The Cream of the Jest, James Branch Cabell [smart ebook reader .TXT] 📗

the sweetmeats of life do not invariably fall to immaculate people.”

Then, as if on a sudden, Dame Ettarre seemed to understand that the clerk’s brain had been turned through his hopeless love for her. She wondered, dizzily, how she could have stayed blind to his insanity this long, recollecting the inconsequence of his acts and speeches in the past; but matters of heavier urgency were at hand. Here, with this apparent madman, she was on perilous ground; but now had arisen a hideous contention without; and the shrieks there, and the clash of metal there, spoke with rude eloquence of a harborage even less desirable.

“Heaven will defend the right!” Ettarre said bravely.

“I am not so sure that heaven has any finger in this pie. An arras hides all. It will lift presently, and either Good or Evil, either Guiron or Maugis, will come through that arras as your master. I am not certain as yet which one I shall permit to enter; and the matter rests with me, Ettarre.”

“Heaven will defend the right!” Ettarre said bravely.

And at that the arras quivered and heaved, so that its heavy embroideries were converted into a welter of shimmering gold, bright in the glare of many lamps, sparkling like the ocean’s waters at sunset; and Horvendile and Ettarre saw nothing else there for a breathless moment, which seemed to last for a great while. Then, parting, the arras yielded up Maugis d’Aigremont.

Horvendile chuckled.

VI Treats of Maugis d’Aigremont’s Pottage

Maugis came forward, his eyes fixed hungrily upon Ettarre. “So a long struggle ends,” he said, very quiet. “There is no virtue left, Ettarre, save patience.”

“While life remains I shall not cease to shriek out your villainy. O God, men have let Guiron die!” she wailed.

“I will cause you to forget that death is dreadful, Ettarre!”

“I need no teacher now.⁠ ⁠… And so, Guiron is dead and I yet live! I had not thought that would be possible.” She whispered this. “Give me your sword, Maugis, for just a little while, and then I will not hate you any longer.”

The man said, with dreary patience: “Yes, you would die rather than endure my touch. And through my desire of you I have been stripped of wealth and joy and honor, and even of hope; through my desire of you I have held much filthy traffic, with treachery and theft and murder, traffic such as my soul loathed: and to no avail! Yes, I have been guilty of many wickednesses, as men estimate these matters; and yet, I swear to you, I seem to myself to be still that boy with whom you used to play, when you too were a child, Ettarre, and did not hate me. Heh, it is very strange how affairs fall out in this world of ours, so that a man may discern no aim or purpose anywhere!”

“Yet it is all foreplanned, Maugis.” Horvendile spoke thus.

“And to what end have you ensnared me, Horvendile?” says Maugis, turning wearily. “For the attack on Storisende has failed, and I am dying of many wounds, Horvendile. See how I bleed! Guiron and Perion and Emmerick and all their men are hunting me everywhere beyond that arras, and I am frightened, Horvendile⁠—even I, who was Maugis, am frightened!⁠—lest any of them find me here. For I desire now only to die untroubled. Oh, Horvendile, in an ill hour I trusted you!”

As knave and madman, Ettarre saw the double-dealer and his dupe confront each other. In the haggard face of Maugis, no longer evil, showed only puzzled lassitude. In the hand of Horvendile a dagger glittered; and his face was pensive.

“My poor Maugis, it is not yet time I make my dealings plain to you. It suffices that you have served my turn, Maugis, and that of you I have no need any longer. You must die now, Maugis.”

Ettarre feared this frozen madman, she who was by ordinary fearless. Ettarre turned away her face, so that she might not see the two men grapple. Without, the uproar continued⁠—for a long while, it seemed. When she looked again it was, by some great wonder-working, to meet Guiron’s eyes and Guiron’s lips.

VII Journey’s End: With the Customary Unmasking

“My love, Ettarre, they have not harmed you?”

“None has harmed me, Guiron. Oh, and you?”

“Maugis is dead,” he answered joyously. “See, here he lies, slain by brave Horvendile. And the rogues who followed Maugis are all killed or fled. Our woes are at an end, dear love.”

Then Ettarre saw that Horvendile indeed waited beside the dead body of Maugis d’Aigremont. And the clerk stayed motionless while she told Guiron of Horvendile’s baleful work.

Sir Guiron then said: “Is this true speech, Horvendile?”

“It is quite true I have done all these things, messire,” Horvendile answered quietly.

“And with what purpose?” said Sir Guiron, very sadly; for to him too it seemed certain that such senseless treachery could not spring from anything but madness, and he had loved Horvendile.

“I will tell you,” Horvendile replied, “though I much fear you will not understand⁠—” He meditated, shook his head, smiling. “Indeed, how is it possible for me to make you understand? Well, I blurt out the truth. There was once in a land very far away from this land⁠—in my country⁠—a writer of romances. And once he constructed a romance which, after a hackneyed custom of my country, purported to be translated from an old manuscript written by an ancient clerk⁠—called Horvendile. It told of Horvendile’s part in the love-business between Sir Guiron des Rocques and La Beale Ettarre. I am that writer of romance. This room, this castle, all the broad rolling countryside without, is but a portion of my dream, and these places have no existence save in my fancies. And you, messire⁠—and you also, madame⁠—and dead Maugis here, and all the others who seemed so real to me, are but the puppets I fashioned and shifted, for a tale’s sake, in that romance which now draws to a close.”

He