If I Were King (McCarthy novel, R. H. Russell)/Chapter 5
KING LOUIS loved roses. All that was royal in his nature went out to the royal flower; whatever desire of beauty lay hidden in his heart found its gratification in its splendid colours, in its splendid odours. The Greeks believed that the red rose only came into being on the fair day when Venus, seeing Ascanius slumbering on a bed of white roses, pressed handsful of the blossoms to her lips, and the pale petals blushed into their crimson loveliness beneath the kisses of the goddess. Louis the Eleventh knew nothing of the legend, but the red rose was his fancy and a corner of the royal garden was dedicated to its service. In the oldest part of the palace, hard by the grey and ancient tower where the king loved to out-watch the stars and to brood over strange wisdom, overlooked by a terrace whose very steps were littered with petals, the caressed earth glowed into a very miracle of roses. Every shade of red that a rose can wear was represented in that dazzling pleasaunce, from the faint pink that surely the lips of divinity had scarcely brushed to the smiling scarlet that suggested Aphrodite's mouth, from the imperial purple of a Cæsar's pomp to the crimson so deep that it was almost black, black as the congealed blood on the torn thigh of Adonis. Here, when the stars eluded or deceived him, King Louis would come, creeping down the winding stairs of his tower, with the names of saints upon his thin lips, to breathe the sunlit or moonlit fragrance of his roses, to seek a little rest for his restless mind, a little quiet for his unquiet heart.
On the morning after his visit to the Fircone Tavern King Louis sat in his rose garden and snuffed the scented air with pleasure, while his keen eyes shifted from a scroll of parchment on his knee to the face of one who stood beside him, and spoke in a low voice, pointing as he spoke to marks and figures on the outspread parchment. The king's companion was an old man in a furred gown, whose countenance was seamed with years and study, and whose eyes seemed always to be gazing at objects that others could not see. In his right hand he held a large sphere of crystal, and whenever the king lapsed into silent study of his scroll the sage would lift the shining globe and gaze into its glassy depths with an air of exaggerated wisdom.
From one of these moments of abstraction the king suddenly looked up, and immediately the astrologer's glance swung from the sphere to the face of Louis.
"You know the aspect of the planetary bodies," said the king, "and you know of the strange dream that I have dreamed three nights running."
The sage inclined his head gravely. The king had told him of the dream in all its particulars at least a dozen times that morning. It seemed to be mixed up with the sunlight and the scent of the roses; to be a portion of the chorus of the birds. But he listened to the narrative with the same air of surprised attention that he had offered to its first recital.
"I dreamed that I was a swine rooting in the streets of Paris, and that I found a pearl of great price in the gutter. I set it in my crown and it filled all Paris with its light. But it seemed to grow so heavy for my forehead that I cast it from me and would have trodden it into the earth, but that a star fell from heaven and stayed me, and I awoke trembling."
The king's nasal voice droned through the familiar repetition; then he suddenly turned his head with a kind of bird-like alacrity upon the astrologer and asked sharply: "Well, what do you make of it?"
The astrologer shook his head. "The stars are bright," he said slowly, "but their brightness is bewildering to mortal eyes and it is hard to read between the lines of their effulgence. Dreams are dim, and it is difficult for mortal minds to interpret their obscurity."
The king frowned. "I know well enough," he said, "that stars are bright and that dreams are dim, but your wisdom is clothed and housed and nourished for deeper knowledge than this. Interpret my dream for France as Joseph interpreted the vision of the Egyptian."
With an unmoved face the astrologer scanned the crystal. "Thus I seem to read the riddle of your dream, sire," he answered. "There is one in the depths who, if exalted to the heights, might do you great service and who yet might irk you so greatly that you would seek to cast him back again into the depths from which he rose. The stars seem to speak of such a coming, and, as it seems to me, this stranger should have potent influence for good for a period of seven days from this day. I have sought and sought in vain to see something of this man in the crystal. I only see confusedly great crowds of people, pageants and masques, and movings of many soldiers, battle and bloodshed, and great victory for
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France—and then a star falls from heaven and all the vision vanishes."
The king was silent for a moment; then with an imperative gesture he dismissed the astrologer, who entered the tower and climbed the winding stairs to the room where he pursued his occult studies. The king walked restlessly up and down, indifferent to the roses, thinking only of the stars.
"If François Villon were the king of France," he muttered. "How that mad ballad maker glowed last night. Fools are proverbially fortunate, and a mad man may save Paris for me as a mad maid saved France for my sire."
A heavy tread behind him stirred him from his meditations. Turning, he beheld the companion of his adventure of the previous evening.
"Well, Tristan?" he questioned apprehensively, for Tristan had the evil smile on his face which he always wore when he had news of any disagreeable kind to impart.
"The bird has flown, sire," he said. "Thibaut d'Aussigny's wound was much slighter than we thought last night. After we carried him to his house, he made his escape thence in disguise, and has, as I believe, fled from Paris to join the Duke of Burgundy."
The king shrugged his shoulders indifferently.
"I wish the duke joy of him," he said. "He is more dangerous to my enemy when he is on my enemy's side. Where are the rascals of last night?"
"The tavern rabble are in custody of Messire Noel."
"And my rival for royalty?"
"Barber Olivier has charge of him. I would have hanged the rogue out of hand."
"Your turn will come, gossip, never doubt it. But the stars warn me that I need this rhyming ragamuffin. There is a tale of Haroun al Raschid"
Tristan stifled a yawn and a sneer. "Another tale, sire," he said with something like piteous protest, for the king's tales did not always entertain Tristan.
