James Branch Cabell

“ Is it not good to be a King, my cousin, and to sit quite still and to see your bitterest enemy hacked and slain—and all the while to sit quite still, quite unruffled, as a King should always be? Eh, I never lived until to-night!"
"Now, by Heaven," said Sire Edward, "I am your kinsman and your guest, I am unarmed—"
And Philippe bowed his head. "Undoubtedly," he assented, "the deed is a foul one. But I desire Gascony very earnestly, and so long as you live you will never permit me to retain Gascony. So it is quite necessary, you conceive, that I murder you. What!" ”

“ His perturbation was very extraordinary.
"Fair cousin," the Earl now said, without any prelude, "four years ago I was affianced to your sister, Dame Blaunsh. You stipulated that Gascony be given up to you in guaranty, as a settlement on any children I might have by that incomparable lady. I assented, and yielded you the province, upon the understanding, sworn to according to the faith of loyal kings, that within forty days you assign to me its seignory as your vassal. And I have had of you since then neither the enfeoffment nor the lady, but only excuses, Sire Philippe." ”

“ And Sire Edward moved one step toward her and paused. "Madame, I do not understand."
Dame Meregrett looked up into his face unflinchingly. "It means that I love you, sire. I may speak without shame now, for presently you die. Die bravely, sire! die in such fashion as may hearten me to live." ”

“ Oh, none of us may dare resist you! and I know that nothing matters, nothing in all the world, save that you love me. Then take me, since you will it—and not as King, since you will otherwise, but as Edward Plantagenet. For listen! by good luck you have this afternoon despatched Rigon for Chevrieul, where to-morrow we hunt the great boar. And in consequence to-night this hut will be unoccupied. ”

“ The French King and seven lords of France went from that hut trussed like chickens.
And now Sire Edward turned toward Meregrett and chafed his big hands gleefully. "At every tree-bole a tethered horse awaits us; and a ship awaits our party at Fécamp. To-morrow we sleep in England,—and, Mort de Dieu! do you not think, madame, that within the Tower your brother and I may more quickly come to some agreement over Guienne?" ”

“ He shrugged his broad shoulders. "In the end we necessarily die."
Dame Meregrett turned and passed back into the hut without faltering.
And when he had lighted the inefficient lamp which he found there,Sire Edward wheeled upon her in half-humorous vexation. "Presently come your brother and his tattling lords. To be discovered here with me at night, alone, means infamy. If Philippe chance to fall into one of his Capetian rages it means death."
"Nay, lord, it means far worse than death." ”

“ Blaunsh said, "to prate of death thus drearily. Let us flout him, then, with some gay song." And she cast Rigon's lute toward him.
He caught it up. "Death is not reasonably mocked," Sire Edward said, "since in the end he conquers, and of the very lips that gibed at him remains but a little dust. Nay, rather should I who already stand beneath a lifted sword make for my immediate conqueror a Sirvente, which is the Song of Service." ”

“ With eloquence the Frenchman touched upon the emergencies to which the public weal so often drives men of high station, and upon his private grief over the necessity—unavoidable, alas!—of returning a hard answer before the council; and became so voluble that Sire Edward merely laughed, in that big-lunged and disconcerting way of his, and afterward lodged for a week at Mezelais, nominally passing by his lesser title of Earl of Aquitaine, and as his own ambassador.
And negotiations became more swift of foot, since a man serves himself with zeal. ”

“ Anon, still grasping her, and victoriously lifting Dame Meregrett so that her feet swung quite clear of the floor, Sire Edward said: "Look you, in my time I have played against Fate for considerable stakes—for fortresses, and towns, and strong citadels, and for kingdoms even. And it was but to-night I perceived that the one stake worth playing for is love. It were easy enough to get you for my wife; but I want more than that. ... Pschutt! I know well enough that women have these notions: and carefully I weighed the issue—Meregrett and Guienne to boot? ”

“ The little woman spoke the truth, for always since his coming to Mezelais she had viewed the great conqueror as through an awful haze of forerunning rumor, twin to that golden vapor which enswathes a god and transmutes whatever in corporeal man had been a defect into some divine and hitherto unguessed-at excellence ”

“ He smiled whimsically, and presently one arm swept beneath her knees, so that presently he held her as one dandles a baby; and presently his stiff and yellow beard caressed her burning cheek. Masterfully he said: "Then let it serve as such and ransom for a king his glad and common manhood. Ah, m'amye, I am both very wise and abominably selfish. ”

“ During this period he was, upon one pretext or another, very largely in the company of his affianced wife, Dame Blaunsh.
THEN SANG SIRE EDWARD This lady, I must tell you, was the handsomest of her day; there could nowhere be found a creature more agreeable to every sense; and she compelled the eye, it is recorded, not gently, but in a superb fashion. And Sire Edward, who till this had loved her merely by report, and, in accordance with the high custom of old, through many perusals of her portrait, now appeared besotted. He was an aging man, near sixty ”

“ And in consequence, after a deal of political bickering (Nicolas concludes) , in the year of grace 1299, on the day of Our Lady's nativity, and in the twenty-seventh year of King Edward's reign, came to the British realm, and landed at Dover, not Dame Blaunsh, as would have been in consonance with seasoned expectation, but Dame Meregrett, the other daughter of King Philippe the Bold; and upon the following day proceeded to Canterbury, whither on the next Thursday after came Edward, King of England, into the Church of the Trinity at Canterbury, and therein espoused the aforesaid Dame Meregrett. ”