But of the many wild beasts that couch in France, Paris was the one of which I knew the least, and when I thought the night drew to peace, Paris was already on the spring. A door opened more quietly than a door is commonly opened with a half-drunk reveller's hand upon the latch; from the courtyard a voice or two spoke out, spoke shortly and without clamour. Then, unheralded by warning, came the third interruption of the night. Both wings of the door were flung open, and in the space a figure showed itself, which, apart from its sudden appearance, must still have drawn our eyes.
It was a man so beragged, and so variously bepatched as to be ridiculous, were it not that aged poverty is always pathetic. Every stuff of the looms had gone to his clothing, every shade of the dyer, faded and weatherstained, peeped and twinkled in the mendings of his tatters. But the eye soon shifted from these frank advertisements of starved penury, and wandering to his face, stayed there, fixed by a fascination that defies analysis. Let a soul but look out of window, and whether it be naked Priapus plastered to the crown with filth, or Saint Francis of the birds—are there not many gods in the Olympus of the mind?—they who see it must needs look back, and never heed what are the drapings of flesh through which it peers.
From under a dirty linen cap, from which, in a derision of gaiety, drooped a draggled red feather, three or four grey locks strayed across a noble forehead till they met and thickened a line of delicate brows. The nose was thin, hooked, and cruel, pinched in at the nostrils to a fixed sneer; the cheeks lean and smooth, but covered with a network of fine wrinkles branching from below the eyes. Over a loose, full-lipped mouth, red, sensuous, and smiling, fell an almost white moustache, caught up into an audacious curve at the ends; the chin was bearded by a straggle of thin silver hair drawn to a point.
But, more than all the rest, the eyes marked him for a man of brains, so full were they, so lustrous, and yet so piercing; age might whiten him, shrivel him; an evil life, hard lived, might shake his nerve, but the eyes and the brain and the soul of the man bated no jot of their strength. Behind him—strangely like, and yet strangely unakin—tiptoeing or stooping low to see the better, was such a gathering of rabble as a casting of nets will draw from the denser, fouler slums of any great city.
Laying a long-fingered, delicate, much-soiled hand upon his breast, he bowed satirically.
"Mesdames and Messieurs, and you, the disguised princes of the blood in the dark yonder, you sweepings of the hedgerows who cannot eat in the presence of men more like Almighty God in intelligence than yourselves, you are welcome every one of you. We looked for tribute from two of earth's scum," he went on, posing himself negligently, one foot advanced, a fist doubled on a hip, the fingers of the other playing with his straggled beard point, "and lo! there are seven great and small; therefore, as seven is to two, and the product to the emptiness of our pockets, so is our welcome."
By this time all, whether within the room, or without, were on their feet, but the seven of which he spoke so gibingly were still in three groups. But he who called himself Narbonne was naturally the spokesman of us all and he it was who answered.
"Take your jest elsewhere, and your filthy crew with it," he said coldly. "Piff! your very smell is an offence."
But the other never stirred, nor did the smile leave his face; only his eyes narrowed, and his full mouth grew hard, the lips tightening till the stumps showed in the gums.
"'Tis the oil of the student," he answered suavely; "the literary flavour as we in Paris know it, or maybe, your nostrils are unaccustomed to the sweet-smelling flowers of Parnassus? To some poor souls the perfume of poesy is as strange as the odour of sanctity. They have my pity!"
"Again, I tell you, take your jest elsewhere."
"Jest! My friend, you cannot have lived in courts. Now, I know court life as I know my barren pouch. Jest? Does our brother Louis jest when he knocks at the door of high and low and says, Pay me my taxes? His is a door of wood, mine that yet harder, more tightly fitting door, the human heart! You do not understand? Listen then! Francis the First, King of Divine Song, Prince of all Poets, Elder Brother to the Nine Muses and Father of the Lord knows what, levies tribute, and by God! Messieurs and Mesdames, he'll see it paid! These," and he pointed, thumb across shoulder, to the tattered slum bullies, thieves, cut-throats, and night-walkers, who had pushed him forward almost to the edge of the table, "these are our honourable tax-collectors, lambs almost as gentle as our brother Louis' own. Do you pay, Messieurs, or must the law take its course?"
From his place in the alcove, he who had been the women's attendant stepped forward.
"Let me deal with the rabble, Monseigneur."
"Silence, sir, know your place—and mine," he added significantly. Then, turning to the fellow across the table he went on sternly, "and you, leave the King's name out of your mummery, or your fool's wit may not save your neck."
