The Branding Needle, or The Monastery of Charolles Part 5

"Order Samuel to bring up the two young girls, immediately."

The old woman bowed and vanished behind the curtain. Almost at the same moment Brunhild stepped out of her bedroom.

The Queen was sixty-seven years of age; the lines on her face still preserved the traces of exceptional beauty. Her wan and wrinkled face was illumined by the somber brilliancy of her two large but sunken eyes, which were surrounded with deep, dark circles. They were black, like her long eyelashes; only her hair was white. A front of bra.s.s, cruel lips, penetrating eyes, a head haughtily poised, proud and lofty carriage, seeing that she had preserved a straight and supple waist--such was Brunhild. She had hardly stepped into the apartment, when she stopped, listened and said to Chrotechilde:

"Who is coming up the little stairs?"

"The slave merchant; he has two young girls with him."

"Let him in--let him in!"

"Madam, whom do you intend to present with the two slave girls that he brings?"

"I shall tell you later. But I am in a hurry to examine the two creatures. The choice is important."

"Madam, here is Samuel."

The dealer in Gallic flesh, a Jew by extraction like most of the men who devoted themselves to such traffic, entered, followed by the two slaves whom he brought with him. They were wrapped in long white veils, that were transparent enough to enable them to walk una.s.sisted.

"Ill.u.s.trious Queen," said the Jew dropping on one knee and bowing so low that his forehead almost touched the floor, "I am here obedient to your orders; here are two young female slaves; they are veritable treasures of beauty, of sweetness, of gracefulness, of gentleness and above all of maidenliness. Your excellency knows that old Samuel has but one quality--that of being an honest trader."

"Rise--rise!" commanded Brunhild, addressing the two girls, who, at the sight of the redoubted Queen, had fallen on their knees at the threshold of the door near the merchant. "Let the girls rise, and remove their veils."

The two slaves hastened to obey the Queen. They rose. To the end of enhancing the value of his merchandise, the Jew had clad the two young girls in short-sleeved tunics, the skirt of which hardly reached their knees, while the cut of their corsage left their bosoms and shoulders half exposed. One of the two slaves, a tall and lithesome girl, wore a white tunic; her eyes were blue; a strand of corals wound itself in the braids of her black hair; eighteen or twenty years was the utmost age that she could be taken for. The girl's face, touchingly beautiful and open, was bathed in tears. Steeped in sorrow and shame, and trembling at every limb, she dared not raise her tear-dimmed eyes out of fear to encounter Brunhild's. After long and attentively contemplating the girl, whom she ordered to turn around in order to have a view of her from all sides, the old Queen exchanged a look of approval with Chrotechilde, who had been no less attentively examining the slave. Addressing the latter she asked:

"Of what country are you?"

"I am from the city of Toul," answered the girl in a tremulous voice.

"Aurelie! Aurelie!" cried Samuel stamping on the ground with his foot.

"Is that the way you remember my lessons? You should answer: 'Glorious Queen, I am from the city of Toul.'" And turning towards Brunhild, "Kindly pardon her, madam, but she is so childish, so simple--"

Brunhild cut off the Jew's flow of words and proceeded with her interrogatory:

"Where were you taken?"

"At Toul, madam, when the city was sacked by the King of Burgundy."

"Were you free or slave?"

"I was free--my father was a master armorer."

"Can you read and write? Have you pleasing accomplishments? Can you sing and play?"

"I can read and write, and my mother taught me to play upon the archlute and to sing."

When she said that she could sing, the unhappy girl was unable to repress the sobs that suffocated her. She must have thought of her mother.

"Weep, and weep again!" Samuel cried, angrily scolding the girl. "You can do that better than anything else. But, as you know, great Queen, one has a certain supply of tears, after the supply has run out the bag is empty."

"Do you really believe so, Jew? Fortunately you are merely slandering the human race," observed the Queen with a cruel smile, and proceeded to interrogate the young girl:

"Have you ever been a slave before now?"

"By the faith of Samuel, ill.u.s.trious Queen, she is as new to slavery as a child in the womb of its mother!" cried the Jew as he saw the young Gallic slave breaking out anew into sobs, and unable to make answer. "I bought Aurelie on the very day of the battle of Toul, and since then my wife Rebecca and I have watched over the girl as if she were our own child, hoping that we might realize a fair price for her. We guarantee that she is a maiden."

After another look over the girl, who now hid her face in her hands, Brunhild said to Samuel:

"Return her veil to her; let her stop whimpering; bring forth the other one."

