Kitabı oku: «The Pilgrim's Shell; Or, Fergan the Quarryman: A Tale from the Feudal Times», sayfa 3

"It is said that the mere sight of a Jew makes him pale with horror; and that, libertine though he is, a Jewess, be she never such a beauty, be she a maid like the Virgin Mary, would make him run away from her."

"But that does not prevent," insisted Simon the monk, "that if you rely upon the Duke of Aquitaine for redress against the seigneur of Plouernel, you will be acting like a lunatic. On that subject your judgment is at fault."

"If William IX does not do us justice," rejoined Bezenecq the Rich, "we shall appeal to King Philip. Oh! oh! we townsmen do not allow ourselves to be tyrannized without protest! We know how to draw up a petition!"

"And what will King Philip care for your petition? That Sardanapalus! that glutton! that idler! that double adulterer! and what's worse, that dullard, whom the seigneurs, his large vassals, laugh at openly! It is to him you will go for justice, if refused by the Duke of Aquitaine? Moreover, even if the latter were so inclined, as the suzerain of the seigneur of Plouernel, to punish him for wrongs done to you, would he have the power?"

"Certainly!" exclaimed Bezenecq. "He would enter the domain of the seigneur of Plouernel and besiege him in his castle."

Simon the monk shook his head sadly. "The seigneurs reserve their forces to round up their domains and to revenge their own wrongs. Never do they protect the cause of small folks, however just it be."

"We live, I know, in sad times; nor were the previous centuries much better," observed the townsman with a sigh, casting an uneasy look upon his daughter, who seemed again alarmed. "All the same, we should not exaggerate to ourselves the dangers of the situation. We have to choose between the two routes. Let's suppose the dangers of crossing them are equal. Common sense bids us to take the shorter, and that we hurry our steps."

"The shorter route is the more perilous," repeated Simon the monk, who, more than anyone else, seemed to dread crossing the territory of the seigneur of Plouernel.

"Oh! father," asked Isoline of the merchant, "have we really so many dangers to fear?"

"No, no, my dear child. That poor monk's mind is upset with fear."

The Norman dealer in relics, having overheard the last words of Isoline, approached her and said with much unction: "Pretty lassie, I have here in my box of relics a superb tooth, that comes from the blessed jaw of a holy man, who died in Jerusalem, a martyr to the Saracens. I shall let you have that tooth for three silver deniers. This sacred relic will protect you from all perils of the road." Saying which, Harold the Norman was about to exhibit the marvellous tooth, when Bezenecq said smiling to him, so as to reassure his daughter; "Not now, my friend; we shall look at your relic later on. Do you claim that it protects one against all the dangers of the road?"

"Yes, worshipful townsman. I swear it upon my eternal salvation; upon my share of Paradise."

"Seeing that you carry about you that holy relic, you will not be exposed to any accident; and seeing that we go with you, and are of your company, we shall profit by the miraculous protection. All of which should not hinder us, if you follow my advice, dear companions, to take the shorter route. Let those who share my views follow me," he added giving the spurs to his mule so as to put an end to the discussion, and with that he took the road that led over the territory of the seigneur of Plouernel. The majority of the travelers followed the example of Bezenecq, because, for one thing, he spoke wisely; then also, he was known to be rich, his daughter accompanied him, and he had too much at stake to take an imprudent resolution. Those who shared the apprehensions of the monk Simon, being reduced to a small number, dared not separate from the bulk of the troop, and joined it after a moment's hesitation. Likewise Simon the monk and Jeronimo, who feared risking themselves alone on the other road. Harold the Norman remained behind an instant, drew near one of the gibbets, pulled off the two legs and hands of a corpse, that was reduced to a mere skeleton, and placed them in his bag, counting upon selling them to the faithful for holy relics. He then rejoined the travelers, who were proceeding along the road of the seigniory of Plouernel.

