Tales of two people

“Where did you find him?” she asked of the officer.

“He came late last night to the southern gate,” the officer answered, “and begged asylum from the anger of King Stanislas.”

“He’s a deserter, then?” she asked, frowning a little.

“He has told us nothing. He would tell his story, he said, to your Highness only.”

“Let him speak,” she said, taking a peacock fan from one of her ladies and half hiding her face behind it.

“Speak, prisoner,” said the officer.

“If I am a prisoner, it is by my own will,” said the stranger; “but I was in such straits that my will had no alternative save to cause me to throw myself on the mercy of your Highness. Yet I am no traitor, and wish naught but good to my lord King Stanislas.”

“Then you had best wish that he shall return to his own city and leave mine alone,” said Runa.

The knights smiled and the ladies tittered. The stranger took no heed of these things, nor, as it seemed, of her Highness’s remark.

“I was high in the King’s confidence,” he said. “He deemed me a wise man, and held that I knew all that was to be known, and that by my aid alone he could discover all that was hidden, and unravel any riddle, however difficult. Through three victorious campaigns I was by his side, and then he brought me to the walls of Or, not doubting that by my valour and counsel he should be enabled to make himself master of the city. I do not boast. I repeat only what the King has many a time said of me, both publicly and when we two were alone.”

“Then one man at least has a good esteem of you,” said Runa. “Indeed, as I think, two.”

Again the ladies tittered and the knights smiled. But the stranger was unmoved.

“Then,” he went on in a smooth equable voice whose rich tones struck pleasantly on their ears and made the ladies sorry for their mocking, “came the day, fatal to me, when your Highness was pleased to send his Majesty a message. For when the King asked me the meaning of your riddle – asked how a man could carry the citadel before he passed the ramparts – I told him to take no heed of it, for it was an idle vaunt. And he believed me and assaulted the ramparts three times in vain. And in vain brave men died. Again came your message, and when the King asked me the meaning of it, I said it was insolent defiance. And he believed me, and assaulted the ramparts three times in vain. And in vain brave men died. Then came the message a third time, and the King demanded of me the meaning of it. But I did not know the meaning, and, lest more men should die, I confessed to him that I could not read the riddle.”

“You learnt wisdom late and at a cost,” said Runa, setting her eyes on him over the top of the peacock fan.

“When I confessed that, he called me a blockhead and, with many hard words, told me plainly that all my credit stood on my reading him that riddle, and reading it, the third time, right; and that if I could not read it, I could never see home again nor my own people, but that my life must end here outside the walls of the city, and end in disgrace and defeat. So the King said to me in his wrath, and in fear of him and of the death he threatened I stole by night from his camp and delivered myself to the officer of your Highness’s watch at the southern gate of the city.”

“What do you want of me?” asked Runa.

“Either the answer to the riddle, that I may carry it back to the King forthwith and have his favour again – ”

“And failing that?” said Runa, smiling.

“Leave to abide here for a while, in the hope that by my own wit I may discover the meaning.”

The knights laughed and murmured scornfully, but the ladies, on whom the stranger’s appearance had made no small impression, sighed sadly, as though it were lamentable to hear a personable brave man ask such foolish things. But Runa sank her head in thought. When she raised her eyes she met those of the stranger fixed full on her. They gleamed blue and keen. A faint flush rose on Runa’s cheek – or was it a red light from the painted window over her head?

“Seven days and seven nights you may abide here,” she said, “but on condition that at the end of that time my officers deliver you to your King again. If by then you have read the riddle, it will be good for the King and for you. But if you have not read it, let it be evil for you as for him – evil unto death. How say you?”

“I accept the condition, and I will abide,” said the stranger.

Runa signed that he should be led forth. “And leave me alone, all of you,” she said.

IV

SEVEN days and seven nights, then, the stranger abode in the city. Every day he held speech with Runa, both in the great hall, with the ladies and the knights, and privately. Much he told her concerning the kingdom and the King, and she showed him all the wealth and power of her city. But when she bade him speak of himself, he would answer, “I am nothing without the King,” and would say no more of himself, so that she was full of wonder about him, and pondered more and more as to who he was and whence he came. And meanwhile the King’s army lay idle in its tents and made no assault on the ramparts.

At last, on the third day, she said to him: “Tell me why the King your master leaves all his great kingdom and makes war on my poor city?”

“The King,” he answered, “makes war that peace may come, and union, and power. In three years he has brought peace to all the kingdom. This city alone is left, a foe set among friends, disobedient among the obedient, a weakness amidst that which is strong. Without the kingdom the city is nothing, and without the city the kingdom is feeble.”

Runa knit her brows and heard him in silence. But after a while she said:

“Had the King sent an embassy to me with these words, it may be that I should have listened. But he sent me only a summons to surrender.”

The next day she sent for him again and said: “If I give up my city and submit myself to the King, what am I then – I who was Runa of Or?”

“You will be high in the King’s counsel and in his love,” he answered.

“I do not covet the King’s love,” said Runa, knitting her brows again.

“You do not know what it is, madam,” he said softly.

On the fifth day she sent for him again, and privately, and said to him:

“If I give up my city and submit myself to the King, and there is peace in the kingdom such as there has not been since the day my father Count Theobald ruled in Or, what will the King do?”

“He will enrich the kingdom, and make it fair and secure it against all foes.”

“And what will you do?” she asked.

“I shall be by the King’s side,” he answered, “if by chance I can give him good counsel.”

“And he will reward you with high honour?”

“All honour is at once mine if I read the riddle,” he replied.

“You have not read it?”

“I seek to read it in your eyes,” he answered boldly, and Runa turned her glance away from him, lest he should read the riddle there.

On the seventh day, in the evening, she sent for him again in secret, unknown to any of her knights or ladies. The great hall in which she sat alone was dimly lighted; only her face, her fair hair, and her rich robe of white gleamed from the gloom. He came and stood before her.

“To-morrow at sunrise,” she said, “I must deliver you to the King your master according to our agreement. What gift do you carry in your hand to turn his wrath into favour?”

“If I do not bear in my hand the keys of the citadel, I bear nothing,” he answered.

There fell a long silence between them, and the great hall was marvellously still. The stranger drew very near to Countess Runa and stood by the arm of her high chair.

“Madam, farewell,” he said.

She looked up at him and murmured softly: “Farewell.”

“Yet we shall meet again.”

“When?” she asked, with lips just parted and eyes that strained to see his face.