trying to screw some 
 resolution into the white prince whom they all 
 intended to use as a cat's-paw. About eight o'clock 
 in the morning — they still at it — came a shatter of 
 hoofs in the courtyard, which made Count John 
 jump in his skin. A herald was announced. 
 
 Reeking he stood, and stood covered, in the 
 presence of so much majesty. 
 
 ' Speak, sir/ said King Philip ; and ' Uncover 
 before France, you dog,' said young Saint-Pol. 
 The herald kept his cap where it was. 
 
 ' I speak from England to the English. This 
 is the command of my master, Richard King of 
 the English, Duke of Normandy, Count of Anjou. 
 Bid our brother, the illustrious Count of Mortain, 
 attend us at Fontevrault with all speed for the 
 obsequies of the King our father. And those who 
 owe him obedience, let them come also.' 
 
 There was low murmuring in the chamber, 
 which grew in volume, until at last Burgundy 
 thundered out, ' England is here ! Cut down that 
 man.' But the herald stood his ground, and no 
 one drew a sword. John dismissed him with a 
 few smooth words ; but he could not get rid of 
 his friends so easily. Nor could they succeed with
 
 ch. xn THEY BAY THE OLD LION 149 
 
 him. If Montferrat had been there they might 
 have screwed him to the pitch. Montferrat had a 
 clear course : any king of England who would 
 help him to the throne of Jerusalem was the king 
 of England he would serve. But Philip would 
 not commit himself, and Burgundy waited on 
 Philip. As for Saint-Pol, he was nothing but a 
 sword or two and an unquenchable grudge. And 
 forbidding in the background stood Alois, with 
 reproach in her sunken eyes. The end of it was 
 that Count John, after a while, rode out towards 
 Fontevrault with all the pomp he could muster. 
 Thither also, it is clear, went Madame Alois. 
 
 ' I was with my master,' says Milo in his book, 
 ' when they brought him the news. He was not 
 long home from the South, had been hawking in 
 the meadows all day, and was now in great fettle, 
 sitting familiarly among his intimates, Jehane on 
 his knee. Bertran de Born was in there singing 
 some free song, and the gentle Viscount of Beziers, 
 and Lady Elis of Montfort (who sat on a cushion 
 and played with Dame Jehane's hand), and Gaston 
 of Beam, and (I think) Lady Tibors of Vezelay. 
 Then came the usher suddenly into the room with 
 his wand, and by the door fell upon one knee, a 
 sort of state which Count Richard had always dis- 
 liked. It made him testy. 
 
 * « Well, Gaucelm, well," he said ; " on your two 
 legs, my man, if you are to please me." 
 
 ' " Lord King " Gaucelm began, then 
 
 stopped. My lord bayed at him. 
 
 ' " Oy Deus ! ' he said in our tongue, below 
 his breath ; and Jehane slid off his knee and on
 
 ISO RICHARD YEA-AND-N AY bk.i 
 
 to her own. So fell kneeling the whole company, 
 till Gaston of Beam, more mad than most, sprang 
 up, shouting, " Hail, King of the English ! " and 
 better, " Hail, Count of Anjou!' We all began 
 on that cry ; but he stopped us with a poignant 
 look. 
 
 c " God have mercy on me : I am very wicked," 
 he said, and covered up his face. No one spoke. 
 Jehane bent herself far down and kissed his foot. 
 
 ' Then he sent for the heralds, and in burst 
 Hugh Puiset, Bishop of Durham, with his flaming 
 face, outstripping all the others and decency at 
 once. By this time King Richard had recovered 
 himself. He heard the tale without moving a 
 feature, and gave a few short commands. The 
 first was that the body of the dead King should 
 be carried splendidly to Fontevrault ; and the 
 next that a pall should be set up in his private 
 chapel here at Poictiers, and tall candles set 
 lighted about it. So soon as this was done he 
 left the chamber, all standing, and went alone to 
 the chapel. He spent the night there on his 
 knees, himself only with a few priests. He 
 neither sent for Countess Jehane, nor did she 
 presume to seek him. Her women tell me that 
 she prayed all night before a Christ in her bed- 
 chamber ; and well she might, with a queen's 
 crown in fair view. In two or three days' time 
 King Richard pressed out, very early, for Fontev- 
 rault. I went with him, and so did Hugh of 
 Durham, the Bishop of Poictiers, and the Dauphin 
 of Auvergne. These, with the Chancellor of 
 Poictou, the household servants and guards, were
 
 ch. xii THEY BAY THE OLD LION 151 
 
 all we had with us. The Countess was to be 
 ready upon word from him to go with her ladies 
 and the court whithersoever he should appoint. 
 Bertran de Born went away in the night, and 
 King Richard never saw him again ; but I shall 
 have to speak of his last tenzon, and his last 
 Sirvente of Kings, by heaven ! 
 
 * Before he went King Richard kissed the 
 Countess Jehane twice in the great hall. " Fare- 
 well, my queen," he said plainly, and, as some 
 think, but not 1, deliberately. "God be thy 
 good friend. I shall see thee before many days." 
 If the man was changed already, she was not at 
 all changed. She was very grave, but not crying, 
 and put up her face for his kisses as meek as any 
 baby. She said nothing at all, but stood palely at 
 the door with her women as King Richard rode 
 over the bridge. 
 
 ' For my part,' he concludes, ' when I consider 
 the youth and fierce untutored blood of this 
 noblest of his race ; or when I remember their 
 terrible names, Tortulf Forester, and Ingelger, 
 Fulke the Black and Fulke the Red, and Geoffrey 
 Greygown and Geoffrey the Fair, and that old 
 Henry, the wickedest of all ; their deeds also, 
 how father warred upon his sons, and sons 
 conspired against their fathers ; how they hated 
 righteousness and loved iniquity, and spurned 
 monks and priests, and revelled in the shambles 
 they had made : then I say to myself, Good 
 Milo, how wouldst thou have received thy calling 
 to be king and sovereign count ? Wouldst thou 
 have said, as Count John said, "Lord Christ, Alain,
 
 152 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 what shall we do?" Or rather, "God have mercy, 
 I am very wicked." It is true that Count John 
 was not called to those estates, and that King 
 Richard was. But I choose sooner to think that 
 each was confronted with his dead father, and not 
 the emptied throne. In which case Count John 
 thought of his safety and King Richard of his 
 sin. Such musing is a windy business, suitable 
 to old men. But I suppose that you who read 
 are very young.'
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 HOW THEY MET AT FONTEVRAULT 
 
 Communing with himself as he rode alone over 
 the broomy downs, King Richard reined up shortly 
 and sent back a messenger for Milo the Abbot ; 
 so Milo flogged his old mule. Directly he was 
 level with his master, that master spoke in a quiet 
 voice, like one who is prepared for the worst : 
 ' Milo, what should a man do who has slain his 
 own father ? Is repentance possible for such a 
 one ? ' 
 
 Milo looked up first at the blue sky, then 
 about at the earth, all green and gold. He 
 wrinkled close his eyes and let the sun play 
 upon his face. The air was soft, the turf 
 springy underfoot. He found it good to be 
 there. ' Sire,' he said, 'it is a hard matter ; yet 
 there have been worse griefs than that in the 
 world.' 
 
 * Name one, my friend,' says the King, whose 
 eyes were fixed on the edge of the hill. 
 
 Milo said, ' There was a Father, my lord King 
 Richard, who slew His own Son that the world 
 might be the better. That was a terrible grief
 
 i 5 4 RICHARD YEA- AND-N AY bk. i 
 
 I suppose.' The King was silent for a few paces ; 
 then he asked — 
 
 ' And was the world much the better ? ' 
 
 ' Beau sire,' replied Milo, ' not very much. But 
 that was not God's fault ; for it had, and still has, 
 the chance of being the better for it.' 
 
 ' And do you dare, Milo,' said the King, 
 turning him a stern face, ' set my horrible offence 
 beside the Divine Sacrifice ? ' 
 
 ' Not so, my lord King,' said Milo at large ; 
 ' but I draw this distinction. You are not so 
 guilty as you suppose ; for in this world the 
 father maketh the son, both in the way of nature 
 and of precept. In heaven it is otherwise. 
 There the Son was from the beginning, co-eternal 
 with the Father, begotten but not made. In the 
 divine case there was pure sacrifice, and no guilt 
 at all. In the earthly case there was much guilt, 
 but as yet no sacrifice.' 
 
 6 That guilt was mine, Milo,' said Richard with 
 a sob. 
 
 ' Lord, I think not,' answered the old priest. 
 ' You are what your fathers have made you. But 
 now mark me well : in doing sacrifice you can be 
 very greatly otherwise. Then if no more guilt 
 be upon you than hangs by the misfortunes of 
 tainted man, you can please Almighty God by 
 doing what you only among men can do, whole- 
 some sacrifice.' 
 
 ' Why, what sacrifice shall I do ? ' says the 
 
 Kin S\ 
 
 Milo stood up in his stirrups, greatly exalted in 
 
 the spirit.
 
 ch. xiii KINGS AT FONTEVRAULT 155 
 
 ' My lord,' he said, ' behold, it is for two years 
 that you have borne the sign of that sacrifice upon 
 you, but yet have done nothing of it. During 
 these years God's chosen seat hath lain dishonoured, 
 become the wash-pot of the heathen. The Holy 
 Tree, stock beyond price, Rod of Grace, figure 
 of freedom, is in bonds. The Sepulchre is en- 
 sepulchred ; Antichrist reigns. Lord, Lord ' — 
 here the Abbot shook his lifted finger, — ' how 
 long shall this be ? You ask me of sin and 
 sacrifice. Behold the way.' 
 
 King Richard jerked his head, then his horse's. 
 ' Get back, Milo, and leave me,' he said curtly, 
 struck in the spurs, and galloped away over the 
 grey down. 
 
 The cavalcade halted at Thouars, and lay the 
 night in a convent of the Order of Savigny. 
 King Richard kept himself to himself, ate little, 
 spoke less. He prayed out the night, or most 
 of it, kneeling in his shirt in the sanctuary, with 
 his bare sword held before him like a cross. Next 
 morning he called up his household by the first 
 cock, had them out on the road before the sun, 
 and pushed forward with such haste that it was 
 one hour short of noon when they saw the great 
 church of the nuns of Fontevrault like a pile of 
 dim rock in their way. 
 
 At a mile's distance from the walls the King 
 got off his horse, and bid his squires strip him. 
 He ungirt his sword, took off helm and circlet, 
 cloak, blazoned surcoat, the girdle of his county. 
 Beggared so of all emblems of his grace, clad only 
 in hauberk of steel, bareheaded, without weapon,
 
 156 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 and on foot, he walked among his mounted men 
 into the little town of Fontevrault. That which 
 he could not do off, his sovereign inches, sovereign 
 eye, gait of mastery, prevailed over all other robbery 
 of his estate. The people bent their knees as he 
 passed ; not a few — women with babies in their 
 shawls, lads and girls — caught at his hand or 
 hauberk's edge, to kiss it and get the virtue out 
 of him that is known to reside in a king. When 
 he came within sight of the church he knelt and 
 let his head sink down to his breast. But his 
 grief seemed to strike inwards like a frost ; he 
 stiffened and got up, and went forward. No one 
 would have guessed him a penitent then, who saw 
 him mount the broad steps to meet his brother. 
 Before the shut doors of the abbey was Count 
 John, very splendid in a purple cloak, his crown 
 of a count upon his yellow hair. He stood like 
 a king among his peers, but flushed and restless, 
 twiddling his fingers as kings do not twiddle 
 theirs. 
 
 Irresolution kept him where he was until 
 Richard had topped the first flight of steps. But 
 then he came down to meet him in too much of a 
 hurry, tripping, blundering the degrees, nodding 
 and poking his head, with hands stretched out and 
 body bent, like his who supplicates what he does 
 not deserve. 
 
 ' Hail, King of England, O hail ! ' he said, 
 wheedling, royally vested, royally above, yet 
 grovelling there to the prince below him. King 
 Richard stopped with his foot on the next step, 
 and let the Count come down.
 
 ch. xiii KINGS AT FONTEVRAULT 157 
 
 ' How lies he ? ' were his first words ; the 
 other's face grew fearful. 
 
 ' Eh, I know not,' he said, shuddering. ' I 
 have not seen him.' Now, he must have been in 
 Fontevrault for a day or more. 
 
 ' Why not ? ' asked Richard ; and John stretched 
 out his arms again. 
 
 ' Oh, brother, I waited for you ! ' he cried, then 
 added lower, ' I could not face him alone.' This 
 was perfectly evident, or he would never have 
 said it. 
 
 ' Pish ! ' said King Richard, ' that is no way to 
 mend matters. But it is written, "They shall 
 look on him whom they pierced." Come you 
 in.' He mounted the steps to his brother's level ; 
 and men saw that he was nearly a hand taller, 
 though John was a fine tall man. 
 
 'With you, Richard, with you — but never 
 without you ! ' said John, in a hush, rolling his 
 eyes about. Richard, taking no notice, bid them 
 set open the doors. This was done : the chill 
 taint of the dark, of wax and damp and death came 
 out. John shivered, but King Richard left him 
 to shiver, and passed out of the sun into the echo- 
 ing nave. Lightly and fiercely he went in, like a 
 brave man who is fretful until he meets his 
 danger's face ; and John caught at his wrist, and 
 went tiptoe after him. All the rest, Poictevins 
 and Frenchmen together, followed in a pack ; then 
 the two bishops vested. 
 
 At the far end of the church, beyond the 
 great Rood, they saw the candles flare about a 
 bier. Before that was a little white altar with a
 
 158 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 priest saying his mass in a whisper. The high 
 altar was all dark, and behind a screen in the 
 north transept the nuns were singing the Office 
 for the Dead. King Richard pushed on quickly, 
 the others trooping behind. There in the midst 
 of all this chilly state, grim and sour-faced, as he 
 had always been, but now as unconcerned as all 
 the dead are, lay the empty majesty of England, 
 careless (as it seemed) of the full majesty ; and 
 dead Anjou a stranger to the living. 
 
 It was not so altogether, if we are to believe 
 those who saw it. The hatred of the dead is a 
 fearful thing : of that which followed be God the 
 only judge, and I not even the reporter. Milo 
 saw it, and Milo (who got some comfort out of it 
 at last) shall tell you the tale ; ' for I know,' says 
 he, ' that in the end the hidden things are to be 
 made plain, and even so, things which then I 
 guessed darkly have since been opened out to my 
 understanding. Behold ! ' he goes on, 1 1 tell you 
 a mystery. Lightly and adventuring came King 
 Richard to his dead father, and Count John drag- 
 ging behind him like a load of care. Reverently 
 he knelt him down beside the bier, prayed for a 
 little, then, looking up, touched the grey old face. 
 Before God, I say, it was the act of a boy. But 
 slowly, slowly, we who watched quaking saw a 
 black stream well at the nostril of the dead, and 
 slowly drag a snake's way down the jaw : a sight 
 to shake those fraught with God- — and what to 
 men in their trespasses ? But while all the others 
 fell back gasping, or whispering their prayers, 
 scarce knowing what I was or did (save that I
 
 ch.xiii KINGS AT FONTEVRAULT 159 
 
 loved King Richard), I whipt forward with a 
 handkerchief to cover the horror out of sight. 
 This I would have done, though all had seen it ; 
 the King had seen it, and that white -hearted 
 traitor Count had seen it, and sprung away with 
 a wail, "O Christ! O Christ!" The King 
 stood up, and with his lifted hand stopped me 
 in the pious act. All held their breaths. I saw 
 the priest at the altar peer round the corner, 
 his mouth making a ring. King Richard was 
 very pale and serious. He began to talk to his 
 father, while the Count lay cowering on the pave- 
 ment. 
 
 ' " Thou thinkest me thy slayer, father," he said, 
 "pointing at me the murder-sign. Well, I am 
 content to take it ; for be thou sure of this, that 
 if that last war between us was rightfully begun 
 it was rightfully ended. And of righteousness I 
 think I am as good a judge as ever thou wert. 
 Thy work is done, and mine is to do. If I may 
 be as kingly as thou wert, I shall please thee yet ; 
 and if I fail in that I shall never blame thee, father. 
 Now, Abbot Milo," he concluded, " cover the 
 face." So I did, and Count John got up to his 
 knees again, and looked at his brother. 
 
 ' This was not the end. Madame Alois of 
 France came into the church through the nuns' 
 door, dressed all in grey, with a great grey hood on 
 her head, and after her women in the same habit. 
 She came hastily, with a quick shuffling motion of 
 the feet, as if she was gliding ; and by the bier she 
 stood still, questing with her eyes from side to side, 
 like a hunted thing. King Richard she saw, for
 
 160 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 he was standing up ; but still she looked about 
 and about. Now Count John was kneeling in the 
 shadow, so she saw him last ; but once meeting his 
 deplorable eyes with her own she never left go 
 again. Whatever she did (and it was much), or 
 whatever said (and her mouth was pregnant), was 
 with a fixed gaze on him. 
 
 ' Being on the other side of the bier from him 
 she watched, she put her arms oyer the dead body, 
 as a priest at mass broods upon the Host he is 
 making. And looking shrewdly at the Count, 
 " If the dead could speak, John," she said, " if the 
 dead could speak, how think you it would report 
 concerning you and me ? " 
 
 '"Ha, Madame!' says Count John, shaking 
 like a leafy tree, " what is this ? ' Madame Alois 
 removed my handkerchief. The horror was still 
 there. 
 
 ' " He did me kindness," she said, looking 
 wistfully at the empty face ; " he tried to serve me 
 this way and that way." She stroked it, then looked 
 again at the Count. " But then you came, John ; 
 and you he loved above all. How have you served 
 him, John, my bonny lad ? Eh, Saviour ! ' She 
 looked up on high — " Eh, Saviour, if the dead 
 could speak ! " 
 
 ' No more than the dead could John speak ; 
 but King Richard answered her. 
 
 ' " Madame," he said, " the dead hath spoken, 
 and I have answered it. That is the kingly office, 
 I think, to stand before God for the people. Let 
 no other speak. All is said." 
 
 ' " No, no, Richard," said Madame Alois, " all
 
 ch. xiii KINGS AT FONTEVRAULT 161 
 
 is not nearly said. So sure as I live in torment, 
 you will rue it if you do not listen to me now." 
 
 • " Madame," replied the King, " I shall not 
 listen. I require your silence. If I have it in me, 
 I command it. I know what I have done." 
 
 ' " You know nothing," said the lady, beginning 
 to tremble. " You are a fool." 
 
 ' " May be," said King Richard, with a little 
 shrug, " but I am a king in Fontevrault." 
 
 ' The Count of Mortain began to wag his head 
 about and pluck at the morse of his cope. " Air, 
 air ! " he gasped ; "I strangle ! I suffocate ! " They 
 carried him out of church to his lodging, and 
 there bled him. 
 
 ' " Once more, King Richard," said Madame, 
 " will you hear the truth from me ? " 
 
 ' The King turned fiercely, saying, " Madame, 
 I will hear nothing from you. My purpose is to 
 take the Cross here in this church, and to set about 
 our Lord's business as soon as may be. I urge 
 you, therefore, to depart and, if you have time, to 
 consider your soul's health — as I consider mine 
 and my kingdom's." 
 
 ' She began to cry, being overwrought with this 
 terrible affair. " O Richard," she said, " forgive 
 me my trespasses. I am most wretched." 
 
 * He stepped forward, and across the dead man 
 kissed her on the forehead. " God knows, I forgive 
 thee, Alois," he said. 
 
 ' So then she went away with her people, and 
 no long time afterwards took (as I believe) the 
 whole vow in the convent of Fontevrault.' Thus 
 Milo records a scene too high for me. 
 
 M
 
 1 62 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 When they had buried the old King, Richard 
 sent letters to his brother of France, reminding 
 him of what they had both undertaken to do, 
 namely, to redeem the Sepulchre and set up again 
 in Jerusalem the True Cross. ' As for me,' he 
 wrote, ' I do most earnestly purpose to set about 
 that business as soon as I may ; and I require of 
 you, sire and my brother, to witness my resumption 
 of the Cross in this church of Fontevrault upon 
 the feast of Monsire Saint John Baptist next 
 coming. Let them also who are in your allegiance, 
 the illustrious Duke of Burgundy, Conrad Marquess 
 of Montferrat, and my cousin Count Henry, be 
 of your party and sharers with you in the new 
 vow.' This done, he went to Chinon to secure 
 his father's treasure, and then made preparations 
 for his coronation as Count of Anjou, and for 
 Jehane's coronation. 
 
 When she got his word that she was to meet 
 him at Angers by a certain day there was no 
 thought of disobedience ; the pouting mouth 
 meant no mutiny. It meant sickening fear. In 
 Angers they crown the Count of Anjou with 
 the red cap, and put upon his feet the red shoes. 
 That would make Richard the Red Count indeed, 
 whose cap and bed the leper had bid her beware. 
 Beware she might, but how avoid ? She knew 
 Richard by this time for master. A year ago 
 she had subjugated him in the Dark Tower ; but 
 since then he had handled her, moulded her, had 
 but to nod and she served his will. With what 
 heart of lead she came, come she did to await him 
 in black Angers, steep and hardy little city of
 
 ch. xiii KINGS AT FONTEVRAULT 163 
 
 slate ; and the meeting of the two brought tears 
 to many eyes. She fell at his feet, clasped his 
 knees, could not speak nor cease from looking 
 up ; and he, tall and kingly, stoops, lifts her, 
 holds her upon his breast, strokes her face, kisses 
 her eyes and sorrowful mouth. ' Child,' he says, 
 ' art thou glad of me ? ' asking, as lovers love best 
 to do, the things they know best already. ' O 
 Richard ! O Richard ! ' was all she could say, 
 poor fond wretch ; however, we go not by the 
 sense of a bride's language, but by the passion 
 that breaks it up. Every agony of self-reproach, 
 of fear of him, of mistrust, of lurking fate, lay 
 in those sobbed words, ' O Richard ! O Richard ! ' 
 
 When he had her alone at night, and she had 
 found her voice, she began to woo him and softly 
 to beguile him with a hand to his chin, judging 
 it a propitious time, while one of his held her head. 
 All the arts of woman were hers that night, but 
 his were the new purposes of a man. He had 
 had a rude shock, was full of the sense of his 
 sin ; that grim old mocking face, grey among 
 the candle -flames, was plain across the bed- 
 chamber where they lay. To himself he made 
 oath that he would sin no more. No, no : a king, 
 he would do kingly. To her, clasped close in 
 his arms, he gave kisses and sweet words. Alas, 
 she wanted not the sugar of his tongue ; she 
 would have had him bitter, though it cost her 
 dear. Lying there, lulled but not convinced, 
 her sobs grew weaker. She cried herself to sleep, 
 and he kissed her sleeping. 
 
 In the cathedral church of his fathers he did
 
 1 64 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 on, by the hands of the Archbishop, the red cap 
 and girdle and shoes of Anjou ; there he held up 
 the leopard shield for all to see. There also upon 
 the bent head of Jehane — she kneeling before him 
 — he laid for a little while the same cap, then in 
 its room a circlet of golden leaves. If he was 
 sovereign Count, girt with the sword, then she 
 was Countess of Anjou before her grudging 
 world. What more was she? Wife of a dead 
 man and his killer ! The words stayed by her, 
 and tinged the whole of her life.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 OF WHAT KING RICHARD SAID TO THE BOWING 
 ROOD ; AND WHAT JEHANE TO KING RICHARD 
 
 Miracles, as a plain man, I hold to be the peculiar 
 of the Church. This chapter must be Milo's on 
 that ground, if there were no other. But there is 
 one strong other. Milo set the tune which caused 
 King Richard to dance. And a very good tune it 
 is — according to Milo. Therefore let him speak. 
 ' The office of Abbot,' he writes, * is a solemn, 
 great office, being no less than that of spiritual 
 father to a family of men consecrate (as it is written, 
 Abba, father) ; yet not on that account should vain- 
 glory puff the cheeks of a pious man. God knows 
 that I am no boaster. He, therefore, will not mis- 
 judge me, as certain others have done, when I 
 record in this place (for positive cause and reason 
 good) the exorbitant honours I received on the 
 day of my lord Saint John Baptist in this year of 
 thankful redemption eleven hundred and eighty- 
 nine. Forsooth, I myself, this Milo of Saint Mary- 
 of-the-Pine, was chosen to preach in the church of 
 the nuns of Fontevrault before a congregation thus 
 composed : — Two kings (one crowned), one legate
 
 1 66 RICHARD YEA-AND-N AY bk.i 
 
 a latere, a reigning duke (him of Burgundy, I 
 mean), five cinctured counts, twice three bishops, 
 abbots without number ; Jehane Countess of Anjou 
 and wife to the King of England, the Countess of 
 Roussillon, the two Countesses of Angoulesme (the 
 old and the young), Lady Elis of Montfort (reputed 
 the most witty lady in Languedoc), thirteen pro- 
 nounced poets, and the hairdresser of the King of 
 France — to name no more. That sermon of mine — 
 I shame not to report it — was found worthy the 
 inscription in the Register of Fontevrault ; and in 
 the initial letter thereof, garlanded in gold work 
 very beautiful to be seen, is the likeness of myself 
 vested, with a mitre on my head, all done by that 
 ingenious craftsman and faithful Christian man, 
 Aristarchus of Byzantium, susprante deo. There 
 the curious may consult it, as indeed they do. I 
 hope I know the demands of history upon propor- 
 tion better than to write it all here. Briefly then, 
 a second Peter, I stood up before that crowned 
 assembly and was bold. 
 
 ' What, I said, is Pharaoh but a noise ? How 
 else is Father Abraham but dusty in his cave ? 
 Duke Lot hath a monument less durable than his 
 wicked wife's ; and as for Noe, that great admiral, 
 the waters of oblivion have him whom the waters 
 of God might not drown. Conquered lies uncon- 
 quered Agamemnon ; how else lies Julius Cassar ? 
 Nabuchodonosor, eater of grass, what is he ? Kings 
 pass, and their royal seat gathereth a little dust. 
 Anon with a besom of feathers cometh Time the 
 chamberlain, and scareth to his hiding-place the 
 lizard on the wall. Think soberly, O ye kings !
 
 ch. xiv THE BOWING ROOD 167 
 
 how your crowns are but yellow metal, and your 
 purple robes the food of moths, and the sceptres 
 of your power no better than hedge-twigs for the 
 driving of rats. Round about your crystal orbs 
 scurry the fleas at play in the night-time ; in a little 
 while the joints of your legs will grapple the degrees 
 of your thrones with no more zest than an old 
 bargeman's his greasy poop. 
 
 ' At this King Philip said Tush, and fidgeted 
 in his chair. He might have put me out of 
 countenance, but that I saw King Richard clasp his 
 knee and smile into the rafters, and knew by the 
 peaking of his beard that I had pleased him. 
 
 ' Thus by precept, by trope and flower of speech, 
 I gaufred the edges of my discourse ; then turning 
 eastward with a cry, I grasped the pulpit firmly 
 with one hand, the while I raised the other. Sorrow, 
 I said, is more enduring than the pride of life, my 
 lords, and to renounce than to heap riches. Behold 
 the King of Sorrows ! Behold the Man beggared ! 
 Ai, ai, my lords ! is there to be no end to His sorrows, 
 or shall He be stripped for ever ? Yesterday He 
 put off life itself, and to-day ye bid Him do away 
 with the price of life. Yesterday He hung upon 
 the Tree; and to-day ye hear it said, Down with 
 the Tree ; let Mahomet kindle his hearth with it. 
 Let us be done, say you, with dead Lords and 
 wooden stocks : we are kings, and our stocks golden. 
 It is well said, my lords, after the fashion this world 
 holds honourable. But I ask, did Job fear God for 
 nought ? But I say, consider the Maccabees. All 
 your broad lands are not worth the rent of that 
 little garden enclosed, where among ranked lilies
 
 168 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 sat Mary singing, God rest Thee, babe, I am Thy 
 mother and daughter. You wag the head and an 
 enemy dieth. You say, Come up, and some wretch 
 getteth title to make others wretched. But no 
 power of life and member, no fountain of earthly 
 honour, no great breath nor acclamation of 
 trumpets, nor bearing of swords naked, nor chrism, 
 nor broad seal, nor homage, nor fealty done, is 
 worth that doom of the Lord to a man ; saying, 
 I was naked (Christ is naked !) and ye clothed Me ; 
 I was anhungered (Christ is hungry !) and ye gave 
 Me meat ; I was in prison (so is Christ !) and ye 
 visited Me. Therefore again I say unto you, 
 Kings, by the spirit of the Lord which is in me, 
 Let us now go even unto Bethlehem. Awake, do 
 on your panoplies, shake your sceptres over the 
 armied earth ! So Hierusalem, that bride among 
 brides, that exalted virgin, that elect lady crowned 
 with stars, shall sit no longer wasted in the brothel 
 of the heathen : Amen ! 
 
 ' I said ; and a great silence fell on all the 
 length and breadth of the church. King Richard 
 sat up stiff as a tree, staring at the Holy Rood as 
 though he had a vision of something at work. 
 King Philip of France, moody, was watching his 
 greater brother. Count John of Mortain had 
 his head sunk to his breast-bone, his thin hands 
 not at rest, but one finger picking ever at another. 
 Even the Duke of Burgundy, the burly eater, 
 was moved, as could be seen by the working 
 of his cheek-bones. Two nuns were carried out 
 for dead. All this I saw between my hands as 
 I knelt in prayer. But much more I saw : it
 
 ch.xiv THE BOWING ROOD 169 
 
 seems that I had called down testimony from on 
 high. I saw Countess Jehane, half- risen from 
 her seat, white in the face, open-mouthed, gaping 
 at the Cross. " Saviour, the Rood ! the Rood ! ' 
 she cried out, choking, then fell back and lay 
 quite still. Many rose to their feet, some dropped 
 to their knees ; all looked. 
 
 ' We saw the great painted Christ on the Rood 
 stoop His head forward thrice. At the first and 
 second times, amid cries of wonder, men looked to 
 see whither He bent His head. But at the third 
 time all with one consent fell upon their faces, 
 except only Richard King of England. He, 
 indeed, rose up and stood to his full height. I 
 saw his blue eyes shine like sapphires as he 
 began to speak to the Christ. Though he spoke 
 measuredly and low, you could mark the exultation 
 singing behind his tones. 
 
 * " Ah, now, my Lord God," said he, " I perceive 
 that Thou hast singled me out of all these peers 
 for a work of Thine ; which is a thing so glorious 
 for me that, if I glory in it, I am justified, since 
 the work is glorious. I take it upon me, my 
 Lord, and shall not falter in it nor be slow. 
 Enough said : Thou askest not words of me. 
 Now let me go, that the work may begin." 
 After which, very devoutly kneeling, he signed 
 to the Archbishop of Tours, who sat in the 
 sedilia of the sanctuary, to affix the Cross to his 
 shoulder. Which was done, and afterwards to 
 most of the company then present — to King 
 Philip, to the Duke of Burgundy, to Henry 
 Count of Champagne, Bertram Count of Roussillon,
 
 170 RICHARD YEA-AND-N AY bk. i 
 
 and Raymond Count of Toulouse ; to many 
 bishops ; also to James d'Avesnes, William des 
 Barres, and to Eustace Count of Saint-Pol, the 
 brother of Countess Jehane. But Count John 
 took no Cross, nor did Geoffrey the bastard of 
 Anjou. Afterwards, I believe, these two worked 
 the French King into a fury because Richard 
 should have taken upon him the chief place in 
 this miraculous adventure. The Duke of Bur- 
 gundy was not at all pleased either. But every- 
 body else knew that it was to King Richard the 
 Holy Rood had pointed ; and he knew it himself, 
 and events proved it so. 
 
 ' But that night after supper he and King 
 Philip kissed each other, and swore brotherhood 
 on their sword-hilts before all the peers. I am 
 not one to deny generous moments to that 
 politic prince ; this I consider to have been one, 
 evoked certainly by the nobility of King Richard. 
 That appointed champion's exaltation still burned 
 in him ; he was fiercely excited, his eyes were 
 bright with fever of fire. " Hey, Philip," he 
 laughed, " now you and I must cross the sea ! 
 And you a bad sailor, Philip ! " 
 
 ' " 'Tis so, indeed, Richard," says King Philip, 
 looking rather foolish. King Richard clapped 
 him on the shoulder. " A stout heart, my 
 Philip," he says, " is betokened by your high 
 stomach. That shall stand us in a good stead 
 in Palestine." Then it was that King Philip 
 kissed him, and him King Richard again. 
 
 ' He was in great heart that day, full to the 
 neck with hope and adventure. I would like to
 
 ch. xiv THE BOWING ROOD 171 
 
 see the man or woman to have denied him any- 
 thing. At times like these he was (I do not seek 
 to disguise it) a frank lover. Non omnia possumus 
 omnes ; if any man think he must have been 
 Galahad the Bloodless Knight because he had 
 been singled out by the questing Rood, he knows 
 little how high ventures foment rich blood. 
 Lancelot he never was, to love broadcast ; but 
 Tristram, rather, lover of one woman. Hope, 
 pride, knowledge of his force, ran tingling in 
 him ; perhaps he saw her fairer than any woman 
 could have been ; perhaps he saw her rosy through 
 his sanguine eyes. He clipped her in his arms in 
 full hall that night in a way that made her rosy 
 enough. Not that she denied him : good heaven, 
 who was she to do that ? There as he had her 
 close upon his breast he kissed her a dozen times, 
 and " Jehane, wilt thou fare with me to England? ' 
 he asked her fondly, " or must I leave thee peaking 
 here, my Countess of Anjou ? " 
 
 ' She would have had her own answer ready 
 to that, good soul, but that the leper gave her 
 another. In a low, urgent voice she answered, 
 "Ah, sweet lord, I must never leave thee now" — 
 as if to ask, Was there need ? So he went on 
 talking to her, lover talk, teasing talk, to see 
 what she would say ; and all the while Jehane 
 stood very near him, with her face held between 
 his two hands as closely as wine is held by a cup. 
 To whatever he chose to say, and in whatever 
 fashion, whether strokingly (as to a beloved child), 
 or gruffly (in sport) as one speaks to a pet dog, 
 she replied in very meek manner, eyeing him
 
 172 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 intently, "Yea, Richard," or "Nay, Richard," 
 agreeing with him always. This he observed. 
 "They call me Yea -and -Nay, dear girl," he 
 said, " and thou hast learned it of them. But 
 I warn thee, Jehane, ma mie^ I am in a mood 
 of Yea this night. Therefore deny me not." 
 
 ' " Lord, I shall never deny thee," says Jehane, 
 red as a rose. And reason enough ! I remembered 
 the words ; for while she said them, it is certain 
 she was praying how best she might make herself 
 a liar, like Saint Peter. 
 
 ' Pretty matters ! on the faith I profess. And 
 if a man, who is king of men, may not play with 
 his young wife, I know not who may play with 
 her. That is my answer to King Philip Augustus, 
 who fretted and chafed at this harmless perform- 
 ance. As for Saint -Pol, who ground his teeth 
 over it, I would have a different answer for him.' 
 
 I have given Milo his full tether ; but there 
 are things to say which he knew nothing about. 
 Richard was changed, for all his wild mood of 
 that night ; nor was Jehane slow to perceive it. 
 Perhaps, indeed, she was too quick, with her wit 
 oversharpened by her uneasy conscience. But 
 that night she saw, or thought she saw this in 
 Richard : that whereas the righting of her had been 
 his only concern before the day of the bowing 
 Rood, now he had another concern. And the next 
 day, when at dawn he left her and was with his 
 Council until dinner, she knew it for sure. After 
 dinner (which he scarcely ate) he rose and visited 
 King Philip. With him, the Legate and the Arch- 
 bishops, he remained till late at night. Day
 
 ch. xiv THE BOWING ROOD 173 
 
 succeeded day in this manner. The French King, 
 the Duke, and their trains went to Paris. Then 
 came Guy of Lusignan, King (and no king) of 
 Jerusalem, for help. Richard promised him his, 
 not because he liked him any better than the 
 Marquess (who kept him out), but because Guy's 
 title seemed to him a good one. At bottom 
 Richard was as deliberate as a pair of scales ; 
 and just now was acting the perfect king, the 
 very touchstone of justice. Through all this 
 time of great doings Jehane stayed quaking at 
 home, sitting strangely among her women — a 
 countess who knew she was none, a queen by 
 nature who dreaded to be queen by law. Yet 
 one thing she dreaded more. She was in a 
 horrible pass. Wife of a dead man and his 
 killer ! Why, what should she do ? She dared 
 not go on playing wife to the champion of 
 heaven, and yet she dared not leave him lest she 
 should be snatched into the arms of his assassin. 
 On which horn should she impale her poor heart ? 
 She tried to wring prayers out of it, she tried to 
 moisten her aching eyes with the dew of tears. 
 Slowly, by agony of effort, she approached her 
 bosom to the steel. One night Richard came 
 to her, and she drove herself to speak. He 
 came, and she fenced him off. 
 
 ' Richard, O Richard, touch me not ! ' 
 
 ' God on the Cross, what is this ? ' 
 
 ' Touch me not, touch me never ; but never 
 leave me ! ' 
 
 ' O my pale rose ! O fair-girdled ! ' She stood 
 up, white as her gown, transfigured, very serious.
 
 174 RICHARD YEA- AND-N AY bk.i 
 
 ' I am not thy wife, Richard ; I am no man's 
 wife. No, but I am thy slave, bound to thee by 
 a curse, held from thee by thy high calling. I 
 dare not leave thee, my Richard, nor dare stay 
 by thee so close, lest ruin come of it.' 
 
 Richard watched her, frowning. He was much 
 moved, but thought of what she said. 
 
 ' Ruin, Jehane, ruin ? ' 
 
 ' Ruin of thy venture, my knight of God ! Ah, 
 chosen, elect, comrade of the Rood, gossip of Jesus 
 Christ, duke dedicate ! ' She was hued like flame 
 as the great thoughts leaped in her. ' Ah, my 
 Christian King, it is so little a thing I ask of thee, 
 to set me apart ! What am I to thee, whose bride 
 is the virgin city, the holy place ? What is Jehane, 
 a poor thing handed about, to vex heaven, or be a 
 stumbling-block in the way of the Cross ? Put me 
 away, Richard, let me go ; have done with me, 
 sweet lord.' And then swiftly she ran and clasped 
 his knees : ' But ask me not to leave thee — no, but 
 I dare not indeed ! ' Her tears streamed freely 
 now. When Richard with a cry snatched her up, 
 she lay weeping like a lost child in his arms. 
 
 He laid her on the bed, worn frail by the strife 
 she had endured ; she had no strength to open her 
 eyes, but moved her lips to thank him for his pains. 
 At first she turned her head from side to side, 
 seeking a cool place on the pillow ; later she fell 
 into a heavy, drugged sleep. He watched her till 
 it was nearly light, brooding over her unconscious 
 face. No thoughts of a king were his, I think ; 
 but once more he lapped them in that young girl's 
 bosom, and let them sway, ebb and flow, with it.
 
 ch.xiv THE BOWING ROOD 175 
 
 On the flow, great with her theme, he saw her 
 inspired, standing with her torch of flame to point 
 his road. A splintry way leads to the Cross, where 
 even kings consecrate must tear their feet. If he 
 knew himself, as at such naked hours he must, he 
 knew whither his heart was set. He was to lead 
 the armies of Christendom, because no other man 
 could do it. Had he any other pure and stern 
 desire but that ? None. If he could win back 
 the Sepulchre, new plant the Holy Cross, set a 
 Christian king on the throne below Golgotha, 
 keep word with God Who had bowed to him 
 from the Rood, give the heathen sword for sword, 
 and hold the armed world like a spear in his hand, 
 to shake as he shook — God of all power and 
 might, was this not worthy his heart ? 
 
 His heart and Jehane's ! The flowing bosom 
 ebbed, and drained him of all but pity. He saw 
 her like a dead flower, wan, bruised, thrown away. 
 Robbery ! He had stolen her by force. He 
 clenched his two hands about his knee and shook 
 himself to and fro. Thief! Damned thief! 
 Had he made her amends ? He groaned. Not 
 yet. Should she not be crowned? She prayed 
 that she might not be. She meant that ; all her 
 soul came sobbing to her lips as she prayed him. 
 He could not deny her that prayer. If she would 
 not mount his throne, she should not — he was 
 King. But that other bidding : Touch me not, 
 she said. He looked at her sleeping ; her bosom 
 filled and lifted his hand. God have no mercy on 
 him if he denied her that either. ' So take Thou, 
 God, my heart's desire, if I give her not hers.'
 
 176 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. 1 
 
 Then he stooped and kissed her forehead ; she 
 opened her eyes and smiled feebly, half awake. 
 
 He was not a man, I say it again, at the mercy 
 of women's lure. Milo was right ; he was Tristram, 
 not Galahad nor Lancelot ; a man of cold appetite, 
 a man whose head was master, touched rarely, and 
 then stirred only to certain deeps. So far as he 
 could love woman born he loved Jehane, saw 
 her exceedingly lovely, loved her proud remote 
 spirit, her nobility, her sobriety. He saw her 
 bodily perfections too, how splendid a person, 
 how sumptuous in hue and light. Admiring, 
 taking glory in these, yet he required the sting 
 of another man's hand upon her to seize her for 
 himself. For purposes of policy, for ends which 
 seemed to him good, he could have lived with 
 Jehane as a brother with a sister : one thing 
 provided, Let no other man touch. 
 
 Now this policy was imperative, this end God 
 said was good. Jehane implored with tears, Christ 
 called from the Cross; so King Richard fell upon 
 his knees and kissed the girl's forehead. When 
 he left her that morning he sought out Milo and 
 confessed his sins. Shriven he arose, to do what 
 remained in the west before he could be crowned 
 in Rouen, and crowned in Westminster.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 LAST TENZON OF BERTRAN DE BORN 
 
 I wish to be done with Bertran de Born, that 
 lagging fox ; but the dogs of my art must make a 
 backward cast if they are to kill him in the open. 
 I beg the reader, then, to remember that when 
 Richard left him half-throttled in his own house, 
 and when he had recovered wind enough to stir 
 his gall, he made preparations for a long journey 
 to the South. In that scandal concerning Alois 
 of France he believed he had stuff which might 
 wreck Count Richard more disastrously than Count 
 Richard could wreck him. He hoped to raise the 
 South, and thither he went, his own dung -fly, 
 buzzing over the offal he had blown ; and the first 
 point he headed for was Pampluna across the 
 Pyrenees. It is folly to dig into the mind of a 
 man diseased by malice ; better treat such like sour 
 ground, burn with lime (or let God burn) and abide 
 the event in faith. If of all men in the world 
 Bertran hated Richard of Anjou, it was not because 
 Richard had misused him, but because he had used 
 him too lightly. Richard, offended with Bertran, 
 gave him a flick on the ear and sent him to the devil 
 
 N
 
 1 78 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 with his japes. He did no more because he valued 
 him no more. He thought him a perverse rascal, 
 glorious poet, ill-conditioned vassal, untimely para- 
 site of his father's realm. He knew he had caused 
 endless mischief, but he could not hate such a cork 
 on a waterspray. Now, it fretted Bertran to white 
 heat that he should be despised by a great man. 
 It seemed that at last he could do him considerable 
 harm. He could embroil him with two kings, 
 France and England, and induce a third to harass 
 him from the South. So he crossed the mountains 
 and went into Navarre. 
 
 Over those stony ridges and bare fields Don 
 Sancho was king, the seventh of his name ; and 
 he kept his state in the city of Pampluna. Reputed 
 the wisest prince of his day, it is certain that he had 
 need to be so, such neighbours as he had. West 
 of him was Santiago, south of him Castile. These 
 two urgent kings, edging (as it were) on the same 
 bench with him, made his seat a shifty comfort. 
 No sooner had he warmed himself a place than 
 he was hoist to a cold one. In front of him, 
 over against the sun, he saw Philip of France 
 pinched to the same degree between England and 
 Burgundy, eager to stretch his extremities since 
 he could not broaden his sides. Don Sancho had 
 no call to love France ; but he feared England 
 greatly — the horrible old brindled Lion, and 
 Richard, offspring of the Lion and the Pard, 
 Richard the Leopard, who made more songs and 
 fought more quarrels out than any Christian 
 prince. Here were quodlibets for Don Sancho's 
 logic. In appearance he was a pale vexed man,
 
 ch. xv BERTRAN'S LAST SHIFT 179 
 
 with anxious eyes and a thin beard, at which (in 
 his troubles) he plucked as often as he could afford 
 the hairs. Next to his bleached lands he loved 
 minstrels and physicians. Averrhoes was often 
 at his court ; so were Guillem of Cabestaing and 
 Peire Vidal. He knew and went so far as to love 
 Bertran de Born. Perhaps he was not too good a 
 Christian, certainly he was a very hungry one ; and 
 kings, with the rest of the world, are to be judged 
 by their necessities, not their professions. So much 
 will suffice, I hope, concerning Don Sancho the 
 Wise. 
 
 In those days which saw Count Richard's back 
 turned on Autafort, and Saint-Pol's broken at Tours, 
 Bertran de Born came to Pampluna, asking to be 
 received by the King of Navarre. Don Sancho 
 was glad to see him. 
 
 ' Now, Bertran,' says he, * you shall give me 
 news of poets and the food of poets. All the talk 
 here is of bad debts.' 
 
 ' Oy, sire,' says Bertran, ' what can I tell you ? 
 The land is in flames, the women have streaked 
 faces, far and wide travels the torch of war.' 
 
 ' I am sorry to hear it,' says King Sancho, 'and 
 trust that you have not brought one of those 
 torches with you.' 
 
 Bertran shook his head ; interruptions worried 
 him, for he lived maddeningly, like a man that has 
 a drumming in his ear. 
 
 ' Sire,' he said, ' there is a new strife between 
 the Count of Poictou, " Yea-and-Nay," and the 
 French King on this account : the Count repudi- 
 ates Madame Alois.'
 
 i8o RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 1 Now, why does he do that, Bertran ? ' cried 
 King Sancho, opening his eyes wide. 
 
 ' Sire, it is because he pretends that his father, 
 the old King, has done him dishonour. Says the 
 Count, Madame Alois might be my stepmother, 
 never my wife.' 
 
 ' Deus ! ' said the King. ' Bertran, is this the 
 truth ? ' 
 
 That was a question for which Bertran was fully 
 prepared. He always had it put, and always gave 
 the same answer. ' As I am a Christian, sire,' he 
 said, ' the Gospel is no truer.' 
 
 To which King Sancho replied, ' I do most 
 devoutly believe in the Holy Gospel, whatever any 
 Arabian may say to the contrary. But is it for 
 this, pray, that you propose to light candles of war 
 in Navarre ? ' 
 
 ' Ah,' said Bertran, with his hand scratching in 
 his vest, ' I light no candles, my lord ; but I 
 counsel you to light them.' 
 
 ' Phew ! ' said King Sancho, and stuck his arms 
 out ; ' on whose account, Bertran, on whose ac- 
 count ? ' 
 
 Bertran replied savagely, ' On account of Dame 
 Alois slandered, of her brother France deceived in 
 his hope, of the English King strangely accused, 
 of his son John (a hopeful prince, Benjamin of a 
 second Israel), and of Queen Eleanor of England, 
 of whose kindred your Grace is.' 
 
 ' Deus ! Oy, Deus ! ' cried King Sancho, pale 
 with amazement, ' and are all these thrones in 
 arms, lighting candles against Count Richard.' 
 
 * It is so indeed, sire,' says Bertran ; and King
 
 ch.xv BERTRAN'S LAST SHIFT 181 
 
 Sancho frowned, with this comment — ' There seems 
 little chivalry here, take it as you will.' Next he 
 inquired, where was the Count of Poictou ? 
 
 Bertran was ready. * He rages his lands, sire, 
 like a leopard caged. Now and again he raids 
 the marches, harries France or Anjou, and with- 
 draws.' 
 
 ' And the King his father, Bertran, where is he ? 
 Far off, I hope.' 
 
 ' He,' said Bertran, ' is in Normandy with a 
 host, seeking the head of his son Richard on a 
 charger.' 
 
 ' The great man that he is ! ' cried Don Sancho. 
 Bertran could not contain himself. 
 
 ' Great or not, he is to pay his debts ! The old 
 rascal stag is rotten with fever.' 
 
 I suppose Don Sancho was not called Wise for 
 nothing. At any rate, he sat for a while consider- 
 ing the man before him. Then he asked, where 
 was King Philip ? 
 
 * Sire,' replied Bertran, ' he is in his city of 
 Paris, comforting Dame Alois, and assembling his 
 estates for Count Richard's flank.' 
 
 ' And Prince John ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, sire, he has friends. He waits. Watch 
 for him presently.' 
 
 King Sancho frowned his forehead into furrows, 
 and allowed himself a hair or two of his beard. 
 ' We will think of it, Bertran,' he said presently. 
 ' Yes, we will think of it, after our own fashion. 
 God rest you, Bertran, pray go refresh yourself.' 
 So he dismissed him. 
 
 When he was alone he went on frowning, and
 
 1 82 RICHARD YEA-AND-N AY bk.i 
 
 between whiles tapped his teeth with his beard- 
 comb. He knew that Bertran had not come 
 lying for nothing to Pampluna ; he must find 
 out on whose account he was lying, and upon 
 what rock of truth (if any at all) he had built 
 up his lies. Was it because he hated the father, 
 or because he hated the son ? Or because he 
 served Prince John ? Let that alone for a 
 moment. This story of Alois : it must be, he 
 thought, either true or false, but was no invention 
 of Bertran's. Whichever it was, King Philip 
 would make war upon King Henry, not upon 
 Richard ; since, wanting timber, you cut at the 
 trunk, not at the branches. He believed Bertran 
 so far, that the Count of Poictou was in his 
 country, and King Henry with a host in his. 
 War between Philip and the Count was a foolish- 
 ness. Peace between the Count and King Henry 
 was another. Don Sancho believed (since he 
 believed in God) that old King Henry was at 
 death's door ; and he saw above all things that, if 
 the scandal was reasonably founded, there would 
 be a bachelor prince spoiling for wedlock. On all 
 grounds, therefore, he decided to write privily to 
 his kinswoman, Queen Eleanor of England. 
 
 And so he did, to a very different tune 
 from that imagined by Bertran, the letter which 
 follows : — 
 
 1 Madame (Sister and Aunt),' he wrote, ' this 
 day has brought tidings to my private ear whereat 
 in part I mourn with you, and rejoice in part, as a 
 wise physician who, hearing of some great lover in 
 the article of death, knows that he has both the
 
 ch. xv BERTRAN'S LAST SHIFT 183 
 
 wit and the remedy to work his cure. Madame, 
 with a hand upon my heart I may certify the flow 
 of my blood for the causes, serious and horrific, 
 which have led to strife between your exalted lord 
 and most dear consort in Christ Jesus, my lord 
 Henry the pious King of England (whom God 
 assoil) and his august neighbour of France. But, 
 Madame (Sister and Aunt), it is no less my comfort 
 to affirm that the estate of your noble son, the 
 Count of Poictou, no less moves my anguish. 
 What, Madame ! So fierce a youth and so 
 strenuous, widowed of his hopeful bed ! The 
 face of Paris with the fate of Menelaus ! The 
 sweet accomplishments of King David (chief of 
 trobadors) and the ignominy of the husband of 
 Bathsheba ! You see that my eloquence burns 
 me up ; and verily, Madame (Sister and Aunt), 
 the hot coal of the wrath of your son has touched 
 my mouth, so that at the last I speak with my 
 tongue. 
 
 ' I ask myself, Madame, why do not the virgins 
 of Christendom arise and offer their unrifled zones 
 to his noble fingers ? Sister and Aunt, there is 
 one at least, in Navarre, who so arises. I offer 
 my child Berengere, called by trobadors (because 
 of her chaste seclusion) Frozen Heart, to be 
 thawed in the sun of your son. I offer, more- 
 over, my great fiefs of Oliocastro, Cingovilas, 
 Monte Negro, and Sierra Alba as far as Agreda ; 
 and a dowry also of 60,000 marks in gold of 
 Byzance, to be numbered by three bishops, one 
 each of our choosing, and the third to be chosen 
 by our lord and ghostly father the Pope. And
 
 1 84 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 I offer to you, Madame (Sister and Aunt), the 
 devotion of a brother and nephew, the right hand 
 of concord, and the kiss of peace. I pray God 
 daily to preserve your Celsitude. — From our 
 court of Pampluna, etc. Under the Privy Signet 
 of the King himself — Sanchius Navarrensium Rex, 
 Sapiens, Pater Patriae, Pius, Catholicus.' 
 
 This done, and means taken for sure despatch, 
 he sends for the virgin in question, and embracing 
 her with one arm, holds her close to his knee. 
 
 ' My child,' he says, ' you are to be wedded to 
 the greatest prince now on life, the pattern of 
 chivalry, the mirror of manly beauty, heir to a 
 great throne. What do you say to this ? ' 
 
 The virgin kept her eyes down ; a very faint 
 flush of rose troubled her cheek. 
 
 ' I am in your hands, sire,' she said, whereupon 
 Don Sancho enfolded her. 
 
 ' You are in my arms, dear child,' he testified. 
 ' Your lord will be King of England, Duke of 
 Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Anjou, 
 Poictou, and Maine, and lord of some island in 
 the western sea whose name I have forgotten. He 
 is also the subject of prophecy, which (as the 
 Arabians know very well) declares that he will 
 rule such an empire as Alexander never saw, nor 
 the mighty Charles dreamed of. Does this please 
 you, my child ? ' 
 
 ' He is a very great lord,' said Berengere, ' and 
 will be a great king. I hope to serve him faith- 
 fully.' 
 
 ' By Saint James, and so you shall ! ' cried the 
 happy Don Sancho. ' Go, my child, and say your
 
 ch. xv BERTRAN'S LAST SHIFT 185 
 
 prayers. You will have something to pray about 
 at last.' 
 
 She was the only daughter he had left, ex- 
 orbitantly loved ; a little creature too much 
 brocaded to move, cold as snow, pious as a 
 virgin enclosed, with small regular features like 
 a fairy queen's. She had a narrow mind, and small 
 heart for meeting tribulation, which, indeed, she 
 seemed never likely to know. Sometimes, being in 
 her robes of state, crusted with gems, crowned, 
 coifed, ringed, she looked like nothing so much as 
 a stiff doll-goddess set in glass over an altar. It 
 was thus she showed her best, when with fixed 
 eyes and a frigid smile she stood above the court, 
 an unapproachable glittering star set in the clear 
 sky of a night to give men hopes of an ordered 
 heaven. It was thus Bertran de Born had seen 
 her, when for a time his hot and wrong heart 
 was at rest, and he could look on a creature of 
 this world without desire to mar it. Half in 
 mockery, half in love, he called her Frozen 
 Heart. Later on, you remember, he called Jehane 
 Bel Vezer. He was the nicknamer of Europe in 
 his day. 
 
