The Abbatial Crosier; or, Bonaik and Septimine. A Tale of a Medieval Abbess

Berthoald made no answer to the challenge of the hot-headed lad, and silently followed the abbess, who, riding out of this second yard, moved towards a spacious building from which confused cries were heard to proceed. She leaned over her horse, and said a few words in the ear of Broute-Saule. The latter seemed to hesitate before obeying. Seeing this, she added imperiously:

"Did you hear me?"

"Holy dame – "

"Will you obey!" cried Meroflede impetuously, striking Broute-Saule with her whip. "Do as you are told, slave!"

The face of Broute-Saule became livid and his furious eyes fell not upon Meroflede but upon Berthoald. But the lad made a violent effort to control himself; he obeyed, and ran forward to execute his mistress' orders. Immediately after, about a hundred men of sinister and determined mien and dressed in rags came out of the building, drew up in line and brandished their lances, swords and axes, shouting: "Long live our holy abbess, Meroflede!" Several women who were among the men cried no less noisily: "Long live our abbess! Long live our holy dame!"

"Do you, who have come to take possession of this monastery," said Meroflede to the young chief with a caustic smile, "know what the right of asylum imports?"

"A criminal who takes refuge in a church is protected from the justice of men."

"You are a treasure of science, worthy of carrying the crosier and the mitre! Well, these good folks that you see there are the flower of the bandits of this region; the least guilty of them has committed one or two murders. Apprised of your approach, I offered them to leave the asylum of the basilica of Nantes by night, and promised them asylum in the chapel of the abbey, and the indulgence of the good old times. If they leave this place the gibbet awaits them. That will give you an idea of the fury with which they will defend the monastery against your men, who would not be Christian enough to extend to them a similar protection. It is easy enough to accept the gift of an abbey, it is more difficult to take possession of it. You now know what forces I have at my command. Let us enter the monastery. After so long a journey, you must feel tired. I extend hospitality to you. You shall sup with me… To-morrow, at daybreak, you shall rejoin your companions. You surely are a prudent councilor. You will induce your band to look for some other abbey, and you will lead them in the search."

"I see with pleasure, holy abbess, that solitude and the austerities of the cloister have not impaired the joviality of your temper."

"Ah! You think I am jovial?"

"You suggest with an amusing seriousness that I and my men who have been fighting the Arabs, Frisians and Saxons since the battle of Poitiers, shall now turn tail to this handful of murderers and robbers, reinforced by poor colonists who have left the plow for the lance, and the hoe for the sling!"

"You braggart!" cried Broute-Saule, who had returned to his place at the head of Meroflede's horse. "Will you have us two take an axe? We shall strip to the waist, and you will find out whether the men of this place are cowards!"

"You look to me to be a brave lad," answered Berthoald smiling. "If you would like to remain with us at the abbey, you will find a place in the ranks of my companions."

"We must have a truce from now till to-morrow… You are surely tired. You shall be taken to a bath. That will refresh you. After that we shall sup. I can not treat you to a feast such as St. Agnes and St. Radegonde treated their favorite poet, Bishop Fortunat, to at their abbey of Poitiers, in short skirts. But you will not starve." Meroflede then turned to Ricarik: "You have my orders, obey them!"

While speaking, Meroflede had drawn near the interior door of the abbey. With a light leap she alighted from her horse and disappeared within the cloister, after throwing the bridle to Broute-Saule. The lad followed the fascinating woman with looks of despair, and he then slowly returned to the stables, after shaking his fist at Berthoald. The latter, who was more and more struck by the oddities of the abbess, did not notice Broute-Saule's threatening gesture but was steeped in thought when Ricarik recalled him to his surroundings, saying: "Alight; the slaves will conduct you to the bath; they will help you take off your armor, and as your baggage is not here they will furnish you with proper vestments – they are a new hose and coat that I never used. You may put them on should you prefer them to your iron shell. I shall later come for you to sup with our holy dame."

CHAPTER VI.

WARRIOR AND ABBESS

Refreshed by his bath and daintily dressed, Berthoald was half an hour later led by Ricarik to the apartment of the abbess. When he appeared in the hall where Meroflede awaited him, he found her alone. The abbess had doffed her black vestments to array herself in a long white robe. A light veil half hid the tresses of her thick and reddish hair. A necklace and bracelets of precious stones ornamented her neck and bare arms. The Franks, having preserved the custom, introduced before them in Gaul by the Romans, of surrounding their banquet tables with couches, the abbess, extended almost at full length upon a long and wide lounge furnished with cushions, made a sign to the young chief to sit down near her. Berthoald obeyed, increasingly taken with the unusual beauty of Meroflede. A large fire flamed in the hearth. Rich vessels of silver glistened on the table, which was covered with embroidered linen; daintily carved flagons stood near gold cups; the plates held toothsome dishes; a candelabrum, on which two little wax candles were burning, barely lighted the spacious apartment, which was thrown into semi-obscurity a few paces away from Meroflede and her guest, and into complete darkness at its further ends. The lounge stood against a wainscoted wall from which hung two portraits, one of them, coarsely painted on an oak panel in Byzantine style, representing a Frankish warrior barbarously accoutred after the fashion of the leudes of Clovis three centuries earlier. Below the painting was the inscription: "Gonthram Neroweg." Beside this picture was one of the abbess Meroflede herself, draped in her long black and white veils; in one hand she held her abbatial crosier, in the other a naked sword. The second picture was much smaller than the first; it was painted on parchment, in the style of the miniatures that sacred books were then commonly illuminated with. Berthoald's eyes fell upon the two pictures at the moment when he was about to sit down beside his hostess. At their sight a tremor ran through him, and he remained as if thunder-struck. Presently he looked from Gonthram Neroweg to Meroflede, and from the abbess back to the former. He seemed to compare the resemblance between the two, an obvious resemblance; like Neroweg, Meroflede's hair was reddish, her nose beaked, her eyes green. The young chief could not conceal his astonishment.

"You seem to contemplate with deep interest the portrait of one of my ancestors, deceased several centuries ago!"

"You are of the race of Neroweg!"

"Yes, and my family still inhabits its vast domains of Auvergne, conquered by my ancestors' swords, or bestowed upon them by royal gifts… But that is quite enough for the past. Glory to the dead, joy to the living! Sit down here near me, and let us take supper… I am an odd abbess. But by Venus, I live like the other abbots and bishops of my time, with the only difference that these mitred folks sup with young girls, while I shall spend the night with a handsome soldier… Will that be to your taste?" and raising one of the heavy silver flagons with a virile hand, she filled to the brim the gold cup that was placed near her guest. After merely moistening her own red lips in the cup, she reached it to the young chief and said resolutely:

"Let us drink your welcome to this convent!"

Berthoald held the cup for a moment between his two hands, and casting one more look at the portrait of Neroweg, he smiled caustically, fixed upon the abbess a look as bold as that which she cast at him, and replied: "Let us drink, beautiful abbess!" and emptying the cup at one draught, he added: "Let us drink to love!.. which overpowers the abbesses as it does the simple maids!"

"Aye! Let us drink to love, the god of the world, as the pagans used to say!" answered Meroflede, and filling her own cup from a little red flagon, and replenishing the cup of the young chief, who fixedly gazed at her with eyes that shot fire, she added: "I have drunk to your toast; now drink to mine!"

"Whatever it be, holy abbess, and even though this cup be filled with poison, I shall empty it to your toast, I swear by your snow-white arms! – by your beautiful eyes! – by your voluptuous lips! I drink to Venus Callipyge!"

"Well, then," said the abbess, fixing a penetrating look upon the young man, "let us drink to the Jew Mordecai!"

Berthoald had his cup at his lips, but at the name of the Jew he shivered, laid his cup down abruptly, his face grew dark and he cried in terror:

"Drink to the Jew Mordecai?"

"Come, by Venus, the patroness of lovers, do not tremble like that, my brave friend!"

"Drink to the Jew Mordecai!.. I – "

"You said to me: 'Let us drink to Love!'" replied the abbess, without losing the effect of her words upon Berthoald; "you swore by the whiteness of this arm," and she raised her sleeves, "you swore to drink my toast. Fulfill your promise!"

"Woman!" cried Berthoald with impatience and embarrassment, "what whim is that? Why do you wish me to drink to the Jew Mordecai, to a merchant of human flesh?"

"I shall satisfy your curiosity… Had not Mordecai sold you as a slave to the Seigneur Bodegesil, you would not have stolen your master's horse and armor to go in search of adventures, and palmed yourself off upon that devil of a Charles Martel – you, a Gaul of the subject race – for a noble of the Frankish race and son of a dispossessed beneficiary, and finally, Charles, one of whose best captains you have become, would not have presented you with this abbey. Consequently, you would not be here now, at my side, at this table, where we are together drinking to Love… That is the reason why, my valiant warrior, I empty this cup to the memory of that filthy Jew! And now, will you drink to the Jew Mordecai?"

While Meroflede was uttering these words, Berthoald contemplated her with increased astonishment, now mixed with fear, and could find not one word in answer.

"Ah! Ah! Ah!" said the abbess laughing, "see how dumb he has become. Why grow alternately pale and red? What does it matter whether you are of Gallic or Frankish race? Does that render your eyes less blue, your hair less black, your shape less comely? Come, shame upon you, my warrior! Must I teach a soldier how cups are emptied, and how love is made?"

Berthoald felt as if in a dream. Meroflede did not seem to despise him; she did not seem to triumph at the advantage that she had gained over him by the knowledge of his secret. Frank in her cynicism, she contemplated the young chief with mild and ardent eyes. Her looks that at once troubled his mind and fired his veins; the strangeness of the adventure; the effect of the large cup that he had just drained at one draught, either a heady wine or perchance mixed with some philtre, and that began to throw his brain into disorder; – all these thoughts crowded upon Berthoald's mind. He took a sudden resolve – to vie with the abbess in audacity, and said resolutely to her: "You are of the race of Neroweg, I of that of Joel!"

"We shall drink to Joel … he has raised a breed of handsome soldiers."

"Are you acquainted with the death of the son of Gonthram Neroweg, whose portrait I see there on the wall?"

"A tradition in my family has it that he was killed in his domain of Auvergne by the chief of a troop of bandits and revolted slaves. May the devil keep his soul!"

"The chief of those bandits was named Karadeucq … he was the great grandfather of my grandfather!"

"By heaven! That is a singular coincidence! And how did the bandit kill Neroweg?"

"Your ancestor and mine fought valiantly with axes, and the count succumbed. The Gaul triumphed over the Frank!"

"Indeed … you refresh the recollections of my childhood. Did not your ancestor cut some words in the trunk of a tree with the point of a dagger after the combat?"

"Yes – 'Karadeucq, a descendant of Joel, killed Count Neroweg'!"

"A few months after her husband's death, the count's wife, Godegisele, gave birth to a son, who was the grandfather of my grandfather."

"Strange coincidence, indeed … and you, my beautiful abbess, listen to the story with great calmness!"

"What are those combats of our ancestors and of our races to me? By Venus! By her beautiful hips! I know but one race in all the world – the race of lovers! Empty your cup, my valiant warrior, and let us sup merrily. To-night there is a truce between us two… War to-morrow!"

"Shame! Remorse! Reason! Duty! – let them all be drowned in wine!.. I know not whether I am awake or dreaming on this strange night!" cried the young chief, and taking up his full cup, he rose and proceeded with an air of feverish defiance while turning towards the somber and savage portrait of the Frankish warrior: "To you, Neroweg!" Having emptied his cup, Berthoald felt seized with a vertigo and threw himself upon the lounge, saying to Meroflede: "Long live Love, abbess of the devil! Let us love each other to-night, and fight to-morrow!"

"We shall fight on the spot!" cried a hoarse and strangling voice, that seemed to proceed from the extremity of the large hall that lay in utter darkness, and, the curtains of one of the doors being thrust aside, Broute-Saule, who, without the knowledge of the abbess and driven by savage jealousy, had managed to penetrate into the apartment, rushed forward agile like a tiger. With two bounds he reached Berthoald, seized him by the hair with one hand and raised a dagger over him with the other, determined to plunge the weapon into the young chief's throat. The latter, however, although taken by surprise, quickly drew his sword, held with his iron grip the armed hand of Broute-Saule, and ran his weapon through the unfortunate lad. Deadly wounded, Broute-Saule staggered about for a few seconds and then dropped, crying: "Meroflede … my beautiful mistress … I die under your eyes!"