"I have looked through a halter ere now, and come away neither sadder nor wiser than you see me. God forbid I should ever be one or other. I have even given my Testament to the world, a thing few men do and live. Alas! How the world changes. But that is past and the bird sings no longer.
Ou sont les gratieux gallardsQue je suy voye au temps jadis,Si bien chantans, si bien parlans,Si plaisans en faicts et en dicts?
Hung, I sadly fear, hung, every mother's son of them! But the bird still sits upon the bough, and if in age it sings less, still needs must that it fills its craw, so, come, sir, pay up! Like my brother Louis, I try smooth means first, but, also like my brother Louis, I do not stop there; and, again like my brother Louis, when I squeeze I squeeze hard.
Necessité fait gars mesprendre,Et faim saillir le loup des boys,
"François, the one and only King of Song, has spoken!"
"François? What? Art thou that François Villon?"
The fellow laughed as he bowed with a flourish.
"Monsieur has said it!"
"François Villon? And not hanged yet?"
Again he laughed, but this time without merriment; the gibe and the contempt were alike bitter.
"Again Monsieur has said it! Twice, no, when I come to think of it, thrice Montfauçon has sighed for me, and yet I live. By my faith! I begin to think I shall die in my bed if I do not first starve in the streets!"
"François Villon——"
"I have said it, I have said it; King François Villon, François the first, François the last, François Villon, the lover of all the Muses and every pretty woman in the world! And now that you know me, Monsieur, your purse, that François Villon the man and his tax collectors may drink and bless you. What? You will not? Ah, be persuaded, be gently persuaded, what is a purse or two, a handful of beggarly coins, compared with—Mademoiselle is with you, is she not? Then God forbid that I should finish the comparison. As a poet I hate ugly realities, as a man I love pretty women, and François Villon the man—Alas! we all have our passions, our frailties, you understand; eh? Look at us, we can be rough at times, just as our brother Louis can, and not having seen Mademoiselle's face I do not know if it is worth our while to quarrel. One peep, Mademoiselle, one little glimpse for the poet; the man, whose delights are not altogether pleasures of the mind, can come later if it is worth his while; one look, just one," and leaning across the narrow table he stretched out a long arm as if to twitch her hood aside.
"Mon Dieu! Monseigneur," she cried, not shrinking back, but holding herself erect just out of reach of the foul and twitching fingertips. "Is there no one to kill this infamous wretch?"
In a flash her neighbour's sword was out, and with its point at Villon's throat he cried;
"Another inch, and she shall see it done!"
To do him justice, Villon never flinched, but stood there silent, rigid as a statue, his loose lips parted in an evil smile, his eyes searching the shaded faces of the two fronting him. But if he held his peace, those about him did not. Look on us! he had said, and said wisely. It was a frank warning, a cynical invitation to repulsion and disgust. From noisome cellars and crazy garrets, down rotting stairways, by crooked sunless lanes, from thieves' dens and nameless stews of vice where neither law, honour, or sweetness of life ever went, they had come, these garbage rats of the sewers of Paris, of which he said, Look on us! And the brand of their lives was red on them, as if stamped by the hangman's iron. Weasel face, rat face, wolf face; look on us! human brutes every one. And like brutes they bore themselves, growling, snarling, spitting; their teeth bared to bite.
Little by little they had pressed in after Villon, little by little they had spread themselves through the room, but mostly at the upper end, guessing that the sweetest pickings lay there, and in a herd, as if they drew a natural brute courage from the feel and jostle of numbers. Never for an instant were they still, but shifted restlessly like wolves in a cage; never for an instant were they silent, and when the chief brute of them all, he of the God-given brain, laid upon the altar of service to the devil, said, Look on us! a guttural chorus rose that gave point and barb to the menace. They knew the power of evil and gloried in it. Arms were shaken in the air, arms in sleeves, arms in tatters, arms bare, women's arms, men's arms, and in every fist was a weapon, a knife, a cleaver, a bludgeon, anything that could maim or bruise, even cobble stones torn from the streets were flourished above shock heads, the slime of the kennel still wet upon them.
With the blade at Villon's throat the chorus swelled to a roar, and I was passing up behind Martin's back, my own sword half drawn, when he stopped me.
"No, no, Monsieur Gaspard," he whispered, clinging to my sleeve as he had clung to Roland's bridle the day Solignac was burned. "Let them settle it among themselves; our way is by the window opposite. What have we to do with other men's brawls. Once in the courtyard and——" He stopped short and swung round on his heel. "Dame! there is the fellow who struck Ninus across the muzzle! With you, Monseigneur, with you! A Hellewyl! a Hellewyl! Only for heaven's sake, let the women stand back." And before I could follow his change of mood he had flung our candle into a corner and was leaning across the table side by side with him I have called Monsieur Narbonne. "We pay no debts in Paris, do we not?" he cried, jerking a knee on to the table with his left hand while he lunged with the right, "My faith! but we do, we of Flanders!" and his blade went home.
