Tales of two people

Duc. Your will is my law always. (She turns to descend.) It has been pleasant to come with you.

Marquise. It was – easier – to come with you.

Duc. I am forgiven, Margot?

Marquise. Louis, dear Louis! (He raises her hand to his lips. She goes. He stands bareheaded, facing the scaffold while she suffers. Then he puts his hat on and mounts the scaffold. They carry past him the basket containing her head. A priest holds a crucifix before him. He starts and bows to the priest.)

Duc. I beg your pardon, father, but – I knew the lady very well. She died bravely, eh? Pardon? Think how we have lived as well as how we die? Yes, yes; most just and – er – apposite. Die truly penitent? Ah yes, yes. Forgive me – I’m not master of my time. (He bows and turns to the executioner and his assistants.) Don’t keep me waiting. My desire is to follow Madame la Marquise. What? “The woman died well!” God save us – the woman! Well, as you please. Shall we say – (He places himself beneath the knife.) Shall we say – Margot? Nobody was ever like Margot. (Smiles, then looks up.) Well? Oh, you wait for me. Good! Messieurs, allez!

THE RIDDLE OF COUNTESS RUNA

I

HAVING reduced the rest of his kingdom to obedience in three arduous campaigns, King Stanislas sat himself down with a great army before the strong place of Or, which was held against him by Runa, daughter of Count Theobald the Fierce. For Countess Runa said that since her father had paid neither obedience nor tribute to the King’s father for fifty years, neither would she pay obedience or tribute to the King, nor would she open the city gates to him save at her own time and by her own will. So the King came and enveloped the city on all sides, so that none could pass in or out, and sent his heralds to Countess Runa demanding surrender; in default of which he would storm the ramparts, sack the city, and lay the citadel level with the earth, in such wise that men should not remember the place where it had been.

Sitting on her high chair, beneath the painted window through which the sun struck athwart her fair hair, Runa heard the message.

“Tell the King – for a king he is, though no king of mine – that we are well armed and have knights of fame with us. Tell him that we are provisioned for more months than he shall reign years, and that we will tire him sooner than he can starve us.”

She ceased speaking, and the principal herald, bowing low, asked: “Is that all the message?”

“No, there is more. Tell him that the daughter of Count Theobald the Fierce rules in the city of Or.”

Bowing again, the principal herald asked: “Is that all the message?”

Runa sat silent for a minute. Then she said: “No, there is more. Tell the King that he must carry the citadel before he can pass the ramparts.”

The principal herald frowned, then smiled and said: “But with deference, madam, how can that be? For the citadel is high on a rock, and the city lies round it below, and again round the city lie the ramparts. How, then, shall the King carry the citadel before – ?”

Runa raised her brows in weariness.

“Your speech is as long as your siege will be,” she said. “You are a mouthpiece, Sir Herald, not an interpreter. Begone, and say to the King what I have given you to say.”

So the heralds returned to King Stanislas and gave him Runa’s answer; but the King, in his wrath, listened more to the first part of it than to the last, and assaulted the ramparts fiercely for three days. But Runa’s men rolled his men back with loss and in confusion, for they were in good heart because of the message Runa had sent. “For,” they said, “our Countess has bidden the King perform what is impossible before she will yield the city; and as we trusted Theobald the father, so we trust the daughter Runa.”

After his three assaults had failed, King Stanislas waited in quiet for a month, drawing his cordon yet more closely round the city. Then he sent again to the Countess, saying that he would spend the first half of his reign outside the walls of Or, provided he could spend the second half of it inside the same; yet if she would yield now, she should have his favour and all her wealth; but if she would not yield, she must await starvation and sack and the extremity of his anger. To which summons she answered only: “Tell the King that he must carry the citadel before he can pass the ramparts.” And she would say no more to the heralds.

“A plague on her!” cried Stanislas. “A plague on the woman and her insolent riddles! Of what appearance is she? I have never seen her.”

“As the sun for beauty and the moon for dignity,” said the principal herald, whose occupation naturally bred eloquence.

“Stuff!” said King Stanislas very crossly.

The herald bowed, but with an offended air.

“Does she seem sane?” asked Stanislas.

“Perfectly sane, sire,” answered the herald. “Although, as your Majesty deigns to intimate, the purport of her message is certainly not such as might reasonably be expected from a lady presumably endowed with – ”

“I am ready for the next audience,” said King Stanislas to his Chamberlain.

