Part 19

Then at first the prince began to storm and ejaculate, being shaken out of his native gravity by his strange case and his imperfect understanding of the matter, but Simon presently told him a plain tale that quenched his heat with tears. Simon showed him how the cause of Athens was lost, how Duke Baldwin and his pride of knights had perished, how Simon had saved his prince and himself from the peril, and how his prince's immediate duty was to the girl he loved, the girl who loved him.

Rainouart was silent a little space as the memory of the morning's business came back to him, and he mused on Simon's words and found them honest. Then he held out his hand to Simon, who clasped it.

"Friend," he said, "I had little cause to love Athens or those that dwelt therein, always excepting Guy de Hainault and Jaufre de Brabant, good knights. As for my sire, I will not speak of him, for he made my mother's life bitter, and it may be that I sinned in thinking thereof bitterly. But God knows I would have died with my fellowship. Yet since it has pleased God to save me, by your strength and your fidelity, from the swamp of slaughter, I am clean of any treason and free to seek for my sweetheart."

"Now this is well," crowed Simon, yet he gulped a groan, too, as he spoke, thinking how he had rescued a youth for whom he cared nothing to pleasure a maid for whom he cared much.

By now it was dark, and though the moon filled the forest with white fire, it seemed vain to search the woodland for Argathona that even. So Simon fished some bread and meat out of his wallet, and with that and the flagon the pair made a journeyman's meal of it, and changed many thoughts. There was little in common between the pair, save that they were both strong men and brave soldiers, but at the end of their parley they knew each other better, and liked each other better, though it may be that there would never be any great love lost between them. But at least the friendship was fond enough to prompt Simon to pluck from his bosom a little book and give it to his companion, who, looking upon it, recognized that very volume of the _Romance of the Rose_ which he had carried with him on the day, so short a while ago, that brought him acquainted with Argathona. Simon told him cheerfully how dishonestly he came by it, and Rainouart did not quarrel with him for that, for though, indeed, he was pleased to get his book of verses again, he had learned since last he looked upon it that there were better things in the world than the reading of verses or the writing of verses.

After a little more discourse, Rainouart and Simon, the night being now upon them, laid them their lengths upon the turf and slept peacefully through the summer night. Simon dreamed that he was back in that place of pleasure at Byzantium, and would have nothing to do with the women-folk there just because he had fallen in love with an old-time image of stone that stood in the garden and that would have nothing to say to his wooing. Rainouart dreamed that he was in the demesnes of my lord Mirth, and that he walked between Love and Venus to the thicket where the noble rose was throned. So they slept, and woke late when the sun was high in heaven, for the aches and pains of the dead day had been of a kind to compel heavy slumber. They broke their fast with a bite of bread apiece and a few drops from the flagon, which Simon husbanded scrupulously till supply came his way. Then, leaving their steed tethered in ease and safety, they proceeded to explore the forest, and when they had made their way to the very core of the woodland they came to the place where Argathona lay asleep in the shade.

Rainouart gave a little cry of joy and Simon choked a moan of despair, for the girl seemed fairer in her sleep than ever to his eyes. He whispered in his companion's ear that he would leave him with his lass and would wander awhile in the woods for his diversion, but he made a tryst with him that he would come back to that same spot in a little time. So Simon left Rainouart to stand by his sleeping love and drifted into the depths of the wood. Rainouart looked down upon Argathona and loved her with all his soul, and by-and-by her eyelids trembled and then opened, and the girl awoke and gazed into her lover's face.

In an instant Argathona sprang to her feet and caught at her lover's extended hands and looked into her lover's adoring eyes.

"My dear," she cried, "you are welcome to the greenwood," and then she fell to laughing and to crying at the same time like a silly girl that is glad and sad in a companionable moment, and to stay her tears Rainouart was quick to kiss her on the lips, though the sound of her laughter was sweeter in his ears than the chime of blessed bells.

For a while of delicious silence they clung together in the sunlight, murmuring each other's names in little broken spells of speech, and fondling each other after the manner of happily met lovers since the dawn of time. But at last, when the sweetness of their first delicate embraces was sufficiently tasted, and the restraint of two pure hearts glided ghostlike between desire and desire, Argathona drew a little way from her lover, and, holding him at arm's-length with her hands upon his shoulders, asked him what sadness he carried. For her clear eyes saw that there was sorrow behind the joy he had in finding her and fondling her, and she would not be denied to know the care that ate upon his heart.

So Rainouart and she sat side by side upon the grass, each with arms about the other, while Rainouart in a hushed voice told her what had come to pass. How the Duchess of Thebes, strengthened by the secession of the Catalan Grand Company, had defied the pride and power of Athens, and how the pride and power of Athens had ridden forth to beat Thebes to reason, and how the pride and power of Athens were swallowed up in the bloody slough. And he told her how he himself was escaped from that slaughter, dwelling little upon his own stubbornness to turn from the shambles planned by the Catalan Grand Company--for it becomes no man to elaborate his devotion to duty--but lauding to the full the courage of Simon that by his courage and purpose had plucked him from destruction and carried him from present death to the depths of the greenwood, which same Simon he told her was now taking his ease somewhere in the skirts of the forest, having quitted his companion as soon as the pair came upon the sleeping girl.

While he told his tale the immortal maiden clung to him close, and trembled at her lover's peril, and revelled in his strength of spirit that would rather have died than come to her dishonored, but she had little grief in her heart for the tragedy of the Athenian gallants. Beautiful evil creatures they had seemed to her in her short sojourn among them, fair as a snake may be named fair, and dangerous as a snake is dangerous.

And "Oh, my love," she whispered, "I was blithe to spy you"; and "Oh, my love," he whispered, "I was blithe to find you." So they prattled and babbled together, strong man and strong maid, and the world seemed very young to Rainouart, for he remembered nothing but the discovery of his love, and the world seemed very old to Argathona, for she knew, and joyed with a fierce, sorrowful joy in the knowledge, that there was little usage of the world left for her.

After a while Rainouart told her of his plans: how a messenger had gone to Avignon to the pope, there to break him free from his marriage, and how, in the meanwhile, he was now minded to make his way swiftly into Peloponnesus, where he hoped to win help at best from the Duke of Corinth, or at worst to take ship for France and the court of Philip the Fair, bearing Argathona with him to be his bride and wife in France.

Argathona listened as he whispered his will, and when he had made an end of his aims she turned to him suddenly and stretched out her arms and cried out to him, "Take me in your embrace, beloved, and kiss me once with all your heart and with all your soul, for never again shall you kiss me as I am now at this hour."

Rainouart, amazed, entreated her meaning, and she answered him sad and simple: "All my life I have lived in a faith strange to you, the faith of us who have lived in the woodlands since the days beyond the dawn, but now I intend to take your faith and to share your worship and to praise your God. So let us rise and go to the home of the holy man, and he will bless me and make me as you are, and all shall be well between us till the time comes when nothing can be well for either of us."

Now Rainouart did not very clearly understand what his sweetheart meant when she said these words, but rather took her to mean that she had been bred in that form of the Christian faith which was practised by the Grecians, and he rejoiced that she was so ready to come from the tents of error and dwell in the serenity of what he held to be the truth. So he kissed his mistress long and lovingly upon the lips with his arms bound about her body, kissing her with all that strength of his clean heart and his clean soul, and she gave him back both kiss and clasp, and as she did so she gave also the good-bye to her deathless life.

Then they rose to leave that place and go towards the hermitage when their purpose was stayed by the sound of running feet through the brushwood, and Simon came upon them, hurrying through the trees. Now Rainouart had forgotten Simon, being all absorbed in his joy at finding Argathona, but Argathona was glad to see him, just because he had saved her lover. They saw that Simon's face was grave, yet not with the gravity of sadness, and when he beheld them he quickened his pace till he came up with them, and when he was up with them he gasped, being breathed from his hurry, "Be happy, lass and lad, you can be married this morning."

XXIX

WHAT SIMON FOUND IN THE FOREST

Simon made his way through the forest idly and at all adventure. He was trying to think what the world would have been like if a girl of the kind of Argathona had chosen to take him for mate. But by-and-by he found this manner of musing too melancholy, and did his best to banish it by pricking a lively interest in his surroundings, looking hither and thither at woodland sights that pleased him, reminding him of Normandy. So by degrees he made some way across the wood, steering, as he guessed, in the direction of the highway, when suddenly he became aware of something bright and golden glancing through the tree-trunks. Curious to see what that could be which glittered and twinkled so brilliantly through those sombre aisles, Simon pushed his way rapidly till he came to a little open space where the trees were thinner, and there he saw a strange sight.

