The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay Part 17

'Madame, alas!' she said, with a hint of shrugging; '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 ladys.h.i.+p?'

'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.

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 G.o.d 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 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, G.o.d 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?'

'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 punishment 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. I 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. Circ.u.mstance was her friend in this pious robbery of herself: Richard, who stood so deep engaged in honour to G.o.d Almighty, could get no money.

Busy as he was with one s.h.i.+ft after another to redeem his credit, busy also pus.h.i.+ng on his coronation, he yet continued to see his mistress most days, either walking with her in the garden of the nuns' house where she lodged, or sitting by her within doors. At these s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 wors.h.i.+pped 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, 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 a.s.surance, 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 G.o.d-fraught! O saint in the battle! O dipped in the flame! Jehane, Jehane, Jehane! Quicken me!' So he cried in anguish of spirit.

'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 s.h.i.+rt, 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 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