CHAPTER XVII
JACQUELINE'S QUEST
"Truly, are you a right proper fool; for a man, merry in adversity, isas wise as Master Rabelais. Many the time have I heard him say a fitof laughter drives away the devil, while the groans of flagellatingsaints seem as music to Beelzebub's ears. Thus, a wit-cracker is thedemon's enemy, and the band of Pantagruel, an evangelical brotherhood,that with tankard and pot sends the arch-fiend back to the bottomlesspit."
And the fool's jailer, seated on the stool within the cell, stretchedout his legs and uplifted the bottle to his lips, while, judging fromthe draft he took and assuming the verity of the theory he advanced,the prince of darkness at that moment must have fled a considerabledistance into his chosen realms.
"Ah, you know the great philosopher, then?" commented the jester fromthe couch, closely watching the sottish, intemperate face of hiskeeper, and running his glance over the unwieldy form which bade fairto outrival one of the wine butts in the castle cellar.
"Know him!" exclaimed this lowly votary. "I have e'en been admitted tohis table--at the foot, 'tis true--when the brave fellows of Pantagruelwere at it. Not for my wit was I thus honored"--the _plaisant_ made adissenting gesture, the irony of which passed over the head of thespeaker--"but because a giant flagon appeared but a child's toy in myhands. The followers of Pantagruel fell on both sides, like wheatbefore the blade of the reaper, until Doctor Rabelais and myself onlywere left. From the head to the foot of the table the great manlooked. How my heart swelled with pride! 'Swine of Epicurus, are youstill there?' he said. And then--and then--"
With a crash the bottle fell from the hand of the keeper to the stonefloor. The massive body swayed on the small stool; his eyes stupidlyshut and opened.
"Swine of Epicurus," he repeated. "Swine--" and followed the bottle,rolling gently from the stool. He made but one motion, to extend hishuge bulk more comfortably, and then was still.
"Why," thought the fool, "if Jacqueline fails me not, all may yet bewell."
But even as he thus reflected the door of the cell opened, and a facewhite as a lily, looked in. Her glance passed hastily to themotionless figure and an expression of satisfaction crossed herfeatures.
"The keys!" she said, and the jester, bending over the prostratejailer, detached them from his girdle.
"Lock the door when we leave," she continued. "The other keeper doesnot come to relieve him for six hours."
"It would be an offset for the many times he has locked me in,"answered the fool. "A scurvy trick; yet, as Master Rabelais says,Pantagruelians select not their bed."
"Is this a time for jesting?" exclaimed the girl, impatiently.
"He has been treating me to Gargantuan discourse, Jacqueline," said thefool, humbly. "I was but answering him in kind."
"And by delay increasing our danger!"
"Our danger!" He started.
Since she had first broached the subject of escape but one sweet andall-absorbing idea had possessed him--retaliation. Liberty was themeans to that end, and every other thought and consideration had givenway to this desire. He had fallen asleep with the free baron's darkfeatures imaged on his fevered brain; when he had awakened the morbidfantasy had not left him. But now, at her words, in her presence, anew light was suddenly shed upon the enterprise, and he pausedabruptly, even as he turned to leave the cell. With growing wonder shewatched his altered features.
"Well," she exclaimed, impatiently, "why do you stand there?"
"Should I escape, you, Jacqueline, would remain to bear the brunt," hesaid, reflectively. "The jailer, when he awakes, will tell the story:who brought the wine; who succored the prisoner. To go, but one courseis open." And he glanced down upon the prostrate man. "To silence himforever!"
She started and half-shrank from him. "Could you do it?"
He shook his head. "In fair contest, I would have slain him. Butnow--it is not he, but I, who am helpless. And yet what is such asot's life worth? Nothing. Everything. Farewell, sweet jestress; Imust trust to other means, and--thank you."
The outstretched hand she seemed not to see, but tapped the floor ofthe cell yet more impatiently with her foot, as was her fashion whenangered. Here was the prison door open, and the captive enamored ofconfinement; at the culminating point conjuring reasons why he shouldnot flee. To have gone thus far; to have eliminated the jailer, andthen to draw back, with the keys in his hand--truly no scene in acomedy could be more extravagant. The girl laughed nervously.
"What egotists men are!" she said. "Good Sir Jester, in offering youliberty I am serving myself; myself, you understand!" she repeated."Let us hasten on, lest in defeating your own purpose, you defeat mine."
"What will you answer when he"--indicating the druggedturnkey--"accuses you?"
"Was ever such perversity!" was all she deigned to reply, biting herlip.
"You are somewhat wilful yourself, Jacqueline," he retorted, with thatsmile which so exasperated her.
