Under the Rose Part 16

"From Nanette."

"What for?"

"To accomplish that which I have failed to do," replied the student, willingly. "But, alas, not having earned it, have I the right idly to spend it?" he added, dolefully, half to himself.

"Why did Nanette--" began the jester.

But the other raised his arm with an expostulatory gesture. "Many things I know," he interrupted; "odds and ends of erudition, but a woman's mind I know not, nor want to know. I had as soon question Beelzebub as her; yea, to stir up the devil with a stick. If sparing my life is contingent on my knowing why she does this, or that, then let me pay the debt of nature."

"No; 'tis slight punishment to take from a man that which he values so little he must reason with himself to learn if he value it at all,"

returned the duke's jester, slowly. "We'll waive the question, if you find me the horse."

"'Tis Nanette you must ask. There's but one, old, yet serviceable--"

"Then take me to Nanette."

"Very well. Follow me, sir; and if you're still of a mind when you see her, you can question her."

"Why, is she so weird and witch-like to look upon?" said the fool.

"Nay; the devil hides his claws behind the daintiest fingers, all pink and white. He conceals his cloven hoof in a slipper, truly sylph-like."

"You arouse my curiosity. I would fain meet this fair monster."

"Come then, Master Fool," replied the scamp-student, leaving the road for the field to the right, and the jester, after a moment's deliberation, turned likewise into the stubble, while the hound, as if satisfied with the service it had performed, slowly retraced its way toward the castle, stopping, however, now and then to look around after the two men, whose figures grew smaller and smaller in the distance.

For some s.p.a.ce they walked in silence; then the scholar paused, and, pointing to a low, rambling house that once had been a hunter's lodge and now had fallen into decay, exclaimed:

"There's where she lives, fool. I'll warrant she's not alone."

At the same time a clamor of voices and a chorus of rough melody, coming from the cottage, confirmed the a.s.surance his spouse was not, indeed, holding solitary vigil.

"'Tis e'en thus every night," murmured the scamp student in a melancholy tone. "She gathers 'round her the sc.u.m of all rudeness; ragged alchemists of pleasure, who sing incessantly, like gra.s.shoppers on a summer day."

"Where is the horse?" said the jester, abruptly.

"Stalled in one of the rooms for safe keeping. There are so many rascals and thieves around, you see--"

"They e'en rob one another!" returned the fool.

Advancing more cautiously, the two men approached the ancient forester's dwelling, the hue and cry sounding louder as they drew near, a mingled discord of laughter, shouting and caterwauling, with a woman's piercing voice at times dominating the general vociferation.

The philosopher shook his head despondingly, while, creeping to one of the windows, the jester looked in.

Near the fire was a misshapen creature, a sort of monstrous imbecile that chattered and moaned; a being that bore some resemblance to the ancient morios once sold at the olden Forum Morionum to the ladies who desired these hideous animals for their amus.e.m.e.nt. At his feet gamboled a dwarf that squeaked and screeched, distorting its face in hideous grimaces. Scattered about the room, singing, bawling or brawling, were indigent morris dancers; bare-footed minstrels; a pinched and needy versificator; a reduced mountebank; a swarthy clown, with a hare's mouth; joculators of the streets, poor as rats and living as such, straitened, heedless fellows, with heads full of nonsense and purses empty, poor in pocket, but rich in _plaisanterie_.

Upon the table, with cards in her lap, which she studied idly, sat a hard-featured, deep-bosomed woman, neither old nor uncomely, with thick, black hair, coa.r.s.e as a horse's mane, cheeks red as a berry, glowing with health. In her pose was a certain savage grace, an untrammeled freedom which revealed the vigorous outlines of a well-proportioned figure. Her eye was bright as a diamond and bold as a trooper's; when she lifted her head she looked disdainfully, scornfully, fiercely, upon the strange and monstrous company of which she was queen.

"Where can the thief-friar be?" muttered the student. "He is usually not far off from sweet Nanette."

"You mean the monk who had a hand in your nuptials?"

"Who else? He, the source of all ill. He who gave her the money of which she e'en presented me a moiety. Whoever employed him--was it your friends, gentle sir?--rewarded him with gold. Being a craven rogue, I e'en suspect him of s.h.i.+fting the task to myself for a beggarly pittance, whilst he is off with the lion's share."

