The Infant's Skull Part 3

"What makes me question their a.s.sertion, Louis, is that, while announcing the end of the world, these prelates recommend to the faithful to part with their goods to the Church and to donate their domains to them."

"Of what use would it be to keep perishable riches if soon everything is to perish?"

"But then, dear seigneur, if everything is to perish, what is the Church to do with the goods that she is eternally demanding from the faithful?"

"After all, you are right. It may be another imposture of the tonsured fraternity. Nor should anything of the sort surprise us when we see bishops guilty of adultery and poisoning."

"You always come back to those lugubrious thoughts, dear seigneur! Pray forget those unworthy calumnies regarding your mother.... Just G.o.d! Can a woman be guilty of her husband's murder! Impossible! G.o.d would not permit it!"

"But did I not witness the agony and death of my father! Oh, the effect of the poison was strange ... terrible!" said the King in somber meditation. "My father felt his feet growing cold, icy and numb, unable to support him. By degrees the mortal lethargy invaded his other members, as if he were being slowly dipped into an ice bath! What a terrible spectacle that was!"

"There are illnesses so sudden, so strange, my beloved master.... When such crimes are charged, I am of those who say: 'When I see I believe, when I do not see I refuse to accept such theories.'"

"Oh, I saw but too much!" cried Louis, and again hiding his face in his hands he added in a distressful voice: "I know not why these thoughts should plague me to-day. Oh, G.o.d, have pity on me. Remove these fears from my spirit!"

"Louis, do not weep like that, you tear my heart to pieces. Your sadness is a wrong done to this beautiful May day. Look out of the window at that brilliant sun; look at the spring verdure of the forest; listen to the gay twittering of the birds. Why, all around us, everything in nature is lovely and joyous; you alone are sad! Come, now, my beautiful seigneur," added Blanche taking both the hands of the King. "I am going to draw you out of this dejection that distresses me as much as it does you.... I am all the gladder at my project, which is intended to please and amuse you."

"What is your project?"

"I propose to spend the whole day near you. We shall take our morning meal here. I have issued orders to that effect, my indolent boy. After that we shall go to ma.s.s. We shall then take a long outing in a litter through the forest. Finally.... But, no, no, the surprise I have in store for you shall remain a secret. It shall be the price of your submission."

"What is the surprise about?"

"You will never have spent such a delightful evening.... You whom everything tires and whom everything is indifferent to ... you will be charmed by what I have in store for you, my dear husband."

Louis the Do-nothing, a youth of indolent and puerile mind, felt his curiosity p.r.i.c.ked, but failed to draw any explanation from Blanche. A few minutes later the chamberlains and servants entered carrying silver dishes and gold goblets, together with the eatables that were to serve for the morning repast. Other attendants of the royal chamber took up the large table covered to the floor with tapestry and under which Yvon the Calf had hidden himself, and carried it forward to the lounge on which were Louis and Blanche. Bent under the table, and completely concealed by the ample folds of the cover which trailed along the floor, the idiot moved forward on his hands and knees as, carried by the servants, the table was being taken towards the royal lounge. When it was set down before Louis and Blanche, Yvon also stopped. Menials and equerries were preparing to render the habitual services at table when the Queen said smiling to her husband: "Will my charming master consent that to-day I be his only servant?"

"If it please you," answered Louis the Do-nothing, and he proceeded in an undertone: "But you know that according to my habit I shall neither eat nor drink anything that you have not tasted before me."

"What a child you are!" answered Blanche smiling upon her husband with amiable reproach. "Always suspicious! We shall drink from the same cup like two lovers."

The officers of the King left upon a sign from the Queen. She remained alone with Louis.

CHAPTER V.

THE FOUNDING OF A DYNASTY.

Day was waning. Darkness began to invade the s.p.a.cious apartment where seventy-five years before Francon, archbishop of Rouen, informed Charles the Simple that he was to give his daughter Ghisele together with the domains of Neustria to Rolf the Norman pirate, and where now King Louis and his wife Blanche had spent the day.

