The Poniard's Hilt; Or, Karadeucq and Ronan. A Tale of Bagauders and Vagres

And turning to Morise:

"Run quick for the clerk! He shall pray at my side during the night – he shall not leave me. The spectre of Wisigarde will not dare to approach me with a priest at my side."

The count's terror increased amain while Morise ran out for the clerk, and Godegisele, more dead than alive with fear, clung on her knees to the beam as she felt her strength wholly leaving her. The count noticed not her distress, but also dropping on his knees smote his chest and cried:

"Lord, God! Have mercy upon a miserable sinner! I paid for my brother's death, I paid for the death of my wife Wisigarde, I shall pay still more to keep Wisigarde from haunting me! I shall to-morrow start the building of the chapel in the fastness of Allange; I shall have the villa of Bishop Cautin rebuilt! Lord! Good Lord God! Have mercy upon a miserable sinner! Deliver me from the devil and from the spectre of Wisigarde!"

And the fervent and devout believer, besotted with terror and intoxication, furiously smote his chest as, filled with frightful anxiety, he awaited the arrival of the clerk.

Such was the humanity, generousness, enlightenment of the race of the conquerors of old Gaul! What a tender attachment to their wives! What a respect for the sweet bonds of the family and for the sanctity of the domestic hearth! Oh, our mothers! Virile matrons, so venerated by our ancestors! Proud Gallic women of yore, who sat beside your husbands at the solemn councils of the state, where peace and war were decided upon! Wives beloved, valiant and strong in arms! Holy virgins! Women emperors! O, Margarid, Hena, Meroë, Loyse, Genevieve, Ellen, Sampso, Victoria the Great – rejoice! Rejoice that you have quitted this world for the mysterious worlds where we shall live forever! Rejoice at the strongness of your hearts! What indignation, what shame, what a grief to your souls at the sight of your sisters – although of a different race from your own and hostile – at the sight of women – the wives of kings, seigneurs and warriors – treated, the wicked and the good alike, with such contempt and ferocity by their barbarous husbands!

Such are those Franks whom the bishops invited to the quarry of Gaul! Such are the conquerors whom the priests of Christ fondle, caress, flatter and bless!

CHAPTER IV

THE LION OF POITIERS

Seigneur count! Seigneur count Neroweg! Wake up! Instead of having spent the night, as you expected, in the arms of one of your female slaves, out of fear for the devil you spent it on your knees, close to your clerk, and repeating in a maudlin and besotted voice the prayers that the holy man mumbled, half asleep, into your ears. After having eaten and drunk his fill he would have by far preferred his own bed to your company. Finally reassured by the first peep of day – a time that bars out the demons – you fell asleep on your couch, furnished with bear-skins, the trophies of the chase. Seigneur count Neroweg, awake! One of the five sons of your good King Clotaire, to-day the sole master of Gaul – all the other sons and grandsons of the pious Clovis, who rests in consecrated ground in the basilica of the venerated apostles at Paris, having died – one of the five sons of that King Clotaire, Chram by name, a bastard son – but what does that matter! – and governor of Auvergne in his father's name, Chram is approaching! He comes, a signal favor, with his three favorites, a goodly number of leudes in the train of his antrustions, as the royal favorites proudly style themselves. Awake, Neroweg! Awake, seigneur count! There is Chram, coming to pay you a visit. Brilliant and numerous is the cavalcade of his suite. The three dear friends of Chram, still dearer friends of pillage, of murder and of rape, accompany the royal personage, do you not hear? Their names are Imnachair, Spatachair, and the "Lion of Poitiers," the renegade Gaul, who, like so many others of his stripe, rallied to the conquering Franks. The "Lion of Poitiers" earned his name by reason of his carnivorous taste for rapine and flesh dripping blood.

Seigneur count! Seigneur count Neroweg! Will you not wake up? Wake up also your wife Godegisele, who spent the night dreaming of strangled wives. Be up and doing. Let Godegisele array herself in the most resplendent jewels of your fourth wife Wisigarde! Hurry, hurry, seigneur count! Let Godegisele don her most attractive raiment! She may be to the taste of Chram or of his favorites. He is a gracious king, an accommodating king. There is none more so. Is a woman, whether free or slave, pleasing to the eye of any friend of his, he forthwith equips his favorite with a royal diploma, by virtue of which he takes the woman that he covets.

