ox tongues, and all kinds of meats, also at the city’s charges.
The folk of Valladolid should erect at their own expense, along the route of the procession, a great number of triumphal arches representing Peace, Felicity, Abundance, Propitious Fortune, and emblems of all and sundry gifts from the skies with which they were loaded under the reign of His Sacred Majesty.
Finally, besides these pacific arches, there should be set up certain others on which should be displayed in bright colours less benignant emblems, as lions, eagles, lances, halberds, pikes with wavy bladed heads, hackbuts, cannons, falconets, mortars with their huge jowls, and other engines showing in image the might and power in war of His Sacred Majesty.
As for the lighting of the church, it should be graciously permitted to the Guild of Candlemakers to make free gratis and for nothing more than twenty thousand wax tapers, the unburned ends of which should revert to the chapter.
As for any other expenses, the Emperor would gladly bear them, thus showing his kindly determination not to burden his people overmuch.
As the commune was about to carry out these orders, lamentable tidings came from Rome. Orange, Alençon and Frundsberg, captains of the Emperor, had entered into the holy city and there sacked and spoiled churches, chapels, and houses, sparing no living soul, priests, nuns, women, children. The Holy Father had been made prisoner. For a whole week pillage had never ceased, and Reiters and Landsknechts were wandering through Rome, stuffed with food, drunken with wine, brandishing their weapons, hunting for cardinals, declaring they would cut enough out of their hides to save them from ever becoming popes. Others, having already carried out this threat, strutted proudly through the city, wearing on their breast rosaries of twenty-eight or more beads, big as walnuts, and all bloody. Certain streets were red streams in which lay heaped the rifled bodies of the dead.
Some said that the Emperor, needing money, had determined to fish for it in the blood of the Church, and that having taken cognizance of the treaty imposed by his commanders upon the captive pontiff, he forced him to cede all the strongholds in his states, to pay four hundred thousand ducats and to be prisoner until all was duly carried out.
None the less, great was His Majesty’s grief; he countermanded all the joyous preparations, all feasts and rejoicings, and ordered the lords and ladies of his palace to don mourning.
And the Infante was baptized in white robes, the hue of royal mourning.
And lords and ladies interpreted this as a sinister omen.
For all this, my lady the nurse presented the Infante to the lords and ladies of the palace, that these might, as is the custom, offer good wishes and gifts.
Madame de la Coena hanged upon his neck a black stone potent against poison, the size and shape of a hazelnut, with a gold shell; Madame de Chauffade fastened upon him, by a silken cord, hanging down upon his stomach, a filbert, the which bringeth good digestion of all nourishment; Messire van der Steen of Flanders gave a Ghent sausage five ells long and half an ell in thickness, wishing that at its mere fragrance His Highness might be thirsty for clauwaert in the manner of the people of Ghent, saying that whoso loveth the beer of a town will never hate the brewers; Messire Squire Jacque-Christophe of Castile prayed my Lord the Infante to wear green jasper on his tiny feet, to make him run well. Jan de Paepe the fool, who was there present, exclaimed:
“Messire, give him rather the trumpet of Joshua, at the sound whereof all towns ran full trot before him, hastening to plant themselves elsewhere with all their inhabitants, men and women and babes. For monseigneur must not learn to run, but to make others run.”
The tearful widow of Floris van Borsele, who was lord of Veere in Zealand, gave Monseigneur Philip a stone, which, said she, made men loving and women inconsolable.
But the Infante whimpered like a young calf.
At the same time Claes was putting in his son’s hands a rattle made of osier, with little bells, and said, dancing Ulenspiegel on his hand: “Bells, bells, tinkling bells may you have ever on your cap, manikin; for ’tis to the fools belongeth the realm of good days.”
And Ulenspiegel laughed.
VIII
Claes having caught a big salmon, that salmon was eaten one Sunday by himself and by Soetkin, Katheline, and little Ulenspiegel, but Katheline ate no more than a bird.
“Gossip,” said Claes to her, “is Flanders air so solid to-day that it is enough for you to breathe it to be fed as with a dish of meat? When shall we live in this wise? Rain would be good soup, it would hail beans, and the snows, transformed to celestial fricassees, would restore and refresh poor travelling folk.”
Katheline, nodding her head, uttered not a word.
“Lo now,” said Claes, “our dolorous gossip. What is it grieves her then?”
But Katheline, in a voice that seemed but a low breathing:
“The wicked one,” said she, “night is falling black – I hear him announcing his coming – screaming like a sea hawk – shuddering, I beseech the Virgin – in vain. For him, neither walls nor hedges nor doors nor windows. Entereth anywhere like a spirit – Ladder creaking – He beside me in the garret where I sleep. Seizes me in his cold arms, hard like marble. Face frozen cold, kisses like damp snow – The cottage tossed upon the earth, moving like a bark on the stormy sea…”
“You must go,” said Claes, “every morning to mass, that our Lord Jesu may give you strength to drive away this phantom come from hell.”
“He is so handsome!” said she.
IX
Being weaned, Ulenspiegel grew like a young poplar.
Claes now did not kiss him often, but loved him with a surly air so as not to spoil him.
When Ulenspiegel would come home, complaining of being beaten in some fray, Claes would beat him because he had not beaten the others, and thus educated Ulenspiegel became valiant as a young lion.
If Claes was from home, Ulenspiegel would ask Soetkin for a liard, to go play. Soetkin, angry, would say, “What need have you to go play? It would fit you better to stay at home to tie faggots.”
Seeing that she would give him nothing, Ulenspiegel would cry like an eagle, but Soetkin would make a great clatter of pots and pans, which she was washing in a wooden tub, to pretend she did not hear him. Then would Ulenspiegel weep, and the gentle mother, dropping her feigned harshness, would come to him, petting him, and say, “Will a denier be enough for you?” Now take notice that a denier is worth six liards.
So she loved him overmuch, and when Claes was not there, Ulenspiegel was king in the house.
X
One morning Soetkin beheld Claes with head down wandering about the kitchen like a man lost in his own thought.
“What grieves thee, husband?” said she. “Thou art pale, wroth, and distraught.”
Claes answered in a low tone, like a growling dog:
“They are going to renew the Emperor’s cruel edicts. Death will hover once more over the soil of Flanders. Informers are to have the half of the victims’ goods, if the goods exceed not a hundred florins carolus.”
“We are poor folk,” said she.
“Poor,” said he, “but not poor enough. There are some of that vile crew, ravens and vultures living on corpses, who would denounce us to divide a basket of charcoal with His Majesty as well as a bag of carolus. What had poor Tanneken, the widow of Sis the tailor, who perished at Heyst, buried alive? A Latin Bible, three gold florins, and some pewter pans that her neighbour coveted. Johannah Martens was burned for a witch, being first flung into water, for her body had floated and they took it as a judgment of heaven. She had some poor bits of furniture, seven gold carolus in a purse, and the informer wanted half. Alas! I could tell thee the like until to-morrow, but come, goodwife, life is no longer worth the living in Flanders by reason of these edicts. Soon every night will the chariot of death pass through the town, and we shall hear the skeleton