Domnei: A Comedy of Woman-Worship by James Branch Cabell (top 100 books to read txt) 📕

beggar upon the highway—and thus he came again into the realm of King Theodoret, where certainly nobody looked for Demetrios to come unarmed.

With the advantage of a quiet advent, as was quickly proven, he found no check for a notorious leave-taking.

17.

How a Minstrel Came

Demetrios came to Megaris where Perion lay fettered in the Castle of San' Alessandro, then a new building. Perion's trial, condemnation, and so on, had consumed the better part of an hour, on account of the drunkenness of one of the Inquisitors, who had vexatiously impeded these formalities by singing love-songs; but in the end it had been salutarily arranged that the Comte de la Forêt be torn apart by four horses upon the St. Richard's day ensuing.

Demetrios, having gleaned this knowledge in a pothouse, purchased a stout file, a scarlet cap and a lute. Ambrogio Bracciolini, head-gaoler at the fortress—so the gossips told Demetrios—had been a jongleur in youth, and minstrels were always welcome guests at San' Alessandro.

The gaoler was a very fat man with icy little eyes. Demetrios took his measure to a hair's breadth as this Bracciolini straddled in the doorway.

Demetrios had assumed an admirable air of simplicity.

"God give you joy, messire," he said, with a simper; "I come bringing a precious balsam which cures all sorts of ills, and heals the troubles both of body and mind. For what is better than to have a pleasant companion to sing and tell merry tales, songs and facetious histories?"

"You appear to be something of a fool," Bracciolini considered, "but all do not sleep who snore. Come, tell me what are your accomplishments."

"I can play the lute, the violin, the flageolet, the harp, the syrinx and the regals," the other replied; "also the Spanish penola that is struck with a quill, the organistrum that a wheel turns round, the wait so delightful, the rebeck so enchanting, the little gigue that chirps up on high, and the great horn that booms like thunder."

Bracciolini said:

"That is something. But can you throw knives into the air and catch them without cutting your fingers? Can you balance chairs and do tricks with string? or imitate the cries of birds? or throw a somersault and walk on your head? Ha, I thought not. The Gay Science is dying out, and young practitioners neglect these subtile points. It was not so in my day. However, you may come in."

So when night fell Demetrios and Bracciolini sat snug and sang of love, of joy, and arms. The fire burned bright, and the floor was well covered with gaily tinted mats. White wines and red were on the table.

Presently they turned to canzons of a more indecorous nature. Demetrios sang the loves of Douzi and Ishtar, which the gaoler found remarkable. He said so and crossed himself. "Man, man, you must have been afishing in the mid-pit of hell to net such filth."

"I learned that song in Nacumera," said Demetrios, "when I was a prisoner there with Messire de la Forêt. It was a favourite song with him."

"Ay?" said Bracciolini. He looked at Demetrios very hard, and Bracciolini pursed his lips as if to whistle. The gaoler scented from afar a bribe, but the face of Demetrios was all vacant cheerfulness.

Bracciolini said, idly:

"So you served under him? I remember that he was taken by the heathen.
A woman ransomed him, they say."

Demetrios, able to tell a tale against any man, told now the tale of Melicent's immolation, speaking with vivacity and truthfulness in all points save that he represented himself to have been one of the ransomed Free Companions.

Bracciolini's careful epilogue was that the proconsul had acted foolishly in not keeping the emeralds.

"He gave his enemy a weapon against him," Bracciolini said, and waited.

"Oh, but that weapon was never used. Sire Perion found service at once, under King Bernart, you will remember. Therefore Sire Perion hid away these emeralds against future need—under an oak in Sannazaro, he told me. I suppose they lie there yet."

"Humph!" said Bracciolini. He for a while was silent. Demetrios sat adjusting the strings of the lute, not looking at him.

Bracciolini said, "There were eighteen of them, you tell me? and all fine stones?"

"Ey?—oh, the emeralds? Yes, they were flawless, messire. The smallest was larger than a robin's egg. But I recall another song we learned at Nacumera—"

Demetrios sang the loves of Lucius and Fotis. Bracciolini grunted, "Admirable" in an abstracted fashion, muttered something about the duties of his office, and left the room. Demetrios heard him lock the door outside and waited stolidly.

Presently Bracciolini returned in full armour, a naked sword in his hand.

"My man,"—and his voice rasped—"I believe you to be a rogue. I believe that you are contriving the escape of this infamous Comte de la Forêt. I believe you are attempting to bribe me into conniving at his escape. I shall do nothing of the sort, because, in the first place, it would be an abominable violation of my oath of office, and in the second place, it would result in my being hanged."

"Messire, I swear to you—!" Demetrios cried, in excellently feigned perturbation.

"And in addition, I believe you have lied to me throughout. I do not believe you ever saw this Comte de la Forêt. I very certainly do not believe you are a friend of this Comte de la Forêt's, because in that event you would never have been mad enough to admit it. The statement is enough to hang you twice over. In short, the only thing I can be certain of is that you are out of your wits."

"They say that I am moonstruck," Demetrios answered; "but I will tell you a secret. There is a wisdom lies beyond the moon, and it is because of this that the stars are glad and admirable."

"That appears to me to be nonsense," the gaoler commented; and he went on: "Now I am going to confront you with Messire de la Forêt. If your story prove to be false, it will be the worse for you."

"It is a true tale. But sensible men close the door to him who always speaks the truth."