Quick, quick, seigneur count! Order your leudes to take horse and your foot soldiers to put on their gala armors, and yourself, seigneur count, head your band, cased in your parade armor and carrying on your side the magnificent gold-hilted Spanish sword, which you stole on the occasion of the plundering of the land of the Visigoths, the "damned Arians" and "accursed heretics," upon whom the Catholic bishops let you loose with the fagot in one hand, the sword in the other, exactly as you let loose your pack of hounds upon the wild beasts of the forest! Be quick, be quick, leap upon your roan horse harnessed in its saddle and bridle of red leather, with bit and stirrups of silver! Quick! Ride out at a gallop to meet your glorious Prince Chram; ride out at the head of your horsemen and footmen! Already your royal guest and his suite, whose approach one of their forerunners has announced, are only at a little distance from your burg. Seigneur count, hasten to greet him and lead him into your seigniorial residence! You hardly expected to hear such auspicious tidings; moreover your good friend and protector, Bishop Cautin accompanies Prince Chram.

"A curse upon the arrival of this Chram," said Neroweg. "However short the stay of him and his men at my burg, they will drink up my wine, eat up all my provisions, and who knows but also pilfer some of my gold and silver vases. Neither I nor my companions have any love for these court leudes, who always have the air of looking down upon us because they quarter in palaces and cities."

Thus spoke count Neroweg as, followed by his warriors, he rode out to meet Prince Chram, whom he found, together with his suite, within two bows' shot of the fosse that girded the burg.

What a beautiful, noble, glorious, luminous sight is that of a longhaired prince, especially when his hair consists of a long tangled mop, that scissors have never touched, such being one of the distinctive attributes of the royal Frankish family. Unfortunately, although still young, Prince Chram, being worn by drunkenness and all manner of enervating excesses, was almost wholly bald. Only from his neck and temples did a few long and straggling locks of light hair tumble down upon his chest and arched back. His long dalmatica of purple fabric, slit on the side at the height of his knees, half hid the shoulders and crupper of his black horse. Bandelets of gilt leather criss-crossed his tight-fitting hose from his ankles up to his knees. His spurred shoes rested upon gilt stirrups; his long gold-hilted sword was sheathed in white cloth and hung from a superbly ornamented belt. In lieu of a whip, he carried a cane of precious wood with a head of chiseled gold, upon which, when the worn-out debauchee walked, he leaned heavily. Prince Chram's face was villainous. On his right Bishop Cautin rode as proudly as a man of war. From time to time the prelate cast an uneasy glance at Chram, because, though he sufficiently detested Chram, he was well aware that Chram detested him still more. At the Prince's right rode the "Lion of Poitiers," the hardened criminal who, together with Imnachair and Spatachair, both of whom rode close behind him in the second rank, constituted a trinity of perdition ample enough to damn Chram, had not Chram been damned in his very mother's womb, as the priests express it. Insolence and profligacy, haughty disdain and cruelty were so profoundly graven on the features of the "Lion of Poitiers," the renegade Gaul, that even a hundred years after his death it should not have been difficult still to trace upon the bones of his face the words "profligacy, insolence and cruelty."

After the Frankish fashion these three seigneurs wore rich short-sleeved tunics over their jackets, tight-fitting hose, and gaiters of cured leather with the fleece on the outside. Behind Chram and his three friends rode his seneschal, the count of his stables, the mayor of his palace, his butler, and other officers of the first rank, because the Prince kept a royal establishment. A little distance behind these distinguished personages came his bodyguard which consisted of leudes and other warriors armed cap-a-pie. Their tufted casques, their polished and brilliant cuirasses and greaves glittered in the sun. Their spirited horses pranced under their rich caparisons. The streamers at the head of their lances fluttered on the breeze, while their painted and gilded bucklers dangled from the pommels of their saddles. As showy and imposing as was the appearance of the princely suite, so miserably shabby and grotesque was the aspect presented by the leudes of the count. A considerable number of his suite wore incomplete and rough, dented armor; others, the possessors of cuirasses, had their heads covered with woolen caps; the swords, no less ill-kept than the cuirasses, were mostly orphaned of their sheaths, and in several instances the implement of war was held to its rider's belt by cords, while the shaft of more than one lance was crooked, and was still as rough as when first taken from the brush. Most of the horses of the count's leudes matched their riders in their appearance. It was not yet the hour for the slaves to proceed to the fields, and a goodly number of Neroweg's companions, in default of battle steeds, sat astride of draft and plow horses bridled with ropes. By the faith of a Vagre, it was a joyful sight to watch the wild and envious looks that the leudes of the count cast at the suite of Chram, and the insolent and mocking looks that the princely retinue threw upon the count's ramshackle troop. Behind the Prince's men, came the pages, the servants and the slaves who were on foot and led the ox-teams and dray-horses that drew heavy laden carts which the inhabitants of the regions crossed by the Prince and his suite were honored with the privilege of filling up gratuitously.

Count Neroweg advanced alone on horseback towards his royal guest, who, reining in his mount, said to Neroweg:

"Count, on my way from Clermont to Poitiers, I thought I would stop at your burg."

"Your glory is welcome on my domain. It is partly made up of salic lands; these I hold of my father, who held them both of his sword and the bounty of your grandfather, Clovis. It is your right to lodge, when journeying, at the houses of the counts and beneficiaries of the King, and to them it is a pleasure to extend to you hospitality."

"Count," insolently put in the Lion of Poitiers, "is your wife young and handsome? Is she worth the trouble of courting?"

"My favorite," observed Chram, making a sign to the renegade Gaul that he moderate his language, "who asks to know whether your wife is young and handsome, my favorite, the Lion of Poitiers, loves to joke, by nature."

"I shall then answer the Lion of Poitiers that neither he nor you will be able to decide whether my wife is young and handsome or old and ugly; she is with child and unwell, and will not leave her apartments."

"If your wife is with child," replied the Lion of Poitiers, "who may the father be?"

"Count, do not mind his raillery. I told you, my friend is a joker by nature."

"Chram, I shall not take offence at the jokes of your favorite. Let us proceed to the burg."

"Lead the way, count, we shall follow."

The joint cavalcades started for the burg, and the conversation proceeded.

"Count, admit to our royal master Chram that, in concealing your wife, you keep your treasure under lock and key for fear of its being stolen from you."

"My favorite, Spatachair, who holds that language to you, Neroweg, is also of a humorous disposition."

"Prince, meseems you select very gay, and perhaps too bold a set of friends."

"Neroweg, you hide your wife from us – it is your right. We shall hunt her up in her nest – that is our right. There is no lock or key safe against a good thief. The hunt is up."

"Chram, this is another of your humorous friends, I suppose?"

"Yes, count, the most humorous of all – the boldest – his name is Imnachair."

"And my name is Neroweg; I shall ask seigneur Imnachair what will the thief do when he has found the nest and the dove?"

"Neroweg, your wife will tell you all about it, after we shall have discovered the belle – we shall put our hands on that treasure as surely as I am the Lion of Poitiers."

"And I," cried Neroweg, "as surely as I am the King's count in this country of Auvergne, shall kill like a dog or a prowling fox whomever would attempt the role of a lion in my house!"

"Oh, oh, count, you hold bold language! Is it the brilliant army which you lead at your heels that makes you so audacious?" queried the Prince's favorite, nodding towards Neroweg's ramshackle leudes. "If that band is up to its looks, we are lost!"

Two or three of the count's leudes who had been drawing nearer, and heard the insolent jokes of Chram's favorite grumbled aloud in angry accents:

"We do not like to see Neroweg bantered!"

"A count's leudes are matches for royal leudes!"

"The polish of the steel does not make its temper."

One of Chram's men turned towards his companions, and laughing, pointed at the count's people with the tip of his lance while sarcastically alluding to their rustic appearance:

"Are these plow-slaves disguised as warriors, or warriors disguised as plow-slaves?"

The royal cortege answered the sally with a loud outburst of laughter. The two sides were beginning to cast defiant looks at each other when Bishop Cautin cried:

"My dear sons in Christ, I, your bishop and spiritual father, recommend to you coolness and good will. A truce with unseasonable jokes!"

"Count," said Chram to Neroweg flippantly, "mistrust this profligate and hypocritical bishop. Do not bestow upon him alone the privilege of singing your wife's praises – holy man though he be, he would as leave sing the praises of Venus, the goddess of the pagans!"

"Chram, I am the servant of the son of our glorious King Clotaire; but as bishop I am entitled to your respect."