CHAPTER IV.
THE MANOR OF PLOUERNEL

The castle of Neroweg VI – a somber retreat, situated, like the eyrie of a bird of prey, on the brow of a steep mountain – dominated the country for many miles around. The moment the watchman, posted on the platform of the donjon, espied from afar a troop of travelers, he sounded his horn. Immediately the band of the count, thievish and ferocious, would sally from the manor. These bandits, not satisfied with demanding the dues of passage and traffic, habitually pillaged the travelers, often even massacred them, or took them to the castle to be tortured and compelled to pay ransom. The face of Gaul bristled with similar haunts, raised by the Frankish seigneurs under the reign of Charles the Great. They were impregnable fortresses, from the heights of which barons, counts, marquises and dukes defied the royal authority, and desolated the country. The history of the Count of Plouernel is that of all these seigneurs who issued from the race of the first conquerors of Gaul. In the year 818, a Neroweg, second son of the head of this Frankish family that had been richly endowed in Auvergne since Clovis, was one of the chieftains in the army of Louis the Pious, when he ravaged Brittany, then in revolt at the call of Morvan and Vortigern. That Neroweg, in reward for his services during that war, received from the King a fief of the lands and county of Plouernel, which had reverted to the crown by the death of its last beneficiary, who left no heirs. Neroweg, in return for the cession of the county of Plouernel, was to own himself a vassal of Louis the Pious, render him fealty and homage as to his king and suzerain seigneur, pay him tribute, and support him in his wars by marching at the head of the men of his seigniory. In the country of Plouernel, as in the other provinces of Gaul, certain colonists named villeins had succeeded in emancipating themselves and again became owners of parcels of land. Neroweg I. (the first of the name of this second branch of the family) did not revolt against the authority of the King. His son, however, Neroweg II., had a strong castle built on the summit of the mountain of Plouernel, assembled there a numerous band of determined men, and then, with most of the other seigneurs, he said to the King of the Franks: "I do not recognize your sovereignty; I will no longer be your vassal; I declare myself sovereign on my domain, like you are on yours. The serfs, villeins and townsmen of my county become my men; they, their lands, their property belong to me only; I shall tax them at my will and impose upon them tributes, rent and taille which they shall pay to me only; they will go to war for me alone, and against you, should you dare come and besiege me in my fortress of Plouernel." The King did not go, seeing that most of the seigneurs held the same language to the descendants of Charles the Great or of Hugh le Capet, whose kingdom was gradually reduced to the possession of the bare provinces that he was able to defend and preserve, arms in hand. Neroweg III. and Neroweg IV. did as their ancestor and remained independent, masters, absolute and hereditary, of the country of Plouernel. A large number of Frankish seigneurs seized in the same way other parts of the territory of Gaul. Robert thus became Count of (the country of) Paris; Milo, Count of (the country of) Tonnerre; Hugh, Count of (the country of) Maine; Burcharth, Sire of (the country of) Montmorency; Landry, Duke of (the country of) Nevers; Radulf, Count of (the country of) Beaugency; Enghilbert, Count of (the country of) Ponthieu; etc. These and a number of other seigneurs, descendants of the leudes of Clovis or of the chieftains of the bands of Charles Martel, dropping their Frankish names, or joining to them the Gaulish names of the regions that they took possession of, had themselves called "seigneurs," "sires," "dukes" or "counts," of Paris, of Plouernel, of Montmorency, of Nevers, of Tonnerre, of Ponthieu, etc., etc. During those centuries of wars and brigandage the Nerowegs had fortified their castle, while they lived on rapine and on the extortion of their villeins and their serfs. Neroweg V., surnamed "Towhead," from the color of his hair, and Neroweg VI., surnamed "Worse Than a Wolf" by the wretched people of his domains on account of his cruelty, proved themselves worthy of their ancestors.

