The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-NayHewlett, Maurice
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The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay
Hewlett, Maurice
Richard I, King of England, 1157-1199 -- Fiction
'And are you man enough, my fellow?' Gilles cast down his eyes.
'I have not been man enough yet, since he still lives. I think I am
now.' Then there was a pause.
'What is your price?' asked Luitpold after this.
Gilles said, 'I have no price'; and the Archduke, 'You suit my humour
exactly.'
* * * * *
Richard, I say, had begun to sing from the day he was sure that the
Archduke had given him up. Physical relief may have had something to do
with that, but moral certainty had more. What made him fume or freeze
was doubt. There was very little room for doubt just now but that his
enemies would prove too many for Austria's scruples. His friends? He was
not aware that he had any friends. Des Barres, Gaston, Auvergne, Milo?
What did they amount to? His sister Joan, his mother, his brothers? Here
he shrugged, knowing his own race too well. He had never heard of the
Angevin who helped any Angevin but himself. Lastly, Jehane. He had lost
her by his own fault and her extreme nobility. Let her go, glorious
among women! He was alone. Odd creature, he began to sing.
Singing like a genius to the broad splash of sunlight on brickwork,
Gilles de Gurdun found him. Richard was sitting on a bench against the
wall, one knee clasped in his hands, his head thrown back, his throat
rippling with the tide of his music. He looked as fresh and gallant a
figure as ever in his life; his beard trimmed sharply, his strong hair
brushed back, his doublet green, his trunks of fine leather, his shoes
of yet finer. The song he was upon was _Li Chastel d' Amors_, which
runs--
Las portas son de parlar
Al eissir e al entrar:
Qui gen non sab razonar,
Defors li ven a estar.
E las claus son de prejar:
Ab cel obron li cortes--
and so on through many verses, made continuous by the fact that the end
of each sixth line forms the rhyme of the next five. Now, Gilles knew
nothing of Southern minstrelsy, and if he had, the pitch he was screwed
to would have shrilled such knowledge out of him. At '_Defors li ven a
estar_,' he came in, and sturdily forward. Richard saw him and put up
his hand: on went the hammered rhymes--
E las claus son de prejar:
Ab cel obron li cortes.
Here was a little break. Gilles, very dark, took a step; up shot
Richard's warning hand--
Dedinz la clauson qu'i es
Son las mazos dels borges . . .
On went the exulting voice after the new rhymes, gayer and yet more gay.
_Li Chastel d'Amors_ has twelve linked verses, and King Richard, wound
up in their music, sang them all. When at last he had stopped, he said,
'Now, Gurdun, what do you want here?'
Gilles came a step or two of his way, and so again a step or two, and so
again, by jerks. When he was so near that it was to be seen what he had
in his right hand, the King got up. Gilles saw that he had light fetters
on his ankles which could not stop his walking. Richard folded his arms.
'Oh, Gurdun,' he said, 'what a fool you are.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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