Louis the Do-nothing was asleep at full length upon his lounge near to the table that was still covered with the dishes and vases of gold and silver. The King's sleep was painful and restless. A cold sweat ran down his forehead that waxed livid by the second. Presently an overpowering torpor succeeded his restlessness, and Louis remained plunged in apparent calmness, although his features were rapidly becoming cadaverous. Standing behind the lounge with his elbows resting against its head, Yvon the Calf contemplated the King of the Franks with an expression of somber and savage triumph. Yvon had dropped his mask of stupidity. His features now revealed undisguised intelligence, hidden until then by the semblance of idiocy. The profoundest silence reigned in the apartment now darkened by the approach of night. Suddenly, emitting a deep groan, the King awoke with a start. Yvon stooped down and disappeared behind the lounge while the King muttered to himself: "There is a strange feeling upon me.... I felt so violent a pain in my heart that it woke me up...." then looking towards the window: "What! Is it night!... I must have slept long.... Where is the Queen?... Why was I left alone?... I feel heavy and my feet are cold.... Halloa, someone!"

he called out turning his face to the door, "Halloa, Gondulf!...

Wilfrid!... Sigefried!" At the third name that he p.r.o.nounced, Louis'

voice, at first loud, became almost unintelligible, it sunk to a husky whisper. He sat up. "What is the matter with me? My voice is so feeble that I can hardly hear myself. My throat seems to close ... then this icy feeling ... this cold that freezes my feet and is rising to my legs!" The King of the Franks had barely uttered these words when a shudder of fear ran through him. He saw before him Yvon the Calf who had suddenly risen and now stood erect behind the head of the lounge. "What are you doing there?" asked Louis, and he immediately added with a sinking voice: "Run quick for some one.... I am in danger....", but interrupting himself he observed: "Of what use is such an order; the wretch is an idiot.... Why am I left thus alone?... I shall rouse myself," and Louis rose painfully; but hardly had he put his feet down when his limbs gave way under him and he fell in a heap with a dull thud upon the floor. "Help! Help!... Oh, G.o.d, have pity upon me!... Help!"

"Louis, it is too late!" came from Yvon in a solemn voice. "You are about to die ... barely twenty years old, Oh, King of the Franks!"

"What says that idiot? What is the Calf doing here?"

"You are about to die as died last year your father Lothaire, poisoned by his wife! You have been poisoned by Queen Blanche!"

Fear drew a long cry from Louis; his hair stood on end over his icy forehead, his lips, now purple, moved convulsively without producing a sound; his eyes, fixed upon Yvon, became troubled and gla.s.sy, but still retaining a last glimmer of intelligence, while the rest of his body remained inert.

"This morning," said Yvon, "the Count of Paris, Hugh the Capet, met your wife by appointment in the forest. Hugh is a cunning and unscrupulous man. Last year he caused the poisoning of your father by Queen Imma and her accomplice the bishop of Laon; to-day he caused you to be poisoned by Blanche, your wife, and to-morrow the Count of Paris will be King!"

Louis understood what Yvon was saying, although his mind was beclouded by the approach of death. A smile of hatred contracted his lips. "You believed yourself safe from danger," Yvon proceeded, "by compelling your wife to eat of the dishes that she served you. All poison has its antidote. Blanche could with impunity moisten her lips in the wine she had poisoned--" Louis seemed hardly to hear these last words of Yvon; his limbs stiffened, his head dropped and thumped against the floor; his eyes rolled for a last time in their depths; a slight froth gathered on his now blackened lips; he uttered a slight moan, and the last crowned scion of the Carlovingian stock had pa.s.sed away.

"Thus end the royal races! Thus, sooner or later, do they expiate their original crime!" thought Yvon contemplating the corpse of the last Carlovingian king lying at his feet. "My ancestor Amael, the descendant of Joel and of Genevieve, declined to be the jailor of little Childeric, in whom the stock of Clovis was extinguished, and now I witness the crime by which is extinguished, in the person of Louis the Do-nothing, the stock of Charles the Great--the second dynasty of the conquerers of Gaul. Perchance some descendant of my own will in the ages to come witness the punishment of this third dynasty of kings, now raised by Hugh the Capet through an act of cowardly perfidy!"

Steps were heard outside. Sigefried, one of the courtiers, entered the apartment saying to the King: "Seigneur, despite the express orders of the Queen, who commanded us not to disturb your slumber, I come to announce to you the arrival of the Count of Paris."

