XXVIII
LOVER AND LASS
When Simon carried Rainouart senseless out of the slough where his comrades perished, he made as hard as his horse could fare on the way to the Eleusinian wood. While the flying forces of the dead duke kept on the main way to Athens, he sought to strike a trail that would lead him more directly to his goal, and, ignorant though he was of the country in which he found himself, the native sense of a war-worn campaigner, acting like a kind of instinct, guided him aright. But the business was slow, first from the unfamiliarity of the region and next from the fact that the good horse could go at no continuance of a steady pace with two heavy men upon his back. Indeed, when they came to the mountainous places, there was much picking of the way and no little stumbling and sliding in the act. So that it happened that the May daylight was fairly spent before Simon felt confident that he was well within the precincts of the Eleusinian wood, and that the purpose of his journey was so far accomplished.
He had been too much occupied for thought of other matter than escape from danger up to this moment, but now, when so many leagues lay behind him and the bloody swamp, now, when what pursuit must have been was afoot in quite another direction on the heels of the Athenian army, Simon decided that the time had come to rest awhile and to consider the case of the young prince, who still lay inanimate before him. Reining his steed, he dismounted. Then, still holding the bridle of the horse, he lifted Rainouart from the saddle and carried him with little difficulty to a shady place a little way removed from the narrow track they had for some time been following. Here Simon laid the unconscious youth on his back beneath a tree, and tethered the horse to another at a little distance.
Now Simon felt very keenly the wisdom of that provision of wine and victual which he had made before riding from Athens, and which he had the presence of mind to preserve in the midst of all the agony of the murderous slough. Unstopping his flagon, he parted Rainouart's lips with the gentle firmness of a strong, sure hand, and tilted some of the red liquor down his companion's throat. After a little while Rainouart began to show signs of returning consciousness. The color rekindled in his cheeks, his lips began to move to a more easy breathing, and presently he opened his eyes with a sigh, and looked around him with the dazed regard of those that wake from sleep in unfamiliar surroundings. Soon his wandering regard fixed itself on the face of Simon, who was looking steadily at him, and, recognizing a known countenance, Rainouart struggled to a sitting posture and clapped his hands to his humming head.
"What are you staring at me for?" he asked first, fretfully. Then, as he glanced about him and saw the carpet of grass that he lay on and the thicket of trees that encompassed him, he continued in amazement, "Where, in Heaven's name, are we?"
To this question Simon answered, solemnly, "In safety, thanks be to Heaven."
Rainouart, with his wits still wool-gathering, wondered. "Safety from what?" Then, suddenly, memory swooped back into her temple, and the young man sprang to his feet swiftly and advanced upon Simon.
"Where are the rest of us? Where is the duke? Where are my comrades?"
To the which hot questions Simon could do no more than render cold answer.
"I hope their souls are in paradise by now, for, indeed, their bodies are no longer quick, and we are the leave of that fellowship."
Then at first the prince began to storm and ejaculate, being shaken out of his native gravity by his strange case and his imperfect understanding of the matter, but Simon presently told him a plain tale that quenched his heat with tears. Simon showed him how the cause of Athens was lost, how Duke Baldwin and his pride of knights had perished, how Simon had saved his prince and himself from the peril, and how his prince's immediate duty was to the girl he loved, the girl who loved him.
Rainouart was silent a little space as the memory of the morning's business came back to him, and he mused on Simon's words and found them honest. Then he held out his hand to Simon, who clasped it.
"Friend," he said, "I had little cause to love Athens or those that dwelt therein, always excepting Guy de Hainault and Jaufre de Brabant, good knights. As for my sire, I will not speak of him, for he made my mother's life bitter, and it may be that I sinned in thinking thereof bitterly. But God knows I would have died with my fellowship. Yet since it has pleased God to save me, by your strength and your fidelity, from the swamp of slaughter, I am clean of any treason and free to seek for my sweetheart."
"Now this is well," crowed Simon, yet he gulped a groan, too, as he spoke, thinking how he had rescued a youth for whom he cared nothing to pleasure a maid for whom he cared much.
By now it was dark, and though the moon filled the forest with white fire, it seemed vain to search the woodland for Argathona that even. So Simon fished some bread and meat out of his wallet, and with that and the flagon the pair made a journeyman's meal of it, and changed many thoughts. There was little in common between the pair, save that they were both strong men and brave soldiers, but at the end of their parley they knew each other better, and liked each other better, though it may be that there would never be any great love lost between them. But at least the friendship was fond enough to prompt Simon to pluck from his bosom a little book and give it to his companion, who, looking upon it, recognized that very volume of the Romance of the Rose which he had carried with him on the day, so short a while ago, that brought him acquainted with Argathona. Simon told him cheerfully how dishonestly he came by it, and Rainouart did not quarrel with him for that, for though, indeed, he was pleased to get his book of verses again, he had learned since last he looked upon it that there were better things in the world than the reading of verses or the writing of verses.
After a little more discourse, Rainouart and Simon, the night being now upon them, laid them their lengths upon the turf and slept peacefully through the summer night. Simon dreamed that he was back in that place of pleasure at Byzantium, and would have nothing to do with the women-folk there just because he had fallen in love with an old-time image of stone that stood in the garden and that would have nothing to say to his wooing. Rainouart dreamed that he was in the demesnes of my lord Mirth, and that he walked between Love and Venus to the thicket where the noble rose was throned. So they slept, and woke late when the sun was high in heaven, for the aches and pains of the dead day had been of a kind to compel heavy slumber. They broke their fast with a bite of bread apiece and a few drops from the flagon, which Simon husbanded scrupulously till supply came his way. Then, leaving their steed tethered in ease and safety, they proceeded to explore the forest, and when they had made their way to the very core of the woodland they came to the place where Argathona lay asleep in the shade.
