Figures of Earth Part 12

"But why should you be wasting your small portion of breath and strength? To what permanent use could one put a human being even if the creature were virtuous and handsome to look at? Ah, Manuel, you have not seen them pa.s.s, as I have seen them pa.s.s in swarms, with their wars and their reforms and their great causes, and leaving nothing but their bones behind them."

"Yes, yes, to you, at your age, who were old when Nineveh was planned, it must seem strange; and I do not know why my mother desired that I should make myself a splendid and admirable young man. But the geas is upon me."

The Zhar-Pt.i.tza sighed. "Certainly these feminine whims are not easily explained. Yet your people have some way of making brand-new men and women of all kinds. I am sure of this, for otherwise the race would have been extinct a great while since at the rate they kill one another. And perhaps they do adhere to Jahveh's method, and make fresh human beings out of earth, for, now I think of it, I have seen the small, recently completed ones, who looked exactly like red clay."

"It is undeniable that babies do have something of that look," a.s.sented Manuel. "So then, at least, you think I may be working in the proper medium?"

"It seems plausible, because I am certain your people are not intelligent enough to lay eggs, nor could, of course, such an impatient race succeed in getting eggs hatched. At all events, they have undoubtedly contrived some method or other, and you might find out from the least foolish of them about that method."

"Who, then, is the least foolish of mankind?"

"Probably King Helmas of Albania, for it was prophesied by me a great while ago that he would become the wisest of men if ever he could come by one of my s.h.i.+ning white feathers, and I hear it reported he has done so."

"Sir," said Manuel, dubiously, "I must tell you in confidence that the feather King Helmas has is not yours, but was plucked from the wing of an ordinary goose."

"Does that matter?" asked the Zhar-Pt.i.tza. "I never prophesied, of course, that he actually would find one of my s.h.i.+ning white feathers, because all my feathers are red and gold and purple."

"But how can there be any magic in a goose-feather?"

"There is this magic, that, possessing it, King Helmas has faith in, and has stopped bothering about, himself."

"Is not to bother about yourself the highest wisdom?"

"Oh, no! Oh, dear me, no! I merely said it is the highest of which man is capable."

"But the sages and philosophers, sir, that had such fame in the old time, and made the maxims for you birds! Why, did King Solomon, for example, rise no higher than that?"

"Yes, yes, to be sure!" said the Zhar-Pt.i.tza, sighing again, "now that was a sad error. The poor fellow was endowed with, just as an experiment, considerable wisdom. And it caused him to perceive that a man attains to actual contentment only when he is drunk or when he is engaged in occupations not very decorously described. So Sulieman-ben-Daoud gave over all the rest of his time to riotous living and to co-educational enterprises. It was logic, but it led to a most expensive seraglio and to a very unbecoming appearance, and virtually wrecked the man's health. Yes, that was the upshot of one of you being endowed with actual wisdom, just as an experiment, to see what would come of it: so the experiment, of course, has never been repeated. But of living persons, I dare a.s.sert that you will find King Helmas appreciably freed from a thousand general delusions by his one delusion about himself."

"Very well, then," says Manuel. "I suspect a wilful paradox and a forced cynicism in much of what you have said, but I shall consult with King Helmas about human life and about the figure I have to make in the world."

So they bid each other farewell, and the Zhar-Pt.i.tza picked up his nest of ca.s.sia and sprigs of incense, and flew away with it: and as he rose in the air the Zhar-Pt.i.tza cried, "Fine feathers make fine birds."

"But that is not the true proverb, sir," Manuel called up toward the resplendent creature, "and such perversions too, they tell me, are a mark of would-be cleverness."

"So it may seem to you now, my lad, but time is a very transforming fairy. Therefore do you wait until you are older," the bird replied, from on high, "and then you will know better than to doubt my cry or to repeat it."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XII

Ice and Iron

Then came from oversea the Bishops of Ely and Lincoln, the prior of Hurle, and the Master of the Temple, asking that King Raymond send one of his daughters, with a suitable dowry, to be the King of England's wife. "Very willingly," says Raymond Berenger; and told them they could have his third daughter Sancha, with a thousand marks.

