Figures of Earth: A Comedy of Appearances

by James Branch Cabell

  XII

  Ice and Iron

  Then came from oversea the Bishops of Ely and Lincoln, the prior ofHurle, and the Master of the Temple, asking that King Raymond send oneof his daughters, with a suitable dowry, to be the King of England'swife. "Very willingly," says Raymond Berenger; and told them they couldhave his third daughter Sancha, with a thousand marks.

  "But, Father," said Alianora, "Sancha is nothing but a child. A finequeen she would make!"

  "Still, my dear," replied King Raymond, "you are already bespoke."

  "I was not thinking about myself. I was thinking about Sancha's truewelfare."

  "Of course you were, my dear, and everybody knows the sisterly love youhave for her."

  "The pert little mess is spoilt enough as it is, Heaven knows. And ifthings came to the pass that I had to stand up whenever Sancha came intothe room, and to sit on a footstool while she lolled back in a chair theway Meregrett does, it would be the child's ruin."

  Raymond Berenger said: "Now certainly it will be hard on you to have twosisters that are queens, and with perhaps little Beatrice also marryingsome king or another when her time comes, and you staying only acountess, who are the best-looking of the lot."

  "My father, I see what you would be at!" cried Alianora, aghast. "Youthink it is my duty to overcome my private inclinations, and to marrythe King of England for ruthless and urgent political reasons!"

  "I only said, my darling--"

  "--For you have seen at once that I owe this great sacrifice to thefuture welfare of our beloved Provence. You have noted, with thatkeenness which nothing escapes, that with the aid of your wisdom andadvice I would know very well how to manage this high King that is themaster of no pocket handkerchief place like Provence but of England andof Ireland too."

  "Also, by rights, of Aquitaine and Anjou and Normandy, my precious.Still, I merely observed--"

  "Oh, but believe me, I am not arguing with you, my dear father, for Iknow that you are much wiser than I," says Alianora, bravely wiping awaybig tears from her lovely eyes.

  "Have it your own way, then," replied Raymond Berenger, with outspreadhands. "But what is to be done about you and Count Manuel here?"

  The King looked toward the tapestry of Jephthah's sacrifice, besidewhich Manuel sat, just then re-altering the figure of the young man withthe loving look of Alianora that Manuel had made because of the urgencyof his geas, and could not seem to get exactly right.

  "I am sure, Father, that Manuel also will be self-sacrificing andmagnanimous and sensible about it."

  "Ah, yes! but what is to happen afterward? For anyone can see that youand this squinting long-legged lad are fathoms deep in love with eachother."

  "I think that after I am married, Father, you or King Ferdinand or KingHelmas can send Count Manuel into England on some embassy, and I am surethat he and I will always be true and dear friends without affording anyhandle to gossip."

  "Oho!" King Raymond said, "I perceive your drift, and it is toward aharbor that is the King of England's affair, and not mine. My part is togo away now, so that you two may settle the details of thatambassadorship in which Dom Manuel is to be the vicar of so many kings."

  Raymond Berenger took up his sceptre and departed, and the Princessturned to where Manuel was pottering with the three images he had madein the likeness of Helmas and Ferdinand and Alianora. "You see, now,Manuel dearest, I am heart-broken, but for the realm's sake I must marrythe King of England."

  Manuel looked up from his work. "Yes, I heard. I am sorry, and I neverunderstood politics, but I suppose it cannot be helped. So would youmind standing a little more to the left? You are in the light now, andthat prevents my seeing clearly what I am doing here to this upper lip."

  "And how can you be messing with that wet mud when my heart isbreaking!"

  "Because a geas is upon me to make these images. No, I am sure I do notknow why my mother desired it. But everything which is fated must beendured, just as we must now endure the obligation that is upon you tomarry the high King of England."

  "My being married need not matter very much, after I am Queen, forpeople declare this King is a poor spindling creature, and, as I wassaying, you can come presently into England."

  Manuel looked at her for a moment or two. She colored. He, sitting atthe feet of weeping Jephthah, smiled. "Well," said Manuel, "I will comeinto England when you send me a goose-feather. So the affair is arranged."

  "Oh, you are all ice and iron!" she said, "and you care for nothingexcept your wet mud images, and I detest you!"

  "My dearest," Manuel answered placidly, "the trouble is that each of usdesires one particular thing over and above other things. Your desire isfor power and a great name and for a king who will be at once yourmouthpiece, your lackey and your lover. Now, candidly, I cannot sparethe time to be any of these things, because my desire is different fromyour desire, but is equally strong. Also, it seems to me, as I becomeolder, and see more of men and of men's ways, that most people have noespecial desire but only preferences. In a world of such wishy-washyfolk you and I cannot hope to escape being aspersed with comparisons toice and iron, but it does not become us to be flinging these venerablesimiles in each other's faces."

  She kept silence a while. She laughed uneasily. "I so often wonder aboutyou, Manuel, as to whether inside the big, high-colored, squinting,solemn husk is living a very wise person or a very unmitigated fool."

