Kitabı oku: «The Casque's Lark; or, Victoria, the Mother of the Camps», sayfa 12

CHAPTER XIV
THE HOMEWARD RIDE

In his haste to inform his mother of our splendid victory, Victorin passed the command of the troops to one of the oldest chiefs. We changed our tired horses for two fresh ones which were always led by the reins ready for Victorin's use, and he and I rode rapidly towards Mayence.

The night was serene; the moon shone superbly among myriads of stars – those unknown worlds where we shall proceed to live when we leave this world. Strange! In the very midst of the ineffable bliss that I experienced at the triumph of our army, a triumph that insured the peace and prosperity of Gaul; in the very midst of the pleasurable thoughts of soon again seeing your mother and you, my son, after a hard day's fighting; in the very midst of all these pleasing emotions a sudden fit of profound melancholy came over me, a painful presentiment saddened my heart.

In the fulness of my gratitude to the gods, I had raised my eyes to heaven in order to thank them for our success. The moon shed its brilliant light upon our path. I know not for what reason, but that moment my thoughts traveled back to our ancestors, and I recalled with sad piety all the glorious, the touching and the terrible deeds that they had done, and upon which also the sacred luminary of Gaul shed its never-ceasing light generations and generations ago. The sacrifice of Hena; the journey of Albinik the mariner and his wife Meroë to Caesar's camp, across a region that was heroically given up to the flames by our fathers during their war with the Romans; the nocturnal expeditions of Sylvest the slave to the secret meetings of the Sons of the Mistletoe and to the palace of Faustina, his escape and flight from the circus of Orange where he came near being devoured by ferocious beasts; and finally the bold insurrections, the formidable revolts, the signal for which was ever given by the courses of the moon, as prearranged by our venerable druids; all these events that lay in the distant past rose at that moment before my mind like pale phantoms of the past.

The merry voice of Victorin drew me from my meditations:

"What are you dreaming about? How can you, one of the vanquishers in this fair day's battle, be as mute as one of the vanquished?"

"Victorin, I was thinking of days that are no more – of events that took place during the centuries that have rolled by – "

"A curious thought!" replied the young general; and giving a loose to his exuberant feelings he proceeded to say: "Let us leave the past to the empty cups and the departed sweethearts! As for me, I am thinking first of all of my mother's joy when she will learn of our victory; next, my thoughts run, and they run strongly, upon the burning black eyes of Kidda the Bohemian girl, who is waiting for me. When I left her this morning, at the close of the protracted banquet to which she drew me by a ruse, she made an appointment with me for this evening. This will be a well rounded day, Schanvoch! A battle in the morning, and, in the evening, a festive supper with a charming sweetheart on my knees! Ah! It is pleasurable to be a soldier and twenty years of age!"

"Listen, Victorin. So long as the cares of battle lay upon your mind, I saw you wise, thoughtful and grave, as becomes a Chief of Gaul, and at all points worthy of your mother and yourself – "

"And by the beautiful eyes of Kidda, am I not still worthy of myself when my thoughts turn to her after battle?"

"Do you know, Victorin, that Douarnek's mission to you in the name of the whole army is an evidence of the proud independence that animates our soldiers, whose free will alone made you a general? Do you realize that such words, pronounced by such men, are not, and will not be vain – and that it will be fatal to forget them?"

"Why, Schanvoch! It was a whim of veterans who grieve over their lost youth – old men's words, censuring pleasures that their age can no longer taste."

"Victorin, you affect an indifference that your heart does not share. I saw you touched, deeply affected by the language of that old soldier – and also by the attitude of his comrades."

"One feels so happy on the evening of a battle won, that everything pleases. Besides, although his words were peevish enough, did they not betoken the army's affection for me?"

"Do not deceive yourself, Victorin! The army's affection for you ebbed – it returned at floodtide with to-day's great victory. But, be careful! Fresh acts of imprudence will furnish the basis for fresh calumnies, started by those who would wish to undo you – "

"And who wishes to undo me?"

