CHAPTER I

This eBook was created by Charles Aldarondo (pg@aldarondo.net).

IF I WERE KING

BY

JUSTIN HUNTLY McCARTHY

DEDICATION

To Her

Through Whom and For Whom

This Book was Written

"The Loveliest Lady this side of Heaven."

XXI. XII. MCMI.

If I were king--ah love, if I were king!

What tributary nations would I bring

To stoop before your sceptre and to swear

Allegiance to your lips and eyes and hair.

Beneath your feet what treasures I would fling:--

The stars should be your pearls upon a string,

The world a ruby for your finger ring,

And you should have the sun and moon to wear

If I were king.

Let these wild dreams and wilder words take wing,

Deep in the woods I hear a shepherd sing

A simple ballad to a sylvan air,

Of love that ever finds your face more fair.

I could not give you any godlier thing

If I were king.

CHAPTER I

IN THE FIRCONE TAVERN

In the dark main room of the Fircone Tavern the warm June air seemed

to have lost all its delicacy, like a degraded angel. It was sodden

through and through, as with the lees of wine; it was stained and

shamed with the smells of hams and cheeses; it was thick and heavy

as if with the breaths of all the rogues and all the vagabonds that

had haunted the hostelry from its evil dawn. Such guttering lights

and glimmering flames as lit the place--for there was a small fire

on the wide hearth in spite of the fine weather--peopled the gloom

with fantastic quivering shadows as of lean fingers that unfolded

themselves to filch, or clenched themselves to stab in the back. But

its patrons seemed to like the place well enough in spite of its

miasma, and Master Robin Turgis, the fat landlord, drowsy with his

own wine and dripping from the heat, surveyed them complacently, and

wallowed as it were in the rattle and clink of mug and can, the

full-throated laughter and the shrill chatter, crisply emphasized by

oaths, which assured him of the Fircone's popularity with its

intimates. Master Robin's intelligence was limited; his wit was

simple; the processes of his mind moved easily along the lines of

least resistance. The Burgundians might be hammering with mailed

fists at the walls of Paris; the fire-new crown of Louis the

Eleventh might be falling from the royal forehead: it mattered not a

jot to dishonest Robin so long as the Fircone brimmed with company.

There was enough company in the room on this evening to content even

his wish. It was not the kind of company that a wise man would

desire to keep, but it delighted the innkeeper, for it drank deeply

and spent freely, and in Robin's view it was of no more concern to

him how the money that changed hands was come by than it was how the

profound potations might affect the brains and stomachs of his

clients. If any officer of the law had questioned him as to his

association with a certain mysterious Brotherhood of the

Cockleshells whose plunderings and pilferings were the pride of the

Court of Miracles and the fear of citizens with strong boxes, he

would have shrugged his fat shoulders and shaken his round head and

disowned all knowledge of any such unlawful corporation. Yet his

face wrinkled with smiles as his glance rested amiably upon the

bodily presences of certain illustrious members of the brotherhood,

wild men in withered frippery, wine-stained to the very bones.

They were five in number, and four of them were huddled round a

table in the cosiest corner of the room, the corner that was

sheltered from the heat of the fire by the high-backed settle, the

corner that was nearest to the main door if one desired--as one

often did--to slip out in a hurry, and to the red-curtained windows,

if one desired--as one seldom did--a mouthful of fresh air. Robin

Turgis knew them all, admired them all, feared them all, and yet he

held head against them because his Beaune wine was so adorable, and

because he could keep his own counsel. Slender René de Montigny, in

a jerkin of rubbed and faded purple velvet, with his malign,

Italianate face and his delicate Italianate grace; rotund Guy

Tabarie, bluff, red and bald; Casin Cholet, tall and bird-like, with

the figure of a stork and the features of a bird of prey; Jehan le

Loup, who looked as vulpine as his nickname; these Robin Turgis eyed

and catalogued with a kind of pride. It was a fearsome privilege for

the Fircone to boast such patronage. On the settle, with his face to

the fire, Colin de Cayeulx sprawled in a drunken sleep, forgetting

and forgotten, a harmless looking, good-natured looking knave who

was neither harmless nor good-natured.

