Part 1—- Chapter 2.
Wherein Cicely begins to see.
“Tempt not the Tempter; he is near enough.”
Dr Horatius Bonar.
Now can any man tell what it is in folks that causeth other folks to fancy them? for I have oft-times been sorely pestered to find out. Truly, if man be very fair, or have full winning ways, and sweet words, and so forth, then may it be seen without difficulty. I never was puzzled to know why Sir Roger or any other should have fallen o’ love with Queen Isabel. But what on earth could draw her to him, that puzzled me sore. He was not young—about ten years elder than she, and she was now a woman of thirty years. Nor was he over comely, as men go,—I have seen better-favoured men, and I have seen worser. Nor were his manners sweet and winning, but the very contrary thereof, for they were rough and rude even to women, he alway seemed to me the very incarnation of pride. Men charged Sir Hugh Le Despenser with pride, but Sir Roger de Mortimer was worse than he tenfold. One of his own sons called him the King of Folly: and though the charge came ill from his lips that brought it, yet was it true as truth could be. His pride showed every where—in his dress, in the way he bore himself, in his words,—yea, in the very tones of his voice. And his temper was furious as ever I saw. Verily, he was one of the least lovesome men that I knew in all my life: yet for him, the fairest lady of that age bewrayed her own soul, and sold the noblest gentleman to the death. Truly, men and women be strange gear!
I had written thus far when I laid down my pen, and fell a-meditating, on the strangeness of such things as folks be and do in this world. And as I there sat, I was aware of Father Philip in the chamber, that had come in softly and unheard of me, so lost in thought was I. He smiled when I looked up on him.
“How goeth the chronicle, my daughter?” saith he.
“Diversely, Father,” I made answer. “Some days my pen will run apace, but on others it laggeth like oxen at plough when the ground is heavy with rain.”
“The ground was full heavy when I entered,” saith he, “for the plough was standing still.”
I laughed. “So it was, trow. But I do not think I was idle, Father; I was but meditating.”
“Wise meditations, that be fruitful in good works, be far away from idlesse,” quoth he. “And on what wert thou thinking thus busily, my daughter?”
“On the strange ways of men and women, Father.”
“Did the list include Dame Cicely de Chaucombe?” saith Father Philip, with one of his quiet smiles.
“No,” I made answer. “I had not reached her.”
“Or Philip de Edyngdon? Perchance thou hadst not reached him.”
“Why, Father, I might never think of sitting in judgment on you. No, I was thinking of some I had wist long ago: and in especial of Dame Isabel the Queen, and other that were about her. What is it moveth folks to love one another, or to hate belike?”
“There be but three things can move thee to aught, my daughter: God, Satan, and thine own human heart.”
“And my conscience?” said I.
“Men do oftentimes set down to conscience,” saith he, “that which is either God or Satan. The enlightened conscience of the righteous man worketh as God’s Holy Spirit move him. The defiled conscience of the evil man listeneth to the promptings of Satan. And the seared conscience is as dead, and moveth not at all.”
“Father, can a man then kill his conscience?”
“He may lay it asleep for this life, daughter: may so crush it with weights thereon laid that it is as though it had the sickness of palsy, and cannot move limb. But I count, when this life is over, it shall shake off the weight, and wake up, to a life and a torment that shall never end.”
“I marvel if she did,” said I, rather to myself than him.
“Daughter,” he made answer, “whoso she be, let her be. God saith not to thee, He, and she, but I, and thou. When Christ knocketh at thy door, if thou open not, shall He take it as tideful answer that thou wert full busy watching other folks’ doors to see if they would open?”
“Yet may we not learn, Father, from other folks’ blunders?”
“Hast thou so learned, daughter?”
“Well, not much,” said I. “A little, now and then, maybe.”
