"Why not, Sire?" tranquilly answered the jester.
The duke's face grew more and more ominous. Still the fool, looking up, did not quail, but met his master's glance freely, and those who observed noted it was the duke who first turned away, although his jaw was set and his great fist clenched. Swiftly the jester's gaze again sought the princess, but she had plucked a spray of blossoms from the table and was holding it to her lips, mindlessly biting the fragrant leaves; and those who followed the fool's glance saw in her but a picture of languid unconcern such as became a kinswoman of the king.
Almost imperceptibly the brow of the _plaisant_ clouded, but recovering himself, he confronted the king with an enigmatic smile.
"Why not?" he repeated. "In the Court of Love is not the fool's wand greater than a king's miter or the pastoral staff of the Abbé de Lys? Besides, Sire," he added quickly, "as a fool takes it, in the Court of Love, not to love--is treason!"
"Good!" murmured the bishop, still eating. "Not to love is treason!"
"Who alone is the culprit? Whose heart alone is filled with umbrage, hatred, pique?"
"Triboulet! Triboulet, the traitor!" suddenly cried the countess, sprightly as a child.
"Yes; Triboulet, the traitor!" exclaimed the fool, pointing the wand of folly at the hunchback.
Even Francis' offended face relaxed. "Positively, I shall never hang this fellow," he said grimly to Marguerite.
"Before this tribunal of ladies whose beauty and learning he has outraged by his disaffection and spleen, I summon him for trial," continued the duke's jester. "Triboulet, arise! Illustrious ladies of the Court of Love, the offender is in your hands."
"A little monster!" spoke up Diane with a gesture of aversion, real or affected.
"He is certainly somewhat reprehensible," added the Queen of Navarre, whose tender heart ever inclined to the weaker side.
"An unconscionable rogue," murmured the bishop, complacently clasping his fat fingers before him.
"So he is already tried by the Church and the tribunal," went on the _plaisant_ of the duke. "The Church hath excommunicated him and the Court of Love--"
"Will banish him!" exclaimed the countess mirthfully, regarding the captious monarch with mock defiance.