The Poniard's Hilt Part 22

"It is myself--your bishop--to doubt it is sacrilege!"

"Whence come you, good father?"

"I descend from heaven. After the sack of the episcopal villa, and seeing me carried away a captive by the Vagres--be they forever accursed!--the Lord sent His exterminating angels to my aid. They were clad in armor of hyacinthe, and armed with flaming swords. They s.n.a.t.c.hed me from the hands of the Philistines, took me on their azure wings, and carried me to heaven--"

"A miracle!" cried the entranced crowd in chorus. "A miracle!"

"Our holy bishop has seen the face of the Lord! Hosanna!"

"St. Cautin," cried up Neroweg, "you will protect me, dear patron saint, my dear father in Christ! Will you not bless your son?"

"Yes, I will bless you--provided always you prostrate yourself before the bishop of the Lord, and you enrich the Church!"

"I shall have a chapel built in your honor on this very spot, holy bishop, in order to glorify this miracle--"

"That is far from enough--no, that is not enough. Listen, count, listen attentively:

"Neroweg and his leudes fled like cowards from the episcopal villa when it was attacked by the Vagres.

"I order that the count relinquish one quarter of his goods to me, the bishop of Clermont; I order that he rebuild the episcopal villa, which he allowed the Vagres to set on fire, and that he richly ornament it.

"I furthermore order that Count Neroweg pursue the Vagres without let, that he capture and put them to death--all of them, but especially their chief and a relapsed hermit, a renegade, an idolater who accompanies the accursed men.

"Finally, I order that the count burn to death, over a slow fire, a certain Moabite woman, a witch, an infernal wench, who once was bound to me by the bonds of holy matrimony.

"Let Count Neroweg carry out these, my orders; only at that price shall his sins be remitted, and on the day of his death I shall admit him into paradise.

"That is the message that the Lord entrusted me to bear to you. Amen!"

Neroweg and a few of the leudes rose upon their knees open-mouthed. As they did so they perceived two bearded Vagres with their bows between their teeth crawling like serpents along a large branch in order to reach a spot from which, skilful archers that they were, they could take deliberate aim at their foes and nail them to the sod.

"Treason!" cried the count jumping to his feet and pointing to the tree.

"Treason! The Vagres are there, hidden in the tree branches!"

Hardly had the count said these words when a volley of arrows flew from the tree-top and riddled his troop. Finding themselves discovered, the daring Vagres hesitated not one instant to engage in battle. So accurate was the aim of the archers that every arrow found its quiver in the flesh of a foe.

"This is for you, Neroweg!" cried Ronan from the branch on which he was perched. "This is for you, the descendant of the Terrible Eagle! There goes the Vagre's arrow!"

Unfortunately the arrow's head was flattened out against the iron casque of the count. The other Vagres who, until now had remained hidden in the bushes, rushed forward with loud yells and intrepidly attacked the troop of Neroweg. The combat became general.

Who were the vanquishers in that combat? The Vagres or the Franks?

Malediction! After a stubborn struggle, almost all the Vagres were slain. A few who escaped the sword and others who were too severely wounded to flee remained prisoners in the hands of Neroweg. Ronan, the Vagre, was among the latter. The superiority of arms prevailed over mere courage.

And Loysik? And little Odille? And the bishopess?

All prisoners--yes, they were all taken to the burg of the Frankish count, while Bishop Cautin, carrying with him his gold and silver vases, regained Clermont followed by a pious crowd of slaves who cried on his pa.s.sage:

"Glory to our holy bishop! Glory to the blessed Cautin! Hosanna!"

PART III

THE BURG OF NEROWEG

CHAPTER I.

LEUDES AT HOME.