"You are right; nowadays you bishops have become almost as powerful, and above all as rich as ourselves, the Kings."

"Chram, you mention the power and the wealth of the bishops of Gaul. You seem to forget that our power is of the Lord, and our riches are the goods of the poor!"

"By the slack skin of all the purses that you have rifled, you fat weasel who suck the yellow of the eggs and leave only the shell to the sots, for once you have told the truth. Aye, your riches are the goods of the poor, but you have bagged these goods for yourself."

"Glorious Prince, I have accompanied you to the burg of my son in Christ, Count Neroweg, in order to fulfill the act of high justice that you know of, but not in order to allow our holy Catholic and apostolic religion to be impudently made sport of in my person!"

"And I maintain that your power and riches increase by the day. I have two daughters; who knows but they will yet see the royal power shrink in even measure as the grasping usurpations of the bishops, with whom we shared our conquest, gain ground – a parcel of bishops whom we enriched, to whom we have been the men at arms, and who are ungrateful towards their benefactors!"

"Men at arms to us, men of peace? You err, O, Prince! Our only arms are sermons and exhortations."

"And when the people laugh at your sermons, as the Visigoths did, the Arians of Provence and Languedoc, then you send us to extirpate their heresy with fire and sword! Those are your real arms!"

"Glory to God! In those wars against the heretics, the Frankish Kings took an immense booty, they caused the orthodox faith to triumph, and snatched the souls of men from the everlasting flames by leading them back to the bosom of the holy Church."

He who might have assisted at the recent supper at the episcopal villa, where the bishop had Neroweg for his guest, would not have recognized Cautin. The holy man, being then in tete-a-tete with the count, a stupid, brutal and blind believer, cared not to clothe himself in the dignity of language. But now, in the presence of Chram, a brazen jester whom he detested, he felt the need to impose, both with language and bearing, respect and fear, if not upon the Prince himself and his favorites, the latter of whom were as impudent as himself, then at least upon their suite, who were infinitely less intelligent and proportionally devout. There was another grave apprehension that weighed upon Cautin's mind. He was in great fear that the audacious example of Chram and his friends might shake the naïve and fruitful credulity of Neroweg, from which Cautin drew much profit by the cultivation and exploitation of the devil. From the corner of his eye the bishop saw the count give a sly ear to the insolent jests of Chram, which seemed at once to please and frighten him. The Prince doubtlessly was wondering whether Neroweg was blockish enough to believe in the miraculous powers of the bishop, and to pay as dearly as he was reputed to do for the absolutions of the prelate. Cautin, being a man of extraordinary ability, saw his opportunity to strike a master blow. Being in the habit of closely watching the weather and of observing the premonitions of the storms that are so sudden and of frequent occurrence in mountainous countries, he, as well as so many other priests, utilized his weather-wisdom to frighten the simple-minded. The prelate had for some little time noticed a black cloud, which, barely visible at first over the crest of a peak in the distant horizon, was bound soon to spread over the sky and darken the sun, which, at the moment, was shining brilliantly. Accordingly, at the first fresh insolent jest on the part of Chram at the impositions practiced by the clergy, the prelate answered, measuring the length of his words with the progress made by the spreading storm-cloud:

"It is not for an unworthy servant of God, for a humble earth worm like me, to defend the Church of the Eternal; the Lord has His own power and miracles with which to convince the incredulous, His celestial punishments with which to chastise the impious. Woe, I say, unto the man who dares now, in the face of that sun that shines at this moment with such vivid luster over our heads," the bishop proceeded with ever louder voice; "woe, I say, and malediction unto him who, in the face of the Almighty, Who sees, hears, judges and punishes us; malediction upon him who dares insult His divinity in the sacred person of His bishops! Is there any present, Prince or seigneur, who dares outrage divine majesty?"

"There is here the Lion of Poitiers, who makes you this answer: Cautin, bishop of Clermont, I shall break my switch over your back if you do not quit speaking with such insolence."

