Books: Masters of the Guild
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L. Lamprey >> Masters of the Guild
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With the elaborate meekness proper to his supposed low station he
answered, "You leave me no choice, my lord. To resist your will would be
suicide, and that is a mortal sin."
The knight grinned like a sour-tempered dog. "Take care," he said, "that
you change not your very praise-worthy views. Have you any little
diversion which may enliven a tedious hour at supper-time?"
Ranulph's quick mind had been turning over plans. He thanked a hard Fate
that his early experience in camps, markets, inn-yards and fairs had been
so thorough and so varied. In those days he had been what Biterres now
supposed him--one of those vagabond singers who sang popular songs and
often did tricks of jugglery, or danced, or gave acrobatic exhibitions,
wherever they found an audience. The panier in which the pigeons drowsed
was probably taken for a collection of costumes and properties.
The pigeons could not get through the barred window of his room. If they
were let loose in the courtyard and recognized as carriers, a bowman could
easily bring them down. But now he saw a way to elude suspicion.
"I have a trick," he ventured humbly, "which is most amusing, but it
requires a large shell or cofyn of pastry. When this pie is cut, live
birds fly out. But perhaps it would not be convenient to have your
lordship's cook troubled with this?"
Biterres made an impatient gesture. "Child's play--but it will serve. The
cook shall come for your orders. Have it ready before the drinking begins
or the men will not know whether you have larks or peacocks in the pie."
Ranulph bowed very low and left the hall.
"Peirol," he said when he re-entered the cell-like room, "we are prisoners
to a caitiff knight who has taken this castle and undoubtedly holds your
mistress and her friends also captive. I think he intends to carry off the
ladies, and I am not sure what will happen to the rest of us. If we can
get word to Count Thibaut's castle we may spoil the fellow's game. No one
must suspect, of course, that we have carriers with us. He takes us for
strolling mountebanks and desires us to amuse the company at supper. Now,
I have a plan."
He was already writing the letters to be sent by the winged couriers,
putting all his hard-won skill with words into the task of getting all the
information possible into a little space. If the rescuing party did not
come before Biterres took his prisoners away--and it was hardly to be
hoped that they could--at least they should have a fair start in pursuit
of him and evidence enough to punish him, if they received even one of
these missives.
Peirol heard the scheme with wide-eyed gravity. At the end he nodded.
"That fellow asked what we had here," he said pointing to the panier, "and
I told him when the pie was cut he would see."
"Good!" laughed the troubadour. "That was a lucky answer, Peirol. And here
comes the cook to make the pie."
The cook, a stout beady-eyed little man, eyed the two somewhat sulkily,
but went away grinning over Ranulph's jokes and fingering Ranulph's
generous fee. Furthermore he vouchsafed the information that the leader of
the mercenaries intended to leave the castle next day for the nearest
seaport, where he and his men would take a ship for Ireland. Lady Philippa
was destined to be the bride of Biterres himself; Alazais was to marry the
second in command, Griffon de Malemort. The other two demoiselles were to
be taken to Ireland, where the King would doubtless find them husbands. If
they would not agree to this they were to be sold to a Moslem slave-dealer
whose galley was somewhere about. The servants and defenders of the castle
had been herded into various rooms and locked up. The cook himself did not
mind a little recklessness on the part of military adventurers such as
these routiers, but he felt that this sort of thing was perilous. He
intended to give them the slip at the first opportunity, and they could
cook their own soup if they liked.
The plot, infamous as it was, had unfortunately nothing impossible about
it. Four unprotected girls could be taken in guarded litters to the sea-
coast and shipped to Ireland or to Cadiz, Valencia, Alexandria or Morocco
with no difficulty whatever unless some one got wind of the fact. As for
the Irish King, a man who had the sort of record he had, was not likely to
quibble over the means used by Biterres in getting himself a bride. And
before the captives within the castle could reach even the nearest of
their friends and bring help, the whole troop would have left the country.
Through the huge carved open-work screen at the end of the hall, after
supper was served, Ranulph had a view of the scene within. Biterres, with
the fantastic formality it pleased him to use, had insisted on the
attendance of his prisoners at supper, and the meal was served with all
due ceremony. Biterres and Malemort appeared to be acting with studied
politeness. The maidens were behaving with the dignity and self-possession
which became daughters of soldiers, although they were pale and woe-
begone. The troopers at the lower table were noisy and rude enough, and
Ranulph suspected that his entertainment had been ordered partly to keep
them from getting out of hand with drinking and rioting. He had contrived
a clown's costume from some of his belongings, aided by a little flour and
paint, and a bauble made of a toasting fork stuck through an apple. When
he pranced into the hall the soldiers yelled with surprise and delight.
