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Under the Rose

by Frederic Stewart Isham · English · Gutenberg #23675 · 511,925 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Under the Rose

Author: Frederic Stewart Isham


        
Release date: December 2, 2007 [eBook #23675]
                Most recently updated: January 3, 2021

Language: English

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UNDER THE ROSE

by

FREDERIC S. ISHAM

Author of The Strollers

With illustrations by Howard Chandler Christy







[Frontispiece: Kneeling, he received it.]



The Bobbs-Merrill Company
Publishers : Indianapolis

Copyright Nineteen Hundred Three
The Bowen-Merrill Company
January




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

      I  A NEST OF NINNIES
     II  A ROYAL EAVESDROPPER
    III  A GIFT FOR THE DUKE
     IV  AN IMPATIENT SUITOR
      V  JACQUELINE FETCHES THE PRINCESS' FAN
     VI  THE ARRIVAL OF THE DUKE
    VII  THE COURT OF LOVE
   VIII  A BRIEF TRUCE
     IX  THE FLIGHT OF THE FOOL
      X  THE FOOL RETURNS TO THE CASTLE
     XI  A NEW MESSENGER TO THE EMPEROR
    XII  THE DUKE ENTERS THE LISTS
   XIII  A CHAPLET FOR THE DUKE
    XIV  AN EARLY MORNING VISIT
     XV  A NEW DISCOVERY
    XVI  TIDINGS FROM THE COURT
   XVII  JACQUELINE'S QUEST
  XVIII  THE SECRET OF THE JESTERS
    XIX  A FIGURE IN THE MOONLIGHT
     XX  AN UNEQUAL CONFLICT
    XXI  THE DESERTED HUT
   XXII  THE TALE OF THE SWORD
  XXIII  THE DWARF MAKES AN EARLY CALL
   XXIV  AN ENCOUNTER AT THE BRIDGE
    XXV  IN THE TENT OF THE EMPEROR
   XXVI  THE DEBT OF NATURE
  XXVII  A MAID OF FRANCE
 XXVIII  THE FAVORITE IS ALARMED
   XXIX  THE FAVORITE IS REASSURED




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


Kneeling, he received it . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_

Taking the book, he opened it at random, mechanically sinking
  at her feet.

He threw the dregs of his glass in the face of the jester.

He looked not at the young girl, but calmly met the scrutiny
  of the king.




UNDER THE ROSE


CHAPTER I

A NEST OF NINNIES

"A song, sweet Jacqueline!"

"No, no--"

"Jacqueline!--Jacqueline!--"

"No more, I say--"

A jingle of tinkling bells mingled with the squeak of a viola; the
guffaws of a rompish company blended with the tuneless chanting of
discordant minstrels, and the gray parrot in its golden cage, suspended
from one of the oaken beams of the ceiling, shook its feathers for the
twentieth time and screamed vindictively at the roguish band.

Jingle, jingle, went the merry bells; squeak, squeak, the tightened
strings beneath the persistent scraping of the rosined bow.  On his
throne in Fools' hall, Triboulet, the king's hunchback, leaned
complacently back, his eyes bent upon a tapestry but newly hung in that
room, the meeting place of jesters, buffoons and versifiers.

"We appeal to Triboulet--"

"Triboulet!"

A girl's silvery laugh rang out.

"Triboulet!"

Again the derisive musical tones.

Upon his chair of state, the dwarf did not answer; professed not to
hear.  By the uncertain glimmer of torches and the flickering glow of
the fire he was engaged in tracing a resemblance to himself in the
central figure of the composition wrought in threads of silk--Momus,
fool by patent to Jove, thrust from Olympus and greeting the earth-born
with a great grin.

"An excellent likeness!" muttered Triboulet.  "A very pretty likeness!"
he continued, swelling with pride.

And truly it was said that sprightly ladies, working between love and
pleasure times, drew from the court fool for their conception of the
mythological buffoon, reproducing Triboulet's great head; his mouth,
proportionately large; his protruding eyes; his bowed back, short,
twisted legs and long, muscular arms; and his nose far larger than that
of Francis, who otherwise had the largest nose in the kingdom.

But how could they depict the meanness of soul that dwelt in that
extraordinary shell?  The blithesome tapestry-makers, albeit adepts in
form, grace and harmony, could not touch the subjectiveness of
existence.  Thus it was a double pleasure for Triboulet to see, limned
in well-chosen hues, his form, the crookedness of which he was as proud
as any courtier of his symmetry and beauty, the while his dark, vain
soul lay concealed behind the mask of merry deformity and laughing
monstrosity.

"Would your Majesty like to command me?"

The mocking feminine voice recalled Triboulet from his pleasing
contemplation.

"No, no!" he answered, sullenly, and condescended to turn his glance
upon the assemblage.

Over a goodly gathering of jesters, buffoons, poets, and even
philosophers, he lorded it, holding his head as high as his hump would
permit and conscious of his own place in the esteem of the king.  Not
long ago the monarch had laughed and applauded when Triboulet had
twisted his features into a horrid grimace, and since then the dwarf's
little heart had expanded with such arrogance, it seemed to him he was
almost Francis himself as he sat there on Francis' sometime throne; and
these Sir Jollys were his subjects all--Marot, Caillette, Brusquet,
Villot, and the lesser lights, jesters of barons, cardinals and even
bishops!  Rabelais, too, that poor, dissolute devil of a writer,
learned as Homer, brutish as Homer's swine--all subjects of his, the
king of jesters, save one; one whom he eyed with certain fear and
wonder; fear, because she was a woman--and Triboulet esteemed all the
sex but "highly perfected devils"--and wonder, at finding her different
from, and more perplexing than even the rest of her kind!

"Jacqueline!--"

now she was perched on one corner of the table, and her face had a
witch-like loveliness, as though borrowing its pallor and beauty from
the moon, source of all magic and necromancy.  Her eyes shone with such
luster that, seeking their hue, they held the observer's gaze in
mocking languor, and cheated the inquisitive coxcomb of his quest, the
while the disdainful lips curved laughingly and so bewildered him, he
forgot the customary phrases and stood staring like a nonny.  Her
footstep fell so light, she was so agile and quick, the superstitious
dwarf swore she was but a creature of the night and held surreptitious
meetings with all the familiar spirits of demonology.  As she never
denied the uncanny imputation, but only displayed her small white teeth
maliciously, by way of answer, Triboulet felt assured he was right and
crossed himself religiously whenever she gazed too fixedly at him.

A most _gracieuse folle_, her dress was in keeping with her character,
yellow being the predominating color.  To the fanciful adornment of the
gown her lithe figure lent itself readily, while her rebellious curls
were well adapted to that badge of her servitude, the jaunty cap that
crowned their waving abundance.

In especial disdain, from her position upon the corner of the table,
her glance wandered down the board and rested on Rabelais, the
gourmand, before whom were an empty trencher and tankard.  The
priest-doctor-writer-scamp who affected the company of jesters and
liked not a little the hospitality of Fools' hall, which adjoined the
pastry branch of the castle kitchen and was not far removed from the
wine butts, had just unrolled a bundle of manuscript, all daubed with
trencher grease and tankard drippings, and was about to read aloud the
strange adventures of one Pantagruel, when, overcome by indulgence, his
head fell forward on the table, almost in the wooden platter, and the
papers fluttered to the floor.

"Put him out!" commanded Triboulet from his high place.

But she of the jaunty cap sprang from the table.

"How wise are your Majesty's decrees!" she said mockingly with her
glance upon the dwarf.  He shifted uneasily in the throne.  "You should
have put him out before!  But now"--turning contemptuously to the poor
figure of the great man--"he's harmless.  His silence is golden; his
speech was dross."

"And yet," answered Marot, thoughtfully, "the king esteems him; the
king who is at once scholar, poet, wit, soldier--"

"Soldier!" she exclaimed, quickly.  "When he can not conquer Italy and
regain his heritage!"

"Can not?" ventured Triboulet, mindful of the dignity of his royal
master.  "Why not?"

"Because the women would conquer him!"

"Nay; the king prefers the blue eyes of France," spoke up the
cardinal's fool, he of the viola.

"Then do you set our queen of fools, our fair Jacqueline, out of his
Majesty's good graces," interposed one of the lesser jesters, a mere
baron's hireling, who long had burned with secret admiration for the
maid of the coquettish cap.

"I am _such_ a fool as to want the good graces of no man--or monarch!"
she replied boldly, without glancing at the speaker.

"An he were in love, you would be two fools!" laughed Caillette, the
court poet.

"In love, 'tis only the man is the fool or--the fooled!" she returned
pointedly, and Caillette, despite his self-possession, flushed
painfully.  Since Diane de Poitiers had wedded her ancient lord, the
poet had become grave, studious, almost sad.

"And is your mistress, the king's ward, fooling with her betrothed?" he
asked quickly, conscious of knowing winks and nudges.

"The Princess Louise and the Duke of Friedwald are to wed for reasons
of state," said the young woman, gravely.  "There'll be no fools."

"Ah, a loveless match!"

"But not a landless one!" retorted she of the cap without the bells.
"Besides, it cements the friendship of Francis and Charles V!  What
more would you?  But I'll tell you a secret."

At that the company flocked around her, as though there was something
enticing in her tone; the vague promise of an interesting bit of gossip
or the indefinite suggestion of a court scandal.

"A secret!" said the cardinal's fool, rubbing his hands together.  His
master often rewarded him for particularly choice morsels of loose
tittle-tattle.

"Oh, nothing very wicked!" she answered, waving them back with her
small hand.  "'Tis only that they play at make-believe in love, the
princess and her betrothed!  But after all, it is far more sensible
than real love-making, where if the pleasure be more acute, the pangs
are therefore the greater.  She addresses to him the tenderest
counterfeit verses; he returns them in kind.  She even simulated such
an illusory sadness that the duke has sent his own jester, who has but
just arrived at court, to amuse her (ahem!) dullness, until he himself
could come!"

At this the cardinal's buffoon looked disappointed, for his master
liked more highly-flavored hearsay, while Triboulet frowned and brought
down his heavy fist upon the arm of the throne.

"A new jester forsooth!" he exclaimed.

"And why not?" Lifting her swart brows, quizzically.

"We are already overstocked with 'prentice fools," he retorted, looking
over the throng.

"Ah, you fear perhaps some one may depose you?" remarked Jacqueline
coldly.

A guarded laugh arose from the gathering and the dwarf's eyes gleamed.

"Depose me, Triboulet!" he shouted, rising.  "Triboulet is sovereign
lord of all at whom he mocks!  His wand is mightier than an episcopal
miter!"

In his overweening rage and vanity he fairly crouched before the
throne, eying them all like a cat.  His thick lips trembled; his eyes
became bloodshot.

He forgot all prudence.

"Doth not the king himself seek my advice?"  He laughed horribly.
"Hath not, perhaps, many a fair gentleman been burned--aye, burned to
ashes as a Calvinist!--at my suggestion!"

"Miserable wretch!  Spy!" exclaimed the young woman, paler than a lily,
as she bent her eyes, with fully opened lids, upon him.

As if to shield himself, he raised his hand, yet drunkenness or wrath
overcame caution and superstition, and the red eyes met the dark ones.
But a moment, and the former dropped sullenly; a strange thrill ran
through him.  He thought he was bewitched.

"_Non nobis Domine!_" he murmured, striving to recall a hymn.  As Latin
was the language of witchcraft, so, also, was it the antidote.
Contemptuously she turned her back and walked slowly to the fire.  Upon
her white face and supple figure played the elfish glow, lighting the
little cap and the waving tresses beneath.

Regarding her furtively, Triboulet's courage returned, since she was
looking at the coals, not at him.

"Ho, ho!" he said jocosely.  "You all thought I was sincere.  Listen,
my children!  The art of fooling lies in trumped-up earnestness."  He
smiled hideously.

"Bravo, Triboulet!" cried an admiring voice.

"Only time and art can give you such mastery over the passions,"
continued the jester.  "Which one of you would depose me?  Who so ugly
as I?  Poets, philosophers!  I snap my fingers at them.  Poor moths!
And you dare bait me with a new-comer!  Let him look to himself!"  From
earnestness to grandiloquence was but a step.

"Let him come!"  And Triboulet, imitating the pose of Francis himself,
drew his wooden sword.

"Let him come!" he repeated, fiercely.

"Who?" called out a gay and reckless voice.

Through the doorway leading into the kitchen stepped a young man;
slender, almost boyish in appearance, with light-brown hair and
deep-set eyes that belied the gaiety and mirth of his features.  His
costume, that of a Jester, was silk of finest texture and design, upon
which were skilfully fashioned in threads of silver the arms of Charles
V, King of Spain and Emperor of Germany, the powerful rival of Francis,
whose friendship now, for reasons of state, the latter sought.

Smilingly the foreign jester gazed around the room; at the unusual
furnishings, picturesque, yet appropriate; at the inmates, the fools
scattered about the great board or near the mighty fireplace; the
renowned philosopher, Rabelais, sleeping on his arms, with hand
outstretched toward the neglected tankard; at the striking appearance
of the girl who looked with casual, careless interest upon him; at the
grotesque, crook-backed figure before the throne.

And observing the incongruity of his surroundings, he laughed lightly,
while his glance, turning inquiringly if not insolently, from one to
the other, lingered in some surprise upon the young woman.  He had
heard that in far-away France the motley was not confined to men.  Had
not Jeanne, queen of Charles I, possessed her jestress, Artaude de Puy,
"_folle_ to our dear companion," as said the king?  Had not Madame
d'Or, wearer of the bells, kept the nobles laughing?  Had not the
haughty, eccentric Don John, his handsome, merry joculatrix, attached
to his princely household?

But knowing only by rumor of these matters, the jester from abroad
looked hard at her, the first madcap in petticoats he had ever seen.
For her part, Jacqueline bore his scrutiny with visible annoyance.

"Well," she said impatiently, a flash of resentment in her fine eyes,
"have you conned me over enough?"

"Too much, mistress," he replied in no wise abashed, "an it hath
displeased you.  Too little to please myself."

"Yourself!" she returned, with sudden anger at his persistent gaze.
"Some lord's plaything to beat or whip; a toy--"

"And yet a poet who can make rhymes on woman's beauty," he answered
with a careless laugh.

"Another courtier!" grumbled Triboulet.  "Lacking true wit, fools
nowadays essay only compliments to cover their dullness."

With the same air of insolent amusement, the new-comer turned to the
throne and its occupant, whom he subjected to an even more deliberate
investigation.

"Is it man or manikin, gentle mistress?" he asked, after concluding his
examination.

She did not deign to answer, but the offended Triboulet waved his
wooden sword vindictively.

"Manikin!" he roared, and sprang with vicious lunges upon the duke's
jester, who falling back before the suddenness of the assault, whipped
out his weapon in turn, and, laughing, threw himself into an attitude
of defense.

"A mortal combat!" cried the cardinal's wit-snapper.

"Charles V and Francis!" exclaimed Caillette, referring to the personal
challenge which had once passed between the two great monarchs.  "With
a throne for the victor!" he added gaily, indicating Triboulet's chair
of state.

The clatter and din awoke Rabelais, who drowsily regarded the
combatants with lack-luster gaze and undoubtedly thought himself once
more amid the fanciful conflicts of fearful giants.

"Fall to, Pantagruel, my merry Paladin!" he exclaimed bombastically.
"Cut, slash, stab, fence and justle!"  And himself, reaching for an
imaginary sword, encountered the tankard which he would have raised to
his lips but that his shaggy head fell again to the board before his
willing arm had obeyed the passing impulse of his sluggish brain.

"Fence!--justle!" he murmured, and slept once more.

But the parrot, again disturbed, could not so easily compose itself to
slumber.  Whipping its head from its downy nest, it outspread its gray
wings gloriously and screamed and shouted, as though venting all the
thunders of the Vatican upon the offending belligerents.  And above the
uproar and noise of arms, rabble and bird, arose the piercing voice of
Triboulet:

"Watch me spit this bantam-cock!"




CHAPTER II

A ROYAL EAVESDROPPER

Tough and sharp-pointed, a wooden sword was no insignificant weapon,
wielded by the thews and sinews of a Triboulet.  Crouching like an
animal, the king's buffoon sprang with headlong fury, uttering hoarse,
guttural sounds that awakened misgivings regarding the fate of his too
confident antagonist.

"Do not kill him, Triboulet!" cried Marot, alarmed lest the duke's fool
should be slain outright.  "Remember he has journeyed from the court of
Charles V!"

"Charles V!" came through Triboulet's half-closed teeth.  "My master's
one great enemy!"

"Hush!" muttered Villot.  "Our master's enemy is now his dear friend!"

"Friend!" sneered the other, but even as he thrust, his sword tingled
sharply in his hand, and, whisked magically out of his grip, described
a curve in the air and fell at a far end of the room.  At the same time
a stinging blow descended smartly on the dwarf's hump.

"Pardon me!" laughed the duke's fool.  "Being unused to such exercise,
my blade fell by mistake on your back."

If looks could have killed, Triboulet would have achieved his original
purpose, but after a vindictive though futile glance his head drooped
despondently.  To have been thus humiliated before those whom he
regarded as his vassals!  What jest could restore him the prestige he
had enjoyed; what play of words efface the shame of that public
chastisement?  Had he been beaten by the king--but thus to suffer at
the hand of a foreign fool!  And the monarch--would he learn of
it?--the punishment of the royal jester?  As in a dream, he heard the
hateful voices of the company.

"'Tis not the first time he has been wounded--there!" said fearless
Caillette, who openly acknowledged his aversion for the king's favorite
fool.  "But be seated, gentle sir," he added to the stranger, "and
share our rough hospitality."

"Rough, certes!" commented the other, as he returned his blade to his
belt.  "And as I see no stool--"

"There's the throne!" returned Caillette, courteously.  "Since you have
overcome Triboulet, his place is yours."

"A precarious place!" said the new-comer, easily, dropping,
nevertheless, into the chair.

"The king is dead!  Long live the king!" cried the cardinal's jester.

"Long live the king!" they shouted, every fool and zany raising a
tankard, save the dwarf and the young woman, the former continuing to
glare vindictively upon the usurper, and the latter to all intent
remaining oblivious of the ceremony of installation.  Poised upon a
chair, she idly thrust her fingers through the gilded bars of the cage
that hung from the rafters and gently stroked the head of the now
complaisant bird.

"Poor Jocko!  Poor Jocko!" she murmured.

"La!--la!--la!--" sang the parrot, responsive to her light caress.

"Your Majesty's wishes!  Your Majesty's decree!" exclaimed the monastic
wit-worm.

"Hear!  hear!" roared Brusquet.

"Silence!" commanded Marot.  "His Majesty speaks."

"Toot! toot! toot!" rang out the flourish of a trumpet, a clarion
prelude to the fiat from the throne.

The new king in motley arose; heedless, devil-may-care, very erect in
his preposterously pointed shoes.

"I appoint you, Thony, treasurer of the exchequer, because you are
quick at sleight-of-hand," he began.

"Good," laughed Marot.  "An he's more light-fingered than his
predecessor, he's a master of prestidigitation!"

"You, Brusquet," went on the new master of Fool's hall, "I reward with
the government of Guienne, for he who governs his own house so ill is
surely fitted for greater tasks of incompetency."

This allusion to the petticoat rule which dominated the luckless jester
at home was received in good part by all save the hapless domestic
bondman himself.

"You, Villot, are made admiral of the fleet."

Villot smiled, thinking how Francis had but recently bestowed that
office upon the impoverished husband of pretty Madame d'Etaille.

"Thanks, your Majesty," he began, "but if some post nearer home--"

"You are to sail at once!"

"But my wife--"

"Will remain at court!" announced the duke's jester with great decision.

Villot made a wry face.  The king in motley smiled significantly.  "A
safe haven, Villot!  Besides, remember a court without ladies is like a
spring without flowers."

A movement resembling apprehension swept through the company.  The
epigram had been Francis'; the court--a flower-bed of roses--was, in
consequence, a thorny maze for a jester to tread.  From her chair at
the far end of the room, the young woman looked at the new-comer for
the first time since his enthronement.  Her fingers yet played between
the gilded bars; the posture she had assumed set forth the pliant grace
of her figure.  Above the others, she glanced at him, her hair very
black against the golden cage; her arm, very white, half unsheathed
from the great hanging sleeve.

"You are over-bold," she said, a peculiar smile upon her lips.

"Nay; I have spoken no treason, mistress," he retorted blithely.

"Not by word of mouth, perhaps, but by imputation."

He raised his brows with a gesture of wanton protest, while the face
before him clouded.  Her eyes held his; her little teeth just gleamed
between the crimson of her lips.

"I presume you consider Charles the more fitting monarch?" she
continued.

Was it the disdain of her voice?  Did she read his passing thoughts?
Did she challenge him to utter them?

"In truth," the jester said carelessly, "Charles builds fortresses, not
pleasure palaces; and garrisons them with soldiers, not ladies."

She half-smiled.  Her glance fell.  Her hand moved caressingly, the
sleeve waving beneath.

"Poor Jocko!  Poor Jocko!" she murmured.

Triboulet's glance beamed with delight.  She was casting her spell over
his enemy.

"Oh," muttered Triboulet, "if the king could but have heard!"

Perhaps it was a breath of air, but the tapestry depicting the
misadventures of Momus waved and moved.  Triboulet, who noted
everything, saw this, and suffered an expression of triumph momentarily
to rest upon his malignant features.  Had his prayer been answered?  "A
spring without flowers," forsooth!  Dearly cherished the august
gardener his beautiful roses.  Great red roses; white roses; blossoms
yet unopened!

Following his gaze, a significant light appeared in the young woman's
eyes, while her arm fell to her side.