"Listen," she said at length, slowly, impressively. "You need have nofear for me when you go. I tell you that more danger remains to me byyour staying than in your going; that your obstinacy leaves meunprotected; that your compliance would be a boon to me. By the memoryof my mother, by the truth of this holy book"--drawing a little volumepassionately from her bosom--"I swear to what I have told you."Eagerly her eyes met his searching gaze, and he read in their depthsonly truth and candor. "I have a quest for you. It concerns my life,my happiness. All I have done for you has been for this end."
Her eyes fell, but she raised them again quickly. "Will you accept amission from one who is not--a princess?"
"Name her not!" exclaimed the jester sharply. And then, recoveringhimself, added, less brusquely: "What is it you want, mistress?"
"This is no time nor place to tell it," she went on rapidly, seeing byhis face that his dogged humor had melted before her appeal, "but soon,before we part, you shall know all; what it is I wish to intrust inyour hands."
A moment she waited. "Your argument is unanswerable, Jacqueline," hesaid finally. "I own myself puzzled, but I believe you, so--have yourway."
"This cloak then"--handing him a garment she had brought withher--"throw it over you," she continued hurriedly. "If we meet any oneit may serve as a disguise. And here is a sword," bringing forth aweapon that she had carried concealed beneath a flowing mantle. "Canyou use it?"
"I can but try, Jacqueline," he replied, fastening the girdle about hiswaist and half-drawing and then thrusting the blade back into thescabbard. "It seems a priceless weapon," he added, his eye lingeringon the richly inlaid hilt, "and has doubtless been wielded by a gallanthand."
"Speak not of that," she retorted, sharply, a strange flash in hereyes. "He who handled it was the bravest, noblest--" She broke offabruptly, and they left the cell, he locking the door behind him.
Down the dimly lighted passage she walked rapidly, while the jestertractably and silently followed. His strength, he found, had come backto him; the joys of freedom imparted new elasticity to his limbs; thatnarrow, cheerless way looked brighter than a royal gallery, or Francis'_Salle des Fetes_. Before him floated the light figure of thejestress, moving faster and ever faster down the dark corridor, nowveering to the right or left, again ascending or descending well-wornsteps; a tortuous route through the heart of the ancient fortress,whose mystery seemed dread and covert as that of a prison house.Confidently, knowing well the puzzling interior plan of the old pile,she traversed the labyrinth that was to lead them without, finallypausing before a small door, which she tried.
"Usually it is unlocked," she said, in surprise. "I never knew itfastened before."
"Is that our only way out?"
"The only safe way. Perhaps one of the keys--"
But he had already knelt before the door and the young girl watched himwith obvious anxiety. He vainly essayed all the keys, save one, andthat he now strove to fit to the lock. It slipped in snugly and thestubborn bolt shot
back.
Entering, he closed the door behind them and hastily looked around,discovering that they stood in a crypt, the central part of which wasoccupied by a burial vault. In the crypt chapels were a number ofstatues, in marble and bronze, most of them rude, antique, yet not ofindifferent workmanship, especially one before which the jestress, inspite of the exigency of the moment, stopped as if impelled by anirresistible impulse. This monument, so read the inscription, had beenerected by the renowned Constable of Dubrois to his young and faithfulconsort, Anne.
But a part of a minute the girl gazed, with a new and softenedexpression, upon the marble likeness of the last fair mistress of thecastle, and then hurriedly crossed the old mosaic pavement, reaching anarrow flight of stairs, which she swiftly ascended. A door thatyielded to the fool's shoulder led into a deserted court, on one sideof which were the crumbling walls of the chapel. Here several darkbirds perched uncannily on the dead branch of a massive oak that hadbeen shattered by lightning. In its desolation the oak might have beentypical of the proud family, once rulers of the castle, whose corporealstrength had long since mingled with the elements.
This open space the two fugitives quickly traversed, passing through ahigh-arched entrance to an olden bridge that spanned a moat. Long agohad the feudal gates been overthrown by Francis; yet above the keystoneappeared, not the salamander, the king's heraldic emblem, but thealmost illegible device of the old constable. Beyond the great ditchoutstretched a rolling country on which the jester gazed with eagereyes, while his companion swiftly led the way to a clump of willow andaspen on the other side of the moat. Beneath the spreading brancheswere tethered two horses, saddled and bridled. Wonderingly he glancedfrom them to her.
"From whence did you conjure them, gentle mistress?" asked the fool.
"Some one I knew placed them there."
"But why--two horses, good Jacqueline?"
