The Little Duke by Charlotte Mary Yonge (snow like ashes TXT) 📕

Osmond de Centeville was soon convinced that no immediate peril

threatened his young Duke at the Court of Laon. Louis seemed to

intend to fulfil his oaths to the Normans by allowing the child to be

the companion of his own sons, and to be treated in every respect as

became his rank. Richard had his proper place at table, and all due

attendance; he learnt, rode, and played with the Princes, and there

was nothing to complain of, excepting the coldness and inattention

with which the King and Queen treated him, by no means fulfilling the

promise of being as parents to their orphan ward. Gerberge, who had

from the first dreaded his superior strength and his roughness with

her puny boys, and who had been by no means won by his manners at

their first meeting, was especially distant and severe with him,

hardly ever speaking to him except with some rebuke, which, it must

be confessed, Richard often deserved.

As to the boys, his constant companions, Richard was on very friendly

terms with Carloman, a gentle, timid, weakly child. Richard looked

down upon him; but he was kind, as a generous-tempered boy could not

fail to be, to one younger and weaker than himself. He was so much

kinder than Lothaire, that Carloman was fast growing very fond of

him, and looked up to his strength and courage as something noble and

marvellous.

It was very different with Lothaire, the person from whom, above all

others, Richard would have most expected to meet with affection, as

his father’s god-son, a relationship which in those times was thought

almost as near as kindred by blood. Lothaire had been brought up by

an indulgent mother, and by courtiers who never ceased flattering

him, as the heir to the crown, and he had learnt to think that to

give way to his naturally imperious and violent disposition was the

way to prove his power and assert his rank. He had always had his

own way, and nothing had ever been done to check his faults; somewhat

weakly health had made him fretful and timid; and a latent

consciousness of this fearfulness made him all the more cruel,

sometimes because he was frightened, sometimes because he fancied it

manly.

He treated his little brother in a way which in these times boys

would call bullying; and, as no one ever dared to oppose the King’s

eldest son, it was pretty much the same with every one else, except

now and then some dumb creature, and then all Lothaire’s cruelty was

shown. When his horse kicked, and ended by throwing him, he stood

by, and caused it to be beaten till the poor creature’s back streamed

with blood; when his dog bit his hand in trying to seize the meat

with which he was teazing it, he insisted on having it killed, and it

was worse still when a falcon pecked one of his fingers. It really

hurt him a good deal, and, in a furious rage, he caused two nails to

be heated red hot in the fire, intending to have them thrust into the

poor bird’s eyes.

“I will not have it done!” exclaimed Richard, expecting to be obeyed

as he was at home; but Lothaire only laughed scornfully, saying, “Do

you think you are master here, Sir pirate?”

“I will not have it done!” repeated Richard. “Shame on you, shame on

you, for thinking of such an unkingly deed.”

“Shame on me! Do you know to whom you speak, master savage?” cried

Lothaire, red with passion.

“I know who is the savage now!” said Richard. “Hold!” to the servant

who was bringing the red-hot irons in a pair of tongs.

“Hold?” exclaimed Lothaire. “No one commands here but I and my

father. Go on Charlot—where is the bird? Keep her fast, Giles.”

“Osmond. You I can command—”

“Come away, my Lord,” said Osmond, interrupting Richard’s order,

before it was issued. “We have no right to interfere here, and cannot

hinder it. Come away from such a foul sight.”

“Shame on you too, Osmond, to let such a deed be done without

hindering it!” exclaimed Richard, breaking from him, and rushing on

the man who carried the hot irons. The French servants were not very

willing to exert their strength against the Duke of Normandy, and

Richard’s onset, taking the man by surprise, made him drop the tongs.

Lothaire, both afraid and enraged, caught them up as a weapon of

defence, and, hardly knowing what he did, struck full at Richard’s

face with the hot iron. Happily it missed his eye, and the heat had

a little abated; but, as it touched his cheek, it burnt him

sufficiently to cause considerable pain. With a cry of passion, he

flew at Lothaire, shook him with all his might, and ended by throwing

him at his length on the pavement. But this was the last of

Richard’s exploits, for he was at the same moment captured by his

Squire, and borne off, struggling and kicking as if Osmond had been

his greatest foe; but the young Norman’s arms were like iron round

him; and he gave over his resistance sooner, because at that moment a

whirring flapping sound was heard, and the poor hawk rose high,

higher, over their heads in ever lessening circles, far away from her

enemies. The servant who held her, had relaxed his grasp in the

consternation caused by Lothaire’s fall, and she was mounting up and

up, spying, it might be, her way to her native rocks in Iceland, with

the yellow eyes which Richard had saved.

“Safe! safe!” cried Richard, joyfully, ceasing his struggles. “Oh,

how glad I am! That young villain should never have hurt her. Put

me down, Osmond, what are you doing with me?”

“Saving you from your—no, I cannot call it folly,—I would hardly

have had you stand still to see such—but let me see your face.”

“It is nothing. I don’t care now the hawk is safe,” said Richard,

though he could hardly keep his lips in order, and was obliged to

wink very hard with his eyes to keep the tears out, now that he had

leisure to feel the smarting; but it would have been far beneath a

Northman to complain, and he stood bearing it gallantly, and pinching

his fingers tightly together, while Osmond knelt down to examine the

hurt. “‘Tis not much,” said he, talking to himself, “half bruise,

half burn—I wish my grandmother was here—however, it can’t last

long! ‘Tis right, you bear it like a little Berserkar, and it is no

bad thing that you should have a scar to show, that they may not be

able to say you did ALL the damage.”

“Will it always leave a mark?” said Richard. “I am afraid they will

call me Richard of the scarred cheek, when we get back to Normandy.”

“Never mind, if they do—it will not be a mark to be ashamed of, even

if it does last, which I do not believe it will.”

“Oh, no, I am so glad the gallant falcon is out of his reach!”

replied Richard, in a somewhat quivering voice.

“Does it smart much? Well, come and bathe it with cold water—or

shall I take you to one of the Queen’s women?”

“No—the water,” said Richard, and to the fountain in the court they

went; but Osmond had only just begun to splash the cheek with the

half-frozen water, with a sort of rough kindness, afraid at once of

teaching the Duke to be effeminate, and of not being as tender to him

as Dame Astrida would have wished, when a messenger came in haste

from the King, commanding the presence of the Duke of Normandy and

his Squire.

Lothaire was standing between his father and mother on their throne-like seat, leaning against the Queen, who had her arm round him; his

face was red and glazed with tears, and he still shook with subsiding

sobs. It was evident he was just recovering from a passionate crying

fit.

“How is this?” began the King, as Richard entered. “What means this

conduct, my Lord of Normandy? Know you what you have done in

striking the heir of France? I might imprison you this instant in a

dungeon where you