The Poniard's Hilt; Or, Karadeucq and Ronan. A Tale of Bagauders and Vagres

"What else should I do, Chram! I consider lost every night that I do not put to use in your style with wine and women."

"Lion, you are unjust – I have become temperate and chaste."

"Through exhaustion – O, chaste and sober Prince – did you renounce the pure girls and good wine!"

"If so, you should rather pity than blame me. Ho, there, mountebank, what tricks can your bear perform? Is he clever?"

"If you order it, glorious King, my bear will ride on horseback on my cane, and myself holding him by the chain, he will gracefully gallop around the hall."

"Good; let us see him do it."

"Attention! Mont-Dore."

"How do you call him?"

"Mont-Dore, glorious King. I give him that name because I caught him when he was still but a cub on one of the peaks of Mont Dore."

"I am no longer surprised if your bear is ferocious. He was born in one of the most notorious lairs of the accursed Vagres, those wandering men, those wolves, those heads of wolves who haunt only rocks, forests and caverns. But as sure as this morning we put one of them to the torture, we shall end by wiping them all out, just as Count Neroweg did the other day with a band of them who took refuge in the defile of Allange."

"Oh, glorious King, may the Almighty deliver us from these pestilential Vagres! May He grant me the favor of never running across any of them except as he hangs from the gibbet – the way I saw the first and last one whom I ever laid eyes upon – it was a terrible sight! The thought of it still makes me tremble."

"Where did you see that Vagre on the gibbet?"

"Near the frontier of Limousin; over the gallows was this inscription: 'This is Karadeucq the Vagre – so shall his likes be treated.' "

"Karadeucq! The old bandit who with his bedevilled band so long raided Limousin and Auvergne!"

"Pillaging burgs and episcopal mansions!"

"A worthy example, followed by the band of Ronan, the other dog that is to be executed to-morrow!"

"Well, I am glad to hear it, at last we are delivered from that Karadeucq! He was thought to be running the Vagrery in some other regions, but his return was always apprehended."

"Oh, glorious Prince, he will never be back again – unless the bandit descended from his gibbet, and that is unlikely. When I saw him dangling in the air his corpse was already half eaten up by the carrion crows, and both his hands and feet were chopped off."

"Are you quite certain you saw the name of Karadeucq on that gibbet? It would be truly a great deliverance for the country."

"Glorious King, his name is so uncommon in our country that it struck me the moment I saw it; hence I remember it well."

"It is a Breton name," said Bishop Cautin; "it is one of the names common in those heretical and cursed regions that to this hour stubbornly resist the authority and orders of our councils. Oh, Chram, will the Frankish Kings never have the power and the will to reduce to obedience that savage Armorica, that hot-bed of druid idolatry, the only province of Gaul that until now has been able to withstand the arms of King Clovis, your grandfather, and his worthy sons and grandsons?"

"Bishop, you have an easygoing way of talking about such matters. More than once did Clovis and the Frankish Kings, my ancestors, dispatch their best warriors to the conquest of that pestilential country, and our troops were every time cut to pieces in the marshes, the defiles and the forests of Armorica. No, those indomitable Bretons are not human – they are demons! Oh, if all the other regions of Gaul had been peopled with that infernal race, ever rebellious to the Catholic church, we would still be struggling to maintain our power. But, old mountebank, you seem greatly affected; I noticed a tear roll down your grey beard; why so?"

"If only one tear did run down my grey beard, it is because old men's eyes are stingy of tears."

"And why would you have shed more?"

"Oh, King, I would have wept all the tears in my head over those unhappy Bretons whose detestable druid idolatry condemns them to the everlasting flames, as our holy bishop used to say: unhappy blind men who shut their eyes to the divine light of the faith! unhappy rebels, who dare turn their arms against our good seigneurs and masters, the Frankish Kings, whom our blessed bishops order us to obey in the name of the Church! Oh, Prince, I repeat it to you, but for that the eyes of an old man are stingy of tears, mine would flow in torrents at the thought of the damnable error of those unhappy heretics!"

"Mountebank, you are a pious man," said Cautin; "kneel down and kiss my hand."

"Holy bishop, blessed be the favor you grant me."

"Rise, my son, and preserve your faith in our Church; have also confidence in the future; the accursed idolaters and rebellious Bretons will not much longer escape the just punishment that is in store for them."

"Oh, no! As true as scissors have never touched my hair, I, Chram, son of Clotaire, King of France, I shall never rest so long as those Armorican demons are not crushed and drowned in their own blood. Too long have they resisted our arms. We shall soon make short work of them."

"May the Almighty hear your vow, great Prince, and may He grant me, a poor old man, enough days to witness the submission of that Brittany that has so long remained stiffnecked and indomitable."

"Now, mountebank, let us return to your bear; we had almost forgotten all about him, the wild fellow who was born in one of the lairs of the accursed Vagres."

"Nothing strange in that, glorious King! Are not those accursed fellows wolves? Have not bears and wolves the same dens? Come Mont-Dore, up my lad, show your skill to our holy bishop, who is present, and to the illustrious King Chram; also to the very renowned count and the noble audience. Take this cane – it shall be your mount; get on horseback and gallop around this table as gracefully as you can, and with the gentlest airs that you can put on. Come, Mont-Dore, to horse, the courser will not run away with you. Make room, there, make room, there, noble seigneurs – above all, do not approach the animal too closely. Come, Mont-Dore, start galloping, my daring knight!"

The lover of the beautiful bishopess straddled the cane which he held between his two fore paws, and led by the chain which Karadeucq held he commenced to prance with grotesque clumsiness around the hall amid the loud laughter of the assembled leudes.

As he led him, the Vagre said to himself:

"I came dangerously near betraying myself when I heard the Frankish King speak of the bravery of the Breton race; my heart beat with pride fit to crack my ribs; then, besides, I thought of good old grandfather Araim, who used to call me his pet! I thought of my father Jocelyn, of my mother Madalen – both no doubt dead in the country that I ran away from more than forty years ago, and where my brother Kervan and my dear sweet sister Roselyk still live. At these thoughts tears came to my eyes despite myself. Oh, my sons! Ronan! Loysik! here I am near to you, but shall I manage your delivery! Hesus! Hesus! inspire me."

The Master of the Hounds pranced all along astride of the cane, encouraged in his antics by the laughter that it provoked in the Franks. Remembering the success that had crowned his efforts during the nights of the calends of January, he indulged in gambols that delighted the blockish leudes and that carried their hilarity to the pitch of hysterics. Above all the count held his sides and laughed and laughed, fit to burst his dalmatica of silver cloth. Suddenly he checked his laughter and said to Chram:

"King, would you see still better sport?"

"Yes, count, what have you to propose? Your face is red to suffocation. You breathe like an ox. What new thought has just sprouted in your head?"

"It is this: I have a plan – we have in the burg enormous and ferocious mastiffs that we use to hunt wolves and wild boars with. We shall chain the bear to one of the beams of the hall."

"And let loose some of your mastiffs against him? The idea is delicious."

"Yes, Chram; I want to offer you a royal treat."

"Long live Count Neroweg! Come, fetch the dogs! The more ferocious they are and sharp their teeth, all the more amusing will be the sight."

"Yes, yes," cried the Franks with shouts of joy; "the dogs – the dogs – a combat between the bear and the dogs."

"Hello! my master of the hounds, Gondolf! fetch in Mirff and Morff – if they leave a shred of skin and flesh on the bones of the bear I wish this goblet of wine may be poison to me."

"Seigneur, I shall run to the kennel and bring the mastiffs Mirff and Morff."

When he heard the count's proposition, which was received with universal acclaim by the leudes, the lover of the bishopess, who, faithful to his role, was riding lustily on his cane around the table suddenly interrupted his antics and was on the point of expressing with some compromising gesture his refusal to serve as quarry for the fangs of Mirff and Morff. Fortunately by means of a gentle tug given at the chain, Karadeucq recalled the Vagre to prudence and the latter continued his gambols with the most indifferent air in the world; but his conductor, without letting the chain slip from his hands, threw himself at the feet of Neroweg and said:

"Seigneur count, illustrious seigneur!"

"What would you of me, old mountebank?"

"My bear is my bread winner – you will have him killed."

"And I, do not I also run the risk of seeing the best two dogs of my pack hugged to death – or torn to pieces by your bear's claws? You said yourself, your animal was ferocious."