For every man of the gang there was a woman, and there was a woman

over, who was easily the central star of the flaunting galaxy. The

shabby bravery of the men was matched by the shabby bravery of five

out of the six women. Gaudy, painted, assertive strumpets with

young, fair, shameless faces--worthy Jills of the ill-favoured Jacks

who cuddled them--Jehanneton, the fair helm-maker; Denise, Blanche,

Isabeau, and Guillemette, the landlord's daughter, who consorted

gaily enough with these brightly-plumaged birds of a rogue's

paradise. But the sixth woman was a bird of quite another feather.

Over all the clatter this woman's voice rose suddenly as clear as

the call of a thrush, and the hot space seemed to cool and the hot

air to clean as she sang. She who sang was a girl of five and

twenty, whom it had pleased to clothe her ripe womanhood in a boy's

habit, that clasped her fine body as close as a second skin, and she

might have passed for a man no otherwhere than in a madhouse. She

looked very charming in the stained and faded daintiness of her male

attire. She wore a green velvet doublet and green woollen hose, with

a scarlet girdle and pouch about her waist, and a scarlet feather

stuck defiantly in her green cap, beneath which her long fair hair

tumbled in liberal confusion about her shoulders. She sat on the

edge of a table swinging one shapely leg loose and strained upon its

fellow while she nursed her lute as if it had been a baby, and

carolled as if there were no other work in the world to do than to

sing. The men and women who sat and sprawled around the table kept

quiet, listening to her and staring at her; sleepy Colin pricked his

ears; Robin Turgis was alert to hear, for he knew that it was worth

while to listen when Huguette du Hamel chose to sing. Robin Turgis

knew all about her. Her gentle blood was wild blood, and in spite of

her birth and her name she had drifted on the stream of strange

pleasure to be the idol of the Fircone's shrine. Her voice was sweet

and the tune had a tender, appealing grace, with a little minor wail

in it that brought tears into the singer's eyes, and she mouthed the

words as if she found them sweet as honey. And this is what she

sang:

"Daughters of pleasure, one and all,

Of form and feature delicate,

Of bodies slim, and bosoms small,

With feet and fingers white and straight,

Your eyes are bright, your grace is great

To hold your lovers' hearts in thrall;

Use your red lips before too late,

Love ere love flies beyond recall."

Her voice dropped and her fingers tinkled over the strings. René de

Montigny turned his dark, well-featured face in a sweeping leer that

seemed to taste the familiar graces with gusto. "Devilish good

advice, Dollies," he shouted, and as he spoke he hugged the nearest

girl close to him, and tilting up her chin with his free hand,

kissed her noisily. The girl squealed a little at his roughness; the

other pairs laughed and clasped after his example, only the singer,

unheeding, lifted her sweet voice again, and this time there was a

savour of gall in the sweetness of the honey:

"For soon the golden hair is grey,

And all the body's lovely line

In wrinkled meanness slipped astray;

The limbs so round and ripe and fine

Shrivelled and withered; quenched the shine

That made your eyes as bright as day:

So, ladies, hear these words of mine,

Love, ere love flutter far away."

The drift of the music seemed sadder than before, and there was a

little silence when the last words floated away into the blackened

rafters, a silence broken by one of the girls.

"Enne, that was a sad song, Abbess," Isabeau sighed, and her face

seemed to have paled beneath its false colours and the lines about

her mouth and eyes to have grown older in surrender to inevitable

thoughts. She whom the girl called Abbess laughed, and her mirth

sounded harshly after the dreamy sweetness of her song.

"Master François Villon made it for me t'other day," she answered.

"' You will grow old, Idol,' he said, 'and I make you this song to

teach you true things.'"

Guy Tabarie, whose red hair bunched out like little flames from the

fiery sun of his countenance, clapped his hands to the girl's waist

and thrust his face near to hers. "Kiss me and forget it," he

hiccoughed. The girl gave importunacy a little push which sent him

staggering back to his seat. "I have no kisses for any Jack of you

all but François," she said, while the others roared at the man's

discomfiture. "Ah, there is no one of you that can write songs like

him, or make one sad as he can in the midst of gladness."