The burg of Count Neroweg is situated in the center of a s.p.a.ce once occupied by a fortified Roman camp. The structure is reared on a highland plateau that dominates a vast forest at its feet. Between the forest and the burg lies a wide expanse of meadow lands, watered by a swift-running river. Beyond the forest, far away, the horizon is bounded by the volcanic mountain peaks of Auvergne. The seigniorial residence that shelters the count and his leudes is built after the Germanic fashion: in lieu of walls stout beams carefully planed and fastened together, rest upon a broad stone foundation. At intervals, and with the view of steadying the one-foot thick beams, b.u.t.tresses of masonry rise from the stone foundation up to the roof, which, in turn, is constructed of oaken shingles and boards, one foot square, laid over each other. The roofing is both light and proof against the rain. The building is a long square, a wide wooden portico ornaments its front entrance, and it is supported on either wing by other structures similarly put together.

These are thatched and are devoted to the purposes of kitchen, storerooms, washhouses, weaving and spinning, shoe-making, tailoring, and all the other needs of a household. In these wings are also situated the kennels, the stables, the perches for the falcons, the pig-sty, the cattle-sheds, the wine-presses, the brewery, and large outhouses filled with fodder for horses and cattle. In the main, or seigniorial building are also the women's apartments reserved for G.o.degisele, the fifth wife of the count, whose second and third wives still live. There G.o.degisele spends her days in sadness; she rarely leaves her apartments and plies her distaff in the midst of her female slaves, who attend to the several duties of the needle and the spindle or loom. A frame chapel, in which a clerk, a messmate at the burg, officiates, is connected with the women's apartment, the latter being essentially a lupanar, to which no man save the count himself is admitted. There, under the very eyes of his wife, every evening after drinking, the count picks out his bed-fellow for the night. The leudes distribute themselves promiscuously among the outside female slaves.

These vast structures, together with a garden and a s.p.a.cious tree-girt yard intended for the military exercises of the leudes and of the foot soldiers, all of whom were freemen and Franks, are surrounded by a fosse and earthworks, the ancient vestiges of the Roman camp which dates from the conquest of Julius Caesar. The parapets are considerably impaired by the centuries, but they still present a good line of defense. Only one of the four entrances of the fortified enclosure--facing, as was the custom, north, south, east and west--has been preserved. It is the one facing south. On that side, a draw-bridge built of rough logs spans the fosse during the day, in order to afford a pa.s.sage to man, wagons and horses. But, as a means of precaution--the count is diffident and suspicious--the bridge is drawn at night by its keeper. The deep fosse, boggy by reason of the waters that it has drained from time immemorial and that stagnated in its bed, has so thick a layer of mud at its bottom, that any one who should attempt to cross the slough would be completely engulfed. At a little distance from the yard and far removed from the main building, but still within the fortified s.p.a.ce, stands an _ergastula_, built, like all Roman structures, of imperishable bricks.

The _ergastula_ is a sort of deep cave, intended during the Roman conquest as a lock-up for the slaves who were employed in field labor and in the building of roads. Ronan, Loysik the hermit-laborer, the handsome bishopess, little Odille and several other Vagres, all who had not died of their wounds since their capture, have for the last month been imprisoned in the _ergastula_, the jail of the burg, being thrown there immediately after the combat in the pa.s.sage of Allange, where most of the Vagres lost their lives. The rest fled into the woods.

Certainly the position of the burg, the n.o.ble Frank's den, was well chosen. The old Roman fortifications place the residence above the danger of a sudden attack. On the other hand, is the seigneur count minded to hunt wild animals, the forest lies so near the burg that during the first nights of autumn the loving stags and does can be heard belling for one another's company; is he minded to hunt birds on the wing, the meadows that surround his home offer to the falcons any number of flocks of partridges, while further away large ponds serve as a retreat to the herons who, often in their aerial contests with the falcons, transfix the latter with their long sharp beaks; finally, is the seigneur count minded to fish, his numerous ponds teem with pike, carp and lampreys, while azure-backed trout and purple-finned perches furrow the limpid streams.

