Cornelia Baker - The Court Jester

This ended the program of the players, and Le Glorieux, who had watched them from his place on the floor, where, sprawling with his elbow resting on a cushion, he was making himself as comfortable as possible, was now anxious to have Antoine appear, for he knew that in his way the boy was far more talented than any who had to-night performed before the court. So, with the permission of the duchess, he went to fetch Antoine.

"Now, my young friend," said he, taking the boy by the ear, "I want you to do us both credit. No choking and squeaking to-night, if you please."

"You do not know what it is to be seized with a panic," retorted Antoine sulkily. "Very easy it is for you, who have the impudence to flout kings, to talk thus to one who is frightened of strangers."

"Fie!" exclaimed Le Glorieux. "Do not think of what the people think of you; think of what you think of them, and you will have no trouble," which, although a sentence having a good many "thinks" in it, is not a bad rule to follow when performing in public.

Antoine seemed to heed his friend's advice, for he began a lively air so inspiring that the duchess kept time with her small fingers on the arm of her chair, while Le Glorieux sprang up and danced in a series of glides and whirls, with his fantastic figure reflected in the polished floor.

A good while before the period of which I am telling you there were trouveres and troubadours who used to compose songs while they were singing them. Antoine, being a born musician, often did the same thing when he was in the humor for it, and that, too with considerable success.

He now began a weird little accompaniment suggesting the sighing of the wind through the woods, and then followed the woeful tale of witches who stole a knight's purse and horse and hawk, and later transformed the knight himself into a dancing dervish who kept on whirling and whirling for ever. There was a twinkle of mischief in the boy's eyes as he sang, and although the company thrilled deliciously at the blood-curdling passages, Le Glorieux knew quite well who was meant by the bewitched knight.

When the song was finished the fool stalked forward and picked up the singer by the back of the neck as a mother cat lifts her kittens. "I understand it all now," said he. "Cousin Anne, I thought the witches had played me a trick this afternoon, but it was this little villain, who evidently skulked along behind me, awaiting his opportunity to do me some mischief!"

"I am sure her Grace will not be interested in your private matters," said the Lady Clotilde coldly.

But the duchess was young enough to be interested in nonsense, and she demanded the whole story, Antoine explaining his part of it by saying that he had been waiting all day to be revenged upon his comrade because the latter had insisted upon his singing at the inn on the previous night. "But I did not know, your Highness, that he would sleep so long, else I should not have gone away and left him there. I was very unhappy about him when night came on and he had not yet arrived."

Just as Antoine had finished speaking, a servant came to announce the coming of some of her Grace's soldiers, saying that the captain of her troop desired an audience, which was granted at once.

An officer now entered, a dark-browed man with a somewhat forbidding face, who, after bending the knee to the duchess and saluting the company, began his story in the satisfied tone of one who feels that he has been quick to see his duty and has done it rather better than most people would have managed it in his place.

He said that he had stopped that morning at an inn for some refreshments, and that the innkeeper had shown him a gold piece given his child the night before by a little girl whose costume did not warrant the gift, and that the latter had seemed so much superior in station to the woman with whom she was traveling that he could not help fearing that the child was being unlawfully conveyed away.

Later the officer and his men had overtaken the mysterious couple, and after putting some questions the officer was convinced that the woman had been sent to Brittany by the French, for she had become very much confused when he questioned her, and implored him to allow her to go on her way unmolested. Her words and manner excited his suspicions still further, and without more ado he had taken them both prisoners, and had brought them to the palace with him. The woman was a foreigner, she said, but she acknowledged that she had lived for years in France, and he did not hesitate to say that he believed her to be a spy.

The Lady Anne, so far from being gratified by this intelligence, looked very much annoyed. "We are no longer at war with France," she said coldly. "It would have been better to have believed the woman's account of herself and let the two go on their way."

Considerably dismayed at thus being reproved where he had expected to be commended, the officer could not forbear to reply that France had broken her word with Brittany in the past, and who could tell but that she might be planning some new piece of treachery?

"Let the prisoners appear before me," said the duchess, and after some little delay the prisoners were brought in, and Le Glorieux and Antoine beheld – as the former, at least, had suspected – the same woman and child who had stopped at the inn on the previous night.

The woman was pale and frightened, and she sobbed bitterly as she knelt at the feet of her Grace of Brittany. The child too was pale, but she stood silent, with her small hands clasped before her, not offering to kneel, as did her companion.

"Oh, gracious lady, give us permission to go on our way at dawn to-morrow!" imploded the woman. "We have been brought out of our way by your soldiers, and if we do not reach home soon I do not know what will happen," and she concluded with another burst of tears.

"You should be German by your accent," said the duchess kindly. "Calm yourself and tell me your name and why you have come to Brittany."

The woman hesitated, and the child said quietly, "Tell her Grace your name; there is no reason why you should not do so."

"Cunegunda Leutner; I am an Austrian, your Grace," was the reply.

"Then she is a subject of your own, after all, Cousin Anne, since you are to marry the Archduke of Austria, Poco Danari ," interposed Le Glorieux, who was not afraid to rush in where angels fear to tread.

The little duchess blushed crimson at this speech. Perhaps she was annoyed to hear the name Poco Danari , which means poverty-stricken, applied to her lover, and which had been given to Maximilian of Austria because his rich old father was too stingy to allow him necessary funds. Whatever the cause, she seemed about to administer a rebuke to the fool, then controlling herself turned again to the woman.

"And the girl, is she your child?"

"No, your Grace, but I have cared for her from the day she was born."

"What brought you to Brittany?"

"For the reason I told your Grace's soldiers. I visited the shrine of Saint Roch, the blessed saint whose fame for healing all maladies is known far and wide."

"You do not look like an invalid," remarked the duchess, surveying the stout figure and round face of the speaker.

"It is the migraine, your Grace, a pain which has troubled me day and night, and which leeches tell me is liable to reach the heart. Oh, dear and gracious lady, I should not care for myself; life is not so precious that I should want to cling to it; it is for this little one that I want to live, and for that reason I have taken this long journey to implore the blessed saint to cure me, that my life may be spared until she no longer needs me."

"Is the child an orphan?"

"Her mother is dead, your Grace. Her mother bade me always to be a friend to her, and I promised."