The Fool and the Queen

by H. C. Bailey

Another Medieval Romance in which Bran the Jester Remedies a King's Injustice

The Fool and the Queen

By H. C. Bailey
Author of "Call Mr. Fortune," "Barry Leroy," "The Highwayman," etc.

THE Queen of France stood looking out by a lancet window and in the green flat land spread like a carpet two hundred feet below saw neither house nor man. Behind her, her woman was huddled and stitched with blundering fingers. The queen swept out and began to climb the winding stone stair of the tower. As she rose into the light and clean air, a spear was thrust before her, a man-at-arms barred her way to the walls. She bade him stand aside, but he neither answered nor moved. For a little while she stood there, then turned and went back to the room below. Her woman was crying. "Out! fool, out!" the queen said and struck her and chose the window again. One hand wrestled with the other.

When she turned at last, she found a fool sitting cross-legged on the floor at her side. She was a tall woman and strongly made; she looked down fierce and contemptuous at the little ill-shapen man, hidden under his red hood with its cock's comb and its ass's ears. She stirred him with her foot.

"Peace be with you," said he in Latin, and tossed his head with a jingle of bells, and smiled up at her.

"Death of God!" says she. "Who are you, knave?"

"If that I knew, no fool were I, but a fool I am, so to know were to die."

"To the devil with your jingle. You are not my fool. Who sent you in his livery?"

"Sing soft, Cousin Eleanor." He took from his scrip a sprig of bloom, yellow with blossom. "Are you learned, cousin? Do you speak Latin? Planta genesta here you see and who wears that is lord of me. Do you know the land which smiles gold in spring?"

"Anjou!"

"You have said. Henry Plantagenet, Henry of Anjou, he is my lord and my brother and I am Bran his fool!"

"The boy of Anjou," she said, and Bran laughed and her eyes blazed at him. "Aye, you mock me? I think I can teach you fear."

"Nenny, nenny, cousin. I know fear. He wakes with me and sleeps with me, big brother fear," and he plucked at her dress and fondled it. She was a beautiful woman.

"God guard me! Stand up, man, stand, never fawn on me. How are you come here?"

"Na, na, cousin. I am not here. Bran is not here. Here is only old Gilles, the Queen of France's fool. I am he and he is on a journey or peradventure he sleepeth and must be awakened," he giggled.

"See then, here is you, a fair lady in her prime held in a lonely castle and my saintly lord King Louis your husband looks down his nose and goes to prayers and all the world whispers. What shall come of it, Cousin Eleanor?"

"No good to the man that does me ill."

"Yea, yea. I am believe you," says he, watching her, and indeed the beauty of her proud face had a strange look of force. "Now there is in Anjou a hearty knight which swears it were shame a lady fair should languish alone at the will of a saintly king——"

"So he sends me a fool. Aye, a good, gallant knight is he!"

"Prithee, cousin, no more of your words, for they are but wind out of emptiness. Thus it is. When holy King Louis sent after you your tirewoman and your cook and your fool, there came a night when they lay in a tavern. And good man Gilles he fell a drinking and he was not and in his place was good man Bran, as like him as a fool to a fool. And here am I with my head in my hand. Will you take it, cousin?"

"Why, fool, what should you do?"

"What the mouse did for the netted lion. Give me your hand, Eleanor."

"Why then?" she said, but gave it.

"There is a man in me would kiss it," said he, and he held it to his cheek a moment and laughed and shuffled out.

 

THE queen sat smiling. She was comforted. She found her world had not passed away. Still she commanded the allegiance of men. Henry of Anjou would serve. The boy was heir to Normandy and England. With him to her champion there was trouble coming on good King Louis. Caution, caution. A boy with a name must still be a boy and all turned on a boy's wit and a fool's. Who should trust them? Nay, let the worst fall, let them fail, they would make her a noise in the world and a tumult. She would not pine hidden away like a naughty nun bricked up in her cell. So she made out her choice and night came and she ate and was put to bed and lay wakeful a long while. She woke with a hand on her head.

"Cousin Eleanor," the fool said. "Cousin Eleanor."

"Rogue," she grasped his hand.

"Woman," says he and laughed. "Well, woman, can you dress in the dark?"

"Why then?"

"Because you must, cousin."

He heard a rustling and in the midst of it, "You are the first that has said must to me and I did his will."

"And I am a fool," said Bran.

"I am dressed. What now?"