From the boughs of one of the trees a man was hanging that was clad in coat of gold and had a cloth bound about the lower part of his face, but the man was not hanging free, for his feet were firmly planted on the saddle of a dappled horse that seemed to wait very contentedly beneath him. As Simon came into the clearing he saw the eyes of the poor wretch that was pinioned and gibbeted thus fixed upon him in the very eloquence of entreaty, and Simon's purpose was very instant to answer the appeal. He trod at a brisk trot across the interval of grass that divided him from the piteous fellow in that perilous pillory, and when he had come near him he coaxed and wooed the horse cunningly for a moment or so lest he should start and put his surmounter's neck in danger. But the horse stood still and allowed him to come close, and when he was hard by Simon caught at the bridle with a gentle firmness to stay the animal from stirring. Slipping the bridle over the hook of his left elbow, he clasped that arm around the legs of the pendulous fellow, while with his right hand he plucked his sword from its sheath and sheared at the rope that was about the pinioned man's neck. In another moment the captive was safe in his arms, and the next Simon had set him on his legs on the grass. Simon cut the bonds that bound his wrists, and then, pulling the gagging-cloth from the victim's face, recognized to his astonishment the page Bohemond, that was wont to wait so dapper and alert upon the Duchess of Thebes.

At first the poor lad could scarcely speak, but when he had wit and skill to articulate he cried in an awful voice: "The duchess, the duchess, where is the duchess?" Then it seemed as if he could say no more, but after Simon had plied him with a little of the scanty liquor that yet remained in his flagon the boy grew voluble, and told in scraps and tags of passion and anguish a most monstrous story.

It seemed that overnight the Duchess of Thebes had asked Ximenes to lend her men of the Catalan Grand Company for a certain purpose, and when he had refused her she bade Bohemond find for her the men she needed. What the duchess's purpose was Bohemond did not know, further than that he believed she wished to make sure of some enemy of hers that she held to be lurking in the secrecy of the Eleusinian wood. Chance had made Bohemond acquainted with a kind of freebooter whom, from the lad's description, Simon had little difficulty in recognizing as his one-time waylayer Captain Fox. This footpad promised to pick up a fellowship, and he kept his word. Early in the present morning Esclaramonde, with Bohemond for companion, slipped away from Athens, joined a band of six spadassins outside the walls, and rode for the forest, the duchess ahead in a rigid spirit of silence. At first all went well enough, though it showed strange to Bohemond to see his duchess travelling in the company of half a dozen ruffians. But it seemed that when the party had got within the confines of the wood the bearing of the men suddenly changed towards the lady that led them. The fellow that no doubt was Captain Fox had fallen somewhat behind as they rode with one of his pillagers. The pair kept whispering apart, and between them it is probable that they changed their plans from one crime to another crime. The first that Bohemond knew of their intent was when he suddenly found himself stricken from his horse by a brace of the knaves, while the rest of the malefactors set upon the duchess and snatched her from her saddle though she raged at them like a fury. Two of the miscreants dragged the screaming, struggling woman--whose clamor was now the more horrid in contrast with her former silence--into the wood, while Captain Fox gave the horses in charge of another, and bade the two that had hold of Bohemond to treat him in the fashion in which Simon had found him. "For," quoth the rogue, "I would not have the lad's blood on my hands, since he helped us to this booty, but if it pleases Heaven to hang him by spurring his horse to stir, why then let him swing for me." So Bohemond had remained there, for how long he knew not, standing on his steed that by the bounty of Providence was content to keep still until Simon came through the trees to save his rider.

All this amazing tale was blurted and stuttered out in gasps and spasms of speech, its hearer grasping at half words and interpreting much from little. Now when Simon had heard it, and it took but a few hot seconds in the telling, he saw one thing plain for him to do, which was to try to rescue the duchess, much as he hated her. Simon would willingly have left Bohemond behind, thinking him too pretty a stripling to be of grave use in a scuffle. But Bohemond would by no means be persuaded to stay, seeing which Simon liked his mettle and clapped him on the back. Then noting that the rogues had stolen the lad's sword, he lent him his great dagger. "For," said Simon, "if we find the fly-by-nights, you may busy yourself in putting out of their pain any that I chance to leave unfinished."

