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scrap-heaps! Gods of old days, discrowned, disjected, and treated as rubbish, hark to the latest way of the folk whose fathers you succored! They have discarded you utterly. Such as remember deride you, saying:

"'The brawling old lords that our grandfathers honored have perished, if they indeed were ever more than some curious notions bred of our grandfathers' questing, that looked to find God in each rainstorm coming to nourish their barley, and God in the heat-bringing sun, and God in the earth which gave life. Even so was each hour of their living touched with odd notions of God and with lunacies as to God's kindness. We are more sensible people, for we understand all about the freaks of the wind and the weather, and find them in no way astounding. As for whatever gods may exist, they are civil, in that they let us alone in our lifetime; and so we return their politeness, knowing that what we are doing on earth is important enough to need undivided attention.'

"Such are the folk that deride you, such are the folk that ignore the gods whom Miramon fashioned, such are the folk whom to-day I permit you freely to deal with after the manner of gods. Do you now make the most of your chance, and devastate all Poictesme in time for an earlyish supper!"

The faces of these ten became angry, and they shouted, "Blaerde Shay Alphenio Kasbue Gorfons Albuifrio!"

All ten went up together from the sea, traveling more swiftly than men travel, and what afterward happened in Poictesme was for a long while a story very fearful to hear and heard everywhere.

Manuel did not witness any of the tale's making as he waited alone on the seashore. But the land was sick, and its nausea heaved under Manuel's wounded feet, and he saw that the pale, gurgling, glistening sea appeared to crawl away from Poictesme slimily. And at Bellegarde and Naimes and Storisende and Lisuarte, and in all the strongly fortified inland places, Asmund's tall fighting-men beheld one or another of the angry faces which came up from the sea, and many died swiftly, as must always happen when anybody revives discarded dreams, nor did any of the Northmen die in a shape recognizable as human.

When the news was brought to Dom Manuel that his redemption of Poictesme was completed, then Dom Manuel unarmed, and made himself presentable in a tunic of white damask and a girdle adorned with garnets and sapphires. He slipped over his left shoulder a baldric set with diamonds and emeralds, to sustain the unbloodied sword with which he had conquered here as upon Vraidex. Over all he put on a crimson mantle. Then the former swineherd concealed his hands, not yet quite healed, with white gloves, of which the one was adorned with a ruby, and the other was a sapphire; and, sighing, Manuel the Redeemer (as he was called thereafter) entered into his kingdom, and they of Poictesme received him far more gladly than he them.

Thus did Dom Manuel enter into the imprisonment of his own castle and into the bonds of high estate, from which he might not easily get free to go a-traveling everywhither, and see the ends of this world and judge them. And they say that in her low red-pillared palace Suskind smiled contentedly and made ready for the future.





PART FIVE

PART FIVE THE BOOK OF SETTLEMENT



TO
JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER



Thus Manuel reigned in vertue and honoure with that noble Ladye his wyfe: and he was beloued and dradde of high and lowe degree, for he dyde ryghte and iustice according to the auncient Manner, kepynge hys land in dignitie and goode Appearance, and hauynge the highest place in hys tyme.



XXXIII Now Manuel Prospers

They of Poictesme narrate fine tales as to the deeds that Manuel the Redeemer performed and incited in the days of his reign. They tell also many things that seem improbable, and therefore are not included in this book: for the old songs and tales incline to make of Count Manuel's heydey a rare golden age.

So many glorious exploits are, indeed, accredited to Manuel and to the warriors whom he gathered round him in his famous Fellowship of the Silver Stallion,—and among whom, Holden and courteous Anavalt and Coth the Alderman and Gonfal and Donander had the pre-eminence, where all were hardy,—that it is very difficult to understand how so brief a while could have continued so many doings. But the tale-tellers of Poictesme have been long used to say of a fine action,—not falsely, but misleadingly,—"Thus it was in Count Manuel's time," and the tribute by and by has been accepted as a dating. So has chronology been hacked to make loftier his fame, and the glory of Dom Manuel has been a magnet that has drawn to itself the magnanimities of other days and years.

But there is no need here to speak of these legends, about the deeds which were performed by the Fellowship of the Silver Stallion, because these stories are recorded elsewhere. Some may be true, the others are certainly not true; but it is indisputable that Count Manuel grew steadily in power and wealth and proud repute. Miramon Lluagor still served him, half-amusedly, as Dom Manuel's seneschal; kings now were Manuel's co-partners; and the former swineherd had somehow become the fair and trusty cousin of emperors. And Madame Niafer, the great Count's wife, was everywhere stated, without any contradiction from her, to be daughter to the late Soldan of Barbary.

Guivric the Sage illuminated the tree which showed the glorious descent of Dame Niafer from Kaiumarth, the first of all kings, and the first to teach men to build houses: and this tree hung in the main hall of Storisende. "For even if some errors may have crept in here and there," said Dame Niafer, "it looks very well."