"A chief always has rivals who envy him secretly; and you will not have every day a triumph on the battle field to confound those envious souls with. Thanks to the gods, the utter annihilation of these barbarous hordes insures the peace of our beloved Gaul for many a year to come!"

"All the better, Schanvoch! All the better! Becoming again one of Gaul's most obscure citizens, and hanging my sword, that will have become useless, beside that of my father, I shall then be free to empty innumerable cups without restraint, and to make love to all the Bohemian girls of the universe!"

"Victorin! Be careful, I repeat! Remember the words of the old soldier!"

"The devil take the old soldier and his foolish harangue! At this hour I think only of Kidda! Ah! Schanvoch, if you only saw her dance with her short skirt and her silvery corsage!"

"Be careful! Both the camp and the town have their eyes upon those Bohemian dancers! Your friendly relations with them will make a scandal! Take my advice! Be reserved in your conduct; at any rate, veil your amours in secrecy and obscurity!"

"Obscurity? Secrecy? No hypocrisy! I love to display to the eyes of all, the sweethearts that I am proud of! And I am even prouder of Kidda than of to-day's victory!"

"Victorin! Victorin! Be careful, or that woman will be fatal to you!"

"Oh! Schanvoch! If you heard Kidda sing and dance, accompanying herself with a tambourine – Oh! If you heard and saw her you would become as crazily in love with her as I am! But," added the young general breaking off the thread of his delighted description, and pointing ahead of him, "look at yonder torches! Heaven be praised! It is my mother! In her anxiety to know the issue of the day she must have ridden out towards the battle field! Oh, Schanvoch! I am young, impetuous, ardent after pleasures, that never leave me. I enjoy them with the delight of intoxication – and yet, I swear to you by my father's sword, I would exchange all my future pleasures for the happiness that I am about to experience when my mother will press me to her heart!"

Saying this, the young general gave the reins to his horse and without waiting for me rode forward to meet Victoria, who was, indeed, approaching. When I reached the group, they had both alighted. Victoria held Victorin in a close embrace, and was saying to him in accents impossible to describe:

"My son, I am a happy mother!"

It was only then that I perceived by the light of the torches of Victoria's escort that her right hand was bandaged. Victorin inquired with anxiety:

"Are you wounded, mother?"

"Only slightly," answered Victoria. And addressing me she extended her hand affectionately, saying:

"Brother, you are with us! My heart overflows with joy!"

"But who gave you the wound?"

"The Frankish woman whom Ellen and Sampso brought to my house after your departure – "

"Elwig!" I cried horrified. "Oh! The accursed creature! She has approved herself worthy of her race!"

"Schanvoch," Victoria said to me gravely, "we must not curse the dead. She whom you call Elwig lives no more – "

"Mother!" cried Victorin with increased anxiety. "Dear mother! Are you certain the wound is slight?"

"Here, my son; I shall let you see it!"

And in order to reassure Victorin, she unwound the bandage in which her right hand was wrapped.

"You can see for yourself," she added. "I cut myself only in two places in the palm of my hand as I sought to disarm the woman."

Indeed, the wounds that my foster-sister exhibited were two long but by no means deep cuts. They were in no respect serious.

"And Elwig was armed?" I inquired, seeking to recollect the events of the previous evening. "Where could she have found a weapon? Unless last evening, before starting to swim after us, she picked up her knife from the beach and hid it under her clothes."

"And how and when did the woman try to stab you, mother? Were you alone with her?"

"I asked Schanvoch to have Elwig brought to me at noon; I wanted to see her and give her my help. Ellen and Sampso brought her to me. I happened to be speaking with Robert, the chief of our reserves; we were considering measures for the defense of the camp and town in the event of our army's defeat. Elwig was taken to a contiguous apartment, and Schanvoch's wife and sister-in-law left the stranger alone while I sent for an interpreter to help us understand each other. At the close of my conversation with Robert on military matters, he asked me for some help for the widow of an old soldier. That took me to the chamber where Elwig was waiting for me. I went in for some silver pieces which I kept in a little casket in which were also several Gallic jewels, necklaces and bracelets that I inherited from my mother – "

"If the casket was open," I cried, the savage cupidity of Neroweg's sister flashing through my mind, "Elwig, like the true daughter of a race of thieves, must have wished to seize some of the precious articles."