Aurelie received her veil from the hands of the Jew like an act of kindness, and hastened to wrap herself up in its folds in order to conceal her grief, her shame and her tears. At the Queen's order, the other slave hastened to step forward. Dainty and fresh as a Hebe, she might be sixteen years of age. A string of pearls wound itself in the stout braids of her bright blonde hair; her large hazel eyes sparkled with mischief and fire; her thin and slightly upturned nose, her rosy and palpitating nostrils, her ruby but rather fleshy lips, her little enamel teeth, her dimpled cheeks and chin, imparted to this girl the liveliest, gayest and most impudent look imaginable. Her tunic of green silk added l.u.s.ter to the whiteness of her bosom and shoulders. Oh! the Jew had no need of telling this one to turn around, and turn again, in order that the aged Queen might obtain a good view of her charming shape. She raised her head, arched her neck, rose on the tips of her feet, folded her arms gracefully, and at all points played the coquette before Brunhild and Chrotechilde, who again exchanged looks of approval, while the Jew, who was now made to feel as uneasy by the audacity of this slave as before by the sorrowful deportment of the other, whispered to her:

"Keep quiet, Blandine--do not shake your legs and wave your arms quite so much. A little more decorum, my girl, in the presence of our ill.u.s.trious and beloved Queen! One would think you had quicksilver in your veins! May your excellence excuse her, ill.u.s.trious princess. She is so young, so gay, so giddy-headed--all she wants is to fly from her cage and display her plumage and voice. Lower your eyes, Blandine! You audacious girl! How dare you look our august Queen in the face!"

Indeed, instead of avoiding the penetrating eyes of Brunhild, Blandine sought to catch and mischievously to challenge them, all the while smiling with a confident mien. The Queen, accordingly, after an equally long and minute survey, said to her:

"Slavery does not seem to sadden you?"

"On the contrary, glorious Queen, to me slavery has been freedom."

"How is that, impudent la.s.s?"

"I had a peevish, cross, quarrelsome step-mother. She made me spend upon the cold stone porches of the basilicas all the time that I was not engaged plying my needle. The old fury used to beat me whenever I unfortunately took my nose off my sewing and smiled at some lad at the window. Accordingly, great Queen, what a sad lot was mine! Ill fed, I who am so fond of dainties; ill clad, I who am so coquettish; on my feet at the first crow of the c.o.c.k, I who am so fond of snoozing in my bed!

And so it happens that great was my joy when your invincible grandson and his brave army, Queen, ill.u.s.trious Queen, drew, last year, near Tolbiac, where I lived."

"Why so?"

"Because, glorious Queen, I knew that Frankish warriors never kill young girls. I said to myself: 'Perhaps I may be captured by some baron of Burgundy, a count, or perhaps even a duke, and once I am a slave, if I know myself, I shall become a mistress--because there have been female slaves known--"

"To become Queens, like Fredegonde, not so, my little one?"

"And why not, if they are pretty!" impudently answered the minx without lowering her eyes before Brunhild, who listened to and contemplated her with a pensive air. "But, alas," Blandine proceeded saying with a half suppressed sigh, "I did not then have the fortune of falling into the hands of a seigneur. An old leude, with long white moustaches and not a bit amorous, had me for his share of the booty, and he immediately after sold me to seigneur Samuel. But perhaps it is not yet too late, and a lucky chance may come my way. But what is this that I am saying!" added Blandine smiling her sweetest at Brunhild, "is it not a great, an unexpected piece of good luck that has brought me to your presence, ill.u.s.trious Queen?"

After a moment's reflection, Brunhild said to the merchant:

"Jew, I shall buy one of these two slaves from you."

"Ill.u.s.trious Queen, which of the two do you prefer, Aurelie or Blandine?"

"I am not yet decided--leave them at the palace until this evening--they shall be taken to my women's apartment."

At a nod from the Queen, Chrotechilde rang the bell; the second old woman again appeared; Brunhild's confidante said to her:

"Take these two slaves with you."

"Ill.u.s.trious Queen," said Blandine turning once more to Brunhild, while the Jew was carefully wrapping the devilish girl in her veil. "Queen, choose me, glorious Queen--you will thereby do a good work--I would so much like to stay at court."

"Keep still, impudent thing!" said Samuel in a low voice while gently pus.h.i.+ng Blandine towards the Queen's bedroom, at the door of which Chrotechilde pointed her finger. "Too much is too much; such familiarities may displease our ill.u.s.trious sovereign!"