“I never learned much,” saith he, “from the blunders of any man save Philip de Edyngdon. What I learned from other folks’ evil deeds was mostly to despise and be angered with them—not to beware for myself. And that lore cometh not of God. Thou mayest learn from such things set down in Holy Writ: but verily it takes God to pen them, so that we may indeed profit and not scorn,—that we may win and not lose. Be sure that whenever God puts in thine hand a golden coin of His realm, with the King’s image stamped fair thereon, Satan is near at hand, with a gold-washed copper counterfeit stamped with his image, and made so like that thou hast need to look close, to make sure which is the true. ‘Hold not all gold that shineth’—a wise saw, my daughter, whether it be a thing heavenly or earthly.”
“I will endeavour myself to profit by your good counsel, Father,” said I. “But mine husband bade me write this chronicle, though, sooth to say, I had no list thereto. And if I shall leave to deal with he and she, how then may my chronicle be writ?”
“Write thy chronicle, my daughter,” he answered. “But write it as God hath writ His Chronicles. Set down that which men did, that which thou sawest and heardest. Beware only of digging into men’s purposes where thou knewest them not, and sawest but the half thereof. And it is rarely possible for men to see the whole of that which passeth in their own day. Beware of setting down a man as all evil for one evil thing thou mayest see him to do. We see them we live amongst something too close to judge them truly. And beware, most of all, of imagining that thou canst get behind God’s purposes, and lay bare all His reasons. Verily, the wisest saint on earth cannot reach to the thousandth part thereof. God can be fully understood, only of God.”
I have set down these wise words of good Father Philip, for though they be too high and wide for mine understanding, maybe some that shall read my chronicle may have better brains than she that writ.
So now once again to my chronicling, and let me endeavour to do the same as Father Philip bade me.
It was on the eve of Saint Michael, 1325, that the Queen and her meynie (I being of them) reached Paris. We were ferried over the Seine to the gate of Nully (Note 1), and thence we clattered over the stones to the Hotel de Saint Pol (Note 2), where the Queen was lodged in the easternmost tower, next to our Lady Church, and we her meynie above. Dame Isabel de Lapyoun and I were appointed to lie in the pallet by turns. The Queen’s bedchamber was hung with red sindon, broidered in the border with golden swans, and her cabinet with blue say, powdered with lily-flowers in gold, which is the arms of France, as every man knoweth, seeing they are borne by our King that now is, in right of this same Queen Isabel his mother. He, that was then my Lord of Chester, was also of the cortege, having sailed from Dover two days before Holy Cross (Note 3), and joined the Queen in Guienne; but the Queen went over in March, and was all that time in Guienne.
Dear heart! but Jack—which loveth to be square and precise in his matters—should say this were strange fashion wherein to write chronicles, to date first September and then the March afore it! I had better go back a bit.
It was, then, the 9th of March the Queen crossed from Dover to Whitsand, which the French call Guissant. She dwelt first, as I said, in Guienne, for all that summer; very quiet and peaceful were we, letters going to and fro betwixt our Queen and her lord, and likewise betwixt her and the King of France; but no visitors (without there were one that evening Dame Isabel lay in the pallet in my stead, and was so late up, and passed by the antechamber door with her shoes in her hands, as little Meliora the sub-damsel would have it she saw by the keyhole): and we might nearhand as well have been in nunnery for all the folks we saw that were not of the house. Verily, I grew sick irked (wearied, distressed) of the calm, that was like a dead calm at sea, when ships lie to, and can win neither forward nor backward. Ah, foolish Cicely! thou hadst better have given thanks for the last peace thou wert to see for many a year.
Well, my Lord of Chester come, which was the week after Holy Cross, we set forth with few days’ delay, and came to Paris, as I said, the eve of Michaelmas. Marvellous weary was I with riding, for I rade of an horse the whole way, and not, as Dame Isabel did, with the Queen in her char. I was so ill tired that I could but eat a two-three wafers (Note 4), and drink a cup of wine, and then hied I to my bed, which, I thank the saints, was not the pallet that night.
