The Pilgrim's Shell; Or, Fergan the Quarryman: A Tale from the Feudal Times
"And you came to my aid, Perrette," fell in Yolande, who, having dried her tears, overheard the words of the queen of the wenches. "You gave me bread and water to appease my hunger and thirst, and you saved my life."
"Come, my children, let's not have tears," remarked the matron. "Tears make old faces. You shall be taken to the baths of the Emir, where are assembled some of the most beautiful Saracen female slaves of that infidel dog."
At that moment an old woman, the same who had introduced Perrette and Yolande to the hall, came in roaring with laughter, and said to the other shrew: "Oh, Maria, what a find! A diamond in your brothel!"
"What makes you laugh that way?"
"A minute ago, coming back from casting my hook on the market-place," – and she broke out laughing anew. Presently she proceeded: "And I found there – I found there – a diamond!"
"Finish your story!"
But the second old hag, instead of answering, disappeared for an instant behind the curtain that masked the door, and immediately re-appeared conducting Joan the Hunchback, who led by the hand the little Colombaik, no less exhausted than herself from privations and fatigue. To all cruel hearts the poor woman, indeed, was a laughable sight. Her long, tangled hair, half tumbling over her face, fell upon her bare shoulders, dusty like her breast, arms and legs. Her clothing consisted of shreds, fastened around her waist with a band of plaited reeds, so that her sad deformity was exposed in all its nudity. Joan had stripped herself of the rags that constituted the bodice of her robe in order to wrap the feet of Colombaik, flayed to the quick by his long tramp across the burning sands. The quarryman's wife, sad and broken down, quietly followed the shrew, and daring not to raise her eyes, while the latter did not cease laughing.
"What sort of thing is that you bring me there?" cried out the coupler. "What do you want to do with that monster?"
"A first-class joke," replied the other, finally overcoming her hilarity. "We shall rig out this villein in some grotesque costume, leaving her hump well exposed, and we shall present this star of beauty to the noble seigneurs. They will split their sides with laughter. Imagine this darling in the midst of a bevy of pretty girls. Would you not call that a diamond?"
"Ha, ha, ha! An excellent idea!" the matron rejoined, now laughing no less noisily than her assistant. "We shall place upon her head a turban of peacock feathers; we shall ornament her hump with all sorts of gew-gaws. Ha, ha! How those dear seigneurs will be amused. It will pay us well!"
"That's not all, Maria. My find is doubly good. Look at this marmot. It is a little cupid. Everyone to his taste!"
"He is certainly sweet, despite his leanness, and the dust that his features are stained with. His little face is attractive."
Seized with compassion at the sight of Joan and her child, Yolande had not shared in the cruel mirth of the two shrews. But Perrette, less tender, had broken out into a loud roar, when, suddenly struck by a sudden recollection, and attentively eyeing Joan, against whom Colombaik, no less confused and uneasy than his mother, was cuddling closely, the queen of the wenches cried out: "By all the Saints of Paradise! Did you not inhabit in Gaul one of the villages of a neighboring seigniory of Anjou?"
"Yes," answered the poor woman in a weak voice, "we started from there on the Crusade."
"Do you remember a young girl and a tall scamp who wanted to carry you along to Palestine?"
"I remember," answered Joan, regarding Perrette with astonishment; "but I managed to escape those wicked people."
"Rather say those 'good people,' because the young woman was myself, and the tall scamp my lover, Corentin. We wanted to take you to the Holy Land, assuring you that you would be exhibited for money! Now, then, by the faith of the queen of the wenches! confess, Yolande, that I am a mighty prophetess!" added Perrette, turning to her companion. But the latter reproachfully answered her: "How have you the courage to mock a mother in the presence of her child!"
These words seemed to make an impression upon Perrette. She checked her laughter, relapsed into a brooding silence, and seemed touched by the fate of Joan, while Yolande addressed the woman kindly: "Poor, dear woman, how did you allow yourself to be brought here with your child? You cannot know what place this is. You are in a house of prostitution."
"I arrived in this city with a troop of pilgrims and Crusaders, who, by a miracle, escaped, like myself and son, a sand-spout that buried, a fortnight ago, so many travelers under the sands of the desert. I had sat down with my son under the shadow of a wall, exhausted with fatigue and hunger, when yonder woman," and Joan pointed to the shrew, "after long looking at me, said to me charitably: 'You seem to be very much tired out, you and your child. Will you follow me? I shall take you to a holy woman of great piety.' It was an unlooked-for piece of good luck to me," added Joan. "I put faith in the words of this woman, and I followed her hither."
