The Infant's Skull; Or, The End of the World. A Tale of the Millennium
Page 14
EPILOGUE.
The narrative of my father, Yvon the Forester, breaks off here. He couldnot finish it. He was soon after taken sick and died. Before expiring hemade to me the following confession which he desired inserted in thefamily's annals:
"I have a horrible confession to make. Near by the grave to which I tookthe body of Julyan, lay a large heap of wood that was to be reduced tocoal by the woodsmen. My family was starving in the hut. I saw no way ofprolonging their existence. The thought then occurred to me: 'Last nightthe abominable food that I carried to my family from Gregory's humancharnel house kept them from dying in the agonies of starvation. Mygrandson is dead. What should I do? Bury the body of little Julyan orhave it serve to prolong the life of those who gave him life?'
"After long hesitating before such frightful alternatives, the thoughtof the agonies that my family were enduring decided me. I lighted theheap of dried wood. I laid upon it the flesh of my grandson, and by thelight cast from the pyre I buried his bones, except a fragment of hisskull, which I preserved as a sad and solemn relic of those accurseddays, and on which I engraved these fateful words in the Gallic tongue:_Fin-al-bred_--The End of the World. I then took the broiled pieces ofmeat to my expiring family!... You all ate in the dark.... You knew notwhat you ate.... The ghastly meal saved your lives!"
My father then delivered to me the parchment that contained hisnarrative, accompanied with the lettered bone from the skull of my poorlittle Julyan, and also the iron arrow-head which accompanied thenarrative left by our ancestor Eidiol, the skipper of Paris. Some day,perhaps, these two narratives may be joined to the chronicle of ourfamily, no doubt held by those of our relatives who must still be livingin Britanny.
My father Yvon died on the 9th of September, 1034.
This is how our journey ended: Following my father's wishes and alsowith the purpose of drawing near Britanny, we marched towards Anjou,where we arrived on the territory of the seigneur Guiscard, Count of theregion and castle of Mont-Ferrier. All travelers who passed over histerritory had to pay tribute to his toll-gatherers. Poor people, unableto pay, were, according to the whim of the seigneur's men, put throughsome disagreeable, or humiliating, or ridiculous performance: they wereeither whipped, or made to walk on their hands, or to turn somersaults,or kiss the bolts of the toll-gatherer's gate. As to the women, theywere subjected to revolting obscenities. Many other people as pennilessas ourselves were thus subjected to indignity and brutality. Desirous ofsparing my father and my wife the disgrace, I said to the bailiff of theseigniory who happened to be there: "The castle I see yonder looks to meweak in many ways. I am a skillful mason; I have built a large number offortified donjons; employ me and I shall work to the satisfaction ofyour seigneur. All I ask of you is not to allow my father, wife andchildren to be maltreated, and to furnish us with shelter and breadwhile the work lasts." The bailiff accepted my offer gladly, seeing thatthe mason, who was killed during the last war against the castle ofMont-Ferrier, had not yet been replaced, and besides I furnished ampleevidence of knowing how to build. The bailiff assigned us to a hut wherewe were to receive a serf's pittance. My father was to cultivate alittle garden attached to our hovel, while Nominoe, then old enough tobe of assistance, was to help me at my work which would last untilwinter. We contemplated a journey to Britanny after that. We had livedhere five months when, three days ago, I lost my father.
* * * * *
To-day the eleventh day of the month of June, of the year 1035, I,Den-Brao add this post-script to the above lines that I appended to myfather's narrative. I have to record a sad event. The work on the castleof Mont-Ferrier not being concluded before the winter of 1034, thebailiff of the seigneur, shortly after my father's death proposed to meto resume work in the spring. I accepted. I love my trade. Moreover, myfamily felt less wretched here than in Compiegne, and I was not asanxious as my father to return to Britanny where, after all, there maybe no member of our family left. I accepted the bailiff's offer, andcontinued to work upon the buildings, that are now completed. The lastpiece of work I did was to finish up a secret issue that leads outsideof the castle. Yesterday the bailiff came to me and said: "One of theallies of the seigneur of Mont-Ferrier, who is just now on a visit atthe castle, expressed great admiration for the work that you did, and ashe is thinking of improving the fortifications of his own manor, heoffered the count our master to exchange you for a serf who is askillful armorer, and whom we need. The matter was settled betweenthem."
"But I am not a serf of the seigneur of Mont-Ferrier," I interposed; "Iagreed to work here of my own free will."
The bailiff shrugged his shoulders and replied: "The law says--_everyman who is not a Frank, and who lives a year and a day upon the land ofa seigneur, becomes a serf and the property of the said seigneur, and assuch is subject to taille at will and mercy_. You have lived here sincethe tenth day of June of the year 1034; we are now at the eleventh dayof June of the year 1035; you have lived a year and a day on the land ofthe seigneur of Mont-Ferrier; you are now his serf; you belong to him,and he has the right to exchange you for a serf of the seigneur ofPlouernel. Drop all thought of resisting our master's will. Should youkick up your heels, Neroweg IV, seigneur and count of Plouernel, willorder you tied to the tail of his horse, and drag you in that way asfar as his castle."
I would have resigned myself to my new condition without much grief, butfor one circumstance. For forty years I lived a serf on the domain ofCompiegne, and it mattered little to me whether I exercised my trade ofmasonry in one seigniory or another. But I remember that my father toldme that he had it from his grandfather Guyrion how an old family of thename of Neroweg, established in Gaul since the conquest of Clovis, hadever been fatal to our own. I felt a sort of terror at the thought offinding myself the serf of a descendant of the Terrible Eagle--thatfirst of the Nerowegs that crossed our path.
May heaven ordain it so that my forebodings prove unfounded! May heavenordain, my dear son Nominoe, that you shall not have to register on thisparchment aught but the date of my death and these few words:
"My father Den-Brao ended peaceably his industrious life of a masonserf."
(THE END.)
* * * * *
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Hena the Virgin of the Isle of Sen.
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