When we came in sight of the castle of Orthez, there rose from the great chimneys a dark cloud of smoke. The drawbridge fell, and the steward rode forth to meet us.
“Lo, my Lord,” he cried, “hasten home. Whilst thou wert absent here hath come a great lord, the Due de Berry, with messages from the King.”
“Hath he a great following?” questioned my Lord.
“Seventy lances and thirty sumpter mules. They are cared for, my Lord, and all have supped.”
We hurried forward. As my Lord rode into the court, the Due de Berry cometh through the door to meet him. He was elder than my Lord, and was uncle to King Charles, and a powerful and noble lord. Never had I looked on one so great as he. All France hath heard how he taxed his people and gathered from them great stores of money that he might have gold to buy palaces, that he might get from strange and foreign countries noble pictures with which to deck his walls, and tapestries wrought in coloured threads and gold. Not only these things did he buy, but books enriched with jewels and filled with images of saints and others, coloured with blue, red, and gold. After him rode hundreds of followers when he went to war or travelled abroad in strange countries.
As one looked upon him, his face seemeth harsh at first, yet a smile became it well, and he smiled when he looked on my mistress, as doth everyone who seeth her.
One, two, three days he tarried. ’Twas said that his matters were despatched in one, and true it is that when my mistress was before him, his eyes ne’er left her face.
Right seemly she looketh, thought I, as I stood behind her chair when they supped. Never before had she borne herself so bravely, and rich were the gauds that tirewoman furnished forth. One evening my Lady came into the great hall in a gown of cherry red, made from the thread of the silkworm and wonderous soft and fine. Above this was a long coat with wide pointed sleeves, and it was bound about her with a sash of cloth that shone like silver. Her hair was woven with strings of pearls, large and white, and over her hung a veil like unto a spider’s web, set full with shining threads. Well do I remember all this, for it was the first time that ever I had seen such richness of apparel.
Till now we had been friends together, playmates. The priest whom my Lord Gaston had brought to dwell in the castle taught us to read, and when we irked him overmuch sent us packing. Then would we spend the time running over the great old castle, shooting with the bow and arrow, and teaching the shagged greyhounds to fetch and carry.
But from to-day all was different. She was a great lady, and I her page Jehan, to hand her cup, to do her bidding within doors, and to ride at her litter’s side or by her saddle when she went abroad, with my sword loosened and hand steady and prompt at her need.
On the fourth day my Lord Gaston rode out with the Due de Berry to see him fare forth. My mistress stood upon the steps as they set out, with her sky-blue jewel in her hair and her cheeks like maybuds. The Due had bent and kissed her hand, and of a truth I heard him say,—
“Farewell, mistress. Thou wilt hear from me again, and that shortly.”
She saith never a word, but looked into his face and smiled.
Now once again it was “Jehan here” and “Jehan there,” and we fell back into our old ways. I digged and tilled for her the garden patch without the walls of the castle, for this was a year of richness, and my Lady’s gillyflowers and lavender, lilies and coriander, showed bright beside the dull potherbs, anise, mustard, and storax, and the beds of leeks, dittany, lettuces, and garden-cress. We had words over the poppies.
“Jehan,” saith she, “didst ever see the poppies brighter than they be this spring?”
“Fair they be, mistress, and of a size too, so that the seeds will be choice, and none need suffer for lack of a sleeping draught if they be ill!”
“Mean you to save all the flowers for seeds?”
“Of a truth, yes, mistress, since they be so fine.”
“But, Jehan, thou knowest that I love the poppies, and sure they were planted for me.”
Now this was true, but the flowers were so exceeding fine, and gave promise of such a crop of seeds, that I fairly loathed to give one up. So I tried to coax Mistress Eleonore with other buds.
“Jehan,” suddenly quoth she, “run you to the court and fetch me out a garden tool. I would help thee myself to-day.”
I hurried away, as she bade me, and when I got back there she stood in the midst of the poppy-bed, with a wreath of them in her black hair, and both hands full! I stopped short, and she began to laugh at me, looking so like the fairies we hear of dancing in a ring, that though I felt the loss of the poppy-seeds sore, all I could find to say was,—
“Oh, mistress, the seeds!”
“But the flowers are so beautiful, and the seeds but ill-favoured black things, as thou knowest well, Jehan, wherefore I chose the flowers.”
There was naught to do but to hope that the buds that were left would bloom freely; and shortly we went back to the castle, for the day was growing warm, the birds had ceased their morning songs, and the wind was no longer sweet and cool. As we reached the gate, there came to us, faint and far away, the sound of a winded horn. We turned, and out over the marches we could see coming many knights, their armour glistening in the sun, and their lances shining like so many points of fire.