  "I perceive there is something else which we have in common, for I, too,often wonder about that."

  "It is settled, then?"

  "It is settled that, instead of ruling little Arles, you are to be Queenof England, and Lady of Ireland, and Duchess of Normandy and Aquitaine,and Countess of Anjou; that our token is to be a goose-feather; andthat, I diffidently repeat, you are to get out of my light and interfereno longer with the discharge of my geas."

  "And what will you do?"

  "I must, as always, follow after my own thinking--"

  "If you complete the sentence I shall undoubtedly scream."

  Manuel laughed good-humoredly. "I suppose I do say it rather often, butthen it is true, and the great trouble between us, Alianora, is that youdo not perceive its truth."

  She said, "And I suppose you will now be stalking off to some woman oranother for consolation?"

  "No, the consolation I desire is not to be found in petticoats. No,first of all, I shall go to King Helmas. For my images stay obstinatelylifeless, and there is something lacking to each of them, and none isthe figure I desire to make in this world. Now I do not know what can bedone about it, but the Zhar-Ptitza informs me that King Helmas, sinceall doubt of himself has been put out of mind, can aid me if any mancan."

  "Then we must say good-bye, though not for a long while, I hope."

  "Yes," Manuel said, "this is good-bye, and to a part of my living it isan eternal good-bye."

  Dom Manuel left his images where the old Hebrew captain appeared toregard them with violent dumb anguish, and Manuel took both of thegirl's lovely little hands, and he stood thus for a while looking downat the Princess.

  Said Manuel, very sadly:

  "I cry the elegy of such notions as are possible to boys alone.'Surely,' I said, 'the informing and all-perfect soul shines through andis revealed in this beautiful body.' So my worship began for you, whoseviolet eyes retain at all times their chill brittle shining, and do notsoften, but have been to me always as those eyes which, they say, agoddess turns toward ruined lovers who cry the elegy of hope andcontentment, with lips burned bloodless by the searing of passions whichshe, immortal, may neither feel nor comprehend. Even so do you, dearAlianora, who are not divine, look toward me, quite unmoved by anythingexcept incurious wonder, the while that I cry my elegy.

  "I, for love, and for the glamour of bright beguiling dreams that hoverand delude and allure all lovers, could never until to-day beholdclearly what person I was pestering with my notions. I, being blind,could not perceive your blindness which blindly strove to understand me
,and which hungered for understanding, as I for love. Thus our kissesveiled, at most, the foiled endeavorings of flesh that willingly wouldenter into the soul's high places, but is not able. Now, the game beingover, what is the issue and end of it time must attest. At least weshould each sorrow a little for what we have lost in this gaming,--youfor a lover, and I for love.

  "No, but it is not love which lies here expiring, now we part friendlilyat the deathbed of that emotion which yesterday we shared. This emotionalso was not divine; and so might not outlive the gainless monthswherein, like one fishing for pearls in a millpond, I have toiled toevoke from your heart more than Heaven placed in this heart, whereinlies no love. Now the crying is stilled that was the crying ofloneliness to its unfound mate: already dust is gathering light and grayupon the unmoving lips. Therefore let us bury our dead, and havingplaced the body in the tomb, let us honestly inscribe above thisfragile, flower-like perished emotion, 'Here lieth lust, not love.'"

  Now Alianora pouted. "You use such very ugly words, sweetheart: and youare talking unreasonably, too, for I am sure I am just as sorry about itas you are--"

  Manuel gave her that slow sleepy smile which was Manuel. "Just," hesaid,--"and it is that which humiliates. Yes, you and I are second-ratepersons, Alianora, and we have found each other out. It is a pity. Butwe will always keep our secret from the rest of the world, and oursecret will always be a bond between us."

  He kissed the Princess, very tenderly, and so left her.

  Then Manuel of the high head departed from Aries, with his lackeys andhis images, riding in full estate, and displaying to the spring sunlightthe rearing silver stallion upon his shield and the _motto Mundus vultdecipi_. Alianora, watching from the castle window, wept copiously,because the poor Princess had the misfortune to be really in love withDom Manuel. But there was no doing anything with his obstinacy and hisincomprehensible notions, Alianora had found, and so she set aboutdisposing of herself and of the future through more plastic means. Hermethods were altered perforce, but her aim remained unchanged: and shestill intended to get everything she desired (which included Manuel) assoon as she and the King of England had settled down to some sensibleway of living.

  It worried this young pretty girl to consult her mirror, and to foreknowthat the King of England would probably be in love with her for monthsand months: but then, as she philosophically reflected, all women haveto submit to being annoyed by the romanticism of men. So she dried herbig bright eyes, and sent for dressmakers.

  She ordered two robes each of five ells, the one to be of green andlined with either cendal or sarcenet, and the other to be of brunetstuff. She selected the cloth for a pair of purple sandals, and for fourpairs of boots, to be embroidered in circles around the ankles, and sheselected also nine very becoming chaplets made of gold filigree andclusters of precious stones. And so she managed to get through themorning, and to put Manuel out of mind, for that while, but not forlong.