Chapter III: Part 3

Jurgen waited non-committally. Nothing happened. Then Jurgen saw that at this unengaging monarch's feet were three chests. The lids had been ripped from two of them, and these were filled with silver coins. Upon the middle chest, immediately before the king, sat a woman, with her face resting against the knees of the glaring, withered, motionless, old rascal.

"And this is a young woman. Obviously! Observe the glint of that thick coil of hair! the rich curve of the neck! Oh, clearly, a tidbit fit to fight for, against any moderate odds!"

So ran the thoughts of Jurgen. Bold as a dragon now, he stepped forward and lifted the girl's head.

Her eyes were closed. She was, even so, the most beautiful creature Jurgen had ever imagined.

"She does not breathe. And yet, unless memory fails me, this is certainly a living woman in my arms. Evidently this is a sleep induced by necromancy. Well, it is not for nothing I have read so many fairy tales. There are orthodoxies to be observed in the awakening of every enchanted princess. And Lisa, wherever she may be, poor dear! is nowhere in this neighborhood, because I hear nobody talking. So I may consider myself at liberty to do the traditional thing by this princess. Indeed, it is the only fair thing for me to do, and justice demands it."

In consequence, Jurgen kissed the girl. Her lips parted and softened, and they assumed a not unpleasant sort of submissive ardor. Her eyes, enormous when seen thus closely, had languorously opened, had viewed him without wonder, and then the lids had fallen, about half-way, just as, Jurgen remembered, the eyelids of a woman ought to do when she is being kissed properly. She clung a little, and now she shivered a little, but not with cold: Jurgen perfectly remembered that ecstatic shudder convulsing a woman's body: everything, in fine, was quite as it should be. So Jurgen put an end to the kiss, which, as you may surmise, was a tolerably lengthy affair.

His heart was pounding as though determined to burst from his body, and he could feel the blood tingling at his finger-tips. He wondered what in the world had come over him, who was too old for such emotions.

Yet, truly, this was the loveliest girl that Jurgen had ever imagined. Fair was she to look on, with her shining gray eyes and small smiling lips, a fairer person might no man boast of having seen. And she regarded Jurgen graciously, with her cheeks flushed by that red flickering overhead, and she was very lovely to observe. She was clothed in a robe of flame-colored silk, and about her neck was a collar of red gold. When she spoke her voice was music.

"I knew that you would come," the girl said, happily.

"I am very glad that I came," observed Jurgen.

"But time presses."

"Time sets an admirable example, my dear Princess--"

"Oh, messire, but do you not perceive that you have brought life into this horrible place! You have given of this life to me, in the most direct and speedy fashion. But life is very contagious. Already it is spreading by infection."

And Jurgen regarded the old king, as the girl indicated. The withered ruffian stayed motionless: but from his nostrils came slow augmenting jets of vapor, as though he were beginning to breathe in a chill place. This was odd, because the cave was not cold.

"And all the others too are snorting smoke," says Jurgen. "Upon my word I think this is a delightful place to be leaving."

First, though, he unfastened the king's sword-belt, and girded himself therewith, sword, dagger and all. "Now I have arms befitting my fine shirt," says Jurgen.

Then the girl showed him a sort of passage way, by which they ascended forty-nine steps roughly hewn in stone, and so came to daylight. At the top of the stairway was an iron trapdoor, and this door at the girl's instruction Jurgen lowered. There was no way of fastening the door from without.

"But Thragnar is not to be stopped by bolts or padlocks," the girl said. "Instead, we must straightway mark this door with a cross, since that is a symbol which Thragnar cannot pass."

Jurgen's hand had gone instinctively to his throat. Now he shrugged. "My dear young lady, I no longer carry the cross. I must fight Thragnar with other weapons."

"Two sticks will serve, laid crosswise--"

Jurgen submitted that nothing would be easier than to lift the trapdoor, and thus dislodge the sticks. "They will tumble apart without anyone having to touch them, and then what becomes of your crucifix?"

"Why, how quickly you think of everything!" she said, admiringly. "Here is a strip from my sleeve, then. We will tie the twigs together."

Jurgen did this, and laid upon the trapdoor a recognizable crucifix. "Still, when anyone raises the trapdoor whatever lies upon it will fall off. Without disparaging the potency of your charm, I cannot but observe that in this case it is peculiarly difficult to handle. Magician or no, I would put heartier faith in a stout padlock."

So the girl tore another strip, from the hem of her gown, and then another from her right sleeve, and with these they fastened their cross to the surface of the trapdoor, in such a fashion that the twigs could not be dislodged from beneath. They mounted the fine steed whose bridle was marked with a coronet, the girl riding pillion, and they turned westward, since the girl said this was best.

For, as she now told Jurgen, she was Guenevere, the daughter of Gogyrvan, King of Glathion and the Red Islands. So Jurgen told her he was the Duke of Logreus, because he felt it was not appropriate for a pawnbroker to be rescuing princesses: and he swore, too, that he would restore her safely to her father, whatever Thragnar might attempt. And all the story of her nefarious capture and imprisonment by King Thragnar did Dame Guenevere relate to Jurgen, as they rode together through the pleasant May morning.

She considered the Troll King could not well molest them. "For now you have his charmed sword, Caliburn, the only weapon with which Thragnar can be slain. Besides, the sign of the cross he cannot pass. He beholds and trembles."

"My dear Princess, he has but to push up the trapdoor from beneath, and the cross, being tied to the trapdoor, is promptly moved out of his way. Failing this expedient, he can always come out of the cave by the other opening, through which I entered. If this Thragnar has any intelligence at all and a reasonable amount of tenacity, he will presently be at hand."

"Even so, he can do no harm unless we accept a present from him. The difficulty is that he will come in disguise."

"Why, then, we will accept gifts from nobody."

"There is, moreover, a sign by which you may distinguish Thragnar. For if you deny what he says, he will promptly concede you are in the right. This was the curse put upon him by Miramon Lluagor, for a detection and a hindrance."

"By that unhuman trait," says Jurgen, "Thragnar ought to be very easy to distinguish."

10.

Pitiful Disguises of Thragnar

Next, the tale tells that as Jurgen and the Princess were nearing Gihon, a man came riding toward them, full armed in black, and having a red serpent with an apple in its mouth painted upon his shield.

"Sir knight," says he, speaking hollowly from the closed helmet, "you must yield to me that lady."

"I think," says Jurgen, civilly, "that you are mistaken."

So they fought, and presently, since Caliburn was a resistless weapon, and he who wore the scabbard of Caliburn could not be wounded, Jurgen prevailed; and gave the strange knight so heavy a buffet that the knight fell senseless.

"Do you think," says Jurgen, about to unlace his antagonist's helmet, "that this is Thragnar?"

"There is no possible way of telling," replied Dame Guenevere: "if it is the Troll King he should have offered you gifts, and when you contradicted him he should have admitted you were right. Instead, he proffered nothing, and to contradiction he answered nothing, so that proves nothing."

"But silence is a proverbial form of assent. At all events, we will have a look at him."

"But that too will prove nothing, since Thragnar goes about his mischiefs so disguised by enchantments as invariably to resemble somebody else, and not himself at all."

"Such dishonest habits introduce an element of uncertainty, I grant you," says Jurgen. "Still, one can rarely err by keeping on the safe side. This person is, in any event, a very ill-bred fellow, with probably immoral intentions. Yes, caution is the main thing, and in justice to ourselves we will keep on the safe side."

So without unloosing the helmet, he struck off the strange knight's head, and left him thus. The Princess was now mounted on the horse of their deceased assailant.

"Assuredly," says Jurgen then, "a magic sword is a fine thing, and a very necessary equipment, too, for a knight errant of my age."

"But you talk as though you were an old man, Messire de Logreus!"

"Come now," thinks Jurgen, "this is a princess of rare discrimination. What, after all, is forty-and-something when one is well-preserved? This uncommonly intelligent girl reminds me a little of Marcouève, whom I loved in Artein: besides, she does not look at me as women look at an elderly man. I like this princess, in fact, I adore this princess. I wonder now what would she say if I told her as much?"

But Jurgen did not tempt chance that time, for just then they encountered a boy who had frizzed hair and painted cheeks. He walked mincingly, in a curious garb of black bespangled with gold lozenges, and he carried a gilded dung fork.

* * * * *

Then Jurgen and the Princess came to a black and silver pavilion standing by the roadside. At the door of the pavilion was an apple-tree in blossom: from a branch of this tree was suspended a black hunting-horn, silver-mounted. A woman waited there alone. Before her was a chess-board, with the ebony and silver pieces set ready for a game, and upon the table to her left hand glittered flagons and goblets of silver. Eagerly this woman rose and came toward the travellers.

"Oh, my dear Jurgen," says she, "but how fine you look in that new shirt you are wearing! But there was never a man had better taste in dress, as I have always said: and it is long I have waited for you in this pavilion, which belongs to a black gentleman who seems to be a great friend of yours. And he went into Crim Tartary this morning, with some missionaries, by the worst piece of luck, for I know how sorry he will be to miss you, dear. Now, but I am forgetting that you must be very tired and thirsty, my darling, after your travels. So do you and the young lady have a sip of this, and then we will be telling one another of our adventures."

For this woman had the appearance of Jurgen's wife, Dame Lisa, and of none other.

Jurgen regarded her with two minds. "You certainly seem to be Lisa. But it is a long while since I saw Lisa in such an amiable mood."

"You must know," says she, still smiling, "that I have learned to appreciate you since we were separated."

"The fiend who stole you from me may possibly have brought about that wonder. None the less, you have met me riding at adventure with a young woman. And you have assaulted neither of us, you have not even raised your voice. No, quite decidedly, here is a miracle beyond the power of any fiend."

"Ah, but I have been doing a great deal of thinking, Jurgen dear, as to our difficulties in the past. And it seems to me that you were almost always in the right."

Guenevere nudged Jurgen. "Did you note that? This is certainly Thragnar in disguise."

"I am beginning to think that at all events it is not Lisa." Then Jurgen magisterially cleared his throat. "Lisa, if you indeed be Lisa, you must understand I am through with you. The plain truth is that you tire me. You talk and talk: no woman breathing equals you at mere volume and continuity of speech: but you say nothing that I have not heard seven hundred and eighty times if not oftener."

"You are perfectly right, my dear," says Dame Lisa, piteously. "But then I never pretended to be as clever as you."

"Spare me your beguilements, if you please. And besides, I am in love with this princess. Now spare me your recriminations, also, for you have no real right to complain. If you had stayed the person whom I promised the priest to love, I would have continued to think the world of you. But you did nothing of the sort. From a cuddlesome and merry girl, who thought whatever I did was done to perfection, you elected to develop into an uncommonly plain and short-tempered old woman." And Jurgen paused. "Eh?" said he, "and did you not do this?"

Dame Lisa answered sadly: "My dear, you are perfectly right, from your way of thinking. However, I could not very well help getting older."

"But, oh, dear me!" says Jurgen, "this is astonishingly inadequate impersonation, as any married man would see at once. Well, I made no contract to love any such plain and short-tempered person. I repudiate the claims of any such person, as manifestly unfair. And I pledge undying affection to this high and noble Princess Guenevere, who is the fairest lady that I have ever seen."

"You are right," wailed Dame Lisa, "and I was entirely to blame. It was because I loved you, and wanted you to get on in the world and be a credit to my father's line of business, that I nagged you so. But you will never understand the feelings of a wife, nor will you understand that even now I desire your happiness above all else. Here is our wedding-ring, then, Jurgen. I give you back your freedom. And I pray that this princess may make you very happy, my dear. For surely you deserve a princess if ever any man did."

Jurgen shook his head. "It is astounding that a demon so much talked about should be so poor an impersonator. It raises the staggering supposition that the majority of married women must go to Heaven. As for your ring, I am not accepting gifts this morning, from anyone. But you understand, I trust, that I am hopelessly enamored of the Princess on account of her beauty."

"Oh, and I cannot blame you, my dear. She is the loveliest person I have ever seen."

"Hah, Thragnar!" says Jurgen, "I have you now. A woman might, just possibly, have granted her own homeliness: but no woman that ever breathed would have conceded the Princess had a ray of good looks."

So with Caliburn he smote, and struck off the head of this thing which foolishly pretended to be Dame Lisa.

"Well done! oh, bravely done!" cried Guenevere. "Now the enchantment is dissolved, and Thragnar is slain by my clever champion."

"I could wish there were some surer sign of that," said Jurgen. "I would have preferred that the pavilion and the decapitated Troll King had vanished with a peal of thunder and an earthquake and such other phenomena as are customary. Instead, nothing is changed except that the woman who was talking to me a moment since now lies at my feet in a very untidy condition. You conceive, madame, I used to tease her about that twisted little-finger, in the days before we began to squabble: and it annoys me that Thragnar should not have omitted even Lisa's crooked little-finger on her left hand. Yes, such painstaking carefulness worries me. For you conceive also, madame, it would be more or less awkward if I had made an error, and if the appearance were in reality what it seemed to be, because I was pretty trying sometimes. At all events, I have done that which seemed equitable, and I have found no comfort in the doing of it, and I do not like this place."

11.

Appearance of the Duke of Logreus

So Jurgen brushed from the table the chessmen that were set there in readiness for a game, and he emptied the silver flagons upon the ground. His reasons for not meddling with the horn he explained to the Princess: she shivered, and said that, such being the case, he was certainly very sensible. Then they mounted, and departed from the black and silver pavilion. They came thus without further adventure to Gogyrvan Gawr's city of Cameliard.

Now there was shouting and the bells all rang when the people knew their Princess was returned to them: the houses were hung with painted cloths and banners, and trumpets sounded, as Guenevere and Jurgen came to the King in his Hall of Judgment. And this Gogyrvan, that was King of Glathion and Lord of Enisgarth and Camwy and Sargyll, came down from his wide throne, and he embraced first Guenevere, then Jurgen.

"And demand of me what you will, Duke of Logreus," said Gogyrvan, when he had heard the champion's name, "and it is yours for the asking. For you have restored to me the best loved daughter that ever was the pride of a high king."

"Sir," replied Jurgen, reasonably, "a service rendered so gladly should be its own reward. So I am asking that you do in turn restore to me the Princess Guenevere, in honorable marriage, do you understand, because I am a poor lorn widower, I am tolerably certain, but I am quite certain I love your daughter with my whole heart."

Thus Jurgen, whose periods were confused by emotion.

"I do not see what the condition of your heart has to do with any such unreasonable request. And you have no good sense to be asking this thing of me when here are the servants of Arthur, that is now King of the Britons, come to ask for my daughter as his wife. That you are Duke of Logreus you tell me, and I concede a duke is all very well: but I expect you in return to concede a king takes precedence, with any man whose daughter is marriageable. But to-morrow or the next day it may be, you and I will talk over your reward more privately. Meanwhile it is very queer and very frightened you are looking, to be the champion who conquered Thragnar."

For Jurgen was staring at the great mirror behind the King's throne. In this mirror Jurgen saw the back of Gogyrvan's crowned head, and beyond this, Jurgen saw a queer and frightened looking young fellow, with sleek black hair, and an impudent nose, and wide-open bright brown eyes which were staring hard at Jurgen: and the lad's very red and very heavy lips were parted, so that you saw what fine strong teeth he had: and he wore a glittering shirt with curious figures on it

"I was thinking," says Jurgen, and he saw the lad in the mirror was speaking too, "I was thinking that is a remarkable mirror you have there."

"It is like any other mirror," replies the King, "in that it shows things as they are. But if you fancy it as your reward, why, take it and welcome."

"And are you still talking of rewards!" cries Jurgen. "Why, if that mirror shows things as they are, I have come out of my borrowed Wednesday still twenty-one. Oh, but it was the clever fellow I was, to flatter Mother Sereda so cunningly, and to fool her into such generosity! And I wonder that you who are only a king, with bleared eyes under your crown, and with a drooping belly under all your royal robes, should be talking of rewarding a fine young fellow of twenty-one, for there is nothing you have which I need be wanting now."

"Then you will not be plaguing me any more with your nonsense about my daughter: and that is excellent news."

"But I have no requirement to be asking your good graces now," said Jurgen, "nor the good will of any man alive that has a handsome daughter or a handsome wife. For now I have the aid of a lad that was very recently made Duke of Logreus: and with his countenance I can look out for myself, and I can get justice done me everywhere, in all the bedchambers of the world."

And Jurgen snapped his fingers, and was about to turn away from the King. There was much sunlight in the hall, so that Jurgen in this half-turn confronted his shadow as it lay plain upon the flagstones. And Jurgen looked at it very intently.

"Of course," said Jurgen presently, "I only meant in a manner of speaking, sir: and was paraphrasing the splendid if hackneyed passage from Sornatius, with which you are doubtless familiar, in which he goes on to say, so much more beautifully than I could possibly express without quoting him word for word, that all this was spoken jestingly, and without the least intention of offending anybody, oh, anybody whatever, I can assure you, sir."

"Very well," said Gogyrvan Gawr: and he smiled, for no reason that was apparent to Jurgen, who was still watching his shadow sidewise. "To-morrow, I repeat, I must talk with you more privately. To-day I am giving a banquet such as was never known in these parts, because my daughter is restored to me, and because my daughter is going to be queen over all the Britons."

So said Gogyrvan, that was King of Glathion and Lord of Enisgarth and Camwy and Sargyll: and this was done. And everywhere at the banquet Jurgen heard talk of this King Arthur who was to marry Dame Guenevere, and of the prophecy which Merlin Ambrosius had made as to the young monarch. For Merlin had predicted:

"He shall afford succor, and shall tread upon the necks of his enemies: the isles of the ocean shall be subdued by him, and he shall possess the forests of Gaul: the house of Romulus shall fear his rage, and his acts shall be food for the narrators."

"Why, then," says Jurgen, to himself, "this monarch reminds me in all things of David of Israel, who was so splendid and famous, and so greedy, in the ancient ages. For to these forests and islands and necks and other possessions, this Arthur Pendragon must be adding my one ewe lamb; and I lack a Nathan to convert him to repentance. Now, but this, to be sure, is a very unfair thing."

Then Jurgen looked again into a mirror: and presently the eyes of the lad he found therein began to twinkle.

"Have at you, David!" said Jurgen, valorously; "since after all, I see no reason to despair."

12.

Excursus of Yolande's Undoing

Now Jurgen, self-appointed Duke of Logreus, abode at the court of King Gogyrvan. The month of May passed quickly and pleasantly: but the monstrous shadow which followed Jurgen did not pass. Still, no one noticed it: that was the main thing. For himself, he was not afraid of shadows, and the queerness of this one was not enough to distract his thoughts from Guenevere, nor from his love-making with Guenevere.

For these were quiet times in Glathion, now that the war with Rience of Northgalis was satisfactorily ended: and love-making was now everywhere in vogue. By way of diversion, gentlemen hunted and fished and rode a-hawking and amicably slashed and battered one another in tournaments: but their really serious pursuit was lovemaking, after the manner of chivalrous persons, who knew that the King's trumpets would presently be summoning them into less softly furnished fields of action, from one or another of which they would return feet foremost on a bier. So Jurgen sighed and warbled and made eyes with many excellent fighting-men: and the Princess listened with many other ladies whose hearts were not of flint. And Gogyrvan meditated.

Now it was the kingly custom of Gogyrvan when his dinner was spread at noontide, not to go to meat until all such as demanded justice from him had been furnished with a champion to redress the wrong. One day as the gaunt old King sat thus in his main hall, upon a seat of green rushes covered with yellow satin, and with a cushion of yellow satin under his elbow, and with his barons ranged about him according to their degrees, a damsel came with a very heart-rending tale of the oppression that was on her.

Gogyrvan blinked at her, and nodded. "You are the handsomest woman I have seen in a long while," says he, irrelevantly. "You are a woman I have waited for. Duke Jurgen of Logreus will undertake this adventure."

There being no help for it, Jurgen rode off with this Dame Yolande, not very well pleased: but as they rode he jested with her. And so, with much laughter by the way, Yolande conducted him to the Green Castle, of which she had been dispossessed by Graemagog, a most formidable giant.

"Now prepare to meet your death, sir knight!" cried Graemagog, laughing horribly, and brandishing his club; "for all knights who come hither I have sworn to slay."

"Well, if truth-telling were a sin you would be a very virtuous giant," says Jurgen, and he flourished Thragnar's sword, resistless Caliburn.

Then they fought, and Jurgen killed Graemagog. Thus was the Green Castle restored to Dame Yolande, and the maidens who attended her aforetime were duly released from the cellarage. They were now maidens by courtesy only, but so tender is the heart of women that they all wept over Graemagog.

Yolande was very grateful, and proffered every manner of reward.

"But, no, I will take none of these fine jewels, nor money, nor lands either," says Jurgen. "For Logreus, I must tell you, is a fairly well-to-do duchy, and the killing of giants is by way of being my favorite pastime. He is well paid that is well satisfied. Yet if you must reward me for such a little service, do you swear to do what you can to get me the love of my lady, and that will suffice."

Yolande, without any particular enthusiasm, consented to attempt this: and indeed Yolande, at Jurgen's request, made oath upon the Four Evangelists that she would do everything within her power to aid him.

"Very well," said Jurgen, "you have sworn, and it is you whom I love."

Surprise now made her lovely. Yolande was frankly delighted at the thought of marrying the young Duke of Logreus, and offered to send for a priest at once.

"My dear," says Jurgen, "there is no need to bother a priest about our private affairs."

She took his meaning, and sighed. "Now I regret," said she, "that I made so solemn an oath. Your trick was unfair."

"Oh, not at all," said Jurgen: "and presently you will not regret it. For indeed the game is well worth the candle."

"How is that shown, Messire de Logreus?"

"Why, by candle-light," says Jurgen,--"naturally."

"In that event, we will talk no further of it until this evening."

So that evening Yolande sent for him. She was, as Gogyrvan had said, a remarkably handsome woman, sleek and sumptuous and crowned with a wealth of copper-colored hair. To-night she was at her best in a tunic of shimmering blue, with a surcote of gold embroidery, and with gold embroidered pendent sleeves that touched the floor. Thus she was when Jurgen came to her.

"Now," says Yolande, frowning, "you may as well come out straightforwardly with what you were hinting at this morning."

But first Jurgen looked about the apartment, and it was lighted by a tall gilt stand whereon burned candles.

He counted these, and he whistled. "Seven candles! upon my word, sweetheart, you do me great honor, for this is a veritable illumination. To think of it, now, that you should honor me, as people do saints, with seven candles! Well, I am only mortal, but none the less I am Jurgen, and I shall endeavor to repay this sevenfold courtesy without discount."

"Oh, Messire de Logreus," cried Dame Yolande, "but what incomprehensible nonsense you talk! You misinterpret matters, for I can assure you I had nothing of that sort in mind. Besides, I do not know what you are talking about."

"Indeed, I must warn you that my actions often speak more unmistakably than my words. It is what learned persons term an idiosyncrasy."

"--And I certainly do not see how any of the saints can be concerned in this. If you had said the Four Evangelists now--! For we were talking of the Four Evangelists, you remember, this morning--Oh, but how stupid it is of you, Messire de Logreus, to stand there grinning and looking at me in a way that makes me blush!"

"Well, that is easily remedied," said Jurgen, as he blew out the candles, "since women do not blush in the dark."

"What do you plan, Messire de Logreus?"

"Ah, do not be alarmed!" said Jurgen. "I shall deal fairly with you."

And in fact Yolande confessed afterward that, considering everything, Messire de Logreus was very generous. Jurgen confessed nothing: and as the room was profoundly dark nobody else can speak with authority as to what happened there. It suffices that the Duke of Logreus and the Lady of the Green Castle parted later on the most friendly terms.

"You have undone me, with your games and your candles and your scrupulous returning of courtesies," said Yolande, and yawned, for she was sleepy; "but I fear that I do not hate you as much as I ought to."

"No woman ever does," says Jurgen, "at this hour." He called for breakfast, then kissed Yolande--for this, as Jurgen had said, was their hour of parting,--and he rode away from the Green Castle in high spirits.

"Why, what a thing it is again to be a fine young fellow!" said Jurgen. "Well, even though her big brown eyes protrude too much--something like a lobster's--she is a splendid woman, that Dame Yolande: and it is a comfort to reflect I have seen justice was done her."

Then he rode back to Cameliard, singing with delight in the thought that he was riding toward the Princess Guenevere, whom he loved with his whole heart.

13.

Philosophy of Gogyrvan Gawr

At Cameliard the young Duke of Logreus spent most of his time in the company of Guenevere, whose father made no objection overtly. Gogyrvan had his promised talk with Jurgen.

"I lament that Dame Yolande dealt over-thriftily with you," the King said, first of all: "for I estimated you two would be as spark and tinder, kindling between you an amorous conflagration to burn up all this nonsense about my daughter."

"Thrift, sir," said Jurgen, discreetly, "is a proverbial virtue, and fires may not consume true love."

"That is the truth," Gogyrvan admitted, "whoever says it." And he sighed.

Then for a while he sat in nodding meditation. Tonight the old King wore a disreputably rusty gown of black stuff, with fur about the neck and sleeves of it, and his scant white hair was covered by a very shabby black cap. So he huddled over a small fire in a large stone fireplace carved with shields; beside him was white wine and red, which stayed untasted while Gogyrvan meditated upon things that fretted him.

"Now, then!" says Gogyrvan Gawr: "this marriage with the high King of the Britons must go forward, of course. That was settled last year, when Arthur and his devil-mongers, the Lady of the Lake and Merlin Ambrosius, were at some pains to rescue me at Carohaise. I estimate that Arthur's ambassadors, probably the devil-mongers themselves, will come for my daughter before June is out. Meanwhile, you two have youth and love for playthings, and it is spring."

"What is the season of the year to me," groaned Jurgen, "when I reflect that within a week or so the lady of my heart will be borne away from me forever? How can I be happy, when all the while I know the long years of misery and vain regret are near at hand?"

"You are saying that," observed the King, "in part because you drank too much last night, and in part because you think it is expected of you. For in point of fact, you are as happy as anyone is permitted to be in this world, through the simple reason that you are young. Misery, as you employ the word, I consider to be a poetical trophe: but I can assure you that the moment you are no longer young the years of vain regret will begin, either way."

"That is true," said Jurgen, heartily.

"How do you know? Now then, put it I were insane enough to marry my daughter to a mere duke, you would grow damnably tired of her: I can assure you of that also, for in disposition Guenevere is her sainted mother all over again. She is nice looking, of course, because in that she takes after my side of the family: but, between ourselves, she is not particularly intelligent, and she will always be making eyes at some man or another. To-day it appears to be your turn to serve as her target, in a fine glittering shirt of which the like was never seen in Glathion. I deplore, but even so I cannot deny, your rights as the champion who rescued her: and I must bid you make the most of that turn."

"Meanwhile, it occurs to me, sir, that it is unusual to betroth your daughter to one man, and permit her to go freely with another."

"If you insist upon it," said Gogyrvan Gawr, "I can of course lock up the pair of you, in separate dungeons, until the wedding day. Meanwhile, it occurs to me you should be the last commentator to grumble."

"Why, I tell you plainly, sir, that critical persons would say you are taking very small care of your daughter's honor."

"To that there are several answers," replied the King. "One is that I remember my late wife as tenderly as possible, and I reflect I have only her word for it as to Guenevere's being my daughter. Another is that, though my daughter is a quiet and well-conducted young woman, I never heard King Thragnar was anything of this sort."

"Oh, sir," said Jurgen, horrified, "whatever are you hinting!"

"All sorts of things, however, happen in caves, things which it is wiser to ignore in sunlight. So I ignore: I ask no questions: my business is to marry my daughter acceptably, and that only. Such discoveries as may be made by her husband afterward are his affair, not mine. This much I might tell you, Messire de Logreus, by way of answer. But the real answer is to bid you consider this: that a woman's honor is concerned with one thing only, and it is a thing with which the honor of a man is not concerned at all."

"But now you talk in riddles, King, and I wonder what it is you would have me do."

Gogyrvan grinned. "Obviously, I advise you to give thanks you were born a man, because that sturdier sex has so much less need to bother over breakage."

"What sort of breakage, sir?" says Jurgen.

Gogyrvan told him.

Duke Jurgen for the second time looked properly horrified. "Your aphorisms, King, are abominable, and of a sort unlikely to quiet my misery. However, we were speaking of your daughter, and it is she who must be considered rather than I."

"Now I perceive that you take my meaning perfectly. Yes, in all matters which concern my daughter I would have you lie like a gentleman."

"Well, I am afraid, sir," said Jurgen, after a pause, "that you are a person of somewhat degraded ideals."

"Ah, but you are young. Youth can afford ideals, being vigorous enough to stand the hard knocks they earn their possessor. But I am an old fellow cursed with a tender heart and tolerably keen eyes. That combination, Messire de Logreus, is one which very often forces me to jeer out of season, simply because I know myself to be upon the verge of far more untimely tears."

Thus Gogyrvan replied. He was silent for a while, and he contemplated the fire. Then he waved a shriveled hand toward the window, and Gogyrvan began to speak, meditatively:

"Messire de Logreus, it is night in my city of Cameliard. And somewhere one of those roofs harbors a girl whom we will call Lynette. She has a lover--we will say he is called Sagramor. The names do not matter. Tonight, as I speak with you, Lynette lies motionless in the carved wide bed that formerly was her mother's. She is thinking of Sagramor. The room is dark save where moonlight silvers the diamond-shaped panes of ancient windows. In every corner of the room mysterious quivering suggestions lurk."

"Ah, sire," says Jurgen, "you also are a poet!"

"Do not interrupt me, then! Lynette, I repeat, is thinking of Sagramor. Again they sit near the lake, under an apple-tree older than Rome. The knotted branches of the tree are upraised as in benediction: and petals--petals, fluttering, drifting, turning,--interminable white petals fall silently in the stillness. Neither speaks: for there is no need. Silently he brushes a petal from the blackness of her hair, and silently he kisses her. The lake is dusky and hard-seeming as jade. Two lonely stars hang low in the green sky. It is droll that the chest of a man is hairy, oh, very droll! And a bird is singing, a silvery needle of sound moves fitfully in the stillness. Surely high Heaven is thus quietly colored and thus strangely lovely. So at least thinks little Lynette, lying motionless like a little mouse, in the carved wide bed wherein Lynette was born."

"A very moving touch, that," Jurgen interpolated.

"Now, there is another sort of singing: for now the pot-house closes, big shutters bang, feet shuffle, a drunken man hiccoughs in his singing. It is a love-song he is murdering. He sheds inexplicable tears as he lurches nearer and nearer to Lynette's window, and his heart is all magnanimity, for Sagramor is celebrating his latest conquest. Do you not think that this or something very like this is happening to-night in my city of Cameliard, Messire de Logreus?".

"It happens momently," said Jurgen, "everywhere. For thus is every woman for a little while, and thus is every man for all time."

"That being a dreadful truth," continued Gogyrvan, "you may take it as one of the many reasons why I jeer out of season in order to stave off far more untimely tears. For this thing happens: in my city it happens, and in my castle it happens. King or no, I am powerless to prevent its happening. So I can but shrug and hearten my old blood with a fresh bottle. No less, I regard the young woman, who is quite possibly my daughter, with considerable affection: and it would be salutary for you to remember that circumstance, Messire de Logreus, if ever you are tempted to be candid."

Jurgen was horrified. "But with the Princess, sir, it is unthinkable that I should not deal fairly."

King Gogyrvan continued to look at Jurgen. Gogyrvan Gawr said nothing, and not a muscle of him moved.

"Although of course," said Jurgen, "I would, in simple justice to her, not ever consider volunteering any information likely to cause pain."

"Again I perceive," said Gogyrvan, "that you understand me. Yet I did not speak of my daughter only, but of everybody."

"How then, sir, would you have me deal with everybody?"

"Why, I can but repeat my words," says Gogyrvan, very patiently: "I would have you lie like a gentleman. And now be off with you, for I am going to sleep. I shall not be wide awake again until my daughter is safely married. And that is absolutely all I can do for you."

"Do you think this is reputable conduct, King?"

"Oh, no!" says Gogyrvan, surprised. "It is what we call philanthropy."

14.

Preliminary Tactics of Duke Jurgen

So Jurgen abode at court, and was tolerably content for a little while. He loved a princess, the fairest and most perfect of mortal women; and loved her (a circumstance to which he frequently recurred) as never any other man had loved in the world's history: and very shortly he was to stand by and see her married to another. Here was a situation to delight the chivalrous court of Glathion, for every requirement of romance was exactly fulfilled.

Now the appearance of Guenevere, whom Jurgen loved with an entire heart, was this:--She was of middling height, with a figure not yet wholly the figure of a woman. She had fine and very thick hair, and the color of it was the yellow of corn floss. When Guenevere undid her hair it was a marvel to Jurgen to note how snugly this hair descended about the small head and slender throat, and then broadened boldly and clothed her with a loose soft foam of pallid gold. For Jurgen delighted in her hair; and with increasing intimacy, loved to draw great strands of it back of his head, crossing them there, and pressing soft handfuls of her perfumed hair against his cheeks as he kissed the Princess.

The head of Guenevere, be it repeated, was small: you wondered at the proud free tossing movements of that little head which had to sustain the weight of so much hair. The face of Guenevere was colored tenderly and softly: it made the faces of other women seem the work of a sign-painter, just splotched in anyhow. Gray eyes had Guenevere, veiled by incredibly long black lashes that curved incredibly. Her brows arched rather high above her eyes: that was almost a fault. Her nose was delicate and saucy: her chin was impudence made flesh: and her mouth was a tiny and irresistible temptation.

"And so on, and so on! But indeed there is no sense at all in describing this lovely girl as though I were taking an inventory of my shopwindow," said Jurgen. "Analogues are all very well, and they have the unanswerable sanction of custom: none the less, when I proclaim that my adored mistress's hair reminds me of gold I am quite consciously lying. It looks like yellow hair, and nothing else: nor would I willingly venture within ten feet of any woman whose head sprouted with wires, of whatever metal. And to protest that her eyes are as gray and fathomless as the sea is very well also, and the sort of thing which seems expected of me: but imagine how horrific would be puddles of water slopping about in a lady's eye-sockets! If we poets could actually behold the monsters we rhyme of, we would scream and run. Still, I rather like this sirvente."

For he was making a sirvente in praise of Guenevere. It was the pleasant custom of Gogyrvan's court that every gentleman must compose verses in honor of the lady of whom he was hopelessly enamored; as well as that in these verses he should address the lady (as one whose name was too sacred to mention) otherwise than did her sponsors. So Duke Jurgen of Logreus duly rhapsodized of his Phyllida.

"I borrow for my dear love the appellation of that noted but by much inferior lady who was beloved by Ariphus of Belsize," he explained. "You will remember Poliger suspects she was a princess of the house of Scleroveus: and you of course recall Pisander's masterly summing-up of the probabilities, in his _Heraclea_."

"Oh, yes," they said. And the courtiers of Gogyrvan Gawr, like Mother Sereda, were greatly impressed by young Duke Jurgen's erudition.

For Jurgen was Duke of Logreus nowadays, with his glittering shirt and the coronet upon his bridle to show for it. Awkwardly this proved to be an earl's coronet, but incongruities are not always inexplicable.

"It was Earl Giarmuid's horse. You have doubtless heard of Giarmuid: but to ask that is insulting."

"Oh, not at all. It is humor. We perfectly understand your humor, Duke Jurgen."

"And a very pretty fighter I found this famous Giarmuid as I traveled westward. And since he killed my steed in the heat of our conversation, I was compelled to take over his horse, after I had given this poor Giarmuid proper interment. Oh, yes, a very pretty fighter, and I had heard much talk of him in Logreus. He was Lord of Ore and Persaunt, you remember, though of course the estate came by his mother's side."

"Oh, yes," they said. "You must not think that we of Glathion are quite shut out from the great world. We have heard of all these affairs. And we have also heard fine things of your duchy of Logreus, messire."

"Doubtless," said Jurgen; and turned again to his singing.

"Lo, for I pray to thee, resistless Love," he descanted, "that thou to-day make cry unto my love, to Phyllida whom I, poor Logreus, love so tenderly, not to deny me love! Asked why, say thou my drink and food is love, in days wherein I think and brood on love, and truly find naught good in aught save love, since Phyllida hath taught me how to love."

Here Jurgen groaned with nicely modulated ardor; and he continued: "If she avow such constant hate of love as would ignore my great and constant love, plead thou no more! With listless lore of love woo Death resistlessly, resistless Love, in place of her that saith such scorn of love as lends to Death the lure and grace I love."

Thus Jurgen sang melodiously of his Phyllida, and meant thereby (as everybody knew) the Princess Guenevere. Since custom compelled him to deal in analogues, he dealt wholesale. Gems and metals, the blossoms of the field and garden, fires and wounds and sunrises and perfumes, an armory of lethal weapons, ice and a concourse of mythological deities were his starting-point. Then the seas and heavens were dredged of phenomena to be mentioned with disparagement, in comparison with one or another feature of Duke Jurgen's Phyllida. Zoology and history, and generally the remembered contents of his pawnshop, were overhauled and made to furnish targets for depreciation: whereas in dealing with the famous ladies loved by earlier poets, Duke Jurgen was positively insulting, allowing hardly a rag of merit. Still, he was careful to be just: and he allowed that these poor creatures might figure advantageously enough in eyes which had never beheld his Phyllida. And to all this information the lady whom he hymned attended willingly.

