In that first "joyous and gentle passage of arms," wherein the weapons were those "of courtesy," their points covered with small disks, several knights broke their lances fairly, two horsemen of the side wearing red plumes became unseated, and their opponents, designated as the "white plumes," swept on intact.
"Well done!" commented the king from his high tribunal, as the squires and attendants began to clear the lists, assisting the fallen belligerents to their tents. "We shall have another such memorable field as that of Ashby-de-la-Zouch!"
The following just, reduced to six combatants, three of the red plumes and three of the white, was even yet more spirited than the first tilt, for the former trio couched their lances with the determination to retrieve the day for their party. In this encounter two of the whites were unhorsed, thus placing the contention once more on an equal basis, while in the third conflict the whites again suffered similar disaster, and but one remained to redeem his party's lapse from an advantage gained in the opening combat.
All eyes were now fastened upon this single remnant of the white fellowship in arms, who, to wrest victory from defeat, became obliged to overcome each in turn of the trio of reds, a formidable task for one who had already been successful in three stubborn matches. It was a hero-making opportunity, but, alas! for the last of the little white company. Like many another, he made a brave dash for honor and the "bubble reputation"; the former slipped tantalizingly from his grasp, and the latter burst and all its pretty colors dissolved in thin air. Now he lay still on the sands and the king only remarked:
"Certes, he possessed courage."
And the words sounded like an epitaph, a not inglorious one, although the hand that gripped the lance had failed. The defeated champion was removed; the opportunity had passed; the multitude stoically accepted the lame and impotent conclusion, and the tournament proceeded.
Event followed event, and those court ladies who at first had professed their nerves were weaker than their foremothers' now watched the arena with sparkling eyes, no longer turning away at the thrilling moment of contact. Taking their cue from the king, they were lavish in praise and generous in approval, and at an unusual exhibition of skill the stand grew bright with waving scarfs and handkerchiefs. Simultaneous with such an animated demonstration from the galleries would come a roar of approval from the peasantry below, crowded where best they could find places, bespeaking for their part, likewise, an increasing lust for the stirring pastime.
In truth, the only dissatisfied onlookers were the quick-fingered spoilers and rovers who, packed as close as dried dates in a basket by the irresistible forward press of the people, found themselves suddenly occupationless, without power to move their arms, or ply their hands. Thus held in a mighty compress, temporary prisoners with their spoils in their pockets, and cheap jewelry shining enticingly all about them, they were obliged for the time to comport themselves like honest citizens. But, although their bodies were in durance vile, their eyes could roam covetously to a showy trinket on the broad bosom of some buxom good-wife, or a gewgaw that hung from the neck of a red-cheeked lass.
"Ha!" muttered the scamp-student to his good spouse, "here are all the jolly boys immersed to their necks, like prisoners buried in the sand by the Arabs."
"Hush!" she whispered, warningly. "See you yonder—the duke's fool; he wears the arms of Charles, the emperor."
"And there's the Duke of Friedwald himself," answered the ragged scholar. "Look! the jesters are going to fight. They have arranged them in two parties. Half of them go with the duke and his knights; the other half with his Lordship's opponents."
"But the duke's fool, by chance, is set against his master," she mumbled, significantly.
"Call you it chance?" he said in a low voice, and Nanette nudged him angrily in the side with her elbow, so that he cried out, and attention would have been called to them but for a ripple of laughter which started on the edge of the crowd and was taken up by the serried ranks.
"Ho! ho! Look at Triboulet!" shouted the delighted populace. "Ah, the droll fellow!"
All eyes were now bent to the arena, where, on a powerful nag, sat perched the misshapen jester. With whip and spur he was vehemently plying a horse that stubbornly stood as motionless as carven stone. Thinking at the last moment of a plan for escape from the dangerous features of the tourney, the hunchback had bribed one of the attendants to fetch him a steed which for sullen obduracy surpassed any charger in the king's stables. Fate, he was called, because nothing could move or change him, and now, with head pushed forward and ears thrust back, he proved himself beneath the blows and spurring of the seemingly excited rider, worthy of this appellation.
"Go on, Fate; go on!" exclaimed the apparently angry dwarf. "Will you be balky now, when Triboulet has glory within his grasp? Miserable beast! unhappy fate! When bright eyes are watching the great Triboulet!"
If not destined to score success with his lance, the dwarf at least had won a victory through his comical situation and ready wit. Fair ladies forgot his ugliness; the pages his ill-humor; the courtiers his vindictive slyness; the monarch the disappointment of his failure to worst the duke's fool, and all applauded the ludicrous figure, shouting, waving his arms, struggling with inexorable destiny. Finally, in despair, his hands fell to his side.
"Oh, resistless necessity!" he cried. But in his heart he said: "It is well. I am as safe as on a wooden horse. Here I stand. Let others have their heads split or their bodies broken. Triboulet, like the gods, views the carnage from afar."
While this bit of unexpected comedy riveted the attention of the spectators the duke and his followers had slowly ridden to their side of the inclosure. Here hovered the squires, adjusting a stirrup, giving a last turn to a strap, or testing a bridle or girth. Behind stood the heralds, trumpeters and pursuivants in their bright garb of office. At his own solicitation had the duke been assigned an active part in the day's entertainment. The king, fearing for the safety of his guest and the possible postponement of the marriage should any injury befall him, had sought to dissuade him from his purpose, but the other had laughed boisterously at the monarch's fears and sworn he would break a lance for his lady love that day. Francis, too gallant a knight himself to interpose further objection to an announcement so in keeping with the traditions of the lists, thereupon had ordered the best charger in his stables to be placed at the disposal of the princess' betrothed, and again nodded his approbation upon the appearance of the duke in the ring. But at least one person in that vast assemblage was far from sharing the monarch's complaisant mood.