"Now to see Presumption sue for pardon," she whispered to herself.

One by one the company, too, turned in the direction Triboulet was
looking.  In portraiture the classical buffoon grinned and gibed at
them from the tapestry; and even from his high station above the clouds
Jupiter, who had ejected the offending fool of the gods, looked less
stern and implacable.  An expectant hush fell upon the assemblage, when
suddenly Jove and Momus alike were unceremoniously thrust aside, and,
as the folds fell slowly back, before the many-hued curtain stood a man
of stately and majestic mien.

A man whose appearance caused deep-seated consternation, whose
forbidding aspect made the very silence portentous and terrifying.
With dress slashed and laced, rich in jewelry and precious stones, he
remained motionless, regarding the motley gathering, while an ominous
half-smile played about his features.  He said nothing, but his reserve
was more sinister than language.  Capricious, cruel was his face; in
his eyes shone covert enjoyment of the situation.

Would he never speak?  With one hand he stroked his beard; with the
other he toyed with the lace on his doublet.

"You were talking, children," he said, finally, "before I came in."

"If your Majesty," ventured Triboulet, "has heard all, your Majesty
will not blame--us!"  And he glanced malevolently toward the duke's
Jester, who, upon the king's abrupt entrance, had descended from the
platform.

Observing the emblazoned arms of Charles V upon the dress of the
culprit, a faint look of surprise swept Francis' face.  Did it recall
that fatal day, when on the field of battle, a rival banner had waved
ever illusively; ever beyond his reach?  Now it shone before him as
though mocking his friendship for his one-time powerful enemy, the only
man he feared, the emperor who had overthrown him.  The sinister smile
of the king gave way to gloomy thoughtfulness.

"Who is this knave?" he asked at length, fixedly regarding the
erstwhile badge of his defeat.

"A poor fool, Sire!" replied the kneeling man.

"Those arms, embroidered on your dress--what do they mean?" said the
king shortly.

"The arms of my master's master, your Majesty!" was the over-confident
answer.

"Who is your master?"

"The Duke of Friedwald, Sire, the betrothed of the Princess Louise."

"And your purpose here?"

"My master sent me to the princess.  'I'll miss thee, rogue,' said he.
''Tis proof of love to send thee, my merry companion of the wine cup!
But go!  Nature hath formed thee to conjure sadness from a lady's
face.'  So I set out upon my perilous journey, and, favored by fortune,
am but safely arrived.  I was e'en now about to repair to the princess,
whom I trust, in my humble way, to amuse."

"And thou shalt!" said the king, significantly.

"Oh, your Majesty!" with assumed modesty.

"That is," added Francis, "if it will amuse her to see you hanged!"

"And if it did not amuse her, Sire?" spoke up the new-comer, without a
tremor in his voice.

"What then?" asked the king.

"It would be a breach of hospitality to hang me, the servant of the
duke who is servant of Charles V!" he replied boldly.

Francis started.  Like a menace shone the arms of the great emperor.
Vividly he recalled his own humiliation, his long captivity, and
mistrusted the power of his subtile, amiable friend-enemy.  Friendship?
Sweeter was hatred.  But the promptings of wisdom had suggested the
policy of peace; the reins of expediency drove him, autocrat or slave,
to the doctrines of loving brotherhood.  He turned his gloomy eyes upon
the glowing countenance of Triboulet.

"What say you, fool?"

"Your Majesty," answered the eager dwarf, "could hang him without
breach of hospitality."

"How do you make that good, Triboulet?" asked the monarch.

"The duke has given him to the princess.  The princess is a subject of
your Majesty.  The king of France has jurisdiction over the princess'
fool and surely can proceed in so small a matter as hanging him."

Francis bent a malignant look upon the young man.  Behind the dwarf
stood the jestress, now an earnest spectator of the scene.

"This new-comer's stay with us promises to be brief, Caillette," she
whispered.

"Hark, you witch!  He answers," returned the poet.

"What can he say?" she retorted, shrugging her shoulders.  "He is
already condemned."

"Are you pleased, mistress?  Just because the poor fellow stared at you
overmuch."

"Oh," she said, insensibly, "it was written he should hang himself.
Now we'll hear how ably Audacity parleys with Fate."

"It would be no breach of hospitality, Sire, to hang the princess'
fool," spoke the condemned man with no sign of waning confidence, "yet
it would seem to depreciate the duke's gift.  Your Majesty should hang
the one and spare the other.  'Tis a matter of logic," he went on
quickly, "to point out where the duke's gift ends and the princess'
fool begins.  A gift is a gift until it is received.  The princess has
not yet received the duke's gift.  Therefore, your Majesty can not hang
me, as the princess' fool; nor would your Majesty desire to hang me as
the duke's gift."

Imperceptibly the monarch's mien relaxed, for next to a contest with
blades he liked the quick play of words.

"Answer him, Triboulet," he said.

"Your Majesty--your Majesty--" stammered the dwarf, and paused in
despair, his wits failing him at the critical juncture.

"Enough!" commanded the king, sternly.  A sound of suppressed merriment
even as he spoke startled the gathering.  "Who laughed?" he cried
suddenly.  "Was it you, mistress?" fastening his eyes upon the young
woman.

Her head fell lower and lower like some dark flower on a slender stem.
From out of the veil of her mazy hair came a voice, soft with seeming
humility.

"It might have been Jocko, Sire," she said.  "He sometimes laughs like
that."

The king looked from the woman to the bird; then from the bird to the
woman, a gleam of recollection in his glance.

"Humph!" he muttered.  "Is this where you serve your mistress?  Look to
it you serve not yourself ill!"

An instant her eyes flashed upward.

"My mistress is at prayers," she answered, and looked down again as
quickly.

"And you meanwhile prefer the drollery of these madcaps to the
attentions of our courtiers?" said Francis, more gently.  "Certes are
you gipsy-born!"

Her hands clasped tighter, but she answered not, and he turned more
sternly to the new king of the motley.  "As for you," he continued,
"for the present the duke's gift is spared.  But let the princess' fool
look to himself.  Remember, a guarded tongue insures a ripe old age,
and even a throne in Fools' hall is fraught with hazard.  Here! some of
you, take this"--indicating the sleeping Rabelais--"and throw it into
the horse-pond.  Yet see that he does not drown--your heads upon it!
'Tis to him France looks for learning."

He paused; glanced back at the kneeling girl.  "You, Mistress
Who-Seeks-to-Hide-Her-Face, teach that parrot not to laugh!" he added
grimly.

The tapestry waved.  Mute the motley throng stared where the king had
stood.  A light hand touched the arm of the duke's fool, and, turning,
he beheld the young woman; her eyes were alight with new fire.

"In God's name," she exclaimed, passionately, "let us leave.  You have
done mischief enough.  Follow me."

"Where'er you will," he responded gallantly.




CHAPTER III

A GIFT FOR THE DUKE

The sun and the breeze contended with the mist, intrenched in the
stronghold of the valley.  From the east the red orb began its attack;
out of the west rode the swift-moving zephyrs, and, vanquished, the
wavering vapor stole off into thin air, or hung in isolated wreaths above
the foliage on the hillside.  Soon the conquering light brightly
illumined a medieval castle commanding the surrounding country; the
victorious breeze whispered loudly at its gloomy casements.  A great
Norman structure, somber, austere, it was, however brightened with many
modern features that threatened gradually to sap much of its ancient
majesty.

"Fill up the moat," Francis had ordered.  "'Tis barbaric!  What lover
would sigh beneath walls thirty feet thick!  And the portcullis!  Away
with it!  Summon my Italian painters to adorn the walls.  We may yet make
habitable these legacies from the savage, brutal past."

So the mighty walls, once set in a comparative wilderness, a tangle of
thicket and underbrush, now arose from garden, lawn and park, where even
the deer were no longer shy, and the water, propelled by artificial
power, shot upward in jets.

Seated at a window which overlooked this sylvan aspect, modified if not
fashioned by man, a young woman with seeming conscientiousness, told her
beads.  The apartment, though richly furnished, was in keeping with the
devout character of its fair mistress.  A brush or aspersorium, used for
sprinkling holy water, was leaning against the wall.  Upon a table lay an
open psalter, with its long hanging cover and a ball at the extremity of
the forel.  Behind two tall candlesticks stood an altar-table which,
being unfolded, revealed three compartments, each with a picture, painted
by Andrea del Sarto, the once honored guest of Francis.

The Princess Louise, cousin of Francis' former queen, Claude, had been
reared with rigid strictness, although provided with various preceptors
who had made her more or less proficient in the profane letters, as they
were then called, Latin, Greek, theology and philosophy.  The fame of her
beauty had gone abroad; her hand had been often sought, but the obdurate
king had steadfastly refused to sanction her betrothal until Charles, the
emperor, himself proposed a union between the fair ward of the French
monarch and one of his nobles, the young Duke of Friedwald.  To this
Francis had assented, for he calculated upon thus drawing to his
interests one of his rival's most chivalrous knights, while far-seeing
Charles believed he could not only retain the duke, but add to his own
court the lovely and learned ward of the king.

And in this comedy of aggrandizement the puppets were willing--as puppets
must needs be.  Indeed, the duke was seriously enamored of the princess,
whose portrait he had seen in miniature, and had himself importuned the
emperor to intercede with Francis, knowing that the only way to the
lady's hand was through the good offices of him who aspired to the
mastery of all Europe, if not the world.

Charles, unwilling to disoblige one whose principality was the most
powerful of the Austrian provinces he sought to absorb in his scheme for
the unification of all nations, offered no demur to a request fraught
with advantage to himself.  Besides, cold and calculating though he was,
the emperor entertained a certain affection for the duke, who on one
occasion, when Charles had been sore beset by the troops of Solyman, had
extricated his royal leader from the alternatives of ignominious capture
or an untimely end.  Accordingly, a formal proposal, couched in language
of warm friendship to the king, was despatched by the emperor.  When
Francis, with some misgiving, arising from experience with womankind,
laid the matter before Louise, she, to his surprise, proved her devotion
and loyalty by her entire submissiveness, and the king, kissing her hand,
generously vowed the wedding festivities should be worthy of her beauty
and fealty.

Was she thinking of that scene now and the many messages which had
subsequently passed between her distant lover and herself, as the white
fingers ceased to tell the beads?  Was she questioning fate and the
future when the rosary fell from her hand and the clinking of the great
glass beads on the hard floor aroused her from a reverie?  Languidly she
rose, crossed the room toward a low dressing table, when at the same time
one of the several doors of the apartment opened, admitting the jestress,
Jacqueline, whose long, flowing gown of dark green bore no distinguishing
mark of the motley she had assumed the night before.  The dreamy, almost
lethargic, gaze of the princess rested for a moment upon the ardent eyes
of the maid who stood motionless before her.

"The duke's jester who arrived last night awaits your pleasure without,"
said the girl.

"Bid him enter.  Stay!  The fillet for my hair.  Seems he a merry fellow?"

"So merry, Madam, he mimicked the king last night in Fool's hall, beat
Triboulet, appointed knaves in jest to high offices, and had been hanged
for his forwardness but that he narrowly saved his neck by a slender
device."

"What; all that in so short a time!" exclaimed the princess.  "A most
presumptuous rogue!"

"The king, Madam, was behind the tapestry and heard it all: his
appointment of Thony as treasurer, because he is apt at palming money;
Brusquet, governor of Guienne, since he governs his own home so ill; and
Villot, admiral of the fleet, that he might sail away and leave his
pretty wife behind him."

"I'll warrant me the story is known to the entire court ere this,"
laughed the lady.  "Won't Madame d'Etaille be in a temper!  And the
admiral when he hears of it--on the high seas!  The king was
eavesdropping, you say, and yet spared the jester?  He must bear a
charmed life."

"He dubbed himself the duke's gift, Madam, and boldly claimed privilege
under the poor cloak of hospitality."

"Surely," murmured the princess, "there will be no lack of entertainment
with this knave under the same roof.  Too much entertainment, I fear me.
Well, admit the bold fellow."

Crossing to the door, the maid pushed it back and the figure of the
jester passed the threshold:--a figure so graceful and well-built, the
lady's eyes, turning toward him with mild inquiry, lingered with
approval; lingered, and were upraised to a fair, handsome face, when
approval gave way to wonder.

Was this the imprudent, hot-brained rogue who had swaggered in Fools'
hall, and made a farce of the affairs of the nation?  His countenance
seemed that of a courtier rather than a low-born scape-grace; his bearing
in consonance, as, approaching the princess, he knelt near the edge of
her sweeping crimson garment.  Quietly the maid withdrew to a corner of
the apartment where she seated herself on a low stool, her fingers idly
playing with the delicate carvings of a vase of silver, containing water
that had been blessed and standing conveniently near the aspersorium.

"You come from the Duke of Friedwald, fool?" said the mistress,
recovering from her surprise.

"Yes, Princess."

Louise smiled, and looked toward the maid as if to say: "Why, he's a
model of decorum!" but the girl continued regarding the figures on the
vase, seemingly indifferent to the scene before her.

"I hear, sirrah, but a poor account of your behavior last night,"
continued the princess.  "You must have a care, or I shall send you back
to the duke and command him to have you whipped.  You have been here but
overnight, yet how many enemies have you made?  The king; the admiral,
and--last but not least--a certain lady.  Poor fool! you may have saved
your neck, but for how long?  Fie! what an account must I give of you to
your master!"

"Ah, Madam," he answered quickly, "you show me now the folly of it all."

"Let me see," she went on more gently, "what we may do, since you are
penitent?  The king may forgive; the admiral forget, but the lady--she
will neither forget nor forgive.  Fortunately, I think she fears to
disoblige me, and, if I let it be known you are an indispensable part of
my household--" she paused thoughtfully--"besides, she has a little
secret she would keep from the king.  Yes; the secret will save you!"
And Louise smiled knowingly, as one who, although most devout, perhaps
had missed a few paters or credos in listening to idle worldly gossip.

"Madam," he said, raising his head, "you overwhelm me with your goodness."

"Oh, I like her not; a most designing creature," returned the lady
carelessly.  "But you may rise.  Hand me that embroidery," she added when
he had obeyed.  "How do I know the duke, my betrothed, whom I have never
seen, has not sent you to report upon my poor charms?  What if you were
only his emissary?"

"Princess," he answered, "I am but a fool; no emissary.  If I were--"

"Well?"

She smiled indulgently at the open admiration written so boldly upon his
face, and, encouraged by her glance, he regarded her swiftly,
comprehensively; the masses of hair the fillet ill-confined; eyes,
soft-lidded, dreamy as a summer's day; a figure, pagan in generous
proportions; a foot, however, _petite_, Parisian, peeping from beneath a
robe, heavy, voluminous, vivid!

"If you were?" she suggested, passing a golden thread through the cloth
she held.

"I would write him the miniature he has of you told but half the truth."

"So you have seen the miniature?  It lies carelessly about, no doubt?"
Yet her tone was not one of displeasure.

"The duke frequently draws it from his breast to look at it."

"And so many handsome women in the kingdom, too!" laughed the princess.
"A tiny, paltry bit of vellum!"

Her lips curled indulgently, as of a person sure of herself.  Did not the
fool's glance pay her that tribute to which she was not a stranger?  Her
lashes, suddenly lifted, met his fully, and drove his look, grown
overbold, to cover.  The princess smiled; she might well believe the
stories about him; yet was not ill-pleased.  "Like master; like man!"
says the proverb.  She continued to survey the graceful figure,
well-poised head and handsome features of the jester.

"Tell me, sirrah," she continued, "of the duke.  Straightforwardly,
or--I'll leave thee to the mercy of madam the admiral's wife!  What is he
like?"

"A fairly likely man!"

"'Tis what one says of a man when one can say nothing else.  He is not
then very handsome?"

"He has never been so considered!"

The princess' needle remained suspended, then viciously plunged into the
golden Cupid she was embroidering.  "The king hath played with me," she
murmured.  "He represented him as one of the most distinguished-appearing
knights in the emperor's domains.  Is he dark or light?" she went on.

"Dark."

"Tall?"

"Rather short."

"His eyes?" said the lady, after an ominous pause.

"Brown."

"His manners?"

"Those of a soldier."

"His speech?"

"That of one born to command."

"Command!" returned the princess, ironically.  "Odious word!"

"You, Madam," quickly answered the jester, "he would serve."

A moment her glance challenged his, coldly, proudly, and then her
features softened.  The indolent look crept into her eyes once more; the
tension of her lips relaxed.

"Command and serve!" laughed the princess.  "A paradox, if not a paragon,
it seems!  Not handsome--probably ugly!--a soldier--full of oaths--a
blusterer--strong in his cups!  What a list of qualifications!
Well"--with a sigh--"what must needs be must be!  The emperor plays the
rook; Francis moves his pawn--my poor self.  The game, beyond the two
moves, is naught to us.  Perhaps we shall be sacrificed, one or both!
What of that, if it's a draw, or one of the players checkmates the
other--"

"But, Princess," cried the fool, "he loves you!
Passionately!--devotedly!--"

"A passing fancy for a painted semblance!" said the lady, as rising she
turned toward the casement, the golden Cupid falling from her lap to the
floor.  In the rhythmic ease of her movement, in her very attitude, was
consciousness of her own power, but to the poet-jester, surrounded as he
was by symbols of worship and devotion, her expressed self-doubt seemed
that of some saintly being, cloistered in the solitude of a sanctuary.

"Nay," he answered swiftly, "he has but to see you--with the sunlight in
your hair--as I see you now!  The pawn, Madam, would become a queen; his
queen!  What would matter to him the game of Charles or Francis?  Let
Charles grow greater, or Francis smaller.  His gain would be--you!"

The fingers of the maid who sat at the far end of the room ceased to
caress the silver vase; her hands were tightly clasped together; in her
dark eyes was an ironical light, as her gaze passed from the jester to
her mistress.  Almost motionless stood the princess until he had
finished; motionless it would have seemed but for the chain on her
breast, which rose and fell with her breathing.  From the jeweled network
which half-bound her hair shone flashes of light; a tress which escaped
the glittering environment lay like a serpent of gold upon the crimson of
her gown where the neck softly uprose.  A hue, delicately rich as the
tinted leaves of orange blossoms, mantled her cheeks.

She shook her head in soft dissent.  "Queen for how long?" she answered
gently.  "As long as gentle Claude was queen for Francis?  As long as
saintly Eleanor held undisputed sway?"

"As long as Eleanor is queen in the hearts of her people!" he exclaimed,
passionately.  "As long as France is her bridegroom!"

Deliberately she half-turned, the coil of gold falling over her shoulder.
Near her hand, white against the dark casement, a blood-red rose trembled
at the entrance of her chamber, and, grasping it lightly, she held it to
her face as if its perfume symbolized her thoughts.

"Is there so much constancy in the world?" she asked musingly.  "Can such
singleness of heart exist?  Like this flower which would bloom and die at
my window?  A bold flower, though!  Day by day has it been growing
nearer.  Here," she added, breaking it from the stem and holding it to
the jester.

"Madam!" he cried.

"Take it," she laughed, "and--send it to the duke!"  Kneeling, he
received it.  "Thou art a fellow of infinite humor indeed.  Equally at
home in a lady's boudoir, or a fools' drinking bout.  Come, Jacqueline,
Queen Marguerite awaits our presence.  She has a new chapter to read, but
whether another instalment of her tales, or a prayer for her Mirror of
the Sinful Soul, I know not.  As for you, sir"--with a parting
smile--"later we shall walk in the garden.  There you may await us."




CHAPTER IV

AN IMPATIENT SUITOR

"Well, Sir Mariner, do you not fear to venture so far on a dangerous
sea?" asked a mocking voice.

"A dangerous sea, fair Jacqueline?" he replied, stroking the head of
the hound which lay before the bench.  "I see nothing save smiling
fields and fragrant beds of flowers."

"Oh, I recognize now Monsieur Diplomat, not Sir Mariner!" she retorted.

Beneath her head-dress, resembling in some degree two great butterfly
wings, her face looked smaller than its wont.  Laced tight, after the
fashion, the _cotte-hardie_ made her waist appear little larger than
could be clasped by the hands of a soldier, while a silken-shod foot
with which she tapped the ground would have nestled neatly in his palm.
Was it pique that moved her thus to address the duke's jester?  Since
he had arrived, Jacqueline had been relegated, as it were, to the
corner.  She, formerly ever first with the princess, had perforce stood
aside on the coming of the foreign fool whose company her mistress
strangely seemed to prefer to her own.

First had it been talking, walking and jesting, in which last
accomplishment he proved singularly expert, judging from the peals of
laughter to which her mistress occasionally gave vent.  Then it had
become riding, hawking and, worst of all, reading.  Lately Louise,
learned, as has been set forth, in the profane letters, had displayed a
marked favor for books of all kinds--The Tree of Battles, by Bonnet,
the Breviary of Nobles in verse, the "_Livre des faits d'armes et de
chevalerie_," by Christine de Pisan; and in a secluded garden spot,
with her fool and servant, she sedulously pursued her literary labors.

As books were rare, being hand-printed and hand-illumined, the
princess' choice of volumes was not large, but Marguerite, the king's
sister, possessed some rarely executed poems--in their mechanical
aspect; the monarch permitted her the use of several precious
chronicles; while the abbess in the convent near by, who esteemed
Louise for her piety and accomplishments, submitted to her care a
gorgeously painted, satin-bound Life of Saint Agnes, a Roman virgin who
died under the sanguinary persecution of Diocletian.  But Jacqueline
frowningly noticed that the saint's life lay idle--conspicuously,
though fittingly, on the altar-table--while a manuscript of the Queen
of Navarre suspiciously accompanied the jester when he sought the
pleasant nook selected for reading and conversation.

