The Little Duke, Charlotte Mary Yonge [large screen ebook reader .TXT] 📗
- Author: Charlotte Mary Yonge
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or removed at pleasure; for, as the court possessed only one set of
glass windows, they were taken down, and carried from place to place,
as often as Louis removed from Rheims to Soissons, Laon, or any other
of his royal castles; so that Osmond did not find much difficulty in
displacing them, and letting in the sharp, cold, wintry breeze. The
next thing he did was to give his young Lord a lecture on his want of
courtesy, telling him that “no wonder the Franks thought he had no
more culture than a Viking (or pirate), fresh caught from Norway. A
fine notion he was giving them of the training he had at Centeville,
if he could not even show common civility to the Queen—a lady! Was
that the way Alberic had behaved when he came to Rouen?”
“Fru Astrida did not make sour faces at him, nor call him a young
savage,” replied Richard.
“No, and he gave her no reason to do so; he knew that the first
teaching of a young Knight is to be courteous to ladies—never mind
whether fair and young, or old and foul of favour. Till you learn
and note that, Lord Richard, you will never be worthy of your golden
spurs.”
“And the King told me she would treat me as a mother,” exclaimed
Richard. “Do you think the King speaks the truth, Osmond?”
“That we shall see by his deeds,” said Osmond.
“He was very kind while we were in Normandy. I loved him so much
better than the Count de Harcourt; but now I think that the Count is
best! I’ll tell you, Osmond, I will never call him grim old Bernard
again.”
“You had best not, sir, for you will never have a more true-hearted
vassal.”
“Well, I wish we were back in Normandy, with Fru Astrida and Alberic.
I cannot bear that Lothaire. He is proud, and unknightly, and cruel.
I am sure he is, and I will never love him.”
“Hush, my Lord!—beware of speaking so loud. You are not in your own
Castle.”
“And Carloman is a chicken-heart,” continued Richard, unheeding. “He
does not like to touch snow, and he cannot even slide on the ice, and
he is afraid to go near that great dog—that beautiful wolf-hound.”
“He is very little,” said Osmond.
“I am sure I was not as cowardly at his age, now was I, Osmond?
Don’t you remember?”
“Come, Lord Richard, I cannot let you wait to remember everything;
tell your beads and pray that we may be brought safe back to Rouen;
and that you may not forget all the good that Father Lucas and holy
Abbot Martin have laboured to teach you.”
So Richard told the beads of his rosary—black polished wood, with
amber at certain spaces—he repeated a prayer with every bead, and
Osmond did the same; then the little Duke put himself into a narrow
crib of richly carved walnut; while Osmond, having stuck his dagger
so as to form an additional bolt to secure the door, and examined the
hangings that no secret entrance might be concealed behind them,
gathered a heap of rushes together, and lay down on them, wrapped in
his mantle, across the doorway. The Duke was soon asleep; but the
Squire lay long awake, musing on the possible dangers that surrounded
his charge, and on the best way of guarding against them.
Osmond de Centeville was soon convinced that no immediate peril
threatened his young Duke at the Court of Laon. Louis seemed to
intend to fulfil his oaths to the Normans by allowing the child to be
the companion of his own sons, and to be treated in every respect as
became his rank. Richard had his proper place at table, and all due
attendance; he learnt, rode, and played with the Princes, and there
was nothing to complain of, excepting the coldness and inattention
with which the King and Queen treated him, by no means fulfilling the
promise of being as parents to their orphan ward. Gerberge, who had
from the first dreaded his superior strength and his roughness with
her puny boys, and who had been by no means won by his manners at
their first meeting, was especially distant and severe with him,
hardly ever speaking to him except with some rebuke, which, it must
be confessed, Richard often deserved.
As to the boys, his constant companions, Richard was on very friendly
terms with Carloman, a gentle, timid, weakly child. Richard looked
down upon him; but he was kind, as a generous-tempered boy could not
fail to be, to one younger and weaker than himself. He was so much
kinder than Lothaire, that Carloman was fast growing very fond of
him, and looked up to his strength and courage as something noble and
marvellous.
It was very different with Lothaire, the person from whom, above all
others, Richard would have most expected to meet with affection, as
his father’s god-son, a relationship which in those times was thought
almost as near as kindred by blood. Lothaire had been brought up by
an indulgent mother, and by courtiers who never ceased flattering
him, as the heir to the crown, and he had learnt to think that to
give way to his naturally imperious and violent disposition was the
way to prove his power and assert his rank. He had always had his
own way, and nothing had ever been done to check his faults; somewhat
weakly health had made him fretful and timid; and a latent
consciousness of this fearfulness made him all the more cruel,
sometimes because he was frightened, sometimes because he fancied it
manly.