If the mind of the duke's fool had heretofore been filled with bitterness upon witnessing festal honors to a mere presumptuous free baron, what now were his emotions at the reception accorded him? From king to churl was he a gallant noble; he, a swaggerer, ill-born, a terrorist of mountain passes. Even as the irony of the demonstration swept over the jester, from above fell a flower, white as the box from whence it was wafted. Downward it fluttered, a messenger of amity, like a dove to his gauntlet. And with the favor went a smile from the Lady of the Lists. But whileBon Vouloirstood there, the symbol in his hand and the applause ringing in his ears, into the tenor of his thoughts, the consciousness of partly gratified ambition, there crept an insinuating warning of danger.
"My Lord," said the trooper with the red mustache, riding by the side of his master, "the fool is plotting further mischief."
"What mean you?" asked the free baron, frowning, as he turned toward his side of the field.
"Go slowly, my Lord, and I will tell you. I saw the fool and another jester with their heads together," continued the trooper in a low tone. "They were standing in front of the jesters' tent. You bade me watch him. So I entered their pavilion at the back. Making pretext to be looking for a gusset for an armor joint, I made my way near the entrance. There, bending over barbet pieces, I overheard fragments of their conversation. It even bore on your designs."
"A conversation on my designs! He has then dared—"
"All, my Lord. A scheming knave! After I had heard enough, I gathered up a skirt of tassets—"
"What did you hear?" said the other, impatiently.
"A plan by which he hoped to let the emperor know—"
A loud flourish of trumpets near them interrupted the free baron's informer, and when the clarion tones had ceased it was the master who spoke. "There's time but for a word now. Come to my tent afterward. Meanwhile," he went on, hurriedly, "direct a lance at the fool—"
"But, my Lord," expostulated the man, quickly, "the jesters only are to oppose one another."
"It will pass for an accident. Francis likes him not, and will clear you of unknightly conduct, if—" He finished with a boldly significant look, which was not lost upon his man.
"Even if the leaden disk should fall from my lance and leave the point bare?" said the trooper, hoarsely.
"Even that!" responded the free baron, hastily.
"Laissez-aller!" cried the marshals, giving the signal to begin.
Above, in her white box, the princess turned pale. With bated breath and parted lips, she watched the lines sweep forward, and, like two great waves meeting, collide with a crash. The dust that arose seemed an all-enshrouding mist. Beneath it the figures appeared, vague, undefined, in a maze of uncertainty.
"Oh!" exclaimed Louise, striving to penetrate the cloud; "he is victorious!"
"They have killed him!" said Jacqueline, at the same time staring toward another part of the field.
"Killed him!—what—" began the princess, now rosy with excitement.
"No; he has won," added the maid, in the next breath, as a portion of the obscuring mantle was swept aside.
"Of course! Where are your eyes?" rejoined her mistress triumphantly. "The duke, is one of the emperor's greatest knights."
"In this case, Madam, it is but natural your sight should be better than my own," half-mockingly returned the maid.
And, in truth, the princess was right, for the king's guest, through overwhelming strength and greater momentum, had lightly plucked from his seat a stalwart adversary. Others of his following failed not in the "attaint," and horses and troopers floundered in the sand. Apart from the duke's victory, two especial incidents, one comic, stood out in the confused picture.
That which partook of the humorous aspect, and was seen and appreciated by all, had for its central figure an unwilling actor, the king's hunchback. Like the famous steed builded by the Greeks, Triboulet's "wooden horse" contained unknown elements of danger, and even while the jester was congratulating himself upon absolute immunity from peril the nag started and quivered. At the flourish of the brass instruments his ears, that had lain back, were now pricked forward; he had once, in his palmy, coltish time, been a battle charger, and, perhaps, some memory of those martial days, the waving of plumes and the clashing of arms, reawoke his combative spirit of old. Or, possibly his brute intelligence penetrated the dwarf's knavish pusillanimity, and, changing his tactics that he might still range on the side of perversity, resolved himself from immobility into a rampant agency of motion. Furiously he dashed into the thick of the conflict, and Triboulet, paralyzed with fear and dropping his lance, was borne helplessly onward, execrating the nag and his capricious humor.
Opposed to the hunchback rode Villot, who, upon reaching the dwarf and observing his predicament, good-naturedly turned aside his point, but was unable to avoid striking him with the handle as he rode by. To Triboulet that blow, reëchoing in the hollow depths of his steel shell, sounded like the dissolution of the universe, and, not doubting his last moment had come, mechanically he fell to earth, abandoning to its own resources the equine Fate that had served him so ill. Striking the ground, and, still finding consciousness had not deserted him, instinct prompted him to demonstrate that if his armor was too heavy for him to run away in, as the smithy-valet de chambrehad significantly affirmed, yet he possessed the undoubted strength and ability to crawl. Thus, amid the guffaws of the peasantry and the smiles of the nobles, he swiftly scampered from beneath the horses' feet, hurriedly left the scene of strife, and finally reached triumphantly the haven of his tent.
The other incident, witnessed by Jacqueline, was of a more serious nature. As the lines swept together, with the dust rising before, she perceived that the duke's trooper had swerved from his course and was bearing down upon the duke's fool.
"Oh," she whispered to herself, "the master now retaliates on the jester." And held her breath.
Had he, too, observed these sudden perfidious tactics? Apparently. Yet he seemed not to shun the issue.
"Why does he not turn aside?" thought the maid. "He might yet do it. A fool and a knight, forsooth!"
But the fool pricked his horse deeply; it sprang to the struggle madly; crash! like a thunderbolt, steed and rider leaped upon the trooper. Then it was Jacqueline had murmured: "They have killed him!" not doubting for a moment but that he had sped to destruction.
A second swift glance, and through the veil, less obscure, she saw the jester riding, unharmed, his lance unbroken. Had he escaped, after all? And the trooper? He lay among the trampling horses' feet. She saw him now. How had it all come about? Her mind was bewildered, but in spite of the princess' assertion to the contrary, her sight seemed unusually clear.
