AZENOR THE PALE.
A narrow spiral staircase, built of stone, led from the bottom of the
basement to the platform that surmounted the donjon of the manor of
Plouernel. The men at arms, charged with the lookout on the platform,
never failed to cross themselves when passing the door of an alcove,
situated on the last story of the donjon, that had for its annex one of
the turrets that rose from the four corners of the platform. It was
whispered that the narrow window of that turret seemed internally
illuminated at night by a glow of the color of blood, and these sinister
lights were attributed to the sorceries of Azenor the Pale, the
concubine of Neroweg VI. The seigneur of Plouernel had gathered in the
chamber of his mistress a mass of precious objects, the fruits of his
raids. A passage, concealed by a purple curtain, fringed with gold, gave
admission to another turret, whose upper part, roofed on a level with
the platform, served as the post for the lookout. Azenor the Pale, about
twenty-five years of age, was of a perfect beauty. Her face was pale and
her sensuous lips were the color of her skin, whence her surname. A
turban of rich purple silk fabric in the shape of a chin-cloth, served
as a frame for the visage of the sorceress, while it left exposed the
strands of her hair, black like her eyebrows and her large eyes. Her
tunic of silver cloth was negligently thrown over her shoulders. Her
bosom and arms were worthy of figuring beside that beautiful Greek
statue that has survived the centuries, and which, rumor has it, is
still admired in the palace of the Dukes of Aquitaine. The tunic of
Azenor, reaching only to her knees, left exposed below its silver folds
the skirt of her dress, purple like her turban. The woman was at this
moment engaged in molding a bit of pliable wax into two little figures
similar to the one inserted that very morning between the teeth of
Pierrine the Goat at the moment of her death agony. One of the puppets
wore a bishop's robe, the other a species of armor represented by a
dull-colored bit of cloth resembling iron. Azenor the Pale was inserting
a certain number of needles, disposed in cabalistic order, on the left
side of the breast of the two puppets, when the door of the alcove
opened behind her. Neroweg VI. entered his mistress' retreat, carefully
closing the door after him.
The Count of Plouernel, surnamed "Worse than a Wolf," and at that time
about fifty years of age, was of athletic frame. His hair no longer was
dressed after the fashion of his ancestor, the Neroweg, leude of Clovis,
nor after that of Neroweg, the "Terrible Eagle," savage chief of a
savage tribe. The red hair of Neroweg VI., already grizzled, was shaven
smooth to the middle of the temples and the skull, and then fell square
down his neck and behind his ears. The men of war had themselves thus
shaven in front to prevent their hair from interfering with their casque
and standing in the way of the visor. Instead of cultivating long
moustaches, like his ancestors, Neroweg VI. allowed to grow at full
length only his thick and coarse beard, which thus framed in his savage
countenance and his hooked nose. His heavy eyebrows met over his falcon
eyes, round and piercing. Always ready for war upon his neighbors, or
upon those troops of travelers that, at times, attempted to offer
forcible resistance to the brigandage of the seigneurs, Neroweg VI. wore
a casque, which he laid by on entering. His jacket and buff hose
disappeared under a hauberk or iron coat of mail, held to his waist by a
leathern belt, from which hung two swords, the shorter one at his right,
the longer at his left. The hauberk guarded his arms down to the
gauntlets, and fell slightly below his knees, which, like his legs, were
protected by iron greaves, held together with leathern thongs. The face
of Neroweg VI. betrayed a gloomy and troubled mind. Azenor the Pale,
still engaged in inserting the needles into the left sides of the wax
figures, was murmuring certain words in a strange tongue, and seemed not
to notice the arrival of the Count. He drew slowly near, and said in a
hollow voice: "Well, now, Azenor, is the philter ready?"
Without answering, the sorceress continued her magic incantations, at
the conclusion of which, holding up to Neroweg VI. the two puppets,
representing a bishop and a warrior, she said: "Tell me again, which are
the enemies whom you dread and hate the most?"
"The Bishop of Nantes and Draco, Sire of Castel-Redon. These are my
worst enemies."
"Yesterday I shaped a figure like this. Has it been placed as I ordered,
between the teeth of one about to expire on the gallows?"
"One of my serfs struck my bailiff. She was hanged this morning from my
seigniorial forks. At the moment when she gave up the ghost, the
executioner placed the wax puppet between her teeth. Your orders have
been carried out."
