The garden of the Lady – 1- The braggart and the king
.oOo.
Blood is pulsing to my temples. Fire is screaming in my chest. This time, I shall not let myself be taken back! I've been fooling and tiring them in the alleys of Regal Island! Those heavy watch sergeants, huffing and puffing in their gleaming armours... But they don't let go, I must speed up again!
Hurry ! Down the Spinners Scarp! Oh, but who's this? At her spin under a vault, this pretty shy face lifting her clear eyes from her coloured frames! A conquest! ... What's her name again ? And she throws an encouraging smile to the heroic fugitive! ... how guts raising!
Quick bend and then under the Tanners Arcades! I hope those smells lose the ward's dogs...
The pursuit rumours are fading far behind... It's time to take to the sea, here's the bridge of my salvation!
Come on, let's give it a tricky go - a little bouquet picked from a window pot as we pass, an alert stepping like a lover joining his mistress, and there we are! Let's set off along the cobbled bridge slope, with an innocent face and a playful wink...
All is well, these brave archers are all about the bridge tax ... They are regulatorily robbing petty earners and shop assistants...
– "Good morning, Sergeants! Greetings to my Lord brother! "
The guards are reluctant to salute in the face of my ranting. They change their minds after the lieutenant's furious glance. I make a little casual bow. The good officer receives my familiarities like a blow, his hands clenched behind his back. This past month alone, he has arrested me three times... But the King's baby brother is always released! I am untouchable! Yet this time, given his ulcerated face, the lieutenant hoped that the gallows seed would pay dearly, after insulting a justice of the peace… But here I am, free...
Suddenly a whistle is heard at the bottom of the bridge. A squad bursts out from under the arches, shouting to hold the scoundrel...
– "The scoundrel! That's a little rich of them! "
The archers lieutenant loses half a second to understand...
I dash forward, roll under a cart of pigs, escape the first guard, steal his rapier from the second and correct the third with the flat blade. And forward to the east bank!
A salute full of panache on the right, a stolen kiss on the left, under the ovations of the populace, always keen to see the watch beaten... But let's not dally, these butors are going to bring in the horse archers...
.oOo.
– "Bergil, my darling! You'll scare me to death! What have you done now? "
The boisterous mother led her youngster towards the pantry, her ample chest heaving with emotion.
– "Nothing, Mother dear! Let me look at you! You're all dashing... but a little pale! Are you eating enough? "
His eye is cuddly, his tone caressing, but the feathered fellow - from whom did he steal that boisterous hat? - remains breathless after his frantic race.
– "Stop fooling around! Of course I'm decently dressed, I've just come from court! And if I'm all pale, you can imagine why! Did you escape? Yet this morning's judgment was lenient for you!"
– "Lenient? Two weeks scrubbing the garrison cesspools! Not to mention the fine! That is a shameful abuse of power!"
– "Bergil, you know that your brother at heart would have paid that fine! But you will have to learn the value of work and respect for authority! His majesty will not always be able to protect you, you know that! "
The inns' smooth talker is getting angry. The velvet hand is revolting. The pretty face of the seamstresses' darling is turning red with fury:
– "Oh, yes! His Supreme Haughtyness constantly makes me feel who is the boss! Sententious largesse here, munificent reprimands there! All honeyed with an unbearable condescension!"
– "Don't be unfair! He has many duties now and lives only for the kingdom's greatness. And since his marriage with that foreign girl... I don't know her, but..."
– "Oh, stop making excuses for him! He was never very skilled with women, that's all! Handsome scoffs with a contemptuous smile. He treats his wife so badly that he doesn't even dare show up with her! "
– "If you had come to the wedding, you would have seen them side by side! They looked like the King and Queen of the Lost Island... "
– "Whose fault is that I wasn't there? He was careful not to lift the warrant, just to have you all for himself! Perhaps he also claims winning all of my own mother's affection? "
But a military bark resounds in the mansion's courtyard, interrupting the spoiled child's recriminations:
- "On my command, one squad to the stables, one to the commons, another with me in the main building, the others surround the mansion! This gallows bird thought he would escape his majesty's police! But I'm sure Mommy's handsome boy has taken refuge directly here!"
Bergil glances through the coloured glass window: armours are glittering in the courtyard and royal surcoats are blocking all the exits of the blond stones old family building.
Our braggart blushes, kisses his mother and draws his rapier in a dramatic cape movement, but with a grasp that has raised eight marmosets, the matron slaps him and pushes him into the cellar.
An officer with a large beard appears in the entrance hall, smoothing his moustache greedily. When the mistress of the house advances her opulent bosom to the soldier, blocking the captain's path with her short but broad stature, he stops dead in his tracks. The moustache loses a little of its luster, the officer removes his helmet and relegates it under his arm. He salutes briskly in a proper military manner, imitated by the spademen following him as best they can with sliders under their riding boots.
One does not trifle with polished floors, at the home of His Majesty's former nursemaid! Nor with politeness or courtesy... All the palace police know this : they have had many occasions to bring back the unworthy and reprimanded son to his mother, to the great displeasure of his adopted brother - His Majesty Himself, for those readers who would have been left behind!
The soldiers, well versed in the manoeuvre, take over the entire mansion. It won't be long before the fugitive is caught - the captain is now really sure of it, since the poor mother, sitting in front of him, is desperately wringing her hands. No usual torrents of reproaches, which only her son deserves, pouring out on his gleaming stripes… The good man, almost saddened by her resigned silence, thinks of a charitable conclusion to calm the foreseeable matron's transports when her chained son is taken away.
But he has no time to soften his stiff report with compassion. Silver trumpets sound in the courtyard, announcing the arrival of the King himself!
Reflexively, the troopers gather at a run and line up on the pavement as if on exercise. Mustering his acolytes, the captain raises his moustache and orders the royal honours to be played.
With grace and slowness, the sovereign dismounts. Debonair, affable, he addresses a few courteous bows to the statufied surcoats and crosses the porch. After a short curtsey from his nurse, His Majesty takes her in his arms with all the affection of a son.
In the sunlit courtyard, the archers still stand at attention.
.oOo.
The nanny has a tear in her eye. Her little one - now a six-foot tall man - has sat down at the service, just as in the past. The braids of his clothes and the feathers of his hat brighten up the brassware lining the stone walls of the austere kitchen. The opulent dresser, the precious porcelain cabinet, the polished stove seem to relive the high hours of the grand meals, the fever of tea parties and tumultuous gatherings. If only her brother could join them, eat at the same table... the brave matron would give everything to bring her two boys together as in the past...
As she serves hot pastry puffs, Emyn Arnen's dried meat and shavings of sheep's cheese, the goodwife's wet eyes linger in spite of herself at the half-open cellar door. Almost reluctantly, she opens a bottle wrapped in a wicker braid: the house nectar, the one that brings everything down, everything through - the dreary passing of the days, the too-rich meals, the setbacks of life and the antics of the youngest child.
The king knows her tearful glances without even looking at his nurse and takes in his mithril-ringed hand, the maternal palm that memories keep so caressing.
– "We spent so many hours with Bergil, hiding in this storeroom, plundering your treasures... gathering strength for distant expeditions... preparing to run away... celebrating our return, once we had been forgiven... "
While babbling, the king heaps a few selected morsels onto a plate and carelessly leaves it in the doorway of the storeroom.
– "For the cat!" he says mischievously.
The sovereign sits down again nonchalantly and plunges his piercing gaze into the astonished but attentive eyes of the large woman sitting opposite him. He pours them both a goblet of golden liquor, raises his own and says:
– "To your health, Bergil, wherever you are! And may you enjoy the benefits of the cellar for a long time, provided you mellow out a bit!"
As in the past, the king unceremoniously leans the sleeves of his gold-trimmed tunic on the table's weathered oak and enjoys the fresh and salty flavours of his childhood.
Encouraged by her son's benign mood, the matron, with slumped shoulders, finally dares to ask the question that knots her mother's bowels:
– "What will happen to my rascal of a son? "
While looking at the glistening red reflections in the jug, the king carefully chooses his words, articulating them clearly, as if he wanted the whole kitchen, even the shadow of the cellar, to be filled with the essence of his words:
– "It would be good for my brother to be somehow forgotten, away from Osgiliath. If he had the good idea to go to your vineyards of Emyn Arnen, for example, he could probably be useful there during the harvest... The lower justice of the capital has no mandate to pursue him there... "
– "Bergil is not a bad person, he will certainly amend his ways... "
– "I know that, sweet Berodwen, my nurse! For the love of you and him, I wish I could intervene... But Bergil should have suspected that the judge would not appreciate finding him cooing under his wife's duvet... "
– "Well, the old fart shouldn't have chosen her so young and too bad for him if... "
– "But this time, by escaping from the court, Bergil has flouted the authority of the judges, who derive it from the support I have to show them publicly... "
The Sovereign abruptly interrupts the mistress of the house and let the argument sink in for a long time.
– "I could not jeopardise the social peace of my capital for the bravado of a mirliflor! he adds, casting a mocking smile towards the half-open cellar door. Keeping our gandin away, let's say for a season, will be beneficial to us all. "
Like a satiated guest, tranquility settles in the kitchen, sealing an assent even with the reluctant darkness of the cellar.
Savouring this short and fragile concord, all remain silent.
But the captain has finally recovered his senses and ventures on his sliders to the entrance of the commons.
Then the king stands up, embracing the matron and raising his voice in order to be heard by all his officers:
– "I see that my brother-in-law is not here! Mother Berodwen, I greet you and beg you, if Bergil your son should visit you, command him to obey the will of his king, which I have just reminded you!"
.oOo.
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