The manor of Plouernel raises its front on the summit of a rocky and arid mountain, washed on its western slope by a swift running stream, while on the east it beetles over a narrow path constructed over immense marshes, drained by a canal that feeds the vast ponds of the abbey of Meriadek, located several leagues off, and one time part of the large holdings of the diocese of Nantes. If a traveler follows the overland route he is compelled to cross this jetty on his way from Angers to Nantes, unless he be willing to make a wide detour by journeying over the domains of the seigneur of Castel-Redon. The vessels that sail into the Loire through the river of Plouernel, whose waters bathe the foot of the hills, pass close under the castle. The location of the lair is skilfully chosen. It dominates the two only routes of communication between the most important towns of the region. A stockade half bars the river of Plouernel, and serves as a shelter for the barges of the seigneur. Merchant vessels being signaled from the top of the donjon, men in arms immediately embark, board the trader, collect navigation dues, and not infrequently pillage the cargo. No less dangerous is the overland route. A palisade, into which a gate is cut, bars the passage. It can be crossed only upon paying a toll, arbitrarily imposed upon the travelers by the count's men, who, moreover, sack the baggages at their ease. If they suspect a traveler of being able to pay ransom they drag him to prison and there torture him until he consents to ransom himself. The ill-starred ones who may be too poor to pay the toll demanded are, both men and women, forced to submit to obscene affronts, ridiculous or cruel, to the great amusement of the men of the seigneur. On one of the gentler slopes of the mountain, towards the north, the little city of Plouernel rises in tiers, built in a semi-circle and equidistant from the manor and the valley, where lie scattered the villages that the villeins and serfs inhabit. A narrow path, winding and steep, and bordered here and yonder by precipices, leads up to the first fortified enclosure, whose ramparts, thirty feet high by two feet thick and flanked with large towers of brick, constitute one mass with the rock that serves as their foundation, a rock hewn with the pick and surrounded by abysses. The dizzy path that winds above the precipices ends in a massive door covered with iron sheets and enormous nails. It is the only access to the interior of the first enclosure, a somber court, where the sun penetrates only at noon, being otherwise kept out by the height of the numerous structures that lean from within upon the ramparts. These structures are intended for the lodgement of the men-at-arms, for the masons, the chapel, the bakery, the forge and several other workshops – a mint among them. The Count of Plouernel coined money like the other feudal seigneurs, and, like them, he minted it to his liking. In the center of the court rises the principal donjon. That building, square, over a hundred feet high, crowned with a platform from which the country is far away disclosed, rests upon three tiers of subterraneous cells, surrounded by a ditch full of water furnished from springs that also serve as cisterns. The donjon seems to rise from the midst of a deep pit, in which half of this massive structure appears hidden, its upper part rising merely above the skirt of the ditch, over which falls a draw bridge. Few and narrow windows, irregularly cut into the four sides, and almost as narrow as mere loop-holes, yielded a gloomy light to the several stories and to the ground floor. The stonework of all these buildings, blackened by the inclemencies of the weather and by age, rendered still more dismal the aspect of this fortress.

