Sang Miguel de Rueda:
"Lord Love, that leads me day by day
Through many a screened and scented way,
Finds to assuage my thirst
No love that may the old love slay,
None sweeter than the first.
"Ah, heart of mine, that beats so fast
As this or that fair maid trips past,
Once and with lesser stir
We spied the heart's-desire, at last,
And turned, and followed her.
"For Love had come that in the spring
When all things woke to blossoming
Was as a child that came
Laughing, and filled with wondering,
Nor knowing his own name—"
"And still I would prefer to think," the big man interrupted, heavily, "that Sicily is not the only allure. I would prefer to think my wife so beautiful— And yet, as I remember her, she was nothing extraordinary."
The page a little tartly said that people might forget a deal within a decade.
For the Prince had quickly fathomed the meaning of the scheme hatched in Castile. "When Manfred is driven out of Sicily they will give the throne to de Gâtinais. He intends to get both a kingdom and a handsome wife by this neat affair. And in reason England must support my uncle against El Sabio. Why, my lad, I ride southward to prevent a war that would convulse half Europe."
"You ride southward in the attempt to rob a miserable woman of her sole chance of happiness," Miguel de Rueda estimated.
"That is undeniable, if she loves this thrifty Prince, as indeed I do not question my wife does. Yet is our happiness here a trivial matter, whereas war is a great disaster. You have not seen—as I have done, my little Miguel—a man viewing his death-wound with a face of stupid wonder?—a man about to die in his lord's quarrel and understanding never a word of it? Or a woman, say—a woman's twisted and naked body, the breasts yet horribly heaving, in the red ashes of some village? or the already dripping hoofs which will presently crush this body? Well, it is to prevent a many such spectacles hereabout that I ride southward."
Miguel de Rueda shuddered. But, "She has her right to happiness," the page stubbornly said.