"And that was how it happened, Schanvoch. When I entered, the young Frankish woman was holding in her hand a gold necklace of exquisite workmanship. She was contemplating it greedily. The moment she saw me she dropped the necklace at her feet, and crossing her arms over her breast she looked at me for a moment in silence and with a savage expression. Her pale face became red with shame and rage. She then gave me a somber look, and pronounced my name. I supposed she asked whether I was Victoria. I nodded my head affirmatively and said: 'Yes, I am Victoria.' I had hardly uttered the words when Elwig threw herself at my feet. Her forehead almost touched the floor, as if she humbly implored my protection. The woman must doubtlessly have profited by the movement to draw her knife from under her clothes without my perceiving it. I stooped down to raise her, when she suddenly leaped up, and with eyes that shot fire sought to stab me, while saying 'Victoria!' 'Victoria!' in a tone of rooted hatred."

Although the danger was over, Victorin shuddered at the report that his mother was making; he approached her, gently took the wounded hand between his own, and kissed it tenderly and lovingly.

"When I saw Elwig's knife raised over me," added Victoria, "my first and involuntary movement was to parry the blow and try to seize the knife, while I cried aloud to Robert for help. Robert rushed in and saw me struggling with Elwig. I was cut in the hand and my blood flowed. Robert believed me dangerously wounded, drew his sword, seized Elwig by the throat, and despatched her before I had time to stay his hand. I deplore the death of the Frankish woman – she came voluntarily to my house."

"You pity her, mother!" cried Victorin. "That creature thievish and savage like the rest of her kith! You pity her! I feel certain that she followed Schanvoch only in order to find an opportunity to introduce herself into your house, cut your throat and then rob you!"

"I pity her for being born of such a stock," answered Victoria sadly. "I pity her for having harbored murder in her heart."

"Believe me," I said to my foster-sister. "That woman's death is a just punishment; besides it puts an end to a life that was soiled with crimes at which nature shudders. May it have pleased the gods that, like Elwig, her brother Neroweg lost his life to-day, and that his stock may be extinguished in him. I will otherwise regret all my life that I did not finish the man when I had a chance. I have a presentiment that his descendants will be fatal to mine."

Victoria gave me a look of astonishment at hearing me utter these words, the sense of which she could not comprehend.

But Victorin turned her thoughts and mine into other channels, exclaiming:

"Hesus be blessed, mother! This was a happy day for Gaul! You escaped a grave danger, and our arms are victorious! The Franks are driven from our frontier! – "

Victorin broke off; he seemed to listen to a sound in the distance; with flashing eyes he resumed:

"Do you hear, mother? Do you hear the song that the wind carries to our ears?"

We all remained silent; and repeated in chorus by thousands of voices tremulous with the joy of triumph, the following refrain reached us across the stillness of the night:

 
"This morning we said: —
‘How many are there of these barbarians?’
This evening we say: —
‘How many were there of these blood-thirsty Franks!’"
 

PART II
DOMESTIC TRAITORS

CHAPTER I
GATHERING SHADOWS

Several years have elapsed since I wrote for you, my child, the account that closed with the great battle of the Rhine.

The utter annihilation of the Frankish hordes and the simultaneous destruction of their establishment on the other side of the river, freed Gaul of the perpetual fear that she stood in, of a threatened invasion of barbarians. Perhaps from their retreat in the woods of northern Germany the Franks are now only awaiting a favorable opportunity to swoop down again upon Gaul. But for all the joy of this deliverance, I now resume my narrative after having experienced years of bitter sorrow. Great misfortunes have befallen me across this interval. I have seen a frightful intrigue of hypocrisy and malice unfold before my eyes. Since then an incurable sadness has taken possession of my soul. I left the borders of the Rhine for Brittany; here I established myself with your second mother and you, my son, at the identical place that long ago was the cradle of our family – near the sacred stones of Karnak, the witnesses of the heroic sacrifice of our ancestress Hena.

