Читать книгу The Pilgrim's Shell; Or, Fergan the Quarryman: A Tale from the Feudal Times - Эжен Сю - Страница 6

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The day after Fergan the Quarryman decided to penetrate into the castle of Plouernel, a considerable troop of travelers, men of all conditions, who had left Nantes the day before, were journeying towards the frontier of Anjou. Among them were found pilgrims, distinguishable by the cockle-shell attached to their clothes, vagabonds, beggars, peddlers loaded with their bundles of goods. Among the latter a man of tall stature, with light blonde hair and beard, carried on his back a bundle surmounted with a cross and covered with coarse pictures representing human bones, such as skulls, thighs, arms, and fingers. This man, named Harold the Norman, devoted himself, like many other descendants of the pirates of old Rolf,[B] to the trade of relics, selling to the faithful the bones which they stole at night from the seigniorial gibbets. By the sides of Harold marched two monks, who called each other Simon and Jeronimo. The cowl of the frock of Simon was pulled over his head and completely concealed his face; but that of Jeronimo, thrown back over his shoulder, exposed the monk's dark and lean visage, whose thick eye-brows, as black as his beard, imparted to it a savage hardness.

A few steps behind these priests, mounted on a fine white mule, of well-fed form and skin sleek and shining like silver, came a merchant of Nantes, named from his great wealth, Bezenecq the Rich. Still in the vigor of years, of open, intelligent and affable mien, he wore a hood of black felt, a robe of fine blue cloth, gathered around his waist by a leathern belt, from which hung an embroidered purse. Behind him, and on a part of the saddle contrived for such service, rode his daughter Isoline, a lass of about eighteen years, with blue eyes, brown hair, white teeth and a face like a rose of May, as pretty as she was attractive. Isoline's long pearl-grey robe hid her little feet; her traveling cloak, made of a soft green fabric, enveloped her elegant and supple waist; under the hood of the mantle, lined in red, her fresh visage was partially seen. The feelings of tender solicitude between father and daughter could be divined by the looks and smiles of affection that they often exchanged, as well as by the little attentions that they frequently bestowed upon each other. The serenity of unalloyed happiness, the sweet pleasures of the heart, could be read upon their visages, which bore the impress of radiant bliss. A well-clad servant, alert and vigorous, led on foot a second mule, loaded with the baggage of the merchant. On either side of the saddle hung a sword in its scabbard. In those days, one never traveled unarmed. Bezenecq the Rich had conformed to the usage, although that good and worthy townsman was of a nature little given to strife.

The travelers had arrived at a cross-road where the highway of Nantes to Angers forked off. At the juncture of the two roads there rose a seigniorial gibbet, symbol and speaking proof of the supreme jurisdiction exercised by the lords in their domains. That massive pile of stones bore at its top four iron forks fastened at right angles, gibbet-shaped. From the gibbet that rose over the western branch of the road three corpses hung by the neck. The first was reduced to the condition of a skeleton; the second was half putrified. The crows, disturbed in their bloody quarry by the approach of the travelers, still circled in the air over the third corpse, that of a young girl, completely stripped, without even the shred of a rag. It was the body of Pierrine the Goat, tortured and executed in the early morning of that day, as threatened by Garin the Serf-eater. The thick black hair of the victim fell over her face, pinched with agony and furrowed with long traces of clotted blood that had flowed from her eyeless sockets. Her teeth still held a little wax figure, two or three inches long, clad in a bishop's gown with a miniature mitre on its head, made out of a bit of gold foil. The witches, to carry out their diabolical incantations, often had several of these little figures placed between the teeth of the hanged at the moment when they expired. They called this magic "spell throwing." Beside this gibbet rose the seigniorial post of Neroweg VI, lord and count of the lands of Plouernel. The post indicated the boundaries of the domain traversed by the western road, and was surmounted by a red escutcheon, in the middle of which were seen three eagle's talons painted in yellow—the device of the Nerowegs. Another post, bearing for emblem a dragon-serpent of green color painted on a white background, marked the eastern route which traversed the domains of Draco, Lord of Castel-Redon, and flanked another gibbet with four patibulary forks. Of these only two were furnished; from one hanged the corpse of a child of fourteen years at the most, from the other the corpse of an old man, both half pecked away by the crows. Isoline, the daughter of Bezenecq the Rich, uttered a cry of horror at the sight of these bodies, and huddling close to the merchant, behind whom she was on horseback, whispered in a low voice: "Father! oh, father! Look at those bodies. It's a horrible spectacle!"

