God's Playthings 10

God's Playthings 10

Yet at this he stayed his hand and came to Bordeaux, carried in a

litter, his vengeance satisfied but his chivalry stained by the

innocent blood of churls, an unhappy knight, ill at ease in mind and

body, without money for his men-at-arms, with Acquitaine slipping from

him. East and south and north the French were advancing, and he had no

means to stay them.

 

This was great bitterness for one who had been the pattern of

knighthood in Europe, who was a King’s son and the hero of the English.

So he came to Bordeaux, where his family waited him in a castle above

which the Leopards floated, and saw the ships in the harbour waiting to

carry him back to England. At Cognac he had delegated his powers and

his offices to his brother, and Johan of Gaunt had taken up the almost

hopeless task; but he was ambitious, a famous knight, eager to play a

great part among the Princes of Europe, also in his full health and

lusty; but Edward wasted from day to day. After the feverish fury of

the attack on Limoges and the ferocity of his vengeance, he fell deeper

into his sickness and brooded bitterly in his mind.

 

When he had halted at Lormont a messenger had ridden up to meet him

with word from the Princess, Jehanne of Kent. She had her two children

with her, and one, the elder, was sick.

 

Edward said no word to this message, and so they carried him, a silent

knight, into the castle.

 

All gaiety, all joy, all splendour of chivalry and deeds of arms, all

the brightness of glory and bliss of youth seemed overclouded now.

 

Edward the King was old, Edward the Prince was sick and defeated,

Philippa the Queen was dead, and English chivalry was smirched by the

massacre of Limoges.

 

And the ships waited to take ingloriously home the proudest knight

in Europe to rest his limbs in the Savoy and presently his bones in

St. Peter’s Church at the Abbey near Westminster. When he came to the

castle he asked after his little son Edward.

 

They carried him to a room overlooking the Bay of Biscay that lay

placid beneath a pale October sky, and laid him on a couch by the

window; and he asked again for his son.

 

Immediately the Princess Jehanne, his wife, entered the room and came

to his side, and in silence went on her knees beside him.

 

“Ah, _joli coeur_!” he said, and raised his weary eyes and took her

long face between his hands and gazed down into it.

 

“What happened at Limoges?” she asked, without a word of greeting or

duty.

 

His hands fell to his sides and his worn countenance overclouded.

 

“I kept my word,” he muttered.

 

Tears came into the eyes of Jehanne of Kent.

 

“I would you had been foresworn, seigneur,” she answered, “for the hand

of God is against us.”

 

“In what way?” asked Edward.

 

“In your sickness,” she said, “for, certes, I perceive you very

weak–and in the illness of the child.”

 

“Help me up,” answered the Prince, “that I may go to him.”

 

He raised himself to a sitting posture and put his feet to the ground;

his simple dull red robe flowed round him unbroken by a jewel, his dark

thin face had the look of a man weary of himself.

 

With her arm round his shoulder Jehanne supported him; she was very

grave, like one who had no comfort to give.

 

“That I should lean on you, _joli coeur_!” he said, and rose

unsteadily, holding to her arm. “Look well to this child, Jehanne,” he

added in a sterner tone, “for meseems he will wear the crown sooner

than I—”

 

“_Hèlas!_” she answered tenderly.“ This is not Edward who speaks so

sadly—”

 

“Jehanne,” he said, “I shall never wear mail again.”

 

She shook her head, looking up at him, and tried to smile.

 

“I shall no more set lance in rest nor draw sword,” he continued. “I

have been useless sick so long, and now I feel death in my bones.”

 

“Never,” said the gentle Jehanne, “have you come back to me in this ill

humour–the air of England will restore you, seigneur.”

 

“The air of England will be no balm to my hurts,” he answered. “Take me

to the child.”

 

She led him gently to the next chamber, her own, where Prince Edward

had lain two days in an increasing fever.

 

It was a tall and glooming room, hung with cloths covered with

stitching in bright wools.

 

The two arched windows opened on to the courtyard and the distant

prospect of the sea, and were crossed by the boughs of a poplar tree

that shook golden and amber leaves against the mullions.

 

An Eastern rug spread the floor, and there was an open hearth on which

some logs smouldered.

 

The bed stood out from the wall opposite the windows, and was hung with

curtains of clean blue and white check linen; at the foot of it were

two chairs, on one of which a white dog slept.

