“I have suffered enough,” he said. “Enough.”
But he put the package back, for he thought that they meant to bring him food and a bed, and he would rather die on a bed, and he would rather ease the horrible burning of his cracked throat by a draught of water however stale and vile, before he composed himself to death.
But the time crept on and no one came; there was not a sound without; it was obvious that they had forgotten him; the little light began to fade into Condorcet’s endless night.
He rose to his full thin height and a huge disdain enveloped him; a quiet silence fell on his soul; he knew that he would never speak again; there was nothing left now that he could put into words.
He went to the wall under the window where the damp oozed in a thin trickle and put his lips to it, moistening them.
A little longer he waited, but no one came; his disdain grew; his disdain of all things as they were, as they must be, as they would always be; disdain of the world that had seized him, crushed him, reduced him with all that was fine and noble and far-reaching and splendid in him, to this ugly sordid end.
He stooped and pulled up his stockings, fastening them as neatly as he could under the straps of his breeches; then he moved back and tried to see a star through the window; but darkness of masonry blocked his view; there was no sky visible.
He opened the phial and drank.
“Some one bungled when the world was made,” he thought.
He lay down along the floor and closed his eyes; and presently he spread his arms out in the form of a cross. And presently it grew completely dark in the cell.
In the morning they remembered him and came to take him to Paris.
A terrible figure with a sealed face was lying on the damp prison floor, and the people were spoiled of some sport.
Jehanne Plantagenet
“Joan, contracted to Pedro the Cruel, but died.”–History of England.“Haro! Mettes moi une emplastreSus le coer, car, quant m’en souvient,Cette souspirer me couvientTant sui plains de melancolie–Elle mouret jone et jolie,Environ de vingt et deux ans.”Jean Froissart.
“Joan, contracted to Pedro the Cruel, but died.”–History of England.
“Haro! Mettes moi une emplastreSus le coer, car, quant m’en souvient,Cette souspirer me couvientTant sui plains de melancolie–Elle mouret jone et jolie,Environ de vingt et deux ans.”Jean Froissart.
“Haro! Mettes moi une emplastreSus le coer, car, quant m’en souvient,Cette souspirer me couvientTant sui plains de melancolie–Elle mouret jone et jolie,Environ de vingt et deux ans.”Jean Froissart.
“Haro! Mettes moi une emplastre
Sus le coer, car, quant m’en souvient,
Cette souspirer me couvient
Tant sui plains de melancolie–
Elle mouret jone et jolie,
Environ de vingt et deux ans.”
Jean Froissart.
I, Abbess of the Nunnery of St. Bertha, which lieth quietly among the Surrey holmes, am much given to this art of writing, new to women. Sith in my time I have written of dogs, hawks and forestry and tricked out the same with broad and good emblazons of colour, to the glory of God and England.
Now, on fair new parchments scented with the herbs which grow in the convent garden I will write of Jehanne Plantagenet, who was the daughter of our late Lord, Edward, King of England and France.
This King had eight sons and four daughters–Isabeau, Duchess of Bedford; Mary, Duchess of Bretagne; Margaret, Countess of Pembroke, and Jehanne, who died unmarried and whom I loved exceedingly.
She was even more goodly to look upon than her sisters and of a great debonnair gentleness in her manners, tall with eyen gray as glass and hair of a rippling gold.
She was very learned in her devotions and charitable to the poor, having learnt these virtues from her mother, Philippa.
And she was able with her loom to form noble pictures of hunts and jousts and saints in fair colours of blue and red and green, with flowers on the grass and birds in the trees so that they were the wonder of all who beheld them; and her brother, the Prince Johan, had a saddle-cloth she had woven with his armories, Richmond, Lancastre, Aquitaine and Lincoln, mingled with the Leopards of England, which was the marvel of the Spanish Knights when he went with Edward of Wales and Counciell into Spain to fight the Free Companies under the Sire Du Guesclin for the sake of Don Pedro, called Justicar by his people.
It is about this time I would write; this Don Pedro was cast from his throne by Don Enrique of Trastamare, his half-brother, who was aided by the French Free Companies that were lured out of France, where they did much mischief, by the King of that country, Charles, to plunder and despoil Spain.
Now, Pedro and his two daughters, Constantia and Isabeau, fled to Bordeaux, where our Princes were, and besought their protection, which was given right gladly.
And the English made march through Spain with thirty thousand men, and there was a cruelskirmish at Nafara in the spring season, 1367, and it ended in the discomfiture of Enrique and the French, and a right evil day for them, for the English went a-chasing of them and slew them to a goodly number and set on the throne again Sir Pedro of Burgundy.
This was a well foughten battle, and one that gave great renown to our valiant English Knights, who did acquit themselves with much hardiness and caused the Knights of Spain to recule before them in such wise that there was no getting them to another battle.
And this was the conquest of Spayne; now I will tell you of London and of Jehanne Plantagenet whose dame I was.
When came the news of the victory she was very joyous, and took me out with her on to the ramparts beyond the Chepe and the Church of the blessed Saint Paul, where the hawthorn and the eglantine that hath such a sharp sweet smell was burgeoning.
And with her were other maidens who had Knights at the wars, either in Spayne or Almaine or with King Wencelaus, and she questioned them of their lovers and spoke of Sir Johan Chandos in pleasant seeming, and of Sir Bertram Du Guesclin, who was made prisoner, and she spoke of her brother’s banners and how all had fallen back before them, and she gave their cry, “St. George, Gayonne!” in a laughing voice, across the fields.
Presently she made wreaths of daisies and cast them down a swift-running stream and watched them go, joyously; and still she spoke of the English and how they had held their Easter in the city of Burgos.
So I had great marvel to find her the day after, pensive in the window, with a sad air, and I asked her ailment, but with no manner of success; she put me by courteously and kept her counsel.
And I who held her in such worship could in no wise pleasure her, even by speaking of the adventures in Spayne and her dear brothers, Edward, Lyon, Edmund and Johan, for she saddened from day to day, and in the night made lamentable sorrows which she would give no reason for, and so from the blithest damosel of the court she was like to become the saddest.
And it fortuned that I discovered the cause, for I heard that our lord the King was to conclude a marriage between this princess and King Don Pedro of Castile, so to make sure the pact between them; certainly I believed this was why she was so downcast, for she would not leave England; yet I had marvel at it, for he of Spayne was a gentle knight and well renouned then, though afterwards dishonoured.
Then the King bid her to him, and in the name of love and lineage commanded her to this match, and she durst not deny him, but afterwards she came to me and drew me into a window above the river and spoke to me.
“Dame,” she said, “I am to wed the King of Spayne.”
And she took her face in her two hands right mournfully.
Then I advised me well and answered–
“He is a very mighty King and companion at war to your two noble brothers.”
“Dame,” she said, “I shall not go to Spayne.” And with great gentleness she sighed.
Now, it was Sunday evening and a great press of clouds about the sun, all red and violet, and in the water also these colours and the bridge white in the glowing brightness, and I looked out on these things as I answered–
“Ye must do your devoir to your father.” And Jehanne Plantagenet made reply–
“Yea, I will do my devoir, please God, but I shall not go to Spayne.”
And she lifted her head to aview the sunset, and we heard the sowning of the trumpets as the companies of the King’s archers came into the yard.
Then she took my hands and said–
“Dame Alys, give me leave and I will this day tell you something–and something heavy withal.”
I had great joy and honour in her amours, and I answered her–
“Behold my heart is as your own.”
Whereat she kissed me and said, “Ye shall hear.” And her eyes were troublous of grief as she spoke.
“Truly,” she said, “when I go to bed right doleful and weary of heart, one comes and parts the curtains and stands looking at me, and it is a lady ina gown of samite with a crown on her hair and rings on her hands, and she looks at me mournfully and as one who would give me warning.”
Then I was amazed, and made reply: “I desire you by the love of God to tell me who this lady is.”
Then said Jehanne Plantagenet–
“I think it is Blaunche of France, who was first wife to this Don Pedro, and is now in Heaven.”
“Surely,” I said, “this cannot be. Wherefor should she give you warning?”
“Sith you ask me,” said Jehanne Plantagenet, “I believe she gives me warning that I am to marry a right dishonourable and ungentle Knight and one that would slay me even as he slew her.”
Thereon I, right affrighted, bade her speak words of good cheer, for this was a grievous thing she said, and one not for credence that the King Don Pedro had slain Queen Blaunche.
But the Princess was sure of it, for she vowed the vision came as a warning.
“And I,” she said, “sith I would rather die in Westminster than live in Spayne, will not have this marriage.”
Then was I blithe to tell her of the great feastings there would be for her wedding, both in this realm and in Spayne, and how she would be a Queen and have her own court; howbeit, she put it all by.
“Dame Alys,” she said, “say no more, for I have such a love for another man that I may not bear to leave the place where he is.” Then a two timesshe gave a little sigh, and I was sore amazed.
“Dear lady,” I said, “Who is he?”
She answered me. “A man of war, one of the divers captains of the King’s archers, and I have such a puissant affection for him that I could not turn to any other.”
There was a while stillness and one without touched the dulcimere, and I heard the bells ringing from the Abbey of St. Peter, and the sun was almost set.
Then Jehanne Plantagenet kneeled down to me.
“Peradventure you will be good to me,” and she laid hold of my hands. “This Knight’s name is Sir Paon de Brambre, and I have never spoken to him all my life, though every day I see him and he loves me well. Now I have prayed Christ and Mary to save my soul alive, and I think to-night I shall go with my lady Blaunche, but first I would speak to this Knight I love so well.”
All this she said right graciously, but I wept for ruth while she spoke again.
“Dame Alys, get me this knight here into my chamber after supper that I may take leave of him, let him come in full armour with his shield.”
And though I broke my devoir I let it be established between us that I would bring this captain, and afterwards I found him in a study in the garden and gave him my message, whereat he went right pale.
Now, when I returned to the chamber of JehanneI found she had lit it full of fair wax candles and was seated on the dais clad in a red gown of Damascus richly besewn; and she looked pale and thin, yet joyous, and bade me beside her until I was to let in secretly the Knight Sir Paon, which I did presently.
And he was all armed save he carried his bassenet; on his arm was a long-pointed shield painted with his armory, and his face was wasted and sad and his eyen blue as Thames water.
Right within the door he went on his knees and folded his hands with never a word.
And from the dais at the other end of the chamber Jehanne Plantagenet looked at him and said a-high–
“Sir, in God’s name, tell me if you have a great love for me?”
And he a little changed countenance and bent his head very slowly.
“God hath holpen me to this moment,” he said, “but He cannot put it into my mouth to say how much I love you.”
“Sir,” she answered him, “ye may always have me for your lady, and though ye are not rich in goods or heritage ye shall be rich in this that she, who was a King’s daughter, loved you exceedingly, and I think you will be a worthy Knight and one full of honours,and when you have a wife I pray you tell her of me and let her be a fair woman, but as for me I am contracted to a villain knight in the name of love and lineage, and yet will not marry him and yet will do my devoir.”
Then Sir Paon shook in his harness, and I had great pity of his dolours.
“Fair sir, recomfort yourself,” said Jehanne, “I have lived gaily and shall die loyal. See you these candles, ten for the ten commandments whole and unbroken, seven for the seven works of charity and the seven deadly sins, five for the Five Wounds and the five senses, three for the Trinity. Now when I am dead and ye see these burning about my tomb and the poor people saying prayers for my soul, I beseech that you shall add a taper to my memory.”
And the water washed his eyen and he could not speak.
“As I so greatly loved this goodly town of London,” said Jehanne, “ye, living here, shall think of me, even at the time of the jousts and the great feasts, Easter, Christmas and the Holy Trinity, and remember I ever loved you the alder-beste of all in the world.”
And Sir Paon was sore discomfited that she should talk of death, and she came down from the dais.
“Truly,” she said, “this world is nothing and love is a great deal, and it matters not at all if we be dead or alive if we love–one another.”
Then fair and softly she bent a little towards him and held out her hand, and he took it as if it had been God His robe and pressed his tears upon it, but she the while was smiling.
And so they parted, and he went his way andJehanne kissed me on the brow and said prayers before the candles, and then to bed silently.
And I had great ruth of all I had seen that night and for the dolorous sorrows of these two, and I wished that two that so loved might have been mated.
So I lay awake listening to the bells and the throstle that now and again moved in the orchard boughs as it came to the dawning. And presently I heard sweet words that came from the chamber of Jehanne Plantagenet.
“Lady Blaunche, Lady Blaunche, have you come for me?”
Then I advised with myself well and was very afraid and sat up in bed, but could by no means speak.
For a long while it was silent, and I rose at last and went into the inner chamber, and it was cool with an Eastern light.
And Jehanne Plantagenet was lying out with the chequered curtains of blue and white withdrawn from her visage and the clothes of the bed straight over her and no breath at all in her body.
Round her were burning the candles of fair and pure wax, and she was surely dead.
And because I felt there were Heavenly Spirits in the room I kneeled me down, and these two princesses, Jehanne Plantagenet and Blaunche of France, went hand in hand across the orchards to Paradise.
She was carried through the city she loved with her visage open and her head on a white cushion and buried in a painted tomb behind the High Altar of St. Paul’s Church, and Don Pedro was slain by Don Enrique not long after, and I kept my peace.
Now Sir Paon de Brambre went to Almaine and died fighting.…
The Emperor Michael III
How shall I care that I am blind when I have seen enough colour in my days to fill the rest of meagre time?
Here in the Monastery in Armenia I have a little boy to read to me–sometimes Photias, sometimes John Damascenus the Syrian, sometimes the Fathers of the Church.
This I buy with the much money saved when I was in the train of the Emperor Michael now wailing in Hell.
I am very old and repentant, and soon I shall swing censers in Heaven, and my eyes shall be replaced with rubies from God’s own throne; the scent of crushed roses and ambergris shall soothe my nostrils and I shall sit close to the gate that I may look from the gold bars on to the flames of Hell and see the Emperors there, Michaels, Constantines, and Leos and presently the Emperor Basil the Macedonian, being thrust into the deepest pit of all.
It is Christmas eve, and I hear them singing in the choir … such patient men, these monks, but then very few of them have seen Constantinople. I am richer than they, though blind, for I have memories.
I do not miss my sight, for what is there to see here? They have no gold nor silver nor mosaic in their church nor painted curtains or curious robes.
I shall be glad to gain Heaven that I may see the shoes of God, crystal, gilt and pointed and His girdle of great blue stones and the attire of the angels, fine cambric worked with silks from Persia, purple of a live blood colour and green like a split jade.
So I talk and the little boy writes while they sing in the chapel; they humour me because I am so very old and I despise them all.
To-night I have a loosened tongue; I could tell secrets now.…
Write, write, write the last scene I saw before I was blind–how the Sclaronion gained the throne and how the Amorian died.
Come nearer, for my voice is very weak. What if this was the last night of all for me and I should wake to see the banners of God blowing about His throne?
So write, for I know more than I have ever told.
It was the year 866 that the Emperor Michael surnamed the Drunkard, took for his fellow Emperor Basil the Macedonian groom. This was reward for what Basil had done at Kepos, where he had stabbed the Cæsar through the back. This Cæsar Bardas was a clever man, but Basil was more cunning; this Bardas the Cæsar was uncle to the Emperor, and had in his time slain Theoktistos, so he, too, is in Hell, for he died without a prayer. But I have prayed before the images and given them robes of silk pleasant to handle. Basil the groom had come to Constantinople on foot with a wallet on his back and become a stable boy to an officer of the court, and once when the Emperor was driving his own white horses in the Hippodrome, he saw this Basil wrestle with a Bulgarian and overthrow him; the Macedonian had great credit for this, and Michael took him into his service, for he was a man of wonderful strength.
I never saw one taller; his hair was very thick bright brown and curling, his face had a look of hideous power and his neck was massive as the trunk of a young tree.
He had a great gift with horses, for there was never one whom he could not subdue with a touch and a whisper; soon, it seemed, he had this power with the Emperor, too, for Michael made him Chamberlain and cast money into his lap as gifts are cast before the Images.
Who knew what went on outside the mighty palace? I tell you none could guess.… But you have heard of Eudocia Ingerina; she was a daughter of the Martinakes, and the Emperor would have married her, but because her family was so mighty his mother, Theodora, prevented this, and he married Eudocia, the daughter of Dekapolitas.…
Then there was Thekla, the sister of Michael, and she loved Basil, but the Emperor married him to Eudocia, who would be Empress some way; she never forgave it, for he had resigned her for fear of his mother, vanished now to Gastria, afterwards to Anthimos.
It was their women behind it all.… Thosewere great golden days. Eudocia Ingerina, with the Emperor for her lover and the groom for her husband, kept the splendid revels gorgeously, but in her heart she waited for vengeance on Michael and his mother, on all of them who had debarred her from the throne–I knew it always.
At one time I was her chamberlain. She was a woman beautiful and vain; in my perpetual darkness I can see her features, her black hair clinging to her white shoulders, the plates of gold and clanging metal, of wine-red and serpent-green stones about her brow, her long, long eyes and small mouth, expressionless–her perfumed linen and her mantles of furs and silver.…
It was worth living then; it is worth living now to think of it. Write, write the colour, the glitter, the glory and the power of it, the days burning into the nights with the lights of a thousand jewelled lamps glowing behind screens of silk, the marble halls strewn with flowers, the slaves with bands of scarlet on their foreheads, the chariot races, the shouting crowds, the taste of wine and fruit, the perfect women with heavy hair, the churches shining with burnished bronze and gold.… Sometimes I dread that Heaven cannot be so delicious.…
In May, then, Michael made Basil Emperor with him, joint ruler of the Eastern Empire, sharer of the throne of the Cæsars, and in the winter of that year he gave the imperial title to a third, Basiliskian.
Now there were glorious orgies and splendidriotings of feasts and games; and each wondered which Emperor would first slay the other; and Michael was grown to be afraid of Basil, who was changed from a drunken groom into an Emperor and a graver man.
With this terror on him, he came to Eudocia Ingerina.…
Do you think I hear the monks chanting and see darkness?
No, I hear the trumpets; I see the Emperor Michael with his black hair unbound and his whip in his hand as he has returned from the Hippodrome standing against the leopard cat couch, while the sun embraces the snakes on his buskins. And she, Eudocia Ingerina, seated on a stool inset with opal holding lilies in her hand.
“So,” he said, “I am afraid of this Basil whom I took from the kennels; he must go swiftly as he came, Eudocia.”
“You made him my husband,” she answered, and threw the lilies down.
The fine silk curtains were lifting in an Eastern wind; the sun slipped under them and gilded the sloping orange walls of Numidian marble and the girdle of turkis round her waist.
“I am afraid of him,” repeated the Emperor, and he shook.