"Alack! You have fallen into a hateful trap. They propose to make sport of you," Yolande replied in a low voice. "Did you not hear those two shrews?"
"I care little. I shall submit to all humiliation, all scorn, provided food and clothing be given to my child," rejoined Joan in accents that betokened both courage and resignation. "I will suffer anything upon condition that my poor child may rest for a while, recover himself and regain his health. Oh, he is now doubly dear to me – "
"Did you lose his father?"
"He remained, undoubtedly, buried in the sand," answered Joan, and like Colombaik, she could not restrain her tears at the memory of Fergan. "When the sand-spout broke over us, I felt myself blinded and suffocated. My first movement was to take my child in my arms. The ground opened under my feet and I lost consciousness. I remember nothing after that."
"But how did you reach this city, poor woman?" asked the queen of the wenches, interested by so much sweetness and resignation. "The road is long across the desert, and you seem too feeble to sustain the fatigues of such a journey."
"When I regained consciousness," answered Joan, "I was lying in a wagon, near an old man who sold provisions to the Crusaders. He took pity upon me and my child, having found us in a dying condition, half buried under the sand. Surely my husband perished. The old man told me he saw other victims near us when he picked us up. Unfortunately the mule to which the wagon of the charitable man was hitched died of fatigue ten leagues from Marhala. Compelled to remain on the road and to abandon the troop of pilgrims, our protector was killed trying to protect his provisions against the stragglers. They pillaged everything, but they did not harm us. We followed them, fearing to lose our way. I carried my child on my back when he found himself unable to walk. It was thus that we arrived in this city. It is a sad story!"
"But your husband may yet, like you, have escaped death. Do not despair," observed Yolande.
"If he escaped that danger, it was probably to fall into a greater, for the seigneur of Plouernel – "
"The seigneur of Plouernel!" exclaimed Yolande interrupting Joan, "do you know that scoundrel?"
"We were serfs in his seigniory. It is from the country of Plouernel that we departed for the Holy Land. Accident made us meet with the seigneur count shortly before the sand-spout burst upon us. My husband and he fought – "
"And did he not kill Neroweg?"
"No, he yielded to my prayers."
"What, pity for Neroweg, Worse than a Wolf!" exclaimed Yolande in an explosion of rage and hatred. "Oh, I am but a woman! But I would have stabbed him to the heart without remorse! The monster!"
"What did he do to you?"
"He deprived me of the inheritance of my father, and, falling from shame to shame, I have become the companion of the queen of the wenches."
"Oh, mademoiselle Yolande," remarked Perrette, returning to her cynic quips, "will you ever remain proud?"
"I?" answered the young woman with a sad and bitter smile. "No, no! Pride is not allowed me. You are the queen. I am one of your humble subjects."
"Come, come, my daughters!" said the matron. "The day declines. Go to the baths of the Emir. As to you, my beauty," proceeded the devilish shrew, addressing Joan, "as to you, we shall rig you up, we shall perfume you, and above all we shall have your hump radiate with matchless lustre."
"You may do with me what you please, when you will have given my child wherewithal to appease his hunger and thirst. He must recover his strength, he must sleep. I shall not leave him one instant."
"Be easy, my star of beauty, you shall remain at his side, nor shall your child want for anything. We shall pay due attention to him."
CHAPTER IV.
ORGIES OF THE CRUSADERS
The interior court-yard of the palace of the Emir, of Marhala, presented that evening a fairy aspect. The court was a perfect square. Along the four sides ran a wide gallery of Moorish ogives carved with trifoil and supported by low pillars of rose-colored marble. Between each column and into the court, large vases of Oriental alabaster filled with flowers served as pedestals to gilded candelabras holding torches of perfumed wax. Mosaics of various colors ornamented the floor of the galleries. The ceilings and walls disappeared under white arabesques chiseled on a purple background. Soft silken divans reclined against the walls, pierced with several ogive doors that were half closed with curtains fringed with pearls. These doors led to the interior apartments. At each corner of the galleries, gilded cages with silver bars held the rarest birds of Arabia, on whose plumage were mirrored the glint of the ruby, the emerald and the azure sapphire. In the center of the court a jet of crystalline water shot up from a large porphyry vase, falling back in a brilliant spray, and producing the murmur of a perpetual cascade as the water overflowed into a broad basin, from whose marble rim rose another circle of large and gilded candelabras, similar to those along the galleries. This refreshing fountain, sparkling with light, served as central ornament to a low table that wound around the basin and was covered with a cloth of embroidered silk. On it glistened the magnificent gold and silver vessels, carried from Gaul by the Duke of Aquitaine, and the rich spoils taken from the Saracens: goblets and decanters studded with precious stones, large amphoras filled with wine of Cyprus and Greece, huge gold platters on which were displayed Phœnician peacocks, Asiatic pheasants, quarters of Syrian antelopes and mutton, Byzantine hams, heads of the wild boars of Zion, and pyramids of fruit and confectionery. The banquet hall had for its dome the starry vault. The night was calm and serene; not a breath of wind agitated the flames of the torches.
