Chapter VI: Part 6

She extended her hand, which Argathona took and feigned to salute. Then, swiftly, the wood-nymph turned and passed from the silken tent into the meadow. As the dryad came into the liberal air she breathed a great breath. It seemed to the daughter of the forest as if she had escaped from some strange place where subtle poison guising like sweet odor saturated the atmosphere and murdered all wholesome thoughts. She stretched her arms joyously, as one released from cramping labor, and, smiling to think that so far the woodland guile had triumphed, she moved towards her own pavilion. Instantly she was aware that the field which she had expected to find deserted still presented a scene of animation. Duke Baldwin with a little cloud of knights and courtiers about him was slowly tramping towards his palace with an angry gloom upon his countenance, which was reflected in varying shades of obsequious sympathy upon the faces of those who followed him. A little removed from these a gigantic soldier moved slowly across the field, his vacant, honest face overcast with melancholy. Still farther off she could see Simon standing in front of her pavilion, carefully counting gold pieces from one hand into the other and whistling blithely to himself. By the time she had reached her squire Duke Baldwin and his courtiers had disappeared from the field, the gigantic soldier had vanished, and the lists were vacant save for herself and Simon.

XIX

SIMON THE STALWART

When Duke Baldwin, leaving the gallery in no good-humor with the world to ask after his vanquished son, entered the field, he found that his son had arisen and gone to his tent. Rainouart left with Count Ernault the assurance that he was unhurt, that he had been fairly overthrown by the best-planted blow he had ever received, and that his fall was due to no fatigue on his part, but solely to the greater skill of his antagonist. As Duke Baldwin listened frowningly to the phrases of the lord-marshal, he caught sight of a brawny fellow who was lounging in the lists at a little distance from the duke and the courtiers who accompanied him. This was Simon of Rouen, who, seeing that Argathona had been summoned to the pavilion of the Duchess of Thebes, thought he might as well while away the time by stretching his legs over the trampled turf. Even in a bad temper Duke Baldwin had an appreciation of a fine figure in a man, and the sight of Simon's proportions brought a sudden gleam of interest into his angry eyes. He cherished a taste for collecting giants, and he surveyed Simon with the eager appreciation of a possible purchaser. It never occurred to Duke Baldwin to doubt that any man-at-arms could be other than rejoiced to enter his service, just as it never occurred to him to doubt that any lady would be other than pleased to accept his homage.

"Yonder stands a tall fellow," the duke grunted into Count Ernault's ear; "stands he taller and broader than the pick of my body-guard?"

Count Ernault was not enjoying himself. The duke was in a beastly mood and hard to manage, and Count Ernault's elastic urbanity was strained to extreme tension. Desirous to gratify his master, he answered suavely that the fellow bulked big enough, but that he doubted if he surpassed, from toe to top, or from shoulder to shoulder, the mightiest of Duke Baldwin's giants. Duke Baldwin growled uncourteous disbelief in Count Ernault's skill in gauging height and width, not because he really disagreed with him, but because he was in the mood to contradict anything said by anybody, even a compliment to himself. He made his way to Simon and stared critically at him, and Simon supported his gaze composedly, looking into the duke's fierce eyes and longing to try a fall with him, for the duke was a mighty fellow.

"How tall are you, man?" the duke asked, and Simon answered:

"Six feet four, your grace."

"Are you as strong as you look?" was the duke's next question, and Simon smiled as he answered, somewhat ambiguously:

"I don't know how strong I look in your eyes, but whenever I look in a mirror I never take the plain face I see there for the face of a weakling."

Duke Baldwin was hugely strong, and he would have liked nothing better than to make a personal trial of Simon's vigor, if Simon had only been of gentle birth, or if, indeed, the two had been alone. It would not do, however, for Duke Baldwin to indulge in physical competition with a mere man-at-arms in the presence of the nobles, his courtiers, and guests. For an instant the idea came into Baldwin's mind to confer knighthood and title upon the unknown soldier for the sake of indulging his whim, but a moment's reflection warned him, unwilling, that this course would probably be found too eccentric in the eyes of his illustrious companions.

"Bid them send for Harald Haraldson," he said to Count Ernault, and while Count Ernault gave the order to a page, who sped like a greyhound to execute it, Duke Baldwin went on questioning Simon.

"Tell me, friend," he said, "have you seen the pygmies who serve in my body-guard?" Simon grinned.

"I have seen some of the laddies," he answered; "they may grow tall if they live long enough."

"There be some there that are taller than you," the duke answered; "do you think you are strong enough to overcome the smallest and the slightest of them?" Simon shrugged his shoulders.

"I should not like to hurt your gracious play-things," he answered, amiably, "but if you have, as you say, one among them that is taller than I, and broader of breadth, I will be heartily pleased to try a fall with him for the honor of Rouen."

"You have a good conceit of yourself," said the duke, grimly. "My giants are the pick of Europe, but if you will stand by your vaunt, here is your chance," and he pointed to where the little page came skipping back, followed slowly by a man who seemed, indeed, a monster in size and strength. The new-comer, with the fair hair and blue eyes of a Norseman, was, indeed, some four inches taller than Simon, and seemed broader across the shoulders. Simon eyed him approvingly as he came slowly to where the duke stood. The duke spoke with the Norseman.