Only yesterday, as I was returning from the fields with you – from a soldier I have become a field laborer like our fathers in the days of their independence – only yesterday I pointed out to you, on the border of the stream, two hollow willow trees; they were old. Their age must now be more than three hundred years. They are so very, very old that they no longer put forth but a few straggling leaves. You asked me to tie a rope between the two trees for you to swing yourself. You noticed with surprise that I grew sad at your request, and that I suddenly became pensive.

It occurred to me how, nearly three hundred years ago, by a strange coincidence it occurred to Sylvest and his sister Syomara to tie a rope between those identical trees in order to disport themselves. Nor were, alas! those recollections the only ones that those two centenarian trunks brought back to my mind. I said to you:

"Look at those two trees with sadness and veneration, my son. One of our ancestors, Guilhern, the son of Joel, the brenn of the tribe of Karnak, died an atrocious death bound to one of them; Guilhern's son, a lad a little older than yourself and named Sylvest, was tied to the other willow to die the same death as his father. An unexpected accident snatched him from the frightful fate."³

"And what was their crime?" you asked me.

"The crime of the father and of his son was to have tried to escape from bondage, so as not to be forced to cultivate under a master's whip, with the slave's collar on their necks and chains to their feet, the fields that were their own patrimony. They wished to escape cultivating those fields for the benefit of the Romans who had robbed them of them."

My answer astonished you still more, my child – you who always lived happy and free, who until now have known no other grief than that of the loss of your dear mother, of whom you have preserved only a vague memory. You were barely four years and two months old a short time after the victory that Gaul won over the Franks on the border of the Rhine.

You will remember that I broke off our conversation, and that I relapsed into one of those fits of melancholy that I find it impossible to overcome every time I recall the terrible domestic catastrophes that befell us on the Rhine. But I always regain courage when I remember the duty imposed upon me by our ancestor Joel, who lived nearly three hundred years ago in the same place where we are now again established after our family's having experienced innumerable vicissitudes.

When you will be old enough to read these pages, my son, you will understand the cause of these mortal fits of sadness in which you have often seen me steeped, despite your second mother's tenderness, whom I could not cherish too dearly. Yes, when you will have read the last and solemn words of Victoria, the Mother of the Camps, dreadful words, you will then understand that, however painful may be to me the past that will throw a shadow over my path until death, the future that is perhaps in store for Gaul by the mysterious will of Hesus, must fill me with still greater anguish – and you will share my anguish, my son, when you reflect over the wise and profound observation of our ancestor Sylvest:

"Alas, every time the nation is wounded the family bleeds."

Aye, if Victoria was endowed with the science of foreseeing the future, as so many of our venerable female druids have been before her; if ever her redoubtable prophecies are verified – then, woe is Gaul! Woe is our race! Woe is our family! A longer period of even more cruel sufferings will lie before our country under the yoke of the Rome of the Bishops than it experienced under the yoke of the Rome of the Caesars and the Emperors!

As I said before, I now resume the thread of my narrative where I dropped it several years ago.

After an extensive conversation on the events of the day, Victorin and his mother returned to Mayence, where they arrived late in the evening. Pretending great fatigue and some pain from the light wound that he received, the young general retired. The moment he reached his house he threw off his armor, and wrapping himself in his cloak repaired to the Bohemian girls.

"That woman will be fatal to you," were my words to the young general on our way from the battle field. Alas! My foresight was destined to prove true. By the way of these creatures, keep in mind, my son, a circumstance with which I later became acquainted; you will presently appreciate its importance – those Bohemian girls came to Mayence two days after the arrival of Tetrik in the same town, and they arrived from Gascony, the department that he governed.

This discovery, together with many others, imparted to me such accurate information on certain facts that I am enabled to describe them the same as if I had been present.