The King and Queen of France were then at Compiegne, King Charles having been wed that same summer to his third wife, Dame Jeanne of Evreux: and a good woman I do believe was she, for all (as I said aforetime) there be but few. But I do think, and ever shall, that three wives be more than any man’s share. The next morrow, they came in from Compiegne, to spend Michaelmas in Paris: and then was enough noise and merriment. First, mass in our Lady Church, whereto both Dame Isabel and I waited on the Queen; and by the same token, she was donned of one of the fairest robes that ever she bare, which was of velvet blue of Malyns (Malines), broidered with apple-blossom and with diapering of gold. It did not become her, by reason of her dark complexion, so well as it should have done S—
“Hold! Man spelleth not Cicely with an S.”
“Jack, if thou start me like this any more, then will I turn the key in the lock when I sit down to write,” cried I, for verily mine heart was going pitter-patter to come up in my throat, and out at my mouth, for aught I know. “Thou irksome man, I went about to write ‘some folks,’ not ‘Cicely.’”
“But wherefore?” saith Jack, looking innocent as a year-old babe. “When it meaneth Cicely, then would I put Cicely.”
“But I meant not Cicely, man o’ life, bless thee!”
“I thank thee for thy blessing, Sissot; and I will fain hope thou didst mean that any way. I will go bail thy pen meant not Cicely, good wife; but if it were not in thine heart that Sissot’s fair hair, and rose-red complexion, and grey eyes, should have gone better with that blue velvet gown than Queen Isabel’s dusky hair and brown eyes, then do I know little of man or woman. And I dare be bound it would, belike.”
And Jack lifteth his hat to me right courteously, and is gone afore I well know whether to laugh or to be angered. So I ween I had better laugh.
Where was I, trow? Oh, at mass in our Lady Church of Paris, where that day was a miracle done on two that were possessed of the Devil, whose names were Geoffrey Boder and Jeanne La Petite; and the girdle of Saint Mary being shown on the high altar, they were allowed to touch the same, whereon they were healed straightway. And the Queen, with her own hands, gave them alms, a crown; and her oblation to the image of Saint Mary in the said church, being a festival, was a crown (her daily oblation being seven-pence the day); and to the said holy girdle a crown, and to the holy relics, yet another. Then came we home by the water of Seyne, for which the boatman had twelve pence. (Note 5.)
We dwelt after this full peacefully at Paris for divers weeks, saving that we made short journeys to towns in the neighbourhood; as, one day to the house of the Sisters Predicants of Poissy, and another to God’s House of Loure (Note 6), and another to Villers, where tarried the Queen of France, and so forth. And some days spent we likewise at Reyns and Sessouns. (Note 7.)
At Paris she had her robes made, of purple and colour of Malbryn, for the feast of All Saints, and they were furred with miniver and beasts ermines. And to me Cicely was delivered, to make my robe for the same, three ells rayed (striped) cloth and a lamb fur, and an hood of budge.
The Queen spent nigh an whole day at Sessouns, and another at Reyns, in visiting the churches; and the last can I well remember, by reason of that which came after. First, we went to the church of Saint Nicholas, where she offered a cloth of Turk, price forty shillings; and to Saint Remy she gave another, price forty-five shillings; and to the high altar of the Cathedral one something better. And to the ampulla (Note 7) and shrine of Saint Remy a crown, and likewise a crown to the holy relics there kept. Then to the Friars Minors, where at the high altar she offered a cloth of Lucca bought in the town, price three and an half marks (Note 8). And (which I had nearhand forgot) to the head of Saint Nicasius in the Cathedral, a crown.
The last night ere we left Sessouns, I remember, as I came into the Queen’s lodging from vespers in the Cathedral,—Jack, that went with me, having tarried at the potter’s to see wherefore he sent not home three dozen glasses for the Queen’s table (and by the same token, the knave asked fifteen pence for the same when they did come, which is a price to make the hair stand on end)—well, as I said, I was a-coming in, when I met one coming forth that at first sight I wist not. And yet, when I meditated, I did know him, but I could not tell his name. He had taken no note of me, save to hap his mantle somewhat closer about his face, as though he cared not to be known—or it might be only that he felt the cold, for it was sharp for the time of year. Up went I into the Queen’s lodging, which was then in the house of one John de Gyse, that was an honester man than Master Bolard, with whom she lodged at Burgette, for that last charged her three shillings and seven-pence for a worser lodging than Master Gyse gave her for two shillings.