It was to this spot the maid repaired one soft summer afternoon, where
she found the fool and a volume--Marguerite's, by the purple binding
and the love-knot in silver!--awaiting doubtless the coming of the
princess; and at the sight of them, the book of romance and the jester
who brought it, what wonder her patience gave way?

"You have been here now a fortnight, Monsieur Diplomat," she continued,
bending the eyes which Triboulet so feared upon the other.

"Thirteen days, to be exact, sweet Jacqueline!" he answered calmly.

"Indeed!  Then there is some hope for you, if you've kept track of
time," she returned pointedly.

Still he forbore to qualify his manner, save with a latent smile that
further exasperated the girl.

"What mean you, gentle mistress?" he asked quietly, without even
looking at her.

"'Sweet Jacqueline!'  'Gentle mistress!' you are profuse with soft
words!" she cried sharply.

"And yet they turn you not from anger."

"Anger!" she said, her eyes flashing.  "Not another man at court would
dare to talk to me as you do."

At this he lifted his brows and surveyed her much as one would a
spoiled child, a glance that excited in her the same emotion she had
experienced the night of his arrival in Fools' hall, when he had
contemplated her in her garb of Joculatrix, as some misplaced anomaly.

"I know, mistress," he returned ironically, "you have a reputation for
sorcery.  But I think it lies more in your eyes than in the moon."

"And yet I can see the future for all that," she replied, persistently,
defiantly.

"The future?" he retorted, and looked from the earth to the sky.  "What
is the goal of yonder tiny cloud?  Can you tell me that?"

"The goal?" she repeated, uplifting her head.  "Wait!  It is very
small.  The sun is already swallowing it up."

"Heigho!" yawned the jester, outstretching his yellow-pointed boot, "I
catch not the moral to the fable--an there be one!

"The moral!" she said, quickly.  "Ask Marot."

"Why Marot?"  Balancing the stick with the fool's head in his hand.

"Because he dared love Queen Marguerite!" she answered impetuously.
"The fool in motley; the lady in purple!  How he jested at her wedding!
How he wept when he thought himself alone!"

"He had but himself to blame, Jacqueline," returned the other with
composure, although his eyes were now bent straight before him.  "He
could not climb to her; she could not stoop to him.  Yet I daresay, it
was a mad dream he would not have foregone."

"Not have foregone!" she exclaimed, quickly.  "What would he not have
given to tear it from his breast; aye, though he tore his heart with
it!  That day, bright and fair, when Henry d'Albret, King of Navarre,
took her in his arms and kissed her brow!  When amid gay festivities
she became his bride!  Not have foregone?  Yes; Marot would forego that
day--and other days."

Still that inertia; that irritating immobility.  "What a tragic tale
for a summer day!" was his only comment.

"And Caillette!" she continued, rapidly.  "Distinguished in mien,
graceful in manner.  In the house of his patron, he dared look up to
that nobleman's daughter, Diane de Poitiers.  A dream; a youthful
dream!  Enter Monsieur de Brézé, grand seneschal of Normandy.  Shall I
tell you the rest?  How Caillette stares, moody, knitting his brows at
his cups!  Of what is the jester thinking?"

"Whether the grand seneschal will let him sleep with the spaniels,
Jacqueline, or turn him out," laughed the jester.

Angrily she clasped her hands before her.  "Is it the way your mind
would move?" she retorted.

"A jester without a roof to cover him is like a dog without a kennel,
mistress."

Disdain, contempt, rapidly crossed her face, but her lip curved
knowingly and her voice came more gently, because of the greater sting
that lay behind her words.

"You but seek to flout me from my tale," she said sweetly.  "Caillette
is none such, as you know.  They were young together.  'Twas said he
confessed his love; that tokens passed between them.  Rhymes he writ to
her; a flower, perhaps, she gave him.  A flower he yet cherishes,
mayhap; dried, faded, yet plucked by her!"

Involuntarily the hand of her listener touched his breast, the first
sign he had made that her story moved him.  Jacqueline, watching him
keenly, smiled, and demurely looked away.  Her next words seemed to
dance from her lips, as with head bent, like a butterfly poised, she
addressed her remark to vacancy.

"A flower for himself, no doubt!  Not given him for another!"

Whereupon she turned in time to catch the burning flush which flamed
his cheek and left it paler than she had ever seen it.  At this first
signal of her success--proving that he was not impregnable to her
attack--she hummed a little song and beat time on the sward with a
green-shod foot.

"What mean you?" he asked, momentarily dropping his unruffled manner.

"Not much!"  Lightly she tripped to a bush, broke off a flower and
regarded it mischievously.  "Why should people hide that which is so
sweet and fragrant?" she remarked, and set the rose in her hair.

"Hide?" he said, looking at the flower, but not at her.

"I trust you kept the rose, Monsieur Diplomat?" she spoke up, suddenly,
her expression most serious.

"What rose?" he asked, now become restless beneath her cutting tongue.

"What rose!  As if you did not know!  How innocent you look!  How many
roses are there in the world?  A thousand?  Or only one?  What rose?
Her rose, of course.  Have you got it?  I hope so--for the duke is
coming and might ask for it!"

This, then, was the information she had taken such a roundabout way to
communicate!  It was to this end she had purposely led the conversation
by adroit stages, studying him gaily, impatiently or maliciously, as
she marked the effect of her words upon him.  All alive, she stepped
back laughing; elate, she put her arms about a branch of the rose-bush
and drew a score of roses to her bosom, as though she were a witch,
impervious to thorns.  He had risen--yes, there was no doubt about
it!--but her sunny face was turned to the flowers.  His countenance
became at once puzzled and thoughtful.

"The duke--coming--"  He condescended to ask for information now.

Sidewise she gazed at him, unrelenting.  "Does the flower become me?"
she asked.

"The duke--coming--" he repeated.

"How impolite!  To refuse me a compliment!" she flashed.

The next moment he was by her side, and had taken her arm, almost
roughly.  "Speak out!" he cried.  "Some one is coming!  What duke is
coming?"

"You hurt me!" she exclaimed, angrily.  He loosened his grasp.

"What duke?" she answered scornfully.  "Her duke!  Your duke!  The
emperor's duke!"

"The Duke of Friedwald?" he asked.

"Of course!  The princess' fiancé; bridegroom-to-be; future husband,
lord and master," she explained, with indubious and positive iteration.

"But the time--set for the wedding---has not expired," he protested
with what she thought seemed a suspicion that she was playing with him.

"That is easily answered," she said cheerfully.  "The duke, it seems,
has become more and more enamored.  Finally his passion has so grown
and grown he fears to let it grow any more, and, as the only way out of
the difficulty, petitioned the king to curtail the time of probation
and relieve him of the constantly augmenting suspense.  To which his
most gracious Majesty, having been a lover himself (on divers
occasions) and measuring the poor fellow's troubles by the qualms he
has himself experienced, has seen generously fit to cut off a few weeks
of waiting and set the wedding for the near future."

"How know you this?" he demanded, sharply, striding to and fro.

"This morning the princess sent me with a message to the Countess
d'Etampes.  You know her?  You have heard?  She has succeeded the
Countess of Châteaubriant.  Well, the king was with her--not the
Countess of Châteaubriant, but the other one, I mean.  They left poor
me to await his Majesty's pleasure, and, as the Countess d'Etampes has
but newly succeeded to her present exalted position and the king has
not yet discovered her many imperfections, I should certainly have
fallen asleep for weariness had I not chanced to overhear portions of
their conversation.  The Countess d'Etampes, it seemed, was very angry.
'Your Majesty promised to send her home,' she said.  'But, my dear,
give me time,' pleaded the king.  'Pack her off at once,' she demanded,
raising her voice.  'Send her to her husband.  That's where she
belongs.  Think of him, poor fellow!'  Laughing, his Majesty
capitulated.  'Well, well, back to her castle goes the Countess of
Châteaubriant!'  Thereupon--"

"But the duke, mistress," interrupted the jester, who had become more
and more impatient during the prolonged narration.  "The duke?"

"Am I not to tell it in my own way?" she returned.  "What manners you
have!  First, you pinch my arm until I must needs cry out.  Then you
ask a question and interrupt me before I can answer."

"Interrupt!" he muttered.  "You might have told a dozen tales.  What
care I for the king's Jezebels?"

"Jezebels!" she repeated, in mock horror.  "I see plainly, if you don't
die one way, you will another."

"'Tis usually the case.  But go on with your story."

"If I can not tell it in my own way--"

"Tell it as you will, if your way be as slow as your tongue is sharp,"
he answered sullenly.

"Sharp!  Jezebels!  You deserve not to hear, but--the king, it seems,
had laid the duke's request before the Countess d'Etampes.  'Here is an
impatient suitor,' he said gaily.  'How shall we cure his passion?'
'By marrying him,' blithely answered this light-of-love.  ''Tis a
medicine that never fails!'  His Majesty frowned; I could not see him,
but felt sure of it from his tone, for although he neglects the queen,
yet, to some degree, is mindful of her dignity.  'Marriage is a holy
state, Madam,' he replied severely.  'There's no doubt about it,
Francis,' returned the lady, 'and therefore is the antidote to passion.
But a man bent on matrimony is like a child that wants a toy.  Better
give it to him at once--the plaything will the sooner be thrown aside!'
'Nay, Madam,' he said reprovingly, 'the duke shall have his wish, but
for no such reason.'  'What reason then?' quoth she, petulantly.
'Because thou hast shown me love is a monarch stronger than any king
and that we are but as slaves in its hands!' he exclaimed,
passionately.  'I know I shall like the duke,' cried she, 'since he is
the cause of that pretty speech.'

"At this point, not daring to listen longer, I coughed; there was
silence; then the countess herself appeared at the door and looked at
me sharply.  With such grace as I could command, I delivered my
message, left the house and was hurrying through the garden when chance
threw you in my way.  And now you have it all, sir."

"The princess--has she heard the king has received a letter from the
duke, and that his Majesty has changed the wedding date?"

The jester spoke slowly, but Jacqueline was assured that beneath his
deliberate manner surged deep and conflicting emotions; that his
calmness was no more than a mask to conceal his pain.  Had he given
utterance to the feeling that beset him, had he betrayed more than a
suggestion of the passion, rage or grief which struggles for mastery
beneath a forced sloth of sensibility, she would have once more mocked
him with laughter.  But perhaps his very quiescence inclined her to
look upon him with a grain of sympathy or compassion, for her tones
were now grave.

"The princess knows; has heard all from the king.  Not long since he
sent for her.  Will she consent?  What else can she do?  'Tis the
monarch who commands; we who obey!"

"Is the court then only a mart, a guildhall?" he exclaimed.  "A
woman--even a princess--should be won, not--exchanged!"

Her lashes drooped; in her gaze shone once more the ironical amusement.
"Why," she said, "from what wilds, or forests, have you come?  The
heart follows where the trader lists!  Think you the princess will wear
the willow?" she laughed.  "How well you know women!"

"Do you mean that she--"

"I mean that her welfare is in strong hands; that there will be few
greater in all the land; none more honored!  The duke's principality is
vast--but here comes the princess."  The hound sprang to his feet and
ran gamboling down the path.  "Ask her the rest yourself, most
Unsophisticated Fool!  Ah,"--with a touch she could not resist--"what a
handsome bride she will make for the duke!"




CHAPTER V

JACQUELINE FETCHES THE PRINCESS' FAN

Through the flowery path, so narrow her gown brushed the leaves on
either side, the Princess Louise appeared, walking slowly.  A
head-dress, heart-shaped, held her hair in its close confines; the gown
of cloth-of-silver damask fitted closely to her figure, and, from the
girdle, hung a long pendent end, elaborately enriched.  With short,
sharp barks, the dog bounded before her, but the hand usually extended
to caress the animal remained at her side.

Intently the jester watched her draw near and ever nearer, their common
trysting spot, her favorite garden nook.  A handsome bride, forsooth,
as Jacqueline had suggested.  All in white was she now; a glittering
white, with silver adornment; ravishingly hymeneal.  A bride for a
duke--or a king--more stately than the queen; handsomer than the
favorite of favorites who ruled the king and France.

"Jacqueline," she said, evincing neither surprise nor any other
emotion, as she approached, "go and fetch my fan.  I believe 'tis in
the king's ante-chamber."

"Madam carried no fan when"--began the girl.

"Then 'tis somewhere else.  Do not bandy words, but find it."

Sinking on the bench as the maid walked quickly away, she remained for
some moments in silent thought,--a reverie the jester forbore to
disturb.  Her head rested on her arm, from which fell the flowing
sleeve almost to the ground; her wrist was lightly inclasped by a
slender golden band of delicate Byzantine enamel work; over the
sculptured form of the stone griffin that constituted one of the
supports of the ancient Norman bench flowed the voluminous folds of her
dress, partly concealing the monster from view.  Against the clambering
ivy which for centuries had reveled in this chosen spot, and which the
landscape gardeners of Francis had wisely spared, lay her hand, a small
ring of curious workmanship gleaming from her finger.  The ring caused
the jester to start, remembering he had last seen it worn by the king.

Truly, the capricious, but august, monarch must have been well pleased
with the complaisance of his fair ward, and the face of the fool,
glowing and eager, became on the instant hard and cold.  Did he
experience now the first pangs of that sorrow Jacqueline had vividly
portrayed as the love-portion of Marot and Caillette?  Faintly the ivy
whispered above the princess, telling perhaps of other days when,
centuries gone by, some Norman lady had been wooed and won, or wooed
and lost, in the shadow of the griffin, which, silent, sphinx-like, yet
endured through the ages.

Idly the Princess Louise plucked a leaf from the old, old vine, picked
it apart and let the pieces float away.  As they fluttered and fell at
the jester's feet she regarded him with thoughtful blue eyes.

"How far is it," she asked, "to the duke's principality?"

If he had doubted the maid's story, he was now convinced.  The ring and
her question confirmed Jacqueline's narrative.  Moodily he surveyed the
great claws of the griffin, firmly planted on the earth, and then
looked from the feet to the laughing mouth of the stone figure, or so
much of it as the shining dress left uncovered.

"About fifteen days' journey, Princess," he replied.

"No farther?"

"Barring accidents, it may be made in that time."

She did not notice how dull was his tone; how he avoided her gaze.
Blind to him, she turned the ring around and around on her finger, as
though her thoughts were concentrated on it.

"Accidents," she repeated, her hand now motionless.  "Is the way
perilous?"

"The country is most unsettled."

"What do you mean by unsettled?" she continued, bending forward with
fingers clasped over her knees.  Supinely she waved a foot back and
forth, showing and then withdrawing the point of a jeweled slipper, and
a suggestion of lavender in silk network above.  "What do you call
unsettled?"

"The country is infested with many roving bands commanded by the
so-called independent barons who owe allegiance to neither king nor
emperor," he answered.  "Their homes are perched, like eagles' nests,
upon some mountain peak that commands the valleys travelers must
proceed through.  A fierce, untamed crew, bent on rapine and murder!"

"Did you encounter any such?" Gently.

"Ofttimes."

"And left unscathed?"

"Because I was a jester, Madam; something less than man; a lordling's
slave; a woman's plaything!  Their sentinels shared with me their
flasks; I slept before their signal fires, and even supped in the heart
of their stone fastnesses.  Fools and monks are safe among them, for
the one amuses and the other absolves their sins.  Yet is there one
free baron," he added reflectively, "whom even I should have done well
to avoid; he, the most feared, the most savage!  Louis, the bastard of
Pfalz-Urfeld!"

"Have you ever met him?" asked the princess, in a mechanical tone.

"No," with a short laugh.  "A few of his knaves I encountered, however,
whose conduct shamed the courtesy of the other mountain rogues.  I all
but fared ill indeed, from them.  To the pleasantry of my greeting,
they replied with the true pilferer's humor; the free baron had ordered
every one searched.  They would have robbed and stripped me, despite
the color of my coat, only fortunately, instead of a fool's staff, I
had a good blade of the duke's.  For a moment it was cut and
thrust--not jest and gibe; the suddenness of the attack surprised them,
and before they could digest the humor of it the fool had slipped away."

She leaned inertly back against the soft cushion of ivy.  In the shadow
the tint on her cheeks deepened, but below the sunlight played about
her shoulders through leafy interspace, or crept in dancing spots down
over her gown and arms.

"The duke would not be molested by these outlaws?" she continued,
pursuing her line of questioning.

"The duke has a strong arm," he answered cautiously.  "They may be well
content to permit him to come and go as he sees fit."

"Well, well," she said, perversely, "I was only curious about the
distance and the country."

"For leagues the land is wild, bleak, inhospitable, and then 'tis
level, monotonous, deserted, so lonely the song dies on the wandering
minstrel's lips.  But the duke rides fast with his troop and soon would
cover the mountain paths and dreary wastes."

"Nay," she interrupted impatiently, "I asked not how the duke would
ride."

"I thought you wished to know, Princess," he replied, humbly.

"You thought"--she began angrily, sitting erect.

"I know, Princess; a fool should but jest, not think."

"Why do you cross me to-day?" she demanded petulantly.  "Can you not
see--"

Abruptly she rose; impatiently moved away; but a few steps, however,
when she turned, her face suddenly free from annoyance, in her eyes a
soft decision.

"There!" she exclaimed with a smile, half-arch, half-repentant.  "How
can any one be angry on such a day--all sunshine, butterflies and
flowers!"

He did not reply, and, mistress once more of herself, she drew near.

"What a contrast to the stuffy palace, with all the courtiers,
ministers and lap-dogs!" she went on.  "Here one can breathe.  But how
shall we make the most of such a day?  Stroll into the forest; sit by
the fountain; run over the grass?"

Her voice was softer than it had been; her words fraught with
suggestions of exhilarating companionship.  Did she note their effect?
At any rate, she laughed lightly.

"But how," she resumed, surveying the great enfolding skirt, "could one
trip the sward with this monstrous gown, weighted with wreaths of
silver?  Is it not but one of the many penalties of high birth?  Oh,
for the short skirts of the lowly!  What comfort to be arrayed like
Jacqueline!"

"And she, Princess, doubtless thinks likewise of more gorgeous
apparel."  His heart beat faster as he strove to answer her in kind.

"A waste of cloth in vanity, as saith Master Calvin!" she replied,
lifting her arms that shone with creamy softness from the dangling
folds of heavy silk.  "Were it not for this courtly encumbrance, I
should propose going into the fields with the haymakers.  You may see
them now--look!--through the opening in the foliage."

With an expression, part resignation, part regret, she leaned against
the wind-worn griffin which formed the arm of the bench.  Fainter
sounded the warning of the jestress in the ears of the duke's fool; so
faint it became but a weak admonition.  More and more he abandoned
himself to the pleasure of the moment.

"To make the most of the day," the princess had said.

How?  By denying himself the sight of her ever-varying grace; by
refusing to yield to the charm of her voice.  He raised his head more
boldly; through her drooping lashes a lazy light shot forth upon him,
and the shadow of a smile seemed to say: "That is better.  When the
mistress is indulgent, a fool should not be unbending.  A melancholy
jester is but poor company."

And so her mood swayed his; he forgot his resolution, his pride, and
yielded to the infatuation of the moment.  But when he endeavored to
call the weapons of his office to his aid, her glance and the shadow of
that smile left him witless.  Jest, fancy and whim had taken flight.

"Well?" she said.  "Well, Sir Fool?"

His color shifted; withal his half-embarrassment, there was something
graceful and noble in his bearing.

"Madam"--he began, and stopped for want of matter to put into words.

But if the princess was annoyed at the new-found dullness of her
_plaisant_, her manner did not show it.

"What," she said, gently; "no news from the court; no word of intrigue;
no story of the king?  I should seek a courtier for my companion, not a
jester.  But there!  What book have you brought?" indicating the volume
that lay upon the bench.

"Guillaume de Lorris's 'Romance of the Rose,'" he answered, more freely.

"Where did we leave off?"

"Where the hero, arriving at a fountain, beheld a beautiful rose tree,"
said the fool in a low tone.  "Desiring the rose, he reached to gather
it--"

"Yes, I remember.  And then, Reason and Danger did battle with Love."

"Is it your wish we continue?" he asked, taking the book in his hand.

"I would fain learn if he gathers his rose.  Nay, sit here on the bench
and I"--brightly--"may look over your shoulder ever and anon, to steal
a glimpse of the pretty pictures."

Unquestioningly, he obeyed her, the book, illumined, gleaming in the
sunshine; the letters, red, gold, many-hued, dancing before them.  Love
in crimson, the five silver shafts of Cupid, the Tower of Jealousy, a
frowning fortress, the Rose, incentive for endless striving and
endeavor--all floated by on the creamy parchment leaves.  So interested
was she in these wondrous pages, executed with such precision and
perfection, with marginal adornment, and many a graceful turn and fancy
in initial letter and tail-piece, she seemed to him for the moment
rather some simple lowly maiden than a proud princess of the realm.

"How much splendor the penman has shown!" she murmured, her breath on
his cheek.  "'Tis more beautiful than the 'Life of Saint Agnes.'  Is
not that figure well done?  A hard, austere old man; Reason, I believe,
in monkish attire."

"Reason, or Duty, ever partakes of the monastery," he retorted with a
short, mirthless laugh.

"Duty; obedience!" she broke in.  "Do I not know them?  Please turn the
page."

