Motionless the free baron stood, long pondering deeply, until upon the mantel the richly-chased clock began to strike musically, yet admonishingly. Whereupon he glanced at the cross; hesitated; then, noting the lateness of the hour, and with, perhaps, a mental reservation to retrieve his negligence on the morrow, he turned from the silver, bejeweled symbol and immediately sought the sensuous bodily enjoyment of a couch fit for a king or the pope himself.
CHAPTER IX
THE FLIGHT OF THE FOOL
Another festal day had come and gone. The crimson shafts of the dying sun had succ.u.mbed to the lengthening shadows of dusk, and the pigeons were wending their way homeward to the castle parapets and battlements, when, toward the arched entrance on the front, strode the duke"s fool.
Beyond the castle walls and the inclosure of the pleasure grounds the peace of twilight rested on the land; the great fields lay becalmed; the distant forests were bivouacs of rest.
The afternoon had been a labor of pleasure; about the great basin of the fountain had pa.s.sed an ever-varying shifting of moving figures; between the trees bright colors appeared and vanished, and from the heart of concealed bowers had come peals of laughter or strains of music. Unnoticed among the merry throng in palace and park, the jester had moved aimlessly about; un.o.bserved now, he turned his back upon the gray walls, satiated, perhaps, with the fetes inaugurated by the kingly entertainer. But as he attempted to pa.s.s the gate, a stalwart guard stepped forward, presenting a formidable-looking glave.
"Your permit to leave?" he said.
"A permit? Of course!" replied the fool, and felt in his coat. "But what a handsome weapon you have; the staff all covered with velvet and studded with bra.s.s tacks!"
"Has the Emperor Charles, then, no such weapons?" asked the gratified soldier.
"None so handsome! May I see it?" The guard unsuspiciously handed the glave to the jester, who immediately turned it upon the sentinel.
"Give it back, fool!" cried the alarmed guard.
"Nay; I am minded to call out and show a soldier of France disarmed by a foreign fool."
"As well chop off my head with it!" sighed the man.
"And if I wish to walk without the gate?" suggested the jester.
"Go, good fool!" replied the other, without hesitation.
"Well, here is the glave. If any one admires it again, let him study the point. But why may no one pa.s.s out?"
"Because so many soldiers and good citizens have been beaten and robbed by those who hover around the palace. But you may go in peace," he added. "No one will harm a fool. If "tis amus.e.m.e.nt you seek, there"s a camp on the verge of the forest where a dark-haired, good-looking baggage dances and tells cards. You can find the place from the noise within, and if you"re merry, they"ll welcome you royally. Go; and G.o.d be with you!"
The jester turned from the good-natured guard and quickly walked down the road, which wound gracefully through the valley and lost itself afar in a fringe of woodland. A light pattering on the hard earth behind caused him to look about. Following was a dog that now sprang forward with joyous demonstration. The fool stooped and gravely caressed the hound which last he had seen at the princess" feet.
"Why," he said, "thou art now the fool"s only friend at court."
When again he moved on with rapid, nervous stride, the animal came after. Darker grew the road; deeper hued the fields and stubble; more somber the distant castle against the gloaming. Only the cry of a diving night-bird startled the stillness of the tranquil air; a rapacious filcher that quickly rose, and swept onward through the sea of night. Its melancholy note echoed in the breast of the fool; mechanically, without relaxing his swift pace, he looked upward to follow it, when a short, sharp bark behind him and a premonition of impending danger caused him to spring suddenly aside. At the same time a dagger descended in the empty air, just grazing the shoulder of the jester, who, recovering himself, grasped the arm of his a.s.sailant and grappled with him. Finding him a man of little strength, the fool easily threw him to the earth and kneeling on his breast in turn menaced the a.s.sailant with the weapon he had wrested from him.
"Have you any reason, knave, why I should spare you?" asked the fool.
"If I had--for want of breath--it would fail me!" answered the miscreant with some difficulty.
The duke"s jester arose. "Get up, rogue!" he said, and the man obeyed.
He was a pale, gaunt fellow, with long hair, unshaven face, hollow cheeks, and dark eyes, set deeply in his head and shaded by thick, black brows. His dress consisted of a rough doublet, with lappet sleeves, carried down to a point, tight leggings, broad shoes and the puffed upper hose; the entire raiment frayed and worn; his flesh, or, rather, his bones, showing through the scanty covering for his legs, while his feet were no better protected than those of a trooper who has been long on the march. He displayed no fear or enmity; on the contrary, his manner was rather friendly than otherwise, as though he failed to understand the enormity of his offense and the position in which he was placed. Shifting from one foot to another, he crossed his great, thin hands before him and patiently awaited his captor"s pleasure. The latter surveyed him curiously, and, noting his woebegone features and beggarly attire, pity, perhaps, a.s.suaged his just anger toward this starveling.
