"What will she say? "Yes" at the altar. Is it not enough?" Leaning back in his saddle, the king"s face expressed the enjoyment he derived from the conversation with the backward and too conscientious soldier.
Here was a groom whose wedding promised the court much amus.e.m.e.nt and satisfaction in those jovial days of jesting and merry-making.
"Come," resumed the king, encouragingly, "I"ll warrant you more forward in battle."
"Battle!" said the duke. "That"s another matter. To see your foeman"s gleaming eyes!--but hers!-- Should they express anger, disdain--"
"Let yours show but the greater wrath," advised the king, complaisantly. "In love, like cures like! Let me be your physician; I"ll warrant you"ll find me proficient."
"I"ve heard your Majesty hath practised deeply," returned the n.o.ble, readily, in spite of his perplexity.
"Deeply?" Francis lifted his brow. "I am but a superficial student; master only of the rudiments; no graduate of the college of love.
Moreover, I"ve heard the letters you exchanged were--ahem!--well-enough writ. You pressed your suit warmly for one unlearned, a mere novice."
"Because I had seen her face, your Majesty; had it ever before me in the painted miniature. Any man"--with a rough eloquence and fervor that impressed the king with the depth of his pa.s.sion--"could well worship at that fair shrine, but that she--"
"Forward, I beg you!" interrupted the king. "Womankind are but frail flesh, sir; easily molded; easily won. She is a woman; therefore, soft, yielding; yours for the asking. You are over valorous at a distance; too timorous near her. Approach her boldly, and, though she were Diana"s self, I"ll answer for your victory! Eh, Triboulet, are our ladies cold-hearted, callous, indifferent to merit?"
"Cold-hearted?" answered the dwarf, with a ludicrous expression of feigned rapture. "Were I to relate--but, no, my tongue is silent--discretion--your Majesty will understand--"
"Well," said the duke, "with encouragement from the best-favored scholar in the kingdom and the--ugliest, I should proceed with more confidence."
"Best-favored!" smirked the little monster. "Really, you flatter me."
"A whimsical fellow, Sire," vouchsafed the n.o.bleman.
"When he is not tiresome," answered the monarch. "On, gentlemen!" And the cavalcade swept down the road toward the castle. Far behind, with cracking of whip, followed the mules and their drivers.
CHAPTER VII
THE COURT OF LOVE
The rough Norman banqueting hall, with its ma.s.sive rafters, frayed tapestries and rude adornment of bristling heads of savage boars, wide-spreading antlers and other trophies of the chase, had long since been replaced under the king"s directions by an apartment more to the satisfaction of a monarch who was a zealous and lavish patron of the brilliant Italian school of painting, sculpture and architecture.
Those barbarous decorations, celebrating the hunt, had been relegated to subterranean regions, the walls dismantled, and the room turned over to a corps of artists of such renown as Da Vinci, Francois Clouet, Jean Cousin and the half-mad Benvenuto Cellini.
Where formerly wild boars had snarled with wicked display of yellow tusks from the blackened plaster, now Cleopatra, in the full bloom of her mature charms, reclined with her stalwart Roman hero in tender dalliance. Where once the proud and stately head of the majestic stag had hung over door and panel, now cla.s.sic nymphs bathed in a pellucid pool, and the only horns were those which adorned the head of him who, according to the story, dared gaze through the foliage, and was rewarded for his too curious interest by--that then common form of punishment--metamorphosis.
Overhead, vast transformation from the great ribbed beams of oak and barren inters.p.a.ces, graceful Peri floated on snow-white clouds and roguish Cupids swam through the azure depths, to the edification of nondescript prodigies, who const.i.tuted the ma.s.sive molding, or frame, to the decorative scene. The ancient fireplace, broad and deep, had given way to an ornate mantel of marble; the capacious tankard and rotund pewter pot of olden times, suggestive of mighty b.u.t.ts of honest beer, had been supplanted by goblets of silver and gold, covered with scroll work, arabesques or chiseled figures.
In this s.p.a.cious hall, begilt, bemirrored, a.s.sembled, on the evening of the duke"s arrival, Francis, his court and the guest of the occasion.
From wide-spreading chandeliers, with their pendent, pear-shaped crystals, a thousand candles threw a flood of light upon the scene, as "mid trumpet blast and softer strains of harmony, King Francis and good Queen Eleanor led the way to the royal table; and thereat, shortly after, at a signal from the monarch, the company seated themselves.
At the head of the board was the king; on his right, his lawful consort, pale, composed, saintly; on his left, the Countess d"Etampes, rosy, animated, free. Next to the favorite sat the "fairest among the learned and most learned among the fair," Marguerite, beloved sister of Francis, and her second husband, Henry d"Albret, King of Navarre; opposite, Henry the dauphin and his spouse, Catharine de Medici; not far removed, Diane de Poitiers, whose dark eyes Henry ever openly sought, while Catharine complacently talked affairs of state with the chancellor.
In the midst of this ill.u.s.trious company, and further surrounded by a plentiful sprinkling of ruddy cardinals, fat bishops, constables, governors, marshals and ladies, more or less distinguished through birth or beauty, the Duke of Friedwald and the Princess Louise were a center of attraction for the wits whose somewhat free jests the license of the times permitted. At the foot of the royal table places had been provided for Marot, Caillette, Triboulet, Jacqueline and the duke"s fool.
The heads and figures of the ladies of the court were for the most part fearfully and wonderfully bedecked. In some instances the horned-shaped head-dress had been followed by yet loftier steeples, "battlements to combat G.o.d with gold, silver and pearls; wherein the lances were great forked pins, and the arrows the little pins." With more simplicity, the Princess Louise wore her hair cased in a network of gold and jewels, and the austere French moralist who a.s.sailed the higher bristling ramparts of vanity would, perhaps, have borne in silence this more modest bastion of the flesh and the devil.
