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

he had thought, they know in hell alone; and even after she had gone, in silence, he lay in this same posture for an exceedingly long while.

And after he knew not how long a while, Perion propped his chin between his hands and, still sprawling upon the rushes, stared hard into the little, crackling fire. He was thinking of a Perion de la Forêt that once had been. In him might have been found a fit mate for Melicent had this boy not died very long ago.

It is no more cheerful than any other mortuary employment, this disinterment of the person you have been, and are not any longer; and so did Perion find his cataloguing of irrevocable old follies and evasions.

Then Perion arose and looked for pen and ink. It was the first letter he ever wrote to Melicent, and, as you will presently learn, she never saw it.

In such terms Perion wrote:

“Madame⁠—It may please you to remember that when Dame Mélusine and I were interrogated, I freely confessed to the murder of King Helmas and the theft of my dead master’s jewels. In that I lied. For it was my manifest duty to save the woman whom, as I thought, I loved, and it was apparent that the guilty person was either she or I.

“She is now at Brunbelois, where, as I have heard, the splendour of her estate is tolerably notorious. I have not ever heard she gave a thought to me, her cat’s-paw. Madame, when I think of you and then of that sleek, smiling woman, I am appalled by my own folly. I am aghast by my long blindness as I write the words which no one will believe. To what avail do I deny a crime which every circumstance imputed to me and my own confession has publicly acknowledged?

“But you, I think, will believe me. Look you, madame, I have nothing to gain of you. I shall not ever see you any more. I go into a perilous and an eternal banishment; and in the immediate neighbourhood of death a man finds little sustenance for romance. Take the worst of me: a gentleman I was born, and as a wastrel I have lived, and always very foolishly; but without dishonour. I have never to my knowledge⁠—and God judge me as I speak the truth!⁠—wronged any man or woman save myself. My dear, believe me! believe me, in spite of reason! and understand that my adoration and misery and unworthiness when I think of you are such as I cannot measure, and afford me no judicious moment wherein to fashion lies. For I shall not see you any more.

“I thank you, madame, for your all-unmerited kindnesses, and, oh, I pray you to believe!”

IV How the Bishop Aided Perion

Then at three o’clock, as Perion supposed, someone tapped upon the door. Perion went out into the corridor, which was now unlighted, so that he had to hold to the cloak of Ayrart de Montors as the young prelate guided Perion through the complexities of unfamiliar halls and stairways into an inhospitable night. There were ready two horses, and presently the men were mounted and away.

Once only Perion shifted in the saddle to glance back at Bellegarde, black and formless against an empty sky; and he dared not look again, for the thought of her that lay awake in the Marshal’s Tower, so near at hand as yet, was like a dagger. With set teeth he followed in the wake of his taciturn companion. The bishop never spoke save to growl out some direction.

Thus they came to Manneville and, skirting the town, came to Fomor Beach, a narrow sandy coast. It was dark in this place and very still save for the encroachment of the tide. Yonder were four little lights, lazily heaving with the water’s motion, to show them where the Tranchemer lay at anchor. It did not seem to Perion that anything mattered.

“It will be nearing dawn by this,” he said.

“Ay,” Ayrart de Montors said, very briefly; and his tone evinced his willingness to dispense with further conversation. Perion of the Forest was an unclean thing which the bishop must touch in his necessity, but could touch with loathing only, as a thirsty man takes a fly out of his drink. Perion conceded it, because nothing would ever matter any more; and so, the horses tethered, they sat upon the sand in utter silence for the space of a half hour.

A bird cried somewhere, just once, and with a start Perion knew the night was not quite so murky as it had been, for he could now see a broken line of white, where the tide crept up and shattered and ebbed. Then in a while a light sank tipsily to the water’s level and presently was bobbing in the darkness, apart from those other lights, and it was growing in size and brilliancy.

Said Perion, “They have sent out the boat.”

“Ay,” the bishop answered, as before.

A sort of madness came upon Perion, and it seemed that he must weep, because everything fell out so very ill in this world.

“Messire de Montors, you have aided me. I would be grateful if you permitted it.”

De Montors spoke at last, saying crisply:

“Gratitude, I take it, forms no part of the bargain. I am the kinsman of Dame Melicent. It makes for my interest and for the honour of our house that the man whose rooms she visits at night be got out of Poictesme⁠—”

Said Perion, “You speak in this fashion of the most lovely lady God has made⁠—of her whom the world adores!”

“Adores!” the bishop answered, with a laugh; “and what poor gull am I to adore an attested wanton?” Then, with a sneer, he spoke of Melicent, and in such terms as are not bettered by repetition.

Perion said:

“I am the most unhappy man alive, as surely as you are the most