"Because I am minded to show you the path through the wood," shereplied. "You might mistake it and then my purpose would not beserved. Give me your hand, sir. I am wont to have my own way." Andas he reluctantly extended his palm she placed her foot upon it,springing lightly to the saddle. "'Tis but a canter through theforest. The day is glorious, and 'twill be rare sport."
Already had she gathered in the reins and turned her horse, gallopingdown a road that swept through a grove of poplar and birch, and he,after a moment's hesitation, rode after her. Like one born to thechase, she kept her seat, her lithe figure swaying to the movements ofthe steed. Soon the brighter green of her gown fluttered amid thesomber-tinted pines and elms, as the younger forest growth merged intoa stern array of primeval monarchs. Here reigned an austere silence--astillness that now became the more startlingly broken.
"Jacqueline!" said the fool, spurring toward her. "Do you hear?"
"The hunters? Yes," she replied.
"They are coming this way."
"Perhaps it were better to draw back from the road," she suggested,calmly.
"Do you draw back to the castle!" he returned, quickly, his browovercast.
"And miss the hunt? Not I, Monsieur Spoil-Sport."
"But if they find you with me?"
She only tossed her head wilfully and did not answer.
Nearer came the hue and cry of the chase. A heavy-horned buck spranginto the road and vanished like a flash into the timber on the otherside. Shortly afterward, in a compact bunch, with heads downbent andstiffened tails, the pack, a howling, discordant mass, swept across thenarrow, open space.
"Quick!" exclaimed the jester, and they turned their horses into theunderbrush.
Scarcely had they done so when, closely following the dogs, appearedthe first of the hunters, mounted on a splendid charger, with housingsof rose-velvet.
"_Pardieu!_" muttered the _plaisant_, "I owe the king no thanks, but herides well. Do you not think so, Jacqueline?"
Her answering gaze was puzzling. After Francis rode many lords andladies, a stream of color crossing the road; riding habits faced withgold; satin doublets covered with _rivieres_ of diamonds; torsadeswherein gold became the foil to precious stones. So near was thegorgeous cavalcade--the grand falconer, whippers-in, and the bearers ofhooded birds mingling with the courtiers immediately behind theking--the escaped prisoner and the jestress could hear the panting ofhorses. Fleeting, transient, it passed; fainter sounded the din ofhounds and horn; now it almost died away in the distance. The lastcouple had scarcely vanished before the fool and his companion lefttheir ambush.
"You ride farther, Jacqueline?" he said.
"A little farther."
"It will be far to return," he protested.
"I have no fear," she answered, tranquilly.
Again he let her have her way, as one would yield to a wilful child.On and on they sped; past the place where the deer-run crossed thebroader path; through an ever-varying forest; now on one side, a rockybasin overrun with trees and shrubs; again, on the other hand, a greatgorge, in whose depths flowed a whispering stream. Yonder appeared thegray walls of an ancient monastery, one part only of which washabitable; a turn in the road swallowed it up as though abruptly tocomplete the demolition time was slowly to bring about. On and on,until the way became wilder and the wood more overgrown with bushes andtangled shrubbery, when she suddenly stopped her horse.
He understood; at last they were to part. And, remembering what heowed to her, the Jester suddenly found himself regretting that heretheir paths separated forever. Swiftly his mind flew back to theirfirst meeting; when she had flouted him in Fools' hall. A perverse,capricious maid. How she had ever crossed him, and yet--nursed him.
Attentively he regarded her. The customary pallor of her face hadgiven way to a faint tint; her eyes were humid, dewy-bright; beneaththe little cap, the curling tresses would have been the despair ofthose later-day reformers, the successors of Calvinists and Lutherans.
"A will-o'-the-wisp," he thought. "A man might follow and never graspher."
Did she read what he felt? That mingled gratitude and perplexity? Herclear eyes certainly seemed to have a peculiar mastery over thethoughts of others. Now they expressed only mockery.
"The greater danger is over," she said, quietly. "From now on there isless fear of your being taken."
"Thanks to you!" he answered, searching her with his glance.
Here he doubted not she would make known the quest of which she hadspoken. Whatever it might be, he would faithfully requite her; even tomaking his own purpose subservient to it.
"It is now time," she said, demurely, "to acquaint you with themission. Of course, you will accept it?"
"Can you ask?" he answered, earnestly.
"You promise?"
"To serve you with my life."
"Then we had better go on," she continued.
"But, Mademoiselle, I thought--"
"That we were to part here? Not at all. I am not yet ready to leaveyou. In fact, good Master Jester, I am going with you. _I_ am thequest; _I_ am the mission. Are you sorry you promised?"