Chapter 5

When Adhelmar had ended the tale of Dame Venus and the love which she bore the knight Tannhäuser (here one overtakes Nicolas midcourse in narrative), Adhelmar put away the book and sighed. The Demoiselle Mélite laughed a little⁠—her laughter, as I have told you, was high and delicate, with the resonance of thin glass⁠—and demanded the reason of his sudden grief.

“I sigh,” he answered, “for sorrow that this Dame Venus is dead.”

“Surely,” said she, wondering at his glum face, “that is no great matter.”

“By Saint Vulfran, yes!” Adhelmar protested; “for the same Lady Venus was the fairest of women, as all learned clerks avow; and she is dead these many years, and now there is no woman left alive so beautiful as she⁠—saving one alone, and she will have none of me. And therefore,” he added, very slowly, “I sigh for desire of Dame Venus and for envy of the knight Tannhäuser.”

Again Mélite laughed, but she forbore⁠—discreetly enough⁠—to question him concerning the lady who was of equal beauty with Dame Venus.

It was an April morning, and they set in the hedged garden of Puysange. Adhelmar read to her of diverse ancient queens and of the love-business wherein each took part, relating the histories of the Lady Heleine and of her sweethearting with Duke Paris, the Emperor of Troy’s son, and of the Lady Melior that loved Parthénopex of Blois, and of the Lady Aude, for love of whom Sieur Roland slew the pagan Angoulaffre, and of the Lady Cresseide that betrayed love, and of the Lady Morgaine la Fée, whose Danish lover should yet come from Avalon to save France in her black hour of need. All these he read aloud, suavely, with bland modulations, for he was a man of letters, as letters went in those days. Originally, he had been bred for the Church; but this vocation he had happily forsaken long since, protesting with some show of reason that France at this particular time had a greater need of spears than of ave’s.

For the rest, Sir Adhelmar de Nointel was known as a valiant knight, who had won glory in the wars with the English. He had lodged for a fortnight at Puysange, of which castle the master, Sire Reinault (son to the late Vicomte Florian) was Adhelmar’s cousin: and on the next day Adhelmar proposed to set forth for Paris, where the French King⁠—Jehan the Luckless⁠—was gathering his lieges about him to withstand his kinsman, Edward of England.

Now, as I have said, Adhelmar was cousin to Reinault, and, in consequence, to Reinault’s sister, the Demoiselle Mélite; and the latter Adhelmar loved, at least, as much as a cousin should. That was well known; and Reinault de Puysange had sworn very heartily that this was a great pity when he affianced her to Hugues d’Arques. Both Hugues and Adhelmar had loved Mélite since boyhood⁠—so far their claims ran equally. But while Adhelmar had busied himself in the acquisition of some scant fame and a vast number of scars, Hugues had sensibly inherited the fief of Arques, a snug property with fertile lands and a stout fortress. How, then, should Reinault hesitate between them?

He did not. For the Château d’Arques, you must understand, was builded in Lower Normandy, on the fringe of the hill-country, just where the peninsula of Cotentin juts out into the sea; Puysange stood not far north, among the level lands of Upper Normandy: and these two being the strongest castles in those parts, what more natural and desirable than that the families should be united by marriage? Reinault informed his sister of his decision; she wept a little, but did not refuse to comply.

So Adhelmar, come again to Puysange after five years’ absence, found Mélite troth-plighted, fast and safe, to Hugues. Reinault told him. Adhelmar grumbled and bit his nails in a corner, for a time; then laughed shortly.

“I have loved Mélite,” he said. “It may be that I love her still. Hah, Saint Vulfran! why should I not? Why should a man not love his cousin?”

Adhelmar grinned, while the vicomte twitched his beard and wished Adhelmar at the devil.

But the young knight stuck fast at Puysange, for all that, and he and Mélite were much together. Daily they made parties to dance, and to hunt the deer, and to fish, but most often to rehearse songs. For Adhelmar made good songs.1

Today, the summer already stirring in the womb of the year, they sat, as I have said, in the hedged garden; and about them the birds piped and wrangled over their nest-building, and daffodils danced in spring’s honor with lively saltations, and overhead the sky was colored like a robin’s egg. It was very perilous weather for young folk. By reason of this, when he had ended his reading about the lady of the hollow hill, Sir Adhelmar sighed again, and stared at his companion with hungry eyes, wherein desire strained like a hound at the leash.

Said Mélite, “Was this Lady Venus, then, exceedingly beautiful?”

Adhelmar swore an oath of sufficient magnitude that she was.

Whereupon Mélite, twisting her fingers idly and evincing a sudden interest in her own feet, demanded if this Venus were more beautiful than the Lady Ermengarde of Arnaye or the Lady Ysabeau of Brieuc.

