Chapitre 15. Henri Poitiers

The curtain rose, as is habitual, on a house that was almost empty, in keeping with the hobbites’

fachon of never arriving at a spectacle before it has begun: it results that the first act is

spent, not in watching or listening to the performance, but in observing the other spectators as

they arrive.


As the overture to Henri Poitiers, the most celebrated masterpiece of Cosimo Meyerbolger,

concluded, Réginard was telling Château-Renard a funny story about his unconscionably rotund Aunt

Lalie, when he suddenly noticed the Countess G, that charming Vinyetian noblewoman he and

Arafrantz had met in Lottaloria.  She greeted him with a smile.


“You know her?” inquired Château-Renard.


“Yes,” said Réginard.  “Arafrantz introduced me to her.”


“Quiet!” yelled the public, who were straining their ears to hear the can-can of the Chapeau

sortant.  The young people continued their conversation, blissfully unaware.


“She was at the races,” said the foxy aristocrat.  “Something extraordinary happened; the race

was won by a horse and jockey who were completely unknown.  I in vain to cry, Go, White

Rabbit!: I lost twenty chicken-coops.”


“How?”


“Quiet, then!” cried the public, waving their umbrellas with irritation.


“No one had noticed a jockey named Camoul le Sage, dressed entirely in black and wearing a

remarkable ring, nor a horse named Jacques-Louis …” said Château-Renard.


“Silence!” roared the crowd.  This time, the viscount and Château-Renard finally noticed that it

was them the public was addressing.  They glared at the crowd to see who was responsible for this

impertinence worthy of the orcs; but no one stepped forward.


“And what did that Pengolot of journalists, Boyen-Xènes-Baguines, have to say about the affair?”

resumed Réginard.


The fox swished his tail with amusement. “He said: Not by the hand of man shall this new

silmaril of the equestrian world fall.  Then he continued his invective against De Brie’s

tobacco.”


“Unjust fate!” cried one of the singers.


At this moment, the Baroness Sacqueville-Danglars arrove with her daughter, Éowénie, and her

amant, Lothien de Brie.  The baroness greeted Réginard with her genuine faux-dwargue fan; as for

Éowénie, it was at pain that her eyes deigned to lower themselves to the level of Réginard’s

loge.


“In verity,” said Baron Château-Renard, “I do not see what, apart from the mésalliance,

prejudices you against Mlle. de Sacqueville-Danglars; she is in verity a very beautiful person.”


“She is far too much a cold shield-maiden of Rohan for my tastes, and her hand is ungentle.  And

I find horned helmets on the heads of women to be a disgusting affectation.”


“You young people are never content!” said Château-Renard, who, in his quality as a fox of thirty

years, gave himself paternal airs in Réginard’s regard.  “A huntress along the model of Éorache

does not suffice for you!”


“I would prefer the model of Luthienne, or even the chanteuse for whom Trolquien fell from grace,

Édith Piaff.  Durst I approach Éorache, I should fear to suffer the fate of Faralaxe and have my

rival step on my foot.”


Indeed, a glance at the young lady in question could almost explain the sentiment just avowed by

Pérégrin: she was beautiful, yes, but with a certain glacial quality that even her rumoured

Forodois descent could not justify.  Admittedly her face was very fair, and her hair had been

compared by Malbet to a river of gold befitting the rivers of gold possessed by her father; but a

trifle harsh she seemed, as uncoquettish as stainless steal, a daughter certainly of baronesses,

and, one hoped, although the domestic life of Sacqueville-Danglars was unpropitious, of bankers.  

She was fair, fair and cold, like a sparsely attended soirée of pale spring before the onslaught

of the fashionable season.


As for her accomplishments, if any fault could be found with them, it was that, like her

physiognomy, they belonged a bit to the other sex.  Indeed, she spoke two or three languages,

drew with facility, was an avid fencer, and showed extraordinary aptitude in the equestrian arts.

 In her spare time, she wrote verses and composed music, being particularly impassioned of this

last art, which she studied with a young lady named Célesbienne d’Affadondilly, without fortune,

but with every possible disposition to become an excellent singer.