"Now I make light." He struck flint and steel and lit a candle and going to the window opened it and set the candle on the sill, "Stand behind me, cousin." He stood himself against the wall. After a moment there came a whizzing sound, the candle went out and fell with an odd faint rattle. Bran went on hands and knees groping across the room. He rose with an arrow in his hands to which was tied a light cord and he hauled that in swiftly and after it came a rope. A moment he stood at the window listening to hear nothing. Then he knotted the rope about her waist. "Have no fear, cousin," he said, and he laughed. She climbed out of the window and slowly he let her down.

"God have mercy, God had mercy," he muttered. "The mother of what dooms hangs there!" and he made the rope fast and slid down after her.

She lit into the arms of a man who kissed her hand and cut the rope from her and throwing her across his shoulder made off swiftly, big woman as she was, down the hillside. He said not a word and she asked him nothing. But when he stopped by a muster of horses and set her down, "It is a broad back that bears my fortunes," she said.

"It is Henry of Anjou, Lady Eleanor."

She came close to him in the darkness. "You have chosen?"

"I can hold you."

"Oh, my brother," Bran chuckled, "oh, Henry, my brother, the dark will not last and the light is the end of this play."

"Pardieu, the fool is the wisest here. Lady Eleanor, I have no men about me to make head against King Louis. It is mount and ride."

"All night and all day," she said. "But whither?" And Bran laughed.

"We make to safety first." Henry swung her to the saddle.

And all the rest of that night they rode on through the plain and halted in the dawn thirty miles away and slept then in a village of Touraine.

You see them in the noon sunlight, the woman stately and schooled, the man jerking all his broad inches in his haste. She was the taller. There was the assurance of power in her dignity and the regular composed beauty of her face spoke subtlety and passion. And he, with his bulk and his awkward restlessness, his red face and his big ungainly hands working, he looked a boor and a boy.

She held out her hand: "Cousin fool, I owe you the ransom of my life."

Bran put her hand to his brow. "A thing that I had I never could keep, but all that I lack is mine in my sleep."

Her eyes lingered on him a moment. "Dream well," she said; "And now, my lord, what will you do with me?"

"I will hold you against the world. If——"

"My lord, I have a husband."

"A husband? Well!" he shrugged.

"Holy saints, what do I know? I am hurried off to that accursed castle and guarded like a traitor and have speech of none. I am told nothing, not what King Louis intends with me, no word of what he has against me. Death of God! my lord, a felon is better entreated."

"They say King Louis is a holy man."

"And holy have I found him. Let him be what saint he will I am still his queen."

"That is what irks his holiness. He has called a council of France to Beaugency to write him a divorce."

"The fox! Divorce me while I lie buried! What is the charge?"

"Faith, lady, you should guess that better I."

"He has none, I tell you, none. It is why he hid me away."

"I believe it easily. God's blood! Lady Eleanor, the king is a coward."

"Yes, he is a coward. Me he always feared."

"A coward and a fool. Let him go. You are well rid of him."

"No, Louis is not a fool. Oh, this is a foul trick in him!"

"None so cunning as a saint. None so cleverly a fool. Why, let him shame himself and break himself. I will maintain your honor."

"You!" she looked him over. "Oh boy! And yet not all a boy."

"Do you know me?" he laughed. "I promise you I will not fear you."

"Alas poor me! A life indeed," she said very placidly. "You are a quick man, my lord Henry. You have never seen me till this morning's light. And now——"

"That have I, Eleanor. I saw you ride into Orleans with King Louis in the spring. And I swore then you were not for him."

"Oh, a knight errant! He will deliver me from the tyrant Well, it is an honor. But after all, my lord, I am not only a king's wife. In mine own person I am something."

"The grandest beauty in the world, Eleanor."

"The Duchess of Aquitaine, my lord."

"I shall be Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy and King of England."

"Add Aquitaine to that," she clasped her hands, "and what a realm!" Then she laughed. "Oh, you calculate well."

For a moment he was abashed, but only a moment. "I am cold in counsel, lady, and hot in action. If it is well planned, it is not ill to do." He grasped her arm. "God's body! do you doubt I will fill your life for you?"

"I am cold in counsel, too," she said. "Look, my lord. If I go away with you to my lands or yours, King Louis arraigns me to his lords and I am held a guilty woman and shamed."

"Words! Words! God's blood! are you afraid to do what you will?"