The girl whom purple-coated René had kissed so rudely shivered a

little. "A strange reason for liking a man," she whispered, "that he

make you sad." She glanced wistfully round at her companions: to the

faces of the women the influence of the song had lent an unwonted

softness, but had brought no touch of tenderness to those of the

men. Jehan le Loup banged his fist heavily on the table in furious

protestation till the cans and flagons rattled.

"Is this a Court of Love?" he grunted, baring his yellow tusks in a

swinish rage. "There are other rooms for love-making," and he jerked

his thumb towards the roof. "We are here for drinking; we are here

for dicing; to the devil with smocks and sonnets."

He jumbled the ivories lustily as he growled and the familiar jingle

banished unfamiliar fancies. He slapped the spotted cubes on the

table and as they rolled into equilibrium eager eyes counted them,

and fingers eager or reluctant pinched or pushed at coins. The spell

of the music was broken. The melodious Abbess, with eyes now

glittering and tearless, swung her supple body from table to bench,

thrust herself a place among the players, shouted to Robin Turgis to

bring more wine, and spreading some silver on the dingy board

surrendered to speculation. Nobody heeded the faint clink which told

that a hand troubled the latch of the street door; nobody heeded the

faint creaking which showed that it was being softly opened; nobody

heeded the man who put his head gently through the opening and

looked thoughtfully around him. The new-comer was a grim-visaged

fellow, somewhere near the edge of middle age. He was dressed in the

sober habit of a simple burgess, and he used the long fold that hung

from his cloth cap very dexterously to hide his face. He peered into

the obscurity of the room with a disquieting smile that deepened in

its unpleasing expression as its owner surveyed the noisy fellowship

in the corner, and nodded his head as he seemed to identify its

members. Confident that nobody marked him he stealthily entered the

room, and holding the door ajar, he motioned to one who still stood

without to enter. The summons was answered by the entrance of

another figure, capped and habited like the first, who slipped in

swiftly and furtively, and made at once for the farthest and

loneliest angle of the room without looking to right or left, while

his herald, after closing the door as noiselessly as possible,

followed quickly in his footsteps. If Master Robin, dancing

attendance upon his clamourous customers, could have divined the

identity of the newcomers whose advent he regarded so indifferently,

his purple face would have paled and his stomach failed him at the

thought that the Fircone sheltered the baleful presence of the king

and of his malign satellite, Tristan l'Hermite.

The two strangers seated themselves at a small table in the very

pole of the room to the place where the Abbess and her friends were

busy, and the second of the pair, drawing a little apart the

dark-coloured fold of cloth that almost concealed his features,

looked around him curiously.

"Is this the eyrie?" he whispered, and his companion answered him in

the same low tone, "This is the Fircone Tavern, sire." The other's

finger was lifted to his lip at once in warning. "Hush, gossip,

hush," he muttered. "No title now, I beg of you. Here I am not Louis

of France, but a simple sober citizen like yourself. I suppose we

must take something for the good of the house?" His henchman

promptly replied that such action was indispensable. But Louis still

looked doubtful. "Will the liquor be very detestable," he asked,

inserting two thin fingers in the black pouch at his belt. Tristan

shook his head. "Nay, you can get good wine here if you know how to

ask for it--and how to pay for it."

"No one knows better than I how to ask for anything," chuckled the

king. "Or worse, how to for it," Tristan sneered. The king scowled

at him. "Then, why do you keep my service?" he snapped. Tristan

shrugged his shoulders. "Some dregs of devotion, I suppose. Here

stands Master Innkeeper." For by this time Robin Turgis was at their

elbow, scanning them narrowly with his small, pig--like eyes that

could make little, however, of the well-muffled faces. He waited on

their order with a kind of ferocious submission, draining his rank

forehead with a sweep of his dirty palm.

"Friend," said Louis, sniffing sardonically at the too odoriferous

personality of the taverner, "you behold here two decent cits who

have turned a penny, or twain in a bargain, and have a mind to wet

their whistles in consequence. Have you aught to offer that is good

alike for purse and palate?"

Robin Turgis nodded his round head and fondled his round stomach.

"We have a white wine of Beaune," he said unctuously, as if he were

tasting the wares he commended, "at two sols the flagon that is

noble drinking."

The king's sense of economy shivered at the sum; as if it had been a

wound.