"In keeping with my promise, your enemies will soon be in your power.
Nevertheless, in order to complete the charm, these other two little
figures will have to be buried under the root of a tree, that grows at
the bank of a river, in which some man or woman was drowned."
"That's easily done. There are large old willows growing on the banks of
my river, and often do my men drown in it the stubborn sailors, or the
men or women who refuse to pay the toll for my rights of navigation."
"That magic spell must be cast by yourself. You will have to place these
little figures in the designated place to-night, when the moon goes
down, and you will pronounce three times the names of Jesus, of Astaroth
and of Judas. The charm will then be at its full."
"I do not like to see the name of Christ mixed up in all this. Are you,
perchance, seeking to lead me into some sacrilege?"
A sardonic smile played over the white lips of Azenor the Pale. "So far
from that, I have placed the magic charm under the invocation of Christ;
I pronounced a verse from the gospels with each needle that I buried in
these puppets. The Lord will thus be our protector."
"Had you not driven me to kill my chaplain, I might have been able to
consult him and learn from him whether I would be committing sacrilege."
"You killed the tonsured fellow because you suspected that holy man of
improper relations with your wife, and of probably being the father of
Guy----"
"Hold your tongue!" cried Neroweg, with a voice full of anger. "Hold
your tongue, accursed woman! Since that murder I have had no chaplain.
No priest, consents to dwell here. Enough of that. Is the philter
ready?"
"Not yet. Have patience, seigneur Count."
"What else do you want to concoct it? You wanted the blood of a young
child; the young son of one of my serfs has been delivered to you----"
"The child must be prepared for the sacrifice by magic formulas."
"In a word, can you tell me when will that marvelous philter, that you
have promised me, be ready?"
"I shall work upon it this very night, during the hours between the
rising and the going down of the moon; that's to say, for several
hours."
"That's another delay! My ailment grows apace! I suspect you of having
cast upon me the evil spell under which I struggle, and which drives me
to deeds of furious folly."
"You are wrong in attributing to me such an influence over your fate."
"Was it not you who incited me to kill my eldest son Gonthram?"
"Your son tried to violate me. Of course I had to appeal to your
intervention for protection against fresh outrages."
"Had not my equerry Eberhard the Tricky thrown himself between me and
Gonthram, I would have killed my son on his return from the hunt. He has
insisted that you offered to yield yourself to him if he consented to
stab me to death."
"That was a dastardly calumny!"
"Perhaps I should have plunged my dagger in your heart and be done with
you."
"And why did you not?"
"Because you read in the stars that our lives were bound together, and
that your death would precede mine by only three days. But if I am to
die of the distemper that oppresses me, a curse upon you, sorceress! You
shall not survive me. Garin the Serf-eater is charged with my vengeance.
Oh, you will not leave this castle alive!" Neroweg pressed his forehead
with both hands and proceeded in a spirit more and more dejected as he
spoke: "The philter--Will it heal me? Since you cast your diabolical
spell upon me, the days seem endless. I am indifferent to everything.
After I make the rounds of my domains, shut in among the seigniories of
my neighbors, all of them my enemies; after I have ravaged their lands,
burned their houses, killed their serfs; after I have levied ransom on
the travelers, had justice executed by my bailiff, my provost and my
hangman; after all that I feel sadder, wearier, more than ever tired of
life. I have even surprised myself wishing for death!"
"You wage war, you eat, you drink, you hunt, you sleep and you take your
female serfs to your bed when they marry. What is it you lack?"
"I am tired, cloyed with gross enjoyments. Wine tastes sour to me. I
feel uneasy when I hunt in my forests, fearful of some ambush prepared
by my neighbors. I find my donjon sepulchral like a tomb. I choke under
its stone vaults. If I leave the manor, I have ever under my eyes the
same saddening landscape."
"Leave the country, you stupid and savage wolf!"
"Whither shall I go and be happier? Here I am master. What would my fate
be elsewhere? During my absence, my neighbors would descend upon my
domains like a flock of vultures. The devil! I am bound to my seigniory
like my serfs to the glebe!"
"Your fate is that of all the nobles, your peers."
