The Princess Pourquoi

by Margaret Pollock Sherwood

But the youth shook his head and went forth alone from the presence-chamber; all looked after him, with smiles and jeers and whispered words of scorn.

"'Sdeath!" cried the King. "'Tis a madman fit but for a dungeon, yet, for the sake of my old friend, Guy of Lamont, can I not cast him there."

The lad groped his way unevenly down the marble steps of the palace as one gropes in a path that is full of pitfalls and has suddenly grown dark, and he wandered, not knowing where, through the dark streets, until he found himself in the square before the great cathedral. Here many were passing with hands full of flowers, red roses and tall white lilies and blue blossoms that grow pale among the wheat, for it was the feast day of a saint, and they went to deck the altar which stood within unfinished walls, that men might worship there under the blue sky.

"I will tell them," said the lad; so he stood upon the cathedral steps and repeated all the tale, and blossoms red and blossoms white were dropped at his feet, as men and women clustered about to hear.

"Ay!" they cried out, "we go hungry for this man, but who shall deliver us from him? Horses and armor could we find, perchance. Wilt lead us to him?"

Then of a sudden he smiled, and ceased speaking because of the choking in his throat; but after, he took up the tale and told it in the market-place and before the Palace of Justice and wherever he could gather folk together.

As days passed, all this came to the ears of the King and of the Bishop and of the nobles of the court, and grave head met with grave head, and both were shaken solemnly in conference over this new peril which threatened the kingdom. One morn there went throughout the city a crier, who called aloud and read from a parchment in his hand to let men know that Louis of Lamont, son of Sir Guy, was cast out from Holy Church for slander of one of her greatest sons. Henceforward no man should give him shelter, no woman food or drink, lest they too come under the ban; and should he speak future evil words, his life would be forfeit.

Yet one who loved him—and there were many—hid him; and the next day and the next he wandered in the streets, begging men to rise in vengeance against the Robber Chief. On the third day he was taken by armed men, and the decree went forth that Louis of Lamont should, after three days, be burned at the stake in the square of the Palace of Justice. The youth smiled when he heard his doom; almost he was glad to escape from a world which he had not logic enough to understand.

So the day came when he should die, and it was a Friday of midsummer. In the centre of the square stood an iron post to which criminals were wont to be tied, and to this they bound him. Close about him were heaped fagots of wood and dried branches, and within he stood in a motley garment, and the look upon his face was as the coming of the day. All about was a great press of people, merchant and butcher and cloth-spinner, and peasant folk from the country round; and on a dais, built high for better seeing, were knights and ladies and nobles of the court, with the King himself, and the Gentle Robber at his side, trimly clad in sober gray and gently smiling.

It was a soft day of golden sun, and the sky was blue above the place, and the least wind sighed softly as if for pity as it breathed about the iron stake and played with the yellow locks of the young Squire's hair and moved the red folds of the shameful garment that they had placed upon him. Lifting his face, he leaned his cheek against the wind, for it seemed to him a breeze that had played among the beech leaves in the ancient forest by his father's hall, and in taking leave of it he said farewell to his hound and to the woodland paths and to his father's face.