"I thank you, my lord," said his son, "but we will not sit down. We are no longer of one family. We may be your sons in the eye of the law and in natural fact. But from this day no one of us will break bread, speak word, hold intimacy or converse with you. So far as in us lies we will renounce you as our father. We will not, because of the commandment, rise in rebellion against you. You are Earl of Douglas, and while you live must rule your own. But for me and my brothers we will never be your children to honour, your sons to succour, nor your liegemen to fight for you. We go to offer our services to our cousin Margaret, the little Maid of Galloway. We will keep her province with our swords as the last stronghold of the true Douglases of the Black. I have spoken. Fare you well, my lord!"
During his son's speech the countenance of the newly made Earl of Douglas grew white and mottled, tallowy white and dull red in turns showing upon it, like the flesh of a drained ox. He rose unsteadily to his feet, moving one hand deprecatingly before him, like a helpless man unexpectedly stricken. His nether lip quivered, pendulous and piteous, in the midst of his grey beard, and for a moment he strove in vain with his utterance.
His eyes fell abashed from the cold sternness of his eldest son's glance, and he seemed to scan the countenances of the younger four for any token of milder mood.
"James," he said, "ye hear William. Surely ye do not hold with him? Remember I am your father, and I was aye particular fond o' you, Jamie. I mind when ye wad rin to sit astride my shoulder. And ye used to like that fine!"
There were tears in the eyes of the weak, cunning, treacherous-hearted man. The lips of James Douglas quivered a little, and his voice failed him, as he strove to answer his father. What he would have said none knows, but ere he could voice a word, the eyes of his brother, stern as the law given to Moses on the mount, were bent upon him. He straightened himself up, and, with a look carefully averted from the palsied man before him, he said, in a steady tone, "What my brother William says, I say."
His father looked at him again, as if still hoping against hope for some kinder word. Then he turned to his younger sons.
"Archie, Hugh, little Jockie, ye willna take part against your ain faither?"
"We hold with our brothers!" said the three, speaking at once.
At this moment there came running in at the door of the tent a lad of ten—Henry, the youngest of the Avondale brothers. He stopped short in the midst, glancing wonderingly from one to the other. His little sword with which he had been playing dropped from his hand. James the Gross looked at him.
"Harry," he said, "thy brothers are a' for leavin' me. Will ye gang wi' them, or bide wi' your faither?"
"Father," said the boy, "I will go with you, if ye will let me help to kill Livingston and the Chancellor!"
"Come, laddie," said the Earl, "ye understand not these matters. I will explain to you when we gang back to the braw things in Edinbra' toon!"
"No, no," cried the boy, stooping to pick up his sword, "I will bide with my brothers, and help to kill the murderers of my cousins. What William says, I say."
Then the five young men went out and called for their horses, their youngest brother following them. And as the flap of the tent fell, and he was left alone, James the Gross sank his head between his soft, moist palms, and sobbed aloud.
For he was a weak, shifty, unstable man, loving approval, and a burden to himself in soul and body when left to bear the consequences of his acts.
"Oh, my bairns," he cried over and over, "why was I born? I am not sufficient for these things!"
And even as he sobbed and mourned, the hoofs of his sons' horses rang down the wind as they rode through the camp towards Galloway. And little Henry rode betwixt William and James.
Meanwhile Sholto fared onwards down the side of the sullen water of Dee. The dwellers along the bank were all on the alert, and cried many questions to him about the death of the Earl, most thinking him a merchant travelling from Edinburgh to take ship at Kirkcudbright. Sholto answered shortly but civilly, for the inquirers were mostly decent folk well on in years, whose lads had gone to the levy, and who naturally desired to know wherefore their sons had been summoned.
In return he asked everywhere for news of any cavalcade which might have passed that way, but neither from the country folk, nor yet from hoof-marks upon the grassy banks, could he glean the least information pertinent to the purpose of his quest.
Not till he came within a few miles of the town did he meet with man or woman who could give him any material assistance. It was by the Fords of Tongland that he first met with one Tib MacLellan, who with much volubility and some sagacity retailed fresh fish to the burghers of Kirkcudbright and the whole countryside, giving a day to each district so long as the supply of her staple did not fail.
"Fair good day to ye, mistress!" said Sholto, taking off his bonnet to the sonsy upstanding fishwife.
"And to you, bonny lad," replied the complimented dame, dropping a courtesy, "may the corbie never cry at ye nor ill-faured pie juik at your left elbow. May candle creesh never fa' on ye, red fire burn ye, nor water scald ye."
Tib was reeling off her catalogue of blessings when Sholto cut her short.
"Can you tell me, good lady," he asked, in his most insinuating tones, "if there has been any vessel cleared from the port during these last weeks?"
"'Deed, sir, that I should ken, for is no my ain sister marriet on Jock Wabster, wha's cousin by marriage twice removed is the bailie officer o' the port? So I can advise ye that there was a boat frae the Isle o' Man wi' herrin's for the great houses, though never a fin o' them like the halesome fish I carry here in my creel. Wad ye like to see them, to buy a dozen for the bonny lass that's waiting for ye? That were a present to recommend ye, indeed—far mair than your gaudy flowers, fule ballads, and sic like trash!"
"You cannot remember any other ship of larger size than the Manx fishing-boat?" continued Sholto.
"Weel, no to ca' cleared frae the port," Tib went on, "but there was a pair o' uncanny-looking foreign ships that lay oot there by the Manxman's Lake for eight days, and the nicht afore yestreen they gaed oot with the tide. They were saying aboot the foreshore that they gaed west to some other port to tak' on board the French monzie that cam' to the Thrieve at the great tournaying! But I kenna what wad tak' him awa' to the Fleet or the Ferry Toon o' Cree, and leave a' the pleasures o' Kirkcudbright ahint him. Forbye sic herrin's as are suppliedby me, Tib MacLellan, at less than cost price—as I houp your honour will no forget, when in the course o' natur' and the providence o' God you and her comes to hae a family atween ye."
Sholto promised that he would not forget when the time alluded to arrived. Then, turning his jennet off the direct road to Kirkcudbright town, and betaking him through the Ardendee fords, he made all speed towards a little port upon the water of Fleet, at the point where that fair moorland stream winds lazily through the water-meadows for a mile or two, after its brawling passage down from the hills of heather and before it commits itself to the mother sea.