I had writ thus far when I heard behind me a little bruit that I knew.
“Well, Jack?” said I, not looking up.
“Would thou wert better flyer of falcons, Sissot!” saith he.
“Dear heart! what means that, trow?” quoth I.
“Then shouldst thou know,” he made answer, “that to suffer a second quarry to turn thee from thy first is oft-times to lose both.”
“Verily, Jack, I conceive not thy meaning.”
“Why, look on yon last piece. It begins with thee coming home from vespers. Then it flieth to me, to the potter and his glasses, to the knavery of his charges, and cometh back to the man whom thou didst meet coming forth of the door—whom it hath no sooner touched, than it is off again to the cold even; then comest thou into the Queen’s lodging, and down ‘grees’ (degrees, that is, stairs) once more to the landlord’s bill. Do, prithee, keep to one heron till thou hast bagged him.”
“Ha, chétife!” cried I. “Must I have firstly, secondly, thirdly, yea, up to thirty-seventhly, like old Father Edison’s homilies?”
“Better so,” saith he, “than to course three hares together and catch none.”
“I’ll catch mine hare yet, as thou shall see,” saith I.
“Be it done. Gee up!” saith he. (Note 9).
Well, up came I into the Queen’s antechamber, where were sat Dame Elizabeth, and Dame Isabel de Lapyoun, and Dame Joan de Vaux, and little Meliora. And right as I came in at the door, Dame Joan dropped her sewing off her knee, and saith—
“Lack-a-day! I am aweary of living in this world!”
“Well, if so,” saith Dame Elizabeth, peacefully waxing her thread, “you had best look about for a better.”
“Nay!” quoth she, “how to get there?”
“Ask my Lord of Winchester,” saith Dame Isabel.
“I shall lack the knowledge ill ere I trouble him,” she made answer. “Is it he with the Queen this even?”
“There’s none with the Queen!” quoth Dame Isabel, as sharp as if she should have snapped her head off.
Dame Joan looked up in some astonishment.
“Dear heart!” said she, “I thought I heard voices in her chamber.”
“There was one with her,” answereth Meliora, “when I passed the door some minutes gone.”
“Maybe the visitor is gone,” said I. “As I came in but now, I met one coming forth.”
“Who were it, marry?” quoth Dame Joan.
“It was none of the household,” said I. “A tall, personable man, wrapped in a great cloak, wherewith he hid his face; but whether it were from me or from the November even, that will I not say.”
“There hath been none such here,” saith Dame Elizabeth.
“Not in this chamber,” saith Meliora.
“Meliora Servelady!” Dame Isabel made answer, “who gave thee leave to join converse with thy betters?” (Note 10).
The sub-damsel looked set down for a minute, but nought ever daunted her for long. She was as pert a little maid as ever I knew, and but little deserved her name of Meliora. (Ah me, is this another hare? Have back.)
“There hath been none of any sort come to the Queen to-day,” said Dame Isabel, in so angered a tone that I began at once to marvel who had come of whom she feared talk.
“Nay, but there so hath!” makes response Dame Joan: “have you forgot Master Almoner that was with her this morrow nigh an hour touching his accounts?—and Ralph Richepois with his lute after dinner?”
“Marry, and the Lady Gibine, Prioress of Oremont,” addeth Dame Elizabeth.
“And the two Beguines—” began Meliora; but she ended not, for Dame Isabel boxed her ears.
“Ay, and Jack Bonard, that she sent with letters to the Queen of France,” saith Dame Joan.
“Yea, and Ivo le Breton came a-begging, yon poor old man that had served her when a child,” made answer Dame Elizabeth.
“And Ma—” Poor Meliora got no further, for Dame Isabel gave her a buffet on the side of her head that nigh knocked her off the form. I could not but think that some part of that buffet was owing to us three, though Meliora had it all. But what so angered Dame Isabel, that might I not know.
