If I Were King | Page 9

that he
for his part found him a dull ape. Louis might have argued the point but
his interest was claimed by the voice of Villon, who, being comfortably
installed on his wine-cask, was beginning his promised narrative. A

philosopher would have discerned something pathetic in the picture of
the ragged rascal thus girdled about with blackguards of a baser sort,
his lean body quivering, his eager face alive with emotions, mockery
on his lips and sorrow in his eyes: to the sardonic king it afforded
nothing more and nothing less than amusement. "You must know, dear
Devils and ever-beautiful Blowens, that three days ago, when I was
lying in the kennel, which is my humour, and staring at the sky, which
is my recreation--I speak, honest citizen, but in parable or allegory, a
dear device with the schoolmen--I saw between me and Heaven the
face of a lady, the loveliest face I ever saw."
Here the poor Abbess, indignation overcrowding her borrowed
mannishness, began to sniffle and to assert that the speaker was a
faithless pig, but Villon, unheeding her whimpers, went on with his
tale.
"She was going to church--God shield her--but she looked my way as
she passed, and though she saw me no more than she saw the
cobble-stone I stood on, I saw her once and for ever. We
song-chandlers babble a deal of love, but for the most part we know
little or nothing about it, and when it comes it knocks us silly. I was
knocked so silly that--well, what do you think was the silly thing I
did?"
Villon turned his alert face to each member of his audience, and his
derisive mouth belied the sadness of his eyes.
"Emptied a can for oblivion," Montigny suggested. Blanche was no less
practical.
"Kissed a wench for the same purpose," she cried. "The times that I've
been wooed out of my name!"
"Picked the woman's pocket," Casin Cholet hinted, wagging his shock
head wisely, while Jehan le Loup, with a hideous leer, sniggered: "Got
near her in the crowd and pinched her," and suited the action to the
word with finger and thumb on Blanche's plump shoulder.

Master François dissipated all this roguish philosophy with a
contemptuous gesture.
"La, la, la," he chirruped. "Sillier than all these. I followed her into the
church."
The silence of astonishment fell upon the audience. Only Colin de
Cayeulx had sufficient presence of mind to formulate his amazement in
a prolonged whistle. Louis crossed himself repeatedly under his gown.
"You are not a church-goer, sir?" he questioned sourly. Villon
answered him sweetly.
"No, old Queernabs, unless there's an alms-box to open or a matter of
gold plate to pilfer." Guy Tabarie hurriedly interrupted him with a
warning cry of "Cave!" and a significant glance at the strangers, but
Villon derided his fears.
"Nonsense," he cried, leaning forward and playfully slapping Louis on
the back with his sword. "This good Cuffin has a friendly face and can
take a joke. Can't you, old rabbit?"
Louis winced and then grinned as Tristan gasped in anger. "I thank
Heaven I have a sense ot humour," he said, with a sly glance at his
companion. Villon went on with his story.
"Well, I sprawled there in the dark, with my knees on the cold ground,
and all the while the sound of her beauty was sweet in my ears, and the
taste of her beauty was salt on my lips, and the pain of her beauty was
gnawing at my heart, and I prayed that I might see her again."
At this point Huguette, who had been following the narrative with a
feline ferocity, caught up a wine-jug and made to throw it at the poet's
head, but was dexterously disarmed by Guy Tabarie before the vessel
had time to quit her fingers. Sulkily she plumped herself down on her
stool again, while Villon, quite unconscious of the averted peril,
rambled on dreamily.
"And the incense tickled my nostrils and the painted saints sneered at

me, and bits of rhymes and bits of prayers jigged in my brain and I felt
as if I were drunk with some new and delectable liquor. And then she
slipped out and I after her. She took the Holy Water from my fingers."
Villon's voice sank reverently and Huguette took advantage of the
pause.
"I wish it had burned you to the bone," she interrupted spitefully.
Master Villon shook his head.
"It burned deeper than that, believe me. Outside, on God's steps, stood
a yellow-haired, pink-faced puppet who greeted her and they ambled
away together, I on their heels. Presently they came to a gateway and in
slips my quarry, and as she did so she turned to her squire and I saw her
face again and lost it,