IIIA BUYER OF BLADES
Staupitz and his companions seemed to place implicit confidence in the superior diplomatic powers of their Gascon comrade, and to have been seriously impressed by the gravity of his statement concerning the thrust of Nevers, so death-dealing, so unwardable, so almost magically fatal, for they readily agreed to his proposition. Places were rapidly found for Cocardasse and Passepoil at the table. Æsop returned to his seat and his little sinful book. It was deepening dusk by now, but the hunchback knew his Aretino by heart, and the open page was a pretence. So he mused by the window, and sat nursing his knee moodily. Those at the table seemed busy drinking, and heedless of all things save drink, when the side-door of the room, that led through the kitchen to the yard, opened, and the man they were expecting entered. It was characteristic of the man to make his appearance so slyly, surreptitiously, sidling, and roundabout, where another would have stepped in direct. At the heels of the new-comer tiptoed Martine, swinging, for precaution against the thickening dusk, a dingy lantern whose provision of fish-oil emitted a pitiful light that scarcely bettered the growing blackness. This lantern the girl set upon the head of an empty barrel that stood in a corner, and its fitful, shivering rays, faintly illuminating the murkiness around, was at least strong enough to allow any philosopher among the bravos—and Æsop was in his way a philosopher—to observe and moralize upon the contrast between the appearance of this Monsieur Peyrolles who employed bravos and the bravos that this Monsieur Peyrolles employed.
Monsieur Peyrolles was a tall, thin, middle-aged man of pale complexion. Like Æsop and like Passepoil, he was dressed in black, as became the confidential servant of a master with many confidences; but, unlike the amorous Æsop and unlike the amorous Passepoil—though the two men were amorous after a very different fashion—his garments were of fine quality and fine cut, with much costly lace at his yellow neck, and much costly lace about the wrists of yellow hands that to a casual glance might, in their affected ease, have passed for patrician. Like Passepoil, he carried a sword, and, like Passepoil, he knew how to use it, although, unlike Passepoil, he was really of a timid disposition, and never engaged in any encounter in which he was not certain that his skill was far superior to that of his opponent.
He affected the manners of a fine gentleman, and modelled himself as much as he dared upon the carriage of his master, when his master was not by, and, like the most of such copying apes, he overdid the part. His face was curiously unpleasant, long and yellowish white and inexpressive, with drooping eyelids masking pale, shifty eyes, with a drooping, ungainly nose, and a mouth that seemed like a mistake of nature.
When Martine had placed her lantern to her satisfaction upon its Bacchic pedestal, she slipped from the room as quietly as she had entered it, answering as she went, with a glance of disdain, the passion of admiration that glowed in the eyes and twitched in the fingers of Norman Passepoil. The people that kept that evil Inn, the people that served that evil Inn, always left their sinister customers to themselves to kiss or kill, as best pleased them.
On the entrance of Monsieur Peyrolles the bravos rose and saluted him ceremoniously. If there was any hidden mockery, any latent contempt, any unconscious hate felt by the brave scoundrels for the cowardly scoundrel in their reverence, it was not evident to the new-comer, who took the greetings with offensive condescension, eying the bandits over the lace edges of his kerchief.
Staupitz advanced some few feet to greet him. "Welcome, Monsieur Peyrolles," he said. Then, pointing with an air of introduction to the fantastic, many-colored, huge-hatted, big-booted gang of ruffians ranged about the table, he added, "My children."
In the dim light Peyrolles peered derisively at the different members of the party. "They seem a choice set of ruffians," he observed, with the labored impertinence that seemed to him a copy of his master’s nonchalance.
Staupitz laughed thickly. "No better blades between here and world’s end." He pointed first at his comrades, as if to imply that he spoke allegorically; then he pointed to the row of rapiers dangling against the wall, to prove that he also spoke practically and by the card.
"After all," said Peyrolles, "that is the important matter. I come to tell you how to earn your pay."
By this time Staupitz and the others had resumed their seats and were staring fixedly at Peyrolles, something to that worthy personage’s embarrassment. Staupitz having said his say, dropped into silence, and Cocardasse leaned forward, asserting himself. "We are all attention," he declared; and Passepoil, faithful echo by his side, murmured, "We are all attention," and allowed himself to wonder what had become of Martine, and to regret that business did not permit him to go to look for her.
Peyrolles began to explain. "Wait in the moat to-night at ten o’clock."
Staupitz interrupted him. "Ten o’clock?" he cried. "The devil! it will be pretty dark by ten."
"I think there should be a moon about ten," Æsop observed, quietly, with his exasperating air of all knowledge.
"Yes, yes," Peyrolles went on, sharply, irritated at being stayed in his instructions, "there will be a moon, no doubt, but we do not want too much light for this business. Well, then, wait in the moat at ten. I do not think you will have to wait long. Then, or thenabouts, a cavalier coming by the mountain road will tie his horse to a tree beyond the bridge that spans the ravine. He will cross the bridge and walk to yonder window hard by the postern."
Peyrolles paused as if he had nothing more to say, and took it for granted that his hearers understood his drift. But one of them seemed to desire more explicit information.
"Then," said Cocardasse—"then we are to accost him."
Peyrolles nodded. "Very politely—and earn your money." He turned upon his heel now, for he relished the Inn room little, and its company less, being a fastidious lackey, and made to go, as if the affair were settled.
But Cocardasse arrested him. "Who is the gentleman we accost politely?" he asked, very blandly, but behind this blandness of Cocardasse’s there was something menacing to those that knew him well.
Peyrolles eyed the huge Gascon disdainfully. "That does not concern you," he said, sharply.
But the Gascon was not in the least abashed, and, while he grinned at the would-be great man with an air of veiled insolence that was excessively exasperating to Monsieur Peyrolles, he questioned again: "Who is our employer?"
Again Peyrolles retorted: "That does not concern you."