Louis went on, however, indifferent to his companion's feelings:
"How he picked a drunken rascal from the streets and took him to his palace. When the rascal woke sober, the courtiers persuaded him that he was the Caliph, and the Commander of the Faithful found great sport in his behaviour. I promise myself a like diversion."
Tristan stared in surprise. This form of entertainment was new to him and did not seem to be particularly amusing.
"Are you going to let him think he is king, sire?" he asked.
A queer smile wrinkled the king's malign face.
"Not quite," he said. "When he wakes, he is to be assured that he is the Count of Montcorbier and Grand Constable of France. His antics may amuse me, his lucky star may serve me, and his winning tongue may help to avenge me on a certain froward maid, who disdained me. Send me here Olivier."
Tristan bowed gravely and turned on his heel. In his heart he was inclined to a kind of contempt for the monarch's humours. When there was a chance of hanging a man, it seemed to him a waste of time to play the fool in this fashion. The cat and mouse policy was never Tristan's way. He was ever for the dog's way with the rat.
Louis resumed his restless walk with his hands folded behind him and his head thrust forward as if he were scanning the ground for some lost object. His mind was busy revolving many thoughts. He knew very well how precarious his position was, how unpopular he was with his people, how strong were the forces that the Duke of Burgundy had arrayed against him, how little he could count upon the allegiance of the people of Paris if once the enemy were able to put a foot within the walls of the capital city. He was very ambitious, he was very confident, he was very brave, and yet he felt that ambition, confidence and courage were not enough at that crisis to give his throne support. The superstitious side of his nature turned restlessly to the unknown and his spirit dived into crystals or soared among the spinning planets, struggling for occult enlightenment. To the superstitious, trifles are the giants of destiny, and the king's escapade of the previous evening had taken a firm hold on his fancy. The picturesque blackguard who had mouthed so gallantly his desire to reign over France and save her would in any case have tickled the king's taste for the eccentric, but when the encounter with the poet came upon the heels of the king's strange dream and was followed by the vague prognostications of the star-gazer, the business loomed majestic in his eyes. He had always before his mind the memory of the radiant, saintly maiden who had come like a messenger from heaven to help his father when his father's fortunes seemed to be in the very dust, and it was in all seriousness that he permitted himself to hope and almost to believe that some such succour might be vouchsafed him from the fantastic rhymester who had so lately hectored him in tho Fircone Tavern. As the king lifted his eyes a fairer form than that of Villon's was impressed upon his consciousness and yet the sight only served to strengthen the current of the king's thoughts.
A very beautiful girl, tall, stately, imperious, was coming down one of the roseways with her arms full of the great crimson blossoms. If the king had been a scholar in the learning of the Greeks he would have compared the girl to some one of the glorious goddesses of the Hellenic Pantheon. As it was, he was merely aware in a fierce way that the girl was very beautiful, that her beauty appealed to him very keenly, and stirred in him a keen sense of resentment at his slighted homage. This girl, whom Thibaut d'Aussigny wanted to marry, this girl whom the king coveted, this girl whom the mad poet worshipped, what part would she play in the fantastic comedy which was gradually shaping itself in the distorted mind of Louis? Katherine de Vaucelles saw the king, and dropped him a stately curtsey.
"Where are you going, girl?" Louis asked.
She answered quietly, "To her majesty, sire, who bade me gather roses."
"Give me one," said the king, and then as the girl handed him one of the longest and reddest of her splendid cargo, the king lightly swaying the flower, brushed the girl's flower face with it and surveyed her mockingly.
"You are a pretty child," he said. "You might have had a king's love. Well, well, you were a fool. Does not Thibaut d'Aussigny woo you?"
"He professes to love me, sire, and I profess to hate him."
"He was sorely wounded last night in a tavern scuffle."
The girl gave a little cry of disappointment.
"Only wounded, sire?"
The king laughed heartily.
"Your solicitude is adorable. Be of cheer. He may recover. And we have clapped hands on his assassin. He shall pay the penalty."
Katherine drew a little nearer to the king. Her eyes were very eager, and there was eagerness in the tones of her voice.
"Sire, I bear this man no malice for hurting Thibaut d'Aussigny."
"You are clemency itself. It would never do to have a woman on the throne. But to hurt a great lord is to hurt the whole body politic. He shall swing for it."
The girl frowned slightly.
"This man should not die, sire. Thibaut was a traitor, a villain"
Louis' mirth deepened but he kept the gravity of his speech.
"Take care, sweeting, lest you wade out of your depth. But you women are fountains of compassion. If this knave's life interests you, plead for it to my lord the Grand Constable."
The girl made a gesture of despair.
"Thibaut is pitiless," she said. Her mouth hardened as she thought of the man she hated and of her own failure to thrust him from her path, but it softened again on the next words of the king.
"Thibaut is no longer in office. Try your luck with his successor."
She leaned forward beseechingly.
"His name, sire?"
Louis looked at her thoughtfully.
"He is the Count of Montcorbier," he said. "He is a stranger in our court, but he has found a lodging in my heart. He came under safe conduct from the South last night. He is recommended to me highly by our brother of Provence. I believe he will serve me well, and I am sure he will always be lenient to loveliness."
The king smiled affably as the ready lies slipped smoothly from his lips. He was amusing himself immensely with the threads of the fairy tale he was spinning.
"You shall have audience with him." The king paused. He caught sight on the steps of the dark familiar figure of the royal barber, who was approaching him deferentially. He called to him:
"Olivier, by and by, when my Lord of Montcorbier takes the air in the garden, bring this lady to him. You understand?"
He turned to Katherine again and once more tickled her chin with the swaying rose.
