Читать книгу The Legend of the Glorious Adventures of Tyl Ulenspiegel in the land of Flanders and elsewhere - Charles de Coster - Страница 10

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Now Philip was married to Marie of Portugal, and with her he acquired her lands for the crown of Spain; and together they had a son, Don Carlos, he who was afterwards called “the mad” and “the cruel.” And Philip had no love for his wife.

The Queen was lying-in. She kept her bed, and by her side were the maids of honour, the Duchess of Alba among them.

Oftentimes did Philip leave his wife to go and see the burning of heretics. And all the gentlemen and ladies of the Court did likewise. And thus also did the Duchess of Alba and the other noble ladies whose duty it was to watch by the Queen in her childbed.

Now at that time the ecclesiastical judges had seized a certain sculptor of Flanders, a good Roman Catholic, on the following charge: He had been commissioned, it seems, by a certain monk to carve a wooden statue of Our Lady for a certain sum, and on the monk refusing to pay the price which had been agreed between them, the sculptor had slashed at the face of the image with his chisel, saying that he would rather destroy his work than let it go at the price of a piece of dirt.

He was straightway denounced by the monk as an iconoclast, tortured most piteously and condemned to be burnt alive. During the torture they had scalded the soles of his feet, so that he cried out as he passed along from the prison to the stake: “Cut my feet off! For God’s sake cut my feet off!”

And Philip, hearing these cries from afar, was glad, though smiled he never a smile.

Queen Marie’s dames of honour all left her, wishing to be present at the burning, and the last of all to desert her was the said Duchess of Alba, who, hearing the cries of the sculptor, could not forbear to witness the spectacle.

So, in the presence of King Philip and of his lords, princes, counts, equerries, and ladies, the sculptor was bound to the stake by a long chain. And all round the stake was a circle of flaming bundles of straw and fiery torches, the idea being that if he wished, the sculptor could be roasted very gently by keeping close to the stake in the centre of the circle, thus avoiding the full rigour of the fire.

And right curiously did they watch him, naked or almost naked as he was, and trying to stiffen his resolution against the heat of the fire.

Meanwhile Queen Marie was stricken with a great thirst, lying there alone on her bed of childbirth. And seeing the half of a melon on a plate, she dragged herself out of bed, and took hold of the melon and ate it all. But thereafter the cold substance of the melon made her to sweat and to shiver, and she lay upon the floor unable to move.

“Alas!” she cried, “would that there were some one to carry me back into bed that I might get warm again!”

Then it was that she heard the cry of the poor sculptor:

“Cut off my feet! Cut off my feet!”

“Ah!” said the Queen, “is that some dog or other baying at my death?”

It was at this very moment that the sculptor, seeing around him none but the faces of Spaniards, his enemies, bethought him of Flanders, the land of valorous men, and he crossed his arms on his breast, and dragging the long chain behind him, walked straight towards the outer circle of the straw and the flaming torches. And standing upright there, still with his arms crossed:

“This,” cried he, “this is how the men of Flanders can die in the face of the tyrants of Spain. Cut off their feet—not mine—that they may be able no more to run into the way of crime. Flanders for ever! Flanders for ever!”

And the ladies clapped their hands, crying him mercy for the sake of his proud look.

And he died.

And Queen Marie shook all over her body, and she cried out, her teeth chattering together with the chill of approaching death. And her arms and legs grew stiff, and she said:

“Put me back into my bed that I may be warmed.”

So she died.

And thus it was, according to the prophecy of Katheline the good sorceress, that Philip the King sowed everywhere he went the seeds of death, and blood, and tears.