She looked away and he went on his knees and laid his head on her lap, dropping the whip stained with the blood and foam of his horses. Neither of them had any heed of me standing in the outer peristyle where the bronze pots of roses were, nor of the two slaves in tiger skins.
“Do you weep?” she asked, and lifted his thick hair in her small round fingers.
He looked up with red eyes.
“Basil is dangerous,” he muttered.
She leant towards him delicately.
“Why did you not make me Empress?” she questioned, and rose up, repulsing him.
He got to his feet and went swaying down the corridors with clattering African slaves and Persian guards after him.
That night at the feast one of his madnesses came upon the Emperor; the dæmons got hold of him and he fought them off, howling; then he and Basil and Basiliskian gave commands that the bodies of the Ikonoclast Emperors be taken from their tombs, for they were the dæmons who haunted us. And this was wonderful, for by the light of torches of pine the body of Constantine, fifth of that name, was dragged from his sarcophagus and thrown out on to the sand of the circus; and there was he, ninety years dead, white as shredded ivory, clad in cerecloths of tarnished gold and heavy violet that gave out a thick, sweet scent of spices; and there was John the Grammarian beside him, with a little crown on his head and hair falling into dust across his eye-sockets–aha! we beat them with rods in the vile quarter of the Amaskianon where the dæmons gather and the people were glad because they were image worshippers: these two Emperors could not see, for they were blind, as I am now. Then we burnt them where the common thiefs were executed, and the tomb of ConstantineCopronymus was split into fragments to decorate a church the Emperor built at Pharos.
It was all of green Thessalian marble, here clear as water, there thick as sap, carved with grapes, genii, cupids and goats, and in the middle Christ raised on the Cross with a gilt halo; it was so rich and finely carved I think God forgave Michael much to get it back in His church. Look for it when you go to Pharos–green marble, a hand’s length thick.
Behold now I ramble on and come not to what I would say about that evening in the palace of Anthimos on the coast–the Empress Theodora’s house where she had bid us all … Eudocia Ingerina, Basil, Basiliskian, Thekla and all the court.
Listen to me, I was faithful to Michael, therefore am I blinded.… I can tell you everything.
The three Emperors had been hunting that day, and afterwards there was a mighty feast; Eudocia sat by Basil at the table and often whispered to him.
I was one of those who carried Michael senseless with wine to his chamber and laid him on his bed with the vermilion cushions. As I came out I saw the bolts of the door were broken, but I thought nothing of it, as it was Theodora’s house. On a low couch with silver and amber legs lay Basiliskian, with his red hair and his yellow robes tumbled about him; I lay in the outer chamber.
Beautiful were those two rooms, tiled with blue, patterned with carnations and curtained with silksstiff with fruits and flowers of gold; above the couch were saints with long eyes and raised hands, the elders praying all in white on the daisied floor of Heaven, this in mosaic, glittering, and a lamp with square-cut green stones round the base, hanging before.
Flat on his back lay Michael, with his head slipping from the pillows and the roses slipping from his black hair; his white silk robe flowed open on his coat of silver and the clusters of topaz shone in the crossings of his gilt sandals.
The window was wide on the night; there was a moon above the tamarisk trees and a nightingale singing fitfully.
It was very silent after all the noise and riot, and I was half asleep when the door was pushed open and some men entered. There was the third Emperor Basil, a head above them all, the Persian Apelates, Bardas the father of Basil, his brother Marinos, a cousin of his, all peasants these, Peter of Bulgaria and John of Chaldia.
Now I rose up softly and got before them and stood in front of the bedchamber door; for I saw they were all sober.
Basil put out his great hand and gripped my shoulder.
“Basil or Michael?” he asked, and drew his scimitar.
“Michael,” I answered him, for I hated him–the Greek groom!
With thathe lifted me out of the way, but I gave a great shout and beat my hand upon the bronze images and cast them against the tiles so that they cracked.
Then they pulled me back, and I heard the nightingale grow louder, and I laughed with rage, for one struck me with a dagger.
I turned round and saw the Emperor Michael staggering in the carved wood doorway, the roses still clinging to his disordered hair. Seeing them, his wits cleared.
“Basil!” he shrieked. “I made you Emperor!”
They left me and turned on him, driving him back into the bedroom, and I lay along the floor with a dagger through my wrist, listening to his shrieks that hushed the nightingale.
Dragging myself to the door, I beheld Basiliskian struggling with the Persian, and saw him fall back across the couch with his scarlet-shod feet up and his mouth open, while the blood gurgled out and hid the wine-stains on his yellow robes.
I did not care for this, but looked for Michael and called loudly, so that they rushed out, drawing the curtains behind them and fled into the corridor.
Now none came, for tumults were such common things, and after a little Basil came back and looked about him; and after him followed Eudocia Ingerina in a green mantle with a lamp of bright enamel in her hand.
“Have you done it?” she asked, and I knew she had set Basil on, though the Emperor Michael had loved her. “Quick! Have you done it?”
“Yes,” he said, and the others came back.
“What if he is not dead?” said John of Chaldia, and shifted his ivory and silver sabre in his grasp.
Then she, flashing emerald colours in her robe, turned on them, and I saw there is more in a woman than her beauty.
“You are not sure?” she cried, and held up the thousand coloured lamp.
“Basiliskian is dead,” answered Apelates.
“Is Michael dead?” she gave back.
As she stepped towards the door I heard the soft sound her cambric garments made on the floor, and saw her eyes fixed before her with an expression of expectancy and pleasure–eyes like the black jade they prize in China. But Basil held her back with his swarthy hand on the edge of her mantle.
On the smooth walls of opal-tinted tiles moonlight flushed into lamplight that fell tinted with trembling colour; I saw the dark trees through the window and the great space of clear sky. I pulled at the dagger in my wrist, and I heard the Emperor Michael lamenting within.
At the sound of it all save the woman drew back.
“I struck his hands off,” said John of Chaldia, “and he fell on the ground.”
Eudocia Ingerina looked at Basil.
“Will you be Emperor or no?” she asked. “If that man in there is not dead–what areyou?”
His flushed blue eyes rolled towards her; she twitched her robe from his grasp and lifted the thin silk curtains from the carved door.
I, forgotten, caught hold of the ribbings of scented sandal wood and looked in … you may believe what I saw, what I was blinded for seeing.
