Under the Rose Part 45

"Wild," he answered.

"Is the duke liked?" she went on.

"Yes."

"Do you know his--jester?"

"No."

For all the information he would volunteer, the man might have been Doctor Rabelais' model for laconicism, and a moment she stood there with a slight frown. Then she gazed at him meditatively; tap! tap!

went the tiny hammer in the mighty hand, and, laughing softly, she turned. These men of Friedwald were not unpleasing in her eyes.

Twice had she approached the tent wherein lay the fool, only to learn that the emperor was with the duke's _plaisant_. "A slight relapse of fever," had said the Italian leech, as he blocked the entrance and stared at her with wicked, twinkling eyes. She need be under no apprehension, he had added; but to her quick fancy his glance said: "A maid wandering with a fool!"

Apprehension? No; it could not be that she felt but a new sense of loneliness; of that isolation which contact with strange faces emphasized. What had come over her? she asked herself. She who had been so self-sufficient; whose nature now seemed filled with sudden yearnings and restlessness, impatience--she knew not what. She who thought she had partaken so abundantly of life's cup abruptly discovered renewed sources for disquietude. With welling heart she watched the sun go down; the glory of the widely-radiating hues give way to the pall of night. Upon her young shoulders the mantle of darkness seemed to rest so heavily she bowed her head in her hands.

"A maid and a fool! Ah, foolish maid!" whispered the wanton breeze.

The pale light of the stars played upon her, and the dews fell, until involuntarily shivering with the cold, she arose. As she walked by the emperor's quarters she noticed a figure silhouetted on the canvas walls; to and fro the shadow moved, shapeless, grotesque, yet eloquent of life's vexation of spirit. Turning into her own tent, the jestress lighted the wick of a silver lamp; a faint aroma of perfume swept through the air. It seemed to soothe her--or was it but weariness?--and shortly she threw herself on the silken couch and sank to dreamless slumber.

When she awoke, the bright-hued dome of the tent was aglow in the morning sun; the reflected radiance bathed her face and form; her heaviness of heart had taken wings. The little lamp was still burning, but the fresh fragrance of dawn had replaced the subtile odor of the oriental essence. Upon the rug a single streak of sunshine was creeping toward her. In the brazier which had warmed her tent the glowing bark and cinnamon had turned to cold, white ash.

Through the girl's veins the blood coursed rapidly; a few moments she lay in the rosy effulgence, restfully conscious that danger had fled and that she was bulwarked by the emperor's favor, when a sudden thought broke upon this half-wakeful mood, and caused her to spring, all alert, from her couch. To dress, with her had never been a matter of great duration. The hair of the joculatrix naturally rippled into such waves as were the envy of the court ladies; her supple fingers adjusted garment after garment with swift precision, while her figure needed no device to lend grace to the investment.

Soon, therefore, had she left her tent, making her way through the awakening camp. In the royal kitchen the cook was bending over his fires, while an a.s.sistant mixed a beverage of barley-water, yolks of eggs and senna wine for Charles when he should become aroused. Those courtiers, already astir, cast many glances in the girl's direction, as she moved toward the tent of the fool.

But if these gallants were sedulous, she was correspondingly indifferent. Anxiety or loyalty--that stanchness of heart which braved even the ironical eyes of the black-robed master of medicine--drove her again to the ailing jester's tent, and, remembering how she had ridden into camp--and into the august emperor's favor--these fondlings of fortune looked significantly from one to the other.

"A jot less fever, solicitous maid," said the leech in answer to the inquiries of the jestress, and she endured the glance for the news, although the former sent her away with her face aflame.

"An the leech let her in, he'd soon have to let the patient out," spoke up a gallant. "Her eyes are a sovereign remedy, where bolus, pills and all vile potions might fail."

"If this be a sample of Francis' damsels, I care not how long we are in reaching the Low Countries," answered a second.

To this the first replied in kind, but soon had these gallants matters of more serious moment to divert them, for it began to be whispered about that Louis of Hochfels had determined to push forward. The unwonted activity in the camp ere long gave credence to the rumor; the troopers commenced looking to their weapons; squires hurried here and there, while near the tents stood the horses, saddled and bridled, undergoing the scrutiny of the grooms.

Some time, however, elapsed before the emperor himself appeared.

Nothing in the bead-roll, or devotional offering of the morning, had he overlooked; the divers dishes that followed had been scrupulously partaken of, and then only--as a man not to be hurried from the altar or the table--had he emerged from his tent. His glance mechanically swept the camp, noting the bustle and stir, the absence of disorder, and finally rested on the girl. For a moment, from his look, it seemed he might have forgotten her, and she who had involuntarily turned to him so solicitously, on a sudden felt chilled, as confronted by a mask.

His voice, when at length he spoke, was hard, dry, matter-of-fact, and it was Jacqueline whom he addressed.

"You slept well?"

"Yes, Sire," she answered.

"And have already been to the fool's tent, I doubt not."

The mask became half-quizzical, half-friendly, as her cheeks mantled beneath his regard. Was it but quiet avengement against a jestress whose tongue had been unsparing enough, even to him, the day before?

Certes, here stood now only a rosy maid, robbed of her spirit; or a _folle_, struck witless, and Charles' face softened, but immediately grew stern, as his mind abruptly pa.s.sed from wandering jestress and fleeing fool to matters of more moment.