Reaching over, she herself did so, her fingers touching his, her bosom
just brushing his shoulder; and then she flushed, for it was Venus's
self the page revealed, standing on a grassy bank and showing Love the
rose.  Around the queen of beauty floated a silver gauze; her hair was
indicated by threads of gold tossed luxuriantly about her; upon the
shoulder of Love rested her hand, encouraging him in his quest.  Most
zealously had the monk-artist executed the lovely lady, as though some
heart-dream flowed from the ink on his pen, every line exact, each
feature radiantly shown.  Some youthful anchorite, perhaps, was he, and
this the fair temptation that had assailed his fancy; such a vision as
St. Anthony wrestled with in the grievous solitude of his hermit cell.

From the book and the picture, the jester, feeling the princess draw
back impulsively, dared look up, and, looking up, could not look down
from a loveliness surpassing the idealization on vellum of a monkish
dream.  From head to foot, the sunlight bathed the princess, glistening
in her hair until it was alive with light.  Even when he gazed into her
blue eyes he was conscious of a more flaming glory than lay in the
heavens of their depths; a splendent maze that shed a brightness around
her.

"Oh, Princess," he said, wildly, "I know what the king hath told you!
Why you wear the monarch's ring!"

"The monarch's ring!" she repeated, as recalled suddenly from wandering
thought.  "Why--how know you--ah, Jacqueline--"

"And a ring signifieth consent.  You will fulfill the king's desire?"

"The king's desire?" she replied, mechanically.  "Is it not the will of
God?"

"But your own heart?" he cried, holding her with his eager gaze.

She laid her hand on his shoulder; her eyes answered his.  Did she not
realize the tragedy the future held for him?  Or did to-morrow seem far
off, and the present become her greater concern?  Was hers the
philosophy of Marguerite's code which taught that the sweets of
admiration should be gathered on the moment?  That a cry of pain from a
worshiping heart, however lowly, was honeyed flattery to Love's
votaries?  As the jester looked at her a sudden chill seized his
breast.  Jacqueline's mocking laughter rang in his ears.  "Ask her the
rest yourself, most Unsophisticated Fool!"

"Then you will obey the king?" he persisted, dully.

"Why," she answered, smiling and bending nearer, "will you spoil the
day?"

"You would give yourself to a man, whether or not you loved him?"

A frown gathered on the princess' brow, but she stooped, herself picked
up the book he had dropped, brushed the earth from it and seated
herself upon the bench.  Her manner was quiet, resolute; her action, a
rebuke to the forward fool.

"Will you not read?" she said, with an inscrutable look.

"True," he exclaimed, rising quickly, "I was sent to amuse--"

"And you have found me a too exacting mistress?" she asked, more
gently, checking the implied reproach.

"Exacting!" he repeated.

"What then?" she said, half sadly.

"Nothing," he answered.

But in his mind Jacqueline's scornful words reiterated themselves:
"Think you the princess will wear the willow?"

Taking the book, he opened it at random, mechanically sinking at her
feet.  The quest, the idle quest!  Was it but an awakening?  So far lay
the branch above his reach!  His voice rose and fell with the mystic
rhythm of the meter, now dwelling on death and danger, the shortness of
life, the sweetness of passion; then telling the pleasures of the dance.

[Illustration: Taking the book, he opened it at random, mechanically
sinking at her feet.]

Lower fell the princess' hand until it touched the reader's head;
touched and lingered.  Before the fool's eyes the letters of the book
became blurred and then faded away.  Doubt, misgiving, fear, vanished
on the moment.  The flower she had given him seemed to burn on his
heart.  He forgot the decree of the king; her equivocation; the
unanswered question.  Passionately he thrust his hand into his doublet.

"The rose and love are one," he cried.  "The rose is--"

"Pardon me, Madam," said a voice, and Jacqueline, clear-eyed, calm,
stood before them; "the fan was not in the king's ante-chamber, or I
should have been here sooner.  I trust you have not been put out for
want of it?"

"Not at all, Jacqueline," returned her mistress, with a natural,
tranquil movement, "although"--sharply--"you were gone longer than you
should have been!"




CHAPTER VI

THE ARRIVAL OF THE DUKE

Proficient as a poet, bold as a soldier, adroit as a statesman, the
king was, nevertheless, most fitted for the convivial role of host, and
no part that he played in his varied repertoire afforded such
opportunity for the nice display of his unusual talents.  History hath
sneered at his rhymes as flat, stale and unprofitable; upon the bloody
field he had been defeated and subsequently imprisoned; clever in
diplomacy, the sagacity of his opponent, Charles, had in truth
overmatched him; yet as the ostentatious Boniface, in grand bib and
tucker, prodigal in joviality and good-fellowship, his reputation rests
without a flaw.

In anticipation of the arrival of the duke and his suite, the monarch
had ordered a series of festivities and entertainments such as would
gratify his desire for pageantry and display, and at the same time do
honor to a guest who was to espouse one of France's fairest wards.  To
the castle repaired tailors, embroiderers and goldsmiths to make and
devise garments for knights, ladies, lords and esquires and for the
trapping, decking and adorning of coursers, jennets and palfries.
Bales of silks and satins had been long since conveyed thither from
distant Paris, in anticipation of the coming marriage; and the old
Norman castle that had once resounded with the clashing of arms, the
snap of the cross-bow and the clang of the catapult now echoed with the
merry stir and flurry of peace; a bee-hive of activity wherein were no
drones; marshal, grand master, chancellor and grand chamberlain
preparing for mysteries and hunting parties; dowagers, matrons and
maids making ready for balls and other pastimes.

With this new influx of population to the pleasure palace came a
plentiful sprinkling of wayside minstrels, jugglers, mountebanks,
dulcimer and lute players, street poets who sang the praises of some
fair cobbleress or pretty sausage girl; scamps of students from the
Paris haunts of vice, loose fellows who conned the classical poets by
day and took a purse by night; dancers, dwarfs, and merry men all, not
averse to--

  "Haunch and ham, and cheek and chine
  While they gurgled their throats with right good wine."


Here sauntered a wit-cracker, a peacock feather in his hand, arm-in-arm
with an impoverished "banquet beagle," or "feast hound;" there passed a
jack in green, a bladder under his arm and a tankard at his belt, with
which latter he begged that sort of alms that flows from a spigot.  As
vagrant followers hover on the verge of a camp, or watchful vultures
circle around their prey, so these lower parasites (distinct from the
other well-born, more aristocratic genus of smell-feast) prowled
vigilantly without the castle walls and beyond the limits of the royal
pleasure grounds, finding occasional employment from lackey, valet or
equerry, who, imitating their betters, amused themselves betimes with
some low buffoon or vulgar clown and rewarded him for his gross stories
and antics with a crust and a cup.

Faith, in those thrice happy days, every henchman could whistle to him
his shabby poet, and every ostler hold court in the stable, with a
_visdase_, or ass face, to keep the audience in a roar, and a
nimble-footed trull to set them into ecstasies.  But woe betide the
honest wayfarer who strolled beyond the orderly precincts of the king's
walls after dusk; for if some street coxcomb was too drunk to rob him,
or a ribald Latin scholar saw him not, he surely ran into a nest of
pavement tumblers or cellar poets who forthwith stripped him and turned
him loose in the all-insufficient garb of nature.

A fantastic, waggish crew--yet Francis minded them not, so long as they
observed sufficient etiquette to keep their distance from his royal
person and immediate following.  This nice decorum, however, be it
said, was an unwritten law with these waifs and scatterlings, knowing
the merry monarch who tolerated them afar would feel no compunction at
hanging them severally, or in squads, from the convenient branches of
the trees surrounding the castle, should the humor seize him that such
summary chastisement were best for their morals and the welfare of the
community.  Thus, though bold, were they also shy, drinking humbly from
a black-jack quart in the kitchen and vanishing docilely enough when
the sovereign cook bid them be gone with warm words or by flinging over
them ladles of hot soup.

One bright morning, like rabbits peeping from their holes when they
hear the footfall of the hunter, these field ramblers and wayside
peregrinators were all agog, emerging from grassy cover and thicket
retreat, to gaze open-mouthed after a gay cavalcade that issued from
the castle gate, and rode southward with waving banner and piercing
trumpet note.

"The king, knaves!" cried a grimy estray with bells upon his person
that jingled like those of a Jewish high priest, to a group of players
and gamesters.  "Already my mouth waters at the thoughts of the wedding
feast, and the scraps and bones that will be thrown away.  There I
warrant you we'll all find hearty cheer."

"Why are fools ever welcome at a wedding?" asked a singing scholar.

"Because there are two in the ceremony, and the rest make the chorus,"
answered a philandering mime.

"And our merry monarch goeth down the road to meet one of the two,"
said a close-cropped rogue.

"Well, he's a brave knight to come so far to yield himself captive--to
a woman," returned the student.  "As Horace saith--"

"Thou calumniator! shrimp of a man!" exclaimed a dark-browed drab
dressed like a gipsy, seizing the scholar's short doublet.  "An I get
at you--"

"Take the garment, you harridan, not the man," he retorted, slipping
deftly out of the jerkin and dancing away to a safe distance.

"Ha! there's wedded bliss for you!" laughed a man in Franciscan attire,
a rough rascal disguised as one of those priests called "God's fools"
or "Christ's fools."  "A week ago, when I married them, they were
billing and cooing.  But to your holes, children!  When the king
returns he would not have his guest gaze upon such scarecrows and
trollops.  Disperse, and Beelzebub take you!"  And as the group
scattered the sound of beating horses' hoofs died away in the distance.

Francis was unusually good-humored that day.  Apprised by a herald that
the duke and his followers were nearing the castle, he had sent the
messenger back announcing a trysting-place, and now rode forth to meet
his guest and escort him with honor to the castle.  Upon a noble steed,
black as night, the monarch sat; the saddle and trappings crimson in
color; the stirrup and bit, of gold; a jaunty plume of white ostrich
feathers waving above the jetty mane.  The costume of the king's
stalwart figure displayed a splendid suit of plate armor, enriched with
chased work and ornament in gold, his appearance in keeping with his
character of monarch and knight who sought to revive the spirit of
chivalry at a period when the practical modern tendencies seriously
threatened to undermine the practices and traditions of a once-exalted,
but now fast-failing, institution for the regulation of morals and
conduct.

By his side, less radiant only in comparison with the august monarch,
rode the rank and quality of the realm, with silver and spangles, and
fluttering plumes, scabbards gleaming with jewels, and girdles adorned
with rich settings.  Furiously galloping behind came an attenuated
snow-white charger, bearing the hunchback.  A bladder dangling over his
shoulder, his bagpipe hanging from his waist, Triboulet bobbed
frantically up and down, clinging desperately to the saddle or winding
his legs about the charger's neck to preserve his equilibrium.

"You would better jog along more quietly, fool," observed a courtier,
warningly, "or you will suffer for it."

"Alas, sir," replied Triboulet, "I stick my spurs into my horse to keep
him quiet, but the more I prick him the more unruly I find the
obstinate beast."

The king, who heard, laughed, and the dwarf's heart immediately
expanded, auguring he should soon be restored to the monarch's favor;
for since the night the buffoon had failed to answer the duke's jester
in Fools' hall Francis had received Triboulet's advances and small
pleasantries with terrifying coldness.  In fact, the dwarf had never
passed such an uncomfortable period during his career, save on one
memorable occasion when a band of mischievous pages had set upon him,
carried him to the scaffold and nailed his enormous ears to the beam.
Now, reassured, burning with delight, the jester spurred presumptuously
forward, no longer feeling bound to lag in the rear.

"Go back!" cried an angry knight.  "I can not bear a fool on my right."

Triboulet reined in his horse, but pushed ahead on the other side of
the rider who had spoken.

"I can bear it very well," he retorted and found his proud reward in
the company's laughter.  The remark, moreover, passed from lip to lip
to the king, and the misshapen jester felt his little cup of happiness
filled once more to the brim; his old prestige seemed coming back to
him; holding his position in the road, he gazed disdainfully at the
disgruntled knight, and the other returned the look with one of hearty
ill-will, muttering an imprecation and warning just above his breath.

"Sire," called out Triboulet, loudly, now above fearing courtier,
knight or any high official of the realm, "the Count de Piseione says
he will beat me to death."

"If he does," good-naturedly answered the king, "I will hang him
quarter of an hour afterward."

"Please, your Majesty, hang him quarter of an hour before."

Thus right pleasantly, with quip and jest, and many a smart sally, did
the monarch and his retinue draw near the meeting spot, where at a fork
of the road, beneath the shade of overhanging branches, were already
assembled a goodly group of soldiers.  Beyond them, at a respectful
distance, stood many beasts of burden, heavily laden, the great packs
promising stores of rare and costly gifts.  At the head of the troopers
was a thick-set man, with broad shoulders and brawny frame, mounted on
a powerful gray horse.  This leader, whom the approaching company
surmised to be the duke, sat motionless as a statue, gazing steadfastly
at the shining armor and gallant figure of the king who spurred to him,
a friendly greeting on his lips.  Then, lightly springing to earth and
throwing his bridle to one of his troop, the foreign noble approached
the royal horseman on foot, and, bending his head, knelt before him,
respectfully kissing his hand.

Grim, silent, with hardened faces, the duke's men regarded the scene,
their dusty attire (albeit rich enough beneath the marks of travel),
sun-burned visages and stolid manner in marked contrast with the
bearing and aspect of the king's gay following.  One of the alien troop
pulled a red mustachio fiercely and eyed a blithe popinjay of the court
with quizzical superiority; the others remained, stock-still, but
observant.

"I see you are punctual and waiting, noble sir!" said the monarch gaily
when the initial formalities had been complied with.  "But that is no
more than should be expected from--an impatient bridegroom."  Then,
gazing curiously, yet with penetrating look, on the features of his
guest, who now had arisen: "You appear slightly older than I expected
from the letter of our dear friend and brother, the emperor."

And truly the duke's appearance was that of a man more nearly five and
thirty than five and twenty; his face was brown from exposure and upon
his brow the scar of an old sword wound; yet a fearless, dashing
countenance; an eye that could kindle to headlong passion, and a
thick-set neck and heavy jaw that bespoke the foeman who would battle
to the last breath.

"Older, Sire?" he replied with composure.  "That must needs be, since
living in the saddle ages a man."

"Truly," returned the monarch, instinctively laying his hand upon his
sword.  "The clash of arms, the thunder of hoofs, the waving
banners--yes, Glory is a seductive mistress who robs us of our youth.
Have I not wooed her and found--gray hairs?  Who shall give me back
those days?"

"History, your Majesty, shall give them to posterity," answered the
duke.

"Even those we lost to Charles?" muttered the king, a shadow passing
over his countenance.

"Glory, Sire, is a mistress sometimes fickle in her favors."

"And yet we live but for--"  He broke off abruptly, and with the eye of
a trained commander surveyed the duke's men.  "Daredevils; daredevils,
all!" he muttered.

"Rough-looking fellows, Sire!" apologized the duke, "but tried and
faithful soldiers.  Somewhat dusty and road-worn."  And his eyes turned
meaningly to the king's suite; the flashing girdles of silver, the
shining hilts, the gorgeous cloaks and even the adornment of ribbons.

"Nay," said Francis meditatively, "on a rough journey I would fain have
these fire-eaters at my back.  They look as though they could cut and
hew."

"Moderately well, your Majesty," answered the duke with modesty.

"Will you mount, noble sir, and ride with me?  Yonder is the castle,
and in the castle is a certain fair lady whom you, no doubt, fain would
see."

Long gazed the Duke of Friedwald at the distant venerable pile of
stone; the majestic turrets and towers softly floating in a dreamy
mist; the setting, fresh, woody, green.  Long he looked at this
inviting picture and then breathed deeply.

"Ah, Sire, I would the meeting were over," he remarked in a low voice.

"Why so, sir?" asked the king in surprise.  "Do you fear you will not
fancy the lady?"

"I fear she may not fancy me," retorted the nobleman, soberly.  "Your
own remark, Sire; that I appear older than you had expected?" he
continued, gravely, significantly.

"A recommendation in your favor," laughed the monarch.  "I ever prefer
sober manhood to callow youth about me.  The one is a prop, stanch,
tried; the other a reed that bends this way and that, or breaks when
you press it too hard."

"I should be lacking in gratitude were I not deeply appreciative of
your Majesty's singular kindness," replied the duke, his face flushing
with pleasure.  "But your Majesty knows womankind--"

"Nay; I've studied them a little, but know them not," retorted Francis,
dryly.

"And it is unlikely the lady may find me all her imagination has
depicted," went on the nobleman, with palpable embarrassment.  "My
noble master, the emperor, hath--regarding me still as but a stripling
from his own vantage point of age and wisdom--represented me a young
man in his proposals.  But though I'm younger than I look, and feel no
older than I am, how young, or how old, shall I seem to the princess?"

"Young enough to be her husband; old enough for her to look up to,"
answered the monarch, reassuringly.

"Again," objected the duke, meditatively regarding the castle, "she may
be expecting a handsome, debonair bridegroom, and when she sees
me"--ruefully surveying himself--"what will she say?"

"What will she say?  'Yes' at the altar.  Is it not enough?"  Leaning
back in his saddle, the king's face expressed the enjoyment he derived
from the conversation with the backward and too conscientious soldier.
Here was a groom whose wedding promised the court much amusement and
satisfaction in those jovial days of jesting and merry-making.

"Come," resumed the king, encouragingly, "I'll warrant you more forward
in battle."

"Battle!" said the duke.  "That's another matter.  To see your foeman's
gleaming eyes!--but hers!--  Should they express anger, disdain--"

"Let yours show but the greater wrath," advised the king,
complaisantly.  "In love, like cures like!  Let me be your physician;
I'll warrant you'll find me proficient."

"I've heard your Majesty hath practised deeply," returned the noble,
readily, in spite of his perplexity.

"Deeply?"  Francis lifted his brow.  "I am but a superficial student;
master only of the rudiments; no graduate of the college of love.
Moreover, I've heard the letters you exchanged were--ahem!--well-enough
writ.  You pressed your suit warmly for one unlearned, a mere novice."

"Because I had seen her face, your Majesty; had it ever before me in
the painted miniature.  Any man"--with a rough eloquence and fervor
that impressed the king with the depth of his passion--"could well
worship at that fair shrine, but that she--"

"Forward, I beg you!" interrupted the king.  "Womankind are but frail
flesh, sir; easily molded; easily won.  She is a woman; therefore,
soft, yielding; yours for the asking.  You are over valorous at a
distance; too timorous near her.  Approach her boldly, and, though she
were Diana's self, I'll answer for your victory!  Eh, Triboulet, are
our ladies cold-hearted, callous, indifferent to merit?"

"Cold-hearted?" answered the dwarf, with a ludicrous expression of
feigned rapture.  "Were I to relate--but, no, my tongue is
silent--discretion--your Majesty will understand--"

"Well," said the duke, "with encouragement from the best-favored
scholar in the kingdom and the--ugliest, I should proceed with more
confidence."

"Best-favored!" smirked the little monster.  "Really, you flatter me."

"A whimsical fellow, Sire," vouchsafed the nobleman.

"When he is not tiresome," answered the monarch.  "On, gentlemen!"  And
the cavalcade swept down the road toward the castle.  Far behind, with
cracking of whip, followed the mules and their drivers.




CHAPTER VII

THE COURT OF LOVE

The rough Norman banqueting hall, with its massive rafters, frayed
tapestries and rude adornment of bristling heads of savage boars,
wide-spreading antlers and other trophies of the chase, had long since
been replaced under the king's directions by an apartment more to the
satisfaction of a monarch who was a zealous and lavish patron of the
brilliant Italian school of painting, sculpture and architecture.
Those barbarous decorations, celebrating the hunt, had been relegated
to subterranean regions, the walls dismantled, and the room turned over
to a corps of artists of such renown as Da Vinci, François Clouet, Jean
Cousin and the half-mad Benvenuto Cellini.

Where formerly wild boars had snarled with wicked display of yellow
tusks from the blackened plaster, now Cleopatra, in the full bloom of
her mature charms, reclined with her stalwart Roman hero in tender
dalliance.  Where once the proud and stately head of the majestic stag
had hung over door and panel, now classic nymphs bathed in a pellucid
pool, and the only horns were those which adorned the head of him who,
according to the story, dared gaze through the foliage, and was
rewarded for his too curious interest by--that then common form of
punishment--metamorphosis.

Overhead, vast transformation from the great ribbed beams of oak and
barren interspaces, graceful Peri floated on snow-white clouds and
roguish Cupids swam through the azure depths, to the edification of
nondescript prodigies, who constituted the massive molding, or frame,
to the decorative scene.  The ancient fireplace, broad and deep, had
given way to an ornate mantel of marble; the capacious tankard and
rotund pewter pot of olden times, suggestive of mighty butts of honest
beer, had been supplanted by goblets of silver and gold, covered with
scroll work, arabesques or chiseled figures.

In this spacious hall, begilt, bemirrored, assembled, on the evening of
the duke's arrival, Francis, his court and the guest of the occasion.
From wide-spreading chandeliers, with their pendent, pear-shaped
crystals, a thousand candles threw a flood of light upon the scene, as
'mid trumpet blast and softer strains of harmony, King Francis and good
Queen Eleanor led the way to the royal table; and thereat, shortly
after, at a signal from the monarch, the company seated themselves.

At the head of the board was the king; on his right, his lawful
consort, pale, composed, saintly; on his left, the Countess d'Etampes,
rosy, animated, free.  Next to the favorite sat the "fairest among the
learned and most learned among the fair," Marguerite, beloved sister of
Francis, and her second husband, Henry d'Albret, King of Navarre;
opposite, Henry the dauphin and his spouse, Catharine de Medici; not
far removed, Diane de Poitiers, whose dark eyes Henry ever openly
sought, while Catharine complacently talked affairs of state with the
chancellor.

