. I heard them ride off. I want Hugues. I want
Hugues."

"And Blaise?"

"Oh! Blaise!" He broke into a discordant laugh. "I told him to be a
man and, my faith! he was one. Do you think, Ursula, that Father John
will ask my thoughts a second time?"

CHAPTER XXI

DENOUNCED

"It was an epic," said Villon, "a veritable epic, and if you were truly
the Homer I called you half the towns in France would claim you for a
citizen. As it is you have only been born twice, once in--where was
it? No matter, it is of very little importance; it is the second that
really counts, and that second birthplace is--Amboise. A man's soul is
born of a woman just as his body is. And a man's soul is love. Until
love comes he is a lumpish mass of so much flesh without even a spark
of the divine."

"Then you," said La Mothe gravely, "have seen many incarnations?"

"Many!"--and Villon's eyes twinkled--"but with each one the pangs of
birth grew less violent. You will find it so yourself. But our epic.
Though I cannot write it I will sketch it in outline for you. Book the
First: Hugues!" He broke off, shaking his head soberly, every trace of
his humorous mood gone. "Poor devil of a Hugues! Francois Villon, who
made verses, will be remembered, and Hugues, who made history,
forgotten. Why cannot I write epics that we might both be remembered
together? But no! a tinkle of rhyme leavened with human nature and
salted by much bitter experience--that is Francois Villon! I know my
limitations. A man can give out nothing better than is put into him.
Well, so long as we give our best I don't believe the good God will be
hard upon us. Now, then. Book the Second: Martlets and
Mullets--there's alliteration for you."

"Martlets and Mullets? Villon, what do you mean?"

"Have you forgotten our friend of the spiked thorn?"

"But the Dauphin swears these were Tristan's men."

"Tristan? Impossible! Tristan is too sure, too careful an artist to
spoil his work. Heaven knows I do not love Tristan, but I will give
him this credit: when he sets out on a piece of scoundrelly work he
carries it through. No, no, I'll wager my Grand Testament to the
epic--which will never be written--that it was Molembrais' second cast
of the net, and when he drags Amboise a third time there will be fish
caught. What's more, La Mothe, there is a traitor in Amboise--a
traitor to the boy. First there was Bertrand, then the Burnt Mill:
these don't c