And again Cocardasse persisted: "It might concern us very much if we chanced to believe that our quarry is Louis de Nevers, and if we got it somehow or other into our heads that our employer is Louis de Gonzague."
As Cocardasse spoke these words, Peyrolles, now thoroughly alarmed and irritated, gave Cocardasse a glance that ought to have withered him, but Cocardasse was not withered, and smiled banteringly at his employer.
"Fellow," Peyrolles said, "you are inquisitive." As he spoke he flapped his kerchief reprovingly at the bravo, whose dilated nostrils greedily drank the delicate odors it discharged, and he again made as if to depart, and again Cocardasse delayed him, still with the same exasperating show of exuberant politeness.
"When it is a matter of our skins," he said, "I think we have a right to be inquisitive, and I think we had better have a little chat, Monsieur Peyrolles."
As he spoke he made a noble flourish of his right arm that was distinctly an invitation to Peyrolles to seat himself in their company, and Passepoil, rising with an air of great urbanity, placed a stool before Peyrolles.
"Pray be seated," he urged, suavely, blinking his pink eyelids and manifesting a deferential fear of the great man that he was very far indeed from feeling.
Peyrolles looked about him half angrily, half frightened. He would have been glad to make his escape from that accursed chamber, but he had astuteness enough to see that there was no escape for him. Cocardasse had somehow or other managed to get between him and the door, and the other ruffians seemed to be entirely in sympathy with the Gascon’s conduct, and to have no regard whatever for Peyrolles’s dignity or feelings.
With a smile that he intended to be amiable, Peyrolles sat down.
"Well," he said, with an air of one that swallows sour wine, "what have you to say to me?"
"Come," said the Gascon, "that is good. Now we can chat at our ease, and it will not take us many seconds to understand each other, I promise you." He turned to Staupitz. "What was the sum offered for our services?" He knew very well, for Staupitz had told him as they huddled together before, while the hand of Peyrolles was upon the latch, but he thought that it made the situation more impressive if he affected ignorance.
Staupitz answered: "Three hundred pistoles."
Now this was a fair market price enough as the tariff went for ambuscades and assassinations of the kind. It meant twenty-five pistoles each to the eight subordinates of the band, and a comfortable hundred pistoles for old Papa Staupitz to pocket as the patron of the enterprise. But Cocardasse held up his hands in well-affected horror and amazement. "Three hundred pistoles!" he echoed; "for ruddling the blades and risking the lives of nine of the finest swordsmen in Europe? Preposterous!—there must be some mistake! We won’t haggle. We must have three thousand pistoles or—good-bye."
At this audacious proposal to raise their blood-wages exactly ten times, the eyes of the bravos glittered avariciously, and they drummed approval on the table with their fists. Cocardasse deprecated this display of interest with a gentle wave of the hand, and, leaning back in his chair, eyed Peyrolles coolly, sure that he plied him with a vise. And Cocardasse was right.
Peyrolles hesitated, but also Peyrolles reflected. It had been his wish to buy his bandits as cheaply as he could, but it was evident that they were better informed about the night’s business than he intended them to be. It was essential that the work must be done that night, and it was also evident that the gentlemen of the sword were quite prepared to take their leaves if their terms were not agreed to. He sighed and said, "You shall have the money."
Cocardasse nodded approvingly. He was enjoying himself immensely in this baiting of the valet of Gonzague, but he allowed no sign of entertainment to ripple over his crimson countenance.
"Good," he said, quietly, "but I take it that you have not got such a sum as three thousand pistoles about you."
Peyrolles shook his head. "I have brought with me the three hundred pistoles that were agreed upon," he said, sourly, with an emphasis upon the closing words of his speech. Cocardasse caught him up promptly.
"Agreed upon in ignorance of the services demanded," he corrected. "Well, good Monsieur Peyrolles, let us have that three hundred pistoles as earnest money for the larger sum."
Somewhat reluctantly Monsieur Peyrolles produced from his doublet a small canvas bag and threw it into the hollow of Cocardasse’s extended palm. It chinked pleasantly as it fell, and Cocardasse weighed it tenderly.
"I will not affront your worthiness," he said, "by affecting to doubt the contents of this little bag, and putting it to the scrutiny of a count. I will take your word for the tale."
As he spoke he tossed the bag over to Staupitz, who caught it dexterously and put it in his pocket. On this Peyrolles made to rise, and again found that the hand of Passepoil, obedient to a glance from Cocardasse, descended upon his shoulder and nailed him to his place.
"Wait," said Cocardasse, amiably, "we must have some surety for the lave of the money."
"Is not my word enough?" Peyrolles asked, with an ineffective air of dignity. Cocardasse smiled very sweetly.
"The best of us may have a bad memory," he said, and sighed over the frailties of humanity. He turned to his nominal leader. "Papa Staupitz," he said, "will you not see if a pen and ink be available?"
Staupitz rose while Peyrolles glowered, and going to the door that led to the kitchen, summoned Martine. Martine, heedless of the adoring homage renewed in Passepoil’s eyes, went to a cupboard in the wall and extracted from its depths a dingy ink-horn and a stubby quill, together with a page of fairly clean paper torn from the back of an old account-book. Setting these on the table, she departed as quietly as she came, wholly indifferent to the languishing glances of the Norman. Cocardasse waved a space for Peyrolles at the table.
"Be so good," he said, with a quiet insistence, "as to write a formal promise to pay Papa Staupitz two thousand seven hundred pistoles to-morrow. Date it carefully, and sign it with your excellent and honorable name, my dear Monsieur Peyrolles."
Peyrolles frowned, but there was no help for it; so he rose to his feet, untroubled this time by the restraining fingers of Passepoil, and, going to the table, wrote the demanded document, with every appearance of repugnance at the task and its conditions, for the pen was vile, the ink viler, and the paper vilest. When he had finished, Cocardasse took it from him and scanned it carefully.
