The Line of Love; Dizain des Mariages Part 13

Fate grinned and went on with her weaving.

3. "Et Ysabeau, Qui Dit: Enne!"

Somewhat later Francois came down the deserted street, treading on air.

It was a bland summer night, windless, moon-washed, odorous with garden-scents; the moon, nearing its full, was a silver egg set on end--("Leda-hatched," he termed it; "one may look for the advent of Queen Heleine ere dawn"); and the sky he likened to blue velvet studded with the gilt nail-heads of a seraphic upholsterer. Francois was a poet, but a civic poet; then, as always, he pilfered his similes from shop-windows.

But the heart of Francois was pure magnanimity, the heels of Francois were mercury, as he tripped past the church of Saint Benoit-le-Betourne, stark snow and ink in the moonlight. Then with a jerk Francois paused.

On a stone bench before the church sat Ysabeau de Montigny and Gilles Raguyer. The priest was fuddled, hiccuping in his amorous dithyrambics as he paddled with the girl's hand. "You tempt me to murder," he was saying.

"It is a deadly sin, my soul, and I have no mind to fry in h.e.l.l while my body swings on the Saint Denis road, a crow's dinner. Let Francois live, my soul! My soul, he would stick little Gilles like a pig."

Raguyer began to blubber at the thought.

"Holy Macaire!" said Francois; "here is a pretty plot a-brewing." Yet because his heart was filled just now with loving-kindness, he forgave the girl. _"Tantaene irae?"_ said Francois; and aloud, "Ysabeau, it is time you were abed."

She wheeled upon him in apprehension; then, with recognition, her rage flamed. "Now, Gilles!" cried Ysabeau de Montigny; "now, coward! He is unarmed, Gilles. Look, Gilles! Kill for me this betrayer of women!"

Under his mantle Francois loosened the short sword he carried. But the priest plainly had no mind to the business. He rose, tipsily fumbling a knife, and snarling like a cur at sight of a strange mastiff. "Vile rascal!" said Gilles Raguyer, as he strove to lash himself into a rage.

"O coward! O parricide! O Tarquin!"

Francois began to laugh. "Let us have done with this farce," said he.

"Your man has no stomach for battle, Ysabeau. And you do me wrong, my la.s.s, to call me a betrayer of women. Doubtless, that tale seemed the most apt to kindle in poor Gilles some homicidal virtue: but you and I and G.o.d know that naught has pa.s.sed between us save a few kisses and a trinket or so. It is no knifing matter. Yet for the sake of old time, come home, Ysabeau; your brother is my friend, and the hour is somewhat late for honest women to be abroad."

"Enne?" shrilled Ysabeau; "and yet, if I cannot strike a spark of courage from this clod here, there come those who may help me, Francois de Montcorbier. 'Ware Sermaise, Master Francois!"

Francois wheeled. Down the Rue Saint Jacques came Philippe Sermaise, like a questing hound, with drunken Jehan le Merdi at his heels. "Holy Virgin!" thought Francois; "this is likely to be a nasty affair. I would give a deal for a glimpse of the patrol lanterns just now."

He edged his way toward the cloister, to get a wall at his back. But Gilles Raguyer followed him, knife in hand. "O hideous Tarquin! O Absalom!" growled Gilles; "have you, then, no respect for churchmen?"

With an oath, Sermaise ran up. "Now, may G.o.d die twice," he panted, "if I have not found the skulker at last! There is a crow needs picking between us two, Montcorbier."

Hemmed in by his enemies, Francois temporized. "Why do you accost me thus angrily, Master Philippe?" he babbled. "What harm have I done you? What is your will of me?"

But his fingers tore feverishly at the strap by which the lute was swung over his shoulder, and now the lute fell at their feet, leaving Francois unhampered and his sword-arm free.

This was fuel to the priest's wrath. "Sacred bones of Benoit!" he snarled; "I could make a near guess as to what window you have been caterwauling under."

From beneath his gown he suddenly hauled out a rapier and struck at the boy while Francois was yet tugging at his sword.

Full in the mouth Sermaise struck him, splitting the lower lip through.

Francois felt the piercing cold of the steel, the tingling of it against his teeth, then the warm grateful spurt of blood; through a red mist, he saw Gilles and Ysabeau run screaming down the Rue Saint Jacques.

He drew and made at Sermaise, forgetful of le Merdi. It was shrewd work.

Presently they were fighting in the moonlight, hammer-and-tongs, as the saying is, and presently Sermaise was cursing like a madman, for Francois had wounded him in the groin. Window after window rattled open as the Rue Saint Jacques ran nightcapped to peer at the brawl. Then as Francois hurled back his sword to slash at the priest's shaven head--Frenchmen had not yet learned to thrust with the point in the Italian manner--Jehan le Merdi leapt from behind, nimble as a snake, and wrested away the boy's weapon. Sermaise closed with a glad shout.

"Heart of G.o.d!" cried Sermaise. "Pray, bridegroom, pray!"

But Francois jumped backward, tumbling over le Merdi, and with apish celerity caught up a great stone and flung it full in the priest's countenance.