At intermission, Réginard and Château-Renard left their loge. Mme. de Sacqueville-Danglars made

ready to present Réginard to her daughter, but the latter shook her head – quite rightly, as it

happened, for he and the fox made their way to the loge of the Countess G. After she and the two

friends had cordially greeted each other, Château-Renard mentioned that he had seen the Countess

at the races.


“It was really an extraordinary affair,” said the Countess.  “Imagine that I felt such a lively

sympathy for the sudronique horse and the invisible rider in black that, when they arrived at the

finish line far ahead of the rest of the pack, I applauded like a madwoman.  And imagine my

astonishment when the diaphanous jockey appeared – or at any rate, his clothes did – on my

doorstep, and handed me the mithrile cup of Coulaïde, with a small card on which was written,

For the Countess. G… Jared Hasselhoff, devoted vampire.”


“Ah, that’s it precisely: the vampire of the opera in Galadrona,” said Réginard


“But why did he send the cup to me?”


“Firstly, madame la comtesse, because I have spoken much of you to him, and secondly, because the

G that begins your name also begins gallant in our tongue.”


“And what impression has his arrival made in Annuminas?” said the Countess, slightly changing the

subject.


“His coming was like an avalanche in the mountains, like a strong west wind that shook the boughs

of the bien pensants,” said Réginard. "Then, after a week, gossip returned to the fidelity of

Angélique Coton and the theft of the Viscountess de Braceguirdelle’s faux-diamond snuff-box that

was said to be made by one of her troll-paramours, and no one has spoken of anything else.”


“Do not believe what Réginard tells you, madame,” said Château-Renard.  “Au contraire, there has

been nothing discussed even in the most blasé salons but the deeds of the Count of Monte Fato.  

He began by sending Mme. de Sacqueville-Danglars the moumaques; then he saved the life of Mme. de

Villefaramir; then he won the prize at the Harfout-Club; I daresay he’ll be relighting the Two

Cheeses for a plaisanterie next Tuesday.”


At this moment, the bell rang, and the Countess G returned to her loge, begging the two friends

to visit her on Saturday evening for the smoke-ring contest.


As they left the loge and fended off the umbrellas of the disgruntled mélomanes whom their

discourse had annoyed, they beheld a sight that made even the public forget its wrath.  A man

dressed in black appeared, emanating an aura of debonair malignancy, a great black shape that

loomed against the atrium’s candelabra, grown to a vast menace of hauteur.  On his arm entered a

female arachnid of extraordinary beauty, who became the centre of attention of the entire house;

the women leaned out of their loges to see the shimmering lights of the hall reflected from the

jewels that covered her every limb.


The second act passed in the midst of this constant rumor, and none thought to cry for silence.  

The singers themselves sang rather of the necklace of Shélobe than of the unrequited love of a

giant for a dragon-lady.  When intermission arrived, Mme. de Sacqueville-Danglars indicated

clearly that she expected Réginard to visit her loge; and the latter was not so rude as to

refuse. He bowed to Mme. and Mlle. de Sacqueville-Danglars and shook hands with De Brie.  (Château-Renard

was meanwhile visiting the loge of Mme. de Cloucque and her claque of cuckolds.)


“Ma foi, you have arrived in the nick of time, as when Aragon II saved Mina Tiretta from becoming

the kebab of the Haradrins,” said De Brie.  “Voici madame who besieges me with questions about

the Count of Monte Fato; ma foi, I’m not that celebrated solver of riddles who went by the name

of Golliostro, so I said: Ask the Viscount de Pérégrin, he knows the Count to the tip of his

foot-hair.”


“How did he become so extraordinarily wealthy?” said the baroness.  ‘He has an unlimited credit

with my husband, and they say he keeps an entire hill full of tunnels packed with chests of gold

and silver, and jewels.  He will have found some mine in Morie and formed a joint-stock company

with the Balrogue.”


“I would marvel little if he were the heir of Eslitérin,” put in De Brie. “And the beautiful

woman who accompanies him is reportedly his slave.”


“You must agree,” said the baroness, “that she seems rather a queen.  Indeed, the gems with which

she is covered must be worth many banks.”


“She even has too many diamonds,” said Éowénie.  “She would be fairer without them, for her neck

and wrists are more exquisite than those of the Luthienne de Ménégrot that some of the ignorant

say was a dwarvish forgery.”


“Oh, the artist!” said Mme. de Sacqueville-Danglars.  “You see how impassioned she is.”


“I admire all that is fair in Terre-moyenne,” said Mlle. de Sacqueville-Danglars.


“What do you say of the Count, then?” said de Brie.  “I for one envy his ability to make women

faint with a wave of his beringed hand or a glance of his red eye.”


“The Count?” said Éowénie, as though the thought of looking at him had not occurred to her. ”The

Count … he is male, I mean, pale.”


“You should bring the Count here,” said the baroness to Pérégrin after an awkward silence.


“To what purpose?” said Éowénie.


“He will doubtless come of his own accord,” said Réginard. “He has seen you, madame, and is

greeting you.”


And indeed, the Count was not long in making his appearance, for the Viscount de Pérégrin almost

ran into him en route to his loge.  “In verity,” said he, “Annuminas is a strange town, and its

inhabitants are stranger yet.  One would think it the first time they had seen a spider.  And the

way everyone admires my Ring is bizarre in the extreme.”


“They only marvel at it because it is yours,” said Réginard.


“And who has obtained for me this favour?” inquired Monte Fato.


“Pableu! You yourself,” replied the viscount.  “You give away silmarils; you heal the wife of the

steuard du roi; you send your chevaliers to win the races and give the prize to the Countess G…”


“Who has told you all these novellas of Brie?”


“The first, Mme. de Sacqueville-Danglars; the second, the newspaper of Boyen-Xènes-Baguines; the

third, my own reasoning.  Why send the Countess the prize in the name of Hasselhoff, if you

wished to maintain your incognito?”


“Ah, that’s true, it was an imprudence,” said the Count.  “We cannot trust our own hands in

dealing with the fair sex … But tell me, the charming young person in the baroness’s loge is her

daughter? I congratulate you on your fiancée.”


“We will speak of that later.  What do you think of the music?”


“I say that it is very beautiful for music composed and sung by human beings, those large ugly

bags that contain, for the most part, water, as Camoul described them in his Voyage to the

Stars: The Next Generation.  When I wish to hear marvellous music – a music, viscount, such as

mortal ear never heard – I sleep.”


“Sleep, my dear Count, sleep; the Théâtre-Hobbites has been invented for no other purpose.”


“Oh! Monsieur le comte!” cried Mme. de Sacqueville-Danglars from her loge. “Come, for I am in

haste to make my thanks in person, as I have already in writing.”


“Oh madame!” said the Count, entering her loge with Réginard.  “You still remember that

bagatelle?  I for my part had completely forgotten it.”


“So Gandault said, when he had returned to life with a miraculously improved sense of fashion,”

observed the baroness.  “But allow me to present my daughter Éowénie, shield-maiden of the salon.

Éowénie, this is the Count of Monte Fato.”


The Count bowed; Mlle. de Sacqueville-Danglars made a slight movement of the head.  “You are with

a beautiful person, monsieur le comte,” she said.  “Is she your daughter?”


“Non, mademoiselle,” said Monte Fato, astonished at the young lady’s temerity.  “She is a spider

of whom I am the guardian.”


At this moment, the Count de Pérégrin appeared, without that anyone much noticed, and thanked

Monte Fato yet again for saving Réginard from Vanya the vanditto.


“Tell me, monsieur le comte de Pérégrin,” said Mme. de Sacqueville-Danglars, “whether you have

seen at the court of Ala-Pallando of Quirithe-Oungallant, whom you served so gloriously, a

costume to excel that before our eyes; not even Galadriella herself sewed the like.”


“Where?” stammered Pérégrin.