"But, Father," said Alianora, "Sancha is nothing but a child. A fine queen she would make!"

"Still, my dear," replied King Raymond, "you are already bespoke."

"I was not thinking about myself. I was thinking about Sancha's true welfare."

"Of course you were, my dear, and everybody knows the sisterly love you have for her."

"The pert little mess is spoilt enough as it is, Heaven knows. And if things came to the pa.s.s that I had to stand up whenever Sancha came into the room, and to sit on a footstool while she lolled back in a chair the way Meregrett does, it would be the child's ruin."

Raymond Berenger said: "Now certainly it will be hard on you to have two sisters that are queens, and with perhaps little Beatrice also marrying some king or another when her time comes, and you staying only a countess, who are the best-looking of the lot."

"My father, I see what you would be at!" cried Alianora, aghast. "You think it is my duty to overcome my private inclinations, and to marry the King of England for ruthless and urgent political reasons!"

"I only said, my darling--"

"--For you have seen at once that I owe this great sacrifice to the future welfare of our beloved Provence. You have noted, with that keenness which nothing escapes, that with the aid of your wisdom and advice I would know very well how to manage this high King that is the master of no pocket handkerchief place like Provence but of England and of Ireland too."

"Also, by rights, of Aquitaine and Anjou and Normandy, my precious.

Still, I merely observed--"

"Oh, but believe me, I am not arguing with you, my dear father, for I know that you are much wiser than I," says Alianora, bravely wiping away big tears from her lovely eyes.

"Have it your own way, then," replied Raymond Berenger, with outspread hands. "But what is to be done about you and Count Manuel here?"

The King looked toward the tapestry of Jephthah's sacrifice, beside which Manuel sat, just then re-altering the figure of the young man with the loving look of Alianora that Manuel had made because of the urgency of his geas, and could not seem to get exactly right.

"I am sure, Father, that Manuel also will be self-sacrificing and magnanimous and sensible about it."

"Ah, yes! but what is to happen afterward? For anyone can see that you and this squinting long-legged lad are fathoms deep in love with each other."

"I think that after I am married, Father, you or King Ferdinand or King Helmas can send Count Manuel into England on some emba.s.sy, and I am sure that he and I will always be true and dear friends without affording any handle to gossip."

"Oho!" King Raymond said, "I perceive your drift, and it is toward a harbor that is the King of England's affair, and not mine. My part is to go away now, so that you two may settle the details of that amba.s.sadors.h.i.+p in which Dom Manuel is to be the vicar of so many kings."

Raymond Berenger took up his sceptre and departed, and the Princess turned to where Manuel was pottering with the three images he had made in the likeness of Helmas and Ferdinand and Alianora. "You see, now, Manuel dearest, I am heart-broken, but for the realm's sake I must marry the King of England."

Manuel looked up from his work. "Yes, I heard. I am sorry, and I never understood politics, but I suppose it cannot be helped. So would you mind standing a little more to the left? You are in the light now, and that prevents my seeing clearly what I am doing here to this upper lip."

"And how can you be messing with that wet mud when my heart is breaking!"

"Because a geas is upon me to make these images. No, I am sure I do not know why my mother desired it. But everything which is fated must be endured, just as we must now endure the obligation that is upon you to marry the high King of England."

"My being married need not matter very much, after I am Queen, for people declare this King is a poor spindling creature, and, as I was saying, you can come presently into England."

Manuel looked at her for a moment or two. She colored. He, sitting at the feet of weeping Jephthah, smiled. "Well," said Manuel, "I will come into England when you send me a goose-feather. So the affair is arranged."

"Oh, you are all ice and iron!" she said, "and you care for nothing except your wet mud images, and I detest you!"