The Justice of the King Part 34

Ursula is sweet to kiss, Sweet to kiss, sweet to kiss."

I told Monsieur de Commines that was one thing I must have in a wife, and praise G.o.d, I have got it!"

"Hush, Stephen! Do you want all Amboise to hear your foolishness?"

"If that is foolishness, may I never be wise again. To me it is the one wisdom of the world. I think I am drunk this morning and it is only seven o'clock. Is not that scandalous? Love-drunk at seven in the morning and never to be sober again! Mademoiselle de Vesc, do you know you are the most beautiful woman in all France?"

"I know I am the happiest," she answered soberly. "But, Stephen, what have you got for the boy? I would not be a true woman if I was not curious."

"And you are the very truest woman----"

"Stephen, I will not have any more foolishness. Tell me at once what have you got for Charles?"

"Two small gifts: a coat-of-mail so fine in the links that you could hold it in your two hands--no! not in your two hands, they are only large enough to hold my heart. Then there is an embroidered mask, a tinselled toy of a thing but pretty enough. They will help him to dress his plays. Ask him, Ursula, if he will accept them from me even though I came by way of Valmy."

"Would you spoil his pleasure? No, I shall say nothing at all about Valmy, just that a wandering minstrel be so rich that he can make presents to a Dauphin of France! Sing me a song, Master Homer the blind, and I will give you--let me see: no, not what you think--a silver livre!" But she did not wait for his music. Dropping him a little demure, mocking curtsy she turned and ran down the box-edged path, singing as she went, and the air she sang was Stephen La Mothe's "Heigh-ho! love is my life; Live I in loving and love I to live!" and the lilt of the music set Master Homer's heart throbbing.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

SAXE RISES IN VILLON'S ESTIMATION

"There was a time," said Villon, "when I, too, could forget that rose arches are open at the ends. The world is always gaping at our elbow.

If we taste a peach in an orchard, the wall is low; if we smell a rose in a garden, there are, Heaven be thanked, more flowers than leaves when life's at May; and either way the world is with us."

"And you were the gaping world!" answered La Mothe, vexed for Ursula's sake that Villon of the bitter tongue should have discovered their secret. "Was that friendly of you?"

"Not gaping, no! But is a man to close his eyes when heaven opens? I beg you to believe," he went on with great dignity, "that just so soon as I made certain you had nothing to learn from me I left you to your rose-gathering. Observe I have not said one word about the thorns.

That is the stale gibe of the cynic whose heart of youth has dried before its time. And what if there are thorns? A single rose with the dew of love upon it is worth more than a pair of scratched hands.

Gape? Could you believe it of me--of me, Francois Villon? No, son of my teaching, I doffed my hat and went on tiptoe to see Saxe."

"Saxe!" cried La Mothe. "Never once have I thought of Saxe, never once all day, and now it is almost night."

"Don't distress yourself on that account. Saxe has wanted for nothing, thanks to his two best friends. That reminds me." Pausing, Villon rapped loudly on the table with his clenched knuckles, rapped until a servant familiar with his ways answered the summons. "My friend, fetch me a bottle of wine, one single bottle from the furthest-in bin on the right-hand side of the cellar. It is the '63 vintage," he explained to La Mothe, "and I have the best of reasons for knowing Saxe will not object."

"But why one bottle only?"

"I have been invited to a certain presentation," he answered, the crow's feet round his twinkling eyes deepening as he laughed. "Thanks, my friend," he went on as the drawer returned with the wine; "place it on the table and retire to your kitchen to meditate on the mutability of human fortune in the person of the greatest poet of his age, from the Guest of the Three-legged Maid of Montfaucon to 'Francois Villon, my friend' of the Dauphin of France! At last they are beginning to appreciate me at the Chateau."

"But what of Saxe?"

"Ah, Saxe?" Filling his horn mug he emptied it with such slow satisfaction that the flavour of no single drop of the wine missed his palate. "Saxe's best friend had been before me this morning."

"But Monsieur de Commines' orders were strict, only you and I were to see him."

"Not even your Monsieur de Commines can shut out a man from himself, and who is a better friend or a worse enemy? Saxe, the wise man, has hanged himself."

"Hanged himself? Saxe?"

"An intelligent antic.i.p.ation," said Villon, nodding thoughtfully. "I did not think he had so much good sense or good feeling. He always struck me as a man of a coa.r.s.e, material mind; but one can never tell."

"Villon, it is horrible! How can you talk so callously? But you know you do not mean what you say."

"Every word of it. Hanged he would have been in any case, that was inevitable. I warned him last night that he knew too much, and that more went into Amboise than came out again. And was it not better he should go to his end quietly, decently, just G.o.d and himself alone together--the Good G.o.d who understands us so much better than we do ourselves and so makes allowances? You don't agree with me?"

"I can only say again, it is horrible."

"Then what of the justice of the King which makes a man a spectacle in the market-place, with all the world agape at the terror of it, the world that licks its lips over lovers in rose arches or the gibbeting of wretches no worse than itself? Think of the terror of it! Think of the shame of it! The men he had drunk with, the women he had laughed with, the children he had played with, all ringed round him to see him die. And there he would hang till his bones dropped, a shame and a blot on the clean face of the earth, blackened by the heat, drenched white by the rain, twirled and swung by every breath of wind, while the pies and the crows made thimble-pits of his face, a waste rag of humanity. Come now, which is the decenter?"

"Poor Saxe!"

"If Saxe had had his way, there would have been no dew on the roses this morning. He would have lied Mademoiselle de Vesc to death without a scruple."

"She wished him no harm, of that I am certain."

"It is of the quality of roses to be sweet. But, La Mothe, say nothing to her; it would spoil her happiness, and we seldom get pure gold to spend through a whole day of life," a cynical truth La Mothe was to remember before a new morning dawned.

"Villon, how can you sit there drinking his wine?"

"My friend, would Saxe be the less hanged if I went thirsty? And, to be serious, if to go thirsty would unhang him, I would drink a second bottle of wine to make certain. If he had lived to fight for his life like a mad dog, as he would have done, Heaven knows how many he would have bitten. As it is, peace to him, and G.o.d be thanked there is no infection in a ten-foot rope. And yet I don't know! When I think of it, La Mothe, there is such an uncomforting resemblance between us three that I wonder which will go next."

"I admit no resemblance, at least to Saxe."

"Do you not? A fortnight ago he palmed off his bad wine upon me, I palmed you upon the Dauphin, and you palmed your bad verses off upon mademoiselle. Now Saxe is hung, and--bah! your presentation will save us two."

"You use too big a word, it is nothing but a trifling remembrance."

"It is a poet's privilege to use what words he chooses, and I choose presentation. Or," he pushed out his loose lips as he leered up at La Mothe with a shrewd twinkle in his eyes, "shall I call it another intelligent antic.i.p.ation? No, your own word will do better--a remembrance. The King--G.o.d bless him!--will presently die in earnest; the Dauphin, being King, will presently forget Monsieur Stephen La Mothe, forget the race for life on Grey Roland's back, forget the stairs of the Burnt Mill. Short memories are common diseases in princes. When, lo!--a wise youth you are, La Mothe--a remembrance jogs his recollection, and the King who had forgotten rewards Monsieur Stephen La Mothe for having saved the Dauphin's life twice over.

Monsieur La Mothe's fortune is made all through his intelligent antic.i.p.ation in bringing a presentation to Amboise by way of remembrance. Faith! La Mothe, it was almost prophetic, and prophets fare badly in Amboise. Look at Hugues! Look at Saxe! That ten-foot rope may be infectious after all."

"Villon, you are quite wrong."

"Pray G.o.d!" answered Villon soberly. "It's an ill of the flesh few recover from. But let us go to the Chateau." Pushing the unemptied bottle from him he rose with a sigh. His puckish, ironic humour had changed; gaiety was utterly gone, and the wrinkles upon his face were those of age, not laughter.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

LA MOTHE FULFILS HIS COMMISSION

Partly to divert the boy from his grief at Hugues' death, but partly also as an outlet for her new-found lightness of heart, Ursula de Vesc would have turned what Villon insisted on calling a presentation into a playful ceremonial. Gorgeously attired, the Grand Turk, seated on a divan of shawls and cushions, would receive the envoy of the Sultan of Africa bringing presents from his master. It would be just such a play of make-believe as the boy loved. But when La Mothe proposed to present the offering in the name of the King of the Genie her zest waned, and a little alloy seemed mixed with the pure gold of the day.

That would remind him of Valmy and spoil all his pleasure, she declared. There must be nothing of Valmy in the night's amus.e.m.e.nt.

So only she, Father John, and the dogs were present in the Dauphin's private apartment, study and playroom in one, when La Mothe and Villon entered. As is almost always the case, the room reflected many of the characteristics of its owner, and in its ordered disorder, its hints of studies, its litter of wooden swords and broken dog-whips, might be seen the boy who was almost man in gravity and yet still a child in a child's love of toys. Rising as the two were announced, his effort at dignity was sorely marred by the eager curiosity with which he eyed the linen bundle carried by La Mothe.