"The Duke of Friedwald!"
It was not the princess who thus exclaimed, but Jacqueline. Charles had spoken loudly, and, drawn irresistibly to the scene, she had caught his significant words at the moment she recognized, in his brave accoutrements, him whom she had known as the duke's fool.
When she had heard, above the din of the fray, the cries with which the new-comer had been greeted, no suspicion of his identity had crossed her mind. She had wondered, been puzzled at the unexpected appearance of Robert, Duke of Friedwald, but that he and the ailing fool were one and the same was wide from her field of speculation. In amazement, she regarded the knight who had turned the tide of conflict, and then started, noticing the colors he wore, a paltry yellow ribbon on his arm, the badge of her office. Much she had not understood now appeared plain. His assurance in Fools' hall; his reckless daring; his skill with the sword. He was a soldier, not a jester; a lord, not a lord's servant.
Lost in no less wonder, the princess gazed from the free baron to Charles, and back again to the lifeless form. Stooping, she looked steadfastly into the face, as though she would read its secret. Perhaps, too, as she studied those features, piece by piece she patched together the scenes of the past. Her own countenance began to harden, as though some part of that mask of death had fallen upon her, and when she glanced once more at the emperor they saw she no longer doubted. With forced self-control, she turned to the emperor.
"Doubtless, it is some brave pastime," she said to Charles. "Will your Majesty deign to explain?"
"Nay," answered the emperor, dryly; "that thankless task I'll leave to him who played the fool."
Uncovering, the Duke of Friedwald approached. The excitement of the contest over, his pallid features marked the effects of his recent injuries, the physical strain under which he had labored. Her cold eyes swept over him haughtily, inquiringly.
"For the part I have played, Madam," he said, "I ask your forbearance. If we both labored under a delusion, I have only regret—"
"Regret!" Was it an outburst of grief, or wounded pride? He flushed, but continued firmly:
"Madame la Princesse, when first a marriage was proposed between us I was younger in experience if not in years than I am now; more used to the bivouac or hunters' camps than courts. And woman—" he smiled—"well, she was a vague ideal. At times, she came to me when sleeping before the huntsman's fire in the solitudes of the forest; again, was reflected from the pages of classic lore. She seemed a part of the woods and the streams, for by ancient art had she not been turned into trees and running brooks? So she whispered in the boughs and murmured among the rushes. MereSchwärmerei. Do you care to hear? 'Tis the only defense I can offer."
Her contemptuous blue eyes remained fastened on him; she disdained to answer.
"It was a dreamer from brake and copse who went in the disguise of a jester to be near her; to win her for himself—and then, declare his identity. Well may you look scornful. Love!—it is not such a romantic quality—at court. A momentary pastime, perhaps, but—a deep passion—a passion stronger than rank, than death, than all—"
Above the face of her whom he addressed his glance rested upon Jacqueline, and he paused. The princess could but note, and a derisive expression crept about her mouth.
"Once I would have told you all," he resumed. "That night—when you were Lady of the Lists. But—"
He broke off abruptly, wishing to spare her the bitter memory of her own acts. Did she remember that day, when she had been queen of the chaplet? When she had crowned him whom now death and dishonor had overtaken?
"The rest, Madam, you know—save this." And stooping, he picked up the ornament that had dropped from Louis of Hochfels' neck. "Here, Princess, is the miniature you sent me. He, who used you so ill, stole it from me in prison; through it, he recognized the fool for the duke; with an assassin's blow he struck me down."
A moment he looked at that fair painted semblance. Did it recall the past too vividly? His face showed no pain; only tranquillity. His eye was rather that of a connoisseur than a lover. He smiled gently; then held it to her.
Mechanically she let the portrait slip through her fingers, and it fell to the moistened grass near the form of him who had wedded her. Then she drew back her dress so that it might not touch the body at her feet.
"Have I your Majesty's permission to withdraw?" she said, coldly.
"If you will not accept our poor escort to the king," answered Charles.
