Domnei: A Comedy of Woman-Worship by James Branch Cabell (read my book TXT) 📖

the cloak of Ayrart de Montors as the young prelate guided Perion through the complexities of unfamiliar halls and stairways into an inhospitable night. There were ready two horses, and presently the men were mounted and away.

Once only Perion shifted in the saddle to glance back at Bellegarde, black and formless against an empty sky; and he dared not look again, for the thought of her that lay awake in the Marshal's Tower, so near at hand as yet, was like a dagger. With set teeth he followed in the wake of his taciturn companion. The bishop never spoke save to growl out some direction.

Thus they came to Manneville and, skirting the town, came to Fomor Beach, a narrow sandy coast. It was dark in this place and very still save for the encroachment of the tide. Yonder were four little lights, lazily heaving with the water's motion, to show them where the Tranchemer lay at anchor. It did not seem to Perion that anything mattered.

"It will be nearing dawn by this," he said.

"Ay," Ayrart de Montors said, very briefly; and his tone evinced his willingness to dispense with further conversation. Perion of the Forest was an unclean thing which the bishop must touch in his necessity, but could touch with loathing only, as a thirsty man takes a fly out of his drink. Perion conceded it, because nothing would ever matter any more; and so, the horses tethered, they sat upon the sand in utter silence for the space of a half hour.

A bird cried somewhere, just once, and with a start Perion knew the night was not quite so murky as it had been, for he could now see a broken line of white, where the tide crept up and shattered and ebbed. Then in a while a light sank tipsily to the water's level and presently was bobbing in the darkness, apart from those other lights, and it was growing in size and brilliancy.

Said Perion, "They have sent out the boat."

"Ay," the bishop answered, as before.

A sort of madness came upon Perion, and it seemed that he must weep, because everything fell out so very ill in this world.

"Messire de Montors, you have aided me. I would be grateful if you permitted it."

De Montors spoke at last, saying crisply:

"Gratitude, I take it, forms no part of the bargain. I am the kinsman of Dame Melicent. It makes for my interest and for the honour of our house that the man whose rooms she visits at night be got out of Poictesme—"

Said Perion, "You speak in this fashion of the most lovely lady God has made—of her whom the world adores!"

"Adores!" the bishop answered, with a laugh; "and what poor gull am I to adore an attested wanton?" Then, with a sneer, he spoke of Melicent, and in such terms as are not bettered by repetition.

Perion said:

"I am the most unhappy man alive, as surely as you are the most ungenerous. For, look you, in my presence you have spoken infamy of Dame Melicent, though knowing I am in your debt so deeply that I have not the right to resent anything you may elect to say. You have just given me my life; and armoured by the fire-new obligation, you blaspheme an angel, you condescend to buffet a fettered man—"

But with that his sluggish wits had spied an honest way out of the imbroglio.

Perion said then, "Draw, messire! for, as God lives, I may yet repurchase, at this eleventh hour, the privilege of destroying you."

"Heyday! but here is an odd evincement of gratitude!" de Montors retorted; "and though I am not particularly squeamish, let me tell you, my fine fellow, I do not ordinarily fight with lackeys."

"Nor are you fit to do so, messire. Believe me, there is not a lackey in this realm—no, not a cut-purse, nor any pander—who would not in meeting you upon equal footing degrade himself. For you have slandered that which is most perfect in the world; yet lies, Messire de Montors, have short legs; and I design within the hour to insure the calumny against an echo."

"Rogue, I have given you your very life within the hour—"

"The fact is undeniable. Thus I must fling the bounty back to you, so that we sorry scoundrels may meet as equals." Perion wheeled toward the boat, which was now within the reach of wading. "Who is among you? Gaucelm, Roger, Jean Britauz—" He found the man he sought. "Ahasuerus, the captain that was to have accompanied the Free Companions oversea is of another mind. I cede my leadership to Landry de Bonnay. You will have the kindness to inform him of the unlooked-for change, and to tender your new captain every appropriate regret and the dying felicitations of Perion de la Forêt."

He bowed toward the landward twilight, where the sand hillocks were taking form.

"Messire de Montors, we may now resume our vigil. When yonder vessel sails there will be no conceivable happening that can keep breath within my body two weeks longer. I shall be quit of every debt to you. You will then fight with a man already dead if you so elect; but otherwise—if you attempt to flee this place, if you decline to cross swords with a lackey, with a convicted thief, with a suspected murderer, I swear upon my mother's honour! I will demolish you without compunction, as I would any other vermin."

"Oh, brave, brave!" sneered the bishop, "to fling away your life, and perhaps mine too, for an idle word—" But at that he fetched a sob. "How foolish of you! and how like you!" he said, and Perion wondered at this prelate's voice.

"Hey, gentlemen!" cried Ayrart de Montors, "a moment if you please!" He splashed knee-deep into the icy water, wading to the boat, where he snatched the lantern from the Jew's hands and fetched this light ashore. He held it aloft, so that Perion might see his face, and Perion perceived that, by some wonder-working, the person in man's attire who held this light aloft was Melicent. It was odd that Perion always remembered afterward most clearly of all the loosened wisp of hair the wind tossed about her forehead.