In the midst of this illustrious company, and further surrounded by a
plentiful sprinkling of ruddy cardinals, fat bishops, constables,
governors, marshals and ladies, more or less distinguished through
birth or beauty, the Duke of Friedwald and the Princess Louise were a
center of attraction for the wits whose somewhat free jests the license
of the times permitted.  At the foot of the royal table places had been
provided for Marot, Caillette, Triboulet, Jacqueline and the duke's
fool.

The heads and figures of the ladies of the court were for the most part
fearfully and wonderfully bedecked.  In some instances the
horned-shaped head-dress had been followed by yet loftier steeples,
"battlements to combat God with gold, silver and pearls; wherein the
lances were great forked pins, and the arrows the little pins."  With
more simplicity, the Princess Louise wore her hair cased in a network
of gold and jewels, and the austere French moralist who assailed the
higher bristling ramparts of vanity would, perhaps, have borne in
silence this more modest bastion of the flesh and the devil.

But the face beneath was a greater danger to those who hold that beauty
is a menace to salvation; on her cheek hung the rosy banner of youth;
in her eyes shone the bright arrows of conquest.  And the duke,
discarding his backwardness, as a soldier his cloak before battle,
watched the hue that mantled her face, proffered his open breast to the
shining lances of her gaze, and capitulated unconditionally before the
smile of victory on her blood-red lips.  With his great shoulders, his
massive neck and broad, virile face, he seemed a Cyclops among pygmies
in that gathering of slender courtiers and she but a flower by his side.

"I thought, Sire, your duke was timorous, bashful as a boy?" murmured
the Countess d'Etampes to the king.

"He was--on the road!" answered the king thoughtfully.

"Then has he marvelously recovered his assurance."

"In love, Madam, as in battle, the zest grows with the fray," said
Francis with meaning.

"And the duke is reputed a brave soldier.  He looks very strong, as
if--almost--he might succeed with any woman he were minded to carry
off."

"To carry off!" laughed the monarch.  "'Tis he, Madam, who will be
bound in tethers!  At heart he's shame-faced as a callow younker."

She wilfully shook her head.  "No woman could keep him in
leading-strings, your Majesty.  There is something domineering, savage,
crushing, in his hand.  Look at it, on the table there.  Is it not
mighty as an iron gauntlet?  What other man at the board has such a
brutal hand?  The strength in it makes me shudder.  Will she not bend
to it; kiss it?"

With amused superiority Francis regarded his fair neighbor on the left.
"Women, Madam, are but hasty judges of men," he said, dryly, "and then
'tis fancy more than reason which governs their verdict.  If the duke
should seem over-confident, 'tis to hide a certain modesty, and not to
appear out of confidence in so large a company."

"And yet, Sire, at their first meeting he did not comport himself like
one easily put out," persisted the favorite.  "''Tis with a cold hand
you welcome me, Princess,' he said, noticing her insensibility of
manner.  Then rising he gazed upon her long and deep, as a soldier
might survey a battlefield.  'And yet,' said he, still holding her
fingers, 'I'll warrant me warm blood could course through this little
hand.'  At that the color rose in her cheek; behold! the statue was
touched with life and she looked at him as drawn against her will.  'If
my hand be cold, my Lord,' she answered, courteously, 'it belies the
character of your welcome.'  Whereupon he laughed like one who has had
a victory."

"Beshrew me," said the king, modifying his last observation, "if women
are not all eyes and ears!  I neither heard nor saw all that.  A little
constraint--a natural blush to punctuate their talk--the meeting seemed
conventional enough.  'Tis through your own romantic heart you looked,
Anne!"

Quicker circulated the goblets of silver, gold and crystal; faster
babbled the pretty lips; brighter grew the eyes beneath the stupendous
towers that crowned the heads of the court ladies.  All talked at once
without disturbing the king, who now whispered soft nothings in the ear
of the countess.  From the other tables in the hall arose a varying
cadence of clatter and laughter, which increased with the noise and din
of the king's own board; a clamor always just subservient to the deeper
chorus of the royal party; an accompaniment, as it were, full yet
unobtrusive, to the hubbub from the more exalted company.  But the
princely uproar growing louder, the grand-masters, grand-chamberlain,
gentlemen of the chamber and lesser lights of the church were enabled
to carol and make merry with less restraint.  The pungent smell of
roses permeated the hall, arising from a screen of shrubbery at one end
of the room wherein sang a hundred silver-toned birds.

At the king's table Caillette recited a merry roundelay, and Triboulet
roared out tale after tale, each more full-flavored than the one that
went before it, flinging smart sayings at marriage, and drawing a
ludicrous picture of the betrayed husband.  Villot, a lily in his hand,
which he regarded ever sentimentally, caroled the boisterous espousals
of a yokel and a cinder-wench, while Marot and a bishop contended in a
heated argument regarding the translation of a certain passage of
Ovid's "Art of Love."

Singularly pale, unusually tranquil, the duke's fool furtively watched
his master and the princess.  In contrast to his composure,
Jacqueline's merriment seemed the more unrestrained; she laughed like a
witch; her hands flashed with pretty gestures, and she had so tossed
her head, her hair floated around her, wild and disordered.

"Why are you so quiet?" she whispered to the duke's fool.

"Is there not enough merriment, mistress?" he answered, gravely.

"There can never be any to spare," she said.  "And you would do well to
remember your office."

"What do you mean?" he asked, absently.

"That you have many enemies; that you can not live at court with a
jaundiced countenance.  Heigh-ho!  Alackaday!  You should hie yourself
back to the woods and barren wastes of Friedwald, Master Fool."

Her sparkling glance returned to the exhilarating scene.  Well had the
assemblage been called a court of love.  Now soft eyes invited burning
glances, and graceful heads swayed alluringly toward the handsome
cavaliers who momentarily had found lodgment in hearts which, like
palaces, had many ante-chambers.  From hidden recesses, strains of
music filled the room with tinkling passages of sensuous, but illusive,
harmony; a dream of ardor, masked in the daintiness of a minuet.

Upon the back of the princess' chair rested one of the duke's hands;
with the other he lifted his glass--a frail thing in fingers better
adapted for a sword-hilt or massive battle mace.

"Drink, Princess," he said, bending over her, "to--our meeting!"

Her eyelids fluttered before his look; her breast rose a little.  The
scar on his brow held her gaze, as one fascinated, but she drew away
slightly and mechanically sought the tiny golden goblet at her elbow.
Dreamily, dreamily, sounded the rhythmical music; heavily, so heavily
hung the perfume in the air!  Full of mist seemed the hall; the king,
the queen, the countess, all of the party, unreal, fanciful.  The touch
of the goblet chilled her lips and she put it down quickly.

"Is not the wine to your liking?" he asked, his hand tightening on her
chair.  "Perhaps it is too sour for your taste?"

"Nay; I thought it rather sweet," she answered.  "Oh, I meant not
that--"

"It _is_ sweet wine, Princess," he said, setting down an empty glass.
"Sweeter than our Austrian vintage.  Not white and thin and watery, but
red--red as blood--red as your heart's blood--or mine--"

Crash! from the hand of the duke's jester had fallen a goblet to the
floor.  The princess started, turned; for a moment their glances
bridged the distance from where she sat, to the fools' end of the
table; then hers slowly fell; slowly, and she passed a hand, whereon
shone the king's ring, across her brow; looked up, as though once more
to span infinity with her gaze, when her eyes fell short and met the
duke's.  Deliberately he lifted his filled glass.

"Red as your heart's blood--and mine--my love!" he repeated; and then
stared sharply across the table at his jester.

Triboulet, swaggering in his chair, so high his feet could not touch
the floor, surveyed the broken glass, the duke and the duke's fool.
For some time his vigilant eyes had been covertly studying the
unconscious foreign jester, noting sundry signs and symptoms.  Nor had
the princess' look when the goblet had fallen, been lost upon the
misshapen buffoon; alert, wide-awake, his mind, quick to suspect,
reached a sudden conclusion; a conclusion which by rapid process of
reasoning became a conviction.  Privileged to speak where others must
need be silent, his profession that of prying subtlety, which spared
neither rank nor power so that it raised a laugh, he felt no hesitation
in publishing the information he had gleaned by his superior mental
nimbleness.

"Ho! ho!" he bellowed, the better to attract attention to himself.
"The duke sent his fool to amuse his betrothed and the fool hath lost
his heart to his mistress."

The king left off his whispering, Catharine turned from the chancellor,
Diane ceased furtively to regard Caillette, while the Queen of Navarre
laughed nervously and murmured:

"Princess and jester!  It will make another tale."

But Henry of Navarre looked gravely down.  He, and Francis' queen--a
passive spectator at the feast--and a bishop, whose interest lay in a
truffled capon, alone followed not the direction of the duke's eyes.
The fair favorite of the king clapped her hands, but the monarch
frowned, not having forgotten that night in Fools' hall when the jester
had appointed rogues to offices.

"What is this?  A fool in love with the princess?" said the king,
ominously.

"Even so, your Majesty," cried Triboulet.  "But a moment ago Duke
Robert did whisper to his bride-to-be, and the fool's hand trembled
like a leaf and dropped his glass.  Tra! la! la!  What a situation!
Holy Saint-Bagpipe!  Here's a comedy in high life!"

"A comedy!" repeated the duke, and half-rose from his chair, regarding
his fool with surprise and anger.

Now Triboulet roared.  Had he not in the past attained his high
position of favorite jester to the king by his very foolhardihood?  And
were not trusting lovers and all too-confiding husbands the legitimate
butt of all jesting?

"Look at the fool," he went on exultantly.  "Does any one doubt his
guilt?  He is silent; he can not speak!"

And, indeed, the foreign jester seemed momentarily disconcerted,
although he strove to appear indifferent.

"A presumptuous knave!" muttered Francis, darkly.  "He saved his neck
once only by a trick."

"Oh, the duke would not mind, now, if you were to hang him, Sire,"
answered Triboulet, blithely.

"True!" smiled the king.  "The question of breach of hospitality might
not occur.  What have you to say, fool?" he continued, turning to the
object of the buffoon's insidious and malicious attack.

"Laugh!" whispered Jacqueline, furtively pressing the arm of the duke's
fool.  "Laugh, or--"

The touch and her words appeared to arouse him from his lethargy and
the jester arose, but not before the princess, with flaming cheeks, but
proud bearing, had cast a quick glance in his direction; a glance
half-appealing, half-resentful.  Idly the joculatrix regarded him, her
hands upon the table playing with the glasses, her lips faintly
repeating the words of a roundelay:

  "For love is madness;
    While madness rules,
  Fools in love
    Remain but fools!
      Sing hoddy-doddy,
      Noddy!
    Remain but fools!"


With the eyes of the company upon him, the duke's fool impassively
studied the carven figure on his stick.  If he felt fear of the king's
anger, the resentment of his master, or the malice of the dwarf, his
countenance now did not betray it.  He had seemed about to speak, but
did not.

"Well, rascal, well?" called out the king.  "Do you think your wand
will save you, sirrah?" he added impatiently.

"Why not, Sire?" tranquilly answered the jester.

The duke's face grew more and more ominous.  Still the fool, looking
up, did not quail, but met his master's glance freely, and those who
observed noted it was the duke who first turned away, although his jaw
was set and his great fist clenched.  Swiftly the jester's gaze again
sought the princess, but she had plucked a spray of blossoms from the
table and was holding it to her lips, mindlessly biting the fragrant
leaves; and those who followed the fool's glance saw in her but a
picture of languid unconcern such as became a kinswoman of the king.

Almost imperceptibly the brow of the _plaisant_ clouded, but recovering
himself, he confronted the king with an enigmatic smile.

"Why not?" he repeated.  "In the Court of Love is not the fool's wand
greater than a king's miter or the pastoral staff of the Abbé de Lys?
Besides, Sire," he added quickly, "as a fool takes it, in the Court of
Love, not to love--is treason!"

"Good!" murmured the bishop, still eating.  "Not to love is treason!"

"Who alone is the culprit?  Whose heart alone is filled with umbrage,
hatred, pique?"

"Triboulet!  Triboulet, the traitor!" suddenly cried the countess,
sprightly as a child.

"Yes; Triboulet, the traitor!" exclaimed the fool, pointing the wand of
folly at the hunchback.

Even Francis' offended face relaxed.  "Positively, I shall never hang
this fellow," he said grimly to Marguerite.

"Before this tribunal of ladies whose beauty and learning he has
outraged by his disaffection and spleen, I summon him for trial,"
continued the duke's jester.  "Triboulet, arise!  Illustrious ladies of
the Court of Love, the offender is in your hands."

"A little monster!" spoke up Diane with a gesture of aversion, real or
affected.

"He is certainly somewhat reprehensible," added the Queen of Navarre,
whose tender heart ever inclined to the weaker side.

"An unconscionable rogue," murmured the bishop, complacently clasping
his fat fingers before him.

"So he is already tried by the Church and the tribunal," went on the
_plaisant_ of the duke.  "The Church hath excommunicated him and the
Court of Love--"

"Will banish him!" exclaimed the countess mirthfully, regarding the
captious monarch with mock defiance.

"Yes, banish him; turn him out," echoed Catharine, carelessly.

"But, your Majesty!" remonstrated the alarmed Triboulet, turning to the
monarch whose favor he had that day enjoyed.

"Appeal not to me!" returned Francis, sternly.  "Here Venus rules!"
And he gallantly inclined to the countess.

"Venus at whom he scoffs!" broke in Jacqueline, shrilly, leaning back
in her chair with her hands on her hips.

"You witch!--you sorceress!--it was you who"--he hissed with venomous
glance.

"Hear him!" exclaimed the girl, lightly.  "He calls me
witch--sorceress--because, forsooth, I am a woman!"

"A woman--a devil"--muttered Triboulet between his closed teeth.

"And now," she cried, rising, impetuously, "he says that women are
devils!  What shall we do with him?"

"Pelt him out!" answered the countess.  "Pelt him out!"

With peals of merriment and triumphant shouts, the court, of one
accord, directed a fusillade of fruits, nuts and other viands at the
head and person of the raging and hapless buffoon, the countess
herself, apple in hand--Eve bent upon vengeance--leading in the
assault.  The other tables responded with a cross-fire, and heavier
articles succeeded lighter, until after having endured the continuous
attack for a few moments as best he might, the unlucky dwarf raised his
arms above his head and fairly fled from the hall, leaving behind in
his haste a bagpipe and his wooden sword.

"So may all traitors be punished!" said the bishop unctuously, as he
reached for a dish of confections that had escaped the fair hands in
search of ammunition.

"Well," laughed the Countess d'Etampes, "if we have the support of the
Church--"

"I will confess you, myself, Madam," gallantly retorted the bishop.

"And all the Court of Love?" asked Marguerite.

"Ah, your Highness--all?--I am old--in need of rest--but with an
assistant or two--"

"Assistant or two!" interrupted Catharine, imperiously.  "Would the
task then be so great?"

"Nay"--with gentle expostulation--"but you--members of the court--are
many; not your sins."

"I suppose," whispered Jacqueline to the duke's fool, when the
attention of the company was thus withdrawn from the jester's end of
the table, "you think yourself in fine favor now?"

"Yes," he answered, absently; "thanks to your suggestion."

"My suggestion!" she repeated, scornfully.  "I gave you none."

"Well, then, your crossing Triboulet."

"Oh, that," she replied, picking at a bunch of grapes, "was to defend
my sex, not you."

"But your warning for me to laugh?"

"Why," she returned, demurely, "'twas to see you go more gallantly to
your execution.  And"--eating a grape--"that is reasonably certain to
be your fate.  You've only made a few more enemies to-night--the
duke--the--"

"Name them not, fair Jacqueline," he retorted, indifferent.

"True; you'll soon learn for yourself," she answered sharply.  "I think
I should prefer to be in Triboulet's place to yours at present."

"Why," he said, with a strange laugh, "there's a day for the duke and a
day for the fool."

Deliberately she turned from him and sang very softly:

  "For love is madness;
    (A dunce on a stool!)
  A king in love,
    A king and a fool!
      Sing hoddy-doddy,
      Noddy!
    A king and a fool!"


The monarch bent over the countess; Diane and the dauphin exchanged
messages with their eyes; Catharine smiled on Villot; the princess
listened to her betrothed; and the jestress alone of all the ladies
leaned back and sang, heart-free.  But suddenly she again broke off and
looked curiously at the duke's _plaisant_.

"Why did you not answer them with what was first in your mind?" she
asked.

"What was that?" he said, starting.

"How can I tell?" she returned, studying him.

"You can tell a great deal," he replied.

  "Sing hoddy-doddy,
  Noddy!
  The duke and the fool"--

she hummed, deigning no further words.




CHAPTER VIII

A BRIEF TRUCE

"Turn out these torch-bearers, human candlesticks, and _valets de
chambre_, and I'll get me to bed," commanded the duke, standing in the
center of his room, and the trooper with the fierce red mustaches waved
a swarm of pages, cup-bearers and attendants from the door and closed
it.  "How are the men quartered, Johann?"

"With all the creature comforts, my Lord," answered the soldier.  "The
king hath dressed them like popinjays; they drink overmuch, dice, and
run after the maids, but otherwise are well-behaved."

"Drink; dice; run after the maids!" said the noble, gazing thoughtfully
downward.  "Hold them in check, Johann, as though we were in a
campaign."

"Yes, my Lord," returned the man, staring impassively before him.

"And especially keep them from the kitchen wenches.  There's more
danger in these _femmes de chambre_, laundresses and scullery
Cinderellas than in a column of glittering steel.  Remember, no Court
of Love in the scullery.  Now go!  Yet stay, Johann!" he added,
suddenly.  "This fool of ours is a bold fellow.  Look to him well!"

Saluting respectfully, an expression of quick intelligence on his
florid features, the trooper backed out of the room.  With his hands
behind him, his shoulders bent forward, the duke long pondered, his
look, keen and discerning; his perspicacity clear, in spite of Francis'
wine, or the intoxication of the princess' eyes.  Although the noble's
glance seemed bent on vacancy, it was himself as well as others he was
studying; weighing the memorable events of the evening; recalling to
mind every word with the princess; reviewing her features, the
softening of her cold disdain; now, mentally distrustful, because she
was a woman; again, confident he already dominated the citadel of her
heart.

But a new element had entered into the field; an element
unforeseen--the jester!--and, although not attaching great importance
to this possible source of hazard in his plans for the future, the duke
was too good a soldier to disregard any risk, however slight.  In love
and battle, every peril should be avoided; every vulnerable point made
impregnable.  Besides, the fool was audacious, foolhardy; his language
of covert mockery and quick wit proved him an intelligent antagonist,
who might become a desperate one.

"A woman and a fool," muttered the duke, striding with quick step
across his chamber, "are two uncertain quantities.  The one should be
subjected; the other removed!"

Museful, he stood before the niche, wherein shone a cross of silver,
set with amethysts and turquoise, his rugged face lighted by the
uncertain flickering of the candles.

"Removed!" he repeated, contemplatively.  "And she--"

The clear tinkling of a bell broke in upon his cogitation; a faint,
musical sound that seemed at his very elbow.  He wheeled about
abruptly, saw nothing save the mysterious shadows of the curtains, the
flickering lamps, the dark outline of the canopy of the great bed.
Instinctively he knew he was not alone, and yet his gaze, rapidly
sweeping the apartment, failed to perceive an intruder.

Again the tinkling, a low laugh, and, turning sharply toward an alcove
from whence the sounds came, the duke, through the half-light and
trailing, sombrous shadows of its entrance, perceived a figure in a
chair.  From a candle set in a spiked, enameled stick, a yellow
glimmering, that came and went with the sputtering flame, rested upon
an ironical face, a graceful figure in motley and a wand with the
jester's head and the bell.  Without rising, the _plaisant_ quizzically
regarded the surprised nobleman, who in spite of his self-control had
stepped back involuntarily at the suddenness of the encounter.

"Good evening, my Lord," said the fool.  "I am like the genii of the
tale.  You think of me, and I appear."

Regaining his composure at once, the king's guest bent his heavy brows
over his deep-set eyes, and deliberately surveyed the fool.

"And now," went on the jester, gaily, "it is in your mind I am like as
suddenly to--disappear!  Am I at fault?"

"On the contrary, you are unusually clear-witted," was the answer.

"Oh, my Lord, you over-estimate my poor capacity!" returned the
nobleman's unasked caller with a deprecatory gesture.

The hands of the other worked impatiently; his herculean figure blocked
the doorway.  "You are a merry fellow!" he observed.  "It is to be
regretted, but--confess you have brought it upon yourself?"

"What?  My fate?  Oh, yes!"  And he indifferently regarded the wand and
the wooden figure upon it, without moving from the chair.

"You have no fear?" questioned the duke, quietly.

"Fear?  Why should I?"

Yawning, the fool stretched his arms, looking not at the nobleman, but
beyond him, and, instinctively, the princess' betrothed peered over his
shoulder in the semi-darkness behind, while his hand quickly sought his
sword.

"Fie, most noble Duke!" exclaimed the jester.  "We have no
eavesdroppers or interlopers, believe me!  We are entirely alone, you
and I--master and fool.  There; come no nearer, I beg!"  As the
nobleman menacingly moved toward him.

"Have you any argument to advance, Sir Fool, why I should not?" said
the other, grimly, a gleam of amusement depicted on his broad face as
he paused the while.

"An argument, sharp as a needle, somewhat longer!" replied the jester,
touching his breast and drawing from between the folds of his doublet a
shining hilt.

Harsh and loud laughed the king's guest.  "You fool," he said, "you had
your opportunity below there in the hall and missed it.  You hesitated,
went blindly another course, and now"--with ominous meaning--"you are
here!"

Upon the stick a candle dripped, sputtered and went out; the jester
bent forward and with the copper snuffer on the table near by deftly
trimmed the remaining light.