"Good lance, fool!" cried a voice from the king's box.
"The jester rides well," said another. "The knight's lance even passed over his head, while the fool's struck fairly with terrific force."
"But why did he select the jester as an adversary?" continued the first speaker.
"Mistakes will happen in the confusion of amêlée—and he has paid for his error," was the answer. And Jacqueline knew that none would be held accountable for the treacherous assault.
Now the fool had dismounted and she observed that he was bending over another jester who had been unhorsed. "Why," she murmured to herself in surprise, "Caillette! As good a soldier as a fool. Who among the jesters could have unseated him?"
But her wonderment would have increased, could she have overheard the conversation between the duke's fool and Caillette, as the former lifted the other from the sands and assisted him to walk, or rather limp, to the jesters' pavilion.
"Did I not tell you to beware of the false duke?" muttered Caillette, not omitting a parenthesis of deceptive groans.
"Ah, if it had only been he, instead," began the fool.
"Why," interrupted the seemingly injured man, "think you to stand up against the boar of Hochfels?"
"I would I might try!" said the other quickly.
"Your success with the trooper has turned your head," laughed Caillette, softly. "One last word. Look to yourself and fear not for me. Mine injuries—which I surmise are internal as they are not visible—will excuse me for the day. Nor shall I tarry at the palace for the physician, but go straight on without bolus, simples or pills, a very Mercury for speed. Danger will I eschew and a pretty maid shall hold me no longer than it takes to give her a kiss in passing. Here leave me at the tent. Turn back to the field, or they will suspect. Trust no one, and—you'll mind it not in a friend, one who would serve you to the end?—forget the princess! Serve her, save her, as you will, but, remember, women are but creatures of the moment. Adieu,mon ami!"
And Caillette turned as one in grievous physical pain to an attendant, bidding him speedily remove the armor, while the duke's fool, more deeply stirred than he cared to show, moved again to the lists.
Loud rang encomium and blessing on the king, as the people that night crowded in the rear courtyard around the great tables set in the open air, and groaning beneath viands, nutritious and succulent. What swain or yokel had not a meed of praise for the monarch when he beheld this burden of good cheer, and, at the end of each board, elevated a little and garlanded with roses, a rotund and portly cask of wine, with a spigot projecting hospitably tablewards?
Forgotten were the tax-lists under which the commonalty labored; it was "Hosanna" for Francis, and not a plowman nor tiller of the soil bethought himself that he had fully paid for the snack and sup that night. How could he, having had no one to think for him; for then Rousseau had not lived, Voltaire was unborn, and the most daring approach to lese-majesty had been Rabelais' jocose: "The wearers of the crown and scepter are born under the same constellation as those of cap and bells."
Upon the green, smoking torches illumined the people and the surroundings; beneath a great oven, the bright coals cast a vivid glow far and near. Close to the broad face of a cask—round and large like that of a full-fed host presiding at the head of the board—sat the Franciscan monk, whose gluttonous eye wandered from quail to partridge, thence onward to pastry or pie, with the spigot at the end of the orbit of observation. Nor as it made this comprehensive survey did his glance omit a casual inventory of the robust charms of a bouncing maid on the opposite side of the table. Scattered amid the honest, good-natured visages of the trusting peasants were the pinched adventurers from Paris, the dwellers of that quarter sacred to themselves. Yonder plump, frisky dame seemed like the lamb; the gaunt knave by her side, the wolf.
At length the company could eat no more, although there yet remained a void for drinking, and as the cups went circling and circling, their laughter mingled with the distant strains of music from the great, gorgeously lighted pavilion, where the king and his guests were assembled to close the tourney fittingly with the celebration of the final event—the awarding of the prize for the day.
"Can you tell me, good sir, to whom the umpires of the field have given their judgment?" said a townsman to his country neighbor.
"Did you not hear the king of arms decide the Duke of Friedwald was the victor?" answered the other.
"A decision of courtesy, perhaps?" insinuated the Parisian.
"Nay; two spears he broke, and overcame three adversaries during the day. Fairly he won the award."
"I wish we might see the presentation," interrupted a maid, pertly, her longing eyes straying to the bright lights afar.
"Presentation!" repeated the countryman. "Did we not witness the sport? A fig for the presentation! Give me the cask and a juicy haunch, with a lass like yourself to dance with after, and the nobles are welcome to the sight of the prize and all the ceremony that goes with it."
Within the king's pavilion, the spectacle alluded to, regretfully by the girl and indifferently by the man, was at that moment being enacted. Upon a throne of honor, the lady of the tournament, attended by two maids, looked down on a brilliant assemblage, through which now approached the king and the princess' betrothed. The latter seemed somewhat thoughtful; his eye had but encountered that of the duke's fool, whose gaze expressed a disdainful confidence the other fain would have fathomed. But for that unfortunate meeting in the lists which had sealed the lips of the only person who had divined the hidden danger, the free baron would now have been master of theplaisant'sdesigns. Above, in the palace, the trooper with the red mustaches lay on his couch unconscious.
For how long? The court physician could not say. The soldier might remain insensible for hours. Thus had the jester served himself with that stroke better than he knew, and he of Hochfels bit his lip and fumed inwardly, but to no purpose. Not that he believed the peril to be great, but the fact he could not grasp it goaded him, and he cursed the trooper for a dolt and a poltroon that a mere fool should have vanquished him. And so he had left him, with a last look of disgust at the silent lips that could not do his bidding, and had proceeded to the royal pavilion, where the final act of the day's drama—more momentous than the king or other spectators realized—was to be performed; an act in which he would have appeared with much complacency, but that his chagrin preyed somewhat on his vanity.
