The Concordat of Ilkis

 

AMAURY BEFORE THE DUKE    OUR LADY OF CYPRUS      FIORINDA   IN   A   JEWELLED   SHADE  PHILOMMEIDES APHRODITE  HER HIGH PIERIAN FLOWER  THE DUKE PERCEIVES.

 

Duke Barganax, the second night after that battle, sat in an upper chamber above the guard-room in Rumala. Bolt upright he sat, in a great stone chair, back to the wall, greaved and helmed, and in his long-sleeved byrny, every link of which was damascened with silver and gold. Black plumes of the bird of paradise shadowed his helm with their shifting iridescence of green and steel-blue fires. His hands hung relaxed over the arms of the chair. Torn and crumpled papers lay at his feet. A lamp on the table at his left elbow lighted the room but dimly. His face was in shadow, turned from the lamp towards the deep-set open window and its darkness astir with starlight. He did not move at the clatter of Medor's mailed footsteps on the stair nor at his coming in. For a full minute Medor stood before him silent, as if afeared. , 'Is he gone?'

Medor answered, 'I cannot move him. He is most stubborn set to speak with your grace’

Barganax neither spoke nor stirred.

'He will say nought to me,' said Medor: 'nought to any save to your grace alone.'