"That is all right," he said, and placed the still wet writing on the table in front of Staupitz. Peyrolles made as if to move towards the door, but again Passepoil, who was watching intently the face of Cocardasse, read a meaning there, and, pouncing upon Peyrolles, persuaded him firmly back into the seat he had quitted.
"That is not all," said Cocardasse to the astonished and angry valet. "This night’s work is a big night’s work, and not to be paid for over the counter and done with. We want the money first, but afterwards we want the protection and favor of Louis de Gonzague."
Peyrolles frowned and made a vehement effort to assert his authority.
"You talk very freely and loosely of great names," he said, with as much sharpness as he could muster in the presence of that ring of rascality. "You should know very well, if you know anything at all about the scandals of grandees, that Monseigneur the Marquis of Caylus has every reason to dislike Monseigneur the Duke of Nevers, and to wish him out of the way."
Cocardasse laid a whimsical finger to the side of his jolly, tropical nose and grinned impishly.
"We know what we know, Monsieur Peyrolles," he said, urbanely. "If it were merely necessary to kill the Duke of Nevers to gratify the hate of any private enemy, one place would do as well as another, and we might take him any time on his way here, instead of waiting till the precise moment when he enters the moat of Caylus. But you wish us to wait for that precise moment because you, and your master, wish it to seem patent to all the world that the deed was done by the Marquis of Caylus on his own ground, to defend his own honor. Once again, we demand hereafter the favor and protection of his highness the Prince of Gonzague."
This time Peyrolles needed no pause for reflection. So much was wise to promise to men who could draw conclusions so dexterously. "You shall have it," he said, and rose from his seat, this time unrestrained by the Norman’s pressure. "There is my hand on it," he added.
Cocardasse appeared not to perceive the extended hand as he slapped the hilt of his sword. "Here is my rapier, which answers for me."
Peyrolles smiled sourly. "You had better place a sentinel in the moat," he said, addressing Staupitz. "He can give the signal when the mouse walks into the trap. Till then let the others keep in the background so as to cut off our gentleman’s retreat."
Staupitz nodded sulkily. He had always held Monsieur Peyrolles in considerable respect, a respect that had been greatly shaken by Cocardasse’s audacious and insolent treatment of the satellite of Gonzague. Now the bravo seemed ready to resent receiving an order from his employer’s go-between. Peyrolles prudently took no notice of his sullenness. "Good-evening, gentlemen," he said, and walked towards the door. As he reached it, he turned again and spoke significantly: "Remember—if you fail, no pay."
Cocardasse grinned impudently at him. "Sleep in peace, Monsieur Peyrolles." Peyrolles made a wry face and went out.
As soon as he had gone the bravos gathered about Cocardasse and patted him enthusiastically on the back. Only Æsop remained in his corner, apparently indifferent to the whole proceedings.
"Well done, comrade," cried Passepoil, wringing the hand of his brother-in-arms; and the others, whose pay had been so notably increased by the diplomacy of Cocardasse, were equally as effusive in their expressions of gratitude.
Cocardasse met their applause with an impressive monosyllable. "Wine," he said to Martine, who had peeped in to see if her services were needed, and in a twinkling the pannikins were filled again and lifted to eight thirsty mouths, and set down again empty of their contents. The first business was to share the contents of Monsieur Peyrolles’s bag, which Staupitz duly divided according to the original understanding, giving each man twenty-five pistoles, and keeping the remainder for himself. By this time the ink on the promissory note was dry, and Staupitz folded it up carefully and put it in his pocket.
After this for another half-hour the talk was all about the young Duke de Nevers and his secret thrust, and the woman he loved, and the Prince de Gonzague, his friend, who meant to kill him. Here, as before, Æsop dominated the party by his superior knowledge of all the individuals in the little tragedy in which they were invited to play subordinate parts. He told them of the life feud between the family of Caylus and the family of Nevers, a feud as bitter as that of the Capulets and Montagues of old time. He told them of Gonzague’s passions, Gonzague’s poverty. He told them all about Monsieur Peyrolles, Gonzague’s discreet and infamous factotum. He told them, also, being as it seemed a very gold-mine of court scandals, much of the third Louis, the august friend of Louis of Nevers and Louis of Gonzague, the third Louis who was the king of France.
The bravos hung upon his words. In many ways they were simple folk, and, like all simple folk, they loved to be told stories, and Æsop prided himself upon being something of a man of letters, a philosopher, and an historian. It was, therefore, no small annoyance to narrator and audience when the narrative was interrupted, as it was nearing its conclusion, by the opening of the Inn door. Every face expressed astonishment as it was pushed sufficiently apart to admit the entry of a slender and graceful boy in the rich habit of a page. The boy came a little way into the room, looking cautiously about him. He acted as if at first he took the room in its dimness to be unoccupied, and he seemed to be somewhat disconcerted at discovering that it contained so many occupants. He stood still while his bright eyes ran rapidly, and indeed fearfully, over the somewhat alarming features of the guests. Failing, apparently, to find among them the person, whoever it was, whom he had come there to seek, he turned to leave as quietly as he had entered, but his egress was barred by Æsop, who had slipped between him and the door, and who now questioned him, with a grin of malignant intelligence on his face.
"Whom are you looking for, pygmy?"
The page put a bold face on it and answered with a bold voice: "I have a letter for a gentleman."
Æsop pointed to the group at the table. "We are all gentlemen. Let’s have a look at your letter." Then he added to his companions: "It may be useful. The imp wears the livery of Nevers."