The Emperor Michael, Lord of the East, Vice-regent of God, the last of the Amorian Cæsars, sat on the floor by the gilt and glorious brocades of his bed.
His hands were smitten off and his garments trailed with sticky blood; his head was bowed on his chest and he uttered bitter complaints. In his black hair some crimson roses still hung; the great rubies and topaz glittered on his breast. Behind him in the rich murk light I could see the other Emperor, a huddled heap of red and yellow, and in the middle of the marble floor (green as the tomb of Copronymus) the two hands of Michael, twisted into a clutching shape, with huge and wonderful rings on the fingers.
With a soft movement like the dappled Persian deer Eudocia Ingerina stole into the chamber; Basil and John of Chaldia were behind her; she stopped before Michael; her lamp showed his creeping blood.
“Well,” she said. “Well, shall I not be an Empress after all?”
And she touched him with her foot that was covered with a shoe of green and violet leather, so that he looked up from his incoherent lamentations.
He tried to rise at that, could not, but gave a shudder and raised his arms.
“Eudocia,” he said, very loudly, and shestepped back a little, for he was a hideous sight.
“Come kill this man,” she cried; and then to Michael: “Who will say masses for you?” and “I would Theodora was here.”
Basil drew a little sword with a snake for a handle and Michael shrieked, whereon the woman caught him by his long hair and held him so while the Macedonian plunged the weapon past the topaz Gorgon into his heart; then they both cast him down and struck at him with their feet, even while his breast heaved and his eyes moved, and fled together into the outer chamber.
“To Constantinople,” said Basil, and he embraced Eudocia and kissed her, after which she veiled her face with violet and left them. The blood on her feet was almost the last thing I saw.
For Basil found me crawling by the wall; and they took me out and blinded me and sent me here.…
Michael is buried in Chrysopolis, and his soul is in Hell; and Eudocia was an Empress and mother of the Leo who rules now, and no one but I knows that she was there that night … therefore set these things down, for I, who am an old blind monk, shall soon be in Paradise clad warmly in starred brocade and cambric fine enough to go through a reed-joint, lying on a couch covered with soft-coloured woollens, and under my feet a carpet like was woven in the Peloponnesus to cover the mosaic in the church Basil built to assuage God’s wrath at the murder of Michael. Did you ever hear of it?
It was one great peacock with a spread tail.…I spoke to a man who had seen it.…
So I in Paradise, near, as I said to the gate (stately as the Adrianople Gate with the church of St. Diomed near by), shall peep down and see the Emperors, Leos, Constantines, Michaels, howling in Hell, and in the midst Basil and the woman Eudocia, while fiends swing before them censers of dull earth filled with sulphurs.…
So on Christmas Eve I take this down from an ancient monk who was chamberlain once at the court of Michael III. and sometimes wanders in his mind.
Now he is fallen asleep, and the chants are over, and I will write no more.
God guard us all from evil. Amen.
Signed by Theophilus, a little scribe in the Monastery of St. John, Armenia, Christmas Eve, 899.
Sophia Dorothea of Zell
“George I. was married to his cousin, Sophia Dorothea, daughter of the Duke of Zell; accused of an intrigue with a Swedish adventurer, she was repudiated by her husband and imprisoned in a castle in Hanover for thirty-two years previous to her death in 1729.”–History of England.
“George I. was married to his cousin, Sophia Dorothea, daughter of the Duke of Zell; accused of an intrigue with a Swedish adventurer, she was repudiated by her husband and imprisoned in a castle in Hanover for thirty-two years previous to her death in 1729.”–History of England.
December darkened over the dark flats outside Schloss Ahlden; the sluggish gray river, the barren gray road stretched into the bitter mist; above the stunted alders and broken reeds the plovers circled mournfully.
It was the saddest season of the year; but all seasons were sad at Schloss Ahlden. Spring and summer brought little change, save that the monotony of damp cold was changed for the monotony of dusty heat. The Schloss had gloomy towers and careless unadorned rooms; the scanty furniture was old and worn; the servants were old, too, and had a repressed silent air. There were not many of these servants; there were a great number of guards, changed frequently; they were always glad to go–six months seemed a long time at Schloss Ahlden.
The nearest town was Osnabrück, and that was many miles away. There was nothing beautiful nor interesting in all the melancholy country. It seemed strange that any one should have built a castle in a spot so barren and dreary; it seemed as if he who built must have done so knowing that one day it would be used as a prison.
A woman had been confined here for thirty-two years; her husband was a King, her son would be a King, she was by her own birth a Princess and by right Queen of England, a country she had never seen.
For thirty-two years she had seen nothing but the cold, dull rooms, the barren Hayden road, the flats, the river, the alders and the plovers.
For thirty-two years she had driven three miles forth, three miles back along that empty road, stopping always at the turnpike, setting forth and returning at the same hour.
When she had been brought to Schloss Ahlden she was gorgeous–a brilliant woman, very young, vivacious, sparkling, beautiful, full of wit and spirit, of courage and daring.
She had defied them all, defied even the perpetual imprisonment to which she was condemned. Something would happen, she said.
Nothing had happened.
She sat now, a woman older than age, a woman who had never bloomed and faded, who had been frozen in her immature loveliness, chilled by creeping monotony in face and heart, and looked out at the light fading from the road and from the river Aller. The road was dead; never had it responded to her passionate watching; no help had ever come along its dusty length; no messenger spurring to say, “Your husband repents; he bids you come back,” or “Your husband is a King now; his people insist that you share his throne,” or “Your husband is dead, and your son sets youfree!”
Nothing ever happened.
With unbroken regularity her guard was changed. Such servants as could not endure the life left; others came.
These were all the sole incidents in the life at Schloss Ahlden.
There were no letters, no messages, no visitors.
Once her son, after a fierce quarrel with his father, made a desperate attempt to get to her, but she never knew of it, and soon the Prince was reconciled with the King and made no effort to come again.
It was astonishing how strong hope was, how it lived and flourished with nothing to feed on; but it died at last, as the black locks faded to gray, as the robust young body became feeble and thin, as the glowing cheek sunk and the brilliant eyes grew dim, hope sickened and died at last.
She watched the white road from habit; she ceased to think of it as a highway to deliverance. As the world had forgotten her, so she began to forget the world. Great wars tore Europe, and the man who was her husband and Elector of Hanover played a big part in them, though through the chance of birth and from no great merit; she never heard of these events.
When he became King of England she did hear of it, but it made no difference to her situation.
