James Branch Cabell

“ One day, about the hour of prime, in that season of the year when fields smell of young grass, the Duke of Gloucester sent for Edward Maudelain. The court was then at Windsor. The priest came quickly to his patron. He found the Duke in company with Edmund of York and bland Harry of Derby, John of Gaunt's oldest son. Each was a proud and handsome man. To-day Gloucester was gnawing at his finger nails, big York seemed half asleep, and the Earl of Derby patiently to await something as yet ineffably remote. ”

“ Meanwhile on every side the nobles tyrannized in their degree, well clothed and nourished, but at bottom equally comfortless in condition. As illuminate by lightning Maudelain saw the many factions of his barons squabbling for gross pleasures, like wolves over a corpse, and blindly dealing death to one another to secure at least one more delicious gulp before that inevitable mangling by the teeth of some yet stronger comrade. ”

“ We but fight with gaudy shadows, we but aspire to overpass a mountain of unstable sand! We two alone of all the scuffling world! Oh, it is horrible, and I think that Satan plans the jest! We dream a while of refashioning this bleak universe, and we know that we alone can do it, and we are as demigods, you and I, in those gallant dreams, and at the end we can but poultice some dirty rascal! ”

“ It was strange, though, that in this glorious fief of his so many persons should as yet live day by day as cattle live, suspicious of all other moving things, with reason, and roused from their incurious and filthy apathy only when some glittering baron, like a resistless eagle, swept uncomfortably near on some by-errand of the more bright and windy upper world. ”

“ O my only friend—!" said Maudelain. Then in a level voice he told her all, unhurriedly and without any sensible emotion.
She had breathed once, with a profound inhalation. She had screened her countenance from his gaze what while you might have counted fifty. More lately the lithe body of Dame Anne was alert as one suddenly aroused from dreaming. "This means more war, for De Vere and Tressilian and De la Pole and Bramber, and others of the barons know that the King's fall signifies their ruin. Many thousands die to-morrow." ”

“ Maudelain broke off with a yapping laugh. "Puf! He is wiser than we. I am King of England. It is my heritage."
"It means war. Many will die, many thousands will die, and to no betterment of affairs." ”

“ Many would die, but in the end I would be King, and the general happiness would rest at my disposal. The adventure of this world is wonderful, and it goes otherwise than under the strict tutelage of reason. ”

“ You have that beauty in desire of which many and many a man would blithely enter hell, and the mere sight of which may well cause a man's voice to tremble as my voice trembles now, and in desire of which— But I tread afield! ”

“ And of Maudelain's face I cannot tell you. He made pretence to read the paper carefully, but ever his eyes roved, and he knew that he stood among wolves. The room was oddly shaped, with eight equal sides; the ceiling was of a light and brilliant blue, powdered with many golden stars, and the walls were hung with tapestries which commemorated the exploits of Theseus. "King," he said, aloud, "of France and England, and Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine! I perceive that Heaven loves a jest." He wheeled upon Gloucester and spoke with singular irrelevance: "And the titular Queen?" ”

“ In that war the nobles will ride abroad with banners and gay surcoats, and kill and ravish in the pauses of their songs; while daily in that war the naked peasants will kill, the one the other, without knowing why. ”

“ You, of course, they will only hang."
"We must avoid England, then, my noble patron," the priest considered.
Angrily the Duke struck a clenched fist upon the table. "By the Cross! we remain in England, you and I and all of us. Others avoid. The Pope and the Emperor will have none of me. They plead for the Black Prince's heir, for the legitimate heir. Dompnedex! they shall have him!"
Maudelain recoiled, for he thought this twitching man insane.
"Besides, the King intends to take from me my fief at Sudbury," said the Duke of York, "in order he may give it to De Vere. ”

“ Yet are we indeed God's satraps, as but now I cried in my vainglory, and we hold within our palms the destiny of many peoples. Depardieux! He is wiser than we are, it may be! And as always Satan offers no unhandsome bribes—bribes that are tangible and sure. ”

“ Give these serfs a king, now, who, being absolute, might dare to deal in perfect equity with rich and poor, who with his advent would bring Peace into England as his bride, as Trygseus did very anciently in Athens—"And then," the priest paraphrased, "may England recover all the blessings she has lost, and everywhere the glitter of active steel will cease." For everywhere men would crack a rustic jest or two, unhurriedly. ”

“ Charity and Truth are excommunicate, and the King is only an adorned and fearful person who leads wolves toward their quarry, lest, lacking it, they turn and devour him. Everywhere the powerful labor to put one an other out of worship, and each to stand the higher with the other's corpse as his pedestal ”

“ Not yours, but Gloucester's and his barons'. Friend, they would set you on the throne to be their puppet and to move only as they pulled the strings. Thwart them and they will fling you aside, as the barons have dealt aforetime with every king that dared oppose them. Nay, they desire to live pleasantly, to have good fish o' Fridays, and white bread and the finest wine the whole year through, and there is not enough for all, say they. Can you alone contend against them? ”

“ East and north they had gone yearly, for so many centuries, these dumb peasants, like herded sheep, so that in the outcome their carcasses might manure the soil of France yonder or of more barren Scotland. ”