Instantly the others approved by signs and grunts of Æsop’s action, and the page, now really alarmed, made a desperate effort to escape. "Let me pass!" he cried, and tried to rush under Æsop’s arm. But Æsop caught the boy in an iron grip, and, though the courageous page drew a dagger and tried to stab his assailant, he was disarmed in a second and seized by the others, who sprang from the table and clustered about him, fierce birds of prey about a helpless quarry. The lad cried for help, hopelessly enough. Strong, dirty fingers were tearing open his jerkin and fumbling for the concealed letter, when suddenly it seemed to the astonished swordsmen that an earthquake and a whirlwind had combined for their undoing. Æsop rolled to one end of the room, Staupitz to another; Cocardasse and Passepoil, Saldagno, Pepe, Pinto, Faenza, and Joel were scattered like sparrows, and the little page found himself liberated and crouching at the feet of a man who was standing with folded arms surveying the discomfited bravos mockingly.
IVTHE LITTLE PARISIAN
The new-comer was a young man of little over one-and-twenty, of medium height, but with a well-built, well-knit figure that gave a promise of extraordinary strength and power of endurance, coupled at the same time with a scarcely less extraordinary suppleness. He had a face that was certainly handsome, though many handsomer faces were familiar in Paris at that day, but none more gallant, and, indeed, its chief charm was its almost audacious air of self-reliance, of unfailing courage, of changeless composure, and unconquerable humor. The eyes were bright and laughing. Even now, although the man was undoubtedly angry, his eyes still smiled in unison with his lips. His dark hair fell gracefully about his shoulders. He wore a somewhat faded white coat, girdled with a crimson sash—the white coat of a captain in the king’s Light-Horse—and, though he carried himself with an easy dignity, the general condition of his dress showed he was one who was neither afraid of nor unfamiliar with poverty. Now he looked around him with a bright defiance, seemingly diverted by the havoc his single pair of arms and legs—for he had used both limbs in the brawl—had wrought among nine swashbucklers, and apparently prepared at any moment to repeat the performance, if occasion called for action.
It was curious to observe that, though the new-comer had worked such confusion among the bravos whom he had taken so roughly unawares, he did not show any sign of having passed through a scuffle with a number of men or having accomplished anything especially arduous in bringing them so swiftly to discomfiture. His breathing was not quickened, his comely young face was unflushed. As he stood there lightly poised in an easy attitude that might at any moment be resolved into an attitude of defence, he seemed, to such of his spectators as had sufficiently recovered their senses to look at him coolly, rather to resemble one that had come in on the heels of a tuss and was watching its result with unconcerned eyes than one that with no more assistance than his own agile limbs had been the cause of humiliation to so many powerful adversaries. Staupitz, blinking fiercely as he rubbed his aching head, which had rattled sharply against the table that arrested his flight across the room, was too bewildered to swear out the oaths that were frothing within him when he realized that the earthquake, the whirlwind, the cataclysm that had tumbled him and his companions about like so many nine-pins was no other and no more than the slim and pleasant young gentleman who stood there so composedly. While the bewildered ruffians were picking themselves up, and with some little difficulty recovering their breath, the young gentleman addressed them mockingly: "Are there quite enough of you to manage this adversary?" And as he spoke he pointed to the little page who was huddled at his feet.
Æsop was the first of the bravos to recover his troubled senses and to seek to retaliate upon his assailant. He whipped his long rapier from its sheath, and was making for the intruder when Cocardasse flung his strong arms around the hunchback and restrained him. "Be easy," he cried; "it is the little Parisian!" And at the same moment Passepoil, with the gesture of one who salutes in a fencing-school, exclaimed the name "Lagardere."
As for the other ruffians, they gathered together sulkily enough about the table, staring at the stranger. His face was familiar to all of them, and there was not one among them bold enough to follow the example of Æsop. Lagardere, who had taken no notice of the threatened attack of the hunchback, surveyed the group, and, glancing from them, addressed himself to Cocardasse and Passepoil.
"Why, my old masters," he asked, drolling them, "what are you doing in this desperate adventure? You ought to be careful. The boy might have hurt you." His eyes turned from the Gascon and the Norman back again to the fellows at the table. "Some of these scarecrows seem familiar." His glance rested on Staupitz, and he questioned him: "Where have we met?"
Staupitz saluted Lagardere very respectfully as he answered: "At Lyons."
Lagardere seemed to search his memory and to find what he sought. "True. You touched me once."
Staupitz made an apologetic gesture. "Only once in twelve times."
Lagardere turned to Saldagno, Pepe, and Pinto. "Ah, my bandits of Madrid, who tried me, three to one."
Saldagno was more apologetic than Staupitz, with a Latin profusion of gesture, as he explained: "That was for a wager, captain."
Lagardere shrugged his shoulders. "Which you did not win." He turned to Joel de Jurgan. "Does your head still carry my cut?"
The Breton lifted a large hand to his bullet head and fumbled through the thick hair for a familiar spot. "There is a scar," he admitted.
Lagardere turned to the Italian. "Do you still," he asked, "hold the Italian school to be superior to the French?"
Faenza shook his head. "Not when you practise the French method," he answered, politely.
There was a little pause, and then Æsop, who had by this time been released from the embrace of Cocardasse, and had sheathed his sword, came forward and faced Lagardere. "I desire acquaintanceship, Captain Lagardere. Men call me Æsop."
Lagardere gazed at the hunchback, and a look of displeasure banished the mirth from his eyes. "I have heard of you," he said, curtly. "A good sword and a bad heart. I don’t like the blend. You may go to the devil."
He turned away from Æsop and bent over the lad, who still crouched at his feet. "Now, lad, you must promise not to hurt these gentlemen, for some of them are friends of mine."
While the bravos tried not to appear annoyed by Lagardere’s banter, which, indeed, in its simplicity vexed their simple natures greatly, the page rose to his feet and whispered softly to his rescuer, "I have a letter for you from the Duke de Nevers."
Lagardere extended his hand. "Give it," he said.
The page produced the letter, of which Æsop had been so anxious to gain possession, and handed it to Lagardere, whispering as he did so, "Save me from these ogres. I carry another letter to a lady."
