In the Days of the Guild Part 19

"It is as well," smiled the physician, "to have them to your aid if possible. Some men have a--positive genius--for being on the wrong side.

The growth of a people is like the growth of a vine. It will not twine contrary to nature."

"But these are not your people," the Queen persisted. "No one will know who did the work you are doing."

"Cornelys Bat the tap.i.s.sier told me," Tomaso answered, "that no one knows now who it was who set the foot at work by tipping the loom over, and separated the warp threads by two treadles. Yet that changed the whole rule of weaving."

"I have a mind to see this tapestry," announced Eleanor abruptly. "Tell your Cat, or Rat, or Bat, whatever his name is, to bring his looms here. If he works well we will have something for our walls besides this everlasting embroidery. I have watched Philippa working the histories of the saints this six months,--I believe she has all the eleven thousand virgins of Saint Ursula to march along the wall. I am ready to burn a candle to Saint Attila."

Tomaso's eyes twinkled. That friendly twinkle went far to unlock the Queen's confidence. "Here am I," she went on impetuously, "mewed up here like a clipped goose that hears the cry of the flock. If there is another Crusade I would joyfully set forth as a man-at-arms, but belike I shall never even hear of it. I warrant you Richard will lead a host to Jerusalem some day--and I shall not be there to see."

The Paduan lifted one long finger. "You fret because you are strong and see far. Your descendants may rule Europe. The Plantagenets are a building race. You can lay foundations for kings of the years to come.

You have here the chance of knowing this people, whom none of your race did ever know truly. Your tiring women, the men who till these fields and live by their toil, the churchmen, the traders--knowing them you know the kingdom. Bend your wit and will to rule the stars, madam. Thus you bring wisdom out of ill-hap, and in that way only can a King be secure."

The Queen sat silent, chin in hand, her eyes searching the shadows of the room, for the storm had pa.s.sed and twilight was falling. "Gramercy for your sermon, Master Tomaso," she said at last, as she rose to leave the room. "Some day Henry will see that it was not I who taught the Plantagenets to quarrel. Send for your tap.i.s.siers to-morrow, and I will study weaving for a day."

To the comfort of all, the Queen was in a gay humor that evening. The carved ivory chessmen were brought out, and as she watched Ranulph and Philippa in the mimic war-game Eleanor pondered over the recent betrothal of Princess Joan to the King of Sicily. "Women," she muttered, "are only p.a.w.ns on a man's chessboard."

"Aye," laughed Ranulph, as his white knight retreated, "but your Grace may remember that the p.a.w.n when it comes to Queen may win the game."

The bulky loom of Cornelys Bat was set up next morning in the old hall, and the Queen came down to watch the strange, complex, curious task.

Then she would take the shuttle herself and try it, and to the surprise of every one, kept at the task until she might well have challenged a journeyman. While the threads interlaced and shifted in a rainbow maze her mind was traveling strange pathways. The shuttle, flung to and fro in deft strong skill, was not like the needle with its maddening st.i.tch after st.i.tch, and there was no petty chatter in the room. The Flemish weaver might be silent, but he was not stupid, and the drawboy, the dusky youth with the coa.r.s.e black hair, was like a wild panther-cub.

Such a blend as these weaving-folk, brought together by one aim, could teach the arbitrary barons their place. Normandy, Aquitaine, Anjou, Brittany,--England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales--what a web of Empire they would make! And if into the dull russet and gray of this England there came a vivid young life like her Richard's--yellow hair, sea-blue eyes, gay daring, impulsive gallantry--and under all the stern fiber of the Norman--what kind of a tapestry would that be? Thus, as women have done through the centuries, Eleanor of Aquitaine let her mind play about her fingers.

After a while she left the work to the weavers and watched Mary Lavender making dyestuffs under Tomaso's direction. It was fascinating to try for a color and make it come to a shade. It was yet more so to make new combinations and see what happened. Red and green dulled each other. A touch of orange made scarlet more brilliant. Lavender might be deepened to royal violet or paled to the purple-gray of ashes. The yarns, as the skillful Flemings handled them, were better than any gold thread, and the gorgeous blossom-hues of the wools were like an Eastern carpet.

Presently the Queen began devising a set of hangings for a State bedchamber, the pictures to be scenes from the life of Charlemagne--the suggested comparison of this monarch with the King had its point. An Irish monk-bred lad with a knack at catching likenesses came by, and made the designs, under Queen Eleanor's direction; and during this undertaking she learned much concerning the state of Ireland. That ended and the weaving begun, she took to questioning Cimarron the drawboy.

"I suppose," she jibed, "men grow like that they live by, or you would never have been driven out of London like sheep. I may become lamblike myself some day."

Cimarron's white teeth gleamed. "I would not say that we went like sheep," he retorted, and he told the story of their going. "There were the old folk and the little ones, your Grace," he ended. "The master cares for his own people, and his work. He does not heed other folk's opinions."