 So now, or almost so, he saw her new come 
 from her father's side — a little flushed, but very 
 much the great small lady, ma dame Berengere of 
 Navarre. 
 
 ' The sun shines upon my Frozen Heart,' said 
 Bertran. She gave him her hand to kiss. 
 
 ' No heart of yours am I, Bertran,' she said ; 
 ' but chosen for a king.' 
 
 ' A king, lady ! Whom then ? '
 
 1 86 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 She answered, ' A king to be. My lord Richard 
 of Poictou.' 
 
 He clacked his tongue on his palate, and bolted 
 this pill as best he could. Bad was best. He saw 
 himself made newly so great a fool that he dared 
 not think of it. If he had known at that time of 
 Richard's dealing with Jehane Saint-Pol, you may 
 be sure he would have squirted some venom. But 
 he knew nothing at all about it ; and as to the 
 other affair, even he dared not speak. 
 
 ' A great lord, a hot lord, a very strenuous 
 lord ! ' he said in jerks. It was all there was to say. 
 
 ' He is a prince who might claim a lady's love, 
 I suppose,' said Berengere, with considering looks. 
 
 ' Ho ho ! And so he has ! ' cried Bertram ' I 
 assure your Grace he is no novice. Many he has 
 claimed, and many have claimed him. Shall I 
 number them ? ' 
 
 ' I beg that you will not,' she said, stiffening 
 herself. So Bertran grinned his rage. But he 
 had one thing to say. 
 
 ' This much I will tell you, Princess. The 
 name I give him is Yea-and-Nay : beware of it. 
 He is ever of two minds : hot head and cold heart, 
 flaming heart and chilled head. He will be for 
 God and the enemy of God ; will expect heaven 
 and tamper with hell. With rage he will go up, 
 laughing come down. Ho ! He will be for you 
 and against you ; eager, slow ; a wooer, a scorner ; 
 a singer of madrigals, ah, and a croaker afterwards. 
 There is no stability in him, neither length of love 
 nor of hate, no bottom, little faith.' Berengere 
 rose.
 
 ch.xv BERTRAN'S LAST SHIFT 187 
 
 ' You vex yourself, Bertran, and me also,' she 
 said. ' It is ill talking between a prince and his 
 friend.' 
 
 ' Am I not your friend then, my lady ? ' he 
 asked her with bitterness. 
 
 ' You cannot be the friend of a prince, Bertran,' 
 said Berengere calmly. His muttered ' O God, 
 the true word ! ' sufficed him for thought all his 
 road from Navarre. He went, as you know 
 already, to Poictiers, where Richard was making 
 festival with Jehane. 
 
 But when, unhappy liar, he found out the truth, 
 it came too late to be of service to his designs. 
 Don Sancho, he learned, was beforehand with him 
 even there, fully informed of the outrage at Gisors 
 and the marriage at Poictiers, with very clear views 
 of the worth of each performance. Bertran, gnash- 
 ing his teeth, took up the service of the man he 
 loathed ; gnashing his teeth, he let Richard kiss 
 him in the lists and shower favours upon him. 
 When presents of stallions came from Navarre he 
 began to see what Don Sancho was about. Any 
 meeting of Richard and that profound schemer 
 would have been Bertran's ruin. So when Richard 
 was King, he judged it time to be off. 
 
 ' Now here,' says Abbot Milo, dealing with the 
 same topics, ' I make an end of Bertran de Born, 
 who did enough mischief in his life to give three 
 kings wretchedness — the young King Henry, and 
 the old King Henry, and the new King Richard. If 
 he was not the thorn of Anjou, whose thorn was 
 he? Some time afterwards he died alone and 
 miserable, having seen (as he thought) all his plots
 
 1 88 RICHARD YEA-AND-N AY bk.i 
 
 miscarry, the object of his hatred do the better for 
 his evil designs, and the object of his love the 
 better without them. He was cast off. His peers 
 were at the Holy War, his enemy on a throne. 
 There had arisen a generation which shrugged at 
 his eld, and remained one which still thought him 
 a misgoverned youth. Great poet he was, great 
 thief, and a silly fool. So there's an end of him : 
 let him be.'
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 CONVERSATION IN ENGLAND OF JEHANE 
 THE FAIR 
 
 It was in the gules of August, we read, that King 
 Richard set out for his duchy and kingdom, on 
 horseback, riding alone, splendid in red and gold ; 
 Countess Jehane in a litter ; his true brother and 
 his half-brother, his bishops, his chancellor, and his 
 friends with him, each according to his degree. 
 They went by Alencon, Lisieux, and Pont l'Eveque 
 to Rouen ; and there they found the Queen-Mother, 
 an unquenchable spirit. One of Richard's first acts 
 had been to free her from the fortress in which, for 
 ten years or more, the old King had kept her. 
 There were no prison-traces upon her when she 
 met her son, and fixed her son's mistress with a 
 calculating eye. A low-browed, swarthy woman, 
 heavily built, with the wreck of great beauty upon 
 her, having fingers like the talons of a bird and a 
 trap-mouth ; it was not hard to see that into the 
 rocky mortice where Richard had been cast there 
 went some grains of flint from her. She had slow, 
 deliberate movements of the body, but a darting
 
 i 9 o RICHARD YEA-AND-N AY bk. i 
 
 mind ; she was a most passionate woman, but 
 frugal of her passion, eking it out to cover long 
 designs. Whether she loved or hated — and she 
 could glow with either lust until she seemed in- 
 candescent — she went slowly to work. The quicker 
 she saw, the slower she was reducing sight into 
 possession. With all this, like her son Richard, 
 she was capable of strong revulsions. Thus she 
 had loved, then hated King Henry ; thus she was 
 to spurn, then to cling to Jehane. 
 
 At Rouen she did her best to crush the young 
 girl to the pavement with her intolerable flat-lidded 
 eyes. When Jehane saw her stand on the steps of 
 the church amidst the pomp of Normandy and 
 England — three archbishops by her, William 
 Marshal, William Longchamp, the earls, the 
 baronage, the knights, heralds, blowers of trumpets; 
 when at her example all this glory of Church and 
 State bent the knee to Richard of Anjou, and he, 
 kneeling in turn, kissed his mother's hand, then 
 rose and to the others gave his to be kissed ; when 
 he, vowed to her, pledged to her, known of her 
 more secretly than of any, passed through the blare 
 of horns alone into the soaring nave — Jehane 
 shivered and crossed herself, faltered a little, and 
 might have fallen. Her King was doing by her as 
 she had prayed him ; but the scrutiny of the Queen- 
 Mother had been a dry gloss to the text. She had 
 been able to bear her forsaking with a purer heart, 
 but for the narrow eyes that witnessed it and 
 gleamed. One of her ladies, Magdalene Coucy, 
 put an arm about her ; so Countess Jehane stiffened 
 and jerked up her head, and after that walked with
 
 ch. xvr JEHANE IN ENGLAND 191 
 
 no more faltering. If she had seen, as Milo saw, 
 Gilles de Gurdun glowering at her from a corner, 
 it might have gone hard with her. But she did 
 not. 
 
 They crowned Richard Duke of Normandy, 
 and to him came all the barons of the duchy one 
 by one, to do him homage. And first the Arch- 
 bishop of Rouen, in whose allegiance was that same 
 Sir Gilles. But Gilles knew very well that there 
 could be no fealty from him to this robber of a 
 duke. Gilles had seen Jehane ; and when he could 
 bear the sight no more for fear his eyes should 
 bleed, he went and walked about the streets to 
 cool his head. He swore by all the saints in 
 the calendar of Rouen — and these are many — 
 that he would close this account. Let him be 
 torn apart by horses, he would kill the man who 
 had stolen his wife and killed his father and 
 brother, were he duke, king, or Emperor of the 
 West. Meantime, in the church that golden- 
 haired duke, set high on the throne of Normandy, 
 received between his hands the hands of the 
 Normans ; and in a stall of the choir Jehane 
 prayed fervently for him, with her arms enfolding 
 her bosom. 
 
 Gilles was seen again at Harfleur, when the 
 King embarked for England. He had a hood over 
 his head ; but Milo knew him by the little steady 
 eyes and bar of black above. When the great 
 painted sails bellied to the off-shore wind and the 
 dragon -standard of England pointed the sea- 
 way northward into the haze, Milo saw Gilles 
 standing on the mole, a little apart from his friends,
 
 192 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 watching the galley which took Jehane out of 
 reach. 
 
 If Milo found the Normans like ginger in the 
 mouth, it is not to be supposed that the English 
 suited him any better. He calls them ' fog- 
 stewed,' says that they ate too much, and were 
 as proud of that as of everything else they did. 
 Luckily, he had very little to do with them, though 
 not much less, perhaps, than his master. Dry facts 
 content him : how the King disembarked at South- 
 ampton and took horse ; how he rode through 
 forests to Winchester ; how there he was met by the 
 bishop, heard mass in the minster, and departed for 
 Guildford ; thence again, how through wood and 
 heath they came to Westminster ' and a fair church 
 set in meadows by a broad stream ' — to tell this 
 rapidly contents him. But once in London the story 
 begins to concentrate. It is clear there was danger 
 for Jehane. King Richard, it seems, caused her to 
 be lodged ' in a place of nuns over the river, in a 
 place which is called in English Lamehithe.' 
 
 This was quite true ; danger there was, as 
 Richard saw, who knew his mother. But he did 
 not then know how quick with danger the times 
 were. The Queen-Mother had upon her the letter 
 of Don Sancho the Wise, and to her the politics 
 of Europe were an open book. One holy war 
 succeeded another, and one king ; but what king 
 that might be depended neither upon holiness nor 
 war so much as on the way each was used. 
 Marriage with Navarre might push Anjou across
 
 ch. xvi JEHANE IN ENGLAND 193 
 
 the mountains ; the holy war might lift it across 
 the sea. Who was the ' yellow-haired King of the 
 West ' whom they of the East foretold, if not her 
 
 goodly son ? Should God be thwarted by a ? 
 
 She hesitated not for a word, but I hesitate. 
 
 If the Queen-Mother was afraid of anything in 
 the world, it was of the devil in the race she had 
 mothered. It had thwarted her in their father, 
 but it cowed her in her sons. Most of all, I think, 
 in Richard she feared it, because Richard could be 
 so cold. A flamy devil as in young Henry, or a 
 brimstone devil as in Geoffrey of Brittany, or a 
 spitfire devil as was John's — with these she could 
 cope, her lord had had them all. But in Richard 
 she was shy of the bleak isolation, the self-sufficing, 
 the hard, chill core. She dreaded it, yet it drew 
 her ; she was tempted to beat vainly at it for the 
 passion's sake ; and so in this case she dared to do. 
 She would cheerfully have killed the minion, but 
 she dared the King first. 
 
 When she opened to him the matter of Don 
 Sancho's letter, none knew better than Richard that 
 the matter might have been good. Yet he would 
 have nothing to say to it. ' Madame,' his words 
 were, ' this is an idle letter, if not impertinent. Don 
 Sancho knows very well that I am married already.' 
 
 'Eh, sire! Eh, Richard!' said the Queen - 
 Mother, ' then he knows more than I.' 
 
 ' I think not, Madame,' the King replied, 
 'since I have this moment informed you.' 
 
 The Queen swallowed this ; then said, ' This 
 wife of yours, Richard, who is not Duchess of 
 Normandy, will not be Queen, I doubt ? ' 
 
 o 
 
 •
 
 i 9 4 RICHARD YEA- AND-N AY bk.i 
 
 Richard's face grew haggard ; for the moment 
 he looked old. ' Such again is the fact, Madame.' 
 
 ' But ' the Queen began. Richard looked 
 
 at her, so she ended there. 
 
 Afterwards she talked with the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, with the Marshal, with Longchamp of 
 Ely, and her son John. All these worthies were 
 pulling different ways, each trying to get the rope 
 to himself. With that rope John hoped to hang 
 his brother yet. ' Dearest Madame,' he said, 
 ' Richard cannot marry in Navarre even if he 
 were willing. Once he has been betrothed, and 
 has broken plight ; once he saw his mistress 
 betrothed, and broke her plight. Now he is 
 wedded, or says that he is. Suppose that you 
 get him to break this wedlock, will you give him 
 another woman to deceive ? There is no more 
 faithless beast in the world than Richard.' 
 
 ' Your words prove that there is one at least,' 
 said the Queen-Mother with heat. ' You speak 
 very ill, my son.' 
 
 Said John, ' And he does very ill, by the 
 Bread ! ' 
 
 William Marshal interposed. ' I have seen 
 much of the Countess of Anjou, Madame,' said 
 this honest gentleman. ' Let me tell your Grace 
 that she is a most exalted lady.' He would have 
 said more had the Queen-Mother endured it, but 
 she cried out upon him. 
 
 ' Anjou ! Who dares put her up there ? ' 
 
 ' Madame,' said William, ' it was my lord the 
 King.' The Queen fumed. 
 
 Then the Archbishop said, ' She is nobly born,
 
 ch. xvi JEHANE IN ENGLAND 195 
 
 of the house of Saint-Pol. I understand that she 
 has a clear mind.' 
 
 ' More,' cried the Marshal, ' she has a clear 
 heart ! ' 
 
 * If she had nothing clear about her I have that 
 which would bleach her white enough,' said the 
 Queen - Mother ; and Longchamp, who had said 
 nothing at all, grinned. 
 
 In the event, the Queen one day took to her 
 barge, crossed the river, and confronted the girl 
 who stood between England and Navarre. 
 
 Jehane, who was sitting with her ladies at 
 needlework, was not so scared as they were. 
 Like the nymphs of the hunting Maid they all 
 clustered about her, showing the Queen -Mother 
 how tall she was and how nobly figured. She 
 flushed a little and breathed a little faster ; but 
 making her reverence she recovered herself, and 
 stood with that curious look on her face, half 
 surprise, half discontent, which made men call her 
 the sulky fair. So the Queen -Mother read the 
 look. 
 
 ' No pouting with me, mistress,' she said. ' Send 
 these women away. It is with you I have to deal.' 
 
 ' Do we deal singly, Madame ? ' said Jehane. 
 * Then my ladies shall seek for yours the comforts 
 of a discomfortable lodging. I am sorry I have 
 no better.' The Queen -Mother nodded her 
 people out of the room ; so she and Jehane were 
 left alone together. 
 
 4 Mistress,' said the Queen -Mother, 'what is 
 this between you and,, my son? Playing and 
 kissing are to be left below the degrees of a throne.
 
 196 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 Let there be no more of it. Do you dare, are 
 you so hardy in the eyes, as to look up to a 
 kingly seat, or measure your head for a king's 
 crown ? ' 
 
 Jehane had plenty of spirit, which a very little 
 of this sort of talk would have fanned into a 
 flame ; but she had irony too. 
 
 ' Madame, alas ! ' she said, with a hint of 
 shrugging ; l if I have worn the Count's cap I 
 know the measure of my head.' 
 
 The Queen - Mother took her by the wrist. 
 ' My girl,' said she, ' you know very well that you 
 are no Countess at all in my son's right, but are 
 what one of your nurture should not be. And 
 you shall understand that I am a plain-dealer in 
 such affairs when they concern this realm, and 
 have bled little heifers like you whiter than veal 
 and as cold as most of the dead ; and will do it 
 again if need be.' 
 
 Jehane did not flinch nor turn her eyes from 
 considering her whitening wrist. 
 
 'Oh, Madame,' she says, 'you will never bleed 
 me ; I am quite sure of that. Alas, it would be 
 well if you could, without offence.' 
 
 ' Why, whom should I offend then ? ' the Queen 
 said, sniffing — ' your ladyship ? ' 
 
 ' A greater,' said Jehane. 
 
 ' You think the King would be offended ? ' 
 
 ' Madame,' Jehane said, ' he could be offended ; 
 but so would you be.' 
 
 The Queen-Mother tightened hold. ' I am not 
 easily offended, mistress,' she said, and smiled rather 
 bleakly.
 
 ch.xvi JEHANE IN ENGLAND 197 
 
 Jehane also smiled, but with patience, not trying 
 to get free her wrist. 
 
 ' My blood would offend you. You dare not 
 bleed me.' 
 
 ' Death in life ! ' the Queen cried, ' is there any 
 but the King to stop me now ? ' 
 
 ' Madame,' Jehane answered, ' there is the 
 spoken word against you, the spirit of prophecy.' 
 
 Then her jailer saw that Jehane's eyes were 
 green, and very steady. This checked her. 
 
 ' Who speaks ? Who prophesies ? ' 
 
 Jehane told her, ' The leper in a desert place, 
 saying, " Beware the Count's cap and the Count's 
 bed ; for so sure as thou liest in either thou art 
 wife of a dead man and of his killer." 
 
 The Queen -Mother, a very religious woman, 
 took this saying soberly. She dropped Jehane's 
 wrist, stared at and about her, looked up, looked 
 down ; then said, ' Tell me more of this, my girl.' 
 
 ' Hey, Madame,' said Jehane, ' I will gladly tell 
 you the whole. The saying of the leper was very 
 dreadful to me, for I thought, here is a man 
 punished by God indeed, but so near death as to be 
 likely familiar with the secrets of death. Such a 
 one cannot be a liar, nor would he speak idly who 
 has so little time left to pray in. Therefore I 
 urged my lord Richard by his good love for me 
 to forgo his purpose of wedding me in Poictiers. 
 But he would not listen, but said that, as he had 
 stolen me from my betrothed, it comported not with 
 his honour to dishonour me. So he wedded me, 
 and fulfilled both terms of the leper's prophecy. 
 Then I saw myself in peril, and was not at all
 
 198 RICHARD YEA- AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 comforted by the advice of certain nuns, which was 
 that, although I had lain in the Count's bed, I had 
 not lain, but had knelt, in the Count's cap ; and 
 that therefore the terms were not fulfilled. I 
 thought that foolishness, and still think so. But 
 this is my own thought. I have never rightly 
 been in either as the leper intended, for I do not 
 think the marriage a good one. If I am no wife, 
 then, God pity me, I have done a great sin ; but 
 I am no Countess of Anjou. So I give the prophet 
 the lie. On the other hand, if I am put away by 
 my lord the King that he may make a good 
 marriage, I shall be claimed again by the man to 
 whom I was betrothed before, and so the doom 
 be in danger of fulfilment. For, look now, 
 Madame, the leper said, " Wife of a dead man and 
 his killer" ; and there is none so sure to kill the 
 King as Sir Gilles de Gurdun. Alas, alas, Madame, 
 to what a strait am I come, who sought no one's 
 hurt ! I have considered night and day what it 
 were best to do since the King, at my prayer, left 
 me; and now my judgment is this. I must be 
 with the King, though not the King's mie ; because 
 so surely as he sends me away, so surely will 
 Gilles de Gurdun have me.' 
 
 She stopped, out of breath, feeling some shame 
 to have spoken so much. The Queen-Mother 
 came to her at once, with her hands out. ' By my 
 soul, Jehane,' she said, ' you are a good woman. 
 Never leave my son.' 
 
 ' I never mean to leave him,' said Jehane. 
 ' That is my punishment, and (I think) his also.' 
 
 * His punishment, my child ? '
 
 ch. xvr JEHANE IN ENGLAND 199 
 
 ' Why, Madame,' said Jehane, ' you think that 
 the King must wed.' 
 
 'Yes, yes.' 
 
 ' And to wed, he must put me away.' 
 
 ' Yes, yes, child.' 
 
 ' Therefore, although he loves me, he may 
 never have his dear desire ; and although I love 
 him, I may give him no comfort. Yet we can 
 never leave each other for fear of the leper's 
 prophecy ; but he must always long and I grieve. 
 That, I think, is punishment for a man and woman.' 
 
 The Queen-Mother sobbed. ' Terrible punish- 
 ment for a little pleasant sin ! Yet I doubt ' — she 
 said, politic through all — ' yet I doubt my son, 
 being a fierce lover, will have his way with thee.' 
 
 Jehane shook her head. ' No means,' she said, 
 drawing in her breath, ' no means, Madame. ] 
 have his life to think of.' Here, pitying herself, 
 she turned away her face. The Queen -Mother 
 came suddenly and kissed her. They cried 
 together, Jehane and the flinty old shrew of 
 Aquitaine. 
 
 A pact was made, and sealed with kisses, between 
 these two women who loved King Richard, that 
 Jehane should do her best to further the Navarrese 
 match. Circumstance was her friend in this pious 
 robbery of herself: Richard, who stood so deep 
 engaged in honour to God Almighty, could get no 
 money. 
 
 Busy as he was, with one shift after another to 
 redeem his credit, busy also pushing on his corona- 
 tion, he yet continued to see his mistress most days, 
 either walking with her in the garden of the nuns'
 
 200 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 house where she lodged, or sitting by her within 
 doors. At these snatched moments there was a 
 beautiful equality between them ; the girl no longer 
 subject to the man, the man more master of himself 
 for being less master of her. As often as not he 
 sat on the floor at her feet while she worked at 
 those age-long tapestries which her generation 
 loved ; leaning his head back to her knee, he would 
 so lie and search her face, and wonder to himself 
 what the world to come could have more fair to 
 show than this calm treasurer of lovely flesh. This 
 was, at the time, her chief glory, that with all her 
 riches — fragrant allure, soft warmth, the delicacy, 
 nice luxury of her every part, the glow, the tincture, 
 the throbbing fire — she could keep a strong hand 
 upon herself ; sway herself modestly ; have so 
 much and give so little ; be so apt for a bridal, and 
 yet without a sigh play the nun ! ' If she, being 
 devirginate through me, can cry herself virgin 
 again — then cannot I, by the King of Heaven ? ' 
 This was Richard's day-thought, a very mannish 
 thought ; for women do not consider their own 
 beauties so closely, see no divinity in themselves, 
 and find a man to be a glorious fool to think one 
 of them more desirable than another. He never 
 spoke this thought, but worshipped her silently for 
 the most part ; and she, reading the homage of 
 his upturned face, steeled herself against the sweet 
 flattery, held her peace, and in her fierce proud 
 mind made endless plots against his. 
 
 In silence their souls conversed upon a theme 
 never mentioned between them. His restless quest 
 of her face taught him much, disposed him ; she,
 
 ch. xvi JEHANE IN ENGLAND 201 
 
 with all the good guile of women to her hand, 
 waited, judging the time. Then one day as they 
 sat together in a window she suddenly slipped away 
 from his hand, dropped to her knees, and began to 
 pray. 
 
 For a while he let her alone, finding the act as 
 lovely as she. But presently he stooped his face 
 till it almost touched her cheek, and ' Tell me 
 thy prayer, dear heart ! Let me pray also ! ' he 
 whispered. 
 
 ' I pray for my lord the King,' she said. ' Let 
 me pray.' But as he insisted, urging, leaning to 
 her, she drew her head back and lifted to his view 
 her face, blanched with pure patience. 
 
 ' O King Christ,' she prayed, ' take from my 
 soiled hand this sacrifice ! ' 
 
 She prayed to Christ, but looked at Richard. 
 He dared speak for Christ. 
 
 ' What sacrifice, my child ? ' 
 
 ' I give Thee the hero who has lain upon my 
 breast ; I give Thee the marriage-bed, the cap of 
 the Count. I give Thee the kisses, the clinging 
 together, the vows, the long bliss where none may 
 speak. I give Thee the language of love, the 
 strife, the after-calm, the assurance, the hope and 
 the promise. But I keep, Lord, the memory of 
 love as a hostage of Thine.' 
 
 King Richard, breathless now, looked in her 
 face. It was that of a mild angel, steadfast, grave, 
 hued like fire, acquainted with grief. ' O God- 
 fraught ! O saint in the battle ! O dipped in the 
 flame ! Jehane, Jehane, Jehane ! Quicken me ! ' 
 So he cried in anguish of spirit.
 
 202 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. r 
 
 ' Quicken thee, Richard ? ' she said. ' Nay, but 
 thou art quick, my King. The Cross hath made 
 thee quick ; thou hast given more than I.' 
 
 ' I will give all by thy direction,' he said, ' for 
 I know that thou wilt save my honour.' 
 
 ' Trust me there,' said Jehane, and let him kiss 
 her cheek. 
 
 She got a great hold upon him by these means. 
 Quick with the Holy Ghost or not, there was 
 no doubting the quickness of his mind. Here 
 Jehane's wit had not played her false ; he read 
 her whole meaning ; she never let go the footing 
 she had gained, but in all her commerce with him 
 walked a saint, a maid ravished only by a great 
 thought. Visibly to him she stood symbol of 
 belief, sacramental, the fire on the altar, the fine 
 shy spirit of love lurking (like a rock-flower) at 
 the Cross's foot. And so this fire with which she 
 led him, like the torch she had held up to show 
 him his earlier way, lifted her ; and so she became 
 indeed what she signified. 
 
 She stood very near the Queen-Mother when 
 Richard was crowned and anointed King of the 
 English, unearthly pure, with eyes like stars, robed 
 in dull red, crowned herself with silver. All those 
 about her, marking the respect which the old 
 Queen paid her, scarce dared lift their eyes to her 
 face. The tall King, stripped to the shirt, was 
 anointed, then robed, then crowned ; afterwards 
 sat with orb and sceptre to receive homage. 
 Jehane came in her turn to kneel before him. 
 But her work had been done. That icy stream in 
 the blood, which is cause and proof at once of the
 
 ch. xvi JEHANE IN ENGLAND 203 
 
 kingly isolation, was doubly in Richard, first of 
 that name. He beheld her kneeling at his knee, 
 knew her and knew her not. She with her cold 
 lips kissed his cold hand. That day had love, by 
 her own desire, been frozen ; and that which was 
 to awaken it was itself numb in sleep. 
 
 On the third of September they crowned him 
 King, and found that he was to be King indeed. 
 On the same day the citizens of London killed all 
 the Jews they could find ; and Richard banished 
 his brother John from his dominions in England 
 and France for three years and three days.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 FROZEN HEART AND RED HEART : CAHORS 
 
 I suppose that the present relations of King 
 Richard and the Countess of Poictou (as she chose 
 to call herself now) were as singular as could subsist 
 between a strong man and beautiful woman, both in 
 love. I am not to extenuate or explain, but say 
 once for all to the curious that she was never again 
 to him (nor had been since that day at Fontev- 
 rault) what a sister might not have been. Yet, 
 with all that, it was evident to the world at large 
 that he was a lover, and she mistress of his mind. 
 Not only implicitly so, as witnessed their long inter- 
 course of the eyes, their quick glances, stealthy 
 watching of each other, the little tender acts (as 
 the giving or receiving of a flower), the brooding 
 silences, the praying at the same time or place; 
 but explicitly he pronounced himself her knight. 
 All his songs were of her ; he wrote to her many 
 times a day, and she answered his letters by her 
 page, and kept the latest of them always within her 
 vest, over against her heart. She allowed herself 
 more scope than he, trusting herself further : it is 
 known that she treasured discarded things of his,
 
 ch. xvn CAHORS 205 
 
 and went so far as to wear (she, the Fair-Girdled ! ) 
 a studded belt of his made to fit her. She was 
 never without this rude monument of her former 
 grace. But this was the sum-total of their bodily 
 intercourse, apart from speech. Of their spiritual 
 ecstasies I have no warrant to speak, though I 
 believe these were very innocent. She would not 
 dare, nor he care, to indulge in so laxative a joy. 
 
 He conversed with her freely upon all affairs of 
 moment ; there was no constraint on either side. He 
 was even merry in her company, and astonishingly 
 frank. Singular man ! the Navarrese marriage was 
 a common subject of their talk ; she spoke of it 
 with serious mockery and he with mock serious- 
 ness. From Richard it was, ' Countess Jehane, 
 when the chalk -faced Spaniard reigns you must 
 mend your manners.' And she might say, ' Beau 
 sire, Madame Berengere will never like your songs 
 unless you sing of her.' All this served the girl's 
 private ends. Gradually and gradually she led him 
 to see that thing as fixed. She did it, as it were, 
 on tiptoe, for she knew what a shyer he was ; but 
 luckily for her schemes, the Queen-Mother trusted 
 her to the bottom, said nothing and allowed noth- 
 ing to be said. 
 
 Meantime the affairs of the Crusade conspired 
 with Jehane to drive Richard once more to church. 
 If he got little money in England, where abbeys 
 were rich in corn but poor in pelf, and the barons 
 had been so prompt to rob each other that they 
 could not be robbed by the King, — he got less 
 in Gaul, eaten up by war for a hundred years. 
 You cannot bleed a stuck pig, as King Richard
 
 206 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 found. England was empty of money. He got 
 men enough ; from one motive or another every 
 English knight was willing to rifle the East. He 
 had ships enough. But of what use ships and 
 men if there was no food for them nor money to 
 buy it ? He tried to borrow, he tried to beg, he 
 tried what in a less glorious cause a plain man 
 would call stealing. King Richard came not of a 
 squeamish race, and would have sold anything to 
 any buyer, pawned his crown or taken another 
 man's to get the worth of a company's pay out of 
 it. Fines, escheats, reliefs, forfeitures, wardships, 
 marriages — he heaped exaction on exaction, with 
 mighty little result. When his mind was set he 
 was inexorable, insatiable, without scruple. What 
 he got only sharpened his appetite for more. King 
 Tancred of Sicily owed the dowry of Richard's 
 sister Joan. He swore he would wring that out 
 of him to the last doit. He offered the city of 
 London to the highest bidder, and lamented the 
 slaughter of the Jews when the tenders were few. 
 Here was a position to be in ! His Englishmen 
 lay rotting in Southampton town, his ships in 
 Southampton water. His Normans and Poictevins 
 were over-ripe ; he as dry as an unpinched pear. 
 He saw, to his infinite vexation, his honour again 
 in pawn, and no means of redeeming it. Jehane, 
 with tears in her voice, plied the Navarrese 
 marriage with more passion than she would ever 
 have allowed herself to urge her own. Richard said 
 he would think of it. ' Now I have him half-way,' 
 Jehane told the Queen-Mother. He was driven 
 the other half by his banished brother John.
 
 CH. XVII 
 
 CAHORS 207 
 
 Prince John, bundled out of the country within 
 a week of the coronation, went to Paris and a 
 pocketful of mischief in which to put his hand. 
 King Philip, who should have been preparing for 
 the East, was listening to counsels much more to 
 his liking. Conrad of Montferrat was there, with 
 large white fingers explaining on the table, and a 
 large white face set as lightly as a mouse-trap. His 
 Italian mind, with that strange capacity for sub- 
 serving business with passion, had a task of election 
 here. The Marquess knew that Richard would 
 sooner help the devil than him to Jerusalem ; not 
 only on this account, but on every conceivable 
 account did he hate Richard. If he could embroil 
 the two leaders of the Crusade, there was his affair : 
 Philip would need him. In Paris also was Saint- 
 Pol, fizzling with mischief, and behind him, where- 
 ever he went, stalked Gilles de Gurdun, murder in 
 his heart. The massive Norman was a fine foil 
 to the Count : they were the two poles of hatred. 
 The Duke of Burgundy was not there, but Conrad 
 knew that he could be counted. Richard owed 
 him (so he said) forty pounds ; besides, Richard 
 had called him a sponge — and it was true. There, 
 lastly, was Des Barres, that fine Frenchman, ready 
 to hate anybody who was not French, and most 
 ready to hate Richard, who had broken up the 
 Gisors wedding and put, single-handed, all the 
 guests to shame. Now, this was a company after 
 Prince John's own heart. Standing next to the 
 English throne, he was an excellent footstool ; he 
 felt the delicate position, he was flattered at every 
 turn. The Marquess found him most useful, not
 
 208 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. i 
 
 only because he was on better terms with Philip 
 than himself could hope to be, but because he 
 understood him better. John knew that there 
 were two tender spots in that moody King, and 
 he knew which was the tenderer, pardieu ! So 
 Conrad's gross finger, guided by John's, probed the 
 raw of Philip's self-esteem, and found a rankling 
 wound, very proud flesh. Oh, intolerable affront 
 to the House of Capet, that a tall Angevin robber 
 should take up and throw away a daughter of 
 France, and then whistle you to a war in the East ! 
 Prince John, you perceive, knew where to rub in 
 the salt. 
 
 The storm broke when King Richard was again 
 at Chinon. King Philip sent messengers — William 
 des Barres, the Bishop of Beauvais, and Stephen 
 of Meaux — about the homage due to him for 
 Normandy and all the French fiefs. So far 
 well ; King Richard was very urbane, as bland as 
 such an incisive dealer could be. He would do 
 homage for Normandy, Anjou, and the rest on such 
 and such a day. ' But,' he added quietly, ' I attach 
 the condition that it be done at Vezelay, when I 
 am there with my army for the East, and he with 
 his army.' 
 
 The ambassadors demurred, talking among them- 
 selves : Richard sat on immovable, his hands on 
 his knees. Presently the Bishop of Beauvais, 
 better soldier than priest, stood out from his fellows 
 and made this remarkable speech :— 
 
 ' Beau sire, our lord the august King takes it 
 very ill that you have so long delayed the marriage 
 agreed upon solemnly between your Grace and
 
 ch. xvir CAHORS 209 
 
 Madame Alois his sister. Therefore ' Milo 
 
 (who was present) says that he saw his master 
 narrow his eyes so much that he seemed to have 
 none at all, but ' sockets and blank balls in them, 
 like statues.' The Bishop of Beauvais, apparently, 
 did not observe it. ' Therefore,' he went on, 
 orotund, ' our lord the King desires that the 
 marriage may be celebrated before he sets out for 
 Acre and the blessed work in those parts. Other 
 matters there are for settlement, such as the title 
 of the most illustrious Marquess of Montferrat 
 to the holy throne, in which my master is persuaded 
 your Grace will conform to his desires. This 
 and other matters a many.' 
 
 The King got up. ' Too many matters, Bishop 
 of Beauvais,' he said, ' for my appetite, which is 
 poor just now. There is no debate. Say this to 
 your master, I pay homage where it is due. If 
 by his own act he prove that it is not due, I will 
 not be blamed. As to the Marquess, I will never 
 get a kingdom for him, and I marvel that King 
 Philip can make no better choice than of a man 
 whose only title is rape, and can get no better ally 
 than the slanderer of his sister. And upon the 
 subject of that unhappy lady, I tell you this upon 
 the Holy Gospels, that I will marry King Philip 
 himself before I will marry her ; and so much he 
 very well knows. I am upon the point to depart 
 in the fulfilment of my vows. Let your master 
 please himself. He is a bad sailor, he tells me. 
 Am I to think him a bad soldier ? And if so, in 
 such a cause, what sort of a Christian, what sort 
 of a king, am I to think him ? ' 
 
 P
 
 210 RICHARD YEA- AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 The Bishop, his diplomacy at an end, grew 
 very red. He had nothing to say. Des Barres 
 must needs put in his word. 
 
 ' Bethink you, fair sire,' he says : ' the Marquess 
 is of my kindred.' 
 
 ' Oh, I do think, Des Barres,' the King answered 
 him ; ' and I am very sorry for you. But I am 
 not answerable for the trespasses of your ancestry.' 
 
 Des Barres glared about him, as if he hoped to 
 find a reply among the joists. 
 
 ' My lord,' he began again, ' it is laid in charge 
 upon us to speak the mind of France. Our 
 master is greatly put about in his sister's affair, 
 and not he only, but his allies with him. Among 
 whom, sire, you must be pleased to reckon my 
 lord John of Mortain.' 
 
 He had done better to leave John out ; Richard's 
 eyes burnt him, and his voice cut. ' Let my brother 
 John have her, who knows her rights and wrongs. 
 As for you, Des Barres, take back to your master 
 your windy conversation, and this also, that I allow 
 no man to dictate marriages to me.' So said, he 
 broke up the audience, and would see no more 
 of the ambassadors. They, in two or three days, 
 departed with what grace they had in them. 
 
 The immediate effect of this, you may per- 
 haps expect, was to drive Richard all the road to 
 Navarre. He was profoundly offended, so much 
 so that not Jehane herself dared speak to him. 
 As he always did when his heart mastered his head, 
 he acted now alone and at once. In the heart we 
 choose to seat rage of all sorts, the purest and the 
 most base, the most fervent and the most cold.
 
 ch. xvn CAHORS 211 
 
 It so happened that there was business for our 
 King in Gascony, congenial business. Guillem de 
 Chisi, a vassal of his, had been robbing pilgrims, 
 so Guillem was to be hanged. Richard went swift- 
 foot to Cahors, hanged Guillem in front of his 
 own gatehouse, then wrote letters to Pampluna 
 inviting King Sancho to a conference ' upon many 
 affairs touching Almighty God and ourselves.' 
 Thus he put it, and King Sancho needed no 
 accents to the vowels. The wise man set out 
 with a great train, his virgin with him. 
 
 The day of his expectation, King Richard heard 
 mass in a most unchristian frame of mind. There 
 was no Sursum Cor da for him ; but he knelt like 
 a stone image, inert and cold from breast to back- 
 bone ; said nothing, moved not. How differently 
 do men and women stand at the gate of sorrows ! 
 Not far off him knelt Countess Jehane, who in 
 her hands again (it may be said) held up her 
 bleeding heart. The luxury of this strange sacrifice 
 made the girl glow like a fire opal ; she was in a 
 fierce ecstasy, her lips parted, eyes half-shut ; she 
 breathed short, she panted. There is no moralising 
 over these things : love is a hearty feeder, and 
 thrives on a fast-day as well as on a gaudy. By 
 fasting come visions, tremors, swoonings and such 
 like, dainty perversions of sense. But part of 
 Jehane's exaltation, you must know, came of 
 another spur. She had a sure and certain hope ; 
 she knew what she knew, though no other even 
 guessed it. With that to carry she could lift up 
 her head. No woman in the world need grudge
 
 212 RICHARD YEA-AND-N AY bk. r 
 
 the usurper of place while she may go on, carrying 
 her title below the heart. More of this presently. 
 Two hours before noon, in that clear October 
 weather, over the brown hills came a company 
 of knights on white destriers, with their pennons 
 flying and white cloaks over their mail, the out- 
 riders of Navarre. They were met in the meadow 
 of the Charterhouse and escorted to their quarters, 
 which were on the right of the King's pavilion. 
 That same pavilion was of purple silk, worked 
 over with gold leopards the size of life. It had 
 two standards beside it, the dragon of the English, 
 the leopards of Anjou. The pavilion of King 
 Sancho was of green silk with silver emblems — a 
 heart, a castle, a stag ; Saint George, Saint Michael, 
 Saint James the Great, and Saint Martin with his 
 split cloak — a shining place before whose door 
 stood twenty ladies in white, their hair let loose, 
 to receive Madame Berengere and minister to her. 
 Chief among these was Countess Jehane. King 
 Richard was not in his own pavilion, but would 
 greet his brother king in the hall of the citadel. 
 
 So in due time, after three soundings on the 
 silver trumpets and much curious ceremony of 
 bread and salt, came Don Sancho the Wise in a 
 meinie of his peers, very noble on a roan horse ; 
 and Dame Berengere his daughter in a wine- 
 coloured litter, with her ladies about her on 
 ambling palfreys, the colour of burnt grass. 
 When they took this little princess out of her 
 silken eagre the first face she looked for and the 
 first she saw was that of Jehane Saint-Pol, who 
 received her courteously.
 
 ch.xvii CAHORS 213 
 
 Jehane always wore sumptuous clothing, being 
 aware, no doubt, that her person justified the 
 display. For this time she had dressed herself 
 in silver brocade, let her bosom go bare, and 
 brought the strong golden plaits round about 
 in her favourite fashion. Upon her head she 
 had a coronet of silver flowers, in her neck a 
 blue jewel. All the colour she had lay in her 
 hue of faint rose, in her hair like corn in the sun, 
 in her eyes of green, in her deep red lips. But 
 her height, free build, and liberal curves marked 
 her out of a bevy that glowed in a more 
 Southern fashion. She had to stoop overmuch 
 to kiss Berengere's hand ; and this made the 
 little Spaniard bite her lip. 
 
 Berengere herself was like a bell, in a stiff 
 dress of crimson sewn with great pearls in leaf 
 and scroll-work. From the waist upwards she 
 was the handle of the bell. This immoderation 
 of her clothes, the fright she was in — so nervous 
 at first that she could hardly stand — became her 
 very ill. She was quite white in the face, with 
 solemn black eyes, glazed and expressionless ; her 
 little hands stuck out from her sides like a 
 puppet's. Handsome as no doubt she was, she 
 looked a doll beside the tall Jehane, who could 
 have dandled her comfortably on her knee. She 
 spoke no language but her own, and that not the 
 langue d'oc, but a blurred dialect of it, rougher 
 even than Gascon. Conversation was very difficult 
 on these terms. At first the Princess was shy ; 
 then (when she grew curious and forgot her 
 qualms) Jehane was shy. Berengere fingered the
 
 2i 4 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.i 
 
 jewel in the other's neck, turned it about, wanted 
 to know whence it had come, whose gift it was, 
 etc., etc. Jehane blushed to report it the gift 
 of a friend ; whereupon the Princess looked her 
 up and down in a way that made her hot all 
 over. 
 
 But when it came to the time of meeting King 
 Richard, Berengere's nervous fears came crowding 
 back ; the poor little creature began to shake, 
 clung to Jehane. ' How tall is the King, how 
 tall is he ? Taller than you ? ' she asked, looking 
 up at the Picard girl. 
 
 ' Oh, yes, Madame, he is taller than I.' 
 
 'They say he is cruel. Did you — do you 
 think him cruel ? ' 
 
 ' Madame, no, no.' 
 
 ' He is a poet, they say. Has he made many 
 songs of me ? ' 
 
 Jehane murmured her doubts, exquisitely con- 
 fused. 
 
 ' Fifty poets,' continued nestling Berengere, 
 ' have made songs of me. There is a wreath of 
 songs. They call me Frozen Heart : do you 
 know why ? They say I am too proud to love 
 a poet. But if the poet is a king ! I have a 
 
 certain fear just now. I think I will ' She 
 
 took Jehane's arm — ' No ! no ! ' She drew away. 
 ' You are too tall — I will never take your arm- — I 
 am ashamed. I beg you to go before me. Lead 
 the way.' 
 
 So Jehane went first of all the ladies who led 
 the Queen to the Kins;. 
 
 King Richard, who himself loved to go
 
 ch. xvn CAHORS 215 
 
 splendidly, sat upon his throne in the citadel 
 looking like a statue of gold and ivory. Upon 
 his head was a crown of gold, he had a long 
 tunic of white velvet, round his shoulders a great 
 cope of figured gold brocade, work of Genoa, and 
 very curious. His face and hands were paler than 
 their wont was, his eyes frosty blue, like a winter 
 sea that is made bright, not warm, by the sun. 
 He sat up stiffly, hands on knees ; and all about 
 him stood the lords and prelates of the most 
 sumptuous court in the West. King Sancho the 
 Wise was ready to stoop all his wisdom and 
 burden of years before such superb state as 
 this ; but the moment his procession entered 
 the hall Richard went down from his dais to 
 meet it, kissed him on the cheek, asked how 
 he did, and set the careworn man at his ease. 
 As for Berengere, he took from her of both 
 cheeks, held her small hand, spoke in her own 
 language honourable and cheerful words, drove 
 a little colour into her face, screwed a word or 
 two out of her. Afterwards there was high 
 mass, sung by the Archbishop of Auch, and a 
 great banquet, served in the cloister-garth of the 
 Charterhouse under a red canopy, because the hall 
 of the citadel was too small. 
 
 At this feast King Richard played a great part 
 — cheerful, easy of approach, making phrases like 
 swords, giving and taking the talk without any 
 advantage of his rank. His jokes had a bite in 
 them, as when he said of Bertran that the best 
 proof of the excellence of his verses was that he had 
 undoubtedly made them himself ; or of Averrhoes,
 
 216 RICHARD YEA- AND-N AY bk.i 
 
 the Arabian physician and infidel philosopher, that 
 the man equalised his harms by poisoning with 
 his drugs the bodies of those whose minds had 
 been tainted by his heresies. But he was the 
 first to set the laugh against himself, and had a 
 flash of Dame Berengere's fine teeth before he had 
 been ten minutes at table. 
 
 After dinner the Kings and their ministers 
 went into debate ; and then it seemed that 
 Richard had got up from his meat perverse. He 
 would only talk of one thing, namely, sixty thousand 
 gold besants. On this he harped maddeningly, 
 with calculations of how much victual the sum 
 would buy, of the weight in ounces, of its content 
 in sacks in a barn, of the mileage of the coins set 
 edge to edge, and so on, and so on. Don Sancho 
 sat winking and fidgeting in his chair, and talked 
 of his illustrious daughter. 
 
 * Milled edges they should have, these besants,' 
 says King Richard, ' whereof, allowing (say) three 
 hundred and fifty to a piece, we have a surprising 
 total of — here he figured on the table, and 
 King Sancho pursued his drift until Richard 
 brought his hand slamming down — ' of one-and- 
 twenty million ridges of gold upon the treasure ! ' 
 he concluded with a waggish look. Agreement 
 was as hard as to prolong parallels to a point. 
 Yet this went on for some two hours, until, worn 
 frail by such futilities, the Navarrese chancellor 
 plumply asked his brother of England if King 
 Richard would marry. ' Marry ! ' cried he, when 
 they brought him down the question, ' yes, I am 
 all for marrying. I will marry one-and-twenty
 
 ch. xvn CAHORS 217 
 
 million milled edges, our Saviour ! ' They 
 reported to King Sancho the substance of these 
 words, and asked him if such and such would be 
 the dowry of his lady daughter. 
 
 'Ask King Richard if he will have her with 
 that in hand and the territories demarked,' said 
 Don Sancho. 
 
 This was done. Richard grew grave, made no 
 more jokes. He turned to Milo, who happened 
 to be near him. 
 
 ' Where is the little lady ? ' he asked him. 
 Milo looked out of the window. 
 
 ' My lord,' he said, ' she is in the orchard 
 at this moment ; and I think the Countess is with 
 her.' Richard blenched, as if he had been struck 
 with a whip. Collecting himself, he turned and 
 looked down through the window to the leafy 
 orchard below. He looked long, and saw (as 
 Milo had seen) the two girls, the tall and the 
 little, the crimson and the white, standing near 
 together in the shade. Jehane had her head bent, 
 for Berengere had hold of the jewel in her bosom. 
 Then Berengere put her arms round the other's 
 neck and leaned her head where the jewel lay. 
 Jehane stooped her head lower and lower, cheek 
 touched cheek. At this King Richard turned 
 about ; despair set hard was on his face. He said 
 in a dry voice, ' Tell the King I will do it.' 
 
 In the tedious negotiations of the next few days 
 it was arranged that the Princess should await the 
 Queen-Mother at Bayonne, and sail with her and 
 the fleet to Sicily. There King Richard would 
 meet and marry her. What had passed between
 
 2i 8 RICHARD YEA-AND-N AY bk. i 
 
 her and Jehane in the orchard, who knows ? They 
 kissed at parting ; but Jehane neither told Richard, 
 nor did he ask her, why Berengere had laid her 
 cheek upon her bosom, or why herself had stooped 
 so low her head. Women's ways ! 
 
 So Red Heart made her sacrifice, and Frozen 
 Heart suffered the Sun ; and he they called later 
 Lion -Heart went out to fight Saladin, and less 
 open foes than he.
 
 BOOK II 
 THE BOOK OF NAY
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE CHAPTER CALLED MATE-GRIFON 
 
 Differing from the Mantuan as much in sort as 
 degree, I sing less the arms than the man, less the 
 panoply of some Christian king offended than the 
 heart of one in its urgent private transports ; less 
 treaties than the agony of treating, less personages 
 than persons, the actors rather than the scene. 
 Arms pass like the fashion of them, to-day or to- 
 morrow they will be gone ; but men live, their 
 secret springs what they have always been. How 
 the two Kings, then, smeared over their strifes at 
 Vezelay ; how John of Mortain was left biting his 
 nails, and Alois weeping at the foot of a cross ; 
 how Christian armies like dusty snakes dragged 
 their lengths down the white shores of Rhone, and 
 how some took ship at Marseilles, and some saved 
 their stomachs at the cost of their shoes ; of King 
 Richard's royal galley Trenchemer, a red ship with 
 a red bridge, and the dragon at the mast ; of the 
 shields that made her bulwarks terrible ; of who 
 went adventurous and who remained ; of a fleet 
 that lay upon the waters like a flock of sea-gulls — ■
 
 222 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 countless, now at rest, now beating the sea into 
 spumy wrath ; of what way they made, qualms 
 they suffered, prayers they said in their extremity, 
 vows they made and afterwards broke, thoughts 
 they had and afterwards were ashamed of — of 
 these and all such things I must be silent if I am 
 to make a good end to my history. It shall be 
 enough for you that the red ship held King 
 Richard, and King Richard his own thoughts, and 
 that never far from him, in a ship called Li 
 Chastel Orgoilous, sat Jehane with certain women 
 of hers, nursing her hope and a new and fearful 
 wonder she had. Prayer sits well in women, and 
 age-long watching : one imagines that Jehane never 
 left the poop through those long white days, those 
 burning nights ; but could always be seen or felt, 
 a still figure sitting apart, elbow on knee, chin 
 in hand — like a Norn reading fate in the starred 
 web of the night. In the dark watches, when the 
 ships lay drifting under the stars, or lurched for- 
 ward as the surges drove them on, and the tink- 
 ling of the water against the side was all the 
 sound, some woman's voice (not jehane's) would 
 be heard singing faint and far off, some little 
 shrill and winding prayer. 
 
 Saincte Catherine, 
 Vela la nuict qui gagne ! 
 
 they would hear, and hang upon the cadence. At 
 such times Richard, stretched upon his lion-skin, 
 would raise himself, and lift up his face to the 
 immense, and with his noble voice make the dark- 
 ness tremble as he sang —
 
 ch. i MATE-GRIFON 223 
 
 Domna, dels angels regina, 
 Donina, roza ses espina, 
 Domna, joves enfantina, 
 Domna, estela marina, 
 De las autras plus luzens ! 
 
 But so soon as his voice filled the night, the 
 woman's faltered and died ; and he, holding on 
 for a stave or more, would stop on a note that had 
 a wailing fall, and the lapping of the waves or cry 
 of hidden birds take up the rule again. This did 
 not often obtain. Mostly he watched out the 
 night, sleeping little, talking none, but revolving 
 in his mind the great deeds to do. By day 
 he was master of the fleet, an admirable seaman 
 who, knowing nothing of ships' business before he 
 embarked, dared not confess so much to himself. 
 Richard must be leader if he was to be undertaker 
 at all. So he led his fleet from his first hour with 
 it, and brought it safely into the roadstead. 
 
 They made Messina prosperously, a white city 
 cooped within walls, with turrets and belfries and 
 shining domes, stooping sharply to the violet sea. 
 King Philip with his legions was to have come by 
 land as far as Genoa, and was not expected yet 
 awhile. Nor was there any sign of the Oueen- 
 Mother, of Berengere, or of the convoy from 
 Navarre. 
 
 A landing was made in the early morning. 
 Before the Sicilians were well awake Richard's 
 army was in camp, the camp entrenched, and a 
 most salutary gallows set up just outside it, with a 
 thief upon it as a warning to his brothers of Sicily.
 
 224 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 So far good. The next thing was an embassy to 
 King Tancred, the Sicilian King, which demanded 
 (i) the person of Queen Joan (Richard's sister), 
 (2) her dowry, (3) a golden table twelve foot long, 
 (4) a silk tent, and (5) a hundred galleys fitted out 
 for two years. This despatched, Richard enter- 
 tained himself with his hawks and dogs, and with 
 short excursions into Calabria. On one of these 
 he went to visit the saintly Abbot Joachim, at once 
 prophet and philosopher and man of cool sense ; 
 and on another to kill wild boars. When he came 
 back in October from the second of these, he found 
 matters going rather ill. 
 
 King Tancred avoided seeing him, sent no 
 tables, nor ships, nor dowry. He did send Queen 
 Joan, and Queen Joan's bed ; moreover, because 
 she had been Queen of Sicily, he sent a sack of 
 gold coins for her entertainment ; but he did not 
 propose to go any further. Richard, seeing what 
 sort of courses his plans were likely to take, crossed 
 once more into Calabria, attacked a fortified town 
 which the Sicilians had settled, turned the settlers 
 out, and established his sister there with Jehane, 
 her shipload of ladies, and a strong garrison. Then 
 he returned to Messina. 
 
 Certainly, he saw, his camp there could be of 
 no long tenure. The Grifons, as they called the 
 inhabitants, were about it like hornets ; not a day 
 passed without the murder of some man of his, or 
 an ambush which cost him a score. Thieving was 
 a courtesy, raiding an amenity in a Grifon, it 
 appeared. Richard, hoping yet for the dowry and 
 a peaceful departing, had laid a strict command
 
 ch. i MATE-GRIFON 225 
 
 that no harm should be done to any one of them 
 unless he should be caught bloody-handed. ' Well 
 and good ! ' writes Milo ; ' but this meant to say 
 that no man might scratch himself for fear he should 
 kill a louse.' Nature could not endure such a 
 direction, so Richard then (whose own temper was 
 none of the longest) let himself go, fell upon a 
 party of these brigands, put half to the sword and 
 hanged the other half in rows before the landward 
 gate of Messina. You will say that this did not 
 advance his treaty with King Tancred ; but in a 
 sense it did. When the Messenians came out of 
 their gates to attack him in open field, it was found 
 and reported by Gaston of Beam, who drove them 
 in with loss, that William des Barres and the Count 
 of Saint-Pol had been with them, each heading a 
 company of knights. Richard flew into a royal, 
 and an Angevin, rage. He swore by God's back 
 that he would bring the walls flat ; and so he did. 
 * This is the work of that little pale devil of France, 
 then,' he said. ' A likely beginning, by my soul ! 
 Now let me see if I can bring two kings to reason 
 at once.' 
 