“Holy Ouen!” scoffed Adhelmar; “these ladies, while well enough, I grant you, would seem to be callow howlets blinking about that Arabian Phoenix which Plinius tells of, in comparison with this Lady Venus that is dead!”

“But how,” asked Mélite, “was this lady fashioned that you commend so highly?⁠—and how can you know of her beauty who have never seen her?”

Said Adhelmar: “I have read of her fairness in the chronicles of Messire Stace of Thebes, and of Dares, who was her husband’s bishop. And she was very comely, neither too little nor too big; she was fairer and whiter and more lovely than any flower of the lily or snow upon the branch, but her eyebrows had the mischance of meeting. She had wide-open, beautiful eyes, and her wit was quick and ready. She was graceful and of demure countenance. She was well-beloved, and could herself love well, but her heart was changeable⁠—”

“Cousin Adhelmar,” declared Mélite, flushing somewhat, for the portrait was like enough, “I think that you tell of a woman, not of a goddess of heathenry.”

“Her eyes,” said Adhelmar, and his voice shook, and his hands, lifting a little, trembled⁠—“her eyes were large and very bright and of a color like that of the June sunlight falling upon deep waters. Her hair was of a curious gold color like the Fleece that the knight Jason sought, and it curled marvellously about her temples. For mouth she had but a small red wound; and her throat was a tower builded of ivory.”

But now, still staring at her feet and glowing with the even complexion of a rose, (though not ill-pleased), the Demoiselle Mélite bade him desist and make her a song. Moreover, she added, beauty was but a fleeting thing, and she considered it of little importance; and then she laughed again.

Adhelmar took up the lute that lay beside them and fingered it for a moment, as though wondering of what he would rhyme. Afterward he sang for her as they sat in the gardens.

Sang Adhelmar:

“It is in vain I mirror forth the praise

In pondered virelais

Of her that is the lady of my love;

Far-sought and curious phrases fail to tell

The tender miracle

Of her white body and the grace thereof.

“Thus many and many an artful-artless strain

Is fashioned all in vain:

Sound proves unsound; and even her name, that is

To me more glorious than the glow of fire

Or dawn or love’s desire

Or opals interlinked with turquoises,

Mocks utterance.

“So, lacking skill to praise

That perfect bodily beauty which is hers,

Even as those worshippers

Who bore rude offerings of honey and maize,

Their all, into the gold-paved ministers

Of Aphrodite, I have given her these

My faltering melodies,

That are Love’s lean and ragged messengers.”

When he had ended, Adhelmar cast aside the lute, and caught up both of Mélite’s hands, and strained them to his lips. There needed no wizard to read the message in his eyes.

Mélite sat silent for a moment. Presently, “Ah, cousin, cousin!” she sighed, “I cannot love you as you would have me love. God alone knows why, true heart, for I revere you as a strong man and a proven knight and a faithful lover; but I do not love you. There are many women who would love you, Adhelmar, for the world praises you, and you have done brave deeds and made good songs and have served your King potently; and yet”⁠—she drew her hands away and laughed a little wearily⁠—“yet I, poor maid, must needs love Hugues, who has done nothing. This love is a strange, unreasoning thing, my cousin.”

“But do you in truth love Hugues?” asked Adhelmar, in a harsh voice.

“Yes,” said Mélite, very softly, and afterward flushed and wondered dimly if she had spoken the truth. Then, somehow, her arms clasped about Adhelmar’s neck, and she kissed him, from pure pity, as she told herself; for Mélite’s heart was tender, and she could not endure the anguish in his face.

This was all very well. But Hugues d’Arques, coming suddenly out of a pleached walk, at this juncture, stumbled upon them and found their postures distasteful. He bent black brows upon the two.

“Adhelmar,” said he, at length, “this world is a small place.”

Adhelmar rose. “Indeed,” he assented, with a wried smile, “I think there is scarce room in it for both of us, Hugues.”

“That was my meaning,” said the Sieur d’Arques.

“Only,” Adhelmar pursued, somewhat wistfully, “my sword just now, Hugues, is vowed to my King’s quarrel. There are some of us who hope to save France yet, if our blood may avail. In a year, God willing, I shall come again to Puysange; and till then you must wait.”

Hugues conceded that, perforce, he must wait, since a vow was sacred; and Adhelmar, who suspected Hugues’ natural appetite for battle to be lamentably squeamish, grinned. After that, in a sick rage, Adhelmar struck Hugues in the face, and turned about.

The Sieur d’Arques rubbed his cheek ruefully. Then he and Mélite stood silent for a moment, and heard Adhelmar in the courtyard calling his men to ride forth; and Mélite laughed; and Hugues scowled.