"Why did you wish to kill me?" asked the jester quietly, if somewhat impatiently.
"It was not my wish, Master Fool," gently replied the other, but even as he spoke the resignation in his manner gave way to a look of apprehension. Lifting his hand, he felt in his breast and glanced about him on the road. Then his face brightened.
"With your permission--I have e"en dropped something--"
And stooping, the scamp-scholar picked up a small, leathern-bound volume from the ground, where it had fallen during the struggle, and held it tightly clutched in his hand. "Ah," he muttered with a glad sigh, "I feared I had lost it--my Horace! And now, Sir Jester, what would you with me?"
"A question I might answer with a question," replied the fool. "Having failed in your enterprise, why should I spare you?"
"You shouldn"t," returned the vagabond-student. "The ancients teach but the irrevocable law of retribution."
To hear a would-be a.s.sa.s.sin, a castaway out of pocket and heels and elbows, calmly proclaiming the Greek doctrine of inevitableness, under such circ.u.mstances, would have surprised an observer even more experienced and worldly than the duke"s fool. Involuntarily his face softened; this _pauvre diable_ gazed upon eternity with the calm eyes of a Socrates.
"You do not then beg for life?" said the _plaisant_, his former impatience merging into mild curiosity.
"Is it worth begging for?" asked the straitened book-worm. "Life means a pinched stomach, a cold body; Death, no hunger to fear, and a bed that, though cold, chills us not. What we know not doth not exist--for us; ergo, to lie in the earth is to rest in the lap of luxury, for all our consciousness of it. But to be unconscious of the ills of this perishable frame, Horace likewise must be as dead to us as our aches and pains. Thus is life made preferable to death. Yes; I would live.
Hold, though--" he again hesitated in deep thought--"what avails Horace if--" he began.
"Why, what new data have entered in the premises?" observed the wondering jester.
"Nanette!" was the gloomy answer.
"Who, pray, is Nanette?" asked the fool, thrusting his a.s.sailant"s weapon in his jerkin.
"A wanton haggard whose tongue will run post sixteen stages together!
Who would make the devil himself malleable; then, work, hammer and wire-draw him!"
"And what is she to you?"
"My wife! That is, she claims that exalted place, having married me one night when I was in my cups through a false priest who dresses as a Franciscan monk. "Fools in the court of G.o.d" are these priests called, and truly he is a jester, for certainly is he no true monk. But Nanette, nevertheless, a.s.serts she is the lawful partner of my sorrows.
So work your will on me. A stroke, and the shivering spirit is wafted across the Styx."
"And if I gave you not only your life--for a consideration hereafter to be mentioned--but a small silver piece as well?" suggested the jester, who had been for some moments buried in thought.
"Ha!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the scamp-student, brightening. "Your gift would match the piece I already have and which--dolt that I was!--I overlooked to include in my chain of reasoning." And thrusting his hand into his ragged doublet, after some search he extracted a diminutive disk upon which he gazed not without ardor. "Thus are we forced to start the chain of reasoning anew," he remarked, "with Horace and this bit of metal on one side of the scales and Nanette on the other. Now unless the devil sits on the beam with Nanette--which he"s like to do--the book and the bit of dross will outweigh her and we arrive at the cert.i.tude that life, qualified as to duration, may be happily endured."
"What argument does the dross carry, knave?" demanded the fool, looking down at the hound that crouched at his feet.
"With it may be purchased that which warms the pinched stomach. With it may be bought an elixir, so strong and magical, it may breed defiance even of Nanette. Sir Fool, I have concluded to accept life and the small silver piece."
"Well and good," commented the jester. "But there are conditions attached to my clemency."
"Conditions!" retorted the vagabond. "What are conditions to a philosopher, once he has reached a logical a.s.surance?"
"First, you must find me a horse. Your Nanette, as I take it, is a gipsy and in the camp, are, surely, horses."
"But why should you want a horse? "Tis not far to the castle?" said the puzzled scholar.
"No; but "tis far away from it. Next, tell me where you got that small piece of silver, like the one I have promised you?"