Collected Works of Eugène Sue, page 277
“To me, my leudes! A horse — a horse! Brunhild will either be killed at the head of her army or the son of Fredegonde will meet his death in Burgundy. Send for the young princes! To horse. All forces on the march!”
PART III. THE CAMP OF CLOTAIRE.
CHAPTER I.
WEEDING KINGLETS.
THE VILLAGE OF Ryonne, situated on the banks of the little river of Vigienne, lies about three days’ march from Chalon. Around the village a portion of the troops of Clotaire II, son of Fredegonde, lie encamped. The King’s tent has been set up under a clump of trees in the middle of the village. The sun has only just risen. Not far from the royal shelter stands a farmhouse. It is larger than any other in sight, and also in better condition. Its door is closed, and two Frankish soldiers are on guard before it. The only light that enters the house penetrates through a little window. From time to time one of the soldiers who is posted outside, looks in and listens through the window. A worm-eaten old trunk, two or three stools, a few household utensils, and a long box filled with straw — such are the furnishings of the place. On that rough straw couch are three children. They are clad in gold-and silver-trimmed silk clothes. Who may these children be, so magnificently clad, yet lying on that pallet like the children of slaves? They are the children of Thierry, the late King of Burgundy; they are the great-grandchildren of Brunhild. The three children are asleep in one another’s arms. Sigebert, the eldest, lies between his two brothers; Merovee’s head, the youngest of the three, lies on Sigebert’s breast. Corbe, the second, has his arm around his eldest brother’s neck. The faces of the little princes, as they lie soundly asleep, are half hidden by their long hair, the symbol of the royal family. They seem to lie peacefully, almost happily. Especially the face of the eldest has an expression of angelic serenity. As the sun mounted higher and higher above the horizon, it presently darted its luminous and warm rays upon the group of sleeping children. Awakened by the heat and the brilliancy of the light, Sigebert passed his white wan hands over his large and still half-closed eyes; he opened them; looked around with surprise; sat up on the pallet; and, as if suddenly remembering the sad reality, he threw himself back upon the straw. Tears soon inundated his pale visage, and he laid his hands over his lips in order to suppress the sobs that were struggling to escape. The poor child feared to awaken his younger brothers. They were still soundly asleep, and, despite the movements of Sigebert, who, as he sat up, caused the head of Merovee to roll upon the straw, the latter’s profound rest was not interrupted. Corbe, however, who was also half awakened by the heat of the sun, rubbed his eyes and mumbled:
“Chrotechilde, I want my milk — my cake — I am hungry.”
“Corbe,” Sigebert whispered to him with his face bathed in tears and his lips palpitating; “brother — wake up. Alack, we are no longer in our palace at Chalon.”
At these words, Corbe woke up completely, and answered with a sigh:
“I thought we were in our palace.”
“We are not there any longer, brother; I am so sorry!”
“Why do you say that? Are we no longer the King’s sons?”
“We are poor King’s sons — we are here in prison. But grandmother, where is she? And where is our brother Childebert? Where can they be? Perhaps they also are prisoners.”
“And whose fault is it? It is the fault of the army that betrayed us!” cried little Corbe angrily. “I heard everybody say so around us — the troops fled without striking a blow. I heard them say that Duke Warnachaire prepared the treason! Oh, the scoundrel!”
“Not so loud, Corbe, not so loud!” cautioned Sigebert with a smothered voice. “You will wake up Merovee — poor little fellow! I wish I could sleep like him. I would not then be thinking.”
“You are always weeping, Sigebert; tell me why?”
“Are we not now in the hands of our grandmother’s enemies?”
“Be not afraid; she will soon come with another army and set us free; she will kill Clotaire. Are you not hungry?”
“No! Oh, no! I am neither hungry nor thirsty.”
“The sun has long been up; they will surely soon bring us something to eat. Grandmother was right; war is tiresome and uncomfortable, but only when one is not a prisoner. But how Merovee does sleep! Wake him up!”
“Oh, brother, let him sleep quietly; perhaps he also thinks, as you did, that he is in our palace at Chalon.”
