The dryad a novel
tell any man here his fortune if he will pay for fate with a part of my
armament."
A buzz of interest hummed among her hearers, and Jaufre de Brabant
sprang eagerly forward.
"Can you do this?" he asked. "What are the signs in my palms?" and he
thrust his strong hands out to the shepherd.
The dryad turned to the lord-marshal.
"Lord," she said, "I pray you to beg of these gentlemen that they give
me a little space. A man's fortune is for his own ears."
"The lad is right," said Ernault. "Room, friends, room," and with a
sweep of his marshal's wand he widened the circle about him to the
evident discomfort of the crowd outside, who were thus forced rudely
against the wall or uncomfortably out of ear-shot and eye-witness.
Argathona, thus left in a sense alone with Jaufre, though many eyes
were curiously fixed upon the pair, took the hands of the knight in
hers and peered into his palms.
"Glory," she began, "glory, glory; a lifetime shining like a star."
"I will give you a sword for this glory," he said, and paused; then he
asked again, quickly, "And what of my death-time?"
Argathona looked no more into his hands; she looked steadfastly into
his wild eyes.
"I think you will sink like a star in the peace of old age."
The face of Jaufre clouded.
"I would have picked a fiercer finish," he sighed; "but you shall have
the sword."
"I thank your valiancy," Argathona said; and Jaufre, turning from her,
rejoined his companions. Before Count Ernault could signify which
knight should next have speech with the shepherd, Sir Guy de Hainault
had sprung from the marshal's side and approached her.
"Read the page of my palm," he cried, pushing out his fine, white hands
impatiently.
Argathona held them for a moment, glanced at their smooth surface, and
let them fall with a sigh, looking gravely at the girlish face of the
knight.
"Speak!" cried Sir Guy. "Why do you hesitate?"
Argathona spoke in a low voice.
"Death is near at hand," she said.
No change came over the delicate face of the knight.
"How?" he asked, as quietly as he might have asked the hour for supper.
"Bravely--in battle," Argathona answered.
Sir Guy struck his hands together exultingly.
"You merit a princely gift for that promise. What will you have of me?"
"Will you give me a helmet?" asked the shepherd.
"You shall have a golden helmet," Sir Guy promised. "What is your
crest?"
And the shepherd answered, remembering with a smile the heraldic wisdom
of Simon:
"An oak-tree with acorns."
Sir Guy saluted Eleusis and turned and joined his fellows.
Others were eager to take his place, but this time the staff of the
lord-marshal restrained impetuosity.
"My turn, I pray you," Count Ernault said, and, advancing, faced the
seeming shepherd with extended hands.
"Don't tell me of battles," he said, "or how I shall come to my death;
death is the handman of Heaven. To-day I live, and to live is to love.
Read my love-riddle."
Argathona looked steadfastly at the hands that many women had held with
passion, for Count Ernault was the well-beloved in every land where he
had wandered.
"Many women will love you," she said, slowly, and Ernault gave a sigh
of joy, for he was no longer in the hot of his youth and he dreaded
love's twilight. She went on--"but never the one woman."
Ernault's passionate eyes clouded for an instant, for all the world
knew of his passion for the lovely Duchess of Corinth and the
implacable chastity of the lady. Wherefore she and her husband came
not as guests to Athens. Then his eyes widened again and he smiled.
"Well," he said, half sadly and half laughing, "I must make the best of
the many, if I show the worst with the one. I will give you a blank
shield, brother-in-arms. Tell me your device for my squire to paint."
"A golden acorn on a green field," Argathona answered, again profiting
shrewdly by the lessons in heraldry that Simon had given her during the
long day in the forest.
"A golden acorn on a green field," Count Ernault repeated, committing
the new device to his courtly memory. He turned away from the shepherd
and addressed the expectant knights.
"Come, friends," he said, "our knight-challenger has now sword, helmet,
and shield; he still needs body armor and battle-axe, horse and lance.
Who is for having his fortune told that will pay this price for the
tale?"
A multitude of hands were lifted, and Count Ernault contemplated with
assumed dismay a forest of waving fingers. Then he shook his head in
depreciation.
"There is no time for all," he said. "The sun climbs high, and our
guest needs no more than a single equipment, wherefore I will trust to
the ordeal by chance."
He lowered his lids till his eyes seemed closed, and then struck
lightly, and apparently at random, with his white staff among
the knights nearest to him three times in succession. But it was
characteristic of the courtly and politic marshal that the touch of
his white wand fell on the shoulders of those whom, for one reason
or another, it was expedient to please. Fernand Ximenes, maleficent
captain of free companions; the vassal Prince of Epirus, always a
thorn in the Baldwin flesh; and Andronicus Palæologus, eminent, pompous
exile with an eye to a great succession, were the chosen three. Fernand
Ximenes, on whom the first lot fell, advanced to the shepherd and
tendered his steady, lean, brown hand. Argathona regarded it for a
breathing space in silence, then she said:
"You dream strange dreams suspected of none. It is well for you that
none suspect. Your dreams will come true."
No change stirred the impassive face of the Spaniard as he listened to
what seemed, indeed, the speech of a seer. With untroubled voice he
spoke.
"I had a suit of armor wrought in Toledo, steel and gold; it were a
privilege for any prince to wear it. I have it no longer; it is yours."
