"Nay, but, brother, you are ever too scrupulous," said Petit-André. "If he issues word and warrant for his own execution, I see not how we can in duty dispute it. He that dwells at Rome must obey the Pope – the Marshal's-men must do their master's bidding, and he the King's."
"Hush, you knaves!" said the Provost-Marshal, "there is here no purpose concerning the King's person, but only that of the Greek heretic pagan and Mahomedan wizard, Martius Galeotti."
"Galeotti!" answered Petit-André; "that comes quite natural. I never knew one of these legerdemain fellows, who pass their life, as one may say, in dancing upon a tight rope, but what they came at length to caper at the end of one – tchick!"
"My only concern is," said Trois-Eschelles, looking upwards, "that the poor creature must die without confession."
"Tush! tush!" said the Provost-Marshal, in reply, "he is a rank heretic and necromancer – a whole college of priests could not absolve him from the doom he has deserved. Besides, if he hath a fancy that way, thou hast a gift, Trois-Eschelles, to serve him for ghostly father thyself. But, what is more material, I fear you must use your poniards, my mates; for you have not here the fitting conveniences for the exercise of your profession."
"Now, our Lady of the Isle of Paris forbid," said Trois-Eschelles, "that the King's command should find me destitute of my tools! I always wear around my body Saint Francis's cord, doubled four times, with a handsome loop at the further end of it; for I am of the company of Saint Francis, and may wear his cowl when I am in extremis – I thank God and the good fathers of Saumur."
"And for me," said Petit-André, "I have always in my budget a handy block and sheaf, or a pulley as they call it, with a strong screw for securing it where I list, in case we should travel where trees are scarce, or high-branched from the ground. I have found it a great convenience."
"That will suit as well," said the Provost-Marshal; "you have but to screw your pulley into yonder beam above the door, and pass the rope over it. I will keep the fellow in some conversation near the spot until you adjust the noose under his chin, and then" –
"And then we run up the rope," said Petit-André, "and, tchick! our Astrologer is so far in Heaven, that he hath not a foot on earth."
"But these gentlemen," said Trois-Eschelles, looking towards the chimney, "do not these help, and so take a handsel of our vocation?"
"Hem! no," answered the Provost; "the barber only contrives mischief, which he leaves other men to execute; and for the Scot, he keeps the door when the deed is a-doing, which he hath not spirit or quickness sufficient to partake in more actively – every one to his trade."
With infinite dexterity, and even a sort of professional delight which sweetened the sense of their own precarious situation, the worthy executioners of the Provost's mandates adapted their rope and pulley for putting in force the sentence which had been uttered against Galeotti by the captive Monarch – seeming to rejoice that that last action was to be one so consistent with their past life. Tristan l'Hermite sat eyeing their proceedings with a species of satisfaction; while Oliver paid no attention to them whatever; and Ludovic Lesly, if, awaked by the bustle, he looked upon them at all, considered them as engaged in matters entirely unconnected with his own duty, and for which he was not to be regarded as responsible in one way or other.[52]
CHAPTER XII. RECRIMINATION.
Thy time is not yet out – the devil thou servest
Has not as yet deserted thee. He aids
The friends who drudge for him, as the blind man
Was aided by the guide, who lent his shoulder
O'er rough and smooth, until he reach'd the brink
Of the fell precipice – then hurl'd him downward.
When obeying the command, or rather the request, of Louis, – for he was in circumstances in which, though a monarch, he could only request Le Glorieux to go in search of Martius Galeotti, – the jester had no trouble in executing his commission, betaking himself at once to the best tavern in Peronne, of which he himself was rather more than an occasional frequenter, being a great admirer of that species of liquor which reduced all other men's brains to a level with his own.
He found, or rather observed, the Astrologer in the corner of the public drinking-room – stove, as it is called in German and Flemish, from its principal furniture – sitting in close colloquy with a female in a singular, and something like a Moorish or Asiatic garb, who, as Le Glorieux approached Martius, rose as in the act to depart.
"These," said the stranger, "are news on which you may rely with absolute certainty;" and with that disappeared among the crowd of guests who sat grouped at different tables in the apartment.
"Cousin Philosopher," said the jester, presenting himself, "Heaven no sooner relieves one sentinel than it sends another to supply the place. One fool being gone, here I come another, to guide you to the apartments of Louis of France."
"And art thou the messenger?" said Martius, gazing on him with prompt apprehension, and discovering at once the jester's quality, though less intimated, as we have before noticed, than was usual, by his external appearance.
"Ay, sir, and like your learning," answered Le Glorieux; "when Power sends Folly to entreat the approach of Wisdom, 'tis a sure sign what foot the patient halts upon."
"How if I refuse to come, when summoned at so late an hour by such a messenger?" said Galeotti.
"In that case we will consult your ease, and carry you," said Le Glorieux. "Here are half a score of stout Burgundian yeomen at the door, with whom He of Crèvecoeur has furnished me to that effect. For know, that my friend Charles of Burgundy and I have not taken away our kinsman Louis's crown, which he was ass enough to put into our power, but have only filed and clipt it a little; and, though reduced to the size of a spangle, it is still pure gold. In plain terms, he is still paramount over his own people, yourself included, and Most Christian King of the old dining-hall in the Castle of Peronne, to which you, as his liege subject, are presently obliged to repair."
"I attend you, sir," said Martius Galeotti, and accompanied Le Glorieux accordingly – seeing, perhaps, that no evasion was possible.
"Ay, sir," said the Fool, as they went towards the Castle, "you do well; for we treat our kinsman as men use an old famished lion in his cage, and thrust him now and then a calf to mumble, to keep his old jaws in exercise."
"Do you mean," said Martius, "that the King intends me bodily injury?"
"Nay, that you can guess better than I," said the jester; "for, though the night be cloudy, I warrant you can see the stars through the mist. I know nothing of the matter, not I – only my mother always told me to go warily near an old rat in a trap, for he was never so much disposed to bite."
The Astrologer asked no more questions, and Le Glorieux, according to the custom of those of his class, continued to run on in a wild and disordered strain of sarcasm and folly mingled together, until he delivered the philosopher to the guard at the castle-gate of Peronne; where he was passed from warder to warder, and at length admitted within Herbert's Tower.
The hints of the jester had not been lost on Martius Galeotti, and he saw something which seemed to confirm them in the look and manner of Tristan, whose mode of addressing him, as he marshalled him to the King's bedchamber, was lowering, sullen, and ominous. A close observer of what passed on earth, as well as among the heavenly bodies, the pulley and the rope also caught the Astrologer's eye; and as the latter was in a state of vibration, he concluded that some one who had been busy adjusting it had been interrupted in the work by his sudden arrival. All this he saw, and summoned together his subtilty to evade the impending danger, resolved, should he find that impossible, to defend himself to the last against whomsoever should assail him.
Note 52
The author has endeavoured to give to the odious Tristan l'Hermite a species of dogged and brutal fidelity to Louis, similar to the attachment of a bull-dog to his master. With all the atrocity of his execrable character, he was certainly a man of courage, and was, in his youth, made knight on the breach of Fronsac, with a great number of other young nobles, by the honour-giving hand of the elder Dunois, the celebrated hero of Charles the Vth's reign.