Oh, seigneur Count Neroweg! How sweet it is to you to thus enjoy the delights of this land that your kings conquered with their own and the swords of their leudes! You and your fellows, the new masters of this soil that our fathers' labors fecundated, live in idleness and sloth. To drink, eat, hunt, play at dice with your leudes, outrage our wives, sisters and daughters, and then attend church every week--such is the life of the Franks who now possess the vast domains that they plundered us of! Oh, Count Neroweg! How good it feels to inhabit that burg, built by Gallic slaves who were carried away from their own fields, homes and families, and who were made to carry on their backs, under the threat of the clubs of your warriors, the timber from the woods, the stones from the mountain, the sand from the river and the lime from the bowels of the earth--after which, streaming with sweat, broken with fatigue, dying with hunger, receiving for their only pittance a handful of beans, they lay down upon the damp ground, their heads barely sheltered with a roof of rushes! At early dawn the bites of dogs woke up the sluggards--aye, and those selfsame keepers with sharp fangs, and trained for their office by the Franks, accompanied the slaves when they were led to their work, hastened their heavy steps when they returned at night bending under their heavy loads, and, if ever driven by despair, the Gaul a.s.sayed flight, the intelligent mastiff quickly drove him with its teeth back to the human flock, just as the butcher's dog drives back to the fold a recalcitrant ox or ram.

And did those slaves all belong, perchance, to the cla.s.s of laborers and artisans, strong, rough men, broken from infancy to hard labor? No, no!

Among those captives, more than one had been accustomed to comforts, often to wealth, and were carried away from their cities or fields with wives, daughters and sons, either at the time of the Frankish conquest, or later during the civil wars between the sons of Clovis; the women were consigned to the lodgings of the female slaves, there to attend to the female work of the household and furnish the Franks with subjects for debauchery; the men were a.s.signed to hard out-of-door work, to the building of houses, making of roads or tending the fields. Other slaves, once teachers, merchants and even poets, were captured on the roads as they traveled in troops from one city to another in pursuit of their respective occupations, imagining themselves safe against any attack in these days of war, pillage and general devastation.

Aye, slavery thus rendered the rich Gaul, who was ever accustomed to comforts, the brother in misery and sorrow of the poor Gaul who previously knew what arduous work was. Aye, the woman of white hands and delicate complexion was thrown together with the woman whose hands toil had roughened and whose complexion the sun had tanned--both were rendered by slavery sisters in dishonor and shame, and were cast weeping, or, if they resisted, bleeding into the bed of the Frankish seigneur, whom, on the Sunday following a Gallic priest would regularly give remission for his sins!

Oh, our fathers! Oh, our mothers! By all the sorrows that you underwent!

Oh, our brothers and our sisters, by all the sorrows that you now undergo! Oh, our sons! Oh, our daughters! By the dregs of the cup of humiliation and disgrace that you are made to drain! Oh, you all, by the tears that drop from your eyes, by the laceration of your bodies--you will be avenged! You will be avenged upon these abhorred Franks!

But let us step into the burg of the seigneur. By the faith of a Vagre!

By the sweat and the blood of our fathers that have moistened and crimsoned every beam, every stone of this structure--it is a comfortable, s.p.a.cious and handsome building, this burg of the seigneur count! Twelve well rounded oaken beams support the portico; it leads directly into the _mahl_, as these barbarous chiefs style the tribunal where they dispense their seigniorial justice--a vast, s.p.a.cious hall, in the rear of which, and raised on a platform, is the seat of the count, and the benches of the leudes who a.s.sist him in the ceremony. There he holds his _mahl_ and judges the crimes committed on his domains. In a corner of the room a stove, a rack and pincers are seen--no justice without torture and execution. In yonder opposite corner and even with the floor is a wide tank full of water and deep enough for a man to drown in. Near the tank lie nine plow-shares. These are all instruments for _judicial trials_; they are prescribed by the _Salic Law_, the law of the Franks, to which Gaul is now subject, seeing the land is in the power of Frankish conquerors.

And yonder door, made of solid oak, thick as a hand's palm, and covered with sheets of iron and enormous nails--that door is the door of the chamber in which the treasures of the n.o.ble seigneur are kept. Only he keeps the key. In that apartment are the large boxes, likewise ribbed with iron, where he locks up his gold and silver sous, his precious stones, his costly vases, both sacred and profane, his necklaces, his bracelets, his gold-hilted parade sword, his handsome bridle with its silver bit and his elaborately silver-ornamented saddle with stirrups of the same metal--all stolen from this n.o.ble land of Gaul.

