Chivalry Read online

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  Cover art]

  [Frontispiece: "'I SING OF DEATH'" _Painting by Howard Pyle_]

  Title page]

  Chivalry

  By

  James Branch Cabell

  "_And I, according to my copy, and after the simple cunning that God hath sent to me, have down set this in print, to the intent that noble men may see and learn the noble acts of chivalry._"

  Illustrated

  New York and London

  Harper & Brothers Publishers

  1909

  Copyright, 1909, by HARPER & BROTHERS.

  _All rights reserved._

  Published October, 1909.

  TO

  Anne Branch Cabell

  "AINSI A VOUS, MADAME, A MA TRES HAULTE ET TRES NOBLE DAME, A QUI J'AYME A DEVOIR ATTACHEMENT ET OBEISSANCE, J'ENVOYE CE LIVRET."

  Precautional

  _Imprimis, as concerns the authenticity of these tales perhaps the lessdebate may be the higher wisdom, if only because this Nicolas de Caen,by common report, was never a Gradgrindian. And in this volume inparticular, writing it (as Nicolas is supposed to have done) in _1470_,as a dependant on the Duke of Burgundy, it were but human nature shouldour author be a little niggardly in his ascription of praiseworthytraits to any member of the house of Lancaster or of Valois. Rathermust one in common reason accept him as confessedly a partisan writer,who upon occasion will recolor an event with such nuances as will beleast inconvenient to a Yorkist and Burgundian bias._

  _The reteller of these stories needs in addition to plead guilty ofhaving abridged the tales with a free hand. Item, these tales havebeen a trifle pulled about, most notably in _"THE STORY OF THESATRAPS,_" where it seemed advantageous, on rejection, to put intoGloucester's mouth a history which in the original version was relatedab ovo, and as a sort of bungling prologue to the story proper. Item,some passages have been restored in book-form--pre-eminently to _"THESTORY OF THE HOUSEWIFE"_--that in an anterior publication had beenunavoidably deleted through consideration of space._

  _And--"sixth and lastly"--should confession be made that in the presentrendering a purely arbitrary title has been assigned this little book;and chiefly for commercial reasons, since the word "dizain" has beenadjudged both untranslatable and, in its pristine form, repellantlyoutre._

  _You are to give my makeshift, then, a wide interpretation; and arealways to remember that in the bleak, florid age these talescommemorate this chivalry was much the rarelier significant of anypersonal trait than of a world-wide code in consonance with which allestimable people lived and died. Its root was the assumption(uncontested then) that a gentleman will always serve his God, hishonor and his lady without any reservation; nor did the many emanatingby-laws ever deal with special cases as concerns this triple, fixed,and fundamental homage._

  _So here you have a chance to peer at our world's youth when chivalrywas regnant, and common-sense and cowardice were still at nurse. And,questionless, these same conditions were the source of an age-longmelee--such as this week is, happily, impossible in any of ourparishes--wherein contended "courtesy, and humanity, friendliness,hardihood, love and friendship, and murder, hate, and virtue, and sin."So that I can only counsel you to do after the excellencies and leavethe iniquity._

  _And for the rest, since good wine needs no hush, and an inferiorbeverage is not likely to be bettered by arboreal adornment, thereteller of these tales prefers to piece out his exordium (howeverlamely) with_ "THE PRINTER'S PREFACE." _And it runs in this fashion:_

  _"Here begins the volume called and entitled the Dizain of Queens,composed and extracted from divers chronicles and other sources ofinformation, by that extremely venerable person and worshipful man,Messire Nicolas de Caen, priest and chaplain to the right noble,glorious and mighty prince in his time, Philippe, Duke of Burgundy, ofBrabant, etc., in the year of the Incarnation of our Lord God athousand four hundred and seventy; and imprinted by me, Colard Mansion,at Bruges, in the year of our said Lord God a thousand four hundred andseventy-one; at the commandment of the right high, mighty and virtuousPrincess, my redoubted Lady, Isabella of Portugal, by the grace of GodDuchess of Burgundy and Lotharingia, of Brabant and Limbourg, ofLuxembourg and of Gueldres, Countess of Flanders, of Artois, and ofBurgundy, Palatine of Hainault, of Holland, of Zealand and of Namur,Marquesse of the Holy Empire, and Lady of Frisia, of Salins and ofMechlin; whom I beseech Almighty God less to increase than to continuein her virtuous disposition in this world, and after our poor fleetexistence to receive eternally. Amen."_

  Contents

  CHAP.

