"You have a good memory," I commented drily, as I essayed a moment
to drape my shoulders with the new sable cloak ere I tossed it to
Pons to put aside. He shook his head sourly.
"No need of memory when you roared it over and over for the
thousandth time till half the inn was a-knock at the door to spit
you for the sleep-killer you were. And when I had you decently in
the bed, did you not call me to you and command, if the devil
called, to tell him my lady slept? And did you not call me back
again, and, with a grip on my arm that leaves it bruised and black
this day, command me, as I loved life, fat meat, and the warm fire,
to call you not of the morning save for one thing?"
"Which was?" I prompted,
unable for the life of me to guess what I
could have said.
"Which was the heart of one, a black buzzard, you said, by name
Martinelli--whoever he may be--for the heart of Martinelli smoking
on a gold
platter. The
platter must be gold, you said; and you said
I must call you by singing, 'Sing cucu, sing cucu, sing cucu.'
Whereat you began to teach me how to sing, 'Sing cucu, sing cucu,
sing cucu.'"
And when Pons had said the name, I knew it at once for the
priest,
Martinelli, who had been knocking his heels two
mortal hours in the
room without.
When Martinelli was permitted to enter and as he saluted me by title
and name, I knew at once my name and all of it. I was Count
Guillaume de Sainte-Maure. (You see, only could I know then, and
remember afterward, what was in my
conscious mind.)
The
priest was Italian, dark and small, lean as with fasting or with
a
wastinghunger not of this world, and his hands were as small and
slender as a woman's. But his eyes! They were
cunning and
trustless, narrow-slitted and heavy-lidded, at one and the same time
as sharp as a ferret's and as indolent as a basking lizard's.
"There has been much delay, Count de Sainte-Maure," he began
promptly, when Pons had left the room at a glance from me. "He whom
I serve grows impatient."
"Change your tune,
priest," I broke in
angrily. "Remember, you are
not now in Rome."
"My
august master--" he began.
"Rules
augustly in Rome, mayhap," I again interrupted. "This is
France."
Martinelli shrugged his shoulders
meekly and
patiently, but his
eyes, gleaming like a basilisk's, gave his shoulders the lie.
"My
august master has some concern with the
doings of France," he
said quietly. "The lady is not for you. My master has other plans.
. ." He moistened his thin lips with his tongue. "Other plans for
the lady . . . and for you."
Of course, by the lady I knew he referred to the great Duchess
Philippa, widow of Geoffrey, last Duke of Aquitaine. But great
duchess, widow, and all, Philippa was a woman, and young, and gay,
and beautiful, and, by my faith, fashioned for me.
"What are his plans?" I demanded bluntly.
"They are deep and wide, Count Sainte-Maure--too deep and wide for
me to
presume to imagine, much less know or discuss with you or any
man."
"Oh, I know big things are afoot and slimy worms squirming
underground," I said.
"They told me you were stubborn-necked, but I have obeyed commands."
Martinelli arose to leave, and I arose with him.
"I said it was useless," he went on. "But the last chance to change
your mind was
accorded you. My
august master deals more fairly than
fair."
"Oh, well, I'll think the matter over," I said airily, as I bowed
the
priest to the door.
He stopped
abruptly at the
threshold.
"The time for thinking is past," he said. "It is decision I came
for."
"I will think the matter over," I
repeated, then added, as
afterthought: "If the lady's plans do not
accord with mine, then
mayhap the plans of your master may fruit as he desires. For
remember,
priest, he is no master of mine."
"You do not know my master," he said solemnly.
"Nor do I wish to know him," I retorted.
And I listened to the lithe, light step of the little intriguing
priest go down the creaking stairs.
Did I go into the minutiae of detail of all that I saw this half a
day and half a night that I was Count Guillaume de Sainte-Maure, not
ten books the size of this I am
writing could
contain the totality
of the matter. Much I shall skip; in fact, I shall skip almost all;
for never yet have I heard of a condemned man being reprieved in
order that he might complete his memoirs--at least, not in
California.
When I rode out in Paris that day it was the Paris of centuries
agone. The narrow streets were an unsanitary
scandal of filth and
slime. But I must skip. And skip I shall, all of the afternoon's
events, all of the ride outside the walls, of the grand fete given
by Hugh de Meung, of the feasting and the drinking in which I took
little part. Only of the end of the adventure will I write, which
begins with where I stood jesting with Philippa herself--ah, dear
God, she was
wondrous beautiful. A great lady--ay, but before that,
and after that, and always, a woman.
We laughed and jested
lightly enough, as about us jostled the merry
throng; but under our jesting was the deep
earnestness" target="_blank" title="n.认真,急切;坚定">
earnestness of man and
woman well
advanced across the
threshold of love and yet not too
sure each of the other. I shall not describe her. She was small,
exquisitely slender--but there, I am describing her. In brief, she
was the one woman in the world for me, and little I recked the long
arm of that gray old man in Rome could reach out half across Europe
between my woman and me.
And the Italian, Fortini, leaned to my shoulder and
whispered:
"One who desires to speak."
"One who must wait my pleasure," I answered shortly.
"I wait no man's pleasure," was his
equally short reply.
And, while my blood boiled, I remembered the
priest, Martinelli, and
the gray old man at Rome. The thing was clear. It was
deliberate.