He saluted the prophetic shepherd with the dignity inherent in his
race, and rejoined the circle of knights. His place was promptly taken
by Demetrius of Epirus, the prince with the furtive eyes and the fine,
false voice. Argathona looked at his hand and whispered:
"Faith and treason quarrel in the cup of your fingers. If faith win,
faith must fall soon in honor; if treason triumph, treason will
flourish long in dishonor to end on a high place."
The pale lips of the Prince of Epirus twitched.
"I will give you a battle-axe," he said, thickly, for he knew what path
he would choose when the chance came, and he had grace enough to feel
some shame at his knowledge. He turned and pushed his way through the
circle of knights into the crowd beyond, as a man might who wished to
hide his face from keen eyes.
Andronicus Palæologus moved forward, ostentatious of port, gorgeous of
apparel, and extended his beringed hand in arrogant condescension to
the stranger. Argathona gave a quick glance at the plump, sensual palm.
"You will wear the crown of Cæsar," she promised.
Andronicus flushed the imperial red in spite of himself, then he said,
urbanely, for, indeed, he was very pleased with the oracle:
"I will give you a horse as white as the moon and as fleet as the wind.
I will give you a spear as sharp as desire and as tough as hope," and
so he turned and joined his brother knights. Even as he did so the
air was stirred by the sweet sound of a silver trumpet, and there was
immediately a sign of great bustle and commotion among the ladies who
thronged the gallery. The lord-marshal lifted his hand.
"Friends all," he said, "the sun of beauty shines upon us in the pride
of noontime, for her grace the Duchess of Thebes is coming on the great
gallery to take the air. Let those that are her slaves attend upon her."
Immediately the fixed circle of knights dissolved into its units,
and the crowd around them parted to give passage as the cavaliers
made eagerly for the stately stairway that led to the great gallery.
Argathona caught Count Ernault by the arm as he turned away with the
others.
"Pray you, tell me the laws of this day's tourney?" she said.
Count Ernault, looking with much approbation at the shepherd knight,
answered:
"To-day our lord's son, Sir Rainouart of Athens, will proclaim to all
and sundry that the Lady Esclaramonde of Thebes is the fairest she in
Christendom. Those that challenge him set the fame of their lovers in
jeopardy, for Duke Baldwin's son is an unconquerable jouster."
"What would happen," Argathona asked, "if he were to be overthrown?"
Count Ernault laughed gently.
"It could scarcely happen," he asserted.
"But if it did happen?" the shepherd persisted.
Count Ernault looked about him and saw that he and the shepherd stood
alone, for the press of knights was thronging the great stairway.
"I think," he said, softly, "that the lady of Thebes would never
forgive him."
"Is she so imperious a queen of beauty?" the shepherd questioned.
Count Ernault laughed compassionately, as the well-informed laugh that
instruct a stranger in a strange land.
"She will suffer no man to wilt from allegiance to her will. She is the
most insatiable fair, and would have all men for her lovers."
The shepherd looked at the courtly marshal with a strange smile.
"Would she condescend to a shepherd?" Argathona asked.
Count Ernault distorted his smooth face with a grimace.
"'Tis very likely," he answered, "none better being by; but when you
ride radiant in coat-armor in the lists we shall see if she will pick
you out. Till then, farewell, Knight of Eleusis."
He turned from the shepherd and joined the mounting crowd to pay his
respects to the Lady Esclaramonde where she stood patent in beauty upon
the gallery. Argathona looked about her for a place where she might see
unseen. In the court-yard stood an ancient image of a god, headless
and armless, which had been set up there in indifference, if not in
derision, by those who had dug it up when the court-yard was a-making.
Behind this image Argathona stationed herself, and Simon, who had kept
apart in the crowd outside the knights, now came to her side. Argathona
looked up at the gallery, where, above the bowed heads of obsequious
lords, she could distinguish the dark, imperious loveliness of the
Duchess Esclaramonde. Simon whispered confidentially in her ear, behind
his big hand:
"There stands your fair foewoman."
Argathona still looked at the duchess with unchanged face.
"If I were a man," she said, slowly, "I would not be her lover."
Simon grunted.
"Many have loved her, and all have sorrowed in the loving. While I
stood in the throng but now I heard strange tales of her from some of
those Spanish rascals and some of the duke's people. They say that
when the Duke of Thebes lived, whose unweeping widow she now is,
she would send him to sleep at nights with a drugged draught, and
then"--he coughed a little behind his hand, as if apologetically, and
resumed--"and then entertain company."
Argathona's eyes were still set steadfast upon Esclaramonde where she
smiled upon her flatterers.
"It is blasphemous to wear a fair face and hide a foul heart; but
if she be as base as you say, she may help me well if I win in the
tournament."
Simon whistled.
"Pray God you may win," he said; "but if you thrust your body where
hard knocks are going you must not pule at bruises."
"I do not think I shall come to hurt," Argathona answered. "But I shall
fight fair, trusting to my strength as the others trust, and using no
more woodland work than this, that my spear is invincible against all
false lovers."
XIV
THE TRIUMPH OF THEBES
The Lady Esclaramonde held a little court upon the gallery. Leaning
against a pillar and playing with her fan, she summoned this lord and