"My ladies and myself will dispense with so much honor, Sire," she returned.
"Such service as we can command is at your disposal, Madam," he repeated.
"It is not far distant to the château, Sire."
"As you will," said the emperor.
With no further word she bowed deeply, turned, and slowly retracing her steps, mounted her horse, and rode away, followed by her maids and the troopers of France.
As she disappeared, without one backward glance, the duke gazed quickly toward the spot where Jacqueline had been standing. He remembered the young girl had heard his story; he had caught her eyes upon him while he was telling it; very deep, serious, judicial, they seemed. Were they weighing his past infatuation for the princess; holding the scales to his acts? Swiftly he turned to her now, but she had vanished. Save for rough nurses, companions in arms, moving here and there among the wounded, he and the emperor stood alone. In the bushes a bird which had left a nest of fledglings returned and caroled among the boughs; a clarifying melody after the mad passions of the day. The elder man noted the direction of the duke's glance, the yellow ribbon on his arm.
"So it was a jestress, not a princess you found, thou dreamer," he said, half-ironically.
"The daughter of the Constable of Dubrois, Sire," was the reply.
The emperor nodded. "The family colors have changed," he observed dryly.
"With fortune, Sire."
"Truly," said Charles, "fortune is a jestress. She had like to play on us this day. But your fever?" he added, abruptly, setting his horse's head toward camp.
"Is gone, Sire," answered the duke, riding by his side.
"And your injuries?"
"Were so slight they are forgotten."
"Then is the breath of battle better medicine than nostrum or salve. In youth, 'tis the sword-point; in age, turn we to the hilt-cross. But this maid—have you won her?"
The young man changed color. "Won her, Sire?" he replied. "That I know not—no word has passed—"
"No word," said the emperor, doubtingly. "A knight-errant and a castleless maid!"
The duke vouchsafed no answer.
"Humph!" added Charles. "Thus do our plans come to naught. If you got her, and wore her, what end would be served?"
"No end of state, perhaps, Sire."
"Why," observed the monarch, "the state and the faith—what else is there? But go your way. How smooth it may be no man can tell."
"Is the road like to be rougher than it has been, Sire?"
"The maid belongs to France," answered Charles, "and France belongs to the king."
"The king!" exclaimed the duke, fiercely.
Involuntarily had they drawn rein in the shade of a tiny thicket overlooking the valley. Even from this slight exercise, bowed and weary appeared the emperor's form. The hand which controlled his steed trembled, but the lines of his face spoke of unweakened sinew of spirit, the iron grip of a will that only death might loosen.
"The king!" repeated the young man. "He is no king of mine, nor hers. To you, Sire, only, I owe allegiance, or my life, at your need."
A gentler expression softened the emperor's features, as a gleam of sunshine forces itself into the somberest forest depths.
"We have had our need," he said. "Not long since."
His glance swept the outlook below. "Heaven watches over monarchs," he added, turning a keen, satirical look on the other, "but through the vigilance of our earthly servitors."
The duke's response was interrupted by the appearance below of a horseman, covered with dust, riding toward them, and urging his weary steed up the incline with spur and voice. Deliberately the monarch surveyed the new-comer.
"What make you of yonder fellow?" he said. "He is not of the guard, nor of the bastard's following."
"His housings are the color of France, Sire."
"Then can I make a shrewd guess of his purpose," observed the monarch.
As he spoke the horseman drew nearer and a moment later had stopped before the emperor.
"A message from the king, Sire!" exclaimed the man, dismounting and kneeling to present a formidable-looking document, with a great disk of lead through which a silken string was drawn.
Breaking the seal, the emperor opened the missive. "It is well," he said at length, folding the parchment. "The king was even on his way to the château to await our coming, when he met Caillette and received our communication. Go you to the camp"—to the messenger—"where we shall presently return." And as the man rode away: "The king begs we will continue our journey at our leisure," he added, "and announces he will receive us at the château."
"And have I your permission to return to Friedwald, Sire?" asked the other in a low voice.
"Alone?"
