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The Poniard's Hilt; Or, Karadeucq and Ronan. A Tale of Bagauders and Vagres
CHAPTER VI
TO THE FASTNESS OF ALLANGE
The sight that excited the wrath of the holy man filled the hearts of the Vagres with joy. It was broad day. Four large wagons of the villa, each hitched to teams of oxen, were slowly rolling away from the smoldering ruins of the late episcopal mansion. The wagons were loaded with all manner of booty: gold and silver vases, curtains and beddings, feather mattresses and bags of wheat, boxes filled with linen, hams, venison, smoked fish, preserved fruits, and all sorts of eatables, heavy rolls of cloth that had been woven by weaver-slaves, soft cushions, warm coverlets, shoes, cloaks, iron pots, copper basins, tin cans – all of them dear to the heart of a housekeeper. The Vagres followed the train, singing like larks at the rise of the beautiful June sun. On the front wagon, and seated on one of the cushions, little Odille – whom the bishopess in loving tenderness thoughtfully clad in one of her own beautiful, although rather too long robes for the child – no longer timorous but still laboring under the effect of her wonderment, opened her beautiful blue eyes, and, for the first time since many a long day, breathed in freedom the fresh and invigorating morning air that reminded her often of that of her own mountains from which she was torn, poor child, and cast into the burg of the count. Ever and anon Ronan approached the wagon:
"Take courage, Odille; you will get accustomed to us. The Vagres are not as wolfish as evil tongues pretend."
On another wagon, gorgeous in her gold necklaces and her most beautiful dress which her loving Vagre saved for her from the conflagration, the bishopess whiled away the time, either combed her long black hair with the aid of a little pocket mirror, or adjusted her scarf, or hopped about, crazy with joy, like a hen-linnet that had escaped from her cage. At last she enjoyed that day of freedom and love that she had so ardently dreamed about after having lived more than ten years almost a prisoner. The morning journey across the beautiful mountains of Auvergne, where at frequent intervals cascades of bubbling water were encountered, seemed to charm her. She chatted, laughed, sang, sang again, and threw sidelong glances at her Vagre every time that, with his light step and triumphant mien, he passed by her wagon. Suddenly, as her eyes happened to fall upon a distant object, she seemed moved with pity. She seized a straw-covered amphora that the Master of the Hounds had thoughtfully placed within her reach, and turning towards the rear of the car, where several women and girls, the bishop's slaves, having gladly resolved to run the Vagrery together with their quondam mistress, were huddled, she said to one of them:
"Carry this bottle of spiced wine to my brother, the bishop; the poor man loves to take what he calls his morning cup; but do not let him know that I sent you."
The young girl to whom the bishopess gave the flask answered with a nod of intelligence, leaped down from the cart, and looked for Cautin. Most of the ecclesiastical slaves fled into the mountains when the bishop's house was set on fire; they feared the wrath of heaven if they joined the Vagres; the others, however, being of a less timorous turn, resolutely accompanied the troop of the lusty men. They should have been seen – alert, frisk as if they had just risen from a restful night spent under the foliage of the wood, they marched with elastic step, despite the orgy of the previous night, and went and came, and skipped and chatted, and exchanged kisses with the women who were willing or with the pouches of wine that they carried along, and bit lustily into the hams, the chunks of venison and the episcopal cakes.
"How good it is to live a Vagre's life!"
On the last wagon, under the special watch of Wolf's-Tooth and a few companions who brought up the rear, Cautin, bishop and Vagre's cook, accustomed to strut on his traveling mule, or to ride through the forest on his vigorous hunting steed, found the road rough, dusty and unpleasant. He perspired, panted, tossed himself about, moaned, grumbled, grunted under the weight of his heavy paunch and invoked to his aid all the saints of paradise.
"Seigneur bishop," said the young girl whom the bishopess charged with the amphora of wine, "here is some good spiced wine; drink it; it will give you strength to support the fatigue of the journey."
"Give it to me! Give it to me, my daughter! God will reward you for your attachment to your father in Christ, who finds himself obliged to drink by stealth the wine of his own cellar – "
And clapping the amphora to his lips, he drained it at one draught. When the flask was empty he dashed it against the floor, and looking at the young girl cried:
"And so you propose to run the Vagrery, little she-devil, confounded wench?"
