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

ungenerous. For, look you, in my presence you have spoken infamy of Dame Melicent, though knowing I am in your debt so deeply that I have not the right to resent anything you may elect to say. You have just given me my life; and armoured by the fire-new obligation, you blaspheme an angel, you condescend to buffet a fettered man⁠—”

But with that his sluggish wits had spied an honest way out of the imbroglio.

Perion said then, “Draw, messire! for, as God lives, I may yet repurchase, at this eleventh hour, the privilege of destroying you.”

“Heyday! but here is an odd evincement of gratitude!” de Montors retorted; “and though I am not particularly squeamish, let me tell you, my fine fellow, I do not ordinarily fight with lackeys.”

“Nor are you fit to do so, messire. Believe me, there is not a lackey in this realm⁠—no, not a cutpurse, nor any pander⁠—who would not in meeting you upon equal footing degrade himself. For you have slandered that which is most perfect in the world; yet lies, Messire de Montors, have short legs; and I design within the hour to insure the calumny against an echo.”

“Rogue, I have given you your very life within the hour⁠—”

“The fact is undeniable. Thus I must fling the bounty back to you, so that we sorry scoundrels may meet as equals.” Perion wheeled toward the boat, which was now within the reach of wading. “Who is among you? Gaucelm, Roger, Jean Britauz⁠—” He found the man he sought. “Ahasuerus, the captain that was to have accompanied the Free Companions oversea is of another mind. I cede my leadership to Landry de Bonnay. You will have the kindness to inform him of the unlooked-for change, and to tender your new captain every appropriate regret and the dying felicitations of Perion de la Forêt.”

He bowed toward the landward twilight, where the sand hillocks were taking form.

“Messire de Montors, we may now resume our vigil. When yonder vessel sails there will be no conceivable happening that can keep breath within my body two weeks longer. I shall be quit of every debt to you. You will then fight with a man already dead if you so elect; but otherwise⁠—if you attempt to flee this place, if you decline to cross swords with a lackey, with a convicted thief, with a suspected murderer, I swear upon my mother’s honour! I will demolish you without compunction, as I would any other vermin.”

“Oh, brave, brave!” sneered the bishop, “to fling away your life, and perhaps mine too, for an idle word⁠—” But at that he fetched a sob. “How foolish of you! and how like you!” he said, and Perion wondered at this prelate’s voice.

“Hey, gentlemen!” cried Ayrart de Montors, “a moment if you please!” He splashed knee-deep into the icy water, wading to the boat, where he snatched the lantern from the Jew’s hands and fetched this light ashore. He held it aloft, so that Perion might see his face, and Perion perceived that, by some wonder-working, the person in man’s attire who held this light aloft was Melicent. It was odd that Perion always remembered afterward most clearly of all the loosened wisp of hair the wind tossed about her forehead.

“Look well upon me, Perion,” said Melicent. “Look well, ruined gentleman! look well, poor hunted vagabond! and note how proud I am. Oh, in all things I am very proud! A little I exult in my high station and in my wealth, and, yes, even in my beauty, for I know that I am beautiful, but it is the chief of all my honours that you love me⁠—and so foolishly!”

“You do not understand⁠—!” cried Perion.

“Rather I understand at last that you are in sober verity a lackey, an impostor, and a thief, even as you said. Ay, a lackey to your honour! an imposter that would endeavour⁠—and, oh, so very vainly!⁠—to impersonate another’s baseness! and a thief that has stolen another person’s punishment! I ask no questions; loving means trusting; but I would like to kill that other person very, very slowly. I ask no questions, but I dare to trust the man I know of, even in defiance of that man’s own voice. I dare protest the man no thief, but in all things a madly honourable gentleman. My poor bruised, puzzled boy,” said Melicent, with an odd mirthful tenderness, “how came you to be blundering about this miry world of ours! Only be very good for my sake and forget the bitterness; what does it matter when there is happiness, too?”

He answered nothing, but it was not because of misery.

“Come, come, will you not even help me into the boat?” said Melicent.
She, too, was glad.

V How Melicent Wedded

“That may not be, my cousin.”

It was the real Bishop of Montors who was speaking. His company, some fifteen men in all, had ridden up while Melicent and Perion looked seaward. The bishop was clothed, in his habitual fashion, as a cavalier, showing in nothing as a churchman. He sat a-horseback for a considerable while, looking down at them, smiling and stroking the pommel of his saddle with a gold-fringed glove. It was now dawn.

“I have been eavesdropping,” the bishop said. His voice was tender, for the young man loved his kinswoman with an affection second only to that which he reserved for Ayrart de Montors. “Yes, I have been eavesdropping for an instant, and through that instant I seemed to see the heart of every woman that ever lived; and they differed only as stars differ on a fair night in August. No woman ever loved a man except, at bottom, as a mother loves her child: let him elect to build a nation or to write imperishable verses or to take purses upon the highway, and she will only smile to note how breathlessly the boy goes