"Look not in that direction, my child," answered sadly the townsman of Nantes, turning around to his daughter. "More than once on our road shall we make these mournful encounters. The patibulary forks are found on the confines of every seigniorial estate. Often even the trees are decked out with hanging bodies!"

"Oh, father," replied Isoline, whose face, so full of smiles a minute before, had painfully saddened, "I fear this encounter may be of sad omen to our voyage!"

"Beloved daughter," the merchant put in with suppressed agony, "be not so quick to take alarm. No doubt we live in days when it is impossible to leave the city and undertake a long trip with safety. It is that that kept me from paying a visit in the city of Laon to my good brother Gildas, whom I have not seen for many years. It is unfortunately a long way to Picardy, and I have not dared to venture on such a ride. But our trip will hardly take two days. We should not apprehend a sad issue to this visit to your grandmother, who wishes to see and embrace you before she dies. Your presence will sweeten her sorrow at the loss of your mother, whom she mourns as grieviously to-day as when my beloved wife was taken from me. Pick up courage and calm your mind, my child."

"I shall pick up courage, father, as you wish. I shall surmount my idle terrors and my childish fears."

"Were it not for the imperious duty that made us undertake this journey, I would say to you: 'Let's return to our peaceful home in Nantes, where you are happy and gay from morning to evening.' If your smile cheers my soul," Bezenecq added in a voice deeply moved, "every tear you drop falls upon my heart!"

"Behold me," said Isoline. "Would you say I look apprehensive, alarmed?" And saying this she pressed against the merchant her charming face, that had recovered its serenity and confidence. The townsman contemplated for a moment in silence the beloved features of his daughter. A tear of joy then gathered in his eye, and endeavoring to subdue his emotion, he cried out: "The devil take these crupper saddles! They prevent one even from embracing his own child with ease!" Whereupon the young girl, with a movement full of gracefulness, threw her arms on her father's shoulders, and drew her rosy face so close to Bezenecq's that he had but to turn his head to kiss the lassie on her forehead and cheeks, which he did repeatedly with ineffable happiness.

During this tender exchange of words and carresses between the merchant and his daughter, the other travelers, before proceeding upon either of the two routes that opened before them, had gathered in the middle of the crossing to consider which to take. Both roads led to Angers. One of them, that marked by the post surmounted with a serpent-dragon, after making a wide circuit, traversed a sombre forest; it was twice as long as the other. Each of the two roads having its own advantages and disadvantages, several of the travelers insisted upon the road of the post with the three eagle's talons. Simon, the monk whose face was almost wholly concealed under his cowl, strove, on the contrary, to induce his companions to take the other road. "Dear brothers! I conjure you;" cried Simon, "believe me ... do not cross the territory of the seigneur of Plouernel.... He has been nick-named 'Worse than a Wolf' and the reprobate but too well justifies the name.... Every day stories are heard of travelers whom he arrests and plunders while crossing his grounds."

"My dear brother," put in a townsman, "I can testify, like you, that the keeper of Plouernel is a wicked man, and his donjon a terrible donjon. More than once from the ramparts of our city of Nantes have we seen the men of the Count of Plouernel, bandits of the worst stripe, pillage, burn, and ravage the territory of our bishop, with whom Neroweg was at war over the possession of the ancient abbey of Meriadek."

"Is that the abbey where the prodigious miracle of about four hundred years ago happened?" inquired another bourgeois. "Saint Meroflede, abbess of the monastery, summoned by the soldiers of Charles Martel to surrender the place, invoked heaven, and the miscreants, overwhelmed by a shower of stones and fire, were asphyxiated in the fumes of burning sulphur and pitch, whither they were dragged by horned, clawed and hairy demons, frightful to behold. And so it happened that the venerable abbess died in the odor of sanctity."

