The Court Jester Part 5

"Her mother is dead, your Grace. Her mother bade me always to be a friend to her, and I promised."

"Her father is married to a woman who is unkind to her?"

"He--he--is about to be married, your Grace," stammered the woman.

"Cousin Anne," again interrupted the jester, "this woman is telling the truth about the visit to the shrine of Saint Roch. I saw her and the child going there this morning just as I was coming away after a long prayer to be relieved of the gout, which I never have had, but which may overtake me like a thief in the night."

Every one smiled at this remark save the d.u.c.h.ess, who again turned to the Austrian. "Why did you bring the child with you upon a journey fraught with discomfort, if not with danger?"

"Because, your Grace, I have sworn never to leave her, and never a night of her life has she slept without my first smoothing the coverlid over her little body."

"What is her name? Who is she?"

The Austrian was silent a moment. "If it please your Grace, there are reasons which forbid a reply to that question," she said slowly.

"But I insist upon a reply," said the d.u.c.h.ess Anne, with a touch of that firmness which made her appear older than her years.

The prisoner bent her head still lower as she replied in tones of emotion, "Gracious lady, so well beloved by your subjects, show us a little of that kindness you vouchsafe to others. We ask no favor but to be allowed to depart early to-morrow morning. It is _necessary_ for us to go. I know not what will happen if we are longer delayed. Believe me, I am speaking the truth."

"Truly," said the young d.u.c.h.ess gently, "we each have a right to the secret of our hearts." After a moment's reflection she said, "You shall go within five days at most, and in a company that will insure your protection. Until your departure you shall be made as comfortable as possible, and you shall not leave my domains empty-handed. This much at least I owe you for the discomfort you have suffered through my overzealous soldiers."

To remain as a guest in this splendid abode, and to receive a sum of money at the end of the visit, to say nothing of a safe conduct home, would not by most people be considered a hardship, but the woman looked as if she had received a blow. "Oh, lady," she moaned, "your Grace means to be kind, but let us go to-morrow. Not an hour longer must we wait. Even now our absence may be discovered."

"Discovered?" said the Lady Anne. "Why should a pious journey require so much secrecy? But guard your secret if you like. You shall depart within five days, as I have said; it may be a little earlier; it will not be longer than that time."

"Alas," cried the woman, turning wildly to the child and seeming to forget all caution, "what will _she_ say when she finds that we are away? Cold and revengeful as her father, she may send me to my death!"

"Of whom are you speaking?" asked the d.u.c.h.ess wonderingly. "Who has the power to punish so severely a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Roch?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I am Marguerite of Hapsburg!"]

Overcome by her emotion, the woman made no reply, but the child now stepped forward and said in a voice that all might hear, "The d.u.c.h.ess of Brittany has no right to keep me here against my will! I shall depart when I please. My rank is higher than yours. You ask my name? You shall know it, happen what will. I am the granddaughter of an emperor; I am the future Queen of France. _I am Marguerite of Hapsburg!_"

An earthquake shaking the palace from turret to donjon keep would not have caused a greater degree of surprise, for there was something in the manner, the tone, and the expression of the child that left no room for doubt. Her exquisitely-poised head was thrown proudly back, and though her full red lips quivered slightly, her eyes were dry and bright.

Strange to say, the fool of the company was the first to gain his self-possession. With a swift, gliding step he advanced toward the little lady, and kneeling he pressed her hand to his lips. "Mary's little child!" he exclaimed with a half sob.

"You said last night that you would give a year of your life to see the daughter of Mary of Burgundy, and now your wish is granted for naught,"

said Marguerite, smiling.

The Lady Anne now came forward, and clasping the princess in her arms kissed her on both cheeks. "The little lady whom of all others I have most desired to see!" she said. "Happily sheltered in the arms of my own dear father I heard of you, a tiny child away from your parents and in a strange country. And once I sent you a doll. I dare say you have forgotten it," she went on, half laughing. "It was a fashion model that had been sent to my grandmother, who was going to live at the court of France in the time of Charles the Seventh, and it was one of my dearest possessions. It wore a high pointed cap with a long flowing veil, and it had long pointed shoes."

"It must have looked like the old d.u.c.h.ess of Burgundy," remarked Le Glorieux, who was again his old impudent self. "Did it talk of the princess who kissed the poet, Cousin Anne?"

"It was dressed in the mode of the princess who kissed the poet," she returned, laughing. "Do you remember it, Lady Marguerite?"

"Yes, Lady Anne, and I have it still. Since the day you sent it I always have remembered you in my prayers. With it came a little chain set with pearls, but I liked the doll best."

Just here the jester began to laugh immoderately, slapping his knees and stamping at the same time, while every one else smiled in sympathy.

"What do you find so very amusing, Fool?" asked the Lady Anne.

He replied, "Some things that happen in royal families are so very funny that they would make Pandora, my hawk, laugh, though she is such a sulky little brute. Once explained to Pittacus, my donkey, and he would smile until every tooth in his head could be seen. You asked if this child's father was married to a woman who was unkind to her, and her nurse said he was about to be married. And you, Cousin Anne, ha! ha! you are to be the cruel stepmother!"

There was no denying the fact that the Lady Anne was about to be the stepmother of the Lady Marguerite, for Maximilian, who was still young and handsome, was shortly to marry the young d.u.c.h.ess of Brittany.