  PRECAUTIONAL THE PROLOGUE I. THE STORY OF THE SESTINA II. THE STORY OF THE TENSON III. THE STORY OF THE RAT-TRAP IV. THE STORY OF THE CHOICES V. THE STORY OF THE HOUSEWIFE VI. THE STORY OF THE SATRAPS VII. THE STORY OF THE HERITAGE VIII. THE STORY OF THE SCABBARD IX. THE STORY OF THE NAVARRESE X. THE STORY OF THE FOX-BRUSH THE EPILOGUE

  Illustrations

  "'I SING OF DEATH'" . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_

  "THEY WERE OVERTAKEN BY FALMOUTH HIMSELF"

  "IN AN INSTANT THE PLACE RESOUNDED LIKE A SMITHY"

  "SHE HAD VIEWED THE GREAT CONQUEROR"

  "'MY PRISONER!' SHE SAID"

  "'DO YOU FORSAKE SIRE EDWARD, CATHERINE?'"

  "'HAIL YE THAT ARE MY KINSMEN!'"

  "IN THE LIKENESS OF A FAIR WOMAN"

  "'YOU DESIGN MURDER?' RICHARD ASKED"

  "'TAKE NOW YOUR PETTY VENGEANCE!'"

  "SO FOR A HEART-BEAT SHE SAW HIM"

  "NICOLAS: A SON LIVRET"

  The Prologue

  "_Afin que les entreprises honorables et les nobles aventures et faicts d'armes soyent noblement enregistres et conserves, je vais traiter et raconter et inventer ung galimatias._"

  THE DIZAIN OF QUEENS OF THAT NOBLE MAKER IN THE FRENCH TONGUE, MESSIRE NICOLAS DE CAEN, DEDICATED TO THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS ISABELLA OF PORTUGAL, OF THE HOUSE OF THE INDOMITABLE ALFONSO HENRIQUES, AND DUCHESS DOWAGER OF BURGUNDY. HERE BEGINS IN AUSPICIOUS WISE THE PROLOGUE.

  Chivalry

  The Prologue

  _A sa Dame_

  Inasmuch as it was by your command, illustrious and exalted lady, thatI have gathered together these stories to form the present little book,you should the less readily suppose I have presumed to dedicate to yourSerenity this trivial offering because of my esteeming it to be notundeserving of your acceptance. The truth is otherwise; and yourpostulant now approaches as one not spurred toward you by vainglory butrather by plain equity, and simply in acknowledgment of the fact thathe who seeks to write of noble ladies must necessarily implore atoutset the patronage of her who is the light and mainstay of our age.In fine, I humbly bring my book to you as Phidyle approached anotherand less sacred shrine, _farre pio et salente mica_, and lay before youthis my valueless mean tribute not as appropriate to you but as thebest I have to offer.

  It is a little book wherein I treat of divers queens and of theirlove-business; and with necessitated candor I concede my chosen fieldto have been harvested, and even scrupulously gleaned, by many writersof innumerable conditions. Since Dares Phrygius wrote of Queen Heleineand Virgil (that shrewd necromancer) of Queen Dido, a preponderatingmass of clerks, in casting about for high and serious matter, havechosen, as though it were by common instinct, to dilate upon the amoursof royal women. Even in romance we scribblers must contrive it so thatthe fair Nicolette shall be discovered in the end to be no less thanthe King's daughter of Carthage, and that Sir Doon of Mayence shallnever sink in his love-affairs beneath the degree of a Saracenprincess; and we are backed in this old procedure not only by theauthority of Aristotle but, oddly enough, by that of reason as well.

  Kings have their policies and wars wherewith to dru
g each appetite.But their consorts are denied these makeshifts; and love may rationallybe defined as the pivot of each normal woman's life, and in consequenceas the arbiter of that ensuing life which is eternal. Because--as ofold Horatius Flaccus demanded, though not, to speak the truth, of anywoman,--

  _Quo fugis? ah demons! nulla est fuga, tu licet usque_ _Ad Tanaim fugias, usque sequetur amor._

  And a dairymaid, let us say, may love whom she will, and nobody else bea penny the worse for her mistaking of the preferable nail whereon tohang her affections; whereas with a queen this choice is moreportentous. She plays the game of life upon a loftier table,ruthlessly illuminated, and stakes by her least movement a tall pile ofcounters, some of which are, of necessity, the lives and happiness ofpersons whom she knows not, unless it be by vague report. Grandeursells itself at this hard price, and at no other. A queen must alwaysplay, in fine, as the vicar of destiny, free to choose but verycertainly compelled to justify that choice in the ensuing action; as isstrikingly manifested by the authentic histories of Brunhalt, and ofGuenevere, and of swart Cleopatra, and of many others that were born tothe barbaric queenhoods of a now extinct and dusty time.

