Figures of Earth: A Comedy of Appearances

by James Branch Cabell

  VIII

  The Halo of Holiness

  Now Manuel takes ship across the fretful Bay of Biscay, traveling alwaystoward Provence and Alianora, whom people called the UnattainablePrincess. Oriander the Swimmer followed this ship, they say, but heattempted to do Manuel no hurt, at least not for that turn.

  So Manuel of the high head comes into the country of wicked KingFerdinand; and, toward All-Hallows, they bring a stupendous florid youngman to the King in the torture-chamber. King Ferdinand was not idle atthe moment, and he looked up good-temperedly enough from his employment:but almost instantly his merry face was overcast.

  "Dear me!" says Ferdinand, as he dropped his white hot pincerssizzlingly into a jar of water, "and I had hoped you would not bebothering me for a good ten years!"

  "Now if I bother you at all it is against my will," declared Manuel,very politely, "nor do I willingly intrude upon you here, for, withoutcriticizing anybody's domestic arrangements, there are one or two thingsthat I do not fancy the looks of in this torture-chamber."

  "That is as it may be. In the mean time, what is that I see in yourpocket wrapped in red silk?"

  "It is a feather, King, wrapped in a bit of my sister's best petticoat."

  Then Ferdinand sighed, and he arose from his interesting experimentswith what was left of the Marquess de Henestrosa, to whom the King hadtaken a sudden dislike that morning.

  "Tut, tut!" said Ferdinand: "yet, after all, I have had a brave time ofit, with my enormities and my iniquities, and it is not as though therewere nothing to look back on! So at what price will you sell me thatfeather?"

  "But surely a feather is no use to anybody, King, for does it not seemto you a quite ordinary feather?"

  "Come!" says King Ferdinand, as he washed his hands, "do people anywherewrap ordinary feathers in red silk? You squinting rascal, do not thinkto swindle me out of eternal bliss by any such foolish talk! I perfectlyrecognize that feather as the feather which Milcah plucked from the leftpinion of the Archangel Oriphiel when the sons of God were on moreintricate and scandalous terms with the daughters of men than arepermitted nowadays."

  "Well, sir," replied Manuel, "you may be right in a world whereinnothing is certain. At all events, I have deduced, from one to twothings in this torture-chamber, that it is better not to argue with KingFerdinand."

  "How can I help being right, when it was foretold long ago that such adivine emissary as you would bring this very holy relic to turn me frommy sins and make a saint of me?" says Ferdinand, peevishly.

  "It appears to me a quite ordinary feather, King: but I recall what amadman told me, and I do not dispute that your prophets are wiser thanI, for I have been a divine emissary for only a short while."

  "Do you name your price for this feather, then!"

  "I think it would be more respectful, sir, to refer you to the prophets,for I find them generous and big-hearted creatures."

  Ferdinand nodded his approval. "That is very piously spoken, because itwas prophesied that this relic would be given me for no price at all bya great nobleman. So I must forthwith write out for you a count'scommission, I suppose, and must write out your grants to fertile landsand a stout castle or two, and must date your title to these things fromyesterday."

  "Certainly," said Manuel, "it would not look well for you to beneglecting due respect to such a famous prophecy, with that bottle ofink at your elbow."

  So King Ferdinand sent for the Count of Poictesme, and explained to himas between old friends how the matter stood, and that afternoon the highCount was confessed and decapitated. Poictesme being now a vacant fief,King Ferdinand ennobled Manuel, and made him Count of Poictesme.

  It was true that all Poictesme was then held by the Northmen, under DukeAsmund, who denied King Ferdinand's authority with contempt, anddefeated him in battle with annoying persistence: so that Manuel for thepresent acquired nothing but the sonorous title.

  "Some terrible calamity, however," as King Ferdinand pointed out, "issure to befall Asmund and his iniquitous followers before very long, sowe need not bother about them."

  "But how may I be certain of that, sir?" Manuel asked.

  "Count, I am surprised at such scepticism! Is it not very explicitlystated in Holy Writ that though the wicked may flourish for a while theyare presently felled like green bay-trees?"

  "Yes, to be sure! So there is no doubt that your soldiers will soonconquer Duke Asmund."

  "But I must not send any soldiers to fight against him, now that I am asaint, for that would not look well. It would have an irreligiousappearance of prompting Heaven."

  "Still, King, you are sending soldiers against the Moors--"

  "Ah, but it is not your lands, Count, but my city of Ubeda, which theMoors are attacking, and to attack a saint, as you must undoubtedlyunderstand, is a dangerous heresy which it is my duty to put down."