 He used the argument of the long arm. 
 Bringing up his engines from the ships, he pounded 
 the walls of Messina to such purpose that he could 
 have walked in barefoot in two or three places. 
 King Tancred came in person to sue for peace ; 
 but Richard wanted more than dowry by this time. 
 ' The peace you shall have,' he said, ' is the peace of 
 God which passeth understanding, and for which, I 
 take it, you are not yet ready, unless you bring 
 hither with you Philip of France.' This the 
 
 Q
 
 226 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 unfortunate Tancred really could not do ; but he 
 did bring proxies of Philip's. Saint-Pol came, Des 
 Barres, and the Bishop of Beauvais with his russet, 
 soldier's face. King Richard sat considering these 
 worthy men. 
 
 ' Ah, now, Saint-Pol, you are playing a good 
 part in this Christian adventure, I think ! ' he broke 
 out after a time. Saint-Pol squared his jaw. ' If 
 I had caught you in your late sally, my friend,' 
 Richard went on, ' I should have hanged you on a 
 tree, knight or no knight. Why, fool, do you 
 think your shameful brother worth so much 
 treachery ? With him before your eyes can you 
 do no better ? I hope so. Get you back, and tell 
 King Philip this : He and I are vowed to honesty ; 
 but if he breaks faith again, I have that in me which 
 shall break him. As for you, Bishop of Beauvais ' 
 — one saw the old war -priest blink — 'I know 
 nothing of your part in this business, and am 
 willing to think charitably. If you, an old man, 
 have any of the grace of God left in you, bestow 
 some of it on your master. Teach him to serve 
 God as you serve Him, Beauvais. I will try to be 
 content with that.' He turned to Des Barres, the 
 finest soldier of the three. ' William,' he said 
 more gently, for he really liked the man, * I hope to 
 meet you in a better field, and side by side. But 
 if face to face again, William,' and he lifted his 
 hand, ' beware of me.' 
 
 None of them had a word to say, but with 
 troubled faces left the presence ; which shows (to 
 some men's thinking) that Richard's strength lay 
 in his cause. That was not the opinion of Des
 
 ch. i MATE-GRIFON 227 
 
 Barres, nor is it mine. Meeting them afterwards, 
 when he made a pact of friendship and alliance with 
 Tancred, and renewed that which he had had with 
 Philip, he showed them a perfectly open counten- 
 ance. Nevertheless, he took possession of Messina, 
 as he had said he would, and built a great tower 
 upon the wall, which he called Mate-Grifon. Then 
 he sent for his sister and Jehane, and kept a royal 
 Christmas in the conquered city. 
 
 Trouble was not over. There were constant 
 strifes between nation and nation, man and man. 
 Winter storms delayed the Queen - Mother ; 
 Richard fretted and fumed at the wasting of his 
 force, but saw not the worst of the matter. If 
 vice was eating his army, jealousy was eating 
 Philip's sour little heart, and rage that of Saint- 
 Pol. Saint-Pol, with Gurdun to back him, had 
 determined to kill the English King ; with them 
 went, or was ready to go, Des Barres. He was 
 not such a steady hater by any means. Some 
 men seek temptation, others fall under it ; Des 
 Barres was of this kind. 
 
 Of temptation there was a plenty, since Richard 
 was the most fearless of men. When he had for- 
 given an injury it did not exist for him any more. 
 He was glad to see Des Barres, glad to play, 
 talk, grumble, or swear with him— a most excellent 
 enemy. One day, idling home from a hawking 
 match, he got tilting with the Frenchman, with 
 reeds for lances. Neither seemed in earnest until 
 Richard's horse slipped on a loose stone and threw 
 him. This was near the gate. You should have 
 seen the change in Des Barres. ' Hue ! Hue !
 
 228 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ir 
 
 Passavant ! ' he yelled, possessed with the devil 
 of destruction ; and came pounding at Richard as 
 if he would ride over him. At the battle-cry a 
 swarm of fellows— Frenchmen and Brabanters — 
 came out and about with pikes. Richard was on 
 his feet by that time, perfectly advised what was 
 astir. He was alone, but he had a sword. This 
 he drew, and took a stride or two towards Des 
 Barres, who had pulled up short of him, and was 
 panting. The pikemen, who might have hacked 
 him to pieces, paused for another word. A second 
 of time passed without it, and Richard knew he was 
 safe. He went up to Des Barres. 
 
 ' Learn, Des Barres,' he said, ' that I allow 
 no cries about my head save those for Saint 
 George.' 
 
 ' Sire,' said Des Barres, ' I am no man of 
 yours.' 
 
 ' It is truly said,' replied Richard, ' but I will 
 dub you one ' ; and he smote him with the flat of 
 his sword across the cheek. The blood leapt after 
 the sword. 
 
 ' Soul of a virgin ! ' cried Des Barres, white as 
 cloth, except for the broad weal on his face. 
 
 4 Your soul against mine, graceless dog,' said 
 the King. 'Another word and I pull you down.' 
 Just then who should come riding out of the gate 
 but Gilles de Gurdun, armed cap-a-pie ? 
 
 ' Here, my lord,' said Des Barres, clearing his 
 throat, ' comes a gentleman who has sought your 
 Grace with better cause than mine.' 
 
 ' Who is your gentleman ? ' Richard asked 
 him.
 
 ch. i MATE-GRIFON 229 
 
 ' It is De Gurdun, sire, a Norman knight 
 whose name should be familiar.' 
 
 ' I know him perfectly,' said Richard. He 
 turned to one of the bystanders, saying, ' Fetch 
 that gentleman to me.' The man ran nimbly to 
 meet De Gurdun. 
 
 Des Barres, watching narrowly, saw Gilles start, 
 saw him look, almost saw the bracing of his nerves. 
 What exactly followed was curious. Gilles moved 
 his horse forward slowly. King Richard, standing 
 in leather doublet and plumed cap, waited for him, 
 his arms folded. Des Barres on horseback, an 
 enemy ; the bystanders, tattered, savage, high-fed 
 men, enemies also ; in front the most implacable 
 enemy of all. 
 
 When De Gurdun was within spear-reach he 
 stopped his horse and sat looking at the King. 
 Richard returned the look ; it was an eyeing 
 match, soon over. Gurdun swung off the horse, 
 threw the rein to a soldier, and tried footing it. 
 The steady duel of the eyes continued until Gilles 
 was actually within sword's distance. Here he 
 stopped once more ; finally gave a queer little 
 grunt, and went down on one knee. Des Barres 
 sighed as he eased his heart. The tension had 
 been terrible. 
 
 Richard said, ' De Gurdun, stand up and answer 
 me. You seek my life, as I understand. Is it 
 so ? ' 
 
 Sir Gilles began to stammer. ' No man has 
 
 loved the law — no knight ever loved lady ' 
 
 and so on ; but Richard cut him short. 
 
 ' Answer me, man,' he said, in a voice which
 
 230 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 was nearly as dry as his father's, ' do you wish for 
 my life ? ' 
 
 ' King,' said Gilles, his great emotion lending 
 him dignity, ' if I do, is it a strange matter ? 
 You have had my father's and brother's. You 
 have mine in your hand. You corrupted and 
 then stole my beloved. Are these no griefs ? ' 
 
 Richard grew impatient ; he could never bear 
 waiting. 
 
 ' Do you wish my life ? ' he asked again. Gilles 
 was overwrought. * By God on high, but I do 
 wish it ! ' he cried out, almost whimpering. 
 
 King Richard threw down his sword. ' Take 
 it then, you fool,' he said. ' You talk too 
 much/ 
 
 A silence fell upon the party, so profound that 
 the cicala in the dry hedge shrilled to pierce the 
 ear. Richard stood like a stock, with Des Barres 
 gaping at him. Gurdun was all of a tremble, but 
 swung his sword about in his sword-hand. After 
 a while he took a deep breath, a fumbling step 
 forward ; and Des Barres, leaning out over the 
 saddle, caught him by the surcoat. 
 
 ' Drop that man, Des Barres,' said Richard, 
 without moving his eyes from the Norman. Des 
 Barres obeyed ; and as the silence resumed Gilles 
 began twitching his sword again. When a lizard 
 rustled in the grass a man started as if shot. 
 
 Gilles gave over first, threw his sword away 
 with a sob. c God ha' mercy, I cannot ! I can- 
 not ! ' he fretted, and stood blinking the tears 
 from his eyes. Richard picked up his weapon and 
 returned it to him. ' You are brave enough, my
 
 ch.i MATE-GRIFON 231 
 
 friend,' he said, ' for better work. Go and do 
 better in Syria.' 
 
 ' There is no better work for me, sir,' said 
 Gurdun, ' unless you can justify yourself.' 
 
 ' I never justify myself,' said Richard. ' Give me 
 my sword.' De Gurdun gave it him. Richard 
 sheathed it, went to his horse, mounted, rode away 
 at walking pace. Nobody moved till he was out 
 of sight. Then said Des Barres with a high oath, 
 'I could serve that King if he would let me.' 
 
 ' God damn him,' said Gilles de Gurdun for his 
 part. 
 
 It was near the end of January when they 
 sighted over sea the painted sails of the Queen- 
 Mother's galley. Her fleet anchored in the roads, 
 and the lady came ashore. She had two inter- 
 views, one with her son, one with Jehane. But 
 she did not choose to see her daughter, Queen 
 Joan, a very handsome, free lady. 
 
 ' Marriage ! ' cried King Richard, when this 
 was broached. ' This is no time to talk of 
 marriage. I have waited six months, and now the 
 lady must wait a while, other six if needs be. We 
 leave this accursed island in two days. Between 
 my friends and my enemies I have fought the 
 length and breadth of it twice over. Am I to 
 spend my whole host killing Christians ? A little 
 more inactivity, good mother, and I shall be in 
 league with the Soldan against Philip. Bring the 
 lady to Acre, and I will marry her there.' 
 
 ' No, no, Richard,' said the Queen-Mother ; 
 ' I am needed in England. I cannot come.'
 
 232 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. n 
 
 ' Then let Joan take her,' said the King. 
 
 The Queen-Mother, knowing him very well, 
 tried him no further. She sent for Jehane, and 
 held her close in talk for nearly an hour. 
 
 ' Never leave my son, Jehane,' was the string 
 she harped on. ' Never leave him for good or 
 ill weather. Mated or unmated, never leave him.' 
 
 ' Never in life, Madame,' said Jehane, then bit 
 her lip lest she should utter what her mind was full 
 of. But the Queen-Mother had no eyes. 
 
 ' Pray for him,' she said ; and Jehane, ' I pray 
 hourly, Madame.' Then the Queen kissed her on 
 both cheeks, and in such kindness they parted.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 OF WHAT JEHANE LOOKED FOR, AND WHAT 
 BERENGERE HAD 
 
 Milo the abbot writes, 'When the spring airs, 
 moving warmly over the earth, ruffled the surface 
 of the deep, and that to a tune so winning that 
 there was no thought of the treachery below, we 
 took to the ships and steered a course south-east 
 by south. This was in the quindenes of Easter. 
 The two queens (if I may call them so, of whom 
 one had been and one hoped to be of that estate), 
 Joan and Berengere, went in a great ship which 
 they call a dromond, a heavy-timbered ship carry- 
 ing a crowd of sail. With them, by request of 
 Madame Berengere, went Countess Jehane, not by 
 any request of her own. The King himself led 
 her aboard, and by the hand into the state pavilion 
 on the poop. 
 
 * " Madame," he said to his affianced, " I bring 
 you your desired mate. Use her as you would use 
 me, for if I have a friend upon earth it is she." 
 
 ' " Oh, sire," says Berengere, " I am acquainted 
 with this lady. She has nothing to fear from me." 
 
 ' Queen Joan said nothing, being afraid of her
 
 234 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 brother. So Madame Jehane kissed the hands of 
 the pair of queens, meekly kneeling to each in 
 turn ; and so far as I know she did them faithful 
 service through all the mischances of a voyage 
 whereon every woman and every other man was 
 horribly sick. 
 
 ' Having made the Pharos in favourable weather, 
 and kept Mount Gibello and the wild Calabrian 
 coast upon our lee (as is fitting), we stood out for 
 the straight course over the immense waste of 
 water. Now was no more land to be seen at 
 either hand ; but the sky fitted close upon the 
 edges of the sea like a dome of glass on a 
 man's forehead. There was neither cover from 
 the sun nor hiding-place from the prying con- 
 course of the stars ; the wind came searchingly, 
 the waters stirred beneath it, or, being driven, 
 heaped themselves up into towers of ruin. The 
 cordage flacked, the strong ribs creaked ; like a 
 beast overburdened the whole ship groaned, wallow- 
 ing in a sea-trough without breath to climb. So 
 we endured for many days, a straggling host of men, 
 ordinarily capable, powerless now beneath that dumb 
 tyrant the sky. Where else could be our refuge ? 
 We all looked to King Richard — by day to his 
 royal ensign, by night to the great wax candle 
 which he always had lighted and stuck in a 
 lantern. His commands were shouted from ship 
 to ship over two miles or more of sea ; if any 
 strayed or dropped behind we lay -to that he 
 might come up. But very often, after a day's 
 idle rolling, we knew that the sea had claimed 
 some boatload of our poor souls, and went on.
 
 ch. ii THE HARVEST IN CYPRUS 235 
 
 The galleys kept touch with the dromonds, en- 
 closing them (as it were) within the cusps of a 
 new moon, and so driving them forward. To see 
 this light of our King's moving, now fast, now 
 slow, now up, now down, restlessly over the field 
 of the night, v/as to remember the God of the 
 Israelites, who (for their sakes and ours) became a 
 pillar of fire at that season, and transformed him- 
 self into a tall cloud in the daytime. Busy as it 
 was, this point of light, it only figured the un- 
 resting spirit of the King, careful of all these 
 children of his, ordering the hosts of the Lord. 
 
 4 Storms drove us at length on to the island of 
 Crete, where Minos once had his kingly habitation, 
 and his wife died of pleasure. Again they drove 
 us, more unfortunately, out of our course upon the 
 inhospitable coasts of Rhodes, where the salt wind 
 suffers no trees to live, nor safe anchorage to be, 
 nor shelter from the ravage of the sea. In this 
 vexed place there was no sign of land but a long 
 line of surf beating upon a rocky shore, the mist 
 of spray and blown sand, spars of drowned ships, 
 innumerable anxious flocks of birds. Here was 
 no roadstead for us ; yet here, but for the signal 
 providence of heaven, we had likely all have 
 perished (as many did perish), miserably failing at 
 once of purpose, the sacraments of Christ, and 
 reasonable beds. The fleet was scattered wide, no 
 ship could see his neighbour ; we called on the King, 
 on the Saviour, on the Father of all. But deep 
 answered to deep, and the prayer of so many 
 Christians, as it appeared, skilled little to change 
 the eternal purposes of God.
 
 236 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 ' Then one inspired among us climbed up to 
 the masthead, having in his teeth a piece of the 
 True Cross set in a silver heart ; and called aloud 
 to the wild weather, " Save, Lord, we perish ! ' 
 as was said of old by very sacred persons. To 
 which palpable truth so urgently declared an 
 answer was vouchsafed, not indeed according to 
 our full desires, yet (doubtless) level with our 
 deserts. The wind veered to the north ; and though 
 it abated nothing of its force, preserved us from the 
 teeth of the rocks. Before it now, under bare 
 poles, without need of oars, we drove to the 
 southward ; and while a little light still endured 
 descried a great mountainous and naked coast 
 rising out of the heaped waters, which we knew 
 to be the land of Cyprus. Off the western face 
 of this dark shore, in a little shelter at last, we 
 lay -to and tossed all night. Next day in fairer 
 weather, hoisting sail, we made a good haven 
 defended by stout sea-walls, a mole and two 
 lighthouses : these were of a city called Limasol. 
 Upon my galley, at least, there was one who sang 
 Lauda Sion> whose tune before had been Adhasit 
 pavimento, when he rested tired eyes upon the 
 clustered spires of a white city, smokeless and 
 asleep in the early morning light.' 
 
 So far without weariness I hope Milo may have 
 conducted the reader. In relation to the sea you 
 may take him for an expert in the terrors he 
 describes. Not so in Cyprus. War tempts him 
 to prolixity, to classical allusion, even to hexameters 
 of astonishingly loose joints. Every stroke of his 
 hero's sword-arm seems to him of weight. No
 
 ch. ii THE HARVEST IN CYPRUS 237 
 
 doubt it was, once ; but not in a chronicle of this 
 sort, where the Cypriote gests must take a lowly 
 place among others fair and foul of this King- 
 errant. Let me put Milo on the shelf for a 
 little, and abridge. 
 
 I tell you then that the Emperor of Cyprus, by 
 name Isaac, was a thin-faced man with high cheek- 
 bones. A Greek of the Greeks, he undervalued 
 what he had never seen, precisely for that reason. 
 When heralds went up to Nikosia to announce the 
 coming-in of King Richard, Isaac mumbled his 
 lips. ' Prutt ! ' he said, ' I am the Emperor. 
 What have I to do with your kings ? ' Richard 
 showed him that with one king he had plenty to 
 do, by assaulting Limasol and putting armies to 
 flight in the plains about Nikosia. Shall I sing the 
 battle of the fifty against five thousand ; tell how 
 King Richard with precisely half a hundred knights 
 came cantering against the sun and a host, as gay and 
 debonair as to a driving of stags ? They say that 
 he himself led the charge, covered in a wonderful 
 silken surcoat, colour of a bullfinch's breast, and 
 wrought upon in black and white heraldry. They 
 say that at the sight of the pensils a-flutter, at the 
 sound of the hunting-horns, the Grifons let fly a 
 shaft a-piece ; then threw down their bows and 
 scattered. But the knights caught them. Isaac 
 was on a hill to watch the battle. ' Who is that 
 marvellous tall knight who seems to be swimming 
 among my horse ? ' ' Splendour, it is Rikardos, 
 King of the West,' they told him, ' reputed a fierce 
 swimmer.' ' He drowns, he drowns ! ' cried the 
 Emperor, as the red plumes were whelmed in black.
 
 238 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 ' Nay, but he dives rather, Majesty.' He heard the 
 death-shouts, he saw white faces turned his way ; 
 then the mass was cleft asunder, blown off and 
 dispersed like the sparks from a smithy. The 
 thing was of little moment in a time of much ; 
 there was no fighting left in the Cypriotes after 
 that sunny morning's work. Nikosia fell, and 
 the Emperor Isaac, in silver chains, heard from 
 his prison-house the shouts which welcomed the 
 Emperor Richard. These things were accom- 
 plished by the first week in May. Then came 
 Guy of Lusignan with bad news of Acre and 
 worse of himself. Philip was before the town, 
 Montferrat with him. Montferrat had the Arch- 
 duke's of Austria as well as French support ; with 
 these worthies, and the ravished wife of old King 
 Baldwin for title-deed, he claimed the throne of 
 Jerusalem ; and King Guy of Lusignan (but for 
 the name of the thing) was of no account at all. 
 Guy said that the siege of Acre was a foppery. 
 King Philip was ill, or thought he was ; Mont- 
 ferrat was treating with Saladin ; the French 
 knights openly visited the Saracen women ; and 
 the Duke of Burgundy got drunk. ' What else 
 could he get, poor fool ? ' asked Richard ; then 
 said, ' But I promise you this : Montferrat shall 
 never be King of Jerusalem while I live — not 
 because I love you, my friend, but because I love 
 the law. I shall come as soon as I can to Acre, 
 when I have done here the things which must be 
 done.' He meant his marriage. 
 
 Little Madame Berengere was lodged, as 
 became her, in the Emperor's palace at Limasol,
 
 ch. ii THE HARVEST IN CYPRUS 239 
 
 having with her Queen Joan of Sicily, and among 
 her women the young fair lady Jehane, none too 
 fair, poor girl, by this time. Berengere herself, 
 who was not very intelligent, remarked her, and 
 gave her the cold shoulder. As day swallowed 
 up day, and Richard, at his affairs, gave her no 
 thought, or at least no sign, Jehane's condition 
 became an abominable eyesore to the Queen - 
 designate ; so Queen Joan plucked up her courage 
 to the point, and seeking out her brother, let him 
 know that she had tidings for his private ear. 
 
 ' I do not admit that I have such an ear,' said 
 Richard. ' It is no part of a king's baggage. 
 Yet by all means name your tidings, my sister.' 
 
 ' Dear sire,' said Joan, « it appears that you 
 have sown a seed, and must look before long for 
 the harvest.' The King laughed. 
 
 ' God knows, I have sown enough seeds. But 
 mostly they come up tares, I am apt to find. My 
 harvesting is of little worth. What now, sister ? ' 
 
 1 Beau sire,' says the Queen, ' I know not how 
 you will take it. Your bonamy, the Picardy lady, 
 is with child, and not so far from her time neither. 
 My sister Berengere is greatly offended.' 
 
 King Richard began to tremble ; but whether 
 from the ague which was never long out of him, or 
 from joy, or from trouble, who knows ? 
 
 ' Oh, sister,' he said, ' Oh, sister, are you very 
 sure of this ? ' 
 
 * I was sure of it,' replied the lady, ' the moment 
 I saw her in the autumn at Messina. But now 
 your question is not worth the asking.' 
 
 The King abruptly left his sister and went over
 
 2 4 o RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 to the Queen's side of the palace. Berengere was 
 sitting upon a balcony, all her ladies with her ; but 
 Jehane a little apart. When the King was an- 
 nounced all rose to their feet. He looked neither 
 right nor left of him, but fixedly at Jehane, with a 
 high bright flush upon his sharp face and fever 
 sparks in his eyes. To these signals Jehane, 
 because of her great exaltation, flew the answering 
 flags. Richard touched Berengere's hand with the 
 hair on his lip : to Jehane he said, ' Come, ma 
 mye,' and led her out of the balcony. 
 
 This was not as it should have been ; but 
 Richard, used to his way, took it, and Richard 
 moved could move bigger mountains than those 
 of ceremony. He lunged forward along the 
 corridors, Jehane following as she might, led by the 
 hand, but not against her will. No doubt she was 
 with child, no doubt she was glorious on that 
 account. She was a very proud girl. 
 
 Alone, those two who had loved so fondly 
 gazed each at the work wrought upon the other 
 without a word said, the King all luminous with 
 love, and she all dewy. If soul spoke to soul ever 
 in this world, said Richard's soul, ' O Vase, that 
 bearest the pledge of my love ! ' and hers, ' O Strong 
 Wine, that brimmest in my cup ! ' 
 
 He came forward and embraced her with his 
 arm. He felt her heart beat, he guessed her pride ; 
 he felt her thrill, he knew his own defeat. He 
 felt her so strong and salient under his hand — so 
 strong, so full-budded, so hopeful of fruit — that 
 despair of her loss seized him again, terrible rage. 
 He sickened, while in her the warm blood leaped.
 
 ch. ii THE HARVEST IN CYPRUS 241 
 
 He wanted everything ; she, nothing in the world. 
 He, the king of men, was the bond ; she, the cast- 
 off minion, she, this Jehane Saint-Pol, was the free. 
 So God, making war upon the great, rights the 
 balances of this world. 
 
 But he was extraordinarily gentle with her ; he 
 gripped himself and throttled the animal close. 
 Gaining grace as he went, his heart throve upon 
 its own blood. Balm was shed on his burning face, 
 he sucked peace as it fell. Then he, too, discerned 
 the God near by ; to him, too, came with beating 
 wings the pure young Love, that best of all, which 
 hath no needs save them of spending. 
 
 His voice was hushed to a boy's murmur. 
 
 ' Jehane, ma mye, is it true ? ' 
 
 ' I am the mother of a son,' she said. 
 
 ' Give God the glory ! ' 
 
 But she said, ' He hath given it to me.' Her 
 face was turned to where God might be : Richard, 
 looking down, kissed her on the mouth. Trem- 
 blingly they kissed and long, not as young lovers, 
 but as spouse and spouse, drinking their common 
 
 joy- 
 After a while his present troubles came thronging 
 
 back, and he said bitterly : ' Ah, child, thou art 
 
 widowed of me while yet we both live. Yet it was 
 
 in thy power to be mother of a king.' 
 
 Said she, leaning her head on his breast, ' Every 
 woman that beareth a child is mother of a king ; 
 but not every woman's child hath a king to his 
 father. Thus it is with me, Richard, who am 
 doubly blessed.' 
 
 ' Ah God ! ' he cried, poignantly concerned, ' Ah 
 
 R
 
 242 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 God, Jehane, see what trammels I have enmeshed 
 us in, thee in one net and me in another ! So that 
 neither can I help thee, being roped down to this 
 work, nor thou thyself, trapped by my fault. How 
 shall I do ? Lo, my sin, my sin ! I cried Yea ; 
 and now cometh God, and, Nay, King Richard, he 
 saith. The sin is mine, and the burden of the sin 
 is thine. Is this a horrible thing ? ' 
 
 Jehane smiled up in his face. ' And dost thou 
 think it, Richard, a burden so grievous,' she said, 
 ' to be mother of thy son ? Dost thou think that 
 the world can be harsh to me after that ; or that in 
 the life to come there will be no remembrance to 
 make the long days sweet ? ' She looked very 
 proudly upon him, smiling all the time ; she put 
 her hands up and crowned his head with them. 
 ' Oh, my dear life, my pride and my master,' said 
 Jehane, ' let all come to me that must come now ; 
 I am rich above all my desires, and my lowliness 
 has been of no account with God. Now let me 
 go, blessing His name.' 
 
 He would not let her go, but still looked 
 earnestly down at her, struggling with himself 
 against himself. 
 
 ' I must be married, Jehane,' says he presently. 
 And she, ' In a good hour, my lord.' 
 
 ' It is an accursed hour,' he said ; ' nothing but 
 ill can come of it.' 
 
 ' Lord,' said she, ' thou art vowed to this work.' 
 
 ' I know it very well,' he replied ; ' but a man 
 does as he can.' 
 
 ' You, my King Richard, do as you will,' said 
 Jehane. So he kissed her and let her go.
 
 ch. ii THE HARVEST IN CYPRUS 243 
 
 Among the multitudinous affairs now heaped 
 upon him — business of his new empire and his 
 old, business of Guy's, business of the war, 
 business of marriage — he set first and foremost 
 this business of Jehane's. He removed her from 
 the Queen's house, gave her house and household 
 of her own. It was in Limasol, a pleasant place 
 overlooking the sea and the ships, a square white 
 house set deep in myrtle woods and oleanders. 
 Once more the ' Countess of Poictou ' had her 
 seneschal, chaplain, ladies ot honour. That done, 
 he fixed Saint Pancras' day for his marriage, had 
 the ships got out, furnished, and appointed for 
 sea. The night before Saint Pancras he sent for 
 Abbot Milo in a hurry. Milo found him walking 
 about his room, taking long, carefully accurate 
 strides from flagstone to flagstone. 
 
 He continued this feverish devotion for some 
 minutes after his confessor's coming - in ; and 
 seeing him deep in thought, the good man stood 
 patient by the doorway. So presently Richard 
 seemed aware of him, stopped in mid-waJk, and 
 looking at him, said — 
 
 ' Milo, continence is, I suppose, of all virtues 
 the most excellent ? ' Milo prepared to expatiate. 
 
 ' Undoubtedly, sire, it is so, because of all 
 virtues the least comfortable. Saint Chrysostom, 
 
 indeed, goes so far as to declare ' ; but Richard 
 
 broke in. 
 
 * And therefore, Milo, it is urged upon the 
 clergy by the ordinances of many honourable popes 
 and patriarchs ? ' 
 
 * Distinguo, sire,' said Milo, ' distinguo. There
 
 244 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 are other reasons. It is written, So run that ye 
 may obtain. Now, no man can run after the 
 prize we seek if he carrieth a woman on his 
 back. And that for two reasons : first, because 
 she is so much dead weight ; and second, because 
 a woman is so made that, if her bearer did achieve 
 the reward, she would immediately claim a share 
 in it. But that is no part of the divine plan, as I 
 understand it.' 
 
 * Let us talk of the laity, Milo,' said the King, 
 abstractedly. ' If one of them set up for a runner, 
 should he not be a virgin ? ' 
 
 ' Lord,' replied the abbot, ' if he can. But 
 that is not so convenient.' 
 
 1 How not so ? ' asked King Richard. 
 
 ' My lord,' Milo said, ' if all the laity were 
 virgins there would soon be no laity at all, and 
 then there would be no priests — a state of affairs 
 not provided for by the Holy Church. More- 
 over, the laity have a kingdom in this world ; but 
 the religious not of this world. Now, this world 
 is too excellent a good place not to be peopled ; 
 and God hath appointed a pleasant way.' 
 
 Said the King, ' A way of sorrow and shame.' 
 
 ' Not so, sire,' said Milo, ' but a way of honour. 
 And if I rejoice that the same way is before your 
 Grace, I am not alone in happiness.' 
 
 1 A king's business,' said Richard, ' is to govern 
 himself wisely (having paid his debts), and his 
 people wisely. It may be that he should get heirs 
 if none are. But if heirs there be, then what is 
 his business with more ? Why should his son be 
 better king than his brother, for example ? '
 
 ch. ii THE HARVEST IN CYPRUS 245 
 
 ' Lord,' Milo admonished, ' a king who is sure 
 of himself will make sure of his issue. That too 
 is a king's business.' 
 
 Said Richard moodily, 'Who is sure of him- 
 self?' He turned away his head, bidding Milo a 
 good night. As the abbot made his reverence he 
 added, ' I am to be married to-morrow.' 
 
 ' I devoutly hope so,' said the good man. ' And 
 then your Grace will have a surer hope than in 
 your Grace's brother.' 
 
 ' Get you to bed, Milo,' Richard said, ' and let 
 me be alone.' 
 
 Married he was, so far as the Church could 
 provide, in the Basilica of Limasol, with the Bishop 
 of Salisbury to celebrate. Vassals of his, and allies, 
 great lords of three realms, bishops and noble 
 knights filled the church and saw the rites done. 
 High above them afterwards, before the altar, he 
 sat crowned and vested in purple, holding in his 
 right hand the sceptre of his power, and the orb of 
 his dominion in his left hand. Then Berengere, 
 daughter of Navarre, kneeling before him, was by 
 him thrice crowned : Queen of England, Empress 
 of Cyprus, Duchess of Normandy. But she never 
 got upon her little dark head the red cap of Anjou 
 which had covered up Jehane's gold hair. Jehane 
 was neither at the church nor at the great feast 
 that followed. She, on Richard's bidding, was in 
 her ship, Li Chastel Orgoi/ous, whose head swayed 
 to the running tide. 
 
 But a great feast was held, at which Queen 
 Berengere sat by the King in a gold chair, and 
 was served on knees by the chief officers of the
 
 246 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 household, the kingdom, and the duchy. Also, 
 after dinner, full and free homage was done her — 
 a desperate long ceremony. The little lady had 
 great dignity ; and if they found her stiff, it is to 
 be hoped they remembered her very young. But 
 although everybody saw that Richard was in the 
 clutches of his ague throughout these performances, 
 so much so that when he was not talking his teeth 
 chattered in his head, and his hand spilt the wine 
 on its way to his mouth — none were prepared for 
 what was to come, unless such intimates as Gaston 
 of Beam or Mercadet, his Gascon captain, may have 
 known it. At the close of the homage-giving he 
 rose up in his throne, threw back his purple robe, 
 and showed to all beholders the wrinkled mail 
 beneath it. He was, in fact, in chain-armour from 
 shoulders to feet. For a moment all looked open- 
 mouthed. He drew his sword with a great gesture, 
 and held it on high. 
 
 ' Peers and noble vassals,' he called out in 
 measured tones (in which, nevertheless, deep down 
 the shaking fit could be discerned, vibrating the 
 music), ' the work calls us ; Acre is in peril. 
 Kings, who are servants of the King of Kings, put 
 by their private concerns ; queens, who bow to one 
 throne only, to that bow with haste. Now, you 
 of the Cross, who follows me to win the Cross ? 
 The ships are ready, my lords. Shall we go ? ' 
 
 The great hall was struck dumb. Queen 
 Berengere, only half understanding, looked scared 
 about her. One could not but pity the extinguish- 
 ment of her poor little great affairs. Queen Joan 
 grew very red. She had the spirit of her family,
 
 ch. ii THE HARVEST IN CYPRUS 247 
 
 was angry, fiercely whispered in her brother's ear. 
 He barely heard her ; he shook her words from 
 his ears, stamped on the pavement. 
 
 ' Never, never ! I am for the Cross ! Lord 
 Jesus, behold thy knight ! The work is ready, 
 shall I not do it ? I call Yea ! for this turn. Ha, 
 Anjou ! To the ships, to the ships ! ' 
 
 His sword flickered in the air ; there followed 
 it, leaping after the beam, a great swish of steel, 
 soon a forest of swords. 
 
 ' Ha, Richard ! Ha, Anjou ! Ha, Saint George ! ' 
 So they made the rafters volley ; and so headlong 
 after King Richard tumbled out into the dusk and 
 sought the ships. The new Queen was crying 
 miserably on the dais, Queen Joan tapping her 
 foot beside her. Late at night they also put out 
 to sea. On his knees, facing the shrouded East, 
 King Richard spent his wedding night, with his 
 bare sword for his partner.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 WHO FOUGHT AT ACRE 
 
 After they had lost the harbour of Limasol, from 
 that hasty dark hour of setting out, the fleet sailed 
 (it seemed) under new stars and encountered a new 
 strange air. All night they toiled at the oars ; 
 and in the morning, very early, every eye was 
 turned to the fired East, where, in the sea-haze, 
 lay the sacred places clothed (like the Sacrament) 
 in that gauzy veil. First of them Trenchemer 
 steered, the King's red galley, in whose prow, stiff 
 and hieratic as a figurehead, was the King himself, 
 watching for a sign. The great ships rolled and 
 plunged, the tide came racing by them, blue-green 
 water lipped with foam, carrying upon it unknown 
 weeds, golden fruit floating, wreckage unfamiliar, 
 a dead fish scarlet-rayed, a basket strangely wrought 
 — drifting heralds of a country of dreams. About 
 noon, when mass had been said upon his galley, 
 King Richard was seen to throw up his arms and 
 stretch them wide ; the shout followed the sign — 
 ' Terra Sancta ! Terra Sancta ! ' they heard him 
 cry. Voice after voice, tongue after tongue, took 
 up the word and lifted it from ship to ship. All
 
 ch. in THEY FIGHT AT ACRE 249 
 
 fell upon their knees, save the rowers. A dim 
 coast, veiled in violet, lifted before their eyes — 
 mountain ranges, great hollows, clouded places, so 
 far and silent, so mysteriously wrapt, full of awe, 
 no one could speak, no one had thought to speak, 
 but must look and search and wonder. A quick 
 flight of shore birds, flashing creatures that twittered 
 as they swept by, broke the spell. This then was 
 a land where living things abode ; it was not only 
 of the sacred dead. They drew nearer, their hearts 
 comforted. 
 
 They saw Margat, a lonely tower high on a 
 split rock ; they saw Tortosa, with a haven in the 
 sea ; Tripolis, a very white city ; Neplyn. Botron 
 they saw, with a great terraced castle ; afterwards 
 Beyrout, cedars about its skirt. Mountains rose 
 up nearer to the sound of the surf; they saw 
 Lebanon capped with cloud-wreaths, then snowy 
 Hermon gleaming in the sun. They saw Mount 
 Tabor with a grey head, and two mountains like 
 spires which stood separate and apart. Tyre they 
 passed, and Sidon, rich cities set in the sand, then 
 Scandalion ; at length after a long night of watching 
 a soft hill showed, covered with verdure and glossy 
 dark woods, Carmel, shaped like a woman's breast. 
 Making this hallowed mount, in the plain beyond 
 they saw Acre, many-towered ; and all about it 
 the tents of the Christian hosts, and before it in 
 the blue waters of the bay ships riding at anchor, 
 more numerous than the sea-birds that haunt Monte 
 Gibello or swim sentinel about its base. Trumpets 
 from the shore answered to their trumpets ; they 
 heard a wild tattoo of drums within the walls.
 
 250 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 On even keels in the motionless tide the ships took 
 up their moorings ; and King Richard, throwing 
 the end of his cloak over his shoulder, jumped off 
 the gunwale of Trenchemer, and waded breast-deep 
 to shore. He was the first of his realm to touch 
 this storied Syrian earth. 
 
 Now for affairs. The meeting of the Kings 
 was cordial, or seemed so. King Philip came 
 out of his pavilion to meet his royal brother, 
 and Richard, kissing him, asked him how he 
 did. ' Very vilely, Richard,' said the young man. 
 ' I think there is a sword in my head. The 
 glaring sun flattens me by day, and all night I 
 shiver.' 
 
 ' Fever, my poor coz,' said Richard, with a 
 kind hand upon his shoulder. Philip burst out 
 with his symptoms, wailing like a child : ' The 
 devil bites me. I vomit black. My skin is as 
 dry as a snake's. Yesterday they bled me three 
 ounces.' Richard walked back with him among 
 the tents, conversing cheerfully, and for a few days 
 held his old ascendency over Philip ; but only for a 
 few. Other of the leaders he saw : some gave him 
 no welcome. The Marquess of Montferrat kept 
 his quarters, the Duke of Burgundy was in bed. 
 The Archduke of Austria, Luitpold, a hairy man 
 with light red eyelashes, professed great civility ; 
 but Richard had a bad way with strangers. Not 
 being receptive, he took no pains to pretend that 
 he was. The Archduke made long speeches, 
 Richard short replies ; the Archduke made longer
 
 ch. in THEY FIGHT AT ACRE 251 
 
 speeches, Richard no replies. Then the Arch- 
 duke grew very red, and Richard nearly yawned. 
 This was at the English King's formal reception 
 by the leaders of the Crusade. With the Grand 
 Master of the Temple he got on better, liking the 
 looks of the man. He did not observe Saint-Pol 
 on King Philip's left hand ; but there he was, 
 flushed, excited, and tensely observant of his 
 enemy. That same night, when they held a 
 council of war, there was seen a smoulder of that 
 fire which you might have decently supposed put 
 out. King Philip came down in a mighty hurry, 
 and sat himself in the throne ; Montferrat, Bur- 
 gundy, and others of that faction serried round 
 about him. The English and Angevin chiefs 
 were furious, and the Archduke halted between 
 two opinions. By the time (lateish) when King 
 Richard was announced Gaston of Beam and 
 young Saint-Pol had their swords half out. But 
 Richard came and stood in the doorway, a magni- 
 ficent leisurely figure. All his party rose up. 
 Richard waited, watching. The Archduke (who 
 really had not seen him before) rose with 
 apologies ; then the French followed suit, singly, 
 one here and one there. There only remained 
 seated King Philip and the Marquess of Mont- 
 ferrat. Still Richard waited by the door ; 
 presently, in a quiet voice, he said to the usher, 
 * Take your wand, usher, to that paralytic over 
 there. Tell him that he shall use it, or I will.' 
 The message was delivered : at an angry nod from 
 King Philip the Marquess got darkly up, and 
 Richard came into the hall with King Guy of
 
 252 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. n 
 
 Jerusalem. These two sat down one on each side 
 of France ; and so the council began. 
 
 It was hopeless from the outset — a posse of 
 hornets droned into fury by the Archduke. While 
 he talked the rest maddened, longing for each 
 other's blood, failing that of Luitpold. Richard, 
 who as yet had no plans of his own, took no 
 interest whatever in plans. He acted throughout 
 as if the Marquess was not there, and as if he 
 wished with all his heart that the Archduke was 
 not there. On his part, the Marquess would have 
 given nearly all he owned to have behaved so to 
 Guy of Lusignan set over him ; but the Marquess 
 had not that art of lazy scorn which belongs to the 
 royal among beasts : he glowered, he was sulky. 
 Meantime the Archduke buzzed his age-long 
 periods, and Richard (clasping his knee) looked at 
 the ceiling. At last he sighed profoundly, and 
 ' God of heaven and earth ! ' escaped him. King 
 Philip burst into a guffaw — his first for many a 
 day — and broke up the assembly. Richard had 
 himself rowed out to Jehane in her ship. 
 
 He had no business there, though his business 
 was innocent enough ; but she could not tell him 
 so now. The girl was dejected, ill, and very 
 nervous about herself. Moreover, she had suffered 
 from sea-sickness. She could not hide her comfort 
 to have him ; so he took her up and kissed her as 
 of old, and ended by settling her on his knee. 
 There she cried, quietly but freely. He stayed 
 with her till she slept ; then went back to the 
 shore and walked about the trenches, thinking out 
 the business before him. The dawn light found
 
 ch. in THEY FIGHT AT ACRE 253 
 
 him at it. In a day or two, having got his tackle 
 ashore, he began the assault upon a plan of his 
 own, without reference to any other principality 
 or power at all. By this time King Philip lay 
 heaped in his bed, and had had his distempered 
 brain wrought upon by Montferrat and his kind, 
 Saint-Pol, Des Barres, and their kind. 
 
 Richard had with him Poictevins and Angevins, 
 men of Provence and Languedoc, Normans and 
 English, Scots and Welshry, black Genoese, Sicilians, 
 Pisans, and Grifons from Cyprus. The Count 
 of Champagne had his Flemings to hand ; the 
 Templars and the Hospitallers served him gladly. 
 It was an agglomerate, a horde, not an army, and 
 nobody but he could have wielded it. He, by the 
 virtue in him, had them all at his nod. The 
 English, who love to be commanded, hauled stones 
 for him all day, though he had not a word of 
 their language. The swart, praying Italians raved 
 themselves hoarse whenever he came into their 
 lines ; even the Cypriotes, sullen and timorous 
 creatures, whom no power among themselves could 
 have driven to the walls, fixed the great petraries 
 and mangonels, and ran grinning into the trap of 
 death for this tawny-haired hero who stood singing, 
 bareheaded, within bow-shot of the Turks, and 
 laughed like a boy when some fellow slipped on to 
 his back upon the dry grass. He was everywhere, 
 day after day — in the trenches, on the towers, 
 teaching the bowmen their business, crying ' Mort 
 de Dieu ! ' when a mangonel did its work, and 
 some flung rock made the wall to fly ; he crouched
 
 254 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 under the tortoise-screens with the miners, took a 
 mattock himself as indifferently as an arbalest or a 
 cross-bow. He could do everything, and have (if 
 not a word) a cheerful grin for every man who did 
 his duty. As it was evident that he knew what 
 such duty should be, and could have done it better 
 himself, men sweated to win his praise. He was 
 nearly killed on a scaling-ladder, too early put up, 
 or too long left so. Three arrows struck him, 
 and the defenders, calling on Allah, rolled an 
 enormous boulder to the edge of the wall, which 
 must have crushed him out of recognition on 
 the Last Day. ' Garde, sire ! ' ' Domna del Ciel ! ' 
 came the cries from below ; but ' Lady Virgin ! ' 
 growled a shockhead from Bocton-under-Bleane, 
 and pulled his King bodily off the ladder. The 
 poor fellow was shot in the throat at the next 
 moment ; the stone fell harmless. King Richard 
 took up his dead Englishman in his arms and 
 carried him to the trenches. He did no more 
 fighting until he had seen him buried, and ordained 
 a mass for him. Things of those sort tempted men 
 to love him. 
 
 The siege lasted ten days or more with varying 
 successes. Day and night in the city they heard 
 the drums beat to arms, the cries of the sheiks, 
 and more piercing, drawn-out cries than theirs. 
 To the nightly shrilled pronouncement of the 
 greatness of God came as answer the Christian's 
 wailing prayer, ' Save us, Holy Sepulchre ! ' The 
 King of France had an engine which he called 
 The Bad Neighbour, and did well with it until 
 the Turks provided a Bad Kinsman, much bigger,
 
 ch. in THEY FIGHT AT ACRE 255 
 
 which put the Neighbour to shame, and finally 
 burned him. King Richard had a belfry, and the 
 Count of Flanders could throw stones with his 
 sling from the trenches into the market-place ; at 
 any rate he said he could, and they all believed 
 him. The Christians caused the Accursed Tower 
 to totter ; they made a breach below the Tower 
 of Flies, in a most horrible part of the haven. 
 Mine and countermine, Richard on the north side 
 worked night and day, denying himself rest, food, 
 reasonable care, for a week forgetful of Jehane and 
 her hope. The weather grew stiflingly hot, night 
 and day there was no breath of wind ; the whole 
 country reeked of death and abomination. Once, 
 indeed, a gate was set fire to and rushed. The 
 Christians saw before them for the first time the 
 ghostly winding way of a street, where blind pale 
 houses heeled to each other, six feet apart. There 
 was a breathless fight in that pent way, a strangling, 
 throttled business ; Richard with his peers of Nor- 
 mandy, swaying banners, the crashing sound of 
 steel on steel, the splash of split polls : but it 
 could not be carried. The Turks, surging down 
 on them, a wall of men, bodily forced them out. 
 There was no room to swing an axe, no space for 
 a horse to fall, least of all for draught of the bow. 
 Richard cried the retreat ; they could not turn, so 
 walked backwards fighting, and the Turks repaired 
 the gate. Acre did not fall by the sword, but by 
 starvation rather, and the diligent negotiations of 
 Saladin with our King. Richard's terms were, 
 Restore the True Cross, empty us Acre of men- 
 at-arms, leave two thousand hostages. This was
 
 256 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 accepted at last. The Kings rode into Acre 
 on the twelfth of July with their hosts, and the 
 hollow-eyed courtesans watched them furtively 
 from upper windows. They knew their harvest 
 was to reap. 
 
 Harvest with them was seed-time with others. 
 It was seed - time with the Archduke. King 
 Richard set up his household in the Castle 
 (with a good lodging for Jehane in the Street 
 of the Camel) ; King Philip, miserably ill, went to 
 the house of the Templars ; with him, sedulously 
 his friend, the Marquess of Montferrat. But 
 Luitpold of Austria proposed himself for the 
 Castle, and Richard endured him as well as he 
 could. But then Luitpold went further. He set 
 up his banner on the tower, side by side with 
 Richard's Dragon, meaning no offence at all. 
 Now King Richard's way was a short way. He 
 had found the Archduke a burdensome ass, but no 
 more. The world was full of such ; one must 
 take them as part of the general economy of 
 Providence. But he knew his own worth per- 
 fectly well, and his own standing in the host ; so 
 when they told him where the Austrian's flag flew, 
 he said, ' Take it down.' They took it down. 
 Luitpold grew red, made a long speech in German 
 at which Richard frowned, and another (shorter) 
 in Latin, at which he laughed. Luitpold put up 
 his flag again ; again Richard said, ' Take it 
 down.' Luitpold was so angry that he made no 
 speeches at all ; he ran up his flag a third time. 
 When King Richard was told, he laughed, and on 
 this occasion said, ' Throw it away.' Gaston of
 
 ch. in THEY FIGHT AT ACRE 257 
 
 Beam, more vivacious than discreet, did so with 
 ignominious detail. That day there was a council 
 of the great estates, at which King Philip presided 
 in a furred gown ; for though the weather was 
 suffocating his fever kept him chill to the bones. 
 To the Marquess, pale with his old grudge, was 
 now added the Archduke, flaming with his new 
 one. The mottled Duke of Burgundy blinked 
 approval of all grudges, and young Saint -Pol 
 poured fire into the fire. Richard was not 
 present, nor any of his faction ; they, because 
 they had not been advertised, he, because he was 
 in the Street of the Camel at the knees of Jehane 
 the Fair. 
 
 The Archduke began on the instant. ' By 
 God, my lords,' he said, ' is there in the world 
 a beast more flagrant than the King of England 
 not killed already ? ' The Marquess showed 
 the white rims of his eyes — 'Injurious, des- 
 perate, bloody villain,' was his commentary ; and 
 Saint-Pol lifted up his hand to his master for 
 leave to speak mischief. But King Philip said 
 fretfully, ' Well, well, we can all speak of some- 
 thing, I suppose. He scorns me, he has 
 always scorned me. He refuses me homage, he 
 shamed my sister ; and now he takes the lead 
 of me.' 
 
 The Marquess kept muttering to the table, 
 ' Hopeless villain, hopeless villain ! ' and the Arch- 
 duke, after staring about him for sympathy, 
 claimed attention, if not that ; for he brought his 
 fist down with a thump. 
 
 ' By thunder, but I kill him ! ' he said deep in 
 
 s
 
 258 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 his throat. Saint-Pol came running and kissed his 
 knee, to Luitpold's great surprise. 
 
 Philip shivered in his furs. ' I must go home,' 
 he fretted ; ' I am smitten to death. I must die 
 in France.' 
 
 ' Where is the King of England ? ' asked the 
 Marquess, knowing perfectly well. 
 
 ' Evil light upon him,' cried Saint-Pol, ' he is 
 in my sister's house. Between them they give me 
 a nephew.' 
 
 ' Oho ! ' Montferrat said. ' Is that it ? Why, 
 then, we know where to strike him quickest. We 
 should make Navarre of our party.' 
 
 ' He has done that himself, by all accounts,' 
 said the Duke of Burgundy, wide-awake. 
 
 The Archduke, returning to his new lodgings 
 in the Bishop's house, sent for his astrologers and 
 asked them, Could he kill the King of England ? 
 
 ' My lord,' said they, ' you cannot.' 
 
 * How is that ? ' he asked. 
 
 ' Lord,' they told him, ' by our arts we discover 
 that he will live for a hundred years.' 
 
 1 It is very remarkable,' said the Archduke. 
 ' What sort of years will they be ? ' 
 
 ' Lord,' said the astrologers, ' they are divers in 
 complexion ; but many of them are red.' 
 
 ' I will provide that they be,' said the Archduke. 
 ' Go away.' 
 
 The Marquess sought no astrologers, but in- 
 stead the Street of the Camel and Jehane's house. 
 He observed this with great care, watching from 
 an entry to see how King Richard would come
 
 ch. in THEY FIGHT AT ACRE 259 
 
 out, whether attended or not. He observed more 
 than the house, for much more was forced upon 
 him. Human garbage filled the close ways of 
 Acre, men and women marred by themselves or 
 a hideous begetting, hairless persons and snug 
 little chamberers, botch-faces, scald-heads, minions 
 of many sorts, silent-footed Arabians as shameless 
 as dogs, Greeks, pimps and panders, abominable 
 women. Murder was swiftly and secretly done. 
 Montferrat from his entry saw the manner of it. 
 A Norman knight called Hamon le Rotrou came 
 out of an infamous house in the dusk, and stepped 
 into the Street of the Camel with his cloak delicately 
 round him. Fine as he was, he was insanely a 
 lover of the vile thing he had left ; for he knelt 
 down in the street to kiss her well-worn doorstep. 
 He knelt under the light of a small lamp, and out 
 of the shadow behind him stepped catfoot a tall 
 thin man, white from head to foot, who, saying 
 'All hail, master,' stabbed Hamon deep in the 
 side. Hamon jerked up his head, tottered, fell 
 without more than a tired man's sigh sideways 
 into the arms of his killer. This one eased his 
 fall as tenderly as if he was upholding a girl, let 
 him down into the kennel, drew him thence by 
 the shoulders into the dark, and himself vanished. 
 Montferrat swore softly to himself, ' That was 
 neatly done. I must find out who this expert 
 may be.' He went away full of it, having for- 
 gotten his housed enemy. 
 
 There was a Sheik MofFadin in the jail, one of 
 the Soldan's hostages for the return of the True 
 Cross. The Marquess went to see him.
 
 260 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 ' Who of your people,' he asked, ' is very tall 
 and light-footed, robes him from head to foot in 
 white linen, and kills quietly, as if he loved the 
 dead, with an " All hail, master " ? ' 
 
 ' We call him an Assassin in our language,' 
 the Sheik replied ; ' but he is not of our people by 
 any means. He is a servant of the Old Man who 
 dwells on Lebanon.' 
 
 ' What old man is this, Moffadin ? ' 
 
 ' I can tell you no more of him,' said the 
 Sheik, ' save that he is master of many such men, 
 who serve him faithfully and in silence. But he 
 hates the Soldan, and the Soldan him.' 
 
 ' How do they serve him, by killing ? ' 
 
 ' Yes. They kill whomsoever he points out, 
 and so receive (or think to receive) a crown in 
 Paradise.' 
 
 ' Is this old man's name Death, by our Saviour ? ' 
 cried the Marquess. 
 
 The Sheik answered, ' His name is Sinan. 
 But the name of Death would suit him very 
 well.' 
 
 ' Where should I get speech with some of his 
 servants ? ' the Marquess inquired ; adding, ' For 
 my life is in danger. I have enemies who are 
 irksome to me.' 
 
 ' By the Tower of Flies you will find them,' 
 said the Sheik, ' and late at night. There are 
 always some of his people walking there. Seek 
 out such a man as you have seen, and without 
 fear accost him after his fashion, kissing him and 
 saying, " Ah, Ali. Ah, Abdallah, servant of 
 Ali." '
 
 ch. in THEY FIGHT AT ACRE 261 
 
 ' I am very much obliged to you, Moffadin,' 
 said the Marquess. 
 
 That same night Jehane was in pain, and King 
 Richard dared not leave her, nor the physicians 
 either. And in the morning early she was delivered 
 of a child, a strong boy, and then lay back and 
 slept profoundly. Richard set two black women 
 to fan the flies off her without stopping once under 
 pain of death ; and having seen to the proper care 
 of the child and other things, returned alone through 
 the blanching streets, glorifying and praising God.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 CONCERNING THE TOWER OF FLIES, SAINT-POL, 
 AND THE MARQUESS OF MONTFERRAT 
 
 In the church of Saint Lazarus of the Knights, 
 on Lammas Day, the son of Richard and Jehane 
 was made a Christian by the Abbot of Poictiers. 
 Gossips were the Count of Champagne, the Earl 
 of Leicester, and (by proxy) the Queen-Mother. 
 He was named Fulke. 
 
 At the moment of anointing the church-bell 
 was rung ; and at that moment Gilles de Gurdun 
 spat upon the pavement outside. Saint-Pol said 
 to him, ' We must do better than that, Gilles.' 
 
 And Gilles, ' I pray God may spit him out.' 
 
 ' Oh, He ! ' said Saint-Pol with a bitter laugh ; 
 ' He helps those who are helpful of them- 
 selves.' 
 
 ' I cannot help myself, Eustace,' said Gurdun. 
 ' I have tried. I had him unarmed before me at 
 Messina, and he looked me down, and I could not 
 do it.' 
 
 ' Have at his back, then.' 
 
 ' I hope it may not come to that,' said Gilles ; 
 ' and yet it may, if it must.'
 
 ch. iv THE TOWER OF FLIES 263 
 
 ' Come with me to-night to the Tower of Flies,' 
 said Saint -Pol. 'Here is my shameful sister 
 brought out of church. I cannot stay.' 
 
