“Ah, the old story! It is really astounding,” Lucifer commented, in frank wonder, “how one finds everywhere this legend of the Redeemer in just this form. It seems an instinct with the creatures.”
“Well, but,” said Ninzian, tolerantly, “it gives them something to look forward to. It promises to gratify all their congenital desires, including cruelty. And, above all, it prevents their going mad, to believe that somebody somewhere is looking out for them. In any event,—as I was saying,—this gaunt Holmendis does frighten Poictesme into a great deal of public piety. Still, there are always corners and bedrooms and other secluded places, in which one strikes a balance, as it were; and abstinence and fear make wonderful appetizers: so that, in the long run of affairs, I doubt if you have anywhere upon Earth any more serviceable friends than are these saints who will put up with nothing short of their own especial sort of perfection.”
Lucifer was not convinced. “It is proper of course that you should attempt to exculpate your friend and associate during the last twenty years. Nevertheless, all these extenuatory sayings, about the viciousness of virtue, are the habitual banalities of boyhood; and no beardless cynic, even when addicted to verse, has ever yet been permanently injured by them.”
“But,” Ninzian returned, “but here, I am not merely theorizing. I speak with rather high authority. For you will be remembering, prince, that, by the rules of our game, when any mortal has gained a hundred followers for you, Jahveh is penalized to put him upon the same footing as the rest of us. And, well, sir! you may see here in the mud, just where I jostled Holmendis from the walkway—”
Lucifer made luminous his finger-tips, and held them like five candles to the Saint’s footprint. The Angel of Darkness bowed thereafter, with real respect, toward heaven.
“Our Adversary, to do Him justice, keeps an honest score. Come, Surkrag, now this is affecting! This very touchingly recalls that the great game is being played by the dear fellow with candor and fine sportsmanship. Meanwhile I must most certainly have supper with you; and the great game is far from over, since I yet make a fourth with the fanatic, the woman and the hypocrite.”
“Ah, prince,” said Ninzian, a little shocked, as they went into his sedate snug home, “should you not say, more tactfully, with us three leaders of reform?”
BOOK NINE
ABOVE PARADISE
“He was Caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words.”
—II Corinthians, xii, 4
Chapter LVII. Maugis Makes Trouble
Now the tale speaks of the rebellion of Maugis, who was the son of Donander of Evre, the Thane of Aigremont. For Count Manuel’s youngest child, Ettarre, born after her father’s passing, was now come to the full flowering of her strange beauty: and it was at this time—with the result that two young gentlemen went out of their wits, four killed themselves, and seven married,—that Ettarre was betrothed to Guiron des Rocques, of the famous house of Gatinais. And it was at this time also that young Maugis d’Aigremont resorted to a more stirring solace than might be looked for in imbecility or death or a vicarious bedfellow. He seized and carried off Ettarre. His company of ten was pursued by Count Emmerick and Guiron with twenty followers; and after a skirmish in Bovion the girl was recaptured unharmed.
But Maugis escaped. And after that he went into open rebellion against Count Emmerick’s authority, and occupied those fastnesses in the Taunenfels which Othmar Black-Tooth had once held for a long while against the assaults of Count Manuel himself.
History in fine appeared to honor banality by repeating itself, with the plain difference that gaunt Maugis was equally a great captain and a great lover and in every way more formidable than Othmar had been, whereas Emmerick, elsewhere than at a banquet, was not formidable at all. Moreover, Emmerick in these days lacked even any stronger kinsman to lean upon, for his brother-in-law Heitman Michael was now in Muscovy, Count Gui of Montors was dead, and Ayrart de Montors had removed to the court of King Theodoret. Emmerick had, thus, to lead his troops only that blustering but gifted young Fauxpas de Nointel or that utterly unreasonable Guiron, who expected, of all persons, the Count of Poictesme to lead these troops.
So Emmerick wavered; he made terms; he even winked at Guiron’s capture by the pirates of Caer Idryn, in order to be rid of this troublesome posturer who insisted upon dragging Emmerick into so much uncomfortable fighting: and Maugis, since these terms did not include his possession of Ettarre, soon broke them. Thus was the warring that now arose in Poictesme resumed: and, because of Maugis’ great lust and daring, and Count Emmerick’s supineness, and the ever-blundering obstinacy of loud Fauxpas de Nointel, this war dragged on for many wearying fevered years.
Then Emmerick’s eldest sister, Madame Melicent, returned from oversea with her second husband, the Comte de la Foret, a gentleman who remarkably lacked patience with brigands and with shilly-shallying. This Perion de la Foret took charge of matters, with such resolution that out of hand Guiron was rescued from his captivity, Maugis was overpowered and killed, the Ettarre whom he had desired to his own hurt was married to Guiron, and Count Emmerick gave a banquet in honor of the event. Such was this Perion’s impetuosity.
It is of these matters that the tale speaks in passing. For the tale now is of Donander of Evre, who was the father of Maugis, and who would not break faith with that Emmerick who, howsoever unworthily, sat in the place of that great master whom Donander had been privileged to serve even in this mortal life. For Donander was the only one of the lords of the Silver Stallion who accepted with joy and with unbounded faith the legend of Manuel, and who in all his living bore testimony to it.
This Donander of Evre had been the youngest of the fellowship, he was at this time but newly made a widower while yet in his forties, and whatsoever he lacked in brilliance of wit he atoned for with his hardiness in battle. Yet in this war he chose not to display his prowess, since the fighting was between the son of Dom Manuel and the son of Donander himself. He chose instead exile.
First, though, he went to Storisende; and, standing beside the holy sepulchre, he looked up for some while at the serene great effigy of Manuel, poised there in eternal watchfulness over Donander’s native land, and bright with all the jewels of the world. Donander knelt and prayed in this sacred place, as he knew, for the last time. Then Donander, without any complaining, and without any grieving now for his wife’s death, went out of Poictesme, a landless man; and he piously took service under Prince Balein of Targamon (the same that twenty years ago had wooed Queen Morvyth, a little before the evil times of her long imprisonment and the cutting off of her head), because this always notably religious prince was now once more harrying the pagan Northmen.
Thus it was that Donander also at the last went out of Poictesme, not by his own election, to encounter the most strange of all the dooms which befell the lords of the Silver Stallion after the passing of Dom Manuel.
Chapter LVIII. Showing That Even Angels May Err
This doom began its workings in the long field below Rathgor, when Palnatoki rode forth and made his brag. “I am the champion of the AEnseis. In the Northland there is nobody mightier than I; and if a mightier person live elsewhere, it is not yet proven. Who is there in this place will try a fall with me?”