was said behind him, Oliver le Dain, gliding behind King Louis, whispered into his ear – 'It is the Bohemian, Hayraddin Maugrabin – It were not well he should come to speech of the Duke.'
'He must die,' answered Louis, in the same tone – 'dead men tell no tales.'
One instant afterwards, Tristan l'Hermite, to whom Oliver had given the hint, stepped forward before the King and the Duke, and said, in his blunt manner, 'So please your Majesty and your Grace, this piece of game is mine, and I claim him – he is marked with my stamp – the fleur-de-lis is branded on his shoulder, as all men may see. – He is a known villain, and hath slain the King's subjects, robbed churches, deflowered virgins, slain deer in the royal parks' –
'Enough, enough,' said Duke Charles, 'he is my royal cousin's property by many a good title. What will your Majesty do with him?'
'If he is left to my disposal,' said the King, 'I will at least give him one lesson in the science of heraldry, in which he is so ignorant – only explain to him practically, the meaning of a cross potence, with a noose dangling proper.'
'Not as to be by him borne, but as to bear him. – Let him take the degrees under your gossip Tristan – he is a deep professor in such mysteries.'
Thus answered the Duke, with a burst of discordant laughter at his own wit, which was so cordially chorussed by Louis, that his rival could not help looking kindly at him, while he said –
'Ah, Louis, Louis! would to God thou wert as faithful a monarch as thou art a merry companion! I cannot but think often on the jovial time we used to spend together.'
'You may bring it back when you will,' said Louis; 'I will grant you as fair terms as for very shame's sake you ought to ask in my present condition, without making yourself the fable of Christendom; and I will swear to observe them upon the holy relique which I have ever the grace to bear about my person, being a fragment of the true cross.'
Here he took a small golden reliquary, which was suspended from his neck next to his shirt by a chain of the same metal, and having kissed it devoutly, continued –
'Never was false oath sworn on this most sacred relique, but it was avenged within the year.'
'Yet,' said the Duke, 'it was the same on which you swore amity to me when you left Burgundy, and shortly after sent the Bastard of Rubempre to murder or kidnap me.'
'Nay, gracious cousin, now you are ripping up ancient grievances,' said the King; 'I promise you, that you were deceived in that matter. – Moreover, it was not upon this relique which I then swore, but upon another fragment of the true cross which I got from the Grand Seignior, weakened in virtue, doubtless, by sojourning with infidels. Besides, did not the war of the Public Good break out within the year; and was not a Burgundian army encamped at Saint Dennis, backed by all the great feudatories of France; and was I not obliged to yield up Normandy to my brother? – O God, shield us from perjury on such a warrant as this!'
'Well, cousin,' answered the Duke; 'I do believe thou hadst a lesson to keep faith another time. – And now for once, without finesse and doubling, will you make good your promise, and go with me to punish this murdering La Marck and the Liegeois?'
'I will march against them,' said Louis, 'with the Ban, and Arriere-Ban of France, and the Oriflamme displayed.'
'Nay, nay,' said the Duke, 'that is more than is needful, or maybe advisable. The presence of your Scottish Guard, and two hundred choice lances, will serve to show that you are a free agent. A large army might' –
'Make me so in effect, you would say, my fair cousin?' said the King. 'Well, you shall dictate the numbers of my attendants.'
'And to put this fair cause of mischief out of the way, you will agree to the Countess Isabelle of Croye wedding with the Duke of Orleans?'
'Fair cousin,' said the King, 'you drive my courtesy to extremity. The Duke is the betrothed bridegroom of my daughter Joan. Be generous – yield up this matter, and let us speak rather of the towns on the Somme.'
'My council will talk to your Majesty of these,' said Charles; 'I myself have less at heart the acquisition of territory, than the redress of injuries. You have tampered with my vassals, and your royal pleasure must needs dispose of the hand of a Ward of Burgundy. Your Majesty must bestow it within the pale of your own royal family, since you have meddled with it – otherwise, our conference breaks off.'
'Were I to say I did this willingly,' said the King, 'no one would believe me; therefore do you, my fair cousin, judge of the extent of my wish to oblige you, when I say, most reluctantly, that the parties consenting, and a dispensation from the Pope being obtained, my own objections shall be no bar to this match which you propose.'
'All besides can be easily settled by our ministers,' said the Duke, 'and we are once more cousins and friends.'
'May Heaven be praised!' said Louis, 'who, holding in his hand the hearts of princes, doth mercifully incline them to peace and clemency, and prevent the effusion of human blood. – Oliver,' he added apart to that favourite, who ever waited around him like the familiar beside a sorcerer, 'Hark thee – tell Tristan to be speedy in dealing with yonder runagate Bohemian.'
CHAPTER XVII. THE EXECUTION.
I'll take thee to the good green wood,
And make thine own hand choose the tree.
'Now God be praised, that gave us the power of laughing, and making others laugh, and shame to the dull cur who scorns the office of a jester! Here is a joke, and that none of the brightest, (though it may pass, since it has amused two Princes,) which hath gone farther than a thousand reasons of state to prevent a war between France and Burgundy.'
Such was the inference of Le Glorieux, when, in consequence of the reconciliation of which we gave the particulars in the last Chapter, the Burgundian guards were withdrawn from the Castle of Peronne, the abode of the King removed from the ominous Tower of Count Herbert, and, to the great joy both of French and Burgundians, an outward show at least of confidence and friendship seemed so established between Duke Charles and his liege lord. Yet still the latter, though treated with ceremonial observance, was sufficiently aware that he continued to be the object of suspicion, though he prudently affected to overlook it, and appeared to consider himself as entirely at his ease.
Meanwhile, as frequently happens in such cases, whilst the principal parties concerned had so far made up their differences, one of the subaltern agents concerned in their intrigues was bitterly experiencing the truth of the political maxim, that if the great have frequent need of base tools, they make amends to society by abandoning them to their fate, so soon as they find them no longer useful.
This was Hayraddin Maugrabin, who, surrendered by the Duke's officers to the King's Provost-Marshal, was by him placed in the hands of his two trusty aides-de-camp, Trois-Eschelles and Petit-Andre, to be dispatched without loss of time. One on either side of him, and followed by a few guards and a multitude of rabble, – this playing the Allegro, that the Penseroso, – he was marched off (to use a modern comparison, like Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy) to the neighbouring forest; where, to save all further trouble and ceremonial of a gibbet, and so forth, the disposers of his fate proposed to knit him up to the first sufficient tree.
They were not long in finding an oak, as Petit-Andre facetiously expressed it, fit to bear such an acorn; and placing the wretched criminal on a bank, under a sufficient guard, they began their extemporaneous preparations for the final catastrophe. At that moment, Hayraddin, gazing on the crowd, encountered the eyes of Quentin Durward, who, thinking he recognised the countenance of his faithless guide in that of the detected impostor, had followed with the crowd to witness the execution, and assure himself of the identity.
When the executioners informed him that all was ready, Hayraddin, with much calmness, asked a single boon at their hands.