"Yes, seigneur bishop; I am now twenty years of age, and this is the first day of my life that I have been able to say: 'I belong to myself – I can go and come, jump, sing, dance, just as I please' – "
"You belong to yourself, do you, brazen minx? You belong to me! But with the aid of God you will yet be re-captured either by the Church, or by some Frankish seigneur – and I hope you may fall into even worse slavery, God-forsaken wench!"
"I will then, at least, have tasted freedom – "
And the young woman dashed off, jumping and singing, in pursuit of a butterfly that fluttered in the bush.
The troop of Vagres arrived at the hovels of some slaves that belonged to the domain of the Church, and that lay scattered along the road. Little wan, sickly looking children, absolutely bare by reason of their parents' pinching poverty, were wallowing in the dust. Their fathers were off on the fields since dawn; their mothers, as wan-looking and thin as the children, sat at the entrance of their hovels upon bunches of decaying straw; they were clad in rags and busily plied their distaffs for the benefit of the bishop; their long and unkempt hair tumbled over their foreheads upon their bony shoulders; their eyes were hollow, their cheeks sunburnt and sunken; the aspect that they presented was at once so repulsive and painful that the hermit-laborer could not refrain from pointing them out to the bishop, saying:
"Look at those unhappy creatures!"
"Resignation, misery and sorrow here below, everlasting reward above – otherwise as everlasting and frightful tortures!" cried Cautin. "The Church so decrees; it is the law of God!"
"Blasphemer! Your words are like those of the impostor physicians who pretend that man was born for fevers, the pest and ulcers, and not for health!"
At the sight of the approaching and well-armed troop, the women and children were first afraid and ran to hide in their hovels; but stepping forward, Ronan called out to them:
"Poor women! Poor children! Be not afraid – we are your good friends the Vagres!"
The Vagrery caused the Franks and the bishops to tremble, but it was often blessed by the poor. Women and children, all of whom had at first fled with fear into their hovels, now emerged again, and one of the mothers said to Ronan:
"Do you want to know the road? I shall show it to you."
"Are you running away from the leudes of the seigneurs?" said another. "None has passed this way; you can march on in safety."
"Women," answered Ronan, "your children are naked, you and your husbands toil from dawn to dusk; you are barely covered in rags; you lie down to sleep upon poorer straw than the swine; you live upon decayed beans; often you munch grass like cattle!"
"Alas! It is the truth! Our lives are wretched, indeed!"
"Here we have for you linen, cloth, dresses, covers, mattresses, bags of grain, full pouches, provisions of all sorts. Give, my Vagres! Give, Odille, to these poor people! Give, bishopess of the Vagrery! Give and give again!"
"Take – take, sisters!" said the bishopess with eyes moist with compassionate tears, as she helped the Vagres to distribute the booty taken at her house. "Take, sisters! Yesterday I was a slave as yourselves, to-day I am free! Take, sisters!"
"Take and make merry, dear women; and may your little ones never be torn from you!" said Odille as she also gave a hand in the distribution of the booty. And she wiped her eyes as she exclaimed: "How good Ronan, the Vagre, is to the poor!"
"Blessings upon you!" cried the poor mothers, weeping for joy. "It is better to meet a Vagre than a count or a bishop."
It was a pleasure to see with what ardor the Vagres, perched upon the carts, distributed what they had taken from the wicked bishop; it was a pleasure to see how the poor mothers' faces brightened with happiness at the unlooked-for alms. Amazed and enraptured they contemplated the heap of all manner of articles that they had never yet made acquaintance with. The children, more impatient than their elders, merrily hitched themselves by twos, threes and fours to a mattress in order to transport it into one of the huts, or they put their thin arms around a bundle of linen and sought to lift it in. Suddenly, however, a wrathful and threatening voice, a veritable mar-plot, froze the marrow of the poor folks with terror.
"Woe unto you! Damnation upon your families! if you dare to touch with sacrilegious hands the goods of the Church! Tremble! Tremble! It is a mortal sin! You, your husbands, your children, you will all be thrown into the flames of hell for all time!"
It was Bishop Cautin. Despite the remonstrances of the hermit-laborer, he dashed in among the startled slaves, and fulminated his anathemas.
"Oh! We shall touch nothing of all that is offered us, holy bishop!" answered the mothers with a shudder. "We shall not touch any of the goods of the Church."
