Domnei James Branch Cabell (books to read as a couple TXT) đ
- Author: James Branch Cabell
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Said Perion:
âWhen I first saw Dame Melicent the sea was languid, as if outworn by vain endeavours to rival the purple of her eyes. Seabirds were adrift in the air, very close to her and their movements were less graceful than hers. She was attired in a robe of white silk, and about her wrists were heavy bands of silver. A tiny wind played truant in order to caress her unplaited hair, because the wind was more hardy than I, and dared to love her. I did not think of love, I thought only of the noble deeds I might have done and had not done. I thought of my unworthiness, and it seemed to me that my soul writhed like an eel in sunlight, a naked, despicable thing, that was unworthy to render any love and service to Dame Melicent.â
Demetrios said:
âWhen I first saw the girl she knew herself entrapped, her body mine, her life dependent on my whim. She waved aside such petty inconveniences, bade them await an hour when she had leisure to consider them, because nothing else was of any importance so long as my porter went in chains. I was an obstacle to her plans and nothing more; a pebble in her shoe would have perturbed her about as much as I did. Here at last, I thought, is genuine commonsenseâ âa clearheaded decision as to your actual desire, apart from man-taught ethics, and fearless purchase of your desire at any cost. There is something not unakin to me, I reflected, in the girl who ventures to deal in this fashion with Demetrios.â
Said Perion:
âSince she permits me to serve her, I may not serve unworthily. Tomorrow I shall set new armies afield. Tomorrow it will delight me to see their tents rise in your meadows, Messire Demetrios, and to see our followers meet in clashing combat, by hundreds and thousands, so mightily that men will sing of it when we are gone. Tomorrow one of us must kill the other. Tonight we drink our wine in amity. I have not time to hate you, I have not time to like or dislike any living person, I must devote all faculties that heaven gave me to the love and service of Dame Melicent.â
Demetrios said:
âTonight we babble to the stars and dream vain dreams as other fools have done before us. Tomorrow restsâ âperhapsâ âwith heaven; but, depend upon it, Messire de la ForĂȘt, whatever we may do tomorrow will be foolishly performed, because we are both besotted by bright eyes and lips and hair. I trust to find our antics laughable. Yet there is that in me which is murderous when I reflect that you and she do not dislike me. It is the distasteful truth that neither of you considers me to be worth the trouble. I find such conduct irritating, because no other persons have ever ventured to deal in this fashion with Demetrios.â
âDemetrios, already your antics are laughable, for you pass blindly by the revelation of heavenâs splendour in heavenâs masterwork; you ignore the miracle; and so do you find only the stings of the flesh where I find joy in rendering love and service to Dame Melicent.â
âPerion, it is you that play the fool, in not recognising that heaven is inaccessible and doubtful. But clearer eyes perceive the not at all doubtful dullness of wit, and the gratifying accessibility of every woman when properly handledâ âyes, even of her who dares to deal in this fashion with Demetrios.â
Thus they would sit together, nightly, upon the prow of Perionâs ship and speak against each other in the manner of a Tenson, as these two rhapsodised of Melicent until the stars grew lustreless before the sun.
XIV How Perion Braved TheodoretThe city of Megaris (then Theodoretâs capital) was ablaze with bonfires on the night that the Comte de la ForĂȘt entered it at the head of his forces. Demetrios, meanly clothed, his hands tied behind him, trudged sullenly beside his conquerorâs horse. Yet of the two the gloomier face showed below the countâs coronet, for Perion did not relish the impendent interview with King Theodoret. They came thus amid much shouting to the HĂŽtel dâEbelin, their assigned quarters, and slept there.
Next morning, about the hour of prime, two men-at-arms accompanied a fettered Demetrios into the presence of King Theodoret. Perion of the Forest preceded them. He pardonably swaggered, in spite of his underlying uneasiness, for this last feat, as he could not ignore, was a performance which Christendom united to applaud.
They came thus into a spacious chamber, very inadequately lighted. The walls were unhewn stone. There was but one window, of uncoloured glass; and it was guarded by iron bars. The floor was bare of rushes. On one side was a bed with tattered hangings of green, which were adorned with rampant lions worked in silver thread much tarnished; to the right hand stood a prie-dieu. Between these isolated articles of furniture, and behind an unpainted table sat, in a high-backed chair, a wizen and shabbily-clad old man. This was Theodoret, most pious and penurious of monarchs. In attendance upon him were Fra Battista, prior of the Grey Monks, and Melicentâs near kinsman, once the Bishop, now the Cardinal, de Montors, who, as was widely known, was the actual monarch of this realm. The latter was smartly habited as a cavalier and
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