Dame Alianora wrung her hands. “You go to your death.”
He answered: “That is true. Therefore I am come to bid you farewell.”
The Queen stared at him for a while; on a sudden she broke into a curious fit of deep but tearless sobbing, which bordered upon laughter, too.
“Mon bel esper,” said Osmund Heleigh, gently, “what is there in all this worthy of your sorrow? The man will kill me; granted, for he is my junior by some fifteen years, and is in addition a skilled swordsman. I fail to see that this is lamentable. Back to Longaville I cannot go after recent happenings; there a rope’s end awaits me. Here I must in any event shortly take to the sword, since a beleaguered army has very little need of ink-pots; and shortly I must be slain in some skirmish, dug under the ribs perhaps by a greasy fellow I have never seen. I prefer a clean death at a gentleman’s hands.”
“It is I who bring about your death!” she said. “You gave me gallant service, and I have requited you with death, and it is a great pity.”
“Indeed the debt is on the other side. The trivial services I rendered you were such as any gentleman must render a woman in distress. Naught else have I afforded you, madame, save very anciently a Sestina. Ho, a Sestina! And in return you have given me a Sestina of fairer make,—a Sestina of days, six days of manly common living.” His eyes were fervent.
She kissed him on either cheek. “Farewell, my champion!”
“Ay, your champion. In the twilight of life old Osmund Heleigh rides forth to defend the quarrel of Alianora of Provence. Reign wisely, my Queen, so that hereafter men may not say I was slain in an evil cause. Do not, I pray you, shame my maiden venture at a man’s work.”
“I will not shame you,” the Queen proudly said; and then, with a change of voice: “O my Osmund! My Osmund, you have a folly that is divine, and I lack it.”
He caught her by each wrist, and stood crushing both her hands to his lips, with fierce staring. “Wife of my King! wife of my King!” he babbled; and then put her from him, crying, “I have not failed you! Praise God, I have not failed you!”