"Yes, I remember that day as well as if it had been yesterday," went on the duchess, with her dull eyes fixed dreamily upon the red coals of the brazier, and the fool again glided behind her chair and resumed the handsprings.
At last, attracted in the midst of her recollections by the incessant ringing of the little bells on the jester's cap, which his lively motions kept a-tinkle, the old lady craned her neck and glancing behind her chair caught him in the very act of standing on his head!
Indignant at his inattention and forgetting the license accorded court fools, she seized her crutch and hit him a swift rap across the calves of the legs which caused him to reverse himself with a howl.
"How dare you treat me with such disrespect, and not only me, but the gracious princess of whom I was talking!" she cried angrily. "You shall leave the court. I have no need of a fool!" Then a sudden and pleasant thought seemed to come into her mind, for she said, "I know what I will do. I feel that I should send Anne of Brittany a present, and I was going to send her an emerald. I will not part with the gem; I will send you, Le Glorieux, instead, with a letter saying that I am presenting her with the most precious possession of the late Duke of Burgundy, to cheer her in the various trials brought about by the reign of one so young. Yes, that will be fine, and I shall keep the emerald. You may leave me, Fool, and prepare for your departure while I think over the wording of my letter."
Le Glorieux was so overcome with joy at this sudden and unexpected turn of affairs that he forgot his abused calves, and his feet scarce touched the steps as he mounted to his little tower chamber, for you must know that a fool was a kind of slave, and although having many privileges within the palace, was not allowed to leave it even for a night without special permission.
On the landing of the staircase stood a boy of eleven or twelve years of age, looking sadly out of the mullioned window. He was a pretty youth and he wore a fine suit, to say nothing of a cap with a curling plume, but he did not look happy.
"Cheer up, Antoine," said the jester, slapping him on the back; "better days are in store for me."
"What will your better days avail me?" asked the boy, with a shrug.
"Well answered," said the jester reflectively. "Yet when things are going well with us we are surprised that the world does not smile with us, while we expect it to boohoo when we are sad. But I have been given permission to go to Brittany. Think of that! Try to overcome your indifference, and think what a joy it will be to me to live where I shall no longer hear the story of the princess who kissed the poet. And she has just hit me a blow on the legs that has raised lumps as big as plovers' eggs. Did it with her crutch, too!"
"She struck me across the shoulders with it because I could not find her needle, and she held the needle in her fingers all the time," said the page mournfully.
"Knowing her little ways, you should have looked in her fingers first," said the fool, adding blithely, "but she will never strike me again, because I am going away."
"You need not continually flaunt that in my face," returned the boy, in an injured tone, continuing with the mournful pleasure that many of us take in predicting misfortune for people whom we envy; "there may be worse things in store for you than to be struck by an ill-natured woman. I heard of a youth who went to a strange court with great glee and the very next day both of his ears were cut off."
"I do not think I should like a thing of that kind to happen to me," said the fool gravely. "Of course, the loss of my ears would never be noticed, because my cap covers them, but at the same time I think I should miss them myself, having always had them, you know. But I do not think you quite understand just why I am going away. Our mistress is sending me as a present, a pretty, dainty present, to the young Duchess of Brittany, and you know it would not be good taste to ill-treat a present."
"You are a strange present to send to a young lady," remarked the page sourly. "I warrant she will not be overjoyed with her packet when it meets her gaze."
"Oh, yes she will," returned Le Glorieux easily. "You see it is necessary for her to be cheered, for not only have there been frequent turmoils in her duchy, but there has been a perfect fever of excitement about her matrimonial arrangements from the day she was born. First they wanted her to marry one of the little princes of England afterward smothered by his affectionate Uncle Richard; then it was the Infante of Spain, and though it now seems settled that she is to marry Maximilian of Austria, still she must be nervous and unsettled. At any rate, our mistress wants to do something gracious, and being more than a trifle close, and not wishing to send a valuable jewel, she sends me in the care of the Lady Clotilde as the most valuable jewel of her possession."
"Oh, Le Glorieux, take me with you!" pleaded Antoine, forgetting his sarcasm in his anxiety to share his friend's good fortune. "If you only will I shall be your debtor for life."
"That would be impossible, my lad. You must remain here to find her Grace's needle when she drops it, and to lead the life of a nice, tame pussy-cat."
"I will not!" cried the boy, dashing the tears from his bright eyes. "My father, who, as you know, died in battle, never intended that I should grow up thus tamely. Take me with you, oh, Le Glorieux, do!"
"I should like to," replied the jester thoughtfully. "You could ride beside me and you should fetch your lute and you could sing to me along the way to make the birds ashamed of themselves. But even if you should run away, the Lady Clotilde would not let you go with us, for you know what she is. If she were a peasant woman she would be called sour and disagreeable, but being a great lady she is simply dignified and firm."
But there are times when we are enabled to get that for which we very much wish, and it so happened that the Lady Clotilde wanted the boy in her suite and begged him of the duchess, who willingly acquiesced, for caring not at all for his musical talent and his handsome face, he was no more to her than any other page.
So there were not two lighter hearts in the good duchy of Burgundy than were those of the page and the jester as they set about making their preparations for departure. They were pleased to leave the court where life had grown so monotonous, and they were delighted that they were to go in each other's company, for though there was a difference of some fifteen years in their respective ages, Le Glorieux and Antoine were very fond of each other.
CHAPTER II
A FESTIVAL AT THE INN
The following morning bright and early the procession rode briskly out of the castle courtyard. The Lady Clotilde traveled in her litter and was attended by her maids and her men-servants and her guards on mules, the guards being necessary, for it was dangerous for those possessing money and jewels to travel unless they were protected from the outlaws who infested mountain and forest.
At the rear of the company rode Le Glorieux on a steed he always preferred when riding abroad. This was a donkey which the fool had named Pittacus after one of the seven wise men of Greece, for he declared the little animal was very wise, though no one as yet had discovered the fact. On the jester's wrist was perched Pandora, his hawk, for he vowed that no man with a proper degree of self-respect would be seen in public without his hawk, which was true, the fashion of the time having so decreed. Pandora wore a cunning little red leather hood with some bells attached to it, and, to keep her from escaping from him, a cord attached to her leg was fastened to the jester's arm.
Antoine, whose lute was slung to his shoulder by a blue ribband, was mounted upon a small gray mule and rode beside his comrade, the two whistling and singing and making so merry together that more than once the Lady Clotilde put her head out between the curtains of her litter and, with a very severe face and a harsh voice, bade them be quiet.
History tells us that Edward the Second of England had a jester who amused his royal master simply by riding before him and frequently falling off his horse, so it is no wonder that a boy of the age of Antoine should have been kept in a continuous state of merriment caused by the antics of his friend. You doubtless have been to the circus, and you know what a very funny fellow a clown can be, and how the boys and girls in the audience are inclined to laugh every time he opens his mouth, and how even the grown people are not ashamed to smile at his drolleries. Then imagine the