Adventure Magazine Cover — page 62: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

52 among the heathen, fighting by the Lord Baldwin’s side. But I can see him as if it were yesterday, when he rode into these streets in Spring with April blooms at his saddle-bow. They called him ‘Phoebus’ in jest, for his face was like the sun. “Willebald, good dull man, was never jealous, and was glad that his wife should be seen in brave company. Ah, the after- noons at the Baths when we sported like sea-nymphs and sang merry ballads! And the proud days of carnival when men and women consorted freely and without guile like the blessed in paradise! Such a tide for lovers. Did I not lead the dance with him at the Burgrave’s festival, the twain of us braver than morning? Sat I not with him in the garden at St. Vaast, his head in my lap, while he sang me virelays of the South? What was Willebald to me or his lean gray wife to him. He made me his queen, me the burgher wife, at the jousting at Courtrai, when the horses squealed like pigs in the mélée and I wept in fear for him. Ah, the lost sweet days! Philip, my darling, you make a brave gentleman, but — you will not equal him who loved your mother.” The Cluniac was a man of the world whom no confidences could scandalize. But he had business of his own to speak of that night, and he thought it wise to break into this mood of reminiscence. “The young lord, Philip, your son, madam? You have great plans for him? What does he at the moment?” ~ The softness went out of the voice, and the woman’s gaze came back to the chamber. “That I know not. Traveling the ways of the world and plucking roadside fruits, for he is no home-bred and womanish strip- ing. Wearing his lusty youth on the maids, I fear. “Nay, I forget. He is about to wed the girl of, Avesnes and is already choosing the bridal train. It seems he loves her. He writes me she has a skin of snow and eyes of vair. I have not seen her. doubtless with a white face and cat’s eyes. But she is of Avesnes, and that blood comes pure from Clovis and there is none prouder in Hainault. He will husband her well, but she will be a clever woman if she tethers to her side a man of my bearing. He will be for the high road and the battle-front.” “A puissant and peaceable knight, I have heard tell,” said the Cluniac. ‘of a mother’s certainty? A green girl,’ Adventure “Puissant beyond.doubt and peaceable— when his will is served. He will play boldly for great things and will win them. Ah, monk! What knows a childless religious ’Twas not for nothing that I found Willebald and changed the cobbles of King’s Lynne for this fat country. It is gold that brings power and the stiffest royal neck must bend to him who has the deep coffers. It is gold and his high hand that will set my Philip by the ° king’s side. " , what a fortune I have made for him! There is coined money at the goldsmith’s and in my cellars and ships at the ports and a hundred busy looms and lands in Hainault and Artois and fair houses in Bruges and Ghent. Boats on the Rhine and many pack-trains between Ant- werp and Venice are his, and a wealth of preciousness lies in his name with the Italian merchants. Likewise there is this dwelling of mine, with plenishing which few kings could buy. “My sands sink in the glass, but as I lie a-bed, I hear the bustle of wains and horses in the streets and the talk of ship- folk and the clatter of my serving-men be- neath, and I know that daily, hourly, more riches flow hither to furnish my son’s king- dom.” The monk’s eyes sparkled at this vision of wealth and he remembered his errand. ““A most noble heritage. But if the Sire God in his inscrutable providence should call your son to His holy side, what pro- vision have you made for so mighty a for- tune? Does your daughter then share?” The face on the pillows became sudde wicked and very old. The eyes were lighte with hate. “Not a bezant of which I have the be- queathing. She has something from Wille- bald, and her dull husband makes a live- lihood. Twill suffice for the female brats, of whom she has brought three into the world to cumber it. By the Gospels, she will lie on the bed she has made. I did not scheme and toil to make gold for such leaden souls.” “But if your most worthy son should die ere he has begot children, have you made no disposition?” The monk’s voice was pointed with anxiety, for was not certainty on this point the object of his journey? The woman perceived it and laughed maliciously. <S) Eomichboo -€O