"An ineffable odor that has lasted down to our own days. The common people entertain a particular devotion for the chapel of Saint Meroflede, which has been raised on the borders of a large lake, close by the very place where the miracle was accomplished."

"The chapel is never empty of the faithful. The offerings furnish a large revenue to the incumbent. As the abbess was of the house of the Nerowegs, the seigneur of Plouernel laid claim to, and sought to reacquire the property of the chapel. Hence the wars between the count and the Bishop of Nantes. Those were fearful wars, my friends. They happened at the season when the bishop was marrying his last daughter, whom he gave for a dower the benefice of Saint Paterne. It was a beautiful wedding. The wife and the daughter of his grace the bishop were beautifully ornamented. The young bride wore a necklace of inestimable value."

The moment the name of the Bishop of Nantes was mentioned, Simon the monk pulled down the cowl of his cloak, trying to hide his face completely.

"Sure enough, my beloved companions," interjected another townsman, "we know that the Sieur 'Worse than a Wolf' is a brigand. But do you imagine that the Sieur Draco, seigneur of Castel-Redon, is a lamb? It is as perilous to cross the territory of the one as of the other, and yet there is no other way out. The road to the east, barred by a river, runs out upon a bridge that is guarded by the men of the seigneur of Castel-Redon; the road to the west, bordered by vast swamps, runs out upon a path guarded by the men of the seigneur of Plouernel. By taking the shorter of the two routes we reduce by one-half the chances of danger."

"This worthy man is right," said several voices. "Let's follow his advice."

"Dear brothers, look out what you do!" cried Simon the monk. "The seigneur of Plouernel is a monster of ferocity. He is given up to sorcery with a female magician, his concubine ... a Jewess! He stands excommunicated; he is a pagan."

"To the devil with the Jews!" exclaimed Harold the Norman, merchant of relics. "The Jews have all been hanged, burned, drowned, strangled, quartered, when they were hunted down in all the provinces, like wild beasts. There can not be one of them left alive in our land of Gaul."

"Since the execution of the Orleans heretics, who perished by fire," resumed the monk Jeronimo, "never was an extermination of unclean animals more meritorious than that of those accursed Jews, who instigated the Saracens of Palestine to destroy the Temple of Solomon at Jerusalem. Death to the Jews!"

"What say you, dear brother?" inquired a townsman. "Did the Jews of this land of Gaul instigate the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem?"

"Yes, my brother. The abominable mischiefs of those Jews defy time and space. But patience! Soon will the day come when, by divine will, no longer will it be isolated pilgrims that will travel to Jerusalem to there mourn and pray at the tomb of our Lord Jesus Christ. It will be Christianity in mass that will march under arms to the Holy Land, in order to exterminate the infidels and deliver the sepulchre of the Saviour of the world from their sacrilegious presence. Death to all miscreants!"

Bezenecq the Rich, who had just approached the group of debating travelers, and ascertained the subject of their discussion, apprehensive lest his daughter take new alarm, suggested: "Meseems we had better take the shorter route. As to your fears, they are exaggerated. When we shall have paid the toll-collectors of the seigneur of Plouernel for the right to travel over his roads and cross his burgs and villages, what else can he demand of us? We are neither his serfs nor his villeins.'

"Can you, a grey beard, talk like that?" interjected Simon the monk. "Do you imagine these devilish seigneurs care aught for justice or injustice?"

"But I do care a deal about that!" replied Bezenecq the Rich. "If the seigneur of Plouernel should do me violence, me a bourgeois of Nantes, I would appeal to William IX, Duke of Aquitaine, of whom the seigneur of Plouernel stands seized, the same as William IX holds of Philip I, King of the Franks. Each of these seigneurs has his suzerain."

"Which would be like appealing from the wolf to the tiger," replied Simon, shrugging his shoulders. "You can not know William, Duke of Aquitaine. That sacrilegious criminal sought to force Peter, the Bishop of Poitiers, to give him absolution for his crimes by putting a dagger to his throat. William abducted Malborgiane, the wife of the Viscount of Castellerault, a shameless creature, whose picture he dares to carry painted on his shield. William had the effrontery to answer Gerard, the Bishop of Angouleme, who reproached him with this new act of adultery: 'Bishop, I shall return Malborgiane when you frizzle your hair!' The prelate was bald. Such is the man to whom you would appeal from the violent acts of the seigneur of Plouernel."