The rest was hideous. For a breathing s.p.a.ce Sermaise kept his feet, his outspread arms making a tottering cross. It was curious to see him peer about irresolutely now that he had no face. Francois, staring at the black featureless horror before him, began to choke. Standing thus, with outstretched arms, the priest first let fall his hands, so that they hung limp from the wrists; his finger-nails gleamed in the moonlight. His rapier tinkled on the flagstones with the sound of shattering gla.s.s, and Philippe Sermaise slid down, all a-jumble, crumpling like a broken toy.

Afterward you might have heard a long, awed sibilance go about the windows overhead as the watching Rue Saint Jacques breathed again.

Francois de Montcorbier ran. He tore at his breast as he ran, stifling.

He wept as he ran through the moon-washed Rue Saint Jacques, making animal-like and whistling noises. His split lip was a clammy dead thing that napped against his chin as he ran.

"Francois!" a man cried, meeting him; "ah, name of a name, Francois!"

It was Rene de Montigny, lurching from the Crowned Ox, half-tipsy. He caught the boy by the shoulder and hurried Francois, still sobbing, to Fouquet the barber-surgeon's, where they sewed up his wound. In accordance with the police regulations, they first demanded an account of how he had received it. Rene lied up-hill and down-dale, while in a corner of the room Francois monotonously wept.

Fate grinned and went on with her weaving.

4. "_Necessite Faict Gens Mesprende_"

The Rue Saint Jacques had toothsome sauce for its breakfast. The quarter smacked stiff lips over the news, as it pictured Francois de Montcorbier dangling from Montfaucon. "Horrible!" said the Rue Saint Jacques, and drew a moral of suitably pious flavor.

Guillemette Moreau had told Catherine of the affair before the day was aired. The girl's hurt vanity broke tether.

"Sermaise!" said she. "Bah, what do I care for Sermaise! He killed him in fair fight. But within an hour, Guillemette,--within a half-hour after leaving me, he is junketing on church-porches with that trollop. They were not there for holy-water. Midnight, look you! And he swore to me--chaff, chaff! His honor is chaff, Guillemette, and his heart a bran-bag. Oh, swine, filthy swine! Eh, well, let the swine stick to his sty. Send Noel d'Arnaye to me."

The Sieur d'Arnaye came, his head tied in a napkin.

"Foh!" said she; "another swine fresh from the gutter? No, this is a bottle, a tun, a walking wine-barrel! Noel, I despise you. I will marry you if you like."

He fell to mumbling her hand. An hour later Catherine told Jehan de Vaucelles she intended to marry Noel the Handsome when he should come back from Geneppe with the exiled Dauphin. The old man, having wisdom, lifted his brows, and returned to his reading in _Le Pet au Diable_.

The patrol had transported Sermaise to the prison of Saint Benoit, where he lay all night. That day he was carried to the hospital of the Hotel Dieu. He died the following Sat.u.r.day.

Death exalted the man to some n.o.bility. Before one of the apparitors of the Chatelet he exonerated Montcorbier, under oath, and asked that no steps be taken against him. "I forgive him my death," said Sermaise, manly enough at the last, "by reason of certain causes moving him thereunto." Presently he demanded the peach-colored silk glove they would find in the pocket of his gown. It was Catherine's glove. The priest kissed it, and then began to laugh. Shortly afterward he died, still gnawing at the glove.

Francois and Rene had vanished. "Good riddance," said the Rue Saint Jacques. But Montcorbier was summoned to answer before the court of the Chatelet for the death of Philippe Sermaise, and in default of his appearance, was subsequently condemned to banishment from the kingdom.

The two young men were at Saint Pourcain-en-Bourbonnais, where Rene had kinsmen. Under the name of des Loges, Francois had there secured a place as tutor, but when he heard that Sermaise in the article of death had cleared him of all blame, Francois set about procuring a pardon.

[Footnote: There is humor in his deposition that Gilles and Ysabeau and he were loitering before Saint Benoit's in friendly discourse,--"pour soy esbatre." Perhaps Rene prompted this; but in itself, it is characteristic of Montcorbier that he trenched on perjury, blithely, in order to screen Ysabeau.] It was January before he succeeded in obtaining it.

Meanwhile he had learned a deal of Rene's way of living. "You are a thief," Francois observed to Montigny the day the pardon came, "but you have played a kindly part by me. I think you are Dysmas, Rene, not Gestas. Heh, I throw no stones. You have stolen, but I have killed. Let us go to Paris, lad, and start afresh."

Montigny grinned. "I shall certainly go to Paris," he said. "Friends wait for me there,--Guy Tabary, Pet.i.t Jehan and Colin de Cayeux. We are planning to visit Guillaume Coiffier, a fat priest with some six hundred crowns in the cupboard. You will make one of the party, Francois."

"Rene, Rene," said the other, "my heart bleeds for you."

Again Montigny grinned. "You think a great deal about blood nowadays," he commented. "People will be mistaking you for such a poet as was crowned Nero, who, likewise, gave his time to ballad-making and to murdering fathers of the Church. Eh, dear Ahenabarbus, let us first see what the Rue Saint Jacques has to say about your recent gambols. After that, I think you will make one of our party."

5. "_Yeulx sans Pitie!_"

There was a light crackling frost under foot the day that Francois came back to the Rue Saint Jacques. Upon this brisk, clear January day it was good to be home again, an excellent thing to be alive.