“So much the worse! We woke up — I do not want him to sleep any longer — why should he?”
“Corbe, you can not have a good heart.”
“Sigebert! They are opening the door — they are bringing us something to eat.”
Indeed, the door opened. Four personages stepped into the house. Two of them were clad in jackets of hides, and one of these carried a roll of rope. Clotaire II and Warnachaire accompanied the two men. The duke had his battle armor on, the King a long light blue silk robe bordered with ermine.
“Seigneur King,” said Duke Warnachaire in a low voice, “will you not wait for the return of Constable Herpon?”
“Who can tell whether he will be back to-day?”
“You must remember that his horses are fresh; Brunhild’s are exhausted with the march. It is impossible that he should have failed to overtake the Queen at the foot of the Jura mountains, into which she will not dare to risk herself. The constable may be back with her from one moment to another.”
“Warnachaire, I am in a hurry to be done with it; such a blow will be of little moment to Brunhild; why delay it to wait for her to witness? It should be done quickly.”
Saying this, the young King made a sign to the two men, who thereupon stepped towards the three children on the straw pallet. The sleep of childhood is so profound that little Merovee was not yet awakened by the noise. His two brothers, however, crouched back into the remotest corner of the pallet, stunned and frightened, especially at the sinister faces of the two men clad in hide jackets. The two cowering children held each other in a close embrace, trembling and without uttering a word. At a second sign from Clotaire II, one of the two men, he who carried the coil of rope, unwound it and stepped closer to the children, while his companion drew from his belt a long, straight and sharp knife, of the kind that is used by butchers; he slightly tested the freshly sharpened edge of the blade with the tip of his thumb, while Fredegonde’s son urged the executioners on with the impatient order:
“Move on, slaves; hurry up!”
The executioner made to the King a sign with his hand, as if to say: “You need not fear, I shall be quick about it.” In the meantime his assistant had come within reach of the children, who, livid and dumb with terror, trembled so convulsively that their teeth were heard to chatter. The executioner’s assistant placed a hand on each, and without turning his head asked:
“Which first? The taller, the smaller, or the one asleep?”
“Begin with the eldest,” answered Clotaire II in a hollow imperious voice. “Hurry up! Hurry up!”
The two children retreated still farther back into the corner in which the pallet was placed and did not loosen their hold upon each other.
“Mercy!” cried Sigebert in a smothered and plaintive voice. “Mercy for my brother! Mercy for me!”
“We are a King’s sons!” cried Corbe with even more anger than fear. “If you do any harm to me, my grandmother will have you all killed!”
At this moment, awakened at last by the noise, little Merovee sat up on the pallet and looked around with wonderment but not in terror. The six-year-old child could not understand what was going on; he rubbed his eyes and turning his little head, with his eyes still swollen with sleep, hither and thither, he looked alternately from the four new arrivals to his brothers, as if asking what it all meant. The King having said “Begin with the eldest,” the assistant seized Sigebert. More dead than alive, the hapless child offered no resistance, but let himself be bound hands and feet, as the lamb does in the slaughter-house; he only murmured in a woebegone voice:
“Seigneur King! Good seigneur King, do not have us killed — why would you have us killed? We are willing to be slaves. Send us out to herd your sheep far away from here; we shall obey you in all things; but, O, seigneur, mercy, good seigneur King, mercy! Mercy for my two little brothers and for me!”
As a worthy grandson of Clotaire I, Clotaire II remained unmoved by the prayers of his victim.
