Part 14

"I have neither hurt him nor helped him," Simon answered, composedly, "nor, for the matter of that, am I a villain, nor other than an honest soldier; but I can tell you all there is to tell when I know to whom I speak."

The little gilded page stepped a pace forward and addressed Simon sharply.

"It is the Duchess Esclaramonde of Thebes, fellow, who honors you with her speech."

Simon shrugged his shoulders; the woman was a fine piece of flesh were she duchess or no duchess, and his gaze was blatant admiration. The duchess, appraising his bulk, did not resent his possessive gaze.

"Who are you, sir?" she asked, in a voice more amiable, while she motioned to her attendant to rein his zeal.

Simon made her a leg.

"Lady, I am a soldier of fortune voyaging to Athens to seek for service under the bully duke, but your concern is not with me but with his countship yonder."

The Duchess of Thebes looked down again upon the fair sleeping body on the sward.

"How did Sir Rainouart come here?" she demanded, and Simon answered:

"Being foolish enough to overstay sunset near these woods in the reading of silly verses, he was set upon by footpads who thought to kill and strip him, but a girl who lives in these woods scared them away. The rascals took her for a witch, tumbling plump on them from the thicket, and gave leg-bail. It was the devil take the hindermost, I promise you; you would have laughed to see them scamper. The maid tended his wounds, that were little enough save for an ugly clip on the crown, and what should my young gentleman do but fall in love with his sweet nurse and she with him. I think they have plighted their troth, for he has proffered her a ring, and this daughter of the forest bids fair to end her days as Duchess of Athens."

The red blood raged in the woman's face, staining its ivory. "That she shall never be," she said in her heart. "I love this youth, and will not yield him." For, indeed, she had loved him with what Esclaramonde called love, in those painted days in Paris, before in despite she had taken Nemours for her husband, the old Duke of Thebes, who had lately left her an eager widow. What she spoke aloud was:

"A likely tale that Duke Baldwin's son should woo to mate a peasant."

"She is no peasant, I promise you," Simon answered, doggedly. He did not choose to tell what the girl had told him, for he was very far from sure that he believed it himself, and he was very sure, indeed, that no one else would believe it. "She is no peasant, whatever she be. These ears heard him ask her in marriage, and here lies the ring he proffered her."

Simon held out the rosary ring on his brown palm. The duchess's white hand dived at it as a peregrine dives on his prey, and caught it before he could guess or prevent her purpose. He had ever been used to dealing with damsels ready to snatch any trifles they might spy from their chance companions, and, being of a business-like humor in such matters, he made now as if to clutch the ring back again, just as if he were toying with a Corinthian doxy. But the duchess gave a sidelong glance at her escort, and in an instant a dozen swords were naked and aimed at Simon's breast, and Simon, being a sensible man, gave up the idea of further argument or expostulation. The duchess moved nearer to one of the torch-bearers, and in the orange light she looked at the ring covetously, much for its own rich beauty, for she loved all costly toys, and more because it seemed to mean a man's love for another woman, a man's love that should be, might be, hers. For the sanctity of the symbolism of the ring she had no thought at all.

"I will take better care of it," she said, with a queer smile, as she came near again to Simon and the youth at Simon's feet. Her evil wits, shuttles in the loom of deadly sins, were nimbly weaving a web of guile. Rainouart stirred uneasily as she came near, for the sleep that the woodland creatures can give may be molested by the coming of a hostile presence. The duchess looked down into his twitching face.

"See, he begins to wake," she said. "Give place all of you, and keep the tall soldier in ward."

At her command the duchess's people, knights and men-at-arms and torch-bearers, taking Simon, very reluctant, with them, drew away a little distance to the edge of the forest. He could see how, on the high-road eager heads peeped again from between the curtains of the litters of the duchess's women, and he grinned to think how little they could see of the business. But he was heartily wishing himself well out of the whole bother, and was casting about for a means of escape from it.

Meanwhile the Duchess Esclaramonde kneeled down on the grass beside Rainouart, watching him with malign eyes. The ring that she had taken from Simon she placed deliberately on her left hand. Then she drew from her right a ring set with a royal ruby, and, taking Rainouart's limp hand in hers, thrust it onto the finger where the red mark showed her that he had been wont to wear the ring she now wore. At her touch the youth turned his head once or twice like a man who dreams bad dreams, and then opened his eyes heavily. He groped with his arms as if seeking some dear presence.

"Where are you, love?" he asked, faintly.

Instantly Esclaramonde answered him.

"Here, my dear lord," she whispered, passionately, and she bowed her dark head tenderly over him.

Rainouart, his senses hurriedly returning, gazed with wonder into her fair, familiar face, and for an instant deemed himself in France, in Paris, at the court of King Philip. He lifted himself a little on one arm, for he was stronger now with the strength given by deep sleep, and realized that he was in the forest, but that Esclaramonde was bending over him.

"I crave your pardon, lady," he said. "When came you here? I seek another, she who was here but now."

The dark eyes of the duchess swam in the sad waters of anxiety, and well-feigned amazement was painted on her face.

"Of what other do you speak, dear lord?" she asked. "I have been here by your side ever since those villains fell upon you."

Rainouart looked dully at her and overmuttered her words, trying to interpret their meaning.

"You have been by my side?" he asked.

The duchess wound her arms tightly about him and kissed his forehead hotly, and the kiss troubled him, for the woman was very beautiful and his flesh was strange to kisses. Esclaramonde spoke in his ear low and quick.