And after the next audience he sat down and thought. But, as often happens with meaner men, he took nothing by it, except a pain in the head and a temper much the worse. So that he ordered three more assaults on the ramparts of the City of Or, which ended as the first three had; and then sent another summons to Countess Runa, to which she returned the same answer. And for the life of him the King could see in it no meaning save that never in all his life should he pass the ramparts. “Only an army of birds could do what she says!” he declared peevishly. Indeed he was so chagrined and shamed that he would then and there have raised the siege and returned to the capital, had it not been for the unfortunate circumstance that, on leaving it, he had publicly and solemnly vowed never to return, nor to show himself to his lieges there, unless and until he should be master of the City of Or. So there he was, unable to enter either city, and saddled with a great army to feed, winter coming on, and the entire situation, as his Chancellor observed, full of perplexity. On the top of all this, too, there were constant sounds and signs of merriment and plenty within the city, and the Countess’s men, when they had eaten, took to flinging the bones of their meat to the besiegers outside – an action most insulting, however one might be pleased to interpret it.

Meanwhile Countess Runa sat among her ladies and knights, on her high chair under the emblazoned window, with the sun striking athwart her fair hair. Often she smiled; once or twice she sighed. Perhaps she was wondering what King Stanislas would do next – and when he would understand her message.

II

THERE was with King Stanislas’ army a certain friar named Nicholas, a man who was pious, brave, and cheerful, although, in the judgment of some, more given to good-fellowship and conviviality than became his sacred profession. He was a shrewd fellow too, and had a good wit; and for all these qualities Stanislas held him in good will and allowed him some degree of familiarity. Friar Nicholas had heard the Countess Runa’s message, which, indeed, had leaked through the army and been much discussed and canvassed round the camp fires. The friar had listened to all the talk, agreeing with every man in turn, nodding his head wisely, but holding his tongue closely. No man heard him utter any opinion whatsoever as to what Countess Runa meant – supposing her to mean anything save defiance pure and simple.

One night, when the King sat in his tent very moody and sore out of heart with his undertaking, the flap of the tent was lifted, and Friar Nicholas stood there.

“I did not summon you,” said the King.

“David did not summon Nathan,” said Nicholas. “But he came to him.”

“What ewe-lamb is it that I have taken?” Stanislas asked, smiling, for he was glad to be rid of his thoughts and have company. “Let Nathan drink with David,” he added, pushing a flagon of wine towards Nicholas, who, on this invitation, let the flap of the tent fall behind him and came in. “Is the ewe-lamb this one city which of all the realm holds out against me? Is Or the ewe-lamb of Countess Runa?”

“The City of Or is the ewe-lamb,” said Nicholas, after he had drunk.

“But in the first place, O Prophet, I have not taken it – a curse on it! And, in the second, it is mine by right, as by right it was my father’s before me. Why, then, am I to be denounced by my holy Prophet?”

“I do not come to denounce you for having taken it, but to show you how to take it,” answered Nicholas. And he stood there, in the centre of the tent, wrapping his frock close round him. “O King,” said he, “I will put a question to you.”

The King leant back in his chair. “I will listen and answer,” he said.

“Where is the citadel of an army, O King?” asked Nicholas.

“An army has no citadel,” answered the King. “A city has a citadel, a fortress of stone or of brick, set in the middle of it and on high. But an army lies in tents or on the bare ground, moving hither and thither. An army has no citadel, O Prophet! Are you answered?”

“Where is the citadel of an army, O King?” asked Nicholas again.

“An army has no citadel,” replied the King. “A city that is made of brick and of stone has a citadel. But an army is not of brick and stone, but is made and composed only of men, of their flesh and bones, their sinews and muscles, their brains and hearts. An army has no citadel, O Prophet! Are you answered?”

“Where is the citadel of an army, O King?” asked Nicholas for the third time.

Then, seeing that he had a meaning, the King took thought; for many minutes he sat in meditation, while Nicholas stood in the centre of the tent, never moving, with his eyes set on the King’s face.

At last the King answered.

“An army has a citadel,” he said. “The citadel of an army is the stout heart of him who leads it. His heart is its citadel, O Prophet! Are you answered?”

“You have spoken it. I am answered, O King!” said Nicholas, and he turned and went out from the King’s tent.

But the King sprang to his feet with an eager cry. “It is not otherwise with a city!” he cried. “And before I can pass the ramparts of Or, I must carry the citadel!”

III

COUNTESS RUNA sat in her high chair under the emblazoned window of the great hall, with her ladies and knights about her, and one of her officers craved leave to bring a prisoner into her presence. Leave given, the officer presented his charge – a tall and comely young man, standing between two guards, yet bearing himself proudly and with a free man’s carriage of his head. His hair was dark, his eyes blue, his shoulders broad; he was long in the leg and lean in the flank. Runa suffered her eyes to glance at him in approval.