"My Vagres!" cried Ronan, "Hang the bishop on the nearest tree! We shall not lack for a cook."
Already they were seizing the holy man, who now grew paler and trembled in greater terror than the most awe-struck of the mothers who had just been running over with joy, when the monk again interposed to save Cautin from the noose.
"The hermit!" cried the mothers and their children. "The hermit-laborer!"
"Blessed be you, the friend of the sorrowful! – "
"Blessed be you, the friend of little children! – "
And the hands of all the little ones took hold of the robe of the hermit, who said in his sweet and clear voice:
"Dear women, dear little ones; take what is given you; take without fear; Jesus said: 'Woe unto the rich who share not their bread with those who hunger, and their cloak with those who are cold.' Your bishop gives you all these good things. Take all that is offered to you!"
"Blessings upon you, holy bishop!" exclaimed the mothers, raising their arms in thankfulness to Cautin. "Blessed be you, good father, for your generous gifts!"
"I give nothing!" cried Cautin. "You shall burn eternally in hell, if you listen to that apostate hermit!"
The larger number of the women looked undecided from Ronan to the bishop and the hermit. They put their hands forward and withdrew them again from the articles that were offered them. But two of the oldest of them resolutely drew away from the goods of the Church, and throwing themselves down upon their knees murmured affrighted:
"Holy Bishop Cautin! Pardon us for having even for a moment harbored the thought of committing so great a crime. Mercy! Mercy!"
"Fear not, my sisters!" resumed the hermit. "Your bishop gives you all these good things. He knows that the Lord has equal love for all his children, and does not wish that some should be naked and freeze, while others perspire under the useless weight of twenty gowns; that some should suffer hunger, while others are filled to repletion. Fear not that your bishop will either hunger or suffer cold; he has new and warm clothing on; he knows not what to do with so many robes; he can not drink all those pouches of wine; he can not eat up all these provisions! Take, take – the goods of a bishop are the property of the poor."
Most of the unhappy mothers, convinced by the words of the hermit, and also driven by the lash of their needs, began busily to transport the proffered goods of the Church into their huts, aided by their children. Only three elderly ones dared not to join; they remained on their knees and smote their breasts.
"Dear daughters in Christ! Persevere in your holy horror for sacrilege!" the bishop cried to the three kneeling women. "You will enter paradise and will hear the seraphim play on the harp before the Lord, while they sing His praises!"
"My Vagres!" again Ronan called out. "A rope! Let the hypocritical babbler be strung up high and dry! It is evident that he has made up his mind to hang!"
With a gesture the hermit arrested the anger of the Vagres and said:
"Bishop, do you recognize the words of Jesus of Nazareth as divine? 'Him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take away thy coat also.' What thought did Jesus mean to convey by these words, but that only too often theft has want for its cause, and that charity should be exercised and pity had for such want. Relinquish voluntarily these superfluous goods, you who have taken the vow of poverty, charity and chastity!"
"Keep still, tempting hermit, who dare contradict our bishop! We may not lay our fingers on the goods of the Church!" cried one of the three kneeling women. "We would be damned for all time!"
"Yes, yes," shouted the other two. "Keep still, hermit!"
"Poor creatures! Steeped in ignorance and blindness!" exclaimed Ronan. "Do you care for the life of your bishop?"
"We would undergo a thousand deaths for his sake!"
"Oh! Pious women!" cried Cautin ecstatically. "What a superb part of paradise will not be yours! And now, until the day of eternal life come, I give you absolution for all your past sins, and all the future ones that you may commit."
"Oh, beloved bishop!" cried the kneeling mothers smiting their chests. "A saint among saints! Thanks – thanks to you!"
"Listen to me, ye poor sheep who mistake the butcher for the shepherd," said Ronan to them. "If you do not forthwith profit by our offer, we shall hang the bishop before your very eyes."
"Here is a rope," said Wolf's-Tooth, and he put the noose around Cautin's neck.
"Dear daughters, take everything!" cried the prelate acting under a new inspiration. "Your father in Christ requests you, adjures you, orders you to accept the booty – accept it quick!" he added as he felt the noose tighten.
One of the three kneeling women rose and obeyed with alacrity; the other two remained on their knees and said:
"You are only trying us, holy bishop!"
"But these heathens are going to hang me – "
"A holy man like you does not fear martyrdom."
"No, my daughters, I do not fear martyrdom – but I think I am indispensable for the salvation of my flock. I pray you, carry that booty away! If you do not, I shall damn you! I shall excommunicate you! Confounded old hags! Miserable wretches, you will have to answer for my death on the day of judgment!"
"Holy bishop, you seek to try us to the last. You just said to us that to touch the goods of the Church is mortal sin. Would you order us to commit a mortal sin?"
"No! No!" screamed the other of the two mothers who had remained on their knees; she smote her breast and added: "Holy man, you could never think of ordering us to commit mortal sin! You are to receive martyrdom! – "
"And from the heavens above you will throw your blessings upon us, great and good St. Cautin!"
"Bishop, do you hear these poor old women? You sowed, now you are harvesting. Come, my Vagres, draw the rope!"
Once more the hermit interposed in order to protect the prelate. At that moment the Vagres who were on the carts were heard crying:
"The leudes! The Frankish warriors!"
"There are seven of them! They are on horseback! They are leading a gang of chained men! Up, my Vagres! Death to the leudes! Freedom to the slaves!"
"Death to the leudes! Freedom to the slaves!" shouted the Vagres and ran to their arms.
"The Franks have come to capture me and take me back to the burg of the count!" cried little Odille. "Oh, Ronan, protect me!"
"There will not be one of them left alive to carry you back!"
"Ronan, no imprudence!" said the hermit. "These horsemen may be only a scouting party riding ahead of a numerous troop. Send out scouters against scouters; keep the bulk of your men in reserve and have them entrench themselves behind the wagons."
"Monk, you are right. You talk like an experienced soldier. You must have made war?"
"A little – occasionally – whenever it was necessary to protect the weak against the strong."
"Frankish warriors!" cried Cautin clasping his hands with a triumphant air. "Friends! Allies! I am saved! Help, dear brothers in Christ! This way, my beloved sons in God! Fall upon this rabble. Deliver me from the hands of the Philistines! This way, my – "
Giving a jerk to the rope around the neck of the holy man, Ronan suddenly checked his flow of speech by drawing the noose tight.
"Bishop, no useless cries!" said the hermit; "and you, Ronan, no violence; drop that rope!"
"Very well; but I shall bind his arms; and if he again breaks in upon my ears I shall run my sword through him – "
"The Frankish riders have reined in their horses the moment they caught sight of the wagons," cried one of the Vagres; "they seem to be deliberating what to do."
"Our deliberation will not be long. There are seven of the mounted Franks; let six Vagres follow me, and by the faith of Ronan, it will not be long before there will be seven conquerors less in Gaul!"
"Here are the six of us – let us forward!"
The Master of the Hounds was among the six Vagres. Seeing him examine the handle of his axe, the bishopess leaped down from her wagon, and, her eyes sparkling, her nostrils inflated and her cheeks on fire, she rolled up the right sleeve of her silk robe, and thus baring her white, beautiful and strong arm up to the shoulder, she cried:
"Give me a sword! A sword!"
"Here is one! What will you do with it, beautiful bishopess in Vagrery?"
"I shall fight beside my Vagre!" Saying this the bishopess seized the proffered weapon like a Gallic woman of ancient days, and dashed forward upon the foe.
"Little Odille, you wait here for me. When the Franks are slain I shall return to you," said Ronan to the young girl, who, pale with fear, sought to hold him back with both hands and rested upon him her beautiful blue eyes now moist with tears. "Do not tremble, poor child!"
"Ronan," she murmured convulsively seizing the arm of the Vagre, "I have neither father nor mother left; you delivered me from the count and the bishop; you have a good heart; you are full of pity for the poor; you have treated me with the tenderness of a brother; it was only last night that I saw you for the first time, and yet it seems to me that I have known you long, long – "
And the girl took both the Vagre's hands, kissed them, and added with tremulous lips:
"If those Franks should kill you! – "
"If they should kill me, little Odille?"
Saying this the Vagre turned his head towards the hermit, and pointing to him with his eyes added:
"Should the Franks kill me, yonder good hermit-laborer will protect you."
"I promise you, my child, should misfortune befall your friend, I shall protect you."
"Little Odille," Ronan now said with almost embarrassed mien, "one kiss on your forehead – it will be first, and may be the last."