"Harald Haraldson," he said, "here is a strange soldier who thinks he may prove as strong as you."

A suggestion of a smile for a moment disturbed the bland calm of the northern giant's face, as he answered in execrable French to the effect that the stranger must be a madman. Simon said nothing, and the duke, looking at the pair, felt his confidence in his own soldier swell within him and trumpet triumph.

"Will you try a fall with my partisan?" Duke Baldwin asked, clapping the northern giant confidentially on the shoulder and eying Simon sardonically.

"With all the pleasure in life," Simon answered, briskly.

"I take you at your word," said Duke Baldwin--"at this place, on this instant."

The lists were almost empty, the crowd outside had for the most part dispersed. Captain Fox and Captain Gander, Captain Bat and Captain Chanticleer, Captain Rat and Captain Badger, prowling at the heels of the departing multitude to pick up any little trifles that negligence might let fall, were among the few who noted signs of renewed animation in the enclosed space, and, noting, came again to the barriers and leaned upon them to see what might be towards. Their curiosity found its reward. Duke Baldwin had explained to Harald Haraldson that the French adventurer was willing to try a fall with him, and the Norse giant had looked pityingly upon the French adventurer, who, for his part, was brisk in getting him ready for the coming scuffle.

On the spot the Norseman stripped off his body armor, and in a few seconds the two men stood in their jerkins opposite to each other, while Duke Baldwin and the nobles with him watched hard by in a little group that gradually swelled its numbers as knight after knight emerged unarmored from his tent and joined it. All who were with Duke Baldwin were trained students of men, and to all it appeared patent that the French adventurer was over-matched, not merely in patent height but in no less patent breadth. Duke Baldwin, seeing the two men quiet and silent, waiting to begin, felt some uneasiness of mind. He knew, of course, that his man must win, and he would not have had it otherwise for much, and yet he was sorry to think that a countryman should be bested by the northerner. He again asked Simon if he persisted in his wild challenge, and, on Simon reiterating that he did, the duke, with a scowl of pity for his foolhardiness, gave the signal and the struggle began.

The two men linked their arms each round the other's body, and stood so for some seconds motionless, wedded pillars of mighty flesh. As they waited thus there came into Simon's mind the thought of the last time he had so clasped an adversary, and of his brief contact with the soft flesh of the wood-maiden, and of his unparalleled overthrow. Then the Norseman, obviously surprised by the strength of Simon's clasp, made a strenuous effort to lift Simon from his feet, and found that he might as well have attempted to lift a pillar of the Parthenon. Frank astonishment reigned in the faces of all the spectators, who had been confident that, though the Frenchman showed a sturdy fellow enough, he would be little less than a plaything in the hands of the northern Goliath. But their astonishment deepened into marvel when Simon, striving in turn with no palpable exertion of force, plucked his gigantic adversary from the ground, and, wrenching himself free from his clasp, flung Harald Haraldson heavily to the earth. The Norseman was up in an instant and ready to renew the tussle, but the duke, in a very ill humor, forbade it. This was his second discomfiture that day, and he chafed at it.

"No more," he said; "go your ways, Harald," and as the defeated northerner withdrew, the duke turned again to Simon and offered to take him into his service. Simon shook his head.

"I cannot serve two masters," he said, "and I will not leave the master I serve now."

"Whom do you serve?" the duke asked, and Simon answered:

"I serve the Prince of Eleusis."

For the second time that day the name of the Prince of Eleusis had been associated with the defeat of Duke Baldwin's wish, and it was very plain that his rage longed to interpret itself in furious speech. But the Prince of Eleusis was the conqueror of Rainouart, and under the conditions not to be spoken ill of by Rainouart's father, so swallowing his rage as well as he was able, Duke Baldwin thrust a number of gold pieces into Simon's ready fingers and stamped sulkily away in the direction of his palace, followed in discreet silence by his courtiers and his knights.

XX

THE PROMISE OF RAINOUART

When Simon of Rouen saw Argathona speeding towards him across the meadow, he stopped counting his gold pieces and turned to counting his heart-beats. With every new occasion now of seeing the girl, were it but a few minutes since a parting, his heart must needs drum the same foolish music, to his vexation, yet to his greater vexation he knew that he would not have it otherwise. He had forgotten her mad fancy of immortality; he could never forget her glorious beauty and her glorious strength, and at times the slow thought was forged in the patient stithy of his wits that if in his youth he had met such a mate, Simon of Rouen might now have shown another man than Simon the soldier of fortune with his body soiled with the world's mire and his lips stained with the world's wine. But he kept such thoughts to himself, partly because he would have found it hard to throw them into words, but chiefly because he dreaded that they might peril a friendship which he cherished as his breath. Now as the girl neared him he rose to greet her in a rapture, shovelling Duke Baldwin's gold pieces into his pouch that he might have both hands free to applaud her.

"You have done well, lad," he cried, as she came a-nigh, then hurriedly would have mended the matter, adding, "I should say, you have done well, lass."

Argathona set a finger to her lips and smiled protest.

"You must think of me as a boy, friend," she entreated; "the girl of the greenwood has forgotten her girlhood while she wears this golden gear."

Simon looked contrition for his slip.

"How in Heaven's name did you do it?" he questioned. "You are amazing strong for so slim a strip, but it takes more skill than strength to over-tumble a practised cavalier that had just upset no fewer than seven gallant gentlemen."