"Not I. And therefore to Beaugency I go and face King Louis."

"What, you cleave to that monk still?"

"I am a woman, Henry. And I think it is what you can not understand."

"Women were made for men, Eleanor."

She latched and he stood glowering at her. And Bran began to sing looking from one to the other with a twisted smile, and he shook his head at Henry. "Nenny, nenny, brother, we mean nought, neither you nor I."

"Well, I will ride with you to Beaugency, lady," Henry said.

"No, my lord. That writes me guilty with you. I go alone."

His face darkened. "God's blood go, and the devil go with you."

"Na, na, Cousin Eleanor. Take the fool instead. Take poor Bran. He is the better man."

"What now?" Henry turned on him.

"When a fool is a fool there is no now but to-morrow."

"Ride with me, good fellow," the queen said.

"Pardieu, you will be well matched." Henry broke into the loud short laugh which she hated already. Bran looked at him wistfully, but he strode away.

And so the queen and the fool fared to the council at Beaugency alone. It was early in spring and the level corn land freshly green and all the bright air merry with birds' voices and Bran must needs sing back to them and the queen looked grim at him.

"Aye, now we come to it. Why are you here at my side, fool?"

"You have said, queen. Bran is a fool."

And thereafter they rode on some way. Then, "A fool to serve me?" she looked at him. "I love my own folk well."

"What can you give me for what I have given up?"

"Your lord Henry? Tell me, what manner of man is he?"

"He is as cold as you and hot as you. A reckless man and the wisest ever I knew. And withal he hath no foe so dead as himself. Body of me, who is it I tell of, cousin, him or you?"

She laughed. "You are bitter sweet, Bran. And you love him."

"He was ever a good man to Bran."

And again they rode on some way before she spoke. "And your good man, what was in his mind when he took me out of prison? To make me his, me and my lands?"

"God have mercy, God have mercy, will you be judged by what lies in the dark of your mind? I think you will go down to hell, cousin. No, faith, what we do is ill enough to answer. And brother Henry, he set you free and free you ride."

"And he might have borne me away at his will." She laughed. "The more fool he."

"Yea, yea," Bran looked at her. "Fools are we all, whatever we do."

"Why then, what is in your mind that you give up your lord to ride with the strange woman?"

"I looked at you. You had need of me. I answered. Oh, body of me, laugh at me now!"

She looked at him, the big head rolling and nodding, the short misshapen body, the huge hands and feet on a little man. But she did not laugh. She put out her hand and touched him.

And in a while they began to talk of what they had to do. It was plain that the queen was riding upon danger. King Louis was not, she swore, capable of thinking. "How should a fish guess that I want air?" said she. But the nearer they came to Beaugency the more folk would be upon the road. They might ride into the king's own train, they might meet some loyal lord who would snap her up for his master. "And back goes cousin Eleanor to the cupboard," said Bran. "Yea, yea. It is like enough. But you should have thought of that before you cast off my little brother Henry."

"I asked the man to give me a guard."

"And very prettily do you ask, cousin. Like a child which slaps mother to get a pastry."

"Should I kneel to him, fool?" She flicked at Bran with her whip.

"Yea, yea, stiff in the knee are you both. And both be wrong and neither is right and that is the end of you and your might."

"Never preach to me, sirrah. Name of God! what is to do?" Bran looked at her with his twisted smile. "Aye, ride you back to him and tell him Queen Eleanor is trapped. He will love you for that, your dear lord."

Still Bran looked at her steadily and he said: "Why, cousin my queen, of you and me, it is Bran the fool I would rather be."

"Oh, I am a cursed woman!" she cried. "I must ever strike what I love. You are a true man."

"Nenny, nenny. Bran is the world's poor fool. Bran is a tool in your hand. Bran is the shoe on your foot. But Bran will bear you safe, cousin. See, there is Holy Church."

"God's body, would you have me take sanctuary? Man, I must to Beaugency, I must fight Louis for my honor."

"Verily and amen. And there will be churchmen to keep the lists. Lord bishops and lord abbots on the road, a holy company. Join we with them, and they dare not deny you, and under the mantle of the Church safe we come to Beaugency."

And so they did and in a village on the Cosson came upon the cavalcade of the Bishop of Nevers, who, good man, was much embarrassed to meet his queen in such a plight and yet more to be her escort. But the fool knew his world. The queen who quarreled with her king was a sore trial to his lordship, but a woman and a wife who claimed to be heard for the right of her marriage could not be cast off by Holy Church. The bishop promised to bring her before the council, and kept his word, and lest it might be hard to keep he let no man know of her coming.