"Nay; I would conduct the constable's daughter there to safety."
"And thus needlessly court Francis' resentment? Not yet."
The young man said no word, but his face hardened.
"Tut!" said the emperor, dryly, although not unkindly. "Where's fealty now? Fine words; fine words! A slender chit of a maid, forsooth. Without lands, without dowry; with naught—save herself."
"Is she not enough, Sire?"
"Francis is more easily disarmed in his own castle by his own hospitality than in the battle-field," observed Charles, without replying to this question. "In field have we conquered him; in palace hath he conquered himself, and our friendship. Therefore you and the maid return in our train to the king's court."
"At your order, Sire."
But the young man's voice was cold, ominous.
Thus it befell that both Robert of Friedwald and Jacqueline accompanied the emperor to the little town, the scene of their late adventures, and that they who had been fool and joculatrix rode once more through the street they had ne'er expected to see again. The flags were flying; cannon boomed; they advanced beneath wreaths of roses, the way paved with flowers. Standing at the door of his inn, the landlord dropped his jaw in amazement as his glance fell upon the jestress and her companion behind the great emperor himself. His surprise, too, was abruptly voiced by a ragged, wayworn person not far distant in the crowd, whose fingers had been busy about the pockets of his neighbors; fingers which had a deft habit of working by themselves, while his eyes were bent elsewhere and his lips joined in the general acclaim; fingers which like antennas seemed to have a special intelligence of their own. Now those long weapons of abstraction and appropriation ceased their deft work; he became all eyes.
"Good lack! Who may the noble gentleman behind the emperor be?" he exclaimed. "Surely 'tis the duke's fool."
"And ride with the emperor?" said a burly citizen at his elbow. "'Tis thou who art the fool."
"Truly I think so," answered the other. "I see; believe; but may not understand."
At that moment the duke's gaze in passing chanced to rest upon the pinched and over-curious face of the scamp-student; a gleam of recollection shone in his glance. "Gladius gemmatus!" cried the scholar, and a smile on the noble's countenance told him he had heard. Turning the problem in his mind, the vagrant-philosopher forgot about pilfering and the procession itself, when a soldier touched him roughly on the shoulder.
"Are you the scamp-student?" said the trooper.
"Now they'll hang me with these spoils in my pockets," thought the scholar. But as bravely as might be, he replied: "The former I am; the latter I would be."
"Then the Duke of Friedwald sent me to give you this purse," remarked the man, suiting the action to the word. "He bade me say 'tis to take the place of a bit of silver you once did not earn." And the trooper vanished.
"Well-a-day!" commented the burly citizen, regarding the gold pieces and the philosopher in wonderment of his own. "You may be a fool, but you must be an honest knave."
At the château the meeting between the two monarchs was unreservedly cordial on both sides. They spoke with satisfaction of the peace now existing between them and of other matters social and political. The emperor deplored deeply the untimely demise of Francis' son, Charles, who had caught the infection of plague while sleeping at Abbeville. Later the misalliance of the princess was cautiously touched upon. That lady, said Francis gravely, to whom the gaieties of the court at the present time could not fail to be distasteful, had left the château immediately upon her return. Ever of a devout mind, she had repaired to a convent and announced her intention of devoting herself, and her not inconsiderable fortune, to a higher and more spiritual life. Charles, who at that period of his lofty estates himself hesitated between the monastery and the court, applauded her resolution, to which the king perfunctorily and but half-heartedly responded.
Shortly after, the emperor, fatigued by his journey, begged leave to retire to his apartments, whither he went, accompanied by his "brother of France" and followed by his attendants. At the door Francis, with many expressions of good will, took leave of his royal guest for the time being, and, turning, encountered the Duke of Friedwald.
Francis, himself once accustomed to assume the disguise of an archer of the royal guard the better to pursue his love follies among the people, now gazed curiously upon one who had befooled the entire court.
"You took your departure, my Lord," said the king, quietly, "without waiting for the order of your going."