But again the d.u.c.h.ess seemed to be embarra.s.sed, and she turned her back to Le Glorieux as she said, "My dear Lady Marguerite, I will not keep you here a moment when you must be overcome with fatigue. I will send you to your apartments, where supper shall be served you, and then when you have retired and are resting I will come and talk to you, if I may."

The princess, so far from being conducted to the plain but comfortable quarters which would have been hers had her ident.i.ty remained a secret, was now shown all the deference accorded a person of rank. Pages, maids, and even ladies of high degree, rushed about to make her comfortable, a delicious supper was served, and she lay down to rest beneath the gold-embroidered canopy of a couch even more sumptuous than her own bed in the palace of Amboise.

Cunegunda, who had been given a room next to that of her young mistress, after smoothing the silken coverlid over her young charge, satisfied that nothing dreadful was going to happen to-night, at least, had retired, and was sleeping the sleep of the fatigued when the Lady Anne entered the apartment of her young guest.

The d.u.c.h.ess had changed her gown for a long robe of dark blue silk trimmed in fur, with a little cap of the same, and in this plainer garb she seemed younger and less stately than in the earlier part of the evening.

The princess, with her bright hair flowing over the cushions against which she leaned, seemed pathetically young, and it is a singular fact that about these two children revolved the most important events in the history of Europe at that time, events which drove great statesmen to their wits' end, and changed the map of France for all time.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "And now tell me all about it"]

Sitting on the edge of the bed the Lady Anne took the hand Marguerite stretched out to her, and stroking it gently, said simply, "And now tell me all about it. I long to know why France so lightly guards a princess intrusted to her keeping."

"It was as Cunegunda told you," was the reply. "She was suffering and the leeches frightened her. She always has been my nurse. When I was a baby, and, by the desire of our subjects, was sent with my brother to live in Flanders, my beautiful young mother--whom I can not remember--made Cunegunda promise never to leave me, for she knew that my nurse loved me, and love can not be bought. My mother, as you know, was killed when hunting, but Cunegunda never forgot her promise. She came to France with me, and though there are with me Lady Ravenstein and others of my father's court, I feel that none of them is so fond of me as she, for I know that if necessary she would give her life for mine. Anne of Beaujeu, d.u.c.h.ess of Bourbon and sister to the king, is like King Louis, her father, and she would not scruple to take a cruel revenge should she feel so inclined. We both dislike her very much, and that is why we are anxious to return before she hears of our absence."

"Did no one know that you had left the palace of Amboise?" asked the d.u.c.h.ess.

"Only a few of the servants, who were bribed to keep silence. The d.u.c.h.ess of Bourbon lately has been away, and I have seen but little of her. Some of the other ladies have been ill, and one of them is about to be married. Cunegunda gave it out that I had been attacked by some contagious childish malady, I do not know what, and this kept them away from my apartments, and we stole out early one morning and mounting our mules came away."

"Were you not afraid to go on a journey without any one of authority in your train, and with no one to guard you from highwaymen?"

"No, Lady Anne. Cunegunda loves me, you know, and she was better than any one of rank. She made a little stuff gown for me, and she said that traveling alone and unattended we should attract no attention, and could go on our way unmolested.

"I have been quite happy during the trip, for it was all so new and so strange to me, and it was so pleasant not to be surrounded by people who were always watching me. But it was my fault that we excited suspicion.

I went down to the inn kitchen to see what the common people do when they are having a festival, and I felt that I must give a gold piece to the baby who had been named Mary in memory of my dear mother. It appears that ordinary people do not give away so much money, and that is what made the company at the inn suspicious."

"And no wonder, you innocent little girl," returned the Lady Anne, smiling. "A person of the station represented by your dress would have given, if anything, just the smallest piece of silver which is fastened to a bit of leather to keep it from being lost."

"I am afraid," went on the princess, "of the consequences of our trip to Cunegunda if our absence should be discovered, and as we have been away longer than we had planned, I fear that even those who were bribed to keep silence will think that something has happened to us, and will feel it their duty to report our absence. Cunegunda is afraid of this, and she is terrified when she thinks of Anne of Beaujeu. But as we shall go to-morrow morning, perhaps we shall be in Amboise before we have been missed."

"Indeed, you are not going to-morrow morning, my dear little sister and cousin," said Anne, using the term employed by royalties when addressing each other.

"Then I am afraid that we shall have a great deal of trouble when we do return," said the princess coldly. "Of course we can not help ourselves; we must remain here if you command it, but I can not see how if will benefit you to make us stay against our will. I had hoped that it would be different when you had been told who you were detaining; I am sorry now that I revealed our secret."

She turned her head slightly, and a tear rolled over her temple and dropped into the meshes of her bright hair.

The d.u.c.h.ess thrust her arm under the child's head, and clasping her affectionately said, "Do you think, foolish little one, that I am keeping you here for spite? Within a few days you shall set out for Amboise with an escort that even a queen would not disdain."

"It would avail us nothing to return in royal style if we were to be punished sorely at the end of the journey," returned Marguerite dryly.

"You shall not be punished. I already have sent a messenger to the King of France explaining your absence, stating that you are in my keeping, and that you will return in safety."