"The King must have hastened his arrival!" cried out the prelate triumphantly. "By the blood of Christ, everything is working according to our wishes!"
"The King!" exclaimed the Councilman with joy, "The King in our city! Oh, we now have nothing more to fear. He signed our charter, he will know how to compel you to respect it, Bishop of Laon. Your wicked intentions will now be paralyzed."
"Certes!" answered Gaudry with a sardonic smile. "Count with the support of the King, good people. He comes in person, followed by a large troop of knights armed with strong lances and sharp swords. Now, then, my valiant bourgeois, go and join your shop heroes, and carry my answer to them. It is this: 'Gaudry, bishop and seigneur of Laon, certain of the support of the King of the French, awaits in his episcopal palace to see the communiers come themselves to enforce justice upon his property and his men!'" And turning then to Black John: "Order my equerry to saddle the stallion that was brought here this morning. I know no more mettlesome horse to ride on ahead of the King and in the beard of those city clowns. Let the knights of the city be notified, they shall serve for my escort. To horse! To horse!" Saying which, the prelate stepped off into another room, leaving the baker as stupefied as he was alarmed at the sight of his crumbling hopes. He heard the bishop's words regarding the King's intention, yet hesitated to give them credence. The townsman remained thunderstruck.
"Ancel," said the archdeacon to him. "There is no doubt about it. Louis the Lusty will side with the episcopals. A conflict must be avoided at any price. Recommend the other Councilmen to redouble their prudence. I shall, on my part, endeavor to conjure off the storm that threatens."
"Come, my poor wife," said the Councilman, whose eyes were filling with tears! "Come! Woe is us, the King of the French is against us. May God protect the Commune of Laon!"
"As to me," answered Simonne, "upon the faith of a Picardian woman, I place my reliance upon the stout hearts of our communiers, upon the pikes, the hatchets and the swords in our hands!"
CHAPTER VI.
THE GATHERING STORM.
Louis the Lusty had made his entry into the city of Laon on the eve of Holy Thursday of the year 1112. On the day following the arrival of the Prince, Colombaik, his mother and his wife were seated together in the basement chamber of their house. Dawn was about breaking. Fergan's son, Martine and Joan the Hunchback had watched all night. A lamp threw its light upon them. The two women, uneasy in the extreme, were stripping old linen into bandages and lint, while Colombaik, together with his three apprentices, plying their saws and planes, were actively engaged in fashioning pike-shafts, four feet long, of oak and ash branches recently lopped off. Colombaik did not seem to share the apprehension of his mother and his wife, who silently pursued their work, listening from time to time in the direction of the little window that opened on the street. They awaited, with as much impatience as anxiety, the return of Fergan, absent since the previous evening. What tidings would he bring?
"Lively, my lads," Colombaik was jovially saying to his apprentices, "ply your planes and your saws with dispatch! It does not much matter if these pike-shafts be rough. They are to be used by hands as callous as our own. May there be a chance to use them!"
"Oh, master Colombaik," remarked one of the young apprentices laughing, "as to that, these handles will be less smooth to the touch than the fine doe skins that we tan for the embroidered gloves of the noble dames and their elegant young ladies."