But his splendid self-control and audacity revealed to the courtly assemblage no trace of what was passing in his mind. He walked by the king's side as one not unaccustomed to such exalted company, nor overwhelmed by sudden honors. His courage was superb; his demeanor that of one born to command; in him seemed exemplified a type of brute strength and force denoting a leader—whether of an army or a band of swashbucklers. As the monarch and the free baron drew near, the princess slowly, gracefully arose, while now grouped around the throne stood the heralds and pursuivants of the lists. In her hand Louise held the gift, covered with a silver veil, an end of which was carried by each of the maids.
"Fair Lady of the Tournament," said the king, "this gallant knight isBon Vouloir, whom you have even heard proclaimed the victor of the day."
"Approach,Bon Vouloir!" commanded the Queen of Love.
The maids uncovered the gift, the customary chaplet of beaten gold, and, as the free baron bowed his head, the princess with a firm hand fulfilled the functions of her office. Rising,Bon Vouloir, amid the exclamations of the court, claimed the privilege that went with the bauble. A moment he looked at the princess; she seemed to bend beneath his regard; then leaning forward, deliberately rather than ardently, he touched her cheek with his lips. Those who watched the Queen of Love closely observed her face become paler and her form tremble; but in a moment she was again mistress of herself, her features prouder and colder than before.
"Did you notice how he melted the ice of her nature?" whispered Diane, with a malicious little laugh, to the countess.
"And yet 'twas not his—warmth that did it," wisely answered the favorite of the king.
"His coldness, then," laughed the other, as the musicians began to play, and the winner of the chaplet led the princess to the dance. "Is it not so, Sire?" she added, turning to the king, who at that moment approached.
"He, indeed, forgot a part of the ceremony," graciously assented Francis.
"A part of the ceremony, your Majesty?" questioned Diane.
"To kiss the two damsels of the princess; and one of them was worthy of casual courtesy," he added, musingly.
"Which, Sire?" asked the countess, quickly.
"The dark-browed maid," returned the monarch, thoughtfully. "Where did I notice her last?"
And then he remembered. It was she who, he suspected, had laughed that night in Fools' hall. Recalling the circumstance, the king looked around for her, but she had drawn back.
"Is it your pleasure to open the festivities, Sire?" murmured the favorite, and, without further words, Francis acquiesced, proffering his arm to his companion.
Masque, costume ball, ballet, it was all one to the king and the court, who never wearied of the diverting vagaries of the dance. Now studying that pantomimic group of merrymakers, in the rhythmical expression of action and movement could almost be read the influence and relative positions of the fair revelers. The countess, airy and vivacious, perched, as it were, lightly yet securely on the arm of the throne; Diane, fearless, confident of the future through the dauphin; Catharine, proud of her rank, undisturbed in her own exalted place as wife of the dauphin; Marguerite, mixture of saint and sinner, a soft heart that would oft-times turn the king from a hard purpose.
"There! I've danced enough," said a panting voice, and Jacqueline, breathless, paused before the duke's fool, who stood a motionless spectator of the revelry. In his rich costume of blue and white, the figure of the foreign jester presented a fair and striking appearance, but his face, proud and composed, was wanting in that spirit which animated the features of his fellows in motley.
"One more turn, fair Jacqueline?" suggested Marot, her partner in the dance.
"Not one!" she answered.
"Is that a dismissal?" he asked, lightly.
"'Tis for you to determine," retorted the maid.
"Modesty forbids I should interpret it to my desires," he returned, laughing, as he disappeared.
Tall, seeming straighter than usual, upon each cheek a festal rose, she stood before the duke'splaisant, inscrutable, as was her fashion, the scarf about her shoulders just stirring from the effects of the dance, and her lips parted to her hurried breathing.
"How did you like the ceremony?" she asked, quietly. "And did you know," she went on, without noticing the dark look in his eyes or awaiting his response, "the lance turned upon you to-day was not a 'weapon of courtesy'?"
"You mean it was directed by intention?" he asked indifferently.
"Not only that," she answered. "I mean that the disk had been removed and the point left bare."
"A mistake, of course," he said, with a peculiar smile.
A look of impatience crossed her face, but she gazed at him intently and her eyes held his from the floor where they would have strayed.
"Are you stupid, or do you but profess to be?" she demanded. "Before the tilt I noticed the duke and his trooper talking together. When they separated the latter, unobserved as he thought, struck the point of his weapon against his stirrup. The disk fell to the ground."
"Your glance is sharp, Jacqueline," he retorted, slowly. "Thank you for the information."
Her eyes kindled; an angry retort seemed about to spring from her lips. It was with difficulty she controlled herself to answer calmly a moment later.
"You mean it can serve you nothing? Perhaps you are right. To-day you were lucky. To-morrow you may be—what? To-day you defended yourself well and it was a good lance you bore. Had it been any other jester, the king would have praised him. Because it was you, no word has been spoken. If anything, your success has annoyed him. Several of the court spoke of it; he answered not; 'tis the signal to ignore it, and—you!"
"Then are you courageous to brave public opinion and hold converse with me," he replied, with a smile.
"Public opinion!" she exclaimed with flashing eyes. "What would they say of a jestress? Who is she? What is she?"
She ended abruptly; bit her lips, showing her gleaming white teeth. Then some emotion, more profound, swept over her expressive face; she looked at him silently, and when she spoke her voice was more gentle.
"I can not believe," she continued thoughtfully, "that the duke told his trooper to do that. 'Tis too infamous. The man must have acted on his own responsibility. The duke could not, would not, countenance such baseness."
"You have a good opinion of him, gentle mistress," he said in a tone that exasperated her.
"Who has not?" she retorted, sharply. "He is as brave as he is distinguished. Farewell. If you served him better, and yourself less, you—"
"Would serve myself better in the end?" he interrupted, satirically. "Thanks, good Jacqueline. A woman makes an excellent counselor."
Disdainfully she smiled; her face grew cold; her figure looked never more erect and inflexible.
"Why," she remarked, "here am I wasting time talking when the music is playing and every one is dancing. Even now I see a courtier approaching who has thrice importuned me." And the jestress vanished in the throng as abruptly as she had appeared.
