And indeed I spy in all this some design. Across half
the earth I came to you, led by a fox. Hey, God's face!" Alain swore;
"the foxes which Samson, that old sinewy captain, loosed among the
corn of heathenry kindled no disputation such as this fox has set
afoot. That was an affair of standing corn and olives spoilt, a bushel
or so of disaster; now poised kingdoms topple on the brink of ruin.
There will be martial argument shortly if you bid me come again."

"I bid you come," said Katharine; and after they had stared at each
other for a long while, he rode away in silence. It was through a dank
and tear-flawed world that she stumbled conventward, while out of the
east the sun came bathed in mists, a watery sun no brighter than a
silver coin.

And for a month the world seemed no less dreary, but about Michaelmas
the Queen-Regent sent for her. At the Hotel de Saint-Pol matters were
much the same. Katharine found her mother in foul-mouthed rage over
the failure of a third attempt to poison the Dauphin of Vienne, as
Queen Isabeau had previously poisoned her two elder sons; I might here
trace out a curious similitude between the Valois and that
dragon-spawned race which Jason very anciently slew at Colchis, since
the world was never at peace so long as any two of them existed. But
King Charles greeted his daughter with ampler deference, esteeming her
to be the wife of Presbyter John, the tyrant of Aethiopia. However,
ingenuity had just suggested card-playing for King Charles' amusement,
and he paid little attention nowadays to any one save his opponent at
this new game.

So the French King chirped his senile jests over the card-table, while
the King of England was besieging the French city of Rouen sedulously
and without mercy. In late autumn an armament from Ireland joined
Henry's forces. The Irish fought naked, it was said, with long knives.
Katharine heard discreditable tales of these Irish, and reflected how
gross are the exaggerations of rumor.

In the year of grace 1419, in January, the burgesses of Rouen, having
consumed their horses, and finding frogs and rats unpalatable, yielded
the town. It was the Queen-Regent who brought the news to Katharine.

"God is asleep," the Queen said; "and while He nods, the Butcher of
Agincourt has stolen our good city of Rouen." She sat down and
breathed heavily. "Never was any poor woman so pestered as I! The
puddings to-day were quite uneatable, as you saw for yourself, and on