"Now, go, girl, or my wife and your queen will be wanting her roses."
Katherine again saluted the king and went slowly up the steps into the palace. Louis watched her as she went, watched her until she was out of sight, and then turned sharply upon his servant.
"Well, goodman barber, what of François Villon?"
"A pot of drugged wine last night sent him to sleep in a prison. This morning he woke in a palace, lapped in the linen of a royal bed. He has been washed and barbered, sumptuously dressed and rarely perfumed. He is so changed that his dearest friend would not know him again. He does not seem to know himself. He carries himself as if he had been a courtier all his days."
The king chuckled.
"I have little doubt that when the jackass wore the lion's skin he thought himself the lion. But is he not amazed?"
"Too much amazed, sire, to betray amazement. His attendants assure him, with the gravest faces, that he is the Grand Constable of France. I believe he thinks himself in a dream, and, finding the dream delicate, accepts it."
"Remember," said Louis, "to keep to the tale. This fellow came here from Provence last night. None must know who he is save you and I and Tristan. Blow it about to all the court that he is the Count of Montcorbier, the favourite of our brother of Provence, and now my friend and counsellor. I have a liking for you, Olivier, as you know, and Tristan and I are very good friends, but neither of your heads are safe on their shoulders if this sport of mine be spoiled by indiscretions."
Olivier bowed deeply.
"I cannot speak for Tristan, sire," he said, "but I can speak for myself. The God Harpocrates is not more symbolical of silence than I when it is my business to hold my tongue."
"It is well," said Louis. "I will answer for Tristan. Have this fellow sent to me here."
With another reverence Olivier left the king and ascended the steps into the palace. The king sniffed pensively at the rose which Katherine had given to him. The perfume seemed to sooth him and he mused, sunning himself and feeding his fancy with the entertainment which playing with the lives of others always afforded to him.
"This Jack and Jill shall dance to my whimsy like dolls upon a wire. It would be rare sport if Mistress Katherine disdained Louis to decline upon this beggar. He shall hang for mocking me. But he carried himself like a king for all his tatters and patches, and he shall taste of splendour."
Glancing up at the terrace he perceived the returning figure of Olivier le Dain, and guessed that his henchman was serving as herald to the new Grand Constable. Behind Olivier came a little cluster of pages, and behind them again the king could see a shining figure in cloth of gold.
"Here comes my mountebank," he said to himself, "as pompous as if he were born to the purple." He moved swiftly to the door of the tower and entered it, disappearing as the little procession descended the steps into the Rose Garden. There was a little grating in the door of the tower, a little grating with a sliding shutter, and through this grating the king now peered with infinite entertainment at the progress of the comedy himself had planned. Olivier had spoken truly when he said that Master Villon had been greatly changed. The barber's own handiwork had so cleansed and shaved his countenance, had so trimmed and readjusted his locks that his face now shone as different from the face of the tavern-haunter as the face of the moon shines from the face of a lantern. He was as sumptuously attired as if he were a prince of the blood royal: the noonday sun seemed to take fresh lustre from his suit of cloth of gold, the air to be enriched by his perfume, the world to be vastly the better for his furs and jewels. Though it was plain that the tricked-out poet was in a desperate dilemma he managed to bear himself with a dignity that consorted royally with his pomp. Olivier bowed low to the figure in cloth of gold.
"Will your dignity deign to linger awhile in this rose arbour?" he asked.
The gentleman in cloth of gold looked at him in wonder. In truth, the gentleman in cloth of gold was in a very bewildered frame of mind. He had seen but now a clean and smooth-shaven face in the mirror, with elegantly trimmed hair, and he tried to associate the image in the mirror with his own familiar face, unwashed, unkempt, unshaven. He eyed the splendid clothes that covered him and his memory fumbled in perplexity over the horrors of a dingy, filthy wardrobe, ragged, wine-stained and ancient. He looked at the solemn pages who stood about him with golden cups and golden flagons in their hands, and he tried to remember how he had escaped from the society of Master Robin Turgis into this gilded environment. His head ached with the endeavour and he abandoned it. Olivier repeated his question, and at last Villon found words, though his voice sounded strange and hollow on his ears, and hard to command.
"My dignity will deign to do anything you suggest, good master Blackamoor," he answered, but to his heart he whispered that it was better to humour these strange satellites whose persons he found it impossible to reconcile with any memories of the real world as he knew it. The barber bowed deferentially.
"I shall have to trouble you presently with certain small cares of state," he said.
Villon beamed on him benignly. He was wondering what his interlocutor was talking about, but he felt that it was the course of the wise man to betray no wonder. The conditions were, indeed, bewildering, but also they were not disagreeable, and it was as well to take them cheerfully.
"No trouble, excellent myrmidon," he answered. "These duties are pleasures to your true man."
Olivier bowed anew.
"His majesty will probably honour you with his company later."
Villon beamed again, and again his wonder found words which seemed to him to make the most and the best of the situation. Perhaps in this singular region of dreams he was the king's man and the king's friend. At least it could do no harm to assume such friendship when his solemn companion seemed to take it for granted.
"Always delighted to see dear Louis. He and I are very good friends. People say hard things of him, but believe me, they don't know him."
He was trying his best to piece together the disordered fragments of his memory and to explain to himself how it came to pass that he was on terms of friendship with the king. His head was dizzy and heavy and he felt like a man in a dark room who was groping to find the door handle. The voice of the barber interrupted these mental struggles.
"May we take our leave, monseigneur?"