"I have little joy in my victory," Argathona answered, sadly, "but the thing had to be, for my lover is bewitched, and it will be hard to win him to his wits again, for as I think none can unspell him save she that has cast the spell."

"That seems a grim task," said Simon, "but in the mean time you have won his horse and armor."

"I build some hopes on that," the girl answered; "help me to disarm," and she passed into the tent, followed by Simon. Scarcely had she begun, however, to peel off her steel when a voice was heard without calling for the Prince of Eleusis. Straightway Simon went into the open, where he found the page of Rainouart at the tent's door, and the heir of Athens standing a little way apart in the meadow. The page bade Simon tell his master that Sir Rainouart, Prince of Athens, was without and desired speech with him. Simon returned to the tent and delivered Rainouart's message, whereupon Argathona bade admit him, and Simon brought Rainouart to her and left her with the young man. Rainouart's eyes were downcast, and it was plain that, strive as he might, he was dejected at his most strange, most unexpected defeat. He broached his business immediately.

"Knight of Eleusis," he began, "you have won the toss, and by the rules of the tourney you have the conqueror's right to my horse and armor. As for the armor it shall be carried to your tent, but for the steed, it was a gift to me from one whose gifts are dear to me"--he sighed a little as he spoke, and Argathona was angry with him and pitied him. "If you will let me ransom it at your hands, I think there is nothing you can ask that the treasury of the Duke of Athens cannot amply answer."

The little red flame of rage that threatened for a moment to sear the heart of Argathona was instantly drowned in a great wave of sorrow for the gallant lad so tragically beguiled. All her womanhood longed to clasp him in her arms and kiss him tenderly, and tell him the truth and her name and renew their loves. But she knew that she would speak in vain. Her clear spirit saw that his eyes were purblind, that his soul was swaddled with sorceries, and that only she who had set the spell upon him could unspell his senses. Sad and frank she addressed him:

"Fair lord, I do not think I could ever have overthrown you if you carried a true heart in your body. Somewhere, I think, some maiden calls you false."

Rainouart's brows clouded.

"It is enough to have overthrown me without finding such shameful reason for my fate. You are my conqueror, with whom it were dishonor to quarrel while my defeat is unredeemed. But when I am quit with you and a new sun reigns in heaven, I shall be very glad to give you the lie. So if you will take ransom for my charger, I pray you to name your price, and I will pay it were it all my estate and all my credit."

Argathona answered the loyal disloyal with an anguish in her voice which he did not understand, being too busy with his own humiliation.

"Prince of Athens, will you promise me by your knightly chivalry to grant me, in lieu of golden ransom for this horse you cherish so dearly, whatever favor I may pray of you?"

Rainouart stared at his antagonist with a surprise that was almost a suspicion, yet even his thickened vision could see nothing but candor in the brave face opposed to him.

"I will grant you whatever favor you may pray of me," he promised, "that is consistent with the laws of honor and the conduct of a chivalrous knight."

"Is there any one in the world," Argathona asked, "so bold as to entreat Rainouart of Athens to infringe in the least the laws of honor, or to smirch with the slightest stain the conduct of a chivalrous knight? Have I your promise?"

"I give you my promise," Rainouart declared, holding out his right hand, that Argathona clasped in hers; "it is ask and have."

"It is a little thing," said Argathona, slowly, still holding the hand of the prince, "yet it may come to carry a great meaning. All I demand of you is that when you are alone to-night with your bride, if she offer you a draught of wine to drink you do not drink it, but feign to do so, and feign to fall asleep."

The young prince looked angrily into the frank eyes that made him think, he knew not why, of forest fountains, and marvel why the thought made him sad. Suddenly a ray of light shone on his darkness, for his old memories of Esclaramonde, and of all that men and women once said of her, rekindled in the gray ashes of his enchantment, and his spirit was vexed with bewildering suspicions.

"That is a strange request," he said, "for it meddles with my lady, who has nothing to do with our parley."

"It is a request that you are bound to answer," Argathona insisted, "for, by my faith, it offends not against your chivalry. If the Lady Esclaramonde offers you to drink to-night you will not drink. She may not do so; then you are absolved. But if she do you will not drink, but you will feign to drink and you will feign to fall asleep."

"And what then, if I do this?" Rainouart asked. He felt that he must obey, he felt that Esclaramonde had someway ensnared him. He felt all this dimly, incoherently, but there was a kind of hope in his heart.

"If within a little piece of time you are not glad of your feigning," Argathona answered, "why, you may put it by and all is well, and your black horse neighs in your stable. Have I your promise?"

Her eyes were fixed intently upon his. She felt that she was struggling with the spell that numbed his real self. Her spirit commanded him to obey. He yielded to the strong influence. Bitter distrust of Esclaramonde struggled against her sorceries and justified him in entertaining the test.

"I have given you my promise," he said, gravely, "and will not gainsay it."

Argathona repeated her demand: "If the duchess offers you to drink to-night you will not drink, but will feign to do so and will feign to fall asleep."

Rainouart saluted her and passed out of the tent, and she listened to his footsteps dying away over the grass. Then she called to Simon, and told him she was full of cheer, and bade him see that the prince's horse was surrendered to his page. When Simon was gone on this errand, Argathona fell on her knees in a corner and began to cry, just for all the world as if she were human.

XXI

THE WINE OF ESCLARAMONDE

Duke Baldwin had devoted the fairest rooms in his palace to the Duchess Esclaramonde of Thebes before her arrival, when he thought of her only as a visitor whom he might--and the rumors of her encouraged the thought--persuade with no great pains to an intimacy of friendship. The best part of the left wing of the palace was consecrated to her use, and its spacious rooms that looked upon the plain of Athens were furnished and adorned in the most noble manner that the age could compass. Duke Baldwin loved to be prodigal of pleasures to others when the prodigality enforced an almost aching sense of gratitude, and probably any woman in the world, with the exception of the Lady Esclaramonde, would have felt at least a little grateful to Duke Baldwin. All that gold and silver and bronze and ivory and ebony and silks and furs and jewels could lend to make her rooms a little paradise of luxury had been done under the duke's orders by those who knew better than the burly duke how to grace the haven of a fair dame. Money that would have paid twice over the outstanding demands of the Catalan Grand Company had been squandered with a free hand to make a fitting background for the imperious beauty of the lady of Thebes. In fulsome compliment that might have been flagrant irony, the mosaic walls were hung with exquisite arras, upon which the cunning hands of many craftsmen had woven amorous images from every passionate tale of love.

All this the bluff duke had done, and done cheerfully, when his only thoughts concerning his comely visitor were of a personal nature. But when the duchess rode to his gates on that May evening, bearing his son's inanimate body with her, and, while that body still lay inanimate, told the lord of Athens that her troth was plighted to his son, Duke Baldwin's cheerfulness dwindled no whit. His palace hummed with ebullient compliance; he would have no lack of consolation, while his foolish son had done a wise thing unawares. So Duke Baldwin resigned without a sigh all thoughts of his fair Theban neighbor, save as a daughter-in-law, and chuckled inwardly at the little less than prophetic instinct which had led him to prepare so fair a nest for her homing. As for Esclaramonde, who had started upon her journey in a spirit of perfect willingness to entertain with complaisance any homage that the Duke of Athens might lay at her feet, she now readily dressed her temper to accept his paternal caresses, while she smiled significant appreciation of the duke's ostentatious care for her comfort.

On the evening of the day when the great tournament had been fought and won and lost, four of the duchess's favorite women, delicate dissolute minions, waited for their lady's coming in her dimly lit dwelling room. Amicia and Hildeletha, Yelette and Aveline, were huddled together in the alcove of the window, looking out upon the moonlit plain and listening to the sounds of revelry in the rooms below. They had left those rooms, they had left that revelry a little while agone, daintily flushed with wine, daintily prodigal of love-promises, that they might be sure that all was ready for their mistress when she rose from the royal feast. Now they were busy disentangling the imbroglio of their assignations, pitting lover against lover, and trying to remember times and places of meeting, lightly agreed to, and no less lightly forgotten or confused with other trysts.

It had been a wonderful day for the merry girls. There was the tournament in the morning with its unexpected end. Then there was the solemn ceremonial of marriage in the afternoon, when the Archbishop of Athens pronounced his benediction on the heir to the dukedom of Athens and the wondrous widow of Thebes. Then came the splendid banquet stretching through the hours. Now in a little while the bridal pair would be conducted in triumph to the duchess's apartments, and speedily thereafter Amicia and Hildeletha, Yelette and Aveline, would be free to pick their paths in pursuit of love. Meanwhile they babbled with bated breath of the duchess, and her old lord, and her many lovers, and of her fire-new groom who seemed to dwell in a dream even while he knelt at the altar. But they marvelled most over the stranger knight, the Prince of Eleusis, the victor of the lists, who came to the banquet habited in white and gold and sat between two of the fairest ladies of Duke Baldwin's court, and while he himself spoke little, listened to their chatter with a bright, indefinable smile. All the women, it seemed, thought him handsome as the day, and the men swore that he was a comely youth, and those that were nigh enough to see noted that he ate no food but fruit and drank no drink but water, and wondered how such meat could feed such vigor. Each of the gossip girls would have been glad to see the conqueror at still closer quarters, for their places at table were far from where he sat. They were experts in the points of men, and would fain have compared him with their immediate lovers. But they watched him closely, and thought that he seemed both merry and sad at the prattle of his companions, and they agreed that if Sir Rainouart kept his eyes ever upon the face of his bride, their Lady Esclaramonde shot many a glance of an admiration they knew well how to interpret at the grave face of the stranger. And therewith the talk swayed lightly back to their lady, the duchess, and the fair heads pressed together and the sweet voices chuckled over the echoes of many scandals.

Suddenly the sounds of revelry beneath them dwindled, and the minxes heard the swell of joyous music and the tread of marching feet. They sprang to their feet in haste, ready for obeisance, ready for service. The mirthful music and the marching feet came nearer and yet nearer, filling all the stairways and corridors with joyous noise. Then the great entrance door swung open, and a little cluster of golden pages entered bearing scented torches that flooded the room with yellow light. These in turn were followed by a train of fair maidens in white robes, who scattered white roses on the floor and sang to the music of a band of lutanists, the epithalamium which Sir Guy of Hainault had composed in honor of the bride and bridegroom. And this was the song they sang:

"Lo, the lovely pair are wed,
Making one
Gallantry and goodlihead,
Moon and Sun:
Now we bring the bride to bed,
Wedding done;
Flesh to flesh divinely led,
Bone to bone.
From the pillows where her head
Lay alone
Weary solitude has fled,
Wisely flown.
She must share her wine and bread,
Share her throne,
With the lover, dear and dread,
All her own,
Till the one for other dead
Maketh moan.
All is sung and all is said:
Loose her zone!"