Behind him at a discreet distance came a small boy, also attired in antic
fashion, carrying carefully in both hands a huge pie. The cook was peeping
through the screen to see what was going to happen.
Neither Ranulph nor Peirol gave so much as a glance at the captives, who
were too much amazed to say anything at first, and quickly saw the danger
of any betraying comment. The troubadour marched up to Biterres, asked
permission to sing, and began a doggerel ballad about one Sir Orpheus and
his magic harp. The harp, as the song explained, had the power of luring
pigeons, rabbits, wild geese, lambs, sucking-pigs and even fish from the
stewponds, into its owner's dinner-pot, so that Orpheus never lacked for
good living and became very fat. The bouillabaisse of Marseilles, the
Norman ragout of eels, the roast goose of Arles, the pigs' feet of Spain,
the partridge pasty of Periguex,--all the luscious dishes of a land of
good eating were described in a way that made these old campaigners howl
with reminiscent joy. The rollicking, impudent tune, the allusions to camp
customs more notorious than honest, went straight to the heart of the
blackguard audience, and half the voices in the room promptly joined the
chorus. Eurydice, the singer went on, was an excellent cook, so renowned
that the prince of the lower regions abducted her, and Orpheus was allowed
to regain possession of her only on the solemn condition that she should
make a pie for that sovereign every twelvemonth. This pie, according to
the final verse of the song, would now be cut, so that the company could
see exactly what a Plutonian banquet was like.
The troubadour borrowed a dagger from a man-at-arms, made one or two
slashes at the ornate crust of the pie--and out flew four live pigeons.
Then Peirol gave his birdlike call, and eluding the hands raised to catch
them the pigeons swooped down to him. Ranulph began to dance, playing his
lute at the same time, and the boy followed, with the doves flying above
him just out of reach. In saucy improvised couplets the troubadour called
upon one and another to join the dancing, until before any one quite knew
what was happening, the company in the lower hall was drawn into a winding
lengthening line following the leaders in a sort of farandole. The hall
was not large enough for this to go on indefinitely, and Ranulph suddenly
bolted into the outer air, where the shouting, laughing crowd paused for
breath--and the pigeons went soaring into the sky.
The party from the table on the dais came out to look on, and Garin de
Biterres, as he saw the mounting birds, grew suspicious. "Here, Jean!
Michaud!" he said sharply. "Loose the hunting hawks!"
Ranulph's heart missed a beat, but he dared not betray himself by a
tremor. Hawks could be trained to pursue carriers, but the doves had a
fair start and might be able to get away. The two birds of prey which the
men brought were moreover not the type of hawk used especially to hunt
pigeons, but young falcons or tercels. The men bungled in handling them;
they evidently belonged to the castle, not to the troop. When they finally
rose into the air, Pere Azuli, the veteran blue pigeon, and Rien-du-Tout,
the little dun-colored stray Peirol had trained, were almost out of sight.
The luckless Blanchette was lagging, and despite her frantic attempts to
escape her enemy she was soon struggling in the falcon's grip. Clair de la
Lune, the other white pigeon, seemed about to meet the same fate when
something unexpected happened.
Two wild hawks, beating up from the south, spied the pigeons, and pounced
one upon the tercel with the dove in his talons, the other upon Clair de
la Lune. In the scrimmage which followed Blanchette's little body fell
into the river, and the strange hawk gave chase to Pere Azuli, while her
mate began to devour Clair de la Lune at his leisure. The ruffled and
bewildered tercels were whistled back, and neither Garin de Biterres nor
his prisoners could be certain in the gathering twilight whether any of
the pigeons had escaped their pursuers.
The pigeon-chase had taken the attention of de Biterres and his men so
completely for a few minutes that Ranulph, without seeming to do so, came
near to Lady Philippa. A tiny roll of paper encased in a withered leaf
dropped from his fingers on the furred edge of her mantle. She bent to
shake off the leaf and her hand closed quietly over the letter. When
Ranulph had gone to sing ballads of the camp among the troopers, and the
young girls had been ceremoniously escorted to their guarded room, she
unrolled and read the missive. It was not long. "Dear and Honored Lady--I
pray you pardon the fooleries of the night, since in this way only could I
hope to escape the surveillance of these miscreants and do you service.
The pigeons we are loosing bear messages telling of your doleful plight,
and I doubt not that when it becomes known, help will come to you. Sir
Gualtier Giffard is, as you know, at your father's castle awaiting
messages from him, and we have thus every reason to hope that there will
be no mishap. For the rest, sweet lady, I rejoice that I am within these
walls, because you are here, and yet would I gladly go to the ends of the
earth if so I might hasten your deliverance.
"Ever your servant,
"RANULPH D'AVIGNON."
The loyal and generous words were like balm upon wounds. The last speech
that Garin de Biterres had made to her that night conveyed a terrifying
possibility.
"Lady Philippa," his cold harsh voice had fallen upon her ears like the
grating of a key in a prison door, "your father once refused me your hand.
I hope to find you more gracious, or at least more compliant. My captain,
Malemort, stands ready to wed the Lady Alazais as I would wed you, at high
noon to-morrow. The fate of the others depends upon you. As good Christian
maidens ye should all prefer Christian marriage to slavery among the
Moslems,--but gold in the purse is better than an unwilling bride."
It was not long after sunset when old Grimaud, Count Thibaut's gooseherd,
was aroused from a light sleep by a fluttering at his window. He found
huddled on the sill a small dun pigeon under whose wing nestled a roll of
writing. According to instructions, he took it at once to Sir Gualtier
Giffard, who found therein Ranulph's statement of the tragedy impending at
Montfaucon. It was like the crater of a volcano suddenly opened in what
had seemed a bright and fertile valley. On the very borders of this
paradise of luxury and delight lay a world where a thing like this was
possible. He strode hastily into the hall, told the news to the old
knight, a cousin of Count Thibaut's, who had charge of the castle for the
time, and left him to order out the garrison. Five minutes later he was
riding at a breakneck pace on his own fleet horse, to rouse the men who
had so short a time since been guests of the Count, to the rescue of his
daughter and her companions.
Thus it came to pass that early next morning a sentinel at Montfaucon
hurried from his watch-tower to make report to Malemort, and Malemort lost
no time in reporting to his chief. Peering from an upper window they could
see a strong force under the banner of Count Thibaut, flanked by the
devices of half Auvergne, coming at a sharp trot toward the castle. There
was neither delay nor discussion. Garin de Biterres had not found life
altogether pleasant, but he had no wish to end it with a rope around his
neck. If some peasant had carried a report of his doings to Count Thibaut
there was nothing to do but flee the vengeance now on the way, and that
instantly. Without waiting even to close the gates the whole troop of
mercenaries went galloping away. When the rescuers clattered into the
courtyard they found no one stirring save a little stout man in a cook's
apron, who was concocting something in a huge saucepan.
"I am Martin," he said to Savaric de Marsan. "I cook. But I do not cook
for cannibals, and my faith! I think that robber captain will end by
devouring his fellow-men. I have no mind to poison the food of his
enemies, either, so when they went away I hid in the great tun. I am at
your service, master."
Savaric was so much amused at the explanation that he then and there
decided to rescue Martin from further evil company and place him in his
own kitchen.
"There is some consolation for not catching Biterres," he observed to
Ranulph later, "in getting a cook like that little man. He deserves
something, truly, for giving you the information he did. And then, we are
rid of Garin for good now. He will never come back to Auvergne.
"You should have seen that Norman madman when your message came. He had us
under arms and riding for dear life before we fairly understood what had
happened. Yet from what Martin says, but for your daring and ready wit no
message could have come. You will not allow me to say what I think of
that, and therefore I suppose we must give all the credit to the victor in
our tournament of the pigeons,--little Sieur Rien-du-Tout!"
THE JESTERS
Where through the dapple of wood-shadows dreaming
Faun-footsteps pattering run,
Where the swift mountain-brooks silvery-gleaming
Carol through rain and through sun,
Thee do we follow, O Spirit of Gladness,--
Thee to whom Laughter gave suck.
We are thy people by night or by noontide,--
We are thy loves, O Puck!
Lips thou hast kissed have no pleasure in sadness,
Bitterness, cant nor disdain.
Hearts to thy piping beat bravely in gladness
Through poverty, exile or pain.
Gold is denied us--thine image we fashion
Out of the slag or the muck.
We are thy people in court or by campfire,--
We are thy slaves, O Puck!
We are the dancers whose morris-bells ringing
Sound the death-knell of our years.
We are the harpers who turn into singing
Our hopes and our foves and our fears.
Thine is the tribute wrung hard from our anguish
After the death blows are struck.
We are thy bondmen who jest while we languish,--
We are thy souls, O Puck!
III
THE PUPPET PLAYERS
In a blinding snow-storm that blotted out the roads and obscured the
outlines of the densely forested mountains, two youths and a small donkey
struggled over a mountain trail. Twice the donkey had to be pulled bodily
out of a drift, and once for an hour or more the wayfarers were racked by
the fear that they had lost their direction altogether. But at last, in
the edge of the evening, they saw the lights of the city twinkling like a
miniature Milky Way, and urged on their tired beast in the certainty of
food and shelter at the end of the day.
They were very unlike, these two strangers. He who seemed the leader was a
slender lad, dark and keen of face, who might from his looks have been
either French or Italian. In reality he was a Milanese, Giovanni
Bergamotto, the only survivor of one of the families driven out of Milan
when Barbarossa took the city. He had lived nearly half his life in France
and in England, and spoke several languages nearly or quite as well as his
own.
The other was a big-shouldered, sullen-looking fellow with black eyes and
hair and a skin originally brown and now still darker from his out-of-door
life--a Pyrenean mountaineer known as Cimarron. It was doubtful if he
himself knew what his name originally had been; to all who knew him now he
was Cimarron, the mountain sheep,--strong, sure-footed, and silent, and
not half as stupid as people often thought.
The two had been in Brittany, in Paris, in Sicily and in Castile during
the past months, and in each country they had made their way directly to
the place in which the ruler happened to be holding court. At court they
had exhibited the marionette show now packed away in the donkey's saddle-
bags, once, twice or thrice as the case might be, until Giovanni had
succeeded in gaining audience with the wife of the ruler. He carried
pedlar's goods of very choice varieties, which might well appeal to ladies
of the court in those days of slow transportation and few shops.
Now the King of England had three daughters, each of them being married to
some prince of importance on the Continent of Europe, and he had adopted
this means of sending certain letters to be given into their hands. The
letter was carried inside a marionette, the head of the little carved
wooden figure being so made as to unscrew and reveal a deep narrow hole in
the body. The last of the three was Matilda, wife of Henry the Lion Duke
of Saxony, the most powerful vassal of Frederick Barbarossa; and
Barbarossa and his court now occupied Goslar, the walled city of Prussia
which the two comrades were approaching. Giovanni wished to have the
Emperor's permission to go on to Saxony. It might save his being detained
as a spy or interfered with in some other way.
He wished also to discover how far the preparations for the invasion of
Italy had gone. From what he had heard he thought that Barbarossa was
about to gather his forces. He himself intended to join the army of the
Lombard League as soon as he had delivered his letter.
There was not much difficulty in finding an inn where they could have
supper, and sleep, rolled up in their cloaks, on the floor in a corner of
the common room. The donkey was unloaded and fed, and the saddle-bags were
brought in to serve as pillows. Having eaten, they lay down to the
dreamless sleep of healthy youth. Cimarron's mountain-bred ears caught the
sound, two hours after, of clanking swords and trampling horses, and he
signaled silently to Giovanni. Troopers clattered in, laughing, cursing,
calling for this and that, and not seeing the two motionless figures in
the dark corner at all. When all was still again Cimarron whispered,
"Who are they?"
"They are Swabian cavalry," answered the other. "We were none too soon.
The army is mustering already."
Next morning Giovanni cast about for means to get inside the walls of the
great castle, where the Imperial banner floated in the cold blue air. But
there seemed to be no disposition to encourage foreigners. Cimarron, who
could sometimes gain admittance as a horse-boy, was kicked out. There was
tumult and excitement in the streets. Giovanni, retreating to a narrow
alley to brush mud off his doublet, was aware that a man with keen
observant eyes was regarding him from the doorway of a wine-shop. The man
wore the cap and bells of a jester, and his fantastic costume was
gorgeously colored and ornamented. He was drinking a cup of wine, and when
that was finished he poured another for himself and began to sip it
slowly. Catching Giovanni's eye, he asked,
"What's in those great saddle-bags, my friend?"
Giovanni nearly jumped, for the question was in his own native dialect--
not only Lombard but the variety peculiar to Milan itself. But remembering
that he must not betray his blood he answered meekly, in French,
"I crave your pardon, master. I do not understand your question."
"I asked you," said the jester, "what you had in your luggage. It was an
idle question, but you might be a showman of Milan."
Giovanni laughed with mingled amusement and horror. "Milan, do you say? Is
it safe to say that name in Goslar? No, master, I am a poor showman from
Paris, asking only the opportunity to display my puppets before the great
folk. 'Tis a goodly show, I assure you, master--the play of the Ten
Virgins. Having but six lady-figures I am forced to make them serve for
the wise and the foolish virgins and the bride, but there are also a King,
who in this play is the bridegroom, the Merchant, the Monk, the Jester--
who is most amusing and can dance upon his head or his heels as you will.
The figures were carved by the most skilful wood-carvers of Paris, and the
play was written by a pious monk of the Benedictines." (Padraig the scribe
would have hooted at this.) "It is a most wise and diverting
entertainment, master, I do assure you." The jester seemed not to be
listening very attentively. He twirled the stem of the wine-cup in his
hand, crooning,
"'Fantoccini, fantoccino,--
Chi s'arrischia baldacchino,
Ognuno per se,
Diavolo per tutti.'"
Only long practice in self-control could have kept Giovanni from starting.
The rhyme was a common street-song which every lad in Milan, the city of
puppet-shows, would recognize, and not only did it refer to the puppets as
"fantoccini" instead of marionettes, but the significance of the last two
lines, "Each for himself and the fiend for all," was rather too pointed to
be pleasant. But he only bowed uncomprehendingly and awaited the further
comment of the singer with more interest than comfort.
"I have a mind to speak a word for your puppet-show," said the jester,
cradling his bauble in his arms. "The Emperor gives little thought to such
toys; nevertheless he may be graciously pleased to spend a few minutes in
that way to-night after supper. Follow me."
He strutted away, a small pompous figure in scarlet and orange, and
Giovanni noted the mingled deference and contempt with which he was
regarded by the crowd. No more trouble was experienced in getting the
donkey along the crowded streets. The fool's discordantly-clashing bells
opened a way everywhere. The porter at the castle gate grinned and flung a
jest at him, but admitted him and those who followed in his train, without
question.
A few steps farther on they were halted by a tall, thin, sour-looking man
in the elaborate headgear and robes of a dignitary of the household.
"How now, Master Stephen!" he said sternly. "What foolery is this?"
"Only a showman, Conrad," grinned the jester. "He has a puppet-show in
those fat bags of his. Did you think I was trying to smuggle meat-puddings
out of the kitchens for my own solitary meals?"
The steward was not satisfied. "Show me the puppets," he ordered. Giovanni
obeyed.
The steward scrutinized the bride and her maidens, pulled the strings
which moved the humpbacked jester, fingered the costumes, and then with a
curt nod bade them go on. "But mind you, Master Stephen," he said, shaking
a long finger at the fool, "you are to be responsible for these fellows
and keep them in sight from now until the time of the feast. If aught goes
amiss you shall be whipt."
The jester giggled, shook his bells, and began to climb a long flight of
stairs in a tower opening on the courtyard, beckoning the two youths to
follow him. Up and up they climbed, until at last the fool turned and
motioned them to halt.
"Come within," he said to Giovanni. "Let your servant await you with your
baggage on the landing here. He will tell us if any one approaches."
The room in which Giovanni found himself was a small wainscoted apartment
in the top of the tower, furnished in a grotesque fashion well suited to
the humped and twisted figure of its master. The jester flung off his tall
curved cap and seated himself on the corner of a table. From a flask he
poured out a cup of wine and offered it to his guest. "It is not drugged,"
he said with a laugh, "you need not fear. No? Ah, well, perhaps you are
right. I will drink it myself, though I should keep it for the night--the
nights are very long sometimes."
He set down the cup and leaned forward, peering intently into Giovanni's
face. "You gave me a start just now," he said. "I took you for a ghost--
the ghost of a man I once knew--Giovanni Bergamotto."
This was more than exciting; Giovanni's father had been one of the
murdered hostages of Crema, and if his name came to the ears of the
Emperor he would never leave the castle.
Searching his impassive face the jester nodded approvingly. "I knew it,"
he said. "No one else would have behaved as you did--and it is for Milan.
Milan!" He slipped from the table and stood up, the bells jangling a weird
undertone to his every movement. "It is better you should know--I am--I
was when I was alive--Stefano Baldi."
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