The Essential James Branch Cabell Collection - James Branch Cabell

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even now--But he will not return. He will never return," the Queen repeated, carefully. "It is strange I cannot comprehend that he will never return! Ah, Mother of God!" she cried, with a steadier voice, "grant that I may weep! nay, of thy infinite mercy let me presently find the heart to weep!" And about the Queen of England many birds sang joyously.

      She sent for the King that evening, after supper, and they may well have talked of many matters, for he did not return to his own apartments that night. Next day the English barons held a council, and in the midst of it King Richard demanded to be told his age.

      "Your Grace is in your twenty-second year," said the uneasy Gloucester, who was now with reason troubled, since he had been vainly seeking everywhere for the evanished Maudelain.

      "Then I have been under tutors and governors longer than any other ward in my dominion. My lords, I thank you for your past services, but I need them no more." They had no check handy, and Gloucester in particular foreread his death-warrant, but of necessity he shouted with the others, "Hail, King of England!"

      That afternoon the King's assumption of all royal responsibility was commemorated by a tournament, over which Dame Anne presided. Sixty of her ladies led as many knights by silver chains into the tilting-grounds at Smithfield, and it was remarked that the Queen appeared unusually mirthful. The King was in high good humor, a pattern of conjugal devotion; and the royal pair retired at dusk to the Bishop of London's palace at Saint Paul's, where was held a merry banquet, with dancing both before and after supper.

      THE END OF THE SIXTH NOVEL

      VII

      THE STORY OF THE HERITAGE

      "Pour vous je suis en prison mise, En ceste chambre voulte grise, Et traineray ma triste vie Sans que jamais mon cueur varie, Car toujours seray vostre amye."

      THE SEVENTH NOVEL.--ISABEL OF VALOIS, BEING FORSAKEN BY ALL OTHERS, IS BEFRIENDED BY A PRIEST, WHO IN CHIEF THROUGH A CHILD'S INNOCENCE, CONTRIVES AND EXECUTES A LAUDABLE IMPOSTURE, AND WINS THEREBY TO DEATH.

      _The Story of the Heritage_

      In the year of grace 1399 (Nicolas begins) dwelt in a hut near Caer Dathyl in Arvon, as he had dwelt for some five years, a gaunt hermit, notoriously consecrate, whom neighboring Welshmen revered as the Blessed Evrawc. There had been a time when people called him Edward Maudelain, but this period he dared not often remember.

      For though in macerations of the flesh, in fasting, and in hour-long prayers he spent his days, this holy man was much troubled by devils. He got little rest because of them. Sometimes would come into his hut Belphegor in the likeness of a butler, and whisper, "Sire, had you been King, as was your right, you had drunk to-day not water but the wines of Spain and Hungary." Or Asmodeus saying, "Sire, had you been King, as was your right, you had lain now not upon the bare earth but on cushions of silk."

      One day in early spring, they say, the spirit called Orvendile sent the likeness of a fair woman with yellow hair and large blue eyes. She wore a massive crown which seemed too heavy for her frailness to sustain. Soft tranquil eyes had lifted from her book. "You are my cousin now, messire," this phantom had appeared to say.

      That was the worst, and Maudelain began to fear he was a little mad because even this he had resisted with many aves.

      There came also to his hut, through a sullen snowstorm, upon the afternoon of All Soul's day, a horseman in a long cloak of black. He tethered his black horse and he came noiselessly through the doorway of the hut, and upon his breast and shoulders the snow was white as the bleached bones of those women that died in Merlin's youth.

      "Greetings in God's name, Messire Edward Maudelain," the stranger said.

      Since the new-comer spoke intrepidly of holy things a cheerier Maudelain knew that this at least was no demon. "Greetings!" he answered. "But I am Evrawc. You name a man long dead."

      "But it is from a certain Bohemian woman I come. What matter, then, if the dead receive me?" And thus speaking, the stranger dropped his cloak.

      He was clad, as you now saw, in flame-colored satin, which shimmered with each movement like a high flame. He had the appearance of a tall, lean youngster, with crisp, curling, very dark red hair. He now regarded Maudelain. He displayed peculiarly wide-set brown eyes; and their gaze was tender, and the tears somehow had come to Maudelain's eyes because of his great love for this tall stranger. "Eh, from the dead to the dead I travel, as ever," said the new-comer, "with a message and a token. My message runs, _Time is, O fellow satrap!_ and my token is this."

      In this packet, wrapped with white parchment and tied with a golden cord, was only a lock of hair. It lay like a little yellow serpent in Maudelain's palm. "And yet five years ago," he mused, "this hair was turned to dust. God keep us all!" Then he saw the tall lean emissary puffed out like a candle-flame; and upon the floor he saw the huddled cloak waver and spread like ink, and he saw the white parchment slowly dwindle, as snow melts under the open sun. But in his hand remained the lock of yellow hair.

      "O my only friend," said Maudelain, "I may not comprehend, but I know that by no unhallowed art have you won back to me." Hair by hair he scattered upon the floor that which he held. "_Time is!_ and I have not need of any token to spur my memory." He prized up a corner of the hearthstone, took out a small leather bag, and that day purchased a horse and a sword.

      At dawn the Blessed Evrawc rode eastward in secular apparel. Two weeks later he came to Sunninghill; and it happened that the same morning the Earl of Salisbury, who had excellent reason to consider ...

      _Follows a lacuna of fourteen pages. Maudelain's successful imposture of his half-brother, Richard the Second, so strangely favored by their physical resemblance, and the subsequent fiasco at Circencester, are now, however, tolerably well known to students of history._

      _In one way or another, Maudelain contrived to take the place of his now dethroned brother, and therewith also the punishment designed for Richard. It would seem evident, from the Argument of the story in hand, that Nicolas de Caen attributes a large part of this mysterious business to the co-operancy of Isabel of Valois, King Richard's eleven year old wife. And (should one have a taste for the deductive) the foregoing name of Orvendile, when compared with "THE STORY OF THE SCABBARD," would certainly hint that Owain Glyndwyr had a finger in the affair._

      _It is impossible to divine by what method, according to Nicolas, this Edward Maudelain was substituted for his younger brother. Nicolas, if you are to believe his "EPILOGUE," had the best of reasons for knowing that the prisoner locked up in Pontefract Castle in the February of 1400, after Harry of Derby had seized the crown of England, was not Richard Plantagenet: as is attested, also, by the remaining fragment of this same_ "STORY OF THE HERITAGE."

      ... and eight men-at-arms followed him.

      Quickly Maudelain rose from the table, pushing his tall chair aside, and as he did this, one of the soldiers closed the door securely. "Nay, eat your fill, Sire Richard," said Piers Exton, "since you will not ever eat again."

      "Is it so?" the trapped man answered quietly. "Then indeed you come in a good hour." Once only he smote upon his breast. "_Mea culpa!_ O Eternal Father, do Thou shrive me very quickly of all those sins I have committed, both in thought and deed, for now the time is very short."

      And Exton spat upon the dusty floor. "Foh, they had told me I would find a king here. I discover only a cat that whines."

      "Then 'ware his claws!" As a viper leaps Maudelain sprang upon the nearest fellow and wrested away his halberd. "Then 'ware his claws, my men! For I come of an accursed race. And now let some of you lament that hour wherein the devil's son begot an heir for England! For of ice and of lust and of hell-fire are all we sprung; old records attest it; and fickle and

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