I
HAVING reduced the rest of his kingdom to obedience in three arduous campaigns, King Stanislas sat himself down with a great army before the strong place of Or, which was held against him by Runa, daughter of Count Theobald the Fierce. For Countess Runa said that since her father had paid neither obedience nor tribute to the King’s father for fifty years, neither would she pay obedience or tribute to the King, nor would she open the city gates to him save at her own time and by her own will. So the King came and enveloped the city on all sides, so that none could pass in or out, and sent his heralds to Countess Runa demanding surrender; in default of which he would storm the ramparts, sack the city, and lay the citadel level with the earth, in such wise that men should not remember the place where it had been.
Sitting on her high chair, beneath the painted window through which the sun struck athwart her fair hair, Runa heard the message.
“Tell the King—for a king he is, though no king of mine—that we are well armed and have knights of fame with us. Tell him that we are provisioned for more months than he shall reign years, and that we will tire him sooner than he can starve us.”
She ceased speaking, and the principal herald, bowing low, asked: “Is that all the message?”
“No, there is more. Tell him that the daughter of Count Theobald the Fierce rules in the city of Or.”
Bowing again, the principal herald asked: “Is that all the message?”
Runa sat silent for a minute. Then she said: “No, there is more. Tell the King that he must carry the citadel before he can pass the ramparts.”
The principal herald frowned, then smiled and said: “But with deference, madam, how can that be? For the citadel is high on a rock, and the city lies round it below, and again round the city lie the ramparts. How, then, shall the King carry the citadel before——?”
Runa raised her brows in weariness.
“Your speech is as long as your siege will be,” she said. “You are a mouthpiece, Sir Herald, not an interpreter. Begone, and say to the King what I have given you to say.”
So the heralds returned to King Stanislas and gave him Runa’s answer; but the King, in his wrath, listened more to the first part of it than to the last, and assaulted the ramparts fiercely for three days. But Runa’s men rolled his men back with loss and in confusion, for they were in good heart because of the message Runa had sent. “For,” they said, “our Countess has bidden the King perform what is impossible before she will yield the city; and as we trusted Theobald the father, so we trust the daughter Runa.”
After his three assaults had failed, King Stanislas waited in quiet for a month, drawing his cordon yet more closely round the city. Then he sent again to the Countess, saying that he would spend the first half of his reign outside the walls of Or, provided he could spend the second half of it inside the same; yet if she would yield now, she should have his favour and all her wealth; but if she would not yield, she must await starvation and sack and the extremity of his anger. To which summons she answered only: “Tell the King that he must carry the citadel before he can pass the ramparts.” And she would say no more to the heralds.
“A plague on her!” cried Stanislas. “A plague on the woman and her insolent riddles! Of what appearance is she? I have never seen her.”
“As the sun for beauty and the moon for dignity,” said the principal herald, whose occupation naturally bred eloquence.
“Stuff!” said King Stanislas very crossly.
The herald bowed, but with an offended air.
“Does she seem sane?” asked Stanislas.
“Perfectly sane, sire,” answered the herald. “Although, as your Majesty deigns to intimate, the purport of her message is certainly not such as might reasonably be expected from a lady presumably endowed with——”
“I am ready for the next audience,” said King Stanislas to his Chamberlain.
And after the next audience he sat down and thought. But, as often happens with meaner men, he took nothing by it, except a pain in the head and a temper much the worse. So that he ordered three more assaults on the ramparts of the City of Or, which ended as the first three had; and then sent another summons to Countess Runa, to which she returned the same answer. And for the life of him the King could see in it no meaning save that never in all his life should he pass the ramparts. “Only an army of birds could do what she says!” he declared peevishly. Indeed he was so chagrined and shamed that he would then and there have raised the siege and returned to the capital, had it not been for the unfortunate circumstance that, on leaving it, he had publicly and solemnly vowed never to return, nor to show himself to his lieges there, unless and until he should be master of the City of Or. So there he was, unable to enter either city, and saddled with a great army to feed, winter coming on, and the entire situation, as his Chancellor observed, full of perplexity. On the top of all this, too, there were constant sounds and signs of merriment and plenty within the city, and the Countess’s men, when they had eaten, took to flinging the bones of their meat to the besiegers outside—an action most insulting, however one might be pleased to interpret it.
Meanwhile Countess Runa sat among her ladies and knights, on her high chair under the emblazoned window, with the sun striking athwart her fair hair. Often she smiled; once or twice she sighed. Perhaps she was wondering what King Stanislas would do next—and when he would understand her message.