A GIFT FOR THE DUKE
The sun and the breeze contended with the mist, intrenched in the
stronghold of the valley. From the east the red orb began its attack;
out of the west rode the swift-moving zephyrs, and, vanquished, the
wavering vapor stole off into thin air, or hung in isolated wreaths above
the foliage on the hillside. Soon the conquering light brightly
illumined a medieval castle commanding the surrounding country; the
victorious breeze whispered loudly at its gloomy casements. A great
Norman structure, somber, austere, it was, however brightened with many
modern features that threatened gradually to sap much of its ancient
majesty.
"Fill up the moat," Francis had ordered. "'Tis barbaric! What lover
would sigh beneath walls thirty feet thick! And the portcullis! Away
with it! Summon my Italian painters to adorn the walls. We may yet make
habitable these legacies from the savage, brutal past."
So the mighty walls, once set in a comparative wilderness, a tangle of
thicket and underbrush, now arose from garden, lawn and park, where even
the deer were no longer shy, and the water, propelled by artificial
power, shot upward in jets.
Seated at a window which overlooked this sylvan aspect, modified if not
fashioned by man, a young woman with seeming conscientiousness, told her
beads. The apartment, though richly furnished, was in keeping with the
devout character of its fair mistress. A brush or aspersorium, used for
sprinkling holy water, was leaning against the wall. Upon a table lay an
open psalter, with its long hanging cover and a ball at the extremity of
the forel. Behind two tall candlesticks stood an altar-table which,
being unfolded, revealed three compartments, each with a picture, painted
by Andrea del Sarto, the once honored guest of Francis.
The Princess Louise, cousin of Francis' former queen, Claude, had been
reared with rigid strictness, although provided with various preceptors
who had made her more or less proficient in the profane letters, as they
were then called, Latin, Greek, theology and philosophy. The fame of her
beauty had gone abroad; her hand had been often sought, but the obdurate
king had steadfastly refused to sanction her betrothal until Charles, the
emperor, himself proposed a union between the fair ward of the French
monarch and one of his nobles, the young Duke of Friedwald. To this
Francis had assented, for he calculated upon thus drawing to his
interests one of his rival's most chivalrous knights, while far-seeing
Charles believed he could not only retain the duke, but add to his own
court the lovely and learned ward of the king.
And in this comedy of aggrandizement the puppets were willing--as puppets
must needs be. Indeed, the duke was seriously enamored of the princess,
whose portrait he had seen in miniature, and had himself importuned the
emperor to intercede with Francis, knowing that the only way to the
lady's hand was through the good offices of him who aspired to the
mastery of all Europe, if not the world.
Charles, unwilling to disoblige one whose principality was the most
powerful of the Austrian provinces he sought to absorb in his scheme for
the unification of all nations, offered no demur to a request fraught
with advantage to himself. Besides, cold and calculating though he was,
the emperor entertained a certain affection for the duke, who on one
occasion, when Charles had been sore beset by the troops of Solyman, had
extricated his royal leader from the alternatives of ignominious capture
or an untimely end. Accordingly, a formal proposal, couched in language
of warm friendship to the king, was despatched by the emperor. When
Francis, with some misgiving, arising from experience with womankind,
laid the matter before Louise, she, to his surprise, proved her devotion
and loyalty by her entire submissiveness, and the king, kissing her hand,
generously vowed the wedding festivities should be worthy of her beauty
and fealty.
Was she thinking of that scene now and the many messages which had
subsequently passed between her distant lover and herself, as the white
fingers ceased to tell the beads? Was she questioning fate and the
future when the rosary fell from her hand and the clinking of the great
glass beads on the hard floor aroused her from a reverie? Languidly she
rose, crossed the room toward a low dressing table, when at the same time
one of the several doors of the apartment opened, admitting the jestress,
Jacqueline, whose long, flowing gown of dark green bore no distinguishing
mark of the motley she had assumed the night before. The dreamy, almost
lethargic, gaze of the princess rested for a moment upon the ardent eyes
of the maid who stood motionless before her.
"The duke's jester who arrived last night awaits your pleasure without,"
said the girl.
"Bid him enter. Stay! The fillet for my hair. Seems he a merry fellow?"
"So merry, Madam, he mimicked the king last night in Fool's hall, beat
Triboulet, appointed knaves in jest to high offices, and had been hanged
for his forwardness but that he narrowly saved his neck by a slender
device."
