“The joiner is dear,” observed the king. “Is that all?”
“No, Sire. To a glazier, for the window-panes in said chamber, forty-six pence eight Paris farthings.”
“Have mercy, Sire! Is it not enough that all my worldly goods were given to my judges, my silver plate to M. de Torcy, my books to Master Pierre Doriolle, my tapestries to the Governor of Roussil lon? I am innocent. For fourteen years I have shivered in an iron cage. Have mercy, Sire! You will find your reward in heaven.”
“Master Olivier,” said the king, “what is the sum total?”
“Three hundred and sixty-seven pounds eight pence three Paris farthings.”
“By‘r Lady!” cried the king. “What an extravagant cage!”
He snatched the scroll from Master Olivier’s hands, and began to reckon up the items himself upon his fingers, looking by turns at the paper and the cage. Meantime, the prisoner’s sobs were plainly to be heard. It was a doleful sound in the darkness, and the by-standers paled as they gazed into one another’s faces.
“Fourteen years, Sire! full fourteen years! ever since the month of April, 1469. In the name of the Blessed Mother of God, Sire, hear me! You have enjoyed the warmth of the sun all these years. Shall I, poor wretch, never again behold the light of day? Pity me, Sire! Be merciful. Clemency is a goodly and a royal virtue, which turns aside the stream of wrath. Does your Majesty believe that it will greatly content a king in the hour of his death, to reflect that he has never let any offence go unpunished? Moreover, Sire, I never did betray your Majesty; it was my lord of Angers. And I wear about my leg a very heavy chain, and a great ball of iron at the end of it, far heavier than is reasonable. Ah, Sire, have pity upon me!”
“Olivier,” said the king, shaking his head, “I observe that these fellows charge me twenty pence the hogshead for plaster, which is worth only twelve. Have this account corrected.”
He turned his back on the cage, and prepared to leave the room. The miserable prisoner guessed by the receding torches and noise that the king was departing.
“Sire! Sire!” he cried in tones of despair.
The door closed. He saw nothing more, he heard nothing save the harsh voice of the jailor singing in his ears the song:— “Master Jean Balue,
Has quite lost view
Of his bishoprics cherished.
My lord of Verdun
Has not a single one;
Every one hath perished.”
The king silently reascended to his retreat, and his train followed him, terrified by the prisoner’s last groans. All at once his Majesty turned to the governor of the Bastille.
“By the way,” said he, “was there not some one in that cage?”
“Zounds, Sire, yes!” replied the governor, lost in amaze at such a question.
“Who, then?”
“The Bishop of Verdun.”
The king was better aware of this than any one else; but this was his way.
“Ah!” said he, with an innocent semblance of thinking of it for the first time, “Guillaume de Harancourt, the friend of Cardinal Balue,—a merry devil of a bishop!”
A few moments later the door of the retreat was reopened, then closed again upon the five persons whom we saw there at the beginning of this chapter, and who resumed their places, their low-voiced conversation, and their former attitudes.
During the king’s absence a number of dispatches had been laid on the table, and he now broke the seals. Then he rapidly read them one after the other, motioned to Master Olivier, who seemed to perform the office of his minister, to take a pen, and without imparting the contents of the dispatches to him, began to dictate answers in an undertone, the latter writing them down, kneeling uncomfortably at the table.
Guillaume Rym watched him.
The king spoke so low that the Flemings caught but a few detached and scarcely intelligible fragments, such as:— “… keep up fertile places by commerce and sterile ones by manufacturers. Show the English lords our four bombards, the London, Brabant, Bourg-en-Bresse, and Saint-Omer… Artillery occasions war to be more wisely waged at the present time… To Monsieur de Bressuire, our friend… Armies cannot be maintained without tribute,” etc.
Once he raised his voice:—
“By the Rood! the King of Sicily seals his letters with yellow wax, like a king of France. We may be wrong to allow him this privilege. My fair cousin of Burgundy gave no armorial bearings upon a field gules. The greatness of a house is ensured by holding its prerogatives intact. Note that, gossip Olivier.”