“Look!” said Monte Fato, taking the other count by the arm and leaning out of the loge.  At that

moment, Shélobe saw the Count standing next to Pérégrin, and uttered a cry of horror that pierced

the heart with poisonous despair; no hobbite, or at least none employed by the Opéra, has such a

voice.  The Count of Monte Fato made his excuses and returned to his loge. “Vith whom verre you

sszpeahking juszzt now, lorrrd?” asked Shélobe anxiously, when he had arrived.


“With the Count de Pérégrin, who was in the service of your illustrious father, and who avows

that he owes him his fortune.”


“Ze wretch!” cried Shélobe.  “It is he who szold heem to ze Szultan of Minas-Morgoule, andt heezs

fvorrtune vazs ze prrice for heesz trreeeason.  Deed you not know zzat, my dearrr lorrrd?”


“I’d heard a few words about the story in Ithiliande,” said the Count.  “But I do not know the

details.  Come, my spider, you will tell them to me.” And he and Shélobe left the hall.


“What a singular man the Count is!” said the Countess G to Réginard as they watched Monte Fato

leave with his lady.  “He sits through the entire second act, and leaves just in time for the

ballet de Quidiche!”


“He will also miss the chorus of the démenteurs, Ve vant to sahck your blahd, and Malefoi’s

aria, Je suis un jerc total,” observed Château-Renard, as he returned to bring Réginard back to

their loge.  Ironically, the young people discussed the Count’s bizarreries so loudly, that they