"Pasques-Dieu!" he stammered. "So it should be at the price." Robin

Turgis remained unmoved: Tristan clinched the business. "Bring it,"

he said decisively, and as the landlord shambled away towards his

cellar, Tristan met the king's condemnatory frown squarely.

"I wear out my hands and feet in your service," lie said, "I want to

save my throat and stomach."

Louis made no answer and was mournfully silent until the obese

landlord returned with the much-vaunted vintage, which he set down

on the table with a brace of goblets. Louis fumbled with reluctant

fingers in his pouch, extracted the exact amount necessary for

payment and dropped it into the fat paw of Robin Turgis. But Robin

lingered and Louis looking at him in surprise met the admonishing

glare of Tristan. "Give him a penny for himself," Tristan whispered,

and the king, with an unwillingness he was at no pains to conceal,

added the demanded drink-money to the other coins, and eyed the

departing back of the landlord with well-defined aversion. "You are

generous with other people's pennies, friend," he snapped at his

companion, but Tristan, paying no heed to his querulousness, filled

the two cups with the clear golden liquid and thrust one of them

under the nose of the sulky monarch. Its fine dry fragrance soothed

Louis; he took a deep sip and was mollified; another and he had

forgiven if not forgotten his generosity. He winked at Tristan

amiably over the rim of the goblet. "This is seeing life, friend

Tristan," he murmured, contentedly, stretching his thin legs in

delicious ease. But Tristan was in no holiday humour.

"Let's hope it mayn't be seeing death, friend Louis" he snorted.

"There are a couple of rogues in that covey who would spit you or

split you or slit you for the price of a drink."

Louis laughed affably. "And no such cheap bargain," he commented,

"seeing what wine costs here. But this is an interesting business."

Tristan would concede nothing to the king's good-humour. "Where's

the interest?" he asked. "A few bullies, bawds and bonarobas boozing

together. You can keep the same company at court--only a shade

cleaner--and not be out of pocket for the privilege either."

The king's mouth puckered in appreciation of some memory. He leaned

forward and touched Tristan's sleeve.

"Gossip Tristan, there is at my court a scholar who told me an

Eastern tale."

"Pray God it be a gay one such as your majesty loves,"

"Hush, man; no 'Majesty' here. 'Tis of an Eastern King, one Haroun,

surnamed, as I shall be surnamed, The Just."

Tristan grunted sceptically, but Louis, ignoring the ejaculation,

went on.

"It was his pastime to go about Bagdad of nights in disguise, and

mingling with his people learn much to the advantage of the realm. I

am following his example, and I expect to learn much in my turn."

Tristan looked pityingly at the complacent king. "You are likely to

learn how unpopular you are, which I could have told you without

this trouble; and you will be lucky if you do not get your throat

cut into the bargain."

Something almost like a smile disturbed the familiar composure of

the king's wrinkles. He took another sip of the wine and his

affability expanded. "You are always a bird of evil omen," he

chirped. "Be bright, man; look at me. The Burgundian Leaguer is at

my gates; my throne sways like a rocking-chair, yet I don't pull a

sad face."

"It's a good thing that somebody is pleased," Tristan commented.

"Yes," said Louis, opening out his thin hands and studying their

palms attentively, "I am pleased--" Tristan interrupted him roughly.

"Pleased that the Burgundians threaten you outside the walls of

Paris; pleased that Thibaut d'Aussigny bullies you inside the walls

of Paris; pleased that your soldiers are mutinous; pleased that your

citizens are sullen; by my faith, here are four royal reasons for a

royal pleasure."

Louis shook his head playfully at his servant's grumbling. "Gossip

Tristan," he asked, "do you know why I have come to this hovel

to-night? I do not walk abroad like a king-errant in mere idleness

of mind. I have come to learn what company my lord the Grand

Constable keeps." Tristan's shaggy eyebrows arched in surprise as

the king continued: "Our good Olivier assures us that our dear

Thibaut d'Aussigny has taken it into his head of late to walk the

streets by night and to haunt strange taverns such as this same

Fircone. I am plagued with a womanish curiosity, Tristan, and I

thought I would peep over Messire Thibaut's shoulder and have an eye

on his cards."

Tristan chuckled. "The Grand Constable bears you a grudge since you

chose to turn a kind eye on the girl of Vaucelles."

