Kitabı oku: «The Court Jester», sayfa 7

"Ha! ha!" laughed the seneschal, turning to the housekeeper. "Where would your great King of the Romans be without my country? Even a king with no money is of little consequence."

"Pray, pray, good Sir Fool," said the housekeeper, ignoring this remark, "keep the secret from her Highness, and let no one know that you are aware of the coming of the archduke. Our master would be seriously displeased if he knew that we had revealed the fact that the royal visitor is expected."

"Do not be alarmed," replied Le Glorieux; "I shall be as silent as an owl in daytime, for I, too, want my little mistress to have the pleasure of a surprise." The end of the sentence was almost drowned by the striking of the clock, and the fool continued, raising his voice, "I do not see why it is, but it seems to me that every time I want to say anything that clock wants to strike at that particular minute!"

"Oh, it is late, it is late," cried the housekeeper, "and we must hurry."

"True," said the seneschal, "let the table be spread at once."

Two boys came in to spread the table, and were soundly cuffed by the seneschal because they put the plates on before the salt, there being a superstition that bad luck was sure to follow unless the salt went on first of all. Some people have an idea that the way to hurry things up is to get into a temper, and this seemed to be the case with both the seneschal and the housekeeper, who bustled about, interrupting each other by the commands they gave the servants, one often countermanding the orders of the other, until their underlings ran hither and thither without knowing what to do. Le Glorieux, who made himself perfectly at home all over the house, followed the pair to the kitchen and seated himself comfortably on the lower step of a winding staircase, which led somewhere to regions above, for the old castle was full of surprises, and one was likely to find door, stairs, and halls where they were to be least expected.

All was hurry and wild excitement in the kitchen. At the fireplace, which was large enough to roast an ox, the cook was basting a number of fowls; scullions were chopping spiced dressings, beating eggs, and attending to various features of the coming repast, and everybody seemed to be working in a great haste, for a few sharp words from the housekeeper, seconded by the seneschal, had stirred the whole kitchen into a flurry. "Here, baste these fowls," cried the cook, handing a long-handled spoon to one of the scullions. "Can you not see that I ought to be at work on the pastry? You stand at the other end of the room staring at nothing at all when you know that I must need you here." The cook was quite haughty while administering this reproof, and Le Glorieux remarked:

"Everybody has some one to scold, from the seneschal on down, and I dare say the scullions vent their ill temper on the dogs."

The boy who was beating the eggs stopped to laugh at this remark, for which he received a swift cuff from the housekeeper, who said, "Do you not know that one should never pause for even a moment when beating eggs? You deserve a good drubbing for your heedlessness."

"She beats you and you beat the eggs," remarked Le Glorieux to the boy.

The scullion at the fire began to giggle at this piece of drollery, and tilting his spoon spilled the gravy into the flames, which received it with a great deal of sputtering, cracking, and snapping, and an increase of blaze, which threatened to consume all the fowls, and which put the cook into such a rage that he snatched the spoon and hit the boy a crack over the head with it. "Take that for a blundering idiot!" cried he. "From your indifference and carelessness one would think a supper for royal visitors was prepared in this kitchen every day in the week!"

"And it is a good thing that it is not," said the jester, "for in that case I am sure that funerals in this mansion would be frequent. But it is my fault, no doubt. I am making myself too entertaining. I will go now, first saying that if any of you boys should receive a broken skull, I have a box of ointment in my room to which you are quite welcome, and which will cure the wound and cause the hair to grow over it."

So saying he lounged out of the room and to the apartment of his little mistress. Antoine was singing for her a tinkling melody, and the jester began to sway about in time to the music. With mischief in his eyes, Antoine kept singing faster and faster, which caused the jester to whirl about like a top, while the little princess clapped her hands with delight.

"Bravo!" said a voice, when the song was finished, and turning they saw a man's figure standing in the doorway.

"Who are you, sir, that come in unannounced, and what do you wish?" asked the Lady Marguerite, straightening herself up, for she was most dignified at times and would permit no liberties. If his rank might be judged by his costume, this newcomer was taking a great liberty, and the princess continued to gaze at him with a haughty expression of countenance, while he remained smiling, but silent. He was dressed in a simple gray hunting costume, and the hat he held in his hand was adorned, not by a curling plume, but by a feather from the wing of the black eagle.

He was of a fine and graceful figure and a handsome face, and there seemed to be a kind of mist in his eyes as he gazed at the frowning little lady before him, and who said again and more curtly than before:

"Will you be kind enough to tell me what brings you here?"

"I bear a message from the archduke," he replied.

"Oh," cried Marguerite, and forgetting her dignity, she sprang from her chair and advanced toward him. "Give me the letter; where is it? Why do you wait so long?"

"I have no letter; it is a verbal message."

"Then what is it; can you not speak?"

"He bids you be patient for a while and rest."

"Rest! I have rested till I am weary of resting. If that is all you have to tell me, you can return whence you came and ask the archduke, my father, if all these years have made him forget that he should love his daughter, and if he believes that she cares not at all for him?"

The little princess did not weep, as she was inclined to do in her disappointment, but her cheeks were flushed and her lips quivered with emotion.

For answer, the stranger strode into the room and, picking up the little maiden bodily in his arms, he kissed her lips, her brow, her hair, and her eyelids a dozen times, for he must have thought, as did Le Glorieux, that her eyes were like those of Mary of Burgundy.

"Oh!" gasped the child, but she did not struggle, for she now realized that this could be no other than her father, the Archduke of Austria.

"I had thought to have kept my identity a secret a little longer, but the glance of those eyes overcame me, quite," murmured Maximilian, while Le Glorieux whispered to Antoine, "Although I am a fool, there are moments and places when and where I feel that my presence is not absolutely necessary, and this is one of them. She will not blame us if we go without her permission, and our room just now is better than our company, so let us go." And unnoticed they slipped away.

Later when the jester saw the archduke he was clothed as became his rank, in velvet trimmed in fur, while gems flashed in the chain about his neck and on his fingers.

"My father," said the princess, who clung to his hand as if she feared he suddenly would vanish from her sight, "this is my jester, Le Glorieux. He once lived at the court of Burgundy. He loved my mother and he loves me; he was given to me by the Lady Anne of Brittany."

"She took your husband and gave you her fool," replied the archduke.

"And who shall say it was not a good exchange?" asked Le Glorieux quickly. "Some of the women who have married into the royal house of France have secured both king and fool in one."

Maximilian laughed. "I see you have a ready wit," said he. "I now remember to have observed you when I stood at the door of the princess' apartments. Did you suspect who I was, Fool?"

"Not at first," was the reply. "Kings may have a divine right, but they have not a divine look when clothed in common wool. You are a handsome figure of a man, but so is many a forester, and even your daughter did not recognize you until you had hugged her like a bear. But now you look very much as you did when I saw you at Ghent."

"You saw me at Ghent?" repeated Maximilian.

"Oh, yes; I can not flatter myself that you saw my fair face, for it was the day you wedded our Duchess of Burgundy; but I remember you for all that, and I have described your appearance on that day a dozen times to my little princess."

Among the company of ladies and gentlemen who surrounded the supper-table none was happier than the Lady Clotilde. She wore a costume carefully copied from one she had seen worn by Anne of Beaujeu, and which the tailor who had fashioned it before Lady Clotilde left Amboise would remember to the last day of his life, from the severe tongue lashings he received while he was putting it together. It was of a heavy velvet, bordered to the knees in rich dark fur; about her neck were strings and strings of pearls; a veil of silver tissue bound her brow and hung down her back, while her hair, drawn into a mass on the top of her head, was covered by a sparkling net and spread out on either side like the wings of a butterfly.

