The dryad a novel
young Prince of Athens sprang to his feet, and came towards her with
his drawn dagger in his hand.
"A true blade in your false heart," Rainouart said, and raised his
weapon on high.
Esclaramonde fell at his feet and grovelled on the floor, letting the
apple roll away. It was as horridly amazing to her that her bridegroom
could rise from the cup she had qualified as it would have been
horridly amazing if her old spouse had risen from the dead. Both were
catastrophes of nature too appalling to understand, and her courage
went from her in a breath and her blood was as water. She could do
nothing but crouch upon the ground and moan to her master not to kill
her.
Rainouart looked down upon her abjection with a sick spirit, and slowly
lowered his weapon.
"You have a woman's body that must be pitied," he said, in sorrowful
scorn, "but the devil it shelters must be hid. We will find cloisters
for you. But you must give me back my ring."
He bent and caught at her up-stretched, appealing hands, and drew from
her finger the ring that had been his mother's. He plucked from his
finger the ruby that Esclaramonde had set there and cast it at her
feet, while he set his own ring in its old place. Then he turned from
her sprawling to Argathona, where she stood impassive with folded arms.
He was all himself again; the woman's confession had unspelled him;
his spirit seemed like a clean mirror waiting to reflect the face of a
liberated memory. He would see the face soon, he was sure of it, the
face of his beloved, but in the meanwhile there was knightly work to do.
"You are a man," he said. "You have unsealed my soul, but you have
snared a woman to her shame. We fought to-day in sport; we fight
to-night in earnest."
Argathona moved a pace nearer to the angry prince, looking straight
into his eyes.
"Oh, Phœnix of knighthood," she said, smiling, and tenderly
reproachful, "where is your fidelity? Think of the greenwood, knight;
think of your vows of love, and tell me where is the maid who heard
them. Think of your proffered ring, and tell me where it should be now."
Rainouart looked at her in amazement. Though he knew now that he had
been deceived, the shadow of that deception still lay heavy upon him
and he saw as in a mist. The woman on the ground, freed for the instant
from her fear of death, lifted her head unheeded by the others and
listened intently with a growing hope in her eyes. But even while she
cowered and listened she snatched greedily at her ruby and put it
quickly on her finger. The apple lay out of her reach.
"Who are you?" the prince cried, in a great wonder, and let the dagger
fall clattering from his hand upon the floor. Argathona came near to
him and put her face close to his.
"Look in my eyes, lover, my lover. Though I wear a boy's coat, it
covers a girl's heart that was given to you in the greenwood the night
you fell among thieves."
She caught both his hands in hers as she spoke and pressed them fondly
upon her bosom, and so he was very sure that it was a woman who spoke
to him.
"Remember my face," Argathona chanted. "Remember the song of the
forest. Remember the greenwood dappled with the moonlight. Remember my
face bending over you."
It was to Rainouart as if a curtain had been drawn aside and he looked
through an open window on the rose-garden of his dreams.
"I remember the greenwood," he cried; "I remember you. I thank God for
my memory. My eyes were sealed so that I could not see, but the spell
is lifted from my spirit and my vision is clear. Can you forgive me, my
love?"
Argathona looked into his beseeching face with infinite tenderness and
infinite love.
"What is there to forgive?" she whispered. "You were snared; you were
betrayed; you believed me no more than the sweet-seeming of a dream.
But because I was sure that you loved me, who loved you with all my
heart, I came to set you free."
"Dear love," said Rainouart, "you are the bravest and the fairest of
women, and I worship you with my soul. Your life is mine, my life is
yours from now to the end of ends."
"Come from here," wooed Argathona softly; "quit the desecrated city,
quit its shameful, shameless citizens. Come to the sweet, clean
greenwood, my lover, for there we shall dwell together, free from
ache and care, skilled in the secrets of the seasons, the promise of
spring, and the gladness of summer, and the rapture of autumn; and the
sun shall be our comfort by day, and the stars shall be our torches
by night, and the green grass shall be our couch, and the leaves our
curtains, and the free air our friend. And when winter comes with
its snows and its rains, and its fury of winds, we shall hide in
caves or the ruins of temples, and build us fires to warm us, and I
will sing you songs of the world before the flight of the gods, and
tell you tales of the days of gold. And we shall feed on the fruits
of the earth, and all the beasts and birds of the forest shall be
our companions, and the glory and the holiness of love shall be our
inheritance for all our days."
Now while she spoke it seemed to the charmed senses of Rainouart that
his spirit had achieved its best, and that he had passed forever from
the mystic rose-garden holding the noble rose to his heart. And the
rose of the world was a maiden, and her face was the face of Argathona.
"I will come with you to the greenwood," Rainouart answered, exultant.
"Honor and truth and purity and the simple life abide there, and there
we shall live and love till our pulses cease to beat. I love you
forever."
And Argathona echoed him, radiant, "I love you forever," and she forgot
that he was mortal and she immortal, and her face was near to his,
and the lips of the lovers met. Them seemed they were already in the
greenwood; them seemed they were alone; in their joy they had forgotten
Athens; in their joy they had forgotten Esclaramonde.