"Look well upon me, Perion," said Melicent. "Look well, ruined gentleman! look well, poor hunted vagabond! and note how proud I am. Oh, in all things I am very proud! A little I exult in my high station and in my wealth, and, yes, even in my beauty, for I know that I am beautiful, but it is the chief of all my honours that you love me—and so foolishly!"

"You do not understand—!" cried Perion.

"Rather I understand at last that you are in sober verity a lackey, an impostor, and a thief, even as you said. Ay, a lackey to your honour! an imposter that would endeavour—and, oh, so very vainly!—to impersonate another's baseness! and a thief that has stolen another person's punishment! I ask no questions; loving means trusting; but I would like to kill that other person very, very slowly. I ask no questions, but I dare to trust the man I know of, even in defiance of that man's own voice. I dare protest the man no thief, but in all things a madly honourable gentleman. My poor bruised, puzzled boy," said Melicent, with an odd mirthful tenderness, "how came you to be blundering about this miry world of ours! Only be very good for my sake and forget the bitterness; what does it matter when there is happiness, too?"

He answered nothing, but it was not because of misery.

"Come, come, will you not even help me into the boat?" said Melicent.
She, too, was glad.

5.

How Melicent Wedded

"That may not be, my cousin."

It was the real Bishop of Montors who was speaking. His company, some fifteen men in all, had ridden up while Melicent and Perion looked seaward. The bishop was clothed, in his habitual fashion, as a cavalier, showing in nothing as a churchman. He sat a-horseback for a considerable while, looking down at them, smiling and stroking the pommel of his saddle with a gold-fringed glove. It was now dawn.

"I have been eavesdropping," the bishop said. His voice was tender, for the young man loved his kinswoman with an affection second only to that which he reserved for Ayrart de Montors. "Yes, I have been eavesdropping for an instant, and through that instant I seemed to see the heart of every woman that ever lived; and they differed only as stars differ on a fair night in August. No woman ever loved a man except, at bottom, as a mother loves her child: let him elect to build a nation or to write imperishable verses or to take purses upon the highway, and she will only smile to note how breathlessly the boy goes about his playing; and when he comes back to her with grimier hands she is a little sorry, and, if she think it salutary, will pretend to be angry. Meanwhile she sets about the quickest way to cleanse him and to heal his bruises. They are more wise than we, and at the bottom of their hearts they pity us more stalwart folk whose grosser wits require, to be quite sure of anything, a mere crass proof of it; and always they make us better by indomitably believing we are better than in reality a man can ever be."

Now Ayrart de Montors dismounted.

"So much for my sermon. For the rest, Messire de la Forêt, I perfectly recognised you on the day you came to Bellegarde. But I said nothing. For that you had not murdered King Helmas, as is popularly reported, I was certain, inasmuch as I happen to know he is now at Brunbelois, where Dame Mélusine holds his person and his treasury. A terrible, delicious woman! begotten on a water-demon, people say. I ask no questions. She is a close and useful friend to me, and through her aid I hope to go far. You see that I am frank. It is my nature." The bishop shrugged. "In a phrase, I accepted the Vicomte de Puysange, although it was necessary, of course, to keep an eye upon your comings in and your goings out, as you now see. And until this the imposture amused me. But this"—his hand waved toward the Tranchemer—"this, my fair friends, is past a jest."

"You talk and talk," cried Perion, "while I reflect that I love the fairest lady who at any time has had life upon earth."

"The proof of your affection," the bishop returned, "is, if you will permit the observation, somewhat extraordinary. For you propose, I gather, to make of her a camp-follower, a soldier's drab. Come, come, messire! you and I are conversant with warfare as it is. Armies do not conduct encounters by throwing sugar-candy at one another. What home have you, a landless man, to offer Melicent? What place is there for Melicent among your Free Companions?"

"Oh, do I not know that!" said Perion. He turned to Melicent, and long and long they gazed upon each other.

"Ignoble as I am," said Perion, "I never dreamed to squire an angel down toward the mire and filth which for a while as yet must be my kennel. I go. I go alone. Do you bid me return?"

The girl was perfectly calm. She took a ring of diamonds from her hand, and placed it on his little finger, because the others were too large.

"While life endures I pledge you faith and service, Perion. There is no need to speak of love."

"There is no need," he answered. "Oh, does God think that I will live without you!"

"I suppose they will give me to King Theodoret. The terrible old man has set my body as the only price that will buy him off from ravaging Poictesme, and he is stronger in the field than Emmerick. Emmerick is afraid of him, and Ayrart here has need of the King's friendship in order to become a cardinal. So my kinsmen must make traffic of my eyes and lips and hair. But first I wed you, Perion, here in the sight of God, and I bid you return to me, who am your wife and servitor for ever now, whatever lesser men may do."

"I will return," he said.

Then in a little while she withdrew her lips from his lips.

"Cover my face, Ayrart. It may be I shall weep presently. Men must not see the wife of Perion weep. Cover my face, for he is going now, and