  For royal persons are (I take it) the immediate and the responsiblestewards of Heaven; and since the nature of each man is like a troubledstream, now muddied and now clear, their prayer must ever be, _Defendame, Dios, de me_! Yes, of exalted people, and even of their nearassociates, life, because it aims more high than the aforementionedAristotle, demands upon occasion a more great catharsis which wouldpurge any audience of unmanliness, through pity and through terror,because, by a quaint paradox, the players have been purged of allhumanity. For in that aweful moment would Destiny have thrust hersceptre into the hands of a human being and Chance would have exalted ahuman being into usurpal of her chair. These two--with what immortalchucklings one may facilely imagine--would then have left the weaklingthus enthroned, free to direct the pregnant outcome, free to choose,and free to steer the conjuration either in the fashion of Friar Baconor of his man, but with no intermediate course unbarred. _Now provethyself!_ saith Destiny; and Chance appends: _Now prove thyself to beat bottom a god or else a beast, and now eternally abide that choice.And now_ (O crowning irony!) _we may not tell thee clearly by whichchoice thou mayst prove either_.

  It is of ten such moments that I treat within this little book.

  You alone, I think, of all persons living have learned, as you havesettled by so many instances, to rise above mortality in such atesting, and unfailingly to merit by your conduct the plaudits and theadoration of our otherwise dissentient world. You have sat often inthis same high chair of Chance; and in so doing have both graced andhallowed it. Yet I forbear to speak of this, simply because I dare notseem to couple your well-known perfection with any imperfect encomium.

  _Therefore to you, madame--most excellent and noble lady,_ _to whom I love to owe both loyalty and love--_ _I dedicate this little book._

  I

  The Story of the Sestina

  "_Armatz de fust e de fer e d'acier, Mos ostal seran bosc, fregz, e semdier, E mas cansos sestinas e descortz, E mantenrai los frevols contra 'ls fortz._"

  THE FIRST NOVEL.--ALIANORA OF PROVENCE, COMING IN DISGUISE AND IN ADVERSITY TO A CERTAIN CLERK, IS BY HIM CONDUCTED ACROSS A HOSTILE COUNTRY; AND IN THAT TROUBLED JOURNEY ARE MADE MANIFEST TO EITHER THE SNARES WHICH HAD BEGUILED THEM AFORETIME.

  The Story of the Sestina

  In this place we have to do with the opening tale of the Dizain ofQueens. I abridge, as afterward, at discretion; and an initial accountof the Barons' War, among other superfluities, I amputate as moreremarkable for veracity than interest. The result, we will agree atoutset, is that to the Norman cleric appertains whatever these tales mayhave of merit, whereas what you find distasteful in them you must imputeto my delinquencies in skill rather than in volition.

  Within the half-hour after de Giars' death (here one overtakes Nicolasmid-course in narrative) Dame Alianora thus stood alone in the corridorof a strange house. Beyond the arras the steward and his lord were atirritable converse.

  First, "If the woman be hungry," spoke a high and peevish voice, "feedher. If she need money, give it to her. But do not annoy me."

  "This woman demands to see the master of the house," the steward thenretorted.

  "O incredible Boeotian, inform her that the master of the house has notime to waste upon vagabonds who select the middle of the night as aneligible time to pop out of nowhere. Why did you not do so in thebeginning, you dolt?" He got for answer only a deferential cough, andvery shortly continued: "This is remarkably vexatious. _Vox et praetereanihil_,--which signifies, Yeck, that to converse with women is alwaysdelightful. Admit her." This was done, and Dame Alianora came into anapartment littered with papers, where a neat and shrivelled gentleman offifty-odd sat at a desk and scowled.

  He presently said, "You may go, Yeck." He had risen, the magisterialattitude with which he had awaited her advent cast aside. "O God!" hesaid; "you, madame!" His thin hands, scholarly hands, were plucking atthe air.

  Dame Alianora had paused, greatly astonished, and there was an intervalbefore she said, "I do not recognize you, messire."

  "And yet, madame, I recall very clearly that some thirty years ago CountBerenger, then reigning in Provence, had about his court four daughters,each one of whom was afterward wedded to a king. First, Margaret, theeldest, now regnant in France; then Alianora, the second and mostbeautiful of these daughters, whom troubadours hymned as La Belle. Shewas married a long while ago, madame, to the King of England, Lord Henry,third of that name to reign in these islands."