Villon's face lighted. He felt that it would be pleasanter for him to be alone while he was attempting to regain control of his faculties, more especially as he noted that the pages had placed their golden cups and flagons on the marble table and that his instinct assured him that these precious vessels sheltered no less precious wine.
"You may, you may," he assented, and then as the barber made to depart, Villon's mood changed and he caught him by the sleeve and drew him confidentially toward him.
"Stay one moment," he murmured. "You know this plaguy memory of mine—what a forgetful fellow I am. Would you mind telling me again who I happen to be?"
No look of surprise stirred the barber's face; there came no change in his extreme complaisance.
"You are the Count of Montcorbier, monseigneur," he answered, gravely. "You have just arrived in Paris from the Court of Provence, where you stood in high favour with the king of that country, but your favour is, I believe, greater with the King of France, for he has been pleased to make you Grand Constable. It is his majesty's wish that you contrive to remember this."
Villon laughed a laugh which he tried hard to make hearty and natural, but with indifferent success.
"Of course, it was most foolish of me to forget. Now, I suppose, good master Long-toes, that a person in my exalted rank has a good deal of power, influence, authority, and what not?"
"With the king's favour, you are the first man in the realm."
Villon gave a gasp of gratification. The dream was growing in glory.
"Quite so. And does my exalted position carry with it any agreeable perquisite in the way of pocket money?"
"If you will dip your finger in your pouch—" Olivier suggested, pointing a thin forefinger at Villon's jewelled belt.
Villon thrust his fingers into the pocket that hung from it and brought them out again loaded with great golden coins, bright and clear from the mint, that gleamed joyously in the sunlight. He gave a little cry of delight as he let them run in a shining stream from hollowed hand to hollowed hand, and contemplated their jingle and glitter with the delight of a new Midas. But the first thought that welled up in his heart to welcome this strange wealth was bravely unselfish.
"Gold counters, on my honour. Dear drops from the divine stream of Pactolus. Good sir, will you straightway despatch some one you can trust with a handful of these broad pieces to the Church of the Celestins and inquire of the beadle there for the dwelling of Mother Villon, a poor old woman, sorely plagued with a scapegrace son? Let him seek her out—she dwells in the seventh story and therefore the nearer to the Heaven she deserves—and give her these coins that she may buy herself food, clothes and firing."
He was too confused to reason clearly with his situation, but he felt sure that whoever he was and wherever he was in this amazing dream of his, the poor old woman whom he loved so well must needs be in it and might benefit by this gift of fairy gold.
Olivier bowed deferentially.
"It shall be done," he said, transferring the great gold discs to his own pocket. Then pointing to a small golden bell which one of the pages had placed upon the table, he added, "If there be anything your dignity should desire, he has only to strike upon this bell."
"You are very good," Villon responded solemnly, and on the phrase Olivier and the pages withdrew into the palace with every sign of the most profound respect. The king at his peep-hole was pleased to observe that his commands were being obeyed most strictly and that no hint of any secret mirth, no obvious consciousness of a hidden joke marred for one moment the monumental gravity of the parts which Olivier and the pages had to play.
As soon as Villon found himself alone he looked cautiously around him, comprehending in his astonished glance the grey walls of the palace, the moss-grown terrace, the petal-strewn steps, the old, stern tower with its ominous sun dial, and the wealth of wonderful roses all about him, making the air a very paradise of exquisite colours and exquisite odours. He shut his eyes for a few seconds and then opened them sharply as if expecting to find that the scene had vanished shadow-like into thin impalpable air, but castle and terrace, tower and roses remained as they had been, very plain to the poet's astonished senses. Tiptoeing cautiously across the grass, he reached a marble seat which stood beneath a bower of roses and seemed to be protected by a great terminal statue of the god Pan, which had been given as a present to Louis by an Eastern prince who had carried it from Athens. Pressing his hand to his forehead, Villon tried to recall the events of the evening before, which for some fantastic reason seemed to lie long centuries behind him. He could remember dimly an evil looking cell with straw upon the floor and chains upon the walls; he could recall the sullen faces of unfriendly gaolers. One of these gaolers he remembered had thrust a mug of wine into his hand and bade him drink surlily, and he had drunk greedily, as was his way when free drink was offered to him, and drinking, drank oblivion sudden and complete.
But why he had gone to a dungeon? His senses ached as he asked himself this, and faint pictures began to piece themselves together out of the episodes of the dead night. He saw again the squalid walls of the Fircone Tavern and his mind jumped back to his recitation of the ballad and his fierce sense of indignation at the humiliation of Paris, girdled by a wall of hostile Burgundians and governed by an impotent king. Then came the vision of an angel's visit and a prayer that had more of devil than angel in it, and then came a quarrel, and a fight in darkness shattered by the flaming torches of the watch and Thibaut's huge body lying on the ground a huddled heap of shining armour. He remembered the ribbon that had been flung to him from the gallery and thrust his hand into the bosom of his vest of cloth of gold and found the token there, its glossiness of white and gold soiled by its touch of the floor. Then came his capture, his contumelious march through the gloomy streets, his taste of an unknown prison, his taste of poppied wine, and then sleep.
His next consciousness was that he was lying on a soft bed instead of on a truss of straw, and that the darkness about him was not the darkness of the cell. Suddenly someone drew a curtain and in a second the place where he lay filled with a soft light and showed that to Villon which astonished him as much as if the gates of Paradise had parted before him and shown him the shining lines of the hosts of Heaven. He remembered that he was lying in a stately bed, nestled in snowy linen beneath a coverlet of crimson silk. He remembered that the bed stood in a gorgeous room, heavy with magnificent tapestry and roofed with a carved and painted ceiling that glittered with gilt and stars. Curtains of purple velvet admitted the daylight through windows on which rich armorial bearings glowed in coloured glass. Soft and delicate odours impregnated the atmosphere and tender strains of delicate music stole wooingly on the senses from the strings of a distant lute.
