Part 11 (2/2)
”Have we ever met before?” he asked.
Noel le Jolys made a deprecatory gesture.
”Alas! no,” he said. ”Your lords.h.i.+p has swept into court like an unheralded comet. You shall tell us tales of Provence to please our ladies.”
Still gravely looking at him, Villon questioned him again.
”Messire Noel, if you and I had a mind to pluck the same rose from this garden, which of us would win?”
The affable fribble's intelligence appeared to be baffled.
”I do not understand you,” he protested.
Villon shrugged his shoulders. ”Never mind,” he said, seating himself again on the marble seat and looking at the familiar names on the piece of paper.
”Send me hither Rene de Montigny.”
He was fairly convinced by this time that he was not wandering in the labyrinths of a dream, that he really was awake, but that for some reason which he was unable to fathom, he had been thus strangely trans.m.u.ted into the semblance of splendour and authority.
”The popinjay fails to recognize me,” he said to himself; ”so may my bullies,” and as he thought, Rene de Montigny was pushed forward by a couple of soldiers and stood sullenly defiant before him.
Villon leaned forward, oddly interested in the grotesque turn of things which put him in this position with his old companion and fellow-scamp.
”You are--” he questioned.
Montigny answered angrily,
”Rene de Montigny, of gentle blood, fallen on ungentle days.”
”Through no fault of your own, of course?”
”As your grace surmises, through no fault of my own. I am poor, but, I thank my stars, I am honest.”
This remark, which was made aloud for the benefit of all and sundry, provoked a roar of laughter from Guy Tabarie which was promptly converted into a groan as an indignant soldier smote him into silence by a l.u.s.ty blow on the back. Villon caught him up on the a.s.sertion.
”Since when, sir? Since last night?”
”I do not understand your grace.”
”When Jason was a farmer in Colchis he sowed dragons' teeth and reaped soldiers. What do you grow in your garden, Sire de Montigny?”
Montigny gave a little start of surprise but his answer came prompt.
”Cabbages.”
Villon shook his head. ”Arrows, Master Rene, Burgundian arrows, most condemnable vegetables. Have a care! 'Tis a pestilent crop and may poison the gardener. Stand aside.”
Rene de Montigny stared at his interlocutor in a paroxysm of amazement. Here was his dearest secret loose on the lips of his questioner. It was the first time that he had ventured boldly to gaze into the face of authority and Villon returned his gaze defiantly. But there was no recognition in Montigny's eyes. He could see nothing in common between the splendid gentleman who now addressed him and the ragged rhymester who shared so many squalid adventures with him, and in an instant he averted his head respectfully.
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