 

Beside the bed was a _prie dieu_, with an illuminated book on the

rest, beneath which hung a long strip of embroidered silk, beyond that

several coffers and chests, still unpacked, and a couch piled with

skins and garments.

 

Two women and a man were talking together over the fire; they rose

hastily at the entrance of the Prince, but he took no heed of them.

 

Aided by his wife, he came to the end of the bed and stood holding by

the light rail.

 

Under the blue and white frill of the canopy a child lay asleep, his

brown hair a tangle on the stiff white bolster, his flushed cheek

pressed against his hand.

 

The coverlet that was worked with the arms of England on a blue ground

was drawn up to his chin, his little body only slightly disturbed the

smoothness of the heavy fall of the silk.

 

“In what manner did he become sick?” demanded the Prince hoarsely. “God

wot, you might have looked to him better.”

 

The Princess quivered beneath his hand on her shoulder.

 

“Neither he nor Richard,” she answered, “has been from my sight since

you left me; but there has been much sickness in Bordeaux.” The tears

overbrimmed her eyes and ran down her pale cheeks. “I have been

watching him these two days without sleep,” she added.

 

Edward of Wales did not answer her; his hollow eyes were fixed upon his

heir–that third Edward who was to carry on the splendour of England and

the glory of Plantagenet.

 

The boy had always been next his heart; Richard, his second son, was

not of so kindly a nature. His father did not see in him promise of his

own qualities, but his eldest born was his own copy, beautiful, brave,

at six a perfect little knight.

 

Jehanne glanced timidly up at his bitter, stern face.

 

“You must not grieve,” she whispered; “he will be well in a little

while. Is he not strong, and will he not be running beside you in a few

short days?”

 

Still Edward the Black Prince did not answer; he disengaged himself

from her fond support and walked heavily to his son’s pillow, then sank

on his knees on the bedstep and clasped his thin hands against the

coverlet.

 

The little face so near to his was calm and proud, the flower of

English beauty, gold and rose in tint, blunt featured, strongly made,

yet delicate.

 

Save that he was deeply flushed and his hair damp beneath the tumble of

silken curls, he might have been in perfect health. The weary, sick,

disappointed, and defeated knight, with that dark day of Limoges on his

soul, stared with a piteous eagerness at the child’s gracious innocency.

 

The child who would be King of England soon, surely; it was mere chance

who would live the longer, the old King languishing at Westminster in

tarnished glory at Alice Perrer’s side, or his famous son who had just

resigned his commands and was coming home to die. Edward himself never

thought that he would be King; he felt the sands of life running out

too swiftly.

 

That day when he had been carried through the slaughter round the

church of St. Etienne at Limoges he had known that it was the last time

he would look on war.

 

And Edward the King could not live long now.

 

So soon the fair child would be Lord of England and possessor of all

the perilous honours and glories of his father. The Prince’s proud head

sank low; the hot tears welled up and blinded him, then dripped down

his cheeks as he considered his smirched chivalry.

 

And the Princess Jehanne saw this, but did not dare to stir from her

place, for she knew that, as a shield once dented by a heavy sword can

never be made smooth again, so a knight’s honour once stained can never

more be cleaned, even by the bitterest repentance. For her husband to

have fallen from this lofty code, which was the only code that held

among those of gentle blood, was a more awful thing than the lapse of a

poor obscure knight, for he had blazed so brightly in his chivalry and

brought such renown to England that the whole world had echoed with his

fame.

 

The Prince rested his cheek against the arms of England on the

coverlet; he felt the lassitude of a man who sees that life is done,

and that never more in this world will he perform feats of arms or

guide great policies or strive with men or shine before them.

 

The loss of his strength had had the effect of drawing a veil between

him and the world; seeing as a spectator those events in which he had

once played a leading part, he had come to estimate things differently.

 

And now that feeling culminated; he felt like one very old, looking

back on a long life, or as if he beheld the incidents of his career

painted in little bright pictures on a long roll of vellum.

 

It was an unfinished life, a broken, defeated life, perhaps men might

hereafter call it a tarnished life.

 

The Prince knew this, and the sense of failure was like a black cloud

on his heart.

 

But his little son, sleeping beneath the leopard-strewn coverlet, would

redeem his own unfulfilled promise.

 

“Ah, dear Lord Christ, and St. George,” he prayed, “let this be so–let

him be a very perfect knight and a great King.”

 

Hearing a little movement, he lifted his head.

 

The child was awake; the sparkling blue of his eyes was brilliant in his flushed face.