"Only fools fight in darkness," he remarked, quietly, "and here is but
one of them."

"You pit yourself and that--plaything!--against me?" asked the burly
soldier, derisively.

"Have you hunted the wild boar, my Lord?" lightly answered the other.
"How mighty it is!  How savage!  What tusks!  You know the pastime?  A
quick step, a sure arm, an eye like lightning--presto! your boar lies
on his back, with his feet in the air!  You, my Lord, are the boar;
big, clumsy, brutal!  Shall we begin the sport?  I promise to prick you
with every rush."

The prospective bridegroom paused thoughtfully.

"There is some justice in what you say," he returned, his manner that
of a man who has carefully weighed and considered a matter.  "I confess
to partiality for the thick of the fray, the brunt of the fight, where
men press all around you."

"Assuredly, my Lord; for then the boar is in his element; no matter how
he rushes, his tusks strike yielding flesh."

"Why should we fight at all--at present?" cautiously ventured the
noble, with further hesitation.  "Not that I doubt I could easily crush
you"--extending his muscular arms--"but you _might_ prick me, and, just
now, discretion may be the better part of valor.  I--a duke, engaged to
wed a princess, have much to lose; you, nothing!  A fool's stroke might
kill a king."

"Or a knave, my Lord!" added the _plaisant_.

"Or a knave, sirrah!" thundered the duke, the veins starting out on his
forehead.

The jester half drew his dagger; his quiet confidence and glittering
eye impressed even his antagonist, inured to scenes of violence and
strife.

"Is it a truce, most noble Lord?" said the fool, significantly.  "A
truce wherein we may call black, black; and white, white!  A truce
which may be broken by either of us, with due warning to the other?"

Knitting his brow, the noble stood motionless, deeply pondering, his
headlong passion evidently at combat with his judgment; then his face
cleared, a hard, brusque laugh burst from his lips and he brought his
fist violently down on the massive oak table near the door.

"So be it!" he assented, with a more open look.

"A truce--without any rushes from the boar?"

"Fool!  Does not my word suffice?" contemptuously retorted the duke.

"Yes; for although you are--what you are--you have been a soldier, and
would not break a truce."

"Such commendation from--my jester is, indeed, flattering!" satirically
remarked the king's guest, seating himself in a great chair which
brought him face to face with the fool and yet commanded the door, the
intruder's only means of retreat.

"Pardon me, the duke's jester, you mean?"

"Yes; mine!"

"A distinction with a difference!" retorted the fool.  "It is quite
true I am the duke's jester; it is equally untrue I am yours.
Therefore, we reach the conclusion that you and the duke are two
different persons.  Plainly, not being the duke, you are an impostor.
Have you any fault to find with my reasoning?"

"On the contrary," answered the other, with no sign of anger or
surprise, "your reasoning is all that could be desired.  Why should I
deny what you already know?  I was aware, of course, that you knew,
when I first learned his jester was in the castle.  Frankly, I am not
the duke--to you!"

"But with Francis and the court?" suggested the fool, uplifting his
brows.

"I am the duke--and such remain!  You understand?"

"Perfectly, my Lord," replied the jester, shrugging his shoulders.
"But since I am not the king, nor one of the courtiers, whom, for the
time being, have I the honor of addressing?  But, perhaps, I am
over-inquisitive."

"Not at all," said the other, with mocking ceremony.  "You are a
whimsical fellow; besides, I am taken with a man who stands near death
without flinching.  To tell you the truth, our truce is somewhat to my
liking.  There are few men who would have dared what you have to-night.
And although you're only a fool--will you drink with me from this
bottle on the table here?  I'm tired of ceremonies of rank and would
clink a glass in private with a merry fellow.  What say you?"

And leaning over, he filled two large goblets with the rich beverage
from a great flask placed on the stand for his convenience.  His face
lighted with gross conviviality, but behind his jovial, free manner,
that of a trooper in his cups, gleamed a furtive, guarded look, as
though he were studying and testing his man.

"I'm for a free life; some fighting; but snug walls around for
companionship," he continued.  "Look at my soldiers now; roistering,
love-making!  Charles?  Francis?  Not one of the troop would leave me
for emperor or king!  Not one but would follow me--where ambition
leads!"  Holding up the glass, he looked into the depths of the thick
burgundy.  "Why, a likely fellow like you should carry a gleaming
blade, not a wooden sword.  I know your duke--a man of lineage--a
string of titles long as my arm--an underling of the emperor, while
I"--closing his great jaw firmly--"owe allegiance to no man, or
monarch, which is the same thing.  Drink, lad; I'm pleased I did not
kill you."

"And I," laughed the _plaisant_, "congratulate myself you are still
alive--for the wine is excellent!"

"Still alive!" exclaimed the king's guest, boisterously, although a
dark shadow crossed his glance.

"I'm scarred from head to foot, and my hide is as tough as--"

"A boar's?" tapping his chin with the fool's head on his wand.

"Ah, you will have your jest," retorted the host of the occasion,
good-naturedly.  "It's bred in the bone.  A quality for a soldier.
Next to courage is that fine sense of humor which makes a man a _bon
camarade_.  Put down your graven image, lad; you were made to carry
arms, not baubles.  Put it down, I say, and touch glasses with Louis,
of Pfalz-Urfeld."

"The bastard of Hochfels!" exclaimed the jester, fixedly regarding the
man whose name was known throughout Europe for his reckless bravery,
his personal resources and his indomitable pride or love of freedom and
independence, which held him aloof from emperor or monarch, and made
him peer and leader among the many intractable spirits of the Austrian
country who had not yet bowed their necks to conquest; a soldier of
many battles, whose thick-walled fortress, perched picturesquely in
mid-air on a steep mountain top, established his security on all sides.

"The same, my friend of the motley," continued the other, not without
complacency, observing the effect of his announcement on the jester.

"He who calls himself the free baron of Hochfels?" observed the fool,
setting down the glass from which he had moderately partaken.

"Aye; a man of royal and peasant blood," harshly answered the
free-booter.  "Ambition, arrogance, are the kingly inheritance;
strength, a constitution of iron, the low-born legacy.  What think you
of such an endowment?"

"You are far from your castle, my Lord of Hochfels," commented the
jester, absently, unmindful of a question he felt not called upon to
answer.

"And yet as safe as in my own mountain nest," retorted the free baron,
or free-booter, indifferently.  "Who would betray me?  There is not a
trooper of mine but would die for his master.  You would not denounce
me, because--but why enumerate the reasons?  I hold you in the palm of
my hand, and, when I close my fingers, there's the end of you."

"But where--allow me; the wine has a rare flavor," and he reached for
the flask.

"Drink freely," returned the pretender; "it is the king's own, and you
are my guest.  You were about to ask--"

"Whence came the idea for this mad adventure?" said the jester, his
eyes seemingly bent in admiration on the goblet he held; a half globe
of crystal sustained by a golden Bacchus.

"Idea!" repeated the self-called baron, with a gesture of satisfaction.
"It was more than an idea.  It was an inspiration, born of that chance
which points the way to greatness.  The feat accomplished, all Europe
will wonder at the wanton exploit.  At first Francis will rage; then
seeing me impregnably intrenched, will make the best of the marriage,
especially as the groom is of royal blood.  Next, an alliance with the
French king against the emperor.  Why not; was not Francis once ready
to treat even with Solyman to defeat Charles, an overture which shocked
Christendom?  And while Charles' energies are bent to the task of
protecting his country from the Turks, a new leader appears; a
devil-may-care fellow--and then--and then--"

He broke off abruptly; stared before him, as though the fumes of wine
were at last beginning to rise to his head; toyed with his glass and
drank it quickly at a draft.  "What an alluring will-o'-the-wisp
is--to-morrow!" he muttered.

"An illusive hope that reconciles us with to-day," answered the
_plaisant_.

"Illusive!" cried the other.  "Only for poets, dreamers, fools!"

"And you, Sir Baron, are neither one nor the other," remarked the
jester.  "No philosopher, but a plain soldier, who chops heads--not
logic.  But the inspiration that caused you to embark upon this
hot-brained, pretty enterprise?"

"Upon a spur of rock that overlooks the road through the mountain is
set the Vulture's Nest, Sir Fool," began the adventurer in a voice at
once confident and arrogant.  "At least, so the time-honored fortress
of Hochfels is disparagingly designated by the people.  As the road is
the only pass through the mountains, naturally we come more or less in
contact with the people who go by our doors.  Being thus forced,
through the situation of our fortress, into the proximity of the
traveling public, we have, from time to time, made such sorties as are
practised by a beleaguered garrison, and have, in consequence, taken
prisoners many traffickers and traders, whose goods and chattels were
worthy of our attention as spoils of war.  Generally, we have confined
our operations to migratory merchants, who carry more of value and
cause less trouble than the emperor's soldiers or the king's troopers,
but occasionally we brush against one of the latter bands so that we
may keep in practice in laying our blades to the grindstone, and also
to show we are soldiers, not robbers."

"Which remains to be proved," murmured the attentive jester.  "Your
pardon, noble Lord"--as the other half-started from his chair--"let me
fill your glass.  'Tis a pity to neglect such royal wine.  Proceed with
your story.  Come we presently to the inspiration?"

"At once," answered the apparently appeased master of the fortress,
wiping his lips.  "One day our western outpost brought in a messenger,
and, when we had stripped the knave, upon him we found a miniature and
a letter from the princess to the duke.  The latter was prettily writ,
with here and there a rhyme, and moved me mightily.  The eagle hath its
mate, I thought, but the vulture of Hochfels is single, and this
reflection, with the sight of the picture and that right, fair script,
saddened me.

"And then, on a sudden, came the inspiration.  Why not play a hand in
this international marriage Charles and Francis were bringing about?  I
commanded the only road across the mountain; therefore, did command the
situation.  The emperor and the king should be but the wooden figures,
and I would pull the strings to make them dance.  The duke, your
master, why should he be more than a name?  The princess' letter told
me she had never seen her betrothed.  What easier than to redouble the
sentries in the valley, make prisoners of the messengers, clap them in
the fortress dungeons, read the missives, and then despatch them to
their respective destinations by men of my own?"

"Then that was the reason why on my way through the mountains your
knaves attacked me?" said the listener quickly.

"Exactly; to search you.  How you slipped through their hands I know
not."  And he glanced at the other curiously.

"They were but poor rogues," answered the jester quickly.

"Certainly are you not one!" exclaimed the free baron, with a glance of
approval at the slender figure of his antagonist.  "Two of them paid
for their carelessness.  The others were so shamed, they told me some
great knight had attacked them.  A fool in motley!" he laughed.  "No
wonder the rogues hung their heads!  But in deceiving me," he added
thoughtfully, "they permitted their master to run into an unknown
peril--his ignorance that a fool of the duke, or a fool wearing the
emblem of the emperor, had gone to Francis' court."

"You were saying, Sir Free Baron, you intended to read the messages
between the princess and the duke, and afterward to despatch them by
messengers of your own?" interrupted the _plaisant_.

"Such were my plans.  Moreover, I possessed a clerk--a knave who had
killed an abbot and fled from the monastery--a man of poetry, wit and
sentiment.  Whenever the letters lacked for ardor, and the lovers had
grown too timid, him I set to forge a postscript, or indite new
missives, which the rogue did most prettily, having studied love-making
under the monks.  And thus, Sir Fool, I courted and won the
princess--by proxy!"

"Of a certainty, your wooing was at least novel, Sir Knight of the
Vulture's Nest," dryly observed the jester.  "Although, had my master
known the deception, you would, perhaps, have paid dearly for it."

"Your master, forsooth!" laughed the outlaw lord.  "A puny scion of a
worn-out ancestry!  Such a woman as the princess wants a man of brawn
and muscle; no weakling of the nursery."

"Well," said the fool, slowly, "you became intermediary between the
princess and the duke, and the king and the emperor.  But to come into
the heart of France; to the king's very palace--did you not fear
detection?"

"How?" retorted the other, raising his head and resting his eyes,
bloodshot and heavy, on the fool's impassive features.  "The road
between the two monarchs is mine; no message can now pass.  The emperor
and the duke may wonder, but the way here is long, and"--with a
smile--"I have ample time for the enterprise ere the alarm can be
given."

"And you paved the way for your coming by altering the letters of the
duke, or forging new ones?" suggested the listener.

"How else?  A word added here and there; a post-script, or even a page!
As for their highnesses' seals, any fool can break and mend a seal.  In
a week the duke will wonder at the princess' silence; in a fortnight he
will become uneasy; in a month he will learn the cage has been left
open and the bird hath flown.  Then, too, shall the gates of the
dungeon be set ajar, and the true, but tardy, messengers permitted to
go their respective ways.  Is it not a nice adventure?  Am I not a
fitter leader than your duke?"

"Undoubtedly," returned the jester.  "He sits at home, while you are
here in his stead.  But what will the princess say when she learns?"

"Nothing.  She loves me already."

The fool turned pale; the hand that held his glass, however, was firm,
and he set the goblet down without a tremor.

"She may weep a little, but it will pass like a summer shower.  Women
are weak; women are yielding.  Have I not reason to know?" he burst
out.  "I, a--"

Brusquely he arose from his chair, leaving the sentence uncompleted.
Sternly he surveyed the jester.

"Why not take service with me?" he continued, abruptly.  "Austria is
ripe to revolt against the tyranny of the emperor.  With the discontent
in the Netherlands, the dissensions in Spain, Europe is like a field,
cut up, awaiting new-comers."

He paused to allow the force of his words to appeal to the other's
imagination.  "What say you?" he continued.  "Will you serve me?"

"The matter's worth thinking over," answered the fool, evasively.

"Well, take your time," said the king's guest, regarding him more
sharply.  "And now, as the candles are low and the flask is empty, you
had better take your leave."

At this intimation that the other considered the interview ended, the
fool started to his feet and deliberately made his way to the door
opening into the corridor.

"Good-night!" he said, and was about to depart when the free baron held
him with a word.

"Hold!  Why have you not attempted to unmask me--before?"

Steadily the two looked at each other; the eyes of the elder man,
cruel, deep, all-observing; those of the younger, steady, fearless,
undismayed.  Few of his troopers could withstand the sinister
penetration of Louis of Hochfels' gaze, but on the jester it seemed to
have no more effect than the casual glance of one of Francis' courtiers.

"You knew--and yet you made no sign?" continued the master of the
fortress.

"Because I like a strong play and did not wish to spoil it--too soon!"

The questioner's brow fell; the lids half-veiled the dark, savage eyes,
but the mouth relaxed.  "Ah, you always have your answer," he returned
with apparent cordiality.  "Good-night--and, by the by, our truce is at
an end."

"The truce--and the wine," said the jester, as with a ceremonious bow,
he vanished amid the shadows in the hall.

Slowly the free baron closed the door and locked it; looked at the
cross and at the bed, but made no motion toward either.

"He has already rejected my proposal," thought the self-styled duke.
"Does he seek for higher rewards by betraying me?  Or is it, then,
Triboulet told the truth?  Is he an aspiring lover of the princess?  Or
is he only faithful to his master?  Why have I failed to read him?  As
though a film lay across his eyes, that index to a man's soul!"

Motionless the free baron stood, long pondering deeply, until upon the
mantel the richly-chased clock began to strike musically, yet
admonishingly.  Whereupon he glanced at the cross; hesitated; then,
noting the lateness of the hour, and with, perhaps, a mental
reservation to retrieve his negligence on the morrow, he turned from
the silver, bejeweled symbol and immediately sought the sensuous bodily
enjoyment of a couch fit for a king or the pope himself.




CHAPTER IX

THE FLIGHT OF THE FOOL

Another festal day had come and gone.  The crimson shafts of the dying
sun had succumbed to the lengthening shadows of dusk, and the pigeons
were wending their way homeward to the castle parapets and battlements,
when, toward the arched entrance on the front, strode the duke's fool.
Beyond the castle walls and the inclosure of the pleasure grounds the
peace of twilight rested on the land; the great fields lay becalmed;
the distant forests were bivouacs of rest.

The afternoon had been a labor of pleasure; about the great basin of
the fountain had passed an ever-varying shifting of moving figures;
between the trees bright colors appeared and vanished, and from the
heart of concealed bowers had come peals of laughter or strains of
music.  Unnoticed among the merry throng in palace and park, the jester
had moved aimlessly about; unobserved now, he turned his back upon the
gray walls, satiated, perhaps, with the fêtes inaugurated by the kingly
entertainer.  But as he attempted to pass the gate, a stalwart guard
stepped forward, presenting a formidable-looking glave.

"Your permit to leave?" he said.

"A permit?  Of course!" replied the fool, and felt in his coat.  "But
what a handsome weapon you have; the staff all covered with velvet and
studded with brass tacks!"

"Has the Emperor Charles, then, no such weapons?" asked the gratified
soldier.

"None so handsome!  May I see it?"  The guard unsuspiciously handed the
glave to the jester, who immediately turned it upon the sentinel.

"Give it back, fool!" cried the alarmed guard.

"Nay; I am minded to call out and show a soldier of France disarmed by
a foreign fool."

"As well chop off my head with it!" sighed the man.

"And if I wish to walk without the gate?" suggested the jester.

"Go, good fool!" replied the other, without hesitation.

"Well, here is the glave.  If any one admires it again, let him study
the point.  But why may no one pass out?"

"Because so many soldiers and good citizens have been beaten and robbed
by those who hover around the palace.  But you may go in peace," he
added.  "No one will harm a fool.  If 'tis amusement you seek, there's
a camp on the verge of the forest where a dark-haired, good-looking
baggage dances and tells cards.  You can find the place from the noise
within, and if you're merry, they'll welcome you royally.  Go; and God
be with you!"

The jester turned from the good-natured guard and quickly walked down
the road, which wound gracefully through the valley and lost itself
afar in a fringe of woodland.  A light pattering on the hard earth
behind caused him to look about.  Following was a dog that now sprang
forward with joyous demonstration.  The fool stooped and gravely
caressed the hound which last he had seen at the princess' feet.

"Why," he said, "thou art now the fool's only friend at court."

When again he moved on with rapid, nervous stride, the animal came
after.  Darker grew the road; deeper hued the fields and stubble; more
somber the distant castle against the gloaming.  Only the cry of a
diving night-bird startled the stillness of the tranquil air; a
rapacious filcher that quickly rose, and swept onward through the sea
of night.  Its melancholy note echoed in the breast of the fool;
mechanically, without relaxing his swift pace, he looked upward to
follow it, when a short, sharp bark behind him and a premonition of
impending danger caused him to spring suddenly aside.  At the same time
a dagger descended in the empty air, just grazing the shoulder of the
jester, who, recovering himself, grasped the arm of his assailant and
grappled with him.  Finding him a man of little strength, the fool
easily threw him to the earth and kneeling on his breast in turn
menaced the assailant with the weapon he had wrested from him.

"Have you any reason, knave, why I should spare you?" asked the fool.

"If I had--for want of breath--it would fail me!" answered the
miscreant with some difficulty.

The duke's jester arose.  "Get up, rogue!" he said, and the man obeyed.

He was a pale, gaunt fellow, with long hair, unshaven face, hollow
cheeks, and dark eyes, set deeply in his head and shaded by thick,
black brows.  His dress consisted of a rough doublet, with lappet
sleeves, carried down to a point, tight leggings, broad shoes and the
puffed upper hose; the entire raiment frayed and worn; his flesh, or,
rather, his bones, showing through the scanty covering for his legs,
while his feet were no better protected than those of a trooper who has
been long on the march.  He displayed no fear or enmity; on the
contrary, his manner was rather friendly than otherwise, as though he
failed to understand the enormity of his offense and the position in
which he was placed.  Shifting from one foot to another, he crossed his
great, thin hands before him and patiently awaited his captor's
pleasure.  The latter surveyed him curiously, and, noting his woebegone
features and beggarly attire, pity, perhaps, assuaged his just anger
toward this starveling.

"Why did you wish to kill me?" asked the jester quietly, if somewhat
impatiently.

"It was not my wish, Master Fool," gently replied the other, but even
as he spoke the resignation in his manner gave way to a look of
apprehension.  Lifting his hand, he felt in his breast and glanced
about him on the road.  Then his face brightened.

"With your permission--I have e'en dropped something--"

And stooping, the scamp-scholar picked up a small, leathern-bound
volume from the ground, where it had fallen during the struggle, and
held it tightly clutched in his hand.  "Ah," he muttered with a glad
sigh, "I feared I had lost it--my Horace!  And now, Sir Jester, what
would you with me?"

"A question I might answer with a question," replied the fool.  "Having
failed in your enterprise, why should I spare you?"

"You shouldn't," returned the vagabond-student.  "The ancients teach
but the irrevocable law of retribution."

To hear a would-be assassin, a castaway out of pocket and heels and
elbows, calmly proclaiming the Greek doctrine of inevitableness, under
such circumstances, would have surprised an observer even more
experienced and worldly than the duke's fool.  Involuntarily his face
softened; this _pauvre diable_ gazed upon eternity with the calm eyes
of a Socrates.

"You do not then beg for life?" said the _plaisant_, his former
impatience merging into mild curiosity.

"Is it worth begging for?" asked the straitened book-worm.  "Life means
a pinched stomach, a cold body; Death, no hunger to fear, and a bed
that, though cold, chills us not.  What we know not doth not exist--for
us; ergo, to lie in the earth is to rest in the lap of luxury, for all
our consciousness of it.  But to be unconscious of the ills of this
perishable frame, Horace likewise must be as dead to us as our aches
and pains.  Thus is life made preferable to death.  Yes; I would live.
Hold, though--" he again hesitated in deep thought--"what avails Horace
if--" he began.

