Читать книгу The Abbatial Crosier; or, Bonaik and Septimine. A Tale of a Medieval Abbess - Эжен Сю - Страница 4

About a month had elapsed since the departure of Abd-el-Kader and his five sons to meet Charles Martel in battle.

A boy of eleven or twelve years, confined in the convent of St. Saturnine in Anjou, was leaning on his elbows at the sill of a narrow window on the first floor of one of the buildings of the abbey, and looking out upon the fields. The vaulted room in which the boy was kept was cold, spacious, bare and floored with stone. In a corner stood a little bed, and on a table a few toys roughly cut out of coarse wood. A few stools and a trunk were its only furniture. The boy himself, dressed in a threadbare and patched black serge, had a sickly appearance. His face, biliously pale, expressed profound sadness. He looked at the distant fields, and tears ran down his hollow cheeks. While he was dreaming awake, the door of the room opened and a young girl of about sixteen stepped in softly. Her complexion was dark brown but extremely fresh, her lips were red, her hair as well as her eyes jetty black, and her eyebrows were exquisitely arched. A more comely figure could ill be imagined, despite her drugget petticoat and coarse apron, the ends of which were tucked under her belt and which was full of hemp ready to be spun. Septimine held her distaff in one hand and in the other a little wooden casket. At the sight of the boy, who remained sadly leaning on his elbows at the window, the young girl sighed and said to herself: "Poor little fellow … always sorry … I do not know whether the news I bring will be good or bad for him… If he accepts, may he never have cause to look back with regret to this convent." She softly approached the child without being heard, placed her hand upon his shoulder with gentle familiarity and said playfully: "What are you thinking about, my dear prince?"

The child was startled. He turned his face bathed in tears towards Septimine, and letting himself down with an air of utter dejectment on a stool near the window, said: "Oh, I am weary!.. I am weary to death!" and the tears flowed anew from his fixed and red eyes.

"Come now, dry those ugly tears," the young maid replied affectionately. "I came to entertain you. I brought along a large supply of hemp to spin in your company while talking to you, unless you prefer a game of huckle-bones – "

"Nothing amuses me. Everything tires me."

"That is sad for those who love you; nothing amuses you, nothing pleases you. You are always downcast and silent. You take no care of your person. Your hair is unkempt … and your clothes in rags! If your hair were well combed over your forehead, instead of falling in disorder, you would not look like a little savage… It is now three days since you have allowed me to arrange it, but to-day, will ye, nill ye, I shall comb it."

"No; no; I won't have it!" said the boy stamping his foot with feverish impatience. "Leave me alone; your attentions annoy me."

"Oh, oh! You can not frighten me with your stamping," Septimine replied mirthfully. "I have brought along in this box all that I need to comb you. Be wise and docile."

"Septimine… Leave me in peace!"

But the young girl was not to be discouraged. With the authority of a "big sister" she turned around the chair of the recalcitrant boy and forced him to let her disentangle his disordered hair. While thus giving him her care with as much affection as grace, Septimine, standing behind him said: "Are you not a hundred times better looking this way, my dear prince?"

"What is the difference, good looking or not?.. I am not allowed to leave this convent… What have I done to be so wretched?"

"Alack, poor little one … you are the son of a king!"

The boy made no answer, but he hid his face in his hands and fell to weeping, from time to time crying in a smothered voice: "My father… Oh, my father… Alas!.. He is dead!"

"Oh, if you again start crying, and, worst of all, to speak of your father, you will make me also cry. Although I scold you for your negligence, I do pity you. I came to give you some hope, perhaps."

"What do you mean, Septimine?"

Having finished dressing the boy's hair, the young girl sat down near him on a stool, took up her distaff, began to spin and said in a low and mysterious voice: "Do you promise to be discreet?"

"Whom do you expect I can talk to? Whom could I reveal secrets to? I have an aversion to all the people in this place."

"Excepting myself… Not true?"

"Yes, excepting you, Septimine… You are the only one who inspires me with some little confidence."

"What distrust could a little girl, born in Septimany, inspire you with? Am not I as well as my mother, the wife of the outside porter of this convent, a slave? When eighteen months ago you were brought to this place and I was not yet fifteen, I was assigned to you, to entertain you and play with you. Since then we have grown up together. You became accustomed to me… Is it not of course that you should have some confidence in me?"

"You just told me you had some hope to give me… What hope can you give me? I want to hear?"

"Do you first promise to be discreet?"

"Be easy on that score. I shall be discreet."

"Promise me also not to begin to weep again, because I shall have to speak about your father, a painful subject to you."

"I shall not weep, Septimine."

"It is now eighteen months since your father, King Thierry, died on his domain in Compiegne, and the steward of the palace, that wicked Charles Martel, had you taken to this place and kept imprisoned … poor dear innocent boy!"

"My father always said to me: 'My little Childeric, you will be a king like myself, you will have dogs and falcons to hunt with, handsome horses, chariots to ride in, slaves to serve you'; and yet I have none of these things here. Oh, God! Oh, God! How unhappy I am!"

"Are you going to start weeping again?"

"No, Septimine; no, my little friend."

"That wicked Charles Martel had you brought to this convent, as I was saying, in order to reign in your place, as he virtually reigned in the place of your father, King Thierry."

"But there are in this country of Gaul enough dogs, falcons, horses and slaves for that Charles to have an abundance and I also. Is it not so?"

"Yes … if to reign means simply to have all these things … but I, poor girl, do not understand these things. I only know that your father had friends who are enemies of Charles Martel, and that they would like to see you out of this convent. That is the secret that I had for you."

"And I, Septimine, would also like to be out of here! The devil take the monks and their convent."

After a moment's hesitation, the young girl stopped spinning and said to the young prince in a still lower voice and looking around as if fearing to be heard: "It depends upon you to get out of this convent."

"Upon me!" cried Childeric. "That would be quickly done on my part. But how?"

"Mercy! Do not speak so loud," replied Septimine uneasily and casting her eyes towards the door. "I always fear some one is there listening." She rose and went on tip-toe to listen at the door and peep through the keyhole. Feeling reassured by the examination, Septimine returned to her seat, again started to spin, and went on talking with Childeric: "You can walk in the garden during the day?"

"Yes, but the garden is surrounded by a high wall, and I am always accompanied by one of the monks. That is why I prefer to remain in this room to walking in such company."

"They lock you up at night – "

"And a monk sleeps outside before my door."

"Just look out of this window."

"What for?"

"To see whether the height of the window above the ground would frighten you."

Childeric looked out of the window. "It is very high, Septimine; it is really very high."

"You little coward! It is only eight or ten feet at most. Suppose a rope with large knots were fastened to that iron bar yonder, would you have the courage to descend by the rope, helping yourself with your feet and hands?"

"Oh, I never could do that!"

"You would be afraid? Great God, is it possible!"

"The attempt looks to me above my strength."

"I would not be afraid, and I am only a girl… Come, have courage, my prince."

The boy looked once more out of the window, reflected and proceeded to say: "You are right… It is not as high as it looked at first. But the rope, Septimine, how am I to get it? And then, when I am down there, at night… What shall I do then?"

"At the bottom of the window you will find my father. He will throw upon your shoulders the caped cloak that I usually wear. I am not really much taller than you. If you wrap the mantle well around you and lower the cape well over your face, my father could, with the help of the night, make you pass for me, traverse the interior of the convent, and reach his lodge outside. There, friends of your father would be waiting on horseback. You would depart quickly. You would have the whole night before you, and in the morning, when your flight was discovered, it would be too late to start in your pursuit… Now answer, Childeric, will you have the courage to descend from this window in order to regain your freedom?"

"Septimine, I have a strong desire to do so … but – "

"But you are afraid… Fie! A big boy like you! It is shameful!"

"And who will give me a rope?"

"I… Are you decided? You will have to hurry; your father's friends are in the neighborhood… To-night and to-morrow night they will be waiting with horses not far from the walls of the convent … to take you away – "

"Septimine, I shall have the courage to descend, yes … I promise you."

"Forget not, Childeric, that my mother, my father and I are exposing ourselves to terrible punishment, even death perhaps, by favoring your flight. When the proposition was made to my father to help in your escape, he was offered money. He refused, saying: 'I want no other reward than the satisfaction of having contributed in the deliverance of the poor little fellow, who is always sad and weepful all these eighteen months, and who is dying of grief.'"

"Oh, be easy. When I shall be king, like my father, I shall make you handsome presents; I shall give you fine clothes, jewelry – "

"I do not need your presents. You are a child that one must sympathize with. That is all that concerns me. 'It is not because the poor little fellow is the son of a king that I take an interest in him,' my father has said to me, 'because, after all, he is of the race of those Franks who have held us in bondage, us the Gauls, ever since Clovis. No, I wish to help the poor little fellow because I pity him.' Now, remember, Childeric, the slightest indiscretion on your part would draw terrible misfortunes upon my family."

"Septimine, I shall say nothing to anybody, I shall have courage, and this very night I shall descend by the window to join my father's friends. Oh! What happiness!" the child added, clapping his hands, "what happiness! I shall be free to-morrow!.. I shall be a king like my father!"

"Wait till you are away to rejoice!.. And now, listen to me carefully. You are always locked in after evening prayers. The night is quite dark by that time. You will have to wait about half an hour. Then tie the rope and let yourself down into the garden. My father will be at the foot of the window – "

"Agreed… But where is the rope?"

"Here," said Septimine, taking from amidst the flax that she held in her apron a roll of thin but strong rope, furnished with knots at intervals. "There is at the end, as you see, an iron hook; you will fasten that to this bar, and you will then let yourself down from knot to knot till you reach the ground."

"Oh! I am no longer afraid! But where shall I hide the rope? Where shall I keep it until evening?"

"Under the mattress of your bed."

"Good! Give it to me!" and the young prince, helped by Septimine, hid the rope well under the mattress. Hardly had they re-covered the bed when trumpets were heard blowing at a distance. Septimine and Childeric looked at each other for a moment in astonishment. The young girl returned to her seat, took up her distaff and observed in great excitement:

"Something unusual is going on outside of the abbey… They may come here… Take up your huckle-bones and play with them."

Childeric mechanically obeyed the orders of the young girl, sat down on the floor, and began to play huckle-bones, while Septimine, with apparent unconcern, spun at her distaff near the window. A few minutes later the door of the room opened. Father Clement, the abbot of the convent, came in and said to the young girl: "You can go away; I shall call you back if I want you."

Septimine hastened to leave; but thinking she could profit by a moment when the monk did not see her, she placed her finger to her lips in order to convey to Childeric a last warning of discretion. The abbot happening to turn around suddenly, the girl hardly had time to carry her hand to her hair in order to conceal the meaning of her first gesture. Septimine feared she had aroused the suspicion of Father Clement, who followed her with penetrating eyes, and her apprehensions ripened into certainty when, having arrived at the threshold of the door and turning a last time to salute the Father, her eyes met his scrutinizing gaze fixed upon her.

"May God help us," said the poor girl seized with mortal anxiety and leaving the room. "At the sight of the monk the unhappy prince became purple in the face… He did not take his eyes from the bed where we hid the rope. Oh, I tremble for the little fellow and for us!.. Oh! What will come of it?"