Lagardere smiled. "To Gabrielle de Caylus, I’ll swear," he murmured in a low voice which was calculated only to reach the page’s ears. Then he turned again to the swordsmen. "Sirs, this lad, more fastidious than I, dislikes your society. Pray respect his prejudices." He pushed the page gently towards the main door. "Hop, skip, jump!"
In a moment the page had glided out of the room. Æsop made a movement as if he were inclined to follow, but any such intention was frustrated by Lagardere, who shut the door after the boy and stood with his back towards it. "Stay where you are, gentlemen," he said, and there was something so persuasive in the way in which he said it that the gentlemen stayed where they were. Then Lagardere, as if he had almost forgotten their presence, slowly walking down the room till he paused in the middle, opened the letter and began to read it. As he seemed absorbed by its contents, Staupitz on the one side and Æsop on the other came cautiously towards him with the intention of reading the letter over his shoulder, but Lagardere’s seeming forgetfulness of their presence instantly changed. He looked up sharply, glancing right and left, and Æsop and Staupitz fell back in confusion, while Lagardere spoke to them, mocking them: "You will dub me eccentric; you will nickname me whimsical; you will damn me for a finicking stickler, and all because I am such an old-fashioned rascal as to wish to keep my correspondence to myself. There, there, don’t be crestfallen. This letter makes me so merry that you shall share its treasure. But, first, fill and drink with me, a noble toast."
To suggest drinking was to forge a link between the bravos and the man who down-faced them so masterfully. The big jug seemed to jump from hand to hand, every mug was full in a twinkling, and every face was fixed steadfastly on Lagardere, waiting for his words. Lagardere lifted his brimming beaker with a voice of joyous mockery that carried at once defiance and respect to a distant man. "The health of Louis of Nevers!" he said, and drained his green wine as cheerfully as if it had been the elixir of the gods.
At his words blank astonishment spread over the faces of the Gascon and the Norman. "He said ’Nevers,’" Cocardasse whispered to Passepoil, and Passepoil whispered back, "He did." As for the other bravos, they had been as much surprised as Cocardasse and Passepoil by Lagardere’s request, but they managed to conceal their surprise by lifting their mugs, and now as they nodded and winked to one another, they tilted their vessels and drank, shouting, "The health of Louis de Nevers!"
Cocardasse came nearer to Lagardere, and said in a voice that was almost a whisper, "Why do you drink the health of Louis de Nevers?"
Lagardere looked for a moment annoyed at the presumption of Cocardasse in questioning him, then the annoyance gave place to his familiar air of tolerant amusement. "I don’t love questions, but you have a kind of right to query." He turned to the others. "You must know, sirs, that this pair of rapiers were my fairy godfathers in the noble art of fence."
The Norman looked at Lagardere with a very loving expression. "You were a sad little rag of humanity when first you came to our fencing-academy."
"You are right there," said Lagardere. "I was the poorest, hungriest scrap of mankind in all Paris. I had neither kin nor friends nor pence, nothing but a stout heart and a sense of humor. That is why I came to your academy, old rogues."
Cocardasse was reminiscent. "Faith, you looked droll enough, with your pale face and your shabby clothes. ’I want to be a soldier,’ says you; ’I want to use the sword.’"
Lagardere nodded. "That was my stubborn law. The world laughed at me, but I laughed at the world, and I won my wish."
"Just think of it!" said Cocardasse. "Henri de Lagardere, a gentleman born, without a decent relative, without a decent friend, without a penny, making his livelihood as a strolling player in the booth of a mountebank."
While Cocardasse was speaking, Lagardere seemed to listen like a man in a dream. He forgot for the moment the reeking Inn room where he stood, the beastly visages that surrounded him, the whimsy that had drifted him thither. All these things were forgotten, and the man that was little more than a boy in years was in fancy altogether a boy again, a shivering, quivering slip of a boy that stood on the gusty high-road and knuckled his eyelids to keep his eyes from crying. How long ago it seemed, that time twelve years ago when a mutinous urchin fled from a truculent uncle to seek his fortune as Heaven might please to guide! Heaven guided an itinerant mime and mountebank that tramped France with his doxy to a wet hedge-side where a famished, foot-sore scrap of a lad lay like a tired dog, trying not to sob. The mountebank was curious, the mountebank’s doxy was kind; both applauded lustily the boy’s resolve to march to Paris, cost what it might cost, and make his fortune there. The end of the curiosity and the kindness and the applause was that the little Lagardere found himself at once the apprentice and the adopted son of the mountebank, with his fortune as far off as the stars. But he learned many things, the little Lagardere, under the care of that same mountebank; all that the mountebank could teach him he learned, and he invented for himself tricks that were beyond the mountebank’s skill. How long ago it seemed! Would ever space of time seem so long again? So the young man mused swiftly, while Cocardasse told his tale; but ere Cocardasse had finished, Lagardere was back in the tavern again, and, when Cocardasse had finished, Lagardere caught him up: "Why not? Some actors are as honest as bandits. I was no bad mummer, sirs. I could counterfeit any one of you now so that your mother wouldn’t know the cheat. And my master made me an athlete, too; taught me every trick of wrestling and tumbling and juggling with the muscles. That is why I was able to tumble you about so pleasantly just now. I should have been a mountebank to this day but for an accident."
Passepoil was curious. "What accident?" he asked.
Lagardere answered him: "A brawl over a wench with a bully. I challenged him, though I was more at home with a toasting-fork than a sword. I caught up an unfamiliar weapon, but he nicked the steel from my hand at a pass and banged me with the flat of his blade. The girl laughed. The bully grinned. I swore to learn swordcraft."
"And you did," said Passepoil. "In six months you were our best pupil."
Cocardasse continued: "In twelve you were our master."
Passepoil questioned again: "What became of your bully?"
Lagardere was laconic: "We had a chat afterwards. I attended his funeral."
Cocardasse clapped his hands. "Well begun, little Parisian."