"She was a wise virgin to dislike Thibaut," mused the king. "Was she

a foolish virgin to mistrust your majesty?" questioned Tristan.

Louis shrugged his shoulders. "She is a proud piece, gossip. When I

told her that she took my fancy she flamed into a red rage that

chastened me. But if she's not for me she's not for Thibaut either."

"The Grand Constable is a bad enemy," Tristan commented. The king

replied at random.

"Tristan, I had a strange dream last night I dreamed that I was a

swine rooting in the streets of Paris, and that I found a pearl of

great price in the kennel. I picked it up and set it in my crown--"

"A crowned pig," Tristan interrupted. "'Tis like a tavern sign."

Louis did not seem to resent the interruption.

"My good gossip, in a dream nothing seems strange. Well, as I said,

I set this pearl in my crown and the light of it seemed to fill all

my good city of Paris with glory so that I could see every street

and alley, every tower and pinnacle, more clearly than in a summer's

noon. And then memought that the pearl weighed so heavy upon my

forehead that I plucked it from its place and cast it to the ground,

and would have trodden it under foot when a star shot swiftly from

Heaven and stayed me."

The king looked eagerly at his companion, who seemed wholly

uninterested in the narrative of the royal vision. "Dreams and

stars, stars and dreams," he sneered. "Leave dreams to weaklings,

sire." Louis frowned. "Don't sneer, gossip, but instruct, who are

these people?" and the sharp, lean face of the king thrust itself

forward a little, bird-like from the nest of its hood, in the

direction of the gamblers. His companion shrugged his shoulders.

"Some of the worst cats and rats in all Paris," he answered. "The

men belong to a fellowship that is called the Company of the

Cockleshells, and babble a cant of their own that baffles the

thief-takers. If your majesty--" but here a warning kick from Louis

made him wince and change his words-"if you wished to savour

rascality these are your blades. The women are trulls. Yonder

she-thing in the man's habit is Huguette du Hamel, a wild wench,

whom men call the Abbess for her nunnery of light o' loves. There be

four of her minions with her now, Jehanneton la belle Heaulmiere as

they name her, Denise the slipper-maker, Blanche and Isabeau. Oh,

they are delectable doxies!"

King Louis pursed his thin lips in austere censure. "They shall be

reproved hereafter," he said. "Who are the men?"

"Worthy Adams of such pestilent Eves," Tristan answered. "That

slender fellow in the purple jerkin is one René de Montigny, of

gentle birth, and a great breaker of commandments. He with the red

hair is Guy Tabarie; they are sworn brothers in bawdry and larceny.

The ferret-faced knave who is tickling the girl's knee is Jehan le

Loup. Bullies and bawds, pandars and parasites: to enumerate their

offenses would be to say the Decalogue backward."

"You have a pithy humour, gossip," and Louis grinned. "Our gallows

shall be busy anon."

Tristan was abcut to open his mouth in approval of a sentiment so

pleasing to his ears when his words and his purpose were alike

arrested by a sound of a voice singing outside the tavern door.

The voice was a man's voice, something rough and strained for fine

music, and yet with a kind of full and florid sweetness that carried

the words clearly through the red-curtained windows. They seemed to

make a complaint of Fortune:

"Since I have left the prison gate

Where I came near to say good-bye

To this poor life that needs must fly

From the malignity of Fate,

Perchance she now will pass me by

Since I have left the prison gate."

If the king pricked his ear to listen, and even Tristan moved a

little in his lethargy, the effect of the song upon the company of

gamblers was instant and pronounced. The Abbess leaped to her feet,

crying out: "It is the voice of François!" "It is indeed his own

unutterable pipe," agreed René de Montigny, sweeping his winnings

into his pouch. Robin Turgis raised his hands in a comical despair

as he muttered: "Here is the devil out of hell again." All the men

and women were looking eagerly at the door.

"Who is this?" asked Louis of Tristan, "whose coming seems so to

flutter these night-birds?"

"The strangest knave in all Paris," Tristan answered. "One François

Villon, scholar, poet, drinker, sworder, drabber, blabber, good at

pen, point, and pitcher. In the Court of Miracles they call him the

King of the Cockleshells. Judge him for yourself."