dare you rebel against me? Am I
not King of France, and is it not blasphemy for a King of France to be
mocked? Frail moths that flutter about my splendor," he shrieked, in
an unheralded frenzy, "beware of me, beware! for I am omnipotent! I am
King of France, Heaven's regent. At my command the winds go about the
earth, and nightly the stars are kindled for my recreation. Perhaps I
am mightier than God, but I do not remember now. The reason is written
down and lies somewhere under a bench. Now I sail for England. Eia!
eia! I go to ravage England, terrible and merciless. But I must have
my mouse-traps, Goodman Devil, for in England the cats of the
middle-sea wait unfed." He went out of the room, giggling, and in the
corridor began to sing:

"A hundred thousand times good-bye!
I go to seek the Evangelist,
For here all persons cheat and lie ..."

All this while Henry remained immovable, his eyes fixed upon
Katharine. Thus (she meditated) he stood among Frenchmen; he was the
boulder, and they the waters that babbled and fretted about him. But
she turned and met his gaze squarely. She noted now for the first time
how oddly his left eyebrow drooped. Katharine said: "And that is the
king whom you have conquered! Is it not a notable conquest to overcome
so wise a king? to pilfer renown from an idiot? There are cut-throats
in Troyes, rogues doubly damned, who would scorn the action. Now shall
I fetch my mother, sire? the commander of that great army which you
overcame? As the hour is late, she is by this time tipsy, but she will
come. Or perhaps she is with some paid lover, but if this conqueror,
this second Alexander, wills it she will come. O God!" the girl
wailed, on a sudden; "O just and all-seeing God! are not we of Valois
so contemptible that in conquering us it is the victor who is shamed?"

"Flower of the marsh!" he said, and his voice pulsed with tender
cadences--"flower of the marsh! it is not the King of England who now
comes to you, but Alain the harper. Henry Plantagenet God has led
hither by the hand to punish the sins of this realm, and to reign in
it like a true king. Henry Plantagenet will cast out the Valois from
the throne they have defiled, as Darius cast out Belshazzar, for such
is the desire and the intent of God. But to you comes Alain the
harper, not as a conqueror but as a suppliant,--Alain who has loved
you whole-heartedly these two years past, and who now kneels before
you entreating grace."