As the last words of the song, the last notes of the music, sobbed away into silence, the singing maidens made a lane from the door like two lines of tall white lilies, and through the doorway adown the lane came Duke Baldwin in his bravery holding the Duchess Esclaramonde by the hand, while beneath the heavy tramp of the knight and the light tread of the lady the crushed white petals of the scattered roses suspired a haunting perfume sickly sweet. Even to the familiar cynical eyes of her women, Esclaramonde at that moment showed radiantly fair. Flattery had fanned her cheeks to their loveliest color; triumph had lighted her eyes with their brightest fire; passion mantled her body with its atmosphere of flame.

In an instant Rainouart followed, escorted by Count Ernault, and it seemed to the keen eyes of the dainty waiting-women that his bearing showed less mazed than of late, and that his look was keener than it had seemed since his misadventure in the wood. "Marriage will make a new man of our moon-calf," Yelette whispered into the ears of Aveline, with a sauciness that was partly resentful, for she remembered with a sting how, in spite of her allegiance to her mistress, she had wasted her witcheries on his indifference on the morrow of their arrival at his father's court. "We may have our turn yet," Aveline answered, mockingly, for she, too, was one of the tempters who had failed to tempt, in which particular the two girls from Thebes wore the same kind of shoes that were worn by every delectable dame of Duke Baldwin's court. Then "Hush," cried Hildeletha, as through the doorway thronged those who interested the damsels more than their predecessors.

These were the knights of the court and the knightly visitors--Sir Guy of Hainault, Sir Jaufre de Brabant, Sir Raymond of Provence, Sir Ambrose of Blois, and the rest of Duke Baldwin's chivalry; Andronicus Palæologus, Prince Demetrius of Epirus, and the other noble visitors, squiring and gallanting smiling women. After these came the leaders of the Catalan Grand Company, with Fernand Ximenes at their head, gravely insolent to the ladies they attended, watching the vivid scene with impassive faces, indifferent to the merrymaking of the man who owed them their pay, but not indifferent, with the keen eye of your practised bandit, to the delightful possibilities from the bandit's point of view, if only Athens were to sack. And so the great room filled with light and color and laughter, and through all and over all, immeshing all in slender threads of melody, ran the tender wailing of the lutes.

Duke Baldwin bowed the Duchess of Thebes to the high seat on the dais, and paid her some compliments at once florid and full blooded, which must have embarrassed a maiden, and at which the duchess, with no little difficulty recalling far earlier memories, affected embarrassment. Then the lord of Athens, suggesting that the young couple had liefer be left alone, reminded the assembly of brilliant men and beautiful women that supper was still towards, and so with many smiles and salutations and good wishes the bright company faded in music from the room. A glance and a gesture from Esclaramonde sent Amicia and Hildeletha, Yelette and Aveline, tripping at their heels, and so the bride and groom were left alone together, face to face in the place that swooned with the scent of trampled roses.

The man and woman stood opposite to each other for a while in silence, Esclaramonde thinking inscrutable thoughts, Rainouart gazing at her like a man who wakes from sleep-walking and wonders why he has come to such a spot and how. Esclaramonde was habited in a robe of many reds, subtly blended, for she wished through the richness of these shifting tints to recall some royal rose imperial in its wealth of crimson petals, yet still a tender pink at the core. Indeed, Rainouart thought of a rose as he looked at her: his thoughts had been all of roses since he saw her so clad at the ducal banquet, and because of the rose his heart was full of care and travail. While his senses spurred him to woo such voluptuous beauty, enigmatical memories cried out to him strange forest cries; it was as if soft voices were calling at his ears, asking, "Is this the rose of the guarded garden, is this the noble rose of the world?" But her witchery was potent over his wits; his spirit seemed tugged this way and that inexplicably; he was bewildered; he would and he would not. At last he found voice under the spell of those lamping eyes that lured his pulses, and he stretched out his hands to the wonderful woman.

"To my arms, fair wife!" he cried, and though his voice sounded unreal in his ears, as if it were an echo of speech whispered to him by other lips, it rang real enough in the ears of Esclaramonde, and almost she regretted for the space of half a second that she could not answer promptly to the call. But swiftly she thought of the golden apple, swiftly she remembered that her lord would be no less loving when the night was a little older, and his senses had rekindled from unremembered sleep. She lifted her hand for a moment as if to stay his vehement advance; then she moved to the table, where a golden beaker stood circled with golden goblets, and she saw that the beaker was brimmed with wine. Dexterously and unseen of Rainouart she drew from her girdle a tiny golden phial, jerked the contents into one of the goblets and slipped the phial out of sight. Then she poured two full cups of wine, and held out the treasonable cup in her white hand to her lover.

"Pledge our health and happiness," she said, and her voice and eyes commanded, though voice and eyes seemed only to entreat.