 ' I stay,' said Gilles de Gurdun. King Richard 
 came out of church, and Jehane, and the child 
 carried on a shield. 
 
 Jehane, who had much ado to walk without 
 falling, saw not Gilles ; but Gilles saw her, and 
 the red in his face took a tinge of black. While 
 she was before him he gaped at her, with a dry 
 tongue clacking in his mouth, consumed by a 
 dreadful despair ; but when she had passed by, 
 swaying in her weakness, barely able to hold up 
 her lovely head, he lifted his face to the white 
 sky, and looked unwinking at the sun, wondering 
 where else an equal cruelty could abide. In this 
 golden king, as cruel as the sun, and as swift, 
 and as splendid ! Ah, dastard, dastard ! At the 
 minute Gilles could have leapt at him and mauled 
 the great shoulders with a dog's weapons. There 
 was no solace for him but to bite. So he dashed 
 his forearm into his face, and sluiced his teeth 
 in that. 
 
 But King Richard of the high head mounted 
 his horse in the churchyard, and rode among the 
 people before Jehane's bearers to the Street of the 
 Camel. Squires of his threw silver coins among 
 the crowds who filled the ways. 
 
 Within the house, he laid her on her bed, and 
 held up the child before her, high in the air. He 
 was in that great mood where nothing could resist 
 him. She, faint and fragrant on the bed, so frail 
 as to seem transparent, a disembodied sprite, smiled
 
 264 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 because she felt at ease, as the feeble do when they 
 first lie down. 
 
 * Lo, Fulke of Anjou ! ' sang Richard — ' Fulke, 
 son of Richard, the son of Henry, the son of 
 Geoffrey, the son of Fulke ! Fulke, my son 
 Fulke, I will make thee a knight even now!' He 
 held the babe in one hand, with the free hand 
 drew his long sword. The flat blade touched the 
 nodding little head. 
 
 ' Rise up, Sir Fulke of Anjou, true knight of 
 thine house, Sieur de Cuigny when I have thee 
 home again. By the Face ! ' he cried shortly, as 
 if remembering something, ' we must get him the 
 badge : a switch of wild broom ! ' 
 
 ' Dear lord, sweet lord,' murmured Jehane, faint 
 in bed, nearly gone : but he raved on. 
 
 ' When I lay, even as thou, Fulke, naked by my 
 mother, my father sent for a branch of the broom, 
 and stuck it in the pillow against I could carry it. 
 And shalt thou go without it, boy ? Art not thou 
 of the broom-bearers ? ' He put the child into 
 the nurse's arm and went to the door. He called 
 for Gaston of Beam, for the Dauphin of Auvergne, 
 for Mercadet, for the devil. The Bishop of 
 Salisbury came running in. ' Bishop,' said King 
 Richard, ' you must serve me to-day. You must 
 take ship, my friend, with speed ; you must go to 
 Bordeaux, thence a-horseback to the moor above 
 Angers. Pluck me a branch of the wild broom 
 and return. I must have it, I tell you ; so go. 
 Haste, Bishop. God be with you.' 
 
 The Bishop began to splutter. ' Hey, sire ' 
 
 ' Never call me that again, Bishop, if your ship
 
 ch. iv THE TOWER OF FLIES 265 
 
 is within sight by sunset,' he said. 'Call me rather 
 the Prince of the Devils. See my chancellor, take 
 my ring to him, omit nothing. Off with you, and 
 back with all speed.' 
 
 'Ha, sire, look you now,' cried the desperate 
 bishop, ' there will be no broom before next Easter. 
 Here we are at Lammas.' 
 
 ' There will be a miracle,' said Richard ; ' I am 
 sure of it. Go.' Fairly pushing him from the 
 door, he returned to find Jehane in a dead faint. 
 This set him raving a new tune. He fell upon his 
 knees incontinent, raised her in his arms, carried 
 her about, kissed her all over, cried upon the saints 
 and God, did every extravagance under the sun, 
 omitted the one wise thing of letting in the 
 physicians. Abbot Milo at last, coming in, saved 
 Jehane from him for the deeper purposes of God. 
 
 The Count of Saint-Pol, going to the Castle, to 
 the Queen's side, found the Marquess with her. 
 She also lay white and twisting on a couch, crisping 
 and uncrisping her little hands. Montferrat stood 
 at her head ; three of her ladies knelt about her, 
 whispering in her own tongue, proffering orange 
 water, sweetmeats, a feather whisk. Saint-Pol knelt 
 in her view. 
 
 ' Madame, how is it with your Grace ? ' he said. 
 The little lady quivered, but took no notice. 
 
 ' Madame,' said Saint-Pol again, ' I am a peer 
 of France, but a knight before all. I am come to 
 serve your Grace with my manhood. I pray you 
 speak to me.' The Marquess folded his arms ; his 
 large white face was a sight to see. 
 
 Queen Berengere's palms were bleeding a little
 
 266 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 where her nails had broken the skin. She was 
 quite white ; but her eyes, burning black, had no 
 pupils. When Saint-Pol spoke for the second time 
 she shook beyond all control and threw her head 
 about. Also she spoke. 
 
 ' I surfer, I suffer horribly. It is cruel beyond 
 understanding or knowledge that a girl should 
 suffer as I surfer. Where is God ? Where is 
 Mary ? Where are the angels ? ' 
 
 ' Dearest Madame, dearest Madame,' said the 
 cooing women, and one stroked her face. But the 
 Queen shook the hand off, and went wailing on, 
 saying more than she could have meant. 
 
 ' Is it good usage of the daughter of a king, 
 Lord Jesus ? Is this the way of marriage, that the 
 bride be left on her wedding day ? ' She jumped 
 up on her couch and took hold of her bosom in the 
 sight of men. ' She hath given him a child ! He 
 is with her now. Am I not fit for children ? Shall 
 there never be milk ? Oh, oh, here is more shame 
 than I can bear ! ' She hid her face in her hands, 
 and rocked herself about. 
 
 Montferrat (really moved) said low to Saint- 
 Pol : ' Are we knights to surfer these wrongs to 
 be ? ' Said Saint-Pol with a sob in his voice, ' Ah, 
 God, mend it ! ' 
 
 ' He will,' said Montferrat, ' if we help to 
 mend.' 
 
 This reminded Saint-Pol of his own words to 
 De Gurdun ; so he made haste to throw himself 
 before the Queen, that he might still be pure in his 
 devotion. ' My lady Berengere,' he said ardently, 
 ' take me for your soldier. I am a bad man, but
 
 ch. iv THE TOWER OF FLIES 267 
 
 surely not so bad as this. Let me fight him for 
 you.' 
 
 The Queen shook her head, impatient. ' Hey ! 
 What can you do against so glorious a man ? He 
 is the greatest in the world.' 
 
 ' Ha, domeneddio ! ' said the Marquess with a 
 snort. ' I have that which will abate such glory. 
 Dearest Madame, we go to pray for your health.' 
 He kissed her hand, and drew away with him 
 Saint-Pol, who was trembling under the thoughts 
 that fired him. 
 
 * Oh, my soul, Marquess ! ' said the youth, when 
 they were in the glare of day again. ' What shall 
 we do to mend this wretchedness ? ' The Marquess 
 looked shrewdly. 
 
 * End the wretch who wrought it.' 
 
 ' Do we go clean to that, Marquess ? Have we 
 no back-thoughts of our own ? ' 
 
 ' The work is clean enough. You come to-night 
 to the Tower of Flies ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, yes, I will come,' said Saint-Pol. 
 
 ' I shall have one with me,' the Marquess went 
 on, ' who will be of service, mind you.' 
 
 ' Ah,' said Saint-Pol, ' and so shall I.' 
 
 The Marquess stroked his nose. ' Hum,' he 
 said, advising, ' who might your man be, Saint-Pol ? ' 
 
 * One,' said Eustace, ' who has reason to hate 
 Richard as much as that poor lady in there.' 
 
 ' Who is that ? ' 
 
 * My sister Jehane's lover.' 
 
 ' By the visible Host,' said Montferrat, ' we 
 shall be a loving company, all told.' So they 
 parted for the time.
 
 268 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 The Tower of Flies stands apart from the city 
 on a spit of sand which splays out into two flanges, 
 and so embraces in two hooks a lagoon of scummy 
 ooze, of weeds and garbage, of all the waste and 
 silt of a slack water. In front of it only is the 
 tidal sea, which there flows languidly with a half- 
 foot rise ; on the other is the causeway running up 
 to the city wall. Above and all about this dead 
 marsh you hear day and night the buzzing of 
 innumerable great flies, and in the daytime see 
 them hanging like gauze in the thick air. They 
 say the reason is that anciently the pagans sacrificed 
 hecatombs hereabout to the idols they worshipped ; 
 but another (more likely) is that the lagoon is a 
 dead slack, and stinks abominably. All dead 
 things thrown from the city walls come floating 
 thither, and there stay rotting. The flies get what 
 they can, sharing with the creatures of land and 
 sea ; for great fish feed there ; and at night the 
 jackals and hyaenas come down, and bicker over 
 what they can drag out. But more than once or 
 twice the sharks drag them in, and have fresh meat, 
 if their brother sharks allow it. However all this 
 may be, the place has a dreadful name, a dreadful 
 smell, and a dreadful sound, what with the humming 
 of flies and dull rippling of the sharks. These can 
 seldom be seen, since the water is too thick ; but 
 you can tell their movements by the long oily 
 waves (like the heads of large arrows) which their 
 fins throw behind them as they quest from carcase 
 to carcase down there in the ooze. 
 
 Thither in the murk of night came Mont- 
 ferrat in a black cloak, holding his nose, but made
 
 ch. iv THE TOWER OF FLIES 269 
 
 feverish through his ears by the veiled chorus of 
 the flies. By the starshine and glow of the putrid 
 water he saw a tall man in a white robe,- who 
 stood at the extreme edge of the spit and looked 
 at the sharks. Montferrat hid his guards behind 
 the Tower, crossed himself, drew his sword to hack 
 a way through the monstrous flies, and so came 
 swishing forward, like a man who mows a swathe. 
 
 The tall man saw him, but did not move. The 
 Marquess came quite close. 
 
 ' What are you looking at, my friend ? ' he 
 asked, in the Arabian tongue. 
 
 ' I am looking at the sharks, which have a new 
 corpse in there,' said the man. 'See what a turmoil 
 there is in the water. There must be six monsters 
 together in that swirl. See, see, there speeds 
 another ! ' 
 
 The Marquess turned sick. ' God help, I 
 cannot look,' he said. 
 
 ' Why,' said the Arabian, 'it is a dead man 
 they fight over.' 
 
 ' May be, may be,' said the Marquess. ' You, 
 my friend, are very familiar with death. So am I ; 
 nor do I fear living man. But these great fish 
 terrify me.' 
 
 ' You are a fool,' returned the other. ' They 
 seek only their meat. But you and I, and our 
 like, seek nicer things than that. We have our 
 souls to feed ; and the soul of a man is a free 
 eater, of stranger appetite than a shark.' 
 
 The Marquess looked at the flies. ' O God, 
 Arabian, let us go away from this place ! Is 
 there no rest from the flies ? '
 
 270 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 ' None at all,' said the Arabian ; ' for thousands 
 have been slain here ; and the flies also must be 
 fed.' 
 
 ' Pah, horrible ! ' said the Marquess, all in a 
 sweat. The Arabian turned ; but his face was 
 hidden, with a horrible appearance, as if a hooded 
 cloak stood up by itself and a voice proceeded 
 from a fleshless garb. ' You, Marquess of Mont- 
 ferrat,' it said, ' what do you want with me by the 
 Tower of Flies ? ' 
 
 The Marquess remembered his needs. ' I want 
 the death of a man,' he said ; ' but not here, O 
 Christ.' 
 
 ' Who sent you ? ' asked the Arabian. 
 
 ' The Sheik Moffadin, a captive, in the name 
 of AIL, and of Abdallah, servant of Ali.' So the 
 Marquess, and would have kissed the man, but 
 that he saw no face under the hood, and dared 
 not kiss emptiness. 
 
 ' Come with me,' said the Arabian. 
 
 An hour later the Marquess came into the 
 Tower of Flies, shaking. He found Saint-Pol 
 there, the Archduke of Austria, and Gilles de 
 Gurdun. There were no greetings. 
 
 ' Where is your man, Marquess ? ' asked Saint- 
 Pol of the pale Italian. 
 
 * He is out yonder looking at the sharks,' said 
 the Marquess, in a whisper ; ' but he will serve us 
 if we dare use him.' He struck at the flies weav- 
 ing about his head. ' This is a horrible place, 
 Saint-Pol,' he said, staring. Saint-Pol shrugged. 
 
 ' The deed we compass, dear Marquess, is
 
 ch. iv THE TOWER OF FLIES 271 
 
 none of the choicest, remember,' said he. The 
 Marquess then saw that Austria's broad leather 
 back was covered with flies. This quickened his 
 loathing. 
 
 'By our Saviour,' he said, 'one must hate a 
 man very much to talk against him here.' 
 
 ' Do you hate enough ? ' asked Saint-Pol. 
 
 The Marquess stared about him. He saw the 
 Archduke peacefully twiddle his thumbs. He 
 saw De Gurdun, who stood moodily, looking at 
 the floor. 
 
 ' Oh, content you,' Saint -Pol answered him. 
 'That man hates more than you or I. And with 
 more reason.' 
 
 ' What are your reasons, Eustace ? ' asked 
 Montferrat, still in a whisper. 
 
 ' I hate him,' said Saint-Pol, ' for my brother's 
 sake, whose back he broke ; for my sister's sake, 
 whose heart he must break before he has done 
 with her ; for my house's sake, to which (in Eudo's 
 person) he gave the lie ; because he is of Anjou, 
 cruel as a cat and savage as a dog ; because he is 
 a ruthless, swift, treacherous, secret, unconscion- 
 able beast. Are these enough reasons for you ? ' 
 
 ' By God, Eustace,' said the breathless Mont- 
 ferrat, ' I cannot think it. Not here ! ' 
 
 ' Then,' said Saint-Pol, ' I hate him for 
 Berengere's sweet sake. That is a good and clean 
 hatred, I believe. That wasted lady, writhing 
 white on a bed, moved me to pure pity. If I 
 loved her before I will love her now with whole 
 service, not daring belie my knighthood. I love 
 that queen and intend to serve her. I have never
 
 272 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 seen such pitiful beauty before. What ! Is the 
 man insatiate ? Shall he have everything ? He 
 shall have nothing. That will serve for me, I 
 hope. Now, Marquess, it is your turn.' 
 
 The Marquess struck out at the flies. ' I hate 
 him,' he said, ' because, before the King of France, 
 he called me a liar and threatened me with igno- 
 minious death.' He gasped here, and looked 
 round him to see what effect he had made. Saint- 
 Pol's eyes (green-grey like his sister's) were upon 
 him, rather coldly ; Gurdun's on the floor still. 
 The Archduke was scratching in his beard ; and 
 the chorus of flies swelled and shrilled. The 
 Marquess needed alliances. 
 
 ' Eh, my friends,' he said, almost praying, ' will 
 this not serve me ? ' 
 
 Said Saint-Pol, ' Marquess, listen to this man. 
 Speak, Gilles.' 
 
 Gilles looked up. ' I have tried to kill him. 
 I had my chance fair. I could not do it. I shall 
 try again, for the law is on my side. To you, 
 lords, I shall say nothing, for I am a man ashamed 
 to speak of what I desire to do, not yet certain 
 whether I can accomplish it. This I say, the man 
 is my liege lord, but a thief for all that. I loved 
 my Lady Jehane when she was twelve years old 
 and I a page in her father's house. I have never 
 loved any other woman, and never shall. There 
 are no other women. She gave herself to me for 
 good reason, and he himself gave her into my 
 hand for good reason. And then he robbed me 
 of her on my wedding day, and has slain my father 
 and young brother to keep her. He has given
 
 ch. iv THE TOWER OF FLIES 273 
 
 her a child : enough of this. Dastard ! I will 
 follow and follow until I dare to strike. Then 
 I will kill him. Let me alone.' Gilles, red and 
 gloomy, had to jerk the words out : he was no 
 speaker. The Marquess had a fierce eye. 
 
 * Ha, De Gurdun,' he said, ' we need thee, good 
 knight. But come out of this accursed fly-roost, 
 and we shall show thee a better way than thine. 
 It is the flies that make thee afraid.' 
 
 ' Eh, damn the flies,' said Gilles. ' They will 
 never disturb me. They do but seek their meat.' 
 
 ' They disturb me horribly,' said the Marquess, 
 with Italian candour. 
 
 Saint-Pol laughed. ' I told you that I could 
 bring you in a man,' he said. ' Now, Marquess, 
 you have our two clean reasons. What is yours ? ' 
 
 ' I have given you mine,' said Montferrat, 
 shifting his feet. ' He called me a liar.' 
 
 ' It lacks cogency,' said Saint-Pol. ' One must 
 have clean reasons in an unclean place.' The 
 Marquess broke out into blasphemy. 
 
 ' May hell scorch us all if I have no reasons ! 
 What ! Has he not kept me from my kingdom ? 
 Guy of Lusignan will be king by his means. 
 What is Philip against Richard ? What am I ? 
 What is the Archduke ? ' He had forgotten that 
 the Archduke was there. 
 
 ' By Beelzebub, the god of this place,' said 
 that deep-voiced hairy man, ' you shall see what 
 the Archduke is when you want him. But I am 
 no murderer. I am going home. I know what 
 is due to a prince, and from a prince.' 
 
 ' Do as you please, my lord,' said Saint-Pol ; 
 
 T
 
 274 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. u 
 
 * but our schemes are like to be endangered by 
 such goings.' 
 
 ' I have so little liking for your schemes, to be 
 plain with you,' replied the Archduke, ' that they 
 may fail and fail again for me. How I deal with 
 the King of England, who has insulted me beyond 
 hope, is a matter for him and me to determine.' 
 
 ( Cousin,' said Montferrat, ' you desert me.' 
 
 ' Cousin again,' said the Archduke, ' do you 
 wonder ? ' And so he walked out. 
 
 ' Punctilious boar ! ' cried Saint-Pol in a fume, 
 ' who can only get his tushes in one way ! Now, 
 Marquess, what are we to do ? ' 
 
 The Marquess smiled darkly, and tapped his 
 nose. ' I have my business in good train. I have 
 an ancient friend on Lebanon. Stand in with me, 
 the pair of you, and I have all done smoothly.' 
 
 ' You hire ? ' asked Saint-Pol, drily. Then he 
 shrugged — ' Oh, but we may trust you ! ' 
 
 ' Per la Madonna ! ' said the Marquess. 
 
 ' What will you do, Gilles ? ' Saint-Pol asked 
 the Norman. ' Will you leave it to the Marquess 
 of Montferrat ? ' 
 
 ' I will not,' said Gilles. ' I follow King 
 Richard from point to point. I hire nobody.' 
 
 The Marquess's hands went up, desperate of 
 such folly. ' You only with me, my Eustace ! ' 
 he said. 
 
 Saint-Pol looked up. ' I differ from either. I 
 have a finer plan than either. You are satisfied 
 with a sword-stroke in the back ' 
 
 i By my soul, it shall not be in the back ! ' cried 
 De Gurdun. Saint-Pol shrugged again.
 
 ch. iv THE TOWER OF FLIES 275 
 
 ' That is the Marquess's way. But what matter ? 
 You want to see him down. So do I, by heaven, 
 but in hell, not on the earth. I will see him 
 tormented. I will see him ashamed. I will 
 wreck his hopes. I will make him a mockery 
 of all kings, drag his high spirit through the mud 
 of disastrousness. Pouf ! Do you think him all 
 flesh? He is finer stuff than that. What he 
 makes others I seek to make him — soiled, defiled, 
 a blown rag. There is work to be done in that 
 kind here and at home. King Philip will see to 
 one ; I stay with the host.' 
 
 'It is a good plan,' said the Marquess ; ' I 
 admire it exceedingly. But steel is safer for a 
 common man. I go to Lebanon, for my part, 
 to my friends there. But I think we are in 
 agreement.' 
 
 Before they went away, they cut their arms 
 with a dagger, and mingled their blood. The 
 Marquess wrapped his wound deep in his cloak to 
 keep the flies from it. Across the silence of the 
 night, as they made their way into the city, came 
 the cry of the watchman from a belfry : ' Save 
 us, Holy Sepulchre ! ' It floated from tower to 
 tower, from land far out to sea. Jehane, dry in 
 her hot bed, heard it ; Richard, on his knees in an 
 oratory, heard it, crossed himself, and repeated the 
 words. Queen Berengere moaned in her sleep ; 
 the Duke of Burgundy snored ; and the Arabian 
 spat into the lagoon.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE CHAPTER OF FORBIDDING : HOW DE GURDUN 
 LOOKED, AND KING RICHARD HID HIS FACE 
 
 Since the Soldan broke his pledges, King Richard 
 swore that he would keep his. So he had all the 
 two thousand hostages killed, except the Sheik 
 Moffadin, whom the Marquess had enlarged. He 
 has been blamed for this, and I (if it were my 
 business) should blame him too. He asked no 
 counsel, and allowed no comment : by this time he 
 was absolute over the armies in Acre. If I am to 
 say anything upon the red business it shall be 
 this, that he knew very well where his danger lay. 
 It was his friends, not his enemies, he had reason 
 to fear ; and upon these the effect of what he did 
 was instantaneous, and perhaps well-timed. The 
 Count of Flanders had died of the camp-sickness ; 
 King Philip was stricken to the bones with the 
 same crawling disease. Nothing now could keep 
 Philip away from France. Acre was full of 
 rumours, meetings of kings and princes, spies, 
 racing messengers. Who should stay and who go 
 was the matter of debate. Philip meant to go : 
 his friend, Prince John of England, had been
 
 ch. v THE FORBIDDING 277 
 
 writing to him. Flanders must be occupied, 
 and Flanders, near England, was nearer yet to 
 Normandy. The Marquess also meant to go — to 
 Sidon for Lebanon. He had things to do up 
 there on Richard's and his own account, as you 
 shall hear. But the Archduke chose to stay in 
 Acre — and so on. 
 
 King Richard heard of each of these hasty dis- 
 cussions with a shrug, and only put his hand down 
 when they were all concluded. He said that unless 
 French hostages were left in his keeping for the 
 fulfilment of covenants, he should know what to do. 
 
 ' And what is that, King of England ? ' asked 
 Philip. 
 
 ' What becomes me,' was the short answer, 
 given in full hall before the magnates. They 
 looked at each other and askance at the sanguine- 
 hued King, who drove them all huddling before 
 him by mere magnanimity. What could they 
 do but leave hostages? They left Burgundy, 
 Beauvais, and Henry of Champagne — one friend, 
 one enemy, and one blockhead. Now you see 
 a reason for drawing the sword upon the wretched 
 Turks. If Richard had planted, they, poor devils, 
 had to water. 
 
 So King Philip went home, and the Marquess 
 to Sidon for Lebanon ; and Richard, knowing full 
 well that they meant him ill here and at home, 
 turned his face towards Jerusalem. 
 
 When the time came for ordering the goings of 
 his host, he grew very nervous about what he
 
 278 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ir 
 
 must leave behind him in Acre. Whether he was 
 a good man or not, a good husband, a good lover 
 or not, he was passionately a father. In every 
 surge and cry of his wild heart he showed this. 
 The heart is a generous inn, keeps open house, 
 grows wide to meet all comers. The company is 
 divers. In King Richard's heart sat three guests : 
 Christ and His lost Cross, Jehane and her lost 
 honour, and little Fulke upon her breast. Christ 
 was a dumb guest, but the most eloquent still. 
 There had been no nods from Him since the 
 great day of Fontevrault ; but Richard watched 
 Him daily and held himself bound to be His foot- 
 boy. See these desperate shifts of the great-hearted 
 man ! Here were his two other guests : little 
 Fulke, who claimed everything, and still Jehane, 
 who claimed nothing ; and outside the door stood 
 Berengere, crisping and uncrisping her small hands. 
 To serve Christ he had married the Oueen ; to 
 serve the Queen he had put away Jehane ; to 
 honour Jehane (who had given him her honour) 
 he had abjured the Queen. Now lastly, he 
 prayed Christ to save him Fulke, his first and 
 only son. * My Saviour Christ,' he prayed on 
 his last night at Acre, ' let Thine honour be the 
 first end of this adventure. But if honour come 
 to Thee, my Lord, through me, let honour stay 
 with me and my son through Thee. I cannot 
 think I do amiss to ask so much. One other 
 thing I ask before I go out. Watch over these 
 treasures of mine that I leave in pawn, for I 
 know very well that I shall get no more of them.' 
 Then he kissed the mother and the child, com-
 
 ch. v THE FORBIDDING 279 
 
 forting them, and went out, not trusting himself 
 to look back at the house. 
 
 He had made the defences of Acre as good as 
 he knew, which was very good indeed. He had 
 bettered the harbour ; he left ships in it, estab- 
 lished a post between it and Beyrout, between 
 Beyrout and Cyprus. He sent Guy of Lusignan 
 to be his regent in that island, Emperor if he 
 chose. He left Abbot Milo to comfort Jehane, 
 the Viscount of Beziers to rule the town and 
 garrison. Shriven, fortified with the Sacrament, 
 he spent his last night in Acre on the 21st of 
 August. Next morning, as soon as it was day, he 
 led his army out on its march to Jerusalem. 
 
 Joppa was his immediate object, to which place 
 a road ran between the mountains and the sea, 
 never far from either. He had little or no trans- 
 port, nor could expect food by the way, for 
 Saladin had seen to that. The ships had to work 
 down level with him, with reserves of men and 
 stores ; and even so the thing had an ugly look. 
 The mountains of Ephraim, not very lofty, were 
 covered with a thick growth of holm-oak : ex- 
 cellent cover, wherein, as he knew quite well, the 
 Saracens could move as he moved, choose their 
 time, and attack him on front, rear, or left flank, 
 wherever chance offered. It was a journey of 
 peril, harassing, slow, and without glory. 
 
 For six weeks he led and held a running battle, 
 wherein the powers of earth and air, the powers of 
 Mahomet, and dark forces within his own lines all 
 strove against him. He met them alone, with a 
 blank face, eyes bare, teeth hard-set. Whatever
 
 28o RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 provocation was offered from without or within, 
 he would not attack, nor let his friends attack, 
 until the enemy was in his hand. You, who 
 know what longanimity may be and how hard a 
 thing to come at, may admire him for this. 
 
 Directly the Christians were over the brook 
 Belus, their difficulties were upon them. The 
 way was through a pebbly waste of beach and 
 salt -grass, and a sea-scrub of grey bushes. A 
 mile to their left the rocks began, spurs of the 
 mountains ; the shrubs became stunted trees ; 
 the rocks climbed, the trees with them ; then 
 the forest rose, first sparsely, then thick and 
 dark ; lastly, into the deep blue of the sky soared 
 the toothed ridges, grey, scarred, and splintry. 
 Scurrying horsemen, on beasts incredibly sure 
 of foot, hung on the edge of these fastnesses, 
 yelling, whirling their lances, white-clad, swarthy 
 and hoarse. They came by fifties, or in clouds 
 they came, swept by like a windstorm, and were 
 gone. And in each shrill and terrible rush some 
 stragglers, be sure, would call upon Christ in 
 vain. Or sometimes great companies of Mame- 
 lukes in mail, massed companies in blocks of 
 men, stood covered by their bowmen as if offering 
 battle. If the Christians opened out to attack 
 (as at first they did), or some party of knights, 
 more adventurous than another, pricked forward 
 at a canter, and hastening as their hearts grew 
 high cried at last the charge, ' Passavant ! ' or 
 ' Sauve Anjou ! ' out of the wood with cries 
 would come the black cavalry, sweep up behind 
 our men, and cut off one company or another.
 
 ch.v THE FORBIDDING 281 
 
 And if so by day, by night there was no long 
 peace under the large stars. Desperate stampedes, 
 the scattering of camp-fires, trampling, grunting 
 in the dark ; ghostly horsemen looming and 
 vanishing suddenly in the half-light ; and in the 
 lull the querulous howling of wild beasts dis- 
 appointed. 
 
 To their full days succeeded their empty days, 
 when they were alone with the desert and the sun. 
 Then hunger and thirst assailed them, serpents bit 
 them, stinging flies drove men mad, the sand burnt 
 their feet through steel and leather. They lost 
 more this way than by Saracen ambush, and lost 
 more hearts than men. This was a time for private 
 grudges to awaken. Hatred feeds on such dry 
 meat. In the empty watches of the night, in the 
 blistering daytime, under the white sky or the 
 deep violet, Des Barres remembered his struck 
 face, De Gurdun his stolen wife, Saint -Pol his 
 dead brother, and the Duke of Burgundy his forty 
 pounds. 
 
 It must be said that Richard stretched his 
 authority as far as it would go. His direct aim 
 was to reach Joppa with speed, and thence to 
 strike inward over the hills to the Holy City. It 
 was against sense to attack this enemy hugging the 
 woody heights ; but as time went on, as he lost men 
 and heard the muttering of those who saw them 
 go, he understood that if he could tempt Saladin 
 into close battle upon chosen ground it would be 
 well. This was a difficult matter, for though (as 
 he knew) the Saracen army followed him in the 
 woods, it kept well out of sight. None but the
 
 282 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 light horsemen showed near at hand, and their 
 tactics were to sting like wasps, and fly — never to 
 join battle. At last, in the swamp of Arsuf, where 
 the Dead River splays over broad marshes, and 
 goes in a swamp to the sea-edge, he saw his chance, 
 and took it. 
 
 Here a feint, carried out by Gaston of Beam 
 with great spirit, brought Saladin into the open. 
 The Christians continued their toilsome march, 
 Saladin attacked their rear ; and for six hours or 
 more that rearguard fought a retreating battle, 
 meeting shock after shock, striking no blow, while 
 the centre and the van watched them. This was 
 one of the tensest days of Richard's iron rule. 
 De Charron, commanding the rear, sent imploring 
 messengers — ' For Christ's love let us charge, sire, 
 we can bear no more of this.' He was answered, 
 'Let them come on again.' Then Saint-Pol, seeing 
 one of the chances of his life, was in open mutiny 
 of the tongue. ' Are we sheep, then ? ' Thus 
 he to the French with Burgundy. ' Is the King 
 a drover of cattle ? Where is the chivalry of 
 France ? ' Even Richard's friends grew fretful : 
 Champagne tossing his head, muttering curses to 
 himself, Gaston of Beam pale and serious, chew- 
 ing his beard. Two more wild assaults the rear- 
 guard took stiffly, at the third they broke in two 
 places, but repelled the Turks. Richard, watching 
 like a hawk, saw his opportunity. He sent down 
 a message to the Duke of Burgundy, to Saint-Pol 
 and De Charron — ' Hold them yet once more ; at 
 six blasts of my trumpet, charge.' The Duke of 
 Burgundy, block though he was, was prepared to
 
 ch. v THE FORBIDDING 283 
 
 obey. About him came buzzing Saint-Pol and 
 his friends : ' Impossible, my lord Duke, we can- 
 not keep in our men. Attack, attack.' Saladin 
 was then coming on, one of his thunderous charges. 
 ' God strike blind those French mules ! ' cried 
 Richard. ' They are out ! ' This was true : from 
 left to centre the Christian bowmen were out, the 
 knights pricking after them to the charge. Richard 
 cursed them from his heart. ' Sound trumpets ! ' 
 he shouted, ' we must let go.' They sounded ; they 
 ran forward : the English first, then the Normans, 
 Poictevins, men of Anjou and Pisa, black Genoese 
 — but the left had moved before them, and made 
 doubtful Richard's echelon. They knelt, pulled 
 bowstrings to the ear. The sky grew dun as the 
 long shafts flew ; the oncoming tide of men 
 flickered and tossed like a broken sea, and the 
 Soldan's green banner dipped like a reed in it. A 
 second time the blast of arrows, like a gust of death, 
 smote them flat : Richard's voice rang sharply out 
 — ' Passavant, chivalers ! Sauve Anjou ! ' — and a 
 young Poictevin knight, stooping low in his saddle, 
 went rocking down the line with words for Henry 
 of Champagne, who ruled the centre. The archers 
 ran back and crouched ; Richard and his chivalry 
 on the extreme right moved out, the next company 
 after him, and the next, and the next, company 
 following company, until, in echelon, all the long 
 fluttering array galloped over the marsh, over- 
 lapped and enfolded the Saracen hordes in their 
 bright embrace. A frenzied cry from some emir 
 by the standard gave notice of the danger ; the 
 bodyguard about the Soldan were seen urging him.
 
 284 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. n 
 
 Saladin gave some hasty order as he rode off ; 
 Richard saw it, and tasted the bitterness of folly. 
 ' By God, we shall lose him — oh, bemused hog of 
 Burgundy ! ' He sent a man flying to the Duke ; 
 but it was too late. Saladin gained the woods, 
 and with him his bodyguard, the flower of his 
 state. 
 
 The Mamelukes also turned to fly. To right, 
 to left, the mad horsemen drove — the black, the 
 plumed, the Nubians in yellow, the Turcomans 
 with spotted skins over their mail, the men of 
 Syria, knighthood of Egypt — trampling underfoot 
 their own kind. But the steel chain held most of 
 these ; the knights had bound horse to horse : 
 wide on the left the Templars and Hospitallers 
 fanned out and swept all stragglers into the net. 
 So within hoops of iron, as it were, the slaughter 
 began, silent, breathless, wet work. Here James 
 d'Avesnes was killed, a good knight ; and here 
 Des Barres went down in a huddle of black 
 men, and had infallibly perished but that King 
 Richard himself with his axe dug him out. ' Your 
 pardon, King of the World,' sobbed Des Barres, 
 kissing his enemy's knee. ' Pooh,' says Richard, 
 ' we are all kings here. Take my sword and get 
 crowns ' ; and so he turned again into battle, and 
 Des Barres pressed after him. That was the 
 beginning of a firm friendship between the two. 
 Des Barres eschewed the counsels of Saint-Pol 
 from that day. 
 
 But there was treachery still awake and about. 
 When the rout was begun Richard reined up for a 
 minute, to breathe his horse and watch the way
 
 ch.v THE FORBIDDING 285 
 
 of the field. He sat apart from his friends, seeing 
 the lines ride by. All in a moment inexplicably, 
 as when in a race of the tide comes a sudden 
 thwart gust of wind and changes the face of the 
 day, there was a scurry, a babble of voices, the 
 stampede of men fighting to kill : the Turks with 
 Christians on their backs came trampling, struggling 
 together. A sword glinted close to Richard — 
 ' Death to the Angevin devil ! ' he heard, and 
 turning received in mid shield De Gurdun's 
 sword. At the same moment a knight ran full 
 tilt into the assailant, knocked him off his horse, 
 and himself reeled, powerless to strike. This 
 was Des Barres, paying his debts. The King 
 smiled grimly to see the wholesome treachery, and 
 Gurdun's dismay at it. ' Gilles, Gilles,' says he, 
 1 be sure you get me alone in the world when 
 next you strike at my back. Now get you up, 
 Norman, and fight a flying enemy, if you please. 
 I will await your return.' De Gurdun saluted, 
 but avoided his lord's face, and rode after the 
 Turks. Des Barres stood, deep -breathing, by 
 the King. 
 
 ' Will he come back, sire ? ' asked the French 
 knight. 
 
 * Not he,' said Richard ; ' he is ashamed of 
 himself.' He added, 'That is a very honest man, 
 to whom I have done a wrong. But listen to this, 
 Des Barres ; if I had not wronged him, I was so 
 placed that I should have injured a most holy 
 innocent soul. Let be. I shall meet De Gurdun 
 again. He may have me yet if he do not tire.' 
 
 He had been speaking as if to himself so far,
 
 286 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 but now turned his hawk-eyes upon Des Barres. 
 ' Tell me now,' he said, ' who gave the order to 
 the rear to charge, against my order ? ' 
 
 1 Sire,' replied Des Barres, ' it was the Duke of 
 Burgundy.' 
 
 ' You do not understand me,' said Richard. 
 * It came through the Duke of Burgundy's wind- 
 pipe. But who put it into his thick head ? ' 
 
 Des Barres looked troubled. 'Ah, sire, must 
 I answer you ? ' 
 
 Considering him, King Richard said, ' No, 
 Des Barres, you need not. For now I know who 
 it was. Well, he has lost me my game, and won 
 a part of his, I doubt.' Then he rode off, bidding 
 Des Barres sound the recall. 
 
 ' Of the pagans that day,' writes Milo by 
 hearsay, ' we made hecatombs two score five : 
 yet the King my master took no pleasure of that, 
 as I gather, deeming that he should have had 
 Saladin's head in a bag. Also we gained a clear 
 road to Joppa.' So they did ; but Joppa was a 
 heap of stones. 
 
 They held a great council there. Richard put 
 out his views. There were two things to be done : 
 repair Joppa and march at once on Jerusalem, there 
 to find and have again at Saladin ; or pursue the 
 coast road to Ascalon and raise the siege of that 
 city. * I, my lords, am for Ascalon,' Richard said. 
 * It is the key of Egypt. While the Soldan holds 
 us cooped up in Ascalon he can get his pack-mules 
 through. If we relieve it, after the battery we
 
 ch. v THE FORBIDDING 287 
 
 have done him we can hold Jerusalem at our whim. 
 What do you say to this, Duke of Burgundy ? ' 
 
 In the natural order of things the Duke would 
 have said nothing. But he had been filled to the 
 neck by Saint-Pol. Richard being for Ascalon, 
 the key of Egypt, the Duke declared himself for 
 Jerusalem, 'the key,' as he rather flatly said, 'of 
 the world.' To this Richard contented himself 
 with replying, that a key was little worth unless 
 you could open the door with it. All the French 
 stood by their leader, except Des Barres. He, 
 with Richard's party, leaned to the King's side. 
 But the Duke of Burgundy would not budge, sat 
 like a lump. He would not go to Ascalon, and 
 none of his battle should go. Richard cursed all 
 Frenchmen, but gave in. The truth was, he dared 
 not leave Saint-Pol behind him. 
 
 They repaired the walls and towers of Joppa, 
 garrisoned the place. Then late in the autumn 
 (truthfully, too late) they struck inland over a roll- 
 ing grass country towards Blanchegarde, a white 
 castle on a green hill. Moving slowly and 
 cautiously, they pushed on to Ramleh, thence to 
 Betenoble, which is actually within two days' 
 march of Jerusalem. The month was October, 
 mellow autumn weather. King Richard, moved 
 by the sacred influences, the level peace of the fair 
 land, filled day and night with the thought that he 
 was on the threshold of that soil which bore the 
 very footmarks of our blessed Saviour — King 
 Richard, I say, was in great heart. He had been 
 against the enterprise thus to do ; he would have 
 approached from Ascalon ; the enterprise was folly.
 
 288 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. n 
 
 But it was glorious folly, for which a man might 
 well die. He was ready to die, though he hoped and 
 believed that he should not. Saladin, once bitten, 
 would be shy : he had been badly bitten at Arsuf. 
 Then came the Bishop of Beauvais with Burgundy 
 to his tent — Saint -Pol stayed behind — with 
 speeches, saying that the winter season was at hand ; 
 that it would be more prudent to withdraw to 
 Joppa, or even to go down to Ascalon. Ascalon 
 needed succours, it seemed. Richard's heart stood 
 still at this treachery ; then he blazed out in fury. 
 ' Are we hare or hounds, by heaven ? Do you 
 
 presume ?' He mastered himself. 'What 
 
 part, pray, does Almighty God take in these 
 pastimes of yours ? ' 
 
 The Duke of Burgundy looked heavily at the 
 Bishop. The Bishop said, ' Sire, Ascalon is 
 besieged.' 
 
 Said Richard, ' You old fool, do you not know 
 the Soldan better than that ? Or do you put him 
 on a parity with this Duke ? It was under siege 
 three weeks ago, as you remember perfectly well.' 
 
 The Duke still looked at the Bishop. Driven 
 again to say something, the latter began — ' Sire, 
 your words are injurious ; but I have spoken 
 advisedly. The Count of Saint-Pol ' 
 
 ' Ah,' said Richard, ' the Count of Saint-Pol ? 
 Now I begin to understand you. Please to fetch 
 in your Count of Saint-Pol.' 
 
 Saint-Pol was sent for, and he came, darkly 
 smiling, respectful, but aware. King Richard held 
 his voice, but not his hand, on the curb. The 
 hand shook a little.
 
 ch. v THE FORBIDDING 289 
 
 ' Saint-Pol,' he said, ' the Duke of Burgundy- 
 refers me to the Bishop, the Bishop to you. This 
 seems the order of command in King Philip's host. 
 Between the three of you I conceive to lie the 
 honour of France. Now observe me. Three weeks 
 ago I was for Ascalon, and you for Jerusalem. Now 
 that I have brought you within two days of your 
 desire — two days, observe — you are for Ascalon, and 
 I for Jerusalem. What is the meaning of this ? ' 
 
 ' Sire,' said Saint-Pol, reasonably, * it means that 
 we believe the Holy City impregnable at this 
 season, or untenable ; and Ascalon still pregnable.' 
 
 The King put a hand to the table. ' It means 
 nothing of the sort, man. You do not believe 
 Ascalon can be taken. It is eight days' journey, 
 and was in straits a month ago. You make me 
 ashamed of the men I am forced to lead. What 
 faith have you ? What religion ? The faith of 
 your sick master the Runagate ! The religion of 
 your white Marquess of Montferrat ! And I had 
 taken you for men. Foh ! you are rats.' 
 
 This was dreadful hearing : Saint-Pol bit his 
 lip, but made no other answer. 
 
 ' Sire,' said the Bishop with heat, ' my manhood 
 has never been reproached before. When you 
 carried war into my country in the King your 
 father's time, I met you in a hauberk of mail. If 
 I met your Grace, judge if I should fear the Soldan. 
 It is my devout hope to kiss the Holy Sepulchre 
 and touch the Holy Cross, but before I die, not 
 afterwards.' 
 
 ' Pish ! ' said King Richard. 
 
 ' Sire,' Beauvais ventured again, ' our master 
 
 u
 
 290 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 King Philip set us over his host as foster-fathers of 
 his children. We dare not imperil so many lives 
 unadvisedly.' 
 
 ' Unadvisedly ! ' the King thundered at him, red 
 to the roots of his hair. 
 
 ' I withdraw the word, sire,' said the Bishop in 
 a hurry ; ' yet it is the mature opinion of us all that 
 we should seek the coast for winter-quarters, not 
 the high lands. We claim, at least, the duty of 
 choosing for those whose guardians we are.' 
 
 If Richard had been himself of two years earlier 
 he would have killed then and there a second Count 
 of Saint-Pol ; and for a pulse or two the young 
 man saw his death bright in the King's eyes. That 
 the angry man commanded himself is, I think, to 
 his credit. As it was, he did what he had cer- 
 tainly never done before : he tried to reason with 
 the Duke of Burgundy. 
 
 ' Duke of Burgundy,' he said, leaning over his 
 chair and talking low, ' you are no Frenchman, 
 and the more of a man on that account. You 
 and I have had our differences. I have blamed 
 you, and you me. But I have never found you a 
 laggard when there was work for the sword or 
 adventure for the heart. Now, of all adventures 
 in the world the highest in which a man may 
 engage is here. Across those hills lies the city of 
 God, of which (I suppose) no soul among us might, 
 unhelped, dare hope the sight, much less the touch, 
 least of all the redemption. I tell you, Duke of 
 Burgundy, there is that within me (not my own) 
 which will lead you thither with profit, glory and 
 honour. Will you trust me ? So far as I have
 
 ch. v THE FORBIDDING 291 
 
 gone along with you I have done reasonably well. 
 Did I scatter the heathen at Arsiif ? No thanks 
 to you, Burgundy, but I did. Did I hold a safe 
 course to Joppa ? Have I then brought you so 
 near, and myself so near, for nothing at all ? If I 
 have been a fool in my day, I am not a fool now. 
 I speak what I know. With this host I can save 
 the city. Without the best of it, I can do 
 nothing. What do you say, my lord ? Will 
 you let Beauvais take his Frenchmen to dis- 
 honour, and you and your Burgundians play for 
 honour with me ? The prize is great, the reward 
 sure, here or in heaven. What do you say, Duke 
 of Burgundy ? ' 
 
 His voice shook by now, and all the bystanders 
 watched without breath the heavy, brooding, 
 mottled man over against him. He, faithful to 
 his nature, looked at the Bishop of Beauvais. But 
 Beauvais was looking at his ring. 
 
 ' What do you say, my lord ? ' again asked 
 King Richard. 
 
 The Duke of Burgundy was troubled : he 
 blinked, looking at Saint -Pol. But Saint -Pol 
 was looking at the tent-roof. 
 
 ' Be pleased to look at me,' said Richard ; and 
 the man did look, working under his wrongs. 
 
 ' By God, Richard,' said the Duke of Burgundy, 
 ' you owe me forty pound ! ' 
 
 King Richard laughed till he was helpless. 
 
 ' It may be, it may well be,' he gasped between 
 the throes of his mirth. ' O lump of clay ! O 
 wonderful half- man ! O most expressive river- 
 horse ! You shall be paid and sent about your
 
 292 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 business. Archbishop, be pleased to pay this man 
 his bill. I will content you, Burgundy, with 
 money ; but I will be damned before I take you 
 to Jerusalem. My lords,' he said, altering voice 
 and look in a moment, ' I will conduct you to the 
 ships. Since I am not strong enough for Jerusalem 
 I will go to Ascalon. But you ! By the living 
 God, you shall go back to France/ He dis- 
 missed them all, and next day broke up his 
 camp. 
 
 But before that, very early in the morning, 
 after a night spent with his head in his hands, he 
 rode out with Gaston and Des Barres to a hill 
 which they call Montjoy, because from there the 
 pilgrims, tending south, see first among the folded 
 hills Jerusalem itself lie like a dove in a nest. 
 The moon was low and cold, the sun not up ; 
 but the heavens and earth were full of shadowless 
 light ; every hill -top, every black rock upon it 
 stood sharply cut out, as with a knife. King 
 Richard rode silently, his face covered in a great 
 hood ; neither man with him dared speak, but 
 kept the distance due. So they skirted hill after 
 hill, wound in and out of the deep valleys, until 
 at last Gaston pricked forward and touched his 
 master on the arm. Richard started, not turned. 
 
 ' Montjoy, dear master,' said Gaston. 
 
 There before them, as out of a cup, rose a dark 
 conical hill with streamers of white light behind 
 and, as might be, leaping from it. ' The light 
 shines on Jerusalem,' said Gaston : Richard, look- 
 ing up at the glory, uncovered his head. Sharp 
 against the light stood a single man on Montjoy,
 
 ch. v THE FORBIDDING 293 
 
 who faced the full sun. They who saw him there 
 were still deep in shade. 
 
 ' Gaston and Des Barres,' said King Richard, 
 when they had reached the foot of the wet hill, 
 ' stay you here. Let me go on alone.' 
 
 Gaston demurred. ' The hill is manned, sire. 
 Beware an ambush. You have enemies close by.' 
 He hinted at Saint-Pol. 
 
 ' I have only one enemy that I fear, Gaston,' 
 said the King ; ' and he rides my horse. Do as I 
 tell you.' 
 
 They obeyed ; so he went under their anxious 
 eyes. Slowly he toiled up the bridle-path which 
 the feet of many pilgrims had worn into the turf ; 
 slowly they saw him dip from the head downwards 
 into the splendour of the dawn. But when horse 
 and man were bathed full in light, those two below 
 touched each other and held hands ; for they saw 
 him hoist his great shield from his shoulder and 
 hold it before his face. So as he stayed, screening 
 himself from what he sought but dared not touch, 
 the solitary watcher turned, and came near him, 
 and spoke. 
 
 * Why does the great King cover his face ? ' said 
 Gilles de Gurdun ; ' and why does he, of his own 
 will, keep the light of God from him ? Is he at 
 the edge of his dominion ? Hath he touched the 
 limit of his power ? Then I am stronger than my 
 Duke ; for I see the towers shine in the sun ; I see 
 the Mount of Olives, Calvary also, and the holy 
 temple of God. I see the Church of the Sepulchre, 
 the battlements and great gates of the city. Look, 
 my lord King. See that which you desire, that
 
 294 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 you may take it. Fulke of Anjou was King of 
 Jerusalem ; and shall not Richard be a king ? 
 What is lacking ? What is amiss ? For kings 
 may desire that which they see, and take that 
 which they desire, though other men go cursing 
 and naked.' 
 
 Said King Richard from behind his shield, ' Is 
 that you, Gurdun, my enemy ? ' 
 
 ' I am that man,' said Gilles, ' and bolder than 
 you are, since I can look unoffended upon the 
 place where our Lord God suffered as a man. 
 Suffering, it seems, maketh me sib with God.' 
 
 ' I will never look upon the city, though I have 
 risked all for the sake of it,' said Richard ; ' for 
 now I know that it was no design of God's to 
 allow me to take it, although it was certainly His 
 desire that I should come into this country. 
 Perhaps He thought me other than now I am. 
 I will not look. For if I look upon it I shall 
 lead my men up against it ; and then they will be 
 cut off and destroyed, since we are too few. I will 
 never see what I cannot save.' 
 
 Said Gilles between his teeth, ' You robber, you 
 have seen my wife, and cannot save her now.' 
 Richard laughed softly. 
 
 ' God bless her,' he said, ' she is my true wife, 
 and will be saved sure enough. Yet I will tell you 
 this, Gurdun. If she was not mine she should be 
 yours ; and what is more, she may be so yet.' 
 
 'You speak idly,' said Gurdun, 'of things which 
 no man knows.' 
 
 ' Ah,' said the King, ' but I do know them. 
 Leave me : I wish to pray.'
 
 ch. v THE FORBIDDING 295 
 
 Gilles moved off, and sat himself on the edge 
 of the hill looking towards Jerusalem. If Richard 
 prayed, it was with the heart, for his lips never 
 opened. But I believe that his heart, in this hour 
 of clear defeat, was turned to stone. He took his 
 joys with riot, his triumphs calmly ; his griefs he 
 shut in a trap. Such a nature as his, I suppose, 
 respects no persons. Whether God beat him, or 
 his enemy, he would take it the same way. All 
 that Gilles heard him say aloud was this : ' What 
 I have done I have done : deliver us from evil.' 
 He bade no farewell to his hope, he asked no 
 greeting for his altered way. When he had turned 
 his back upon the sacred places he lowered his 
 shield ; and then rode down the hill into the cold 
 shadow of the valley. 
 
 If he was changed, or if his soul, naked of 
 hope, was stricken bleak, so was the road he had 
 to go. That day he broke up his camp and fared 
 for Ascalon and the sea. Stormy weather set in, 
 the rains overtook him ; he was quagged, blighted 
 with fever, lost his way, his men, his men's love. 
 Camp- sickness came and spread like a fungus. 
 Men, rotten through to the brain, died shrieking, 
 and as they shrieked they cursed his name. One, 
 a Poictevin named Rolf, whom he knew well, 
 turned away his blackened face when Richard came 
 to visit him. 
 
 'Ah, Rolf,' said the King, 'dost thou turn away 
 from me, man ? ' 
 
 ' I do that, by our Lord,' said Rolf, ' since by 
 these deeds of thine my wife and children will 
 starve, or she become a whore.'
 
 2 9 6 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 ' As God lives/ said Richard, ' I will see to it.' 
 ' I do not think He can be living any more,' 
 said Rolf, ' if He lets thee live, King Richard.' 
 Richard went away. The time dragged, the rain 
 fell pitilessly, without end. He found rivers in 
 flood, fords roaring torrents, all ways choked. 
 At every turn the Duke of Burgundy and Saint- 
 Pol worked against him. 
 
 Also he found Ascalon in ruins, but grimly set 
 about rebuilding it. This took him all the winter, 
 because the French (judging, perhaps, that they 
 had done their affair) took to the ships and sailed 
 back to Acre. There they heard, what came more 
 slowly to King Richard, strange news of the 
 Marquess of Montferrat, and terrible news of 
 Jehane Saint-Pol.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE CHAPTER CALLED CLYTEMNESTRA 
 
 At Acre, by the time September was set, the sun 
 had put all the air to the sword, so that the city 
 lay stifled, stinking in its own vice ; and the nights 
 were worse than the days. Then was the great 
 harvest of the flies, when men died so quickly that 
 there was no time to bury them. So also mothers 
 saw their children flag or felt their force grow 
 thin : one or another swooned suddenly and woke 
 no more ; or a woman found a dead child at the 
 breast, or a child whimpered to find his mother 
 so cold. At this time, while Jehane lay panting in 
 bed, awake hour by hour and fretting over what she 
 should do when the fountains of her milk should 
 be dry, and this little Fulke, royal glutton, crave 
 without getting of her — she heard the women set 
 there to fan her talking to each other in drowsy 
 murmurs, believing that she slept. By now she 
 knew their speech. 
 
 Said one, between the slow passes of the fans, 
 ' Giafar ibn Mulk hath come into the city secretly.' 
 And the other, ' Then we have a thief the more.' 
 
 ' Peace,' said the first, ' thou grudger. He is
 
 298 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 one of my lovers, and telleth me whatsoever I seek 
 to know. He is come in from Lebanon ; so much, 
 and more, I know already.' 
 
 ' What ill report doth he bring of his master ? ' 
 asked the second, a lazy girl, whose name was 
 Misra, as the first was called Fanoum. 
 
 Fanoum answered, ' Very ill report of the 
 Melek ' — that was King Richard's name here— 
 ' but it is according to the desires of the Marquess.' 
 
 ' Ohe ! ' said Misra, ' we must tell this sleeper. 
 She is moon of the Melek.' 
 
 ' Thou art a fool to think me a fool,' said 
 Fanoum. ' Why, then, shall I be one to turn the 
 horn of a mad cow, to pierce my own thigh ? Let 
 the Franks kill each other, what have we but gain ? 
 They are dogs alike.' 
 
 Misra said, ' Hearken thou, O Fanoum, the 
 Melek is no dog. Nay, he is more than a man. 
 He is the yellow-haired King of the West, riding 
 a white horse, who was foretold by various prophets, 
 that he should come up against the Sultan. That 
 I know.' 
 
 'Then he will have more than a man's death,' 
 said Fanoum. ' The Marquess goeth with Giafar 
 to Lebanon, to see the Old Man of Musse, whom 
 he serveth. The Melek must die, for of all men 
 living or dead the Marquess hateth him.' 
 