At that time came the summons to supper, so the matter ended. But as supper was passing, Dame Joan de Vaux, by whom I sat, with Master Almoner on mine other hand, saith to me—
“Pray you, Dame Cicely, have you any guess who it were that you met coming forth?”
“I have, and I have not,” said I. “There was that in his face which I knew full well, yet cannot I bethink me of his name.”
“It was not Master Madefray, trow?”
“In no wise: a higher man than he, and of fairer hair.”
“Not a priest neither?”
“Nay, certes.”
“Leave not to sup your soup, Dame Cicely, nor show no astonishment, I pray, while I ask yet a question. Was it—Sir Roger the Mortimer of Ludlow?”
For all Dame Joan’s warnful words, I nigh dropped my spoon, and I never knew how the rest of the soup tasted.
“Wala wa!” said I, under my breath, “but I do believe it was he.”
“I saw him,” saith she, quietly. “And take my word for it, friend—that man cometh for no good.”
“Marry!” cried I in some heat, “how dare he come nigh the Queen at all? he, a banished man! Without, soothly, he came humbly to entreat her intercession with the King for his pardon. But e’en then, he might far more meetly have sent his petition by some other. Verily, I marvel she would see him!”
“Do you so?” saith Dame Joan in that low quiet voice. “So do not I. She will see him yet again, or I mistake much.”
“Ha, chétife!” I made answer. “It is full well we be on our road back to Paris, for there at least will he not dare to come.”
“Not dare?”
“Surely not, for the King of France, which himself hath banished him, should never suffer it.”
Dame Joan helped herself to a roasted plover with a smile. When the sewer was gone, quoth she—
“I think, Dame Cicely, you know full little whether of Sir Roger de Mortimer or of the King of France. For the last, he is as easily blinded a man as you may lightly see; and if our Queen his sister told him black was white, he should but suppose that she saw better than he. And for the other—is there aught in all this world, whether as to bravery or as to wickedness, that Sir Roger de Mortimer would not dare?”
“Dear heart!” cried I. “I made account we had done with men of that order.”
“You did?” Dame Joan’s tone, and the somewhat dry smile which went with it, said full plainly, “In no wise.”
“Well, soothly we had enough and to spare!” quoth I. “There was my Lord of Lancaster—God rest his soul!—and Sir Piers de Gavaston (if he were as ill man as some said).”
“He was not a saint, I think,” she said: “yet could I name far worser men than he.”
“And my sometime Lord of Warwick,” said I, “was no saint likewise, or I mistake.”
“Therein,” saith she, “have you the right.”
“Well,” pursued I, “all they be gone: and soothly, I had hoped there were no more such left.”
“Then should there be no original sin left,” she made answer; “yea, and Sathanas should be clean gone forth of this world.”
The rest of the converse I mind not, but that last sentence tarried in my mind for many a day, and hath oft-times come back to me touching other matters.
We reached Loure on Saint Martin’s Day (November 11th), and Paris the next morrow. There found we the Bishops of Winchester and Exeter, (Stratford and Stapleton), whom King Edward had sent over to join the Queen’s Council. Now I never loved overmuch neither of these Reverend Fathers, though it were for very diverse causes. Of course, being priests, they were holy men; but I misdoubt if either were perfect man apart from his priesthood—my Lord of Winchester more in especial. Against my Lord of Exeter have I but little to say; he was fumish (irritable, captious) man, but no worse. But my Lord of Winchester did I never trust, nor did I cease to marvel that man could. As to King Edward, betray him to his enemies to-day, and he should put his life in your hands again to-morrow: never saw I man like to him, that no experience would learn mistrust. Queen Isabel trusted few: but of them my said Lord of Winchester was one. I have noted at times that they which be untrue themselves be little given to trust other. She trusted none save them she had tried: and she had tried this Bishop, not once nor twice. He never brake faith with her; but with King Edward he brake it a score of times twice told, and with his son that is now King belike. I wis not whether at this time the Queen was ready to put affiance in him; I scarce think she was: for she shut both Bishops out of her Council from the day she came to Paris. But not at this time, nor for long after did I guess what it signified.
