The Fool (Bailey)/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII
THE QUEEN'S CHOICE
WHEN she came back to her lodging there lay Bran on his stomach before the hearth with his big head cradled between his elbows.
"What do I call you now, cousin?" he said.
"Neither wife nor widow nor maid," she laughed.
"And she that is nothing is naught."
"I am free."
"Who is, is dead. Here lies Eleanor, Queen of France. Pray for her soul."
"It is a bitter, fool." She bent and touched him.
"Nenny, nenny. Rest in peace. But poor Bran is lost in the dark. What wilful would, wilful will not withal. Gossip Eleanor was desperate to fight all the world for her marriage. And Gossip Eleanor rides into the lists and bids the holy men unmarry her. And it is lightly done, and none so merry as she. Are you here, cousin, are you there, are you anywhere?"
"I am a woman. Bran."
"God have mercy, that is no answer."
"I have my life again."
"So down you sit to dice with God. I had a doll when I was a boy. I had a friend when I was a man. I staked my love to win me joy and naked I end as I began."
But she was happy. For things began to fall as she had guessed. There was instant transformation of her fortunes. While she was Queen of France, and her King intent upon destroying her, none dared openly be her friend. Now that she was only the Duchess of Aquitaine, holding in her own right lands as rich as the King's France, she had many courtiers. For a while she took their homage but warily, and soon eager to go back to her own country she chose for escort a churchman, the Bishop of Tours, and set out.
It was always a rich and laughing land, a land of clear sky and mellow air. Between the hills and the round hills, down a valley of corn and vineyards, the broad river winds, placid as though seeing it you looked through the earth into another sky so the sky is reflected, and in this firmament hang a hundred green islets, joyous fairylands.
On the river bank under the willows the Queen lay, and Bran sat beside her, sometimes weaving a crown of yellow iris, sometimes looking at the flowing lines of her body's beauty.
"It must be time to ride on," she said, but she did not move.
"Whither? We shall find no better than what is here?"
"Well said, fool." She turned on her elbow and looked at him smiling.
"Yea, yea, it is well for the fool. What is it for the Queen?"
"Well and very well; let us dream the world away."
"Dream, dream," Bran said, "dream that life is good. There is none in the world but you and me, and you lie among the flowers and there is no need we know, nor time, but I see you, I am beside you, and you—you are happy. Dream on, cousin."
"It is a quiet Heaven, yours, Bran."
"There is no Heaven but peace."
"Faith, there is no peace but in Heaven," she laughed. "Well! I am content to have it so."
"What would you have, cousin? I know you well, and that I do not know."
"And you? For you I know and know not that."
"Bran is a fool, lady."
"What fools call fool."
"Verily, verily, that is he, one who is what should not be, one who sees what never will be, one who lives for what cannot be, he is the man who is born in me."
"Why did you leave your Henry of Anjou for me?"
"You are a woman, cousin, you were going alone upon danger."
"Why?" she said and she smiled.
"You are a woman and cruel," he cried. "Ask me my shame. You know and well you know." He caught her hand and kissed it and fondled it.
"Poor Bran," she said.
"Aye, aye, pity poor Bran," he laughed.
"You shall never leave me."
"God have mercy, should I thank you for that?" He started up, he pulled a grotesque face. "The lady Eleanor's fool am I. For ever and for ever and for ever. Nay, laugh, cousin, laugh, am I not the drollest fool?" and he acted horribly a blind cripple.
"Faith, you are a mad fellow," said she laughing. "Come, cousin fool, we must ride."
"Yea, yea, ride out of dreams. And yet whither, cousin?"
"Why, to my own realm."
"And there sit by the fire and spin."
"Well. It is a good land, mine. I have been up and down in the world, Bran, from the Holy Land to the western sea, and none have I found so good as mine."
"Lavender's blue, lavender's green, when I am King you shall be Queen," he sang. "Here is your crown, cousin," and he gave her the chaplet of yellow iris.
"No Queen but yours, Bran," she laughed. "No Queen now, nor wife. By the rood I have known many a man, but none that was worth my land and me. I will keep my land and my land shall keep me, and Monseigneur Bran shall be"
"Your fool," said he, and walked on his hands.
Then they sought the Bishop while he sat blandly dozing among his chaplains, and the cavalcade set itself in order and moved onward, and in the evening they came to the ridge up which the crowded houses of Blois climb to the cathedral and the castle.