 ' Oh, King of Kings ! ' said Misra, with a little 
 sob, 'and thou wilt stand by, thou sorrowful, while 
 the Marquess kills the Melek ! ' 
 
 Fanoum answered, ' Certainly I will ; for any 
 of our lord's people can kill the Marquess; but 
 it needeth the guile of the Old Man to kill the
 
 ch. vi CLYTEMNESTRA 299 
 
 Melek. Let the wolf slay the lion while he 
 sleepeth : anon cometh the shepherd and slayeth 
 the gorged wolf. That is good sense.' 
 
 ' Well,' said Misra, ' it may be so. But I am 
 sorry for his favourite here. There are no 
 daughters of Ali so goodly as this one. The 
 Melek is a wise lover of women.' 
 
 ' Let be for that,' replied Fanoum comfortably ; 
 ' the Old Man of Musse is a wiser. He will come 
 and have her, and we do well enough in Lebanon.' 
 
 They would have said more, had Jehane needed 
 any more. But it seemed to her that she knew 
 enough. There was danger brewing for King 
 Richard, whom she, faithless wretch, had let go 
 without her. As she thought of the leper, of her 
 promise to the Queen-Mother, of Richard towering 
 but to fall, her heart grew cold in her bosom, then 
 filled with fire and throbbed as if to burst. It is 
 extraordinary, however, how soon she saw her way 
 clear, and on how small a knowledge. Who this 
 Old Man might be, who lived on Lebanon and 
 was most wise in the matter of women, she could 
 have no guess ; but she was quite sure of him, was 
 certain that he was wise. She knew something of 
 the Marquess, her cousin. Any ally of his must 
 be a murdermonger. A wise lover of women, the 
 Old Man of Musse, who dwelt on Lebanon ! 
 Wiser than Richard ! And she more goodly than 
 the daughters of Ali ! Who were the daughters 
 of Ali ? Beautiful women ? What did it matter 
 if she excelled them ? God knew these things ; 
 but Jehane knew that she must go to market with 
 the Old Man of Musse. So much she calmly
 
 300 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 revolved in her mind as she lay her length, with 
 shut eyes, in her bed. 
 
 With the first cranny of light she had herself 
 dressed by her sulky, sleepy women, and went 
 abroad. There were very few to see her, none to 
 dare her any harm, so well as she was known. 
 Two eunuchs at a wicked door spat as she passed ; 
 she saw the feet of a murdered man sticking out 
 of a drain, the scurry of a little troop of rats. 
 Mostly, the dogs of the city had it to themselves. 
 No women were about, but here and there a 
 guarded light betrayed sin still awake, and here 
 and there a bell, calling the faithful to church, 
 sounded a homely note of peace. The morning 
 was desperately close, without a waft of air. She 
 found the Abbot Milo at his lodging, in the act 
 of setting off to mass at the church of Saint 
 Martha. The sight of her wild face stopped 
 him. 
 
 ' No time to lose, my child,' he said, when he 
 had heard her. ' We must go to the Queen : it 
 is due to her. Saviour of mankind ! ' he cried 
 with flacking arms, ' for what wast Thou content 
 to lay down Thy life ! ' They hurried out 
 together just as the sun broke upon the tiles of 
 the domed churches, and Acre began to creep 
 out of bed. 
 
 The Queen was not yet risen, but sent them 
 word that she would receive the abbot, ' but on no 
 account Madame de Saint-Pol.' Jehane pushed 
 off the insult just as she pushed her hot hair from 
 her face. She had no thoughts to spare for herself. 
 The abbot went into the Queen's house.
 
 ch.vi CLYTEMNESTRA 301 
 
 Berengere looked very drowned, he thought, 
 in her great bed. One saw a sharp white oval 
 floating in the black clouds which were her hair. 
 She looked younger than any bride could be, 
 childish, a child ill of a fever, wilful, querulous, 
 miserable. All the time she listened to what 
 Milo had to say her lips twitched, and her fingers 
 plucked gold threads out of the cherubim on the 
 coverlet. 
 
 ' Kill the King of England ? Kill my lord ? 
 Montferrat ? Eh, they cannot kill him ! Oh, 
 oh, oh ! ' — she moaned shudderingly — ' I would 
 that they could ! Then perhaps I should sleep o' 
 nights.' Her strained eyes pierced him for an 
 answer. What answer could he give ? 
 
 ' My news is authentic, Madame. I came at 
 once, as my duty was, to your Grace, as to the 
 
 proper person ' Here she sat right up in her 
 
 bed, wide-eyed, all alight. 
 
 c Yes, yes, I am the proper person. I will do 
 it, if no other can. Virgin Mary ! ' — she stretched 
 her arms out, like one crucified — ' Look at me. 
 Am I worthy of this ? ' If she addressed the 
 Virgin Mary her invitation was pointedly to 
 the abbot, a less proper spectator. He did 
 look, however, and pitied her deeply ; at her 
 lips dry with hatred, which should have been 
 freshly kissed, at her drawn cheeks, into her 
 amazed young heart : eh, God, he knew her 
 loveworthy once, and now most pitiful. He 
 had nothing to say ; she went on breathless, 
 gathering speed. 
 
 ' He has spurned me whom he chose. He
 
 302 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 has left me on my wedding day. I have never 
 seen him alone — do you heed me? never, never 
 once. Ah, now, he has chosen for his minion : 
 let her save him if she can. What have I to do 
 with him ? I am the daughter of a king ; and 
 what is he to me, who treats me so ? If I am not 
 to be mother of England, I am still daughter of 
 Navarre. Let him die, let them kill him : what 
 else can serve me now ? ' She fell back, and lay 
 staring up at him. In every word she said there 
 was sickening justice : what could Milo do? In 
 his private mind he confirmed a suspicion — being 
 still loyal to his King — that one and the same 
 thing may be at one and the same time all black 
 and all white. He did his best to put this strange 
 case. 
 
 ' Madame,' he said, ' I cannot excuse our lord 
 the King, nor will I ; but I can defend that noble 
 lady whose only faults are her beauty and strong 
 heart.' Mentioning Jehane's beauty, he saw the 
 Queen look quickly at him, her first intelligent 
 look. ' Yes, Madame, her beauty, and the love 
 she has been taught to give our lord. The King 
 married her, uncanonically, it is true ; but who 
 was she to hold up church law before his face ? 
 Well, then she, by her own pure act, caused her- 
 self to be put away by the King, abjuring thus 
 his kingly seat. Hey, but it is so, that by her 
 own prayers, her proper pleading, her proper 
 tears, she worked against her proper honour, and 
 against the child in her womb. What more 
 could she do ? What more could any wife, any 
 mother, than that ? Ah, say that you hate her
 
 ch. vr CLYTEMNESTRA 303 
 
 without stint, would you have her die? Why, 
 no ! for what pain can be worse than to live as 
 she lives? My lady, she prevailed against the 
 King ; but she could not prevail against her own 
 holy nature working upon the King's great heart. 
 No ! When the King found out that she was to 
 be mother of his child, he loved her so well that, 
 though he must respect her prayers, he must needs 
 respect her person also. The King thought within 
 himself, " I have promised Madame de Saint-Pol 
 that I will never strive with her in love ; and I 
 will not. Now must I promise Almighty God 
 that, in her life, I will not strive so at all." Alas, 
 Madame, and alas ! Here the King was too 
 strong for the girl ; here her own nobility rose 
 up against her. Pity her, not blame her ; and 
 for the King — I dare to say it — find pity as well 
 as blame. All those who love his high heart, his 
 crowned head, find pity for him in theirs. For 
 many there are who do better, having no occasion 
 to do as ill ; but there can be none who mean 
 better, for none have such great motions.' 
 
 Milo might have spared his breath. The 
 Queen had heard one phrase of all his speech, and 
 during the rest had pondered that. W r hen he had 
 done, she said, ' Fetch me in this lady. I would 
 speak with her.' 
 
 ' Breast shall touch breast here,' said Milo to 
 himself, full of hope, ' and mouth meet mouth. 
 Courage, old heart.' 
 
 When the tall girl was brought in Queen 
 Berengere did not look at her, nor make any re- 
 sponse to her deep reverence ; but bade her fetch
 
 304 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 a mirror from the table. In this she looked at 
 herself steadily for some time, smoothing and coil- 
 ing back her hair, arranging her neck-covering so 
 as to show something of her bosom, and so on. 
 She sent Jehane for boxes of unguent, her colour- 
 boxes, brush for the eyebrows, powder for the face. 
 Finally she had brought to her a little crown of 
 diamonds, and set it in her hair. After patting 
 her head and turning it about and about, she put 
 the glass down and made a long survey of Jehane. 
 * They do well,' she said, ' who call you sulky : 
 you have a sulky mouth. I allow your shape ; 
 but there are reasons for that. You are very tall ; 
 you have a long throat. Green eyes are my de- 
 testation — fie, turn them from me. Your hair is 
 wonderful, and your skin. I suppose women of 
 the North are so commonly. Come nearer.' 
 Jehane obeying, the Queen touched her neck, then 
 her cheek. ' Show me your teeth,' she said. 
 
 * They are strong and good, but much larger than 
 mine. Your hands are big, and so are your ears ; 
 you do well to cover them. Let me see your 
 foot.' She peeped over the edge of the bed ; 
 Jehane put her foot out. ' It is not so large as I 
 expected,' said the Queen, ' but much larger than 
 mine.' Then she sighed and threw herself back. 
 
 * You are certainly a very tall girl. And twenty- 
 three years old ? I am not twenty yet, and have 
 had fifty lovers. The Abbot of Poictiers said you 
 were beautiful. Do you think yourself so ? ' 
 
 ' It is not my part to think of it, Madame,' 
 said Jehane, holding herself rather stiffly. 
 
 ' You mean that you know it too well,' said
 
 ch. vi CLYTEMNESTRA 305 
 
 Berengere. ' I suppose it is true. You have a 
 fine colour and a fine person — but that is a 
 woman's. Now look at me carefully, and say 
 how you find me. Put your hand here, and here, 
 and here. Touch my hair ; look well at my eyes. 
 My hair reaches to my knees when I stand up, 
 to the floor when I sit down. I am a king's 
 daughter. Do you not think me beautiful ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, Madame. Oh, Madame ! ' Jehane, 
 
 trembling before her visions, could hardly stand 
 still ; but the Queen (who had no visions now 
 the mirror was put by) went plaining on. 
 
 ' When I was in my father's court his poets 
 called me Frozen Heart, because I was cold in 
 loving. Messire Bertran de Born loved me, and 
 so did my cousin the Count of Provence, and the 
 Count of Orange, and Raimbaut, and Gaucelm, 
 and Ebles of Ventadorn. Now I have found one 
 colder than ever I was, and I am burning. Are 
 you a great lover of the King ? ' 
 
 At this question, put so quietly, Jehane grew 
 grave. It took her above her sense of dangers, 
 being in itself a dignity. ' I love the King so 
 well, Queen Berengere,' she said, ' that I think I 
 shall make him hate me in time.' 
 
 ' Folly,' snapped the Queen, ' or guile. You 
 would spur him. Is it true what the Abbot Milo 
 told me ? ' 
 
 ' I know not what he has told you,' said Jehane ; 
 ' but it is true that I have not dared let the King 
 love me, and now dare least of all.' 
 
 The Queen clenched her hands and teeth. 
 ' You devil,' she said, ' how I hate you. You 
 
 x
 
 3 o6 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 reject what I long for, and he loathes me for your 
 sake. You a creature of nought, and I a king's 
 daughter.' 
 
 From the nostrils of Jehane the breath came 
 fluttering and quick ; in her splendid bosom 
 stirred a storm that, if she had chosen to let it 
 loose, could have shrivelled this little prickly leaf : 
 but she replied nothing to the Queen's hatred. 
 Instead, with eyes fixed in vacancy, and one hand 
 upon her neck, she spoke her own purpose and 
 lifted the talk to high matters. 
 
 ' I touch not again your King and mine, O 
 Queen. But I go to save him.' 
 
 ' Woman,' said Berengere, ' do you dare tell 
 me this ? Are my miseries nothing to you ? Have 
 you not worked woe enough ? ' 
 
 Jehane suddenly threw her hair back, fell upon 
 her knees, lifted her chin. ' Madame, Madame, 
 Madame ! I must save him if I die. I implore 
 your pardon — I must go ! ' 
 
 * Why, what can you do against Montferrat ? ' 
 The Queen shivered a little : Jehane looked fixedly 
 at her, solemn as a dying nun. 
 
 ' You say that I am handsome,' she said, then 
 stopped. Then in a very low voice — 'Well, I 
 will do what I can.' She hung her golden 
 head. 
 
 The Queen, after a moment of shock, laughed 
 cruelly. ' I suppose I could not wish you any- 
 thing worse than that. I hate you above all 
 people in the world, mother of a bastard. Oh, it 
 will be enough punishment. Go, you hot snake ; 
 leave me.'
 
 ch.vi CLYTEMNESTRA 307 
 
 Jehane rose to her feet, bowed her head and 
 went out. Next moment the Queen must have 
 whipped out of bed, for she caught her before she 
 could shut the door, and clung to her neck, sob- 
 bing desperately. ' O God, Jehane, save Richard ! 
 Have mercy on me, I am most wretched.' Now 
 the other seemed to be queen. 
 
 ' My girl,' said Jehane, ' I will do what I 
 promised.' She kissed the scorching forehead, 
 and went away with Milo to find Giafar ibn 
 Mulk. 
 
 To get at him it was necessary to put the girl 
 Fanoum to the question. This was done. Giafar 
 ibn Mulk, enticed into the house, proved to be a 
 young man of prudence and resource. He could 
 not, he said, conduct them to his master, because 
 he had been told to conduct the Marquess ; but 
 an equally sure guide could be found, and there 
 were no objections to his delaying his own illus- 
 trious convoy for a week or more. Further than 
 that he could not go, nor did the near prospect of 
 death, which the abbot exhibited to him, prove 
 any inducement to the alteration of his mind. 
 £ Death ? ' • he said, when the implements of that 
 were before him. ' If I am to die, I am to die : 
 not twice it happens to a man. But I recommend 
 to these priests the expediency of first finding El 
 Safy.' As this was to be their guide up Lebanon, 
 those priests agreed. El Safy also agreed, when 
 they had him. A galley was got ready for sea; 
 the provisional Grand Master of the Temple 
 wrote a commendatory letter to his ' beloved 
 friend in the one God, Sinan, Lord of the
 
 3 o8 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 Assassins, Vetus de Monte ' ,- and then, in two 
 days' time, Milo the abbot, Jehane with her little 
 Fulke, a few women, and El Safy (their master in 
 the affair), left Acre for Tortosa, whence they 
 must climb on mule-back to Lebanon.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE CHAPTER OF THE SACRIFICE ON LEBANON ', 
 ALSO CALLED CASSANDRA 
 
 From the haven at Acre to the bill of Tortosa 
 is two days' sailing with a fair wind. Thence, 
 climbing the mountains, you reach Musse in four 
 days more, if the passes are open. If they are 
 shut you do not reach it at all. High on Lebanon, 
 above the frozen gorge where Orontes and Leontes, 
 rivers of Syria, separate in their courses ; above 
 the terrace of cedars, above Shurky the clouded 
 mountain, lies a deep green valley sentinelled on 
 all sides by snow peaks and by the fortresses upon 
 their tops. In the midst of that, among cedars 
 and lines of cypress trees, is the white palace of 
 the Lord of the Assassins, as big as a town. A 
 man may climb from pass to pass of Lebanon 
 without striking upon the place ; sighting it from 
 some dangerous crag, he may yet never approach 
 it. None visit the Old Man of Musse but those 
 who court Death in one of his shapes ; and to such 
 he never denies it. Dazzling snow-curtains, black 
 hanging-woods, sheer walls of granite, frame it in : 
 looking up on all sides you see the soaring pikes ;
 
 310 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 and deep under a coffer-lid of blue it lies, greener 
 than an emerald, a valley of easy sleep. There in 
 the great chambers young men lie dreaming of 
 women, and sleek boys stand about the doorways 
 with cups of madness held close to their breasts. 
 They are eaters and drinkers of hemp, these 
 people, which causes them to sleep much and 
 wake up mad. Then, when the Old Man calls 
 one or another and says, Go down the mountains 
 into the cities of the sea-board, and when thou 
 seest such-a-one, kiss him and strike deep— he 
 goes out then and there with fixed eyeballs, and 
 never turns them about until he finds whom he 
 seeks, nor ever shuts them until his work is done. 
 This is the custom of Musse in the enclosed valley 
 of Lebanon. 
 
 Thither on mules from Tortosa came El Safy, 
 leading the Abbot Milo and Jehane, and brought 
 them easily through all the defiles to that castle on 
 a spur which is called Mont-Ferrand, but in the 
 language of the Saracens, Barin. From that height 
 they looked down upon the domes and gardens of 
 Musse, and knew that half their work was done. 
 
 What immediately followed was due to the 
 insistence of El Safy, who said that if Jehane was 
 not suitably attired and veiled she would fail of 
 her mission. Jehane did not like this. 
 
 ' It is not the custom of our women to be 
 veiled, El Safy,' she said, ' except at the hour 
 when they are to be married.' 
 
 ' And it is not the custom of our men,' replied 
 the Assassin, ' to choose unveiled women. And 
 this for obvious reasons.'
 
 ch. vii CASSANDRA 311 
 
 ' What are your reasons, my son ? ' asked the 
 abbot. 
 
 ' I will tell you,' said El Safy. ' If a man 
 should come to our master with a veiled woman, 
 saying, My lord, I have here a woman faced like 
 the moon, and more melting than the peach that 
 drops from the wall, the Old Man would straight- 
 way conceive what manner of beauty this was, and 
 picture it more glorious than the truth could ever 
 be ; and then the reality would climb up to meet 
 his imagining. But otherwise if he saw her bare- 
 faced before him ; for eyesight is destructive to 
 mind-sight if it precede it. The eye must be 
 servant. So then he, dreaming of the veiled 
 treasure, weds her and finds that she is just what 
 was predicted of her by the merchant. For 
 women and other delights, as we understand the 
 affair, are according to our zest ; and our zest 
 is a thing of the mind's devising, added unto 
 desire as the edge of a sword is superadded to the 
 sword. So the fair woman must certainly be 
 veiled.' 
 
 ' The saying hath meat in it,' said the abbot ; 
 * but here is no question of merchants, nor of 
 marriage, pardieu.' 
 
 ' If there is no question of marriage, of what is 
 there question in this company ? ' asked El Safy. 
 ' Let me tell you that two questions only concern 
 the Old Man of Musse.' 
 
 Jehane, who had stood pouting, with a very 
 high head, throughout this little colloquy, said 
 nothing ; but now she allowed El Safy his way. 
 So she was dressed.
 
 312 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. n 
 
 They put on her a purple vest, thickly em- 
 broidered with gold and pearls, underdrawers of 
 scarlet silk, and gauze trousers (such as Eastern 
 women wear) of many folds. Her hair was 
 plaited and braided with pearls, a broad silk 
 girdle tied about her waist. Over all was put a 
 thick white veil, heavily fringed with gold. 
 Round her ankles they put anklets of gold, 
 with little bells on them which tinkled as she 
 walked ; last, scarlet slippers. They would have 
 painted her face and eyebrows, but that El Safy 
 decided that this was not at all necessary. When 
 all was done she turned to one of her women and 
 demanded her baby. El Safy, to Milo's surprise, 
 made no demur. Then they put her in a gold 
 cage on a mule's back, and so led her down by a 
 steep path into the region of birds and flowering 
 trees. There was very little conversation, except 
 when the abbot hit his foot against a rock. In 
 the valley they passed through a thick cedar 
 grove, and so came to the first of four gates of 
 approach. 
 
 Half a score handsome boys, bare-legged and 
 in very short white tunics, led them from hall to 
 hall, even to the innermost, where the Old Man 
 kept his state. The first hall was of cedar painted 
 red ; the second was of green wood, with a fountain 
 in the middle ; the third was deep blue, and the 
 fourth colour of fire. But the next hall, which 
 was long and very lofty, was white like snow, 
 except for the floor, which had a blood- red 
 carpet ; and there, on a white throne, sat the 
 Old Man of Musse, himself as blanched as a
 
 ch.vii CASSANDRA 313 
 
 swan, robed all in white, white-bearded; and about 
 him his Assassins as colourless as he. 
 
 The ten boys knelt down and crossed their 
 arms upon their bosoms ; El Safy fell flat upon 
 his face, and crawling so, like a worm, came at 
 length to the steps of the throne. The Old Man 
 let him lie while he blinked solemnly before him. 
 Not the Pope himself, as Milo had once seen him, 
 hoar with sanctity, looked more remotely, more 
 awfully pure than this king of murder, snowy 
 upon his blood -red field. What gave closer 
 mystery was that the light came strange and 
 milky through agate windows, and that when 
 the Old Man spoke it was in a dry, whispering 
 voice which, with the sound of a murmur in the 
 forest, was in tune with the silence of all the rest. 
 El Safy stood up, and was rigid. There ensued 
 a passionless flow of question and answer. The 
 Old Man murmured to the roof, scarcely moving 
 his lips ; El Safy answered by rote, not moving 
 any other muscles but his jaw's. As for the 
 Assassins, they stayed squat against the walls, as 
 if they had been dead men, buried sitting. 
 
 At a sign from El Safy the abbot with veiled 
 Jehane came down the hall, and stood before the 
 white spectre on his throne. Jehane saw that this 
 was really a man. There was a faint tinge of red 
 at his nostrils, his eyes were yellowish and very 
 bright, his nails coloured red. The shape of his 
 head was that of an old bird. She judged him 
 bald under his high cap ; but his beard came below 
 his breast-bone. When he opened his mouth to 
 speak she observed that his teeth were the whitest
 
 3 1 4 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 part of him, and his lips rather grey. He did not 
 seem to look at her, but said to the abbot, ' Tell 
 me why you have come into my country, being a 
 Frank and a Christian dog ; and why you have 
 brought with you this fair woman.' 
 
 ' My lord,' said the abbot, after clearing his 
 throat, ' we are lovers and servants of the great 
 king whom you call the Melek Richard, a lion 
 indeed in the paths of the Moslems, who makes 
 bitter war upon your enemy the Soldan ; and in 
 defence of him we are come. For it appears that 
 a servant of your lordship's, called Giafar ibn Mulk, 
 is now in Acre, which is King Richard's good town, 
 conspiring with the Marquess the death of our 
 lord.' 
 
 ' It is the first I have heard of it,' said the Old 
 Man. ' He was sent for a different purpose, but 
 his hand is otherwise free. What else have you 
 to say ? ' 
 
 1 Why, this, my lord,' said the abbot, ' that our 
 lord the King has too many enemies not declared, 
 who compass his destruction while he compasses 
 their souls' health. This is so shameful that we 
 think it no time for the King's lovers to be asleep. 
 Therefore I, with this woman, who, of all persons 
 living in the world, is most dear to him (as he to 
 her), have come to warn your lordship of the 
 Marquess his abominable design, in the sure hope 
 that your lordship will lend it no favour. King 
 Richard, we believe, is besieging the Holy City, 
 and therefore (no doubt) hath the countenance of 
 Almighty God. But if the devil (who loves the 
 Marquess, and is sure to have him) may reckon
 
 ch.vii CASSANDRA 315 
 
 your lordship also upon his side, we doubt that he 
 may prevail.' 
 
 ' And do you also think,' asked the Old Man, 
 scarcely audible, ' that the Melek Richard will thank 
 you for these precautions of yours ? ' 
 
 ' My lord,' said Milo, ' we seek not his thanks, 
 nor his good opinion, but his safety.' 
 
 ' It is one thing to seek safety,' said the Old 
 Man, ' but another thing to find or keep it. Get 
 you back to the doorway.' 
 
 So they did, and the lord of the place sat for 
 a long time in a stare, not moving hand or foot. 
 Now it happened that the child in Jehane's arm 
 woke up, and began to stretch itself, and whimper, 
 and nozzle about for food. Jehane tried to hush 
 it by rocking herself to and fro gently on one foot. 
 The abbot, horrified, frowned and shook his head ; 
 but Jehane, who knew but one lord now Richard 
 was away, took no notice. Presently young Fulke 
 set up a howl which sounded piercing in that still 
 place. Milo began to say his prayers ; but no one 
 moved except Jehane, whose course, to her own 
 mind, was clear. She put the great veil back over 
 her head, and bared her beauty ; she unfastened 
 the purple vest, and bared her bosom. This she 
 gave to the child's searching mouth. The free 
 gesture, the bent head, the unconscious doing, made 
 the act as lovely as the person. Fulke murmured 
 his joy, and Jehane looking presently up saw the 
 Old Man's solemn eyes blinking at her. This did 
 not disconcert her very much, for she thought, * If 
 he is correctly reported he has seen a mother before 
 now.'
 
 316 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. n 
 
 It might seem that he had or had not : his 
 action reads either way. After three minutes' 
 blinking he sent an old Assassin (not El Safy) down 
 the hall to the door. 
 
 ' Thus,' he reported, ' saith the Old Man of 
 Musse, Lord of the Assassins. Tell the Sheik of 
 the Nazarenes that the Marquess of Montferrat 
 shall come up and go down, and after that come 
 up no more. Also, let the Sheik depart in peace 
 and with all speed, lest I repent and put him sud- 
 denly to death. As for the fair woman, she must 
 remain among my ladies, and become my dutiful 
 wife, as a ransom price.' 
 
 The abbot, as one thunderstruck, raised his 
 hands on high. ' O sack of sin ! ' he groaned, ' O 
 dross for the melting-pot ! O unspeakable sacrifice ! ' 
 But Jehane, gravely smiling, checked him. ' Why, 
 Lord Abbot, is any sacrifice too great for King 
 Richard ?' she asked, gently reproving him. ' Nay, 
 go, my father ; I shall do very well. I am not at 
 all afraid. Now do what I shall tell you. Kiss 
 the hand of my lord Richard from me when you 
 see him, bidding him remember the vows we made 
 to each other on the day at Fontevrault when he 
 took up the Cross, and again before the lifted Host 
 at Cahors. And to my lady Queen Berengere say 
 this, that from this day forth I am wife of a man, 
 and stand not between her bed and the King, as 
 God knows I have never meant to stand. Kiss me 
 now, my father, and pray diligently for me.' He 
 tells us that he did, and records the day long ago 
 when he had first kissed the poor girl in the chapel 
 of the Dark Tower, the day when, as she hoped,
 
 ch.vii CASSANDRA 317 
 
 she had taught her great lover to tread upon her 
 heart. 
 
 At this time a great black, the chief of the 
 eunuchs, came and touched her on the shoulder. 
 * Whither now, friend ? ' said Jehane. He pointed 
 the way, being a deaf-mute. ' Lead,' said she ; ' I 
 will follow.' And so she did. 
 
 She turned no more her head, nor did she go 
 with it lowered, but carried it cheerfully, as if her 
 business was good. The black led her by many 
 winding ways to a garden filled with orange-trees, 
 and across this to a bronze door. There stood 
 two more blacks on guard, with naked swords in 
 their hands. The eunuch struck twice on the 
 lintel. The door was opened from within, and 
 they entered. An old lady dressed in black came 
 to meet them ; to her the eunuch handed Jehane, 
 made a reverence, and retired. They shut the 
 bronze doors. What more ? After the bath, and 
 putting on of habits more sumptuous than she had 
 ever heard tell of, she was taken by slaves into the 
 Hall of Felicity. There, among the heavy-eyed 
 languid women, Jehane sat herself staidly down, 
 and suckled her child.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 OF THE GOING-UP AND GOING-DOWN OF 
 
 THE MARQUESS 
 
 The Marquess of Montferrat travelled splendidly 
 from Acre to Sidon with six galleys in his convoy. 
 So many, indeed, did not suffice him ; for at Sidon 
 he took off his favourite wife with her women, 
 eunuchs and janissaries, and thus with twelve ships 
 came to Tripolis. Thence by the Aleppo road he 
 went to Karak of the Knights, thence again, after 
 a rest of two days, he started — he, the knights 
 and esquires of his body in cloth of gold, with 
 scarlet housings for the mules, litters for his 
 womenkind ; with his poets, his jongleurs, his 
 priest, his Turcopoles and favourites ; all this gaudy 
 company, for the great ascent of Mont-Ferrand. 
 
 His mind was to impress the Old Man of 
 Musse, but it fell out otherwise. The Old Man 
 was not easily impressed, because he was so accus- 
 tomed to impressing. You do not prophesy to 
 prophets, or shake priests with miracles. When 
 he reached the top of Mont-Ferrand he was met 
 by a grave old Sheik, who informed him quietly 
 that he must remain there. The Marquess was
 
 ch. vni THE MARQUESS GOES OUT 319 
 
 very angry, the Sheik very grave. The Marquess 
 stormed, and talked of armed hosts. * Look up, my 
 lord,' said the Sheik. The mountain-ridges were 
 lined with bowmen ; in the hanging-woods he saw 
 the gleam of spears ; between them and the sky, 
 on all sides as far as one could see, gloomed the 
 frozen peaks. The Marquess felt a sinking. He 
 arose chastened on the morrow, and negotiations 
 were resumed on the altered footing. Finally, he 
 begged for but three persons, without whose com- 
 pany he said he could not do. He must have his 
 chaplain, his fool, and his barber. Impossible, 
 the Sheik said ; adding that if they were so 
 necessary to the Marquess he might ' for the 
 present' remain with them at Mont-Ferrand. 
 In that case, however, he would not see the Lord 
 of the Assassins. 
 
 * But that, very honourable sir,' said the 
 Marquess, with ill-concealed impatience, * is the 
 simple object of my journey.' 
 
 ' So it was reported,' the Sheik observed. ' It 
 is for you to consider. For my own part I should 
 say that these persons cannot be indispensable for 
 a short visit.' 
 
 ' I can give his lordship a week,' said the 
 Marquess. 
 
 ' My master,' replied the Sheik, ' may give you 
 an hour, but considers that half that time should 
 be ample. To be sure, there is the waiting for 
 audience, which is always wearisome.' 
 
 ' My friend,' the Marquess said, opening his 
 eyes, 1 1 am the King-elect of Jerusalem.' 
 
 ' I know nothing of such things,' replied the
 
 320 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. n 
 
 Sheik. ' I think we had better go down.' Three 
 only went down : the Sheik, the Marquess, and 
 Giafar ibn Mulk. 
 
 When at last they were in the garden-valley, 
 and better still had reached the third of the halls 
 of degree, they were met by the chief of the 
 eunuchs, who told them his master was in the 
 harem, and could not be disturbed. The 
 Marquess, who so far had been all smiles and 
 interest, was now greatly annoyed ; but there was 
 no help for that. In the blue court he must needs 
 wait for nearly three hours. By the time he was 
 ushered into the milky light of the audience 
 chamber he was faint with rage and apprehension ; 
 he was dazzled, he stumbled over the blood-red 
 carpet, arrived fainting at the throne. There 
 he stayed, tongue - cloven, while the colourless 
 Lord of Assassins blinked inscrutably upon 
 him, with eyes so narrow that he could not tell 
 whether he so much as saw him ; and the adepts, 
 rigid by the tribune -wall, stared at their own 
 knees. 
 
 ' What do you need of me, Marquess of Mont- 
 ferrat ? ' asked the old hierarch in his most remote 
 voice. The Marquess gulped some dignity into 
 himself. 
 
 ■ Excellent sir,' he said, ' I seek the amity of 
 one king to another, alliance in a common good 
 cause, the giving and receiving of benefits, and 
 similar courtesies.' 
 
 These propositions were written down on 
 tablets, and carefully scrutinised by the Old Man 
 of Musse, who said at last —
 
 ch. viii THE MARQUESS GOES OUT 121 
 
 o 
 
 ' Let us take these considerations in order. Of 
 what kings do you propound the amity ? ' 
 
 ' Of yourself, sir,' replied the Marquess, ' and 
 of myself.' 
 
 'I am not a king,' said Sinan, 'and had not 
 heard that you were one either.' 
 
 ' I am King-elect of Jerusalem,' the Marquess 
 replied with stiffness. The Old Man raised his 
 wrinkled forehead. 
 
 ' Well,' he said, ' let us get on. What is your 
 common good cause ? ' 
 
 ' Eh, eh,' said the Marquess, brightening, ' it 
 is the cause of righteous punishment. I strike at 
 your enemy the Soldan through his friend King 
 Richard.' The Old Man pondered him. 
 
 'Do you strike, Marquess?' he asked at length. 
 
 'Sir,' the Marquess made haste to answer, 
 ' your question is just. It so happens that I cannot 
 strike King Richard because I cannot reach him. 
 I admit it : I am quite frank. But you can strike 
 him, I believe. In so doing, let me observe, you 
 will deal a mortal blow at Saladin, who loves him, 
 and makes treaties with him to your detriment and 
 the scandal of Christendom.' 
 
 ' Do you speak of the scandal of Christendom ? ' 
 asked Sinan, twinkling. 
 
 ' Alas, I must,' said the Marquess, very 
 mournful. 
 
 ' The cause is near to your heart, I see, 
 Marquess.' 
 
 ' It is in it,' replied the Marquess. The Old 
 Man considered him afresh ; then inquired where 
 the Melek might be found. 
 
 y
 
 322 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 The Marquess told him. ' We believe he is 
 at Ascalon, separate from the Duke of Burgundy.' 
 
 * Giafar ibn Mulk and Cogia Hassan,' said the 
 Old Man, as if talking in his sleep, ' come hither.' 
 The two young men rose from the wall and fell 
 upon their faces before the throne. Their master 
 spoke to them in the tone of one ordering a meal. 
 
 ' Return with the Marquess to the coast by the 
 way of Emesa and Baalbek ; and when you are 
 within sight of Sidon, strike. One of you will be 
 burned alive. I think it will be Giafar. Let the 
 other return speedily with a token. The audience 
 is finished.' 
 
 The Old Man closed his eyes. At a touch 
 from another the two prostrate Assassins crept up 
 and kissed his foot, then rose, waiting for the 
 Marquess. He, pale as death, saw, felt, heard 
 nothing. At another sign a man put his hand on 
 either shoulder. 
 
 ' Ha, Jesus-God ! ' grunted the Marquess, as 
 the sweat dripped off him. 
 
 ' Stop bleating, silly sheep, you will awaken the 
 Master,' said Giafar in a quick whisper. They 
 led him away, and the Old Man slept in peace. 
 
 The Marquess saw nothing of his people at 
 Mont-Ferrand, for (to begin with) they were not 
 there, and (secondly) he was led another way. By 
 the desolate crag of Masyaf, where a fortress, hung 
 (as it seems) in mid-air, watches the valleys like a 
 little cloud ; through fields of snow, by terraces 
 cut in the ice where the sheer rises and drops a
 
 ch.viii THE MARQUESS GOES OUT 323 
 
 thousand feet either way ; so to Emesa, a moun- 
 tain village huddled in perpetual shadows ; thence 
 down to Baalbek, and by foaming river-gorges 
 into the sun and sight of the dimpling sea : thus 
 they led the doomed Italian. He by this time 
 knew the end was coming, and had braced himself 
 to meet it stolidly. 
 
 The towers of Sidon rose chastely white above 
 the violet ; they saw the golden sands rimmed 
 with foam ; they saw the ships. Going down a 
 lane, luxuriant with flowers and scented shrubs, 
 where steep cactus hedges shut out the furrowed 
 fields and olive gardens, and the cicalas made hiss- 
 ing music, Giafar ibn Mulk broke the silence of 
 the three men. 
 
 ' Is it time ? ' he asked of his brother, without 
 turning his head. 
 
 ' Not yet,' Cogia replied. The Marquess 
 prayed vehemently, but with shut lips. 
 
 They reached an open moor, where there were 
 rocks covered with cistus and wild vine. Here 
 the air was very sweet and pure, the sun pleasant. 
 The Marquess's ass grew frisky, pricked up his 
 ears and brayed. Giafar ibn Mulk edged up 
 close, and put his arm round the Marquess's 
 neck. 
 
 ' The signal is a good one,' he said. ' Strike, 
 Cogia.' 
 
 Cogia drove his knife in up to the heft. The 
 Marquess coughed. Giafar lifted him from his 
 ass, quite dead. 
 
 ' Now,' says he, l go thou back, Cogia. I will 
 stay here. For so the Old Man plainly desired.'
 
 324 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. n 
 
 ' I think with you,' said Cogia. ' Give me the 
 token.' So they cut off the Marquess's right 
 hand, and Cogia, after shaking it, put it in his vest. 
 When he was well upon his way to the mountain 
 road, Giafar sat down on a bank of violets, ate 
 some bread and dates, then went to sleep in the sun. 
 So afterwards he was found by a picket of soldiers 
 from Sidon, who also found all of their lord but 
 his right hand. They took Giafar ibn Mulk and 
 burned him alive. 
 
 The Old Man of Musse was extremely kind 
 to Jehane, who pleased him so well that he was 
 seldom out of her company. He thought Fulke 
 a fine little boy, as he could hardly fail to be, 
 owning such parents. All the liberty that was 
 possible to the favourite of such a great prince 
 she had. One day, about six weeks after she had 
 first come into the valley, he sent for her. When 
 she had come in and made her reverence he drew 
 her near to his throne, put his arm round her, and 
 kissed her. He observed with satisfaction that 
 she was looking very well. 
 
 ' My child,' he said kindly, ' I have news which 
 I am sure will please you. Very much of the 
 Marquess of Montferrat is by this time lying dis- 
 integrate in a vault.' 
 
 Jehane's green eyes faltered for a moment as 
 she gazed into his wise old face. 
 
 ' Sir,' she asked, by habit, ' is this true ? ' 
 
 ' It is quite true,' said the Old Man. ' In proof 
 of it regard his hand, which one of my Assassins,
 
 ch.viii THE MARQUESS GOES OUT 325 
 
 the survivor, has brought me.' He drew from 
 his bosom a pale hand, and would have laid it in 
 Jehane's lap if she had let him. As she would not, 
 he placed it beside him on the floor. Pursuing 
 his discourse, he said — 
 
 ' I might fairly claim my reward for that. And 
 so I should if I had not got it already.' 
 
 Again Jehane pondered him gravely. ' What 
 reward more have you, sire ? ' 
 
 The Old Man, smiling very wisely, pressed her 
 waist. Jehane thought. 
 
 ' Why, what will you do with me now, sire ? ' 
 she inquired. ' Will you kill me ? ' 
 
 ' Can you ask ? ' said the Old Man. Then he 
 went on more seriously to say that he supposed 
 the life of King Richard to be safe for the imme- 
 diate future, but that he foresaw great difficulties 
 in his way before he could be snug at home. 
 ' The Marquess of Montferrat was by no means his 
 only enemy,' he told her. ' The Melek suffers, 
 what all great men suffer, from the envy of others 
 who are too obviously fools for him to suppose 
 them human creatures. But there is nothing a 
 fool dislikes so much as to behold his own folly ; 
 and as your Melek is a looking-glass for these 
 kind, you may depend upon it they will smudge 
 him if they can. He is the bravest man in the 
 world, and one of the best rulers ; but he has no 
 discretion. He is too absolute and loves too 
 little.' 
 
 Jehane opened her eyes very wide. ' Why, do 
 you know my lord, sire ? ' she asked. The Old 
 Man took her hand.
 
 326 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 ' There are very few personages in the world of 
 whom I do not know something,' he said ; ' and I 
 tell you that there are terms to the Melek's govern- 
 ment. A man cannot say Yea and Nay as he 
 chooses without paying the price. The debt on 
 either hand mounts up. He may choose with 
 whom he will settle — those he has favoured or 
 those he has denied. As a rule one finds the 
 former more insatiable. Let him then beware of 
 his brother.' 
 
 Jehane leaned towards him, pleading with eyes 
 and mouth. * Oh, sire,' she said, trembling at the 
 lips, ' if you have any regard for me, tell me when 
 any danger threatens King Richard. For then I 
 must leave you.' 
 
 * Why, that is as it may be,' said her master ; 
 ' but I will let you know what I think good for 
 you to know, and that must content you.' 
 
 Jehane's beauty, enhanced as it was now by the 
 sumptuous attire which she loved and by her 
 bodily well-being, was great, and her modesty 
 greater ; but her heart was the greatest thing she 
 had. She raised her eyes again to the twinkling 
 eyes of her possessor, and kept them there for a 
 few steady seconds, while she turned over his words 
 in her mind. Then she looked down, saying, ' I 
 will certainly stay with you till my lord's danger 
 is at hand. It is a good air for my baby.' 
 
 ' It is good for all manner of things,' said the 
 Old Man ; ' and remarkably good for you, my 
 Garden of Exhaustless Pleasure. And I will see 
 to it that it continues to water the roses in your 
 cheeks, beautiful child.' Jehane folded her hands.
 
 ch. viii THE MARQUESS GOES OUT 327 
 
 ' You will do as you choose, my lord,' said she, 
 ' I doubt not.' 
 
 • Be quite sure of it, dear child,' said the Old 
 Man. 
 
 Then he sent her back into the harem.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 HOW KING RICHARD REAPED WHAT JEHANE HAD 
 SOWED, AND THE SOLDAN WAS GLEANER 
 
 'Consider with anxious care the marrow of your 
 master when he is fortunate,' writes Milo of 
 Poictiers : ' if it lasts him, he is a slow spender of 
 his force ; but on that account all the more 
 dangerous in adversity, having the deeper funds. 
 By this I would be understood to imply that the 
 devil of Anjou, turned to fighting uses in King 
 Richard's latter years, found him a habitable 
 fortalice.' With the best reasons in life for the 
 reflection, he might have said it more simply ; for 
 it is simply true. Deserted by his allies, balked 
 of his great aspiration, within a day's march of the 
 temple of God, yet as far from that as from his 
 castle of Chinon ; eaten with fever ; having death, 
 lost purpose, murmurings, fed envy, reproach, 
 upon his conscience — he yet fought his way 
 through sullen leagues of mud to Ascalon ; be- 
 sieged it, drove his enemy out, regained it. 
 Thence, pushing quickly south, he surprised 
 Darum, and put the garrison to the sword. By 
 this act he cut Saladin in two, and drove such a
 
 ch. ix THE KING REAPS 329 
 
 wedge into the body of his empire as might leave 
 either lung of it at his mercy. The time seemed, 
 indeed, ripe for negotiation. Saladin sent his 
 brother down from Jerusalem with presents of 
 hawks ; Richard, sitting in armed state at Darum, 
 received him affably. There was still a chance 
 that treaty might win for Jesus Christ what the 
 sword had not won. 
 
 Then, as if in mockery of the greatness of men, 
 came ill news apace. The Frenchmen, back in 
 Acre, heard tell of Montferrat's doings and un- 
 doing. Pretty work of this sort perturbed the 
 allies. The Duke of Burgundy charged Saladin 
 with the murder ; Saint-Pol loudly charged King 
 Richard, and the Duke's death, coming timely, 
 left him in the field. He made the most of his 
 chance, wrote to the Emperor, to King Philip, to 
 his cousin the Archduke of Austria (at home by 
 now), of this last shameful deed of the red 
 Angevin. He even sent messengers to Richard 
 himself with open letters of accusal. Richard 
 laughed, but for all that broke off negotiations 
 with Saladin until he could prove Saint-Pol as 
 great a liar as he himself knew him to be. Then 
 rose up again the question of the Crown of Jeru- 
 salem. The Count of Champagne took ship and 
 came to Darum to beg it of Richard. He too 
 brought news with him. The Duke of Burgundy 
 was dead of an apoplexy. ' It seems that God is 
 still faintly on my side,' said Richard. ' There 
 went out a sooty candle.' 
 
 The next words gave his boast the lie. c Beau 
 sire,' said Count Henry, ' I grieve to tell you
 
 330 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 something more. Before I left Acre I saw the 
 Abbot Milo.' 
 
 Richard had grey streaks in his face. 'Ah,' he 
 says hoarsely, ' go on, cousin.' The young man 
 stammered. 
 
 ' Beau sire, God strikes in divers places, but 
 always finds out the joints of our harness.' 
 
 * Go on,' says King Richard, sitting very still. 
 
 4 Dear sire, my cousin, the Abbot Milo went 
 out of Acre three weeks before the death of the 
 Marquess. With him also went Madame Jehane ; 
 but he returned without her. This is all I know, 
 though it is not all that the abbot knows.' 
 
 At the mention of her name the King took a 
 sharp breath, as you or I do when quick pain 
 strikes us. To the rest he listened without a 
 sign ; and asked at the end, ' Where is Milo ? ' 
 
 ' He is at Acre, sire,' says the Count ; ' and in 
 prison.' 
 
 ' Who put him there ? ' 
 
 ' Myself, sire.' 
 
 ' You did wrong, Count. Get you back to 
 Acre and bring him to me.' Champagne went 
 away. 
 
 Great trouble, as you know, always made 
 Richard dumb ; the grief struck inwards and 
 congealed. He became more than ever his own 
 counsellor, the worst in the world. Lucky for 
 the Abbot Milo that he was in bonds ; but now 
 you see why he penned the aphorism with which 
 I began this chapter. 
 
 After that short, stabbing flash across his face,
 
 ch. ix THE KING REAPS 331 
 
 he shut down misery in a vice. The rest of his 
 talk with the Count might have been held with a 
 groom. Henry of Champagne, knowing the man, 
 left him the moment he got the word ; and King 
 Richard sat down by the table, and for three 
 hours never stirred. He was literally motionless. 
 Straightly rigid, a little grey about the face, white 
 at the cheek-bones ; his clenched hand stiff on 
 the board, white also at the knuckles ; his eyes 
 fixed on the door — men came in, knelt and said 
 their say, then encountering his blank eyes bent 
 their heads and backed out quietly. If he thought, 
 none may learn his thought ; if he felt, none may 
 touch the place ; if he prayed, let those who are 
 able imagine his prayers. What Jehane had been 
 to him this book may have shadowed out : this 
 only I say, that he knew, from the very first hint 
 of the fact, why she had gone out with Milo and 
 sent Milo home alone. The Queen knew, because 
 Jehane had told her ; but he knew with no telling 
 at all. She had gone away to save him from 
 herself. Needing him not, because she so loved 
 him, it was her beauty which was hungry for his 
 desire. Not daring to mar her beauty, she had 
 sought to hide it. Greater love hath none than 
 this. If he thought of that it should have softened 
 him. He did not think of it : he knew it. 
 
 At the end of his grim vigil he got up and 
 went out of his house. He was served with his 
 horse, his esquires came at call to the routine of 
 garrison days and nights. He rode round the 
 walls, out at one of the gates, on a sharp canter 
 of reconnaissance in the hills. Perhaps he spoke
 
 332 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.ii 
 
 more shortly than usual, and more drily ; there 
 may have been a dead quality in his voice, usually 
 so salient. There was no other sign. At supper 
 he sat before them all, ate and drank at his 
 wont. Once only he startled the hallful of 
 them. He dropped his great gold cup, and it 
 split. 
 
 But as day followed night, all men saw the 
 change in him, Christians and Saracens alike. 
 A spirit of quiet savagery seemed to possess 
 him ; the cunning, with the mad interludes, of a 
 devil. He set patient traps for the Saracens in the 
 hills, and slaughtered all he took. One day he 
 fell upon a great caravan of camels coming from 
 Babylon to Jerusalem, and having cut the escort 
 to pieces, slew also the merchants and travellers. 
 He seemed to give the sword the more heartily in 
 that he sought it for himself, but could never get 
 it. No doubt he deserved to get it. He per- 
 formed deeds of impossible foolhardy gallantry, 
 the deeds of a knight-errant ; rode solitary, made 
 single-handed rescues, suffered himself to be cut 
 off from his posts, and then with a handful of 
 knights, or alone, indeed, carved his way back to 
 Darum. Des Barres, the Earl of Leicester and 
 the Grand Master, never left his side ; Gaston of 
 Beam used to sleep at the foot of his bed and 
 creep about after him like a cat ; but this terrible 
 mood of his wore them out. Then, at last, the 
 Count of Champagne came back with Milo and 
 more bad news. Joppa was in sore straits, again 
 besieged ; the Bishop of Sarum was returned from 
 the West, having a branch of dead broom in his
 
 ch. ix THE KING REAPS 333 
 
 hand and stories of a throttled kingdom on his 
 lips. 
 
 Before any other Richard had Milo alone. The 
 good abbot is very reticent about the interview in 
 his book. What he omits is more significant than 
 what he says. ' I found my master,' he writes, 
 ' sitting up in his bed in his hauberk of mail. 
 They told me he had eaten nothing for two days, 
 yet vomited continually. He had killed five 
 hundred Saracens meantime. I suppose he knew 
 who I was. " Tell me, my good man," he said 
 (strange address !), " the name of the person to 
 whom Madame d'Anjou took you." 
 
 ' I said, " Sire, we went to the Lord of the 
 Assassins, whom they call Old Man of Musse." 
 
 ' " Why did you go, monk ? " he asked, and felt 
 about for his sword, but could not find it. Yet it 
 was close by. I said, " Sire, because of a report 
 which had reached the ears of Madame that the 
 Marquess and the Old Man were in league to have 
 you murdered." To this he made no reply, except 
 to call me a fool. Later he asked, " How died 
 the Marquess ? " 
 
 '"Sire," I answered, "most miserably. He 
 went up Lebanon to see the Old Man, and came 
 presently down again with two of the Assassins in 
 his company, but none of his train. These persons, 
 being near his city of Sidon, at a signal agreed 
 upon stabbed him with their long knives, then cut 
 off his right hand and despatched it to the Old 
 Man by one of them. The other stayed by the 
 corpse, and was so found peacefully sleeping, and 
 burned."
 
 334 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 ' The King said nothing, but gave me money 
 and a little jewel he used to wear, as if I had done 
 him a service. Then he nodded a dismissal, and 
 I, wondering, left him. He did not speak to me 
 again for many weeks.' 
 
 You may collect that Richard was very ill. He 
 was. The disease of his mind fed fat upon the 
 disease of his body, and from the spoils of the 
 feast savagery reared its clotted head. Syrian 
 mothers still quell their children with the name of 
 Melek Richard, a reminiscence of the dreadful 
 time when he was without ruth or rest. He spoke 
 of his purposes to none, listened to none. The 
 Bishop of Sarum had come in with a budget of 
 disastrous news : Count John had England under 
 his heel, Philip of France had entered Normandy 
 in force, the lords of Aquitaine were in revolt. 
 If God had no use for him in the East, here was 
 work to do in the West. But had He none ? What 
 of Joppa, shuddering under the sword ? What of 
 Acre, where the French army wallowed in sloth, 
 with two queens at its mercy and Saint-Pol in the 
 mercy-seat ? What, indeed, of Jehane ? 
 
 Nobody breathed her name ; yet night and day 
 the image of her floated, half-hid in scarlet clouds, 
 before King Richard. These clouds, a torn regi- 
 ment, raced across his vision, like cavalry broken, 
 in mad retreat. Out of the tumbled mass two 
 hands would throw up, white, long, thin hands, 
 Jehane's hands drowned in frothy blood. Then, 
 in his waking dream, when he drove in the spurs 
 and started to save, the colours changed, black
 
 ch. ix THE KING REAPS 335 
 
 swam over the blood ; and one hand only would 
 stay, held up warningly, saying, ' Forbear, I am 
 separate, fenced, set apart.' Thus it was always : 
 menace, wicked endeavour, shipwreck, ruin ; al- 
 ways so, her agony and denial, his wrath and 
 defeat. 
 
 But this was wholesome torment. There was 
 other not so purgatorial — damned torment. That 
 was when the sudden thought of her possession by 
 another man, of his own robbery, his own impotence 
 to regain, came upon him in a surging flood and 
 made his neck swell with the rage of a beast. And 
 no crouching to spring, no flash through the air, 
 no snatching here. Here was no Gilles de Gurdun 
 to deal with. Only the beast's resource was his, 
 who had the beast's desire without his power. At 
 such times of obsession he lashed up and down his 
 chamber or the flat roof of his house, all the tragic 
 quest of a leopard in a cage making blank his 
 desperate hunting eyes. ' Lord, Lord, Lord, how 
 long can this endure ? ' Alas, the cage was wider 
 than any room, and stronger by virtue of his own 
 fashioning of the locks. But to do him justice, 
 Jehane's grave face would sail like a moon among 
 the storm-clouds sooner or later, and humble him 
 to the dust. 
 
 Sometimes, mostly at dawn, when a cool wind 
 stole through the trees, he saw the trail of events 
 more clearly, and knew whom to blame and whom 
 to praise. Generous as he was through and 
 through, at these times he did not spare the whip. 
 But the image he set up before whom to scourge 
 himself was Jehane Saint-Pol, that pure cold saint,
 
 336 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. n 
 
 offering up her proud body for his needs ; and so 
 sure as he did that he desired her, and so sure as 
 he desired he raged that he had been robbed. 
 Robber as he owned himself, now he had been 
 robbed. So the old black strife began again. 
 Many and many a dawn, as he thought of these 
 things, he went out alone into the shadowless places 
 of the land, to the quiet lapping sea, to the gardens, 
 or to the housetop fronting the new - born day, 
 with prayer throbbing for utterance, but a tongue 
 too dry to pray. Despair seized on him, and he 
 led his men out to death-dealing, that so haply 
 he might find death for himself. The time wore 
 to early summer, while he was nightly visited by 
 the thought of his sin, and daily winning more 
 stuff for repentance. Then, one morning, instead 
 of going out singly to battle with his own soul, 
 he went in to the Abbot Milo. What follows shall 
 be told in his own words. 
 