It was first blood for us. From behind Villon was drawn back out of reach of the point at his throat, over went the table between us—Martin saving himself by a backward leap—and what happened thereafter I cannot tell. Twice I was hurt; once by a stone on the shoulder, and once by a stab instinctively parried in the dark by my left arm. But the putting out of the light saved us. Through the windows a straggle of moonbeams fell on the yelling, rascally mob, but left us in gloom. If they were outlines we were shadows, so like the fuller darkness as to be hardly visible, and the shadows had the advantage. Of two things the room seemed full; noise, the din of cursing voices, shuffling feet, groans, obscenities, and a faint play of light like the flight of dull fireflies as the moon caught the twisting flats of steel.
Then the end came, but from without, not from within; a knocking at the inn door that grew louder and louder, and as it grew the babel within sobered. The kennel crew knew its meaning better than we. By ones and twos, and then in a swarm, the mob fled. François the First and Last, King of Song, and High Priest of all the rest of his blatancy, heard Montfauçon call for the fourth time, and had no heart to dance upon nothing to the music of that sinister voice.
By the provost's lantern we were able to count losses. Martin had a cut upon the forehead which, dribbling down by the corner of his mouth, gave him a pitiful appearance, but meant little. The thickness of his skull, he said, saved him. Monsieur Narbonne's companion had his own wounds to lament, and Mademoiselle's guard was cursing softly in a language I did not understand over a palm slashed in warding off a two-edged dagger. If it was French he spoke, it was no French that I had ever heard. Monseigneur was unhurt, and my own bruises were no worse than three or four days would see cured.
Beyond the table the damage was not much greater. Of the three on the floor, and the two afterwards found in the court, only he who had received Martin's first thrust had forestalled the hangman. For the rest,Toute beste garde sa pel, had been Villon's motto, and his fellow rabble had echoed it.
At first it seemed as if we would join the other four upon the gallows, and so settle our quarrel with equal honours. But drawing the provost aside, Monseigneur showed him some token which turned the midnight of his face to a smiling noon, and if we had but expressed the wish, he would have dangled his four prisoners from the newly-painted sign there and then. "In any case it is but three days' delay," said he cheerfully, "and if the first loiters but a little, all five can travel home together."
Next he was anxious to see Monseigneur safe to his lodgings, but was met by a firm refusal.
"I know my Paris. In the open street so large a party is safe. These," and he paused, looking doubtfully at us, nor, in the faint yellow light of the smoky lantern was our appearance prepossessing, "these—um—gentlemen had better join my friends."
"So, so!" And in his zeal that the extreme justice of the law might not be cheated three days later, even by such pitiful wretches as we, the provost caught Martin by the arm. "Monseigneur does not know these—um—gentlemen?"
Before either Monseigneur or I could answer, Martin cut in, the ominous grip of the sleeve quickening his tongue, and the seeming trivial interference bore its fruit later on.
"We are Gaspard Hellewyl of Solignac in Flanders, and his servant," said he, shaking off the persuasive hand.
The thiefcatcher promptly replaced it.
"That is for Monseigneur to say, not you—Do you know these men, my lord?"
The answer and the action that foreran it startled me. Taking the lantern from the provost's hand, Monseigneur, still keeping himself completely in shadow, threw the light brightly on to Martin's face.
"Yes," he said slowly, "I know Hellewyl of Solignac in Flanders, but—" he stopped.
"I am—" began Martin, only to be checked by a wave of Monseigneur's unoccupied hand.
"That will keep," he said curtly. "For the present it is enough that I know and vouch for Hellewyl of Solignac. You have horses? Get them, then; I give you ten minutes. Mademoiselle," and he turned to the hooded woman who, with her companion, had remained in the shelter of the alcove throughout themelée. How she had borne herself I could only guess, for her face was still hidden, but she had neither uttered cry nor hampered us in any way, "this is a lesson, a book without words, and a child may read the pictures. I desire peace, and war is forced upon me."
What she answered I do not know. He had such a curt, masterful way with him that when he said, I give you ten minutes, self-interest advised, Take eight or less. There was not even time to ask ourselves, Who is this that knows Hellewyl of Solignac here in Paris? That it was Monsieur de Commines himself we never guessed. I, for I had never met him, nor had Martin seen him for nineteen years, while he was still a lad in the service of Charles the Bold, and then not often.
