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marriage you were pleased to
amuse yourself with me—"
    "You were more civil then, my Osmund—"
    "I am not uncivil, I merely point out that this old folly constitutes
no overwhelming obligation, either way. I cry
nihil ad Andromachen!
For the rest, I must serve you because you are a woman and helpless; yet
I cannot forget that he who spares the wolf is the sheep's murderer. It
would be better for all England if you were dead. Hey, your gorgeous
follies, madame! Silver peacocks set with sapphires! Cloth of fine
gold—"
    "Would you have me go unclothed?" Dame Alianora demanded, pettishly.
    "Not so," Osmund retorted; "again I say to you with Tertullian, 'Let
women paint their eyes with the tints of chastity, insert into their
ears the Word of God, tie the yoke of Christ about their necks, and
adorn their whole person with the silk of sanctity and the damask of
devotion.' I say to you that the boy you wish to rescue from
Wallingford, and make King of England, is freely rumored to be not
verily the son of Sire Henry but the child of tall Manuel of Poictesme.
I say to you that from the first you have made mischief in England. And
I say to you—"
    But Dame Alianora was yawning quite frankly. "You will say to me that I
brought foreigners into England, that I misguided the King, that I
stirred up strife between the King and his barons. Eh, my God! I am
sufficiently familiar with the harangue. Yet listen, my Osmund: They
sold me like a bullock to a man I had never seen. I found him a man of
wax, and I remoulded him. They asked of me an heir for England: I
provided that heir. They gave me England as a toy; I played with it. I
was the Queen, the source of honor, the source of wealth—the trough, in
effect, about which swine gathered. Never since I came into England,
Osmund, has any man or woman loved me; never in all my English life have
I loved man or woman. Do you understand, my Osmund?—the Queen has many
flatterers, but no friends. Not a friend in the world, my Osmund! And so
the Queen made the best of it and amused herself."
    Somewhat he seemed to understand, for he answered without asperity:
    "Mon bel esper, I do not find it anywhere in Holy Writ that God requires
it of us to amuse ourselves; but upon many occasions we have been
commanded to live righteously. We are tempted in divers and insidious
ways. And we cry with the Psalmist, 'My strength is dried up like a
potsherd.' But God intends this, since, until we have here demonstrated
our valor upon Satan, we are manifestly unworthy to be enregistered in
God's army. The great Captain must be served by proven soldiers. We may
be tempted, but we may not yield. O daughter of the South! we must not
yield!"
    "Again you preach," Dame Alianora said. "That is a venerable truism."
    "Ho, madame," he returned, "is it on that account the less true?"
    Pensively the Queen considered this. "You are a good man, my Osmund,"
she said, at last, "though you are very droll. Ohime! it is a pity that
I was born a princess! Had it been possible for me to be your wife, I
would have been a better woman. I shall sleep now and dream of that good
and stupid and contented woman I might have been." So presently these
two slept in Chantrell Wood.
    Followed four days of journeying. As Messer Dante had not yet surveyed
Malebolge, Osmund Heleigh and Dame Alianora lacked a parallel for that
which they encountered; their traverse discovered England razed,
charred, and depopulate—picked bones of an island, a vast and absolute
ruin about which passion-wasted men skulked like rats. Messire Heleigh
and the Queen traveled without molestation; malice and death had
journeyed before them on this road, and had swept it clear.
    At every trace of these hideous precessors Osmund Heleigh would say, "By
a day's ride I might have prevented this." Or, "By a day's ride I might
have saved this woman." Or, "By two days' riding I might have fed this
child."
    The Queen kept Spartan silence, but daily you saw the fine woman age.