The little town of Beaugency nestles between two hills above the Loire and so many folk were in it that March morning that the devil and all his angels, Bran said, would have been nothing regarded. In the hall of the old castle the council gathered, a throng of gray heads and rich robes. And when King Louis had taken his seat the Archbishop of Bordeaux rose from his side and said that their king summoned them that they should give him divorce from Eleanor of Aquitaine his queen, "For that he has not confidence in his wife and can never be assured respecting the line that shall ring from her." He stopped, he stood without words. Thrusting through the solemn ranks came a woman, tall and vehement, a woman somberly cloaked amid the council's splendor, but beyond doubt Eleanor the queen. "I claim to speak," she cried, and she swept on and stood before the king.

He would not look at her. He shrank upon himself and his eyes went to this side and that and he plucked at his knees.

"What have you against me, Louis?" her voice rang out.

He turned as he sat. "It is not seemly, my lord," he laid his hand on the archbishop's.

"I will be heard," she cried. "What have you against me, Louis?"

He pulled at the archbishop, but found no help nor prompting and the queen took hold of him. "You know," he mumbled and shrank away.

"I know well. I am a living woman. That is all my sin. Therefore I was shut up in secret that I should not be heard."

"Ah, how came you here now?" the king panted. "Who brought you?"

"I am here to fight for my honor. Who denies me that? I am the Queen of France, I am a wife whose husband would break her marriage. He has sought to give me to shame unheard. He shall charge me to my face and to his face I will answer. God's body! this thing is not to be done in a corner. Look—" she flung out her arm, pointing to the king—"judge you between us, my lords." He sat there pale and shrunken, a gray wisp of a man in his robes, and she towered over him passionate, and all the council was murmuring.

"It is your right, lady," the archbishop said, and the king plucked at him and whispered. "Yet I beg of you, do you claim your right? Be assured no man here will do you wrong."

"I will be assured."

"It were scandal," the archbishop went delicately, "and of very evil example that we debate of ill living."

"Let him that charges prove or own his lie."

"You deny all?"

"What is charged upon me?"

"You have heard, lady."

"The king says he has not confidence in his wife. The queen says she has not confidence in her husband. Judge, my lords. He would have hid me that I should not answer him. I come to hear him answer me."

"Oh, oh, a brazen woman!" the king cried out. "What of—" but the archbishop bent over him enveloping him like a cloak. And the queen laughed. When the archbishop rose again, he was smiling.

"Lady, do you uphold your marriage?"

 

SHE stared at him as though she wondered at his insolence, his folly. She gave herself time to think, then: "God's body! my lord, who would cling to such marriage as mine?" she cried. "What woman would cleave to a husband who has put such wrong upon her? But in marriage or out of marriage I will have my honor clean."

And the archbishop still smiled. "It has been said to me that your marriage is no marriage, lady."

"Who said that, he said well"

"Since the king and you," the archbishop had more confidence now, "being of cousinhood within the degrees forbidden may not be man and wife."

"If so it be, let it be so, my lord."

"We will be advised on it," his grace nodded generally and in particular.

"A chair for the queen," said she. And advised on it they were, and they sat all day and read the canon law and heard its doctors and in the twilight declared king and queen too near akin to marry and the marriage null. So to the great content of peaceful men the wise council of Beaugency satisfied both queen and king. "By my faith," said the queen as she went her way, "I have not seen Louis smile these five years. Thank God, I shall not see it again."

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. 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!"

But she was happy, 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 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."

"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."

He starts 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," says 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."

"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 where 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 be bade her come lodge in his castle.

She said that the count was kind, but she was no merry guest.

He vowed that Blois should make her forget her care, and 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.

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. 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. "And very bold. 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 dishonor. 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 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 riverside 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.

So all night long it 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 at 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!"

Then they made a breakfast of bread and beef, ham and Loire water, poor souls, and thereafter mounted and took, the road. In the afternoon they were aware of a cloud of dust in the valley and ever and again it gleamed.

"By my faith," said Bian "the darkness 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, ptanta genesta," Bran cried. "They wear the broom, cousin. It is Henry, my brother."

"Ay, 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 lauded, 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 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 leaped 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 to 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 around 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."