"He who enacts the fool, your Majesty, without patent to office must needs have good legs," replied the young man. "Else will he have his fingers burnt."
"Only his fingers?" returned the monarch with a smile, somewhat sardonic.
"Truly," thought the other, as Francis strode away, "the king regrets the fool's escape from Notre Dame and the fagots."
During the next day Charles called first for his leech and then for a priest, but whether the former or the latter, or both, temporarily assuaged the restlessness of mortal disease, that night he was enabled to be present at the character dances given in his honor by the ladies of the court in the great gallery of the château.
At a signal from the cornet, gitterns, violas and pipes began to play, and Francis and his august guest, accompanied by Queen Eleanor, and the emperor's sister, Marguerite of Navarre, entered the hall, followed by the dauphin and Catharine de Medici, Diane de Poitiers, the Duchesse d'Etampes; marshal, chancellor and others of the king's friends and counselors; courtiers, poets, jesters, philosophers; a goodly company, such as few monarchs could summon at their beck and call. Charles' eye lighted; even his austere nature momentarily kindled amid that brilliant spectacle; Francis' palace of pleasure was an intoxicating antidote to spleen or hypochondria. And when the court ladies, in a dazzling band, appeared in the dance, led by the Duchesse d'Etampes, he openly expressed his approval.
"Ah, Madam," he said to the Queen of Navarre, "there is little of the monastery about our good brother's court."
"Did your Majesty expect we should cloister you?" she answered, with a lively glance.
He gazed meditatively upon the "Rose of Valois," or the "Pearl of the Valois," as she was sometimes called; then a shadow fell upon him; the futility of ambition; the emptiness of pleasure. In scanty attire, the Duchesse d'Etampes, with the king, flashed before him; the former, all beauty, all grace, her little feet trampling down care, so lightly. Somberly he watched her, and sighed. Mentally he compared himself to Francis; they had traveled the road of life together, discarding their youth at the same turn of the highway; yet here was his French brother, indefatigable in the pursuit of merriment, while his own soul sangmiséréréto the tune of Francis' fiddles. Yet, had he overheard the conversation of the favorite and the king, the emperor's moodiness would not, perhaps, have been unmixed with a stronger feeling.
"Sire," the duchess was saying in her most persuasive manner, "while you have Charles—once your keeper—in your power, here in the château, you will surely punish him for the past and avenge yourself? You will make him revoke the treaty of Madrid, or shut him up in one of Louis XI's oubliettes?"
"I will persuade him if I can," replied the king coldly, "but never force him. My honor, Madam, is dearer to me than my interests."
The favorite said no more of a cherished project, knowing Francis' temper and his stubbornness when crossed. She merely shrugged her white shoulders and watched him closely. The monarch had not scrupled once to break his covenant with Charles, holding that treaties made under duress, byforce majeure, were legally void, while now— But the king was composed of contradictions, or—was her own influence waning?
She had observed a new expression cross his countenance when in the retinue of the emperor he had noted the daughter of the constable; such a tenderness as she remembered at Bayonne when the king had looked upon her, the duchess, for the first time. When she next spoke her words were the outcome of this train of thought.
"To think the jestress, Jacqueline, should turn out the daughter of that traitor, the Constable of Dubrois," she observed, keenly.
"A traitor, certainly," said Francis, "but also a brave man. Perhaps we pressed him too hard," he added retrospectively. "We were young in years and hot-tempered."
"Your Majesty remembers the girl—a dark-browed, bold creature?" remarked the duchess, smiling amiably.
"Dark-browed, perhaps, Madam; but I observed nothing bold in her demeanor," answered the king.
"What! a jestress and not bold! A girl who frequented Fools' hall; who ran away from court with theplaisant!" She glanced at him mischievously, like a wilful child, but before his frown the smile faded; involuntarily she clenched her hands.
"Madam," he replied cynically, "I have always noticed that women are poor judges of their own sex."
And conducting her to a seat, he raised her jeweled fingers perfunctorily to his lips, and, wheeling abruptly, left her.