Then there carne, so kindly memory assured him, an obsequious man in black, with no less obsequious attendants, and singular ceremonies of bathing, perfuming and hair dressing and a putting on of sweet linen and furred raiment and jewels, and all the ceremonials for the transfiguration of a ragged robin into the likeness of a mighty lord. On the top of all this preparation rose the sun of a splendid banquet, served in ware of gold and silver and waited on by the same obsequious figure in black and the same respectful pages. Then followed the summons to walk into the air, the procession through quiet corridors on to the cool grey terrace and the final installment in the scented solitude of the rose garden. Villon was head-sick and heart-sick with the effort to put so much of the past together. He felt as if in some strange titanic way he had ruined a world and was suddenly called upon by Providence to piece the fragments together and make all whole again. He tapped his forehead wonderingly.
"Last night I was a red-handed outlaw, sleeping on the straw of a dungeon. To-day I wake in a royal bed and my varlets call me monseigneur. There are but three ways of explaining this singular situation. Either I am drunk or I am mad or I am dreaming. If I am drunk, I shall never distinguish Bordeaux Wine from Burgundy—a melancholy dilemma. Let's test it."
The marble table stood but a little way from him. The golden vessels that stood upon it had served him at that morning meal which was still an immediate excellent memory, and he remembered how his attendants had told him that one held wine of Bordeaux and one wine of Burgundy. He rose and crept across the soft grass to the table and lifted one of the golden flagons gingerly, sniffed at it fearfully and poured some of its contents carefully into a golden goblet. Lifting it cautiously to his lips, he tasted it judiciously. A ripe, warm, royal flavour rewarded him.
"By Heaven!" he cried; "no nobler juice ever rippled from Burgundian vineyards."
He drained the cup and set it down to fill another from the companion vessel and to repeat the ceremony of sniffing, tasting and swallowing. Again the desire of his palate was pleased and pacified. He reflected as he sipped and swallowed.
"This quintessence of crushed violets ripened no otherwhere than in the valleys of Bordeaux. Ergo, I am not drunk. I do not think I am mad, neither, for I know in my heart that I am poor François Villon, penniless Master of Arts, and no will o' the wisp Grand Constable. Then I am dreaming, fast asleep in the chimney corner of the Fircone Tavern, having finished that flask I filched, and everything since then has been and is a dream. The coming of Katherine, a dream. My fight with Thibaut d'Aussigny, a dream. Then the king—popping up at the last moment, like a Jack-in-the-Box—a dream. These clothes, these servants, this garden—dreams, dreams, dreams. I shall wake presently and be devilish cold and devilish hungry, and devilish shabby. But in the meantime, these dream liquors make good drinking."
He was about to fill himself another cup when a shadow fell at his feet, the shadow of Olivier le Dain standing before him with his air of emphasized respect, which was beginning to pall upon the transfigured poet.
"Your dignity will forgive me, but it is the king's wish you should pass judgment on certain prisoners."
Villon stared at him.
"I? And here?"
"Such is the king's pleasure."
"What prisoners?"
"Certain rogues and vagabonds, mankind and womankind, taken brawling in the Fircone Tavern last night."
Villon stroked his chin thoughtfully. An idea seemed to take command of his confused mind. Here was a chance to learn something of the reality that lay at the core of all this mystery of roses and wine and fine raiment. He leaned forward curiously and almost whispered to the attendant barber,
"Tell me, is Master François Villon, Master of Arts, rhymer at his best, vagabond at his worst, ne'er-do-well at all seasons, and scapegrace in all moods, among them?"
Olivier smiled complacently as those in office are accustomed to smile at the humours of great men.
"Your dignity is pleased to jest. Shall I send you the prisoners?" Villon caught at the offer sharply.
"Can I do with them as I wish?"
"Absolutely as you wish. Such is the king's will."
Villon leaned back in resigned surrender to an astonishing situation. He had dreamed strange dreams in his days and nights, but never a dream like this dream.
"Set a thief to try a thief," he philosophized, "Well, bring them in."
Olivier bowed and disappeared silently along the rose alley by which he had come. When he was alone again Villon slapped his forehead resoundingly, as if he hoped to scare his senses back into sanity by violent assault.
"Oh, my poor head," he moaned. "Am I awake? Am I asleep? What an embroglio!"
A sense of dislike to his respectful attendant surged up through his perplexity. "That damned fellow in black is confoundedly obsequious," he muttered. "I wonder if I could order him to be hanged; he has a hanging face."
Even as this kind reflection came into his head, his meditations were disturbed by the tramp of many feet and the rattle and clank of weapons, and a small company of soldiers came wheeling round into the rose garden from the side of the palace, guarding a number of men and women, in whom Villon instantly recognized his familiar friends of the Fircone Tavern. At the head of the soldiers marched a dapper gentleman, courtier-soldier or soldier-courtier, a thing of silk and steel, half dandy, half man-at-arms, exquisitely attired and flagrantly aware of his own attractions. He, too, was familiar to the poet, for he was no other than the pink and white gentleman whom he had seen acting as escort to Katherine on the day when he first beheld her, and whose name, as he had learned on the previous evening from Katherine's own lips, was Noel le Jolys.
"The puppet who dangles after my lady," he grumbled to himself. "He jars the dream."