The child was weeping silently; she reached her girlish forehead to Ronan; he touched it with his lips, and raising his sword dashed off on a run. Hardly had Ronan left when the cry of the Vagres was heard attacking the leudes. At the cries, Odille threw herself distracted into the arms of the hermit, hid her face on his breast and sobbed aloud:
"They will kill him! They will kill him!"
"Courage, Franks! Courage, my sons in God!" shouted Cautin from the cart-wheel to which he was bound fast. "Exterminate those Moabites! Above all cut to pieces that she-devil wife of mine, that brazen woman with the orange dress with the blue sash and silver embroidered stockings. No mercy for the Jezebel! the shameless wench! the slattern! Hack her to pieces! – "
"Bishop! Bishop! Your words are inhuman. Remember the mercifulness of Jesus towards Magdalen and the adulteress!" exclaimed the hermit, while Odille, with her head resting on the breast of that true disciple of the young man of Nazareth murmured:
"They will kill Ronan! They will kill him!"
"Here I am back to you, little Odille! The Franks did not kill me. The people whom they brought in chains are all set free!"
Who said this? It was Ronan. What? Back so soon? Yes! The Vagres do their work quickly. With one bound Odille was in the arms of her friend.
"I killed one of them – he was just about to run my Vagre through with his sword!" cried the bishopess returning from the encounter. And throwing down her blood-stained sword, her eyes sparkling, her bosom half covered by her long black tresses that, together with her robe, were thrown into disorder by the heat of the combat, she said to the Master of the Hounds: "Are you satisfied with your wife?"
"Strong in the embrace of love, and strong in battle are your arms!" answered the young man delighted. "And now, a full cup of wine!"
"To drink in my very face wine that was mine! To court and caress before my own eyes that impure woman who was my wife!" murmured the bishop. "Oh, monstrous! These are the signs that foretell frightful calamities about to afflict the earth."
Three of the Vagres were wounded. The hermit attended them with so much skill that he might have been taken for a physician. He was about to proceed to another of the wounded men when his eyes fell upon the people whom the leudes had brought with them and who were now set free by the men of Ronan. These unhappy folks who only a few minutes before were prisoners, were covered with rags; nevertheless the joy of deliverance shone upon their faces. Invited by their liberators to eat and drink in order to recruit their strength, they were eagerly acquitting themselves of their task. While they drained the pouches of wine and caused the loaves of bread and the hams to vanish, the monk said to one of them, a robust man despite his grey hair:
"Brother, who are you? Whence do you come?"
"We are colonists and slaves. We formerly owned and cultivated the parcels of land that the son of Clovis newly joined as benefices to the salic and military domains that the Frankish count Neroweg previously held from his father by the right of conquest."
"Did the count, accordingly, strip you of your fields and houses?"
"Would to heaven, dear hermit, that he had done so!"
"Your answer is strange!"
"The count, on the contrary, left the fields to us, and he even added two hundred acres to them, the accursed man! The two hundred acres belonged to my friend and neighbor Fereol, who fled out of fear for the Franks."
"Your property is doubled, friend, and yet you complain!"
"Indeed I complain! Is it that you do not know what is going on in Gaul? This is what the count said to me: 'My glorious King has made me count of this country, and, besides, he has given me as a benefice, which I hope will become hereditary as my military lands, all these domains, including the cattle, houses and people upon them. You will cultivate for me the fields that belong to you; I shall join several new parcels to them; you will be my colonist and your laborers my slaves; all of you will work for me and my leudes; you will furnish them as well as myself with all that we shall need. You shall help my mason and carpenter slaves in the building of a new burg that I shall have erected after the Germanic fashion. It is to be large, commodious and properly fortified, and it is to be located in the center of an old Roman camp that I discovered nearby. Your horses and cattle having become mine will haul the stones and logs of wood that are too heavy for men to carry. Besides that you shall pay me a hundred gold sous annually, ten of which I shall give to the King when I annually render him homage for the lands that I hold.' 'A hundred gold sous!' I cried. 'My lands, jointly with those of my neighbor Fereol, will not yield such a sum year in and year out! How do you expect me to pay you a hundred gold sous, besides feeding you, your leudes and your retinues, and keeping myself, my family and my laborers, now your slaves, alive?' Threatening me with his club, the count answered me saying: 'I shall have my hundred gold sous every year – if you fail, I shall have my leudes cut off your feet and hands – ' "
"Poor man!" observed the hermit sadly. "And like so many others you consented to the servitude? You accepted the hard conditions?"
