IN THE DONJON KEEP
GILBERT W. GABRIEL 1912
At first the darkness was impenetrable, black and choking. There was no sound, except for the occasional soft spatter of water that dripped to the stone floor from the mouldy ceiling. Then through a narrow, barred window came the moonlight in a mottled shaft of phosph.o.r.escent green, and licked its way across the floor, to the edge of the bier.
It shone on two kneeling, crouching figures, and full on the face of the corpse.
The eunuch, a great, gaunt negro, lifted his head and showed his red, rolling eyes and his skin, gleaming like bronze in the moonlight. "He was my friend," he whimpered, bending over the loathsome dead. "He was my friend."
"Aye, aye," mused the jester, fingering the mildewed shroud, "and sooth, he was the finest mute that ever crooked a back in the Bohemian court. Famous he was, all hereabouts, to the marches of the northern sea."
"And so high was he in the king"s favor and graces!" snivelled the eunuch. "They shall never find another such as he."
"True, true; and yet hast heard another must be found? The king has thus ordered: another mute must now be gotten to take his place--another just so strange." The jester bent over the face and shuddered. A few swift clouds sped across the moon, and caused the greenish shadows under the misshapen features to flicker and melt grotesquely. Then the light shone clear again and he saw the broken, twisted nose; and the eyes that stared obstinately from their split lids; and the gaping, grinning mouth that, years ago, the torturers had cut wide upon each seared and tattooed cheek; and the swollen, split lips that could not hide where once had been a tongue. He pa.s.sed his hand along the shroud and lightly touched the ugly hump where the spine had been pressed and snapped, and the slanted shoulders and the twisted hips and legs. "Thou wast so laughable to all the court," he cried. "Thy bones were so comically broken. And now, another must be made for the court"s delight, just so comical as thou. Aye, aye," and he sighed heavily, "Jesu have pity on the child"s face of some young page or squire."
The iron door behind them swung suddenly open, and a captain of the palace guard clanked into the donjon. The flare of a spluttering flambeau, which he held in his hand, caused them to blink and shrink away, beyond its yellow circle. But he thrust it close to their faces with a cross oath. "Silence," he growled, "cease thy shrill chatterings. What dost thou here, foul black? By what right hast thou left thy post before the ladies" hall--before the chamber of the king"s favorite?"
"He was my friend," the eunuch faltered. "I wished to pray for him that was my friend."
"Pray? To thy heathen G.o.ds?" Upon his coat of mail the captain thumped a vigorous sign of the cross. "Go, get thee back, lest aught should happen in thy absence. Thou knowest the penalty, both for thee and any gallant that dare pa.s.s the Lady Suelva"s portal. Thou know"st the penalty," and he slapped his thigh with the flat of the halberd that hung from his girdle.
"Hush!" Faint from across the courtyard came a voice singing, a high fresh tenor voice. The black sprang to his feet and stood rooted in trembling horror. "From what corner of the yard comes that serenading?" thundered the captain. The jester rose to the window; he looked first out into the courtyard, then back at the eunuch, who stood picking nervously at his tunic; then out of the window again.
"From below the Lady Suelva"s chambers. See! Someone is climbing the winding steps of her balcony!"
"And Lady Suelva? Has she come out on the balcony?"
"I cannot see; a tilting-post stands directly in the way." In the furthest corner of the donjon, a dim black square disclosed an ugly trap leading down to the torture-room. To the trap-door the captain bounded, and from above, they could hear the thump of his feet on the creaking ladder. He was up again in an instant, chuckling viciously.
"I found them all asleep, the old torturer and his two sons. But ho!
they are awake now--I kicked them hard awake. They have much to do to-night." He stopped for a moment at the big iron door. "Wait here till I return," he commanded, and ran stealthily into the courtyard.
The eunuch fell to his knees again, and prayed jabberingly--this time for his own soul. The jester softly trod the length and breadth of the stone flaggings, and stopped to peer at the corpse and its face. "Jesu ha" mercy," he repeated ofttimes; "Jesu ha" mercy!"
