Part 38

The duke's grim frown grew grimmer. "Why did not my son drink?" he asked.

Argathona answered: "I warned him not to drink, but to make believe, for I wished him to know the worth of the woman he had wedded."

The face of the duke was an ugly sight to see, as he glanced from the slender girl in the boy's garb to the woman who had married his son that day and striven to murder him that night.

"This is a tangled tale," he snarled, "and some here are lying their way to hell at a hand-gallop, but this is no hour and this no mood for judgment."

He pawed at his forehead with his huge hands as he spoke, as if he hoped by physical effort to dispel the sudden troubles of the night. Then he turned to Esclaramonde:

"Lady," he said, "if it be proved that my son has wronged you, you shall have justice, for no man is son of mine who swerves in aught from his knightly fealty, but it may prove that you have slandered my son, in which case I shall deal justice upon you."

The duchess went pale anew at this threat, and those of her following standing near her made speed to ease their swords in their sheaths, seeing which act the partisans of Duke Baldwin did the like defiance. Fernand Ximenes sidled to the duchess and breathed quickly in her ear, "Defy him; I stand by you." And Esclaramonde chose defiance. With a bold and angry countenance she made a step towards the Duke of Athens.

"Baldwin of Athens," she said, haughtily, "I am a sovereign prince even as you are a sovereign prince, and you hold no right of judgment over your peers. I ride hence to-night, I and my people, and from this hour, in the name of my flouted womanhood, Thebes declares war upon Athens."

At this belligerent speech those of her company fell to drawing their swords and calling out "Thebes! Thebes!" furiously, while the huge duke grinned at them like a boar at bay.

"Are you so brave?" he raged--"then I begin the war by making you my prisoner. Count Ernault, your duty." And he looked fiercely at the lord-marshal as who should say, "Take this woman into your custody."

All was now in an uproar. The Theban knights were a line of lifted steel by the side of their lady, crying the name of their city, and behind Duke Baldwin the Athenian nobles shook their swords and hurled back their battle-cry of "Athens" against the "Thebes" of their antagonists. Argathona, standing apart, and for the moment forgotten, watched the turmoil with pitying eyes, and Simon beside her stared indifferent, resting upon his great sword.

To Duke Baldwin the Theban menace seemed meaningless; for he knew very well that the duchess had but a handful of knights and men-at-arms in her service within his city, and that he could crush them all at a blow as easily as dance handy-dandy. And indeed the menace would have been meaningless if the duchess had no more help to rely on to carry her out of Athens than the escort she had brought with her from Thebes. But it seemed that she had much more to rely on, for now beneath the angry arch of lifted blades Fernand Ximenes advanced slowly and addressed the duke.

"Magnificence," he began, blandly, smiling into the astonished face of Baldwin, "surely you wrong your honor if you attempt to restrain the departure of the Theban lady. She is, as she says, a sovereign prince, over whom you can claim no shade of vassalage."

This unexpected intervention amazed Duke Baldwin as much as if a miracle had taken place. Here was a leader of his hirelings, a man of the Catalan Grand Company, presuming to advise him, Baldwin of the Rock. He tried to speak, but the words choked in his throat, and he glared inarticulate at Fernand Ximenes, who went on with his speech in perfect composure.

"By my advice she shall be suffered to go free hence, as she came free hither, and if war ensues between Athens and Thebes thereafter, then may Heaven defend the one that best deserves the defence of Heaven."

As Fernand Ximenes ended his ambiguous speech, Duke Baldwin found his voice.

"You are over ready with unasked-for counsel," he shouted, "but here in Athens I follow my own rede."

"Surely, surely," Ximenes answered, with unchanged tranquillity of face and bearing, "a man can do no more, however big he be, and for my own part, little as I am, I can do no less. But I say my mind and in saying it I say the mind of the Catalan Grand Company."

As he spoke he drew his sword very softly from its scabbard, for all the world as if he were no more than curious to look upon its shining blade, and when it was naked in his hand he employed it to no other purpose than the tracing of imaginary lines upon the floor between him and the duke. But all his comrades of the company that were in the room drew their swords too, and ranged themselves with the fellowship of Esclaramonde of Thebes.

Duke Baldwin saw that he was trapped and baffled. He could not defy Ximenes out of hand, glad as he would have been to do so, for he knew that the games and festals had brought every man of the Catalan Grand Company into the capital, and that to provoke a conflict with their leader just then, however confident he might be of his superior forces and of the inevitable result, would be the very top of foolhardiness, while to start strife now in the crowded palace, where the opponents would be wellnigh man to man, would turn the place into a shambles. He made a great gulp of his discomfiture.

"Friend," he said to Ximenes, with a suddenly commanded dignity that well became his bulk, "you remind me betimes and wisely."

He turned from the enigmatical Spaniard and faced the duchess, paying her a grave salutation.

"Lady, Athens accepts your challenge. Go your way in peace till we meet again in war. Look to the walls of your city, for in a week they will need rebuilding."

He made her another reverence, throttling his choler, but Esclaramonde laughed at his anger and his gravity.

"Thebes has no fear of Athens, great duke," she answered, mockingly. He paid no heed to her, but, turning to Ernault, bade him see that the duchess and her people were suffered to quit the city unopposed. Ernault instantly left the room. The duchess smiled at him as he passed her, but she won no answering smile from his grave face. Esclaramonde made the duke a bow.

"We thank you for your reluctant courtesy," she sneered. Then, turning, she moved slowly from the room with her head high and a triumphant smile, followed by her Theban knights. Fernand Ximenes sheathed his sword, saluted the duke with changeless visage, and followed quietly in her wake. As he passed out his quick eye noted the pale face of one that stood on the fringe of Duke Baldwin's fellowship, gazing eagerly at him, so as without ever showing to attract his attention. The Catalan leader exchanged a glance with Demetrius of Epirus, and knew that Thebes had another adherent in the league against Athens. Ximenes was very well content to understand this, and Demetrius of Epirus was very well content to be understood. And so Ximenes went his way.

There was heavy silence in the room as the Theban party passed out, and the silence brooded over the room for a while as the footsteps of the seceders died away along the passages and down the stairs. Already, below in the great court-yard, could be heard faintly the bustle of men and horses where Count Ernault was taking orders for the departure of the Duchess of Thebes. The knights in the room sheathed their swords and stared into one another's faces, marvelling at these untoward events and the shifts of fortune. As for Duke Baldwin, he stood quite still for a little, stupid with fury to be thus bearded and deceived. But presently he remembered another enemy, and turned fiercely to Argathona as to one on whom he could safely ease his spleen.

"As for you," he shouted, "you woman out of a wood, who claim to love my son and to be loved by him, it seems very sure that you have by some manner of sorcery bewitched the boy, and to practise sorcery is to covet death in Athens. Wherefore I shall this now clap you into prison, and to-morrow will hand you over to Mother-Church, who will know best how to deal with a witch."