Villon felt profoundly sorry for his imprisoned playfellows, and profoundly hostile to the pink and white gentleman. His friends looked so wretched, so woebegone, so bedraggled, while their captor looked so point-device and self-satisfied that Villon felt a fierce indignation burn within him over the injustices of the world.
"How hang-dog my poor devils look and how dirty," he thought to himself, as the soldiers ranged their prisoners in a line before him at the base of the terrace, and their prinked and fragrant captain came trippingly forward and saluted Villon, presenting to him at the same time a piece of paper, covered with writing.
"My lord," he said, dapperly, "here are the names of these night birds."
Villon took the paper and looked straightly into the young man's eyes.
"Have we ever met before?" he asked.
Noel le Jolys made a deprecatory gesture.
"Alas! no," he said. "Your lordship has swept into court like an unheralded comet. You shall tell us tales of Provence to please our ladies."
Still gravely looking at him, Villon questioned him again.
"Messire Noel, if you and I had a mind to pluck the same rose from this garden, which of us would win?"
The affable fribble's intelligence appeared to be baffled.
"I do not understand you," he protested.
Villon shrugged his shoulders. "Never mind," he said, seating himself again on the marble seat and looking at the familiar names on the piece of paper.
"Send me hither René de Montigny."
He was fairly convinced by this time that he was not wandering in the labyrinths of a dream, that he really was awake, but that for some reason which he was unable to fathom, he had been thus strangely transmuted into the semblance of splendour and authority.
"The popinjay fails to recognize me," he said to himself; "so may my bullies," and as he thought, René de Montigny was pushed forward by a couple of soldiers and stood sullenly defiant before him.
Villon leaned forward, oddly interested in the grotesque turn of things which put him in this position with his old companion and fellow-scamp.
"You are—" he questioned.
Montigny answered angrily,
"René de Montigny, of gentle blood, fallen on ungentle days."
"Through no fault of your own, of course?"
"As your grace surmises, through no fault of my own. I am poor, but, I thank my stars, I am honest."
This remark, which was made aloud for the benefit of all and sundry, provoked a roar of laughter from Guy Tabarie which was promptly converted into a groan as an indignant soldier smote him into silence by a lusty blow on the back. Villon caught him up on the assertion.
"Since when, sir? Since last night?"
"I do not understand your grace."
"When Jason was a farmer in Colchis he sowed dragons' teeth and reaped soldiers. What do you grow in your garden, Sire de Montigny?"
Montigny gave a little start of surprise but his answer came prompt.
"Cabbages."
Villon shook his head. "Arrows, Master René, Burgundian arrows, most condemnable vegetables. Have a care! 'Tis a pestilent crop and may poison the gardener. Stand aside."
René de Montigny stared at his interlocutor in a paroxysm of amazement. Here was his dearest secret loose on the lips of his questioner. It was the first time that he had ventured boldly to gaze into the face of authority and Villon returned his gaze defiantly. But there was no recognition in Montigny's eyes. He could see nothing in common between the splendid gentleman who now addressed him and the ragged rhymester who shared so many squalid adventures with him, and in an instant he averted his head respectfully.
"If your grace will deign," he pleaded, stretching out his hands in entreaty, but Villon was inexorable.
"Stand aside," he repeated, and Montigny protesting was dragged back to his place with his fellows while Villon read the name of the next rogue on the list, which happened to be that of Guy Tabarie.
By this time Villon's spirit had entered into a very complete appreciation of the humours of the situation. Having realized that his identity was safe even from the keen eyes of René de Montigny, he felt assured that he might defy the indifferent scrutiny of his less alert companions. And though he made use of the long pendant fold of his cap to conceal in some measure his countenance, he was now so confident of his safety that he was prepared to greet each prisoner with composure.
Guy Tabarie cut a piteous figure as he tottered across the grass, rudely propelled by the violence of the soldier who escorted him tweaking him by the ear, and fell, a quaking mountain of flesh, at the feet of the man whom he believed to be the Grand Constable of France. With piteous gesticulations and trembling fingers, the red, gross man knelt and attempted to plead for mercy. Villon eyed him sternly though he found it hard to restrain his laughter.
"You come with clean hands?" he asked, and Guy, answered, babbling, his words tumbling from him, incoherent and confused, holding out his huge paws like a schoolboy reproved for want of soap and water:
"As decent a lad, my lord, as ever kept body and soul together by walking on the straight and narrow path that leads to—"
He had stuttered thus far when Villon interrupted him.
"The gallows, Master Tabarie."
Guy's bulk quivered in piteous negation.
"No, no; I have the fear of God in me as strong as any man in Paris."
Villon leaned over a little nearer to his victim and breathed a question into his ear:
"Do you know the Church of St. Maturin, Master Tabarie?"
The little pig-like eyes of Tabarie widened in surprise and he stammered a "No, my lord," that was in itself a flagrant confession of shameful knowledge. Villon wagged his head wisely.
"Master Tabarie, Master Tabarie, your memory is failing you. Why, no later than the middle of March last you broke into the church at dead of night and pilfered the gold plate from the altar. The fear of God is not very strong in you."
If Master Tabarie had been listening to the words of a wizard, he could not have been more astonished.
"Saints and angels!" he cried aloud. "This Grand Constable is the devil himself! My lord, I was led astray; my lord, I was not alone"
Villon had had enough entertainment from his fat companion.
He made a sign, and instantly a soldier swooped upon the grovelling figure, twitched him to his feet and drew him apart, stuttering furious protestations of innocence.
Villon looked at the list in his hand, and this time he called for two names, "Colin de Cayeulx and Casin Cholet," and as he spoke, the two knaves were pushed forward towards him. Villon drew the pair a little way apart and stood between them, eyeing their roguish faces on which false affability struggled with a very real fear.
