The Poniard's Hilt Part 14

"Lies!" cried the bishop excitedly. "Behold yonder the woman who was my wife, with her orange skirt and gold embroidered red stockings--behold her on the arm of that bandit with the black hair. The infamous woman--they are in each other's arms."

"Jesus had only words of mercy for Magdalen the courtesan and for the adulterous woman; will you dare to throw the first stone at the woman who once was your wife? Come--come along--I pity you--lean upon my arm--you are about to faint--"

"Alas! Where do these accursed Vagres propose to take me?"

"That does not concern you--mend your ways--repent!"

"My G.o.d! My G.o.d! And there is no hope of being delivered on the road!

Oh! We live in frightful days!"

"And who is it that made these days what they are, if not you, princes of the Church? Oh! For centuries did our fathers see Gaul peaceful and flouris.h.i.+ng. She then was free!" replied the hermit with bitterness.

"To-day she is again enslaved."

"Our fathers were miserable heathens! At this very hour they are gnas.h.i.+ng their teeth in all eternity!" cried Cautin. "We, on the contrary, have the true faith--and the Lord has terrible punishment in store for the wretches who dare insult His priests and plunder the goods of His Church. Look yonder, monk, is not that a sight to make one's heart break? Abomination and desolation!"

CHAPTER VI.

TO THE FASTNESS OF ALLANGE.

The sight that excited the wrath of the holy man filled the hearts of the Vagres with joy. It was broad day. Four large wagons of the villa, each hitched to teams of oxen, were slowly rolling away from the smoldering ruins of the late episcopal mansion. The wagons were loaded with all manner of booty: gold and silver vases, curtains and beddings, feather mattresses and bags of wheat, boxes filled with linen, hams, venison, smoked fish, preserved fruits, and all sorts of eatables, heavy rolls of cloth that had been woven by weaver-slaves, soft cus.h.i.+ons, warm coverlets, shoes, cloaks, iron pots, copper basins, tin cans--all of them dear to the heart of a housekeeper. The Vagres followed the train, singing like larks at the rise of the beautiful June sun. On the front wagon, and seated on one of the cus.h.i.+ons, little Odille--whom the bishopess in loving tenderness thoughtfully clad in one of her own beautiful, although rather too long robes for the child--no longer timorous but still laboring under the effect of her wonderment, opened her beautiful blue eyes, and, for the first time since many a long day, breathed in freedom the fresh and invigorating morning air that reminded her often of that of her own mountains from which she was torn, poor child, and cast into the burg of the count. Ever and anon Ronan approached the wagon:

"Take courage, Odille; you will get accustomed to us. The Vagres are not as wolfish as evil tongues pretend."

On another wagon, gorgeous in her gold necklaces and her most beautiful dress which her loving Vagre saved for her from the conflagration, the bishopess whiled away the time, either combed her long black hair with the aid of a little pocket mirror, or adjusted her scarf, or hopped about, crazy with joy, like a hen-linnet that had escaped from her cage.

At last she enjoyed that day of freedom and love that she had so ardently dreamed about after having lived more than ten years almost a prisoner. The morning journey across the beautiful mountains of Auvergne, where at frequent intervals cascades of bubbling water were encountered, seemed to charm her. She chatted, laughed, sang, sang again, and threw sidelong glances at her Vagre every time that, with his light step and triumphant mien, he pa.s.sed by her wagon. Suddenly, as her eyes happened to fall upon a distant object, she seemed moved with pity.

She seized a straw-covered amphora that the Master of the Hounds had thoughtfully placed within her reach, and turning towards the rear of the car, where several women and girls, the bishop's slaves, having gladly resolved to run the Vagrery together with their quondam mistress, were huddled, she said to one of them:

"Carry this bottle of spiced wine to my brother, the bishop; the poor man loves to take what he calls his morning cup; but do not let him know that I sent you."

The young girl to whom the bishopess gave the flask answered with a nod of intelligence, leaped down from the cart, and looked for Cautin. Most of the ecclesiastical slaves fled into the mountains when the bishop's house was set on fire; they feared the wrath of heaven if they joined the Vagres; the others, however, being of a less timorous turn, resolutely accompanied the troop of the l.u.s.ty men. They should have been seen--alert, frisk as if they had just risen from a restful night spent under the foliage of the wood, they marched with elastic step, despite the orgy of the previous night, and went and came, and skipped and chatted, and exchanged kisses with the women who were willing or with the pouches of wine that they carried along, and bit l.u.s.tily into the hams, the chunks of venison and the episcopal cakes.

"How good it is to live a Vagre's life!"

On the last wagon, under the special watch of Wolf's-Tooth and a few companions who brought up the rear, Cautin, bishop and Vagre's cook, accustomed to strut on his traveling mule, or to ride through the forest on his vigorous hunting steed, found the road rough, dusty and unpleasant. He perspired, panted, tossed himself about, moaned, grumbled, grunted under the weight of his heavy paunch and invoked to his aid all the saints of paradise.