Thoughtfully the duke's fool looked, not after her, but toward a far end of the pavilion, where he last had seen the princess and her betrothed.
"Caillette should now be well on his way," he told himself. "No one has yet missed him, or if they do notice his absence they will attribute it to his injuries."
This thought lent him confidence; the implied warnings of the maid passed unheeded from his mind; indeed, he had scarcely listened to them. Amid stronger passions, he felt the excitement of the subtile game he and the free baron were playing; the blind conviction of a gambler that he should yet win seized him, dissipating in a measure more violent thoughts.
He began to calculate other means to make assurance doubly sure; an intricate realm of speculation, considering the safeguards the boar of Hochfels had placed about himself. To offset the triumphs of the king's guest there occurred to the jester the comforting afterthought that the greater the other's successes now the more ignominious would be his downfall. The free baron had not hesitated to use any means to obliterate his one foeman from the scene; and he repeated to himself that he would meet force with cunning, and duplicity with stealth, spinning such a web as lay within his own capacity and resources. But in estimating the moves before him, perhaps in his new-found trust, he overlooked the strongest menace to his success—a hazard couched within himself.
Outspreading from the pavilion's walls were floral bowers with myriad lights that shone through the leaves and foliage, where tiny fragrant fountains tinkled, or diminutive, fairy-like waterfalls fell amid sweet-smelling plants. Green, purple, orange, red, had been the colors chosen in these dainty retreats for such of the votaries of the Court of Love as should, from time to time, care to exchange the merry-making within for the languorous rest without. It was yet too early, however, for the sprightly devotees to abandon the lively pleasures of the dance, so that when the duke's fool abstractedly entered the balmy, crimson nook, at first he thought himself alone.
Around him, carmine, blood-warm flowers exhaled a commingling redolence; near him a toy-like fountain whispered very softly and confidentially. Through the foliage the figures moved and moved; on the air the music fell and rose, thin in orchestration, yet brightly penetrating in sparkling detail. Buoyant were the violins; sportive the flutes; all alive the gitterns; blithesome the tripping arpeggios that crisply fell from the strings of the joyous harps.
The rustling of a gown admonished him he was not alone, and, looking around, amid the crimson flowers, to his startled gaze, appeared the face of her of whom he was thinking; above the broad, white brow shone the radiance of hair, a gold that was almost bronze in that dim light; through the green tangle of shrubbery, a silver slipper.
"Ah, it is you, fool?" she said languidly. It may be, he contrasted the indifference of her tones now with the unconscious softness of her voice when she had addressed him on another occasion—in another garden; for his face flushed, and he would have turned abruptly, when—
"Oh, you may remain," she added, carelessly. "The duke has but left me. He received a message that the man hurt in the lists was most anxious to see him."
Into the whirl of his reflections her words insinuated themselves. Why had the free baron gone to the trooper? What made his presence so imperative at the bedside of the soldier that he had abruptly abandoned the festivities? Surely, more than mere anxiety for the man's welfare. The jester looked at the princess for the answer to these questions; but her face was cold, smiling, unresponsive. In the basin of the fountain tiny fish played and darted, and as his eyes turned from her to them they appeared as swift and illusive as his own surging fancies.
"The—duke, Madam, is most solicitous about his men," he said, in a voice which sounded strangely calm.
"A good leader has always in mind the welfare of his soldiers," she replied, briefly.
Her hand played among the blossoms. Over the flowers she looked at him. Her features and arms were of the sculptured roundness of marble, but the reflection of the roses bathed her in the warm hue of life. As he met her gaze the illumined pages of a book seemed turning before his eyes. Did she remember?
She could not but perceive his emotion; the tribute of a glance beyond control, despite the proud immobility of his features.
"Sit here, fool," she said, not unkindly, "and you may tell me more about the duke. His exploits—of that battle when he saved the life of the emperor."
The jester made no move to obey, but, looking down, answered coldly: "The duke, Madam, likes not to have his poor deeds exploited."
"Poor deeds!" she returned, and seemed about to reply more sharply when something in his face held her silent.
Leaning her head on her hand, she appeared to forget his presence; motionless save for a foot that waved to and fro, betraying her restless mood. The sound of her dress, the swaying of the foot, held his attention. In that little bower the air was almost stifling, laden with the perfume of many flowers. Even the song of the birds grew fainter. Only the tiny fountain, more assertive than ever, became louder and louder. The princess breathed deeply; half-arose; a vine caught in her hair; she stooped to disentangle it; then held herself erect.
"How close it is in here!" she murmured, arranging the tress the plant had disturbed. "Go to the door, fool, and see if you can find your master."
Involuntarily he had stepped toward her, as though to assist her, but now stopped. His face changed; he even laughed. That last word, from her lips, seemed to break the spell of self-control that held him.
"My master!" he said in a hard, scoffing tone. "Whom mean you? The man who left you to go to the soldier? That blusterer, my master! That swaggering trooper!"
Her inertness vanished; the sudden anger and wonderment in her eyes met the passion in his.
"How dare you—dare you—" she began.
"He is neither my master, nor the duke; but a mere free-booter, a mountain terrorist!"
Pride and contempt replaced her surprise, but indignation still remained. His audacity in coming to her with this falsehood; his hardihood in maintaining it, admitted of but one explanation. By her complaisance in the past she had fanned the embers of a passion which now burst beyond control. She realized how more than fair she looked that evening—had she not heard it from many?—had not the eyes of the king's guest told her?—and she believed that this lie must have sprung to the jester's lips while he was regarding her.
As the solution crossed her mind, revealing theplaisant, a desperate and despicable, as well as lowly wooer, her face relaxed. In the desire to test her conclusion, she laughed quietly, musically. Cruelly kind, smiled the princess.