The pulsating suspense broke with the reentrance of the captain. Over his shoulder was slung a dark, limp burden which he swung down and held out in the crook of his thick arms, as if it were a doll.
"Twas a tussle the young peac.o.c.k gave me," he said thickly. "Look ye--I have lost my flambeau, but come to the window and take a squint at him." He held the figure up to the grating, to where the moon shone pale on its face and tumbled locks and over its gay-colored tunic, and l.u.s.tered its silken hose.
"By St. G.o.dfrey, what a handsome lad! Who is he?"
"Methinks he is a squire but lately come to court, so there"ll be few to miss him, when the night"s work is done."
The jester sighed. "So young he is and fair. See that great purple welt across his forehead."
""Twas where I clubbed him senseless."
"And must thou torture him to death? Must he so surely die?"
"Aye, so run my orders. He will die--and thou too, black. Hold thou my burden, fool, whilst I undo my halberd!"
From the kneeling eunuch came a shriek and moan and incoherent jabbering. The captain cursed and stayed his uplifted arm.
"It is too dark to strike," he growled. "Wait till the moon is from behind that cloud. Ugh! It is black here, pitchy black." A full, heavy minute elapsed, disturbed by the scuffle of the negro"s feet as he ran and cowered in the furthest corner, and the soft creaking of the iron door, and a sudden suck and soughing of the night air. Then the moon slipped slyly from its frayed woolly covers, and relit the donjon keep. "Holy G.o.d and Father," and the halberd clanked noisily to the floor. In the half open doorway stood the king"s favorite, the Lady Suelva. Against the frosted green background of the moonlit courtyard her shimmering robe, her white face and throat, and her long hair of flaming copper stood out gloriously. She did not move, but stayed peering through the unaccustomed gloom, as if to recognize the dark figures before her. The eunuch flung himself at her feet, and squirmed and grovelled. "Save me, lady save me!" But she thrust him from her with a sharp push of her foot.
The captain turned to the jester. "Take down thy burden," he whispered. "Down to the torture room with him."
But the lady heard and came forward. "No," she said imperiously, "lay him down upon the floor, and let me see what has been done with him."
The captain grumbled and swore under his heavy mustache. "Take him away, fool. Do as I bid!"
But the lady stepped between. "Stop! Let me see him." Her voice rose high and shaking; she was fast losing her stately calmness.
The captain sneered. "See him! And why? Have you not seen enough of him this night?"
"No, no! he was but singing to me!"
"Yet I found you with him on the balcony."
"I swear it," she repeated, "he was but singing to me."
The captain heaved his shoulders with so great a shrug that the ringlets of his coat of mail jangled and clinked. "I have my orders,"
he said, "which come from the king himself."
"The king?" She snapped her fingers. "And who orders the king? He would obey my slightest wish."
"No use, dame. Nor heaven nor h.e.l.l could save this squire from his death. As for the eunuch, he will mayhap be spared, if thou so wish it. He is thy servant--and his life at thy command." The negro whined and moaned and crept to kiss her feet.
But Suelva flung herself back. "What care I for his foul black hide?
"Tis the young squire"s life I crave."
"Then both must die."
"Mother Mary! But let me hold him in my arms." She tore the jester"s burden from him, and staggering under its weight, turned to the middle of the room. Then she saw, for the first time, the bier and what it bore. She gasped, and let the squire"s body sink in a huddled heap on the floor. "Who is it?" she asked, crossing herself. She looked closer. "Yes, I remember thee, fond old mute. Pha! but thou smellest of the grave. And why have they left thee lying here, this fortnight?"
From the dark corner came a stifled cry and piping gurgle. "My lady, oh, my lady!"
"How now, black; let go my skirt."
"Mistress, let me whisper close. He need not die, thy lover."
"Hast thou some scheme? Quick, tell it to me."
"First speak the word to let me live."
"Aye, we spare thy life--but haste!"
"He is but a young stripling; his bones are not yet set and hardened.
Let him be made the king"s mute."