The Essential James Branch Cabell Collection - James Branch Cabell

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is the form unbeholden, And golden the glory of thee Whose voice is the voice of a vision Whose face is the foam of the sea, And the fall of whose feet is the flutter Of breezes in birches and pine, When thou drawest near me, to hear me, And cheer me, (the moment is thine!) And let the heart of Atys, At last, at last, be mine!"

      I must tell you that the Queen shivered, as if with extreme cold. She gazed toward John Copeland wonderingly. The secretary was fretting at his lutestrings, with his head downcast. Then in a while the Queen turned to Hastings.

      "The occasion is very urgent, my lord," the Queen assented. "Therefore it is my will that to-morrow one and all your men be mustered at Blackheath. We will take the field without delay against the King of Scots."

      The riot began anew. "Madness!" they shouted; "lunar madness! We can do nothing until our King returns with our army!"

      "In his absence," the Queen said, "I command here."

      "You are not Regent," the Marquess answered. Then he cried, "This is the Regent's affair!"

      "Let the Regent be fetched," Dame Philippa said, very quietly. They brought in her son, Messire Lionel, now a boy of eight years, and, in the King's absence, Regent of England.

      Both the Queen and the Marquess held papers. "Highness," Lord Hastings began, "for reasons of state which I lack time to explain, this document requires your signature. It is an order that a ship be despatched to ask the King's return. Your Highness may remember the pony you admired yesterday?" The Marquess smiled ingratiatingly. "Just here, your Highness--a crossmark."

      "The dappled one?" said the Regent; "and all for making a little mark?" The boy jumped for the pen.

      "Lionel," said the Queen, "you are Regent of England, but you are also my son. If you sign that paper you will beyond doubt get the pony, but you will not, I think, care to ride him. You will not care to sit down at all, Lionel."

      The Regent considered. "Thank you very much, my lord," he said in the ultimate, "but I do not like ponies any more. Do I sign here, Mother?"

      Philippa handed the Marquess a subscribed order to muster the English forces at Blackheath; then another, closing the English ports. "My lords," the Queen said, "this boy is the King's vicar. In defying him, you defy the King. Yes, Lionel, you have fairly earned a pot of jam for supper."

      Then Hastings went away without speaking. That night assembled at his lodgings, by appointment, Viscount Heringaud, Adam Frere, the Marquess of Orme, Lord Stourton, the Earls of Neville and Gage, and Sir Thomas Rokeby. These seven found a long table there littered with pens and parchment; to the rear of it, with a lackey behind him, sat the Marquess of Hastings, meditative over a cup of Bordeaux.

      Presently Hastings said: "My friends, in creating our womankind the Maker of us all was beyond doubt actuated by laudable and cogent reasons; so that I can merely lament my inability to fathom these reasons. I shall obey the Queen faithfully, since if I did otherwise Sire Edward would have my head off within a day of his return. In consequence, I do not consider it convenient to oppose his vicar. To-morrow I shall assemble the tatters of troops which remain to us, and to-morrow we march northward to inevitable defeat. To-night I am sending a courier into Northumberland. He is an obliging person, and would convey--to cite an instance--eight letters quite as blithely as one."

      Each man glanced furtively about. England was in a panic by this, and knew itself to lie before the Bruce defenceless. The all-powerful Countess of Salisbury had compounded with King David; now Hastings, too, their generalissimo, compounded. What the devil! loyalty was a sonorous word, and so was patriotism, but, after all, one had estates in the north.

      The seven wrote in silence. I must tell you that when they had ended, Hastings gathered the letters into a heap, and without glancing at the superscriptures, handed all these letters to the attendant lackey. "For the courier," he said.

      The fellow left the apartment. Presently you heard a departing clatter of hoofs, and Hastings rose. He was a gaunt, terrible old man, gray-bearded, and having high eyebrows that twitched and jerked.

      "We have saved our precious skins," said he. "Hey, you fidgeters, you ferments of sour offal! I commend your common-sense, messieurs, and I request you to withdraw. Even a damned rogue such as I has need of a cleaner atmosphere in order to breathe comfortably." The seven went away without further speech.

      They narrate that next day the troops marched for Durham, where the Queen took up her quarters. The Bruce had pillaged and burned his way to a place called Beaurepair, within three miles of the city. He sent word to the Queen that if her men were willing to come forth from the town he would abide and give them battle.

      She replied that she accepted his offer, and that the barons would gladly risk their lives for the realm of their lord the King. The Bruce grinned and kept silence, since he had in his pocket letters from most of them protesting they would do nothing of the sort.

      Here is comedy. On one side you have a horde of half-naked savages, a shrewd master holding them in leash till the moment be auspicious; on the other, a housewife at the head of a tiny force lieutenanted by perjurers, by men already purchased. God knows what dreams she had of miraculous victories, while her barons trafficked in secret with the Bruce. It is recorded that, on the Saturday before Michaelmas, when the opposing armies marshalled in the Bishop's Park, at Auckland, not a captain on either side believed the day to be pregnant with battle. There would be a decent counterfeit of resistance; afterward the little English army would vanish pell-mell, and the Bruce would be master of the island. The farce was prearranged, the actors therein were letter-perfect.

      That morning at daybreak John Copeland came to the Queen's tent, and informed her quite explicitly how matters stood. He had been drinking overnight with Adam Frere and the Earl of Gage, and after the third bottle had found them candid. "Madame and Queen, we are betrayed. The Marquess of Hastings, our commander, is inexplicably smitten with a fever. He will not fight to-day. Not one of your lords will fight to-day." Master Copeland laid bare such part of the scheme as yesterday's conviviality had made familiar. "Therefore I counsel retreat. Let the King be summoned out of France."

      Queen Philippa shook her head, as she cut up squares of toast and dipped them in milk for the Regent's breakfast. "Sire Edward would be vexed. He has always wanted to conquer France. I shall visit the Marquess as soon as Lionel is fed,--do you know, John Copeland, I am anxious about Lionel; he is irritable and coughed five times during the night,--and then I will attend to this affair."

      She found the Marquess in bed, groaning, the coverlet pulled up to his chin. "Pardon, Highness," said Lord Hastings, "but I am an ill man. I cannot rise from this couch."

      "I do not question the gravity of your disorder," the Queen retorted, "since it is well known that the same illness brought about the death of Iscariot. Nevertheless, I bid you get up and lead our troops against the Scot."

      Now the hand of the Marquess veiled his countenance. "I am an ill man," he muttered, doggedly. "I cannot rise from this couch."

      There was a silence.

      "My lord," the Queen presently began, "without is an army prepared--yes, and quite able--to defend our England. The one requirement of this army is a leader. Afford them that, my lord--ah, I know that our peers are sold to the Bruce, yet our yeomen at least are honest. Give them, then, a leader, and they cannot but conquer, since God also is honest and incorruptible. Pardieu! a woman might lead these men, and lead them to victory!"

      Hastings answered: "I am ill. I cannot rise from this couch."

      "There is no man left in England," said the Queen, "since Sire Edward went into France. Praise God, I am his wife!" She went away without flurry.

      Through

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