But the tumult of an orgie resounded at this sumptuous table, around which, seated or reclining upon couches, feasted the guests of William IX. Distinguished above all and occupying the place of honor, was the legate of the Pope; then followed, to the right and left of the Duke of Aquitaine, Bohemond, Prince of Taranto; Tancred; Robert Courte-Heuse, Duke of Normandy; Heracle, seigneur of Polignac; Siegfried, seigneur of Sabran; Gerhard, Duke of Roussillon; Radulf, seigneur of Haut-Poul; Arnulf, sire of Beaugency; and other seigneurs of Frankish origin, beside the knight, Walter the Pennyless. These noblemen, already effeminated by Oriental habits, instead of remaining armed from dawn to dusk, as in Gaul, had exchanged their harness of war for long robes of silk. The Duke of Aquitaine, whose hair floated on a tunique of gold cloth, wore, after the fashion of the ancients, a chaplet of roses and violets, already wilted by the vapors of the feast. Azenor the Pale, whose lips, no longer white as of yore, but now red with life, was seated beside William, superbly ornamented with sparkling collars and bracelets of precious stones. The papal legate, clad in a robe of purple silk bordered with ermine, carried on his breast a cross of carbuncles hanging from a gold chain. Behind him, ready to wait upon his master, stood a young negro slave, in a short blouse of white silk with silver collar and bracelets ornamented with corals. The cup-bearers and equerries of the other seigneurs likewise attended the table. The wines of Cyprus and of Samos had been flowing from vermillion amphoras since the beginning of the feast, and flowed still, carrying away in their perfumed waves the senses of the guests. The Duke of Aquitaine, one arm encircling the waist of Azenor, and raising heavenward the gold goblet at which his mistress had just moistened her lips, called out: "I drink to you, my guests! May Bacchus and Venus be propitious to you! Honor to him who is deepest in love!"
Heracle, the seigneur of Polignac, in turn raised his cup and answered: "William, Duke of Aquitaine, we, your guests, drink to your courtesy and your splendid banquet!"
"Yes, yes!" joined the Crusaders; "let's drink to the banquet of William IX! Let's drink to the courtesy of the Duke of Aquitaine!"
"I drink gladly," said Arnulf, the seigneur of Beaugency, in his cups, and, shaking his head, he added meditatively, a sentence already repeated by him a score of times during the repast with the tenacity of the maudlin: "I'd like to know what my wife, the noble lady Capeluche, is doing at this hour in her chamber!"
"By my faith, seigneurs," said the seigneur of Haut-Poul, "as true as ten deniers were paid for an ass's head during the scarcity at the siege of Antioch, I have not in my life feasted like to-night. Glory to the Duke of Aquitaine!"
"Let's talk of the scarcity," rejoined Bohemond, the Prince of Taranto; "its recollection may serve to rekindle our satisfied hunger and our extinguished thirst."
"I ate up my shoes soaked in water and seasoned with spices," said the sire of Montmorency.
"Do you know, noble seigneurs," put in Walter the Pennyless, "that there are comrades, luckier or wiser than we, who never suffered hunger in the Holy Land, and whose faces are fresh and ruddy?"
"Who are they, valiant chevalier?"
"The King of the Vagabonds and his band."
"The wretches who ate up the Saracens, and regaled themselves with human flesh?"
"Seigneurs," remarked Robert Courte-Heuse, Duke of Normandy, "we must not run down Saracen flesh."
"These feasts on human flesh," explained the seigneur of Sabran, "are not at all wonderful. My grandfather once told me that, during the famous famine of 1033, the plebs fed on one another."