Now as they started on their search, which did not prove a long one, as you shall hear, Bohemond, babbling at his companion very incoherently, for he was weeping himself sick for his wicked mistress, told all that had chanced in Athens after the slaughter in the marsh. How of Duke Baldwin's knights only two came off with their lives that were made prisoners by special charge of Fernand Ximenes, and these twain were Count Ernault of Toulouse and Sir Jaufre de Brabant. How the Catalan Grand Company, marching on the track of the scattered army, entered the city of Athens unopposed and unimpeded. How the estates of the slain knights were divided among the followers of Ximenes and their women distributed among the victors, so that many a sturdy Catalan mercenary received for wife some noble lady for whom the day before the battle he would have counted it an honor to carry a basin for her washing of the hands. How Ximenes compelled the archbishop of Athens to wed him in state to Esclaramonde, insisting that she was a widow, which was, indeed, the common belief. Simon already knew how, on the morning after her latest marriage, Esclaramonde had left the city to seek for Argathona in the forest with the intent to slay her.

While Bohemond was moaning out his story Simon was using his eyes as well as his feet. Indeed, there was little difficulty for a keen campaigner in getting on the track of the duchess and her abductors. A scrap of silk clinging to a twig, and recognized by the page as being of the color of his lady's gown, first set them on a trail that thereafter proved easy to follow. Simon's keen glances could read the record of the journey in snapped branches and trampled grasses, even if his guesses had not been confirmed again and again by bits of silk and bits of lace and once a fallen pearl. So, going warily, Simon and Bohemond came by-and-by to the edge of a little hollow place in the thick of the trees, and there, looking down, saw that which would have made the boy cry aloud in rage but that Simon clapped his great hand over his loyal mouth and silenced him.

There was a single tree in the little hollow, and to that tree Esclaramonde was bound, quite naked, with her hair about her face. The six bandits were huddled together a little way from her, kneeling on their leader's mantle which was spread upon the grass, and all were intently absorbed in playing at dice. Simon was an old battle-hand, and such ugly sights were familiar enough, yet he could not help raging to think of that beautiful evil being as the prey of those filthy fingers. The boy's fury was not to be restrained, and, drawing his dagger, he began to spring down the slope regardless of odds. In a moment Simon was after him, and the astonished robbers, looking up from their sport, beheld a giant and a lad come thundering towards them. As they scrambled to their feet and snatched at their weapons their foes were close at hand. Simon was first in the field, his long legs outstripping Bohemond, and he was upon the desperadoes with his great sword sweeping and swinging like the sails of a windmill.

The caitiffs were six to one, or, at best, six to one and a quarter. For a lad with no more than a dagger was no match for the meanest of that gang, but for all their advantage they could make no head against the whirlwind assault of Simon. Two of the felons were headless before the band could rally, and now they were but four to two, for Bohemond had caught up a sword that had fallen from one of the dead scoundrels and showed that he knew how to handle it. Simon's mighty weapon rose and fell, and another of the rapscallions was despatched, while Bohemond wounded a fourth. Then, while the woman tied to the tree lifted her head and stared through her black hair at the battle, the three recreants turned and fled in different directions.

Captain Fox as he ran made for where the prisoner was pinioned, and before Simon could reach him he passed his sword through her body. Then, with his weapon red with the woman's blood, he turned on Simon, his face all warped and white, hideous with lust and hate and fear, and he began to scream out something to the effect that Simon should not have her; but he never finished the sentence, for Simon sliced him like a pear, and the sword bit to the breastbone. Wrenching his weapon free, Simon turned to where Bohemond was being pressed by the two remaining rogues, who, finding only a lad at their heels, had turned to tackle him. Again they fled, but Simon was swifter than they and slew them as they ran. Thus in a little pinch of time there were six dead men and one dying woman in that dismal hollow, where still the white dice shone ironically, scattered over the black mantle on the grass.

Simon unbound the duchess, for Bohemond, now that the fight was over, could do nothing but bite at his hands to keep himself from crying, and indeed she was a tragic sight with the blood dabbling her whiteness. Simon wrapped her decently and tenderly in a mantle, for, after all, she was a woman, and a dying woman, and he laid her gently on the grass. The simplest knowledge of wounds was sufficent to assure him that her hurt was mortal, and, indeed, in a few seconds she expired without having spoken a word. To the end of his days Simon, when he remembered that time, wondered what were the thoughts of the duchess as she peered through her hair at the battle.

XXX

RENUNCIATION