Nor was it so strange that we should meet as we did. Martin had only told the truth when he said the Star of Dauphiny had been a rendezvous in the old days, and now, when Monsieur de Commines had need of a trysting place where all might go without remark, the memory of his youthful experience had come back to him. Of the changes for the worse twenty years had in the inn worked he knew as little as Martin.
It was a procession of two and two, headed by Monseigneur's companion, that presently turned westward down the Rue Neuve Saint Martin. Mademoiselle's guard and woman attendant went next, then Monsieur de Commines and Mademoiselle, Martin and I bringing up the rear, the only mounted members of the party. We men had our swords drawn, and all kept the middle of the streets. These were mostly dark and empty, ill-lit by a cloudy half-moon. When a band of night-prowlers met us, our numbers were passport enough, and they slunk away into the gloom of a side lane. If up these we heard the noise of a scuffle, a cry, a clash, a blasphemy, even an appeal for help, we marched on as if we had not heard; murder and theft were the common events of the night, and the weak must pay the penalty of their weakness. With women to guard we did not divide our party, and to have penetrated into the unlit ways was to court destruction. In the midst of most open spaces bonfires blazed, round which the watch gathered, and across certain streets chains were drawn to break the rush of the mob in times of disaffection.
During their long tramp, those immediately in front of us spoke little. To avoid the offal flung on the streets and the holes half filled with slime strained all their attention in the dim light. But as we paused where the Rue des Poulies joins the Rue Saint Honoré, I heard Monsieur de Commines say:
"Is it wise, so near the Louvre?"
"The nearer the church, the further from grace, Monseigneur," she answered bitterly, "and I suppose I may adapt the saying to The nearer the foe, the farther from danger. Besides, who knows we are in Paris?"
"Few things pass in Paris that my master does not know; he has eyes at the end of the earth," was the reply as we turned down to the left.
But only a little way. Opposite a darkened house, a few steps down the Rue des Poulies, we again halted, and as Monseigneur bent over Mademoiselle's hand in farewell, she held him fast.
"Is it ruin, truly ruin?" she said, the tears trembling in her voice. "Oh, Monseigneur, Monseigneur, can you not give us some hope? So much to us, so little to France; give us some hope to live upon, Monseigneur, for the love of God!"
Monsieur de Commines made no attempt to withdraw his hand, nor, in his place, would I. But his voice had a cheery ring through its gravity as he answered—
"Take comfort, Mademoiselle, take comfort. Though all must be as the King wills, two things fight for you; I desire peace, and time is on your side."
"Ah!" she replied, still bitterly, "that is cold comfort, cold as—as—the love of Louis." Then her voice sharpened as if she had caught a meaning in his tone which the bare words failed to suggest; or it may be a pressure of the hand had passed in the darkness; had I been in his place, I think it would, "unless, indeed, Monseigneur, you have some plan in your head, you, who are so shrewd, so far of sight, the cleverest, clearest brain in France, ah, then—then there would be hope."
This time he dropped her hand as if its touch scorched him.
"A plan? Who am I to have plans, Mademoiselle? No, no, not a plan, hardly that, hardly that. Farewell, Mademoiselle, farewell, Madame; my last word is this, forget Paris and the Star of Flanders. Come, gentlemen, our way lies forward," and he walked briskly on towards the river just showing its silver between the darkness of the walls on either hand, leaving us to follow.
But a few steps further on, the door having closed behind the women, he turned and called sharply,
"Monsieur Hellewyl, here, if you please. No, no," he went on, as I drew up to his side, "not you, but that weasel-faced fellow who calls himself Gaspard Hellewyl of Solignac in Flanders. It is he I want."
"But I am Gaspard Hellewyl of Solignac."
"Thou? Then how came he to call himself Hellewyl?"
"That was your misapprehension, Monseigneur. He is my—what shall I say?" and I laughed a little bitterly, a little forlornly, "my squire, my servant, my retinue, the last friend left to the last Hellewyl unless Monsieur de Commines can help me. You cut him short in his explanation."
"A misapprehension?" he repeated. "My word for it, young gentleman, but you rubbed shoulders with the gibbet for that misapprehension. If I had not been a trifle in your debt I would have left you to the provost's mercies for what I took to be an impudent lie. I knew Hellewyl of Solignac of old, but you, who are you?"
"Gaspard Hellewyl, son to Philip Hellewyl who was in Paris nineteen years ago, and died in 'sixty five.'"
