The Fool (Bailey)/Chapter 6

ND so the Queen and the fool fared to the council at Beaugency alone. It was early in spring and the level corn-land freshly green and all the bright air merry with birds' voices, and Bran must needs sing back to them, and the Queen looked grim at him. So, "God have mercy, God have mercy, who would play at being Kings and Queens?" says he. "Na, na, cousin, when the blackbird sings out of the pink apple bloom is it not enough to live?"

"What is in your heart, fool?"

"Out on you for a woman! Who bade man eat of the knowledge of good and evil? Woman Eve. Who bade man look in at his dark heart when he would look out at the bright world? Woman Eleanor."

"So the fool's heart is sad?"

"Who but a fool has a sad heart ever? Is cousin Queen sad? Nenny, her heart is fierce, whiles her heart is wild, but she does not know how to be sad. But the fool, he has left the only man that ever he loved and his heart is black."

"Aye, now we come to it. Why did you choose me, fool?"

"You have said. Queen. Bran is a fool."

And thereafter they rode on some way. Then, "A fool to serve me?" She looked at him. "I love my own folk well."

"What can you give me for what I have given up?"

"Your lord Henry? Tell me, what manner of man is he?"

"He is as cold as you and hot as you. A reckless man and the wisest ever I knew. And withal he hath no foe so dread as himself. Body of me, who is it I tell of, cousin, him or you?"

She laughed. "You are bitter-sweet, Bran. And you love him."

"He was ever a good man to Bran."

And again they rode on some way before she spoke. "And your good man, what was in his mind when he took me out of prison? To make me his, me and my lands?" "God have mercy, God have mercy, will you be judged by what lies in the dark of your mind? I think you will go down to hell, cousin. No, faith, what we do is ill enough to answer. And brother Henry he set you free and free you ride."

"And he might have borne me away at his will." She laughed. "The more fool he."

"Yea, yea," Bran looked at her. "Fools are we all, whatever we do."

"Why then, what is in your mind that you give up your lord to ride with the strange woman?"

He nodded his head till the bells on his cock's comb jingled. "A fool's folly, cousin."

"Whoever believes that you do not. You think us all children, children to Bran the wise."

"Yea, yea. Children to a childless man. And what does he know of a child?"

"Come, man, why are you here at my side?"

"I looked at you. You had need of me. I answered. Oh, body of me, laugh at me now!"

She looked at him, the big head rolling and nodding, the short misshapen body, the huge hands and feet on a little man. But she did not laugh. She put out her hand and touched him.

And in a while they began to talk of what they had to do. It was plain that the Queen was riding upon danger. The last place indeed that King Louis would look for her was upon the road to Beaugency; that she would escape to seek him out and defy him he was not, she swore, capable of thinking. "How should a fish guess that I want air?" said she. But the nearer they came to Beaugency the more folk would be upon the road. They might ride into the King's own train, they might meet some loyal lord who would snap her up for his master.

"And back goes cousin Eleanor to the cupboard," said Bran. "Yea, yea. It is like enough. But you should have thought of that before you cast off my little brother Henry."

"I asked the man to give me a guard."

"And very prettily do you ask, cousin. Like a child which slaps mother to get a pasty."

"Should I kneel to him, fool?" She flicked at Bran with her whip.

"Yea, yea, stiff in the knee are you both. And both be wrong and neither is right, and that is the end of you and your might."

"Never preach to me, sirrah. Name of God, what is to do?" Bran looked at her with his twisted smile. "Aye, ride you back to him and tell him Queen Eleanor is trapped. He will love you for that, your dear lord."

Still Bran looked at her steadily and he said, "Why, cousin, my Queen of you and me, it is Bran the fool I would rather be."

"Oh, I am curst woman!" she cried. "I must ever strike what I love. You are a true man."

"Nenny, nenny. Bran is the world's poor fool. Bran is a tool in your hand. Bran is the shoe on your foot. But Bran will bear you safe, cousin. See, there is Holy Church."

"God's body, would you have me take sanctuary? Man, I must to Beaugency, I must fight Louis for my honour."