But it was not until he had long crossed it and reached the lonely Cassencary shore that Sholto found his first trace of the lost maidens. For as he rode along the cliffs his keen eye noted a well-marked trail through the heather approaching the shore at right angles to his own line of march. The tracks, still perfectly evident in the grassy places, showed that as many as twenty horses had passed that way within the last two or three days. He stood awhile examining the marks, and then, leading his beast slowly by the bridle, he continued to follow them westward till they became confused and lost near a little jetty erected by the lairds of Cree and Cassencary for convenience of traffic with Cumberland and the Isle of Man. Here on the very edge of the foreshore, blown by some chance wind behind a stone and wonderfully preserved there, Sholto found a child's chain of woodbine entwined with daisies and autumnal pheasant's eye. He took it up and examined it. Some of the flowers were not yet withered. The inter-weaving was done after a fashion he had taught the little Maid of Galloway himself, one happy day when he had walked on air with the glamour of Maud Lindesay's smiles uplifting his heart. For that tricksome grace had asked him to teach her also, and he remembered the lingering touch of her fingers ere she could compass the quaint device of the pheasant's eye peeping out from the midst of each white festoon.
Then a deep despair settled down on Sholto's spirit. He knew that Maud Lindesay and the fair Maid of Galloway had undoubtedly fallen into the power of the terrible Marshal de Retz, Sieur of Machecoul, ambassador of the King of France, and also many things else which need not in this place be put on record.
In a dark wainscoted room overlooking that branch of the Seine which divides the northern part of Paris from the Isle of the City, Gilles de Retz, lately Chamberlain of the King of France, sat writing. The hotel had recently been redecorated after the sojourn of the English. Wooden pavements had again been placed in the rooms where the barbarians had strewed their rushes and trampled upon their rotting fishbones. Noble furniture from the lathes of Poitiers, decorated with the royal ermines of Brittany, stood about the many alcoves. The table itself whereon the famous soldier wrote was closed in with drawers and shelves which descended to the floor and seemed to surround the occupant like a cell.
Before de Retz stood a curious inkstand, made by some cunning jeweller out of the upper half of a human skull of small size, cut across at the eye-holes, inverted, and set in silver with a rim of large rubies. This was filled with ink of a startling vermilion colour.
The document which Gilles de Retz was busy transcribing upon sheets of noble vellum in this strange ink was of an equally mysterious character. The upper part had the appearance of a charter engrossed by the hand of some deft legal scribe, but the words which followedwere as startling as the vehicle by means of which they were made to stand out from the vellum.
"Unto Barran-Sathanas; Lord most glorious and puissant in hell beneath and in the earth above, I, his unworthy servitor Gilles de Retz, make my vows, hereby forever renouncing God, Christ, and the Blessed Saints."
To this appalling introduction succeeded many lines of close and delicate script, interspersed with curious cabalistic signs, in which that of the cross reversed could frequently be detected. Gilles de Retz wrote rapidly, rising only at intervals to throw a fresh log of wood across the vast iron dogs on either side of the wide fireplace, as the rain from the northwest beat more and more fiercely upon the small glazed panes of the window and howled among the innumerable gargoyles and twisted roof-stacks of the Hotel de Pornic.
Within the chamber itself, in the intervals of the storm, a low continuous growling made itself evident. At first it was disregarded by the writer, but presently, by its sheer pertinacity, the sound so irritated him that he rose from his seat, and, striding to a narrow door covered with a heavy curtain, he threw it wide open to the wall. Then through the black oblong so made, a huge and shaggy she-wolf slouched slowly into the room.
The marshal kicked the brute impatiently with his slippered foot as she entered, and, strange to relate, the wolf slunk past him with the cowed air of a dog conscious of having deserved punishment.
"Astarte, vilest beast," he cried, "have I not a thousand times warned you to be silent and wait outside when I am at work within my chamber?"
The she-wolf eyed her master as he went back towardshis table. Then, seeing him lift his pen, with a sigh of content she dropped down upon the warm hearthstone, lying with her haunches towards the blazing logs and her bristling head couched upon her paws. Her yellow shining eyes blinked sleepily and approvingly at him, while with her tongue she rasped the soft pads of her feet one by one, biting away the fur from between the toes with her long and gleaming teeth. Presently Astarte appeared to doze off. Her eyes were shut, her attitude relaxed. But so soon as ever her master moved even an inch to consult a marked list of dates which hung on a hook beside him, or leaned over to dip a quill in his scarlet ink, the flashing yellow eye and the gleam of white teeth underneath told that Astarte was awake and intently watching every movement of the worker.
Through the heavy boom of the storm without, the thresh of the rain upon the lattice casement, and the irregular whipping gusts which shook the house, the soft wheeze of the engrossing quill could be heard, the crackle of the burning logs and the heavy regular breathing of the couchant she-wolf being the only other sounds audible within the apartment.
Gilles de Retz wrote on, smiling to himself as he added line after line to his manuscript. His beard shone with a truculent blue-black lustre. For the moment the aged look had quite gone out of his face. His cheek appeared flushed with the hues of youth and reinvigorated hope, yet withal of a youth without innocence or charm. Rather it seemed as if fresh blood had been injected into the veins of some aged demon, moribund and cruel, giving, instead of health or grace, only a new lease of cruelty and lust.
Presently another door opened, the main entrance of the apartment this time, not the small private portal through which Astarte the wolf had been admitted. A girl came in, thrusting aside the curtain, and, for the space of a moment, holding it outstretched with an arm gowned in pure white before dropping it with a rustle of heavy silken fabric upon the ground.
The Marshal de Retz wrote on without appearing to be conscious of any new presence in his private chamber. The girl stood regarding him, with eyes that blazed with an intent so deadly and a hate so all-possessing that the yellow treachery in those of Astarte the she-wolf appeared kind and affectionate by contrast.
At the girl's entrance that shaggy beast had raised herself upon her fore paws, and presently she gave vent to a low growl, half of distrust and half of warning, which at once reached the ears of the busy worker.