Let us enter the banquet hall. It is night. By my faith! Those are curious candelabras. They are made of flesh and bone. Ten slaves--all burnt by the sun, worn and barely clad in rags--are ranked five on one side, five on the other of the table. They stand motionless as statues and hold aloft large flaming torches of wax that barely serve to light the place. A double row of rounded oak trunks, a sort of rustic colonnade, divides the s.p.a.cious hall into three compartments along its full length, reaching at one end the door of the _mahl_, and at the other to the count's chamber, which, in turn communicates with the apartments of G.o.degisele and her women.

Between the two rows of pillars stands the table of the count and of the leudes, his peers. To the right and left, and on the other sides of the two rows of pillars, stand two other tables--one is reserved for the warriors of inferior rank, the other for the princ.i.p.al servants of the count: his seneschal, his equerry, his chamberlains, seeing that the seigneurs imitate closely the customs and style of the royal courts. In the four corners of the hall, the floor of which is, obedient to custom, strewn with green leaves in summer, and straw in winter, stand four large barrels, two of hydromel, one of beer, and one of herbed wine, Auvergne wine mixed with spices and absinthe--a beverage pressed by the slaves of the burg. Along the wainscoting hang the count's hunting trophies, together with his arms of war and the chase--heads of stags, does and wild goats, all garnished with their horns; wild boars' and wolves' heads with their fangs exposed. The flesh and skin have been removed from these trophies; nothing remains but the whitened bones.

Boar-spears, pikes, hunting-knives and horns, fishing-nets, falcon coifs, implements of war, lances, francisques or double edged axes, swords, bucklers and shields painted in garish colors--all these are ranged along the walls. On the table lie spread sheep and wild boars roasted whole, mountains of ham and smoked venison, avalanches of cabbage in vinegar, the latter being a favorite dish with the Franks; chunks of beef, mutton and veal of the cattle fattened in the count's yards; small game, poultry, carps and pikes, the latter of which are of extraordinary size; vegetables, fruit and cheese raised and prepared on the fertile fields and farms of Auvergne; bowls and amphoras, incessantly replenished by butlers who run from the tables to the barrels and back again, are as speedily emptied by the Franks with the aid of wild bulls' horns that serve as their usual goblets. The horn used by Neroweg must have belonged to an animal of monstrous size. It is black and hooped from top to bottom in gold and silver. From time to time the seigneur makes a sign, whereupon several slaves standing at one end of the hall with drums and hunting horns, strike up an infernal music, which, however, is less discordant and deafening than the cries and laughter of the blockish Teutons, gorged gluttons, most of whom are at an advanced state of intoxication.

Who produced these wines, these mountains of venison, of fish, of beef, of pork, of mutton, of game, of poultry, of vegetables and fruit? Gaul!

The country that is cultivated and rendered fruitful by a population of starvelings, whose representatives, wan with hunger and privation in the midst of such plenty, officiate as living torches to light the banquet.

That heap of good things is produced by men and women who, huddled in mud and straw huts, are, at that very moment, and in utter exhaustion, partaking of a tasteless pittance.

Behold the Franks, gorged with food and wine; obscene jokes and challenges to drink and drink still more are bandied backward and forward; the hall is a roar of boisterous laughter; beyond all others the seigneur count is hilarious. At his side sits his clerk, who serves as his secretary and officiates in the oratory of the burg. According to the newly introduced custom that the Church authorized, the Frankish seigneurs are allowed to keep a priest and chapel in their houses. The clerk has been a.s.signed to Neroweg by Cautin. When making the a.s.signment, the wily prelate said to the stupid barbarian: "This clerk can neither grant you remission for the sins that you may commit, nor can he s.n.a.t.c.h you from the claws of Satan; only I have that power; but the constant presence of a priest at your side will render the attempts of the demon more difficult; that will afford you time, in urgent cases, to wait for my arrival without danger of your being carried off to h.e.l.l."