Figures of Earth, James Branch Cabell [short books to read TXT] 📗

So Manuel put on his armor, and with Manuel telling as much as he thought wise of the adventures which he had encountered while Niafer was dead, they left this peculiarly irrational part of the forest, and fared out of the ruined November woods; and presently, in those barren fields that descend toward the sand dunes of Quentavic, came face to face with Queen Freydis and the Princess Alianora, where these two royal ladies and many other fine people rode toward the coast.

Alianora went magnificently this morning, on a white horse, and wearing a kirtle of changeable green like the sea's green in sunlight: her golden hair was bound with a gold frontlet wherein were emeralds. Freydis, dark and stately, was in crimson embroidered with small gold stars and ink-horns: a hooded falcon sat on her gloved wrist.

Now Freydis and Alianora stared at the swarthy, flat-faced, limping peasant girl in brown drugget that was with Count Manuel. Then Alianora stared at Freydis.

"Is it for this dingy cripple," says Alianora, with her proud fine face all wonder, "that Dom Manuel has forsaken us and has put off his youth? Why, the girl is out and out ugly!"

"Our case is none the better for that," replied Freydis, the wise Queen, whose gazing rested not upon Niafer but on Manuel.

"Who are those disreputable looking, bold-faced creatures that are making eyes at you?" says Niafer.

And Manuel, marveling to meet these two sorceresses together, replied, as he civilly saluted them from a little distance, "Two royal ladies, who would be well enough were it not for their fondness for having their own way."

"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 passing 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 embarrassing 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 god-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 shield 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.