"Come away," she entreated. "You have had wine enough."

Villon contradicted her instantly.

"Never in my life, mammy. I have a fool's head and always get into my alt.i.tudes too soon."

Then, seeing the look of disappointment that made her grey old face look greyer still,--he added, "I cannot come home just now, mammy, but there is something I can do for you. Do you remember when I was a little child--"

Something in the words made him stop suddenly. The hideous contrast between the phrase and the place wherein he was, between the mother who fondled him and the wild men-savages and women-savages who were his daily friends and who were drinking and dicing behind him at the other side of the settle, came upon him like a great wave of pain and knocked the mirth out of him. He turned away from his mother and repeated to himself dismally, "G.o.d! when I was a little child!" The mother's pity, the mother's protection immediately a.s.serted themselves.

"You were the prettiest child woman ever bore," she said, softly.

Villon turned towards her again, while he tried to wink the tears out of his eyes.

"You used to sing me to sleep," he said, and as he spoke he rocked her slowly backward and forward in his arms, while he crooned the words of that old nurse's song which has soothed so many generations of French children to sleep, "Do, do, l'enfant do, l'enfant dormira tantot."

"Well, mammy, your dutiful son has made a song for you to sing yourself to sleep with. I went to church the other day. Oh, on my honour, I did"--this was in reply to a startled look of surprise that flooded the old woman's face--"and a prayer came into my head--a prayer for you to say to our Lady."

The old woman kissed him fondly on the forehead.

"My love bird," she said, and as she spoke a boyish look that had long been absent from Villon's face came back to it for a moment.

"Here it is," he said. "Listen." And he whispered to her the verses he had made, while the old woman crossed herself reverentially.

"Lady of Heaven, Queen of Earth, Empress of h.e.l.l, I kneel and plead You pity, by the holy birth, The humblest Christian of the Creed; I cannot write; I cannot read; I am a woman poor and old, But in the Church, where I behold The gates of Paradise, I cry Woman to woman, make me bold In thy belief to live and die."

"There, mammy, there is a pretty prayer for you."

Mother Villon was dissolved in tears and sobbed on his shoulder.

"You should have been a good man," she said.

Villon stroked her hair very gently.

"We are as Heaven pleases, dear." He paused for a moment, then suddenly remembering the silver coin which he had confiscated from the king, he dipped his fingers into his pouch and produced it.

"Here is something for you, mammy," he said, and as the old woman, with a faint flush on her worn cheeks, seemed about to protest, he insisted. "Oh, yes. Take it, take it. It was honestly come by, and you will spend it more honestly than I should." He forced the coin into her lean, brown hand, and added, "Now run away, mammy, and pray yourself to sleep, You shall see me soon, I promise you."

He led her gently across the tavern floor to the door, which he opened for her. As she turned to go, she looked up to him and repeated two lines of his prayer:

"Woman to woman, make me bold In thy belief to live and die."

As the door closed and Villon turned to come back to his seat, Jehan le Loup, who had been eyeing him and who was eager to pay off the score of his cracked crown, rose to his feet, dragging Isabeau with him, and barred his pa.s.sage.

"Kiss a young mouth for a change," he said, and thrust the girl against the poet. Villon brushed them both aside.

"Go to the devil," he said angrily, and pa.s.sed them. Once again Jehan's hand sought his weapon and once again he was restrained.

"He is in one of his bad moods," said Isabeau. "Leave him to himself," and she drew her reluctant companion back to the table, while Villon seated himself in a corner of the settle, staring into the fire.

At the moment the tavern door was thrust open violently and Guy Tabarie rushed into the room, his great moon face sweating, his eyes bulging, his fringe of crimson locks flaming out from the eggsh.e.l.l dome of his bald head, his mighty belly swaying with a pa.s.sion of excitement.

"Friends!" he shrieked, at the top of his voice, "there's a fight at Fat Margot's between two wenches. They are stripped to the waist and at it hammer and tongs. Come and see for the love of G.o.d!"

The whole band was afoot in an instant, clamantly agog. Guy Tabarie turned as he finished speaking and rushed through the open door into the shining moonlit street. The rest trailed after him, wandering stars in the tail of a dishonourable comet, shouting, screaming, laughing, pushing, panting, eager for the promised sport.

"I'll crown the victor!" cried Montigny as he ran and "I'll console the vanquished!" shouted Jehan le Loup, as he brought up the rear of the road and vanished, clattering, into the night. Only Huguette remained of all the fellowship, and she turned instinctively to Villon when he crouched over the dying fire.

"Will you come, Francois?" she whispered softly. Villon lifted his head for a moment from his hands to signify a refusal.

"Nay, I am reading."

Huguette blazed out at him a fierce "You lie!" which failed to move the poet from his melancholy resolve.

"A man may read without book," he said. "Go your ways, girl, and skelp both the hussies!" He drooped into a dejected heap again, oblivious of the girl, who looked at him half sadly, half angrily for an instant, and then disappeared in her turn into the causeway, calling upon her knavish heralds to wait for her.

Robin Turgis, shutting the door after her with a sigh of satisfaction, retired to his own quarters to seek sleep until custom should return. Louie and Tristan, deep in their cards, paid little heed to anything else.

"Your barber tarries," Tristan said, after a panse.

"The game makes amends," Louis answered.

"You are winning, sire," Tristan grunted. The king chirruped merrily.

"My grandsire will be remembered longer than most kings for the sake of these wasters and winners that they made to soothe his madness."

But even as he spoke his mirth faded, for a turn of Fortune gave Tristan an opportunity.

"My game, sire!" he said, and swept the stakes into his pocket.

The king fell into a frowning silence as Tristan dealt the cards again, and scrutinized his new hand with a sombre care, as if the fate of Empire depended upon it. Scarcely a sound disturbed the heavy quiet of the room. Master Francois Villon glooming in his settle corner, sucked a long noiseless draught from his stolen jug and meditated drearily. Between wine and weariness his head was beginning to swim. His head felt as heavy as lead and his brain as light and foolish as a wind-tumbled feather. Two women's faces danced before his eyes, one proud and beautiful and young, the other humble and pitiful and old, and he tried his best to shut both of them out of his senses. Vaguely he tried to shape a ballade, a n.o.ble ballade in honour of all things good to eat. He had got at least an excellent overword. "A dish of tripe's the best of all." He mouthed the line with a relish, but his eyes were seeing straws and his stubbled chin sc.r.a.ped his breast. There came a click at the latch, but he did not heed it. He would scarcely have heeded a Burgundian cannon shot; he had drifted into a lumpish doze. And yet the way of the world depended, for him, upon that lift of a latch.

CHAPTER III

THE COMING OF KATHERINE

The door opened and a woman entered the room, a woman closely m.u.f.fled after the fashion adopted by discreet ladies when they walked abroad in Paris in the fifteenth century. She was followed by an armed serving-man to whom she turned and spoke in a whisper as she paused upon the threshold.

"You are sure this is the place?" she asked, and the man answered--

"Sure!"