Part 30 (1/2)

Katherine's thoughts had wandered away from her escort; her mind's eyes were busy with waving banners, the shock of meeting lances, the glitter of steel coats and the beating of steel upon steel. Through all the melley, her fancy spied one s.h.i.+ning figure in bright armour like, so it seemed to her, Archangel Michael or Archangel Gabriel, riding in the pride of the fight with a smile on his lips, sorrow in his heart, and a token of white ribbon between his breast-plate and his breast.

She answered, not Noel's words, but her thoughts:

”My pride has the right to hate him, but I think he is still my soul's man.”

Noel was about to speak again, when he suddenly fell back and doffed his bonnet. Perched on the steps of the church stood the stooped sable figure of the king, just coming from his matinal devotions. In the shadow behind him stood his shadows--Tristan and Olivier.

Katherine, her attention swerved by Noel's glance, turned and swayed a reverence to Louis as he slowly descended the steps. The king surveyed them sardonically.

”Good morning, friends,” he said. Then turning to Noel, he ordered, ”Take the top of your speed to St. Anthony's gate and bring hot news of the battle.”

Noel bowed and sped on his errand. Katherine requested:

”Have I your majesty's leave?”

Tristan and Olivier withdrew themselves discreetly apart, under the shadow of the gallows, that building of all human buildings which was most dear to their hearts and most sacred in their eyes.

Louis came very close to the pale girl and whispered:

”Are you so hungry for your devotions that you cannot waste some worldly words on me? Are you still angry with me for the trick I played on you?”

Katherine's pale face flushed a little as she answered:

”It is wasted spirit to be angry with a king.”

Louis grinned.

”You are as pat with your answers as a clerk at matins. Could you give me your heart now if I bent my knee?”

Katherine stifled a great sigh.

”I lost my heart last night; I have not found it again.”

Louis flung up his hands in contemptuous amus.e.m.e.nt.

”The fellow was a fool to blab so glibly. I would have carried the jest farther. But he stood on the punctilio and would not win you without confession.”

The girl's heart swelled.

”I am glad he had so much honour,” she said, and the s.h.i.+ning figure in the bright armour seemed more archangel-like than ever.

Louis looked at her intently, tickling his chin with his forefinger.

”If you wait in the church for his homecoming, you will see how the jest ends,” he said.

Katherine made the king a profound reverence and slowly entered the church, every pulse of her body pleading in prayer for her lost lover. She scarcely heeded an old, bowed woman who tottered out, propped on a crutch stick, and who dropped the great lady a respectful curtsey as she pa.s.sed and went her ways into the silent streets. So the two women in the world whom Villon loved met for the firsf time.

Louis, left alone, beckoned to Tristan and Olivier, who hurried down to him.

”There goes a brave lady, gossips, a fair lady, a chaste lady. She sails in the high lat.i.tudes of lore and deserves to find the Fortunate Islands. Are there not better things to do with Master Villon than to hang him?”