"Why, what new data have entered in the premises?" observed the
wondering jester.

"Nanette!" was the gloomy answer.

"Who, pray, is Nanette?" asked the fool, thrusting his assailant's
weapon in his jerkin.

"A wanton haggard whose tongue will run post sixteen stages together!
Who would make the devil himself malleable; then, work, hammer and
wire-draw him!"

"And what is she to you?"

"My wife!  That is, she claims that exalted place, having married me
one night when I was in my cups through a false priest who dresses as a
Franciscan monk.  'Fools in the court of God' are these priests called,
and truly he is a jester, for certainly is he no true monk.  But
Nanette, nevertheless, asserts she is the lawful partner of my sorrows.
So work your will on me.  A stroke, and the shivering spirit is wafted
across the Styx."

"And if I gave you not only your life--for a consideration hereafter to
be mentioned--but a small silver piece as well?" suggested the jester,
who had been for some moments buried in thought.

"Ha!" ejaculated the scamp-student, brightening.  "Your gift would
match the piece I already have and which--dolt that I was!--I
overlooked to include in my chain of reasoning."  And thrusting his
hand into his ragged doublet, after some search he extracted a
diminutive disk upon which he gazed not without ardor.  "Thus are we
forced to start the chain of reasoning anew," he remarked, "with Horace
and this bit of metal on one side of the scales and Nanette on the
other.  Now unless the devil sits on the beam with Nanette--which he's
like to do--the book and the bit of dross will outweigh her and we
arrive at the certitude that life, qualified as to duration, may be
happily endured."

"What argument does the dross carry, knave?" demanded the fool, looking
down at the hound that crouched at his feet.

"With it may be purchased that which warms the pinched stomach.  With
it may be bought an elixir, so strong and magical, it may breed
defiance even of Nanette.  Sir Fool, I have concluded to accept life
and the small silver piece."

"Well and good," commented the jester.  "But there are conditions
attached to my clemency."

"Conditions!" retorted the vagabond.  "What are conditions to a
philosopher, once he has reached a logical assurance?"

"First, you must find me a horse.  Your Nanette, as I take it, is a
gipsy and in the camp, are, surely, horses."

"But why should you want a horse?  'Tis not far to the castle?" said
the puzzled scholar.

"No; but 'tis far away from it.  Next, tell me where you got that small
piece of silver, like the one I have promised you?"

"From Nanette."

"What for?"

"To accomplish that which I have failed to do," replied the student,
willingly.  "But, alas, not having earned it, have I the right idly to
spend it?" he added, dolefully, half to himself.

"Why did Nanette--" began the jester.

But the other raised his arm with an expostulatory gesture.  "Many
things I know," he interrupted; "odds and ends of erudition, but a
woman's mind I know not, nor want to know.  I had as soon question
Beelzebub as her; yea, to stir up the devil with a stick.  If sparing
my life is contingent on my knowing why she does this, or that, then
let me pay the debt of nature."

"No; 'tis slight punishment to take from a man that which he values so
little he must reason with himself to learn if he value it at all,"
returned the duke's jester, slowly.  "We'll waive the question, if you
find me the horse."

"'Tis Nanette you must ask.  There's but one, old, yet serviceable--"

"Then take me to Nanette."

"Very well.  Follow me, sir; and if you're still of a mind when you see
her, you can question her."

"Why, is she so weird and witch-like to look upon?" said the fool.

"Nay; the devil hides his claws behind the daintiest fingers, all pink
and white.  He conceals his cloven hoof in a slipper, truly sylph-like."

"You arouse my curiosity.  I would fain meet this fair monster."

"Come then, Master Fool," replied the scamp-student, leaving the road
for the field to the right, and the jester, after a moment's
deliberation, turned likewise into the stubble, while the hound, as if
satisfied with the service it had performed, slowly retraced its way
toward the castle, stopping, however, now and then to look around after
the two men, whose figures grew smaller and smaller in the distance.
For some space they walked in silence; then the scholar paused, and,
pointing to a low, rambling house that once had been a hunter's lodge
and now had fallen into decay, exclaimed:

"There's where she lives, fool.  I'll warrant she's not alone."

At the same time a clamor of voices and a chorus of rough melody,
coming from the cottage, confirmed the assurance his spouse was not,
indeed, holding solitary vigil.

"'Tis e'en thus every night," murmured the scamp student in a
melancholy tone.  "She gathers 'round her the scum of all rudeness;
ragged alchemists of pleasure, who sing incessantly, like grasshoppers
on a summer day."

"Where is the horse?" said the jester, abruptly.

"Stalled in one of the rooms for safe keeping.  There are so many
rascals and thieves around, you see--"

"They e'en rob one another!" returned the fool.

Advancing more cautiously, the two men approached the ancient
forester's dwelling, the hue and cry sounding louder as they drew near,
a mingled discord of laughter, shouting and caterwauling, with a
woman's piercing voice at times dominating the general vociferation.
The philosopher shook his head despondingly, while, creeping to one of
the windows, the jester looked in.

Near the fire was a misshapen creature, a sort of monstrous imbecile
that chattered and moaned; a being that bore some resemblance to the
ancient morios once sold at the olden Forum Morionum to the ladies who
desired these hideous animals for their amusement.  At his feet
gamboled a dwarf that squeaked and screeched, distorting its face in
hideous grimaces.  Scattered about the room, singing, bawling or
brawling, were indigent morris dancers; bare-footed minstrels; a
pinched and needy versificator; a reduced mountebank; a swarthy clown,
with a hare's mouth; joculators of the streets, poor as rats and living
as such, straitened, heedless fellows, with heads full of nonsense and
purses empty, poor in pocket, but rich in _plaisanterie_.

Upon the table, with cards in her lap, which she studied idly, sat a
hard-featured, deep-bosomed woman, neither old nor uncomely, with
thick, black hair, coarse as a horse's mane, cheeks red as a berry,
glowing with health.  In her pose was a certain savage grace, an
untrammeled freedom which revealed the vigorous outlines of a
well-proportioned figure.  Her eye was bright as a diamond and bold as
a trooper's; when she lifted her head she looked disdainfully,
scornfully, fiercely, upon the strange and monstrous company of which
she was queen.

"Where can the thief-friar be?" muttered the student.  "He is usually
not far off from sweet Nanette."

"You mean the monk who had a hand in your nuptials?"

"Who else?  He, the source of all ill.  He who gave her the money of
which she e'en presented me a moiety.  Whoever employed him--was it
your friends, gentle sir?--rewarded him with gold.  Being a craven
rogue, I e'en suspect him of shifting the task to myself for a beggarly
pittance, whilst he is off with the lion's share."

The jester, watching the company within, made no reply.  From the
student to the woman, to the friar, was a chain leading--where?  He
found it not difficult to surmise.  Suddenly Nanette threw down the
cards and laughed harshly.

"Neither the devil nor his imps could read the things that are
happening in the castle!"

Then abruptly springing from the table, she made her way to the fire,
over which hung a pot of some savory stew, a magnet to the company's
sharp desire; for throughout all the boisterous merriment wandering
glances had invariably returned to it.  To reach the kettle and make
herself mistress of the culinary preparations, she cuffed a dwarf with
such vigor that he hobbled howling from a suspicious proximity to the
appetizing mess to a safe refuge beneath the table.  With equally
dauntless spirit, she pushed aside the herculean morio who had been
childishly standing over the pot, licking his fingers in eager
anticipation; whereupon the imbecile set up a sharp cry that blended
with the deeper roar of the lilliputian.

"And I caught the rabbit!" piteously bellowed the latter from his
retreat.

"And I found the turnips!" cried the colossal idiot, tears running down
his lubberly cheeks.

"Peace, you demons!" exclaimed the woman, waving the spoon at them,
"or, by the hell-born, you'll ne'er taste morsel of it!"

Quieted by this stupendous threat, they closed their mouths and opened
their eyes but the wider, while the gipsy spouse of the student stirred
and stirred the mixture in the iron pot, gazing at the fire with
frowning brow as though she would read some page of the future in the
leaping flames.

"Saw you but now how she served the dwarf and the overgrown lump?"
whispered the student to the duke's fool.  "Are you still minded to
meet her?"

For answer the jester left the window, stepped to the door, and,
opening it, strode into the room.




CHAPTER X

THE FOOL RETURNS TO THE CASTLE

As the duke's fool suddenly appeared in the crowded apartment, the
hubbub abruptly ceased; the minstrels and mountebanks gazed in surprise
at the slender figure of the alien jester whose rich garments
proclaimed him a personage of importance, one who had reached that
pinnacle in buffoonery, the high office of court _plaisant_.  The morio
crouched against the wall, his fear of the new-comer as great as his
body was large; the garret minstrels stopped strumming their
instruments, while the woman at the fire uttered a quick exclamation
and dropped the spoon with a clatter to the floor, where it was
promptly seized by the dwarf, who, taking advantage of the woman's
consternation, thrust it greedily to his lips.  But soon recovering
from her wonderment, the gipsy soundly boxed the dwarf's ears,
recovered her spoon and set herself once more to stirring the contents
of the pot.

The jester observed her for a moment--the heavy, bare arm moving round
and round over the kettle; her sunburnt legs uncovered to the knee; the
masculine attitude of her figure with the torn and worn garments that
covered her--and she seemed to him a veritable trull of disorder and
squalor.  The gipsy, too, looked at him over her shoulder, and, as she
gazed, her hand went slower and slower, until all motion ceased, and
the spoon lay on the edge of the pot, when she turned deliberately,
offering him the full sight of her bold cheeks and shameless eyes.

"Are you Nanette, wife of this philosopher?" asked the duke's fool,
approaching, and indicating the miserable scamp who clung near the
doorway as one undecided whether to enter or run away.

"Yes; I am Nanette, his true and lawful spouse," she answered with a
shrill laugh.  "Wilt come to me, true-love?" she called out to her
apprehensive yoke-mate.

"Nay; I'll go out in the air a while," hurriedly replied the
vagabond-scholar, and quickly vanished.

"Ah, how he loves me!" she continued.

"So much he prefers a cony-burrow to his own fireside," said the fool
dryly.

"A hole i' the earth is too good for such a scurvy fellow," she
retorted.  "But what would you here, fool?  A song, a jest, a dance?
Or have you come to learn a new story, or ballad, for the lordlings you
must entertain?"  Unabashed, she approached a step nearer.

"Your stories, mistress, would be unsuited for the court, and your
ballads best unsung," he retorted.  "I came, not to sharpen my wits,
but to learn from whom the thief-friar got the small piece of silver
you gave your consort, and, also, to procure a horse."

Her brazen eyes wavered.  "A horse and a fool flying," she muttered.
"Even what the cards showed.  The fool seeking the duke!"  A puzzled
look crossed her face.  "But the duke is here?" she continued to
herself.  "A strange riddle!  All the signs show devilment, but what it
is--"

"Good Nanette," interrupted the jester, satirically, "I have no time
for spells or incantation."

"How dared you come here," she said, hoarsely, "after--"

"After your mate proved but an indifferent servant of yours?" he
concluded, meeting her sullen gaze with one so stern and inflexible
that before it her eyes fell.

"Do you not know," she said, endeavoring to maintain a hardened front,
"I have but to say the word, and all these friends of mine would tear
you to pieces?  What would you do, my pretty fellows, an I ask you?"
she cried out, her voice rising audaciously.  "Would you suffer this
duke's jester to stand against me?"

Glances of suspicion and animosity shot from a score of eyes; fists
were half-clenched; knives appeared in a trice from the concealment of
rags, and a low murmur arose from the gathering.  Even the imbecile
morio, nature's trembling coward, became suddenly valiant, and, with
huge frame uplifted, seemed about to spring savagely upon the fool.  An
expression of disgust replaced all other feeling on the features of the
duke's _plaisant_.

"Spare me your threats, Nanette," he replied, coldly.  "Had you
intended to set them on me, you would have done it long ere this."

The woman hesitated.  His calm, almost contemptuous, confidence was not
without its effect upon her.  Had he trembled, she would have spoken,
but before his disdain, and the gay splendor of his attire, conspicuous
amid rags from rubbish heaps, she felt a sudden consciousness of her
own unclean environment; at the same time unusual warnings in her
conjurations recurred to her.  Something about him--was it dignity or
pride or a nameless fear she herself experienced but could not
understand?--beat down her eyes and she turned them doggedly away.

Abruptly she moved to the fire and again began to stir the mess, while
the suppressed excitement in the room at once subsided.  A minstrel
lightly touched his battered dulcimer; a poet hummed a song in the
dialect of thieves; a juggler began practising some deft work for hand
and eye, and he of the hare lip sank quietly into a corner and
patiently watched the simmering pot.  The dwarf, with some misgiving,
as a dog that is beaten crawls cautiously out of its kennel, crept from
beneath the table.

"Oh, mistress," he whimpered, "some of it has boiled over!"

"Boiled over!" echoed the morio, mournfully.

At the same time the woman grasped the handle of the heavy kettle,
lifted it from the jack, displaying in her bared arms the muscles of a
man, and, staggering beneath the load, bore it steaming to the table.
Amid the subsequent confusion, the gipsy held aloof from the demolition
of the rabbit, and, seating herself at the foot of the table, began
moodily once more to turn the cards.

A merry droll acted as host and dipped freely for all with the long
spoon, commenting the while he dispensed the mess according to the
wants of the miscellaneous gathering:  "Pot-luck!  'Tis luck, and
they're no field mice in it!  There's everything else!" or "A bit of
rabbit, my masters!  I'll warrant he'll hop down your throats as fast
as e'er he jumped a hillock."  And, when one ate too greedily, slap
went a spoonful of gravy o'er him with: "I thought you would catch it,
knave!"

"Are they not blithe devils 'round the caldron?" muttered the woman.
"There it is again!"--Bending over the bits of pasteboard on the table.
"The duke here!  And the fool on horseback!  What do the cards mean?"

"That I must have the horse, Nanette," said the duke's jester, standing
motionless and firm before the fireplace.

"Are you the fool?" she asked, more to herself than him.  "Why does he
wish to ride away?"

"Will you sell me the horse?" he demanded.

She hesitated.  Around them danced the shadows of the kettle-gourmands:

  "A kern and a drole, a varlet and a blade
  A drab and a rep, a skit and a jade--"

sang the street poet; the dwarf and the morio (a lilliputian and
Gulliver) fought a mimic combat; the juggler and the clown, who could
eat no more, were keeping time to a chorus by beating with their empty
trenchers on the table.

"Sell you the horse?  For what?" asked the gipsy.

"For five gold pieces."

"A fool with five gold pieces!" she exclaimed, incredulously.

"Here!  You may see them."  And he opened a purse he carried at his
girdle.

"Do not let them know," she said, hurriedly.  "They would kill you
and--"

"You would not get the money," he added, significantly.  "If you act
quickly, find me a horse and let me go; it is you, not they, who will
profit."

Abruptly she rose.  "It is fate," she remarked, her eyes greedy.

His glance, as he stood there, proud and stern, cut her sharply.  "Say
cupidity, Nanette!" he laughed softly.  "It is more profitable not to
betray me.  In the one case you get much; in the other, little."

"Stay here," she replied, hastily.  "I'll fetch the horse."  And
vanished.

A moment he remained, then resolutely turning to the door through which
she had disappeared, opened it, and found himself in a combined
sleeping-room and stable; a dark apartment, with floor of hardened
earth and a single window, open to wind and weather.  The atmosphere in
this chamber for man and beast was impregnated with the smell of mold
and dry-rot, mingled with the livelier effluvium of dirt and grime of
years; but amid the malodor and mustiness, on a couch under the window,
slumbered and snored the false Franciscan monk.  By his side was a
tankard, half-filled with stale sack, and in his hand he clutched a
gold piece as though he had had an intimation it would be safer there
than elsewhere on his person during the pot-valiant sleep he had
deliberately courted.  His hood had fallen back, displaying a bullet
head, red cheeks and purple nose, while the wooden beads of this
sottish counterfeit of a friar trailed from his girdle on the ground.
From a stall in a far corner a large, bony-looking nag turned its head
reproachfully, as if mentally protesting against such foul quarters and
the poor company they offered.  Its melancholy whinny upon the
appearance of the woman was a sigh for freedom; a sad suspiration to
the memory of radiant clover fields or poppy-starred meadows.

"Why, here's a holy man worn out by too many paternosters," commented
the duke's fool, standing on the threshold; and then gazed from the
gold piece in the monk's hand to the woman.  "I need not ask where you
got the silver, Nanette.  'Tis a chain of evidence leading--where?"

The gipsy replied only with dark looks, regarding his intrusion in this
inner sanctuary as a fresh provocation for her just displeasure.  The
jester, however, paid no attention to these signs of new acerbity on
her face.

Crossing to the couch, he shook the monk vigorously, but the latter
only held his piece of money tighter like a miser whose treasure is
threatened, and snored the louder.  Again the fool essayed to waken
him, and this time he opened his eyes, felt for his beads and commenced
to mutter a prayer in Latin words, strung together in meaningless
phrases.

"Why," commented the jester, "his learning is as false as his cloak.
Wake up, sirrah!  Would you approach Heaven's gate with a feigned
prayer on your lips and a toss-pot in your hand?"

"_Christe tuum_--I absolve you!  I absolve you!" muttered the friar.
"Go your way in peace."

"Hear me, thou trumped-up monk; do you want another piece of gold?"

"Gold!" repeated the other, tipsily.  "What--what for?  To--to help
some fool to paradise--or purgatory?  'Tis for the Church I beg, good
people.  The holy Church--Church I say!"

Winking and blinking, seeing nothing before him, he held out a
trembling hand.  "The piece of gold--give it to me!" he mumbled.

"Yes; in exchange for your cloak," answered the jester.

"My cloak, thou horse-leech!  Sell my skin for--piece of gold!  Want my
cloak?  Take it!"  And the dissembler rolled over, extending his arms.
The jester grasped the garment by the sleeves and with some difficulty
whipped it from him.

"Now hand me--the money and--cover me with rags that--I may sleep,"
continued the beer-bibber.  "So"--as he grasped the money the fool gave
him and stretched himself luxuriously beneath a noisome litter of
cast-off clothes and rubbish--"I languish in ecstasies!  The
angels--are singing around me."

With growing surprise and ill-humor had the woman observed this novel
proceeding, and now, when the jester had himself donned the false
friar's gown, she said grudgingly:

"You did not give him one of the five pieces?"

"No; there are still five left."

"A bit of gold for a cloak!" she grumbled.  "It is overmuch.  But
there!"  Unfastening a door that looked out upon the field.  "Give me
the money and be gone."

He grasped the bridle of the horse, handed her the promised reward,
and, drawing the hood of the monk's garment over his head, led the nag
out into the open air.  The door closed quickly behind him and he heard
the wooden bolt as it shot into place.  Above the dark outlines of the
forest, the moon, full-orbed, now shone in the sky, with a myriad
attendant stars, its silver beams flooding the open spaces and
revealing every detail, soft, dreamy, yet distinct.  A languorous,
redolent air just stirred the waving grain, on which rested a glossy
shimmer.

As the fool was about to spring upon the horse, a shadow suddenly
appeared around the corner of the house and the animal danced aside in
affright.  Before the jester could quiet and mount the nag, the shadow
resolved itself into a man, and, behind him, came a numerous band, the
play of light on helmet, sword and dagger revealing them as a party of
troopers.  Doubtless having indulged freely, they had become inclined
to new adventures, and accordingly had bent their footsteps toward the
"little house on the verge of the wood," where merry company was always
to be found.  At the sight of the duke's fool and the horse they
pressed forward, and, with one accord, surrounded him.

"The Franciscan monk!" cried one.

"Where is he going so late with the nag?" asked another.

"He's off to confess some one," exclaimed a third.

"A petticoat, most likely, the rogue!" rejoined the second speaker.

"Well, what have we to do with his love affairs?" laughed the first
trooper.  "Ride on, good father, and keep tryst."

"Yes, ride on!" the others called out.

The monk bowed.  An interruption which had promised to defeat his
designs seemed drawing to a harmless conclusion.  His hopes ran high;
the soldiers had not yet penetrated beneath the costume; he had already
determined to leap upon the horse in a rush for freedom when a heavy,
detaining hand was laid on his shoulder.

"One moment, knave!" said a deep voice, and, wheeling sharply, the fool
looked into the keen, ferret eyes of the trooper with the red
mustaches.  "I have a question to ask.  Have you done that which you
were to do?"

The friar nodded his assent.  "The fool will trouble the duke no more,"
he answered.

"Ah, he is"--began the soldier.

"Even so.  And now pray let me pass."

"Yes; let him pass!" urged one of the soldiers.  "Would you keep some
longing trollop waiting?"

The leader of the troopers did not answer; his glance was bent upon the
ground.  "Yes, you may go," he commented, "when--" and suddenly thrust
forth an arm and pulled back the enshrouding cloak.

"The duke's fool!" he cried.  "Close in, rogues!  Let him not escape."

Fiercely the fool's hand sought his breast; then, swiftly realizing
that it needed but a pretext to bring about the end desired by the
pretender in the castle, with an effort he restrained himself, and
confronted his assailants, outwardly calm.

"'Tis a poor jest which fails," he said, easily.

"Jest!" grimly returned he of the red mustaches.  "Call you it a jest,
this monk's disguise?  Once on the horse, it would have been no jest,
and I'll warrant you would soon have left the castle far behind.  Yes;
and but for the cloven foot, the jest, as you call it, would have
succeeded, too.  Had it not been," he added, "for the pointed, silken
shoe, peeping out from beneath the holy robe--a covering of vanity,
instead of holy nakedness--you would certainly have deceived me,
and"--with a brusque laugh--"slipped away from your master, the duke."