As a shaft of sunlight suddenly pierces a mist, so suddenly did Rainouart's promise to the Prince of Eleusis drive its dart through the dark web of desire that enveloped his mind. Through all the wedding ceremony, through all the later festival, overcrowed by the magic of Esclaramonde, he had forgotten that pledge to the knight who had conquered him. Now it lived again with the duchess's proffer and beat furiously at his heart. He took the cup from his bride's hands and looked eagerly into her eyes, luminous and cryptic as the eyes of a sphinx.

"To your health, Fidelity," he murmured, half in idolatry, half in irony, as he lifted the cup to his lips.

The words "feign to drink" now buzzed in his ears imperative, and he seemed to see that in the glance of Esclaramonde which accentuated their meaning. He carried the cup to the open window and looked out over the wide plain of Attica. He was conscious that the duchess was watching him curiously, and the words of the stranger knight seemed to scourge his numbed intelligence into vitality. Looking steadily at Esclaramonde, he tilted the cup, but no drop of the red wine rippled over his lips. Then he set down the cup on the window-ledge and moved towards his consort. "Feign to sleep" hummed in his ears, and he moved sluggishly, obedient to a will that proved stronger than the will of Thebes.

"Is not the night warm and heavy?" he asked, and his lips and his lids seemed drawn with desire of sleep. Turning towards the casement he pointed at the Athenian sky blazing with its myriad eyes. "The stars swoon and fall from heaven!" he cried. He moved towards her with a reeling gait. "Shall I catch you a handful," he gasped, and so, struggling towards her with out-stretched palms, he stumbled to the table and fell across it with his face between his arms, a seeming heap of sleeping flesh.

The duchess, who had sipped prettily at her cup while she watched him, now set the vessel down upon the table, and bending softly over Rainouart, touched him on the shoulder, and whispered his name to him, wooing. But Rainouart of Athens lay inanimate, making no sign, and the lady of Thebes smiled malignly.

"Sleep sound, my prince," she muttered, "and dream content, and wake fresh and credulous. My boy-lover is fairer than you, and he woos with a golden apple."

She turned away from her motionless lord, and took up a little golden lamp that stood burning on the table hard by the beaker of wine. Going to the open window, she leaned out into the blueness of the night, and held the lamp high above her head, and its tiny flame burned steadily in the still air. The enchanting beauty of the Athenian plain, steeped in moonlight and starlight, haunted by a million divine memories, said nothing to Esclaramonde. She was thinking only of a golden toy which she desired to own, and of a youth with golden hair whom she desired to kiss. After a little while she came back to the room and set down the lamp, and walked about slowly hither and thither as a cat walks, crooning to herself the burden of an ancient song:

"Dwelt a queen in Nineveh
(_Take my heart, Semiramis_),
Fairer than the dawn of day
In the strength of summer is;
Falser than the Moon of May
Mirrored in the black abyss
Of the stream by Nineveh,
Where the bodies drift and sway
Of the lords who loved amiss,
Of the drowned who died for this--
Once to hold a queen at play,
Once her crimson mouth to kiss;
Tigris bears them to the bay,
Far away from Nineveh
(_Take my heart, Semiramis_)."

XXII

REMEMBER THE GREENWOOD

She had scarcely finished the verse when the arras at the side of the window was drawn back, the little door of the turret-stair closed, and Argathona came into the room. She was habited in white, with a silken tunic girdled with a golden belt, and she looked like a noble youth. She entered so quietly that Esclaramonde did not know of her coming till she turned in her pacing of the floor and saw the slender, beautiful figure facing her.

Esclaramonde moved eagerly to the new-comer, with out-stretched hands and eyes bright with cupidity.

"You are welcome," she said, quickly, and indeed she was pleased to greet the radiant youth, but her hottest thought was for the promised toy, and she added, "Give me my gift."

Argathona came a little way down the room, looking steadfastly at the man who lay across the table with his head between his extended arms.

"Is your lord asleep?" she asked, and the duchess made a grimace as she answered:

"He is never my lord, though I be ever his lady. Where is your toy of the gods?"

Argathona was still looking at the recumbent figure, and she questioned again:

"You are sure he is asleep?"

Esclaramonde clasped and unclasped her fine fingers impatiently.

"You tease like a peevish child," she protested. "I blended his drink with such syrups that the trump of Jove would not wake him for an hour to come. Quick, my gift."

Argathona slipped her hand into the pouch that hung from her girdle, and let her fingers rest on the golden apple that lay there. She felt that she trembled as she touched it, and that her heart was beating to a most unfamiliar time. For now she was face to face with her enemy, now or never she must prevail upon her enemy to unspell the spell that had been cast upon her lover. She spoke again, while she still kept the apple hidden.

"You remember the terms of our bargain? If I give you the golden apple you give me your love."

"Yes," Esclaramonde cried, angrily, "yes, fretful. Why do you waste time thus?"

Now Argathona drew out the golden apple from her pouch and showed it in the hollow of her hand. That golden apple was a wonderful toy, for while it had all the shape and semblance of the living fruit, it glowed on the white palm of the dryad as if its precious metal had been steeped in the essential sunlight, in the essential starlight, and forever gave off something of the glory of the sun and stars. The duchess glowed a lively red as she saw the splendid idol, and instinctively, for an instant, shielded with her fingers her eyes against its brightness, while she gave a little animal cry of admiration. But she swiftly lowered her fingers from her face and made a clutch at the marvellous image, but Argathona avoided her, and Argathona's hand shut over the apple.