He treated his little brother in a way which in these times boys
would call bullying; and, as no one ever dared to oppose the King’s
eldest son, it was pretty much the same with every one else, except
now and then some dumb creature, and then all Lothaire’s cruelty was
shown. When his horse kicked, and ended by throwing him, he stood
by, and caused it to be beaten till the poor creature’s back streamed
with blood; when his dog bit his hand in trying to seize the meat
with which he was teazing it, he insisted on having it killed, and it
was worse still when a falcon pecked one of his fingers. It really
hurt him a good deal, and, in a furious rage, he caused two nails to
be heated red hot in the fire, intending to have them thrust into the
poor bird’s eyes.
“I will not have it done!” exclaimed Richard, expecting to be obeyed
as he was at home; but Lothaire only laughed scornfully, saying, “Do
you think you are master here, Sir pirate?”
“I will not have it done!” repeated Richard. “Shame on you, shame on
you, for thinking of such an unkingly deed.”
“Shame on me! Do you know to whom you speak, master savage?” cried
Lothaire, red with passion.
“I know who is the savage now!” said Richard. “Hold!” to the servant
who was bringing the red-hot irons in a pair of tongs.
“Hold?” exclaimed Lothaire. “No one commands here but I and my
father. Go on Charlot—where is the bird? Keep her fast, Giles.”
“Osmond. You I can command—”
“Come away, my Lord,” said Osmond, interrupting Richard’s order,
before it was issued. “We have no right to interfere here, and cannot
hinder it. Come away from such a foul sight.”
“Shame on you too, Osmond, to let such a deed be done without
hindering it!” exclaimed Richard, breaking from him, and rushing on
the man who carried the hot irons. The French servants were not very
willing to exert their strength against the Duke of Normandy, and
Richard’s onset, taking the man by surprise, made him drop the tongs.
Lothaire, both afraid and enraged, caught them up as a weapon of
defence, and, hardly knowing what he did, struck full at Richard’s
face with the hot iron. Happily it missed his eye, and the heat had
a little abated; but, as it touched his cheek, it burnt him
sufficiently to cause considerable pain. With a cry of passion, he
flew at Lothaire, shook him with all his might, and ended by throwing
him at his length on the pavement. But this was the last of
Richard’s exploits, for he was at the same moment captured by his
Squire, and borne off, struggling and kicking as if Osmond had been
his greatest foe; but the young Norman’s arms were like iron round
him; and he gave over his resistance sooner, because at that moment a
whirring flapping sound was heard, and the poor hawk rose high,
higher, over their heads in ever lessening circles, far away from her
enemies. The servant who held her, had relaxed his grasp in the
consternation caused by Lothaire’s fall, and she was mounting up and
up, spying, it might be, her way to her native rocks in Iceland, with
the yellow eyes which Richard had saved.
“Safe! safe!” cried Richard, joyfully, ceasing his struggles. “Oh,
how glad I am! That young villain should never have hurt her. Put
me down, Osmond, what are you doing with me?”
“Saving you from your—no, I cannot call it folly,—I would hardly
have had you stand still to see such—but let me see your face.”
“It is nothing. I don’t care now the hawk is safe,” said Richard,
though he could hardly keep his lips in order, and was obliged to
wink very hard with his eyes to keep the tears out, now that he had
leisure to feel the smarting; but it would have been far beneath a
Northman to complain, and he stood bearing it gallantly, and pinching
his fingers tightly together, while Osmond knelt down to examine the
hurt. “‘Tis not much,” said he, talking to himself, “half bruise,
half burn—I wish my grandmother was here—however, it can’t last
long! ‘Tis right, you bear it like a little Berserkar, and it is no
bad thing that you should have a scar to show, that they may not be
able to say you did ALL the damage.”
“Will it always leave a mark?” said Richard. “I am afraid they will
call me Richard of the scarred cheek, when we get back to Normandy.”
“Never mind, if they do—it will not be a mark to be ashamed of, even
if it does last, which I do not believe it will.”
“Oh, no, I am so glad the gallant falcon is out of his reach!”
replied Richard, in a somewhat quivering voice.
“Does it smart much? Well, come and bathe it with cold water—or
shall I take you to one of the Queen’s women?”
“No—the water,” said Richard, and to the fountain in the court they
went; but Osmond had only just begun to splash the cheek with the
half-frozen water, with a sort of rough kindness, afraid at once of
teaching the Duke to be effeminate, and of not being as tender to him
as Dame Astrida would have wished, when a messenger came in haste
from the King, commanding the presence of the Duke of Normandy and
his Squire.
Lothaire was standing between his father and mother on their throne-like seat, leaning against the Queen, who had her arm round him; his
face was red and glazed with tears, and he still shook with subsiding
sobs. It was evident he was just recovering from a passionate crying
fit.
“How is this?” began the King, as Richard entered. “What means this
conduct, my Lord of Normandy? Know you what you have done in
striking the heir of France? I might imprison you this instant in a
dungeon where you
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