"That William is certainly a deep-dyed criminal;" put in Jeronimo, "but that much justice must be done him that he approved himself the most implacable exterminator of the Jews. Not one of those who lived on his domains escaped death!"

"It is said that the mere sight of a Jew makes him pale with horror; and that, libertine though he is, a Jewess, be she never such a beauty, be she a maid like the Virgin Mary, would make him run away from her."

"But that does not prevent," insisted Simon the monk, "that if you rely upon the Duke of Aquitaine for redress against the seigneur of Plouernel, you will be acting like a lunatic. On that subject your judgment is at fault."

"If William IX does not do us justice," rejoined Bezenecq the Rich, "we shall appeal to King Philip. Oh! oh! we townsmen do not allow ourselves to be tyrannized without protest! We know how to draw up a petition!"

"And what will King Philip care for your petition? That Sardanapalus! that glutton! that idler! that double adulterer! and what's worse, that dullard, whom the seigneurs, his large vassals, laugh at openly! It is to him you will go for justice, if refused by the Duke of Aquitaine? Moreover, even if the latter were so inclined, as the suzerain of the seigneur of Plouernel, to punish him for wrongs done to you, would he have the power?"

"Certainly!" exclaimed Bezenecq. "He would enter the domain of the seigneur of Plouernel and besiege him in his castle."

Simon the monk shook his head sadly. "The seigneurs reserve their forces to round up their domains and to revenge their own wrongs. Never do they protect the cause of small folks, however just it be."

"We live, I know, in sad times; nor were the previous centuries much better," observed the townsman with a sigh, casting an uneasy look upon his daughter, who seemed again alarmed. "All the same, we should not exaggerate to ourselves the dangers of the situation. We have to choose between the two routes. Let's suppose the dangers of crossing them are equal. Common sense bids us to take the shorter, and that we hurry our steps."

"The shorter route is the more perilous," repeated Simon the monk, who, more than anyone else, seemed to dread crossing the territory of the seigneur of Plouernel.

"Oh! father," asked Isoline of the merchant, "have we really so many dangers to fear?"

"No, no, my dear child. That poor monk's mind is upset with fear."

The Norman dealer in relics, having overheard the last words of Isoline, approached her and said with much unction: "Pretty lassie, I have here in my box of relics a superb tooth, that comes from the blessed jaw of a holy man, who died in Jerusalem, a martyr to the Saracens. I shall let you have that tooth for three silver deniers. This sacred relic will protect you from all perils of the road." Saying which, Harold the Norman was about to exhibit the marvellous tooth, when Bezenecq said smiling to him, so as to reassure his daughter; "Not now, my friend; we shall look at your relic later on. Do you claim that it protects one against all the dangers of the road?"

"Yes, worshipful townsman. I swear it upon my eternal salvation; upon my share of Paradise."

"Seeing that you carry about you that holy relic, you will not be exposed to any accident; and seeing that we go with you, and are of your company, we shall profit by the miraculous protection. All of which should not hinder us, if you follow my advice, dear companions, to take the shorter route. Let those who share my views follow me," he added giving the spurs to his mule so as to put an end to the discussion, and with that he took the road that led over the territory of the seigneur of Plouernel. The majority of the travelers followed the example of Bezenecq, because, for one thing, he spoke wisely; then also, he was known to be rich, his daughter accompanied him, and he had too much at stake to take an imprudent resolution. Those who shared the apprehensions of the monk Simon, being reduced to a small number, dared not separate from the bulk of the troop, and joined it after a moment's hesitation. Likewise Simon the monk and Jeronimo, who feared risking themselves alone on the other road. Harold the Norman remained behind an instant, drew near one of the gibbets, pulled off the two legs and hands of a corpse, that was reduced to a mere skeleton, and placed them in his bag, counting upon selling them to the faithful for holy relics. He then rejoined the travelers, who were proceeding along the road of the seigniory of Plouernel.