Part 4 (2/2)
”It is the law of war. If the insane bishop, if the implacable Queen wish war, we must also keep as prisoners the two priests, the infamous hypocrites, who treacherously brought the archdeacon into the Valley.”
”I overheard the monks argue upon the lesson that they should administer to the two spies--they spoke of a strapping.”
”I expressly forbid any act of violence towards the two priests!” said Loysik in a tone of severe reproof, addressing two monk laborers who happened to be at the time in the cell. ”Those clerks are but the creatures of the bishop; they merely obeyed his orders. I repeat it--no violence, my children!”
”Good father Loysik, seeing you so order it, no harm shall be done them.”
Heartrending was the leave-taking between Loysik and both the inhabitants of the colony and the members of the community. Many tears flowed; many childish hands clung to the monk's robe. Vain were the recurring entreaties not to depart on his errand. He took his leave, accompanied as far as the punt by Ronan and his family. At the landing of the punt they found the Master of the Hounds and his posse ready posted to cut off the retreat of the Franks. As he took his post, the Master of the Hounds noticed on the other side of the river a number of slaves guarding the mounts of the warriors and the archdeacon's baggage.
The Master of the Hounds considered it prudent to seize both men and animals. Leaving one-half of his companions at the lodge, he crossed the river at the head of the rest. The slaves offered no resistance, and three trips sufficed to transport the men, the animals and the wagons to the opposite sh.o.r.e. Loysik approved the manoeuvre of the Master of the Hounds. Seeing that neither the archdeacon nor Gondowald returned, the slaves might have run back to Chalon and given the alarm. It was important to the project upon which the monk was bent that the recent occurrences at the monastery remained a secret. Considering his advanced age and the long road that he had to travel, Loysik decided to use the archdeacon's mule for the journey. The animal was re-embarked on the punt, which Ronan and his son Gregory decided themselves to take to the other sh.o.r.e, so as to remain a few minutes longer with Loysik. The craft touched ground; the old monk laborer embraced Ronan and his son once more, mounted his mule, and, accompanied by a young brother of the community, who followed him on foot, took the road to Chalon-on-the-Saone, the residence of the redoubted Queen Brunhild.
PART II.
THE CASTLE OF BRUNHILD
CHAPTER I.
IN THE TOWER-ROOM.
”Long live he who loves the Franks! May Christ uphold their empire! May He enlighten their chiefs and fill them with grace! May He protect the army, may He fortify the faith, may He grant peace and happiness to those who govern them under the auspices of our Lord Jesus Christ!”
By the faith of a Vagre! That pa.s.sage from the prelude to the Salic Law always recurs to the mind when Frankish kings or queens are on the tapis. Let us enter the lair of Brunhild--splendid lair! Not rustic is this burg, like Neroweg's, the large burg that we old Vagres reduced to ashes! No; this great Queen has a refined taste. One of her pa.s.sions is for architecture. The n.o.ble woman loves the ancient arts of Greece and Italy. Aye, she loves art! Regale your sight with the magnificent castle that she built at Chalon-on-the-Saone, the capital of Burgundy.
Magnificent as are all her other castles, none, not even that of Bourcheresse, can compare with her royal residence, the superb gardens of which stretch to the very banks of the Saone. It is a palace at once gorgeous and martial. In these days of incessant feuds, kings and seigneurs always turn their homes into fortifications. So also did Brunhild. Her palace is girt by thick walls, flanked with ma.s.sive towers. One only entrance--a vaulted pa.s.sage closed at its two extremities by enormous iron-barred doors--leads within. Night and day Brunhild's men-at-arms mount guard in the vault. In the inside courtyards are numerous other lodges for hors.e.m.e.n and footmen. The halls of the palace are vast; they are paved in marble or in mosaics, and are ornamented with colonnades of jasper, porphyry and alabaster surmounted with capitals of gilded bronze. These architectural wonders, masterpieces of art, the spoils of the temples and palaces of Gaul, were transported with the help of an immense number of relays of slaves and beasts of burden from their original and distant sites to the palace of the Queen. These vast and gorgeous halls, which are furthermore stored with ma.s.sive ivory, gold and silver furniture, with exquisitely wrought pagan statues, with precious vases and tripods, are but vestibules to the private chamber of Brunhild. The sun has just risen. The s.p.a.cious halls are filling with the Queen's domestic slaves, with officers of her troops, with high dignitaries of her establishment--chamberlains, equerries, stewards, constables--all coming to receive their mistress's orders.
A circular apartment, contrived into one of the towers of the palace, connects with the chamber that the Queen habitually inhabits. The walls are pierced by three doors--one leads to the hall where the officers of the palace are in waiting; another into Brunhild's bedroom; the third, a simple bay closed by a curtain of gilded leather, opens upon a spiral staircase that is built into the hollow of the wall itself. The Queen's chamber is sumptuously furnished. Upon a table, covered with a richly embroidered tapestry, lie rolls of white parchment beside a solid coffer studded with precious stones. Around the table a number of chairs are arranged, all of which are furnished with soft purple cus.h.i.+ons. Here and there the shafts of pillars serve as pedestals for vases of jasper, of onyx, or of Corinthian bronze, a material more precious than gold or red alabaster. Upon an antique green plinth rests a group exquisitely wrought in Parisian marble and representing the pagan G.o.d of Love caressing Venus. Not far from that group, two statues of bronze that age has turned green represent the obscene figures of a fawn and a nymph.
Between these two masterpieces of pagan art, a picture painted upon wood and brought at great expense from Byzantium, represents the infant Christ and John the Baptist, the latter also as a child. This picture of holiness indicates that Queen Brunhild is a fervent Catholic. Does she not carry on a regular correspondence with the Pope of Rome, the pious Gregory, who can not bestow too many blessings upon his holy daughter in Christ? Further away, upon yonder ivory stand, is an elaborately carved case in which large Roman and Gallic medals of silver and gold are displayed. Among these medals is one of bronze, the only one of that metal in the collection. What does it represent?
What! Here! In a place like this! That august, that venerated face! O, profanation!
Oh, never was the place or time more opportune for a miracle than here and now, in order to terrify evildoers! That bronze effigy should shudder with horror at the place in which it finds itself.
An elderly and richly clad woman, of stony, cynic and wily countenance, steps from Brunhild's bedroom and enters the apartment in the tower. The woman, of n.o.ble Frankish extraction and Chrotechilde by name, has long been the confidante in all the Queen's crimes and debaucheries. She steps to a bell, rings it and waits. Shortly after, another old woman appears at the door that opens upon the spiral staircase in the wall.
Her extremely simple costume announces that she is of inferior rank.
”I heard you ring, n.o.ble dame Chrotechilde, at your orders.”
”Did Samuel, the slave merchant, come as ordered?”
”He has been waiting below for over an hour with two young girls, and also an old man with a long white beard.”
”Who is that old man?”
”A slave, I suppose, that the Jew is to take somewhere else, after his business is done here.”
<script>