“Nom Dieu!” he stammered, “Nom Dieu! here is business more to my mind and my trade than chasing after mad cordeliers that stab with crucifixes!”
Then, coming to my side, he brought water, bathed my face, and did what his art might do for a man in such deadly extremity as was mine. In which care he was still busy when D’Aulon returned, panting, having sent a dozen of townsfolk to hunt the friar, who had made good his flight over garden walls, and was now skulking none knew where. D’Aulon would fain have asked me concerning the mystery of the confession in which Brother Thomas had placed his hope so unhappily, but the physician forbade him to inquire, or me to answer, saying that it was more than my life was worth. But on D’Aulon’s battered armour there was no deeper dint than that dealt by the murderous crucifix.
Thus this second time did Brother Thomas make his way out of our hands, the devil aiding him, as always; for it seemed that ropes could not bind or water drown him.
But, for my part, I lay long in another bout of sore fever, sick here at Orleans, where I was very kindly entreated by the people of the house, and notably by the daughter thereof, a fair maid and gentle. To her care the Maid had commanded me when she left Orleans, the English refusing battle, as later I heard, and withdrawing to Jargeau and Paris. But of the rejoicings in Orleans I knew little or nothing, and had no great desire for news, or meat, or drink, but only for sleep and peace, as is the wont of sick men. Now as touches sickness and fever, I have written more than sufficient, as Heaven knows I have had cause enow. A luckless life was mine, save for the love of Elliot; danger and wounds, and malady and escape, where hope seemed lost, were and were yet to be my portion, since I sailed forth out of Eden-mouth. And so hard pressed of sickness was I, that not even my outwitting of Brother Thomas was a cause of comfort to me, though to this day I cannot think of it without some mirthful triumph.
CHAPTER XVI—HOW SORROW CAME ON NORMAN LESLIE, AND JOY THEREAFTER
It little concerns any man to know how I slowly recovered my health after certain failings back into the shadow of death. Therefore I need not tell how I was physicked, and bled, and how I drew on from a diet of milk to one of fish, and so to a meal of chicken’s flesh, till at last I could sit, wrapped up in many cloaks, on a seat in the garden, below a great mulberry tree. In all this weary time I knew little, and for long cared less, as to what went on in the world and the wars. But so soon as I could speak it was of Elliot that I devised, with my kind nurse, Charlotte Boucher, the young daughter of Jacques Boucher, the Duke’s treasurer, in whose house I lay. She was a fair lass, and merry of mood, and greatly hove up my heart to fight with my disease. It chanced that, as she tended me, when I was at my worst, she marked, hanging on a silken string about my neck, a little case of silver artfully wrought, wherein was that portrait of my mistress, painted by me before I left Chinon. Being curious, like all girls, and deeming that the case held some relic, she opened it, I knowing nothing then of what she did. But when I was well enough to lie abed and devise with her, it chanced that I was playing idly with my fingers about the silver case.
“Belike,” said Charlotte, “that is some holy relic, to which, maybe, you owe your present recovery. Surely, when you are whole again, you have vowed a pilgrimage to the shrine of the saint, your friend?” Here she smiled at me gaily, for she was a right merry damsel, and a goodly.
“Nay,” she said, “I have done more for you than your physician, seeing that I, or the saint you serve, have now brought the red colour into these wan cheeks of yours. Is she a Scottish saint, then? perchance St. Margaret, of whom I have read? Will you not let me look at the sacred thing?”
“Nay,” said I. “Methinks, from your smiling, that you have taken opportunity to see my treasure before to-day, being a daughter of our mother Eve.”
“She is very beautiful,” said Charlotte; “nay, show her to me again!”