 ' The King came to me very early in the morn- 
 ing of Saints Primus and Felician, while I yet lay 
 in my bed. "Milo, Milo," said he, "what must 
 I do to be saved ? " He was very white and wild, 
 shaking all over. I said, " Dear Master, save 
 thy people. On all sides they cry to thee — from 
 England, from Normandy, from Anjou, from 
 Joppa also, and Acre. There is no lack of en- 
 treaty." He shook his head. " Here," he said, 
 " I can do no more. God is against me, the work 
 too holy for such a wretch." " Lord," I said, 
 " we are all wretches, Heaven save us ! If your 
 Grace is held off God's inheritance, you can at least 
 hold others from your own. Here, may be, you
 
 ch. ix THE KING REAPS 337 
 
 took a charge too heavy ; but there, at home, the 
 charge was laid upon you. Renouncing here, you 
 shall gain there. It cannot be otherwise." I be- 
 lieved in what I said ; but he gripped the caps 
 of his knees and rocked himself about. " They 
 have beaten me, Milo. Saint -Pol, Burgundy, 
 Beauvais — I am bayed by curs. What am I, 
 Milo? ' "Sire," I said, "your father's son. As 
 they bayed the old lion, so they bay the young." 
 He gaped at me, open - mouthed. " By God, 
 Milo," he said, " I bayed him myself, and believed 
 that he deserved it." "Lord," I answered, "who 
 am I to judge a great king ? For my part I 
 never believed that monstrous sin was upon him." 
 Here he jumped up. " I am going home, Milo," 
 he said ; " I am going home. I am going to my 
 father's tomb. I will do penance there, and serve 
 my people, and live clean. Look now, Milo, 
 shrive me if thou hast the power, for my need is 
 great." The thought was blessed to him. He 
 confessed his sins then and there, all a huddle of 
 them, weeping so bitterly that I should have wept 
 myself had I not been ready rather to laugh and 
 crack my fingers to see the breaking up of his 
 long and deadly frost. Before I shrived him, 
 moreover, I dared to speak of Madame Jehane, 
 how he had now lost her for ever, and why ; how 
 she was now at last a man's wife, and that by her 
 own deliberate will ; and how also he must do his 
 duty by the Queen. To all of which he gave 
 heed and promises of quiet endurance. Then I 
 shrived him, and that very morning gave him 
 the Lord's sacred body in the Church of the 
 
 z
 
 338 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 Sepulchre. I believed him sane ; and so for a long 
 time he was, as he testified by deeds of incredible 
 valour.' 
 
 It was not long after this that the fleet put out 
 to sea, shaping course for Acre. Message after 
 message came in from beleaguered Joppa ; but 
 King Richard paid little heed to them, pending 
 the issue of new treating with Saladin. He 
 certainly sailed with a single eye on Acre. But 
 Joppa lay on his course, and it is probable, he 
 being what he was, that the sight of no means to 
 do great deeds made great deeds done. When 
 his red galley sighted Joppa, standing in for the 
 purpose, all seemed over with the doomed city. 
 This, no doubt (since his mood was hot), urged 
 him to one of those impossible acts, ' incredible 
 deeds of valour,' as Milo calls them, for which his 
 name lives, while those of many better kings are 
 forgotten. 
 
 The country about Joppa slopes sharply to the 
 sea, and gives little or no shelter for ships ; but so 
 quick is the slope that a galley may ride under the 
 very walls of the town and take in provision from 
 the seaward windows. On the landward side it is 
 dangerously placed, seeing that the stoop of the 
 country runs from the mountains to it. The few 
 outlying forts, the stone bridge over the river, 
 cannot be held against a resolute foe. When 
 King Richard's fleet drew near enough to see, it 
 was plain what had been done. The Saracens had 
 carried the outworks ; they held the bridge. At 
 leisure they had broached the walls and swarmed 
 in. The flag on the citadel still flew ; battle
 
 ch. ix THE KING REAPS 339 
 
 or carnage was raging in the streets all about it. 
 Its fall was a matter of hours. 
 
 Now King Richard stood on the poop of his 
 galley, watching all this. He saw a man come 
 running down the mole chased by half a dozen 
 horsemen in yellow, a priest by the look of him ; 
 you could see the gleam of his tonsure as he 
 plunged. For so he did, plunged into the sea 
 and swam for his life. The pursuers drew up on 
 the verge and shot at him with their long-bows. 
 They were of Saladin's bodyguard, fine marksmen 
 who should never have missed him. But the priest 
 swam like a fish, and they did miss him. King 
 Richard himself hooked him out by the gown, 
 and then clipped him in his arms like a lover. 
 ' Oh, brave priest ! Oh, hardy heart ! ' he cried, 
 full of the man's bravery. ' Give him room there. 
 Let him cough up the salt. By my soul, barons, 
 I wish that any draught of wine may be so glorious 
 sweet.' 
 
 The priest sat up and told his tale. The city 
 was a shambles ; every man, woman, or child had 
 been put to the sword. Only the citadel held 
 out ; there was no time to lose. No time was 
 lost ; for King Richard, in his tunic and breeches 
 as he was, in his deck shoes, without a helm, un- 
 mailed in any part, snatched up shield and axe. 
 ' Who follows Anjou ?' he called out, then plunged 
 into the sea. Des Barres immediately followed him, 
 then Gaston of Beam (with a yell) and the Earl 
 of Leicester neck and neck ; then the Bishop 
 of Salisbury, a stout - hearted prince, Auvergne, 
 Limoges, and Mercadet. These eight were all
 
 34Q RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. 11 
 
 the men in authority that Trenchemer held, except 
 some clerks, fat men who loved not water. But 
 as soon as the other ships saw what was afoot, a 
 man here and there followed his King. The rest 
 rowed closer to the shore and engaged the Saracen 
 horsemen with their archers. Long before any 
 men could be got off the eight were on dry land, 
 and had found a way into the sacked city. 
 
 How they did what they did the God of Battles 
 knows best ; but that they did it, is certain. All 
 accounts of the fray agree, Bohadin with Vinsauf, 
 Moslem and Christian alike. What pent rage, 
 what storm curbed up short, what gall, what mor- 
 tification, what smoulder of resentment, bit into 
 King Richard, we may guess who know him. 
 Such it was as to nerve his arm, nerve his 
 following to be his lovers, make him unassailable, 
 make a devil of him. Not a devil of blind fury, 
 but a cold devil who could devise a scope for his 
 malice, choose how to do his stabbing work wise- 
 liest. Inside the town gate they took up close 
 order, wedgewise, linked and riveted ; a shield 
 before, shields beside, Richard with his double-axe 
 for the wedge's beak. They took the steep street 
 at a brisk pace, turning neither right nor left, but 
 heading always for the citadel, boring through and 
 trampling down what met them. This at first 
 was not very much, only at one corner a company 
 of Nubian spears came pelting down a lane, hoping 
 to cut them off by a flank movement. Richard 
 stopped his wedge ; the blacks buffeted into their 
 shields with a shock that scattered and tossed them 
 up like spray. The wedge held firm ; red work
 
 ch. ix THE KING REAPS 341 
 
 for axe and swords while it lasted. They killed 
 most of the Nubians, drove bodily through the 
 rabble at their heels ; then into the square of the 
 citadel they came. It was packed with a shrieking 
 horde, whose drums made the day a hell, whose 
 great banners wagged and rocked like osiers in 
 a flood -water. They were trying to fire the 
 citadel, and some were swarming the walls from 
 others' backs. The square was like a whirlpool in 
 the sea, a sea of tense faces whose waves were 
 surging men and the flying wrack their gonfanons. 
 
 King Richard saw how matters lay in this 
 horrible hive ; these men could not fight so close. 
 Cavalry can do nothing in a dense mass of foot, 
 bowmen cannot shoot confined ; spearmen against 
 swords are little worth, javelins sped once. So 
 much he saw, and also the straining crowd, the 
 lifted, threatening arms, the stretched necks about 
 the citadel. ' O Lord, the heathen are come into 
 Thine inheritance. At the word, sirs, cleave a 
 way.' And then he cried above the infernal riot, 
 ' Save, Holy Sepulchre ! Save, Saint George ! ' 
 and the wedge drove into the thick of them. 
 
 This work was butcher's work, like sawing 
 through live flesh. Too much blood in the 
 business : after a while the haft of the King's 
 axe got rotten with it, and at a certain last blow 
 gave way and bent like a pulpy stock. He helped 
 himself to a beheaded Mameluke's scimitar, and 
 did his affair with that. Once, twice, thrice, and 
 four times they furrowed that swarm of men ; 
 nothing broke their line. Richard himself was 
 only cut in the feet, where he trod on mailed
 
 342 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 bodies or broken swords ; the others (being them- 
 selves in mail) were without scathe. They held 
 the square until the Count of Champagne came 
 up with knights and Pisan arbalestiers, and then 
 the day was won. They drove out the invaders ; 
 on the Templars' house they ran up the English 
 dragon-flag. King Richard rested himself. 
 
 Two days later a pitched battle was fought on 
 the slopes above Joppa. Saladin met Richard for 
 the last time, and the Melek worsted him. Our 
 King with fifteen knights played the wedge again 
 when his enemy was packed to his taste ; and this 
 time (being known) with less carnage. But the 
 left wing of the invading army re-entered the 
 town, the garrison had a panic. Richard wheeled 
 and scoured them out at the other end ; so they 
 perished in the sea. Men say, who saw him, that 
 he did it alone. So terrible a name he had with 
 the Saracens, this may very well be. There had 
 never been seen, said they, such a fighter before. 
 Like sheep they huddled at his sight, and like 
 sheep his onset scattered them. ' Let God arise,' 
 says Milo with a shaking pen : ' and lo ! He 
 arose. O lion in the path, who shall stand up 
 against thee ? ' 
 
 He drove Saladin into the hills, and set him 
 manning once more the watch-towers of Jeru- 
 salem. But he had reached his limit ; sickness 
 fastened on him, and on the ebb of his fury came 
 lagging old despair. For a week he lay in his 
 bed delirious, babbling breathless foolish things of 
 Jehane and the Dark Tower, of the broomy downs 
 by Foictiers, the hills of Languedoc, of Henry his
 
 ch. ix THE KING REAPS 343 
 
 handsome brother, of Bertran de Born and the 
 falcon at Le Puy. Then followed a pleasant 
 thing. Saladin, the noble foe, heard of it, and 
 sent Saphadin his brother to visit him. They 
 brought the great Emir into the tent of his great 
 enemy. 
 
 ' O God of the Christians ! ' cried he with 
 tears, ' what is this work of thine, to make such a 
 mirror of thy might, and then to shatter the 
 glass ? ' He kissed King Richard's burning fore- 
 head, then stood facing the standers-by. 
 
 ' I tell you, my lords, there has been no such 
 king as this in our country. My brother the 
 Sultan would rather lose Jerusalem than have such 
 a man to die.' 
 
 At this Richard opened his eyes. ' Eh, Saphadin, 
 my friend,' he says, ' death is not mine yet, nor 
 Jerusalem either. Make me a truce with my 
 brother Saladin for three years. Then with the 
 grace of God I will come and fight him again. But 
 for this time I am spent.' 
 
 * Are you wounded, dear sire ? ' asked Saphadin. 
 
 ' Wounded ? ' said the King in a whisper. ' Yes, 
 wounded in the soul, and in the heart — sick, sick, 
 sick.' 
 
 Saphadin, kneeling down, kissed his ring. ' May 
 the God whom in secret we both worship, the 
 God of Gods, do well by you, my brother.' So 
 he said, and Richard nodded and smiled at him 
 kindly. 
 
 When peace was made they carried him to his 
 ship. The fleet went to Acre.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE CHAPTER CALLED BONDS 
 
 King Richard sent for his sister Joan of Sicily 
 on the morrow of his coming to Acre, and thus 
 addressed her : ' Let me hear now, sister, the truth 
 of what passed when the Queen saw Madame 
 d'Anjou.' 
 
 ' Madame d'Anjou ! ' cried Joan, who (as you 
 know) had plenty of spirit ; ' I think you rob the 
 Queen of a title there.' 
 
 * I cannot rob her of what she never had,' said 
 King Richard ; ' but I will repeat my question if 
 you do not remember it.' 
 
 ' No need, sire,' replied the lady, and told him 
 all she knew. She added, ' Sire and my brother, 
 if I may dare to say so, I think the Queen has a 
 grief. Madame Jehane made no pretensions — I 
 hope I do her full justice — but remember that the 
 Queen made none either. You took her of your 
 royal will ; she was conscious of the honour. But 
 of what you gave you took away more than half. 
 The Queen loves you, Richard ; she is a most 
 miserable lady, yet there is time still. Make a 
 wife of your queen, brother Richard, and all will
 
 ch. x BONDS 345 
 
 be well. For what other reason in the world did 
 Madame Jehane what she did ? For love of an 
 old man whom she had never seen, do you think ? ' 
 
 The King's brow grew dark red. He spoke 
 deliberately. ' I will never make her my wife. 
 I will never willingly see her again. I should 
 sin against religion or honour if I did either. I 
 will never do that. Let her go to her own 
 country. 
 
 ' Sire, sire,' said Joan, ' how is she to do that ? ' 
 
 ' As she will,' says the King ; ' but, for my part 
 of it, with every proper accompaniment.' 
 
 ' Sire, the dowry ' 
 
 ' I return it, every groat.' 
 
 ' The affront ' 
 
 ' The affront is offered. I prevent a greater 
 affront.' 
 
 I Is this fixed, Richard ? ' 
 ' Irrevocably.' 
 
 ' She loves you, sire ! ' 
 
 ' She loves ill. Get up on your feet.' 
 
 ' Sire, I beseech you pity her.' 
 
 I I pity her deeply. I think I pity everybody 
 with whom I have had to deal. I do not choose 
 to have any more pitiful persons about me. Fare 
 you well, sister. Go, lest I pity you.' She 
 pleaded. 
 
 ' Ah, sire ! 
 
 'The audience is at an end,' said the King; 
 and the Queen of Sicily rose to take leave. 
 
 He kept his word, never saw Berengere again 
 but once, and that was not yet. What remained
 
 346 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 for him to do in Syria he did, patched up a truce 
 with Saladin, saw to Henry of Champagne's 
 election, to Guy of Lusignan's establishment ; 
 dealt out such rewards and punishments as lay 
 in his power, sent the two queens with a convoy 
 to Marseilles. Then, two years from his hopeful 
 entry into Acre as a conqueror, he left it a defeated 
 man. He had won every battle he had fought 
 and taken every city he had invested. His allies 
 had beaten him, not the heathen. 
 
 They were to beat him again, with help. The 
 very skies took their part. He was beset by 
 storms from the day he launched on the deep, 
 separated from his convoy, driven from one shore 
 to another, fatally delayed. His enemies had time 
 to gather at home : Eustace of Saint-Pol, Beauvais, 
 Philip of France ; and behind all these was John 
 of Mortain, moving heaven and earth and them 
 to get him a realm. By a providence, as he 
 thought it, Richard put into Corsica under stress 
 of weather, and there heard how the land lay in 
 Gaul. Philip had won over Raymond of Toulouse, 
 Saint-Pol heading a joint-army of theirs was near 
 Marseilles, ready to destroy him. King Richard 
 was to walk into a trap. By this time, you must 
 know, he had no more to his power than the 
 galley he rode in, and three others. He had no 
 Des Barres, no Gaston, no Beziers ; he had not 
 even Mercadet his captain, and no thought where 
 they might be. The trap would have caught him 
 fast. 
 
 ' Pretty work,' he said, ' pretty work. But I 
 will better it.' He put about, and steered round
 
 ch. x BONDS 347 
 
 Sicily for the coast of Dalmatia ; here was caught 
 again by furious gales, lost three ships out of the 
 four he had, and finally sought haven at Gazara, 
 a little fishing village on that empty shore. His 
 intention was to travel home by way of Germany 
 and the Low Countries, and so land in England 
 while his brother John was still in France. Either 
 he had forgotten, or did not care to remember, 
 that all this country was a fief of the Archduke 
 Luitpold's. He knew, of course, that Luitpold 
 hated him, but not that he held him guilty of 
 Montferrat's murder. Suspecting no great diffi- 
 culty, he sent up messengers to the lord of Gazara 
 for a safe -conduct for certain merchants, pil- 
 grims. This man was an Austrian knight called 
 Gunther. 
 
 ' Who are your pilgrims ? ' Gunther asked ; 
 and was told, Master Hugh, a merchant of Alost, 
 he and his servants. 
 
 ' What manner of a merchant ? ' was Gunther's 
 next question. 
 
 ' My lord,' they said, who had seen him, ' a 
 fine man, tall as a tree, and strong and straight, 
 having keen blue eyes, and a reddish beard on his 
 chin, as the men of Flanders do not use.' 
 
 Gunther said, ' Let me see this merchant,' and 
 went down to the inn where King Richard was. 
 
 Now Richard was sitting by the fire, warming 
 himself. W T hen Gunther came in, furred and 
 portly, he did not rise up ; which was unfortunate 
 in a pretended merchant. 
 
 ' Are you Master Hugh of Alost ? ' Gunther 
 asked, looking him over.
 
 348 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. 11 
 
 ' That is the name I bear,' said Richard. ' And 
 who are you, my friend ? 
 
 The Austrian stammered. ' Hey, thou dear 
 God, I am Lord Gunther of this castle and town ! ' 
 he said, raising his voice. Then the King got up 
 to make a reverence, and in so doing betrayed his 
 stature. 
 
 ' I should have guessed it, sir, by your gentle- 
 ness in coming to visit me here. I ask your 
 pardon.' Thus the King, while Gunther wondered. 
 
 ' You are a very tall merchant, Hugh,' says 
 he. ' Do they make your sort in Alost ? ' King 
 Richard laughed. 
 
 ' It is the only advantage I have of your lord- 
 ship. For the rest, my countrywomen make 
 straight men, I think.' 
 
 ' Were you bred in Alost, Master Hugh ?' asked 
 Gunther suspiciously ; and again Richard laughed 
 as he said, ' Ah, you must ask my mother, Lord 
 Gunther.' 
 
 ' Lightning ! ' was the Austrian's thought ; ' here 
 is a pretty easy merchant.' 
 
 He raised some little difficulties, vexations of 
 routine, which King Richard persistently laughed 
 at, while doing his best to fulfil them. Gunther 
 did not relish this. He named the Archduke as 
 his overlord, hard upon strangers. Richard let it 
 slip that he did not greatly esteem the Archduke. 
 However, in the end he got his safe-conduct, and 
 all would have been well if, on leaving Gazara, he 
 had not overpaid the bill. 
 
 Overpay is not the word : he drowned the bill. 
 In a hurry for the road, the innkeeper fretted him.
 
 ch. x BONDS 349 
 
 ' Reckoning, landlord ! ' he cried, with one foot 
 in the stirrup : ' how the devil am I to reckon 
 half-way up a horse ? Here, reckon yourself, my 
 man, and content you with these.' He threw a 
 fistful of gold besants on the flags, turned his 
 horse sharply and cantered out of the yard. 
 ' Colossal man ! ' gasped the innkeeper. ' King or 
 devil, but no merchant under the sun.' So the 
 news spread abroad, and Gunther puffed his 
 cheeks over it. A six-foot-two man, a monstrous 
 leisurely merchant, who rose not to the lord of a 
 castle and town, who did not wait for his lordship's 
 humour, but found laughable matter in his own ; 
 who was taller than the Archduke and thought 
 his Grace a dull dog ; who made a Danae of his 
 landlord ! Was this man Jove ? Who could 
 think the Archduke a dull dog except an Emperor, 
 or, perhaps, a great king ? A king : stay now. 
 There were wandering kings abroad. How if 
 Richard of England had lost his way ? Here he 
 slapped his thigh : but this must be Richard of 
 England — what other king was so tall ? And in 
 that case, O thunder in the sky, he had let slip his 
 Archduke's deadly enemy ! He howled for his 
 lanzknechts, his boots, helmet, great sword ; he set 
 off at once, and riding by forest ways, cut off the 
 merchant in a day and a night. He ran him to 
 earth in the small wooden inn of a small wooden 
 village high up in the Carinthian Alps, Blomau by 
 name, which lies in a forest clearing on the road 
 to Gratz. 
 
 King Richard was drinking sour beer in the 
 kitchen, and not liking it. The lanzknechts
 
 35Q RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 surrounded the house ; Gunther with two of them 
 behind him came clattering in. Glad of the 
 diversion, Richard looked up. 
 
 ' Ha, here is Lord Gunther again,' said he. 
 ' Better than beer.' 
 
 ' King Richard of England,' said the Austrian, 
 white by nature, heat, and his feelings, ' I make 
 you my prisoner.' 
 
 'So it seems,' replied the King; 'sit down, 
 Gunther. I offer you beer and a most indifferent 
 cheese.' 
 
 But Gunther would by no means sit down in 
 the presence of an anointed king for one bidding. 
 
 ' Ah, sire, it is proper that I should stand 
 before you,' he said huskily, greatly excited. 
 
 ' It it not at all proper when I tell you to be 
 seated,' returned King Richard. So Gunther sat 
 down and wiped his head, Richard finished his 
 beer ; and then they went to sleep on the floor. 
 Early in the morning the prisoner woke up his 
 gaoler. 
 
 ' Come, Gunther,' he says, ' we had better take 
 the road.' 
 
 ' I am ready, sire,' says Gunther, manifestly 
 unready. He rose and shook himself. 
 
 ' Lead, then,' Richard said. 
 
 ' I follow you, sire.' 
 
 ' Lead, you white dog,' said the King, and 
 showed his teeth for a moment. The Austrian 
 obeyed. One of Richard's few attendants, a 
 Norman called Martin Vaux, adopted for his own 
 salvation the simple expedient of staying behind ; 
 and Gunther was in far too exalted a mood to
 
 ch. x BONDS 351 
 
 notice such a trifle. When he and his troop had 
 rounded the forest road, Martin Vaux rounded 
 it also, but in the opposite direction. He was 
 rather a fool, though not fool enough to go to 
 prison if he could help it. Being a seaman by 
 grace, he smelt for his element, and by grace found 
 it after not many days. More of him presently. 
 
 Archduke Luitpold was in his good town of 
 Gratz when news was brought him, and the man. 
 ' Du lieber Gott ! ' he crowed. ' Ach, mein 
 Gunther ! ' and embraced his vassal. 
 
 His fiery little eyes burned red, as Mars when 
 he flickers ; but he was a gentleman. He took 
 Richard's profFered hand, and after some fumbling 
 about, kissed it. 
 
 • Ha, sire ! ' came the words, deeply exultant 
 from his big throat. ' Now we are on more equal 
 terms, it appears.' 
 
 ' I agree with you, Luitpold,' said the King ; 
 and then, even as the Archduke was wetting his 
 lips for the purpose, he added, ' But I hope you 
 will not stretch your privilege so far as to make 
 me a speech.' 
 
 Austria swallowed hard. ' Sire, it would take 
 many speeches to wipe out the provocations I have 
 received at your hands. All the speeches in the 
 councils of the world could not excuse the deaths 
 of my second cousin the Count of Saint- Pol and of 
 my first cousin the Marquess of Montferrat.' 
 
 'That is true,' replied Richard, 'but neither 
 could they restore them to life.'
 
 352 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ir 
 
 ' Sire, sire ! ' cried the Archduke, ' upon my 
 soul I believe you guilty of the Marquess's 
 death.' 
 
 ' I assumed that you did,' was the King's 
 answer ; ' and your protestation adds no weight 
 to my theory, but otherwise.' 
 
 ' Do you admit it, King Richard ? ' The Arch- 
 duke, an amazed man, looked foolish. His mouth 
 fell open and his hair stuck out ; this gave him 
 the appearance of a perturbed eagle in a bush. 
 
 ' I am far from denying it,' says Richard. ' I 
 never deny any charges, and never make any 
 unless I am prepared to pursue them ; which is 
 not the case at present.' 
 
 * I must keep you in safe hold, sire, 1 the Arch- 
 duke said. ' I must communicate with my lord 
 the Roman Emperor.' 
 
 ' You are in your right, Luitpold,' said King 
 Richard. 
 
 The end of the day's work was that the King 
 of England was lodged in a high tower, some 
 sixty feet above the town wall. 
 
 Now consider the acts of Martin Vaux, smelling 
 for the sea. In a little time he did better than 
 that, for he saw it from the top of a high mountain, 
 shining far off in the haze, and then had nothing 
 to do but follow down a river-bed, which brought 
 him duly to Trieste. Thence he got a passage to 
 Venice, where the wineshops were too good or too 
 many for him. He talked of his misfortunes, of 
 his broken shoes, of Austrian beer, of his exalted
 
 ch.x BONDS 353 
 
 master, of his extreme ingenuity and capacity for 
 all kinds of faithful service. Now Venice was, as 
 it is now, a place colluvies gentium. Gaunt, lonely 
 Arabs stalked the narrow streets, or dreamed 
 motionless by the walls of the quay. The city 
 was full of strayed Crusaders, disastrous broken 
 blades, of renegade Christians, renegade Moslems, 
 adaptable Jews, of pilgrims, and chafferers of relics 
 from the holy places. Martin's story spread like 
 the plague, but not (unhappily) to any advantage 
 of King Richard imperturbable in his tower. 
 Martin Vaux then, having drunk up the charity 
 of Venice, shipped for Ancona. There too he met 
 with attentions, for there he met a countryman of 
 his, the Sieur Gilles de Gurdun, a Norman knight. 
 When Sir Gilles heard that King Richard was 
 in prison, but that Jehane was not with him, he 
 grew very red. That he had never learned of her 
 deeds at Acre need not surprise you. He had not 
 heard because he had not been to Acre with the 
 French host, but instead had gone pilgrim to 
 Jerusalem, and thence with Lusignan to Cyprus. 
 So now he took Martin Vaux by the windpipe and 
 shook him till his eyes stared like agate balls. 
 ' Tell me where Madame Jehane is, you clot, or I 
 finish what I have begun,' he said terribly. But 
 Martin could tell him no more, for he was quite 
 dead. It was proper, even in Ancona, to be 
 moving after that ; and Gilles was very ready to 
 move. The hunger and thirst for Jehane, which 
 had never left him for long, came aching back to 
 such a pitch that he felt he must now find her, 
 see her, touch her, or die. The King was her only 
 
 2 A
 
 354 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 clue ; he must hunt him out wherever he might 
 be. One of two things had occurred : either 
 Richard had tired of her, or he had lost her by 
 mischance of travel. There was a third possible 
 thing, that the Queen had had her murdered. 
 He put that from him, being sure she was not 
 dead. ' Death,' said Gilles, ' is great, but not great 
 enough to have Jehane in her beauty.' He really 
 believed this. So he came back to his two posi- 
 tions. If the King had tired of her, he would 
 not scruple (being as he was) to admit as much 
 to Gilles. If he had lost her, he was safe in 
 prison ; and Gilles knew that with time he could 
 find her. But he must be sure. He thought of 
 another thing. ' If he is in prison, in chains, he 
 might be stabbed with certain ease.' His heart 
 exulted at the hot thought. 
 
 It was not hard to follow back on Martin's 
 dallying footsteps. He traced him to Venice, to 
 Trieste, up the mountains as far as Blomau. 
 There he lost him, and shot very wide of the 
 mark. In fact, the slow-witted young man went 
 to Vienna on a false rumour — but it boots not 
 recount his wanderings. Six months after he left 
 Ancona, ragged, hatless, unkempt, hungry, he 
 came within sight of the strong towers of Gratz ; 
 and as he went limping by the town ditch he heard 
 a clear, high voice singing — 
 
 Li dous consirc 
 
 Quern don' Amors soven — 
 
 and knew that he had run down his man. 
 
 One other, crouching under the wall, most
 
 ch.x BONDS 355 
 
 intent watcher, saw him stop as if hit, clap his 
 hand to his shock-head, then listen, brooding, 
 working his jaws from side to side. The voice 
 stayed ; Gilles turned and slowly went his way 
 back. He limped under the gateway into the 
 town, and the croucher by the wall peered at him 
 between the meshes of her dishevelled hair.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE CHAPTER CALLED A LATERE 
 
 The Old Man of Musse, Lord of all the Assassins, 
 descendant of Ali, Fulness of Light, Master of 
 them that eat hemp, and many things beside, 
 wedded Jehane and made her his principal wife. 
 He valued in her, apart from her bodily perfec- 
 tions, her discretion, obedience, good sense, and 
 that extraordinary sort of pride which makes its 
 possessor humble, so inset it is ; too proud, you 
 may say, to give pride a thought. Esteeming her 
 at this price, it is not remarkable if she came to 
 be his only wife. 
 
 This was the manner of her life. When her 
 husband left her, which was very early in the 
 morning, she generally slept for an hour, then 
 rose and went to the bath. Her boy was brought 
 to her in the pavilion of the Garden of Fountains ; 
 she spent two hours or more with him, teaching 
 him his prayers, the honour of his father, love and 
 duty to his mother, respect for the long purposes 
 of God. At ten o'clock she broke her fast, and 
 afterwards her women sat with her at needlework ; 
 and one would sing, or one tell a good tale ; or,
 
 ch. xi A LATERE 357 
 
 leave being given, they would gossip among them- 
 selves, with a look ever at her for approval or 
 (what rarely happened) disapproval. There was 
 not a soul among her slaves who did not love her, 
 nor one who did not fear her. She talked no 
 more than she had ever done, but she judged no 
 less. Many times a day the Old Man sent for 
 her, or sometimes came to her room, to discuss 
 his affairs. He never found her out of humour, 
 dull, perverse, or otherwise than well disposed to 
 all his desires. Far from that, every Friday he 
 gave thanks in the mosque for the gift of such an 
 admirable wife — grave, discreet, pious, amorous, 
 chaste, obedient, nimble, complaisant, and most 
 beautiful, as he hereby declared that he found her. 
 Being a man of the greatest possible experience, 
 this was high praise ; nor had he been slow in 
 making up his mind that she was to be trusted. 
 He was about to prove his deed as good as his 
 opinion. 
 
 Word was brought her on a day, as she sat in 
 the harem with her boy on her knee, singing to 
 herself and him some winding song of France, 
 that this redoubtable lord of hers was waiting to 
 see her in her chamber. She put the child down 
 and followed the eunuch. Entering the room 
 where the Old Man sat, she knelt down, as was 
 customary, and kissed his knee. He touched her 
 bent head. ' Rise up, my child,' says he, ' sit 
 with me for a little. I have matters of concern- 
 ment for you.' She sat at once by his side ; he 
 took her hand and began to talk to her in this 
 manner.
 
 358 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 ' It appears, Jehane, that I am something of a 
 prophet. Your late master, the Melek Richard, 
 has fallen into the power of his enemies ; he is 
 now a prisoner of the Archduke's on many 
 charges : first, the killing of your brother Eudo, 
 Count of Saint-Pol ; but that is a very trifling 
 affair, which occurred, moreover, in fair battle. 
 Next, they accuse him — falsely, as you know — of 
 the death of Montferrat. We may have our own 
 opinion about that. But the prime matter, as I 
 guess, is ransom, and whether those who wish 
 him ill (not for what he has done to them, but for 
 what he has not allowed them to do to him) will 
 suffer him to be ransomed. Now, what have you 
 to say, my child ? I see that it affects you.' 
 
 Jehane was affected, but not as you might 
 expect. With great self-possession she had a very 
 practical mind. There were neither tears nor 
 heart-beatings, neither panic nor flying of colours. 
 Her eyes sought the Old Man's and remained 
 steadily on them ; her lips were firm and red. 
 
 * What are you willing to do, sire ? ' she asked 
 him. Sinan stroked his fine beard. 
 
 ' I can dispose of the business of Montferrat in 
 a few lines,' he said, considering. ' More, I can 
 reach the Melek and assure him of comfort. 
 What I cannot do so easily, though I admit no 
 failure, mind, is to induce his enemies at home to 
 allow of a ransom.' 
 
 ' I can do that,' said Jehane, ' if you will do the 
 rest.' The Old Man patted her cheek. 
 
 ' It is not the custom of mv nation to allow 
 wives abroad. You, moreover, are not of that
 
 ch. xi A LATERE 359 
 
 nation. How can I trust the Melek, who (I 
 know) loves you ? How can I trust you, who 
 (I know) love the Melek ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, sire,' says Jehane, looking him full in the 
 face, ' I came here because I loved my lord 
 Richard ; and when I have assured his safety I 
 shall return here.' She looked down, as she 
 added — ' For the same reason, and for no other.' 
 
 ' I quite understand you, child,' said the Old 
 Man, and put his hand under her chin. This 
 made her blush, and brought up her face again 
 quickly. 
 
 ' Dear sire,' she said shyly, ' you are very kind 
 to me. If I had another reason for returning it 
 would be that.' Sinan kissed her. 
 
 ' And so it shall be, my dear,' he assured her. 
 ' There is time enough. You shall certainly go, 
 due regard being had to my dignity, and your 
 health, which is delicate just now.' 
 
 ' Have no fear for me, my lord,' she said. ' I 
 am very strong.' He kissed her again, saying, ' I 
 have never known a woman at once so beautiful 
 and so strong.' 
 
 He wrote two letters, sealing them with his 
 own signet and that of King Solomon. To the 
 Archduke he said curtly — 
 
 ' To the Archduke Luitpold, Vetus de Monte 
 sends greeting. If the Melek Richard be any way 
 let in the matter of his life and renown, I bid you 
 take heed that as I served the Marquess of Mont- 
 ferrat, so also I shall serve your Serenity.' 
 
 But the Emperor demanded more civil advert- 
 isement : he got a remarkably fine letter.
 
 360 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 ' To the most exalted man, Henry, by the 
 grace of God Emperor of the Romans, happy, 
 pious, ever august, the invincible Conqueror, 
 Vetus de Monte, by the same grace Chief of the 
 Assassins, sends greeting with the kiss of peace. 
 Let your Celsitude make certain acquaintance 
 with error in regard to the most illustrious person 
 whom you have in hold. Not that Melek Richard 
 caused the death of the Marquess Conrad ; but I, 
 the Ancient, the Lord of Assassins, Fulness of 
 Light, for good cause, namely to save my friend 
 the same Melek from injurious death at the hands 
 of the Marquess. And him, the said Melek, I am 
 resolved at all hazards to defend by means of the 
 silent smiters who serve me. So farewell ; and 
 may He protect your Celsitude whom we diversely 
 worship.' 
 
 As with every business of the Old Man's, pre- 
 parations were soon and silently made. In three 
 or four days' time Jehane strained the young Fulke 
 to her bosom, took affectionate humble leave of her 
 master, and left the green valley of Lebanon on 
 her embassy. 
 
 She was sent down to the coast in the manner 
 becoming the estate of a Sultan's favourite wife. 
 She never set foot on the ground, never even saw 
 it. She was in a close -curtained litter, herself 
 veiled to the eyes. Sitting with her was a vast old 
 Turkish woman, whom in the harem they called 
 the Mother of Flowers. Mules bore the litter, 
 eunuchs on mules surrounded it. On all sides, a 
 third line of defence, rode the janissaries, hooded 
 in white, on white Arabian horses. So they came
 
 ch.xi A LATERE 361 
 
 swiftly to Tortosa, whose lord, in strict alliance 
 with him of Musse, little knew that in paying 
 homage to the shrouded cage he was cap-in-hand 
 to Jehane of Picardy. Long galleys took up the 
 burden of the mountain roads, dipped and furrowed 
 across the iEgean, and touched land at Salonika. 
 Hence by relays of bearers Jehane was carried 
 darkly to Marburg in Styria, where at last she saw 
 the face of the sky. 
 
 They took her to the inn and unveiled her. 
 Then the chief of the eunuchs handed her a paper 
 which he had written himself, being deprived of a 
 tongue : — ' Madame, Fragrance of the Harem, 
 Gulzareen (which is to say, Golden Rose), thus I 
 am commanded by my dreadful master. From 
 this hour and place you are free to do what seems 
 best to your wisdom. The letters of our lord will 
 be sent forward by the proper bearers of them, one 
 to Gratz, where the Archduke watches the Melek, 
 and one to the Emperor of the Romans, wherever 
 he may be found. In Gratz is he whom you seek. 
 This day six months I shall be here to attend your 
 Sufficiency.' He bowed three times, and went 
 away. 
 
 ' Now, mother,' said Jehane to the old duenna, 
 ' do for me what I bid you, and quickly. Get me 
 brown juice for my skin, and a ragged kirtle and 
 bodice, such as the Egyptians wear. Give me money 
 to line it, and then let me go.' All this was done. 
 Jehane put on vile raiment which barely covered 
 her, stained her fair face, neck, and arms brown, 
 and let her hair droop all about her. Then she 
 went barefoot out, hugging herself against the
 
 362 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 cold, being three months gone with child, and took 
 the road over barren moorland to Gratz. 
 
 She had not seen King Richard for nearly two 
 years, at the thought of which thing and of him 
 the hot blood leapt up, to thrust and tingle in her 
 face. She did not mean to see him now if she 
 could help it, for she knew just how far she could 
 withstand him ; she would save him and then go 
 back. Thus she reasoned with herself as she 
 trudged : ' Jehane, ma mye, thou art wife now to a 
 wise old man, who is good to thee, and has exalted 
 thee above all his women. Thou must have no 
 lovers now. Only save him, save him, save him, 
 Lord Jesus, Lady Mary ! ' She treated this as a 
 prayer, and kept it very near her lips all the way 
 to Gratz, except when she felt herself flush all 
 over with the thought, ' School of God ! Is so 
 great a king to be prayed for, as if he were a sick 
 monk ? ' Nevertheless, she prayed more than she 
 flushed. Nothing disturbed her ; she slept in 
 woods, in byres, in stackyards ; bought what she 
 needed for food, attracted no attention, and got no 
 annoyance worthy the name. At the closing in of 
 the fifth day she saw the walls of the city rise 
 above the black moors into the sky, and the towers 
 above them. The dome of a church, gilded, caught 
 the dying sun's eye ; its towers were monstrous 
 tall, round, and peaked with caps of green copper. 
 On the walls she counted seven other towers, heavy, 
 squat, flat-roofed fortresses with huge battlements. 
 A great flag hung in folds, motionless about a staff. 
 All was a uniform dun, muffled in stormy sky, 
 lowering, remote from knowledge, and alien.
 
 cH.xr A LATERE 363 
 
 But Jehane herself was of the North, and not 
 impressionable. Grey skies were familiar tents to 
 her, moorlands roomy places, one heap of stones 
 much like another. But her heart beat high to 
 know Richard half a league away ; all her trouble 
 was how she should find him in such a great town. 
 It was dusk when she reached it ; they were about 
 to shut the gates. She let them, having seen that 
 there were booths and hovels at the barriers, even 
 a little church. It was there she spent the night, 
 huddled in a corner by the altar. 
 
 Dawn is a laggard in Styria. She awoke before 
 it was really light, and crept out, munching a crust. 
 The suburb was dead asleep, a little breeze ruffled 
 the poplars, and blew wrinkles on the town ditch. 
 About and about the walls she went, peering up at 
 their ragged edge, at the huge crumbling towers, 
 at the storks on steep roofs. ' Eh, Lord God, 
 here lies in torment my lovely king ! ' she cried to 
 herself. The keen breeze freshened, the cloud- 
 wrack went racing westward ; it left the sky clean 
 and bare. Out of the east came the red sun, and 
 struck fire upon the dome of Saint Stanislas. Out 
 of a high window then came the sound of a man 
 singing, a sharp strong voice, tremulous in the 
 open notes. She held her bosom as she heard — 
 
 Al entrada del terns clar, eya ! 
 Per joja recomencar, eya ! 
 Vol la regina mostrar 
 Qu'el' es si amoroza. 
 
 The sun kindled her lifted face, filled her wet eyes 
 with light, and glistened on her praying lips. 
 
 After that her duty was clear, as she conceived
 
 364 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 it. She dared not attempt the tower : that would 
 reveal her to him. But she could not leave it. 
 She must wait to learn the effect of her lord's 
 letter, wait to see the bearer of it : here she would 
 wait, where she could press the stones which bore 
 up the stones pressed by Richard. So she did, 
 crouching on the earth by the wall, sheltered 
 against the wind or the wet by either side of a 
 buttress, getting her food sparingly from the booths 
 at the gate, or of charity. The townsmen of 
 Gratz, hoarse-voiced touzleheads mostly, divined 
 her to be an anchoress, a saint, or an unfortunate. 
 She was not of their country, for her hair was 
 burnt yellow like a Lombard's, and her eyes 
 green ; her face, tanned and searching, was like a 
 Hungarian's ; they thought that she wove spells 
 with her long hands. On this account at first she 
 was driven away on to the moors ; but she always 
 returned to her place in the angle, and counted 
 that a day gained when she knew by Richard's 
 strong singing that he yet lived. His songs told 
 her more than that : they were all of love, and if 
 her name came not in her image did. She knew 
 by the mere pitch of his voice — who so well ? — 
 when he was occupied with her and when not. 
 Mostly he sang all the morning from the moment 
 the sun struck his window. Thus she judged him 
 a light sleeper. From noon to four there was no 
 sound ; surely then he slept. He sang fitfully in 
 the evening, not so saliently ; more at night, if 
 there was a moon ; and generally he closed his 
 eyes with a stave of Li dous consire, that song 
 which he had made of and for her.
 
 ch.xi A LATERE 365 
 
 When she had been sitting there for upwards 
 of a month, and still no sign from the bearer of 
 the letter, she saw Gilles de Gurdun come halting 
 up the poplar avenue and pry about the walls, 
 much as she herself had done. She knew him at 
 once for all his tatters, this square-faced, low- 
 browed Norman. How he came there, if not as 
 a slot-hound comes, she could not guess ; but she 
 knew perfectly well what he was about. The 
 blood -instinct had led him, inflexible man, from 
 far Acre across the seas, over the sharp mountains 
 and enormous plains; the blood-instinct had 
 brought him as truly as ever love led her — more 
 truly, indeed. Here he was, with murder still in 
 his heart. 
 
 Watching him through the meshes of her hair, 
 elbowing her arms on her knees, she thought, 
 What should she do ? Plead ? Nay, dare she 
 plead for so royal a head, for so great a heart, so 
 great a king, for one so nearly god that, for a 
 sacrifice, she could have yielded up no more to 
 very God ? This strife tore her to pieces, while 
 Gurdun snuffled round the walls, actually round 
 the buttress where she crouched, spying out the 
 entries. On one side she feared Gilles, on the 
 other scorned what he could do. There was the 
 leper ! He made Gilles terrible ; even her sacrifice 
 on Lebanon might not avail against such as he. 
 But King Richard ! But this strong singer ! But 
 this god of war ! Gilles came round the walls 
 for a second time, nosing here and there, stopping, 
 shaking his head, limping on. Then she heard the 
 King's voice singing, high and sharp and spiring;
 
 366 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 his glorious voice, keener than any man's, as pure 
 as any boy's, singing with astounding gaiety, i Al 
 entrada del terns clar, eya ! ' 
 
 Gilles stopped as one struck, and gaped up at 
 the tower. To see his stupid mouth open, Jehane's 
 bosom heaved with pride well-nigh insufferable. 
 Had any woman, since Mary conceived, such a 
 lover as hers ! ' Oh, Gilles, Gilles, go you on 
 with your knife in your vest. What can you do, 
 little oaf, against King Richard ? ' Gilles went in 
 by the gate, and she let him go. He was away two 
 days, by which time she had cause to alter her mind. 
 The prisoner sang nothing ; and presently a man 
 dressed like a Bohemian came out of the town and 
 spoke to her. This was Cogia, the Assassin, bearer 
 of the letter. 
 
 ' Well, Cogia ? ' said Jehane, holding herself. 
 
 * Mistress, the letter of our lord has been 
 delivered. I think it may go hard with the 
 Melek.' 
 
 ' What, Cogia ? Does the Archduke dare ? ' 
 
 ' The Archduke, mistress, desires not the 
 Melek's death. He is a worthy man. But many 
 do desire it— kings of the West, kinsmen of the 
 Marquess, above all the Melek's blood -brother. 
 One of that prince's men, as I judge him, is with 
 him now — one of your country, mistress.' 
 
 In a vision she saw the leper again, a dull smear 
 in the sunny waste, scratching himself on a white 
 stone. She saw him come hopping from rock to 
 rock, his wagging finger, shapeless face, tongueless 
 voice. 
 
 ' Mistress ' said Cogia. She turned blank
 
 ch. xi A LATERE 367 
 
 eyes upon him. ' I pray,' she said ; ' I pray. Has 
 God no pity ? ' 
 
 Cogia shrugged. ' What has God to do with 
 pity ? The end of the world is in His hand 
 already. The Melek is a king, and the Norman 
 dung in his sight. Who knows the end but God, 
 and how shall He pity what He hath decreed for 
 wisdom ? This I say, if the King dies the man 
 dies.' 
 
 Jehane threw up her head. ' The King will 
 not die, Cogia. Yet to-morrow, if the man comes 
 not out, I will go to seek him.' 
 
 Early in the morning Gilles did come out, 
 turned the angle of the ditch, and shuffled towards 
 her, his head hung. Jehane moved swiftly out 
 from the shadow of the buttress and confronted 
 him. She folded her arms over her breast ; and 
 at that moment the shadow of Richard's tower 
 was capped with the shadow of Richard himself. 
 But she saw nothing of this. ' Halt there, Sir 
 Gilles,' she said. The Norman gave a squeal, like 
 a hog startled at his trough, and went dead-fire 
 colour. 
 
 " Ha, Heart of Jesus ! ' said Gilles de Gurdun.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE CHAPTER OF STRIFE IN THE DARK 
 
 One very great power of King Richard's had never 
 served him better than now, the power of immense 
 quiescence, whereunder he could sit by day or by 
 night as inert as a stone, a block hewn into shape 
 of a man, neither to be moved by outside fret nor 
 by the workings of his own mind. Into this rapt 
 state he fell when the prison doors shut on him, 
 and so remained for three or four weeks, alone 
 while the Fates were spinning. The Archduke 
 came daily to him with speeches, injuries to relate, 
 injuries to impart. King Richard hardly winked 
 an eyelid. The Archduke hinted at ransom, and 
 Richard watched the wall behind his head ; he 
 spoke of letters received from this great man or 
 that, which made ransom not to be thought of ; 
 and Richard went to sleep. What are you to do 
 with a man who meets your offers and threats 
 with the same vast unconcern ? If it is matter for 
 resentment, Richard gave it ; if it is a matter 
 which money may leaven, it is to be observed that 
 while Richard offered no money his enemies offered 
 much.
 
 ch. xii STRIFE IN THE DARK 369 
 
 These letters to the Archduke were not of the 
 sort which fill the austere folios of the Codex 
 Diplomaticus as bins with bran, or make Rymer's 
 book as dry as Ezekiel's valley. They were pun- 
 gent, pertinent, allusive, succinct, supplementing, 
 as with meat, those others. The Count of Saint- 
 Pol wrote, for instance, ' Kinsman, kill the killer 
 of your kin,' and could hardly have expressed 
 himself better under the circumstances. King 
 Philip of France sent two letters : one by a herald, 
 very long, and chiefly in the language of the 
 Epistle of Saint James, designed for the Codex. 
 The other lay in the vest of a Savigniac monk, 
 and was to this effect : ' In a ridded acre the 
 husbandman can sow with hopes of good harvest- 
 ing. When the corn is garnered he calleth about 
 him his friends and fellow-labourers, and cheer 
 abounds. Labour and pray. I pray.' Last came 
 a limping pilgrim from Aquitaine, whose hat was 
 covered with metal saints, and in his left shoe a 
 wad of parchment, which had made him limp. 
 This proved to be a letter from John Count of 
 Mortain, which said, ' Now I see in secret. But 
 when I am come into my kingdom I will reward 
 openly.' The Archduke was by no means a wise 
 man ; but it was not easy to know something of 
 European politics and mistake the meaning of 
 letters like these. If it was a question of money, 
 here was money. And imagine now the Arch- 
 duke, bursting with the urgent secrets of so many 
 princes, making speeches about them — through all 
 of which King Richard slumbered ! ' Damn it, 
 he flouts me, does he?' said Austria at last ; and 
 
 2 B
 
 370 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 left him alone. From that moment Richard began 
 to sing. 
 
 Let us do no wrong to Luitpold : it was not 
 merely a question of money, but money turned the 
 scale. Not only had Richard mortally affronted his 
 gaoler ; he had innumerably offended him. The 
 Archduke was punctilious ; Richard with his petu- 
 lant foot stamped on every little point he laboured, 
 or else, like a buttress, let him labour them in vain. 
 He did not for a moment disguise his fatigue in 
 Luitpold's presence, his relief at his absence, or his 
 unconcern with his properties. This galled the 
 man. He could not, for the life of him, affect 
 indifference to Richard's indifference. When the 
 messenger, therefore, arrived from the Old Man 
 of Musse, the insolence of the message was most 
 unfortunate. The Archduke, angry as he was, 
 could afford to be cool. He played on the Old 
 Man the very part which Richard had played on 
 him — that is, treated him and his letter as though 
 they were not. 
 
 Then he broke with Richard altogether ; and 
 then came Gilles de Gurdun with secret words and 
 offers. 
 
 The Archduke drained his beer-horn, and with 
 his big hand wrung his beard dry. He winked 
 hard at Gilles, whom he thought to be a hired 
 assassin of deplorable address sent, probably, by 
 Count John. 
 
 ' Are you angry enough to do what you pro- 
 pose ?' he asked him. ' I am not, let me tell you.' 
 
 ' I have been trying to kill him for four years/ 
 said Gilles.
 
 ch. xii STRIFE IN THE DARK 371 
 
 ' And are you man enough, my fellow ? ' Gilles 
 cast down his eyes. 
 
 ' I have not been man enough yet, since he 
 still lives. I think I am now.' Then there was 
 a pause. 
 
 ' What is your price ? ' asked Luitpold after 
 this. 
 
 Gilles said, ' I have no price ' ; and the Arch- 
 duke, 'You suit my humour exactly.' 
 
 Richard, I say, had begun to sing from the day 
 he was sure that the Archduke had given him up. 
 Physical relief may have had something to do with 
 that, but moral certainty had more. What made 
 him fume or freeze was doubt. There was very 
 little room for doubt just now but that his enemies 
 would prove too many for Austria's scruples. 
 His friends ? He was not aware that he had any 
 friends. Des Barres, Gaston, Auvergne, Milo ? 
 What did they amount to ? His sister Joan, his 
 mother, his brothers ? Here he shrugged, know- 
 ing his own race too well. He had never heard 
 of the Angevin who helped any Angevin but 
 himself. Lastly, Jehane. He had lost her by his 
 own fault and her extreme nobility. Let her go, 
 glorious among women ! He was alone. Odd 
 creature, he began to sing. 
 
 Singing like a genius to the broad splash of sun- 
 light on brickwork, Gilles de Gurdun found him. 
 Richard was sitting on a bench against the wall, 
 one knee clasped in his hands, his head thrown 
 back, his throat rippling with the tide of his 
 music. He looked as fresh and gallant a figure as
 
 372 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 ever in his life ; his beard trimmed sharply, his 
 strong hair brushed back, his doublet green, his 
 trunks of fine leather, his shoes of yet finer. The 
 song he was upon was Li Chastel d 1 Amors, which 
 runs — 
 
 Las portas son de parlar 
 Al eissir e al entrar : 
 Qui gen non sab razonar, 
 Defors li ven a estar. 
 E las claus son de prejar : 
 Ab eel obron li cortes — 
 
 and so on through many verses, made continuous 
 by the fact that the end of each sixth line forms 
 the rhyme of the next five. Now, Gilles knew 
 nothing of Southern minstrelsy, and if he had, 
 the pitch he was screwed to would have shrilled 
 such knowledge out of him. At ' Defors li ven a 
 estar J he came in, and sturdily forward. Richard 
 saw him and put up his hand : on went the 
 hammered rhymes — 
 
 E las claus son de prejar : 
 Ab eel obron li cortes. 
 
 Here was a little break. Gilles, very dark, took 
 a step ; up shot Richard's warning hand — 
 
 Dedinz la clauson qu'i es 
 
 Son las mazos dels borges . . . 
 
 On went the exulting voice after the new rhymes, 
 gayer and yet more gay. Li Chastel d 'Amors has 
 twelve linked verses, and King Richard, wound 
 up in their music, sang them all. When at last 
 he had stopped, he said, ' Now, Gurdun, what do 
 you want here ? '
 
 ch. xii STRIFE IN THE DARK 373 
 
 Gilles came a step or two of his way, and so 
 again a step or two, and so again, by jerks. 
 When he was so near that it was to be seen what 
 he had in his right hand, the King got up. Gilles 
 saw that he had light fetters on his ankles which 
 could not stop his walking. Richard folded his 
 arms. 
 
 4 Oh, Gurdun,' he said, ' what a fool you are.' 
 Gurdun vented a sob of rage, and flung himself 
 forward at his enemy. He was a shorter man, 
 but very thickset, with arms like steel. He had 
 a knife, rage like a thirst, he was free. Richard, 
 as he came on, hit him full on the chin, and sent 
 him flying. Gurdun picked himself up again, his 
 mouth twitching, his eyes so small as to be like 
 slits. Knife in hand he leaned against the wall to 
 fetch up his breath. 
 
 < Well,' said Richard, ' have you had enough ? ' 
 ' Yes, you wolf,' said Gurdun, ' I shall wait till 
 it is dark.' 
 
 ' I think it may suit you better,' was the King's 
 comment as he sat down on the bed. Gurdun 
 squatted by the wall, watching him. After about 
 an hour of humming airs to himself Richard lay 
 full length, and in a short time Gilles ascertained 
 that he was asleep. This brought tears into the 
 man's eyes ; he began to cry freely. Virgin 
 Mary ! Virgin Mary ! why could he not kill this 
 frozen devil of a king ? Was there a race in the 
 world which bred such men, to sleep with the 
 knife at the throat ? He rose to his feet, went to 
 look at the sleeper ; but he knew he could not do 
 his work. He ranged the room incessantly, and
 
 374 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. 11 
 
 at every second or third turn brought up short 
 by the bed. Sometimes he flashed up his long 
 knife ; it always stayed the length of his arm, 
 then flapped down to his flank in dejection. ' If 
 he wakes not I must go away. I cannot do it so,' 
 he told himself, as finally he sat down by the 
 wall. It grew dusk. He was tired, sick, giddy ; 
 his head dropped, he slept. When he woke up, 
 as with a snort he did, it was inky dark. Now 
 was the time, not even God could see him now. 
 He turned himself about ; inch by inch he crept 
 forward, edging along by the bed's edge. Pain- 
 fully he got on his knees, threw up his head. 
 ' Jehane, my robbed lost soul ! ' he howled, and 
 stabbed with all his might. King Richard, cat- 
 like behind him, caught him by the hair, and 
 cuffed his ears till they sang. 
 
