Under the Rose

by Frederic Stewart Isham

Meditatively, while absorbing this prattle, the visitor gazed about him. The bed had been unslept in, and here and there were evidences of a hasty and unpremeditated leave-taking. Upon an open desk lay a half-finished poem, obviously intended for no eyes save the writer's. Several dainty missives and a lace handkerchief, with a monogram, invited the unscrupulous and prying glance of the inquisitive newsmonger.

But as these details offered nothing additional to the one great germ of information embodied in the loquacity of the narrator, the free baron turned silently away, breaking the thread of her volubility by unceremoniously disappearing. No further doubt remained in his mind that the duke's plaisant had sent a comrade in motley to the emperor, and, as he would not have inspired a mere fool's errand, Charles without question was in Spain, several days nearer to the court of the French monarch than the princess' betrothed had presumed. Caillette had now been four-and-twenty hours on his journey; it would be useless to attempt pursuit, as the jester was a gallant horseman, trained to the hunt. Such a man would be indefatigable in the saddle, and the other realized that, strive as he might, he could never overcome the handicap.

Then of what avail was one fool in the dungeon, with a second—on the road? Should he abandon his quest, be driven from his purpose by a nest of motley meddlers? The idea never seriously entered his mind; he would fight it out doggedly upon the field of deception. But how? As surely as the sun rose and set, before many days had come and gone the hand of Charles would be thrust between him and his projects. Circumspect, suspicious, was the emperor; he would investigate, and investigation meant the downfall of the structure of falsehood that had been erected with such skill and painstaking by the subtile architect. The maker had pride in his work, and, to see it totter and tumble, was a misfortune he would avert with his life—or fall with it.

As he had no intention, however, of being buried beneath the wreckage of his endeavors, he sought to prop the weakening fabric of invention and mendacity by new shuffling or pretense. Should a disgraced fool be his undoing? From that living entombment should his foeman in cap and bells yet indirectly summon the force to bend him to the dust, or send him to the hangman's knot?

Step by step the king's guest had left the palace behind him, until the surrounding shrubbery shut it from view, but the path, sweeping onward with graceful curve, brought him suddenly to a beautiful château. Lost in thought, he gazed within the flowering ground, at the ornate architecture, the marble statues and the little lake, in whose pellucid depths were mirrored a thousand beauties of that chosen spot—an improved Eden of the landscape gardener wherein resided the Countess d'Etampes.

"Why," thought the free baron, brightening abruptly, "that chance which served me last night, which forced the trooper to speak to-day, now has led my stupid feet to the soothsayer."

Within a much begilt and gorgeous bower, he soon found himself awaiting patiently the coming of the favorite. Upon a tiny chair of gold, too fragile for his bulk, the caller meanwhile inspected the ceilings and walls of this dainty domicile, mechanically striving to decipher a painted allegory of Venus and Mars, or Helen and Paris, or the countess and Francis—he could not decide precisely its purport—when she who had succeeded Châteaubriant floated into the room, dressed in some diaphanous stuff, a natural accompaniment to the other decorations; her dishabille a positive note of modesty amid the vivid colorings and graceful poses of those tributes to love with which Primaticcio and other Italian artists had adorned this bower.

"How charming of you!" vaguely murmured the lady, sinking lightly upon a settee. "What an early riser you must be, Duke."

Although it was then but two hours from noon, the visitor confessed himself open to criticism in this regard. "And you, as well, Madam," he added, "must plead guilty of the same fault. One can easily see you have been out in the garden, and," he blundered on, "stolen the tints from the roses."

Sharply the countess looked at him, but read only an honest attempt at a compliment.