The jester, watching the company within, made no reply. From the student to the woman, to the friar, was a chain leading--where? He found it not difficult to surmise. Suddenly Nanette threw down the cards and laughed harshly.

"Neither the devil nor his imps could read the things that are happening in the castle!"

Then abruptly springing from the table, she made her way to the fire, over which hung a pot of some savory stew, a magnet to the company's sharp desire; for throughout all the boisterous merriment wandering glances had invariably returned to it. To reach the kettle and make herself mistress of the culinary preparations, she cuffed a dwarf with such vigor that he hobbled howling from a suspicious proximity to the appetizing mess to a safe refuge beneath the table. With equally dauntless spirit, she pushed aside the herculean morio who had been childishly standing over the pot, licking his fingers in eager antic.i.p.ation; whereupon the imbecile set up a sharp cry that blended with the deeper roar of the lilliputian.

"And I caught the rabbit!" piteously bellowed the latter from his retreat.

"And I found the turnips!" cried the colossal idiot, tears running down his lubberly cheeks.

"Peace, you demons!" exclaimed the woman, waving the spoon at them, "or, by the h.e.l.l-born, you'll ne'er taste morsel of it!"

Quieted by this stupendous threat, they closed their mouths and opened their eyes but the wider, while the gipsy spouse of the student stirred and stirred the mixture in the iron pot, gazing at the fire with frowning brow as though she would read some page of the future in the leaping flames.

"Saw you but now how she served the dwarf and the overgrown lump?"

whispered the student to the duke's fool. "Are you still minded to meet her?"

For answer the jester left the window, stepped to the door, and, opening it, strode into the room.

CHAPTER X

THE FOOL RETURNS TO THE CASTLE

As the duke's fool suddenly appeared in the crowded apartment, the hubbub abruptly ceased; the minstrels and mountebanks gazed in surprise at the slender figure of the alien jester whose rich garments proclaimed him a personage of importance, one who had reached that pinnacle in buffoonery, the high office of court _plaisant_. The morio crouched against the wall, his fear of the new-comer as great as his body was large; the garret minstrels stopped strumming their instruments, while the woman at the fire uttered a quick exclamation and dropped the spoon with a clatter to the floor, where it was promptly seized by the dwarf, who, taking advantage of the woman's consternation, thrust it greedily to his lips. But soon recovering from her wonderment, the gipsy soundly boxed the dwarf's ears, recovered her spoon and set herself once more to stirring the contents of the pot.

The jester observed her for a moment--the heavy, bare arm moving round and round over the kettle; her sunburnt legs uncovered to the knee; the masculine att.i.tude of her figure with the torn and worn garments that covered her--and she seemed to him a veritable trull of disorder and squalor. The gipsy, too, looked at him over her shoulder, and, as she gazed, her hand went slower and slower, until all motion ceased, and the spoon lay on the edge of the pot, when she turned deliberately, offering him the full sight of her bold cheeks and shameless eyes.

"Are you Nanette, wife of this philosopher?" asked the duke's fool, approaching, and indicating the miserable scamp who clung near the doorway as one undecided whether to enter or run away.

"Yes; I am Nanette, his true and lawful spouse," she answered with a shrill laugh. "Wilt come to me, true-love?" she called out to her apprehensive yoke-mate.

"Nay; I'll go out in the air a while," hurriedly replied the vagabond-scholar, and quickly vanished.

"Ah, how he loves me!" she continued.

"So much he prefers a cony-burrow to his own fireside," said the fool dryly.

"A hole i' the earth is too good for such a scurvy fellow," she retorted. "But what would you here, fool? A song, a jest, a dance?

Or have you come to learn a new story, or ballad, for the lordlings you must entertain?" Unabashed, she approached a step nearer.

"Your stories, mistress, would be unsuited for the court, and your ballads best unsung," he retorted. "I came, not to sharpen my wits, but to learn from whom the thief-friar got the small piece of silver you gave your consort, and, also, to procure a horse."

Her brazen eyes wavered. "A horse and a fool flying," she muttered.