James Branch Cabell

“ Ever the big fierce-eyed man has hated me, for all his lip-courtesy. And now he lacks the money to pay his troops, and I am the wealthiest person within his realm. I am a woman and alone in a foreign land. So I must wait, and wait, and wait, Antoine, till he devise some trumped-up accusation. Friend, I live as did St. Damoclus, beneath a sword. Antoine!" she wailed—for now was the pride of Queen Jehane shattered utterly—"within the island am I a prisoner for all that my chains are of gold." ”

“ Friend, now are you avenged the more abundantly."
"Young Riczi is avenged," the Vicomte said; "and I came hither desiring vengeance."
She wheeled, a lithe flame (he thought) of splendid fury. "And in the gutter Jehane dares say what Queen Jehane upon the throne might never say. Had I reigned all these years as mistress not of England but of Europe—had nations wheedled me in the place of barons—young Riczi had been avenged, no less. Bah! what do these so-little persons matter? Take now your petty vengeance! drink deep of it! ”

“ Speak thou that wast the Magdalene,
⁠Quia amavisti.'
"It may be that in some sort the jingle answers me!" then said Jehane; and she began with an odd breathlessness: "Friend, when King Henry dies—and even now he dies—shall I not as Regent possess such power as no woman has ever wielded in Europe? can aught prevent this?"
"Naught," he answered.
"Unless, friend, I were wedded to a Frenchman. Then would the stern English lords never permit that I have any finger in the government." She came to him with conspicuous deliberation and laid one delicate hand upon either shoulder. ”

“ The austere woman rose. "Messire, you swore to me, long since, an eternal service. I claim my bond. Yonder prim man—gray-bearded, the man in black and silver—is the Earl of Worcester, the King of England's ambassador, in common with whom the wealthy dowager of Brittany has signed a certain contract. Go you, then, with Worcester into England, as my proxy, and in that island, as my proxy, wed the King of England. Messire, your audience is done."
Latterly Riczi said this: "Can you hurt me any more, Jehane?—nay, even in hell they cannot hurt me now. ”

“ I relish no other pleasures than those of love. Love's sot am I, drunk with a deadly wine, poor fool, and ever I thirst. As vapor are all my chattels and my acres, and the more my dominion and my power increase, the more rancorously does my heart sustain its misery, being robbed of that fair merchandise which is the King of England's. ”

“ There was a silence. "You, a Frenchman, come as the emissary of King Henry who has devastated France! are there no English lords, then, left alive of all his army?"
The Vicomte de Montbrison said: "There is perhaps no person better fitted to patch up this dishonorable business of your captivity, wherein a clean man might scarcely dare to meddle."
She appraised this, and more lately said with entire irrelevance: "The world has smirched you, somehow. At last you have done something save consider your ill treatment. I praise God, Antoine, for it brings you nearer." ”

“ A frightened woman, half distraught, aging now but rather handsome, his judgment saw in her, and no more; all black and shimmering gold his senses found her, and supple like some dangerous and lovely serpent; and with a contained hatred he had discovered, as by the curt illumination of a thunderbolt, that he could never love any woman save the woman whom he most despised. ”

“ Dying, the man restores to you your liberty and your dower-lands, your bed and all your movables, and six gowns of such fashion and such color as you may elect."
Then with hurried speech he told her of five years' events: how within that period King Henry had conquered entire France, and had married the French King's daughter, and had begotten a boy who would presently inherit the united realms of France and England, since in the supreme hour of triumph King Henry had been stricken with a mortal sickness, and now lay dying, or perhaps already dead, at Vincennes ”

“ To hate her is scant comfort and to despise her none at all, since it follows that I who am unable to forget the wanton am even more to be despised than she. I will go into England and execute what mischief I may against her."
The new Vicomte de Montbrison set forth for Paris, first to do homage for his fief, and secondly to be accredited for some plausible mission into England. But in Paris he got disquieting news: Jehane's husband was dead, and her stepson Henry, the fifth monarch of the name to reign in Britain, had invaded France ”

“ They took her from him; and that afternoon, after long meditation, the Vicomte de Montbrison entreated a fresh and private audience of King Henry and readily obtained it. "Unhardy is unseely," the Vicomte said at its conclusion. Then the tale tells that the Vicomte returned to France and within this realm assembled all such lords as the abuses of the Queen-Regent Ysabeau had more notoriously dissatisfied. Then presently these lords had sided with King Henry, as had the Vicomte de Montbrison, in open field. ”

“ And now the woman lifted toward him a huge golden collar garnished with emeralds and sapphires and with many pearls, and in the sunlight the gems were tawdry things. "Friend, the chain is heavy, and I lack the power to cast it off. The Navarrese we know of wore no such perilous fetters about her neck. Ah, you should have mastered me at Vannes. You could have done so, and very easily. But you only talked—oh, Mary pity us! you only talked!—and I could find only a servant where I had sore need to find a master. Then pity me."
But now came many armed soldiers into the apartment. ”