"I should think that some of those pearls would get lost in the hollows of Clotilde's neck," muttered Le Glorieux to himself. This reminded him of the moonstone pendant and he wondered for the fiftieth time where it could be. "I have no faith in those curses that were to follow on the loss of the trinket," thought he. "If they had been genuine, something would be happening to her by this time. And she is just as healthy as ever; I watched her at the table, where she ate about four capon wings, to say nothing of a quantity of roast kid and a good many other things. But her luck always has been something wonderful, and a misfortune that would come at full gallop after anybody else would pass Clotilde by and forget all about her."

The subject of piety came up that evening; Maximilian, who was always gay and fond of his joke, but nevertheless had great reverence for the pious teaching he had received in his youth, said, "My instructors took pains to impress upon me the fear of God, and they laid great stress upon the commandments to believe in one God, to honor my father and mother, and to do unto others as I would have others do to me."

The Lady Clotilde listened to him as one entranced. Maximilian, who was very good-natured, had made one or two complimentary remarks to her, and she was in high feather in consequence.

"All the world can see how well your Highness lives up to your religious training," said she. "I, too, have had all the great truths so thoroughly impressed upon my mind that I never in any circumstances could forget them. I could no more go to sleep without my devotional reading than I could exist without eating. If your Highness is interested in handsome books, you would admire my Lives of the Saints, which I read every night before I close my eyes in slumber. My royal cousin, the Queen of France" – and the Lady Clotilde straightened herself up at the mention of her relationship to so great a personage – "knowing my passion for devotional reading, took from me my old book worn out with constant perusal, and gave me another instead. It was printed by a monk, with his own hands. My royal relative is very fond of such books."

That Queen Anne was fond of such books is shown by the beautiful Book of Hours made by her order.

"I, too, am very fond of such books, especially of the kind you mention," said the archduke, "and which I am afraid will go out of existence now that the style of printing with movable letters has come in."

And it may be said in passing that printing had been invented about forty years before by John Gutenberg at Mayence.

"I should very much like to see the volume you mention," went on the archduke.

The Lady Clotilde fluttered with delight at this request, for she was very proud of the volume and would take great pleasure in exhibiting it to the royal guest.

A servant was despatched to her room forthwith, and brought the book, which was handed to the archduke. Maximilian examined the silk of the binding, the chasing of the silver corners, and the clasps, upon which were engraved the arms of Brittany, a country which might at this moment have been his own had not fate played him an ugly trick. Then he unclasped the volume to glance through its pages, and as he did so a bright object slipped from its leaves and fell to the floor. Le Glorieux sprang at once to pick it up, exclaiming as he did so, "Why, Cousin Clotilde, it is your moonstone pendant!"

And then the Lady Clotilde remembered all about it. She had worn the ornament the night before they left Amboise, and as the maid had forgotten to put it with her other jewels, the lady had slipped it into the book, the pendant being flat and the book clasping loosely. She intended to have the case taken from her box where it had been packed ready for the journey, and the jewel put in it as soon as her maid entered the room. And she had forgotten all about the circumstance until this very moment! People who pretend to be what they are not will be discovered sooner or later, and the lady's chagrin was so great that for the moment she was absolutely dumb.

"This is the trinket that caused all that commotion," said the fool. "No wonder Saint Monica helped the girl out of the difficulty."

Of course Maximilian had heard the story of the accusation of Cimburga, and of her miraculous vindication, and he had patted his little daughter's head approvingly when told of the marriage portion she had given the maid. "I am afraid," said he to Philibert, in order to cover the lady's confusion, "that you are not a very attentive squire, else you would have searched for and found the locket, thus saving all the trouble that has followed its disappearance."

"Your Highness, I saw my cousin place it in the book," replied the boy innocently, "but as I supposed she read it every night, I never thought of looking for the jewel in its leaves."

The way in which events sometimes group themselves is very provoking, not to say maddening. The Lady Clotilde had a fine little story all fixed up in her mind as soon as the first moments of her amazement had passed. She was going to say that the real thief had no doubt repented and had restored her property that very day, knowing that she would find it before she slept. But now Philibert must spoil it all by telling the whole story, for she remembered that she had expatiated to him upon the duty of reading elevating books, had opened this one and held it in her lap, and, seeing the pendant on the table, had censured the carelessness of her woman, and had clasped it in the book, where she said it was safe for the present. She had bragged of her piety to the archduke, and here she was exposed as one who not only had not looked into the volume for more than a fortnight, but who had told a falsehood as well!