But the face beneath was a greater danger to those who hold that beauty is a menace to salvation; on her cheek hung the rosy banner of youth; in her eyes shone the bright arrows of conquest. And the duke, discarding his backwardness, as a soldier his cloak before battle, watched the hue that mantled her face, proffered his open breast to the shining lances of her gaze, and capitulated unconditionally before the smile of victory on her blood-red lips. With his great shoulders, his ma.s.sive neck and broad, virile face, he seemed a Cyclops among pygmies in that gathering of slender courtiers and she but a flower by his side.
"I thought, Sire, your duke was timorous, bashful as a boy?" murmured the Countess d"Etampes to the king.
"He was--on the road!" answered the king thoughtfully.
"Then has he marvelously recovered his a.s.surance."
"In love, Madam, as in battle, the zest grows with the fray," said Francis with meaning.
"And the duke is reputed a brave soldier. He looks very strong, as if--almost--he might succeed with any woman he were minded to carry off."
"To carry off!" laughed the monarch. ""Tis he, Madam, who will be bound in tethers! At heart he"s shame-faced as a callow younker."
She wilfully shook her head. "No woman could keep him in leading-strings, your Majesty. There is something domineering, savage, crushing, in his hand. Look at it, on the table there. Is it not mighty as an iron gauntlet? What other man at the board has such a brutal hand? The strength in it makes me shudder. Will she not bend to it; kiss it?"
With amused superiority Francis regarded his fair neighbor on the left.
"Women, Madam, are but hasty judges of men," he said, dryly, "and then "tis fancy more than reason which governs their verdict. If the duke should seem over-confident, "tis to hide a certain modesty, and not to appear out of confidence in so large a company."
"And yet, Sire, at their first meeting he did not comport himself like one easily put out," persisted the favorite. """Tis with a cold hand you welcome me, Princess," he said, noticing her insensibility of manner. Then rising he gazed upon her long and deep, as a soldier might survey a battlefield. "And yet," said he, still holding her fingers, "I"ll warrant me warm blood could course through this little hand." At that the color rose in her cheek; behold! the statue was touched with life and she looked at him as drawn against her will. "If my hand be cold, my Lord," she answered, courteously, "it belies the character of your welcome." Whereupon he laughed like one who has had a victory."
"Beshrew me," said the king, modifying his last observation, "if women are not all eyes and ears! I neither heard nor saw all that. A little constraint--a natural blush to punctuate their talk--the meeting seemed conventional enough. "Tis through your own romantic heart you looked, Anne!"
Quicker circulated the goblets of silver, gold and crystal; faster babbled the pretty lips; brighter grew the eyes beneath the stupendous towers that crowned the heads of the court ladies. All talked at once without disturbing the king, who now whispered soft nothings in the ear of the countess. From the other tables in the hall arose a varying cadence of clatter and laughter, which increased with the noise and din of the king"s own board; a clamor always just subservient to the deeper chorus of the royal party; an accompaniment, as it were, full yet un.o.btrusive, to the hubbub from the more exalted company. But the princely uproar growing louder, the grand-masters, grand-chamberlain, gentlemen of the chamber and lesser lights of the church were enabled to carol and make merry with less restraint. The pungent smell of roses permeated the hall, arising from a screen of shrubbery at one end of the room wherein sang a hundred silver-toned birds.
At the king"s table Caillette recited a merry roundelay, and Triboulet roared out tale after tale, each more full-flavored than the one that went before it, flinging smart sayings at marriage, and drawing a ludicrous picture of the betrayed husband. Villot, a lily in his hand, which he regarded ever sentimentally, caroled the boisterous espousals of a yokel and a cinder-wench, while Marot and a bishop contended in a heated argument regarding the translation of a certain pa.s.sage of Ovid"s "Art of Love."
Singularly pale, unusually tranquil, the duke"s fool furtively watched his master and the princess. In contrast to his composure, Jacqueline"s merriment seemed the more unrestrained; she laughed like a witch; her hands flashed with pretty gestures, and she had so tossed her head, her hair floated around her, wild and disordered.
"Why are you so quiet?" she whispered to the duke"s fool.
"Is there not enough merriment, mistress?" he answered, gravely.
"There can never be any to spare," she said. "And you would do well to remember your office."
"What do you mean?" he asked, absently.
"That you have many enemies; that you can not live at court with a jaundiced countenance. Heigh-ho! Alackaday! You should hie yourself back to the woods and barren wastes of Friedwald, Master Fool."
Her sparkling glance returned to the exhilarating scene. Well had the a.s.semblage been called a court of love. Now soft eyes invited burning glances, and graceful heads swayed alluringly toward the handsome cavaliers who momentarily had found lodgment in hearts which, like palaces, had many ante-chambers. From hidden recesses, strains of music filled the room with tinkling pa.s.sages of sensuous, but illusive, harmony; a dream of ardor, masked in the daintiness of a minuet.
Upon the back of the princess" chair rested one of the duke"s hands; with the other he lifted his gla.s.s--a frail thing in fingers better adapted for a sword-hilt or ma.s.sive battle mace.
"Drink, Princess," he said, bending over her, "to--our meeting!"
Her eyelids fluttered before his look; her breast rose a little. The scar on his brow held her gaze, as one fascinated, but she drew away slightly and mechanically sought the tiny golden goblet at her elbow.
Dreamily, dreamily, sounded the rhythmical music; heavily, so heavily hung the perfume in the air! Full of mist seemed the hall; the king, the queen, the countess, all of the party, unreal, fanciful. The touch of the goblet chilled her lips and she put it down quickly.
"Is not the wine to your liking?" he asked, his hand tightening on her chair. "Perhaps it is too sour for your taste?"