Figures of Earth Part 23

"And I suppose you think them handsome!"

"Yes, Niafer, I find them very beautiful. But after looking at them with aesthetic pleasure, my gaze returns adoringly to the face I have created as I willed, and to the quiet love of my youth, and I have no occasion to be thinking of queens and princesses. Instead, I give thanks in my heart that I am faring contentedly toward the nearest priest with the one woman in the world who to my finding is desirable and lovely."

"It is very sweet of you to say that, Manuel, and I am sure I hope you are telling the truth, but my faith would be greater if you had not rattled it off so glibly."

Then Alianora said: "Greetings, and for the while farewell, to you, Count Manuel! For all we ride to Quentavic, and thence I am pa.s.sing over into England to marry the King of that island."

"Now, but there is a lucky monarch for you!" says Manuel, politely. He looked at Freydis, who had put off immortality for his kisses, and whom he had deserted to follow after his own thinking: these re-encounters are always awkward, and Dom Manuel fidgeted a little. He asked her, "And do you also go into England?"

She told him very quietly, no, that she was only going to the coast, to consult with three or four of the water-demons about enchanting one of the Red Islands, and about making her home there. She had virtually decided, she told him, to put a spell upon Sargyll, as it seemed the most desirable of these islands from what she could hear, but she must first see the place. Queen Freydis looked at him with rather embarra.s.sing intentness all the while, but she spoke quite calmly.

"Yes, yes," Dom Manuel said, cordially, "I dare say you will be very comfortable there, and I am sure I hope so. But I did not know that you two ladies were acquainted."

"Indeed, our affairs are not your affairs," says Freydis, "any longer.

And what does it matter, on this November day which has a thin sunlight and no heat at all in it? No, that girl yonder has to-day. But Alianora and I had each her yesterday; and it may be the one or it may be the other of us three who will have to-morrow, and it may be also that the disposal of that to-morrow will be remarkable."

"Very certainly," declared Alianora, with that slow, lovely, tranquil smile of hers, "I shall have my portion of to-morrow. I would have made you a king, and by and by the most powerful of all kings, but you followed after your own thinking, and cared more for messing in wet mud than for a throne. Still, this nonsense of yours has converted you into a rather distinguished looking old gentleman, so when I need you I shall summon you, with the token that we know of, Dom Manuel, and then do you come post-haste!"

Freydis said: "I would have made you the greatest of image-makers; but you followed after your own thinking, and instead of creating new and G.o.d-like beings you preferred to resurrect a dead servant girl.

Nevertheless, do I bid you beware of the one living image you made, for it still lives and it alone you cannot ever shut out from your barred heart, Dom Manuel: and nevertheless, do I bid you come to me, Dom Manuel, when you need me."

Manuel replied, "I shall always obey both of you." Niafer throughout this while said nothing at all. But she had her private thoughts, to the effect that neither of these high-and-mighty trollops was in reality the person whom henceforward Dom Manuel was going to obey.

So the horns sounded. The gay cavalcade rode on, toward Quentavic. And as they went young Osmund Heleigh (Lord Brudenel's son) asked for the gallant King of Navarre, "But who, sire, was that time-battered gray vagabond, with the tarnished silver stallion upon his s.h.i.+eld and the mud-colored cripple at his side, that our Queens should be stopping for any conference with him?"

King Thibaut said it was the famous Dom Manuel of Poictesme, who had put away his youth for the sake of the girl that was with him.

"Then is the old man a fool on every count," declared Messire Heleigh, sighing, "for I have heard of his earlier antics in Provence, and no lovelier lady breathes than Dame Alianora."

"I consider Queen Freydis to be the handsomer of the two," replied Thibaut, "but certainly there is no comparing either of these inestimable ladies with Dom Manuel's swarthy drab."

"She is perhaps some witch whose magic is more terrible than their magic, and has besotted this ruined champion?"

"It is either enchantment or idiocy, unless indeed it be something far higher than either." King Thibaut looked grave, then shrugged. "Oy Dieus! even so, Queen Freydis is the more to my taste."

Thus speaking, the young King spurred his bay horse toward Queen Freydis (from whom he got his ruin a little later), and all Alianora's retinue went westward, very royally, while Manuel and Niafer trudged east. Much color and much laughter went one way, but the other way went contentment, for that while.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

PART FOUR

THE BOOK OF SURCHARGE

TO

HUGH WALPOLE

Soe _Manuel made all the G.o.ddes that we call_ mamettes _and_ ydolles, _that were sett ouer the Subiection of his lyfe tyme: and euery of the G.o.ddes that Manuel wolde carue toilesomelie hadde in hys Bodie a Blemmishe; and in the mydle of the G.o.des made he one G.o.d of the Philistines._

XXV

Affairs in Poictesme

They of Poictesme narrate how Manuel and Niafer traveled east a little way and then turned toward the warm South; and how they found a priest to marry them, and how Manuel confiscated two horses. They tell also how Manuel victoriously encountered a rather terrible dragon at La Fleche, and near Orthez had trouble with a Groach, whom he conquered and imprisoned in a leather bottle, but they say that otherwise the journey was uneventful.

"And now that every obligation is lifted, and we are reunited, my dear Niafer," says Manuel, as they sat resting after his fight with the dragon, "we will, I repeat, be traveling every whither, so that we may see the ends of this world and may judge them."

"Dearest," replied Niafer, "I have been thinking about that, and I am sure it would be delightful, if only people were not so perfectly horrid."

"What do you mean, dear snip?"

"You see, Manuel, now that you have fetched me back from paradise, people will be saying you ought to give me, in exchange for the abodes of bliss from which I have been summoned, at least a fairly comfortable and permanent terrestrial residence. Yes, dearest, you know what people are, and the evil-minded will be only too delighted to be saying everywhere that you are neglecting an obvious duty if you go wandering off to see and judge the ends of this world, with which, after all, you have really no especial concern."

"Oh, well, and if they do?" says Manuel, shrugging lordily. "There is no hurt in talking."

"Yes, Manuel, but such s.h.i.+ftless wandering, into uncomfortable places that n.o.body ever heard of, would have that appearance. Now there is nothing I would more thoroughly enjoy then to go traveling about at adventure with you, and to be a countess means nothing whatever to me. I am sure I do not in the least care to live in a palace of my own, and be bothered with fine clothes and the responsibility of looking after my rubies, and with servants and parties every day. But you see, darling, I simply could not bear to have people thinking ill of my dear husband, and so, rather than have that happen, I am willing to put up with these things."

"Oh, oh!" says Manuel, and he began pulling vexedly at his little gray beard, "and does one obligation beget another as fast as this! Now whatever would you have me do?"

"Obviously, you must get troops from King Ferdinand, and drive that awful Asmund out of Poictesme."

"Dear me!" says Manuel, "but what a simple matter you make of it! Shall I attend to it this afternoon?"

"Now, Manuel, you speak without thinking, for you could not possibly re-conquer all Poictesme this afternoon--."

"Oh!" says Manuel.

"No, not single-handed, my darling. You would first have to get troops to help you, both horse and foot."

"My dearest, I only meant--"

"--Even then, it will probably take quite a while to kill off all the Northmen."

"Niafer, will you let me explain--"