Sigebert passed from the hands of the assistant to those of the executioner. The child’s arms were bound behind his back, and his feet were tied together; his physical prostration rendered him unable to keep upon his feet. He fell upon his knees before the slaughterer. The latter took hold of the child by its long hair and firmly bending its neck back against his own knee left the child’s throat well distended and exposed to the knife. With a smothered voice and casting an agonizing glance at the mayor of the palace Sigebert murmured:
“Warnachaire, you who called me during our late journey your ‘dear boy,’ will you not implore mercy for me—”
These were the innocent child’s last words. Clotaire II gave a motion of impatience. The executioner approached his knife to the child’s throat, but doubtlessly experiencing a fleeting sentiment of pity, he turned his head aside and shut his eyes as if to escape seeing the dying glance of his victim. The movement was but transitory, the long knife quickly plowed its way through the child’s throat and, operated as a saw, cut down until it struck the vertebrae of the neck. Two jets of purple blood spurted from the wide-gaping wound and fell in opposite directions like a ruddy dew on a fold of the robe of Fredegonde’s son and upon the iron greaves of Duke Warnachaire. Withdrawing his knee which had served him for a block, the executioner left the body to its own weight. It fell backward; the inert head rebounded upon the floor; a slight tremor ran over the expiring child’s shoulders and limbs, and the lifeless body of Sigebert sank motionless in a pool of blood.
During the time that the murder of Sigebert was enacting, Merovee wept scalding tears on the straw where he remained seated; the child wept because, as he murmured, ‘they were hurting’ his brother, but with one so young no thought of death could enter his head. His brother Corbe, however, a boy of violent and vindictive character, did not emulate the gentle resignation of Sigebert. He fought and shrieked, and tried to bite and scratch the assistant who was to bind him fast. The latter was only tying the last knots when the first child’s throat was cut.
“Dogs! Murderers!” cried Corbe in his weak, shrill voice, while his eyes flashed fire from the midst of his pale face. He straightened himself and he writhed so convulsively in his bonds that the executioner was hardly able to hold him. “Oh!” he screamed, grinding his teeth and panting for breath in the struggle; “Oh, my grandmother will put you all to the torture for this — you will see — you will see — Pog will get you, yes — every one of you — you will be put to awful tortures!”
Turning towards the mayor of the palace of Burgundy, Clotaire II said, pointing his finger at Corbe: “Warnachaire, it would have been impolitic to leave this hateful and vindictive child alive! Even if dethroned he would have become a dangerous man.”
It took both the Frankish executioners to overpower Corbe. But neither his screams nor leaps could avail him. Seeing that he struggled violently in his bonds, the assistant knelt down upon the child’s chest in order to pin him to the ground, while the executioner himself wound around his wrist the long hair of the young prince, and was thus able to draw the head towards himself so as to leave the neck distended and exposed to the knife. A second time the blade cut into the flesh; a second time the blood spurted out — and the corpse of Corbe rolled over upon that of his brother.
Only little Merovee was left. The child had remained on the straw pallet. Whether out of ignorance of the danger that he was in, or whether due to the thoughtlessness of infancy, when he saw the executioner’s assistant approach him, he rose, walked towards him submissively, and referring to the resistance that Corbe offered, said with infantine innocence as he wiped off his tears:
“My brother Sigebert did not resist — I shall be as gentle as Sigebert — but do not hurt me.”
Saying this the child then threw his little blonde head back and himself offered his neck to the executioner.
At that instant, a rider covered with dust burst into the house crying in a voice half choked with gladness:
“Great King! I have ridden ahead of Constable Herpon. He brings Queen Brunhild prisoner. After two days of the hottest chase, he succeeded in overtaking her at Orbe, in the foot-hills of the Jura.”
“Oh, my mother! You will soon thrill with joy in your sepulchre. I have, at last, in my power the woman whom you were not able to smite!” exclaimed the son of Fredegonde. He then turned to the executioners who still held Merovee in their hands: “Do not kill that child — let him be taken to my tent. Wait for my orders. You do not know, oh, great Queen, what glory awaits you!” added Clotaire II with an expression of diabolic ferocity. And addressing Warnachaire: “Let us now go out and give a worthy reception to this daughter of a King, this wife of a King, this grandmother and great-grandmother of Kings — Brunhild, Queen of Burgundy and Austrasia! Come, come!”
CHAPTER II.
AT BAY.