"What; all that in so short a time!" exclaimed the princess. "A most
presumptuous rogue!"
"The king, Madam, was behind the tapestry and heard it all: his
appointment of Thony as treasurer, because he is apt at palming money;
Brusquet, governor of Guienne, since he governs his own home so ill; and
Villot, admiral of the fleet, that he might sail away and leave his
pretty wife behind him."
"I'll warrant me the story is known to the entire court ere this,"
laughed the lady. "Won't Madame d'Etaille be in a temper! And the
admiral when he hears of it--on the high seas! The king was
eavesdropping, you say, and yet spared the jester? He must bear a
charmed life."
"He dubbed himself the duke's gift, Madam, and boldly claimed privilege
under the poor cloak of hospitality."
"Surely," murmured the princess, "there will be no lack of entertainment
with this knave under the same roof. Too much entertainment, I fear me.
Well, admit the bold fellow."
Crossing to the door, the maid pushed it back and the figure of the
jester passed the threshold:--a figure so graceful and well-built, the
lady's eyes, turning toward him with mild inquiry, lingered with
approval; lingered, and were upraised to a fair, handsome face, when
approval gave way to wonder.
Was this the imprudent, hot-brained rogue who had swaggered in Fools'
hall, and made a farce of the affairs of the nation? His countenance
seemed that of a courtier rather than a low-born scape-grace; his bearing
in consonance, as, approaching the princess, he knelt near the edge of
her sweeping crimson garment. Quietly the maid withdrew to a corner of
the apartment where she seated herself on a low stool, her fingers idly
playing with the delicate carvings of a vase of silver, containing water
that had been blessed and standing conveniently near the aspersorium.
"You come from the Duke of Friedwald, fool?" said the mistress,
recovering from her surprise.
"Yes, Princess."
Louise smiled, and looked toward the maid as if to say: "Why, he's a
model of decorum!" but the girl continued regarding the figures on the
vase, seemingly indifferent to the scene before her.
"I hear, sirrah, but a poor account of your behavior last night,"
continued the princess. "You must have a care, or I shall send you back
to the duke and command him to have you whipped. You have been here but
overnight, yet how many enemies have you made? The king; the admiral,
and--last but not least--a certain lady. Poor fool! you may have saved
your neck, but for how long? Fie! what an account must I give of you to
your master!"
"Ah, Madam," he answered quickly, "you show me now the folly of it all."
"Let me see," she went on more gently, "what we may do, since you are
penitent? The king may forgive; the admiral forget, but the lady--she
will neither forget nor forgive. Fortunately, I think she fears to
disoblige me, and, if I let it be known you are an indispensable part of
my household--" she paused thoughtfully--"besides, she has a little
secret she would keep from the king. Yes; the secret will save you!"
And Louise smiled knowingly, as one who, although most devout, perhaps
had missed a few paters or credos in listening to idle worldly gossip.
"Madam," he said, raising his head, "you overwhelm me with your goodness."
"Oh, I like her not; a most designing creature," returned the lady
carelessly. "But you may rise. Hand me that embroidery," she added when
he had obeyed. "How do I know the duke, my betrothed, whom I have never
seen, has not sent you to report upon my poor charms? What if you were
only his emissary?"
"Princess," he answered, "I am but a fool; no emissary. If I were--"
"Well?"
She smiled indulgently at the open admiration written so boldly upon his
face, and, encouraged by her glance, he regarded her swiftly,
comprehensively; the masses of hair the fillet ill-confined; eyes,
soft-lidded, dreamy as a summer's day; a figure, pagan in generous
proportions; a foot, however, _petite_, Parisian, peeping from beneath a
robe, heavy, voluminous, vivid!
"If you were?" she suggested, passing a golden thread through the cloth
she held.
"I would write him the miniature he has of you told but half the truth."
"So you have seen the miniature? It lies carelessly about, no doubt?"
Yet her tone was not one of displeasure.
"The duke frequently draws it from his breast to look at it."
"And so many handsome women in the kingdom, too!" laughed the princess.
"A tiny, paltry bit of vellum!"
Her lips curled indulgently, as of a person sure of herself. Did not the
fool's glance pay her that tribute to which she was not a stranger? Her
lashes, suddenly lifted, met his fully, and drove his look, grown
overbold, to cover. The princess smiled; she might well believe the
stories about him; yet was not ill-pleased. "Like master; like man!"
says the proverb. She continued to survey the graceful figure,
well-poised head and handsome features of the jester.
"Tell me, sirrah," she continued, "of the duke. Straightforwardly,
or--I'll leave thee to the mercy of madam the admiral's wife! What is he
like?"
"A fairly likely man!"
"'Tis what one says of a man when one can say nothing else. He is not
then very handsome?"
"He has never been so considered!"
The princess' needle remained suspended, then viciously plunged into the
golden Cupid she was embroidering. "The king hath played with me," she
murmured. "He represented him as one of the most distinguished-appearing
knights in the emperor's domains. Is he dark or light?" she went on.
"Dark."
"Tall?"
"Rather short."
"His eyes?" said the lady, after an ominous pause.
"Brown."
"His manners?"
"Those of a soldier."
"His speech?"
"That of one born to command."
"Command!" returned the princess, ironically. "Odious word!"
"You, Madam," quickly answered the jester, "he would serve."
A moment her glance challenged his, coldly, proudly, and then her
features softened. The indolent look crept into her eyes once more; the
tension of her lips relaxed.
"Command and serve!" laughed the princess. "A paradox, if not a paragon,
it seems! Not handsome--probably ugly!--a soldier--full of oaths--a
blusterer--strong in his cups! What a list of qualifications!
Well"--with a sigh--"what must needs be must be! The emperor plays the
rook; Francis moves his pawn--my poor self. The game, beyond the two
moves, is naught to us. Perhaps we shall be sacrificed, one or both!
What of that, if it's a draw, or one of the players checkmates the
other--"
"But, Princess," cried the fool, "he loves you!
Passionately!--devotedly!--"
"A passing fancy for a painted semblance!" said the lady, as rising she
turned toward the casement, the golden Cupid falling from her lap to the
floor. In the rhythmic ease of her movement, in her very attitude, was
consciousness of her own power, but to the poet-jester, surrounded as he
was by symbols of worship and devotion, her expressed self-doubt seemed
that of some saintly being, cloistered in the solitude of a sanctuary.
"Nay," he answered swiftly, "he has but to see you--with the sunlight in
your hair--as I see you now! The pawn, Madam, would become a queen; his
queen! What would matter to him the game of Charles or Francis? Let
Charles grow greater, or Francis smaller. His gain would be--you!"
The fingers of the maid who sat at the far end of the room ceased to
caress the silver vase; her hands were tightly clasped together; in her
dark eyes was an ironical light, as her gaze passed from the jester to
her mistress. Almost motionless stood the princess until he had
finished; motionless it would have seemed but for the chain on her
breast, which rose and fell with her breathing. From the jeweled network
which half-bound her hair shone flashes of light; a tress which escaped
the glittering environment lay like a serpent of gold upon the crimson of
her gown where the neck softly uprose. A hue, delicately rich as the
tinted leaves of orange blossoms, mantled her cheeks.
She shook her head in soft dissent. "Queen for how long?" she answered
gently. "As long as gentle Claude was queen for Francis? As long as
saintly Eleanor held undisputed sway?"
"As long as Eleanor is queen in the hearts of her people!" he exclaimed,
passionately. "As long as France is her bridegroom!"
Deliberately she half-turned, the coil of gold falling over her shoulder.
Near her hand, white against the dark casement, a blood-red rose trembled
at the entrance of her chamber, and, grasping it lightly, she held it to
her face as if its perfume symbolized her thoughts.
"Is there so much constancy in the world?" she asked musingly. "Can such
singleness of heart exist? Like this flower which would bloom and die at
my window? A bold flower, though! Day by day has it been growing
nearer. Here," she added, breaking it from the stem and holding it to
the jester.
"Madam!" he cried.
"Take it," she laughed, "and--send it to the duke!" Kneeling, he
received it. "Thou art a fellow of infinite humor indeed. Equally at
home in a lady's boudoir, or a fools' drinking bout. Come, Jacqueline,
Queen Marguerite awaits our presence. She has a new chapter to read, but
whether another instalment of her tales, or a prayer for her Mirror of
the Sinful Soul, I know not. As for you, sir"--with a parting
smile--"later we shall walk in the garden. There you may await us."