"Ah!" thought Triboulet, ominously, who had been closely observing them, "the king is much displeased."
Had the duchess observed the monarch's lack of warmth? At any rate, somewhat perplexedly she regarded the departing figure of the king; then humming lightly, turned to a mirror to adjust a ringlet which had fallen from the golden net binding her tresses.
"Mère de Dieu! woman never held man—or king—by sighing," she thought, and laughed, remembering the Countess of Châteaubriant; a veritable Niobe when the monarch had sent her home.
But Triboulet drew a wry face; his little heart was beating tremulously; dark shadows crossed his mind. Two portentous stars had appeared in the horoscope of his destiny: he who had been the foreign fool; she who was the daughter of the constable. Almost fiercely the hunchback surveyed the beautiful woman before him. With her downfall would come his own, and he believed the king had wearied of her. How hateful was her fair face to him at that moment! Already in imagination he experienced the bitterness of the fall from his high estates, and shudderingly looked back to his own lowly beginning: a beggarly street-player of bagpipes; ragged, wretched, importuning passers-by for coppers; reviled by every urchin. But she, meeting his glance and reading his thought, only clapped her hands recklessly.
"How unhappy you look," she said.
"Madam, do you think the duke—" he began.
"I think he will cut off your head," she exclaimed, and Triboulet turned yellow; but a few moments later took heart, the duchess was so lightsome.
"By my sword—if I had one—our jestress has made a triumphant return," commented Caillette as he stood with the Duke of Friedwald near one of the windows, surveying the animated scene. "Already are some of the ladies jealous as Barbary pigeons. Her appearance has been remarked by the Duc de Montrin and other gentlemen in attendance, and—look! Now the great De Guise approaches her. Here one belongs to everybody."
The other did not answer and Caillette glanced quickly at him. "You will not think me over-bold," he went on, after a moment's hesitation, "if I mention what is being whispered—by them?" including in a look and the uplifting of his eyebrows the entire court. The duke laid his hand warmly on the shoulder of the poet-fool. "Is there not that between us which precludes the question?"
"I should not venture to speak about it," continued Caillette, meeting the duke's gaze frankly, "but that you once honored me with your confidence. That I was much puzzled when I met you and—our erstwhile jestress—matters not. 'Twas for me to dismiss my wonderment, and not strive to reconcile my neighbor's affairs. But when I hear every one talking about my—friend, it is no gossip's task to come to him with the unburdening of the prattle."
"What are they saying, Caillette?" asked the duke, in his eyes a darker look.
"That you would wed this maid, but that the king will use his friendly offices with Charles to prevent it."
"And do they say why Francis will so use his influence?" continued the other.
"Because of the claim such a union might give an alien house to a vast estate in France; the confiscated property of the Constable of Dubrois. And—but the other reason is but babble, malice—what you will." And Caillette's manner quickly changed from grave to frivolous. "Now,au revoir; I'm off to Fools' hall," he concluded. "Whenever it becomes dull for you, seek some of your old comrades there." And laughing, Caillette disappeared.
Thoughtfully the duke continued to observe the jestress. Between them whirled the votaries of pleasure; before him swept the fragrance of delicate perfumes; in his ears sounded the subtile enticement of soft laughter. Her face wore a proud, self-reliant expression; her eyes that look which had made her seem so illusive from the inception of their acquaintance. And now, since his identity had been revealed, she had seemed more puzzling to him than ever. When he had sought her glance, her look had told him nothing. It was as though with the doffing of the motley she had discarded its recollections. In a tentative mood, he had striven to fathom her, but found himself at a loss. She had been neither reserved, nor had she avoided him; to her the past seemed a page, lightly read and turned. Had Caillette truly said "now she belonged to the world"?
Stepping upon one of the balconies overlooking the valley, the duke gazed out over the tranquil face of nature, his figure drawn aside from the flood of light within. Between heaven and earth, the château reared its stately pile, and far downward those twinkling flashes represented the town; yonder faint line, like a dark thread, the encircling wall. Above the gate shone a glimmer from the narrow casement of some officer's quarters; and the jester's misgivings when they had ridden beneath the portcullis into the town for the first time, recurred to him; also, the glad haste with which they had sped away.