So saying, Sigefried drew near, leaving the door open behind him. Yvon profited by the circ.u.mstance and groped his way out of the apartment under cover of the dark. Receiving no answer from Louis, Sigefried believed the King was still asleep, when, drawing still nearer he saw the King's body lying on the floor. He stooped and touched the icy hand.

Struck with terror he ran to the door crying out: "Help!... Help!" and crossed the next room continuing to call for a.s.sistance. Several servitors soon appeared with torches in their hands, preceding Hugh the Capet, who now was clad in his brilliant armor and accompanied by several of his officers. "What?" cried the Count of Paris addressing Sigefried in an accent of surprise and alarm, "The King cannot be dead!"

"Oh, Sire, I found Louis on the floor where he must have dropped down from the lounge. I touched his hand. It was icy!" saying which Sigefried followed Hugh the Capet into the apartment that now was brilliantly lighted by the torches of the servants. The Count of Paris contemplated for an instant the corpse of the last Carlovingian king, and cried in a tone of pity: "Oh! Dead! And only twenty years of age!" and turning towards Sigefried with his hands to his eyes as if seeking to conceal his tears: "How can we account for so sudden a death?"

"Seigneur, the King was in perfect health this morning. He sat down at table with the Queen; after that she left giving us orders not to disturb her husband's sleep; and--" Sigefried's report was interrupted by nearing lamentations, and Blanche ran in followed by several of her women. Her hair was tumbled, her looks distracted. "Is Louis really dead?" and upon the answer that she received she cried:

"Woe is me! Woe is me! I have lost my beloved husband! For pity's sake, seigneur Hugh, do not leave me alone! Oh, promise me to join your efforts to mine to discover the author of his death, if my Louis died by crime!"

"Oh, worthy spouse, I swear to G.o.d and his saints, I shall help you discover the criminal!" answered Hugh the Capet solemnly; and seeing Blanche tremble and stagger on her feet like one about to fall he cried: "Help! Blanche is swooning!" and he received in his arms the seemingly fainting body of Blanche who whispered in his ear: "I am a widow ...

you are King!"

CHAPTER VI.

YVON AND MARCELINE.

Upon leaving the room where lay the corpse of Louis the Do-nothing, Yvon descended the stairs to the apartment of Adelaide, the lady of the Queen's chamber, and mistress of the golden-haired Marceline, whom he expected to find alone, Adelaide having followed the Queen when the latter ran to the King's apartment feigning despair at the death of her husband. Yvon found the young female serf at the threshold of the door in a state of great agitation at the tumult that had suddenly invaded the castle. "Marceline," Yvon said to her, "I must speak with you; let us step into your mistress's room. She will not leave the Queen for a long time. We shall not be interrupted. Come!" The young woman opened wide her eyes at seeing for the first time the Calf expressing himself in a sane manner, and his face now free of its wonted look of stupidity.

In her astonishment, Marceline could not at first utter a word, and Yvon explained, smiling: "Marceline, my language astonishes you. The reason is, you see, I am no longer Yvon the Calf but ... Yvon who loves you!

Yvon who adores Marceline!"

"Yvon who loves me!" cried the poor serf in fear. "Oh, G.o.d, this is some sorcery!"

"If so, Marceline, you are the sorceress. But, now, listen to me. When you will have heard me, you will answer me whether you are willing or not to have me for your husband." Yvon entered the room mechanically followed by Marceline. She thought herself in a dream; her eyes did not leave the Calf and found his face more and more comely. She remembered that, often struck by the affectionateness and intelligence that beamed from Yvon's eyes, she had asked herself how such looks could come from a young man who was devoid of reason.

"Marceline," he proceeded, "in order to put an end to your surprise, I must first speak to you of my family."

"Oh, speak, Yvon, speak! I feel so happy to see you speak like a sane person, and such language!"

"Well, then, my lovely Marceline, my great-grandfather, a skipper of Paris named Eidiol, had a son and two daughters. One of these, Jeanike, kidnapped at an early age from her parents, was sold for a serf to the superintendant of this domain, and later she became the wet-nurse of the daughter of Charles the Simple, whose descendant, Louis the Do-nothing, has just died."

"Is the rumor really true? Is the King dead? So suddenly? It is strange!"