Still holding his bloody sword in his hand, and aware that the powerful wine was making further inroads upon his senses, Berthoald mechanically fell back upon the lounge. The dazed chief for a moment scrutinized the darkness of the apartment, apprehensive of further attempts upon his life, when he saw the abbess knock over with her fist the candelabrum which alone lighted the room, and in the midst of the total darkness that now pervaded the place he felt himself in the close embrace of the monster. Hardly any recollection remained to him of what happened during the rest of that night of drunkenness and debauchery.

CHAPTER VII.

THE MOUSE-TRAP

Dawn was about to succeed the night in which Broute-Saule was killed by Berthoald. Profoundly asleep and with his hands pinioned behind his back, the young chief lay upon the floor of Meroflede's bedchamber. Wrapped in a black cloak, her face pale and half veiled by her now loose thick red hair that almost reached the floor, the abbess proceeded to the window, holding in her hand a lighted torch of rosin. Leaning over the sill whence the horizon could be seen at a distance, the abbess waved her torch three times, while intently looking towards the east which began to be tinted with the approaching day. After a few minutes, the light of a large flame, that rose from a distance behind the retreating shades of night, responded to Meroflede's signal. Her features beamed with sinister joy. She dropped her torch into the moat that surrounded the monastery, and then proceeded to awaken Berthoald by shaking him rudely. Berthoald was with difficulty drawn from his lethargy. He sought to take his hand to his forehead, but found that he was pinioned. He raised himself painfully upon his leaden feet, and still unclear of mind he contemplated Meroflede in silence. The abbess extended her bare arms towards the horizon, that dawn was feebly lighting, and said: "Do you see yonder, far away, the narrow road that crosses the pond and prolongs itself as far as the outer works of the abbey?"

"Yes," said Berthoald, struggling against the strange torpor that still paralyzed his mind and will, without thereby wholly clouding his intellect; "yes, I see the road surrounded by water on all sides."

"Did not your companions in arms camp on that road during the night?"

"I think so," replied the young chief, seeking to collect his confused thoughts; "last evening … my companions – "

"Listen!" put in the abbess nervously and placing her hand upon the young man's shoulder. "Listen … what do you hear from the side on which the sun is about to rise?"

"I hear a great rumbling noise … that seems to draw nearer towards us. It sounds like the rush of waters."

"Your ear does not deceive you, my valiant warrior;" and leaning upon Berthoald's shoulder: "Yonder, towards the east, lies an immense lake held in by dikes and locks."

"A lake? What of it?"

"The level of its waters is eight to ten feet above those of the ponds… Do you understand what will follow?"

"No, my mind is heavy … I hardly remember … our charming night … but why am I pinioned?"

"For the purpose of checking your joy when, as will soon be the case, you will have recovered your senses… Now, let us continue our confidential chat. You will understand that the moment the dikes are broken through and the locks opened, the water will rise in these ponds to the extent that they will submerge the narrow road on which your companions encamped for the night with their horses and the carts that held their booty and slaves… Now, watch… Do you notice how the water is rising? It is now up to the very edge of the jetty… Within an hour, the jetty itself will be entirely submerged. Not one of your companions will have escaped death… If they seek to flee, a deep trench, cut at my orders over night, will stop their progress… Not one will escape death… Do you hear, my handsome prisoner?"

"All drowned!" murmured Berthoald, still under the dominion of a dull stupor; "all my companions drowned – "

"Oh, does not yet that new piece of confidential news wake you up?.. Let us pass to another thing," and the abbess proceeded with a voice of ringing triumph: "Among the female slaves, taken from Languedoc, that your band brought in its train, there was a woman … who will drown with the rest, and that woman," said Meroflede, emphasizing each word in the hope of each being a dagger in Berthoald's heart, "is – your – mother!"

Berthoald trembled violently, leaped up in his bonds, and vainly sought to snap them. He uttered a piercing cry, cast a look of despair and terror upon the immense sheet of water that, tinted with the first rays of the rising sun, now extended in every direction. The wretched man called aloud: "Oh, my mother!"

"Now," said Meroflede with savage joy, "the water has almost completely invaded the causeway. The tent-cloths that cover the carts can hardly be seen. The flood still rises, and at this very hour your mother is undergoing the agonies of death … agonies that are more horrible than death itself."

"Oh, demon!" cried the young man, writhing in his bonds. "You lie! My mother is not there!"