November was nigh run out, when one morrow Dame Joan de Vaux brought word that the Queen, being a-cold, commanded her velvet mantle taken to her cabinet: and I, as the dame in waiting then on duty, took the same to her. I found her sat of a chair of carven wood, beside the brasier, and two gentlemen of the other side of the hearth. Behind her chair Dame Elizabeth waited, and I gave the mantle to her to cast over the Queen’s shoulders. The gentlemen stood with their backs to the light, and I paid little note to them at first, save to see that one was a priest: but as I went about to go forth, the one that was not a priest turned his face, and I perceived to mine amaze that it was Sir Roger de Mortimer. Soothly, it needed all my courtly self-command that I should not cry out when I beheld him. Had I followed the prompting of mine own heart, I should have cried, “Get thee gone, thou banished traitor!” He, who had returned unlicenced from Scotland ere the war was over, in the time of old King Edward of Westminster; that had borne arms against his son, then King, under my Lord of Lancaster; that, having his life spared, and being but sent to the Tower, had there plotted to seize three of the chief fortresses of the Crown—namely, the said Tower, and the Castles of Windsor and Wallingford,—and had thereupon been cast for death, and only spared through the intercession of the Queen and the Bishop of Hereford: yet, after all this, had he broken prison, bribing one of his keepers and drugging the rest, and was now a banished felon, in refuge over seas: he to dare so much as to breathe the same air with the wife of his Sovereign, with her that had been his advocate, and that knew all his treacheries! Could any worser insult to the Queen have been devised? But all at once, as I passed along the gallery, another thought came in upon me. What of her? who, knowing all this and more, yet gave leave for this man—not to kneel at her feet and cry her mercy—that had been grace beyond any reasonable hope: but suffered him to stand in her presence, to appear in her privy cabinet—nay, to act as though he were a noble appointed of her Council! Had she forgot all the past?
I travelled no further for that time. The time was to come when I should perceive that forgetfulness was all too little to account for her deeds.
That night, Dame Tiffany being appointed to the pallet, it so fell out that Dame Elizabeth, Dame Joan, and I, lay in the antechamber. We had but began to doff ourselves, and Dame Elizabeth was stood afore the mirror, a-combing of her long hair—and rare long hair it was, and of a fine colour (but I must not pursue the same, or Jack shall find in the hair an hare)—when I said to her—
“Dame Elizabeth, pray you tell me, were you in waiting when Sir Roger de Mortimer came to the Queen?”
“Ay,” saith she, and combed away.
“And,” said I, “with what excuse came he?”
“Excuse?” quoth she. “Marry, I heard none at all.”
“None!” I cried, tarrying in the doffing of my subtunic. “Were you not ill angered to behold such a traitor?”
“Dame Cicely,” saith she, slowly pulling the loose hairs forth of the comb, “if you would take pattern by me, and leave troubling yourself touching your neighbours’ doings, you should have fewer griefs to mourn over.”
Could the left sleeve of my subtunic, which I was then a-doffing, have spoke unto me, I am secure he should have ’plained that he met with full rough treatment at my hands.
“Good for you, Dame, an’ you so can!” said I somewhat of a heat. “So long as my neighbours do well, I desire not to mell (meddle) nor make in their matters. But if they do ill—”
“Why, then do I desire it even less,” saith she, “for I were more like to get me into a muddle. Mine own troubles be enough for me, and full too many.”
“Dear heart! had you ever any?” quoth I.
“In very deed, I do ensure you,” saith she, “for this comb hath one of his teeth split, and he doth not only tangle mine hair, but giveth me vile wrenches betimes, when I look not for them. And ’tis but a month gone, at Betesi (Béthizy), that I paid half-a-crown for him. The rogue cheated me, as my name is Bess. I could find in mine heart to give him a talking.”
“Only a talking?” saith Dame Joan, and laughed. “You be happy woman, in good sooth, if your worsest trouble be a comb that hath his teeth split.”