 * Ah, dastard cur ! Ah, mongrel ! Ah, white- 
 galled Norman eft ! God's feet, if I pommel you 
 for this ! ' Pommel him he did ; and, having 
 drawn blood at his ears, he turned him over his 
 knee as if he had been a schoolboy, and lathered 
 his rump with a chair -leg. This humiliating 
 punishment had humiliating effects. Gilles be- 
 lieved himself a boy in the cloister-school again, 
 with his smock up. ' Mea culpa, mea culpa ! 
 Hey, reverend father, have pity ! ' he began to 
 roar. Dropping him at last, Richard tumbled 
 him on to the bed. ' Blubber yourself to sleep, 
 clown,' he told him. ' Blessed ass, I have heard 
 you snoring these two hours, snoring and rootling 
 over your jack-knife. Sleep, man. But if you 
 rootle again I flog again : mind you that.'
 
 ch. xir STRIFE IN THE DARK 375 
 
 Gilles slept long, and was awoken in full light by 
 the sound of King Richard calling for his breakfast. 
 
 The gaoler came pale-faced in. ' A thousand 
 pardons, sire, a thousand pardons ' 
 
 ' Bring my food, Dietrich,' says Richard, ' and 
 send the barber. Also, the next time the Arch- 
 duke desires murder done let him find a fellow who 
 knows his trade. This one is a bungler. Here's 
 the third time to my knowledge he has missed. 
 Off with you.' 
 
 Gilles lay face downwards, abject on the bed. 
 In came the King's breakfast, a jug of wine, some 
 white bread. The King's beard was trimmed, his 
 hair brushed, fresh clothes put on. He dismissed 
 his attendants, crossed over the room like a stalk- 
 ing cat, and gave Gilles a clap behind which made 
 him leap in the air. 
 
 ' Get up, Gurdun,' said Richard. ' Tell me 
 that you are ashamed of yourself, and then listen 
 to me.' 
 
 Gilles went down on one knee. ' God knows, 
 my lord King,' he mumbled, ' that I have done 
 shamefully by you.' He got up, his face clouded, 
 his jaw went square. 'But not more shamefully, 
 by the same God, than you have done by me.' 
 
 The King looked at him. ' I have never justi- 
 fied myself to any man,' he said quietly, ' nor shall 
 I now to you. I take the consequences of all my 
 deeds when and as they come. But from the like 
 of you none will ever come. I speak of men. 
 Now I will tell you this very plainly. The next 
 time you cross my path adversely, I shall kill you. 
 You are a nuisance, not because you desire my
 
 376 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 life, but because you never get it. Try no more, 
 Gurdun.' 
 
 ' Where is Jehane, my lord ? ' said Gurdun, very 
 black. 
 
 ' I cannot tell you where the Countess of Anjou 
 may be,' he was answered. 'She is not here, and 
 is not in France. I believe she is in Palestine.' 
 
 ' Palestine ! Palestine ! Lord Christ, have you 
 turned her away ? ' Gilles cried, beside himself. 
 Again King Richard looked at him, but afterwards 
 shrugged. 
 
 ' You speak after your kind. Now, Gurdun, 
 get you home. Go to my friends in Normandy, 
 to my brother Mortain, to my brother of Rouen ; 
 bid them raise a ransom. I must go back. You 
 have disturbed me, sickened me of assassination, 
 reminded me of what I intended to forget. If I 
 get any more assassins I shall break prison and 
 the Archduke's head, and I should be sorry to do 
 that, as I have no grudge against him. Find Des 
 Barres, Gurdun, raise all Normandy. Find above 
 all Mercadet, and set him to work in Poictou. 
 As for England, my brother Geoffrey will see to 
 it. Aquitaine I leave to the Lord of Beam. Off 
 now, Gurdun, do as I bid you. But if you speak 
 another word to me of Madame d' Anjou, by 
 God's death I will wring your neck. You are not 
 fit to speak of me : how should you dare speak 
 of her ? You ! A stab-i'-the-dark, a black-entry 
 cutter of throats, a hedgerow knifer ! Foh, you 
 had better speak nothing, but be off. Stay, I will 
 call the castellan.' And so he did, roaring through 
 the key-hole. The gaoler came up flying.
 
 ch. xii STRIFE IN THE DARK 377 
 
 ' Conduct this animal into the fresh air, Dietrich,' 
 said King Richard ; ' send him about his business. 
 Tell your master he will now do better. And 
 when that is done, let me go on to the leads that I 
 may walk a little.' 
 
 Gurdun followed his guide speechless ; but the 
 Archduke was very vexed, and declined to see him. 
 ' I decide to be a villain, and he makes me a vain 
 villain,' said the great man. ' Bid him go to the 
 devil.' So then Gilles with head hanging came 
 out of the gate, and Jehane leaped from her angle 
 to confront him. 
 
 To say that he dropped like a shot bird is to 
 say wrong ; for a bird drops compact, but Gilles 
 went down disjunct. His jaw dropped, his hands 
 dropped, his knees, last his head. ' Ha, Heart of 
 Jesus ! ' he said, and covered his eyes. She began 
 to talk like a hissing snake. 
 
 ' What have you done with the King ? What 
 have you done? ' King Richard on the roof peered 
 down and saw her. He turned quite grey. 
 
 ' I could do nothing, Jehane,' Gilles whimpered ; 
 ' I went to kill him.' 
 
 ' You fool, I know it. I saw you go. I could 
 have stayed you as I do now. But I would not.' 
 
 ' Why not, Jehane ? ' 
 
 She spurned him with a look. ' Because I love 
 King Richard, and know you, Gilles, what you 
 can do and what not. Pshutt ! You are a rat.' 
 
 ' Rat,' says Gilles, ' I may be, but a rat may be 
 offended. This king robbed me of you, and slew 
 my father and brothers. Therefore I hated him. 
 Is it not enough reason ? '
 
 378 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY ek. ii 
 
 Her eyes grew cold with scorn. ' Your father? 
 Your brothers ? ' she echoed him. ' Pooh, I have 
 given him more than that. I have burned my 
 heart quite dry. I have accepted shame, I have 
 sold my body and counted as nothing my soul. 
 Robbed you ? Nay, but I robbed myself, and 
 robbed him also, when I cut him out of my own 
 flesh. From the day when, through my prayers 
 against blood, he was affianced to the Spanish 
 woman, I held him off me, though I drained more 
 blood to do it. Then, that not sufficing to save 
 him, I gave myself to the Old Man of Musse ; to 
 be his wife, one of his women, do you understand ? 
 His wife, I say. And you talk now of father 
 and brothers and your robbery, to me who am 
 become an old man's toy, one of many ? What are 
 they to my soul, and my heart's blood, to my life 
 and light, and the glory that I had from Richard ? 
 Oh, you fool, you fool, what do you know of love ? 
 You think it is embracing, clipping, playing with 
 a chin : you fool, it is scorching your heart black, 
 it is welling blood by drops, it is fasting in sight 
 of food, death where sweet life offers, shame held 
 more honourable than honour. Oh, Saint Mary, 
 star of women, what do men know of love ? ' 
 Dry-eyed and pinched, she looked about her as if 
 to find an answer in the sullen moors. If she had 
 looked up to the heavy skies she might have had 
 one ; for on the tower's top stood King Richard 
 like a ghost. 
 
 ' Listen now to me, Jehane,' said Gilles, red as 
 fire. ' I have hated your King for four years, 
 and three times sought his life. But now he has
 
 ch. xri STRIFE IN THE DARK 379 
 
 beaten me altogether. Too strong, too much 
 king, for a man to dare anything singly against 
 him. What ! he slept, and I could not do it ; and 
 then I slept, and he awoke and let me lie. Then 
 once again I woke and thought him still sleeping, 
 and stabbed the bed ; and he came behind me, 
 stealthy as a cat, and trounced me over his knee 
 like a child. Oh, oh, Jehane, he is more than 
 man, and I by so much less. And now, and now, 
 he sends me out to win his ransom as if I were an 
 old lover of his, and I am going to do it ! Why, 
 God in glory look down upon us, what is the 
 force that he hath ? ' 
 
 Gilles now shivered and looked about him ; 
 but Jehane, having mastered her breath, smiled. 
 
 1 He is King,' she said. ' Come, Gilles, I will 
 go with you. You shall find the Abbot Milo, and 
 I the Oueen-Mother. I have the ear of her.' 
 
 ' I will do as I am bid, Jehane,' said the cowed 
 man, ' because I needs must.' 
 
 As they went away together, King Richard on 
 the roof threw up his arms to the sky, howling 
 like a night wolf. ' Now, God, Thou hast stricken 
 me enough. Now listen Thou, I shall strike if I 
 can.' 
 
 After a while came Cogia the Assassin ; to 
 whom Jehane said, ' Cogia, I must take a journey 
 with this man. You shall put us on the way, and 
 wait for me until I come again.' 
 
 ' Mistress,' replied Cogia, ' I am your slave. 
 Do as you will.'
 
 380 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 She put on the dress of a religious, Gilles the 
 weeds of a pilgrim from Jerusalem. Then Cogia 
 bought them asses in Gratz and led them down to 
 Trieste. They found a ship going to Bordeaux, 
 went on board, had a fair passage, passed the 
 Pillars of Hercules on their tenth day out, and 
 were in the Gironde in five more. At Bordeaux 
 they separated. Gilles went to Poictiers in a 
 company of pilgrims ; Jehane, having learned that 
 Queen Berengere was at Cahors, turned her face 
 to the Gascon hills. But she had left behind her 
 a prisoner to whom death could bring the only 
 ransom worth a thought.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 OF THE LOVE OF WOMEN 
 
 € Ask me no more how I did in those days,' writes 
 Abbot Milo. ' Mercy smile upon me in the article 
 of death, but I worked for the ransom of King 
 Richard as (I hope) I should for that of King 
 Christ. Many an abbey of Touraine goes lean 
 now because of me ; many a mass is wrought in 
 a pewter chalice that Richard might come home. 
 Yet I soberly believe that Madame Alois, King 
 Philip's sister, was precious above rubies in the 
 work.' 
 
 I think he is right. That stricken lady, in 
 the habit of a grey nun of Fontevrault, came by 
 night to Paris, and found her brother with John 
 of Mortain. They had been upon the very 
 business. Philip, not all knave, had been moved 
 by the news of Richard's immobility. He had 
 had some of De Gurdun's report. 
 
 ' Christ -dieu,' he said x 'a great king calm 
 in chains ! And my brother Richard. Yet 
 God knows I hate him.' So he went mutter- 
 ing on. The Count edged in his words as he 
 could.
 
 382 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. n 
 
 ' He hates you, indeed, sire. He hates me. 
 He hates all of us.' 
 
 ' I think we could find him reasons for that, 
 my friend, if he lacked them,' said Philip shrewdly. 
 ' Do you know that De Gurdun is in Poictou, 
 come from Styria ? ' 
 
 Count John said nothing ; but he did know it 
 very well. When they announced Madame 
 Alois the King started, and the Count went sick 
 white. 
 
 'We will receive her Grace,' said Philip, and 
 advanced towards the door for the purpose. In 
 she came in her old eager, stumbling, secret way, 
 knelt in a hurry to kiss her brother's hand, then 
 rose and looked intently at John of Mortain. 
 
 The King said, ' You visit us late, sister ; but 
 your occasions may drive you.' 
 
 ' They do drive me, sire. I have seen the Sieur 
 Gilles de Gurdun. King Richard is in hold at 
 Gratz, and must be delivered.' 
 
 ' By you, sister ? ' 
 
 ' By me, sire. 
 
 'You grow Christian, Madame.' 
 
 ' It is my need, sire. I have done King Richard 
 a great wrong. This is not tolerable to me.' 
 
 ' Eh,' says Philip, ' not so fast. Was no wrong 
 done to you ? ' 
 
 ' Wrong was done me,' said the white girl, ' but 
 not by him.' 
 
 ' The wrong lies in his blood. What though 
 the wrong-doer is dead ? His blood must answer 
 it.' 
 
 Alois shivered, and so, for that matter, did one
 
 ch. xni LOVE OF WOMEN 3*3 
 
 other there. She answered, ' I pray for his death. 
 Dying or dead, his blood shall answer it.' 
 
 ' You speak darkly, sister.' 
 
 ' I live in the dark,' said Alois. 
 
 ' King Richard has affronted my house in you, 
 sister.' 
 
 But she said, ' I have affronted King Richard 
 through his house.' 
 
 ' Is this all you have to say, Alois ? ' 
 
 ' No, sire,' she told him, with a fierce and biting 
 look at Mortain ; ' but it is all I need say now.' 
 
 It was. A cry broke strangling from the 
 Count. ' Ha, Jesus ! Sire ! Save my brother ! ' 
 The wretch could bear no more. The woman's 
 eyes were like swords. 
 
 King Philip marvelled. ' You ! ' he said, 
 * you ! ' John put out his hands. ' Oh, sire, 
 Madame is in the right. I am a wicked man. 
 I must make my brother amends. He must be 
 saved.' 
 
 King Philip scratched his head. ' Who is in 
 the dark if not I ? I will deal with you presently, 
 Mortain. But you, Madame,' he turned hotly on 
 the lady, ' you must be plainer. What is your 
 zeal for the King of England ? He is your 
 cousin, and might have been your husband.' 
 Alois flinched, but Philip went roughly on. ' Do 
 you owe him thanks that he is not ? Is this what 
 spurs you ? ' 
 
 She looked doubtfully. ' I owe him honour, 
 Philip,' she said slowly. ' He is a great king.' 
 
 ' Great king, great king ! ' Philip broke out ; 
 'pest! and great rascal. There is no truth in
 
 384 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 him, no bottom, no thanks, no esteem. He 
 counts me as nothing.' 
 
 'To him,' said Alois, 'you are nothing.' 
 
 ' Madame,' said Philip, ' I am King of France, 
 your brother and lord. He is my vassal ; owes 
 fealty and breaks it, signs treaties and levies war ; 
 hectors me and laughs, kills my servants and 
 laughs. He is my cousin, but I am his suzerain. 
 I do not choose to be mocked. There will be no 
 rest for this kingdom while he is in it.' He 
 stopped, then turned to the shaking man. ' As 
 for you, Count of Mortain, I must have an 
 explanation. My sister loves her enemies : it 
 is a Christian virtue. I have not found it one 
 of yours. You, perhaps, fear your enemies, even 
 caged. Is this your thought ? You have made 
 yourself snug in Aquitaine, Count ; you are not 
 unknown in Anjou, I think. Do you begin to 
 wish that you might be ? Are you, by chance, 
 a little oversnug ? I candidly say that I prefer 
 you for my neighbour in those parts. I can 
 deal with you. Do me the obedience to speak.' 
 
 ' Sire,' said the Count, spreading out his hands, 
 ' Madame Alois has turned me. I am a sinner, 
 but I can restore. My brother is my lord, a 
 clement prince ' 
 
 ' Pish ! ' said King Philip, and gave him his 
 back. 
 
 ' Madame, go to bed,' he said to his sister. 
 ' I shall pay dear for it, but I will not oppose my 
 cousin's ransom. Be content with that.' Alois 
 slipped out. Then he turned upon John like a 
 flash of flame.
 
 ch.xiii LOVE OF WOMEN 385 
 
 'Now, Mortain,' he said, 'what proof is there 
 of that old business of my sister's ? ' 
 
 John showed him a scared eye — the milky eye 
 of a drowned man. 'Ah, God, sire, there is 
 none at all — none — none ! ' He had no breath. 
 Philip raised his voice. 
 
 'Look to yourself; I shall not help you. 
 Leave my lands, go where you will, hide, bury 
 your head, drown yourself. If I spoke what lies 
 bottomed in my heart I should kill you with mere 
 words. But there is worse for you in store. 
 There will be war in France, if I know Richard ; 
 but mark what I say, after that there shall be 
 war in England.' The thought of Richard over- 
 whelmed him : he gave a queer little sigh. ' See, 
 now, how much love and what lives of women are 
 spent for one tall man, who gives nothing, and 
 asks nothing, but waits, looking lordly, while they 
 give and give and give. Let Richard come, since 
 women cry for wounds. But you ! ' He flamed 
 again. ' Get you to hell : you are all a liar. 
 Avoid me, lest I learn more of you.' 
 
 ' Dear sire,' John began. Philip loathed him. 
 ' Ah, get you gone, snake, or I tread upon you,' 
 he said ; and the prince avoided. So much was 
 wrought by Alois of France. 
 
 No visitation of a dead woman could have 
 shocked Queen Berengere more suddenly than 
 the apparition of a tall nun, when she saw 
 it was Jehane. She put her hand upon her 
 heart. 
 
 2 c
 
 386 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 ' Ah,' she said, ' you trouble me again, Jehane ? 
 Am I never to rest from you ? ' 
 
 Jehane did not falter. ' Do I have any rest ? 
 The King is chained in Styria ; he must be 
 redeemed. It is your turn. I saved his life for 
 you once by selling my own. Now I am the 
 wife of an old man, with nothing more to sell. 
 Do you sell something.' 
 
 'Sell? Sell? What can I sell that he will 
 buy ? ' whined Berengere. ' He loves me not.' 
 
 ' Well,' said Jehane, ' what has that to do with 
 it ? Do you not love him ? ' 
 
 ' I am his miserable wife. I have nothing to sell.' 
 
 ' Sell your pride, Berengere,' says Jehane. 
 Berengere bit her lip. 
 
 ' You speak strangely to me, woman.' 
 
 Says Jehane, ' I am grown strange. Once I 
 was a girl dishonoured because I loved. Now I 
 am a wife greatly honoured because I do not love.' 
 
 ' You do not love your husband ? ' 
 
 ' How should I,' said Jehane, ' when I love 
 yours ? But I honour my husband, and watch over 
 his honour : he is good to me.' 
 
 ' You dare to tell me that you love the King ? 
 Ah, you have been with him again ! ' Jehane 
 looked critically at her. 
 
 ' I have not seen him, nor ever shall till he 
 is dead. But we must save him, you and I, 
 Berengere.' 
 
 Berengere, the little toy woman, when she saw 
 how noble the other stood, and how inflexible, 
 came wheedling to her, with hands to touch her 
 chin.
 
 ch. xin LOVE OF WOMEN 387 
 
 'Jehane, sister, let it be my part to save 
 Richard. Indeed I love him. You have done so 
 much, to you now he should be nothing. Let 
 me do it, let me do it, please, Jehane ! ' So she 
 stroked and coaxed. The tall nun smiled. 
 
 1 Must I always be giving, and my well never 
 be dry ? Yes, yes, I will trust you. No ; you 
 shall not kiss me yet ; I have not done. Go to 
 the Queen-Mother, go to the King your brother. 
 Go not to the French King, nor to Count John. 
 He is more cruel than hyasnas, and more a coward. 
 Find the Abbot Milo, find the Lord of Beam, 
 find the Sieur des Barres, find Mercadet. Raise 
 England, sell your jewels, your crown ; eh, God 
 of Gods, sell your pretty self. The Queen- 
 Mother is a fierce woman, but she will help you. 
 Do these things faithfully, and I leave King 
 Richard's life in your hands. May I trust you ? ' 
 The other girl looked up at her, wistfully, still 
 touching her chin. 
 
 ' Kiss me, Jehane ! ' 
 
 ' Yes, yes, I will kiss you now, Frozen Heart. 
 You are thawed.' 
 
 Jehane, going back to Bordeaux, found Cogia 
 with a ship, wherein she sailed for Tortosa. But 
 Berengere, Queen of England, played a queen's 
 part.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 HOW THE LEOPARD WAS LOOSED 
 
 The burning thought of Jehane cut off, sixty 
 feet below him, yet far as she could ever be, swept 
 across Richard's mind like a roaring wind, and 
 ridded the room for wilder guests. In came 
 stalking Might-have-been and No-more, holding 
 each by a shrinking shoulder the delicate maid of 
 his first delight, Jehane, lissom in a thin gown ; 
 Jehane like a bud, with her long hair alight. 
 Her hair was loose, her face aflame ; she was 
 very young, very much to be kissed, fresh and 
 tall — Oh, God, the mere loveliness of her ! In came 
 the scent of wet stubbles, the fresh salt air of 
 Normandy, the pale gold of the shaws, the pale 
 sky, the mild October sun. He felt again the 
 stoop, again the lift of her to his horse, again the 
 stern ride together ; saw again the Dark Tower, 
 and all the love and sweet pleasure that they made. 
 The bride in the church turning her proud shy 
 head, the bride in his arm, clinging as they flew, 
 the bride in the tower, the crowned Countess, the 
 nestling mate — oh, impossibly lost ! Inconceivably 
 put away ! Eternally his lover and bride !
 
 ch. xiv THE LEOPARD IS LOOSE 389 
 
 Pity, if you can, this lonely heart, this king in 
 chains, this hot Angevin, son of Henry, son of 
 Geoffrey, son of Fulke, this Yea-and-Nay. He 
 who dared not look upon the city, lest, seeing, he 
 should risk all to take it, had now looked upon 
 the bride unaware, and could not touch her. The 
 fragrance of her, the sacred air in which a loved 
 woman moves, had floated up to him : his by all 
 the laws of hell, in spite of heaven ; but his no 
 more. Such nearness and such deprivation — to 
 see, to desire, and not to seize — flung his wits 
 abroad ; from that hour his was a lost soul. 
 Hungry, empty-eyed, ranging, feverish, he lashed 
 up and down his prison -room, with bare teeth 
 gleaming, and desperate soft strides. No thought 
 he had but mere despair, no hope but the mere 
 ravin of a beast. He was across the room in 
 four ; he turned, he lunged back ; at the wall he 
 threw up his head, turned and lunged, turned and 
 lunged again. He was always at it, or rocking 
 on his bed. No hope, nor thought, nor reckoning 
 had he, but to say Yea against God, Who said 
 him Nay. 
 
 So, many times, had he stood, fatal enemy of 
 himself. His Yea would hold fast while none 
 accepted it, his Nay while no one obeyed. But the 
 supple knees of men sickened him of his own 
 decree. ' These fools accept my bidding : the 
 bidding then is foolishness.' So when Fate, so 
 when God, underwrote his bill, Le Roy le veult, 
 he scorned himself and the bill, and risked wide 
 heaven to make either naught. 
 
 If Austria had murdered him then, it had per-
 
 390 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 haps been well ; but his enemies being silenced, 
 his friends did enemies' work unknowing, by 
 giving him scope to mar himself. The ransom 
 was raised at the price of blood and prayers, the 
 ransom was paid. The Earl of Leicester and 
 Bishop of Salisbury brought it ; so the Leopard 
 was loosed. With a quick shake of the head, 
 as if doing violence to himself, he turned his face 
 westward and pushed through the Low Countries 
 to the sea. There he was met by his English 
 peers, by Longchamp, by his brother of Rouen, 
 by men who loved and men who feared ; but he 
 had no word for any. Grim and hungry he 
 stalked through the lane they made him, on to 
 the galley ; folded in his cloak there, lonely he 
 paced the bridge. He was rowed to the west 
 with his eyes fixed always on the east, away from 
 his kingdom to where he supposed his longing to 
 be. His mother met him at Dunwich : it seemed 
 he knew her not. ' My son, my son Richard,' 
 she said as she knelt to him. ' Get up, Madame,' 
 he bid her ; ' I have work to do.' He rode 
 savagely to London through the grey Essex flats ; 
 had himself crowned anew ; went north with a 
 force to lay Lincolnshire waste ; levelled castles, 
 exacted relentless punishment, exorbitant tribute, 
 the last acquittance. He set a red smudge over 
 the middle of England, being altogether in that 
 country three months, a total to his name and 
 reign of a poor six. Then he left it for good 
 and all, carrying away with him grudging men 
 and grudged money, and leaving behind the 
 memory of a stone face which always looked east,
 
 ch. xiv THE LEOPARD IS LOOSE 391 
 
 a sword, a heart aloof, the myth of a giant knight 
 who spoke no English and did no charity, but was 
 without fear, cruelly just, and as cold as an outland 
 grave. If you ask an Englishman what he thinks 
 of Richard Yea-and-Nay, he will tell you : — That 
 was a king without pity or fear or love, con- 
 sidering neither God, nor the enemy of God, 
 nor unhappy men. If the fear of God is the 
 beginning of wisdom, the love of Him is the end 
 of it. How could King Richard love God, who 
 did not fear enough ; or we, who feared too 
 much ? 
 
 He crossed into Normandy, and at Honfleur 
 was met by them who loved him well ; but he 
 repaid them ill. Here also they seemed remote 
 from his acquaintance. Gaston of Beam, with eyes 
 alight, came dancing down the quay, to be the first 
 to kiss him. Richard, shaking with fever (or what 
 was like fever), gave him a burning dry hand, but 
 looked away from him, always hungrily to the 
 east. Des Barres, who had thrown off allegiance 
 for his love, got no thanks for it. He may have 
 known Abbot Milo again, or Mercadet, his lean 
 good captain : he said nothing to either of them. 
 His friends were confounded : here was the gallant 
 shell of King Richard with a new insatiable tenant. 
 So indeed they found it. There was great business 
 to be done : war, the holding of Assise, the re- 
 dressing of wrongs from the sea to the Pyrenees. 
 He did it, but in a terrible, hasty way. It appeared 
 that every formal act required fretted him to waste, 
 that every violent act allowed gave him little solace. 
 It appeared that he was living desperately fast,
 
 392 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 straining to fill up time, rather than use it, towards 
 some unknown, but (to him) certain end. His 
 first act in Normandy, after new coronation, was 
 to besiege the border castles which the French had 
 filched in his absence. One of these was Gisors. 
 He would not go near Gisors ; but conducted the 
 leaguer from Rouen, as a blindfold man plays 
 chess ; and from Rouen he reduced the great 
 castle in six weeks. One thing more he did there, 
 which gave Gaston a clue to his mood. He sent 
 a present of money, a great sum, to an old priest, 
 curate of Saint-Sulpice ; and when they told him 
 that the man was dead, and a great part of the 
 church he had served burnt out by King Philip, 
 his face grew bleak and withered, and he said, 
 ' Then I will burn Philip out.' He had Gisors, 
 castle, churches, burgher-holds, the whole town, 
 burned level with the ground. There was not to 
 be a stone on a stone : and it was so. Gaston of 
 Beam slapped his thigh when he heard of this : 
 ' Now,' he said, ' now at last I know what ails my 
 King. He has seen his lost mistress.' 
 
 He did so ruthlessly in Normandy that he went 
 far to make his power a standing dread to the fair 
 duchy. On the rock at Les Andelys he built a 
 huge castle, to hang there like a thunder-cloud 
 scowling over the flats of the Seine. He called it, 
 what his temper gave no hint of (so dry with 
 fever he was), the galliard hold. ' Let me see 
 Chastel-Gaillard stand ready in a year,' he said. 
 * Put on every living man in Normandy if need 
 be.' He planned it all himself; rock of the rock 
 it was to be, making the sheer yet more sheer.
 
 ch. xiv THE LEOPARD IS LOOSE 393 
 
 He called it again his daughter, daughter of his con- 
 ception of Death. ' Build,' said he, ' my daughter 
 Gaillarda. As I have conceived her let the great 
 birth be.' And it was so. For a bitter christening, 
 when all was done, he had his French prisoners 
 thrown down into the fosse ; and they say that it 
 rained blood upon him and his artificers as they 
 stood by that accursed font. The man was mad. 
 Nothing stayed him : for the first time since they 
 who still loved him had had him back, they heard 
 him laugh, when his daughter Gaillarda was brought 
 forth. And, * Spine of God,' he cried, ' this is a 
 saucy child of mine, and saucily shall she do by the 
 French power.' Then his face was wrenched by 
 pain, as with a sob he said, ' I had a son Fulke.' 
 Gaillarda did saucily enough, to tyrannise over ten 
 years of Philip's life ; in the end, as all know, she 
 played the strumpet, and served the enemies of her 
 father's house, but not while Richard lived to rule 
 her. 
 
 He drove Philip into a truce of years, pushed 
 down into Touraine, and thence went to Anjou, 
 but not to sit still. He was never still, never 
 seemed to sleep, or get any of the solace of a man. 
 He ate voraciously, but was not nourished, drank 
 long, but was never drunken, revelled without 
 mirth, hunted, fought, but got no joy. He utterly 
 refused to see the Queen, who was at Cahors in the 
 south. ' She is no wife of mine,' he said ; ' let her 
 go home.' Tentative messages were brought by 
 very tentative messengers from his brother John. 
 Good service, such and such, had been done 
 in Languedoc ; so and so had been hanged, or
 
 394 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 gibbeted, so and so rewarded : what had our dear 
 and royal brother to say ? To each he said the 
 same thing : ' Let my good brother come.' But 
 John never came. 
 
 No one knew what to make of him ; he spoke 
 to none of his affairs, none dared speak to him. 
 Milo writes in his book, ' The King came back 
 from Styria as one who should arise from the grave 
 with all the secrets of the chattering ghosts to brood 
 upon. Some worm gnawed his vitals, some maggot 
 had drilled a hole in his brain. I know not what 
 possessed him or what could possess him beside a 
 devil. This I know, he never sent to me for 
 direction in spiritual affairs, nor (so far as I could 
 learn) to any other religious man. He never took 
 the Sacrament, nor seemed to want it. But be 
 sure he wanted it most grievously.' So, insanely 
 ridden, he lived for three years, one of which would 
 have worn a common man to the bones. But the 
 fire still crackled, freely fed ; his eyes were burning 
 bright, his mind (when he gave it) was keen, his 
 head (when he lent it) seemed cool. What was 
 he living for ? Did Death himself look askance at 
 such a man ? Or find him a good customer who 
 sent him so many souls? Two things only were 
 clear : he sent messenger after messenger to Rome, 
 and he returned his wife's dowry. Those must 
 mean divorce or repudiation of marriage. Certainly 
 the Queen's party took it so, though the Queen 
 herself clung pitifully to her throne ; and the 
 "Queen's party grew the larger for the belief. 
 
 Such as it was, the Queen's party nested in 
 Aquitaine and the Limousin, with all the turbulent
 
 ch. xiv THE LEOPARD IS LOOSE 395 
 
 lords of that duchy under its flag. Prince John 
 himself was with Berengere at Cahors, biting his 
 nails as was usual with him, one eye watching for 
 Richard's vengeance, one eye wide for any peace- 
 ofFering from the French King. He dared not 
 act overtly against Richard, nor dared to take up 
 arms for him. So he waited. The end was not 
 very far off. 
 
 Count Eustace of Saint-Pol was the moving 
 spirit in these parts, grown to be an astute, un- 
 scrupulous man of near thirty years. His spies 
 kept him well informed of Richard's intolerable 
 state ; he knew of the embassies to Rome, of the 
 fierce murdering moods, of the black moods, of 
 the cheerless revelry and fruitless energy of this 
 great stricken Angevin. ' In some such hag-ridden 
 day my enemy may be led to overtax himself,' he 
 considered. To that end he laid a trap. He seized 
 and fortified two hill-castles in the Limousin, be- 
 tween which lay straggling a village called Chaluz. 
 ' Let us get Richard down here,' was his plan. ' He 
 will think the job a light one, and we shall nip him 
 in the hills.' The Bishop of Beauvais lent a hand, 
 so did Adhemar Viscount of Limoges, and Achard 
 the lord of Chaluz, not because he desired, but 
 because he was forced by Limoges his suzerain. 
 Another forced labourer was Sir Gilles de Gurdun, 
 who had been found by Saint-Pol doing work in 
 Poictou, and won over after a few trials. 
 
 Now, when King Richard had been some four, 
 nearly five, years at home, neither nearer to his rest 
 nor fitter for it than he had been when he landed, 
 he got word from the south that a great treasure
 
 3 9 6 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 had been found in the Limousin. A man driving 
 the plough on a hillside by Chaluz had upturned a 
 gold table, at which sat an emperor, Charles or 
 another, with his wife and children and the lords 
 of his council, all wrought in fine gold. ' I will 
 have that golden emperor,' said Richard, ' having 
 just made one out of clay. Let him be sent to me.' 
 He spoke carelessly, as they all thought, simply to 
 get in his gibe at the new Emperor of the Romans, 
 his nephew, whom he had caused to be chosen ; 
 and seeing that that was not the treasure he craved, 
 it is like enough. But somebody took his word 
 into Languedoc, and somebody brought back word 
 (Saint-Pol's word) that the Viscount of Limoges, 
 as suzerain of Chaluz, claimed treasure-trove in it. 
 ' Then I will have the Viscount of Limoges as well,' 
 said Richard. ' Let him be sent to me, and the 
 table with him.' 
 
 The Viscount did not go. ' We have him, eh, 
 we have him ! ' cheered Saint-Pol, rubbing his 
 hands together. 
 
 But the Viscount, ' Be not so very sure. He 
 may send Gaston or Mercadet. Or if the fit is on 
 him he may come in force. We cannot support 
 that. I believe that you have played a fool's part, 
 Saint-Pol.' 
 
 ' I am playing a gentleman's part,' replied the 
 other, ' to entrap a villain.' 
 
 ' Your villain is six foot two inches, and hath 
 arms to agree,' said the Viscount, a dry man. 
 
 * We will lay him by the heels, Viscount ; we 
 will lop those long arms, cold-blooded, desperate 
 tyrant. He has brought two lovely ladies to
 
 ch. xrv THE LEOPARD IS LOOSE 397 
 
 misery. Now let him know misery.' Thus 
 Saint-Pol, feeling very sure of himself. 
 
 The Queen was at Cahors all this time, living 
 in a convent of white nuns, probably happier than 
 she had ever been in her life before. Count John 
 kept her informed of all Richard's offences ; Saint- 
 Pol, you may take my word for it, was so exuber- 
 antly on her side that it must be almost an offence 
 in her to refuse him. But she, in a pure mood 
 of abnegation, would hear nothing against King 
 Richard. Even when she was told, with proof 
 positive, that he was in treaty with Rome, she said 
 not a word to her friends. Secretly she hugged 
 herself, beginning (like most women) to find 
 pleasure in pain. ' Let him deny me, let him deny 
 me thrice, even as Thou wert denied, sweet Lord 
 Jesus ! ' she prayed to Christ on the wall. ' So 
 denied, Thou didst not cease from loving. I think 
 the woman in Thee outcried the man.' She got a 
 piercing bliss out of each new knife stuck in her 
 little jumping heart. Once or twice she wrote to 
 Alois of France, who was at Fontevrault, in her 
 King's country. ' Dear lady,' she wrote, ' they 
 seek to enrage my lord against me. If you see 
 him, tell him that I believe nothing that I hear 
 until I receive the word from his own glorious 
 mouth.' Alois, chilly in her cell, took no steps to 
 get speech with King Richard. ' Let her suffer : 
 I suffer,' she would say. And then, curiously 
 jealous lest more pain should be Berengere's than 
 was hers, a daughter's of France, she made haste to
 
 398 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 send assuring messages to Cahors. Still Berengere 
 sweetly agonised. Saint-Pol sent her letters full 
 of love and duty, enthusiastic, breathing full arms 
 against her wrongs. But she always replied, 
 ' Count of Saint-Pol, you do me injury in seeking 
 to redress your own. I admit nothing against my 
 lord the King. Many hate him, but I love him. 
 My wiJl is to be meek. Meekness would become 
 you very well also.' Saint-Pol could not think so. 
 Lastly came the intelligence that King Richard 
 in person was moving south with a great force to 
 win the treasure of Chaluz. The news was true. 
 Not only did he dwell with the nervous persistency 
 of the afflicted upon the wretched gold Caesar, but 
 with clearer political vision saw a chance of sub- 
 duing all Aquitaine. * Any stick will do, even 
 Adhemar of Limoges,' he said, not suspecting 
 Saint-Pol's finger in the dish ; and told Mercadet 
 to summon the knights, and the knights their 
 array. Before he set out he sent two messengers 
 more — one to Rome, and one much further east. 
 Then he began his warlike preparations with great 
 heart.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 (ECONOMIC REFLECTIONS OF THE OLD MAN 
 
 OF MUSSE 
 
 Jehane, called Gulzareen, the Golden Rose, had 
 borne three children to the Old Man of Musse. 
 She was suckling the third, and teaching her 
 eldest, the young Fulke of Anjou, his Creed, 
 or as much of it as she could remember, when 
 there came up a herald from Tortosa who bore 
 upon his tabard the three leopards of England. 
 He delivered a sealed letter thus superscribed — 
 
 ' La tres-haulte et ma tres chere dame, Madame 
 Jehane, Comtesse d' Anjou, de la part le Roy 
 Richard. Hastez tousjours.' 
 
 The letter was brought to the Old Man as he 
 sat in his white hall among his mutes. 
 
 ' Fulness of Light,' said the Vizier, after pros- 
 trations, * here is come a letter from the Melek 
 Richard, sealed, for her Highness the Golden 
 Rose.' 
 
 ' Give it to me, Vizier,' said the Old Man, and 
 broke the seal, and read — 
 
 * Madame, most dear lady, in a very little while 
 I shall be free from my desperate nets ; and then
 
 4 oo RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 you shall be freed from yours. Keep a great heart. 
 After five years of endeavour at last I come 
 quickly. — Richard of Anjou.' 
 
 The Old Man sat stroking his fine beard for 
 some time after he had dismissed his Vizier. 
 Looking straight before him down the length 
 of his hall, no sound broke the immense quiet 
 under which he accomplished his meditations of 
 life and death. The Assassins dreaming by the 
 walls breathed freely through their noses. 
 
 As a small voice heard from far off in these 
 dreams of theirs, the voice of one calling from a 
 distant height, came his words, ' Cogia ibn Hassan 
 ibn Alnouk, come and hearken.' A slim young 
 man rose, ran forward and fell upon his face before 
 the throne. Once more the faint far cry came 
 floating, * Bohadin son of Falmy of Balsora, come 
 and hearken ' ; and another white-robed youth 
 followed Cogia. 
 
 ' My sons,' said the Old Man, ' the word is 
 upon you. Go to the West for forty days. In 
 the country of the Franks, in the south parts 
 thereof, but north of the great mountains, you 
 shall find the Melek Richard, admirable man, 
 whom Allah longs for. Strike, my sons, but 
 from afar (for not otherwise shall ye dare him), 
 and gain the gates of Paradise and the soft- 
 bosomed women of your dreams. Go quickly, 
 prepare yourselves.' The two young men crawled 
 to kiss his foot ; then they went out, and silence 
 folded the hall of audience once more like a 
 wrapping. 
 
 Later in the day a slave-girl told Jehane that
 
 ch. xv CECONOMIC REFLECTIONS 401 
 
 her master was waiting for her. The baby was 
 asleep in the cradle under a muslin veil ; she 
 kissed Fulke, a fine tall boy, six and a half years 
 old, and followed the messenger. 
 
 The Old Man embraced her very affectionately, 
 kissed her forehead and raised her from her knees. 
 ' Come and sit with me, beautiful and pious wife, 
 mother of my sons,' said he. ' I have many things 
 to say to you.' 
 
 When they were close together on the cushions 
 of the window, Sinan put his arm round her waist, 
 and said, ' For a good and happy marriage, my 
 Gulzareen, it is well that the woman should not 
 love her husband too much, but rather be meek, 
 show obedience to his desires, and alacrity, and 
 give courtesy. The man must love her, and 
 honour that in her which makes her worth, her 
 beauty, to wit, the- bounty of her fruitfulness, and 
 her discretion. But for her it is enough that she 
 suffer herself to be loved, and give him her duty 
 in return. The love that seeds in her she shall 
 bestow upon her children. That is how peace of 
 mind grows in the world, and happiness, for with- 
 out the first there can never be the second. You, 
 my child, have a peaceful mind : is it not so ? ' 
 
 1 My lord,' Jehane replied, with no sign of the 
 old discontent upon her red mouth, ' I am at peace. 
 For I have your affection ; you tell me that I 
 deserve it. And I give my children love.' 
 
 ' And you are happy, Jehane ? ' 
 
 She sighed, ever so lightly. ' I should be happy, 
 my lord. But sometimes, even now, I think of 
 King Richard, and pray for him.' 
 
 2 D
 
 4 o2 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 ' I believe that you do,' said the Old Man. 
 ' And because I desire your happiness in all things, 
 1 desire you to see him again.' 
 
 A bright blush flooded Jehane, whose breath 
 also became a trouble. By a quick movement she 
 drew her veil about her, lest he should see her 
 unquiet breast. So the mother of Proserpine 
 might have been startled into new maidenhood 
 when, in her wanderings, some herd had claimed 
 her in love. Her husband watched her keenly, 
 not unkindly. Jehane's trouble increased ; he 
 left her alone to fight it. So at last she did ; 
 then touched his hand, looking deeply into his 
 face. He, loving her greatly, held her close. 
 
 ' Well, Joy of my Joy ? ' 
 
 * Lord,' she said, speaking hurriedly and low, 
 ' let me not see him, ask it not of me. It is 
 more than I dare. It is more than would be 
 right ; I ask it for his sake, not for mine. For 
 he has a great heart, the greatest heart that ever 
 man had in the world ; also he is sudden to 
 change, as I know very well ; and the sight of 
 me denied him might move him to a desperate 
 act, as once before it did.' She lowered her head 
 lest he should see all she had to show. He smiled 
 gravely, stroking her hand and playing with it, 
 up and down. 
 
 * No, child, no,' he said, ' it will do you no 
 harm now. The harm, I take it, has been done : 
 soon it will be ended. You shall hear from his 
 own lips that he will not hurt you.' 
 
 Jehane looked at him in wonder, startled out 
 of confusion of face.
 
 ch. xv (ECONOMIC REFLECTIONS 403 
 
 ' Do you know more of him than I do, sire ? ' 
 she asked, with a quick heart. 
 
 ' I believe that I do,' replied the Old Man ; 
 * and take my word for it, dear child, that I wish 
 him no ill. I wish him,' he continued very de- 
 liberately, ' less ill than he has sought to do 
 himself. I wish him most heartily well. And 
 you, my girl, whom I have grown wisely and 
 tenderly to love ; you, my Golden Rose, Moon 
 of the Caliph, my stem, my vine, my holy vase, 
 my garden of endless delight — for you I wish, 
 above all things, rest after labour, refreshment 
 and peace. Well, I believe that I shall gain them 
 for you. Go, therefore, since I bid you, and take 
 with you your son Fulke, that his father may see 
 and bless him, and (if he think fit) provide for him 
 after the custom of his own country. And when 
 you have learned, as learn you will, from his 
 mouth what I am sure he will tell you, come 
 back to me, my Pleasant Joy, and rest upon my 
 heart.' 
 
 Jehane sighed, and wrought with her fingers in 
 her lap. ' If it must be, sire ' 
 
 ' Why, of course it must be,' said the Old Man 
 briskly. 
 
 He sent her away to the harem with a kiss on 
 her mouth, and had in Cogia, and Bohadin son of 
 Falmy of Balsora. To these two rapt Assassins 
 he gave careful instructions, which there was no 
 mistaking. The Golden Rose, properly attended, 
 would accompany them as far as Marseilles. She 
 would journey on to Pampluna and abide in the 
 court of the King of Navarre (who loved Arabians,
 
 4 o 4 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 as his father before him) until such time as word 
 was brought her by one of them, the survivor, 
 that they had found King Richard, and that he 
 would see her. Then she would set out, attended 
 by the Vizier, the chief of the eunuchs, and the 
 Mother of Flowers, and act as she saw proper. 
 
 Very soon after this the galley left the marble 
 quay of Tortosa upon a prosperous voyage through 
 blue water. Jehane, her son Fulke of Anjou, and 
 the other persons named, were in a great green 
 pavilion on the poop. But she saw nothing, and 
 knew nothing, of Cogia ibn Hassan ibn Alnouk 
 or of Bohadin son of Falmy of Balsora.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE CHAPTER CALLED CHALUZ 
 
 When King Richard said, without any con- 
 firmatory oath, that he should hang Adhemar of 
 Limoges and the Count of Saint-Pol, all who heard 
 him believed it. The Abbot Milo believed it for 
 one. Figuratively, you can see his hands up as 
 you read him. ' To hang two knights of such 
 eminent degree and parts,' he writes, * were surely 
 a great scandal in any Christian king. Not that 
 the punishment were undeserved or the executioner 
 insufficient, God knoweth ! But very often true 
 policy points out the wisdom of the mean ; and 
 this is its deliberative, that to hang a bad man 
 when another vengeance is open — such as burning 
 in his castle, killing on his walls, or stabbing by 
 apparent mistake for a common person — to hang 
 him, I say, suggests to the yet unhanged a way of 
 treating his betters. There are more ways of kill- 
 ing a dog than choking him with butter ; and so 
 it is with lords and other rebels against kings. In 
 this particular case King Richard only thought to 
 follow his great father (whom at this time he much 
 resembled) : what in the end he did was very
 
 4 o6 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 different from any act of that monarch's that I 
 ever heard tell of, to remember which makes 
 me weep tears of blood. But so he fully pur- 
 posed at the time, being in his hottest temper of 
 Yea.' 
 
 He said Yea to the hanging of Saint -Pol 
 and Limoges, and made ready a host which must 
 infallibly crush Chaluz were it twenty times 
 prepared. But he said Nay to the sacrifice of 
 Jehane on Lebanon, and to that end increased 
 his arms to overawe all the kingdoms of the South 
 which had sanctioned it. Vanguard, battle and 
 rear, he mustered fifteen thousand men. Des 
 Barres led the van, English bowmen, Norman 
 knights. Battle was his, all arms from Anjou, 
 Poictou and Touraine. Rearguard the Earl of 
 Leicester took, his viceroy in Aquitaine. When 
 the garrison of Chaluz saw the forested spears on 
 the northern heights, the great engines piled 
 against the sky-line, the train of followers, pennons 
 of the knights, Dragon of England, Leopards of 
 Anjou, the single Lion of Normandy, the wise 
 among them were for instant surrender. 
 
 ' Here is an empery come out against us ! ' 
 cried Adhemar. ' If I was not right when I told 
 you that I knew King Richard.' 
 
 ' The filched empery of a thief,' said Saint-Pol. 
 ' Honesty is ours. I fight for my lady Berengere, 
 the glory of two realms, my sovereign mistress 
 till I die.' 
 
 ' Vastly well,' returned the other ; ' but I do 
 not fight for this lady, but for a gold table 
 with gold dolls sitting at it.' Such also was the
 
 ch. xvi CHALUZ 407 
 
 reflection of Achard, castellan of Chaluz, looking 
 ruefully at his crazy walls. 
 
 Two grassy hills rise, like breasts, out of a 
 rolling plain of grass. Each is crowned with a 
 tower ; between them are the church and village 
 of Chaluz, which form a straggling street. Wall 
 and ditch pen in these buildings and tie tower to 
 tower : as Richard saw, it was the easiest thing in 
 the world to cut the line in the middle, isolate, 
 then reduce the towers at leisure. Adhemar saw 
 that too, and got no comfort from it, until it 
 occurred to him that if he occupied one tower and 
 left the other to Saint-Pol, he would be free to act 
 at his own discretion, that is, not act at all against 
 the massed power of England and Anjou. Saint- 
 Pol, you see, fought for the life of Richard, and 
 Adhemar for a gold table, which makes a great 
 difference. He effected this separation of garri- 
 sons ; however, some show of resistance was made 
 by manning the walls and daring the day with 
 banners. 
 
 King Richard went softly to work, as he always 
 did when actually hand in hand with war. War- 
 fare was an art to him, neither a sport nor a 
 counter-irritant ; he was never impetuous over it. 
 For a week he satisfied himself with a close in- 
 vestiture of the town on all sides. No supplies 
 could get in nor fugitives out. Then, when 
 everything was according to his liking, he ad- 
 vanced his engines, brought forward his towers, 
 set sappers to work, and delivered assault in due 
 form and at the weakest point. He succeeded
 
 4 o8 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk.ii 
 
 exquisitely. There was no real defence. The 
 two hill - towers were stranded, Chaluz was 
 his. 
 
 He put the garrison to the sword, and set the 
 village on fire. At once Viscount Adhemar and 
 his men surrendered. Richard took the treasure 
 — it was found that the golden Cassar had no head 
 — and kept his word with the finders, hanging the 
 Viscount and castellan on one gibbet within sight 
 of the other tower. ' Oh, frozen villain,' swore 
 Saint-Pol between his teeth, ' so shalt thou never 
 hang me.' But when he looked about him at his 
 dozen of thin -faced men he believed that if 
 Richard was not to hang him it might be necessary 
 for him to hang himself. More, it came into his 
 mind that there was a hand or two under him 
 which might be anxious to save him the trouble. 
 Being, however, a man of abundant spirit, he 
 laughed at the summons to surrender so long as 
 there was a horse to eat, man to shoot, or arrow 
 for the shooting. As for fire, he believed himself 
 impregnable by that arm ; and any day succour 
 might come from the South. Surely his Queen 
 would not throw him to the dogs ! Where was 
 Count John if not hastening to win a realm ; 
 where King Philip if not hopeful to chastise a 
 vassal ? Daily King Richard, in no hurry, but 
 desperately reckless, rode close to the tower and 
 met the hardy eyes of Saint-Pol watching him 
 from the top. Richard was a galliard fighter, as 
 he had always been. 
 
 ' Come down, Saint-Pol,' he would say, ' and 
 dance with Limoges.'
 
 ch. xvr CHALUZ 409 
 
 ' When I come down, sire,' the answer would 
 be, ' there will be no dancing in your host.' 
 
 Richard took his time, and also intolerable 
 liberties with his life. Milo lost his hair with 
 anxiety, not daring to speak ; Gaston of Beam 
 did dare, but was shaken off by his mad master. 
 Des Barres, who loved him, perhaps, as well as 
 any, never left him for long together, and wore 
 his brain out devising shifts which might keep 
 him away from the walls. But Richard, for 
 this present whim of his, chose out a companion 
 devil as heedless as himself, Mercadet namely, 
 his brown Gascon captain, of like proportions, 
 like mettle, like foolhardiness ; and with him 
 made the daily round, never omitting an ex- 
 change of grim banter with Saint-Pol. It was 
 terrible to see him, without helm on his head, 
 or reason in it, canter within range of the 
 bow. 
 
 ' Oh, Saint-Pol,' he said one day, ' if thou wert 
 worth my pains, I would have thee down and 
 serve thee as I did thy brother Eudo. But no ; 
 thou must be hanged, it seems.' And Saint-Pol, 
 grinning cheerfully, answered, * Have no fear, 
 King, thou wilt never hang me.' 
 
 1 By my soul/ said Richard back again, ' a little 
 more of this bold gut of thine, my man, and I let 
 thee go free.' 
 
 * Sire,' said Saint-Pol soberly, ' that were the 
 worst of all.' 
 
 * How so, boy ? ' 
 
 ' Because, if you forgave me, I should be 
 required by my knighthood to forgive you ; and
 
 4 io RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ir 
 
 that I will never do if I can help it. So I should 
 live and be damned.' 
 
 * Have it then as it must be,' said Richard 
 laughing, and turned his back. Saint-Pol could 
 have shot him dead, but would not. ' Look, De 
 Gurdun,' he says, ' there goes the King unmailed. 
 Wilt thou shoot him in the back, and so end all ? ' 
 
 ' By God, Eustace,' says Gilles, ' that I will not.' 
 
 ' Why not, then ? ' 
 
 Gurdun said, ' Because I dare not. I am more 
 afraid of him when he scorns me thus than when 
 his face is upon me. Let him lead an assault 
 upon the walls, and I will split his headpiece if I 
 may ; but I will never again try him unarmed.' 
 
 ' Pouf ! ' said Saint-Pol ; but he was of the 
 same mind. 
 
 Then came a day when Des Barres was out 
 upon the neighbouring hills with a company of 
 knights, scouting. There had been rumours of 
 hostile movement from the South, from Provence 
 and Roussillon ; of a juncture of Prince John, 
 known to be in Gascony, with the Queen's brother 
 of Navarre. Nothing was known certainly, but 
 Richard judged that John might be tempted out. 
 It was a bright cold day, cloudless, with a most 
 bitter north-east wind singing in the bents. Des 
 Barres, sitting his horse on the hill, blew upon his 
 ungauntleted hand, then flacked it against his side 
 to drive the blood back. Surveying the field with 
 a hunter's eye, he saw King Richard ride out of 
 the lines on his chestnut horse, Mercadet with him,
 
 ch. xvi CHALUZ 411 
 
 and (in a green cloak) Gaston of Beam. Richard 
 had a red surcoat and a blown red plume in 
 his cap. He carried no shield, and by the ease 
 with which he turned his body to look behind 
 him, one hand on the crupper, Des Barres was 
 sure that he was not in mail. 
 
 ' Folly of a fool ! ' he snorted to his neighbour, 
 Savaric de Dreux : ' there pricks our lord the 
 King, as if to a party of hawks.' 
 
 ' Wait,' said Savaric. ' Where away now ? ' 
 'To bandy gibes with Saint -Pol, pardieu. 
 Where else should he go at this hour ? ' 
 
 ' Saint-Pol will never do him a villainy,' said 
 Savaric. 
 
 ' No, no. But De Gurdun is there.' 
 ' Wait now,' says Savaric again. ' Look, look ! 
 Who comes out of the smoke ? ' 
 
 They could see the beleaguered tower perfectly, 
 brown and warm-looking in the sun ; below it, 
 still smoking, the village of Chaluz, a heap of 
 charred brickwork. They saw a man in clean 
 white come creeping out of the smoke, stooping 
 at a run. He hid wherever he could behind the 
 broken wall, but always ran nearer, stooped and ran 
 with bent body over his bent knees. He worked 
 his way thus, gradually nearer and nearer to the 
 tower ; and Des Barres watched him anxiously. 
 
 ' Some camp-thief making off ' 
 
 * Look, look ! ' cried Savaric. The white man 
 had come out by the tower, was now kneeling in 
 the open ; at the same moment a man slipped 
 down a rope from the tower-top. Before he had 
 touched earth they saw the kneeling man pull a
 
 4 i2 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 bowstring to his ear and let fly. Next, the fellow 
 on the rope, touching ground, ran fleetly forward 
 and, springing on the white-robed man, drove him 
 to the earth. They saw the flash of a blade. 
 
 ' That is strange warfare,' said Des Barres, 
 greatly interested. 
 
 ' There is warfare in heaven also,' said Savaric. 
 ' See those two eagles.' Two great birds were 
 battling in the cold blue. Feathers fell idly, like 
 black snow-flakes ; then one of the eagles heeled 
 over, and down he came. 
 
 But when they looked towards the tower again 
 they saw a great commotion. Men running, 
 horses huddled together, one in red held up by 
 one in green. Then a riderless chestnut horse 
 looked about him and neighed. Des Barres gave 
 a short cry. ' O God ! They have shot King 
 Richard between them. Come, Savaric, we must 
 go down.' 
 
