I. April-magic
When Adhelmar had ended the tale of Dame Venus and the love which she bore the knight Tannhäuser (here one overtakes Nicolas midcourse in narrative), Adhelmar put away the book and sighed. The Demoiselle Mélite laughed a little--her laughter, as I have told you, was high and delicate, with the resonance of thin glass--and demanded the reason of his sudden grief.
"I sigh," he answered, "for sorrow that this Dame Venus is dead."
"Surely," said she, wondering at his glum face, "that is no great matter."
"By Saint Vulfran, yes!" Adhelmar protested; "for the same Lady Venus was the fairest of women, as all learned clerks avow; and she is dead these many years, and now there is no woman left alive so beautiful as she--saving one alone, and she will have none of me. And therefore," he added, very slowly, "I sigh for desire of Dame Venus and for envy of the knight Tannhäuser."
Again Mélite laughed, but she forbore--discreetly enough--to question him concerning the lady who was of equal beauty with Dame Venus.
It was an April morning, and they set in the hedged garden of Puysange. Adhelmar read to her of divers ancient queens and of the love-business wherein each took part, relating the histories of the Lady Heleine and of her sweethearting with Duke Paris, the Emperor of Troy's son, and of the Lady Melior that loved Parthénopex of Blois, and of the Lady Aude, for love of whom Sieur Roland slew the pagan Angoulaffre, and of the Lady Cresseide that betrayed love, and of the Lady Morgaine la Fée, whose Danish lover should yet come from Avalon to save France in her black hour of need. All these he read aloud, suavely, with bland modulations, for he was a man of letters, as letters went in those days. Originally, he had been bred for the Church; but this vocation he had happily forsaken long since, protesting with some show of reason that France at this particular time had a greater need of spears than of aves.
For the rest, Sir Adhelmar de Nointel was known as a valiant knight, who had won glory in the wars with the English. He had lodged for a fortnight at Puysange, of which castle the master, Sire Reinault (son to the late Vicomte Florian) was Adhelmar's cousin: and on the next day Adhelmar proposed to set forth for Paris, where the French King--Jehan the Luckless--was gathering his lieges about him to withstand his kinsman, Edward of England.