too missed these glorious demonstrations of the art of Meyerbolger.


~~~


A few days later, Réginard de Pérégrin and Monsieur De Brie came to visit the Count at his palace

on the Champs-Valinorées.


“The marriage between yourself and Mlle. de Sacqueville-Danglars is still moving forward, then?”

inquired the Count.


Réginard nodded.  “It’s a settled affair,” added Lothien, who, judging no doubt that these few

words dispensed him from the obligation to take any further part in the conversation, set himself

to a minute examination of the paintings, coats-of-arms, and elven lembas-statuettes that adorned

the chamber.


“I had not thought it would be resolved so easily,” said the Count.


“What do you expect?” said Réginard.  “My father and M. de Sacqueville-Danglars have served in

Boucquelande, my father in the army and the baron in trade.  It is there that my father, ruined

by the fall of Aragon XIX, and Sacqueville-Danglars, who had never had a noble inheritance

(indeed, I’ve been told that his friends in the country club call him “descendant of rats” behind

his back), have laid the foundations, my father for his military and political career, and M. de

Sacqueville-Danglars, for his financial career. The party newspapers, indeed, call my father the

new Ar-Pharazon, and compare the business acumen of Sacqueville-Danglars to that of Saroumand.”


“And Éowénie is quite pretty, and the way she twirls her spear is quite ravishing,” said the

Count.


“Very pretty, or rather very beautiful,” replied Réginard.  “But of a beauty that I do not

appreciate.  I am no Arroroute, to ecstasise at the beevish heft and leather boots of a modern

Éorache.  And she eats far too much sauerkraut.”


“Do you know,” said Monte Fato, lowering his voice, although Lothien was busily contemplating the

Iron Crown of Morgot, wherewith Luthienne frolicked in the Elder Days when the balls were far

less civilised and well-attended than in the Third Age, “you do not seem too enthusiastic about

this marriage!”


“I feel a certain embarrassment in wedding one whose horned helmet is worth more than my entire

fortune,” said Réginard.


“Fortune isn’t everything, even in Annuminas,” said the Count.  “A fine name or a high social

rank also count for something.  And the Count de Pérégrin is a soldier; one loves to see the

integrity of a Vermilangue allied to the poverty of a Turin.”


“There is something else,” said Réginard.  “Both I and my mother find her repugnant.  My mother,

indeed, has I know not what prejudice against the Sacqueville-Danglars.”


“Mme. la comtesse, who is aristocratic finesse itself, will hesitate at touching the hand of a

parvenu grown rich from the pipe-weed trade; it is entirely natural.”


“I don’t know if it’s that,” said Réginard.  “All I know is that this alliance will make her

unhappy.  We were supposed to settle affairs six weeks ago, but I suffered an appalling attack of

Black Breath …”


“Real?” said the Count with a smile.


“Oh, certainly,” replied Réginard with a laugh.  “Fear, no doubt. 25 Soûlimôse, the date on which

the Aragonnists prevailed over Sharcoléon, has been chosen for the date, which gives us one week

before we must carry out the deed.  It would too great a disappointment for my father if I didn’t

marry her.”


“Then marry her,” said the Count with a singular movement of the shoulders.


“But for my mother, it would cause not disappointment, but pain. To spare my mother this pain,

and myself the pain of marrying a woman with far too large a quantity of testosterone in her

veins, I will risk quarrelling with the Count de Pérégrin instead.  You will counsel me, no?”


The Count seemed moved; then he turned to De Brie, who was seated some distance away, in a deep

armchair, with a pencil in one hand and a pad in the other, and said, “Eh! What are you doing

there, a sketch in the manner of the author of the Pictionnaire classique?”


“Oh oui, bien, a sketch! I love too much the art of painting for that.  I am doing the opposite

of sketching, I am engaged in financial accounting. This concern you directly, viscount; I am

calculating what the Sacqueville-Danglars house gained on the last increase in Ouestmarchais real

estate.  The prudent banker must have gained three hundred thousand aragons de mithril in one

day.”


“Ah morgot! Sacqueville-Danglars plays to win or lose three hundred thousand aragons in a day!”

exclaimed Monte Fato.  “Ah çà! but he is enormously rich?”


“It is not he who plays, but the baroness,” cried Lothien vivaciously.  “She is veritably

intrepid.  More than once she has gambled an entire tobacco plantation for a set of mithrile

spoons.  On one such occasion, Boyen-Xènes-Baguines was so shocked at her casual attitude towards

her tobacco plantations that he fainted and was a day late in reporting the news.”


“You, who are reasonable, and know the news, since you are at the source, could restrain her,”

said the viscount de Pérégrin.


“I do not understand,” stammered De Brie.


“It is, however, limpid,” said Réginard with a naïveté that had nothing of affectation.  

“Announce to her one bright day something unheard of, such as that trees have been found walking

into a cigar store and ordering a yavanna, or that Teleporno has said something intelligent, or

that Poste Royale has ceased to deliver spam.  She will bet on the Bourse des Trolles that trees

have been buying yavannas; the next day, Boyen-Xènes-Baguines will report that, although the

ill-informed have claimed that trees bought yavannas, no such thing has happened, nor could it,

since anyone remotely familiar with their tobacco knows that tree-bark and yavannas never go

together, for the few trees who smoke smoke hashberry.”


“And inferior hashberry at that,” murmured the Count.


Lothien laughed; but Monte Fato’s piercing Eye had read a secret embarrassment in the secretary’s

