The Court Jester

The Lady Anne now came forward, and clasping the princess in her arms kissed her on both cheeks. "The little lady whom of all others I have most desired to see!" she said. "Happily sheltered in the arms of my own dear father I heard of you, a tiny child away from your parents and in a strange country. And once I sent you a doll. I dare say you have forgotten it," she went on, half laughing. "It was a fashion model that had been sent to my grandmother, who was going to live at the court of France in the time of Charles the Seventh, and it was one of my dearest possessions. It wore a high pointed cap with a long flowing veil, and it had long pointed shoes."

"It must have looked like the old Duchess of Burgundy," remarked Le Glorieux, who was again his old impudent self. "Did it talk of the princess who kissed the poet, Cousin Anne?"

"It was dressed in the mode of the princess who kissed the poet," she returned, laughing. "Do you remember it, Lady Marguerite?"

"Yes, Lady Anne, and I have it still. Since the day you sent it I always have remembered you in my prayers. With it came a little chain set with pearls, but I liked the doll best."

Just here the jester began to laugh immoderately, slapping his knees and stamping at the same time, while every one else smiled in sympathy.

"What do you find so very amusing, Fool?" asked the Lady Anne.

He replied, "Some things that happen in royal families are so very funny that they would make Pandora, my hawk, laugh, though she is such a sulky little brute. Once explained to Pittacus, my donkey, and he would smile until every tooth in his head could be seen. You asked if this child's father was married to a woman who was unkind to her, and her nurse said he was about to be married. And you, Cousin Anne, ha! ha! you are to be the cruel stepmother!"

There was no denying the fact that the Lady Anne was about to be the stepmother of the Lady Marguerite, for Maximilian, who was still young and handsome, was shortly to marry the young Duchess of Brittany.

But again the duchess seemed to be embarrassed, and she turned her back to Le Glorieux as she said, "My dear Lady Marguerite, I will not keep you here a moment when you must be overcome with fatigue. I will send you to your apartments, where supper shall be served you, and then when you have retired and are resting I will come and talk to you, if I may."

The princess, so far from being conducted to the plain but comfortable quarters which would have been hers had her identity remained a secret, was now shown all the deference accorded a person of rank. Pages, maids, and even ladies of high degree, rushed about to make her comfortable, a delicious supper was served, and she lay down to rest beneath the gold-embroidered canopy of a couch even more sumptuous than her own bed in the palace of Amboise.

Cunegunda, who had been given a room next to that of her young mistress, after smoothing the silken coverlid over her young charge, satisfied that nothing dreadful was going to happen to-night, at least, had retired, and was sleeping the sleep of the fatigued when the Lady Anne entered the apartment of her young guest.

The duchess had changed her gown for a long robe of dark blue silk trimmed in fur, with a little cap of the same, and in this plainer garb she seemed younger and less stately than in the earlier part of the evening.

The princess, with her bright hair flowing over the cushions against which she leaned, seemed pathetically young, and it is a singular fact that about these two children revolved the most important events in the history of Europe at that time, events which drove great statesmen to their wits' end, and changed the map of France for all time.

Sitting on the edge of the bed the Lady Anne took the hand Marguerite stretched out to her, and stroking it gently, said simply, "And now tell me all about it. I long to know why France so lightly guards a princess intrusted to her keeping."

"It was as Cunegunda told you," was the reply. "She was suffering and the leeches frightened her. She always has been my nurse. When I was a baby, and, by the desire of our subjects, was sent with my brother to live in Flanders, my beautiful young mother – whom I can not remember – made Cunegunda promise never to leave me, for she knew that my nurse loved me, and love can not be bought. My mother, as you know, was killed when hunting, but Cunegunda never forgot her promise. She came to France with me, and though there are with me Lady Ravenstein and others of my father's court, I feel that none of them is so fond of me as she, for I know that if necessary she would give her life for mine. Anne of Beaujeu, Duchess of Bourbon and sister to the king, is like King Louis, her father, and she would not scruple to take a cruel revenge should she feel so inclined. We both dislike her very much, and that is why we are anxious to return before she hears of our absence."

"Did no one know that you had left the palace of Amboise?" asked the duchess.

"Only a few of the servants, who were bribed to keep silence. The Duchess of Bourbon lately has been away, and I have seen but little of her. Some of the other ladies have been ill, and one of them is about to be married. Cunegunda gave it out that I had been attacked by some contagious childish malady, I do not know what, and this kept them away from my apartments, and we stole out early one morning and mounting our mules came away."

"Were you not afraid to go on a journey without any one of authority in your train, and with no one to guard you from highwaymen?"

"No, Lady Anne. Cunegunda loves me, you know, and she was better than any one of rank. She made a little stuff gown for me, and she said that traveling alone and unattended we should attract no attention, and could go on our way unmolested.

"I have been quite happy during the trip, for it was all so new and so strange to me, and it was so pleasant not to be surrounded by people who were always watching me. But it was my fault that we excited suspicion. I went down to the inn kitchen to see what the common people do when they are having a festival, and I felt that I must give a gold piece to the baby who had been named Mary in memory of my dear mother. It appears that ordinary people do not give away so much money, and that is what made the company at the inn suspicious."

"And no wonder, you innocent little girl," returned the Lady Anne, smiling. "A person of the station represented by your dress would have given, if anything, just the smallest piece of silver which is fastened to a bit of leather to keep it from being lost."

"I am afraid," went on the princess, "of the consequences of our trip to Cunegunda if our absence should be discovered, and as we have been away longer than we had planned, I fear that even those who were bribed to keep silence will think that something has happened to us, and will feel it their duty to report our absence. Cunegunda is afraid of this, and she is terrified when she thinks of Anne of Beaujeu. But as we shall go to-morrow morning, perhaps we shall be in Amboise before we have been missed."

