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Therefore he had striven to force on her his half-brother, who would certainly never unite any inheritance to hers; but he much preferred the purchase of her Hainault lands; and had no compunction in throwing over Boemond, except for a certain lurking desire that the lady's contumacy should be chastised by a lord who would beat her well into subjection.
'Oh, Sir, this would be naught, save that I am all that lies between her the Lady Esclairmonde and Boemond of Burgundy; and as at that moment Bedford saw the gold betrothal ring on the finger, his countenance lost something of the pitying concern it had worn.
The brutal Boemond, the childish Malcolm, had aroused no feeling in her but dislike or pity, and to them a convent was infinitely preferable; but Bedford the religious, manly, brave, unselfish Bedford opened to her the view of all that could content a high-souled woman's heart, backed, moreover, by the wonder of having been the first to touch such a spirit. It would not have been a mesalliance.
At the top of the mountain is a well, from which a man appointed for that purpose directs the water by means of twenty subterranean passages to the houses of the great men of the city. The other part of the city is surrounded by the river. It is a strongly fortified city, and is under the sway of Prince Boemond Poitevin , surnamed le Baube.
Like you the limping Scot better than Boemond? laughed the Dauphiness, her company dignity laid aside for school-girl chatter. 'If you cannot hold out, said Anne, 'the Scot seems a gentle youth; and, at least, you are quit of Boemond. 'Yes, said Marguerite, 'his last prank was too strong for the Duke: quartering a dozen men-at-arms on a sulky Cambrai weaver till he paid him 2000 crowns.
He could not imagine Lilias to have the moral grandeur and force of Esclairmonde. Moreover, she supposed her lover dead, and had not the same motive for guarding her troth. Forlorn and despairing, she might have yielded, and Walter Stewart was, Malcolm verily believed, worse to deal with than even Boemond.
'He had never been consecrated, and had a dispensation. That marriage deprived my poor lady of even her mother's help. All were against her then; and for me too it went ill, for the Duke of Burgundy insisted on my being given to a half-brother of his, one they call Sir Boemond of Burgundy a hard man of blood and revelry.
'Wedlock on the spot to this gentleman, or to Sir Boemond a week hence. Esclairmonde was very white. 'My will shall not consent to a present breach of vow to save a future one, she said, in a scarce audible voice. A sudden thought darted into Malcolm's mind. With colour flooding his face to his very temples, he stepped nearer to her, and said, in a tremulous under-tone, 'Lady, trust me.
'Ha! the runaway jade of Luxemburg! cried Burgundy; 'the most headstrong girl who lives! She dared to plead her foolish vows against my brother Boemond, fled with that other hoyden of Hainault, and now defies me by coming here. I'll have her, and make her over to Boemond to tame her pride, were she in the great Satan's camp instead of King Henry's.
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