As I said, Victorin left his house at night to keep his assignation with Kidda, the Bohemian girl. He had met her only the previous evening for the first time. She made a deep impression upon him. He was young, handsome, bright and generous. That very day he had won a glorious battle. He was well aware of the easy morals of those strolling singers, who, in effect, were nothing but courtesans. He felt certain that he would possess the object of this latest whim. How great must his surprise have been when Kidda said to him with well simulated firmness, sadness and repressed passion:

"Victorin, I shall not speak to you of my virtue; you will laugh at the virtue of a strolling Bohemian singer. But you may believe me when I say that long before I saw you, your glorious name had reached me. Your renown for valor and goodness made my heart beat, unworthy of you as that heart is, seeing that I am a poor, degraded creature. Believe me, Victorin," she added with tears in her eyes, "if I were pure, you would have my love and my life; but I am soiled; I do not deserve your attention. I love you too passionately, I honor you too much ever to offer to you the remains of an existence debased by men, who are not worthy of being compared with you."

So far from cooling, the hypocritical language fired the ardor of Victorin; it exalted him beyond measure. His sensual whim for the woman was speedily transformed into a consuming and mad passion. Despite his protestations of devotion, despite his entreaties, despite his tears – he actually wept at the feet of the execrable woman – the Bohemian remained inexorable. Victorin's nature underwent thereupon a marked change. From mirthful, pleasant and open, it became retired and morose. He grew somber and taciturn. Both his mother and I were ignorant at the time of the cause of the change. To our pressing questions the young general would answer that, being struck by the manifestations of displeasure that the army had shown towards him, he did not wish to expose himself to a recurrence of their anger; thenceforth his life was to be austere and retired. With the exception of a few hours that he consecrated every day to his mother, Victorin now rarely left his house, and he avoided the company of his former boon companions. Struck, on their part, by his sudden change of deportment, the soldiers saw in it only the salutary effect of the remonstrances made to their young general in their name by Douarnek. They cherished him more than ever before. I later learned that, in his self-imposed solitude, the unhappy man habitually drank himself into utter stupor in order to forget his fatal passion, and that every evening he repaired to the Bohemian dancer's, only, however, to find her pitiless as ever.

About a month passed in this manner. Tetrik remained in Mayence in order to overcome Victoria's repugnance to the idea of having her grandson acclaimed the heir of his father's office. But Victoria ever answered the Governor of Gascony, saying:

"Ritha-Gaur, who made himself a blouse of the beard of the kings whom he shaved, overthrew royalty in Gaul about ten centuries ago. He held that, under royalty, it is the people and their descendants who are transmitted by hereditary right, to kings, and that these are rarely good, and generally bad. More and more enlightened by our venerable druids, the Gauls have wisely preferred to elect the chief whom they consider worthiest to govern them. They thus constituted themselves into a Republic. My grandson is still a child in his cradle; no one can know whether he will later have the qualities that are necessary for the government of a great people like ours. To acknowledge this child to-day as the heir of his father's office is tantamount to restoring the royalty that we have wisely overthrown. I hate royalty as much as did Ritha-Gaur."

Still hoping to overcome the resolution of the Mother of the Camps by his persistence, Tetrik prolonged his stay in Mayence – at least I was long under the impression that such was the only reason for his postponing his departure. Nor did Tetrik seem to be less surprised at the unaccountable change that came over Victorin. The latter, although plunged in brooding sadness, still preserved his affection for me. I even thought that more than once he was on the point of opening his heart to me and of confiding to me what he there kept hidden. Later, however, he ceased calling at my house as he formerly used to, and seemed even to avoid meeting me. His features, once so handsome and open, were no longer the same. Pale with suffering, worn by excessive and solitary indulgence in wine, their expression gradually assumed a sinister aspect. At times a sort of dementia seemed to speak out of his alternately fixed and wandering gaze.

About five weeks after the great battle of the Rhine, Victorin resumed his visits to my house. The turn was marked, both in point of suddenness and assiduity. Noticeable was the circumstance that the hours which he chose for his visits were those during which Sampso and my wife were home alone, I being at Victoria's writing the letters which she dictated. Ellen received the son of my foster-sister with her wonted affability. At first I imagined that, sorry at having kept himself away from me without cause and by a mere whim, he sought to bring about a reconciliation by means of my wife. I believed this all the more seeing that, despite his persistence in seeking to avoid me, he never spoke of me to Ellen except in terms of deep affection. Sampso was usually present at the conversations between her sister and Victorin. Only once did she leave them alone, and then, when she returned she was struck by the painful expression on my wife's face and the visible embarrassment shown by Victorin, who speedily took his departure.