"Indeed, you are not going to-morrow morning, my dear little sister and cousin," said Anne, using the term employed by royalties when addressing each other.

"Then I am afraid that we shall have a great deal of trouble when we do return," said the princess coldly. "Of course we can not help ourselves; we must remain here if you command it, but I can not see how if will benefit you to make us stay against our will. I had hoped that it would be different when you had been told who you were detaining; I am sorry now that I revealed our secret."

She turned her head slightly, and a tear rolled over her temple and dropped into the meshes of her bright hair.

The duchess thrust her arm under the child's head, and clasping her affectionately said, "Do you think, foolish little one, that I am keeping you here for spite? Within a few days you shall set out for Amboise with an escort that even a queen would not disdain."

"It would avail us nothing to return in royal style if we were to be punished sorely at the end of the journey," returned Marguerite dryly.

"You shall not be punished. I already have sent a messenger to the King of France explaining your absence, stating that you are in my keeping, and that you will return in safety."

"The King? Oh, the King would not care. But it is not he who rules France at present; it is his sister, Anne of Beaujeu."

"Let it be Anne of Beaujeu, then," cried the young duchess. "I promise that not one of your golden hairs shall be touched, and that your faithful nurse shall not be harmed in the least."

She rose as she spoke and looked down upon her guest with a proud smile. "France will hardly refuse a request made just now by Anne of Brittany," she said.

"I feel that you will do what you promise, though I do not quite understand," returned Marguerite with a sigh of relief.

For a few moments Anne remained silent, playing with the gilt cords that looped back the curtains of the bed. Then she said, "You evidently do not know that since our recent conflict with France a treaty has been signed whereby I am allowed safe conduct to join the King of the Romans, your father, in Austria. I may sail from St. Malo or go through France, as I choose. I shall take the latter route, and you and your attendant shall go with my suite to the nearest point to Amboise, where you can travel the remainder of the way in safety. Even before I knew your rank I did not like to think of a dainty little creature like you traveling over the country with none to guard you but a woman of the people, and I was going to let you make the journey under my protection. But now you shall ride by my side on the prettiest palfrey in my stables, or in one of my litters if you prefer it." And she gave Marguerite a light kiss on the brow.

"Oh, I am so glad that you are going to marry my father!" cried the princess, with sparkling eyes. "He sent me his portrait by the Austrian ambassador, and he is as beautiful as a knight of the Holy Grail. If I were not the heiress of Burgundy and Flanders, but only a little peasant girl, I could live under my father's roof as other children do. But this happiness is not to be granted me, for it is arranged that I am to be Queen of France."

"Those in whose veins courses royal blood may not do as their hearts dictate," said Anne thoughtfully. "But let us talk no more to-night, for it is time for those bright eyes to be closed in sleep."

The two girls embraced affectionately; then the duchess left the room.

CHAPTER IV

BROKEN PROMISES

After meeting "little Mademoiselle of Austria," as Marguerite was called in the court of Brittany, both Le Glorieux and Antoine felt that they would like to be in her service, and that it was to her, the daughter of their own Mary of Burgundy, to whom they owed their loyalty.

The morning after her arrival the princess sent for Le Glorieux and Antoine to come to her. The Duchess Anne had seen to it that her guest should be clad in a costume befitting her rank, and the coarse gown of the peasant child had been discarded for ever.

Marguerite asked the two comrades a great many questions about the province of Burgundy, and the jester told her many incidents of her mother's girlhood. She listened to Antoine's Burgundian songs with great delight, and she expressed a wish that both jester and musician might accompany her to Amboise, though she said she would not be so selfish as to deprive the Duchess of Brittany of two such merrymakers.

Cunegunda, however, was not happy at the court of Brittany. "I wish that we had been permitted to continue our journey as we began it," she said. "I am convinced that it would have been far better for both of us."

"I am not afraid," replied her mistress calmly. "The Lady Anne has promised that we shall return in safety, and she will not break her word." But Cunegunda's round rosy face remained thoughtful and sad.

"Something tells me that things are not right," said she. "I seem to feel it in the air. Everything is going too well for us. Here is your little Highness treated like a very queen with everything done to amuse you, and both of us so comfortable in this beautiful palace that I feel that it is all too good to be true."

The next afternoon Le Glorieux, who, as has been said, being a jester was privileged to go where he liked, rushed into the apartments of the princess with the remark, "Our Duchess of Brittany soon to be married is listening to a strange man by the oriel window in the grand corridor."

"A jest upon such a subject does not amuse me in the least," replied the Lady Marguerite reprovingly.

"By the mass! nor does it amuse me, for from the few words I caught I am sure it means something quite serious for you, little Cousin."

"Please explain your meaning."

The jester replied, "I was looking at those suits of armor, in the corridor, worn by the ancient Dukes of Brittany. I was counting the dents made in the helmets and corselets by mace and battle-ax, and wondering if it paid to fight so fiercely, since, after all, the time would come when the bravest would be as dead as anybody else, when I heard the tinkle of ladies' voices, and who should come into the corridor but Cousin Anne and Clotilde."

"I slipped behind the armor of a giant duke and stood waiting to see what was going to happen, for the duchess was as white as Dame Cunegunda's cap and the countenance of Clotilde was screwed into an expression I never had seen it wear in all the years I have reveled in the joy of her acquaintance. They waited for a few moments, then the door at the other end of the corridor was opened and two gentlemen entered."