Memories of dangers, of the free and untrammeled character of their wandering, that day-to-day intimacy, and night-to-night consciousness of her presence haunted him. Her loyalty, her fine sense of comradeship, her inherent tenderness, had been revealed to him. Still he seemed to feel himself the jester, in the gathering of fools, and she aministralissa, with dark, deep eyes that baffled him.
The sound of voices near the window aroused him from this field of speculation, voices that abruptly riveted his attention and held it: the king's and Jacqueline's.
The young man's brow drew dark; tumultuous thoughts filled his brain; Caillette's words, Brusquet's rhymes, confirming his own conviction, rankled in his mind. This king dared arrogate a law absolute unto himself; its statutes, his own caprices; its canons, his own pretensions? The duke remembered the young girl's outburst against the monarch and a feeling of hatred arose in his breast; his hand involuntarily sought his sword, the blade of Francis' implacable enemy.
"We have heard your story, my child, from our brother, the emperor," the king was saying, "and although your father rebelled against his monarch, we harbor it not against the daughter."
"Sire," she answered, in a low tone, "I regret the emperor should have acquainted you with this matter."
"You have no cause for fear," Francis replied, misinterpreting her words. She offered no response, and the duke, moving into the light, observed the king was regarding the young girl intently, his tall figure conspicuous above the courtiers.
Flushed, Jacqueline looked down; the white-robed form, however, very straight and erect; her hair, untrammeled with the extreme conventions of the day; a single flower a spot of color amid its abundance. Even the duchess—bejeweled, bedecked, tricked out—in her own mind had pronounced the young girl beautiful, and there surely was no mistaking the covert admiration of the monarch as his glance encompassed her. Despite her assumed composure, it was obvious to the duke, however, that only by a strong effort had she nerved herself to that evening's task; the red hue on her cheeks, the brightness of her eyes, told of the suppressed excitement her manner failed to betray.
"Why should you leave with Charles?" continued Francis. "Perhaps were we over-hasty in confiscating the castle of the constable.Vrai Dieu," he added, meditatively. "Had he unbent but a little! Marguerite told us we were driving him to despair, but the queen regent and the rest of our counselors prevailed—" He broke off abruptly and directed a bolder gaze to hers. "May not a monarch, Mademoiselle, undo what he has done?"
"Even a king can not give life to the dead," she replied, and her voice sounded hard and unyielding.
"No," he assented, moodily, "but it would not be impossible to restore the castle—to his daughter."
"Sire!" she exclaimed in surprise; then shook her head. "With your Majesty's permission, I shall leave with the emperor."
Francis made an impatient movement; her inflexibility recalled one who long ago had renounced his fealty to the throne; her resistance kindled the flame that had been smoldering in his breast.
"But if I have pointed out to the emperor that your proper station is here?" he went on. "If he recognizes that it would be to your disadvantage to divert that destiny which lies in France?"
His words were measured; his manner tinged with seeming paternal interest; but, as through a mask, she discerned his face, cynical, libidinous, the countenance of a Sybarite, not a king. The air became stifling; the ribaldry of laughter enveloped her; instinctively she glanced around, and her restless, troubled gaze fell upon the duke.
What was it he read in her eyes? A confession of insecurity, fear; a mute appeal? Before it all his doubts and misgivings vanished; the look they exchanged was like that when she had stood on the staircase in the inn.
Upon the monarch, engrossed in his purpose, it was lost. If silence give consent, then had she already acquiesced in a wish which, from a king, became a demand. But Francis, ever complaisant, with an inconsistent chivalry worthy of the subterfuge of his character, desired to appear forbearing, indulgent.
"For your own sake," he added, "must we refuse that permission you ask of us."
She did not answer, and, noting the direction of her gaze, the eager expectancy written on her face, Francis turned sharply. At the same time the duke stepped forward.
