Part 29 (1/2)
”Call thee by thine own name, my Edward,” said the Emperor, (while he muttered aside--”by Heaven, I have again forgot the name of the barbarian!”)--”by thine own name certainly for the present, but only until we shall devise one more fitted for the trust we repose in thee.
Meantime, look at this scroll, which contains, I think, all the particulars which we have been able to learn of this plot, and give it to these unbelieving women, who will not credit that an Emperor is in danger, till the blades of the conspirators' poniards are clas.h.i.+ng within his ribs.”
Hereward did as he was commanded, and having looked at the scroll, and signified, by bending his head, his acquiescence in its contents, he presented it to Irene, who had not read long, ere, with a countenance so embittered that she had difficulty in pointing out the cause of her displeasure to her daughter, she bade her, with animation, ”Read that-- read that, and judge of the grat.i.tude and affection of thy Caesar!”
The Princess Anna Comnena awoke from a state of profound and overpowering melancholy, and looked at the pa.s.sage pointed out to her, at first with an air of languid curiosity, which presently deepened into the most intense interest. She clutched the scroll as a falcon does his prey, her eye lightened with indignation; and it was with the cry of the bird when in fury that she exclaimed, ”b.l.o.o.d.y-minded, double-hearted traitor! what wouldst thou have? Yes, father,” she said, rising in fury, ”it is no longer the voice of a deceived princess that shall intercede to avert from the traitor Nicephorus the doom he has deserved! Did he think that one born in the purple chamber could be divorced--murdered, perhaps--with the petty formula of the Romans, 'Restore the keys---be no longer my domestic drudge?'[Footnote: The laconic form of the Roman divorce.] Was a daughter of the blood of Comnenus liable to such insults as the meanest of Quirites might bestow on a family housekeeper!”
So saying, she dashed the tears from her eyes, and her countenance, naturally that of beauty and gentleness, became animated with the expression of a fury. Hereward looked at her with a mixture of fear, dislike and compa.s.sion. She again burst forth, for nature having given her considerable abilities, had lent her at the same time an energy of pa.s.sion, far superior in power to the cold ambition of Irene, or the wily, ambidexter, shuffling policy of the Emperor.
”He shall abye it,” said the Princess; ”he shall dearly abye it! False, smiling, cozening traitor!--and for that unfeminine barbarian!
Something of this I guessed, even at that old fool's banqueting-house; and yet if this unworthy Caesar submits his body to the chance of arms, he is less prudent than I have some reason to believe. Think you he will have the madness to brand us with such open neglect, my father?
and will you not invent some mode of ensuring our revenge?”
”Soh!” thought the Emperor, ”this difficulty is over; she will run down hill to her revenge, and will need the snaffle and curb more than the lash. If every jealous dame in Constantinople were to pursue her fury as unrelentingly, our laws should be written, like Draco's, not in ink, but in blood.--Attend to me now,” he said aloud, ”my wife, my daughter, and thou, dear Edward, and you shall learn, and you three only, my mode of navigating the vessel of the state through these shoals.”
”Let us see distinctly,” continued Alexius, ”the means by which they propose to act, and these shall instruct us how to meet them. A certain number of the Varangians are unhappily seduced, under pretence of wrongs, artfully stirred up by their villanous general. A part of them are studiously to be arranged nigh our person--the traitor Ursel, some of them suppose, is dead, but if it were so, his name is sufficient to draw together his old factionaries--I have a means of satisfying them on that point, on which I shall remain silent for the present.--A considerable body of the Immortal Guards have also given way to seduction; they are to be placed to support the handful of treacherous Varangians, who are in the plot to attack our person.--Now. a slight change in the stations of the soldiery, which thou, my faithful Edward --or--a--a--whatever thou art named,--for which thou, I say, shalt have full authority, will derange the plans of the traitors, and place the true men in such position around them as to cut them to pieces with little trouble.”
”And the combat, my lord?” said the Saxon.