"She is a princess," reflected Jurgen. "She is quite beautiful. She is young, and whatever her father's opinion, she is reasonably intelligent, as women go. Nobody could ask more. Why, then, am I not out of my head about her? Already she permits a kiss or two when nobody is around, and presently she will permit more. And she thinks I am quite the cleverest person living. Come, Jurgen, man! is there no heart in this spry young body you have regained? Come, let us have a little honest rapture and excitement over this promising situation!"

But somehow Jurgen could not manage it. He was interested in what, he knew, was going to happen. Yes, undoubtedly he looked forward to more intimate converse with this beautiful young princess, but it was rather as one anticipates partaking of a favorite dessert. Jurgen felt that a liaison arranged for in this spirit was neither one thing or the other.

"If only I could feel like a cold-blooded villain, now, I would at worst be classifiable. But I intend the girl no harm, I am honestly fond of her. I shall talk my best, broaden her ideas, and give her, I flatter myself, considerable pleasure: vulgar prejudices apart, I shall leave her no whit the worse. Why, the dear little thing, not for the ransom of seven emperors would I do her any hurt! And in these matters discretion is everything, simply everything. No, quite decidedly, I am not a cold-blooded villain; and I shall deal fairly with the Princess."

Thus Jurgen was disappointed by his own emotions, as he turned them from side to side, and prodded them, and shifted to a fresh viewpoint, only to find it no more favorable than the one relinquished: but he veiled the inadequacy of his emotions with very moving fervors. The tale does not record his conversations with Guenevere: for Jurgen now discoursed plain idiocy, as one purveys sweetmeats to a child in fond astonishment at the pet's appetite. And leisurely Jurgen advanced: there was no hurry, with weeks wherein to accomplish everything: meanwhile this routine work had a familiar pleasantness.

For the amateur co-ordinates matters, knowing that one thing axiomatically leads to another. There is no harm at all in respectful allusions to a love that comprehends its hopelessness: it was merely a fact which Jurgen mentioned, and was about to pass on; only Guenevere, in modesty, was forced to disparage her own attractions, as an inadequate cause for so much misery. Common courtesy demanded that Jurgen enter upon a rebuttal. To emphasize one point in this, the orator was forced to take the hand of his audience: but strangers did that every day, with nobody objecting; moreover, the hand was here, not so much seized as displayed by its detainer, as evidence of what he contended. How else was he to prove the Princess of Glathion had the loveliest hand in the world? It was not a matter he could request Guenevere to accept on hearsay: and Jurgen wanted to deal fairly with her.

Well, but before relinquishing the loveliest hand in the world a connoisseur will naturally kiss each fingertip: this is merely a tribute to perfection, and has no personal application. Besides, a kiss, wherever deposited, as Jurgen pointed out, is, when you think of it, but a ceremonial, of no intrinsic wrongfulness. The girl demurring against this apothegm--as custom again exacted,--was, still in common fairness, convinced of her error. So now, says Jurgen presently, you see for yourself. Is anything changed between us? Do we not sit here, just as we were before? Why, to be sure! a kiss is now attestedly a quite innocuous performance, with nothing very fearful about it one way or the other. It even has its pleasant side. Thus there is no need to make a pother over kisses or over an arm about you, when it is more comfortable sitting so: how can one reasonably deny to a sincere friend what is accorded to a cousin or an old cloak? It would be nonsense, as Jurgen demonstrated with a very apt citation from Napsacus.

Then, sitting so, in the heat of conversation a speaker naturally gesticulates: and a deal of his eloquence is dependent upon his hands. When anyone is talking it is discourteous to interrupt, whereas to lay hold of a gentleman's hand outright, as Jurgen parenthesized, is a little forward. No, he really did not think it would be quite proper for Guenevere to hold his hand. Let us preserve decorum, even in trifles.

"Ah, but you know that you are doing wrong!"

"I doing wrong! I, who am simply sitting here and talking my poor best in an effort to entertain you! Come now, Princess, but tell me what you mean!"

"You should know very well what I mean."

"But I protest to you I have not the least notion. How can I possibly know what you mean when you refuse to tell me what you mean?"

And since the Princess declined to put into words just what she meant, things stayed as they were, for the while.

Thus did Jurgen co-ordinate matters, knowing that one thing axiomatically leads to another. And in short, affairs sped very much as Jurgen had anticipated.

Now, by ordinary, Jurgen talked with Guenevere in dimly lighted places. He preferred this, because then he was not bothered by that unaccountable shadow whose presence in sunlight put him out. Nobody ever seemed to notice this preposterous shadow; it was patent, indeed, that nobody could see it save Jurgen: none the less, the thing worried him. So even from the first he remembered Guenevere as a soft voice and a delectable perfume in twilight, as a beauty not clearly visioned.

And Gogyrvan's people worried him. The hook-nosed tall old King had been by Jurgen dismissed from thought, as an enigma not important enough to be worth the trouble of solving. Gogyrvan at once seemed to be schooling himself to patience under some private annoyance and to be revolving in his mind some private jest; he was queer, and probably abominable: but to grant the old rascal his due, he was not meddlesome.