Figures of Earth: A Comedy of Appearances Page 17

  XV

  Bandages for the Victor

  They came out of the enclosure, to the old altar of Vel-Tyno, while themoon was still void and powerless. The servitors of Freydis werethronging swiftly toward Upper Morven, after a pleasant hour of raveningand ramping about Poictesme. As spoorns and trows and calcars and asother long forgotten shapes they came, without any noise, so that UpperMorven was like the disordered mind of a wretch that is dying in fever:and to this side and to that side the witches of Amneran sat nodding inapproval of what they saw.

  Thus, one by one, the forgotten shapes came to the fire, and cried, "Apenny, a penny, twopence, a penny and a half, and a halfpenny!" as eachentered into the fire which was the gateway to their home.

  "Farewell!" said Freydis: and as she spoke she sighed.

  "Not thus must be our parting," Manuel says. "For do you listen now,Queen Freydis! it was Helmas the Deep-Minded who told me what wasrequisite. '_Queen_ is the same as _cwen_, which means a woman, no morenor less,' said the wise King. 'You have but to remember that.'"

  She took his meaning. Freydis cried out, angrily: "Then all thefoolishness you have been talking about my looks and your love for mewas pre-arranged! And you have cheated me out of the old Tuyla mysteryby putting on the appearance of loving me, and by pestering me with suchnonsense as a plowman trades against the heart of a milkmaid! Now,certainly, I shall reward your candor in a fashion that will bewhispered about for a long while."

  With that, Queen Freydis set about a devastating magic.

  "All, all was pre-arranged save one thing," said Manuel, with a yappinglaugh, and not even looking at the commencing terrors. He thrust intothe fire the parchment which Freydis had given him. "Yes, all waspre-arranged except that Helmas did not purge me of that which will notaccept the hire of any lying to you. So the Deep-Minded's wisdom comes,at the last pinch, to naught."

  Now Freydis for an instant waved back two-thirds of an appallingmonster, which was as yet incompletely evoked for Dom Manuel'sdestruction, and Freydis cried impatiently, "But have you no sensewhatever! for you are burning your hand."

  And indeed the boy had already withdrawn his hand with a grimace, for inthe ardor of executing his noble gesture, as Queen Freydis saw, he hadnot estimated how hot her fires were.

  "It is but a little hurt to me who have taken a great hurt," saysManuel, sullenly. "For I had thought to lie, and in my mouth the lieturned to a truth. At least, I do not profit by my false-dealing, and Iwave you farewell with empty hands burned clean of theft."

  Then she who was a human woman said, "But you have burned your hand!"

  "It does not matter: I have ointments yonder. Make haste, Queen Freydis,for the hour passes wherein the moon is void and powerless."

  "There is time." She brought out water from the enclosure, and swiftlybathed Dom Manuel's hand.

  From the fire now came a whispering, "Make haste, Queen Freydis! makehaste, dear Fairy mistress!"

  "There is time," said Freydis, "and do you stop flurrying me!" Shebrought from the enclosure a pot of ointment, and she dressed Manuel'shand.

  "Borram, borram, Leanhaun shee!" the fire crackled. "Now the hour ends."

  Then Freydis sprang from Manuel, toward the flames beyond which she wasqueen of ancient mysteries, and beyond which her will was neither toloose nor to bind. And she cried hastily, "A penny, a penny, twopence--"

  But just for a moment she looked back at Morven, and at the man whowaited upon Morven alone and hurt. In his firelit eyes she saw love outof measure and without hope. And in the breast of Freydis moved theheart of a human woman.

  "I cannot help it," she said, as the hour passed. "Somebody has tobandage it, and men have no sense in these matters."

  Whereon the fire roared angrily, and leaped, and fell dead, for theMoon-Children Bil and Hjuki had returned from the well which is calledByrgir, and the moon was no longer void and powerless.

  "So, does that feel more comfortable?" said Freydis. She knew thatwithin this moment age and sorrow and death had somewhere laidinevitable ambuscades, from which to assail her by and by, for she wasmortal after the sacred fire's extinction, and she meant to make thebest of it.

  For a while Count Manuel did not speak. Then he said, in a shakingvoice: "O woman dear and lovely and credulous and compassionate, it isyou and you alone that I must be loving eternally with such tendernessas is denied to proud and lonely queens on their tall thrones! And it isyou that I must be serving always with such a love as may not be givento the figure that any man makes in this world! And though all life maybe a dusty waste of endless striving, and though the ways of men mayalways be the ways of folly, yet are these ways our ways henceforward,and not hopeless ways, for you and I will tread them together."

  "Now certainly there is in Audela no such moonstruck nonsense to behearing, nor any such quick-footed hour of foolishness to be livingthrough," Freydis replied, "as here to-night has robbed me of mykingdom."

  "Love will repay," said Manuel, as is the easy fashion of men.

  And Freydis, a human woman now in all things, laughed low and softly inthe darkness. "Repay me thus, my dearest: no matter how much I may coaxyou in the doubtful time to come, do you not ever tell me how youhappened to have the bandages and the pot of ointment set ready by themirror. For it is bad for a human woman ever to be seeing through thedevices of wise kings, and far worse for her to be seeing through theheroic antics of her husband."

  Meanwhile in Arles young Alianora had arranged her own match with morecircumspection. The English, who at first demanded twenty thousand marksas her jointure, had after interminable bargaining agreed to accept herwith three thousand: and she was to be dowered with Plymouth and Exeterand Tiverton and Torquay and Brixham, and with the tin mines ofDevonshire and Cornwall. In everything except the husband involved, shewas marrying excellently, and so all Arles that night was ornamentedwith flags and banners and chaplets and bright hangings and flaringlamps and torches, and throughout Provence there was festivity of everysort, and the Princess had great honor and applause.

  But in the darkness of Upper Morven they had happiness, no matter forhow brief a while.

  PART THREE

  THE BOOK OF CAST ACCOUNTS

  TO

  H.L. MENCKEN

  Consider, _faire Miserie, (quoth Manuel) that it lyes not in mans powerto place his loue where he list, being the worke of an high Deity._ ABirde was neuer seen in Pontus, _nor true loue in a fleeting mynde:neuer shall remoue the affection of my Hearte, which in natureresembleth the stone_ Abiston.