The dryad a novel
"Woman, what have you done?" he asked again, and again she answered him
defiantly, conscious of her backing, conscious of the neighborhood of
Fernand Ximenes, conscious of the chivalry of the duke.
"Justice," she answered again, "justice on my false lord, who sought
to drug my senses on my wedding night that he might entertain his
paramour."
The duke stood instantly still, rigid as an image. "His paramour!" he
echoed, glancing round the room, for to him, as to all the others, the
only woman present was the Duchess of Esclaramonde herself, and by his
son he only saw as all the others saw Simon the soldier of fortune and
the young knight of Eleusis. The duke strode to where his son lay.
"Is my son dead?" he asked. Argathona, kneeling by Rainouart's seeming
lifeless body, whispered to Count Ernault that he was little hurt,
although stunned by his fall, and would soon recover, and Count
Ernault, turning to the duke, repeated her message.
"Bear him to his chamber and summon my physician," the duke ordered,
and in a moment the strong arms of the young prince's friends--Guy,
Jaufre, Ambrose, and Raymond--lifted him unconscious from the floor
and bore him to the adjoining room and laid him on the marriage bed.
Then glaring round him with the face that all men feared who saw it so,
Baldwin commanded:
"Tell me what has happened?"
Esclaramonde rose to her feet and pointed at Argathona, who was
standing, now tranquil, with Simon by her side.
"That is a woman," she cried. "That cup contains the wine of sleep.
It was poured that I might drink it and might sleep while he gave his
false love the kisses due to me. But I was warned and did not drink,
and when this woman came I stabbed him in her arms to avenge my honor."
Baldwin turned to Argathona.
"Are you a woman?" he asked, with wonder in his drunken voice.
Argathona answered him calmly:
"I am no man, great duke."
The duke clinched and unclinched his great fists. He was sobering
rapidly in his rage. "Are you my son's lover?" he questioned.
The dryad answered simply:
"I love him as a maid should love her bachelor, true heart and true
soul, and he loved me ere he was stolen from me."
"Do not listen to her," Esclaramonde clamored; "she is a filthy witch
and she has ensorcelled him."
Duke Baldwin lifted up his hand to command silence. Drunk or sober he
was the master here. Whatever had happened he was the judge. If his son
had sinned his son should suffer, but it was for Baldwin of the Rock to
sit in judgment. Some dim memory of an ancient tale of Brutus, a Roman,
troubled his muddled mind. While Esclaramonde was speaking, Fernand
Ximenes had moved a little nearer to her and lightly touched her on the
arm with a touch that meant reassurance, a touch that convinced her of
a friend.
"Silence, lady," Baldwin ordered, not uncivilly; then he turned again
to Argathona: "Boy, woman, witch," he demanded, "whatever you be, what
is your story?"
Argathona answered him as tranquilly as if she were telling an old tale
to old friends in the forest. Simon gaped in wonder at her, with his
hand ever at the hilt of his sword to help her.
"Your son was wounded by robbers in the wood. I tended his hurt, and we
changed loves and vows. While I went for healing herbs, in my absence
this lady came and bore him to Athens, persuading his sick senses that
it was she who had succored him."
The duke frowned horridly. "A strange tale!" he thundered. "A lying
tale!" the duchess cried eagerly. Then Simon came forward and faced
her, and in a clap she knew that he was the man that had escaped from
her in the wood, and she went pale for an instant and caught her breath.
"It is a true tale, by your leave," Simon asserted, "for I was by from
first to last."
The duke waved woman-interrupter and man-interrupter impatiently aside,
and still addressed Argathona.
"How came you here?" he asked, and again the dryad answered him as
calmly as if she had been singing a country-side song.
"In a boy's coat I came hither; in a man's mail I rode in the jousts,
and afterwards wooed and won that lady with a golden apple to send
her lord to sleep with a drowsy draught and welcome me as her lover
to-night." She stooped and picked the apple up as she spoke.
The duke's grim frown grew grimmer. "Why did not my son drink?" he
asked.
Argathona answered: "I warned him not to drink, but to make believe,
for I wished him to know the worth of the woman he had wedded."
The face of the duke was an ugly sight to see, as he glanced from the
slender girl in the boy's garb to the woman who had married his son
that day and striven to murder him that night.
"This is a tangled tale," he snarled, "and some here are lying their
way to hell at a hand-gallop, but this is no hour and this no mood for
judgment."
He pawed at his forehead with his huge hands as he spoke, as if he
hoped by physical effort to dispel the sudden troubles of the night.
Then he turned to Esclaramonde:
"Lady," he said, "if it be proved that my son has wronged you, you
shall have justice, for no man is son of mine who swerves in aught from
his knightly fealty, but it may prove that you have slandered my son,
in which case I shall deal justice upon you."
The duchess went pale anew at this threat, and those of her following
standing near her made speed to ease their swords in their sheaths,
seeing which act the partisans of Duke Baldwin did the like defiance.
Fernand Ximenes sidled to the duchess and breathed quickly in her ear,
"Defy him; I stand by you." And Esclaramonde chose defiance. With a
bold and angry countenance she made a step towards the Duke of Athens.