 ' Stop again,' said that other. ' Let us sweep 
 up those assassins as we go. There I see another 
 thief in white.' Des Barres saw him too. ' Spur, 
 spur ! ' he called to his knights ; ' follow me.' 
 He got his line in motion, they all galloped across 
 the sunny slopes like a light cloud. But as they 
 drove forward the play was in progress ; they saw 
 it done, as it were, in a scene. One white figure 
 lay heaped upon the ground, another was running 
 by the wall towards him, furtively and bent, as 
 the first had come. The third actor, he of the 
 tower, had not heard the runner, but was still 
 stooped over the man he had evidently killed, 
 groping probably for marks or papers upon him.
 
 ch. xvr 
 
 CH ALUZ 4 1 3 
 
 ' Spur, spur ! ' cried Des Barres, and the line 
 went rattling down. They were not in time. 
 The white runner was too quick for the killer of 
 his mate : he did, indeed, look round ; but the 
 other was upon him before he could rise. There 
 was a short tussle ; the two rolled over and over. 
 Then the white-clad man got up, raised his fallen 
 comrade, shouldered him, and sped away into the 
 smoke of Chaluz. When Des Barres and his 
 friends were within bowshot of the tower one 
 man only was below it ; and he lay where he 
 had been stabbed. The white-robed murderers, 
 the living and the dead, were lost in smoke. 
 The King and his party were gone. Out of the 
 tower came Saint-Pol with his men, unarmed, bare- 
 headed, and waited silently in rank for Des Barres. 
 
 This one came up at a gallop. ' My prisoner, 
 Count of Saint- Pol,' he called out as he came ; 
 then halted his line by throwing up his hand. 
 
 ' The King has been shot, Sir Guilhem,' Saint- 
 Pol said gravely ; ' not by me. I am the King's 
 prisoner. Take me to him, lest he die before I 
 see his eyes.' 
 
 * Who is that dead man of yours over there ? ' 
 asked Des Barres. 
 
 ' His name is Sieur Gilles de Gurdun, a knight 
 of Normandy and enemy of the King's, but dead 
 (if dead he be) on the King's account. He killed 
 the assassin.' 
 
 1 T know that very well,' says Des Barres, ' for 
 I saw the deed, which was a good one. I must 
 hunt for those white-gowns. Who might they 
 be?'
 
 4 i4 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 ' I know nothing of them. They are no men 
 of mine. Their robes were all white, their faces 
 all dark, and they ran like Turks. But what can 
 Turks do here ? ' 
 
 ' They must be found,' said Des Barres, and 
 sent out Savaric with half of his men. 
 
 They picked up Gilles, quite dead of two 
 wounds, one in the back of the neck, another 
 below the heart. Des Barres put him over his 
 saddlebow ; then took his prisoners into camp. 
 
 King Richard had been carried to his pavilion 
 and put to bed. His physicians were with him, 
 and the Abbot Milo, quite unmanned. Gaston of 
 Beam was crying like a girl at the door. The 
 Earl of Leicester had ridden off for the Queen, 
 Yvo Tibetot for the Count of Mortain. Des 
 Barres learned that they had pulled out the 
 arrow, a common one of Genoese make, but 
 feared poison. King Richard had been shot in 
 the right lung.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE KEENING 
 
 In the wan hours left to him came three women, 
 one after another, and spoke the truth so far as 
 they knew it each. 
 
 The first was Alois of France in the habit of a 
 grey lady of Fontevrault, with a face more dead 
 than her cowl, and hair like wet weed, but in her 
 hollow eyes the fire of her mystery ; who said 
 to the watchers by the door : ' Let me in. I am 
 the voice of old sorrow.' So they held back the 
 curtains of the tent, and she came shuffling forward 
 to the long body on the bed. At the sound of 
 her skirts the King turned his altered face her way, 
 then rolled his head back to the dark. 
 
 * Take her away,' he said in a whisper ; so Des 
 Barres stood up between him and the woman. 
 
 But Alois put her hands out, as a blind man 
 does. 
 
 ' Soul's health, Des Barres ; I purge old sins. 
 Avoid, all of you,' she said, ' and leave me with 
 him. Save only his confessor. What I have to 
 say must be said in secret, as it was done secretly.' 
 
 Richard sighed. ' Let her stay ; and let Milo
 
 4 i6 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. n 
 
 stay,' he said. The rest went out on tip-toe. 
 Alois came and knelt at the head of the bed. 
 
 1 Listen now, Richard,' said she ; ' for thy last 
 hour is near, and mine also. Twice over I have 
 sought to tell thee, but was denied. Each time I 
 might have done thee a service ; now I will do thee 
 good service. Thou art not guilty of thy father's 
 death, nor he of my despair.' 
 
 The King did not turn his head, but looked up 
 sideways, so that she saw his eye shining. His 
 lips moved, then stuck together ; so Milo put a 
 sponge with wine upon them. Then he whispered, 
 ' Tell me, Alois, who was guilty with thee ? ' 
 
 She said, ' Thy brother John of Mortain was 
 that man. A villain is he.' 
 
 A moaning sigh escaped the King, long-drawn, 
 shuddering, very piteous. ' Eh, Alois, Alois ! 
 Which of us four was not a villain ? ' 
 
 Said Alois, ' What is past is past, and I have 
 told thee. What is to come I cannot tell thee, for 
 the past swallows me up. Yet I say again, thy 
 brother John is a sick villain, a secret villain, and 
 a thief.' 
 
 ' God help him, God judge him,' said Richard 
 with another sigh. ' I can do neither, nor will 
 not.' He moaned again, but so hopelessly, as 
 being so weary and fordone, that Abbot Milo 
 began to blubber out loud. Alois lifted up her 
 drawn face, and struck her breast. 
 
 * Ah, would to God, Richard,' she cried, ' would 
 to God I had come to thee clean ! I had saved 
 thee then from this most bitter death. For if I 
 love thee now, judge how I had loved thee then.'
 
 ch. xvii THE KEENING 417 
 
 He said, with shut eyes, c None could love me 
 long, since none could trust me, and not I myself.' 
 Then he said fretfully to the abbot, ' Take her 
 away, Milo ; I am tired.' 
 
 Alois, kneeling, kissed his dry forehead. 
 ' Farewell,' she said, { King Richard, most a king 
 when most in bonds, and most merciful when most 
 in need of mercy. My work is done. Remains 
 to pray and prepare.' She went out noiselessly, 
 as she had come in, and no man of them saw her 
 again. 
 
 Next came Queen Berengere, about the time of 
 sunset. She came stiffly, as if holding herself in a 
 trap, with much formal bowing to Death ; quite 
 white, like ivory, in a black robe ; in her hands a 
 great crucifix. At the door she paused for a 
 minute, the Earl of Leicester being with her. 
 
 ' Grief is quick in me, Leicester,' she said ; then 
 to the ushers of the door, ' Does he live ? Will he 
 know me ? Does he wake ? Does he not cry for 
 me now ? ' 
 
 ' Madame, the King sleeps,' they told her. 
 
 ' I go to pray for him,' said the Queen, and 
 went in. 
 
 Stiffly she knelt at his bedhead, and with both 
 hands held up the crucifix to her face. She began 
 to talk to it in a low worn voice, as though she 
 were asking the Christ to reckon her misery. 
 
 ' Thou Christ,' she complained, ' Thou Christ, 
 look upon me, the daughter of a king, crucified 
 terribly with Thee. This dying man is the King 
 my husband, who denied me as Thou, Christ, wert 
 
 2 E
 
 4 i8 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. n 
 
 denied ; who sought to put me by, and yet is 
 loved. Yet I love him, Christ ; yet I have 
 worked for him against my honour, holding it 
 as cheap as he did. When he was in prison I 
 humbled myself to set him loose ; when he was 
 loosed I held his enemies back, while he, cruelly, 
 held me back. I have prayed for him, and pray 
 now, while he lies there, struck secretly, and dies 
 not knowing me ; and leaves me alone, careless 
 whether I live or die. Ah, Saviour of the world, 
 do I suffer or not ? ' 
 
 She awoke the sick man, who opened his eyes 
 and stared about him. He signed Milo to draw 
 nigh, which the snuffling old man did. 
 
 ' Who is here ? ' he whispered. ' Not ? ' 
 
 ' No, no, dearest lord,' said Milo quickly. 
 ' But the Queen is here.' 
 
 ' Ah,' said he, ' poor wretch ! ' And he sighed. 
 Then he said, ' Turn me over, Milo.' It was 
 done, with a flux of blood to the mouth. They 
 stayed that and brought him round with aqua vitas. 
 
 The Queen was terribly moved to see his 
 ravaged face. No doubt she loved him. But she 
 had nothing to say. For some time their eyes 
 were fixed, each on the other ; the Queen's misty, 
 the King's fever-bright, terribly searching, terribly 
 intelligent. He read her soul. 
 
 ' Madame,' he said, but she could scarcely hear 
 him, ' I have done you great wrong, yet greater 
 wrong elsewhere. I cannot die in comfort without 
 your pardon ; but I cannot ask it of you, for if 
 I still had years to live, I should do as I have 
 done.' A sob of injury shook the Queen.
 
 ch.xvii THE KEENING 419 
 
 ' Richard ! Richard ! Richard ! ' she wailed, ' I 
 suffer ! You have my heart ; you have always 
 had it. And what have I ? Nothing, O God ! 
 Nothing at all.' 
 
 ' Madame,' said he, ' the wrong I did you was 
 that I gave you the right to anything. That was 
 the first and greatest wrong. To give it you I 
 thieved, and in taking it again I thieved again. God 
 
 knoweth ' He shut his eyes, and kept them 
 
 shut. She called to him more urgently, ' Richard, 
 Richard ! ' but he made no answer, and appeared 
 to sleep. The Queen shivered and sniffed, turned 
 to her Christ, and so spent the night. 
 
 The last to come was Jehane in a white gown ; 
 and she came with the dawn. Eager and flushed 
 she was, with dawn -colour in her face ; and 
 stepped lightly over the dewy grass, her lips 
 parted and hair blown back. She came in exalted 
 with grief, so that no wardens of the door, nor 
 queens, nor college of queens, could have stayed 
 her. She was as tall as any there, and went past 
 the guard at the door without question or word 
 said, and so lightly and fiercely to the bed. There 
 she stood, dilating and glowing, looking not back 
 on her spent life, but on to the glory of the dying. 
 
 The Queen knew that she was there, but went 
 on with her prayers, or seemed to go on. Jehane 
 knelt suddenly, put her arms out over Richard, 
 stooped and kissed his cheek. Then she looked 
 up, desperately triumphing, for any one to ques- 
 tion her right. None did. Berengere prayed
 
 4 2o RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 incessantly, and Jehane panted. The words broke 
 from her at last. ' Dost thou question my right, 
 Berengere,' she said fiercely, ' to kiss a dead man, 
 to love the dead and speak greatly of the dead ? 
 Which of us three women, thinkest thou, knoweth 
 best what report to make concerning this beloved, 
 thou, or Alois, or I ? Alois came, speaking of old 
 sins ; and you are here, plaining of new sins : 
 what shall I do, now I am here ? Am I to speak 
 of sin to come ? Thou dear knight,' and she 
 touched his head, ' there is no more room for 
 thy great sins, alas ! But I think thou shalt leave 
 behind thee some spark of a fire.' She looked 
 again at Berengere, who saw the glint of her green 
 eyes and the old proud discontent twisting her lip, 
 but did nothing. ' Look, Berengere,' said Jehane, 
 ' I speak as mother of his child Fulke of Anjou. 
 I had rather my son Fulke sinned as his fathers 
 have sinned, so that he sinned greatly like them, 
 than that he should grow pale, scheming safety 
 in a cloister, and make the Man in our Saviour 
 ashamed of His choice. I had rather the bad blood 
 stay, so it stay great blood, than that it should be 
 thin like thine. What is there to fear, girl ? A 
 sword ? I have had a sword in my heart eight 
 years, and made no sound. Let the son pierce 
 what the father pierced before. I am a lover, say- 
 ing not to my beloved, "Stroke my heart, dearest 
 lord " ; but instead, " Stab if thou wilt, my King, and 
 let me bleed for thee." So I have bled, sweet Lord 
 Jesus, and so shall bleed again ! ' She stooped and 
 kissed his head, saying, ' Amen. Let the poor bleed 
 if the King ask.' The Queen went on praying ; but
 
 ch.xvii THE KEENING 421 
 
 Richard opened his eyes without start or quiver, 
 looked at Jehane leaning over him, and smiled. 
 
 ' Well, my girl, well,' he said, * thou art in good 
 time. What of the lad ? ' 
 
 ' He is here, Richard.' 
 
 ' Bring him to me,' says the King. So Des 
 Barres stole out to the Moslems at the door, and 
 came back leading Fulke by the hand, a slim, tall 
 boy, fair-haired, and frank in the face, with his 
 father's delicate mouth and bold grey eyes. Jehane 
 turned to take him. 
 
 ' This is thy father, boy.' 
 
 ' I know it, ma'am,' says young Fulke, and knelt 
 down by the bed. King Richard put his hand on 
 his head. 
 
 1 What a rough pelt, Fulke,' he says, ' like thy 
 father's. God send thee a better inside to it, my 
 boy. God make a man of thee.' 
 
 ' He will never make me a great king, sire,' 
 says Fulke. 
 
 ' He can make thee better than that,' said his 
 father. 
 
 ' I think not,' answered Fulke. ' You are the 
 greatest king in the whole world, sire. The Old 
 Man of Musse said it.' 
 
 ' Kiss me, Fulke,' said Richard. The boy put 
 his face up quickly and kissed his father's lips. 
 ' What a lover ! ' the King laughed ; and Jehane 
 said, ' He always kisses on the lips.' Richard 
 sighed, suddenly tired ; Fulke looked about, 
 frightened at all the solemnity, and took his 
 mother's hand. She gave him over to Des Barres, 
 who led him away.
 
 422 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 The King signed to Jehane to bend down her 
 head. So she did, and even thus could barely 
 hear him. 
 
 ' I must die in peace if I can, sweet soul,' he 
 muttered. They all saw that the end was not far 
 off. * Tell me what will become of thee when I 
 am gone.' She stroked his cheek. 
 
 ' I shall go back to my husband and children, 
 dear one. I have left three behind me, all 
 sons.' 
 
 ' Are they good to thee ? Art thou happy ? ' 
 
 ' I am at peace with myself, wife of a wise old 
 man ; I love my children, and have the memory of 
 thee, Richard. These will suffice me.' 
 
 ' There is one more thing for thee to give me, 
 my Jehane.' She smiled pityingly. 
 
 ' Why, what is left to give, Richard ? ' He 
 said in her ear, ' Our boy Fulke.' 
 
 ' Ah,' said Jehane. The Queen was now 
 watching her intently between her hands. 
 
 'Jehane, Jehane,' said King Richard, sweating 
 with the effort to be heard, ' all our life together 
 thou hast been giving and I spending, thou miser 
 that I might play the prodigal. For the last time 
 I ask of thee : deny me not. Wilt thou stay here 
 with Fulke our son ? ' 
 
 Jehane could not speak ; she shook her head, 
 and showed him her eyes all blind with tears. 
 The tears came freely, from more eyes than hers. 
 Richard's head dropped back, and for a full 
 minute they thought him gone. But no. He 
 opened his eyes again and moved his lips. They 
 strained to hear him. ' The sponge, the sponge,'
 
 ch. xvir THE KEENING 423 
 
 he said : then, ' Bring me in Saint-Pol.' The 
 cold light began to steal in through the crannies 
 of the tent. 
 
 The young man was brought in by Des Barres, 
 in chains. Jehane, now behind Richard's head, 
 lifted him up in her arms. 
 
 ' Knock off those fetters, says the King. Saint- 
 Pol was free. 
 
 ' Eustace,' says Richard, ' you and I have 
 bandied hard words enough, and blows enough. 
 My chains will be off before sunrise, and yours 
 are off already. Answer me, is Gurdun dead ? ' 
 
 Saint-Pol dropped to his knees. ' Oh, my lord, 
 he died where he fell. But as God knows, he had 
 no hand in this, nor had I.' 
 
 * If I know it, I suppose God knows it too,' said 
 Richard, smiling rather thinly. ' Now, Eustace, I 
 have a word to say. I have done much against 
 your name ; to your brother because he spoke 
 against a great lady and ill of my house ; to your 
 sister here, because I loved her not well enough 
 and myself too well. Eustace, you shall kiss her 
 before I go.' 
 
 Saint-Pol got up and went to her. Brother 
 and sister kissed each other above the King's 
 head. Then said Richard, ' Now I will tell you 
 that I had nothing to do with the death of your 
 cousin Montferrat.' 
 
 ' Oh, sire ! oh, sire ! ' cried Saint-Pol ; but 
 Jehane looked at her brother. 
 
 ' I had to do with that, Eustace,' she said. ' He 
 laid the death of the King, and I laid his death at 
 the price of my marriage. He deserved it.'
 
 4 2 4 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 'Sister,' said Saint-Pol, 'he did deserve it ; and 
 I deserve what he had. Oh, sire,' he urged with 
 tears, ' take my life, as your right is, but forgive 
 me first.' 
 
 ' What have I to forgive you, brother ? ' said 
 Richard. ' Come, kiss me. We were good friends 
 in the old days.' Saint-Pol, with tears, kissed him. 
 Richard sat up. 
 
 ' I require you now, Saint-Pol and Des Barres, 
 that between you you defend my son Fulke. 
 Milo has the deeds of his lands of Cuigny. 
 Bring him up a good knight, and let him think 
 gentlier of his father than that father ever did of 
 his. Will you do this ? Make haste, make 
 haste ! ' 
 
 The Queen broke in with a cry. ' Oh, sire ! 
 oh, sire ! Is there nothing for me ? Madame ! ' 
 she turned to Jehane and held her fast by the 
 knees, ' have pity, spare me a little, a very little 
 work ! O Christ ! O Christ ! ' — she rocked herself 
 about — ' Can I do nothing in the world for my 
 King ? ' 
 
 Jehane stooped to take her up. ' Madame, 
 watch over my little Fulke, when his father is 
 gone, and I am gone.' The Queen was crying 
 bitterly. 
 
 ' I will never leave him if you will trust me,' 
 she began to say. Richard put his hand out. 
 ' Let it be so. My lords, serve the Queen and 
 me in this matter.' The two lords bowed their 
 heads, and the Queen tumbled to her sobbed 
 prayers again. 
 
 The King's eyes were almost gone ; certainly
 
 ch. xvii THE KEENING 425 
 
 he could not see out of them. They understood 
 his moving lips, 'A sponge, quick.' 
 
 Jehane brought it and wiped his mouth ; she 
 could not see either for tears. He gave a strong 
 movement, wrenched his head up from her arm, 
 then gave a great gasp, ' Christ ! I am done ! ' 
 There followed on this a rush of blood which 
 made all hearts stand still. They wiped it away. 
 But Jehane saw that with that hot blood had gone 
 his spirit. She lifted high her head and let them 
 read the truth from her eyes. Then she put her 
 lips upon his, and so stayed, and felt him grow 
 cold below her warmth. The fire was out. 
 
 They buried him at Fontevrault as he had 
 directed, at the feet of his father. King John 
 was there with the peers of England, Normandy, 
 and Anjou. The Queen was there ; but not 
 Alois (unless behind the grille), and not King 
 Philip, because he hated King John much worse 
 than he ever hated Richard. And Jehane was 
 not there, nor Fulke of Anjou with his governors, 
 because they had another business to perform. 
 
 Not all of King Richard was buried there, 
 where the great effigy still marks the place of 
 great dust. Jehane had his heart in a casket, 
 and with Fulke her son, Des Barres, her brother 
 Saint-Pol, Gaston of Beam, and the Abbot Milo, 
 took it to the church of Rouen and saw it laid 
 among the dead Dukes of Normandy ; fitting 
 sepulture for a heart as bold as any of theirs, and 
 capable of more gentle music when the fine hand 
 plucked the chords. After this Jehane kissed
 
 426 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. ii 
 
 Fulke and left him with the Queen, his uncle, and 
 Guilhem des Barres. Then she went back to her 
 ship. 
 
 In the white palace in the green valley of 
 Lebanon the Old Man of Musse embraced his 
 wife. ' Moon of my soul, my Garden, my 
 Treasure-house ! ' he called her, and kissed her 
 all over. 
 
 ' The King died in peace, my lord,' she said, 
 'and I have peace because of that.' 
 
 'Thy children shall call thee blessed, my be- 
 loved, as I call thee.' 
 
 ' The prophecy of the leper was not fulfilled, 
 sir,' says Jehane. 
 
 'Ah,' replied the Old Man of Musse, 'all 
 these things are in the hands of the Supreme 
 Disposer, Who with His forefinger points us the 
 determined road.' 
 
 Then Jehane went in to her children, and other 
 duties which her station required of her.
 
 EPILOGUE OF THE ABBOT MILO 
 
 'When I consider,' writes the Abbot Milo on his 
 last page, ' that I have lived to see the deaths of 
 three Kings of England, wearers of the broom- 
 switch, and of the manner of those deaths, I am 
 led to admire the wonderful ordering of Almighty 
 God, Who accorded to each of them an end 
 illustrative of his doings in the world, and so 
 wrote, as it were, in blood for our learning. King 
 Henry produced strife, King Richard induced 
 strife, and King John deduced it. King Henry 
 died cursing and accursed ; King Richard forgiving 
 and forgiven ; King John blaspheming, and not 
 held worthy of reproof. The first did evil, mean- 
 ing evilly ; the second evil, meaning well ; the 
 third was evil. So the first was wretched in death, 
 the second pitiful, the third shameful. The first 
 loved a few, the second loved one, the third none. 
 So the death of the first was gain to a few, that of 
 the second to one, that of the third to none ; for 
 he that loves not, neither can he hate : he is 
 negligible in the end. But observe now, the 
 chief woe of these kings of the House of Anjou 
 was that they hurt whom they loved more than 
 whom they hated.
 
 428 RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY bk. 
 
 ' King Henry was a great prince, who did evil 
 to many both in his life and death. My dear 
 master, lord, and friend might have been a greater, 
 had not his head gone counter to his heart, his 
 generosity not been tripped up by his pride. So 
 generous as he was, all the world might have loved 
 him, as one loved him ; and yet so arrogant of 
 mind that the very largess he bestowed had a sting 
 beneath it, as though he scorned to give less to 
 creatures that lacked so much. All his faults and 
 most of his griefs sprang from this rending apart 
 of his nature. His heart cried Yea ! to a noble 
 motion. Then came his haughty head to suggest 
 trickery, and bid him say Nay ! to the heart's 
 urgency. 
 
 ' He was a religious man, a pious man, the 
 hottest fighter with the coolest judgment of any I 
 have ever known ; a great lover of one woman. 
 He might have been a happy man if she had been 
 let have her way. But he thwarted her, he played 
 with her whole-heart love, blew hot and cold ; 
 neither let her alone nor clave to her through all. 
 So she had to pay. And of him, my friend and 
 king howsoever, I say from the bottom of my soul, 
 if his death did not benefit poor Jehane, then it is 
 a happy thing for a woman to go bleeding in the 
 side. But I know that she was fortunate in his 
 death, and believe that he was also. For he had 
 space for reparation, died with his lovers about 
 him, having been saved in time from a great 
 disgrace. And it is a very wise man who reports : 
 ////' Mors gravis incubat, qui notus nimis omnibus, 
 ignotus moritur sibi. But King Richard knew
 
 ii EPILOGUE 429 
 
 himself in those last keen hours, and (as we believe) 
 won forgiveness of God. 
 
 ' God be good to him where he is ! They say 
 that when he died, that same day his soul was 
 solved from purgatorial fires (by reason, one may 
 suppose, of his glorious captaincy of the armies 
 of the Cross), and he drawn up to heaven in a 
 flamy cloud. I know nothing certainly of this, 
 which was not revealed to me ; but my prayer is 
 that he may be now with Hannibal and Judas 
 Maccabasus and Charles the great Emperor ; and 
 by this time of writing (if there be no offence in 
 it) with Jehane to sit upon his knee. 
 
 'upon whose two souls, jesu, have mercy ! ' 
 
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 .... For nearly four hundred pages he 
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 1900 
 
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 Zoroaster 
 
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 Paul Patoff 
 
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 Qreifenstein 
 
 Sant' Mario 
 
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 Don Orsino 
 
 The Children of the king 
 
 Pietro Ghisleri 
 
 Marion Darche: A Story without 
 
 Comment 
 katharine Lauderdale 
 The Ralstons 
 Casa Braccio 
 Adam Johnstone's Son 
 Taquisara: A Novel 
 A Rose of Yesterday 
 
 Via Crucis: A Romance of the 
 Second Crusade. 75th Thousand. 
 Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 Corleone. Crown 8vo. 6s.
 
 EGERTON CASTLE 
 
 Crown 8vo Gilt top 
 Price 6s. 
 
 marsDfieid tDe 
 
 Obserixr ana tDe 
 
 DeatbDance 
 
 Sonic fl>ress ©pinions 
 
 A THENJE UM.—' ' This remarkable 
 collection of stories should appeal to all 
 who enjoy good narrative." 
 
 THE OUTLOOK.— "Well invented, 
 brilliantly told." 
 
 SCOTSMAN.—" Cleverly constructed 
 and brilliantly told." 
 
 ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE.— "Not 
 inferior in interest to the best French art 
 of the day. . . . They enthral us with their 
 vividness and give us a thrill each one." 
 
 DAILY TELEGRAPH.— "Mr. Eger- 
 ton Castle is always an admirable teller 
 of stories, and the point of view from 
 which the present series are told is 
 highly piquant and original." 
 
 GENTLEWOMAN.—" The volume is 
 exceedingly clever and must be read." 
 
 MANCHESTER GUARDIAN.— "Mr. 
 Castle's book can hardly disappoint even 
 a public which he has lead to expect 
 much from him." 
 
 A. and E. CASTLE 
 
 Crown 8vo. Gilt top. 6s. 
 
 Cbe Ball) Cotnedp 
 
 By Agnes and Egerton Castle 
 Authors of " The Pride of Jennico " 
 
 THE ATHENAEUM.— " A very brisk and lively 
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 fully fresh and buoyant. " 
 
 SPECTATOR— "'A very lively and entertaining 
 comedy." 
 
 New Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 47th Thousand 
 
 €be Pride 
 
 oT 3ennico 
 
 Being a Memoir of Captain 
 Basil Jennico 
 
 By Agnes and Egerton Castle 
 
 ATHENAEUM.— " 1 he note of true romance is 
 always unmistakable, and it is a pleasure to 
 recognise it in this delightfully open-air and 
 vivacious story. ... '1 he heroine herself is one 
 of rarely delicate and sprightly charm; few, 
 indeed, are the modern damsels of romance so 
 altogether enthralling as this bewitching little 
 lady." 
 
 Crown 8vo. Gilt top. 6s. 
 
 young Upril 
 
 By Egerton Castle 
 With Eight Full-page Illustrations 
 
 PUNCH.— " Needs no other pictures than those 
 artistically painted in words by the deft hand of 
 the author, who is a brilliant colourist and a 
 master of romance. The interest is thoroughly 
 sustained from sta't to finish. A work highly 
 recommended by The Bunm de B. — W." 
 
 New and Cheaper Re-issue 
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 Consequences 
 
 A Novel. By Egerton Castle 
 
 SATURDAY REVIEW.— "It is a real pleasure to 
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 and performance. . . . Consequences is dis- 
 tinguished by verve, by close and wide observa- 
 tion of the ways and cities of many men. . ."
 
 JAMES LANE ALLEN JAMES LANE ALLEN 
 
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 Che Increasing 
 
 Purpose 
 
 Published June 2.7th, igoo. In six months 
 
 110,000 copies have been sold in England 
 
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 Some press Opinions 
 
 WESTMINSTER GAZETTE.—" Such a book as 
 1 his is a rare event, and as refreshing as it is rare. 
 Ihis book ... is a beautiful one — beautiful alike 
 in thought, tone, and language." 
 
 LITERATURE.—" We may safely assert that it 
 will achieve a large success, and achieve it on its 
 merits." 
 
 DAILY CHRONICLE.— " We like this book. It 
 stands apart from the ordinary novel. It tells 
 the story of the growth of a soul. ... A great 
 charm of the book is its pictures of out-door life 
 on a Kentucky farm. . . . But the greatest charm 
 of all, perhaps, is Mr. Allen's clear-cut, simple, 
 and vigorous style." 
 
 SPECTATOR.—" Written with all the delicacy 
 and distinction which have already won him so 
 many admirers." 
 
 WORLD. — "Lays upon the reader a giip from 
 which there is no escape." 
 
 DAILY GRAPHIC.—" The character of David, 
 the first figure in the book, is finely drawn. . . . 
 The book is well worth reading." 
 
 ACADEMY.— " Full of racial warmth and 
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 richly coloured, and splendidly aspirant in these 
 pages ; yet the eternal note of sadness is brought 
 in." 
 
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 213th Thousand 
 
 6s. 
 
 CDe Cboir Inoisib 
 
 ACADEMY.— "A book to read and a book to 
 keep after reading. Mr. Allen's gilts are many 
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 disciplined power of characterization, and an 
 intimate knowledge of a striking epoch and an 
 alluring country. The Choir Invisible is a fine 
 achievement." 
 
 PALL MALL GAZETTE— " Mr. Allen's power 
 of character drawing invests the old, old story 
 with renewed and absorbing interest. . . . The 
 fascination of the story lies in great part in Mr. 
 Allen's graceful and vivid style." 
 
 Globe 8vo. Price 3s. 6d. each 
 
 J\ Kentuckp 
 Cardinal 
 
 flftermatl) 
 
 Being Part II. of A Kentucky Cardinal 
 
 Summer in JSrcaclp 
 
 A Tale of Nature 
 
 Crown 8vo. Price 6s. each 
 
 Flute ana Violin 
 
 And other Kentucky Tales and 
 Romances 
 
 Cbe BlueGrass Re= 
 gion of Kentuckp 
 
 And other Kentucky Articles 
 
 OUTLOOK. — "His work has purity, delicacj 
 and unfailing charm. He gives you matter for 
 laughter, matter for tears, and matter to think 
 upon, with a very fine hand." 
 
 SPECTATOR.— "The volume of Kentucky tales 
 collected under the title of Piute and Violin, though 
 issued a few years ago in America, is practically 
 a new book so far as English readers are con- 
 cerned, and as such deserves the attention due to 
 \\liate\er falls from the pen which gave us The 
 Choir Invisible." 
 
 PALL MALL GAZETTE.— "Mr. Allen has 
 attained to an enviable position ; it is his to in- 
 terpret his native country to the world, and it is 
 not easy to imagine a better interpreter. Those 
 four volumes are worthy of the author of The 
 Choir Invisible."
 
 C. M. YONGE 
 
 Crown 8vo. Gilt top 
 Price 6s. 
 
 modern Broods 
 
 Bv 
 
 Charlotte M. Yonge 
 
 Sonic Press ©pinions 
 
 DUNDEE ADVERTISER. -- "It 
 forms a very happy example of the 
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 M. Yonge, and breathes the gracious 
 domesticity that usually is found in her 
 fiction." 
 
 SM 
 
 REVIEW OF THE WEEK.— "On 
 her own ground Miss Yonge is still bad 
 to beat." 
 
 JSP 
 
 THE OUTLOOK.— " A book which 
 will not disappoint Miss Yonge's public." 
 
 C. M. YONGE 
 
 UN/FORM EDITION. Crown Svo. 
 
 Price 3s. 6d. each 
 
 Armourer's 'Prentices 
 
 Beechcroft at Rockstone 
 
 Bye=words | Caged Lion 
 
 Chantry House 
 
 Chaplet of Pearls 
 
 Clever Woman of the Family 
 
 Daisy Chain ; or, Aspirations 
 
 Dove in the Eagle's Nest 
 
 Dynevor Terrace 
 
 Grisly Qrisell | Heartsease 
 
 Heir of Redclyffe 
 
 Henrietta's Wish 
 
 Hopes and Fears 
 
 Lady Hester. And The Danvers 
 
 Papers 
 Lances of Lynwood 
 
 Long Vacation 
 Magnum Bonum 
 
 J* 
 
 Little Duke 
 
 Love and Life 
 
 Modern Telemachus 
 
 More Bye=words 
 
 My Young Alcides 
 
 Nuttie's Father 
 
 Old Woman's Outlook in a Hamp= 
 
 shire Village 
 P's and Q's. And Little Lucy's 
 
 Wonderful Globe 
 Pilgrimage of the Ben Beriah 
 Pillars of the House. Two Vols. 
 Prince and the Page 
 Release ; or, Caroline's French 
 
 Kindred 
 Reputed Changeling 
 Scenes and Characters 
 Stray Pearls | That Stick 
 
 Three Brides 
 The Trial : More Links of the Daisy 
 
 Chain 
 Two Guardians 
 Two Penniless Princesses 
 Two Sides of the Shield 
 Unknown to History 
 Young Stepmother
 
 ROSA N. CAREY 
 
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 Rue iDitl) a 
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 Rosa N. Carey | 
 
 [i ith Thousand] 
 
 Sonic fl>rcss ©pinions 
 
 THE PILOT.— "Told with all the writer's 
 accustomed sweetness and simplicity." 
 
 TRUTH. — "Ought to maintain Miss Carey's 
 high reputation." 
 
 SCOTSMAN. — "The novel is characteristic of 
 its author, and may well serve to add many to 
 her already wide circle of readers." 
 
 LEEDS MERCURY. -"A charming old-fashioned 
 love-story, or, rather, two love-stories — told in 
 Miss Carey's most delightful manner." 
 
 BROAD ARROW.— "We have nothing but 
 praise for this interesting, natural, and refined 
 novel." 
 
 LITERARY WORLD.— " A novel of an old- 
 fashioned flavour, hut none the less pleasant 
 because of this quality." 
 
 DUNDEE ADVERTISER.— "The life of the 
 exclusive cathedral town is artistically depicted, 
 and the sweet, wholesome, high-toned atmosphere 
 which Miss Carey invariably creates pervades 
 the entire story." 
 
 ROSA N. CAREY 
 
 POPULAR EDITION OF THE 
 NOVELS IN UNIFORM BINDING 
 
 Crown 8vo. 
 
 Blue Cloth, Gilt Lettered 
 Price $s. 6d. each 
 
 Sale over a Quarter of a Million Copies 
 
 Nellie's Memories. 32nd Thousand 
 Wee Wifie. 25th Thousand 
 
 Barbara Heathcote's Trial. 
 
 20th Thousand 
 
 Robert Ord's Atonement. 
 
 17th Thousand 
 
 Wooed and Married. 24th Thousand 
 Heriot's Choice. 18th Thousand 
 Queenie's Whim. iSth Thousand 
 Mary St. John. 16th Thousand 
 
 Not Like Other Girls. 
 
 24th Thousand 
 
 For Lilias. 14th Thousand 
 
 Uncle Max. 20th Thousand 
 
 Only the Governess. 23rd Thousand 
 
 Lover or Friend? 15th Thousand 
 
 Basil Lyndhurst. 15th Thousand 
 
 Sir Godfrey's Grand=daughters. 
 
 14th Thousand 
 
 The Old, Old Story. iCth Thousand 
 
 The Mistress of Brae Farm. 
 
 16th Thousand 
 
 Mrs. Romney and " But Men must 
 
 Work." 10th Thousand 
 
 JOHN BULL.— " Miss Rosa Nouchette Carey 
 is one of our especial favourites. She has a great 
 gift of describing pleasant and lovable young 
 ladies." 
 
 LADY. — "Miss Carey's Novels are always 
 welcome; they are out ol the common run, im- 
 maculately pure, and very high in tone." 
 
 LADY.- — "Miss Carey's bright, wholesome, 
 domestic stories."
 
 F. MONTGOMERY 
 
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 Price 6s. 
 
 Prejudged 
 
 By 
 
 Florence 
 Montgomery 
 
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 DAILY TELEGRAPH.— " An in- 
 genious tale, and pleasing, by reason of 
 the fresh wholesomeness of the characters 
 and atmosphere — a trait hard to discover 
 in many contemporary novels." 
 
 TRUTH.— "The author of Misunder- 
 stood keeps up her deservedly high repu- 
 tation by her very prettv story Prejudged." 
 
 LITERARY WORLD.— " The story 
 is simple and charming." 
 
 MANCHESTER COURIER. — " A 
 study of character which is sincere and 
 convincing, and a story which from cover 
 to cover is well written." 
 
 THE SPECTATOR.— "Miss Mont- 
 gomery's graceful story." 
 
 ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE.— "Well 
 told and amusing." 
 
 SCOTSMAN. — "Worthy of the repu- 
 tation made by Misunderstood." 
 
 THE OUTLOOK.—" She sketches her 
 characters in both prettily and wittily.' ' 
 
 F. MONTGOMERY 
 
 Crown 8vo. Gilt top. 6s. 
 
 misunderstood 
 
 Diary of Dr. WILBERFORCE, Bishop of Win. 
 Chester. — " Read Misunderstood, very touching anil 
 truthful." 
 
 VANITY FAIR. — "This volume gives us what 
 of all things is the most rare to find in contem- 
 porary literature — a true picture of child-life." 
 
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 Seafortl) 
 
 WORLD. — "In the marvellous world of the 
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 more exquisitely touching than the loving, love- 
 seeking, unloved child. Florence Dombey. We 
 pay Miss Montgomery the highest compliment 
 within our reach when we say that in Seaforth 
 she frequently suggests comparisons with what is 
 at least one of the masterpieces of the greatest 
 master of tenderness and humour which nine- 
 teenth-century fiction has known. Seaforth is 
 a novel full of beauty, feeling, and interest." 
 
 Crown 8vo. Gilt top. 6s. 
 
 Cbroiun Coaetber 
 
 VANITY FAIR.— "Teas charming story cannot 
 fail to please. 
 
 WASHINGTON DAILY CHRONICLE.— " A de- 
 lightful storv. There is a thread of gold in it 
 upon which are strung many lovely sentiments." 
 
 Crown 8vo. Gilt top. 6s. 
 
 Second Edition 
 
 transformed ; or, 
 
 Cbree Uleeks in 
 a Cifetime 
 
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 Conp : J\ Sketcb 
 
 3 vols. Crown 8vo. i8s. 
 
 Colonel ftorton
 
 FRANCES M. PEARD 
 
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 GRACE M. HURD 
 
 New Novel 
 of artistic 
 life in New 
 York . . 
 
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 Rumber One ana Cbe Bennett Ciuins 
 number Cux> 
 
 By 
 
 Frances Mary Peard 
 
 Sonic fi>rcss Opinions 
 
 THE OUTLOOK.— " A comedy of a 
 wilful young woman, excellently told." 
 
 GLOBE.—" Shows that Miss Peard's 
 accomplished pen has lost nothing of its 
 former charm." 
 
 ACADEMY.— " A bright, readable 
 novel." 
 
 DUNDEE ADVERTISER.— "The 
 novel is clever, epigrammatic, and 
 bright." 
 
 By the same Author 
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 Donna Ccrcsa 
 
 DAILY TELEGRAPH. — " A bri: 
 liantly-told story." 
 
 Some ipress Opinions 
 
 ACADEMY.—" A bright story." 
 
 MANCHESTER GUARDIAN.— 
 "Told throughout in fascinating st>le. 
 . . . A valuable work of art." 
 
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 Cbe Uleb of Cite 
 
 By 
 
 Robert Herrick 
 
 Some press ©pinions 
 
 THE WORLD.— " A powerful story." 
 NEW YORK SUN.— "A fine and 
 powerful story " 
 
 OUTLOOK.—" Mr. Herrick has gained 
 considerable reputation in America with 
 The Gospel of Freedom, and is clearly a 
 thoughtful and imaginative writer."
 
 M. CHOLMONDELEY 
 
 Crown 8vo. Cloth 
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 Diana Cempest 
 
 By 
 
 Mary 
 Cholmondeley 
 
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 LADY. — " One of the brightest novels 
 of modern life that has ever been written.' ' 
 
 3 
 
 A THEN A? U M — " Miss Cholmondeley 
 writes with a brightness which is in itself 
 delightful. . . . Let everyone who can 
 enjoy an excellent novel, full of humour, 
 touched with real pathos, and written 
 with finished taste and skill, read Diana 
 Tempest." 
 
 3 
 
 SATURDA Y REVIEW.—" A remark- 
 ably clever and amusing novel." 
 
 3 
 
 M. CHOLMONDELEY 
 
 " Sir Charles 
 Danvers is 
 really a de- 
 lightful book." 
 ■= — Daily News 
 
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 Sir CDarles 
 Danucrs 
 
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 M. Cholmondeley 
 
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 SATURDA Y REVIEW.—" Novels so 
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 simple sense and witty observation as 
 Sir Charles Danvers are not found every 
 day. It is a charming love story, lightened 
 up on all sides by the humorous, genial 
 character sketches." 
 
 3 
 
 DA IL Y NE WS—"Sir Charles Danvers 
 is really a delightful book. Sir Charles 
 is one of the most fascinating, one of the 
 wittiest figures that advance to greet us 
 from the pages of contemporary fiction. 
 We met him with keen pleasure and 
 parted from him with keen regret."
 
 WINSTON CHURCHILL WINSTON CHURCHILL 
 
 59,000 Copies 
 have been sold 
 in England 
 and America 
 
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 Price 6s. 
 
 RicDard Carixl 
 
 27th Edition, completing the enor- 
 mous total of 
 365,000 
 
 Sonic fl>rcss Opinions 
 
 GUARDIAN.—" The hook isone we can warmly 
 recommend to readers who like to have their 
 historical memories freshened by fiction." 
 
 LITERATURE.—" Has a full and stirring plot. 
 . . . A piece of work creditable both to his industry 
 and his imagination." 
 
 SATURDAY REVIEW.—" ... He tells his story 
 in the pleasantest, easiest, and most direct of 
 styles." 
 
 ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE. — "An altogether 
 readable and delightful story." 
 
 DAILY CHRONICLE.- " Mr. Churchill has 
 Jone his work admirably." 
 
 THE SPEAKER.— "We have not read abetter 
 book for many a day than Richai J Carvel." 
 
 GLOBE.— " Mr. Churchill handles his tale of 
 love and of adventure with skill and mastery." 
 
 DAILY TELEGRAPH.'-' Full of good things. 
 The narrative excels in incidents, interesting, 
 vivid and picturesque. . . ." 
 
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 Ok Celebrity: 
 
 flti €pisode 
 
 By 
 
 Winston Churchill 
 
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 ATHEN&UM.— 'Distinctly good reading. It 
 is w ittv and devoir 1 of offence to the most sensitive 
 disposition. . . . Can be recommended to old and 
 young alike." 
 
 CHICAGO TRIBUNE. — "An exceptionally 
 
 pleasing novel." 
 
 NEW YORK INDEPENDENT.— "Fresh, dash- 
 ing, and entertaining from beginning to end." 
 
 Mr. Winston Churchill's 
 Forthcoming Romance 
 
 €lx Crisis 
 
 In Richard Carvel Mr. Winston 
 Churchill treated of the Cavalier, and 
 having- contrasted in this book the 
 London and Colonial societies, the 
 author takes up in The Crisis the 
 Cavalier's history nearly a hundred 
 years later.
 
 Crown 8vo. Gilt top 
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 Babes in tftc Bust) 
 
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 Rolf Boldrewood 
 
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 THE OUTLOOK.—' 1 A lively and 
 picturesque story." 
 
 ROLF BOLDREWOOD ROLF BOLDREWOOD 
 
 POPULAR EDITION OF THE 
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 Price $s. 6d. each 
 
 Robbery Under Arms 
 
 The Miner's Right 
 
 The Squatter's Dream 
 
 A Sydney=side Saxon 
 
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 Nevermore 
 
 A Modern Buccaneer 
 
 The Sealskin Cloak 
 
 Plain Living 
 
 The Crooked Stick 
 
 My Run Home 
 
 Old Melbourne Memories 
 
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 Romance of Canvas Town 
 War to the Knife 
 Babes in the Bush 
 
 Globe 8vo. 2S. 
 The Sphinx of Eaglehawk 
 
 DAILY TELEGRAPH. 
 with thrilling incident." 
 
 Bristles 
 
 SCOTSMAN.—- So long as he con- 
 tinues to present the life of our fellow- 
 subjects in the great Colonies in the other 
 hemisphere as he does in his latest work, 
 Babes in the Bush, there is little chance 
 of the public crying ' enough.' ... It is 
 impossible not to become engrossed in 
 the fortunes of the Effingham family." 
 
 «t
 
 RHODA BROUGHTON RHODA BROUGHTON 
 
 New Novel 
 bv the Author 
 
 J 
 
 o f Na n cy . 
 6th Thousand 
 
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 Foes in Caio 
 
 By 
 
 Rhoda Broughton 
 
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 DAILY CHRONICLE. — " Nobody ever equalled 
 Miss Broughton in the description of a family of 
 young people, and when we say that in this book 
 she returns almost to the manner that made 
 Nancy a delight, we begin with high praise." 
 
 GRAPHIC— "It is delightful to find in Miss 
 Broughton's Fees in Law all the freshness of 
 touch and spirit that characterised her debut." 
 
 BOOKMAN.— " A book that is well worthy to 
 stand with the best of its many predecessors." 
 
 PALL MALL GAZETTE.—" Her sk.ll to write 
 a love story which holds the reader's attention 
 from Chapter 1. to ' Finis' remains unimpaired." 
 
 THE WORLD. — "From the epigrammatical 
 title to the closing wordsFoes in Law is singularly 
 clever, even for its author." 
 
 THE OUTLOOK.—" Vivid and acute." 
 
 DAILY GRAPHIC— '■ The really delightful tiling 
 about Miss Rhoda Broughton is that her books 
 never grow any older. Foes in Law recalls our 
 o«vn youth to us — ;he thrill of excitement with 
 which we welcomed a new novel from her pen." 
 
 "A deeply 
 
 interesting 
 
 storv of hu- 
 
 J 
 
 man passions ' 
 
 Crown 8vo. Gilt top. 
 Price 6s. 
 
 Ok Game ana fix 
 Candle 
 
 SPECTATOR.— "The book is ex- 
 tremely clever." 
 
 UNIFORM EDITION OF MISS 
 
 BROUGHTONS NOVELS. 
 
 Crown Svo. 2S. each 
 
 Good=bye, Sweetheart! 
 
 Cometh up as a Flower 
 
 Joan 
 
 Belinda 
 
 Dr. Cupid 
 
 Not Wisely but Too Well 
 
 Red as a Rose is She 
 
 Alas! 
 
 Scylla or Charybdis? 
 
 Mrs. Bligh 
 
 Second Thoughts 
 
 A Beginner 
 
 Dear Faustina 
 
 Nancy 
 
 Twilight Stories. Post 8vo. 2s. 6d.
 
 B. K. BENSON 
 
 The Storv 
 of a Spy 
 in the 
 Civil War 
 
 Crown 8vo. Gilt top 
 Price 6s. 
 
 EDWIN ASA DIX 
 
 Author of 
 " Midsummer 
 Drive Thro 
 the Pyrenees" 
 
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 UlDo Goes Cbere ? Deacon Bradburp 
 
 By B. K. Benson I * ■&<*■ 
 
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 Author of 
 "A Midsummer Drive 
 Through the Pyrenees." 
 
 PALL MALL GAZETTE.—" Should make its 
 mark on both sides of the Atlantic. . . . An 
 unusually good novel." 
 
 ACADEMY.— " A story of a spy in the American 
 Civil War. It is packed with adventure, vigor- 
 ously narrated, and ghes a vivid per ? onal view 
 of that great upheaval." 
 
 SCOTSMAN.—'' A novel and highly interesting 
 stoiy. . . . Sure to be widely read." 
 
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 CDc Banker and 
 tbe Bear 
 
 CIk Storp of a 
 Corner in Card 
 
 By H. K. Webster 
 
 Some press ©pinions 
 
 PALL MALL GAZETTE.— "Written extremely 
 well. . . . His sketches of character are worthy 
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 ness. . . . The story never flags. ... A very- 
 clever piece of work." 
 
 SPEC! AtOR. — " No one who remembers The 
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 Cbe First Violin 
 
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 STANDARD.—" The story is extremely interest- 
 ing from the first page to the last. It is along time 
 since we have met with anything so exquisitely 
 touching as the description of Engen's life witn 
 his friend Helfen. It is an idyl of the purest and 
 noblest simplicity." 
 
 DUNDEE ADVERTISER.— " A story of strong 
 and deep interest, written by a vigorous and 
 cultured writer. To such as have musical 
 svmpathies an added pleasure and delight will be 
 felt." 
 
 Crown 8vo. 2s. each 
 
 UN/FORM EDITION OF THE 
 
 NOVELS OF JESSIE 
 
 FOTHERGILL 
 
 Aldyth Probation 
 
 Borderland Healey 
 
 Kith and Kin The Wellfields 
 
 From Moor Isles
 
 W. WALDORF ASTOR 
 
 A Collection 
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 finely illus- 
 trated . . . 
 
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 PDaraoD's 
 DaugDter 
 
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 m tbe CigDt £ed 
 
 By 
 
 James Newton 
 Baskett 
 
 Sonic (press ©pinions 
 
 SPEAKER.—" We cannot fail to be charmed by 
 the sympathy and observation of the author, or 
 io recognise the noble simplicity of his central 
 character. We shall look out with interest for 
 his next book." 
 
 OUt LOOK.— " A pretty story." 
 
 PALL MALL GAZEtTE — "A well-written book. 
 . . . txcellent character-drawing." 
 
 PILOt. — 'Pleasant and wholesome reading. 
 . . . Mr. Baskett knows how to combine sim- 
 plicity with a certain distinction of style and 
 purpose." 
 
 S. WEIR MITCHELL 
 
 New Book 
 by the author 
 of Adventures 
 of Francois 
 
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 Price- 6s. 
 
 Dr. RortD and 
 l>is Friends 
 
 By 
 
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 fl Friend of Caesar 
 
 j\ cale or tDe Fall or 
 the Roman Republic, 
 Cime 50=47 B.C 
 
 By William Stearns Davis 
 
 A romance which has a Drusus for 
 its hero and a Cornelia for its heroine, 
 and which aims to give a picture of 
 life in Koine and Alexandria at the 
 climax of Caesar's fortunes. Among 
 the incidents depicted are the crossing 
 of the Rubicon, the battle of Pharsalia, 
 the murder of Pompey, and Caesar's 
 escape by swimming in the harbour of 
 Alexandria.
 
 RUDYARD KIPLING RUDYARD KIPLING 
 
 UNIFORM EDITION. 6s. each 
 17th Thousand 
 
 Wee Willie Ulinkic 
 
 '<?$■•' 
 
 / 
 
 UNItORM EDITION 
 
 Extra Crown Svo. Scarlet Cloth 
 Gilt Tops. 6s. 
 
 33rd Thousand 
 
 Stalkp $ Co, 
 
 PALL MALL GAZETTE.— "If Stalky & Co. does 
 
 not become as classic as the greatest favourites 
 among Mr. Kipling's previous volumesof stories, 
 write us down false prophets. He has never 
 written with more rapturously swinging zest, or 
 bubbled over with more rollicking fun." 
 
 57th Thousand 
 
 CIk Dap's Ulork 
 
 MORNING POST.—" The book is so varied, so 
 full of colour and life from end to end, that few 
 who read the first two or three stories will lay it 
 down till they have read the last." 
 
 48th Thousand 
 
 Plain caics from tbc Rills 
 
 SATURDAY RElTEIf.— " Mr. Kipling knows 
 and appreciates the English in India, and is a 
 born story-teller and a man of humour into the 
 bargain ... It would be hard to find better 
 reading." 
 
 39th Thousand 
 
 Life's handicap 
 
 Being Stories of Mine Own People. 
 
 BLACK AND WHITE.— ■" Life's Handicap con- 
 tains much of the best work hitherto accomplished 
 by the author, and, taken as a whole, is a com- 
 plete advance upon its predecessors." 
 
 36th Thousand 
 
 iKanp inoentions 
 
 PALL MALL GAZETTE.— "The completest 
 book that Mr. Kipling has yet given us in work- 
 manship, the weightiest and most humane in 
 bread' h of view. . . . It can only be regarded as 
 a fresh landmark in the progression of his 
 genius." 
 
 41st Thousand 
 
 Cbe Ciglrt tbat Failed 
 
 Re-written and considerably enlarged. 
 
 ACADEMY.—" Whatever else be true of Mr. 
 Kipling, it is the first truth about him that he has 
 power, real intrinsic power. . . . Mr Kipling's 
 work has innumerable good qualities." 
 
 and other Stories. 
 20th Thousand 
 
 Soldiers Cbree 
 
 and other Stories. 
 
 GLOBE. — "Containing some of the best of his 
 highly vivid work." 
 
 55th Thousand 
 
 CDe Jungle Book 
 
 With Illustrations by J. L. Kipling 
 and W. H. Drake. 
 
 PUNCH.— "'/Esop's Fables and dear old Brer 
 Fox and Co.,' observes the Baron sagely, ' may 
 have suggested to the fanciful genius of Kudyard 
 Kipling the delightful idea, carried out in the 
 most fascinating style of The Jungle Book.' " 
 
 38th Thousand 
 
 Cbe Second Jungle Book 
 
 With Illustrations by J. Lockwood 
 Kipling. 
 
 DAILY TELEGRAPH.—" The appearance of The 
 Second Jungle Bo.ih is a literaty event of which no 
 one will mistake the impor:ance. Unlike most 
 sequels, the various stories comprised in the new 
 volume are at least equal to their predecessors." 
 
 27th Thousand 
 
 ** 
 
 Captains Courageous " 
 
 A Story of the Grand Banks. Illus- 
 trated by I. W. Taber. 
 
 ATHENJWM. — " Never in English prose has 
 the sea in all its myriad aspects, with all its 
 sounds and sights and odours, been reproduced 
 with such subtle skill as in these pages." 
 
 14th Thousand 
 
 from Sea to Sea 
 
 Letters of Travel. In Two Vols. 
 
 DAILY TELEGRAPH— " From Sea to Sea is 
 delightful reading throughout. 'Good things' 
 sparkle in its every page, and inimitable descrip- 
 tive matter abounds. ... A charming book." 
 
 Cbe ttaulabka 
 
 A Story of West and East 
 
 BY 
 
 RUDYARD KIPLING 
 
 AND 
 
 WOLCOTT BALESTIER 
 
 5. 1. 01
 
 AA 000 599 686 3 
 
 J uNw™mfi^^Wlliii ,! 
 
 3 1210 01245 2551