Slowly the woman on the floor had edged her way nearer and nearer
to the pair, and now her fingers closed upon the hilt of the fallen
dagger. Argathona, her first kiss taken and given, released herself
from her lover's clasp, and holding him by the hand turned and made to
lead him towards the turret door. At that moment Esclaramonde gripped
the dagger, and, leaping to her feet, sprang forward and stabbed the
Prince of Athens in the side. Rainouart, taken unawares, under the
impact of the duchess's body flung so fiercely against him, reeled,
and, making to turn, tripped and fell towards the table, striking his
head against it and dropping thence to the ground. Esclaramonde stooped
over him to repeat her stroke, but she had not time. Argathona was upon
her, eagle-swift, eagle-fierce, eagle-strong. She plucked the dagger
from the duchess's clutch, and flung her across the room to fall in a
heap by the door. Then Argathona, paying no more heed to her enemy,
bent over Rainouart. He was unconscious from the head stroke; his wound
was bleeding freely, and Argathona busied herself to stanch the flow,
making little moans over him the while, like a mother over an ailing
child. Their second meeting, like their first, was stained with blood.
As for Esclaramonde, when she found herself unheeded she crawled to
her feet and beat furiously upon the gong.
"Help! help! help!" she cried, and the sound of her screaming voice and
the sound of the beaten brass reverberated horridly through the night.
XXIII
SIMON'S CHARGE
While the duchess was hammering at the gong and screaming furiously for
help, and while from the rooms below, where revelry was toward, came
now the noise of answering cries and clamor, the arras that masked the
door of the turret was dashed aside and Simon sprang into the room.
From where he waited for Argathona, below in the shadow of the tower,
the shrieking of the duchess had reached his ears, and he lost no time
in leaping up the turret stairs to see what had happened. In a moment
his eyes took in the scene--the blood-stained weapon on the floor, the
duchess screaming and beating on the gong, the young Lord of Athens
stretched his length in blood, and Argathona bowed in care above him.
Simon sprang to her side.
"Heaven's pity, maiden," he ejaculated, anxiously. "How are you
betrayed?"
Argathona looked up at him with calm, melancholy eyes.
"My love is wounded," she answered quietly, "and he has swooned from
his fall, being still weakened by the onslaught in the wood, but there
is no fear for him."
The dryad had to speak close into Simon's ear, for the continued
calling of the duchess and the growing clamor in the now aroused palace
made it hard for him to hear.
From her bosom she drew a handful of leaves, and pressed them into
Simon's palms.
"These are leaves of the herb of healing," she whispered. "I have set
some on his hurt to stop the blood. Renew them soon, bruise them in his
drink, and he will be whole within a day. I think it may prove that I
cannot wait here, so you must tend him."
"I have sworn to serve you and stay with you--" Simon began, but
Argathona stopped him.
"You serve me best in serving him," she remonstrated, "and when he is
hale you must bring him to me safe and sound in the greenwood."
Simon promised with his heart, and would have promised with his lips
but there was no time to say more. The billows of sound in the palace
had swelled to a mighty rush and trampling of feet, and in another
instant the door was flung open, and many knights came into the
room--Count Ernault, Sir Guy, Sir Jaufre, Fernand Ximenes, and others
who had been tasting the duke's cheer.
"Who calls for help?" Count Ernault asked, looking around him in
amazement.
The Duchess Esclaramonde was standing full height with her hands
extended in appeal.
"I call for help," she cried. "Where is the Duke of Athens?"
Count Ernault sprang forward to where Rainouart lay with Argathona and
Simon supporting him.
"What ails the prince?" he asked, and as Simon growled back, "The
she-devil from Thebes has stabbed him," Ernault turned to the knights
who were hot upon his heels and bade them keep back and let the prince
have air. The gentlemen of Thebes among the throng separated themselves
from the others and ranged themselves behind their duchess, questioning
her and whispering together. Fernand Ximenes was already by her side.
"Fear nothing," he said, softly, "I am your friend," and then he stood
apart, silent and watchful. Along the corridor came the thunder of
heavy feet.
"Here is the duke," cried Jaufre de Brabant, and even as he spoke Duke
Baldwin staggered into the room. He had been eating hugely, he had been
drinking deeply, he was flushed with meat and wine, and furious at the
interruption which had taken him from table. He glared around him like
a baited bull, seeing little at first, for his eyes swam with the drink
he carried and the confusion of the shifting lights.
"What is the matter?" he bellowed, his raging face turning from one
to other of those about him. Then catching sight of his son upon the
ground, and the duchess standing apart, and the blood-stained dagger
upon the floor between them, he veered to her in a hot fury.
"Woman, what have you done?" he vociferated. Esclaramonde fell on her
knees and stretched out her hands to him, but her voice was full of
menace, though her words were words of entreaty.
"Justice, great duke," she shrilled, "justice on my false lord.
Although he is your son, he is still your subject, and amenable to all
the laws of chivalry and honor."
The duke moved upon the kneeling woman, lifting his great hands as if
to strike her, whereat there was murmur among the Thebans and many
hands set to sword-hilts.