"You are mad," she breathed softly. "You are mad—because—because you—"
He started, studying her eagerly. He fancied he read relenting softness in her gaze; a flash of memory into a past, where glamour and romance, and the heart-history of the rose made up life's desideratum. Wherein existence was but an allegory of love's quest, and the goal, its consummation. Had she not bent sedulously over the rose of the poet? Had not her breath come quickly, eagerly? Could he not feel it yet, sweet and warm on his cheek? Into the past, having gone so far, he stepped now boldly, as though to grasp again those illusive colors and seize anew the intangible substance. He was but young, when shadows seem solid, when dreams are corporeal stuff, and fantasies, rock-like strata of reality.
So he knelt before her. "Yes," he said, "I love you!"
And thus remained, pale, motionless, all resentment or jealousy succeeded by a stronger emotion, a feeling chivalric that bent itself to a glad thraldom, the desire but to serve her—to save her. His heart beat faster; he raised his head proudly.
"Listen, Princess," he began. "Though I meant it not, I fear I have greatly wronged you. I have much to ask your pardon for; much to tell you. It is I—I—"
The words died on his lips. From the princess' face all softness had suddenly vanished. Her gaze passed him, cold, haughty. Across the illusory positiveness of his world—immaterial, psychological, ghostly—an intermediate orb—a tangible shadow was thrown. Behind him stood the free baron and the king. Quickly the fool sprang to his feet.
"Princess!" exclaimed the hoarse voice of the master of Hochfels.
"My Lord?"
For a moment neither spoke, and then the clear, cold voice of the princess broke the silence.
"Are all the fools in your country so presumptuous, my Lord?" she said.
The king's countenance lightened; he turned his accusing glance upon the fool. As in a dream stood the latter; the words he would have uttered remained unspoken. But briefly the monarch surveyed him, satirically, darkly; then turning, with a gesture, summoned an attendant. Not until the hands of two soldiers fell upon him did the fool betray any emotion. Then his face changed, and the stunned look in his eyes gave way to an expression of such unbridled feeling that involuntarily the king stepped back and the free baron drew his sword. But neither had the monarch need for apprehension, nor the princess' betrothed use for his weapon. Some emotion, deeper than anger, replaced the savage turmoil of the jester's thoughts, as with a last fixed look at the princess he mechanically suffered himself to be led away. Louise's gaze perforce followed him, and when the canvas fell and he had disappeared she passed a hand across her brow.
"Are you satisfied, my Lord?" said the king to the free baron.
"The knave has received his just deserts, Sire," replied the other, and, stepping to the princess' side, raised her hand to his lips.
"Mère de Dieu!" cried the monarch, passing his arm in a friendly manner over the free baron's shoulder and addressing Louise. "You will find Robert of Friedwald worthy of your high trust, cousin."
Without, they were soon whispering it. The attendant, who was the Count of Cross, breathed what he knew to the Duke of Montmorency, who told Du Bellays, who related the story to Diane de Poitiers, who embellished it for Villot, who carried it to Jacqueline.
"Triboulet has his wish," said the poet-fool, half-regretfully. "There is one jester the less."
"Where have they taken him?" asked the girl, steadily.
"Where—but to the keep!"
"That dungeon of the old castle?"
"Well," he returned significantly, "a fool and his jests—alas!—are soon parted. Let us make merry, therefore, while we may. For what would you? Come, mistress—the dance—"
"No! no! no!" she exclaimed, so passionately he gazed at her in surprise.
In a mood of contending thought, the free baron left his apartments the next morning and traversed the tapestry-hung corridor leading toward the servants' and soldiers' quarters. He congratulated himself that the incident of the past night had precipitated a favorable climax in one source of possible instability, and that the fool who had opposed him had been summarily removed from the field of action. Confined within the four walls of the castle dungeon, there was scant likelihood he would cause further trouble and annoyance. Francis' strong prison house would effectively curb any more interference with, or dabbling in, the affairs of the master of the Vulture's Nest.
Following the exposure of the jester's weakness, his passion for his mistress, Francis, as Villot told Jacqueline, had immediately ordered the fool into strictest confinement, the donjon of the ancient structure. In that darkened cell he had rested over night and there he would no doubt remain indefinitely. The king's guest had not been greatly concerned with the jester's quixotic love for the princess, being little disposed to jealousy. He was no sighing solicitant for woman's favor; higher allurements than woman's eyes, or admiration for his inamorata, moved him—that edge of appetite for power, conquest hunger, an itching palm for a kingdom. His were the unscrupulous soldier's rather than the eager true-love's dreams.
But to offset his satisfaction that the jester lay under restraint he took in bad part the trooper's continued insensibility which deprived him of the much-desired information. When he had repaired to the bedside of the soldier the night before he had only his trip for his pains, as the man had again sunk into unconsciousness shortly before his coming. Thus the free baron was still in ignorance of the person to whom the fool had betrayed him. The fact that there still roamed an unfettered some one who possessed the knowledge of his identity caused him to knit his brows and look glum.
These jesters were daring fellows; several of them had borne arms, as, for example, Clement Marot, who had been taken prisoner with Francis at the battle of Pavia. Brusquet had been a hanger-on of the camp at Avignon; Villot, a Paris student; Caillette had received the spirited education of a soldier in the household of his benefactor, Diane's father. And as for the others—how varied had been their careers!—lives of hazard and vicissitude; scapegraces and adventurers—existing literally by their wits.
To what careless or wanton head had his secret been confined? What use would the rashling make of it? Daringly attempt to approach the throne with this startling budget of information; impulsively seek the princess; or whisper it over his cups among thefemmes de chambre, laundresses or scullery maids?
"If the soldier should never speak?" thought the free baron out of humor, as he drew near the trooper's door. "What a nest of suspicion may be growing! The wasps may be breeding. A whisper may become an ominous threat. Is not the danger even greater than it was before, when I could place my hand on my foeman? The man must speak!—must!"