face.  As a result of this embarrassment, which had completely escaped the notice of Réginard,

Lothien cut short his visit.


“Do you not think you are wrong to speak thus of your mother-in-law before the interior

secretary?” said the Count.


“I beg of you, do not call her that.  My mother is so opposed to the marriage,, that she has not

been to Sacqueville-Danglars’s mansion but twice in her life, and one of those times she was

being chased by a mob of lost démenteurs who had lent my father some money.”


“Alors,” said Monte Fato, “I am emboldened to speak openly.  M. de Sacqueville-Danglars is my

banker; M. de Villefaramir has covered me with a thousand courtesies because of a favour I was in

a position to render.  My Eye, which nothing escapes, perceived in the future, as clearly as in

the waters of Quélède-Zarâme or in the writings of Faquieu, a Charadras of dinners and soirées.  

Now, in order not to appear like Thorin, who used the aid of others to obtain a treasure whereof

he then begrudged them the smallest centime, and in accordance with the old proverb that says,

Blow pipe-weed smoke into your neighbour’s face before your neighbour blows it in yours, I’ve

projected inviting the Sacqueville-Danglars and de Villefaramirs to my abode in Barroue-Don.  

Now, if I invite you and the Count and Countess de Pérégrin, won’t the rendezvous look a little

too like an engagement feast, especially if the baron honors me by bringing his martial daughter?

 Then your mother will have me in a horror greater than any ill-prepared food of shirriferies.”


“Ma foi, Count, I thank you for your frankness and accept the exclusion you propose.  You are

already marvellously in good odor with the Countess de Pérégrin, and now you will be even more in

her favour, than Oncle André was with Jadis-Joppelin after the latter conquered the known world

with the aid of Oncle André’s brandy.”


“You think so?” said Monte Fato.


“I am certain.  After you left us, we talked about you for an hour afterwards.  It is true that

my father will be furious.”


The Count laughed.  “I fear it is not only the Count de Pérégrin who will be enraged; M. and Mme.

de Sacqueville-Danglars will see me of very bad fashion, and I will be as welcome among them as a

frost in spring or a spammeur.  For they know you are my oldest acquaintance in Arnor, and they

will ask why I have not invited you.  Think at least to furnish yourself with a prior engagement,

such as that you were romping in Magot’s mushroom field again, or that you had affairs to settle

with a mysterious chevalier dressed entirely in black and possessing the odd habit of constantly

sniffing.”


“I will do better than that, monsieur le comte,” said Réginard.  “My mother wishes to breathe the

air of the sea; ever since your arrival, the sea-longing has afflicted her more strongly than

ever. Deep in the hearts of her side of the family lies the nostalgie de la mer, which it is

perilous to stir.  No peace, she often says, will I have in salon or boudoir again.  My

father, on the other hand, cannot endure the sea, and even sea-food is abhorrent to him…  On what

day is fixed your dinner?”


“On Saturday, the 22 Yavannidor.”


“Bien, it is now Tuesday … we leave tomorrow, and the next day we will be in Le Havre-Gris.  Do

you know, monsieur le comte, you are a charming man to put people at their ease, whether through

your manners or your jewellery.  When did you issue your invitations?”


“I had my Fantômes send the letters by postal owl today.”


“Bien, I shall run to M. de Sacqueville-Danglars and announce that we are leaving Annuminas

tomorrow.  I didn’t see you (and for some odd reason I cannot see you at the moment, in any

case), and know nothing of your dinner.”


“And M. de Brie who was with you earlier? No, you will simply and naïvely say that I have invited

you, but you regretfully declined the invitation because of your voyage to Le Havre-Gris.”


“Eh bien, voilà what is settled.”


“Not quite,” said Monte Fato with a smile.  “I also have in mind a marriage project of my own.  A

young scion of the Gondorian nobility and son of the chastellain of Castel Gandolfo, Andurillo

Pseudonimo, has been entrusted to my care; his father is adamant that the young man should wed

one of the wealthier families of Arnor, and would accept no bride less than the heiress of the

Banks of Gondor and Arnor.  The Sacqueville-Danglars fill the requirements marvellously: to

Castel Gandolfo such a victory would bring great wealth, and to the Sacqueville-Danglars both

cachet and hitmen. Indeed, I had in mind to invite Andurillo to my rustic soirée.”


“Thank you, my dear Count; you are gracious to me beyond any politesses of the Kings of Old, and

my pipe floweth over, which the Wise say is an appalling waste of tobacco. À propos, I have

received news from Arafrantz.  He is enjoying Lottaloria, but misses you; says that you

illuminated the social life of Galadrona as Nimrot, the White Weed of Gondor, illumined the sky

of Mina Tiretta.”


“Charming young Dunédain!” said the Count.  “Did he not also have marriage projects?”


“Yes, he was to marry Mlle. de Villefaramir.  But they say there was as much marital sympathy

between them as between Mlle. de Sacqueville-Danglars and me.  Reportedly, Valartine has an

incurable aversion to any man that be not a tenor.”


“How very odd,” said Monte Fato.


“Veritably,” replied the viscount.  “But, alas! I have an engagement to attend a mushroom-eating

contest with Château-Renard, and must therefore away, ere the traditional breaking of champagne

bottle by the most expensive courtesan in the Shiré.”


The Count saw Réginard to the door, with many flattering insistences that he return to examine

Monte Fato’s collection of porcelain guerriers de flamme.