"It is truly a curious ornament," remarked the archduke, turning it so that the light played upon the carved face of the moonstone.

"It is an heirloom of my mother's family, your Grace," returned its owner in a constrained, half-hearted way.

"I have been watching for something to happen to you, Cousin Clotilde," said the jester, "and now you will glide along and be as comfortable as the rest of us. After all, it is a good thing that you put the moonstone in a book that you never open, for if you had found it right away, you never would have accused Cimburga, and if you had not accused Cimburga, she would never have received the purse of gold for her dower, and then she never would have married Karl, for the prudent miller sooner or later would have persuaded his son to marry the weaver's daughter. So let us be thankful that you are not so pious as you think you are, and that you put the pendant in a book where it would have remained for months, perhaps years, if you had not wanted to show it to Cousin Max."

But the Lady Clotilde derived no comfort from the favor she incidentally had done the maid. It never had entered her head that she owed the girl some reparation for the fright she had caused her, and for the humiliating position in which she had been placed, for the Lady Clotilde did not own the kind of a head that would entertain such an idea.

The beds at the castle were most comfortable, being, as Philibert had said, stuffed with the down of many fowls, and that of the Lady Clotilde was hung with the richest brocade, but as she went to it boiling with rage at Philibert, Le Glorieux, Cimburga, the countess, and everybody in the remotest way connected with the moonstone, it was long before sweet sleep visited her eyelids.

But the little princess closed her eyes with a smile, and soon sank into pleasant dreams; she had seen her father, and he was all that her fancy had painted him: he was affectionate, gay, and handsome. He had spoken during the evening of his combats and she knew that he always had vanquished his opponents. He was a true and brave knight, and happy indeed was she in being the daughter of one so worthy and so favored by fortune.

CHAPTER VIII
A ROYAL ALCHEMIST

The object of her greatest desire, the meeting with her father, having been attained, the princess was in no haste to leave Castle Hohenberg, and as the archduke was glad to rest a while from the cares of state, a number of merry days were spent under its hospitable roof, where everything that could be thought of to add to the enjoyment of the guests was done, with probably a vast increase in the housekeeping accounts, for it is expensive to entertain royal visitors.

In the evening there was dancing in the great hall, and it was led by Maximilian, who chose for his partner the prettiest lady in the room, or the oldest and most ill-favored, for he made himself agreeable to all.

When he spoke of taking his departure one of the ladies declared that she would hide his boots and spurs, which would detain him as long as she should see fit to keep him there, for a prince riding away without those useful articles of wearing apparel would present an odd spectacle. This same trick had been played upon Maximilian in another mansion, and he had good-naturedly yielded to the wishes of the mischievous dames and prolonged his stay in consequence. The archduke was friendly to everybody, and on his way to and from the outdoor sports that were arranged for him he chatted affably with any peasant with whom he happened to come in contact, and when we read such things of him we are not surprised that the people adored him.

But, however pleasant it may have been at Castle Hohenberg, there were plenty of other places in Maximilian's wide domain that longed for him or needed him, or both, and ere long the party was ready to continue its journey along the Rhine.

On the morning of their departure Marguerite heard a gay song in the courtyard beneath her window; it was Cimburga, who was going to feed the doves. The birds immediately flew to meet their friend, settling on her shoulders, her head, and the basket in which she had brought their food, the sunlight bringing out the rose tints in the gray of their plumage. The girl scattered the grain with a lavish hand, and then held the end of a crust of bread between her white teeth, turning her face toward her shoulder, upon which two of the most impertinent of the doves had settled, followed by a host of others, who quarreled over the morsel at such a rate that Cimburga, laughing, threw it at them, saying, "Take it, then, greedy ones, since you can not wait."