With a firm step the king's guest entered the chamber of the injured soldier. Upon a narrow bed lay the trooper, his mustachios appearing unusually red and fierce against his now yellow, washed-out complexion. As the free baron drew near the couch a tall figure arose from the side of the bed.
"How is your patient, doctor?" said the visitor, shortly.
"Low," returned the other, laconically. This person wore a black gown; a pair of huge, broad-rimmed glasses rested on the bridge of a thin, long nose, and in his claw-like fingers he held a vial, the contents of which he stirred slowly. His aspect was that of living sorrow and melancholy.
"Has he been conscious again?" asked the caller.
"He has e'en lain as you see him," replied the wearer of the black robe.
"Humph!" commented the free baron, attentively regarding the motionless and silent figure.
"I urged upon him the impropriety of sending for you at the festivities," resumed the man, sniffing at the vial, "but he became excited, swore he would leave the bed and brain me with mine own pestle if I ventured to hinder him. So I consented to convey his request."
"And when I arrived he was still as a log," supplemented the visitor, gloomily.
"Alas, yes; although I tried to keep him up, giving him specifics and carminatives and bleeding him once."
"Bleeding him!" cried the false duke, angrily, glowering upon the impassive and woebegone countenance of the medical attendant. "As if he had not bled enough from his hurts! Quack of an imposter! You have killed him!"
"As for that," retorted the man in a sing-song voice, "no one can tell whether a medicine be antidote or poison, unless as leechcraft and chirurgery point out—"
"His days are numbered," quoth the free baron to himself, staring downward. But as he spoke he imagined he saw the red mustachios move, while one eye certainly glared with intelligent hatred upon the doctor and turned with anxious solicitude upon his master. The latter immediately knelt by the bedside and laid his hand upon the already cold one of the soldier.
"Speak!" he said.
It was the command of an officer to a trooper, an authoritative bidding, and seemed to summon a last rallying energy from the failing heart. The man's gaze showed that he understood. From the free baron's eye flashed a glance of savage power and force.
"Speak!" he repeated, cruelly, imperatively.
The mustachios quivered; the leader bent his head low, so low his face almost touched the soldier's. A voice—was it a voice, so faint it sounded?—breathed a few words:
"The emperor—Spain—Caillette gone!"
Quickly the free baron sprang to his feet. The soldier seemed to fall asleep; his face calm and tranquil as a campaigner's before the bivouac fire at the hour of rest; the ugliness of his features glossed by a new-found dignity; only his mustachios strangely fierce, vivid, formidable, against the peace and pallor of his countenance. The leech looked at him; stopped stirring the drug; leaned over him; straightened himself; took the vial once more from the table and threw the medicine out of the window. Then he methodically began gathering up bottles and other receptacles, which he placed neatly in a handbag. The free baron passed through the door, leaving the cheerless practitioner still gravely engaged in getting together his small belongings.
Soberly the king's guest walked down the echoing stairway out into the open air of the court. The emperor in Spain? It seemed not unlikely. Charles spent much of his time in that country, nor was it improbable he had gone there quietly, without flourish of trumpet, for some purpose of his own. His ways were not always manifest; his personality and mind-workings were characterized by concealment. If the emperor had gone to Spain, a messenger, riding post-haste, could reach Charles in time to enable that monarch to interpose in the nuptials and override the confidence the free baron had established for himself in the court of Francis. An impediment offered by Charles would be equivalent to the abandonment of the entire marital enterprise.
Pausing before a massive arched doorway that led into a wing of the castle where the free baron knew the jesters and certain of the gentlemen of the chamber lodged, the master of Hochfels, in answer to his inquiries from a servant, learned that Caillette had not been in his apartments since the day before; that he had ridden from the tournament, ostensibly to return to his rooms, but nothing had been heard of him since. And the oddest part of it was, as the old woman volubly explained when the free baron had pushed his way into the tastefully furnished chambers of the absent fool, the jester had been desperately wounded; had groaned much when the duke'splaisanthad assisted him from the field, and had been barely able to mount his horse with the assistance of a squire.
Meditatively, while absorbing this prattle, the visitor gazed about him. The bed had been unslept in, and here and there were evidences of a hasty and unpremeditated leave-taking. Upon an open desk lay a half-finished poem, obviously intended for no eyes save the writer's. Several dainty missives and a lace handkerchief, with a monogram, invited the unscrupulous and prying glance of the inquisitive newsmonger.
But as these details offered nothing additional to the one great germ of information embodied in the loquacity of the narrator, the free baron turned silently away, breaking the thread of her volubility by unceremoniously disappearing. No further doubt remained in his mind that the duke'splaisanthad sent a comrade in motley to the emperor, and, as he would not have inspired a mere fool's errand, Charles without question was in Spain, several days nearer to the court of the French monarch than the princess' betrothed had presumed. Caillette had now been four-and-twenty hours on his journey; it would be useless to attempt pursuit, as the jester was a gallant horseman, trained to the hunt. Such a man would be indefatigable in the saddle, and the other realized that, strive as he might, he could never overcome the handicap.
Then of what avail was one fool in the dungeon, with a second—on the road? Should he abandon his quest, be driven from his purpose by a nest of motley meddlers? The idea never seriously entered his mind; he would fight it out doggedly upon the field of deception. But how? As surely as the sun rose and set, before many days had come and gone the hand of Charles would be thrust between him and his projects. Circumspect, suspicious, was the emperor; he would investigate, and investigation meant the downfall of the structure of falsehood that had been erected with such skill and painstaking by the subtile architect. The maker had pride in his work, and, to see it totter and tumble, was a misfortune he would avert with his life—or fall with it.
As he had no intention, however, of being buried beneath the wreckage of his endeavors, he sought to prop the weakening fabric of invention and mendacity by new shuffling or pretense. Should a disgraced fool be his undoing? From that living entombment should his foeman in cap and bells yet indirectly summon the force to bend him to the dust, or send him to the hangman's knot?
