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Mark
Twain - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Chapter 17
A ROYAL BANQUET
MADAME, seeing me pacific and unresentful, no doubt judged that
I was deceived by her excuse; for her fright dissolved away, and she
was soon so importunate to have me give an exhibition and kill somebody,
that the thing grew to be embarrassing. However, to my relief she
was presently interrupted by the call to prayers. I will say this
much for the nobility: that, tyrannical, murderous, rapacious, and
morally rotten as they were, they were deeply and enthusiastically
religious. Nothing could divert them from the regular and faithful
performance of the pieties enjoined by the Church. More than once
I had seen a noble who had gotten his enemy at a disadvantage, stop
to pray before cutting his throat; more than once I had seen a noble,
after ambushing and despatching his enemy, retire to the nearest wayside
shrine and humbly give thanks, without even waiting to rob the body.
There was to be nothing finer or sweeter in the life of even Benvenuto
Cellini, that rough-hewn saint, ten centuries later. All the nobles
of Britain, with their families, attended divine service morning and
night daily, in their private chapels, and even the worst of them
had family worship five or six times a day besides. The credit of
this belonged entirely to the Church. Although I was no friend to
that Catholic Church, I was obliged to admit this. And often, in spite
of me, I found myself saying, "What would this country be without
the Church?"
After prayers we had dinner in a great banqueting hall which was
lighted by hundreds of grease-jets, and everything was as fine and
lavish and rudely splendid as might become the royal degree of the
hosts. At the head of the hall, on a dais, was the table of the king,
queen, and their son, Prince Uwaine. Stretching down the hall from
this, was the general table, on the floor. At this, above the salt,
sat the visiting nobles and the grown members of their families, of
both sexes, -- the resident Court, in effect -- sixty-one persons;
below the salt sat minor officers of the household, with their principal
subordinates: altogether a hundred and eighteen persons sitting, and
about as many liveried servants standing behind their chairs, or serving
in one capacity or another. It was a very fine show. In a gallery
a band with cymbals, horns, harps, and other horrors, opened the proceedings
with what seemed to be the crude first-draft or original agony of
the wail known to later centuries as "In the Sweet Bye and Bye."
It was new, and ought to have been rehearsed a little more. For some
reason or other the queen had the composer hanged, after dinner.
After this music, the priest who stood behind the royal table said
a noble long grace in ostensible Latin. Then the battalion of waiters
broke away from their posts, and darted, rushed, flew, fetched and
carried, and the mighty feeding began; no words anywhere, but absorbing
attention to business. The rows of chops opened and shut in vast unison,
and the sound of it was like to the muffled burr of subterranean machinery.
The havoc continued an hour and a half, and unimaginable was the
destruction of substantials. Of the chief feature of the feast --
the huge wild boar that lay stretched out so portly and imposing at
the start -- nothing was left but the semblance of a hoop-skirt; and
he was but the type and symbol of what had happened to all the other
dishes.
With the pastries and so on, the heavy drinking began -- and the
talk. Gallon after gallon of wine and mead disappeared, and everybody
got comfortable, then happy, then sparklingly joyous -- both sexes,
-- and by and by pretty noisy. Men told anecdotes that were terrific
to hear, but nobody blushed; and when the nub was sprung, the assemblage
let go with a horse-laugh that shook the fortress. Ladies answered
back with historiettes that would almost have made Queen Margaret
of Navarre or even the great Elizabeth of England hide behind a handkerchief,
but nobody hid here, but only laughed -- howled, you may say. In pretty
much all of these dreadful stories, ecclesiastics were the hardy heroes,
but that didn't worry the chaplain any, he had his laugh with the
rest; more than that, upon invitation he roared out a song which was
of as daring a sort as any that was sung that night.
By midnight everybody was fagged out, and sore with laughing; and,
as a rule, drunk: some weepingly, some affectionately, some hilariously,
some quarrelsomely, some dead and under the table. Of the ladies,
the worst spectacle was a lovely young duchess, whose wedding-eve
this was; and indeed she was a spectacle, sure enough. Just as she
was she could have sat in advance for the portrait of the young daughter
of the Regent d'Orleans, at the famous dinner whence she was carried,
foul-mouthed, intoxicated, and helpless, to her bed, in the lost and
lamented days of the Ancient Regime.
Suddenly, even while the priest was lifting his hands, and all conscious
heads were bowed in reverent expectation of the coming blessing, there
appeared under the arch of the far-off door at the bottom of the hall
an old and bent and white-haired lady, leaning upon a crutch-stick;
and she lifted the stick and pointed it toward the queen and cried
out:
"The wrath and curse of God fall upon you, woman without pity,
who have slain mine innocent grandchild and made desolate this old
heart that had nor chick, nor friend nor stay nor comfort in all this
world but him!"
Everybody crossed himself in a grisly fright, for a curse was an
awful thing to those people; but the queen rose up majestic, with
the death-light in her eye, and flung back this ruthless command:
"Lay hands on her! To the stake with her!"
