Part 5 (1/2)
”Wait outside!” the m.u.f.fled lady commanded, and the servant with an obeisance stepped back into the street. The woman looked cautiously about her, only her bright eye showing over the lifted fold of her cloak. Villon was hidden from her while he sat; there was no one in her view save the two men playing cards. She came cautiously forward and touched Tristan, who was nearest to her, on the shoulder. He swung round, with hooded face, to answer the challenge, and as he did so Louis took advantage of his turned back to examine Tristan's hand, which he had laid upon the table, and to subst.i.tute a card from his own hand for one of his adversary's.
”Has Master Francois Villon been here to-night?” the woman asked.
Her voice was full and sweet, and Tristan knew it well though he listened unmovably. She had lowered her cloak enough to allow him a glimpse of a young, lovely face, but he needed no, glimpse to a.s.sure him.
”Yonder he squats by the hearth,” he answered, masking his own voice with hoa.r.s.eness and jerking his thumb towards the settle. The girl's eyes followed the signal and saw for the first time the huddled figure on the bench. ”I thank you,” she said simply, and moved away into the background, her eyes fixed on the crouching form, her fingers clasped nervously, waiting an impatient patience upon resolution.
Tristan leaned hurriedly over to the king.
”Zounds, sire! do you know who that was?”
Louis, smiling at his adopted cards, answered carelessly, ”Some bonaroba who took you for a gull,” but Tristan's nest words p.r.i.c.ked him from his indifference.
”It was your majesty's kinswoman, the Lady Katherine de Vaucelles.”
The king rose cautiously to his feet.
”Oh, ho, Oh, ho!” he chuckled. ”Does lovely Katherine come to meet Thibaut?”
”She seeks Francois Villon, sire.”
The king started.
”Is she the girl he spoke of? Do we catch her tripping?”
Louis looked at the motionless figure of the girl, then his gaze travelled rapidly around the room. Behind him was a doorway.
Soundlessly he opened it, saw that it gave on to a dark pa.s.sage, motioned Tristan through it, bade him in a whisper to wait in the darkness. As Tristan disappeared the girl seemed to make up her mind and moved slowly across the floor toward the dozing poet. The king watched her narrowly as he, too, began to move, skulking among the shadows along the wall. His goal was the distant s.p.a.ce behind the settle, where his cunning mind discerned a good listening place--for to listen was Louis' pa.s.sion. The king's cread was cat-quiet--the king's breath was mouse-still; for a moment he paused at the street-door as if about to pa.s.s out, but seeing that he was unnoticed he drifted unheeded through obscurity to his haven and nestled there just as the girl, bending forward, touched the sleeper firmly on the shoulders and then drew back, defiantly abiding by her temerity.
Villon moved uneasily, as if resenting the interruption to his slumbers that the firm touch had disturbed, and he grumbled sullenly, without looking up, ”What is it?”
The woman bent towards him again and whispered ”A word with you.”
Villon rose wearily to his feet, and as he did so the woman drew back towards the open centre of the room, which now appeared to her to be empty. Her nerves were too highly strung to note anything surprising in the disappearance of the two visitors. If she thought of them at all it was only to be glad that they had gone their ways and left the place so lonely. Villon followed her almost unconsciously, too sleepy for wonder. Suddenly the woman threw off the folds that m.u.f.fled her face and the vision that had haunted him flashed on his frightened eyes, the vision so proud, so beautiful and young. He crossed himself as he questioned in a voice that sounded strangely alien to him, ”Are you real?”
”Do I look like a ghost?” the fair woman answered.
In an ecstasy of joy Villon fell on his knees as he seldom kneeled in prayer, while he gasped,
”If this be a dream, pray Heaven I may never wake.”
The girl drew from her bosom a little piece of folded parchment and held it out towards him.
”You wrote me these verses. My elders tell me that poets say much and mean little; that their oaths are like gingerbread, as hot and sweet in the mouth and as easily swallowed. 'Are you such a one?”
Villon rose to his feet. He knew that this exquisite presence was flesh and biood; that her speech was human speech. He answered her very gravely--
”My words are life. I love you!”
”Just because I show a smooth face?”
A great wave of rapture swept over the poet's soul and his brain seemed as busy with words as a hive with bees. He spoke slowly like a man inspired.