CHAPTER XXVIII
THE FAVORITE IS ALARMED
Thus it befell that both Robert of Friedwald and Jacqueline accompaniedthe emperor to the little town, the scene of their late adventures, andthat they who had been fool and joculatrix rode once more through thestreet they had ne'er expected to see again. The flags were flying;cannon boomed; they advanced beneath wreaths of roses, the way pavedwith flowers. Standing at the door of his inn, the landlord droppedhis jaw in amazement as his glance fell upon the jestress and hercompanion behind the great emperor himself. His surprise, too, wasabruptly voiced by a ragged, wayworn person not far distant in thecrowd, whose fingers had been busy about the pockets of his neighbors;fingers which had a deft habit of working by themselves, while his eyeswere bent elsewhere and his lips joined in the general acclaim; fingerswhich like antennas seemed to have a special intelligence of their own.Now those long weapons of abstraction and appropriation ceased theirdeft work; he became all eyes.
"Good lack! Who may the noble gentleman behind the emperor be?" heexclaimed. "Surely 'tis the duke's fool."
"And ride with the emperor?" said a burly citizen at his elbow. "'Tisthou who art the fool."
"Truly I think so," answered the other. "I see; believe; but may notunderstand."
At that moment the duke's gaze in passing chanced to rest upon thepinched and over-curious face of the scamp-student; a gleam ofrecollection shone in his glance. "_Gladius gemmatus!_" cried thescholar, and a smile on the noble's countenance told him he had heard.Turning the problem in his mind, the vagrant-philosopher forgot aboutpilfering and the procession itself, when a soldier touched him roughlyon the shoulder.
"Are you the scamp-student?" said the trooper.
"Now they'll hang me with these spoils in my pockets," thought thescholar. But as bravely as might be, he replied: "The former I am; thelatter I would be."
"Then the Duke of Friedwald sent me to give you this purse," remarkedthe man, suiting the action to the word. "He bade me say 'tis to takethe place of a bit of silver you once did not earn." And the troopervanished.
"Well-a-day!" commented the burly citizen, regarding the gold piecesand the philosopher in wonderment of his own. "You may be a fool, butyou must be an honest knave."
At the chateau the meeting between the two monarchs was unreservedlycordial on both sides. They spoke with satisfaction of the peace nowexisting between them and of other matters social and political. Theemperor deplored deeply the untimely demise of Francis' son, Charles,who had caught the infection of plague while sleeping at Abbeville.Later the misalliance of the princess was cautiously touched upon.That lady, said Francis gravely, to whom the gaieties of the court atthe present time could not fail to be distasteful, had left the chateauimmediately upon her return. Ever of a devout mind, she had repairedto a convent and announced her intention of devoting herself, and hernot inconsiderable fortune, to a higher and more spiritual life.Charles, who at that period of his lofty estates himself hesitatedbetween the monastery and the court, applauded her resolution, to whichthe king perfunctorily and but half-heartedly responded.
Shortly after, the emperor, fatigued by his journey, begged leave toretire to his apartments, whither he went, accompanied by his "brotherof France" and followed by his attendants. At the door Francis, withmany expressions of good will, took leave of his royal guest for thetime being, and, turning, encountered the Duke of Friedwald.
Francis, himself once accustomed to assume the disguise of an archer ofthe royal guard the better to pursue his love follies among the people,now gazed curiously upon one who had befooled the entire court.
"You took your departure, my Lord," said the king, quietly, "withoutwaiting for the order of your going."
"He who enacts the fool, your Majesty, without patent to office mustneeds have good legs," replied the young man. "Else will he have hisfingers burnt."
"Only his fingers?" returned the monarch with a smile, somewhatsardonic.
"Truly," thought the other, as Francis strode away, "the king regretsthe fool's escape from Notre Dame and the fagots."
During the next day Charles called first for his leech and then for apriest, but whether the former or the latter, or both, temporarilyassuaged the restlessness of mortal disease, that night he was enabledto be present at the character dances given in his honor by the ladiesof the court in the great gallery of the chateau.
At a signal from the cornet, gitterns, violas and pipes began to play,and Francis and his august guest, accompanied by Queen Eleanor, and theemperor's sister, Marguerite of Navarre, entered the hall, followed bythe dauphin and Catharine de Medici, Diane de Poitiers, the Duchessed'Etampes; marshal, chancellor and others of the king's friends andcounselors; courtiers, poets, jesters, philosophers; a goodly company,such as few monarchs could summon at their beck and call. Charles' eyelighted; even his austere nature momentarily kindled amid thatbrilliant spectacle; Francis' palace of pleasure was an intoxicatingantidote to spleen or hypochondria. And when the court ladies, in adazzling band, appeared in the dance, led by the Duchesse d'Etampes, heopenly expressed his approval.
"Ah, Madam," he said to the Queen of Navarre, "there is little of themonastery about our good brother's court."
"Did your Majesty expect we should cloister you?" she answered, with alively glance.
He gazed meditatively upon the "Rose of Valois," or the "Pearl of theValois," as she was sometimes called; then a shadow fell upon him; thefutility of ambition; the emptiness of pleasure. In scanty attire, theDuchesse d'Etampes, with the king, flashed before him; the former, allbeauty, all grace, her little feet trampling down care, so lightly.Somberly he watched her, and sighed. Mentally he compared himself toFrancis; they had traveled the road of life together, discarding theiryouth at the same turn of the highway; yet here was his French brother,indefatigable in the pursuit of merriment, while his own soul sang_miserere_ to the tune of Francis' fiddles. Yet, had he overheard theconversation of the favorite and the king, the emperor's moodinesswould not, perhaps, have been unmixed with a stronger feeling.
"Sire," the duchess was saying in her most persuasive manner, "whileyou have Charles--once your keeper--in your power, here in the chateau,you will surely punish him for the past and avenge yourself? You willmake him revoke the treaty of Madrid, or shut him up in one of LouisXI's oubliettes?"
"I will persuade him if I can," replied the king coldly, "but neverforce him. My honor, Madam, is dearer to me than my interests."
The favorite said no more of a cherished project, knowing Francis'temper and his stubbornness when crossed. She merely shrugged herwhite shoulders and watched him closely. The monarch had not scrupledonce to break his covenant with Charles, holding that treaties madeunder duress, by _force majeure_, were legally void, while now-- Butthe king was composed of contradictions, or--was her own influencewaning?
She had observed a new expression cross his countenance when in theretinue of the emperor he had noted the daughter of the constable; sucha tenderness as she remembered at Bayonne when the king had looked uponher, the duchess, for the first time. When she next spoke her wordswere the outcome of this train of thought.
"To think the jestress, Jacqueline, should turn out the daughter ofthat traitor, the Constable of Dubrois," she observed, keenly.
"A traitor, certainly," said Francis, "but also a brave man. Perhapswe pressed him too hard," he added retrospectively. "We were young inyears and hot-tempered."
"Your Majesty remembers the girl--a dark-browed, bold creature?"remarked the duchess, smiling amiably.
"Dark-browed, perhaps, Madam; but I observed nothing bold in herdemeanor," answered the king.
"What! a jestress and not bold! A girl who frequented Fools' hall; whoran away from court with the _plaisant_!" She glanced at himmischievously, like a wilful child, but before his frown the smilefaded; involuntarily she clenched her hands.
"Madam," he replied cynically, "I have always noticed that women arepoor judges
of their own sex."
And conducting her to a seat, he raised her jeweled fingersperfunctorily to his lips, and, wheeling abruptly, left her.
"Ah!" thought Triboulet, ominously, who had been closely observingthem, "the king is much displeased."
Had the duchess observed the monarch's lack of warmth? At any rate,somewhat perplexedly she regarded the departing figure of the king;then humming lightly, turned to a mirror to adjust a ringlet which hadfallen from the golden net binding her tresses.
"_Mere de Dieu_! woman never held man--or king--by sighing," shethought, and laughed, remembering the Countess of Chateaubriant; averitable Niobe when the monarch had sent her home.
But Triboulet drew a wry face; his little heart was beatingtremulously; dark shadows crossed his mind. Two portentous stars hadappeared in the horoscope of his destiny: he who had been the foreignfool; she who was the daughter of the constable. Almost fiercely thehunchback surveyed the beautiful woman before him. With her downfallwould come his own, and he believed the king had wearied of her. Howhateful was her fair face to him at that moment! Already inimagination he experienced the bitterness of the fall from his highestates, and shudderingly looked back to his own lowly beginning: abeggarly street-player of bagpipes; ragged, wretched, importuningpassers-by for coppers; reviled by every urchin. But she, meeting hisglance and reading his thought, only clapped her hands recklessly.
"How unhappy you look," she said.
"Madam, do you think the duke--" he began.
"I think he will cut off your head," she exclaimed, and Tribouletturned yellow; but a few moments later took heart, the duchess was solightsome.
"By my sword--if I had one--our jestress has made a triumphant return,"commented Caillette as he stood with the Duke of Friedwald near one ofthe windows, surveying the animated scene. "Already are some of theladies jealous as Barbary pigeons. Her appearance has been remarked bythe Duc de Montrin and other gentlemen in attendance, and--look! Nowthe great De Guise approaches her. Here one belongs to everybody."
The other did not answer and Caillette glanced quickly at him. "Youwill not think me over-bold," he went on, after a moment's hesitation,"if I mention what is being whispered--by them?" including in a lookand the uplifting of his eyebrows the entire court. The duke laid hishand warmly on the shoulder of the poet-fool. "Is there not thatbetween us which precludes the question?"
"I should not venture to speak about it," continued Caillette, meetingthe duke's gaze frankly, "but that you once honored me with yourconfidence. That I was much puzzled when I met you and--our erstwhilejestress--matters not. 'Twas for me to dismiss my wonderment, and notstrive to reconcile my neighbor's affairs. But when I hear every onetalking about my--friend, it is no gossip's task to come to him withthe unburdening of the prattle."
"What are they saying, Caillette?" asked the duke, in his eyes a darkerlook.
"That you would wed this maid, but that the king will use his friendlyoffices with Charles to prevent it."
"And do they say why Francis will so use his influence?" continued theother.
"Because of the claim such a union might give an alien house to a vastestate in France; the confiscated property of the Constable of Dubrois.And--but the other reason is but babble, malice--what you will." AndCaillette's manner quickly changed from grave to frivolous. "Now, _aurevoir_; I'm off to Fools' hall," he concluded. "Whenever it becomesdull for you, seek some of your old comrades there." And laughing,Caillette disappeared.
Thoughtfully the duke continued to observe the jestress. Between themwhirled the votaries of pleasure; before him swept the fragrance ofdelicate perfumes; in his ears sounded the subtile enticement of softlaughter. Her face wore a proud, self-reliant expression; her eyesthat look which had made her seem so illusive from the inception oftheir acquaintance. And now, since his identity had been revealed, shehad seemed more puzzling to him than ever. When he had sought herglance, her look had told him nothing. It was as though with thedoffing of the motley she had discarded its recollections. In atentative mood, he had striven to fathom her, but found himself at aloss. She had been neither reserved, nor had she avoided him; to herthe past seemed a page, lightly read and turned. Had Caillette trulysaid "now she belonged to the world"?
Stepping upon one of the balconies overlooking the valley, the dukegazed out over the tranquil face of nature, his figure drawn aside fromthe flood of light within. Between heaven and earth, the chateaureared its stately pile, and far downward those twinkling flashesrepresented the town; yonder faint line, like a dark thread, theencircling wall. Above the gate shone a glimmer from the narrowcasement of some officer's quarters; and the jester's misgivings whenthey had ridden beneath the portcullis into the town for the firsttime, recurred to him; also, the glad haste with which they had spedaway.
Memories of dangers, of the free and untrammeled character of theirwandering, that day-to-day intimacy, and night-to-night consciousnessof her presence haunted him. Her loyalty, her fine sense ofcomradeship, her inherent tenderness, had been revealed to him. Stillhe seemed to feel himself the jester, in the gathering of fools, andshe a _ministralissa_, with dark, deep eyes that baffled him.
The sound of voices near the window aroused him from this field ofspeculation, voices that abruptly riveted his attention and held it:the king's and Jacqueline's.