"Baldwin of Athens," she said, haughtily, "I am a sovereign prince even
as you are a sovereign prince, and you hold no right of judgment over
your peers. I ride hence to-night, I and my people, and from this hour,
in the name of my flouted womanhood, Thebes declares war upon Athens."
At this belligerent speech those of her company fell to drawing their
swords and calling out "Thebes! Thebes!" furiously, while the huge duke
grinned at them like a boar at bay.
"Are you so brave?" he raged--"then I begin the war by making you my
prisoner. Count Ernault, your duty." And he looked fiercely at the
lord-marshal as who should say, "Take this woman into your custody."
All was now in an uproar. The Theban knights were a line of lifted
steel by the side of their lady, crying the name of their city, and
behind Duke Baldwin the Athenian nobles shook their swords and hurled
back their battle-cry of "Athens" against the "Thebes" of their
antagonists. Argathona, standing apart, and for the moment forgotten,
watched the turmoil with pitying eyes, and Simon beside her stared
indifferent, resting upon his great sword.
To Duke Baldwin the Theban menace seemed meaningless; for he knew very
well that the duchess had but a handful of knights and men-at-arms in
her service within his city, and that he could crush them all at a blow
as easily as dance handy-dandy. And indeed the menace would have been
meaningless if the duchess had no more help to rely on to carry her out
of Athens than the escort she had brought with her from Thebes. But it
seemed that she had much more to rely on, for now beneath the angry
arch of lifted blades Fernand Ximenes advanced slowly and addressed the
duke.
"Magnificence," he began, blandly, smiling into the astonished face of
Baldwin, "surely you wrong your honor if you attempt to restrain the
departure of the Theban lady. She is, as she says, a sovereign prince,
over whom you can claim no shade of vassalage."
This unexpected intervention amazed Duke Baldwin as much as if a
miracle had taken place. Here was a leader of his hirelings, a man of
the Catalan Grand Company, presuming to advise him, Baldwin of the
Rock. He tried to speak, but the words choked in his throat, and he
glared inarticulate at Fernand Ximenes, who went on with his speech in
perfect composure.
"By my advice she shall be suffered to go free hence, as she came free
hither, and if war ensues between Athens and Thebes thereafter, then
may Heaven defend the one that best deserves the defence of Heaven."
As Fernand Ximenes ended his ambiguous speech, Duke Baldwin found his
voice.
"You are over ready with unasked-for counsel," he shouted, "but here in
Athens I follow my own rede."
"Surely, surely," Ximenes answered, with unchanged tranquillity of face
and bearing, "a man can do no more, however big he be, and for my own
part, little as I am, I can do no less. But I say my mind and in saying
it I say the mind of the Catalan Grand Company."
As he spoke he drew his sword very softly from its scabbard, for all
the world as if he were no more than curious to look upon its shining
blade, and when it was naked in his hand he employed it to no other
purpose than the tracing of imaginary lines upon the floor between him
and the duke. But all his comrades of the company that were in the room
drew their swords too, and ranged themselves with the fellowship of
Esclaramonde of Thebes.
Duke Baldwin saw that he was trapped and baffled. He could not defy
Ximenes out of hand, glad as he would have been to do so, for he knew
that the games and festals had brought every man of the Catalan Grand
Company into the capital, and that to provoke a conflict with their
leader just then, however confident he might be of his superior forces
and of the inevitable result, would be the very top of foolhardiness,
while to start strife now in the crowded palace, where the opponents
would be wellnigh man to man, would turn the place into a shambles. He
made a great gulp of his discomfiture.
"Friend," he said to Ximenes, with a suddenly commanded dignity that
well became his bulk, "you remind me betimes and wisely."
He turned from the enigmatical Spaniard and faced the duchess, paying
her a grave salutation.
"Lady, Athens accepts your challenge. Go your way in peace till we meet
again in war. Look to the walls of your city, for in a week they will
need rebuilding."
He made her another reverence, throttling his choler, but Esclaramonde
laughed at his anger and his gravity.
"Thebes has no fear of Athens, great duke," she answered, mockingly.
He paid no heed to her, but, turning to Ernault, bade him see that
the duchess and her people were suffered to quit the city unopposed.
Ernault instantly left the room. The duchess smiled at him as he passed
her, but she won no answering smile from his grave face. Esclaramonde
made the duke a bow.
"We thank you for your reluctant courtesy," she sneered. Then, turning,
she moved slowly from the room with her head high and a triumphant
smile, followed by her Theban knights. Fernand Ximenes sheathed his
sword, saluted the duke with changeless visage, and followed quietly
in her wake. As he passed out his quick eye noted the pale face of one
that stood on the fringe of Duke Baldwin's fellowship, gazing eagerly
at him, so as without ever showing to attract his attention. The
Catalan leader exchanged a glance with Demetrius of Epirus, and knew
that Thebes had another adherent in the league against Athens. Ximenes
was very well content to understand this, and Demetrius of Epirus was
very well content to be understood. And so Ximenes went his way.
There was heavy silence in the room as the Theban party passed out, and
the silence brooded over the room for a while as the footsteps of the
seceders died away along the passages and down the stairs. Already,
below in the great court-yard, could be heard faintly the bustle of men
and horses where Count Ernault was taking orders for the departure of
the Duchess of Thebes. The knights in the room sheathed their swords
and stared into one another's faces, marvelling at these untoward