"Are you good citizens, sirs?" he asked, and Colin immediately answered him:
"I am loath to sing my own praises, but I can speak frankly for my friend here. The king has no better subject, and Paris no more peaceable burgess than Casin Cholet."
As he spoke he waved Casin Cholet a warm salutation, and Cholet responded to his praises with a friendly grin and yet more friendly words:
"If I have any poor merits, I owe them all to this good gentleman's example. I have followed his lead, halting and humble. 'Keep your eye on Colin de Cayeulx,' I have ever said to myself, 'and learn how a good man lives.'"
The two men leered at each other across Villon, hoping that their praises of each other might have due effect upon the great lord who seemed so condescending to them. Villon smiled.
"You are the Castor and Pollux of purity? Do you remember the night of last Shrove Tuesday and the girl you carried off to Fat Margot's and held to ransom?"
The effect of his words upon the two men was startling. The ugly episode loomed up in their memories and they shivered to find it known. In a second the simulated friendship of bandit for bandit vanished and the two men glared at each other with the ferocity of fighting dogs as they hurled accusation and denial at each other:
"That was Colin's adventure!"
"That was Casin's enterprise!"
"I deplored it."
"I had no hand in it."
Forgetting their respect for authority in the fury of their antagonism, they struck angrily at each other across their questioner and were for grappling in close combat when Villon made a signal and they, in their turn, were dragged back raging into the ranks of their fellow prisoners.
There was only one left now—Jehan le Loup—who stood with folded arms and lowering brows, surveying the efforts of his comrades. Villon made a sign, and the man was dragged into his presence. Villon clapped him on the shoulder.
"You seem a brisk, assured fellow for a man in duress."
The friendly demeanour of the great man cheered the prisoner and he answered bluffly:
"My good conscience sustains me."
Villon's demeanour was still amicable as he put his next question in a voice that came only to Jeban's ears.
"I am glad to hear it. How did Thevenin Pensete come to his death?"
The muscles of Jehan le Loup's face twitched for a moment, but he clinched his fingers tightly to restrain himself and answered with a surly impassability,
"How should I know, my lord?"
Villon drew him nearer and spoke lower still.
"Who better? That nasty quarrel over the cards, the high words and a snatch for the winnings, a tilted table, an extinguished taper, a stab in the dark and a groan. Exit Thevenin Pensete. Your dagger doesn't grow rusty!"
Jehan's grey face grew greyer and uglier, but he kept his countenance.
"Monseigneur," he answered, "I loved him like a brother."
"As Cain loved Abel," Villon said. He made a sign, and Jehan le Loup was taken back to his fellows.
So far Villon had been sufficiently diverted. He had played upon the terrors of his friends, he had bewildered them to the top of his desire. He now foresaw the possibility of sport more delicate as his glance fell upon the group of girls who clustered together like frightened birds at the foot of the statue of Pan. He made a sign to Messire Noel, and the gilded exquisite drew near.
"Bring me hither those four gentlewomen," he commanded.
The fop's face lengthened with amazed disapprobation.
"Gentlewomen, messire? Those four doxies?"
Villon reproved him.
"They are women, good captain, and you and I are gentlemen, or should be, and must use them gently."
Messire Noel frowned and his hand made a gesture in the direction of his sword-hilt; then he remembered the folly of quarrelling with so great a man and contented himself with shrugging his shoulders as he questioned,
"And the demirep in the doublet and hose?"
"Let her stay for the present," Villon answered, and in obedience to a sign from Noel the four girls came timidly forward with downcast eyes, while Huguette remained apart, leaning composedly against the image of Pan and surveying the scene with a good-humoured indifference.
When the girls were close to him, Villon spoke:
"Well, young ladies, what is this trade of yours that has brought you into trouble?"
Jehanneton dropped a curtsey.
"I make the caps that line helmets."
Isabeau followed quickly,
"I am a lace weaver. Enné, an honest trade."
Blanche came next,
"I am a slipper maker."
Denise ended the catalogue.
"And I a glover."
Mischief danced in Villon's eyes.
"No worse and no better. A word in your ear." He whispered something into each girl's ear in turn, and as he did so, each girl started, drew back, looked confused, laughed and blushed.
It is ever to be deplored that the worthy Dom Gregory, whose ecclesiastical history of Poitou is the source of so much curious information concerning Villon, should have omitted, from a mistaken sense of delicacy, to chronicle precisely what it was that the poet whispered in the ears of each of the girls. All he condescends to record in his crabbed, canine Latin, is that Villon showed such intimate acquaintance with certain physical peculiarities or whimsical adventures private to each damsel that she believed the speaker's knowledge to be little less than supernatural. Literature of the skittish sort must deplore the monastic reticence, but history can do no more than accept it and leave imagination to fill in the blank as best it pleases.
All history is certain of is that the girls gathered together, chatting like sparrows, each speaking rapidly:
"The gentleman is a wizard. Why, he told me"
"Enné, a miracle; he reminded me"
"Why, he knows"
"What do you think he said?"
Each girl was whispering to the other what Villon had told her, when Villon interrupted them.
"Young women, young women, the world is a devil of a place for those who are poor. I could preach you a powerful sermon on your follies and frailties, but, somehow, the words stick in my gullet. Here is a gold coin apiece for you. Go and gather yourself roses, my roses, to take back to what, Heaven pity you! you call your homes."
Jehanneton gave a little gasp of surprise.
"Are we free?"