The benignity faded from the king's manner; his countenance, which "at no time would have made a man's fortune," became rancorous, caustic; the corners of his mouth appeared almost updrawn to his nostrils. He had little reason to care for the duke, and this interruption, so flagrant, menacing almost, did not tend to enhance his regard. In nowise daunted, the young man stood before him.
"I trust, Sire, your Majesty will reconsider your decision?"
With a strained look the young girl regarded them. To what new dangers had she summoned him? Was not she, the duke, even the emperor himself, in the power of the king, for the present at least? And knowing well Francis' headstrong passions, his violence when crossed, it was not strange at that moment her heart sank; she felt on the brink of an abyss; a nameless peril toward which she had drawn the companion of her flight. It seemed an endless interval before the monarch spoke.
"Ah, you heard!" remarked Francis at length, satirically.
"Inadvertently, Sire," answered the duke. His voice was steady, his face pale, but in his blue eyes a glint as of fire came and went. Self-assurance marked his bearing; dignity, pride. He looked not at the young girl, but calmly met the scrutiny of the king. The latter surveyed him from head to foot; then suddenly stared hard at a sword whose hilt gleamed even brighter than his own, and was fashioned in a form that recalled not imperfectly a hazard of other days.
He looked not at the young girl, but calmly met the scrutiny of the king.He looked not at the young girl, but calmlymet the scrutiny of the king.
He looked not at the young girl, but calmly met the scrutiny of the king.He looked not at the young girl, but calmlymet the scrutiny of the king.
"Where did you get that blade?" he asked, abruptly.
"From the daughter of the Constable of Dubrois."
"Why did she give it to you?"
"To protect her, Sire."
The monarch's countenance became more thoughtful; less acrimonious. How the present seemed involved in the past! Were kings, then, enmeshed in the web of their own acts? Were even the gods not exempt from retributory justice? Those were days of superstition, when a coincidence assumed the importance of inexorable destiny.
"Once was it drawn against me," said Francis, reflectively.
"I trust, Sire, it may never again be drawn by an enemy of your Majesty."
The king did not reply, but stood as a man who yet took counsel with himself.
"By what right," he asked, finally, "do you speak for the lady?"
moment the duke looked disconcerted. "Bywhat right?"
Then swiftly he regarded the girl. As quickly—a flash it seemed—her dark eyes made answer, their language more potent than words. He could but understand; doubt and misgiving were forgotten; the hesitation vanished from his manner. Hastily crossing to her side, he took her hand and unresistingly it lay in his. His heart beat faster; her sudden acquiescence filled him with wonder; at the same time, his task seemed easier. To protect her now! The king coughed ironically, and the duke turned from her to him.
"By what right, your Majesty?" he said in a voice which sounded different to Francis. "This lady is my affianced bride, Sire."
Pique, umbrage, mingled in the expression which replaced all other feeling on the king's countenance as he heard this announcement. With manifest displeasure he looked from one to the other.
"Is this true, Mademoiselle?" he asked, sternly.
Her cheek was red, but she held herself bravely.
"Yes, Sire," she said.
A new emotion leaped to the duke's face as he heard her lips thus fearlessly confirm the answer of her eyes. And so before the monarch—in that court which Marguerite called the Court of Love—they plighted their troth.
Something in their manner, however, puzzled the observant king; an exaltation, perhaps, uncalled for by the simple telling of a secret understanding between them; that rapid interchange of glances; that significance of manner when the duke stepped to her side. Francis bit his lips.
"Ma foi!" he exclaimed, sharply. "This is somewhat abrupt. How long, my Lord, since she promised to be your wife?"
"Since your Majesty spoke," returned the duke, tranquilly.
"And before that?"
"Before? I only knew thatIlovedher, Sire."
"And now you know, for the first time, thatshelovesyou?" added the king, dryly. "But the emperor—are you not presuming overmuch that he will give his consent? Or think you"—with fine irony—"that marriages of state are made in Heaven?"