CHAPTER V.
AZENOR THE PALE

A narrow spiral staircase, built of stone, led from the bottom of the basement to the platform that surmounted the donjon of the manor of Plouernel. The men at arms, charged with the lookout on the platform, never failed to cross themselves when passing the door of an alcove, situated on the last story of the donjon, that had for its annex one of the turrets that rose from the four corners of the platform. It was whispered that the narrow window of that turret seemed internally illuminated at night by a glow of the color of blood, and these sinister lights were attributed to the sorceries of Azenor the Pale, the concubine of Neroweg VI. The seigneur of Plouernel had gathered in the chamber of his mistress a mass of precious objects, the fruits of his raids. A passage, concealed by a purple curtain, fringed with gold, gave admission to another turret, whose upper part, roofed on a level with the platform, served as the post for the lookout. Azenor the Pale, about twenty-five years of age, was of a perfect beauty. Her face was pale and her sensuous lips were the color of her skin, whence her surname. A turban of rich purple silk fabric in the shape of a chin-cloth, served as a frame for the visage of the sorceress, while it left exposed the strands of her hair, black like her eyebrows and her large eyes. Her tunic of silver cloth was negligently thrown over her shoulders. Her bosom and arms were worthy of figuring beside that beautiful Greek statue that has survived the centuries, and which, rumor has it, is still admired in the palace of the Dukes of Aquitaine. The tunic of Azenor, reaching only to her knees, left exposed below its silver folds the skirt of her dress, purple like her turban. The woman was at this moment engaged in molding a bit of pliable wax into two little figures similar to the one inserted that very morning between the teeth of Pierrine the Goat at the moment of her death agony. One of the puppets wore a bishop's robe, the other a species of armor represented by a dull-colored bit of cloth resembling iron. Azenor the Pale was inserting a certain number of needles, disposed in cabalistic order, on the left side of the breast of the two puppets, when the door of the alcove opened behind her. Neroweg VI. entered his mistress' retreat, carefully closing the door after him.

The Count of Plouernel, surnamed "Worse than a Wolf," and at that time about fifty years of age, was of athletic frame. His hair no longer was dressed after the fashion of his ancestor, the Neroweg, leude of Clovis, nor after that of Neroweg, the "Terrible Eagle," savage chief of a savage tribe. The red hair of Neroweg VI., already grizzled, was shaven smooth to the middle of the temples and the skull, and then fell square down his neck and behind his ears. The men of war had themselves thus shaven in front to prevent their hair from interfering with their casque and standing in the way of the visor. Instead of cultivating long moustaches, like his ancestors, Neroweg VI. allowed to grow at full length only his thick and coarse beard, which thus framed in his savage countenance and his hooked nose. His heavy eyebrows met over his falcon eyes, round and piercing. Always ready for war upon his neighbors, or upon those troops of travelers that, at times, attempted to offer forcible resistance to the brigandage of the seigneurs, Neroweg VI. wore a casque, which he laid by on entering. His jacket and buff hose disappeared under a hauberk or iron coat of mail, held to his waist by a leathern belt, from which hung two swords, the shorter one at his right, the longer at his left. The hauberk guarded his arms down to the gauntlets, and fell slightly below his knees, which, like his legs, were protected by iron greaves, held together with leathern thongs. The face of Neroweg VI. betrayed a gloomy and troubled mind. Azenor the Pale, still engaged in inserting the needles into the left sides of the wax figures, was murmuring certain words in a strange tongue, and seemed not to notice the arrival of the Count. He drew slowly near, and said in a hollow voice: "Well, now, Azenor, is the philter ready?"

Without answering, the sorceress continued her magic incantations, at the conclusion of which, holding up to Neroweg VI. the two puppets, representing a bishop and a warrior, she said: "Tell me again, which are the enemies whom you dread and hate the most?"

"The Bishop of Nantes and Draco, Sire of Castel-Redon. These are my worst enemies."

"Yesterday I shaped a figure like this. Has it been placed as I ordered, between the teeth of one about to expire on the gallows?"

"One of my serfs struck my bailiff. She was hanged this morning from my seigniorial forks. At the moment when she gave up the ghost, the executioner placed the wax puppet between her teeth. Your orders have been carried out."

"In keeping with my promise, your enemies will soon be in your power. Nevertheless, in order to complete the charm, these other two little figures will have to be buried under the root of a tree, that grows at the bank of a river, in which some man or woman was drowned."

"That's easily done. There are large old willows growing on the banks of my river, and often do my men drown in it the stubborn sailors, or the men or women who refuse to pay the toll for my rights of navigation."

"That magic spell must be cast by yourself. You will have to place these little figures in the designated place to-night, when the moon goes down, and you will pronounce three times the names of Jesus, of Astaroth and of Judas. The charm will then be at its full."

