"Nay; I thought it rather sweet," she answered. "Oh, I meant not that--"
"It _is_ sweet wine, Princess," he said, setting down an empty gla.s.s.
"Sweeter than our Austrian vintage. Not white and thin and watery, but red--red as blood--red as your heart"s blood--or mine--"
Crash! from the hand of the duke"s jester had fallen a goblet to the floor. The princess started, turned; for a moment their glances bridged the distance from where she sat, to the fools" end of the table; then hers slowly fell; slowly, and she pa.s.sed a hand, whereon shone the king"s ring, across her brow; looked up, as though once more to span infinity with her gaze, when her eyes fell short and met the duke"s. Deliberately he lifted his filled gla.s.s.
"Red as your heart"s blood--and mine--my love!" he repeated; and then stared sharply across the table at his jester.
Triboulet, swaggering in his chair, so high his feet could not touch the floor, surveyed the broken gla.s.s, the duke and the duke"s fool.
For some time his vigilant eyes had been covertly studying the unconscious foreign jester, noting sundry signs and symptoms. Nor had the princess" look when the goblet had fallen, been lost upon the misshapen buffoon; alert, wide-awake, his mind, quick to suspect, reached a sudden conclusion; a conclusion which by rapid process of reasoning became a conviction. Privileged to speak where others must need be silent, his profession that of prying subtlety, which spared neither rank nor power so that it raised a laugh, he felt no hesitation in publishing the information he had gleaned by his superior mental nimbleness.
"Ho! ho!" he bellowed, the better to attract attention to himself.
"The duke sent his fool to amuse his betrothed and the fool hath lost his heart to his mistress."
The king left off his whispering, Catharine turned from the chancellor, Diane ceased furtively to regard Caillette, while the Queen of Navarre laughed nervously and murmured:
"Princess and jester! It will make another tale."
But Henry of Navarre looked gravely down. He, and Francis" queen--a pa.s.sive spectator at the feast--and a bishop, whose interest lay in a truffled capon, alone followed not the direction of the duke"s eyes.
The fair favorite of the king clapped her hands, but the monarch frowned, not having forgotten that night in Fools" hall when the jester had appointed rogues to offices.
"What is this? A fool in love with the princess?" said the king, ominously.
"Even so, your Majesty," cried Triboulet. "But a moment ago Duke Robert did whisper to his bride-to-be, and the fool"s hand trembled like a leaf and dropped his gla.s.s. Tra! la! la! What a situation!
Holy Saint-Bagpipe! Here"s a comedy in high life!"
"A comedy!" repeated the duke, and half-rose from his chair, regarding his fool with surprise and anger.
Now Triboulet roared. Had he not in the past attained his high position of favorite jester to the king by his very foolhardihood? And were not trusting lovers and all too-confiding husbands the legitimate b.u.t.t of all jesting?
"Look at the fool," he went on exultantly. "Does any one doubt his guilt? He is silent; he can not speak!"
And, indeed, the foreign jester seemed momentarily disconcerted, although he strove to appear indifferent.
"A presumptuous knave!" muttered Francis, darkly. "He saved his neck once only by a trick."
"Oh, the duke would not mind, now, if you were to hang him, Sire,"
answered Triboulet, blithely.
"True!" smiled the king. "The question of breach of hospitality might not occur. What have you to say, fool?" he continued, turning to the object of the buffoon"s insidious and malicious attack.
"Laugh!" whispered Jacqueline, furtively pressing the arm of the duke"s fool. "Laugh, or--"
The touch and her words appeared to arouse him from his lethargy and the jester arose, but not before the princess, with flaming cheeks, but proud bearing, had cast a quick glance in his direction; a glance half-appealing, half-resentful. Idly the joculatrix regarded him, her hands upon the table playing with the gla.s.ses, her lips faintly repeating the words of a roundelay:
"For love is madness; While madness rules, Fools in love Remain but fools!
Sing hoddy-doddy, Noddy!
Remain but fools!"
With the eyes of the company upon him, the duke"s fool impa.s.sively studied the carven figure on his stick. If he felt fear of the king"s anger, the resentment of his master, or the malice of the dwarf, his countenance now did not betray it. He had seemed about to speak, but did not.
"Well, rascal, well?" called out the king. "Do you think your wand will save you, sirrah?" he added impatiently.
"Why not, Sire?" tranquilly answered the jester.
The duke"s face grew more and more ominous. Still the fool, looking up, did not quail, but met his master"s glance freely, and those who observed noted it was the duke who first turned away, although his jaw was set and his great fist clenched. Swiftly the jester"s gaze again sought the princess, but she had plucked a spray of blossoms from the table and was holding it to her lips, mindlessly biting the fragrant leaves; and those who followed the fool"s glance saw in her but a picture of languid unconcern such as became a kinswoman of the king.
Almost imperceptibly the brow of the _plaisant_ clouded, but recovering himself, he confronted the king with an enigmatic smile.
"Why not?" he repeated. "In the Court of Love is not the fool"s wand greater than a king"s miter or the pastoral staff of the Abbe de Lys?
Besides, Sire," he added quickly, "as a fool takes it, in the Court of Love, not to love--is treason!"
"Good!" murmured the bishop, still eating. "Not to love is treason!"
"Who alone is the culprit? Whose heart alone is filled with umbrage, hatred, pique?"
"Triboulet! Triboulet, the traitor!" suddenly cried the countess, sprightly as a child.
"Yes; Triboulet, the traitor!" exclaimed the fool, pointing the wand of folly at the hunchback.
Even Francis" offended face relaxed. "Positively, I shall never hang this fellow," he said grimly to Marguerite.
"Before this tribunal of ladies whose beauty and learning he has outraged by his disaffection and spleen, I summon him for trial,"
continued the duke"s jester. "Triboulet, arise! Ill.u.s.trious ladies of the Court of Love, the offender is in your hands."
"A little monster!" spoke up Diane with a gesture of aversion, real or affected.
"He is certainly somewhat reprehensible," added the Queen of Navarre, whose tender heart ever inclined to the weaker side.
"An unconscionable rogue," murmured the bishop, complacently clasping his fat fingers before him.
"So he is already tried by the Church and the tribunal," went on the _plaisant_ of the duke. "The Church hath excommunicated him and the Court of Love--"
"Will banish him!" exclaimed the countess mirthfully, regarding the captious monarch with mock defiance.
"Yes, banish him; turn him out," echoed Catharine, carelessly.
"But, your Majesty!" remonstrated the alarmed Triboulet, turning to the monarch whose favor he had that day enjoyed.
"Appeal not to me!" returned Francis, sternly. "Here Venus rules!"
And he gallantly inclined to the countess.
"Venus at whom he scoffs!" broke in Jacqueline, shrilly, leaning back in her chair with her hands on her hips.
"You witch!--you sorceress!--it was you who"--he hissed with venomous glance.
"Hear him!" exclaimed the girl, lightly. "He calls me witch--sorceress--because, forsooth, I am a woman!"