”Thou hadst been no true Varangian hadst thou not enquired after that,”
said the Emperor, nodding good-humouredly towards him. ”As to the combat, the Caesar has devised it, and it shall be my care that he shall not retreat from the dangerous part of it. He cannot in honour avoid fighting with this woman, strange as the combat is; and however it ends, the conspiracy will break forth, and as a.s.suredly as it comes against persons prepared, and in arms, shall it be stifled in the blood of the conspirators!”
”My revenge does not require this,” said the Princess; ”and your Imperial honour is also interested that this Countess shall be protected.”
”It is little business of mine,” said the Emperor. ”She comes here with her husband altogether uninvited. He behaves with insolence in my presence, and deserves whatever may be the issue to himself or his lady of their mad adventure. In sooth, I desired little more than to give him a fright with those animals whom their ignorance judged enchanted, and to give his wife a slight alarm about the impetuosity of a Grecian lover, and there my vengeance should have ended. But it may be that his wife may be taken under my protection, now that little revenge is over.”
”And a paltry revenge it was,” said the Empress, ”that you, a man past middle life, and with a wife who might command some attention, should const.i.tute yourself the object of alarm to such a handsome man as Count Robert, and the Amazon his wife.”
”By your favour, dame Irene, no,” said the Emperor. ”I left that part of the proposed comedy to my son-in-law the Caesar.”
But when the poor Emperor had in some measure stopt one floodgate, he effectually opened another, and one which was more formidable. ”The more shame to your Imperial wisdom, my father!” exclaimed the Princess Anna Comnena; ”it is a shame, that with wisdom and a beard like yours, you should be meddling in such indecent follies as admit disturbance into private families, and that family your own daughter's! Who can say that the Caesar Nicephorus Briennius ever looked astray towards another woman than his wife, till the Emperor taught him to do so, and involved him in a web of intrigue and treachery, in which he has endangered the life of his father-in-law?”
”Daughter! daughter! daughter!”--said the Empress; ”daughter of a she- wolf, I think, to goad her parent at such an unhappy time, when all the leisure he has is too little to defend his life!”
”Peace, I pray you, women both, with your senseless clamours,” answered Alexius, ”and let me at least swim for my life undisturbed with your folly. G.o.d knows if I am a man to encourage, I will not say the reality of wrong, but even its mere appearance!”
These words he uttered, crossing himself, with a devout groan. His wife Irene, in the meantime, stept before him, and said, with a bitterness in her looks and accent, which only long-concealed nuptial hatred breaking forth at once could convey,--”Alexius, terminate this affair how it will, you have lived a hypocrite, and thou wilt not fail to die one.” So saying, with an air of n.o.ble indignation, and carrying her daughter along with her, she swept out of the apartment.
The Emperor looked after her in some confusion. He soon, however, recovered his self-possession, and turning to Hereward, with a look of injured majesty, said, ”Ah! my dear Edward,”---for the word had become rooted in his mind, instead of the less euphonic name of Hereward,-- ”thou seest how it is even with the greatest, and that the Emperor, in moments of difficulty, is a subject of misconstruction, as well as the meanest burgess of Constantinople; nevertheless, my trust is so great in thee, Edward, that I would have thee believe, that my daughter, Anna Comnena, is not of the temper of her mother, but rather of my own; honouring, thou mayst see, with religious fidelity, the unworthy ties which I hope soon to break, and a.s.sort her with other fetters of Cupid, which shall be borne more lightly. Edward, my main trust is in thee.
Accident presents us with an opportunity, happy of the happiest, so it be rightly improved, of having all the traitors before us a.s.sembled on one fair field. Think, _then_, on that day, as the Franks say at their tournaments, that fair eyes behold thee. Thou canst not devise a gift within my power, but I will gladly load thee with it.”
”It needs not,” said the Varangian, somewhat coldly; ”my highest ambition is to merit the epitaph upon my tomb, 'Hereward was faithful.'
I am about, however, to demand a proof of your imperial confidence, which, perhaps, you may think a startling one.”
”Indeed!” said the Emperor. ”What, in one word, is thy demand?”
”Permission,” replied Hereward, ”to go to the Duke of Bouillon's encampment, and entreat his presence in the lists, to witness this extraordinary combat.”