Now, Count Thibaut of Blois was a great lord in all men's eyes and his own, brother to King Stephen, rich in his own inheritance, and potent and still lusty and jovial. The Queen was hardly in her lodging before a smiling Bishop brought Count Thibaut to wait on her. He was grown weighty, but a goodly figure of a man and bright of eye. With jovial zeal he bade the Queen come lodge in his castle.
Eleanor cast down her eyes. "Alack, sir, here is no queen."
"The Duchess of Aquitaine is welcome as any queen."
"And the good lord speaks from the heart," said Bran, and the Count smiled on him and he cut a caper.
She said that the Count was kind, but she was no merry guest.
He vowed that Blois should make her forget her care, and she smiled at him. Bran at her knee was mumbling in Latin something about to retrace your steps and reach the upper air again, that is a task indeed. "It is not fit, my lord. I am a woman alone now," she said.
Then he paid her rich compliments and swore Blois should give her good cheer and left her.
"Oh, cautious one," says she, pulling at Bran's ear.
"This lord hath a venturous eye, cousin."
"Nay, let a man be a man."
Count Thibaut did his best. He gave her hunting and hawking and jousting and mumming, and in between and after and whenever an hour was empty a dance and a feast. And at each and all Count Thibaut showed a knightly prowess, and always he was her devoted servant.
So on a night, "What does this lord mean, cousin?" said Bran.
"Faith, friend, he means to please me," she laughed.
"And what does this lady mean?"
"To please myself, fool. Oh, Bran, Bran, I have lived long years with a monk. Let me live a week merrily."
"A week? Well. And if Lord Pharaoh will not let the people go?"
"We will provide him plagues, Bran," she laughed, and fell to writing.
But Count Thibaut was from day to day more ardent, the generous lord was lost in the devoted knight, the devoted knight became the passionate lover. And at last he made his occasion. In her own lodging she was beset by a man who seized her as he spoke.
"Hold, hold, my lord,"—she too was strong—"you treat me like a castle taken by assault. God's body, I am not so to be won."
"I have wooed till I can wait no more. And you have let me woo and made me woo at your will, and now must yield to mine. No, faith, your hour has come, Eleanor. And I have come to my kingdom."
"Yield?" she cried. "Who, I? You do not know me, my lord. It is not in my spirit. I yield to none."
"It is the law of love, Eleanor."
"A man's law, my lord. And no man do I serve."
"You are mine."
"Death of God, not I."
"What!" He struggled with her, and she still held him off. "Do you mock me now?" He crushed her against him. "That is your place, Eleanor. Aye, you know it well enough." He kissed her fiercely.
"You are a rough wooer, my lord," she said.
"Aye, you have found your master."
"And very bold."
He laughed. "You shall not find me timid, Eleanor."
"Nor you me, my lord. But you go too fast. I must have time." She smiled and looked down. "Good faith, it is but seemly."
"Aye, that is woman, indeed. Faith, I mean you no dishonour. You shall have priest and pomp. But I am on fire for you."
So cunningly she won a respite of a day and a day, and when he was gone at last Bran stole in. "And Lord Pharaoh would not let the people go," said he softly.
"Oh, wise man," says she, looking at him with bent brows.
"I heard a priest that talked with a priest in the bishop's company, and this said he: nubere per vim vult—he means to marry her by force."
"Death of God, would he so!" And then she laughed. "Yes, the man is a man."
Bran looked at her long. "Yea, yea, and the woman is a woman," he said. "And God have mercy, the fool is but a fool. Fare you well, cousin."
"Oh—wise man," she said again.
But Bran slunk out of the room. Her hand fell on his shoulder on the stair. "Whither now?"
"Out into the dark, cousin."
"The dark and the fool for me," she said.
It was night and all the gates of Blois were shut. Down the steep lanes to the river-side he led her, and watching the houses above the water stealthily cast off a wherry. "Get you in and lie you down," he muttered. Then thrusting off hard he crouched down beside her, and the wherry shot out and met the stream and turned and drifted down. "Lie close, lie close," Bran said. "If they see us from the river tower we are sped." But low and silent, dark on the dark water, the wherry drifted by the tower unseen and away beyond the walls. Then he put an oar out over the stern and so worked and steered the boat with the stream. "Sleep now, cousin, sleep now," he said. "All is well in the night."
