Sang Camoys: 

  “Et vos, par qui je n’ci onques aie,
  Descendez luit en infer le parfont.”

Dame Alianora shivered.  But she was a capable woman, and so she said:  “I may have made mistakes.  But I am sure I never meant any harm, and I am sure, too, that God will be more sensible about it than are you poets.”

They slept that night in Ousley Meadow, and the next afternoon came safely to Bristol.  You may learn elsewhere with what rejoicing the royal army welcomed the Queen’s arrival, how courage quickened at sight of the generous virago.  In the ebullition Messire Heleigh was submerged, and Dame Alianora saw nothing more of him that day.  Friday there were counsels, requisitions, orders signed, a memorial despatched to Pope Urban, chief of all a letter (this in the Queen’s hand throughout) privily conveyed to the Lady Maude de Mortemer, who shortly afterward contrived Prince Edward’s escape from her husband’s gaolership.  There was much sowing of a seed, in fine, that eventually flowered victory.  There was, however, no sign of Osmund Heleigh, though by Dame Alianora’s order he was sought.

On Saturday at seven in the morning he came to her lodging, in complete armor.  From the open helmet his wrinkled face, showing like a wizened nut in a shell, smiled upon her questionings.

“I go to fight Gui Camoys, madame and Queen.”

Dame Alianora wrung her hands.  “You go to your death.”

He answered:  “That is true.  Therefore I am come to bid you farewell.”

The Queen stared at him for a while; on a sudden she broke into a curious fit of deep but tearless sobbing, which bordered upon laughter, too.

“Mon bel esper,” said Osmund Heleigh, gently, “what is there in all this worthy of your sorrow?  The man will kill me; granted, for he is my junior by some fifteen years, and is in addition a skilled swordsman.  I fail to see that this is lamentable.  Back to Longaville I cannot go after recent happenings; there a rope’s end awaits me.  Here I must in any event shortly take to the sword, since a beleaguered army has very little need of ink-pots; and shortly I must be slain in some skirmish, dug under the ribs perhaps by a greasy fellow I have never seen.  I prefer a clean death at a gentleman’s hands.”

“It is I who bring about your death!” she said.  “You gave me gallant service, and I have requited you with death, and it is a great pity.”

“Indeed the debt is on the other side.  The trivial services I rendered you were such as any gentleman must render a woman in distress.  Naught else have I afforded you, madame, save very anciently a Sestina.  Ho, a Sestina!  And in return you have given me a Sestina of fairer make,—­a Sestina of days, six days of manly common living.”  His eyes were fervent.

She kissed him on either cheek.  “Farewell, my champion!”

“Ay, your champion.  In the twilight of life old Osmund Heleigh rides forth to defend the quarrel of Alianora of Provence.  Reign wisely, my Queen, so that hereafter men may not say I was slain in an evil cause.  Do not, I pray you, shame my maiden venture at a man’s work.”