Chivalry by James Branch Cabell Page A

maid long dead. Eh, you might have been her sister,
Rosamund, for you are very like her. And she, poor wench—why, I could
see her now, I think, were my eyes not blurred, somehow, almost as
though Queen Ysabeau might weep! But she was handsomer than you, since
your complexion is not overclear, praise God!"
    Woman against woman they were. "He has told me of his intercourse with
you," the girl said, and this was a lie flatfooted. "Nay, kill me if you
will, madame, since you are the stronger, yet, with my dying breath, I
protest that Gregory has loved no woman truly in all his life except
me."
    The Queen laughed bitterly. "Do I not know men? He told you nothing. And
to-night he hesitated, and to-morrow, at the lifting of my finger, he
will supplicate. Since boyhood Gregory Darrell has loved me, O white,
palsied innocence! and he is mine at a whistle. And in that time to
come he will desert you, Rosamund—bidding farewell with a pleasing
Canzon,—and they will give you to the gross Earl of Sarum, as they gave
me to the painted man who was of late our King! and in that time to come
you will know your body to be your husband's makeshift when he lacks
leisure to seek out other recreation! and in that time to come you will
long for death, and presently your heart will be a flame within you, my
Rosamund, an insatiable flame! and you will hate your God because He
made you, and hate Satan because in some desperate hour he tricked you,
and hate all men because, poor fools, they scurry to obey your whims!
and chiefly you will hate yourself because you are so pitiable! and
devastation only will you love in that strange time which is to come. It
is adjacent, my Rosamund."
    The girl kept silence. She sat erect in the tumbled bed, her hands
clasping her knees, and she appeared to deliberate what Dame Ysabeau had
said. Plentiful brown hair fell about this Rosamund's face, which was
white and shrewd. "A part of what you say, madame, I understand. I know
that Gregory Darrell loves me, yet I have long ago acknowledged he loves
me as one pets a child, or, let us say, a spaniel which reveres and
amuses one. I lack his wit, you comprehend, and so he never speaks to me
all that he thinks. Yet a part of it he tells me, and he loves me, and
with this I am content. Assuredly, if they give me to Sarum I shall hate
Sarum even more than I detest him now. And then, I think, Heaven help
me! that I would not greatly grieve—Oh, you are all evil!" Rosamund
said; "and you thrust into my mind thoughts which I may not understand!"
    "You will comprehend them," the Queen said, "when you know yourself a
chattel, bought and paid for."
    The Queen laughed. She rose, and her hands strained toward heaven. "You
are omnipotent, yet have You let me become that into which I am
transmuted," she said, very low.
    She began to speak as though a statue spoke through lips that seemed
motionless. "Men have long urged me, Rosamund, to a deed which by one
stroke would make me mistress of these islands. To-day I looked on
Gregory Darrell, and knew that I was wise in love—and I had but to
crush a lewd soft worm to come to him. Eh, and I was tempted—!"
    The girl said: "Let us grant that Gregory loves you very greatly, and me
just when his leisure serves. You may offer him a cushioned infamy, a
colorful and brief delirium, and afterward demolishment of soul and
body; I offer him contentment and a level life, made up of small events,
it may be, and lacking both in abysses and in skyey heights. Yet is love
a flame wherein the lover's soul must be purified; it is a flame which
assays high queens just as it does their servants: and thus, madame, to
judge between us I dare summon you." "Child, child!" the Queen said,
tenderly, and with a smile, "you are brave; and in your fashion you are
wise; yet you will never comprehend. But once I was in heart and soul
and body all that you are to-day; and now I am Queen Ysabeau—Did you in
truth hear nothing, Rosamund?"
    "Why, nothing save the