Under vow to the Virgin, the emperor had announced he would not draw sword himself that day, but, seated beneath a canopy of velvet, overlooking the valley, he so far compromised with conscience as personally to direct the preparations for the conflict. On his sable throne, surrounded by funereal hangings, how white and furrowed, how hara.s.sed with many cares, he appeared in the glare of the morn to the young girl! Was this he who held nearly all Europe in his palm? who between martial commands talked of Holy Orders, the Apostolic See and the Seven Sacraments to his priestly confessor?

And from aloof she studied him, with new doubts and misgiving, her thoughts running fast; and anon bent her eyes to the hill on the other side of the valley. In her condition of mind, confused as before a crisis, it was a distinct relief when toward noon word was brought that the free baron was approaching. Soon, not far distant, the _cortege_ of Louis of Hochfels was seen; at the front, flashing helmets and breastplates; behind, a cavalcade of ladies on horseback and litters, above which floated many flags and banners.

Would he come on; would he turn back? Many opinions were rife.

"Oh," cried a page with golden hair, "there will be no battle after all."

And truly, confronted by the aspect of the emperor's camp, the marauder had at first hesitated; but if the dangers before him were great, those behind were greater. Accordingly, leaving the cavalcade of the princess, her maids and attendants, the free baron of Hochfels, surrounded by his own trusted troops, dashed forward arrogantly into the valley, bent upon sweeping aside even the opposition of Charles himself.

"Yonder's a daring knave, your Majesty," with some perturbation observed the prelate who stood near the emperor's chair.

"Certes, he tilts at fame, or death, with a bold lance," replied Charles. "Would that Robert of Friedwald were there to cry him quits."

While thus he spoke, as calm as though secluded in one of his monastery retreats, weighing the affairs of state, nearer and nearer drew the soldiers of the b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Pfalz-Urfeld; roughly calculating, a force numerically as strong as the emperor's own guard.

The young girl, her face now white and drawn, watched the approaching band. Would Charles never give the signal? Imperturbable sat the mounted troopers of the emperor, awaiting the word of command. At length, when her breath began to come fast and sharp, Charles raised his arm. In a solid, steady body, his men swept onward. The girl strove to look away, but could not.

Both bands, gaining in momentum, met with a crash. That nice symmetry of form and orderliness of movement was succeeded by a tangle of men and horses; the bristling array of lances had vanished, and swords and weapons for hand-to-hand warfare threw a play of light amid the jumble of troops and steeds, flags and banners. With sword red from carnage, Louis of Hochfels drew his men around him, hurling them against the firm front of Charles' veterans. It was the crucial moment; the turning point in a struggle that could not be prolonged, but would be rather sharp, short and decisive. If his men failed at the onset, all was lost; if they gained but a little ascendancy now, their mastery of the field became fairly a.s.sured. Great would be the reward for success; the fruits of victory--the emperor himself. And savagely the free baron cut down a stalwart trooper; his blade pierced the throat of another.

"Clear the way to Charles!" he cried, exultantly. "He is our guerdon."

So terrible that rush, the guard of Spain on the right and the troops of Flanders on the left began to give way; only the men of Friedwald stood, but with the breaking of the forces on each side it was inevitable they, too, must soon be overwhelmed. Involuntarily, as the quick eye of the emperor detected this sign of impending disaster, he half-started from his chair. His hand sought his side; in his eyes shone a steely light. The prelate quickly crossed himself and raised his head as if in prayer.

"The penance, Sire," he murmured, but his voice trembled.

Mechanically Charles replaced his blade. "Yea; better a kingdom lost,"

he muttered, "than a broken vow."

Yet, after so many battles won in the field and Diet; after t.i.tanic contests with kings in Christendom, and Solyman in the east, to fall, by the mockery of fate, into the grasp of a thieving mountain rifler--

"Ambition! power! we sow but the sand," whispered satiety.

"Vainglory is a sleeveless errand," murmured the spirit of the flagellant.

Yet he gazed half-fiercely at his priestly adviser, when suddenly his gloomy eye brightened; the inutility of ambition was forgotten; unconsciously he clasped the arm of the joculatrix, who had drawn near.

His grip was like a gauntlet; even in her tense, strained mood she winced.

"The fight is not yet lost!" he exclaimed. As he spoke the figure of a knight, fully armed, who had made his way through the avenue of tents, was seen swiftly descending the hill. Upon his strong Arabian steed, the rider's appearance and bearing signaled him as a soldier apart from the rank and file of the guard. His coat-of-arms, that of the house of Friedwald, was richly emblazoned upon the housings of his courser.

Whence had he come? The attendants and equerries had not seen him in the camp. Only the taciturn armorer of Friedwald looked complacently after him, stroking his great beard, as one well satisfied. As this late-comer approached the scene of strife the flanks of the guard were wavering yet more perilously.

"A miracle, Sire!" cried the prelate.

"But one that partakes more of earth than Heaven," retorted Charles, with ready irony.

"Who is he, Sire?" breathlessly asked the young girl. At her feet whimpered the blue-eyed page, holding to her skirt, all his courage gone.

But ere he could answer--if he had seen fit to do so--from below, out of the vortex, came the clamorous shouts: