Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy

by Charles Major

Max supposed the girl to be of the burgher class, and if by any chance she were Mary of Burgundy, he might ruin his future, should he become too insistent upon his rank in explaining the reasons why he could not follow the path of his inclinations. He might make himself ridiculous; and that mistake will ruin a man with any woman, especially if she be young and much inclined to laugh.

During the foregoing conversation we had been travelling at a six-mile canter. The day was warm, and I suggested breathing the horses in the shade of the forest.

"I believe we are approaching the river," I said, "and we should rest the horses before taking a dash over the open road."

Yolanda assented--in a manner she seemed to have taken command of the party--and we halted under the trees. Max rode forward to a point from which he could view the other road, and waved his hand to let us know that the duke was not in sight. We immediately put spurs to our horses and covered the stretch of open road by the river in a short, brisk gallop. On leaving the road again we saw no indication of the duke's cavalcade. Evidently the race was ours by an easy canter. From that point to within two miles of Peronne, Yolanda's song was as joyous as that of a wooing bird. The sun beat down upon us, and blinding clouds of dust rose from every plunge of our horses' hoofs; but Yolanda's song transformed our hot, wearisome journey into a triumphant march. Happiness seemed to radiate from her and to furnish joy for all.

For a stretch of two miles up river from Peronne the roads approached each other, but, owing to an intervening marsh, they were fully half a mile apart. We, or at least Yolanda, had apparently forgotten the duke when, near the hour of eight in the morning, we approached the marsh; but when we entered the open country we saw, to our consternation, the duke's cavalcade within one mile of Peronne. Where they had passed us we did not know, nor did we stop to consider. They were five minutes ahead, and if we could not enter Peronne in advance of them, it were no worse had they been a day before us.

Yolanda cast one frightened glance toward the duke's party, and struck her horse a blow with her whip that sent it bounding forward at a furious gallop. We reached the river and were crossing as the duke entered Cambrai Gate--the north entrance to the city. We would enter by the gate on the south known as the Somme Gate; Cambrai Gate was nearer the castle.

The duke, I supposed, would go directly to the castle; where Yolanda would go I could not guess. From outside the Somme Gate we saw the duke enter Cambrai, but after we had passed under the arch we could not see him for a time because of intervening houses. The huge, grim pile of stone known as Peronne Castle loomed ominously on the opposite side of the small town. Yolanda veiled herself before passing under the gate and hastened, though without conspicuous speed, toward the castle.

I afterward learned that there was but one entrance to the castle from the town. It was known as the Postern, though it had a portcullis and a drawbridge spanning the moat. To the Postern the duke took his way, as we could see at intervals by looking down cross streets. Yolanda did not follow him. She held her course down a narrow street flanked by overhanging eaves. Looking down this street, I could see that it terminated abruptly at the castle wall, which rose dark and unbroken sixty feet above the ground.

At the end of this street a stone footbridge spanned the moat, leading to a strip of ground perhaps one hundred yards broad and two hundred long that lay between the moat and the castle wall. At either end of this strip the moat again turned to the castle. The Cologne River joined the moat at the north end of this tract of ground and flowed on by the castle wall to the Somme. In a grove of trees stood a large two-story house of time-darkened stone, built against the castle wall. One could not leave the strip of ground save by the stone footbridge, unless by swimming the moat or scaling the walls.

When we reached the footbridge, Yolanda and Twonette, without a word of farewell, urged their horses across, and, springing from their saddles, hurriedly entered the house. Max and I turned our horses' heads, and, as we were leaving the footbridge, saw the duke's cavalcade enter the Postern, which was perhaps three hundred yards back and north of the strip on which stood the House under the Wall.