"The duke?" said the jester, as casting the now useless cloak from him,
he deliberately scrutinized the rogue.

"The duke," returned the man, stolidly.  "Well, this spoils our sport
for to-night, knaves," he went on, turning to the other troopers, "for
we must e'en escort the jester back to the castle."

"Beshrew him!" they answered, of one accord.  "A plague upon him!"

And slowly the fool and the soldiers began to retrace their way across
the moon-lit fields, the trooper with the red mustaches grumbling as
they went: "Such luck to turn back now, with all those mad-caps right
under our nose!  A curse to a dry march over a dusty meadow!  An
unsanctified dog of a monk!  'Tis like a campaign, with naught but
ditch water to drink.  The devil take the friar and the jester!
Forward! the fool in the center, and those he would have fooled around
him!"

And when they disappeared in the distance the gipsy woman might have
been seen leaving the house by the stable door and leading in the horse.




CHAPTER XI

A NEW MESSENGER TO THE EMPEROR

Between Caillette and the duke's jester had arisen one of those
friendships which spring more from similitude than unlikeness; an amity
of which each had been unconscious in its inception, but which had
gradually grown into a sentiment of comradeship.  Caillette was of
noble mien, graceful manner and elegant address; a soldier by
preference; a jester against his will, forced to the office by the
nobleman who had cared for and educated him.  In the duke's fool he had
found his other self; a man who like himself lent dignity to the gentle
art of jesting; who could turn a rhyme and raise a laugh without
resorting to grossness.

The line of demarcation between the clown and the merry-and-wise wit
was, in those days, not clearly drawn.  The stories of the former,
which made the matrons look down and the maidens to hide their faces,
were often more appreciated by the inebriate nobles than some subtile
comicality or nimble lines of poetry, that would serve to take home and
think over, and which improved with time like a wine of sound body.
Triboulet abused the ancient art of foolery, thought Caillette; the
duke's _plaisant_ played upon it with true drollery, and as a master
who has a delicate ear for an instrument, so Caillette, being sensitive
to broadness or stupidity which masked as humor or pleasantry, turned
naturally from the mountebank to the true jester.

Moreover, Caillette experienced a superior sadness, sifted through
years of infestivity and gloom, beginning when Diane was led to the
altar by the grand seneschal of Normandy, that threw an actual, albeit
cynical, interest about the love-tragedy of the duke's fool which the
other divined and--from his own past heart-throbs--understood.  The
_plaisant_ to the princess' betrothed, Caillette would have sworn, was
of gentle birth; his face, manner and bearing proclaimed it; he was,
also, a scholar and a poet; his courage, which Caillette divined,
fitted him for the higher office of arms.  Certainly, he became an
interesting companion, and the French jester sought his company on
every occasion.  And this fellowship, or intimacy, which he courted was
destined to send Caillette forth on a strange and adventuresome mission.

The day following the return of the duke's fool to the castle, Francis,
who early in his reign had sought to model his life after the
chivalrous romances, inaugurated a splendid and pompous tournament.
Some time before, the pursuivants had proclaimed the event and
distributed to the knights who were to take active part the shields of
arms of the four _juges-diseurs_, or umpires of the field.  On this
gala occasion the scaffolds and stands surrounding the arena were
bedecked in silks of bright colors; against the cloudless sky a
thousand festal flags waved and fluttered in the gentle breeze; beneath
the tasseled awning festoons of bright flowers embellished gorgeous
hangings and tapestries.

The king rode from the castle under a pavilion of cloth of gold and
purple velvet, with the letters F and R, boldly outlined, followed by
ladies and courtiers, pages and attendants.  Amid the shouts and huzzas
of the people, the monarch and his retinue took their places in the
center of the stand, the royal box hung with ornate brocades and
trimmings.

In an inclosure of white, next to that of the king, was seated the Lady
of the Tournament, the Princess Louise, and her maids of honor, arrayed
all in snowy garb, and, against the garish brilliancy of the general
background, a pompous pageantry of colors, the decoration of this
dainty nook shone in silvery contrast.  A garland of flowers was the
only crown the lady wore; no other adornment had her fair shoulders
save their own argent beauty, of which the fashion of the day permitted
a discernible suggestion.  One arm hung languorously across the
railing, as she leaned forward with seeming carelessness, but intently
directed her glance to the scene below, where the attendants were
arranging the ring or leading the wondrously pranked-out chargers to
their stalls.

Behind her, motionless as a statue, with face that looked paler, and
lips the redder, and hair the blacker, stood the maid Jacqueline.  If
the casual glance saw first the blond head, the creamy arms and sunny
blue eyes of the princess, it was apt to linger with almost a start of
wonder upon the striking figure of the jestress, a nocturnal touch in a
pearly picture.

"On my word, there's a decorative creature for any lord to have in his
house," murmured the aged chancellor of the kingdom, sitting near the
monarch.  "Who is she?"

"A beggar's brat Francis found here when he took the castle," replied
the beribboned spark addressed.  "You know the story?"

"Yes," said the white-haired diplomat, half-sadly.  "This castle once
belonged to the great Constable of Dubrois.  When he fell from favor
the king besieged him; the constable fled and died in Spain.  That
much, of course, I--and the world--know.  But the girl--"

"When our victorious monarch took possession of this ancient pile,"
explained the willing courtier, "the only ones left in it were an old
gamekeeper and his daughter, a gipsy-like maid who ran wild in the
woods.  Time hath tamed her somewhat, but there she stands."

"And what sad memories of a noble but unfortunate gentleman cluster
around her!" muttered the chancellor.  "Alas, for our brief hour of
triumph and favor!  Yesterday was he great; I, nothing.  To-day, what
am I, while he--is nothing."

A great murmur, resolving itself into shouts and resounding outcry,
interrupted the noble's reminiscent mood, as a thick-set figure in
richly chased armor, mounted on a massive horse, crossed the arena.

"_Bon Vouloir!_" they cried.  "_Bon Vouloir!_"

It was the name assumed by the free baron for the day, while other
knights were known for the time being by such euphonious and chivalrous
appellations as _Vaillant Desyr_, _Bon Espoir_ or _Coeur Loyal_.  _Bon
Vouloir_, upon this popular demonstration, reined his steed, and,
removing his head-covering, bowed reverently to the king and his suite,
deeply to the Lady of the Tournament and her retinue, and carelessly to
the vociferous multitude, after which he retired to a large tent of
crimson and gold, set apart for his convenience and pleasure.

From the purple box the monarch had nodded graciously and from the
silver bower the lady had smiled softly, so that the duke had no reason
for dissatisfaction; the attitude of the crowd was of small moment, an
unmusical accompaniment to the potent pantomime, of which the principal
figures were Francis, the King Arthur of Europe, and the princess,
queen of beauty's unbounded realm.

In front of the duke's pavilion was hung his shield, and by its side
stood his squire, fancifully dressed in rich colors.  Behind ranged the
men of arms, whose lances formed a fence to hold in check the people
from far and wide, among whom the pick-purses, light-fingered scamps,
and sturdy beggars conscientiously circulated, plying themselves
assiduously.  The fashion of the day prescribed carrying the purse and
the dagger dangling from the girdle, and many a good citizen departed
from the tourney without the one and with the other, and it is needless
to say which of the two articles the filcher left its owner.  And none
was more enthusiastic or demonstrative of the features of the lists
than these rapacious riflers, who loudly cheered the merry monarch or
shouted for his gallant knights, while deftly cutting purse-cords or
despoiling honest country dames of brooches, clasps or other treasured
articles of adornment.

Near the duke's pavilion, to the right, had been pitched a commodious
tent of yellow material, with ropes of the same color, and a fool's cap
crowning the pole in place of the customary banner.  Over the entrance
was suspended the jester's gilded wand and a staff, from which hung a
blown bladder.  Here were quartered the court jesters whom Francis had
commanded to be fittingly attired for the lists and to take part in the
general combat.  In vain had Triboulet pleaded that they would occasion
more merriment if assigned to the king's box than doomed to the arena.

"That may be," Francis had answered, "but on this occasion all the
people must witness your antics."

"Antics!"  Triboulet had shuddered.  "An I should be killed, your
Majesty?"

"Then it will be amusing to see you quiet for once in your life," had
been the laughing reply.

And with this poor assurance the dwarf had been obliged to content
himself--not merrily, 'tis true, but with much inward disquietude,
secretly execrating his monarch for this revival of ancient and
barbarous practices.

Now, in the rear of the jesters' pavilion, his face was yellow with
trepidation, as the armorer buckled on the iron plates about his
stunted figure, fastening and riveting them in such manner, he mentally
concluded he should never emerge from that frightful shell.

"The worst of it is," dryly remarked the hunchback's valet as he
briskly plied his little hammer, "these clothes are so heavy you
couldn't run away if you wanted to."

"Oh, that the duke were married and out of the kingdom!" Triboulet
fervently wished, and the fiery comments of Marot, Villot and those
other reckless spirits, who seemed to mind no more the prospect of
being spitted on a lance than if it were but a novel and not unpleasant
experience to look forward to, in no wise served to assuage his
heart-sinking.

At the entrance of the pavilion stood Caillette, who had watched the
passing of _Bon Vouloir_ and now was gazing upward into a sea of faces
from whence came a hum of voices like the buzzing of unnumbered bees.

"Certes," he commented, "the king makes much of this unmannered,
lumpish, beer-drinking noble who is going to wed the princess."

"Caillette," said the low voice of the duke's jester at his elbow,
"would you see a woman undone?"

"Why, _mon ami_!" lightly answered the French fool, "I've seen many
undone--by themselves."

"Ah," returned the other, "I appeal to your chivalry, and you answer
with a jest."

"How else," asked Caillette, with a peculiar smile that was at once
sweet and mournful, "can one take woman, save as a jest--a pleasant
mockery?"

"Your irony precludes the test of friendship--the service I was about
to ask of you," retorted the duke's fool, gravely.

"Test of friendship!" exclaimed the poet.  "'Tis the only thing I
believe in.  Love!  What is it?  A flame! a breath!  Look out there--at
the flatterers and royal sycophants.  Those are your emissaries of
love.  Ye gods! into the breasts of what jack-a-dandies and parasites
has descended the unquenchable fire of Jove!  Now as for
comradeship"--placing his hand affectionately on the other's
shoulder--"by Castor and Pollux, and all the other inseparables, 'tis
another thing.  But expound this strange anomaly--a woman wronged.  Who
is the woman?"

"The Princess Louise!"

Caillette glanced from the place where he stood to the center of the
stand and the white bower, inclining from which was a woman, haughty,
fair, beautiful; one whose face attracted the attention of the
multitude and who seemed not unhappy in being thus scrutinized and
admired.  Shaking his head slowly, the court poet dropped his eyes and
studied the sand at his feet.

"She looks not wronged," he said, dryly.  "She appears to enjoy her
triumphs."

"And yet, Caillette, 'tis all a farce," answered the duke's jester.

"So have I--thought--on other occasions."

And again his gaze flew upward, not, however, to the lady whom Francis
had gallantly chosen for Queen of Beauty, but, despite his alleged
cynicism, to a corner of the king's own box, where sat she who had once
been a laughing maid by his side and with whom he had played that
diverting pastoral, called "First Love."  It was only an instant's
return into the farcical but joyous past, and a moment later he was
sharply recalled into the arid present by the words of his companion.

"The man the Princess Louise is going to marry is no more Robert, the
Duke of Friedwald, than you are!" exclaimed the foreign fool.  "He is
the bastard of Pfalz-Urfeld, the so-called free baron of Hochfels.  His
castle commands the road between the true duke and Francis' domains.
He made himself master of all the correspondence, conceived the plan to
come here himself and intends to carry off the true lord's bride.
Indeed, in private, he has acknowledged it all to me, and, failing to
corrupt me to his service, last night set an assassin to kill me."

His listener, with folded arms and attentive mien, kept his eyes fixed
steadily upon the narrator, as if he doubted the evidence of his
senses.  Without, the marshals had taken their places in the lists and
another stentorian dissonance greeted these officers of the field from
the good-humored gathering, which, basking in the anticipation of the
feast they knew would follow the pageantry, clapped their hands and
flung up their caps at the least provocation for rejoicing.  Upon the
two jesters this scene of jubilation was lost, Caillette merely bending
closer to the other, with:

"But why have you not denounced him to the king?"

"Because of my foolhardiness in tacitly accepting at first this
free-booter as my master."

Caillette shot a keen glance at the other and smiled.  His eyes said:
"Foolhardiness!  Was it not, rather, some other emotion?  Had not the
princess leaned more than graciously toward her betrothed and--"

"I thought him but some flimsy adventurer," went on the duke's fool,
hastily, "and told myself I would see the play played out, holding the
key to the situation, and--"

"You underestimated him?"

"Exactly.  His plans were cunningly laid, and now--who am I that the
king should listen to me?  At best, if I denounce him, they would
probably consider it a bit of pleasantry, or--madness."

"Yes," reluctantly assented Caillette, Triboulet's words, "a fool in
love with the princess!" recurring to him; "it would be undoubtedly
even as you say."

The duke's jester looked down thoughtfully.  He had only half-expressed
to the French _plaisant_ the doubts which had assailed him since his
interview with Louis of Hochfels.  Who could read the minds of
monarchs?  The motives actuating them?  Should he be able to convince
Francis of the deception practised upon him, was it altogether unlikely
that the king might not be brought to condone the offense for the sake
of an alliance with this bastard of Pfalz-Urfeld and the other
unconquerable free barons of the Austrian border against Charles
himself?  Had not Francis in the past, albeit openly friendly with the
emperor, secretly courted the favor of the powerful German nobles in
Charles' own country?  Had not his covenant with the infidel, Solyman,
been a covert attempt to undermine the emperor's power?

From the day when, as young men, both had been aspirants for the
imperial throne of Germany and Francis had suffered defeat, the latter
had assiduously devoted himself to the retributory task of gaining the
ascendancy over his successful rival.  And now, although the tempering
years had assuaged their erstwhile passions and each had professed to
eschew war and its violence, might not this temptation prove too great
for Francis to resist a last blow at the emperor's prestige?  How easy
to affect disbelief of a fool, to overthrow the fabric of friendship
between Charles and himself, and at the same time apparently not
violate good faith or conscience!

The voice of Caillette broke in upon his thoughts.

"You will not then attempt to denounce him?"

The fool hesitated.  "Alone--out of favor with the king, I like not to
risk the outcome--but--if I may depend upon you--"

"Did ever friend refuse such a call?" exclaimed Caillette, promptly.  A
quick glance of gratitude flashed from the other's eyes.

"There is one flaw in the free baron's position," resumed the duke's
fool, more confidently; "a fatal one 'twill prove, if it is possible to
carry out my plans.  He thinks the emperor is in Austria, and his
followers guard the road through the mountains.  He tells himself not
only are the emperor and the Duke of Friedwald too far distant to hear
of the pretender and interfere with the nuptials, but that he obviates
even the contingency of their learning of that matter at all by
controlling the way through which the messengers must go.  Thus rests
he in double security--but an imaginary one."

"What mean you?" asked Caillette, attentively, from his manner giving
fuller credence to the extraordinary news he had just learned.

"That Charles, the emperor, is not in Austria, but in Aragon at
Saragossa, where he can be reached in time to prevent the marriage.
Just before my leaving, the emperor, to my certain knowledge, secretly
departed for Spain on matters pertaining to the governing of Aragon.
Charles plays a deep game in the affairs of Europe, though he works
ever silently and unobtrusively.  Is he not always beforehand with your
king?  When Francis was preparing the gorgeous field of the cloth of
gold for his English brother, did not Charles quietly leave for the
little isle, and there, without beat of drum, arrange his own affairs
before Henry was even seen by your pleasure-loving monarch?  Yes; to
the impostor and to Francis, Charles is in Austria; to us--for now you
share my secret--is he in Spain, where by swift riding he may be found,
and yet interdict in this matter."

"Then why--haven't you ere this fled to the emperor with the news?"

"Last night I had determined to get away, when first I was assaulted by
an assassin of the impostor, and next detained by his troop and brought
back to the castle.  I had even left on foot, trusting to excite less
suspicion, and hoping to find a horse on the way, but fortune was with
the pretender.  So here am I, closely watched--and waiting," he added
grimly.

The listener's demeanor was imperturbability itself.  He knew why the
other had taken him into his confidence, and understood the silent
appeal as plainly as though words had uttered it.  Perhaps he duly
weighed the perils of a flight without permission from the court of the
exacting and capricious monarch, and considered the hazards of the trip
itself through a wild and brigand-infested country.  Possibly, the
thought of the princess moved him, for despite his irony, it was his
mocking fate to entertain in his breast, against his will, a covert
sympathy for the gentler sex; or, looking into the passionate face of
his companion, he may have been conscious of some bond of brotherhood,
a fellow-feeling that could not resist the call upon his good-will and
amicable efforts.  The indifference faded from Caillette's face and
almost a boyish enthusiasm shone in his eyes.

"_Mon ami_, I'll do it!" he exclaimed, lightly.  "I'll ride to the
emperor for you."

Silently the jester of the duke wrung his hand.  "I've long sighed for
an adventure," laughed Caillette.  "And here is the opportunity.
Caillette, a knight-errant!  But"--his face falling--"the emperor will
look on me as a madman."

"Nay," replied the duke's _plaisant_, "here is a letter.  When he reads
it he will, at least, think the affair worth consideration.  He knows
me, and trusts my fidelity, and will be assured I would not jest on
such a serious matter.  Believe me, he will receive you as more than a
madman."

"Why, then, 'twill be a rare adventure," commented the other.
"Wandering in the country; the beautiful country, where I was reared;
away from the madness of courts.  Already I hear the wanton breezes
sighing in Sapphic softness and the forests' elegiac murmur.  Tell me,
how shall I ride?"

"As a knight to the border; thence onward as a minstrel.  In Spain
there's always a welcome for a blithe singer."

"'Tis fortunate I learned some Spanish love songs from a fair señora
who was in Charles' retinue the time he visited Francis," added
Caillette.  "An I should fail?" he continued, more gravely.

"You will not fail," was the confident reply.

"I am of your mind, but things will happen--sometimes--and why do you
not speak to the princess herself--to warn her--"

"Speak to her!" repeated the duke's jester, a shadow on his brow.
"When he has appealed to her, perhaps--when--"  He broke off abruptly.
His tone was proud; in his eyes a look which Caillette afterward
understood.  As it was, the latter nodded his head wisely.

"A woman whose fancy is touched is--what she is," he commented,
generally.  "Truly it would be a more thankless task, even, than
approaching the king.  For women were ever creatures of caprice, not to
be governed by any court of logic, but by the whimsical, fantastic
rules of Marguerite's court.  Court!" he exclaimed.  "The word suggests
law; reason; where merit hath justice.  Call it not Love's Court, but
love's caprice, or crochet.  But look you, there's another channel to
the princess' mind--yonder black-browed maid--our ally in motley--when
she chooses to wear it--Jacqueline."

"She likes me not," returned the fool.  "Would she believe me in such
an important matter?"

"I'm afraid not," tranquilly replied Caillette, "in view of the
improbability of your tale and the undoubted credentials held by this
pretender.  For my part, to look at the fellow was almost enough.  But
to the ladies, his brutality signifieth strength and power; and his
uncouthness, originality and genius.  Marguerite, even, is prepossessed
in his favor and has written a platonic poem in his honor.  As for the
princess"--pressing the other's arm gently--"do you not know, _mon
ami_, that women are all alike?  There is but one they obey--the
king--that is as high as their ambitions can reach--and even him they
deceive.  Why, the Countess d'Etampes--but this is no time for gossip.
We are fools, you and I, and love, my friend, is but broad farce at the
best."

Even as he spoke thus, however, from the lists came the voices of the
well-instructed heralds, secretaries of the occasion, who had delved
deeply into the practices of the merry and ancient pastime: "Love of
ladies!  For you and glory!  Chivalry but fights for love.  Look down,
fair eyes!" a peroration which was answered with many pieces of silver
from the galleries above, and which the gorgeously dressed officials
readily unbent to gather.  Among the fair hands which rewarded this
perfunctory apostrophe to the tender passion none was more lavish in
offerings than those matrons and maids in the vicinity of the king.  A
satirical smile again marred Caillette's face, but he kept his
reflections to himself, reverting to the business of the moment.

"I should be off at once!" he cried.  "But what can we do?  The king
hath commanded all the jesters to appear in the tournament to-day,
properly armed and armored, the better to make sprightlier sport amid
the ponderous pastime of the knights.  Here am I bound to shine on
horseback, willy-nilly.  Yet this matter of yours is pressing.  Stay!
I have it.  I can e'en fall from my horse, by a ruse, retire from the
field, and fly southward."

"Then will I wish you Godspeed, now," said the duke's fool.  "Never was
a stancher heart than thine, Caillette, or a truer friend."

"One word," returned the other, not without a trace of feeling which
even his cynicism could not hide.  "Beware of the false duke in the
arena!  It will be his opportunity to--"

"I understand," answered the duke's fool, again warmly pressing
Caillette's hand, "but with the knowledge you are fleeing to Spain I
have no fear for the future.  If we meet not after to-day--"

"Why, life's but a span, and our friendship has been short, but sweet,"
added the other.

Now without sounded a flourish of trumpets and every glance was
expectantly down-turned from the crowded stand, as with a clatter of
hoofs and waving of plumes France's young chivalry dashed into the
lists, divided into two parties, took their respective places and, at a
signal from the musicians, started impetuously against one another.




CHAPTER XII

THE DUKE ENTERS THE LISTS

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 mo

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