If I Were King

by Justin H. McCarthy

CHAPTER IX

On the seventh day of Villon's week of wonder, his glory was at its greatest. No fairer day had traced that radiant month of June and no more splendid pageantry had adorned the illustrious reign of the new Grand Constable. Mimic battles, fountains running wine, free doles of food, fantastic pageants, grotesque dances, all the gorgeous mummery that the fifteenth century delighted in was offered in profusion to please the fancy and win the hearts of the people of Paris. But the crowning triumph was the great festival which the Grand Constable gave with the king's permission in the king's own rose garden, the magnificent mascarado in the Italian manner, to which all who were associated with the court were summoned. This revelry which began at sunset was intended to overtop all possible courtly ceremonials in the splendour of its equipment, the lavishness of its display, the richness and profusion of its hospitality.

It was near to the hour of sunset when Villon sat with the king in the little room in the grey tower from which the king loved to follow the movements of the heavenly bodies. On the table by which the king and Villon were seated lay a large chart of the country in the immediate neighbourhood of Paris, and in front of the table stood three of the king's most trusty commanders, the Lord du Lau, the Lord Poncet de Riviere and the Lord of Nantoillet.

Villon had been explaining to the king and to his military advisers a scheme which had been growing in his mind throughout the week for the confusion of the enemy, a scheme for which the gorgeous entertainment to be given that evening was to serve as a golden mask. Villon touched a point on the map which represented a spot very familiar to him, a little dip in the swelling land, where he used to play as a child and gather wildflowers and hide himself, and imagine that he was a bandit or a great captain or a fairy prince—any one of the thousand illusions of childhood at its play.

"There, sire," he said. "If we can lure the Burgundians to that hollow, the day is ours. The sloping ground above it will mask a thousand men."

Poncet de Riviere leaned forward questioningly.

"Are you sure of the lay of the land?"

Villon answered positively:

"Sure. I played truant there when I was no higher than your sword belt."

Nantoillet spoke as a man who weighs his words: