Now she came close to
him, speaking very low but very distinctly.
"Listen. I am one of the Queen's ladies; Thibaut d'Aussigny, the
Grand Constable of France, loves me a little and my broad lands
much. He wills that I should marry him. He tried to force me to his
will, to shame me to his pleasure, and so I hate him, and so should
you, for it was he who gave you your beating."
Villon, who had been listening to her in wonder, started as if he
had been struck anew.
"Oh, it was he?" he interrupted. The girl came a little closer,
became a little more confidential.
"He gave your rhymes to me and told me how you had been treated.
When I read them I said--here, if a poet speaks truth, is the one
man in France who can help me."
Villon drew himself back with a little shiver of intelligence. The
lumes of wine, the fumes of wonder were drifting away from him,
leaving him face to face with naked, amazing reality.
"Why not your yellow-haired, pink-faced lover?" he asked. Katherine
frowned disdain.
"Noel le Jolys is a man many women might love, but I love no man; I
only hate Thibaut d'Aussigny. Do you understand?"
"I begin to understand," Villon answered, sadly.
Pages:
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71