"Turn your face to the light. In these unsettled times we must run no risks. Yes, the age fits, and you have a look of Philip. I took you for a pair of night-hawks, and that such sorry clothing bestrode such well-bred beasts strengthened the thought." Long before this we had walked slowly onward, still in the direction of the river, I by his side, with Roland's bridle in one hand. "But the story of the incongruity can wait," he went on; "Monsieur de Commines? What claim have you on him?"
"He was my father's friend——"
"Nineteen years ago!" he interrupted cynically. "In an age of short memories have you no claim more modern?"
"He is a far-off cousin."
"A relationship Monsieur de Commines has apparently never remembered or recognised; anything more plausible than a German cousinship?"
I shook my head.
"Yes," and he laid a hand on my shoulder, pressing it warmly, "I know better. You have five claims, one dead, and four with three days' life in them. I am Philip de Commines."
"Monsieur de Commines? The Prince de Talmont?"
"The same, and in all sincerity let me add, at your service. But we can talk of that later. Do you know your whereabouts? No, how could you! This is the Louvre, and our lodging for to-night."
Monsieur de Commines! The Louvre! I could only stare. As we talked we had walked on, to the right by the Rue du Petit Bourbon, to the left down the Rue d'Hosterische, bordered on the one side by a wide fosse beyond which rose a palace of disenchantment. The Louvre! When one spoke of the Louvre I had imagined I know not what, but a vague glory fired the fancy. The Louvre! These frowning walls of dirty grey were a prison house, these little pierced windows the shot-holes of a threatened fortress, that rounded donjon in the centre the King's clenched fist menacing Paris, those pointed towers at the corners—But Monseigneur cut the catalogue short; we were already at the moat.
Late though it was, the drawbridge was lowered, a guard of three standing at the hither end. To these Monsieur de Commines gave the password, and we crossed to a small postern that pierced the walls to the right of the sunk gateway. Through this he led us.
"You will come with me, Monsieur Hellewyl. Morlaix will see after—is it Martin you call him? Only, remember this, all three. You heard my farewell to Mademoiselle? Take it to yourselves, and forget the Star of Flanders. To-night I have been on the King's business, and Louis has but one cure for loose tongues. I ask no promises, your risk is my best assurance."
Some men would have said "your honour," but not Monsieur de Commines; he had lived long at courts and preferred to rest his claim on the surest foundation.
It was not until my wounds were dressed, and garments of I know not whose ownership provided in place of my mired rags, that Monsieur de Commines—we being in the privacy of his own suite of rooms—asked for my story. Nor did he interrupt me in its telling, but sat like a statue, his face turned up to the painted ceiling. The failure of our fortunes, the burning of Solignac, the murder of old Babette, moved him no more than if a stranger had bidden him good day. But as I ended he lowered his eyes, looking at me keenly but not unkindly.
"And why do you come to Paris?"
My answer was as curt as the question.
"To move Monsieur de Commines to move the King to give me justice on Jan Meert."
"I might as well hope to move the Louvre to carry you to Plessis les Tours—unless the King willed to be moved. And on Jan Meert!" a little grim smile dashed with a tolerant contempt, broke over his lips; "a Hollander, eh?"
"You know him, Monseigneur, you know him!" I cried impetuously, moved less by the words than by the look on his face, "Oh, then, it will be easy."
"I know many things," he answered, the smile deepening. "I know this, my friend; you are very innocent. Did it never strike you that the King of France has many agents—no, agents is too strong a word, it implies a kind of intimacy, a private confidence,—call them tools?"
"Agents? Tools? Monseigneur, Monseigneur, what commerce can a King of France have with a Jan Meert?"
"Commerce? Pish! this time it is you who use too strong a word. Monsieur Hellewyl, do you know how kingdoms are built? how varied, how complex, yes, and at times how opposite, the elements of construction? Loyalty at home, treason abroad, a bribe to avarice, a threat to cowardice, flattery to pride, men's blood, tears of women, babes made fatherless, the wisdom of a Louis, the rashness of a Charles, the I would but I dare not of a Maximilian, the brutishness of a Jan Meert."
"The Most Christian King and Jan Meert! Oh! Monseigneur, the conjunction is impossible, the thought is too contemptible."
Commines' face darkened as he leaned towards me, his arms resting on his knees.
"Learn to guard your tongue, Monsieur, when you speak of the greatest monarch now upon earth. How can you, a green and weedy sapling out of a Flanders hedge, judge the oak of the forest? Is a gardener unclean because he raises a flower of nobility and strength from the outscourings of a stable?"
But the wound to my hopes galled me, and I was obstinate.
"I do not see the King's gain in such an honourable partnership."
"I will tell you. But first, why should the King do justice for you on Jan Meert?"