"But they are not weighed down by their existence like I. Only a few
years ago, during the life of my wife Hermengarde, I attacked my
neighbors as much for the pleasure of it as to appropriate their lands
and to sack their castles. I went on the hunt for caravans of merchants
with joy and spirit. I put the prisoners to the torture and delighted at
their grimaces. In short, I felt that I lived; I was happy; I ate and
drank enormously, and then fell asleep in the arms of one of my female
serfs. The next morning I attended mass and departed for the chase, to
battle or on a pillaging expedition; that is, on a new round of
pleasures." After a moment's silence the seigneur of Plouernel added,
with a sigh: "Those days I was a good Catholic! I practiced the faith of
my fathers, and every morning, after mass, the chaplain gave me
absolution for the deeds of the previous day! To-day, thanks to your
wicked contrivances, all my beliefs are overthrown. I have become a
pagan!--Aye, a pagan!"
"You, poor imbecile, who carry under your hauberk four relics blessed by
the Pope!"
"Will you dare to mock me for my faith in relics?" bellowed Neroweg in a
towering rage. "Without the relics that I carry about me you might by
this time have dragged me to the bottom of hell, you worthy wife of
Satan!"
"Maychance you speak truth, seigneur Count!"
"There is nothing human about you! Your lips are cold as marble; your
kisses are frozen!"
"When a reciprocal love shall inflame my veins, then my lips will grow
purple, and my kisses will be of fire!"
"Oh, I know it; you never loved me!"
"As well love a wolf of the forest as a Neroweg. You carried me off by
force, and I have had to submit to your lust. The man whom I adore, whom
I have long loved, even without seeing him, is William the Ninth, the
handsome Duke of Aquitaine."
"William!" exclaimed Neroweg in an accent of ferocious jealousy. "That
sacrilegious wretch, who carries on his shield the portrait of
Malborgiane, his mistress!"
"William is a poet; he is young, handsome, bold, bright and gay. All
women dream of, and all men dread him. You are his vassal. Woe unto you
should you dare cross him! He would leave not one stone on the other in
your castle. He would make you grovel on the ground on hands and knees;
he would clap a saddle on you and ride on your back a hundred steps at a
stretch, agreeable to the right of a sovereign over his revolted vassal.
You are as far removed from the handsome Duke of Aquitaine as the dull
buzzard is from the noble falcon that darts towards the sun making its
golden bells tinkle!"
Neroweg uttered a cry of rage, and, drawing his dagger, rushed upon
Azenor. But her marble figure remained impassive, her white lips curled
in disdainful smile. "Kill me, coward knight, assassin!"
After a moment of savage irresolution, Neroweg returned his dagger to
the scabbard: "Oh, damned be the day I captured you on the road to
Angers. It is you who brought down the curse that rests upon this
castle. But will ye, nill ye, you shall yourself break the spell you
have thrown upon me and my children, who, like their father, are
becoming somber and silent."
"That's the business of the philter, which I am preparing."
The conversation was at this point interrupted by two raps on the door
from without. Neroweg asked roughly: "Who's that?"
"Seigneur Count," a voice answered, "you are waited to open the session
of the court in the stone hall!"
Neroweg made a gesture of impatience, and, donning the iron casque which
he had laid on a settee, replied: "Once the homage of my vassals pleased
my vanity. To-day everything annoys, everything is irksome to me. Oh,
sad is my life!"
"To-morrow, thanks to my philter, nothing more will weigh upon you--nor
upon yours," observed Azenor, and, placing in the Count's hands the two
little wax images, she added: "Your two enemies--the Sire of
Castel-Redon and the Bishop of Nantes--will soon fall into your hands,
provided you yourself place these magic figures where I have told you,
while you pronounce three times the names of Judas, of Astaroth and of
Jesus."
"It is hard for me to pronounce the name of Jesus in connection with
this sorcery," remarked Neroweg, raising his head and receiving almost
fearfully the two little figures. "To-night the philter; if not, you die
to-morrow!" Then, bethinking himself, "Where is the child?"
"In that alcove," answered Azenor.
Neroweg walked towards the turret, raised the curtain and saw little
Colombaik, the son of Fergan the Quarryman, lying on the floor. The
innocent creature was sound asleep at the foot of a stand loaded with
vases of bizarre form. The walls of the turret, paneled with marble
slabs, rose bare to the ceiling, the floor of whose upper story was on a
level with the platform of the donjon. Neroweg, after contemplating the
child for an instant, stepped out of the donjon, double-locking the door
after him, and taking care to withdraw the key and place it in his
jerkin.