  "Yes, to be sure! Well, well!" says Manuel, "at any rate, to be a countis something, and it is better to ward a fine name than a parcel ofpigs, though it appears the pigs are the more nourishing."

  In the mean while the King's heralds rode everywhither in fluted armor,to proclaim the fulfilment of the old prophecy as to the ArchangelOriphiel's feather. Never before was there such a hubbub in those parts,for the bells of all the churches sounded all day, and all the peopleran about praying at the top of their voices, and forgiving theirrelatives, and kissing the girls, and blowing whistles and ringingcowbells, because the city now harbored a relic so holy that the vilestsinner had but to touch it to be purified of iniquity.

  And that day King Ferdinand dismissed the evil companions with whom hehad so long rioted in every manner of wickedness, and Ferdinand livedhenceforward as became a saint. He builded two churches a year, andfared edifyingly on roots and herbs; he washed the feet of threeindigent persons daily, and went in sackcloth; whenever he burnedheretics he fetched and piled up the wood himself, so as toinconvenience nobody; and he made prioresses and abbesses of his moreintimate and personal associates of yesterday, because he knew thatpeople are made holy by contact with holiness, and that sainthood isretroactive.

  Thereafter Count Manuel abode for a month at the court of KingFerdinand, noting whatever to this side and to that side seemed mostnotable. Manuel was generally liked by the elect, and in the eveningwhen the court assembled for family-prayers nobody was more devout thanthe Count of Poictesme. He had a quiet way with the abbesses andprioresses, and with the anchorites and bishops a way of simplicitywhich was vastly admired in a divine emissary. "But the particular favorof Heaven," as King Ferdinand pointed out, "is always reserved formodest persons."

  The feather from the wing of Helmas' goose King Ferdinand had caused tobe affixed to the unassuming skullcap with a halo of gold wire whichFerdinand now wore in the place of a vainglorious earthly crown; so thatperpetual contiguity with this relic might keep him in augmentingsanctity. And now that doubt of himself had gone out of his mind,Ferdinand lived untroubled, and his digestion improved on his light dietof roots and herbs, and his loving-kindness was infinite, because hecould not now be angry with the pitiable creatures haled before him,when he considered what lengthy and ingenious torments awaited every oneof them, either in hell or purgatory, while Ferdinand would be playing agold harp in heaven.

  So Ferdinand dealt tenderly and generously with all. Half of his subjectssaid that simply showed you: and the rest of them assented that indeedyou might well say that, and they had often thought of it, and had wishedthat young people would take profit by considering such things moreseriously.

  And Manuel got clay and modeled a figure which had the features and theholy look of King Ferdinand.

  "Yes, this young fellow you have made of mud is something like me," theKing conceded, "although clay of course cannot do justice to the finered cheeks and nose I used to have in the unregenerate days when Ithought about such vanities, and, besides, it is rather more like you.Still, Count, the thing has feeling, it is wholesome, it is refreshinglyfree from these modern morbid co
nsiderations of anatomy, and it does youcredit."

  "No, King, I like this figure well enough, now that it is done, but itis not, I somehow know, the figure I desire to make. No, I must followafter my own thinking and my own desires, and I do not need holiness."

  "You artists!" the King said. "But there is more than mud upon yourmind."

  "In fact, I am puzzled, King, to see you made a saint of by its beingexpected of you."

  "But, Count, that ought to grieve nobody, so long as I do not complain,and it is of something graver you are thinking."

  "I think, sir, that it is not right to rob anybody of anything, and Ireflect that absolute righteousness is a fine feather in one's cap."

  Then Manuel went into the chicken-yard behind the red-roofed palace ofKing Ferdinand, and caught a goose, and plucked from its wing a feather.Thereafter the florid young Count of Poictesme rode east, on a talldappled horse, and a retinue of six lackeys in silver and black liveriescame cantering after him, and the two foremost lackeys carried inknapsacks, marked with a gold coronet, the images which Dom Manuel hadmade. A third lackey carried Dom Manuel's shield, upon which wereemblazoned the arms of Poictesme. The black shield displayed a silverstallion which was rampant in every member and was bridled with gold,but the ancient arms had been given a new motto.

  "What means this Greek?" Dom Manuel had asked.

  "_Mundus decipit_, Count," they told him, "is the old pious motto ofPoictesme: it signifies that the affairs of this world are a vainfleeting show, and that terrestrial appearances are nowhere of anyparticular importance."

  "Then your motto is green inexperience," said Manuel, "and for me tobear it would be black ingratitude."

  So the writing had been changed in accordance with his instructions, andit now read _Mundus vult decipi_.