Gilles de Retz looked up quickly, and, catching sight of the Lady Sybilla, with a sweep of his hand he thrust his manuscript into an open drawer of the escritoire.
"Ah, Sybilla," he said, leaning back in his chair with an air of easy familiarity, "you are more sparing of your visits to me than of yore. To what do I owe the pleasure and honour of this one?"
The girl eyed him long before answering. She stood statue-still by the curtain at the entrance of the apartment, ignoring the chair which the marshal had offered her with a bow and a courteous wave of his hand.
"I have come," she made answer at last, in the deep even tones which she had used before the council of the traitors at Stirling, "to demand from you, Messire Gilles de Retz, what you mean to do with the little MargaretDouglas and her companion, whom you wickedly kidnapped from their own country and have brought with you in your train to France?"
"I have satisfaction in informing you," replied the marshal, suavely, "that it is my purpose to dispose of both these agreeable young ladies entirely according to my own pleasure."
The girl caught at her breast with her hand, as if to stay a sudden spasm of pain.
"Not at Tiffauges—" she gasped, "not at Champtocé?"
The marshal leaned back, enjoying her terror, as one tastes in slow sips a rare brand of wine. He found the flavour of her fears delicious.
"No, Sybilla," he replied at last, "neither at Champtocé nor yet at Tiffauges—for the present, that is, unless some of your Scottish friends come over to rescue them out of my hands."
"How, then, do you intend to dispose of them?" she urged.
"I shall send them to your puking sister and her child, hiding their heads and sewing their samplers at Machecoul. What more can you ask? Surely the young and fair are safe in such worthy society, even if they may chance to find it a little dull."
"How can I believe him, or know that for once he will forego his purposes of hell?" Sybilla murmured, half to herself.
The Marshal de Retz smiled, if indeed the contraction of muscles which revealed a line of white teeth can be called by that name. In the sense in which Astarte would have smiled upon a defenceless sheepfold, soGilles de Retz might have been said to smile at his visitor.
"You may believe me, sweet Lady Sybilla," said the marshal, "because there is one vice which it is needless for me to practise in your presence, that of uncandour. I give you my word that unless your friends come worrying me from the land of Scots, the maids shall not die. Perhaps it were better to warn any visitors that even at Machecoul we are accustomed to deal with such cases. Is it not so, Astarte?"
At the sound of her name the huge wolf rose slowly, and, walking to her master's knee, she nosed upon him like a favourite hound.
"And if your intent be not that which causes fear to haunt the precincts of your palaces like a night-devouring beast, and makes your name an execration throughout Brittany and the Vendée, why have you carried the little child and the other pretty fool forth from their country? Was it not enough that you should slay the brothers? Wherefore was it necessary utterly to cut off the race of the Douglases?"
"Sybilla, dear sister of my sainted Catherine," purred the marshal, "it is your privilege that you should speak freely. When it is pleasing to me I may even answer you. It pleases me now, listen—you know of my devotion to science. You are not ignorant at what cost, at what vast sacrifices, I have in secret pushed my researches beyond the very confines of knowledge. The powers of the underworlds are revealing themselves to me, and to me alone. Evil and good alike shall be mine. I alone will pluck the blossom of fire, and tear from hell and hell's master their cherished mystery."
He paused as if mentally to recount his triumphs, and then continued.
"But at the moment of success I am crossed by a prejudice. The ignorant people clamour against my life—canaille! I regard them not. But nevertheless their foolish prejudices reach other ears. Hearken!"
And like a showman he beckoned Sybilla to the window. A low roar of human voices, fitful yet sustained, made itself distinctly audible above the shriller hooting of the tempest.
"Open the window!" he commanded, standing behind the curtain.
The girl unhasped the brazen hook and looked out. Beneath her a little crowd of poor people had collected about a woman who was beating with bleeding hands upon the shut door of the Hotel de Pornic.
"Justice! justice!" cried the woman, her hands clasped and her long black hair streaming down her shoulders, "give me my child, my little Pierre. Yester-eve he was enticed into the monster's den by his servant Poitou, and I shall never see him more! Give me my boy, murderer! Restore me my son!"
And the answering roar of the people's voices rose through the open window to the ears of the marshal. "Give the woman her son, Gilles de Retz!"
At that moment the woman caught sight of Sybilla. Instantly she changed her tone from entreaty to fierce denunciation.
"Behold the witch, friends, let us tear her to pieces. She is kept young and beautiful by drinking the blood of children. Throw thyself down, Jezebel, that the dogs may eat thee in the streets."
And a shout went up from the populace as Sybilla shut to the window, shuddering at the horrors which surrounded her.
The Marshal de Retz had not moved, watching her face without regarding the noise outside. Now he went back to his chair, and bending his slender white fingers together, he looked up at her.
Presently he struck a silver bell by his side three times, and the mellow sound pervaded the house.
Poitou appeared instantly at the inner door through which the she-wolf had entered.
"How does it go?" asked the marshal, with his usual careless easy grace.
"Not well," said Poitou, shaking his head; "that is, rightly up to a point, and then—all wrong!"
For the first time the countenance of the marshal appeared troubled.
"And I was sure of success this time. We must try them younger. It is all so near, yet, strangely it escapes us. Well, Poitou, I shall come in a little when I have finished with this lady. Tell De Sillé to expect me."
Poitou bowed respectfully and was withdrawing, too well trained to smile or even lift his eyes to where Sybilla stood by the window.
His master appeared to recollect himself.
"A moment, Poitou—there are some troublesome people of the city rabble at the door. Bid the guard turn out, and thrust them away. Tell them to strike not too gently with the flats of their swords and the butts of their spears."
Gilles de Retz listened for some time after the disappearance of his familiar. Presently the low droningnote of popular execration changed into sharper exclamations of hatred, mingled with cries of pain.
Then the marshal smiled, and rubbed his hands lightly one over the other.
"That's my good lads," he said; "hear the rattle of the spear-hilts upon the paving-stones? They are bringing the butts into close acquaintance with certain very ill-shod feet. Ah, now they are gone!"
The marshal took a long breath and went on, half to himself and half to Sybilla.