"Your mother's name is Rosen-Aër, she is forty years of age; she lived one time in the valley of Charolles in Burgundy."

"Woe! Woe is me!"

"Fallen into the hands of the Arabs at the time of their invasion of Burgundy, she was taken to Languedoc as a slave. After the last siege of Narbonne by Charles, your mother was captured in the vicinity of the town together with other women. When the division of the booty took place, Rosen-Aër having fallen to the lot of your band was brought as far as here… If still you should doubt, I shall give you one more token. That woman carries on her arm, like you, traced in indelible letters the two words: 'Brenn' and 'Karnak'… Are these details accurate enough?"

"Oh, my mother!" cried the unfortunate Berthoald casting upon the waters of the pond a look of most poignant pain.

"Your mother is now dead… The jetty has disappeared under the waters, and still they rise… Aye, your mother was drowned in the covered cart, where she was held confined with the other slaves."

"My heart breaks," murmured Berthoald, crushed by the weight of pain and despair: "My suffering is beyond endurance!"

"Are you so soon at the end of your strength?" cried Meroflede with a peal of infernal laughter. "Oh! no, no! You have not yet suffered enough. What! You stupid slave! You Gallic renegade! Cowardly liar, who brazenly deck yourself with the name of a noble Frank! What, did you imagine vengeance did not boil in my veins because you saw me smile last evening at the death of my ancestor, who was killed by a bandit of your race! Aye! I smiled because I thought how at daybreak I would have you witness from a distance the death agonies of your own mother! I was but preparing my vengeance."

"Monster of lewdness and ferocity!" cried Berthoald, making superhuman efforts to break his bonds. "I must punish you for your crimes!.. Yes, by Hesus, I shall throttle you with my own hands!"

The abbess realized the impotence of Berthoald's fury, shrugged her shoulders and continued: "Your ancestor, the bandit, set fire a century and a half ago to the castle of my ancestor, Count Neroweg, and killed him with an axe. I reply to the fire with the inundation, and I drown your mother! As to the fate that awaits you, it will be terrible!"

"Did my mother know that I was the chief of the Franks who took her prisoner?"

"My vengeance lacked only that!"

"But who, miserable woman, could have told you what you know about my mother?"

"The Jew Mordecai."

"How did he know her? Where did he see her?"

"At the halt that you made at the convent of St. Saturnine with Charles Martel; it was there that the Jew recognized you."

"God was merciful to me! My mother did not live to know my shame. Her death would have been doubly terrible… And now, monster, deliver me of your presence and of life. I am in a hurry to die!"

"Have patience! I have prepared for you a refined punishment, and a prolonged agony."

CHAPTER VIII.

THE MIRACLE OF ST. LOUP'S TEETH

On the morning of the fateful day when the abbess Meroflede drowned, as in a mouse-trap, the troop of Frankish warriors that had presumed to dispossess her, the goldsmith Bonaik entered his workshop at the accustomed hour. He was soon joined by his slave apprentices. After lighting the fire in the forge, the old man opened the window that looked over the fosse, to let the smoke escape. With no little astonishment Bonaik observed that the water in the moat had risen so high as to be within a foot of the window sill. "Oh, my lads," said he to the apprentices, "I fear some great calamity happened last night! For very many years the water of this moat did not reach the height of to-day, and then it happened when the dike of the upper lake broke, and caused widespread disasters. Look yonder at the other end of the moat. The water is almost up to the air-hole cut into the cavern under the building opposite us."

"And it looks as if the water were still rising, Father Bonaik."

"Alack, yes, my lad! It is still rising. Oh, the bursting of the dikes will bring on great calamities. There will be many victims!"

While Bonaik and his apprentices were looking at the rising water in the moat, the voice of Septimine was heard calling on the outside: "Father Bonaik, open the door of the workshop!" One of the apprentices ran to the door and the girl entered, supporting a woman whose long hair streamed with water; her clothes were drenched, her face livid; she was barely able to drag herself along; so weak was she that after taking a few steps in the shop she fell fainting in the arms of the old goldsmith and Septimine.

"Poor woman! She is cold as ice!" exclaimed the old man, and turning to his apprentices: "Quick, quick boys! Fetch some coal from the vault, ply the bellows and raise the fire in the forge to warm up this unfortunate woman. I thought so! This inundation must have caused much damage."