"It might give him a hold on Flanders."
"You must have a great mind, friend Gaspard, for you and the King thought alike, only he before the event, and you after. Anarchy in Flanders creates a need for the strong hand of a better government, and so—Jan Meert!"
"Then Monseigneur," said I helplessly, "my quest is ended before it is well begun."
But Monsieur de Commines shook his head. The sudden sternness that had flashed into his voice had passed away, and he was once more the friend and patron.
"You go too fast. Never try to take all your ditches at one stride. Some tools are only used once and then flung aside, others of their kind being never far to seek. There are many Jan Meerts in the world. As I said before I say again, All is as the King wills. What is your plan? Except Monsieur de Beaujeu, the officers of state, and myself, the King sees no gentlemen. That is his humour. Are you very proud, Monsieur Hellewyl?"
"Not too proud to serve—"
"The King?"
"Myself, Monseigneur," I retorted, for I had caught his meaning. He laughed and nodded.
"Good, I see you have learned your lesson. There are times when a man must stoop that he may rise. That will suit the King's humour. I will be frank with you. He spends his time raising men up and casting them down again, that France may understand her master's life is still strong in him. He loves new faces, but soon tires or grows doubtful. There lies your opportunity. To have a gentleman of ten generations serve him as a servant will please him. Before he tires, or grows doubtful of your fidelity, your chance may come."
"To move him to justice?"
"No, no; I said you were very innocent. To earn your wages: Jan Meert's life in your hand, a new Solignac on the ashes of the old, your lost lands restored."
"Large wages, Monseigneur," said I, drawing in a breath, and catching something of the spirit of hope throbbing high in his words, "almost too large to dream of receiving, except in a dream."
"Pish! Now you are modest! When the King gives, he gives royally, only, remember this, large wages mean great service. If the pay is to be earned, the task will match the pay. Are you afraid?"
"God helping me, Monseigneur, no!"
"Just so," answered he, drily, "God helping you. It is a help most men need who wade in King's waters," and sat looking at me in deep thought.
I have always been uncertain whether or not the task, as he phrased it, which ultimately became mine, was already taking form in Monsieur de Commines' mind. His attitude of incisive contemplation gave colour to the supposition. But, on the other hand, it was never quite clear with whom the idea truly originated: not, I am convinced with Monseigneur in its final shape. When questioned, Monsieur de Commines always took shelter behind his favourite formula, All was as the King willed. In a sense, that, no doubt, was the case, especially in my last instructions, but from much that happened when my stewardship was accounted for I have always believed that Monseigneur admitted a liability to his conscience. If that were so, then, let me say, he discharged that liability to its last shadow of a claim, discharged it generously, fully, without reserve, and at a time when he had much need to give his whole thought to his own danger.
But, interesting as a man's affairs are to himself—and there is nothing he loves better to talk about than What I have done, What I am doing, and What I shall do to-morrow—there was a curtness in his last words that warned me off to other subjects.
"Shall we see Mademoiselle again?"
"Mademoiselle?" Into Monsieur de Commines eyes there crept a look a uncomprehending but tolerant amusement. "Alas! I have reached the age when Mademoiselles cease to interest. But with youth it is different, and youth, as usual, is always right. If she has a fortune she may put a roof on Solignac sooner than the King will, and at a less risk. I have known many a broken house patched-up by a woman's hand, slender and white though it is. Has she a fortune, my friend, and—who is Mademoiselle?"
"Oh! Monseigneur, I have been indiscreet."
"Young and yet indiscreet, oh! no, no! Besides, indiscretion is the venial offence of lovers. If it were not so long since I had kissed a maid I would almost say it is their privilege. But you see, I am ten years married, and have forgotten. If Mademoiselle is satisfied, why should I complain? Indeed, I would almost doubt that a man were a true lover, and had veins aglow with the dear fires of Venus, if he were not discreetly indiscreet at times. It has the sanction of great antiquity, for it dates from the garden of Eden. Adam, I am sure, was indiscreet—he spoke to the lady without an introduction. Or perhaps the Devil acted as Master of Ceremonies? What do you think? That also would be a precedent, and one followed many a million time since then. The Lord God threw Adam into a sleep, and the Devil waked him, eh? To this day, sleep is the greatest gift of God,—blessed be sleep!—and waking, at times, is the very devil; have you not found it so yourself?"
"Oh Monseigneur," I cried again, deeply hurt by his jeering banter with its pretended misapprehension. "I repeat, I have been indiscreet. I am in the wrong."
"And being there, Monsieur Hellewyl, you are where no gentleman should ever put himself."
I shrugged my shoulders. For a man who knew the world so well Monsieur de Commines was going the wrong way about gaining his end.
"To put myself right, then, I had best answer my own question; I shall see Mademoiselle—to-morrow."
He only bowed, waited a second or two, then, saying carelessly that the hour was late, called a lackey to show me my quarters for the night, and we parted with constraint. Yes, Monsieur de Commines' lesson had gone too far. I do not say it was not deserved, but youth loves to think itself above laughter, and few things bite deeper through its sensitive skin than does a barbed jest. That I was not only a fool, but an ungrateful fool, I am now the first to admit. But a wound to self-esteem has this quality, it blinds as well as galls and I could see no farther than my temper.
As I leaned out of the narrow window that overlooked the river, my indignation was too hot to be cooled by the night air, my irritation too raw to be soothed by the beauty or strangeness of the scene. And yet, to a man fresh from the outskirts of a Flanders wood, how much there was of beauty and strangeness.
Underneath me, beyond the fosse, lay the garden, bordered on either side by the thin stream of the water that fed the moat; beyond that swept the river, broad and full and a-swirl with strength. Here it gloomed to blackness, there it flashed bright and smooth as steel where the moon caught the soundless slope of the currents as they met below Ile Notre Dame. To the left the Tour de Nesle rose on the further bank, black and sinister with its tradition of murder, the water lapping almost to its buttresses. Still farther to the left was the huge bulk of the Chateau Galliard; farther yet, and Notre Dame melted into the vapours of the night, lost against the background of the Ile des Vaches and Ile de Javiaux. Out of the vapours rose spires, towers, and sloping roofs innumerable, shining with dew or edged to a white effulgence as the full lustre of the moon glorified them.
But if the river slept, writhing and turning in its sleep as though ill dreams of drowned men plagued its rest, Paris was awake. But Paris never sleeps. It is a body possessed of many souls, many spirits—devils, some would say—and when slumber nurses one to quiet another rouses to carry on the fevered actions of its life. It is a forest of many beasts; those of the day couch to their rest at sunset, and in the same hour the prowlers of the night creep from their lairs, foul beasts of prey that love the darkness and thrive on deeds from which men hide their faces. Thepad,pad,pad, of their stealthy feet may be heard in the byeways, the growling of their hunger, the crash of their spring. To and fro they wander, never satisfied, and seek their dens before the coming of dawn when the creatures of innocent labour awake to the burden of a new day. No! Paris never sleeps!
The wakefulness was least to the east side where, beyond the Rue d'Hosterische, the Hotel de Bourbon sulked silent in its great square courtyard. There men both waked and slept, but waked watchful and on guard lest the prowling beast, desperate from famine, should spring at higher game than common. From the south, over the river, came a murmur as of bees, a murmur that hoarsened with the livelier play of the wind, as when one taps the hive, or fell away to a thin drone with the dying of the breeze. Westward, life was sharper, more individual, and with swift surprises, of which one came as I watched; the loud patter of running feet in the Rue Froid Mantel just beyond the fosse, a woman's scream, the roaring out of a rough oath, and dwindling sobs cut through and over-borne by a far-off drunken roysterer's mirthless song.
But the obscure tragedy never moved me; a midge in a man's own eye is more hurt to him than a live coal in his neighbour's. Morning might have brought counsel, but that another small fret flecked the raw of my irritation, and kept the sore open—my borrowed finery had disappeared, and in its place lay the sorry garb, yet sorrier through travel, in which I had quitted Solignac. Clearly that was Monsieur de Commines' cynic response to my challenge of the night before, and was in itself a challenge.
Seek Mademoiselle, will you! he said in his heart, grimly jesting, then seek her beggar-fashion, and if your tongue asks no hire for your sword's service your rags will hint an importunity. In the glimmering light of the Star of Flanders she may have taken you for a gentleman; go, if you will go, in the broad light of day, and let these rags speak for you!
But if he thought shame would turn me from my purpose, court life must, for once, have blunted his perception. I hold that a sweet kernel has no need to think shame of a rough shell, and from a quality in her voice, an impulse in her act, I guessed that Mademoiselle was not one to judge a man wholly by the outside. A true and noble womanliness had at all times rung through her pleading, and if that were not enough there was this, she had flung no scorn even on such a feeder on garbage as this François Villon, until the man's foul mind hinted a license. Then, indeed, her soul flashed out. "Will no man rid us of this wretch!" It was the foul mind she scorned, and not the poverty peeping through his tatters. No! Monsieur de Commines' jest, so far from turning me from my purpose, confirmed me in it; I would have been ashamed to feel shamed that I dared not seek her face even in rags.