Passepoil pointed admiringly at Lagardere. "Look at you now, a captain in the king’s guard."
Lagardere laughed cheerfully. "Look if you like, but I am no such thing. I am cashiered, exiled from Paris."
"Why?" asked Cocardasse, and Lagardere replied with a question: "Do you remember the Baron de Brissac?"
Cocardasse nodded. "One of the best swords in Paris."
Lagardere resumed: "Well, the late baron—"
Passepoil interrupted: "The late baron?"
Lagardere explained: "Brissac had a lewd tongue and smirched a woman. So I pulled his ears."
Cocardasse grinned. "The devil you did!"
"Yes," said Lagardere, "they were very long and tempting. We resumed the argument elsewhere. It was brief. Good-bye, Brissac! But as the good king, thanks to the good cardinal, now frowns upon duelling, I am exiled when I ought to be rewarded."
Cocardasse sighed. "There is no encouragement for virtue nowadays."
Lagardere’s voice was as cheerful as if there were no such thing in the world as exile. "Well, there I was at my wit’s end, and my nimble wits found work for me. ’If I must leave France,’ I said, ’I will go to Spain, where the spirit of chivalry still reigns.’ So I raised a regiment of adventurers like myself—broken gentlemen, ruined spendthrifts, poor devils out at elbow, gallant soldiers of fortune one and all. They wait for me a mile from here. We shall find work to do in Spain or elsewhere. The world is wide, and it has always work for good swords to do."
Cocardasse looked at him admiringly. "Your sword will never rust for want of use," he said, with approval.
Lagardere answered him, briskly: "Why should it? ’Tis the best friend in the world. What woman’s eye ever shone as brightly as its blade, what woman’s tongue ever discoursed such sweet music?"
Cocardasse took off his hat and swung it. "Hurrah for the sword!" he shouted.
Lagardere’s glance applauded his enthusiasm. "Iron was God’s best gift to man, and he God’s good servant who hammered it into shape and gave it point and edge. I shall never be happy until I am master of it."
Æsop joined the conversation mockingly. "I thought you were master of it," he said, with an obvious sneer.
Cocardasse and Passepoil looked horrified at the hunchback’s impertinence, but Lagardere did not seem to be vexed, and answered, quite amiably: "So did I till lately." Then he said, addressing himself generally to the company: "Have any of you ever heard of the thrust of Nevers?"
A tremor of excitement ran through his audience. Cocardasse took up the talk: "We spoke of it but now."
"Well," said Lagardere, "what do you think of it?"
Æsop, the irrepressible, thrust in his opinion. "Never was secret thrust invented that cannot be parried."
Lagardere looked at him somewhat contemptuously. "So I thought till I crossed swords with Nevers. Now I think differently."
Cocardasse whistled. "The devil you do," he commented.
"I will tell you all about it," said Lagardere. "It happened three months ago. That secret thrust piqued me. Then people talked too much about Nevers; that irritated me. Wherever I went, from court to camp, from tavern to palace, the name of Nevers was dinned in my ears. The barber dressed your hair à la Nevers. The tailor cut your coat à la Nevers. Fops carried canes à la Nevers; ladies scented themselves à la Nevers. One day at the inn they served me cutlets à la Nevers. I flung the damned dish out of the window. On the doorstep I met my boot-maker, who offered to sell me a pair of boots à la Nevers. I cuffed the rascal and flung him ten louis as a salve. But the knave only said to me: ’Monsieur de Nevers beat me once, but he gave me a hundred pistoles.’"
Passepoil sighed for the sorrows of his young pupil: "Poor little Parisian!"
Lagardere went on with his tale: "Now I am vainglorious enough to hold that cutlets would taste good if they were cooked à la Lagardere; that coats à la Lagardere would make good wearing, and boots à la Lagardere good walking. I came to the conclusion that Paris was not big enough for the pair of us, and that Nevers was the man to quit the field. Like Æsop yonder, I laughed at the secret thrust."
He paused, and Cocardasse questioned: "But you don’t laugh now?"
Lagardere answered him, gravely: "Not a laugh. I waited for Nevers one evening outside the Louvre and saluted him. ’Sir,’ I said, in my grandest manner, ’I rely upon your courtesy to give me a moonlight lesson in your secret thrust.’ Lord, how he started. ’Who the devil are you?’ says he. I made him a magnificent bow. ’I am Henri de Lagardere, of the king’s Light-Horse. I am always in trouble, always in debt, always in love. These are misfortunes a man can endure. But I am always hearing of your merits, which is fretting, and of your irresistible secret thrust, and that is unbearable.’"
Lagardere paused to give dramatic effect to the point in his narrative.
"What did he say to that?" asked Passepoil.
Lagardere went on: "’Ah,’ said the duke, ’you are the fellow they call handsome Lagardere’" (Lagardere interrupted the flow of his story with a pathetic parenthesis—"I can’t help it, they do call me so"); "’people talk too much about you, and that wearies me’; which shows that he had a touch of my complaint. Well, he was civility itself. We went down by the church of St.-Germain, and had scarcely crossed swords when the point of his rapier pricked me here, just between the eyes. I was touched—I, Lagardere—and if I had not leaped backward I should have been a dead man. ’That is my secret thrust,’ says the duke with a smile, and wished me good-evening."
VTHE PARRY TO THE THRUST OF NEVERS
There was a heavy stillness in the room when Lagardere came to the end of his tale. "This sounds serious," Cocardasse said, gloomily, and those about him were gloomily silent.
Lagardere resumed his story: "I pondered that thrust for a month. At last I mastered it. I tried it on the Baron de Brissac with perfect success."
A general laugh at this remark relieved the tension of the bravos’ nerves. Æsop took advantage of the more cheerful atmosphere again to address Lagardere. "Matchless cavalier," he asked, with a wry assumption of politeness, "would you show me that thrust you esteem so highly?"
Lagardere looked at the speaker with a whimsical smile. "With pleasure," he said, and drew his sword. Æsop did likewise, and while the bravos drew back towards the wall to allow a free space for the lesson the two swordsmen came on guard. Lagardere explained while he fenced, naming each feint and lunge and circle of the complicated attack as he made it. With the last word of his steel-illuminated lecture his sword, that had illustrated the words of the fencer, seemed suddenly to leap forward, a glittering streak of light.
Æsop leaped back with a yell, and clapped his left hand to his forehead. "Damnation!" he cried.
Cocardasse, who had been following the proceedings with the keenest attention, hurried out of the circle of spectators. "Splendid!" he cried. "What is the parry?"
"It is as clear as day," Lagardere answered. "This is how the trick is done," and again, as he spoke, his blade explained his text, gleaming and twisting in the cunning evolutions of the riposte.
Cocardasse, who had drawn his own sword, repeated Lagardere’s words and parodied Lagardere’s gestures faithfully. "I see," he said, and turned to the others, who had lost nothing of the lesson. "Have you caught it, boys? It might serve—"
Lagardere interrupted him, indifferent to the evil appreciation on the faces of the spectators. "It will serve at once. I am going to try it on its master."
"On Nevers?" queried Staupitz, hoarsely.
Lagardere nodded. "On no less a man. I should have told you that I plagued him until he promised me my revenge. When I was exiled I wrote to remind him." Lagardere drew a letter from his breast and held it up for a moment before returning it to its lodging. "In this letter he accepts my challenge, names the time, the place—"
Cocardasse interrupted: "What time?"
"To-night at ten," Lagardere replied.
"The place?" asked Passepoil.
"The moat of Caylus," Lagardere answered. He pointed to the window at which Æsop had been sitting so long. "You can see it from that window."
There was a general look of astonishment on the faces of all the bravos. Passepoil, quick with his Norman caution, glanced at Staupitz and the group about him, and put his finger cautiously to his lips.
Cocardasse was still inquisitive. "Why there?" he questioned.
Lagardere explained, amiably: "Because such is the good duke’s pleasure. When I sent him my cartel I made it plain that I had little time on my hands, as I was anxious, on account of the king’s fire-new zeal against duelling, to cross the frontier as speedily as might be. I knew the duke was staying on his estates near by, and I suggested, with a fine show of gravity, that possibly his highness was acquainted with some quiet place in the neighborhood of the Castle of Caylus where we might settle our little difference. Oh, the words were solemnly couched, but I swear to you that I laughed heartily when I wrote them."
Lagardere laughed again in memory of that former mirth as he made an end of speaking. Cocardasse scratched an ear and glanced at Passepoil. Passepoil scratched an ear and glanced at Cocardasse. The rest of the bravos stared with a sullen curiosity at Lagardere, who paid no heed to their gaze.
"Why did you laugh?" Cocardasse asked, after a short pause.
Lagardere answered him affably: "Because I knew that my allusion to Caylus would fret my excellent enemy. There is, it seems, a beauty hidden in that gloomy castle, Gabrielle de Caylus, whom my duke adores in spite of the ancient feud between the two houses of Caylus and Nevers. It should please him to fight under the eyes of his lady love, whom I can console if I win."
The idea seemed to please Lagardere, for he again began to laugh softly to himself after he had finished speaking. But Cocardasse did not seem to think it was a laughing matter, for his voice was almost solemn as he asked: "Did you speak of the lady in your letter to Nevers?"
Lagardere interrupted his mirth to reply: "Of course. The situation is so humorous. I suggested playfully that there was a lovely princess imprisoned in the castle of a wicked old ogre named Caylus, and I hinted that if things turned out as I hoped, I might be fortunate enough to carry solace and freedom to the captive damsel." He paused for a moment and then asked in wonder: "Why do you pull such long faces?"
For, indeed, the faces of the swashbucklers were almost funereal in their solemnity. Passepoil, relying upon his Norman cunning, took it upon himself to explain a ticklish situation. "It is lucky we are here to help you," he said, knowingly.
Lagardere’s laughter became more pronounced. "To help me?" he cried, and he shook with amusement at the absurdity of the words.
Passepoil insisted: "It’s no laughing matter. Nevers is the lady’s husband."
He spoke with a portentous solemnity against which Lagardere protested, laughing louder than before. "On the contrary, it is more laughable than ever. A secret marriage. A romance. Perhaps I shall have to soothe a widow when I hoped to woo a maid."
"Better have a sword or two to back you," Cocardasse suggested, cunningly.
Lagardere frowned. "No, thank you. I do my own fighting."
Passepoil whispered, insinuatingly: "Could I help to carry off the lady?"
Lagardere’s frown deepened. "No, thank you. I do my own love-making. Clear out and leave me alone. That is all I want of you, my friends."
Cocardasse sighed. "I’d do anything in the world to oblige you, but—" He paused and looked helplessly at his former pupil, whom his faltering speech, his hesitating manner began to anger.
"But what?" said Lagardere, sharply.
Cocardasse made an apologetic gesture. "Every man to his trade. We also are waiting for some one."
Lagardere raised his eyebrows. "Indeed, and that some one?"
The bravos looked at one another uneasily, trying to seem devil-may-care and failing wofully. Nobody appeared to want to speak. At last Passepoil spoke. "That some one is Louis de Nevers," he said, and wished heartily that he did not have to say it.
Lagardere at first appeared to be puzzled by the answer. Then the full meaning of it seemed to fall upon him like a blow, and his face blazed at the insult. "Nevers! You! Ah, this is an ambuscade, and I have sat at drink with assassins!"
Cocardasse protested: "Come, captain, come."
Lagardere’s only answer was to spring back clear of the nearest swordsmen and to draw his sword again. The bravos gathered together angrily about Staupitz, buzzing like irritated bees.
Lagardere flung his comely head back, and his bright eyes flamed with a royal rage. His words came quick and clear in his anger: "It was for this you sought to learn Nevers’s thrust, and I—Oh, it would make the gods laugh to think that I taught it to you! You have the best of the joke so far, excellent assassins, but if any one of you touches a hair of Nevers’s head he will find that the joke is two-edged, like my sword. If Nevers must die, it shall be in honorable battle and by my hands, but not by yours, while Lagardere lives."
Æsop commented, sneeringly: "Lagardere is not immortal."
Staupitz grunted, angrily: "Shall one man dictate to nine?" and made an appealing gesture to his comrades, inciting them against their censor.
Lagardere faced their menaces with the contemptuous indifference with which a mastiff might have faced as many rats. He commanded, imperiously: "Pack off, the whole gang of you, and leave Nevers to me!"
The bravos still buzzed and grumbled: Cocardasse rubbed his chin thoughtfully; Passepoil pinched his long nose. The situation was becoming critical. Lagardere was Lagardere, but he was only one man, after all, in a narrow room, against great odds. Truly, the odds would be diminished if the quarrel came to actual blows, for Cocardasse was resolved, and he knew that Passepoil was resolved also, to side with Lagardere in such an emergency. But even with the situation thus altered the result could only be unnecessary bloodshed, which would be bad, for, if Lagardere was their dear Little Parisian, the others were also their comrades. Further, it would mean the postponing, probably the abandonment, of their enterprise against Nevers, which would be much worse. Cocardasse plucked the Norman to him with a strong finger and thumb, and whispered in his ear: "Get the boys away and shift the keys."
Passepoil nodded, and glided discreetly among the bravos huddled together at the table, whispering the words of Cocardasse in the ears of each.
Lagardere frowned at this mystery. "What are you whispering?" he asked, angrily.
Cocardasse explained, plausibly. "Only that if you wanted to keep Nevers to yourself—"
Passepoil interrupted, concluding: "It mattered little who did the job."
By this time the bravos, who at the beginning of the quarrel had unhooked their rapiers from the wall, were now pulling their cloaks about them and making for the main door. The Italian, the Breton, the Spaniard, the Biscayan, and the Portuguese filed out into the passage, followed by Æsop, who turned to pay Lagardere a mocking salutation and to say, tauntingly: "So good-night, gallant captain."
Staupitz, with an air of surly carelessness, sauntered down to the only other door in the room, the door that led to the domestic offices of the Inn. While he did so, Cocardasse held out his hand to Lagardere in sign of amity, but Lagardere refused it. "I am no precisian," he said. "I have kept vile company. I would not deny my hand to a hang-man. But the most tolerant philosopher has his dislikes, and mine are assassins."
Cocardasse sighed, and made for the main door, followed by Passepoil, who said, wistfully, "Adieu, Little Parisian," a greeting of which Lagardere took no notice.
Now, while Æsop had been saying his taunting farewell to Lagardere he had been standing with his back to the door, and with his left hand had dexterously abstracted the key. Also, while Cocardasse had been endeavoring to gain a clasp of the hand from Lagardere, Staupitz had quietly locked the door leading to the kitchen and put that key in his pocket. Now Staupitz, Cocardasse, and Passepoil went in their turn through the main door and drew it behind them.
Lagardere seated himself at the table with a sigh of relief as he heard the heavy feet trampling down the passage, but his relief did not last long. His quick ears caught a sound that was undoubtedly the click of a key in a lock, followed by the shuffle of cautiously retiring feet. He instantly sprang to his feet, and, rushing to the main door, caught at the handle and found the door firmly locked.
"Damn them!" he cried; "they have locked the door." Then he began to shout, furiously, calling first upon Cocardasse, and then upon Passepoil by name to open the door immediately, knowing these two to be his friends among the gang of rascals. But no answer came to his cries, and, vigorous though he was, his efforts had no effect upon the solid strength of the door. Turning, he hurried to the door which led to the kitchen and tried that, only to find that it, too, was locked against him, and that it, too, was impregnable. He looked about him hurriedly. He knew it was no use calling for the people of the Inn, who would be sure to side with their truculent customers, and he knew also that, if he did not succeed in making his escape from the trap into which he had blundered, Nevers would be murdered.
He rushed to the window and looked out. The sight was not pleasing. The rugged rock on which the Inn was perched dropped beneath him thirty feet to the moat below, and, though his eyes eagerly scanned the face of the cliff, he could see no possibility, even for one so nimble as himself, of climbing down it successfully. To jump such a height would be to end as a jelly and be of no service to Nevers. For a few wild moments he cursed his folly in having been deluded by the bravos, and then his native high spirits and his native humor came to his assistance, reminding him that he always made it his business to look upon the diverting side of life, and that it was now clearly his duty to seek for the entertaining elements of the present predicament. Undoubtedly, these were hard to find. The jest was decidedly a bitter one, and could only be turned to his taste if he succeeded in getting out. But how was he to succeed? He tried the door again, despairingly and unsuccessfully as before. He reflected that perhaps there might be a rope in the room, and anxiously he looked in every corner. No rope was to be found.
Clapping his hands to his sides in his vexation at being thus baffled, he touched the soft substance of his silken sash, and instantly an idea kindled at the touch. "Perhaps this will do," he thought, and hurriedly proceeded to unwind it. It was a long sash, for it went from his shoulder to his waist and then three times round his middle, where it was tied in a large bow with long ends. It was at least fifteen feet long, and as tough as any hemp that was ever twisted. He fastened one end of it quickly round a bar in the window, and let the long crimson streamer drop down the side of the cliff. Using this as a means of descent, it would bring him half-way down the rock. Hanging by his arms, he would cover much of the remaining distance, and the drop thence to the ground would be easy. In another moment he was outside the window, and, grasping the silk firmly in his strong fingers, began his perilous descent.