"Verily and amen. And there will be churchmen to keep the lists. Lord bishops and lord abbots on the road, a holy company. Join we with them, and they dare not deny you, and under the mantle of the Church safe we come to Beaugency. Jog on, cousin, jog on and warily withal, and mark the mules and the priests."

And so they did, and in a village on the Cosson came upon the cavalcade of the Bishop of Nevers who, good man, was much embarrassed to meet his Queen in such a plight, and yet more to be her escort. But the fool knew his world. The Queen who quarrelled with her King was a sore trial to his lordship, but a woman and a wife who claimed to be heard for the right of her marriage could not be cast off by Holy Church. The bishop promised to bring her before the council, and kept his word, and lest it might be hard to keep he let no man know of her coming.

The little town of Beaugency nestles between two hills above the Loire, and so many folk were in it that March morning that the devil and all his angels, Bran said, would have been nothing regarded. In the hall of the old castle the council gathered, a throng of grey heads and rich robes. And when King Louis had taken his seat the Archbishop of Bordeaux rose from his side and said that their King summoned them that they should give him divorce from Eleanor of Aquitaine, his Queen, "For that he has not confidence in his wife and can never be assured respecting the line that shall spring from her." He stopped, he stood without words. Thrusting through the solemn ranks came a woman, tall and vehement, a woman sombrely cloaked amid the council's splendour, but beyond doubt Eleanor, the Queen. "I claim to speak," she cried, and she swept on and stood before the King.

He would not look at her. He shrank upon himself and his eyes went to this side and that, and he plucked at his knees.

"What have you against me, Louis?" her voice rang out.

He turned as he sat. "It is not seemly, my lord," he laid his hand on the Archbishop's.

"I will be heard," she cried. "What have you against me, Louis?"

He pulled at the Archbishop, but found no help nor prompting, and the Queen took hold of him.

"You know," he mumbled, and shrank away.

"I know well. I am a living woman. That is all my sin. Therefore I was shut up in secret that I should not be heard."

"Ah, how came you here now?" the King panted. "Who brought you?"

"I am here to fight for my honour. Who denies me that? I am the Queen of France, I am a wife whose husband would break her marriage. He has sought to give me to shame unheard. He shall charge me to my face and to his face I will answer. God's body, this thing is not to be done in a corner. Look,"—she flung out her arm, pointing to the King—"judge you between us, my lords." He sat there pale and shrunken, a grey wisp of a man in his robes, and she towered over him passionate, and all the council was murmuring.

"It is your right, lady," the Archbishop said, and the King plucked at him and whispered. "Yet I beg of you, do you claim your right? Be assured no man here will do you wrong."

"I will be assured."

"It were scandal,"—the Archbishop went delicately—"and of very evil example that we debate of ill-living."

"Let him that charges prove or own his lie."

"You deny all?"

"What is charged upon me?"

"You have heard, lady."

"The King says he has not confidence in his wife. The Queen says she has not confidence in her husband. Judge, my lords. He would have hid me that I should not answer him. I come to hear him answer me."

"Oh, oh, a brazen woman!" the King cried out. "What of" but the Archbishop bent over him enveloping him like a cloak. And the Queen laughed. When the Archbishop rose again he was smiling.

"Lady, do you uphold your marriage?"

She stared at him as though she wondered at his insolence, his folly. She gave herself time to think. Then, "God's body, my lord, who would cling to such marriage as mine?" she cried, and again she pointed to the King. "What woman would cleave to a husband who has put such wrong upon her? But in marriage or out of marriage I will have my honour clean."

And the Archbishop still smiled. "It has been said to me that your marriage is no marriage, lady."

"Who said that he said well."

"Since the King and you,"—the Archbishop had more confidence now—"being of cousinhood within the degrees forbidden—may not be man and wife."

"If so it be, let it be so, my lord."

"We will be advised on it." His Grace nodded generally and in particular.

"A chair for the Queen," said she. And advised on it they were, and they sat all day and read the canon law and heard its doctors, and in the twilight declared King and Queen too near akin to marry and the marriage null. So to the great content of peaceful men the wise council of Beaugeney satisfied both Queen and King. "By my faith," said the Queen as she went her way, "I have not seen Louis smile these five years. Thank God, I shall not see it again."