"What will you tell your lord when he wakes?" she asked, still gazing at young Athens where he lay.

The duchess banged her hands together, and her eyes blazed with frustrated covetousness.

"If you call him my lord again," she cried, "I shall hate you. He is my servant, my slave, my puppet; he shall believe what I please when he wakes. Why, he will not know that he has slept at all, and as for this trinket, how can he know what riches I hold in my treasury at Thebes? Give me my gift, sweet minion."

Argathona looked straight into the face of Esclaramonde, and her eyes were bright and stern.

"Do you love this man?" she asked, and she pointed with the hand that held the desirable apple to where Rainouart lay huddled on the table. Esclaramonde made a face of disdain.

"Love is a word of many meanings. He is a prince and he is rich; he is young and he is comely. He is different from the others I have loved, and for the time he pleases me."

Argathona's face was set and her voice was cold as she spoke again, asking the fateful question,

"How did you come to care for this man?"

The duchess gave a little laugh that brimmed with malicious memories.

"I knew him first a while ago in France, when he was counted a cold monster, and indeed I failed to melt his ice, though I tried my liveliest. Then fate flung him at my feet the other day in the haunted wood."

"And he loved you at once," Argathona asked, "loved you with all his heart and soul?"

Esclaramonde flung back her crowned head and laughed mockingly at her questioner.

"Am I not comely enough to be so loved?" she retorted, and Argathona, seizing sudden chance, bent her head in acquiescence.

"If he love you so well," she sighed, "were it not shame for us to do him wrong? Let us part now in honor, and when he wakes you will rejoice to be worthy of his loyal love."

And Argathona made as if she would go from the room, but she was cunning, and the golden apple gleamed through the net of her fingers. Rage flamed hotly in the eyes and cheeks of Esclaramonde.

"You question like a cold priest," she complained, "when you should clasp like a warm lover. But you can go if you please when you give me the trinket."

And she held out her hand imperiously, but Argathona still kept the apple. Now Esclaramonde was very loath to lose her lover though she professed indifference, and she was firmly determined to gain the apple.

"Nay," said Argathona, craftily, "I am a Greek and give nothing for nothing. But I would your lord were not so single-hearted a lover, for my vows deny me to wrong him."

Esclaramonde clinched her hands so tightly that the nails of her fingers hurt her palms.

"You are a precise fool," she raged; "but you can send your fastidious conscience to sleep. For though my husband loves me now and thinks he never loved other woman, he gave his great heart like a baby to some country girl in the woods."

Argathona held out the globe of gold alluringly, just out of reach of the duchess, while she asked, "Are you sure of this?" and Esclaramonde, her hungry eyes fixed on the apple and her hungry senses fixed upon the youth, answered vehemently:

"Most sure, for in truth it was not I who saved him from the robbers. When I came he was senseless on the grass, and a tall fellow that stood by told me a tale of some forest girl who scared away the thieves, and to whom my love-calf promptly gave his heart. Indeed, when he came to his senses I had much ado to persuade him that this girl was the trick of a fevered dream, and that I was his rescuer, I his promised wife."

The dryad watched her with firm, unchanging eyes. So, long ago, her mother in the woodland might have watched unfearing the dangerous presence of a snake.

"Why did you do this?" Argathona asked. "Did you love him so very dearly?"

The duchess laughed impatiently, for the apple proved harder to win than she had deemed, and the telling of the tale vexed her a little.

"I love very dearly the gift that he can give. Though I be a great lady he makes me a greater. It is much to be Duchess of Thebes to-day; it is more to be Duchess of Athens to-morrow."

There was a little pause, and Argathona's eyes travelled from the duchess to the man at the table and back again.

"Come," cried Esclaramonde, "are you content? Think nothing of him. I will wear him as the rich cloak of my loves."

The duchess was looking eagerly at Argathona, and Argathona, glancing aside, saw that the man at the table stirred and seemed about to move, and she saw that the prince's fingers were gripping the hilt of his dagger.

"I am content," Argathona answered, and tossed the golden apple to Esclaramonde, who caught it in the cup of her joined hands joyously. "Yet I think there were a better gift for you."

"What is that?" Esclaramonde questioned, greedily, and as she spoke the young Prince of Athens sprang to his feet, and came towards her with his drawn dagger in his hand.

"A true blade in your false heart," Rainouart said, and raised his weapon on high.

Esclaramonde fell at his feet and grovelled on the floor, letting the apple roll away. It was as horridly amazing to her that her bridegroom could rise from the cup she had qualified as it would have been horridly amazing if her old spouse had risen from the dead. Both were catastrophes of nature too appalling to understand, and her courage went from her in a breath and her blood was as water. She could do nothing but crouch upon the ground and moan to her master not to kill her.

Rainouart looked down upon her abjection with a sick spirit, and slowly lowered his weapon.

"You have a woman's body that must be pitied," he said, in sorrowful scorn, "but the devil it shelters must be hid. We will find cloisters for you. But you must give me back my ring."

