At the sight of Madoc this woman arose, she smiled, and in a clear sweet voice she cried out the magic word of the south, saying, “Berith!”
The veiled man was not any longer there, but beyond the apple tree you saw a thin gray wolf running away very swiftly.
The lovely girl then told young Madoc that she was Ainath, the queen over all this country, and he told her that he was a wandering minstrel. Ainath in reply said she did not know much about music, but she knew what she liked, and among the things that she especially liked was the appearance of Madoc.
6. LEADS TO A COFFIN
Nor did Madoc dislike the appearance of Ainath. Nowhere in her appearance could he find any flaw: she was, indeed, so confident of her perfection that she hid from him no portion of her loveliness, and she refused to cheat him by leaving his knowledge superficial.
Her generosity and her fond loving ways led Madoc quite to overlook, if not entirely to condone, this queen’s alliance with the Old Believers, when Madoc by-and-by had found out the nature of Ainath’s veiled opponent and what game it was that Ainath played within reach of the fiend’s talons.
Meanwhile with Madoc she played other games, night after night, inside the carved and intricately colored sarcophagus in which, when the time came, Queen Ainath must be laid away under the dark and fertile land of Marna; for it was the intent of this far-seeing queen to make of her coffin a hospitable place, and to endear it with memories of countless frolics and of much loving friendship, so that (when the time came) she might lie down in her last home without any feeling of strangeness about her being there yet again, or any unwelcome association of ideas.
Now it was Madoc who, for the while, assisted Ainath in this poetic wise plan, and with all the vigor which was in him he set lovingly to work to keep that coffin dear to her.
7. REWARD OF THE OPTIMIST
Now also, for Queen Ainath, and for the shepherds who served Ainath, young Madoc wrote noble songs. It was not of any local patriotic prevarications that Madoc sang in the green fields of Marna, but of an optimism which was international and all-embracing.
“This is a fair world,” sang Madoc, “very lovingly devised for human kind. Let us give praise for the excellence of this world, and—not exactly this morning, but tomorrow afternoon perhaps, or at any rate, next week—let us be doing exceedingly splendid things in this world wherein everything is ordered for the best when you come to consider matters properly.”
The kindly shepherd people said, as they cuddled each other in pairs, “This Madoc is the king of poets, sweetheart, for he makes us see that, after all, this world is a pretty good sort of place.”
But Madoc looked with dismay upon their smirking faces, which seemed to him, beneath their hawthorn garlands, as witless as were the faces of their sheep: and upon the face of Madoc there was no smirk. For all the while that he made his benevolent music he could hear another music, skirling: and this other music derided the wholesome optimism which was in the singing but not in the parched heart of Madoc, and this other music called him, resistlessly, toward his allotted doom.
PART TWO. OF MADOC IN THIS WORLD
Je t’ai secrètement accompagné partout, dans les luttes et dans les combats, sur les routes, dans les rues et partout: ma musique t’a préservé des atteintes et des agréments et des illusions du monde.
8. “THE BRAVEST ARE THE TENDEREST”
Madoc fled from the shepherd land and from the hospitable coffin of Queen Ainath, wherein optimism was denied him. Now he goes westerly, into the mountainous country of the Emperor Pandras, the third of that name.
There Madoc encountered a gleaming company of archers and spearmen with red lions blazoned upon their shields. Their Emperor rode before them, in red armor, mounted upon a roan stallion: and they went thus marching to make war against the people of Ethion, as was their annual custom.
“Our old traditions and our national honor must be preserved,” declared the Emperor, “but, nevertheless, this year a war is rather inconvenient.”
Then Madoc sang the newest song which he had made with his black pen. He sang very movingly of how many young men would be killed in the impending war, and of how this fact would be a source of considerable distress to their mothers.
The spearmen and the archers dropped each a tear from each eye: the Emperor himself was heard to clear his throat. “I have a mother,” said one warrior.
His neighbor replied, “I have not; but I formerly had one, and the principle is the same.”
The entire army agreed that the principle was excellent; a retreat was sounded; and war was deferred.
9. PHILANTHROPY PROSPERS
Then Madoc made yet other songs for the war-loving people of the Emperor Pandras. He made fine stirring songs about philanthropy, and many simple chanteys such as workmen use at their labors.
The warriors turned from their belligerent raids, to the building of schoolhouses and hospitals and public drinking-fountains and domed temples for their three national deities. Laboring, these warriors sang the songs which Madoc had made, and his songs put a new vigor in them: their philanthropic endeavors went forward the more nimbly because of Madoc’s noble and inspiring songs.
“Build,” Madoc sang, “for the welfare of those who come hereafter! Create for them a fairer and more enlightened world! Build, as befits the children of the great Builder!”
But in a while he heard another music: he reflected how stupid were these perspiring and large-muscled persons who toiled for the welfare of a problematic and, it well might be, an unmeritorious posterity, for people who had done nothing whatever to place anybody under any least obligations: and his songs, which brought benevolence and vigor into the living of all other persons, appeared to Madoc rather silly now that again he had heard the skirling music of Ettarre the witch-woman.
10. SPOILS OF THE VICTOR
But the people of Ethion, after they had waited a reasonable while for their annual war to begin, lost patience before this disrespect for tradition, and bestirred themselves. They invaded the country of the Emperor Pandras. They were driven back and were slaughtered cosily, in their own homes, which were then destroyed.
“Our triumph is gratifying,” said Pandras, after he had attended divine worship and had sent for Madoc. “Only, now that we have won this war, it seems right we should pay for it; now that we have laid waste the cities of Ethion, to rebuild them is our manifest duty: and in consequence I shall have to redouble, or perhaps it would be more simple merely to multiply by five, the taxes which are now being paid by my people.”
“Yes, majesty,” said Madoc, sighing somewhat.
“It follows, Madoc, that immediately after we have tried and hanged the surviving leaders of Ethion, we shall need a new song from you, as to the brotherhood of all mankind and as to the delight which a proper-minded person gets out of discomfort when it helps his enemies to live at ease, because otherwise my people may not enjoy paying five times as many taxes.”
“I withdraw, sir, to complete this song,” said Madoc, and after that, he withdrew, not merely from the presence of Pandras, but from out of the country of Pandras.