32.
Time Gnaws at All
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THEN Emmerick came of age, and Madame Niafer’s rule was over, men said, because the Count would be swayed in all things by his cousin, the Bishop Ayrart of Montors, the same that afterward was Pope.
“The young church rat drives out the old one,” said Coth. “Now limping Niafer must learn to do without a night-light and to sleep without a halo on her pillow.”
But Ayrart’s supremacy was not for long, and Holy Holmendis remained about the court, after all, because, at just this time, lean Holden the Brave appeared at Storisende with a beautiful young gray-eyed stranger whom he introduced as the widow of Elphànor, King of Kings. People felt that for this Radegonde thus to be surviving her husband by more than thirteen centuries was a matter meritorious of explanation, but neither she nor Holden offered any.
The history of the love which had been between Radegonde and Holden is related elsewhere[[2]]: at this time it remained untold. But now, at this love’s ending, Radegonde found favor in the small greedy eyes of Count Emmerick, and she married him, nor was there ever at any season thereafter during the lifetime of Radegonde a question as to what person, howsoever flightily, ruled over Poictesme and Emmerick. And Radegonde—after a very prettily worded but frank proviso as to the divine right of princes, which rendered them and their wives responsible to Heaven directly, and to nobody else, as she felt sure dear Messire Holmendis quite understood,—Radegonde thereafter favored Holmendis and his wonder-working reforms, among the appropriate class of people, because she considered that his halo was distinctly decorative, and that a practicing saint about the court lent it, as she phrased the matter, an air.
[2]. See note upon page 145.
Coth heard of these things; and he nodded his great dome-shaped head complacently enough. “A tree may be judged by its fruit. Now in England Dom Manuel’s long-legged bastard by Queen Alianora has returned his young wife to the nursery. He is to-day, they tell me,—in the approved fashion of all sons,—junketing about foreign courts with the Lord of Bulmer’s daughter. He, in brief, while the Barons steal England from him, is intent upon begetting his own bastards—”
“But you also, my husband—”