“Do but try him!” quoth Dame Elizabeth, and snorked (twisted, contorted) up her mouth, as the comb that instant moment came to a spot where her hair was louked (fastened) together. “Bless the comb!” saith she, and I guess she meant it but little. “Wala wa! Dame Joan, think you ’tis matter for laughter?”
“More like than greeting,” (weeping), she made answer.
“Verily,” said I, “but I see much worser matter for tears than your comb, Dame Elizabeth. Either the Queen is sore ill-usen of her brother, that such ill companions should be allowed near her, or else—”
Well for me, my lace snapped at that moment, and I ended not the sentence. When I was laid down beside Dame Joan, it came to me like a flash of lightning—“Or else—what?” And at that minute Dame Joan turned her on the pillows, and set her lips to mine ear.
“Dame Cicely,” quoth she, “mine heart misdoubts me it is the ‘or else.’ Pray you, govern your tongue, and use your eyes in time to come. Trust not her in the red bed too much, and her in the green-hung chamber not at all.”
The first was Dame Elizabeth, and the last Dame Isabel de Lapyoun, that lay in a chamber hung with green, with Dame Tiffany. I was secure she meant not the other, but to make certain I whispered the name, and she saith, “She.”
I reckoned it not ill counsel, for mine own thoughts assented thereto, in especial as touched Dame Isabel.
After that day wherein Sir Roger de Mortimer was in the Queen’s cabinet, I trow I kept mine eyes open.
For a few days he came and went: but scarce more than a sennight had passed ere I learned that he had come to dwell in Paris all out; and but little more time was spent when one even, Dame Isabel de Lapyoun came into our chamber as we were about to hie us abed, and saith she, speaking to none in especial, but to all—
“Sir Roger de Mortimer is made of the Prince’s following, and shall as to-morrow take up his abode in the Queen’s hostel.”
“Dear heart!” saith Dame Elizabeth, making pause with one hand all wet, and in the other the napkin whereon she went about to dry it. “Well, no business of mine, trow.”
I could not help to cry, “Ha, chétife!”
Dame Isabel made answer to neither the one nor the other, but marched forth of the door with her nose an inch higher than she came in. She was appointed to the pallet for that night, so we three lay all in our chamber.
“This passeth!” saith Dame Elizabeth, drying of her fingers, calm enough, on the napkin.
“Even as I looked for,” saith Dame Joan, but her voice was not so calm. There was in it a note of grief (a tone of indignation).
“I ne’er trouble me to look for nought,” quoth Dame Elizabeth. “What good, trow? Better to leave folks come and go, as they list, so long as they let (hinder) you not to come and go likewise.”
“I knew not you were one of Cain’s following, Dame Bess.”
“Cain’s following!” saith she, drawing off her fillet. “Who was Cain, trow? Wala wa! but if my fillet be not all tarnished o’ this side. I would things would go right!”
“So would I, and so did not Cain,” Dame Joan makes answer. “Who was he, quotha? Why, he that slew his brother Abel.”
“Oh, some of those old Scripture matters? I wis nought o’ those folks. But what so? I have not slain my brother, nor my sister neither.”
“It looks as though your brother and your sister too might go astray and be lost ere you should soil your fingers and strain your arms a-pulling them forth.”
“Gramercy! Every man for himself!” saith Dame Elizabeth, a-pulling off her hood. “Now, here’s a string come off! Alway my luck! If a body might but bide in peace—”
“And never have no troubles, nor strings come off, nor buttons broke, nor stitches come loose—” adds Dame Joan, a-laughing.
“Right so—man might have a bit of piece of man’s life, then. Why, look you, the string is all chafen, that it is not worth setting on anew; and so much as a yard of red ribbon have I not. I must needs don my hood of green of Louvaine.”
She said it in a voice which might have gone with the direst calamity that could befall.
“Dame Elizabeth de Mohun, you be a full happy woman!”
“What will the woman say next?”
“That somewhat hangeth on what you may next say.”