The Queen laughed gleefully. "I wish I had been at that hunting--the wolves driven by their quarry. My faith, a weaver's beam is not such a bad weapon after all."

More than ten years after, when Richard I. was crowned King of England, one of his first acts was to make his mother regent in his absence. It was she who raised the money to outbid Philip of France when Coeur de Lion was to be ransomed. As one historian has said, she displayed qualities then and later, which prove that she spent her days in something besides needlework. She did not stay long at King's Barton, but one of Cornelys Bat's tapestries was always known as the Queen's Maze. In one way and another during the sixteen years of her captivity she learned nearly all that there was to know of the temper of the people and the nature of the land.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MARIONETTES]

THE MARIONETTES

After the council comes the feast--and then Jongleurs and minstrels, and the sudden song That wakes the trumpets and the din of war,-- But now the Caesar's mood is for a jest.

Fellow--you juggler with the puppet-show, The Emperor permits you to come in.

Ah, yes,--the five wise virgins--very fair.

There certainly can be no harm in that.

The bride, methinks, is somewhat like Matilda, Wife of Duke Henry whom they call the Lion.

Aye, to be sure--the little hoods and cloaks All tricked out with the arms of Saxony.

This way--be brisk now--to the banquet-hall.

'Tis clever--here come bride and bride-maidens With lights in silvern lanterns. Very good.

Milan had puppet-shows, but none, I venture, So well set forth as this.... No Lombard here, He speaks pure French. Aha, the jester comes!

A biting satire, yes, a merry j.a.pe,-- The Bear that aped the Lion! A good song, 'Twill please the Saxon, surely. Now, what next?

Here come the foolish virgins all array'd In mourning veils, with little lamps revers'd.

The merchant will not sell them any oil, The jester mocks them and the monk rebukes them,-- A shrewd morality. Aye,--loyalty, Truth, kindliness and mercy, and wise judgment Are the five precious oils to light a throne.

A pretty compliment, a well-turned phrase!

Woe to the foolish Virgins of the Lombards If we find lamps unlighted on our way!

Then surely will the door of hope shut fast And in that outer darkness will be heard Weeping and howling.... So, is that the end?

Hark, fellow, you have pleased the Emperor, This ring's the token. Take a message now That may be spoken by your wooden King,-- The master-mind regards all Christendom As but a puppet-show,--he pulls the strings, The others act and speak to suit his book,-- Aye, truly, a most excellent puppet-show!

XVIII

THE HURER'S LODGERS

HOW THE POPPET OF JOAN, THE DAUGHTER OF THE CAPMAKER, WENT TO COURT AND KEPT A SECRET

Joan, the little daughter of the hurer, sat on a three-legged stool in the corner of her father's shop, nursing her baby. It was not much of a baby, being only a piece of wood with a k.n.o.b on the end. But the shop was not much of a shop. Gilles the hurer was a cripple, and it was all that he could do to give Joan and her mother a roof over their heads.

They had sometimes two meals a day; oftener one; occasionally none at all.

If he could have made hats and caps like those which he used to make when he was a tradesman in Milan, every sort of fine goods would have come into the shop. In processions and pageants, at banquets, weddings, betrothals, christenings, funerals, on every occasion in life, the people wore headgear which helped to make the picture. The fashion of a man's hat suited his position in life. Details and decorations varied more or less, but the styles very seldom did. Velvet and fur were allowed only to persons of a certain dignity; hats were made to show embroidery, which might be of gold thread and jeweled. Merchants wore a sort of hood with a long loose crown which could be used as a pocket.

This protected the neck and ears on a journey, and had a lining of wool, fur, or lambskin. Court ladies wore hoods of velvet, silk or fine cloth for traveling. At any formal social affair a lady wore some ornamental head-dress with a veil which she could draw over her face.

The wimple, usually worn by elderly women, was a scarf of fine linen thrown over the head, brought closely around the throat and chin, and held by a fillet. In later and more luxurious and splendid times, the cone-shaped and crescent-shaped head-dresses came in.

Hats were not common in the twelfth century. The hair fell in carefully arranged curls, long braids or loose tresses on the shoulders; the face was framed in delicate veils of silk or sendal, kept in place by a chaplet of flowers or a coronet of gold. Every maiden learned to weave garlands in set patterns, and could make a wreath in any one of several given styles, for her own hair or for decorating a building. Red, green and blue were the colors most often used in dress, and on any festival day the company presented a very gay appearance.

Gilles, however, was obliged to confine himself to the making of hures or rough woolen caps for common men. He had no apprentices, although his wife and daughter sometimes helped him. His shop was a corner of a very old building most of which had been burned in a great London fire. It was the oldest house in the street and was roofed with stone, which probably saved it. The ends of the beams in the wall fitted into sockets in other beams, and were set straight, crooked or diagonally without any apparent plan. Two or three hundred years before, when the house was built, the s.p.a.ce between the timbers had been filled in with interlaced branches, over which mud was plastered on in thick coats. This made the kind of wall known as "wattle and daub." It was not very scientific in appearance, but it was weather-proof. As there was no fireplace or hearth, the family kept warm--when it could--by means of an iron brazier filled with coals. Cooking--when they had anything to cook--was done over the brazier in a chafing-dish, or in a tiny stone fireplace outside the rear wall, made of scattered stones by Joan's mother.

Gilles was a Norman, but he had been born in Sicily, which had been conquered by the Norman adventurer Guiscard long before. He had gone to Milan when a youth, and there he had met Joan's mother--and stayed. The luxury of Lombard cities made any man who could manufacture handsome clothing sure of a living. "Milaner and Mantua-Maker" on a sign above a shop centuries later meant a shop where one could find the latest fashions. Gilles was prosperous and happy, and his little girl was just learning to walk, when the siege of Milan put an end to everything. He came to London crippled from a wound and palsied from fever and set about finding work.

They might have starved if it had not been for a Florentine artist, Matteo, who was also a stranger in London, but had all that he could do.

He lodged for a year in the solar chamber, as the room above the shop was called. Poor as their shelter was, it had this room to spare. Matteo paid his way in more than money; he improved the house. He understood plaster work, and covered the inner walls with a smooth creamy mixture which made a beautiful surface for pictures. On this fair and spotless plaster he made studies of what he saw day by day, drawing, painting, painting out and making new studies as he certainly could not have done had he been lodged in a palace. All along two sides of the shop was a procession of dignitaries in the most gorgeous of holiday robes. In the chamber above were portraits of the King and Queen, the Bishop of London, Prior Hagno preaching to a crowd at Bartlemy Fair, some of the chief men of the government, and animals wild and tame. He told Joan stories about the paintings, and these walls were the only picture-books that she had.

Then they sheltered a smooth-spoken Italian called Giuseppe, who nearly got them into terrible trouble. He not only never paid a penny, but barely escaped the officers of the law, who asked a great many questions about him and how they came to harbor him. After that they made it a rule not to take any one in unless he was recommended by some one they knew. It was worse to go to prison than to be hungry.

One day, when Gilles had just been paid for some work done for Master Nicholas Gay, the rich merchant, a slender, dark-eyed youth with a workman's pack on his shoulder came and asked for a room. Hardly had Joan called her mother when the stranger reeled and fell unconscious on the floor of the shop. He did not know where he was or who he was for days. They remembered Giuseppe and were dubious, but they kept him and tended him until he was able to talk. His tools and his hands showed him to be a wood-carver, and his dress was foreign. His illness was something like what used to be called ship-fever, due to the hard conditions of long voyages, in wooden ships not too clean.

When their guest was able to talk he told them that he was Quentin, a wood-carver of Peronne. He had met Matteo in Messina and thus heard of this lodging. He had come to London to work at the oaken stalls of the Bishop of Ely's private chapel in Holborn. These stalls, or choir-seats, in a Gothic church were designed to suit the stately high-arched building. Their straight tall backs were carved in wood, and the arm-rests ended in an ornament called a finial. Often no two stalls were alike, and yet the different designs were shaped to fit the general style, so that the effect was uniform. The carving of one pair of arms might be couchant lions; on the next, leopards; on the next, hounds, and so on. The seats were usually hinged and could be raised when not in use. The under side of the seat, which then formed part of all this elaborate show of decoration, was most often carved with grotesque little squat figures of any sort that occurred to the artist.

Here Noah stuck his head out of a nutsh.e.l.l Ark; there a woman belabored her husband for breaking a jug; on the next stall might be three solemn monkeys making b.u.t.ter in a churn. Quentin's fancy was apt to run to little wood-goblins, mermaids, crowned lizards, fauns, and flying ships. He came from a country where the forests are full of fairy-tales.

Joan would be very sorry to have Quentin go away. She was thinking of this as she sat in the twilight nursing her wooden poppet. When he came in at last he had his tools with him, and a piece of fine hard wood about two feet long. Seating himself on a bench he lit the betty lamp on the wall, and laying out his knives and gouges he began to carve a face on the wood.

Joan could not imagine what he was making, and she watched intently. The face grew into that of a charming little lady, with eyes crinkled as if they laughed, and a dimple in her firm chin. The hair waved over the round head; the neck was as softly curved as a pigeon's. The gown met in a V shape at the throat, with a bead necklace carved above. There was a close-fitting bodice, with sleeves that came down over the wrists and wrinkled into folds, and a loose over-sleeve that came to the elbow. The skirt fell in straight folds and there was a little ornamental border in a daisy pattern around the hem. When the statuette was finished and set up, it was like a court lady made small by enchantment.