  Dame Alianora's eyes were narrowing. "There is something in your voice,"she said, "which I recall."

  He answered: "Madame and Queen, that is very likely, for it is a voicewhich sang a deal in Provence when both of us were younger. I concedewith the Roman that I have somewhat deteriorated since the reign of goodCynara. Yet have you quite forgotten the Englishman who made so manysongs of you? They called him Osmund Heleigh."

  "He made the Sestina of Spring which my father envied," the Queen said;and then, with a new eagerness: "Messire, can it be that you are OsmundHeleigh?" He shrugged assent. She looked at him for a long time, rathersadly, and afterward demanded if he were the King's man or of the barons'party. The nervous hands were raised in deprecation.

  "I have no politics," he began, and altered it, gallantly enough, to, "Iam the Queen's man, madame."

  "Then aid me, Osmund," she said; and he answered with a gravity whichsingularly became him:

  "You have reason to understand that to my fullest power I will aid you."

  "You know that at Lewes these swine overcame us." He nodded assent."And now they hold the King my husband captive at Kenilworth. I amcontent that he remain there, for he is of all the King's enemies themost dangerous. But, at Wallingford, Leicester has imprisoned my son,Prince Edward. The Prince must be freed, my Osmund. Warren deBasingbourne commands what is left of the royal army, now entrenched atBristol, and it is he who must liberate him. Get me to Bristol, then.Afterward we will take Wallingford." The Queen issued these orders incheery, practical fashion, and did not admit opposition into the account,for she was a capable woman.

  "But you, madame?" he stammered. "You came alone?"

  "I come from France, where I have been entreating--and vainlyentreating--succor from yet another monkish king, the pious Lewis of thatrealm. Eh, what is God about when He enthrones these cowards, Osmund?Were I a king, were I even a man, I would drive these smug English out oftheir foggy isle in three days' space! I would leave alive not one ofthese curs that dare yelp at me! I would--" She paused, the suddenanger veering into amusement. "See how I enrage myself when I think ofwhat your people have made me suffer," the Queen said, and shrugged hershoulders. "In effect, I skulked back to this detestable island indisguise, accompanied by Avenel de Giars and Hubert Fitz-Herveis.To-night some half-dozen fellows-
-robbers, thorough knaves, like all youEnglish,--suddenly attacked us on the common yonder and slew the men ofour party. While they were cutting de Giars' throat I slipped away inthe dark and tumbled through many ditches till I spied your light. Thereyou have my story. Now get me an escort to Bristol."

  It was a long while before Messire Heleigh spoke. Then, "These men," hesaid--"this de Giars and this Fitz-Herveis--they gave their lives foryours, as I understand it,--_pro caris amicis_. And yet you do notgrieve for them."

  "I shall regret de Giars," the Queen said, "for he made excellent songs.But Fitz-Herveis?--foh! the man had a face like a horse." Then again hermood changed. "Many men have died for me, my friend. At first I weptfor them, but now I am dry of tears."

  He shook his head. "Cato very wisely says, 'If thou hast need of help,ask it of thy friends.' But the sweet friend that I remember was aclean-eyed girl, joyous and exceedingly beautiful. Now you appear to meone of those ladies of remoter times--Faustina, or Jael, or Artemis, theKing's wife of Tauris,--they that slew men, laughing. I am somewhatafraid of you, madame."

  She was angry at first; then her face softened. "You English!" she said,only half mirthful. "Eh, my God! you remember me when I was happy. Nowyou behold me in my misery. Yet even now I am your Queen, messire, andit is not yours to pass judgment upon me."

  "I do not judge you," he hastily returned. "Rather I cry with him ofold, _Omnia incerta ratione_! and I cry with Salomon that he who meddleswith the strife of another man is like to him that takes a hound by theears. Yet listen, madame and Queen. I cannot afford you an escort toBristol. This house, of which I am in temporary charge, is Longaville,my brother's manor. And Lord Brudenel, as you doubtless know, is of thebarons' party and--scant cause for grief!--with Leicester at this moment.I can trust none of my brother's people, for I believe them to be of muchthe same opinion as those Londoners who not long ago stoned you and wouldhave sunk your barge in Thames River. Oh, let us not blink the fact thatyou are not overbeloved in England. So an escort is out of the question.Yet I, madame, if you so elect, will see you safe to Bristol."