"These reflections are not to the purpose," Bracciolini submitted, and continued his argument: "In that event Messire de la Forêt will undoubtedly be moved by your fidelity in having sought out him whom all the rest of the world has forsaken. You will remember that this same fidelity has touched me to such an extent that I am granting you an interview with your former master. Messire de la Forêt will naturally reflect that a man once torn in four pieces has no particular use for emeralds. He will, I repeat, be moved. In his emotion, in his gratitude, in mere decency, he will reveal to you the location of those eighteen stones, all flawless. If he should not evince a sufficiency of such appropriate and laudable feeling, I tell you candidly, it will be the worse for you. And now get on!"

Bracciolini pointed the way and Demetrios cringed through the door. Bracciolini followed with drawn sword. The corridors were deserted. The head-gaoler had seen to that.

His position was simple. Armed, he was certainly not afraid of any combination between a weaponless man and a fettered one. If this jongleur had lied, Bracciolini meant to kill him for his insolence. Bracciolini's own haphazard youth had taught him that a jongleur had no civil rights, was a creature to be beaten, robbed, or stabbed with impunity.

Upon the other hand, if the vagabond's tale were true, one of two things would happen. Either Perion would not be brought to tell where the emeralds were hidden, in which event Bracciolini would kill the jongleur for his bungling; or else the prisoner would tell everything necessary, in which event Bracciolini would kill the jongleur for knowing more than was convenient. This Bracciolini had an honest respect for gems and considered them to be equally misplaced when under an oak or in a vagabond's wallet.

Consideration of such avarice may well have heartened Demetrios when the well-armoured gaoler knelt in order to unlock the door of Perion's cell. As an asp leaps, the big and supple hands of the proconsul gripped Bracciolini's neck from behind, and silenced speech.

Demetrios, who was not tall, lifted the gaoler as high as possible, lest the beating of armoured feet upon the slabs disturb any of the other keepers, and Demetrios strangled his dupe painstakingly. The keys, as Demetrios reflected, were luckily attached to the belt of this writhing thing, and in consequence had not jangled on the floor. It was an inaudible affair and consumed in all some ten minutes. Then with the sword of Bracciolini Demetrios cut Bracciolini's throat. In such matters Demetrios was thorough.

18.

How They Cried Quits

Demetrios went into Perion's cell and filed away the chains of Perion of the Forest. Demetrios thrust the gaoler's corpse under the bed, and washed away all stains before the door of the cell, so that no awkward traces might remain. Demetrios locked the door of an unoccupied apartment and grinned as Old Legion must have done when Judas fell.

More thanks to Bracciolini's precautions, these two got safely from the confines of San' Alessandro, and afterward from the city of Megaris. They trudged on a familiar road. Perion would have spoken, but Demetrios growled, "Not now, messire." They came by night to that pass in Sannazaro which Perion had held against a score of men-at-arms.

Demetrios turned. Moonlight illuminated the warriors' faces and showed the face of Demetrios as sly and leering. It was less the countenance of a proud lord than a carved head on some old waterspout.

"Messire de la Forêt," Demetrios said, "now we cry quits. Here our ways part till one of us has killed the other, as one of us must surely do."

You saw that Perion was tremulous with fury. "You knave," he said, "because of your pride you have imperilled your accursed life—your life on which the life of Melicent depends! You must need delay and rescue me, while your spawn inflicted hideous infamies on Melicent! Oh, I had never hated you until to-night!"

Demetrios was pleased.

"Behold the increment," he said, "of the turned cheek and of the contriving of good for him that had despitefully used me! Be satisfied, O young and zealous servitor of Love and Christ. I am alone, unarmed and penniless, among a people whom I have never been at pains even to despise. Presently I shall be taken by this vermin, and afterward I shall be burned alive. Theodoret is quite resolved to make of me a candle which will light his way to heaven."

"That is true," said Perion; "and I cannot permit that you be killed by anyone save me, as soon as I can afford to kill you."

The two men talked together, leagued against entire Christendom. Demetrios had thirty sequins and Perion no money at all. Then Perion showed the ring which Melicent had given him, as a love-token, long ago, when she was young and ignorant of misery. He valued it as he did nothing else.

Perion said:

"Oh, very dear to me is this dear ring which once touched a finger of that dear young Melicent whom you know nothing of! Its gold is my lost youth, the gems of it are the tears she has shed because of me. Kiss it, Messire Demetrios, as I do now for the last time. It is a favour you have earned."

Then these two went as mendicants—for no one marks a beggar upon the highway—into Narenta, and they sold this ring, in order that Demetrios might be conveyed oversea, and that the life of Melicent might be preserved. They found another vessel which was about to venture into heathendom. Their gold was given to the captain; and, in exchange, the bargain ran, his ship would touch at Assignano, a little after the ensuing dawn, and take Demetrios aboard.

Thus the two lovers of Melicent foreplanned the future, and did not admit into their accounting vagarious Dame Chance.

19.

How Flamberge Was Lost

These hunted men spent the following night upon the Needle, since there it was not possible for an adversary to surprise them. Perion's was the earlier watch, until midnight, and during this time Demetrios slept. Then the proconsul took his equitable turn. When Perion awakened the hour was after dawn.

What Perion noted first, and within thirty feet of him, was a tall galley with blue and yellow sails. He perceived that the promontory was thronged with heathen