"Seigneur bishop," said the young girl whom the bishopess charged with the amphora of wine, "here is some good spiced wine; drink it; it will give you strength to support the fatigue of the journey."

"Give it to me! Give it to me, my daughter! G.o.d will reward you for your attachment to your father in Christ, who finds himself obliged to drink by stealth the wine of his own cellar--"

And clapping the amphora to his lips, he drained it at one draught. When the flask was empty he dashed it against the floor, and looking at the young girl cried:

"And so you propose to run the Vagrery, little she-devil, confounded wench?"

"Yes, seigneur bishop; I am now twenty years of age, and this is the first day of my life that I have been able to say: 'I belong to myself--I can go and come, jump, sing, dance, just as I please'--"

"You belong to yourself, do you, brazen minx? You belong to me! But with the aid of G.o.d you will yet be re-captured either by the Church, or by some Frankish seigneur--and I hope you may fall into even worse slavery, G.o.d-forsaken wench!"

"I will then, at least, have tasted freedom--"

And the young woman dashed off, jumping and singing, in pursuit of a b.u.t.terfly that fluttered in the bush.

The troop of Vagres arrived at the hovels of some slaves that belonged to the domain of the Church, and that lay scattered along the road.

Little wan, sickly looking children, absolutely bare by reason of their parents' pinching poverty, were wallowing in the dust. Their fathers were off on the fields since dawn; their mothers, as wan-looking and thin as the children, sat at the entrance of their hovels upon bunches of decaying straw; they were clad in rags and busily plied their distaffs for the benefit of the bishop; their long and unkempt hair tumbled over their foreheads upon their bony shoulders; their eyes were hollow, their cheeks sunburnt and sunken; the aspect that they presented was at once so repulsive and painful that the hermit-laborer could not refrain from pointing them out to the bishop, saying:

"Look at those unhappy creatures!"

"Resignation, misery and sorrow here below, everlasting reward above--otherwise as everlasting and frightful tortures!" cried Cautin.

"The Church so decrees; it is the law of G.o.d!"

"Blasphemer! Your words are like those of the impostor physicians who pretend that man was born for fevers, the pest and ulcers, and not for health!"

At the sight of the approaching and well-armed troop, the women and children were first afraid and ran to hide in their hovels; but stepping forward, Ronan called out to them:

"Poor women! Poor children! Be not afraid--we are your good friends the Vagres!"

The Vagrery caused the Franks and the bishops to tremble, but it was often blessed by the poor. Women and children, all of whom had at first fled with fear into their hovels, now emerged again, and one of the mothers said to Ronan:

"Do you want to know the road? I shall show it to you."

"Are you running away from the leudes of the seigneurs?" said another.

"None has pa.s.sed this way; you can march on in safety."

"Women," answered Ronan, "your children are naked, you and your husbands toil from dawn to dusk; you are barely covered in rags; you lie down to sleep upon poorer straw than the swine; you live upon decayed beans; often you munch gra.s.s like cattle!"

"Alas! It is the truth! Our lives are wretched, indeed!"

"Here we have for you linen, cloth, dresses, covers, mattresses, bags of grain, full pouches, provisions of all sorts. Give, my Vagres! Give, Odille, to these poor people! Give, bishopess of the Vagrery! Give and give again!"

"Take--take, sisters!" said the bishopess with eyes moist with compa.s.sionate tears, as she helped the Vagres to distribute the booty taken at her house. "Take, sisters! Yesterday I was a slave as yourselves, to-day I am free! Take, sisters!"

"Take and make merry, dear women; and may your little ones never be torn from you!" said Odille as she also gave a hand in the distribution of the booty. And she wiped her eyes as she exclaimed: "How good Ronan, the Vagre, is to the poor!"

"Blessings upon you!" cried the poor mothers, weeping for joy. "It is better to meet a Vagre than a count or a bishop."

It was a pleasure to see with what ardor the Vagres, perched upon the carts, distributed what they had taken from the wicked bishop; it was a pleasure to see how the poor mothers' faces brightened with happiness at the unlooked-for alms. Amazed and enraptured they contemplated the heap of all manner of articles that they had never yet made acquaintance with. The children, more impatient than their elders, merrily hitched themselves by twos, threes and fours to a mattress in order to transport it into one of the huts, or they put their thin arms around a bundle of linen and sought to lift it in. Suddenly, however, a wrathful and threatening voice, a veritable mar-plot, froze the marrow of the poor folks with terror.

"Woe unto you! d.a.m.nation upon your families! if you dare to touch with sacrilegious hands the goods of the Church! Tremble! Tremble! It is a mortal sin! You, your husbands, your children, you will all be thrown into the flames of h.e.l.l for all time!"

It was Bishop Cautin. Despite the remonstrances of the hermit-laborer, he dashed in among the startled slaves, and fulminated his anathemas.

"Oh! We shall touch nothing of all that is offered us, holy bishop!"

answered the mothers with a shudder. "We shall not touch any of the goods of the Church."

"My Vagres!" cried Ronan, "Hang the bishop on the nearest tree! We shall not lack for a cook."