VI
The Story of the Satraps
"Je suis voix au désert criant
Que chascun soyt rectifiant
La voye de Sauveur; non suis,
Et accomplir je ne le puis."
THE SIXTH NOVEL.—ANNE OF BOHEMIA HAS ONE ONLY
FRIEND, AND BY HIM PLAYS THE FRIEND'S PART; AND
ACHIEVES IN DOING SO THEIR COMMON ANGUISH, AS WELL
AS THE CONFUSION OF STATECRAFT AND THE POULTICING
OF A GREAT DISEASE.
The Story of the Satraps
n the year of grace 1381 (Nicolas begins) was Dame Anne magnificently fetched from remote Bohemia, and at Westminster married to Sire Richard, the second monarch of that name to reign in England. The Queen had presently noted a certain priest who went forbiddingly about her court, where he was accorded a provisional courtesy, and more forbiddingly into many hovels, where day by day a pitiful wreckage of humanity both blessed and hoodwinked him, as he morosely knew, and adored him, as he never knew at all.
Queen Anne made inquiries. This young cleric was amanuensis to the Duke of Gloucester, she was informed, and notoriously a by-blow of the Duke's brother, the dead Lionel of Clarence. She sent for this Edward Maudelain. When he came her first perception was, "How wonderful his likeness to the King!" while the thought's commentary ran, unacknowledged, "Ay, as an eagle resembles a falcon!" For here, to the observant eye, was a more zealous person, already passion-wasted, and ineffably a more dictatorial and stiff-necked being than the lazy and amiable King; also, this Maudelain's face and nose were somewhat too long and high; and the priest was, in a word, the less comely of the pair by a very little, and by an infinity the more kinglike.
"You are my cousin now, messire," she told him, and innocently offered to his lips her own.