"But, my dear," said Manuel, "your father was not the Soldan of Barbary: instead, he was the second groom at Arnaye, and all this lineage is a preposterous fabrication."

"I said just now that some errors may have crept in here and there," assented Dame Niafer, composedly, "but the point is, that the thing really looks very well, and I do not suppose that even you deny that."

"No, I do not deny that this glowing mendacity adds to the hall's appearance."

"So now, you see for yourself!" said Niafer, triumphantly. And after that her new ancestry was never questioned.

And in the meanwhile Dom Manuel had sent messengers over land and sea to his half-sister Math at Rathgor, bidding her sell the mill for what it would fetch. She obeyed, and brought to Manuel's court her husband and their two boys, the younger of whom rose later to be Pope of Rome. Manuel gave the miller the vacant fief of Montors; and thereafter you could nowhere have found a statelier fine lady than the Countess Matthiette de Montors. She was still used to speak continually of what was becoming to people of our station in life, but it was with a large difference; and she got on with Niafer as well as could be expected, but no better.

And early in the summer of the first year of Manuel's reign (just after Dom Manuel fetched to Storisende the Sigel of Scoteia, as the spoils of his famous fight with Oriander the Swimmer), the stork brought to Niafer the first of the promised boys. For the looks of the thing, this child was named, not after the father whom Manuel had just killed, but after the Emmerick who was Manuel's nominal father: and it was this Emmerick that afterward reigned long and notably in Poictesme.

So matters went prosperously with Dom Manuel, and there was nothing to trouble his peace of mind, unless it were some feeling of responsibility for the cult of Sesphra, whose worship was now increasing everywhere among the nations. In Philistia, in particular, Sesphra was now worshipped openly in the legislative halls and churches, and all other religion, and all decency, was smothered under the rituals of Sesphra. Everywhere to the west and north his followers were delivering windy discourses and performing mad antics, and great hurt came of it all by and by. But if this secretly troubled Dom Manuel; the Count, here as elsewhere, exercised to good effect his invaluable gift for holding his tongue.

Nor did he ever speak of Freydis either, though it is recorded that when news came of the end which she had made in Teamhair under the oppression of the Druids and the satirists, Dom Manuel went silently into the Room of Ageus, and was not seen any more that day. That in such solitude he wept is improbable, for his hard vivid eyes had forgotten this way of exercise, but it is highly probable that he remembered many things, and found not all of them to his credit.

So matters went prosperously with gray Manuel; he had lofty palaces and fair woods and pastures and ease and content, and whensoever he went into battle attended by his nine lords of the Silver Stallion, his adversaries perished; he was esteemed everywhere the most lucky and the least scrupulous rogue alive: to crown all which the stork brought by and by to Storisende the second girl, whom they named Dorothy, for Manuel's mother. And about this time too, came a young poet from England (Ribaut they called him, and he met an evil end at Coventry not long thereafter), bringing to Dom Manuel, where the high Count sat at supper, a goose-feather.

The Count smiled, and he twirled the thing between his fingers, and he meditated. He shrugged, and said: "Needs must. But for her ready wit, my head would have been set to dry on a silver pike. I cannot well ignore that obligation, if she, as it now seems, does not intend to ignore it."

Then he told Niafer he must go into England.

Niafer looked up from the marmalade with which she was finishing off her supper, to ask placidly, "And what does that dear yellow-haired friend of yours want with you now?"

"My dear, if I knew the answer to that question it would not be necessary for me to travel oversea."

"It is easy enough to guess, though," Dame Niafer said darkly, although, in point of fact, she too was wondering why Alianora should have sent for Manuel; "and I can quite understand how in your sandals you prefer not to have people know about such doings, and laughing at you everywhere, again."

Dom Manuel did not reply; but he sighed.

"—And if any importance whatever were attached to my opinion in this house I might be saying a few things; but, as it is, it is much more agreeable, all around, to let you go your own hard-headed way and find out by experience that what I say is true. So now, Manuel, if you do not mind, I think we had better be talking about something else a little more pleasant."

Dom Manuel still did not say anything. The time, as has been noted, was just after supper, and as the high Count and his wife sat over the remnants of this meal, a minstrel was making music for them.

"You are not very cheerful company, I must say," Niafer observed, in a while, "although I do not for a moment doubt your yellow-haired friend will find you gay enough—"

"No, Niafer, I am not happy to-night."

"Yes, and whose fault is it? I told you not to take two helpings of that beef."

"No, no, dear snip, it is not indigestion, but rather it is that music, which is plaguing me."

"Now, Manuel, how can music bother anybody! I am sure the boy plays his violin very nicely indeed, especially when you consider his age."

Said Manuel:

"Yes, but the long low sobbing of the violin, troubling as the vague thoughts begotten by that season wherein summer is not yet perished from the earth, but lingers wanly in the tattered

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