"I remember one evening," added Walter the Pennyless, "when I and my friend Cuckoo Peter had a famous supper – "
"And what has become of that Peter the Hermit?" inquired Gerhard, Duke of Roussillon, interrupting the Gascon adventurer. "It is now a month since he left us. We have not heard from him since. Is he dead or alive?"
"He has gone to join the army of Godfrey, Duke of Bouillon, who we are to connect with before Jerusalem," answered Walter. "But allow me, noble seigneurs, to tell you my tale. As I was saying, one evening, at the camp before Edessa, Cuckoo Peter and I, attracted by a delicious kitchen odor, that spread from the quarter of the King of the Vagabonds, walked into their quarters, and their worthy monarch made us sup on a tender roast, so fat, so toothsomely seasoned with saffron, salt and thyme, that I swear by my good sword, the Sweetheart of the Faith, Cuckoo Peter and I licked our chops! What a morsel!"
"We should not enlarge in that manner upon abominable feasts on human flesh, seigneurs," said the legate; "we should entertain ourselves with some other subject more pleasing and pious. If you are willing, I shall tell you of a miracle that we are preparing for to-morrow."
"What miracle, holy man?" inquired the Crusaders. "What a lucky windfall!"
"A prodigious miracle, my children, which will be one of the most telling triumphs of Christianity. Peter Barthelmy, deacon of Marseilles, had a vision after the capture of Antioch. Saint Andrew appeared before him and said: 'Go into the church of my brother Peter, situated at the gate of the city. Dig up the earth at the foot of the main altar, and you will find the iron of the lance that pierced the side of the Redeemer of the world. That mystic iron, carried at the head of the army, will insure the victory of the Christians and will pierce the hearts of the infidels.' Peter Barthelmy having communicated to me this miraculous vision, I assembled six bishops and six seigneurs, the most pious and pure. We went to the church. The earth was dug up in our presence at the foot of the main altar – and – to our stupefaction – "
"The iron of the holy lance was found!" interrupted William IX, in a roar of laughter, relapsing into his habitual incredulity.
"You deceive yourself, sinner!" answered the legate. "Peter Barthelmy found nothing in that hole. What a misfortune that a man, who so passionately hates the Jews, should be incredulous to such a degree! But sooner or later the grace of heaven will descend upon you. Meantime I shall confound your incredulity. The lance's iron was not then found. But Peter Barthelmy, moved by a new inspiration of Saint Andrew, threw himself into the hole, dug in it with his nails, and finally did discover the iron of the holy lance. To-morrow, the deacon is to walk across a burning pyre, in order to demonstrate, in plain view of all, the virtue of that precious relic, that will render him insensible to the flames. The miracle is assured – "
"A truce with your idle talk!" said William, interrupting the legate. "Halloo, there, cup-bearers, equerries, bring the dice, the checks, my casket of gold, and fetch in the dancers. After a banquet, there's nothing like a cup in one hand, the dice in the other, and beautiful girls in sight, dancing, naked or in gauze!"
"To the game, to the game!" cried the Crusaders. "Equerries, fetch the dice, bring in the dancers and withdraw!"
The orders of the Duke of Aquitaine were executed. The domestics of his household placed under the galleries and near the divans little Saracen tables of sculptured ivory, on which they laid the checks and dice. The Crusaders, in keeping with their unbridled passion for gambling, had provided themselves with fat purses of gold besans, now handed to them by their lackeys. During the tumult due to the preparations for the games and the removal of the seigneurs from the tables to the divans under the gallery, Azenor, her features distorted by the tortures of jealousy, convulsively grasped the arm of the Duke of Aquitaine, who at that moment was opening a casket filled with gold, and whispered to him in a hollow and excited voice: "William, you gave the order to bring in women hardly clad and even naked!"
"That's so, my charmer, and you heard the grateful applause of my guests!"
"Who are those women?"
"Dancers, the joy of banqueters after a feast. Beauties who have nothing to refuse – "
"Whence come they?"
"From the land of marvels, India!"
"Take care! Do not drive me to extremes! Hell burns in my heart! Woe is me! Those creatures here, and under my very eyes? You know that jealousy turns me crazy!"
The Duke of Aquitaine answered his mistress with bantering nonchalance, and drew near a group of seigneurs who were looking at a troop of girls that had just burst into the banquet hall. Noticeable above all were Perrette and Yolande, the former always brazen and challenging. Already the Crusaders, inflamed with wine and amorousness, acclaimed the troop with cries of vulgar license, when Maria announced in a loud voice: "One moment, noble seigneurs, reserve your enthusiasm for the treasure of youth, of beauty and of charms that I hold under this veil and who is about to dazzle your charmed eyes!"
Saying this, the shrew pointed to a confused form, hidden under a long white veil that trailed on the floor. Astonishment and curiosity calmed for a moment the impure ardor of the Crusaders. A deep silence ensued. The eyes of all sought to penetrate the semi-transparency of the veil, when suddenly the Duke of Aquitaine cried out: "Gentlemen, it is my opinion that that aster of beauty must be the reward of that cavalier who displayed the greatest valor at the siege of Marhala!"
"Yes, yes!" responded the Crusaders. "That's right! That treasure must be the prize of the most valorous!"
"I shall not, then, be gainsaid by any," proceeded the Duke of Aquitaine, "when I proclaim that Heracle, the seigneur of Polignac, showed himself the bravest among the brave at the siege of this city." Cries of approval received William's words, who went on saying: "Heracle, seigneur of Polignac, yours is that treasure of beauty! Yours alone the privilege of unveiling that radiant aster that will dazzle us all!"
The seigneur of Polignac eagerly broke through the group of Crusaders, while Perrette exclaimed banteringly, affecting despair: "Oh, cruel man, you leave me for a miraculous beauty!" and catching the eye of William she cried out: "My handsome duke will console me for all my sorrows!"
"By Venus!" said William in great glee, "welcome to you, my ribald! Come to my arms, and all sensuous pleasure along with you!"
"Your Azenor will strangle me!"
"The devil take Azenor! Long live Love!"
During this short dialogue between the Duke of Aquitaine and Perrette, the seigneur of Polignac had approached the veiled woman, and raised the gauze that concealed from the eyes of all the prize of the most valiant. The surprise and discomfiture of the Crusaders were first expressed by mute stupor. Before them stood poor Joan the Hunchback, on her head an enormous red turban stuck with peacock's feathers, and a short skirt of the same color on her body, fastened at her waist and completely exposing her sad deformity. By her side, little Colombaik pressed himself close to his mother, and was dressed in a flowing tunic, his hair curled and perfumed, but his eyes and ears covered by a bandage. "I consent to serve as your toy, to endure all humiliations, seeing you have promised to provide for my child and not to separate me from him," were the words of Joan to Maria before lending herself to this cruel buffoonery; "but I insist, in the name of my dignity as mother, in the name of my child's chastity, to cover his eyes and ears, that he may not be a witness of his mother's degradation."
At sight of Joan the Hunchback, the Crusaders, first stupefied, soon broke out in loud peals of laughter, which were redoubled by the disappointment that Heracle of Polignac seemed to labor under. Still under the effects of his discomfiture, he gazed open-mouthed at Joan.
At that moment, livid, her features distorted with jealousy, Azenor was running from one Crusader to another, asking where William had gone to. But the seigneurs, half intoxicated and unconcerned at the sufferings of the love-sick woman, answered her with jests. "Let's carry the hunchback in triumph!" exclaimed several voices in the midst of deafening peals of laughter.
Joan paled with fear. Resigned beforehand to all sorts of jests and humiliations, she had not foreseen such an excess of indignity. Trembling and distracted, the poor woman dropped upon her knees and holding her child in her arms, she muttered amid sobs: "My poor child! Why did we not die with your father in the sands of the desert!" Already, despite Joan's tears, the Crusaders were seizing her, when a great uproar broke out in one of the chambers that opened into the gallery. Immediately, menacing and terrible to behold, Fergan the Quarryman threw himself into the middle of the hall armed with a cudgel and calling out loudly to Joan and Colombaik.
"Fergan!" "Father!" the woman and the child cried out together. At the sound of their voices, Fergan rushed across the group of Crusaders swinging his heavy stick and distributing such hard blows before him to the right and to the left, that the seigneurs, stunned and frightened, retreated precipitately before the serf. Beating his way through them, Fergan joined at last his wife and child, and pressed them to his heart in a passionate embrace. The domestics, thrown down, trodden under foot and half killed by Fergan, rose out of breath and explained to the seigneurs: "We were standing at the gate, playing chuck-farthing, when this madman ran up to us from the direction of the market-place. He asked us whether a hunchback and her child had been taken to the palace. 'Yes,' said we, 'and just now they are the amusement of the noble guests of our seigneur, the Duke of Aquitaine.' The madman then threw himself upon us, ran through the gate of the palace, struck us with his cane, and got here."