"It was once my privilege, Sire, so to serve the emperor, as his Majesty thought, that he bade me ask of him what I would, when I would. Heretofore have I had nothing to ask; now, everything."
Some of the asperity faded from Francis' glance. The situation appealed to his strong penchant for merryplaisanterie. Besides—such was his overweening pride—to hear a woman confess she cared for another dampened his own ardor, instead of stimulating it. "None but himself could be his parallel;" the royal lover could brook no rival. Had she merely desired to marry the former fool—the Countess of Châteaubriant had had a husband—but to love him!
After all, she was but an audacious slip of a girl; a dark-browed, bold gipsy; by nature, intended for the motley—yes, the Duchesse d'Etampes was right. Then, he liked not her parentage; she was a constant reminder of one who had been like to make vacant the throne of France, and to destroy, root and branch, the proud house of Orleans. Moreover, whispered avarice, he would save the castle for himself; a stately and right royal possession. He had, indeed, been over-generous in proffering it. Love, said reason, was unstable, flitting; woman, a will-o'-the-wisp; but a castle—its noble solidity would endure. At the same time, policy admonished the king that the duke was a subject of his good brother, the emperor, and a rich, powerful noble withal. So with such grace as he could command Francis greeted one whom he preferred to regard as an ally rather than an enemy.
"Truly, my Lord," he said not discourteously, masking in a courtly manner his personal dislike for him whose sharp criticism he once had felt in Fools' hall, "a nimble-witted jester was lost when you resumed the dignity of your position. But," he added cautiously, as a sudden thought moved him, "this lady has appeared somewhat unexpectedly; the house of Friedwald is not an inconsequential one."
"What mean you, Sire?" asked the young man, as the king paused.
Francis studied him shrewdly. "Why," he replied at length, hesitatingly, "there is that controversy of the Constable of Dubrois; certain lands and a castle, long since rightly confiscated."
"Your Majesty, there is another castle, and lands to spare, in a distant country," returned the duke quickly. "These will suffice."
"As you will," said the king in a livelier tone. "For the future, command our good offices—since you have made us sponsor of your fortunes."
With which well-covered confession of his own defeat, Francis strode away. As he turned, however, he caught the smile of the Duchesse d'Etampes and crossed to her graciously.
"Your dress becomes you well, Anne," he said.
She glanced down at herself demurely; her lashes veiled a sudden gleam of triumph. "How kind of you, Sire, to notice—my poor gown."
"I was right," murmured Triboulet, joyfully, as he saw king and favorite walking together. "No one will ever replace the duchess."
Silent, hand in hand, the duke and the joculatrix stood upon the balcony. Below them lay the earth, wrapped in hazy light. Behind them, the court, with its glamour.
"Have I done well, Jacqueline, to answer the king as I have done?" he said finally. "Are you content to resign all—forever—here in France? To go with me—"
"Into a new world," she interrupted. "Once I asked you to take me, but you hesitated, and were like to leave me behind you."
"But now 'tis I who ask," he answered.
"And I—who hesitate?" looking out over the valley, where the shadow of a cloud crossed the land.
"Do you hesitate, Jacqueline?"
She turned. About her lips trembled the old fleeting smile.
"What woman knows her mind, Sir Fool? Yet if it were not so—"
"If it were not so?" he said, eagerly.
Her eyes became grave on a sudden. "I might believe I had been of one mind—long."
"Jacqueline!—sweet jestress!—"
He caught her suddenly in his arms, his fine young features aglow. This then was the goal of his desires; a goal of delight, far, far beyond all youthful dreams or early imaginings. With drooping eyelids, she stood in his embrace; she, once so proud, so self-willed. He drew her closer—kissed her hair!—the rose!—
She raised her head, and—sweeter still—he kissed her lips.
Across the valley the shadow receded; vanished. In the full glory of nightly splendor lay the earth, and as the mystic radiance lighted up a world of beauty, it seemed at last they beheld their world; the light more beautiful for the shade and the purple mists.