"I do not like to see the name of Christ mixed up in all this. Are you, perchance, seeking to lead me into some sacrilege?"

A sardonic smile played over the white lips of Azenor the Pale. "So far from that, I have placed the magic charm under the invocation of Christ; I pronounced a verse from the gospels with each needle that I buried in these puppets. The Lord will thus be our protector."

"Had you not driven me to kill my chaplain, I might have been able to consult him and learn from him whether I would be committing sacrilege."

"You killed the tonsured fellow because you suspected that holy man of improper relations with your wife, and of probably being the father of Guy – "

"Hold your tongue!" cried Neroweg, with a voice full of anger. "Hold your tongue, accursed woman! Since that murder I have had no chaplain. No priest, consents to dwell here. Enough of that. Is the philter ready?"

"Not yet. Have patience, seigneur Count."

"What else do you want to concoct it? You wanted the blood of a young child; the young son of one of my serfs has been delivered to you – "

"The child must be prepared for the sacrifice by magic formulas."

"In a word, can you tell me when will that marvelous philter, that you have promised me, be ready?"

"I shall work upon it this very night, during the hours between the rising and the going down of the moon; that's to say, for several hours."

"That's another delay! My ailment grows apace! I suspect you of having cast upon me the evil spell under which I struggle, and which drives me to deeds of furious folly."

"You are wrong in attributing to me such an influence over your fate."

"Was it not you who incited me to kill my eldest son Gonthram?"

"Your son tried to violate me. Of course I had to appeal to your intervention for protection against fresh outrages."

"Had not my equerry Eberhard the Tricky thrown himself between me and Gonthram, I would have killed my son on his return from the hunt. He has insisted that you offered to yield yourself to him if he consented to stab me to death."

"That was a dastardly calumny!"

"Perhaps I should have plunged my dagger in your heart and be done with you."

"And why did you not?"

"Because you read in the stars that our lives were bound together, and that your death would precede mine by only three days. But if I am to die of the distemper that oppresses me, a curse upon you, sorceress! You shall not survive me. Garin the Serf-eater is charged with my vengeance. Oh, you will not leave this castle alive!" Neroweg pressed his forehead with both hands and proceeded in a spirit more and more dejected as he spoke: "The philter – Will it heal me? Since you cast your diabolical spell upon me, the days seem endless. I am indifferent to everything. After I make the rounds of my domains, shut in among the seigniories of my neighbors, all of them my enemies; after I have ravaged their lands, burned their houses, killed their serfs; after I have levied ransom on the travelers, had justice executed by my bailiff, my provost and my hangman; after all that I feel sadder, wearier, more than ever tired of life. I have even surprised myself wishing for death!"

"You wage war, you eat, you drink, you hunt, you sleep and you take your female serfs to your bed when they marry. What is it you lack?"

"I am tired, cloyed with gross enjoyments. Wine tastes sour to me. I feel uneasy when I hunt in my forests, fearful of some ambush prepared by my neighbors. I find my donjon sepulchral like a tomb. I choke under its stone vaults. If I leave the manor, I have ever under my eyes the same saddening landscape."

"Leave the country, you stupid and savage wolf!"

"Whither shall I go and be happier? Here I am master. What would my fate be elsewhere? During my absence, my neighbors would descend upon my domains like a flock of vultures. The devil! I am bound to my seigniory like my serfs to the glebe!"

"Your fate is that of all the nobles, your peers."

"But they are not weighed down by their existence like I. Only a few years ago, during the life of my wife Hermengarde, I attacked my neighbors as much for the pleasure of it as to appropriate their lands and to sack their castles. I went on the hunt for caravans of merchants with joy and spirit. I put the prisoners to the torture and delighted at their grimaces. In short, I felt that I lived; I was happy; I ate and drank enormously, and then fell asleep in the arms of one of my female serfs. The next morning I attended mass and departed for the chase, to battle or on a pillaging expedition; that is, on a new round of pleasures." After a moment's silence the seigneur of Plouernel added, with a sigh: "Those days I was a good Catholic! I practiced the faith of my fathers, and every morning, after mass, the chaplain gave me absolution for the deeds of the previous day! To-day, thanks to your wicked contrivances, all my beliefs are overthrown. I have become a pagan! – Aye, a pagan!"

