CHAPTER X
THE FOOL RETURNS TO THE CASTLE
As the duke's fool suddenly appeared in the crowded apartment, thehubbub abruptly ceased; the minstrels and mountebanks gazed in surpriseat the slender figure of the alien jester whose rich garmentsproclaimed him a personage of importance, one who had reached thatpinnacle in buffoonery, the high office of court _plaisant_. The moriocrouched against the wall, his fear of the new-comer as great as hisbody was large; the garret minstrels stopped strumming theirinstruments, while the woman at the fire uttered a quick exclamationand dropped the spoon with a clatter to the floor, where it waspromptly seized by the dwarf, who, taking advantage of the woman'sconsternation, thrust it greedily to his lips. But soon recoveringfrom her wonderment, the gipsy soundly boxed the dwarf's ears,recovered her spoon and set herself once more to stirring the contentsof the pot.
The jester observed her for a moment--the heavy, bare arm moving roundand round over the kettle; her sunburnt legs uncovered to the knee; themasculine attitude of her figure with the torn and worn garments thatcovered her--and she seemed to him a veritable trull of disorder andsqualor. The gipsy, too, looked at him over her shoulder, and, as shegazed, her hand went slower and slower, until all motion ceased, andthe spoon lay on the edge of the pot, when she turned deliberately,offering him the full sight of her bold cheeks and shameless eyes.
"Are you Nanette, wife of this philosopher?" asked the duke's fool,approaching, and indicating the miserable scamp who clung near thedoorway as one undecided whether to enter or run away.
"Yes; I am Nanette, his true and lawful spouse," she answered with ashrill laugh. "Wilt come to me, true-love?" she called out to herapprehensive yoke-mate.
"Nay; I'll go out in the air a while," hurriedly replied thevagabond-scholar, and quickly vanished.
"Ah, how he loves me!" she continued.
"So much he prefers a cony-burrow to his own fireside," said the fooldryly.
"A hole i' the earth is too good for such a scurvy fellow," sheretorted. "But what would you here, fool? A song, a jest, a dance?Or have you come to learn a new story, or ballad, for the lordlings youmust entertain?" Unabashed, she approached a step nearer.
"Your stories, mistress, would be unsuited for the court, and yourballads best unsung," he retorted. "I came, not to sharpen my wits,but to learn from whom the thief-friar got the small piece of silveryou gave your consort, and, also, to procure a horse."
Her brazen eyes wavered. "A horse and a fool flying," she muttered."Even what the cards showed. The fool seeking the duke!" A puzzledlook crossed her face. "But the duke is here?" she continued toherself. "A strange riddle! All the signs show devilment, but what itis--"
"Good Nanette," interrupted the jester, satirically, "I have no timefor spells or incantation."
"How dared you come here," she said, hoarsely, "after--"
"After your mate proved but an indifferent servant of yours?" heconcluded, meeting her sullen gaze with one so stern and inflexiblethat before it her eyes fell.
"Do you not know," she said, endeavoring to maintain a hardened front,"I have but to say the word, and all these friends of mine would tearyou to pieces? What would you do, my pretty fellows, an I ask you?"she cried out, her voice rising audaciously. "Would you suffer thisduke's jester to stand against me?"
Glances of suspicion and animosity shot from a score of eyes; fistswere half-clenched; knives appeared in a trice from the concealment ofrags, and a low murmur arose from the gathering. Even the imbecilemorio, nature's trembling coward, became suddenly valiant, and, withhuge frame uplifted, seemed about to spring savagely upon the fool. Anexpression of disgust replaced all other feeling on the features of theduke's _plaisant_.
"Spare me your threats, Nanette," he replied, coldly. "Had youintended to set them on me, you would have done it long ere this."
The woman hesitated. His calm, almost contemptuous, confidence was notwithout its effect upon her. Had he trembled, she would have spoken,but before his disdain, and the gay splendor of his attire, conspicuousamid rags from rubbish heaps, she felt a sudden consciousness of herown unclean environment; at the same time unusual warnings in herconjurations recurred to her. Something about him--was it dignity orpride or a nameless fear she herself experienced but could notunderstand?--beat down her eyes and she turned them doggedly away.
Abruptly she moved to the fire and again began to stir the mess, whilethe suppressed excitement in the room at once subsided. A minstrellightly touched his battered dulcimer; a poet hummed a song in thedialect of thieves; a juggler began practising some deft work for handand eye, and he of the hare lip sank quietly into a corner andpatiently watched the simmering pot. The dwarf, with some misgiving,as a dog that is beaten crawls cautiously out of its kennel, crept frombeneath the table.
"Oh, mistress," he whimpered, "some of it has boiled over!"
"Boiled over!" echoed the morio, mournfully.
At the same time the woman grasped the handle of the heavy kettle,lifted it from the jack, displaying in her bared arms the muscles of aman, and, staggering beneath the load, bore it steaming to the table.Amid the subsequent confusion, the gipsy held aloof from the demolitionof the rabbit, and, seating herself at the foot of the table, beganmoodily once more to turn the cards.
A merry droll acted as host and dipped freely for all with the longspoon, commenting the while he dispensed the mess according to thewants of the miscellaneous gathering: "Pot-luck! 'Tis luck, andthey're no field mice in it! There's everything else!" or "A bit ofrabbit, my masters! I'll warrant he'll hop down your throats as fastas e'er he jumped a hillock." And, when one ate too greedily, slapwent a spoonful of gravy o'er him with: "I thought you would catch it,knave!"
"Are they not blithe devils 'round the caldron?" muttered the woman."There it is again!"--Bending over the bits of pasteboard on the table."The duke here! And the fool on horseback! What do the cards mean?"
"That I must have the horse, Nanette," said the duke's jester, standingmotionless and firm before the fireplace.
"Are you the fool?" she asked, more to herself than him. "Why does hewish to ride away?"
"Will you sell me the horse?" he demanded.
She hesitated. Around them danced the shadows of the kettle-gourmands:
"A kern and a drole, a varlet and a blade A drab and a rep, a skit and a jade--"
sang the street poet; the dwarf and the morio (a lilliputian andGulliver) fought a mimic combat; the juggler and the clown, who couldeat no more, were keeping time to a chorus by beating with their emptytrenchers on the table.
"Sell you the horse? For what?" asked the gipsy.
"For five gold pieces."
"A fool with five gold pieces!" she exclaimed, incredulously.
"Here! You may see them." And he opened a purse he carried at hisgirdle.
"Do not let them know," she said, hurriedly. "They would kill youand--"
"You would not get the money," he added, significantly. "If you actquickly, find me a horse and let me go; it is you, not they, who willprofit."
Abruptly she rose. "It is fate," she remarked, her eyes greedy.
His glance, as he stood there, proud and stern, cut her sharply. "Saycupidity, Nanette!" he laughed softly. "It is more profitable not tobetray me. In the one case you get much; in the other, little."
"Stay here," she replied, hastily. "I'll fetch the horse." Andvanished.
A moment he remained, then resolutely turning to the door through whichshe had disappeared, opened it, and found himself in a combinedsleeping-room and stable; a dark apartment, with floor of hardenedearth and a single window, open to wind and weather. The atmosphere inthis chamber for man and beast was impregnated with the smell of moldand dry-rot, mingled with the livelier effluvium of dirt and grime ofyears; but amid the malodor and mustiness, on a couch under the window,slumbered and snored the false Franciscan monk. By his side was atankard, half-filled with stale sack, and in his hand he
clutched agold piece as though he had had an intimation it would be safer therethan elsewhere on his person during the pot-valiant sleep he haddeliberately courted. His hood had fallen back, displaying a bullethead, red cheeks and purple nose, while the wooden beads of thissottish counterfeit of a friar trailed from his girdle on the ground.From a stall in a far corner a large, bony-looking nag turned its headreproachfully, as if mentally protesting against such foul quarters andthe poor company they offered. Its melancholy whinny upon theappearance of the woman was a sigh for freedom; a sad suspiration tothe memory of radiant clover fields or poppy-starred meadows.
"Why, here's a holy man worn out by too many paternosters," commentedthe duke's fool, standing on the threshold; and then gazed from thegold piece in the monk's hand to the woman. "I need not ask where yougot the silver, Nanette. 'Tis a chain of evidence leading--where?"
The gipsy replied only with dark looks, regarding his intrusion in thisinner sanctuary as a fresh provocation for her just displeasure. Thejester, however, paid no attention to these signs of new acerbity onher face.
Crossing to the couch, he shook the monk vigorously, but the latteronly held his piece of money tighter like a miser whose treasure isthreatened, and snored the louder. Again the fool essayed to wakenhim, and this time he opened his eyes, felt for his beads and commencedto mutter a prayer in Latin words, strung together in meaninglessphrases.
"Why," commented the jester, "his learning is as false as his cloak.Wake up, sirrah! Would you approach Heaven's gate with a feignedprayer on your lips and a toss-pot in your hand?"
"_Christe tuum_--I absolve you! I absolve you!" muttered the friar."Go your way in peace."
"Hear me, thou trumped-up monk; do you want another piece of gold?"
"Gold!" repeated the other, tipsily. "What--what for? To--to helpsome fool to paradise--or purgatory? 'Tis for the Church I beg, goodpeople. The holy Church--Church I say!"
Winking and blinking, seeing nothing before him, he held out atrembling hand. "The piece of gold--give it to me!" he mumbled.
"Yes; in exchange for your cloak," answered the jester.