"What else was I to do? How could I resist the count and his leudes? I only had a few laborers, and to them the priests preached submission to the conquerors, who, sword in hand, say to us: 'The fields of your fathers, fructified by their labors and yours, are now ours – you shall cultivate them for us.' What were we to do? Resist? It was impossible! Flee? That would be to rush into slavery in some other region, seeing that all the provinces are equally invaded by the Franks. I had a young wife – both servitude and a wandering life frightened me more for her sake than for mine – moreover, I was attached to the region and the fields on which I was born. The thought was unbearable to me of having to cultivate those very fields for another, and yet I preferred not to leave them. Myself and my laborers resigned ourselves to shocking misery, to incessant toil! Such was the life we led for many a year. By dint of hard work and privations I succeeded in supplying the wants of Neroweg and his leudes, and of making my lands yield from seventy to eighty gold sous a year. Twice did the count put me to the torture in order to force me to give him the hundred gold sous that he demanded of me. I did not own one denier outside of the moneys that I paid him. My torture and subsequent long physical pain was all the comfort that he had for his cruelty."
"And did the thought never occur to you," asked Ronan, "of choosing some fine dark night to set the burg on fire?"
"Alas! The priests persuade the slaves that the harder their lot is on earth, all the happier will they be in paradise. I could not rely upon my companions in slavery, besotted as they were with the fear of the devil and unnerved by misery. Besides, I had little children; and their mother, consumed with grief, was ailing; finally, this year, the poor creature fortunately died. My sons had grown up to be men, and they and I, together with a few other slaves who were all tired of unrequited and continuous toil for the benefit of the count and his leudes, finally took to flight. We took refuge on the domain of the Bishop of Issoire. It was but an exchange of masters, still we hoped to find the prelate a less cruel master than the count. The count was set upon recapturing me who had managed for so many years to extract from my lands so much wealth for him and his leudes. Having learned of our asylum, he ordered some of his leudes to take horse and reclaim us from the Bishop of Issoire. The bishop surrendered us. His men bound our hands, and the leudes were taking us back to the count when these good Vagres killed our captors and set us free. By my faith! Vagres we shall now be – all of us – I, my sons and the other slaves whom you see yonder. Will you have us, ye bold runners of the night?"
"Yes, yes!" cried the companions of the colonist. "It is better far to run the Vagrery than to cultivate our fathers' lands under the club of a count and his leudes!"
"Bishop! Bishop!" remarked Ronan to the prelate. "Behold what your allies have turned our old Gaul into! But, I swear by torch and fire, by blood and massacre, I swear, the hour shall come when neither prelates nor seigneurs will have aught but smoldering ruins and bleaching bones to rule over! Up! new brothers in Vagrery! Be like ourselves 'Wand'ring men,' 'Wolves,' 'Wolves-Heads!' Like ourselves you will live like wolves and happy – in summer under the leafy green, in winter in caverns warm. Up, my Vagres! Up! The sun is high! We have in these carts still much booty left to be distributed on our way. Let us proceed, little Odille and beautiful bishopess! Let us pillage the seigneurs, and give freely to the poor! Let us keep only just enough to feast upon to-night in the fastness of Allange under the dome of the stately old oak trees. On the march! And to-morrow, when the last pouch will have been emptied, then on the hunt again, my Vagres, so long as there shall be a single burg left standing in Gaul, or a single episcopal residence! Let us burn down all the dens of tyranny! Death to the seigneurs and their bishops!"
And the troop resumed its march to the sound of the Vagres' song. When, at sunset, they arrived at the fastness of Allange, which was one of their haunts, all the booty that was taken at the episcopal villa had been distributed along the route among the poor. Only a few mattresses for the women, the gold and silver goblets out of which to drink the bishop's wine, and the necessary provisions for the night's festival were left. The eight teams of oxen were to furnish the roast for the gigantic feast, because gigantic it was to be seeing that the troop of Vagres had gathered many recruits on the route – slaves, artisans, laborers and colonists, all of whom were enraged with misery, without counting a number of young women, all of whom were eager to run the Vagrery.