He bent and caught at her up-stretched, appealing hands, and drew from her finger the ring that had been his mother's. He plucked from his finger the ruby that Esclaramonde had set there and cast it at her feet, while he set his own ring in its old place. Then he turned from her sprawling to Argathona, where she stood impassive with folded arms. He was all himself again; the woman's confession had unspelled him; his spirit seemed like a clean mirror waiting to reflect the face of a liberated memory. He would see the face soon, he was sure of it, the face of his beloved, but in the meanwhile there was knightly work to do.

"You are a man," he said. "You have unsealed my soul, but you have snared a woman to her shame. We fought to-day in sport; we fight to-night in earnest."

Argathona moved a pace nearer to the angry prince, looking straight into his eyes.

"Oh, Phœnix of knighthood," she said, smiling, and tenderly reproachful, "where is your fidelity? Think of the greenwood, knight; think of your vows of love, and tell me where is the maid who heard them. Think of your proffered ring, and tell me where it should be now."

Rainouart looked at her in amazement. Though he knew now that he had been deceived, the shadow of that deception still lay heavy upon him and he saw as in a mist. The woman on the ground, freed for the instant from her fear of death, lifted her head unheeded by the others and listened intently with a growing hope in her eyes. But even while she cowered and listened she snatched greedily at her ruby and put it quickly on her finger. The apple lay out of her reach.

"Who are you?" the prince cried, in a great wonder, and let the dagger fall clattering from his hand upon the floor. Argathona came near to him and put her face close to his.

"Look in my eyes, lover, my lover. Though I wear a boy's coat, it covers a girl's heart that was given to you in the greenwood the night you fell among thieves."

She caught both his hands in hers as she spoke and pressed them fondly upon her bosom, and so he was very sure that it was a woman who spoke to him.

"Remember my face," Argathona chanted. "Remember the song of the forest. Remember the greenwood dappled with the moonlight. Remember my face bending over you."

It was to Rainouart as if a curtain had been drawn aside and he looked through an open window on the rose-garden of his dreams.

"I remember the greenwood," he cried; "I remember you. I thank God for my memory. My eyes were sealed so that I could not see, but the spell is lifted from my spirit and my vision is clear. Can you forgive me, my love?"

Argathona looked into his beseeching face with infinite tenderness and infinite love.

"What is there to forgive?" she whispered. "You were snared; you were betrayed; you believed me no more than the sweet-seeming of a dream. But because I was sure that you loved me, who loved you with all my heart, I came to set you free."

"Dear love," said Rainouart, "you are the bravest and the fairest of women, and I worship you with my soul. Your life is mine, my life is yours from now to the end of ends."

"Come from here," wooed Argathona softly; "quit the desecrated city, quit its shameful, shameless citizens. Come to the sweet, clean greenwood, my lover, for there we shall dwell together, free from ache and care, skilled in the secrets of the seasons, the promise of spring, and the gladness of summer, and the rapture of autumn; and the sun shall be our comfort by day, and the stars shall be our torches by night, and the green grass shall be our couch, and the leaves our curtains, and the free air our friend. And when winter comes with its snows and its rains, and its fury of winds, we shall hide in caves or the ruins of temples, and build us fires to warm us, and I will sing you songs of the world before the flight of the gods, and tell you tales of the days of gold. And we shall feed on the fruits of the earth, and all the beasts and birds of the forest shall be our companions, and the glory and the holiness of love shall be our inheritance for all our days."

Now while she spoke it seemed to the charmed senses of Rainouart that his spirit had achieved its best, and that he had passed forever from the mystic rose-garden holding the noble rose to his heart. And the rose of the world was a maiden, and her face was the face of Argathona.

"I will come with you to the greenwood," Rainouart answered, exultant. "Honor and truth and purity and the simple life abide there, and there we shall live and love till our pulses cease to beat. I love you forever."

And Argathona echoed him, radiant, "I love you forever," and she forgot that he was mortal and she immortal, and her face was near to his, and the lips of the lovers met. Them seemed they were already in the greenwood; them seemed they were alone; in their joy they had forgotten Athens; in their joy they had forgotten Esclaramonde.

Slowly the woman on the floor had edged her way nearer and nearer to the pair, and now her fingers closed upon the hilt of the fallen dagger. Argathona, her first kiss taken and given, released herself from her lover's clasp, and holding him by the hand turned and made to lead him towards the turret door. At that moment Esclaramonde gripped the dagger, and, leaping to her feet, sprang forward and stabbed the Prince of Athens in the side. Rainouart, taken unawares, under the impact of the duchess's body flung so fiercely against him, reeled, and, making to turn, tripped and fell towards the table, striking his head against it and dropping thence to the ground. Esclaramonde stooped over him to repeat her stroke, but she had not time. Argathona was upon her, eagle-swift, eagle-fierce, eagle-strong. She plucked the dagger from the duchess's clutch, and flung her across the room to fall in a heap by the door. Then Argathona, paying no more heed to her enemy, bent over Rainouart. He was unconscious from the head stroke; his wound was bleeding freely, and Argathona busied herself to stanch the flow, making little moans over him the while, like a mother over an ailing child. Their second meeting, like their first, was stained with blood. As for Esclaramonde, when she found herself unheeded she crawled to her feet and beat furiously upon the gong.

"Help! help! help!" she cried, and the sound of her screaming voice and the sound of the beaten brass reverberated horridly through the night.

XXIII

SIMON'S CHARGE