It was the long arm. Fortini smiled
lazily at me while I thus
paused for the moment to
debate, but in his smile was the
essence of
all insolence.
This, of all times, was the time I should have been cool. But the
old red anger began to
kindle in me. This was the work of the
priest. This was the Fortini, poverished of all save lineage,
reckoned the best sword come up out of Italy in half a score of
years. To-night it was Fortini. If he failed the gray old man's
command to-morrow it would be another sword, the next day another.
And,
perchance still failing, then might I expect the common bravo's
steel in my back or the common poisoner's philter in my wine, my
meat, or bread.
"I am busy," I said. "Begone."
"My business with you presses," was his reply.
Insensibly our voices had s
lightly risen, so that Philippa heard.
"Begone, you Italian hound," I said. "Take your howling from my
door. I shall attend to you presently."
"The moon is up," he said. "The grass is dry and excellent. There
is no dew. Beyond the fish-pond, an arrow's
flight to the left, is
an open space, quiet and private."
"Presently you shall have your desire," I muttered im
patiently.
But still he persisted in
waiting at my shoulder.
"Presently," I said. "Presently I shall attend to you."
Then spoke Philippa, in all the
daring spirit and the iron of her.
"Satisfy the gentleman's desire, Sainte-Maure. Attend to him now.
And good fortune go with you." She paused to
beckon to her her
uncle, Jean de Joinville, who was passing--uncle on her mother's
side, of the de Joinvilles of Anjou. "Good fortune go with you,"
she
repeated, and then leaned to me so that she could
whisper: "And
my heart goes with you, Sainte-Maure. Do not be long. I shall
await you in the big hall."
I was in the seventh heaven. I trod on air. It was the first frank
admittance of her love. And with such benediction I was made so
strong that I knew I could kill a score of Fortinis and snap my
fingers at a score of gray old men in Rome.
Jean de Joinville bore Philippa away in the press, and Fortini and I
settled our arrangements in a trice. We separated--he to find a
friend or so, and I to find a friend or so, and all to meet at the
appointed place beyond the fish-pond.
First I found Robert Lanfranc, and, next, Henry Bohemond. But
before I found them I encountered a windlestraw which showed which
way blew the wind and gave promise of a very gale. I knew the
windlestraw, Guy de Villehardouin, a raw young
provincial, come up
the first time to Court, but a fiery little cockerel for all of
that. He was red-haired. His blue eyes, small and pinched close to
ether, were
likewise red, at least in the whites of them; and his
skin, of the sort that goes with such types, was red and freckled.
He had quite a parboiled appearance.
As I passed him by a sudden
movement he jostled me. Oh, of course,
the thing was
deliberate. And he flamed at me while his hand
dropped to his rapier.
"Faith," thought I, "the gray old man has many and strange tools,"
while to the cockerel I bowed and murmured, "Your
pardon for my
clumsiness. The fault was mine. Your
pardon, Villehardouin."
But he was not to be appeased thus easily. And while he fumed and
strutted I glimpsed Robert Lanfranc,
beckoned him to us, and
explained the happening.
"Sainte-Maure has
accorded you satisfaction," was his judgment. "He
has prayed your
pardon."
"In truth, yes," I interrupted in my suavest tones. "And I pray
your
pardon again, Villehardouin, for my very great clumsiness. I
pray your
pardon a thousand times. The fault was mine, though
unintentioned. In my haste to an
engagement I was
clumsy, most
woful
clumsy, but without intention."
What could the dolt do but grudgingly accept the
amends I so freely
proffered him? Yet I knew, as Lanfranc and I hastened on, that ere
many days, or hours, the flame-headed youth would see to it that we
measured steel together on the grass.
I explained no more to Lanfranc than my need of him, and he was
little interested to pry deeper into the matter. He was himself a
lively
youngster of no more than twenty, but he had been trained to
arms, had fought in Spain, and had an
honourable record on the
grass. Merely his black eyes flashed when he
learned what was
toward, and such was his
eagerness that it was he who gathered Henry
Bohemond in to our number.
When the three of us arrived in the open space beyond the fish-pond
Fortini and two friends were already
waiting us. One was Felix
Pasquini,
nephew to the Cardinal of that name, and as close in his
uncle's confidence as was his uncle close in the confidence of the
gray old man. The other was Raoul de Goncourt, whose presence
surprised me, he being too good and noble a man for the company he
kept.
We saluted
properly, and
properly went about the business. It was
nothing new to any of us. The
footing was good, as promised. There
was no dew. The moon shone fair, and Fortini's blade and mine were
out and at
earnest play.
This I knew: good swordsman as they reckoned me in France, Fortini
was a better. This, too, I knew: that I carried my lady's heart
with me this night, and that this night, because of me, there would
be one Italian less in the world. I say I knew it. In my mind the
issue could not be in doubt. And as our rapiers played I pondered
the manner I should kill him. I was not
minded for a long
contest.
Quick and
brilliant had always been my way. And further, what of my
past gay months of carousal and of singing "Sing cucu, sing cucu,
sing cucu," at ungodly hours, I knew I was not conditioned for a
long
contest. Quick and
brilliant was my decision.
But quick and
brilliant was a difficult matter with so
consummate a
swordsman as Fortini opposed to me. Besides, as luck would have it,