The Poniard's Hilt Part 28

"Chram, I shall not take offence at the jokes of your favorite. Let us proceed to the burg."

"Lead the way, count, we shall follow."

The joint cavalcades started for the burg, and the conversation proceeded.

"Count, admit to our royal master Chram that, in concealing your wife, you keep your treasure under lock and key for fear of its being stolen from you."

"My favorite, Spatachair, who holds that language to you, Neroweg, is also of a humorous disposition."

"Prince, meseems you select very gay, and perhaps too bold a set of friends."

"Neroweg, you hide your wife from us--it is your right. We shall hunt her up in her nest--that is our right. There is no lock or key safe against a good thief. The hunt is up."

"Chram, this is another of your humorous friends, I suppose?"

"Yes, count, the most humorous of all--the boldest--his name is Imnachair."

"And my name is Neroweg; I shall ask seigneur Imnachair what will the thief do when he has found the nest and the dove?"

"Neroweg, your wife will tell you all about it, after we shall have discovered the belle--we shall put our hands on that treasure as surely as I am the Lion of Poitiers."

"And I," cried Neroweg, "as surely as I am the King's count in this country of Auvergne, shall kill like a dog or a prowling fox whomever would attempt the role of a lion in my house!"

"Oh, oh, count, you hold bold language! Is it the brilliant army which you lead at your heels that makes you so audacious?" queried the Prince's favorite, nodding towards Neroweg's ramshackle leudes. "If that band is up to its looks, we are lost!"

Two or three of the count's leudes who had been drawing nearer, and heard the insolent jokes of Chram's favorite grumbled aloud in angry accents:

"We do not like to see Neroweg bantered!"

"A count's leudes are matches for royal leudes!"

"The polish of the steel does not make its temper."

One of Chram's men turned towards his companions, and laughing, pointed at the count's people with the tip of his lance while sarcastically alluding to their rustic appearance:

"Are these plow-slaves disguised as warriors, or warriors disguised as plow-slaves?"

The royal cortege answered the sally with a loud outburst of laughter.

The two sides were beginning to cast defiant looks at each other when Bishop Cautin cried:

"My dear sons in Christ, I, your bishop and spiritual father, recommend to you coolness and good will. A truce with unseasonable jokes!"

"Count," said Chram to Neroweg flippantly, "mistrust this profligate and hypocritical bishop. Do not bestow upon him alone the privilege of singing your wife's praises--holy man though he be, he would as leave sing the praises of Venus, the G.o.ddess of the pagans!"

"Chram, I am the servant of the son of our glorious King Clotaire; but as bishop I am ent.i.tled to your respect."

"You are right; nowadays you bishops have become almost as powerful, and above all as rich as ourselves, the Kings."

"Chram, you mention the power and the wealth of the bishops of Gaul. You seem to forget that our power is of the Lord, and our riches are the goods of the poor!"

"By the slack skin of all the purses that you have rifled, you fat weasel who suck the yellow of the eggs and leave only the sh.e.l.l to the sots, for once you have told the truth. Aye, your riches are the goods of the poor, but you have bagged these goods for yourself."

"Glorious Prince, I have accompanied you to the burg of my son in Christ, Count Neroweg, in order to fulfill the act of high justice that you know of, but not in order to allow our holy Catholic and apostolic religion to be impudently made sport of in my person!"

"And I maintain that your power and riches increase by the day. I have two daughters; who knows but they will yet see the royal power shrink in even measure as the grasping usurpations of the bishops, with whom we shared our conquest, gain ground--a parcel of bishops whom we enriched, to whom we have been the men at arms, and who are ungrateful towards their benefactors!"

"Men at arms to us, men of peace? You err, O, Prince! Our only arms are sermons and exhortations."

"And when the people laugh at your sermons, as the Visigoths did, the Arians of Provence and Languedoc, then you send us to extirpate their heresy with fire and sword! Those are your real arms!"

"Glory to G.o.d! In those wars against the heretics, the Frankish Kings took an immense booty, they caused the orthodox faith to triumph, and s.n.a.t.c.hed the souls of men from the everlasting flames by leading them back to the bosom of the holy Church."

He who might have a.s.sisted at the recent supper at the episcopal villa, where the bishop had Neroweg for his guest, would not have recognized Cautin. The holy man, being then in _tete-a-tete_ with the count, a stupid, brutal and blind believer, cared not to clothe himself in the dignity of language. But now, in the presence of Chram, a brazen jester whom he detested, he felt the need to impose, both with language and bearing, respect and fear, if not upon the Prince himself and his favorites, the latter of whom were as impudent as himself, then at least upon their suite, who were infinitely less intelligent and proportionally devout. There was another grave apprehension that weighed upon Cautin's mind. He was in great fear that the audacious example of Chram and his friends might shake the nave and fruitful credulity of Neroweg, from which Cautin drew much profit by the cultivation and exploitation of the devil. From the corner of his eye the bishop saw the count give a sly ear to the insolent jests of Chram, which seemed at once to please and frighten him. The Prince doubtlessly was wondering whether Neroweg was blockish enough to believe in the miraculous powers of the bishop, and to pay as dearly as he was reputed to do for the absolutions of the prelate. Cautin, being a man of extraordinary ability, saw his opportunity to strike a master blow. Being in the habit of closely watching the weather and of observing the premonitions of the storms that are so sudden and of frequent occurrence in mountainous countries, he, as well as so many other priests, utilized his weather-wisdom to frighten the simple-minded. The prelate had for some little time noticed a black cloud, which, barely visible at first over the crest of a peak in the distant horizon, was bound soon to spread over the sky and darken the sun, which, at the moment, was s.h.i.+ning brilliantly. Accordingly, at the first fresh insolent jest on the part of Chram at the impositions practiced by the clergy, the prelate answered, measuring the length of his words with the progress made by the spreading storm-cloud:

"It is not for an unworthy servant of G.o.d, for a humble earth worm like me, to defend the Church of the Eternal; the Lord has His own power and miracles with which to convince the incredulous, His celestial punishments with which to chastise the impious. Woe, I say, unto the man who dares now, in the face of that sun that s.h.i.+nes at this moment with such vivid l.u.s.ter over our heads," the bishop proceeded with ever louder voice; "woe, I say, and malediction unto him who, in the face of the Almighty, Who sees, hears, judges and punishes us; malediction upon him who dares insult His divinity in the sacred person of His bishops! Is there any present, Prince or seigneur, who dares outrage divine majesty?"

"There is here the Lion of Poitiers, who makes you this answer: Cautin, bishop of Clermont, I shall break my switch over your back if you do not quit speaking with such insolence."

By the faith of a Vagre! The Lion of Poitiers, the renegade Gaul, had some occasional good quality. But his bold words caused most of those who heard them to shudder; the royal suite as well as the leudes of the count looked scandalized. To these faithful it seemed a monstrous thing to break a switch over the back of a bishop, even if, as in the instance of Cautin, he was guilty of burying a human being alive in the sepulchre of a corpse.[A] A profound stupor succeeded upon the threat made by the Lion of Poitiers. Even Chram himself looked shocked at the audacity of his favorite. Cautin took in the scene at a glance. Simulating a saintly horror and turning full towards the Lion of Poitiers, who defiantly swung his switch, the prelate cried, raising his hands heavenward:

"Unhappy, impious man, have pity upon yourself! The Lord has heard your blasphemy. Behold how the skies darken--the sun hides its face--behold the precursors of celestial wrath! Down on your knees, my dear sons!

Down on your knees! Your father in G.o.d bids you! Pray the Eternal to appease His wrath, kindled by the frightful blasphemy!"

[A] Bishop Gregory of Tours. Histoire des Franks, IV. 12.

And Cautin precipitately descended from his horse. But he did not kneel.

Standing erect with his hands outstretched to heaven, in the posture of a priest officiating at the altar, he seemed to be communing with some invisible being as if conjuring away the celestial wrath.

At the bishop's voice, Chram's servants and slaves, all of whom were terrified by the seemingly sudden storm, threw themselves upon their knees; most of the Prince's cortege likewise leaped down from their horses and knelt, in no less consternation than the slaves and servants at the sight of the sun's face suddenly darkened when the Lion of Poitiers threatened the bishop with his switch. Neroweg, who was one of the first on his knees, unctuously smote his chest; Chram, however, together with his favorites and a few others of his familiars, kept their saddles, hesitating out of pride to follow the bishop's orders.

With an imperious gesture and threatening accent the latter cried:

"Down on your knees, O King! The King is no more than the slave in the eye of the Almighty. Both King and slave must bow down to earth in order to appease the wrath of the Eternal. Down on your knees, O King! Down on your knees, both you and your favorites!"

"Dare you issue orders to me?" cried Chram pale with rage at the sight of the abject submission of his men to the bishop's orders. "Who is master here, you or I, insolent priest?"

A thunder clap that reverberated in the hollows of the mountain closed the mouth of Chram, and served the knavery of Cautin to perfection.

Louder and more imperiously than before the prelate repeated:

"Down on your knees! Hear you not the thunder of heaven, the rumbling voice of the Almighty? Will you draw down a shower of fire upon the heads of us all? O, Lord, have pity upon us! Remove the cataracts of burning lava, that, in Your wrath at the impious, You are about to shower down upon them, and, perhaps, upon us also, miserable sinners that we all are! Even the purest of heart can not claim to be irreproachable before Your majesty, O, Lord!"

Several fresh claps of thunder, preceded by blinding flashes of lightning, carried the fright of Chram's suite to the highest pitch. The Prince himself did not remain wholly unaffected, despite his innate incredulity, audacity and superb insolence. His pride nevertheless still revolted at the idea of yielding to the bishop's orders, and murmurs, at first subdued, but speedily breaking out in open threats, rose from all parts of his suite, cortege and retinue.

"Down on your knees, our Prince--on your knees!"

"Insignificant as we are, we do not wish to burn in the fire of heaven for the sake of your and your favorite's impiousness!"

"Down on your knees, our Prince! Down on your knees! Obey the orders of the holy bishop--it is the Lord who speaks to us through his mouth!"