By an odd chance Camoys had lighted on that song made
by Thibaut of Champagne, beginning _Signor, saciez, ki or ne s'en ira_,
which denounces all half-hearted servitors of Heaven; and this he sang
with a lilt gayer than his matter countenanced. Faintly there now came
to Osmund and the Queen the sound of Camoys' singing, and they found it,
in the circumstances, ominously apt.
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.
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