"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!"