"My cloak, thou horse-leech! Sell my skin for--piece of gold! Want mycloak? Take it!" And the dissembler rolled over, extending his arms.The jester grasped the garment by the sleeves and with some difficultywhipped it from him.
"Now hand me--the money and--cover me with rags that--I may sleep,"continued the beer-bibber. "So"--as he grasped the money the fool gavehim and stretched himself luxuriously beneath a noisome litter ofcast-off clothes and rubbish--"I languish in ecstasies! Theangels--are singing around me."
With growing surprise and ill-humor had the woman observed this novelproceeding, and now, when the jester had himself donned the falsefriar's gown, she said grudgingly:
"You did not give him one of the five pieces?"
"No; there are still five left."
"A bit of gold for a cloak!" she grumbled. "It is overmuch. Butthere!" Unfastening a door that looked out upon the field. "Give methe money and be gone."
He grasped the bridle of the horse, handed her the promised reward,and, drawing the hood of the monk's garment over his head, led the nagout into the open air. The door closed quickly behind him and he heardthe wooden bolt as it shot into place. Above the dark outlines of theforest, the moon, full-orbed, now shone in the sky, with a myriadattendant stars, its silver beams flooding the open spaces andrevealing every detail, soft, dreamy, yet distinct. A languorous,redolent air just stirred the waving grain, on which rested a glossyshimmer.
As the fool was about to spring upon the horse, a shadow suddenlyappeared around the corner of the house and the animal danced aside inaffright. Before the jester could quiet and mount the nag, the shadowresolved itself into a man, and, behind him, came a numerous band, theplay of light on helmet, sword and dagger revealing them as a party oftroopers. Doubtless having indulged freely, they had become inclinedto new adventures, and accordingly had bent their footsteps toward the"little house on the verge of the wood," where merry company was alwaysto be found. At the sight of the duke's fool and the horse theypressed forward, and, with one accord, surrounded him.
"The Franciscan monk!" cried one.
"Where is he going so late with the nag?" asked another.
"He's off to confess some one," exclaimed a third.
"A petticoat, most likely, the rogue!" rejoined the second speaker.
"Well, what have we to do with his love affairs?" laughed the firsttrooper. "Ride on, good father, and keep tryst."
"Yes, ride on!" the others called out.
The monk bowed. An interruption which had promised to defeat hisdesigns seemed drawing to a harmless conclusion. His hopes ran high;the soldiers had not yet penetrated beneath the costume; he had alreadydetermined to leap upon the horse in a rush for freedom when a heavy,detaining hand was laid on his shoulder.
"One moment, knave!" said a deep voice, and, wheeling sharply, the foollooked into the keen, ferret eyes of the trooper with the redmustaches. "I have a question to ask. Have you done that which youwere to do?"
The friar nodded his assent. "The fool will trouble the duke no more,"he answered.
"Ah, he is"--began the soldier.
"Even so. And now pray let me pass."
"Yes; let him pass!" urged one of the soldiers. "Would you keep somelonging trollop waiting?"
The leader of the troopers did not answer; his glance was bent upon theground. "Yes, you may go," he commented, "when--" and suddenly thrustforth an arm and pulled back the enshrouding cloak.
"The duke's fool!" he cried. "Close in, rogues! Let him not escape."
Fiercely the fool's hand sought his breast; then, swiftly realizingthat it needed but a pretext to bring about the end desired by thepretender in the castle, with an effort he restrained himself, andconfronted his assailants, outwardly calm.
"'Tis a poor jest which fails," he said, easily.
"Jest!" grimly returned he of the red mustaches. "Call you it a jest,this monk's disguise? Once on the horse, it would have been no jest,and I'll warrant you would soon have left the castle far behind. Yes;and but for the cloven foot, the jest, as you call it, would havesucceeded, too. Had it not been," he added, "for the pointed, silkenshoe, peeping out from beneath the holy robe--a covering of vanity,instead of holy nakedness--you would certainly have deceived me,and"--with a brusque laugh--"slipped away from your master, the duke."
"The duke?" said the jester, as casting the now useless cloak from him,he deliberately scrutinized the rogue.
"The duke," returned the man, stolidly. "Well, this spoils our sportfor to-night, knaves," he went on, turning to the other troopers, "forwe must e'en escort the jester back to the castle."
"Beshrew him!" they answered, of one accord. "A plague upon him!"
And slowly the fool and the soldiers began to retrace their way acrossthe moon-lit fields, the trooper with the red mustaches grumbling asthey went: "Such luck to turn back now, with all those mad-caps rightunder our nose! A curse to a dry march over a dusty meadow! Anunsanctified dog of a monk! 'Tis like a campaign, with naught butditch water to drink. The devil take the friar and the jester!Forward! the fool in the center, and those he would have fooled aroundhim!"
And when they disappeared in the distance the gipsy woman might havebeen seen leaving the house by the stable door and leading in the horse.
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