Castle Hohenberg was a good many miles north of The Flying Fawn, but Cimburga had heard one piece of news from that hospitable household which, when she told it to him, surprised the fool greatly. The seneschal had married the housekeeper shortly after the visit of the emperor.
"I can not believe it!" cried Le Glorieux. "Why, those two were always quarreling!"
"And so they were," she agreed, "but now, I am told, they never speak an unpleasant word to each other."
Speaking of this marriage to his mistress, when they had resumed their journey, the jester said, "For a couple who were ready to scratch each other's eyes out before marriage, to be perfectly angelic afterward, is nothing less than a miracle."
She replied, "Hohenberg is the place for miracles. Think of Saint Monica."
"Which was not a miracle, after all," replied the fool; and then he told her the truth regarding that night's strange occurrence, as it had been related to him by Philibert, adding, "He did it because you had prayed for her, little Cousin."
It was, as the jester had said, a long journey, but at length they reached the end of it, and Cunegunda made frequent visits to the shrine of Saint Roch, declaring even after the first one that the pain was much less severe than it had been.
Everything about the old inn was much as it had been at their first visit, though the little Mary had become a great chatterbox, and this time was able to thank the princess for the present of a gold piece.
Anne, the queen-duchess, was staying for a time in one of her castles in the province of Brittany, it being her custom to visit her domain as often as she could make it convenient to do so. Hearing of the presence at the inn of the Princess of the Asturias, she sent to her an invitation, offering the hospitality of her roof for the Easter season. Although the King of France and the Emperor of Austria had been enemies, the princess and the queen had not shared the ill feeling, and history, which as a rule makes out people to have been worse than they really were, admits that the two ladies ever were friendly to each other and that they sometimes exchanged presents.
The King of France was away with his soldiers, and as the royal little ones had remained in the palace of Amboise, it was not difficult to imagine that time had remained stationary and that the fair châtelaine of the castle was still simply the Lady Anne, Duchess of Brittany.