"You, poor imbecile, who carry under your hauberk four relics blessed by the Pope!"

"Will you dare to mock me for my faith in relics?" bellowed Neroweg in a towering rage. "Without the relics that I carry about me you might by this time have dragged me to the bottom of hell, you worthy wife of Satan!"

"Maychance you speak truth, seigneur Count!"

"There is nothing human about you! Your lips are cold as marble; your kisses are frozen!"

"When a reciprocal love shall inflame my veins, then my lips will grow purple, and my kisses will be of fire!"

"Oh, I know it; you never loved me!"

"As well love a wolf of the forest as a Neroweg. You carried me off by force, and I have had to submit to your lust. The man whom I adore, whom I have long loved, even without seeing him, is William the Ninth, the handsome Duke of Aquitaine."

"William!" exclaimed Neroweg in an accent of ferocious jealousy. "That sacrilegious wretch, who carries on his shield the portrait of Malborgiane, his mistress!"

"William is a poet; he is young, handsome, bold, bright and gay. All women dream of, and all men dread him. You are his vassal. Woe unto you should you dare cross him! He would leave not one stone on the other in your castle. He would make you grovel on the ground on hands and knees; he would clap a saddle on you and ride on your back a hundred steps at a stretch, agreeable to the right of a sovereign over his revolted vassal. You are as far removed from the handsome Duke of Aquitaine as the dull buzzard is from the noble falcon that darts towards the sun making its golden bells tinkle!"

Neroweg uttered a cry of rage, and, drawing his dagger, rushed upon Azenor. But her marble figure remained impassive, her white lips curled in disdainful smile. "Kill me, coward knight, assassin!"

After a moment of savage irresolution, Neroweg returned his dagger to the scabbard: "Oh, damned be the day I captured you on the road to Angers. It is you who brought down the curse that rests upon this castle. But will ye, nill ye, you shall yourself break the spell you have thrown upon me and my children, who, like their father, are becoming somber and silent."

"That's the business of the philter, which I am preparing."

The conversation was at this point interrupted by two raps on the door from without. Neroweg asked roughly: "Who's that?"

"Seigneur Count," a voice answered, "you are waited to open the session of the court in the stone hall!"

Neroweg made a gesture of impatience, and, donning the iron casque which he had laid on a settee, replied: "Once the homage of my vassals pleased my vanity. To-day everything annoys, everything is irksome to me. Oh, sad is my life!"

"To-morrow, thanks to my philter, nothing more will weigh upon you – nor upon yours," observed Azenor, and, placing in the Count's hands the two little wax images, she added: "Your two enemies – the Sire of Castel-Redon and the Bishop of Nantes – will soon fall into your hands, provided you yourself place these magic figures where I have told you, while you pronounce three times the names of Judas, of Astaroth and of Jesus."

"It is hard for me to pronounce the name of Jesus in connection with this sorcery," remarked Neroweg, raising his head and receiving almost fearfully the two little figures. "To-night the philter; if not, you die to-morrow!" Then, bethinking himself, "Where is the child?"

"In that alcove," answered Azenor.

Neroweg walked towards the turret, raised the curtain and saw little Colombaik, the son of Fergan the Quarryman, lying on the floor. The innocent creature was sound asleep at the foot of a stand loaded with vases of bizarre form. The walls of the turret, paneled with marble slabs, rose bare to the ceiling, the floor of whose upper story was on a level with the platform of the donjon. Neroweg, after contemplating the child for an instant, stepped out of the donjon, double-locking the door after him, and taking care to withdraw the key and place it in his jerkin.