“Well, what I next say is that I am full ill-used to have in one hour a tarnished fillet and a broken string, and—Saint Lucy love us! here be two of my buttons gone!”
I could thole no longer, and forth brake I in laughter. Dame Joan joined with me, and some ado had we to peace Dame Elizabeth, that was sore grieved by our laughing.
“Will you leave man be?” quoth she. “They be right (real) silver buttons, and not one more have I of this pattern: I ensure you they cost me four shillings the dozen at John Fairhair’s in London (a London goldsmith). I’ll be bound I can never match them without I have them wrought of set purpose. Deary, deary me!”
“Well!” saith Dame Joan, “I may break my heart afore I die, but I count it will not be over buttons.”
“Not o’er your buttons, belike,” saith Dame Elizabeth. “And here, this very day, was Hilda la Vileyne at me, begging and praying me that I would pay her charges for that hood of scarlet wrought with gold and pearls the which I had made last year when I was here with the Queen. Truly, I forgat the same at that time; and now I have not the money to mine hand. But deary me, the pitiful tale she told!—of her mother ill, and her two poor little sisters without meet raiment for winter, and never a bit of food nor fuel in the house—I marvel what maids would be at, to make up such tales!”
“It was not true, trow?”
“True?” saith Dame Elizabeth, pulling off her rings. “It might be true as Damascus steel, for aught I know. But what was that to me? I lacked the money for somewhat that liked me better than to buy fuel for a parcel of common folks like such. They be used to lack comforts, and not I. And I hate to hear such stories, belike. Forsooth, man might as well let down a black curtain over the window on a sunshine day as be plagued with like tales when he would fain be jolly. I sent her off in hot haste, I can tell you.”
“With the money?”
“The saints be about us! Not I.”
“And the little maids may greet them asleep for lack of food?” saith Dame Joan.
“How wis I there be any such? I dare be bound it was all a made-up tale to win payment.”
“You went not to see?”
“I go to see! I! Dame Joan, you be verily—”
“I am verily one for whom Christ our Lord deigned to die on the bitter rood, and so is Hilda la Vileyne. Tell me but where she dwelleth, and I will go to see if the tale be true.”
“Good lack! I carry not folks’ addresses in mine head o’ that fashion. Let be; she shall be here again in a day or twain. She hath granted me little peace these last ten days.”
“And you verily wis not where she dwelleth?”
“I wis nought thereabout, and an’ I did I would never tell you to-night. Dear heart, do hie you abed and sleep in peace, and let other folks do the like! I never harry me with other men’s troubles. Good even!”
And Dame Elizabeth laid her down and happed the coverlet about her, and was fast asleep in a few minutes.
The next even, when we came into hall for supper, was Sir Roger de Mortimer on the dais, looking as though the world belonged to him. Maybe he thought it was soon to do the same; and therein was he not deceived. The first day, he sat in his right place, at the high table, after the knights and barons of France whom the King of France had appointed to the charge of our Queen: but not many days were over ere he crept up above them—and then above the bishops themselves, until at last he sat on the left hand of Queen Isabel, my Lord of Chester being at her right. But this first night he kept his place.
Note 1. Neuilly. Queen Isabelle’s scribe is responsible for the orthography in this and subsequent places.
Note 2. The old Palace of the French Kings, the remaining part of which is now known as the Conciergerie.
Note 3. September 12th.
Note 4. Cakes made with honey. Three pennyworth were served daily at the royal table.
Note 5. Wardrobe Account, 19 Edward the Second, 25/15.
Note 6. Rheims and Soissons. An idea of the difficulties of travelling at that time maybe gathered from the entry of “Guides for the Queen between Paris and Rheims, 18 shillings.”
Note 7. The vessel containing the oil wherewith the Kings of France were anointed, oil and ampulla being fabled to have come from Heaven.
Note 8. 2 pounds 13 shillings 4 pence.—Wardrobe Account, 19 Edward the Second, 25/15.
Note 9. Gee. This is one of the few words in our tongue directly derivable from the ancient Britons.
Note 10. “Avice Serueladi” occurs on the Close Roll for 1308.