Rainouart gave a little cry of joy and Simon choked a moan of despair, for the girl seemed fairer in her sleep than ever to his eyes. He whispered in his companion's ear that he would leave him with his lass and would wander awhile in the woods for his diversion, but he made a tryst with him that he would come back to that same spot in a little time. So Simon left Rainouart to stand by his sleeping love and drifted into the depths of the wood. Rainouart looked down upon Argathona and loved her with all his soul, and by-and-by her eyelids trembled and then opened, and the girl awoke and gazed into her lover's face.
In an instant Argathona sprang to her feet and caught at her lover's extended hands and looked into her lover's adoring eyes.
"My dear," she cried, "you are welcome to the greenwood," and then she fell to laughing and to crying at the same time like a silly girl that is glad and sad in a companionable moment, and to stay her tears Rainouart was quick to kiss her on the lips, though the sound of her laughter was sweeter in his ears than the chime of blessed bells.
For a while of delicious silence they clung together in the sunlight, murmuring each other's names in little broken spells of speech, and fondling each other after the manner of happily met lovers since the dawn of time. But at last, when the sweetness of their first delicate embraces was sufficiently tasted, and the restraint of two pure hearts glided ghostlike between desire and desire, Argathona drew a little way from her lover, and, holding him at arm's-length with her hands upon his shoulders, asked him what sadness he carried. For her clear eyes saw that there was sorrow behind the joy he had in finding her and fondling her, and she would not be denied to know the care that ate upon his heart.
So Rainouart and she sat side by side upon the grass, each with arms about the other, while Rainouart in a hushed voice told her what had come to pass. How the Duchess of Thebes, strengthened by the secession of the Catalan Grand Company, had defied the pride and power of Athens, and how the pride and power of Athens had ridden forth to beat Thebes to reason, and how the pride and power of Athens were swallowed up in the bloody slough. And he told her how he himself was escaped from that slaughter, dwelling little upon his own stubbornness to turn from the shambles planned by the Catalan Grand Company—for it becomes no man to elaborate his devotion to duty—but lauding to the full the courage of Simon that by his courage and purpose had plucked him from destruction and carried him from present death to the depths of the greenwood, which same Simon he told her was now taking his ease somewhere in the skirts of the forest, having quitted his companion as soon as the pair came upon the sleeping girl.
While he told his tale the immortal maiden clung to him close, and trembled at her lover's peril, and revelled in his strength of spirit that would rather have died than come to her dishonored, but she had little grief in her heart for the tragedy of the Athenian gallants. Beautiful evil creatures they had seemed to her in her short sojourn among them, fair as a snake may be named fair, and dangerous as a snake is dangerous.
And "Oh, my love," she whispered, "I was blithe to spy you"; and "Oh, my love," he whispered, "I was blithe to find you." So they prattled and babbled together, strong man and strong maid, and the world seemed very young to Rainouart, for he remembered nothing but the discovery of his love, and the world seemed very old to Argathona, for she knew, and joyed with a fierce, sorrowful joy in the knowledge, that there was little usage of the world left for her.
After a while Rainouart told her of his plans: how a messenger had gone to Avignon to the pope, there to break him free from his marriage, and how, in the meanwhile, he was now minded to make his way swiftly into Peloponnesus, where he hoped to win help at best from the Duke of Corinth, or at worst to take ship for France and the court of Philip the Fair, bearing Argathona with him to be his bride and wife in France.
Argathona listened as he whispered his will, and when he had made an end of his aims she turned to him suddenly and stretched out her arms and cried out to him, "Take me in your embrace, beloved, and kiss me once with all your heart and with all your soul, for never again shall you kiss me as I am now at this hour."
Rainouart, amazed, entreated her meaning, and she answered him sad and simple: "All my life I have lived in a faith strange to you, the faith of us who have lived in the woodlands since the days beyond the dawn, but now I intend to take your faith and to share your worship and to praise your God. So let us rise and go to the home of the holy man, and he will bless me and make me as you are, and all shall be well between us till the time comes when nothing can be well for either of us."
Now Rainouart did not very clearly understand what his sweetheart meant when she said these words, but rather took her to mean that she had been bred in that form of the Christian faith which was practised by the Grecians, and he rejoiced that she was so ready to come from the tents of error and dwell in the serenity of what he held to be the truth. So he kissed his mistress long and lovingly upon the lips with his arms bound about her body, kissing her with all that strength of his clean heart and his clean soul, and she gave him back both kiss and clasp, and as she did so she gave also the good-bye to her deathless life.
Then they rose to leave that place and go towards the hermitage when their purpose was stayed by the sound of running feet through the brushwood, and Simon came upon them, hurrying through the trees. Now Rainouart had forgotten Simon, being all absorbed in his joy at finding Argathona, but Argathona was glad to see him, just because he had saved her lover. They saw that Simon's face was grave, yet not with the gravity of sadness, and when he beheld them he quickened his pace till he came up with them, and when he was up with them he gasped, being breathed from his hurry, "Be happy, lass and lad, you can be married this morning."