Her name was never spoken outside the walls of Schloss Ahlden; she was as remote from the minds of men, even from the minds of her children, as if she had been long dead.
A mere memory–Sophia Dorothea of Zell, repudiated by her husband and a prisoner at Ahlden–as one might say–Sophia Dorothea of Zell who died thirty-two years ago and is forgotten.
Her case had caused no sensation; no party espoused her cause; she had no followers, no adherents, no one planned her escape or pitied her, or prayed for her; she was merely forgotten.
Yet she was a living, breathing woman, with power to feel, to endure, to remember–worst of all, that remembering.
The dark crept closer round her as she sat looking out of the window.
The road, the river, the alders, the flats had come to be like the paintings on prison walls; they meant nothing, they did not represent the world, they circled her as surely as walls and moat, they changed as little, they were as cruel in their hard barrenness.
She had been very worldly, very gay, not in the least of a cloistered temperament, not given to caring for things spiritual; she had enjoyed life, she had had a great capacity for living fully and splendidly, a great aptitude for happiness. She remembered now how she had enjoyed life once; it made her feel very, very old.
The world had closed on her early; she was not fifteen when her vivacious, mischievous immature beauty had been wedded to her awkward, slow, selfish young cousin, Georg Ludwig, son of the Electress of Hanover, who was remotely connected with the royal Stewarts of England.
He had never loved her.
And she had laughed at him, even pitied him, not realising the power he possessed over her. Even at twenty-two he had been prosaic, sullen, ungracious, self-important, a Prince without culture, or chivalry, or sensibility, a hard, obstinate man, narrow in heart and brain.
Even her raw ignorance had seen what he lacked. His unlovely person, short and stout, his dull blonde face with the pale prominent eyes, his rude manners and gross self-indulgencies roused aversion in her; his good qualities were not those that made life any easier for her; he was brave in every way, he had much good sense, he was honourable after his fashion. Some women might have been happy with him, not the woman he had married, her bright, impetuous, fastidious nature, avid of enjoyment, was hideously ill-matched with the plodding, dull, coarse character of her husband.
Even their children did not bring them together. When she had been married six years the Revolution hurled the last Stewart from the throne of England and put a Prince of the German Empire in his place. Soon after a law was passed to secure the Protestant succession, and this made the Electress of Hanover heiress to the Throne of England.
For a while Sophia Dorothea had exulted in the prospect of one day being Queen of the second nation in the world.
She bloomed gloriously; her husband was openly unfaithful to her. The little court was coarse and sordid and scandalous, but she had the power of extracting pleasure from her life, of throwing the glamour of youth and health over everything. She was frivolous, bold–never sufficiently moved to be indiscreet, though she sailed near to danger many times.
Then, when she had been married thirteen years, she met Philip, Count von Königsmarck.
After that her life had ended as regarded all those things that made it pleasant, even endurable.
Schloss Ahlden had closed on her youth, her beauty, her high spirits, her courage. Her hot passions had flared and wasted and waned without a vent for thirty-two years, and now she was an old woman, almost passive.
Almost, not quite. At times her servants were afraid of her; at times she was like a tigress enraged.
Even after a lifetime of imprisonment, the passionate spirit at times still ranged and surged against its bonds.
Once she had had a desperate desire to pass, if only once, the turnpike on the Hayden road that marked the limit of her drive.
She would drive the cabriolet herself, drive furiously as if endeavouring to outstrip the guards who always galloped alongside. But no matter how she drove, always at the turnpike she must turn back. Of late she had not been out at all; she spent her days glooming at the window. Her women had been recently changed; only one remained, who had been with her all the time, and she was very old now and sour with long exilefrom her kind.
She, Madame von Arlestein, had been the confidant of the Princess in the old, old days.
The other attendants who came and went, and the changing officers of the gloomy little garrison, said that this austere, bitter old woman really knew if the Princess was innocent or guilty. Guilty the world had called her before it had forgotten her. Those few who still knew her as a living woman were not so sure.
“Innocent” or “guilty” were two arbitrary words with which to divide her conduct. She had herself always maintained her innocency of putting another man in her husband’s place, as firmly as that husband had believed in, and acted upon, the contrary.
But that she had been guilty of loving Philip von Königsmarck was beyond denial. Whether he had ever had more of her than the kiss she had given him when they were discovered together only Sophia Dorothea and the Countess von Arlestein knew. For Count Philip had died, horribly, before the dawn following that fatal night. No one cared much now, even those who waited on her, whether she had kept her marriage vows before God.
Unconsciously they thought of her as pure; they could not think one a wanton who had lived in this awful chastity and renunciation for thirty-two years.
The Captain of the Guard was a young man,born while she was in prison.
Thinking of what he had already crowded into his life, he shuddered when he saw the proud, grievous woman entering the austere little chapel on Sunday, and reflected that during his infancy, his childhood, his youth, his young manhood, she had been doing the same without rest or change, while the beauty withered on her face and hope withered in her heart.
As he rode through the courtyard to-night he looked up at her window, reluctantly but irresistibly.
There was the peaked white blur of her face, the dark, restless eyes fixed on the twilight landscape, the long white hand supporting the sharp chin.
“Herr Jesus!” he muttered. “Why does she not die?”
Sophia Dorothea was thinking the same; she wondered what had kept her alive, what had actually sustained her to growold–yes, to come to that horror, to lead this existence toold age.
Why had she not flung away a life so miserable and died at least in the triumph of youth?
She envied Philip von Königsmarck in that he had not lived to grow old.
Hope had upheld her a certain time, but hope was dead. She could recall almost the actual moment when it had finally died, when she had stood at the window watching the road, and known at last that no help would come ever along it to her–known that her husband would not die and release her; but still she had lived and grown old.
The dark gathered, descended and settled.
She leant back in the threadbare velvet chair, and her tired eyes remained fixed on the dusk.
She thought of her husband; he was an old man now, but she pictured him as she had last seen him in the full lustiness of his youth. Her children were grown to middle life, but she saw them still in petticoats. Though both were married and had children of their own, the news had come to her through her women.
She had once had great hopes in her son; she believed that he would have some desire to see his mother.
She divined rightly. Though his attempt to swim the Aller and storm the moat had never been told her, for a long while she had clung to the hope that he had some of the chivalry his father lacked; but he was a man of forty-five now, and she was still a prisoner; that hope had died with the others. Her daughter was a Queen, and that was all Sophia Dorothea knew of her.