"But I own it is all most inconvenient," he said, thoughtfully. "Here in Paris, in King Charles's country, it does not so greatly matter. For the affair in Scotland has set me right with the King and in especial with the Dauphin. By the death of the Douglases I have given back the duchy of Touraine to the kings of France after three generations. I have therefore well earned the right to be allowed to seek knowledge in mine own way."
"The service of the devil is a poor way to knowledge," said the girl.
"Ah, there it is," said the marshal, raising his hand with gentle deprecation, "even you, who are so highly privileged, are not wholly superior to vulgar prejudice. I keep a college of priests for the service of God and the Virgin. They have done me but little good. Surely therefore I may be allowed a little service of That Other, who has afforded me such exquisite pleasure and aided me so much. The Master of Evil knows all things, and he can help whom he will to the secrets of wealth, of power, and of eternal youth."
"Have you gained any of these by the aid of thatMaster whom you serve?" asked the Lady Sybilla, with great quiet in her voice.
"Nay, not yet," cried the marshal, moved for the first time, "not yet—perhaps because I have sought too eagerly and hotly. But I am now at least within sight of the wondrous goal. See," he added, with genuine excitement labouring in his voice, "see—I am still a young man, yet though I, Gilles de Retz, was born to the princeliest fortune in France, and by marriage added another, they have both been spent well nigh to the last stiver in learning the hidden secrets of the universe. I am still a young man, I say, but look at my whitening hair, count the deep wrinkles on my forehead, consider my withered cheek. Have I not tasted all agonies, renounced all delights, and cast aside all scruples that I might win back my youth, and with it the knowledge of good and evil?"
Sybilla went to the door and stood again by the curtain.
"Then you swear by your own God that you will let no evil befall the Scottish maids?" she said.
"I have told you already—let that suffice!" he replied with sudden coldness; "you know that, like the Master whom I serve, I can keep my word. I will not harm them, so long as their Scottish kinsfolk come not hither meddling with my purposes. I have enough of meddlers in France without adding outlanders thereto! I cannot keep a new and permanent danger at grass within my gates."
The Lady Sybilla passed through the portal by which she had entered, without adieu or leave-taking of any kind. Gilles de Retz rose as soon as the curtain hadfallen, and shook himself with a yawn, like one who has got through a troublesome necessary duty. Then he walked to the window and looked out. The woman had come back and was kneeling before the Hotel de Pornic.
A bright light as of a furnace burnt up before him, and the heat was overpowering as it rushed like a ruddy tide-race against his face.A bright light as of a furnace burnt up before him, and the heat was overpowering as it rushed like a ruddy tide-race against his face.
At sight of him she cried with sudden shrillness, "My lord, my great lord, give me back my child—my little Pierre. He is my heart's heart. My lord, he never did you any harm in all his innocent life!"
The Marshal de Retz shut the window with a shrug of protest against the vulgarity of prejudice. He did not notice four men in the garb of pilgrims who stood in the dark of a doorway opposite.
"This is both unnecessary and excessively discomposing," he muttered; "I fear Poitou has not been judicious enough in his selections."
He turned towards the private door, and as he did so Astarte the she-wolf rose and silently followed him with her head drooped forward. He went along a dark passage and pushed open a little iron door. A bright light as of a furnace burnt up before him, and the heat was overpowering as it rushed like a ruddy tide-race against his face.
"Well, Poitou, does it go better?" he said cheerfully, "or must we try them of the other sex and somewhat younger, as I at first proposed?"
He let the door slip back, and the action of a powerful spring shut out Astarte. Whereat she sat down on her haunches in the dark of the passage, and showed her gleaming teeth in a grin, as, with cocked ears, she listened to the sounds from within the secret laboratory of the Marshal de Retz.
The four men whom the Messire Gilles, by good fortune, failed to see standing in the doorway opposite the Hotel de Pornic were attired in the habit of pilgrims to the shrine of Saint James of Compostella. Upon their heads they wore broad corded hats of brown. Long brown robes covered them from head to foot. Their heads were tonsured, and as they went along they fumbled at their beads and gave their benediction to the people that passed by, whether they returned them an alms or not. This they did by spreading abroad the fingers of both hands and inclining their heads, at the same time muttering to themselves in a tongue which, if not Latin, was at least equally unknown to the good folk of Paris.
"It is the house," said the tallest of the four, "stand well back within the shade!"
"Nay, Sholto, what need?" grumbled another, a very thickset palmer he; "if the maids be within, let us burst the gates, and go and take them out!"
"Be silent, Malise," put in the third pilgrim, whose dress of richer stuff than that of his companions, added to an air of natural command, betrayed the man of superior rank, "remember, great jolterhead, that we are not at the gates of Edinburgh with all the south country at our backs."
The fourth, a slender youth and fresh of countenance, stood somewhat behind the first three, without speaking, and wore an air of profound meditation and abstraction.
It is not difficult to identify three out of the four. Sholto's quest for his sweetheart was a thing fixed and settled. That his father and his brother Laurence should accompany him was also to be expected. But the other and more richly attired was somewhat less easy to be certified. The Lord James of Douglas it was, who spoke French with the idiomatic use and easy accentuation of a native, albeit of those central provinces which had longest owned the sway of the King of France. The brothers MacKim also spoke the language of the country after a fashion. For many Frenchmen had come over to Galloway in the trains of the first two Dukes of Touraine, so that the Gallic speech was a common accomplishment among the youths who sighed to adventure where so many poor Scots had won fortune, in the armies of the Kings of France.
Indeed, throughout the centuries Paris cannot be other than Paris. And Paris was more than ever Paris in the reign of Charles the Seventh. Her populace, gay, fickle, brave, had just cast off the yoke of the English, and were now venting their freedom from stern Saxon policing according to their own fashion. Not the King of France, but the Lord of Misrule held the sceptre in the capital.
It was not long therefore before a band of rufflers swung round a corner arm-in-arm, taking the whole breadth of the narrow causeway with them as they came. It chanced that their leader espied the four Scots standing in the wide doorway of the house opposite the Hotel de Pornic.
"Hey, game lads," he cried, in that roistering shriek which then passed for dashing hardihood among the youth of Paris, "here be some holy men, pilgrims to the shrine of Saint Denis, I warrant. I, too, am a clerk of a sort, for Henriet tonsured me on Wednesday sennight. Let us see if these men of good works carry any of the deceitful vanities of earth about with them in their purses. Sometimes such are not ill lined!"
The youths accepted the proposal of their leader with alacrity.
"Let us have the blessing of the holy palmers," they cried, "and eke the contents of their pockets!"
So with a gay shout, and in an evil hour for themselves, they bore down upon the four Scots.
"Good four evangelists," cried the youth who had spoken first—a tall, ill-favoured, and sallow young man in a cloak of blue lined with scarlet, swaggering it with long strides before the others, "tell us which of you four is Messire Matthew. For, being a tax-gatherer, he will assuredly have money of his own, and besides, since the sad death of your worthy friend Judas, he must have succeeded him as your treasurer."
"This is the keeper of our humble store, noble sir," answered the Lord James Douglas, quietly, indicating the giant Malise with his left hand, "but spare him and us, I pray you courteously!"
"Ha, so," mocked the tall youth, turning to Malise, "then the gentleman of the receipt of custom hath grown strangely about the chest since he went a-wandering from Galilee!"
And he reached forward his hand to pull away the cloak which hung round the great frame of the master armourer.
Malise MacKim understood nothing of his words or of his intent, but without looking at his tormentor or any of the company, he asked of James Douglas, in a voice like the first distant mutterings of a thunder-storm, "Shall I clout him?"
"Nay, be patient, Malise, I bid you. This is an ill town in which to get rid of a quarrel once begun. Be patient!" commanded James Douglas under his breath.
"We are clerks ourselves," the swarthy youth went on, "and we have come to the conclusion that such holy palmers as you be, men from Burgundy or the Midi, as I guess by your speech, Spaniards by your cloaks and this good tax-gatherer's beard, ought long ago to have taken the vows of poverty. If not, you shall take them now. For, most worthy evangelistic four, be it known unto you that I am Saint Peter and can loose or bind. So turn out your money-bags. Draw your blades, limber lads!"
Whereupon his companions with one accord drew their swords and advanced upon the Scots. These stood still without moving as if they had been taken wholly unarmed.
"Shall I clout them now?" rumbled Malise the second time, with an anxious desire in his voice.
"Bide a wee yet," whispered the Lord James; "we will try the soft answer once more, and if that fail, why then, old Samson, you may clout your fill."
"Hisfill!" corrected Malise, grimly.
"Your pardon, good gentlemen," said James of Douglas aloud to the spokesman, "we are poor men and travel with nothing but the merest necessities—of which surely you would not rob us."
"Nay, holy St. Luke," mocked the swarthy one, "not rob. That is an evil word—rather we would relieve you of temptation for your own souls' good. You are come for your sins to Paris. You know that the love of money is the root of all evil. So in giving to us who are clerks of Paris you will not lose your ducats, but only contribute of your abundance to Holy Mother Church. I am a clerk, see—I do not deceive you! I will both shrive and absolve you in return for the filthy lucre!"
And, commanding one of his rabble to hold a torch close to his head, he uncovered and showed a tonsured crown.
"And if we refuse?" said Lord James, quietly.
"Then, good Doctor Luke," answered the youth, "we are ten to four—and it would be our sad duty to send you all to heaven and then ease your pockets, lest, being dead, some unsanctified passer-by might be tempted to steal your money."
"Surely I may clout him now?" came again like the nearer growl of a lion from Malise the smith.
Seeing the four men apparently intimidated and without means of defence, the ten youths advanced boldly, some with swords in their right hands and torches in their left, the rest with swords and daggers both. The Scots stood silent and firm. Not a weapon showed from beneath a cloak.
"Down on your knees!" cried the leader of the youngroisterers, and with his left hand he thrust a blazing torch into the grey beard of Malise.
There was a quick snort of anger. Then, with a burst of relief and pleasure, came the words, "By God, I'll clout him now!" The sound of a mighty buffet succeeded, something cracked like a broken egg, and the clever-tongued young clerk went down on the paving-stones with a clatter, as his torch extinguished itself in the gutter and his sword flew ringing across the street.
"Come on, lads—they have struck the first blow. We are safe from the law. Kill them every one!" cried his companions, advancing to the attack with a confidence born of numbers and the consciousness of fighting on their own ground.
But ere they reached the four men who had waited so quietly, the Scots had gathered their cloaks about their left arms in the fashion of shields, and a blade, long and stout, gleamed in every right hand. Still no armour was to be seen, and, though somewhat disconcerted, the assailants were by no means dismayed.
"Come on—let us revenge De Sillé!" they cried.
"Lord, Lord, this is gaun to be a sair waste o' guid steel," grumbled Malise; "would that I had in my fist a stieve oaken staff out of Halmyre wood. Then I could crack their puir bit windlestaes o' swords, without doing them muckle hurt! Laddies, laddies, be warned and gang decently hame to your mithers before a worse thing befall. James, ye hae their ill-contrived lingo, tell them to gang awa' peaceably to their naked beds!"
For, having vented his anger in the first buffet, Malise was now somewhat remorseful. There was no honour insuch fighting. But all unwarned the youthful roisterers of Paris advanced. This was a nightly business with them, and indeed on such street robberies of strangers and shopkeepers the means of continuing their carousings depended.
It chanced that at the first brunt of the attack Sholto, who was at the other end of the line from his father, had to meet three opponents at once. He kept them at bay for a minute by the quickness of his defence, but being compelled to give back he was parrying a couple of their blades in front, when the third got in a thrust beneath his arm. It was as if the hostile sword had stricken a stone wall. The flimsy and treacherous blade went to flinders, and the would-be robber was left staring at the guard suddenly grown light in his hand.
With a quick backward step, Sholto slashed his last assailant across the upper arm, effectually disabling him. Then, catching his heel in a rut, he fell backward, and it would have gone ill with him but for the action of his father. The brawny one was profoundly disgusted at having to waste his strength and science upon such a rabble, and now, at the moment of his son's fall, he suddenly dropped his sword and seized a couple of torches which had fallen upon the pavement. With these primitive weapons he fell like a whirlwind upon the foe, taking them unexpectedly in flank. A sweep of his mighty arms right and left sent two of the assailants down, one with the whole side of his face scarified from brow to jaw, and the other with his mouth at once widened by the blow and hermetically closed by the blazing tar.
Next, Sholto's pair of assailants received each a mighty buffet and went down with cracked sconces. The rest,seeing this revolving and decimating fire-mill rushing upon them as Malise waved the torches round his head, turned tail and fled incontinently into the narrow alleys which radiated in all directions from the Hotel de Pornic.
"Look to them well, Malise," said the Lord James; "'twas you who did the skull-cracking at any rate. See if your leechcraft can tell us if any of these young rogues are likely to die. I would not have their deaths on my conscience if I can avoid it."
First picking up and sheathing his sword, then bidding Sholto hold a torch, Malise turned the youths over on their backs. Four of them grunted and complained of the flare of the light in their eyes, like men imperfectly roused from sleep.
"Thae loons will be round in half an hour," said Malise, confidently. "But they will hae richt sair heads the morn, I'se warrant, and some o' them may be marked aboot the chafts for a Sabbath or twa!"
But the swarthy youth whom the others called De Sillé, he who had been spokesman and who had fallen first, was more seriously injured. He had worn a thin steel cap on his head, which had been cracked by the buffet he had received from the mighty fist of the master armourer. The broken pieces had made a wound in the skull, from which blood flowed freely. And in the uncertain light of the torch Malise could not make any prolonged examination.
"Let us tak' the callant up to the tap o' the hoose,"he said at last; "we can put him in the far ben garret till we see if he is gaun to turn up his braw silver-taed shoon."
Without waiting for any permission or dissent, the smith of Carlinwark tucked his late opponent under his arm as easily as an ordinary man might carry a puppy. Then, sheathing their swords, the other three Scots made haste to leave the place, for the gleaming of lanthorns could already be seen down the street, which might either mark the advent of the city watch or the return of the enemy with reinforcements.
It was to a towering house with barred windows and great doors that the four Scots retreated. Entering cautiously by a side portal, Malise led the way with his burden. This mansion had been the town residence of the first Duke of Touraine, Archibald the Tineman. It had been occupied by the English for military purposes during their tenancy of the city, and now that they were gone, it had escaped by its very dilapidation the fate of the other possessions of the house of Douglas in France.
James Douglas had obtained the keys from Gervais Bonpoint, the trusty agent of the Avondales in Paris, who also attended to the foreign concerns of most others of the Scottish nobility. So the four men had taken possession, none saying them nay, and, indeed, in the disordered state of the government, but few being aware of their presence.
Upon an old bedstead hastily covered with plaids, Malise proceeded to make his prisoner comfortable. Then, having washed the wound and carefully examined it by candlelight, he pronounced his verdict:
"The young cheat-the-wuddie will do yet, and live to swing by the lang cord about his craig!"
Which, when interpreted in the vulgar, conveyed at once an expectation of a life to be presently prolonged to the swarthy de Sillé, but after a time to be cut suddenly short by the hangman.
Every day James Douglas and Sholto haunted the precincts of the Hotel de Pornic and made certain that its terrible master had not departed. Malise wished to leave Paris and proceed at once to the de Retz country, there to attempt in succession the marshal's great castles of Machecoul, Tiffauges, and Champtocé, in some one of which he was sure that the stolen maids must be immured.
But James Douglas and Sholto earnestly dissuaded him from the adventure. How did they know (they reminded him) in which to look? They were all fortresses of large extent, well garrisoned, and it was as likely as not that they might spend their whole time fruitlessly upon one, without gaining either knowledge or advantage.
Besides, they argued it was not likely that any harm would befall the maids so long as their captor remained in Paris—that is, none which had not already overtaken them on their journey as prisoners on board the marshal's ships.
So the Hotel de Pornic and its inhabitants remained under the strict espionage of Sholto and Lord James, while up in the garret in the Rue des Ursulines Laurence nursed his brother clerk and Malise sat gloomily polishing and repolishing the weapons and secret armour of the party.
It was the evening of the third day before the "clout"showed signs of healing. Its recipient had been conscious on the second day, but, finding himself a prisoner in the hands of the enemy, he had been naturally enough inclined to be a little sulky and suspicious. But the bright carelessness of Laurence, who dashed at any speech in idiomatic but ungrammatical outlander's French, gradually won upon him. As also the fact that Laurence was clerk-learned and could sing and play upon the viol with surprising skill for one so young.
The prisoner never tired of watching the sunny curls upon the brow of Laurence MacKim, as he wandered about trying the benches, the chairs, and even the floor in a hundred attitudes in search of a comfortable position.
"Ah," the sallow youth said at last, one afternoon as he lay on his pallet, "you should be one of the choristers of my master's chapel. You can sing like an angel!"
"Well," laughed Laurence in reply, "I would be indeed content, if he be a good master, and if in his house it snoweth wherewithal to eat and drink. But tell me what unfortunate may have the masterage of so profitless a servant as yourself?"
"I am the poor gentleman Gilles de Sillé of the household of the Marshal de Retz!" answered the swarthy youth, readily.
"De Silly indeed to bide with such a master!" quoth Laurence, with his usual prompt heedlessness of consequences.
The sallow youth with his bandaged head did not understand the poor jest, but, taking offence at the tone, he instantly reared himself on his elbow and darted a look at Laurence from under brows so lowering and searching that Laurence fell back in mock terror.
"Nay," he cried, shaking at the knees and letting his hands swing ludicrously by his sides, "do not affright a poor clerk! If you look at me like that I will call the cook from yonder eating-stall to protect me with his basting-ladle. I wot if he fetches you one on the other side of your cracked sconce, you will never take service again with the Marshal de Retz."
"What know you of my master?" reiterated Gilles de Sillé, glowering at his mercurial jailer, without heeding his persiflage.
"Why, nothing at all," said Laurence, truthfully, "except that while we stood listening to the singing of the choir within his hotel, a poor woman came crying for her son, whom (so she declared) the marshal had kidnapped. Whereat came forth the guard from within, and thrust her away. Then arrived you and your varlets and got your heads broken for your impudence. That is all I know or want to know of your master."
Gilles de Sillé lay back on his pallet with a sigh, still, however, continuing to watch the lad's countenance.
"You should indeed take service with the marshal. He is the most lavish and generous master alive. He thinks no more of giving a handful of gold pieces to a youth with whom he is taken than of throwing a crust to a beggar at his gate. He owns the finest province in all the west from side to side. He has castles well nigh a dozen, finer and stronger than any in France. He has a college of priests, and the service at his oratory is more nobly intoned than that in the private chapel of the Holy Father himself. When he goes in procession he has a thurifer carried before him by the Pope's special permission. And I tell you, you are just the lad to takehis fancy. That I can see at a glance. I warrant you, Master Laurence, if you will come with me, the marshal will make your fortune."
"Did the other young fellow make his fortune?" said Laurence. Gilles de Sillé glared as if he could have slain him.
"What other?" he growled, truculently.
"Why, the son of the poor woman who cried beneath your kind master's window the night before yestreen'."
The lank swarthy youth ground his teeth.
"'Tis ill speaking against dignities," he replied presently, with a certain sullen pride. "I daresay the young fellow took service with the marshal to escape from home, and is in hiding at Tiffauges, or mayhap Machecoul itself. Or he may well have been listening at some lattice of the Hotel de Pornic itself to the idiot clamour of his mother and of the ignorant rabble of Paris!"
"Your master loves the society of the young?" queried Laurence, mending carefully a string of his viol and keeping the end of the catgut in his mouth as he spoke.
"He doats on all young people," answered Gilles de Sillé, eagerly, the flicker of a smile running about his mouth like wild-fire over a swamp. "Why, when a youth of parts once takes service with my master, he never leaves it for any other, not even the King's!"
Which in its way was a true enough statement.
"Well," quoth Master Laurence, when he had tied his string and finished cocking his viol and twingle-twangling it to his satisfaction, "you speak well. And I am not sure but what I may think of it. I am tired both of working for my father without pay, and of singingpsalms in a monastery to please my lord Abbot. Moreover, in this city of Paris I have to tell every jack with a halbert that I am not the son of the King of England, and then after all as like as not he marches me to the bilboes!"
"Of what nativity are you?" asked de Sillé.
"Och, I'm all of a rank Irelander, and my name is Laurence O'Halloran, at your service," quoth the rogue, without a blush. For among other accomplishments which he had learned at the Abbey of Dulce Cor, was that of lying with the serene countenance of an angel. Indeed, as we have seen, he had the rudiments of the art in him before setting out from the tourneying field at Glenlochar on his way to holy orders.
"Then you will come with me to-morrow?" said Gilles, smiling.
Laurence listened to make sure that neither his father nor Sholto was approaching the garret.
"I will go with you on two conditions," he said: "you shall not mention my purpose to the others, and when we escape, I must put a bandage over your eyes till we are half a dozen streets away."
"Why, done with you—after all you are a right gamesome cock, my Irelander," cried Gilles, whom the conditions pleased even better than Laurence's promise to accompany him.
Then, lending the prisoner his viol wherewith to amuse himself and locking the door, Laurence made an excuse to go to the kitchen, where he laughed low to himself, chuckling in his joy as he deftly handled the saucepans.
"Aha, Master Sholto, you are the captain of the guard and a knight, forsooth, and I am but poor clerk Laurence—as you have ofttimesreminded me. But I will show you a shift worth two of watching outside the door of the marshal's hotel for tidings of the maids. I will go where the marshal goes, and see all he sees. And then, when the time comes, why, I will rescue them single-handed and thereafter make up my mind which of them I shall marry, whether Sholto's sweetheart or the Fair Maid of Galloway herself."
Thus headlong Laurence communed with himself, not knowing what he said nor to what terrible adventure he was committing himself.
But Gilles de Sillé of the house of the Marshal de Retz, being left to himself in the half darkness of the garret, took up the viol and sang a curious air like that with which the charmer wiles his snakes to him, and at the end of every verse, he also laughed low to himself.
But, as fate would have it, it was not in the Hotel de Pornic nor yet in the city of Paris that Laurence O'Halloran was destined to enter the service of the most mighty Marshal de Retz.
Not till three days after his converse with the prisoner did Laurence find an opportunity of escaping from the house in the street of the Ursulines. Sholto and his father meantime kept their watch upon the mansion of the enemy, turn and turn about; but without discovering anything pertinent to their purpose, or giving Laurence a chance to get clear off with Gilles de Sillé. The Lord James had also frequently adventured forth, as he declared, in order to spy out the land, though it is somewhat sad to relate that this espionage conducted itself in regions which gave more opportunities for investigating the peculiar delights of Paris than of discovering the whereabouts of Maud Lindesay and his cousin, the Fair Maid of Galloway.
The head of Gilles de Sillé was still swathed in bandages when, with an additional swaddling of disguise across his eyes, he and Laurence, that truant scion of the house of O'Halloran, stole out into the night. A frosty chill had descended with the darkness, and a pale, dank mist from the marshes of the Seine made the pair shiver as arm in arm they ventured carefully forth.
Laurence was doing a foolish, even a wicked, thing in thus, without warning, deserting his companions. But he was just at the age when it is the habit of youth to deceive themselves with the thought that a shred of good intent covers a world of heedless folly.
The fugitives found the Hotel de Pornic practically deserted. They approached it cautiously from the back, lest they should run into the arms of any of the numerous enemies of its terrible lord, who, though not abhorred in Paris as in most other places which he favoured with his visits, had yet little love spent upon him even there.
The custodian in the stone cell by the gate came yawning out to the bars at the sound of Gilles de Sillé's knocking, and after a growl of disfavour admitted the youth and his companion.
"What, gone—my master gone!" cried Gilles, striking his hand on his thigh with an astounded air, "impossible!"
"It was, indeed, a thing particularly unthoughtful and discourteous of my Lord de Retz, Marshal of France and Chamberlain of the King, to undertake a journey without consulting you," replied the man, who considered irony his strong point, but feebly concealing his pleasure at the favourite's discomfiture; "we all know upon what terms your honourable self is with my lord. But you must not blame him, for he waited whole twenty-four hours for news of you. It was reported that you were set upon by four giants, and that your bones, crushed like a filbert, had been discovered in the horse pond at the back of the Convent of the Virgins of Complaisance."
Gilles de Sillé looked as if he could very well have murdered the speaker on the spot. His favour with hislord was evidently not a thing of repute in his master's household. So much was clear to Laurence, who, for the first time, began to have fears as to his own reception, having such an unpopular person as voucher and introducer.
"If you do not keep a civil tongue in your head, sirrah Labord,"—the youth hissed the words through his clenched teeth,—"I will have your throat cut."
"Ah, I am too old," said the man, boldly; "besides, this is Paris, and I have been twenty years concierge to his Grace the Duke of Orleans. I and my wife have his secrets even as you, most noble Sire de Sillé, possess those of my new master. You, or he either, by God's grace, will think twice before cutting my throat. Moreover, you will be good enough at this point to state your business or get to bed. For I am off to mine. I serve my master, but I am not compelled to spend the night parleying with his lacqueys."
Now the concierges of Paris are very free and independent personages, and their tongues are accustomed to wag freely and to some purpose in their heads.
"Whither has my master gone?" asked de Sillé, curbing his wrath in order to get an answer.
"Hesaidthat he went to Tiffauges. Whether that be true, you have better means of knowing than I."
The swarthy youth turned to Laurence.
"How much money have you, Master O'Halloran? I have spent all of mine, and this city swine will not lend me a single sou for my expenses. We must to the stables and follow the Sieur de Retz forthwith to Brittany."
"I have ten golden angels which the prior of theconvent gave me at my departure," said Laurence, with some pride.
His companion nodded approvingly.
"So much will see us through—that is, with care. Give them here to me," he added after a moment's thought; "I will pay them out with more economy, being of the country through which we pass."
But Laurence, though sufficiently headlong and reckless, had not been born a Scot for naught.
"Wait till there is necessity," he replied cautiously, "and the angels shall not be lacking. Till then they are quite safe with me. For security I carry them in a secret place ill to be gotten at hastily."
Gilles de Sillé turned away with some movement of impatience, yet without saying another word upon the subject.
"To the stables," he said; then turning to the concierge he added, "I suppose we can have horses to ride after my lord?"
"So far as I am concerned," growled Labord, "you can have all the horses you want—and break your necks off each one of them if you will. It will save some good hemp and hangman's hire. Such devil's dogs as you two be bear your dooms ready written on your faces."
And this saying nettled our Laurence, who prided himself no little on an allure blonde and gallant.
But Gilles de Sillé cared no whit for the servitor's sneers, so long as they got horses between their knees and escaped out of Paris that night. In an hour they were ready to start, and Laurence had expended one of his gold angels on the provend for the journey, which his companion and he stored in their saddle-bags.
And in this manner, like an idle lad who for mischief puts body and soul in peril, went forth Laurence MacKim to take up service with the redoubtable Messire Gilles de Laval, Sieur de Retz, High Chamberlain of Charles the Seventh, Marshal of France, and lately companion-in-arms of the martyred Maid of Orleans.
Now, before he went forth from the street of the Ursulines, he had laid a sealed letter on the bed of his brother, which ran thus: "Ha, Sir Sholto MacKim, while you stand about in the rain and shiver under your cloak, I am off to find out the mystery. When I have done all without assistance from the wise Sir Sholto, I will return. But not before. Fare your knightship well."
Laurence and Gilles de Sillé rode out of Paris by the Versailles road, and the latter insisted on silence till they had passed the forest of St. Cyr, which was at that time exceedingly dangerous for horsemen not travelling in large companies. Once they were fairly on the road to Chartres, however, and clear of the valley of the Seine and its tangled boscage of trees, Gilles relaxed sufficiently to break a bottle of wine to the success of their journey and to the new service and duty upon which Laurence was to enter at the end of it.
Having proposed this toast, he handed the bumper first to Laurence, who, barely tasting the excellent Poitevin vintage, handed the leathern bottle back to de Sillé. That sallow youth immediately, without giving his companion a second chance, proceeded to quaff the entire contents of the pigskin.
Then as the stiff brew penetrated downwards, it wasnot long before the favourite of the marshal began to wax full of vanity and swelling words.
"I tell you what it is," he said, "there would be trembling in the heart of a very great man when the nine cravens returned without me. For I am no shaveling ignoramus, but a gentleman of birth; aye, and one who, though poor, is a near cousin of the marshal himself. I warrant the rascals who ran away would smart right soundly for leaving me behind. For Gilles de Sillé is no simpleton. He knows more than is written down in the catechism of Holy Church. None can touch my favour with my lord, no matter what they testify against me. For me I have only to ask and have. That is why I take such pride in bringing you to my Lord of Retz. I know that he will give you a post about his person, and if you are not a simple fool you may go very far. For my master is a friend of the King and, what is better, of Louis the Dauphin. He gat the King back a whole province—a dukedom so they say, from the hands of some Scots fool that had it off his grandfather for deeds done in the ancient wars. And in return the King will protect my master against all his enemies. Do I not speak the truth?"
Laurence hoped that he did, but liked not the veiled hints and insinuations of some surprising secret in the life of the marshal, possessed by his dear cousin and well-beloved servant Gilles de Sillé.
With an ever loosening tongue the favourite went on:
"A great soldier is our master—none greater, not even Dunois himself. Why, he rode into Orleans at the right hand of the Maid. None in all the army was so great with her as he. I tell you, Charles himself likedit not, and that was the beginning of all the bother of talk about my lord—ignorant gabble of the countryside I call it. Lord, if they only knew what I know, then, indeed—but enough. Marshal Gilles is a mighty scholar as well, and hath Henriet the clerk—a weak, bleating ass that will some day blab if my master permit me not to slice his gizzard in time—he hath him up to read aloud Latin by the mile, all out of the books called Suetonius and Tacitus—such high-flavoured tales and full of—well, of things such as my master loves."
So ran Gilles de Sillé on as the miles fled back behind their horses' heels and the towers of Chartres rose grey and solemn through the morning mists before the travellers.