"What is the matter, Ellen?" asked Sampso.

"Sister, I conjure you, never again leave me alone with Victoria's son. May it please the gods that I am mistaken! But to judge from some broken words that Victorin let drop, to judge by the expression of his face, I imagine that he is moved by a guilty love for me – and yet he is aware of my devotion to Schanvoch!"

"Sister!" exclaimed Sampso, "Victorin's excesses have ever shocked me, but latterly he seems to have changed. The sacrifice of his unregulated pleasures doubtlessly costs him much; notwithstanding the young general's changed conduct is praised by everyone, they all comment on his profound sadness. I can not believe him capable of thinking of dishonoring your husband, who loves Victorin as if he were his own child, and who even saved his life in battle. You must be mistaken, Ellen! No! Such baseness is not possible!"

"I only hope you are right, Sampso; nevertheless, I must conjure you not to leave me alone with Victorin if he comes again. At any rate, I mean to tell all to Schanvoch."

"Be careful, Ellen. If, as I believe, you are mistaken, you would but raise a frightful and unjustified suspicion in your husband's breast. You know how attached he is to Victoria and her son. Only imagine Schanvoch's despair at such a revelation! Ellen, follow my advice, receive Victorin once more alone. Should your suspicions grow into certainty, then, hesitate no longer – reveal Victorin's treachery to Schanvoch. It would otherwise be imprudent on your part to awaken in him suspicions that may be wholly baseless. An infamous hypocrite, however, should be unmasked, when there is no longer any doubt as to his purpose."

Ellen promised her sister to follow her advice. But Victorin never returned. I learned all these details only later. This happened in the course of the fifth or sixth week after the great battle of the Rhine, and exactly eight days before the catastrophe that it is my duty, my son, to relate to you.

On that fateful day I spent the early part of the evening near Victoria conferring with her upon an urgent mission on which I was to depart on that very evening, and which might keep me several days from home. Although Victorin promised his mother to be present at the conference, the purpose of which was known to him, he remained away. I did not wonder at his absence. For some time, and without it being possible for me to fathom his whimsical conduct, he had avoided all opportunity of encountering me. Victoria said to me pathetically when I left her at the usual hour:

"Private feelings must be hushed before interests of state. I have spoken to you fully on the subject of the mission that I have charged you with, Schanvoch. And now the mother will unbosom her private grief. I had this morning a sad conversation with my son. I vainly implored him to confide to me the cause of the secret sorrow that is consuming him. He answered me with a distressful smile:

"'Mother, one time you reproached me with my levity and my too strong taste for pleasures – those days are now far behind – I now live in solitude and meditation. My lodging, where formerly the joyful din of song and revelry by torch light used to keep the night astir, is now lonely, silent and somber – like myself. Our scrupulous soldiers feel edified at my conversion, and now no longer reproach me with too much love for joy, wine and women! What more do you want, mother?'

"'I want much more,' I replied to him, unable to restrain my tears. 'I want to see you happy as in the past. You suffer, my son; you suffer a pain that you conceal from me. The consciousness of a wise and thoughtful life, as becomes the chief of a great people, imparts to his face a grave yet serene expression. Your face, however, is haggard, sinister, pale, like that of a man distracted and in despair – '"

"And what did Victorin say to that?"

"Nothing. He relapsed into the gloomy brooding in which I find him so often plunged, and from which he emerges only to cast wandering looks about. I then showed him his child, whom I held in my arms. He took it, kissed it several times with great tenderness, put it back into its cradle, and left abruptly without saying a word. I believe he wished to hide his tears from me. I saw that he wept. Oh! Schanvoch, my heart breaks when I think of the future that seemed to me so rosy for Gaul, for my son and for me!"

I sought to console Victoria by joining her in conjecturing the cause of her son's mysterious grief. The hour grew late. I was to travel all that night in order to fulfil my mission as promptly as possible. I left my foster-sister's and proceeded home in order to embrace your mother and you, my son, before starting on my journey.