She soon ceased to think of them. She rose and went in to her dinner, which was served in the same room, at the same hour, always, always.
Madame von Arlestein was not there; she had the whimsies of old age; they said she was failing fast.
The other ladies were cowed and quiet; they had not been long with their mistress, and two of them had already petitioned to go home.
Sophia Dorothea (Princess of Ahlden she was called, in ghastly compromise between the titles that were hers by right and the nonentity which she really was) was an object of terror to these ladies, by reason of her history, her punishment, her usual silence and her occasional passionate lashes of speech.
Her appearance added to this horror she inspired; she still wore the fashions that were the mode when Mary Stewart set them in England and Madame de Maintenon in France, and this, added to her arrested beauty, more terrible than old age, made her like a creature resurrected from a dusty grave.
When her clothes were renewed, which was seldom, they had been cut on the same pattern, but many of the garments she now wore were those that she had brought with her when she had first come to Schloss Ahlden.
She wore now a gown of faded, crackling red silk, with a short petticoat of frilled blue sarcenet; her hair was piled up with the fan-shaped decoration of stiff lace that had been out of fashion a quarter of a century; her face had a curious bleached look: she was not wrinkled, but her fine features were as faded as her gown; she seemed bloodless, waxen, only in her eyes was that awful look of restlessness in terrible contrast with the lifelessness of her appearance.
The ladies, each with her own warm life of human interest as a background for her thoughts, pitied her and shuddered at her, and in their hearts they counted the days until they should be relieved of their posts at Schloss Ahlden.
For an hour, as always, they read and sewed after dinner, and, as always, the Princess sat rigid, looking into the fire. In summer she would look into the empty hearth in the same way; she had a great attraction for the fire or the fireplace.
She was never long in a room before she would turn to it and sit in front of it, staring into the flames or the grate ready for them.
The ladies, when alone, would sometimes dare to breathe the rumour that accounted for this; it was almost too horrid for utterance. It had to do with the manner in which Philip von Königsmarck had died.
At the usual time the chaplain came, the unalterable prayer was uttered; the ladies took up their candles, curtsied and waited for the Princess to precede them upstairs.
She, as always, went up to her cold, unadorned room, was undressed and dismissed the ladies, then stood by the great bed with the blue tapestry curtains and sent for Madame von Arlestein.
To-night she did not get into bed; she put on a blue bed-gown and went to the fire that blazed, log on log, in the open hearth, but could not do more than warm a portion of the huge draughty room.
This bedroom had been hers ever since she had been at Schloss Ahlden, and nothing in it had been altered.
The bed stood out into the room facing the fireplace, shrouded with heavy curtains and heavy draperies; either side was a sconce of silver holding five candles against the wooden walls, at the foot was a long casket for clothes and either side of that a leather chair with a fringe round the seat.
The door was to the right of the bed, the mullioned windows to the left; they were hung with dark curtains and before each of them were two more of the formal chairs.
In the corner beyond the windows was a plain dressing-table holding a few toilet articles, and behind it hung a mirror in a tortoiseshell frame.
Before the fireplace were a chair with arms in which Sophia Dorothea now sat and a stool.
Beyond the fireplace were a desk and an upright press for clothes.
On the polished floor lay a worn carpet; the ceiling hung low and dark; above the mantelshelf stood another mirror, and four candles and a clock were reflected in its murky depths.
Firelight and candlelight together caught the shadow of the woman in the chair and flung it large and leaping over wall and ceiling.
At her usual time, neither a minute early nor a minute late, Madame von Arlestein entered.
Her head was swathed in black lace and her shoulders in a black shawl; her black skirts were wide and stiff and rustling. She held a length of fine white muslin that she had been embroidering for twenty years.
As always, she seated herself on the stool, and the delicate needle, guided by her wrinkled hands, flew in and out the embroidery that was beginning to be yellow with age.
Sophia Dorothea sat erect in her chair, theblack hair, streaked with white as with powder, hung, still thick in the ruins of its beauty, about her shoulders. The firelight softened and warmed the sharp lines of her face and gave a sparkle to her still glorious eyes.
“Annette,” she said, “I have been thinking of Philip von Königsmarck to-night.”
The old woman looked up from her eternal sewing.
“Oh, Madame,” she answered, “you have not spoken that name for many, many years.”
“Not for thirty-two years,” said the Princess. “I know exactly.”
“Why now?” asked Annette von Arlestein.
“Have you forgotten him?” counter-questioned Sophia Dorothea.
“No.”
“You remember it all?”
“All!”
“It seems very near to-night,” said the Princess.
“Yes, I thought so too.”
The old woman broke her invariable custom and laid her sewing down in her lap and looked at her mistress.
“Perhaps death is coming to one of us,” added Sophia Dorothea. “We are both old. My death would be a relief to a great many. Even you would not be sorry, Annette.”
She spoke knowing that Annette von Arlestein had not shared her imprisonment from any love or duty, but from necessity. She was as much a prisoner as her mistress. It had been decreed that she who had shared the shame should share the punishment.
“It is too late,” said the Countess. “Twenty years ago I might have wished you would die. Twenty years ago I might have cursed you.”
The quenchless dark eyes gleamed across at her.
“You would not have stayed if you could have gone. No one else did.”
Annette von Arlestein gave a toothless smile.
“No, I should have gone–when I was younger. Life is dull here.”
Sophia gave her a ghastly look.
“Yes, it is dull.”
A storm was blowing without. The wind cast the rain in gouts on the window; it dripped from the leads and splashed down the wide chimney in heavy drops that hissed on the logs.
“Why do you not finish your sewing?” asked the Princess. “I have never seen you sit idle before.”
“Why did you mention Count von Königsmarck?” replied Madame von Arlestein. “I have never heard you speak of him before.”
“Every night lately I have been thinking of him. You know that.”
“Yes, I know that.”
Like an angry stranger demanding admission, the rain surged at the window and the faded curtains rose and fell in the wind.
“Annette,” said Sophia Dorothea, “why have we lived, you and I? We could have died, you know. There was the moat, or a table-knife–or a bed-cord. But we lived.”
“I suppose,” answered the old woman, “we hoped.”
“Mein Gott!We hoped!”
The Countess looked across at her with dim eyes that seemed to glimmer with malice. “But now–ifhedied to-morrow, it would be too late. There is no more enjoyment for you in this world.”
“No more for me of anything,” said her mistress calmly. “Königsmarck is dead and youth is dead.”
“Why are we talking of this?” asked the old woman peevishly, “when we have been silent so long?”
“I do not know. Get on with your embroidery.”
“Der Herr Jesus!Why should I finish this work? Who will wear it?”
“Talk, then, talk,” said Sophia Dorothea. “Something is different to-night.”
“It is the rain,” nodded the old woman. Her monstrous shadow wavered behind her like a giant impotently threatening.
“It is memory,” answered the Princess. She relaxed in her chair. Her arms, still lovely but colourless as the limbs of the dead, showed where the wide sleeves of dull blue fell apart, and her hands, almost inhumanly slender, clasped the polished knobs of the chair-arms. “Was I beautiful–that night?” she said. “I scarcely knew it.”
Annette von Arlestein looked at the ruined face, pale beneath the grey locks, the thin bare throat, the sunk dark eyes, the lined mouth. “I can hardly recall what you were,” she muttered; “I can hardly think you are the same.”
A veil seemed to drop over her eyes; she too was remembering.
“Annette,” said the Princess, “do you thinkhehas been just to me?”
“It is so long ago,” whispered the Countess.
“Hehas enjoyed these thirty-two years,” replied Sophia Dorothea. “He is an old man now; he cannot be very far off answering to judgment. I wonder what God will think of what he has done to me.”
The Countess chuckled. Neither of these women had drawn nearer Heaven themselves during their captivity, no thoughts of spiritual consolations had sweetened the bitterness of their earthly punishment and no repentance had softened their hearts.
“There has always been one prick in his side,” said Annette von Arlestein. “He was neversure–he had noproof. There has been a doubt with him all his life. He will never know.”
“No one knows but you and I,” answered the Princess. She leant forward and looked into the fire. “How I hate him!” she said slowly. “What is he doing at this moment–the King of England–that cold, hideous man?”
“If curses could have blighted him,” mumbled the old Countess angrily, “mine had done it long ago. When he sent me here I still had blood in my veins; I enjoyed the world–I had my plans, and schemes, my pleasant seasons—”
The Princess rose; her figure was yet erect and graceful; the warm lights and shades touched it to youthful curves.
“Was there anything in the marriage service,” she said, “to say that he should take his pleasures and his loves where he would and that I must never look beyond my wedding ring?”
She held out her left hand and looked at the mocking symbol on her finger placed there forty-six years ago by the man who held her captive now.
“You might have had more of life,” said the Countess. “The punishment could not have been greater if you had changed your fancies as he changed his!” She laughed silently, as if it pleased her to think how her mistress had been cheated.
There was a pause of silence, broken only by the gusty descent of the rain on the window and the splashing of the drops on the glowing logs.
Sophia Dorothea closed her eyes.
“Do you remember,” she murmured, and her expression was greedy as the expression of one glimpsing the food he is famishing for, “that night–howyoungI was?”
“Do I remember? It was the last thing that ever happened to me,” answered Annette von Arlestein.
Before the mental vision of both the tragedy that had been lying silently in their hearts so long loomed suddenly clear and distinct, as if it had happened yesterday. There was silence.
They saw the scene before them as if they had not been actors in it.
A luxurious bedroom, a white and gilt imitation of Versailles, filled with elegant furniture, fashionable toilet articles and splendid clothes, a bed of white satin and many mirrors–this was what they both saw.
All was brilliant, pretty and cheerful.
At the foot of the bed stood a beautiful woman, Sophia Dorothea, opulent in charms and happiness; her black hair rolled in curls between a braid of pearls and fell on her soft shoulders. White and crimson mingled ravishingly in her face and her dark eyes were soft, yet sparkling.
She wore a gown of white brocade, cut low on the bosom and laced across the muslin shift with a pink cord; the skirt was embroidered with little wreaths of blue roses; the petticoat glimmered with gold thread.
The candles were lit.
Near her stood a handsome creature, Annette von Arlestein, full of sparkle and daring, in a violet gown; she held a blue quilted cloak. On the peach-coloured lining the candle light flickered up and down.
They were both listening … waiting.…
“Then you put the cloak on me,” said the Princess, “and we thought we were so safe–hebeing away–and I went downstairs.”
Madame von Arlestein saw it–the lovely figure muffled in the dark cloak, creeping down the wide, dark stairs, while she stood at the head with a candle, ready to put her hand over it at the slightest sound.
“Then you followed, Annette, to keep watch. I was a fool to go, but he had to leave soon, and I was mad to see him.”
“And the Elector was coming home the next day,” added the old woman.
Another scene rose before them: the vast dark kitchens beneath the dining-hall that opened on to the back entrance to the palace.
This room was underground, but was lit by the perpetual fire that burnt in the huge grate.
And then, to the memory of both, came the most tragic figure in the tragedy. In the glow of the great fire stood a young man, Philip von Königsmarck, one of a wild and unfortunate family; his brother Charles and his sister Aurora were sadly known to fame, but neither had a fate so dark as his.… Wind and rain increased in violence and swept and howled round the towers of Schloss Ahlden and beat in at the draughty window of the Princess’s bedroom.
She put her hands over her eyes; memory was becoming so strong that she felt herself back in that moment she had not talked of for thirty-two years.
“The kitchen was very large,” she said, “and he stood waiting for me. Do you remember him, Annette?”
“Herr Jesus!” muttered the old woman. “He had on a great coat–light–and black satins under it and high soft boots and a little useless sword with a steel tassle–and a steinkirk cravat. They were fashionable that year, pulled through the buttonhole of the waistcoat—”
The Princess did not move her hand from her eyes; she saw all these details. She saw more; she saw the young Swede’s passionate face, his deep blue eyes, the cluster of his blonde hair on his brow.
“You stood at the door,” she said, “and we both forgot you, and then—”
Annette remembered.
The bright young beauty had gone straight to her lover’s arms, and without a word they had kissed.
Then he had drawn her to the settle, and she had sat beside him, loosening her cloak, and on her throat, her shoulders, her arms he had kissed her again.
And presently he had gone on his knees and kissed her gown and her cloak and her hands.
The while they never spoke a word, and the Countess von Arlestein watched by the big door.
“You did not hear them come,” said the Princess, dropping her hand from her eyes.
“No,” answered the old woman. “The first I knew of them was when the door opened—”