One morning Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:
"Come with me. Let us go and present our compliments to a certain
high noble I wot of, a most renowned and powerful personage!"
"Will he tell us where my wife is?" asked Lamme.
"Certainly," answered Ulenspiegel, "if he knows."
And away they went to Brederode, surnamed Hercule the Toper. And they
found him in the courtyard of his house.
"What do you want with me?" he demanded of Ulenspiegel.
"To speak with you, my Lord."
"Speak then," said Brederode.
"You are a handsome, brave, and powerful nobleman," said
Ulenspiegel. "Time was when you were able to flatten out a Frenchman in
full armour as though he were no better than a mussel in its shell. But
if you are brave and powerful you are also well-informed. Can you tell
us, therefore, why you wear this medal inscribed with these words:
'To the King, faithful even unto beggary'?"
"Yes," Lamme put in, "pray tell us why, my Lord!"
But Brederode made no answer, and only looked very hard at Ulenspiegel,
who thereupon continued his discourse in this wise.
"And why, pray, do you, you other noble Lords, seek to be faithful to
the King even unto beggary? Is it for the great good that he wishes
you? Or for the fair friendship that he bears you? How is it that
instead of being faithful to the King even unto beggary you do not
so act rather that the brute himself may be despoiled of his country,
and thus be made faithful for ever to beggary himself?"
And Lamme nodded his head to show his agreement with what his friend
had said:
Brederode looked at Ulenspiegel with his keen glance, and smiled with
pleasure at his handsome appearance.
"Either you are a spy of King Philip," he said, "or else a good man
of Flanders; and for whichever you are I will pay you your due."
So saying he led Ulenspiegel to his pantry, and Lamme followed close
behind. When they were come there, Brederode pulled Ulenspiegel's
ear till the blood flowed.
"This for the spy," he said.
But Ulenspiegel remained quite quiet and said nothing.
Then Brederode, pointing to a pipkin of cinnamon wine, bade his butler
bring it to him.
"Drink," said Brederode, "this for the good Fleming."
Ah!" cried Ulenspiegel, "good Fleming means sweet tongue for
cinnamon! Verily the saints themselves do not know the likes of it!"
When he had drunk half the tankard he passed the remainder to Lamme.
"And who," said Brederode, "who is this papzak, this belly-carrier
that needs must be recompensed for having done nothing?"
"This," said Ulenspiegel, "is my friend Lamme Goedzak, and whenever
he drinks mulled wine he thinks that he is going to find the wife he
has lost."
"That's so," said Lamme, sucking up the wine from the goblet most
devotedly.
"And where may you be going to now?" asked Brederode.
"In quest of the Seven," said Ulenspiegel, "the Seven that shall save
the land of Flanders."
"And who may they be?" asked Brederode.
"When I have found them," said Ulenspiegel, "then I will tell you."
But Lamme, who was grown sprightly with what he had been drinking,
suggested to Ulenspiegel that they should go there and then to the
moon, to see if his wife perchance was there.
"All right," said Ulenspiegel, "if you'll provide a ladder!"
And it was May, the green month of May, and Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:
"O Lamme, behold the lovely month of May! Ah, the bright blue of the
sky! The joy of the swallows! And behold, the branches of the trees,
how they are all red with sap, and the very earth is in love! Verily
this is now the time both to hang and to burn for the Faith. For they
are ready, the good little Inquisitors. Ah, what noble faces they
have! And theirs is the power to correct us and to punish us and to
degrade, and hand us over to the secular judges, or to imprison us--O
the fine month of May!--and to take us captive, and to proceed to trial
against us without serving any writ, and to burn, hang, behead us, and
to dig the grave of premature death for our women and our girls. In
the trees the chaffinch is singing! But upon him that is rich and
wealthy the good Inquisitors have cast a favourable eye! And it is
the King himself that shall enter into their inheritance. Then go,
my girls, dance in the meadows to the sound of bagpipes and shawms. O
the fine month of May!"
And the ashes of Claes beat upon the breast of Ulenspiegel.
"On, on!" said he to Lamme. "Happy are they that shall keep heart
high and sword drawn in the dark days that are coming!"