"With the fool at the helm."
So all night long the wherry floated on down the winding river, in and out among the misty aits with no more sound than the rustle in the reeds or the plunge of a rat, and she slept hidden, and only Bran's big head and shoulders loomed like a gnome above the gunwale. But when in the dawn he could make out houses, he ran the boat ashore and waking the Queen, "Say your prayers and abide," he said. "I come again soon."
It was an hour or more before he came, riding one mule and leading another. "Here is food to eat and beasts to ride. But God mend all, at what a price! Mules are precious in this country."
She came to look at them. "Nay, they are mules of my country. They are good Poitevins. We breed the best in the world, fool. They are our pride."
"Verily and amen. Like likes like. And what else do you breed in your country, cousin? Have you no other pride?"
"Aye, rogue," says she, laughing; "we say there are no such vipers as the vipers of Poitou."
"Oh, cousin, you come of a goodly stock."
Then they made a breakfast of bread and beef ham and Loire water, poor souls, and thereafter mounted and took the road.
But even a mule of Poitou has not the speed of a horse. In the afternoon they were aware of a cloud of dust in the valley and ever and again it gleamed, "By my faith," said Bran, "the darkest cloud hath a lining of steel. Yea, it is the Lord Pharaoh and all his horsemen. And I think I am not Dan Moses to make the river into dry land. Hie off the road, cousin, up the hill into the copse there, ere they see us." So they did, and dismounted and hidden among the hazel boughs waited and watched. But in a little while and before Count Thibaut was come, "Why, God be good!" said Bran. "Here is another band coming out of the west. Whose men be these?" Each riding hard, the two companies drew near. "By the rood, I see the yellow! Planta genesta, planta genesta," Bran cried. "They wear the broom, cousin. It is Henry, my brother."
"Aye, it is Henry of Anjou," she said. "Be still, fool, be still. Who knows what will come of it?"
The two bands halted under the hill and challenged and the leaders rode out alone. "What do you here, Henry of Anjou?"
"And you, Thibaut of Blois?"
"I seek what is mine."
"You have lost it, Thibaut."
"Angevin thief! God's blood, you boast too soon."
"Foul words are of foul mouths. I boast nothing I will not do. I say you have lost, Thibaut. I will make it good on your body."
"God rest your soul, boy." Thibaut laughed and turned his horse.
And Bran, watching the woman's face said, "Yea, yea, now are you happy."
"Look where he rides, the little, thick-made man!" she laughed, and indeed Henry's short bulk on a horse was ill-matched with the knightly Thibaut.
"All good saints guard him," Bran said. "Oh, Mary Mother, what brought the boy here?"
"Oh fool," says she, "I wrote him a letter out of Blois."
He made wide eyes at her. "Oh, pride of Poitou!" he said.
But now they were riding their course, each mail-clad man with lance in rest thundering at the other, and Thibaut was seen making that hardest, deadliest aim at the head, but a moment before the crash Henry bent to his horse's neck and while Thibaut's lance slid scraping along the mail of his back he struck Thibaut's shield and bore him from the saddle in a fall so heavy that the big man lay dazed.
Henry cast away his lance and leapt down and stood over him with naked sword. "The course is run, Thibaut," he said.
And Thibaut groaned. "It was a fair course, and it is run."
"I do not ask you yield." Henry put up his sword. "I am the younger man."
"God give you joy of it," Thibaut said. "Yea, and of her."
Henry turned and lifted his hand in salute, and went back to his own people. And down the hillside came Eleanor with Bran lagging behind.
Henry turned to meet her. "You called me and I am here, Eleanor."
"So it is." She held out her hand. "And be it so. My lord Henry, will it please you be my guest in my house at Poitiers?"
"I will be your guest all my life," he said.
And down came Bran to them dragging two mules which jostled each other.
"Ah, brother fool, brother fool, so you have brought her back to me in the end." Henry put his arm round the hunched shoulders. "I might have trusted you for it, wise man."
With something strange in her eyes Eleanor looked from one to the other. "Aye, he is the wisest of us," she said.
"Nenny, nenny, let me be fool," Bran cried. "Oh, God have mercy, let me be fool."
"Give us your blessing, brother," Henry laughed.
"Unto him that hath shall be given," Bran said. "What do you lack? What do you lack? God help all poor souls lost in the dark."