“Who be these, think you, Jehan?” said my mistress, as with her wreath of poppies she stood and watched them come. But I knew no more than she, and soon the stranger knights rode by us into the court, each man as he passed doffing his cap to my mistress, who stood tall and smiling, and bowing in her turn.
“Jehan,” quoth she, “run as fast as ever thou canst and find the tirewoman and send her to me. Perchance my cousin will wish me to come to the great hall.”
I was glad to be off, since I was eager to know who the great lord was that rode so bravely at the head of his vassals. In the court all was bustle, but I heard it said that he was a friend to the King, and that he bore the name of Seigneur Bureau de la Rivière.
What was his mission to my Lord none could guess. But as one day followed another and yet he tarried, my Lady’s tirewoman could hold her tongue no longer, and out the secret came. Never could I bide that woman! ’Twas always touch and go between us.
“Knave,” quoth she, and “Jade,” say I, till the ill-favoured wench would to my Lady Eleonore in tears.
Now the secret that she blabbed was this,—that the Seigneur de la Rivière had come to ask for the hand of my little mistress at the suit of the Duc de Berry!
It seems that the King laughed when he heard that his uncle the Duc, who had seen a round fifty years and had sons who were men grown, wished to take to wife “une fillette,” as he calleth her, of twelve years. But the Duc held fast to his cause, and the King was but a lad of sixteen himself with a wife two years younger, and many of the court were of scarce greater age. So the Duc had persevered in his wishes, and the Seigneur de la Rivière had come to treat with my master, the Comte de Foix, who did not wish to give up his young cousin to one so much her elder. So he put off the Seigneur, saying,—
“The child is too young. Let the marriage wait till she grows up.”
These days I saw little of my mistress. The flowers and the dogs were all forgot, and she was housed with that tirewoman all the bright days. One morning there was an exceeding bustle and rushing hither and yon. Then was I bidden to put on my bravest suit and attend my mistress to the great hall. It took me far less time than it took my Lady to put on all her fine gear, and when we came into the hall, there sat my Lord, and beside him sat the stranger lord, while all around them were many score of knights and lances.
My Lord cometh forward, and taking my mistress by the hand, he leadeth her to a seat in the great oak chair beside him, whilst I stood but a step behind her. My Lord looked at her kindly, and then quoth he,—
“Knowest why I sent for thee, child?”
My mistress drew up her head quite proud, and answered bravely, though her cheeks were like poppy buds,—
“In truth I do, Cousin.”
“I think that thou art over-young to make a marriage yet,” began my Lord; but my mistress saith quickly, before he could go further,—
“Dear Cousin, our new Queen Isabeau had but fourteen years when she wedded King Charles, and it is said that she hath meaner height than I.”
Her cousin smiled.
“Thou knowest that the Duc de Berry is far more in years than thyself?”
“Yet methinks I could like him well,” saith the Lady Eleonore, “and indeed this marriage suits me much.”
She looked so full of spirit, and withal so fair, that the Seigneur de la Rivière thought it well to take now a part himself.
“The lady knows her mind,” saith he, “and for a truth the Duc loves her right well. King Charles, who is a youthful liege himself, will welcome her, and at Paris she will find all things that a young maid loves.”
“I had forgot that in my lonely castle the young maid lacked much that other maids have. Still, child, thou knowest that I have loved thee well.”
At this my mistress went to her cousin and knelt by his knee, holding his hand and kissing of it.
“Dearest Cousin,” she cried, “there has been naught lacking in all thy kindness for me, and if it is thy wish that I stay with thee, send the Seigneur hence.”
My Lord smiled sadly and shook his head, saying with a sigh,—
“The child has chosen for herself, my Lord.”
Then my mistress withdrew, and I followed her. How my head spun! My mistress to wed a lord almost as great as the King himself, to go to Paris to dwell, and I, Jehan, to go with her!
Of a truth I scarce drew breath for the next ten days, since we were to go forth straightway, and there was hurly-burly to get us furnished forth. At the end of that time we set out towards Paris, my Lord Comte sending five hundred lances to safeguard my Lady, and the Duc de Berry sending as many more, with litters, chariots, jewels, and fine robes to meet us on our way. I have not speech to tell how fine we fared on that journey. At every halt great silken tents were spread, my Lord Duc had sent minstrels for to sing at my Lady’s pleasure, and there were litters hung with scarlet and gold to carry her when she was a-weary. There were women to wait on her, pages to run her bidding, and Jehan, chief of them all, always at hand, with a chain of bright gold about his neck, to show his new rank.