Villon answered her sadly,
"Free? Poor children! Such as you are never free. Go and pray Heaven to make men better, for the sake of your daughter's daughters."
His extended hands were full of gold pieces, but they were soon emptied by the eager girls who pounced upon them. Then they left him with many curtsies and salutations and drifted away delightedly into the mazes of the rose garden.
Villon turned to look at the men prisoners, who were anxiously scanning his actions.
"As for these gentlemen," he said to Noel, "let them go where they will, but first give them food and drink and a pocketful of money."
The effect of his words was almost as paralyzing upon the rogues as it was upon Messire Noel. It pleased the one as much as it displeased the other.
Noel looked the contempt he did not venture to express. The men rushed forward, choking with gratitude.
"God save you, sir."
"Your Excellency is of a most excellent excellence."
"Long live the Grand Constable!"
"A most rare Constable."
Villon waved them away.
"Go your ways," he said, "and if you can, mend them."
Shouting and dancing for joy, the men took advantage of his permission and disappeared in their turn among the alleys of the rose garden, seeking and finding the wandering women and vanishing with them in due course into the labyrinths of Paris.
Villon turned to Noel.
"You may dismiss your soldiers," he said. "Attend me within call," and as Noel obeyed him, he advanced to where Huguette was standing, with a smile of scornful indifference still on her fair face.
Villon asked himself as he went:
"Why, in God's name, does the world appear so different to-day? Is it the thing they call the better self, or merely this purple and fine linen?"
What he said when he came to the girl was,
"Fair mistress, you have a comely face and you make it very plain that you have a comely figure. Why do you go thus?"
The girl shrugged her green shoulders and shifted the balance of her body from one green leg to the other, as she answered impudently,
"For ease and freedom, to please myself, and to show my fine shape to please others."
Last night this girl had been his own familiar friend; to-day she lay leagues away from his fairy greatness. There was pity in his next speech.
"Are you a happy woman, mistress?"
"Happy enough," she answered as she snapped her fingers defiantly, "when fools like you don't clap me into prison for living my life in my own way."
"I may be a fool, but I did not clap you into prison. Heaven forbid!"
A curious look came into the girl's eyes, and she drew a little nearer to him. Her voice was a caress; the tenor of her hands was a caress; every supple curve of her alluring body caressed. She seemed to coax him, cat-like, as she whispered:
"Your voice sounds familiar, Monseigneur. Had I ever the honour to serve you?"
Villon drew away from her. He felt suddenly body-sick and soul-sick; sorry for the woman, sorry for himself.
"Who knows?" he answered. The girl laughed and turned aside.
"Who cares? What are you going to do with me?"
"Set you free, my delicate bird of prey. Those wild wings were never meant for clipping and caging. Is there anything I can do to please you?"
On the instant her enticement shifted; all her being was a tremulous entreaty.
"What has come to Master François Villon?"
"Why do you ask?"
"He was with us when we were snared last night. But he did not share our prison and he is not with us now. Does he live?"
Villon hesitated for a moment before speaking.
"He lives. He is banished from Paris, but he lives."
Huguette clasped her hands in gratitude.
"The sweet saints be thanked!" she said; and there was that in her voice which made the simple words sound very sincere to Villon's ears.
"What do you care for the fate of this fellow?"
"As I am a fool, I believe I love him."
"Heaven's mercy! Why?"
"I cannot tell you, Messire. A look in his eyes, a trick of his voice—the something—the nothing that makes a woman's heart run like wax in the fire. He never made woman happy yet, and I'll swear no woman ever made him happy. If you gave him the moon, he would want the stars for a garnish. He believes nothing; he laughs at everything; he is a false monkey—and yet, I wish I had borne such a child."
There was a sudden pain at Villon's heart, as if the girl's fingers had seized it and squeezed it, but he replied lightly:
"Let us speak no more of this rascal. He believes more and laughs less than he did. He is so glad to be alive that his forehead scrapes the sky and the stars fall at his feet in gold dust. Paris is well rid of such a jackanapes."
"You are a merry gentleman."
"I would be more gentle than merry with you. Will you wear this ring for my sake? Fancy that it comes from Master François Villon, who will always think kindly of your wild eyes."
"Let me see your face," she requested, but Villon denied her. He signed to Noel le Jolys, where he stood apart, and the young soldier came hurriedly to him.
"Captain," he said, "give this lady honourable conduct."
He moved away and left the pair together—the mannish woman and the womanish man, looking at each other, the man in admiration and the woman in veiled disdain.
"You are a comely girl," Noel affirmed roundly.
Huguette laughed.
"This is news from no-man's land."
Noel spoke lower.
"Where do you lodge?"
Huguette was a woman of business in an instant. She flashed in Noel's face the ring the Grand Constable had given her as she answered:
"At the sign of the Golden Scull, hard by the Fircone. Will you visit me?"
Noel clapped his hands together.
"As I am a man, I will."
A good understanding being thus established, the pair drifted away together and were soon lost to sight. Villon looking after them mused:
"Heaven forgive me, I am becoming a most pitiful loud preacher. Every rogue there deserves the gallows, but so do I, no less, and I have not swallowed enough of this court air to make me a hypocrite. Well, all this justice is thirsty work, and, mad or sane, sleeping or waking, let me drink while I can."
He returned to the golden flagons, poured out a full cup of Burgundy, watched it glow in the sunlight, and lifted it to his lips.
"To the loveliest lady this side of heaven!" he said for a toast, but ere he touched his lips to the cup, he lowered it again.
Olivier le Dain had come on to the terrace, and with Olivier there came a lady.
"By heaven," Villon cried, "my eyes dazzle, for I believe I see her!"