WHAT NOISE IS that? It sounds like the distant and muffled tread and cries of a large multitude. Aye, large indeed is the multitude that is advancing towards the village of Ryonne, where the army of Clotaire II is encamped. Whence does that multitude proceed? Oh, it comes from far. It started as far away as the slopes of the Jura; it was swelled on the road by large numbers of the people who inhabited the cities, hamlets and villages that it crossed; slaves and colonists, young and old men, women and children, poured from their homes, their fields, their huts; at the risk of imprisonment, the lash and even mutilation at their return, slaves and colonists joined the swelling multitude; at the risk of the fatigue of the rapid march, that for some, lasted two days, for others, one day, half a day, two hours, or one hour, according to where they fell in line, city people left their pursuits and eagerly turned into the surging human stream. But what was it that attracted so eagerly the frantic, swelling crowd? It was these words, that flew from mouth to mouth: “Queen Brunhild is passing — she is taken prisoner to be delivered to Fredegonde’s son!”
Aye, such was the hatred, the disgust, the horror, the dread inspired in Gaul by those two names — Fredegonde and Brunhild — that large numbers of people found it impossible to resist the curiosity of knowing and seeing what was to be the issue of the capture of Brunhild by Fredegonde’s son. The multitude, accordingly, moved in the direction of the village of Ryonne. Fifty horsemen in arms headed the march and cleared the way. Behind them rode Constable Herpon armed cap-a-pie, and closely after him, riding between two other warriors on horseback who held her palfrey by the bridle appeared Brunhild. The old Queen’s arms were pinioned behind her back and she was bound upon her saddle. Her long, gold-embroidered purple robe was dusty and mud-bespattered, and hung in tatters from her body. The indomitable woman had offered a desperate resistance when she was finally overtaken by the constable and his men. One of her sleeves, together with half her corsage, was torn off, and left bare her neck and shoulders and one of her arms, all of which were covered with livid, bluish bruises, partly hidden under her long, grey, tangled and tumbled hair to which fragments of dung and ordure, that the people had flung at her while whelming her with insults, were still seen to cling. From time to time, the fettered lioness gave her head a convulsive shake in the effort to disengage her face from the disheveled locks before it — at such times, glimpses were obtained of her hideous, horrible visage. Before being finally caught, the woman had defended herself like a wild animal at bay. The desire of her captors was to take her alive to the son of her mortal enemy. In the brutal hand to hand struggle of Constable Herpon and his armed men with Brunhild she was smitten with their fists in the face and kicked in the body. Her arms, shoulders, bosom, limbs and face were severely bruised. One of her eyes bore the mark of a violent blow, given with the hilt of a sword. The eyelids and a portion of the cheek disappeared under a large blue and black contusion. Her upper lip was slit and swollen as the result of another blow, that broke in two of her teeth and bathed her lower face in blood. The blood had since dried on her skin and added to the hideousness of her appearance. Nevertheless, of such temper was that being’s savage energy, that her forehead retained its wonted haughtiness, her eyes their wonted pride. Firmly fettered though she was, bruised, tattered, covered with dust, mud and even dung, Brunhild still looked redoubtable. Imprecations, hisses, jeers, threats, hurled at her along the route — nothing had been able to shake her inflexible soul.
In his haste to relish the sight of his captive and victim, Clotaire left the village and rode out accompanied by Warnachaire to meet her. Other seigneurs of Burgundy and Austrasia, who sided with Clotaire, also followed him. Among the latter were Dukes Pepin, Arnolfe, Alethee, Eubelan, Roccon, Sigowald, the Bishop of Troyes and many more.
Seeing the King from a distance, Constable Herpon hastened towards his sovereign, after issuing his orders to the two riders who led Brunhild’s mount. The latter immediately spurred their horses and rode rapidly upon the heels of the constable leading the fallen Queen between them. Old though she was, had she not been pinioned, Brunhild would have held her saddle like an Amazon. But hindered by the bonds that bound her, she was unable to follow with suppleness the motion of her mount. As a consequence, the gallop of her palfrey threw Brunhild’s body into ridiculous jumps and postures. The escort of armed men on horseback, together with the mob, followed her on the run and whelmed her with fresh jeers and hisses. Constable Herpon finally reached the King, leaped from his horse and pointing to the old Queen said to his men:
