Domnei, James Branch Cabell [red scrolls of magic .TXT] 📗

coming from Brunbelois. It was he (as you have heard) who had arranged the match with Theodoret. The bishop himself loved his cousin Melicent; but, now that he was in holy orders and possession of her had become impossible, he had cannily resolved to utilise her beauty, as he did everything else, toward his own preferment.

“Oh, sir,” replied Perion, “you who are so fine a poet must surely know that gay rhymes with today as patly as sorrow goes with tomorrow.”

“Yet your gay laughter, Messire de Puysange, is after all but breath: and breath also”⁠—the bishop’s sharp eyes fixed Perion’s⁠—“has a hackneyed rhyme.”

“Indeed, it is the grim rhyme that rounds off and silences all our rhyming,” Perion assented. “I must laugh, then, without rhyme or reason.”

Still the young prelate talked rather oddly. “But,” said he, “you have an excellent reason, now that you sup so near to heaven.” And his glance at Melicent did not lack pith.

“No, no, I have quite another reason,” Perion answered; “it is that tomorrow I breakfast in hell.”

“Well, they tell me the landlord of that place is used to cater to each according to his merits,” the bishop, shrugging, returned.

And Perion thought how true this was when, at the evening’s end, he was alone in his own room. His life was tolerably secure. He trusted Ahasuerus the Jew to see to it that, about dawn, one of the ship’s boats would touch at Fomor Beach near Manneville, according to their old agreement. Aboard the Tranchemer the Free Companions awaited their captain; and the savage land they were bound for was a thought beyond the reach of a kingdom’s lamentable curiosity concerning the whereabouts of King Helmas’ treasure. The worthless life of Perion was safe.

For worthless, and far less than worthless, life seemed to Perion as he thought of Melicent and waited for her messenger. He thought of her beauty and purity and illimitable loving-kindness toward every person in the world save only Perion of the Forest. He thought of how clean she was in every thought and deed; of that, above all, he thought, and he knew that he would never see her any more.

“Oh, but past any doubting,” said Perion, “the devil caters to each according to his merits.”

III How Melicent Wooed

Then Perion knew that vain regret had turned his brain, very certainly, for it seemed the door had opened and Dame Melicent herself had come, warily, into the panelled gloomy room. It seemed that Melicent paused in the convulsive brilliancy of the firelight, and stayed thus with vaguely troubled eyes like those of a child newly wakened from sleep.

And it seemed a long while before she told Perion very quietly that she had confessed all to Ayrart de Montors, and had, by reason of de Montors’ love for her, so goaded and allured the outcome of their talk⁠—“ignobly,” as she said⁠—that a clean-handed gentleman would come at three o’clock for Perion de la Forêt, and guide a thief toward unmerited impunity. All this she spoke quite levelly, as one reads aloud from a book; and then, with a signal change of voice, Melicent said: “Yes, that is true enough. Yet why, in reality, do you think I have in my own person come to tell you of it?”

“Madame, I may not guess. Hah, indeed, indeed,” Perion cried, because he knew the truth and was unspeakably afraid, “I dare not guess!”

“You sail tomorrow for the fighting oversea⁠—” she began, but her sweet voice trailed and died into silence. He heard the crepitations of the fire, and even the hurried beatings of his own heart, as against a terrible and lovely hush of all created life. “Then take me with you.”

Perion had never any recollection of what he answered. Indeed, he uttered no communicative words, but only foolish babblements.

“Oh, I do not understand,” said Melicent. “It is as though some spell were laid upon me. Look you, I have been cleanly reared, I have never wronged any person that I know of, and throughout my quiet, sheltered life I have loved truth and honour most of all. My judgment grants you to be what you are confessedly. And there is that in me more masterful and surer than my judgment, that which seems omniscient and lightly puts aside your confessings as unimportant.”

“Lackey, impostor, and thief!” young Perion answered. “There you have the catalogue of all my rightful titles fairly earned.”

“And even if I believed you, I think I would not care! Is that not strange? For then I should despise you. And even then, I think, I would fling my honour at your feet, as I do now, and but in part with loathing, I would still entreat you to make of me your wife, your servant, anything that pleased you.⁠ ⁠… Oh, I had thought that when love came it would be sweet!”

Strangely quiet, in every sense, he answered:

“It is very sweet. I have known no happier moment in my life. For you stand within arm’s reach, mine to touch, mine to possess and do with as I elect. And I dare not lift a finger. I am as a man that has lain for a long while in a dungeon vainly hungering for the glad light of day⁠—who, being freed at last, must hide his eyes from the dear sunlight he dare not look upon as yet. Ho, I am past speech unworthy of your notice! and I pray you now speak harshly with me, madame, for when your pure eyes regard me kindly, and your bright and delicate lips have come thus near to mine, I am so greatly tempted and so happy that I fear lest heaven grow jealous!”

“Be not too much afraid⁠—” she murmured.

“Nay, should I then be bold? and within the moment wake Count Emmerick to say to him, very boldly, ‘Beau sire, the thief half Christendom is hunting has the honour to request your sister’s hand