The Lady Marguerite called to the maid, and the latter glancing upward beheld a picture which she never forgot as long as she lived, and which always seemed to her like the recollection of a beautiful young saint who had come to life in its niche. In the arched window of the gray old castle stood the little princess, her bright uncovered hair like a halo about her face, which beamed upon the maid with a gracious smile. Marguerite was not an angel, as the jester had well said, but to the girl who now gazed upon her, and who had received so great a boon at her hands, she seemed more than human.

The daughter of the Hapsburgs ignored for the moment the gulf that divided her from this child of the people, just as her father often did in similar circumstances. "Are you happy now, Cimburga?" she asked gently.

"Oh, so happy, your gracious Highness, and all thanks to you!" returned the girl. "The mistress has given me a wedding dress of a beautiful blue, the color that belongs to the Blessed Virgin, and we are to be married next week. And Karl's father has found an inn for him farther south, called The Flying Fawn. And I am to be the landlady of an inn!" She paused and looked very serious for a moment at the thought of her new dignity. Then she broke into a peal of laughter at nothing at all, but just from pure happiness.

"I am glad because you are glad, Cimburga," said the princess gently.

"And indeed, your Highness, I shall pray every night to Saint Joseph to send you as good a husband as I have myself," continued the girl earnestly. Marguerite smiled at this, but after all there was many a prince who would not be so kind to his royal wife as humble Karl would be to the maiden of his choice.

At Metz they were greeted by Marguerite's brother, a handsome boy known to history as Philip of Flanders. He was about to go to that country to remain, and so we shall see very little of him in this story.

Everywhere in their own domain the emperor and his daughter had been received with every demonstration of delight by their loyal people, and at Metz they were royally entertained by the Duke of Lorraine, who caused to be given on his wonderful stage a play for their amusement.

It was a very queer theater, or at least it would look so to us to-day, and the plays produced there did not in the least resemble those we are accustomed to see.

Plays in the beginning were given in Latin, and were played in churches on Christmas, Easter, and Good Friday. But when they began to be recited in the language spoken by the people the church would have none of them, and they were performed in the open air. The stage at Metz was nine stories high, and as to whether their costumes were appropriate or the contrary was a question which seemed to trouble the actors very little, and it must have seemed rather odd to see the angel Gabriel appear in a robe that had been worn by his Satanic Majesty in a previous scene. There were a great many people in the play, which must have been very confusing, because of the comic interludes where clowns danced about performing their various antics, which had nothing whatever to do with the play itself. The piece witnessed by Maximilian and his suite lasted for three days, and Le Glorieux declared that he for one was glad when it was finished.

"But you can not see such spectacles every day," said Philibert.

"Thank fortune for that!" said the fool.

"But are you not fond of the drama?"

"Yes, and I am also fond of bread, but I should not like to eat bread every minute for three days."

At Linz they stopped to pay their respects to the old emperor, whom Marguerite never had seen, or at least not since her babyhood, which does not count. Frederick the Third was almost eighty years old now. He had given up the government of the country to his son, and had retired to his palace at Linz, where he pursued his "studies," as he called them, and which he fondly imagined them to be, though to-day his pursuits would make a boy of average intelligence smile broadly.

When Frederick was selected to be the emperor of Austria he thought over the matter for eleven weeks before he could make up his mind to accept the honor thus proffered him. He never has been called a wise or a worthy ruler; quite the contrary, indeed; but the fact that he took time to think the matter over shows that he realized that the duties of his position would not be child's play, and as he had reigned for more than fifty years, it may be supposed that he was rather tired of it by this time. The emperor was a tall, white-haired old man of majestic appearance, with a heavy, protruding under lip. He kissed his son on both cheeks, and saluted his granddaughter in the same way, though without any extravagant display of affection, doubtless having his mind at the moment on his laboratory, where he was engaged in trying a number of experiments, of which writers of his day speak with a great deal of respect, not to say awe.

Wishing to entertain her royal grandfather, Marguerite asked Antoine to sing for him. The old emperor listened with a dreamy expression of countenance, as one who is absorbed in his own thoughts, and when the song was finished he asked his granddaughter and the boys to accompany him to his laboratory, where they were, of course, followed by Le Glorieux.

The laboratory was fitted up with all the appointments that could possibly be suggested by the "studies" of the great man who spent so much of his time within its four walls. There were globes and compasses, and maps of the starry heavens, for the emperor was very learned in astrology. "It was a comet that came to tell me of the birth of the King of the Romans, my son," said he solemnly. "It was necessary that a brave and wise prince should succeed me, and just before his birth a pale light was seen in the sky, which attracted the attention of learned men everywhere, and which proved to be a comet, growing larger and larger each night, reaching its greatest brilliancy on the night of my son's birth. The next night it was less bright, and before many nights it had disappeared!"

The emperor paused here, and no one remarked that this behavior on the part of comets is not unusual. Then he continued, "Until my son was twelve years of age I thought he was going to be either a mute or a fool. There was no sign of any but a very ordinary grade of intelligence, and I lost faith in the glorious predictions regarding him that I had read in the heavens. He learned his lessons only after a series of floggings, and I feared that my realm was to be governed by a weakling. But why should I have doubted the assurance given me by the planets? My son came out of his stupidity as from a dream, and he is now one of the most learned of men. He can address the ambassadors of eight different countries, each in his own language; he can dictate a number of letters at once, each in a different tongue. And the stars have said that Austria will become the mistress of the world."

Although we know that the old emperor left a writing to the effect that his country would exceed all others in greatness, the prediction did not come true, showing that the stars frequently make mistakes.

The visitors examined the contents of the laboratory with great interest. The shelves contained all sorts of bottles and retorts, and the vessels in which he stirred his mixtures were marked with a red cross to keep out the demon, who, it was believed, had an inconvenient and impertinent way of meddling with such things.

The Lady Marguerite held in her hand a red rose, which was given to her by the head gardener, and which, being of a rare variety, was greatly cherished by that functionary, and thought to be a suitable gift, even for a princess. The emperor reached out his hand for the rose, and taking it from her, he popped it into a jar, where it soon became as white as snow. Then, taking it out again, he said, "It would be a pity to spoil a lady's flower," and throwing it into another jar, it became its own rich red again.

This feat seemed almost a miracle to the four spectators who witnessed it, though a chemist to-day would think nothing of it. To make sugar and alcohol out of an old linen shirt, to make all the colors of the rainbow, to say nothing of medicines and perfumes, and a substance many times sweeter than sugar, out of a thing so black and sticky and generally unpromising as coal tar, are a few of the feats accomplished by the chemists of our own time, but which would have made the alchemists of Frederick's day gasp for breath.

"Here," said the emperor, taking up a long slender vial, "is a specific for many ailments, which I have succeeded in making out of a few drops of water. And here," he went on, taking up a yellow piece of parchment covered with hieroglyphics and strange characters, "is a recipe which came to me from the Orient, and said to have been greatly prized by Hermes Tris-me-gistus." He drew out the long name to its fullest extent, and Le Glorieux whispered to Antoine, "Is it not strange that at his age he can remember such things? If I had a friend of that name and wanted to write him a letter, I could never do it in this world, for by the time I had written the first part of the name I would have forgotten the last of it. Yet this old man rattles it off as easily as if he were telling what he would like for breakfast. It must be because the Germans are used to such long words that nothing in that line staggers them."

"This tells how to make gold," said the emperor, regarding the parchment with great satisfaction. "It begins, 'Catch the flying bird and drown it that it may fly no more.' You would be puzzled at the meaning of that sentence, would you not?" he asked, turning with a superior smile to his audience, all of whom murmured a respectful affirmative, save Le Glorieux, who said, "I should say it was directions as to how to prepare a fowl for the spit. Though I should advise cutting its head off, which is a much quicker and more respectable way than to drown it."

"Ha, ha!" cackled the old emperor. "Wiser men than yourself, Fool, might think the same thing. 'The flying bird' means quicksilver, which is very easy to change into gold."