Step by step the king's guest had left the palace behind him, until the surrounding shrubbery shut it from view, but the path, sweeping onward with graceful curve, brought him suddenly to a beautiful château. Lost in thought, he gazed within the flowering ground, at the ornate architecture, the marble statues and the little lake, in whose pellucid depths were mirrored a thousand beauties of that chosen spot—an improved Eden of the landscape gardener wherein resided the Countess d'Etampes.
"Why," thought the free baron, brightening abruptly, "that chance which served me last night, which forced the trooper to speak to-day, now has led my stupid feet to the soothsayer."
Within a much begilt and gorgeous bower, he soon found himself awaiting patiently the coming of the favorite. Upon a tiny chair of gold, too fragile for his bulk, the caller meanwhile inspected the ceilings and walls of this dainty domicile, mechanically striving to decipher a painted allegory of Venus and Mars, or Helen and Paris, or the countess and Francis—he could not decide precisely its purport—when she who had succeeded Châteaubriant floated into the room, dressed in some diaphanous stuff, a natural accompaniment to the other decorations; her dishabille a positive note of modesty amid the vivid colorings and graceful poses of those tributes to love with which Primaticcio and other Italian artists had adorned this bower.
"How charming of you!" vaguely murmured the lady, sinking lightly upon a settee. "What an early riser you must be, Duke."
Although it was then but two hours from noon, the visitor confessed himself open to criticism in this regard. "And you, as well, Madam," he added, "must plead guilty of the same fault. One can easily see you have been out in the garden, and," he blundered on, "stolen the tints from the roses."
Sharply the countess looked at him, but read only an honest attempt at a compliment.
"Why," she said, "you are becoming as great a flatterer as the rest of them. But confess now, you did not call to tell me that?"
The free baron looked from her through the folding doors into a retiring apartment, set with arabesque designs, and adorned with inlaid tables bearing statues of alabaster and enamel. Purposely he waited before he replied, and was gratified to see how curiously she regarded him when again his glance returned to her.
"No, Madam," he answered, taking credit to himself for his diplomacy, "it is not necessary that truth should be premeditated. I had a serious purpose in seeking you. Of all the court you alone can assist me; it is to you, only, I can look for aid. Knowing you generous, I have ventured to come."
"What a serious preamble," smiled the lady. "How grave must be the matter behind it!"
"The service I ask must be from the king," he went on, with seeming embarrassment.
"Then why not go to his Majesty?" she interrupted, with the suggestion of a frown.
"Because I should fail," he retorted, frankly. "The case is one wherein a messenger—like yourself—a friend—may I so call you?—would win, while I, a rough soldier, should but make myself ridiculous, the laughing stock of the court."
"You interest me," she laughed. "It must be a pressing emergency when you honor me—so early in the day."
"It is, Madam," he replied. "Very pressing to me. I want the wedding day changed."
"Changed!" she exclaimed, staring at him. "Deferred?"
"No; hastened, Madam. It is too long to wait. Go to the king; ask him to shorten the interval; to set the day sooner. I beg of you, Madam!"
His voice was hard and harsh. It seemed almost a demand he laid upon her. Had he been less blunt or coercive, had he employed a more honeyed appeal, she would not have felt so moved in his behalf. In the atmosphere of adulation and blandishment to which she was accustomed, the free baron offered a marked contrast to the fine-spoken courtiers, and she leaned back and surveyed him as though he were a type of the lords of creation she had not yet investigated.
"Oh, this is delicious!" purred the countess. "Samson in the toils! His locks shorn by our fair Delilah!"
The thick-set soldier arose; muscular, well-knit, virile. "I fear I am detaining you, Madam," he said, coldly.
"No; you're not," she answered, merrily. "Won't you be seated—please! I should have known," she could not resist adding, "that love is as sensitive as impatient."
"I see, Madam, that you have your mind made up to refuse me, and therefore—"
"Refuse," repeated the favorite, surveying this unique petitioner with rising amusement. "How do you read my mind so well?"
"Then you haven't determined to refuse me?" And he stepped toward her quickly.
"No, I haven't," she answered, throwing back her head, like a spoiled child. "On the contrary, I will be your messenger, your advocate, and will plead your cause, and will win your case, and the king shall say 'yes,' and you shall have your princess whene'er you list. All this I promise faithfully to do and perform. And now, if you want to leave me so sullenly, go!"
But the free baron dropped awkwardly to his knee, took her little hand in his massive one and raised it to his lips. "Madam, you overwhelm me," he murmured.
"That is all very well," she commented, reflectively, "but what about the princess? What will she say when—"
"It shall be my task to persuade her. I am sure she will consent," returned the suitor.
"Oh, you're sure of that?" observed the lady. "You have some faith in your own powers of persuasion—in certain quarters!"
"Not in my powers, Madam, but in the princess' amiability."
"Perhaps you have spoken to her already?" asked the countess.
"No, Madam; without your assistance, of what use would be her willingness?"
"What a responsibility you place on my weak shoulders!" cried the other. "However, I will not shift the burden. I will go to his Majesty at once. And do you"—gaily—"go to the princess."
"At your command!" he replied, and took his departure.
Without the inclosure of the château gardens, the free baron began to review the events of the morning with complacency and satisfaction, but, as he took up the threads of his case and examined them more narrowly, his peace of mind was darkened with the shadow of a new disquietude. What if Francis, less easily cozened than the countess, should find his suspicions aroused? What if the princess, who had immediately dismissed the fool's denouncement of the free baron as an ebullition of blind jealousy—after informing her betrothed of the mad accusation—should see in his request equivocal circumstances? Or, was the countess—like many of her sisters—given to second thoughts, and would this after-reverie dampen the ardor of her impetuous promise?
"But," thought the king's guest, banishing these assailing doubts, "there never yet was victory assured before the battle had been fought, and, with renewed precautions, defeat is most unlikely."
By the time he had reached this conclusion he had arrived at the princess' door.