For it appeared to the intriguing little woman a diverting jest that in this fashion her husband should be the promoter of her evasion. It appeared to her more diverting when in two days' space she had become genuinely fond of him. She found him rather slow of comprehension, and was namelessly humiliated by the discovery that not an eyelash of the man was irritated by his wife's decampment; he considered, to all appearances, that some property of his had been stolen, and he intended, quite without passion, to repossess himself of it, after, of course, punishing the thief.
This troubled the Princess somewhat; and often, riding by his more stolid side, the girl's heart raged at memory of the decade so newly overpast which had kept her always dependent on the charity of this or that ungracious patron—on any one who would take charge of her while the truant husband fought out his endless squabbles in England. Slights enough she had borne during the period, and squalor, and hunger even. But now at last she rode toward the dear southland; and presently she would be rid of this big man, when he had served her purpose; and afterward she meant to wheedle Alphonso, just as she had always done, and later still she and Etienne would be very happy; and, in fine, to-morrow was to be a new day.
So these two rode ever southward, and always Prince Edward found this new page of his—this Miguel de Rueda—a jolly lad, who whistled and sang inapposite snatches of balladry, without any formal ending or beginning, descanting always with the delicate irrelevancy of a bird-trill.
Sang Miguel de Rueda:
"And still I would prefer to think," the big man interrupted, heavily, "that Sicily is not the only allure. I would prefer to think my wife so beautiful— And yet, as I remember her, she was nothing extraordinary."
The page a little tartly said that people might forget a deal within a decade.
For the Prince had quickly fathomed the meaning of the scheme hatched in Castile. "When Manfred is driven out of Sicily they will give the throne to de Gâtinais. He intends to get both a kingdom and a handsome wife by this neat affair. And in reason England must support my uncle against El Sabio. Why, my lad, I ride southward to prevent a war that would convulse half Europe."
"You ride southward in the attempt to rob a miserable woman of her sole chance of happiness," Miguel de Rueda estimated.
"That is undeniable, if she loves this thrifty Prince, as indeed I do not question my wife does. Yet is our happiness here a trivial matter, whereas war is a great disaster. You have not seen—as I have done, my little Miguel—a man viewing his death-wound with a face of stupid wonder?—a man about to die in his lord's quarrel and understanding never a word of it? Or a woman, say—a woman's twisted and naked body, the breasts yet horribly heaving, in the red ashes of some village? or the already dripping hoofs which will presently crush this body? Well, it is to prevent a many such spectacles hereabout that I ride southward."
Miguel de Rueda shuddered. But, "She has her right to happiness," the page stubbornly said.
"Not so," the Prince retorted; "since it hath pleased the Emperor of Heaven to appoint us twain to lofty stations, to intrust to us the five talents of the parable; whence is our debt to Him, being fivefold, so much the greater than that of common persons. And therefore the more is it our sole right, being fivefold, to serve God without faltering, and therefore is our happiness, or our unhappiness, the more an inconsiderable matter. For as I have read in the Annals of the Romans—" He launched upon the story of King Pompey and his daughter, whom a certain duke regarded with impure and improper emotions. "My little Miguel, that ancient king is our Heavenly Father, that only daughter is the rational soul of us, which is here delivered for protection to five soldiers—that is, to the five senses—to preserve it from the devil, the world, and the flesh. But, alas! the too-credulous soul, desirous of gazing upon the gaudy vapors of this world—"
"You whine like a canting friar," the page complained; "and I can assure you that the Lady Ellinor was prompted rather than hindered by her God-given faculties of sight and hearing and so on when she fell in love with de Gâtinais. Of you two, he is, beyond any question, the handsomer and the more intelligent man, and it was God who bestowed on her sufficient wit to perceive the fact. And what am I to deduce from this?"
The Prince reflected. At last he said: "I have also read in these same Gestes how Seneca mentions that in poisoned bodies, on account of the malignancy and the coldness of the poison, no worm will engender; but if the body be smitten by lightning, in a few days the carcass will abound with vermin. My little Miguel, both men and women are at birth empoisoned by sin, and then they produce no worm—that is, no virtue; but struck with lightning—that is, by the grace of God—they are astonishingly fruitful in good works."
The page began to laugh. "You are hopelessly absurd, my Prince, though you will never know it—and I hate you a little—and I envy you a great deal."
"Nay," Prince Edward said, in misapprehension, for the man was never quick-witted—"nay, it is not for my own happiness that I ride southward."
The page then said. "What is her name?"
And Prince Edward answered, very fondly, "Hawise."
"Her, too, I hate," said Miguel de Rueda; "and I think that the holy angels alone know how profoundly I envy her."
In the afternoon of the same day they neared Ruffec, and at the ford found three brigands ready, two of whom the Prince slew, and the other fled.
Next night they supped at Manneville, and sat afterward in the little square, tree-chequered, that lay before their inn. Miguel had procured a lute from the innkeeper, and strummed idly as these two debated together of great matters; about them was an immeasurable twilight, moonless, but tempered by many stars, and everywhere an agreeable conference of leaves.
"Listen, my Prince," the boy said more lately: "here is one view of the affair." And he began to chant, without rhyming, without raising his voice above the pitch of talk, what time the lute monotonously sobbed beneath his fingers.
Sang Migueclass="underline"
"A little while and Irus and Menephtah are at sorry unison, and Guenevere is but a skull. Multitudinously we tread toward oblivion, as ants hasten toward sugar, and presently Time cometh with his broom. Multitudinously we tread a dusty road toward oblivion; but yonder the sun shines upon a grass-plot, converting it into an emerald; and I am aweary of the trodden path.
"Vine-crowned is she that guards the grasses yonder, and her breasts are naked. 'Vanity of Vanities!' saith the beloved. But she whom I love seems very far away to-night, though I might be with her if I would. And she may not aid me now, for not even love is all-powerful. She is fairest of created women, and very wise, but she may never understand that at any time one grows aweary of the trodden path.