The guards left their posts to obey. It was a shame; it was a cruel
thing to see. What could be done? Sandy gave me a look; I knew she
had another inspiration. I said:
"Do what you choose."
She was up and facing toward the queen in a moment. She indicated
me, and said:
"Madame, he saith this may not be. Recall the commandment,
or he will dissolve the castle and it shall vanish away like the instable
fabric of a dream!"
Confound it, what a crazy contract to pledge a person to! What if
the queen --
But my consternation subsided there, and my panic passed off; for
the queen, all in a collapse, made no show of resistance but gave
a countermanding sign and sunk into her seat. When she reached it
she was sober. So were many of the others. The assemblage rose, whiffed
ceremony to the winds, and rushed for the door like a mob; overturning
chairs, smashing crockery, tugging, struggling, shouldering, crowding
-- anything to get out before I should change my mind and puff the
castle into the measureless dim vacancies of space. Well, well, well,
they were a superstitious lot. It is all a body can do to conceive
of it.
The poor queen was so scared and humbled that she was even afraid
to hang the composer without first consulting me. I was very sorry
for her -- indeed, any one would have been, for she was really suffering;
so I was willing to do anything that was reasonable, and had no desire
to carry things to wanton extremities. I therefore considered the
matter thoughtfully, and ended by having the musicians ordered into
our presence to play that Sweet Bye and Bye again, which they did.
Then I saw that she was right, and gave her permission to hang the
whole band. This little relaxation of sternness had a good effect
upon the queen. A statesman gains little by the arbitrary exercise
of iron-clad authority upon all occasions that offer, for this wounds
the just pride of his subordinates, and thus tends to undermine his
strength. A little concession, now and then, where it can do no harm,
is the wiser policy.
Now that the queen was at ease in her mind once more, and measurably
happy, her wine naturally began to assert itself again, and it got
a little the start of her. I mean it set her music going -- her silver
bell of a tongue. Dear me, she was a master talker. It would not become
me to suggest that it was pretty late and that I was a tired man and
very sleepy. I wished I had gone off to bed when I had the chance.
Now I must stick it out; there was no other way. So she tinkled along
and along, in the otherwise profound and ghostly hush of the sleeping
castle, until by and by there came, as if from deep down under us,
a far-away sound, as of a muffled shriek -- with an expression of
agony about it that made my flesh crawl. The queen stopped, and her
eyes lighted with pleasure; she tilted her graceful head as a bird
does when it listens. The sound bored its way up through the stillness
again.
"What is it?" I said.
"It is truly a stubborn soul, and endureth long. It is many
hours now."
"Endureth what?"
"The rack. Come -- ye shall see a blithe sight. An he yield
not his secret now, ye shall see him torn asunder."
What a silky smooth hellion she was; and so composed and serene,
when the cords all down my legs were hurting in sympathy with that
man's pain. Conducted by mailed guards bearing flaring torches, we
tramped along echoing corridors, and down stone stairways dank and
dripping, and smelling of mould and ages of imprisoned night -- a
chill, uncanny journey and a long one, and not made the shorter or
the cheerier by the sorceress's talk, which was about this sufferer
and his crime. He had been accused by an anonymous informer, of having
killed a stag in the royal preserves. I said:
"Anonymous testimony isn't just the right thing, your Highness.
It were fairer to confront the accused with the accuser."
"I had not thought of that, it being but of small consequence.
But an I would, I could not, for that the accuser came masked by night,
and told the forester, and straightway got him hence again, and so
the forester knoweth him not."
"Then is this Unknown the only person who saw the stag killed?"
"Marry, no man saw the killing, but this Unknown saw this hardy
wretch near to the spot where the stag lay, and came with right loyal
zeal and betrayed him to the forester."
"So the Unknown was near the dead stag, too? Isn't it just
possible that he did the killing himself? His loyal zeal -- in a mask
-- looks just a shade suspicious. But what is your highness's idea
for racking the prisoner? Where is the profit?"
"He will not confess, else; and then were his soul lost. For
his crime his life is forfeited by the law -- and of a surety will
I see that he payeth it! -- but it were peril to my own soul to let
him die unconfessed and unabsolved. Nay, I were a fool to fling me
into hell for his accommodation."
"But, your Highness, suppose he has nothing to confess?"
"As to that, we shall see, anon. An I rack him to death and
he confess not, it will peradventure show that he had indeed naught
to confess -- ye will grant that that is sooth? Then shall I not be
damned for an unconfessed man that had naught to confess -- wherefore,
I shall be safe."
It was the stubborn unreasoning of the time. It was useless to argue
with her. Arguments have no chance against petrified training; they
wear it as little as the waves wear a cliff. And her training was
everybody's. The brightest intellect in the land would not have been
able to see that her position was defective.
As we entered the rack-cell I caught a picture that will not go
from me; I wish it would. A native young giant of thirty or thereabouts
lay stretched upon the frame on his back, with his wrists and ankles
tied to ropes which led over windlasses at either end. There was no
color in him; his features were contorted and set, and sweat-drops
stood upon his forehead. A priest bent over him on each side; the
executioner stood by; guards were on duty; smoking torches stood in
sockets along the walls; in a corner crouched a poor young creature,
her face drawn with anguish, a half-wild and hunted look in her eyes,
and in her lap lay a little child asleep. Just as we stepped across
the threshold the executioner gave his machine a slight turn, which
wrung a cry from both the prisoner and the woman; but I shouted, and
the executioner released the strain without waiting to see who spoke.
I could not let this horror go on; it would have killed me to see
it. I asked the queen to let me clear the place and speak to the prisoner
privately; and when she was going to object I spoke in a low voice
and said I did not want to make a scene before her servants, but I
must have my way; for I was King Arthur's representative, and was
speaking in his name.
She saw she had to yield. I asked her to indorse me to these people,
and then leave me. It was not pleasant for her, but she took the pill;
and even went further than I was meaning to require. I only wanted
the backing of her own authority; but she said:
"Ye will do in all things as this lord shall command. It is
The Boss."
It was certainly a good word to conjure with: you could see it by
the squirming of these rats. The queen's guards fell into line, and
she and they marched away, with their torch-bearers, and woke the
echoes of the cavernous tunnels with the measured beat of their retreating
footfalls. I had the prisoner taken from the rack and placed upon
his bed, and medicaments applied to his hurts, and wine given him
to drink. The woman crept near and looked on, eagerly, lovingly, but
timorously, -- like one who fears a repulse; indeed, she tried furtively
to touch the man's forehead, and jumped back, the picture of fright,
when I turned unconsciously toward her. It was pitiful to see.
"Lord," I said, "stroke him, lass, if you want to.
Do anything you're a mind to; don't mind me."
Why, her eyes were as grateful as an animal's, when you do it a
kindness that it understands. The baby was out of her way and she
had her cheek against the man's in a minute. and her hands fondling
his hair, and her happy tears running down. The man revived and caressed
his wife with his eyes, which was all he could do. I judged I might
clear the den, now, and I did; cleared it of all but the family and
myself. Then I said:
"Now, my friend, tell me your side of this matter; I know the
other side."
The man moved his head in sign of refusal. But the woman looked
pleased -- as it seemed to me -- pleased with my suggestion. I went
on --
"You know of me?"
"Yes. All do, in Arthur's realms."
"If my reputation has come to you right and straight, you should
not be afraid to speak."
The woman broke in, eagerly:
"Ah, fair my lord, do thou persuade him! Thou canst an thou
wilt. Ah, he suffereth so; and it is for me -- for me! And how can
I bear it? I would I might see him die -- a sweet, swift death; oh,
my Hugo, I cannot bear this one!"
And she fell to sobbing and grovelling about my feet, and still
imploring. Imploring what? The man's death? I could not quite get
the bearings of the thing. But Hugo interrupted her and said:
"Peace! Ye wit not what ye ask. Shall I starve whom I love,
to win a gentle death? I wend thou knewest me better."
"Well," I said, "I can't quite make this out. It
is a puzzle. Now -- "
"Ah, dear my lord, an ye will but persuade him! Consider how
these his tortures wound me! Oh, and he will not speak! -- whereas,
the healing, the solace that lie in a blessed swift death -- "
"What are you maundering about? He's going out from here a
free man and whole -- he's not going to die."
The man's white face lit up, and the woman flung herself at me in
a most surprising explosion of joy, and cried out:
"He is saved! -- for it is the king's word by the mouth of
the king's servant -- Arthur, the king whose word is gold!"
"Well, then you do believe I can be trusted, after all. Why
didn't you before?"
"Who doubted? Not I, indeed; and not she."
"Well, why uldn't you tell me your story, then?"
"Ye had made no promise; else had it been otherwise."
"I see, I see.... And yet I believe I don't quite see, after
all. You stood the torture and refused to confess; which shows plain
enough to even the dullest understanding that you had nothing to confess
-- "
"I, my lord? How so? It was I that killed the deer!"
"You did? Oh, dear, this is the most mixed-up business that
ever -- "
"Dear lord, I begged him on my knees to confess, but -- "
"You did! It gets thicker and thicker. What did you want him
to do that for?"
"Sith it would bring him a quick death and save him all this
cruel pain."
"Well -- yes, there is reason in that. But he didn't want the
quick death."
"He? Why, of a surety he did."
"Well, then, why in the world didn't he confess?"
"Ah, sweet sir, and leave my wife and chick without bread and
shelter?"
"Oh, heart of gold, now I see it! The bitter law takes the
convicted man's estate and beggars his widow and his orphans. They
could torture you to death, but without conviction or confession they
could not rob your wife and baby. You stood by them like a man; and
you -- true wife and the woman that you are -- you would have bought
him release from torture at cost to yourself of slow starvation and
death -- well, it humbles a body to think what your sex can do when
it comes to self-sacrifice. I'll book you both for my colony; you'll
like it there; it's a Factory where I'm going to turn groping and
grubbing automata into men."
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