He turned, stark and black in the rearward splendor of the moon. “As a prince hast thou power with God,” he calmly said, “and thou hast prevailed. For the King of kings was never obdurate, my dear, to them that have deserved well of Him. So He will attend to my request, and will get us out of this pickle somehow.”
Even as he said this, Philippe the Handsome came into the room, and at the heels of the French King were seven lords, armed cap-à-pie.
The French King was an odd man. Subtly smiling, he came forward through the twilight, with soft, long strides, and he made no outcry at recognition of his sister. “Take the woman away, Victor,” he said, disinterestedly, to de Montespan. Afterward he sat down beside the table and remained silent for a while, intently regarding Sire Edward and the tiny woman who clung to Sire Edward’s arm; and in the flickering gloom of the hut Philippe smiled as an artist may smile who gazes on the perfected work and knows it to be adroit.
“You prefer to remain, my sister?” he said presently. “Hé bien! it happens that to-night I am in a mood for granting almost any favor. A little later and I will attend to your merits.” The fleet disorder of his visage had lapsed again into the meditative smile which was that of Lucifer watching a toasted soul. “And so it ends,” he said, “and England loses to-night the heir that Manuel the Redeemer provided. Conqueror of Scotland, Scourge of France! O unconquerable king! and will the worms of Ermenoueïl, then, pause to-morrow to consider through what a glorious turmoil their dinner came to them?”
“Do you design to murder me?” Sire Edward said.
The French King shrugged. “I design that within this moment my lords shall slay you while I sit here and do not move a finger. Is it not good to be a king, my cousin, and to sit quite still, and to see your bitterest enemy hacked and slain,—and all the while to sit quite still, quite unruffled, as a king should always be? Eh, eh! I never lived until to-night!”
“Now, by Heaven,” said Sire Edward, “I am your kinsman and your guest, I am unarmed—”
Philippe bowed his head. “Undoubtedly,” he assented, “the deed is foul. But I desire Gascony very earnestly, and so long as you live you will never permit me to retain Gascony. Hence it is quite necessary, you conceive, that I murder you. What!” he presently said, “will you not beg for mercy? I had hoped,” the French King added, somewhat wistfully, “that you might be afraid to die, O huge and righteous man! and would entreat me to spare you. To spurn the weeping conqueror of Llewellyn, say ... But these sins which damn one’s soul are in actual performance very tedious affairs; and I begin to grow aweary of the game. Hé bien! now kill this man for me, messieurs.”
The English King strode forward. “Shallow trickster!” Sire Edward thundered. “Am I not afraid? You grimacing baby, do you think to ensnare a lion with such a flimsy rat-trap? Wise persons do not hunt lions with these contraptions: for it is the nature of a rat-trap, fair cousin, to ensnare not the beast which imperiously desires and takes in daylight, but the tinier and the filthier beast that covets meanly and attacks under the cover of darkness—as do you and your seven skulkers!” The man was rather terrible; not a Frenchman within the hut but had drawn back a little.
“Listen!” Sire Edward said, and he came yet farther toward the King of France and shook at him one forefinger; “when you were in your cradle I was leading armies. When you were yet unbreeched I was lord of half Europe. For thirty years I have driven kings before me as did Fierabras. Am I, then, a person to be hoodwinked by the first big-bosomed huzzy that elects to waggle her fat shoulders and to grant an assignation in a forest expressly designed for stabbings? You baby, is the Hammer of the Scots the man to trust for one half moment a Capet? Ill-mannered infant,” the King said, with bitter laughter, “it is now necessary that I summon my attendants and remove you to a nursery which I have prepared in England.” He set the horn to his lips and blew three blasts. There came many armed warriors into the hut, bearing ropes. Here was the entire retinue of the Earl of Aquitaine. Cursing, Sire Philippe sprang upon the English King, and with a dagger smote at the impassive big man’s heart. The blade broke against the mail armor under the tunic. “Have I not told you,” Sire Edward wearily said, “that one may never trust a Capet? Now, messieurs, bind these carrion and convey them whither I have directed you. Nay, but, Roger—” He conversed apart with his son, the Earl of Pevensey, and what Sire Edward commanded was done. The French King and seven lords of France went from that hut trussed like chickens ready for the oven.