PART ONE


PERION
_How Perion, that stalwart was and gay,
Treadeth with sorrow on a holiday,
Since Melicent anon must wed a king:
How in his heart he hath vain love-longing,
For which he putteth life in forfeiture,
And would no longer in such wise endure;
For writhing Perion in Venus' fire
So burneth that he dieth for desire._




1.


_How Perion Was Unmasked_

Perion afterward remembered the two weeks spent at Bellegarde as in
recovery from illness a person might remember some long fever dream
which was all of an intolerable elvish brightness and of incessant
laughter everywhere. They made a deal of him in Count Emmerick's
pleasant home: day by day the outlaw was thrust into relations of mirth
with noblemen, proud ladies, and even with a king; and was all the
while half lightheaded through his singular knowledge as to how
precariously the self-styled Vicomte de Puysange now balanced himself,