By the faith of a Vagre! The Lion of Poitiers, the renegade Gaul, had some occasional good quality. But his bold words caused most of those who heard them to shudder; the royal suite as well as the leudes of the count looked scandalized. To these faithful it seemed a monstrous thing to break a switch over the back of a bishop, even if, as in the instance of Cautin, he was guilty of burying a human being alive in the sepulchre of a corpse.1 A profound stupor succeeded upon the threat made by the Lion of Poitiers. Even Chram himself looked shocked at the audacity of his favorite. Cautin took in the scene at a glance. Simulating a saintly horror and turning full towards the Lion of Poitiers, who defiantly swung his switch, the prelate cried, raising his hands heavenward:

"Unhappy, impious man, have pity upon yourself! The Lord has heard your blasphemy. Behold how the skies darken – the sun hides its face – behold the precursors of celestial wrath! Down on your knees, my dear sons! Down on your knees! Your father in God bids you! Pray the Eternal to appease His wrath, kindled by the frightful blasphemy!"

And Cautin precipitately descended from his horse. But he did not kneel. Standing erect with his hands outstretched to heaven, in the posture of a priest officiating at the altar, he seemed to be communing with some invisible being as if conjuring away the celestial wrath.

At the bishop's voice, Chram's servants and slaves, all of whom were terrified by the seemingly sudden storm, threw themselves upon their knees; most of the Prince's cortege likewise leaped down from their horses and knelt, in no less consternation than the slaves and servants at the sight of the sun's face suddenly darkened when the Lion of Poitiers threatened the bishop with his switch. Neroweg, who was one of the first on his knees, unctuously smote his chest; Chram, however, together with his favorites and a few others of his familiars, kept their saddles, hesitating out of pride to follow the bishop's orders. With an imperious gesture and threatening accent the latter cried:

"Down on your knees, O King! The King is no more than the slave in the eye of the Almighty. Both King and slave must bow down to earth in order to appease the wrath of the Eternal. Down on your knees, O King! Down on your knees, both you and your favorites!"

"Dare you issue orders to me?" cried Chram pale with rage at the sight of the abject submission of his men to the bishop's orders. "Who is master here, you or I, insolent priest?"

A thunder clap that reverberated in the hollows of the mountain closed the mouth of Chram, and served the knavery of Cautin to perfection. Louder and more imperiously than before the prelate repeated:

"Down on your knees! Hear you not the thunder of heaven, the rumbling voice of the Almighty? Will you draw down a shower of fire upon the heads of us all? O, Lord, have pity upon us! Remove the cataracts of burning lava, that, in Your wrath at the impious, You are about to shower down upon them, and, perhaps, upon us also, miserable sinners that we all are! Even the purest of heart can not claim to be irreproachable before Your majesty, O, Lord!"

Several fresh claps of thunder, preceded by blinding flashes of lightning, carried the fright of Chram's suite to the highest pitch. The Prince himself did not remain wholly unaffected, despite his innate incredulity, audacity and superb insolence. His pride nevertheless still revolted at the idea of yielding to the bishop's orders, and murmurs, at first subdued, but speedily breaking out in open threats, rose from all parts of his suite, cortege and retinue.

"Down on your knees, our Prince – on your knees!"

"Insignificant as we are, we do not wish to burn in the fire of heaven for the sake of your and your favorite's impiousness!"

"Down on your knees, our Prince! Down on your knees! Obey the orders of the holy bishop – it is the Lord who speaks to us through his mouth!"

"Down on your knees, King! Down on your knees!"

Chram was forced to yield. He feared to irritate his followers beyond the point of safety; above all, he feared setting a public example of rebellion against the bishops, who were such useful props to the conquerors. Grumbling and blaspheming between his teeth, Chram finally and slowly alighted from his horse and motioned his two favorites Imnachair and Spatachair, both of whom took the hint, to do as he did, and drop down upon their knees.

Left alone on horseback, and looking down upon the prostrate crowd, the Lion of Poitiers braved the increasingly loud clatter of the thunder peals with intrepid front and a sardonic smile upon his lips.

"Down on your knees!" cried several voices in towering anger. "Down on your knees, Lion of Poitiers!"

"Our King Chram has knelt down, and the impious man, the cause of all the trouble through his sacrilegious threats, he alone refuses obedience!"

"The blasphemer will draw a deluge of fire upon our heads!"

"My sons, my dear sons!" cried Cautin, who was the only one on foot, as the Lion of Poitiers was the only one on horseback. "Let us prepare for death! A single grain of darnel will suffice to rot a muid of wheat – a single hardened sinner will, perhaps, cause the death of us all, however innocent we be. Let us resign ourselves to our fate, my dear sons – may the will of God be done – He will, perhaps, open to us the doors of paradise!"