It was at the gate by which we had entered on the previous night I first learned that to lodge in a royal palace had its obligations as well as its honours, and that Monsieur de Commines had other arrows in this quiver besides that levelled at my self-conceit. One of the three or four on guard stopped me when I would have passed out.
"Your permit, Monsieur, if you please," said he, civilly enough.
"Permit? I have none," I answered. "I am lodging with Monsieur de Commines."
"Ah, I remember now. Monsieur has that droll of a Martin to follow him, and came in with Monsieur le Prince last night? As a form, Monsieur, I will send for my officer; will Monsieur wait?"
What could Monsieur do but wait, fretting and fuming, for twenty minutes. Then a smooth-faced boy came, smiling, cordial, and full of words. Had Monsieur Hellewyl rested well? Were his lodgings to his mind? Was it his first visit to Paris? Had he seen—Pish! it was Monsieur Hellewyl this, Monsieur Hellewyl that, and I answering yes or no, like a country blockhead with a vocabulary of one syllable. But when at last I got my plea in he shrugged his shoulders with a grimace.
"Would you have Tristan hang me? How can I give passes from the Louvre? Let us go to the lieutenant."
So from the east gate we went to the south, and as we crossed the angle of the court, the sun being above the walls, I felt like a half-plucked daw beside a parrot, so gaily plumed was he in silks and laces such as women love, and not a thread out of place. He said nothing, but the corner of his eye burned holes in my rags, and for the twitch of his mouth I could have shaken the life half out of him with exultant satisfaction.
The lieutenant of the southern gate was Monsieur de Commines' companion of the night before, limping slightly from a wound in the thigh, and again my greeting was most cordial. There is no introduction like a common danger. But the whole Louvre seemed in league to make me welcome, nor could even my impatience resent such friendliness to one who was a stranger. My wound and his had to be enquired for, and for the first time I learned that we had received them in a scuffle in the streets. Such brawls, it seemed, were of nightly occurrence, and I had to listen to a long complaint of how badly Paris was governed.
Then came the whole catechism over again; Had I slept? Was I rested? Did my wound still burn? Had that fire-eating weasel of mine been well cared for? And so on for a score of questions, all so kindly, so genial, so courteous, that I would have been a Flemish clod indeed to have cut them short.
But at last he asked:
"Now, what can I do for you?"
"Give me leave to pass the gates."
"What! You want fresh adventures?" he answered gaily, "then we must go to the captain."
He, it seemed, was on guard at the west gate, and there the comedy played itself for another half-hour. If his cordiality was colder, it was because age, in grizzling his beard, had chilled his exuberance, but it seemed none the less sincere. I must breakfast with him. What? I had breakfasted? Then I must try the King's wine, and for ten minutes we talked vintages, the thing, next to women and their own doings, on which men love best to gossip. Then, at last, came the belated request.
"So, so, Monsieur Hellewyl? But for that we we must go to the Governor."
"Dame," said I pettishly. "It seems as hard for a man to get out of the Louvre as for most to get in."
"You are wrong," he answered, looking me straight in the eyes; "a simple word does it, Monsieur; one word, a simple promise."
It was then, so drily significant was the tone, that I began to understand the dance I was being led. Monsieur de Commines had no intention that I should leave the Louvre. No doubt the Governor would have to appeal to the Chancellor, the Chancellor to the King, and the King was at Plessis les Tours. Or it might be they would refer the momentous question to Monseigneur himself! Was he not the King's Commissioner? To play the comedy further would be to play the fool.
"A single word?" said I and pausing turned back, "I think I have it, Monsieur! It is Commines, is it not?"
Promptly he also turned.
"You have a shrewd wit when you choose to use it," he answered, laying his hand on my shoulder. "Take an old soldier's advice and follow where it leads you."
That meant, Make your peace with Monseigneur; a thing not hard to do, for he met me as if I had just risen from my bed instead of having spent the better part of two good hours trying to out-manoeuvre him.
"You are come in good time, for we dine early," he cried, holding out both hands; "sit down, now, and let us make haste, for we leave Paris at noon:" nor through the meal, or at any time, did he hint displeasure. Only, when the servant, who at the close brought us water to wash our fingers, had left the room, he said suddenly:
"Do you know why I did it? For this reason, to teach you that a man who is on the King's service has neither love nor hate, pride nor pique, no, nor even eyes or ears except for that service. It is a teaching you may have to follow before long."
Now it was my turn to hold out my hands, but with a different impulse.
"Forgive me, Monseigneur——"
"I forgave you even while I taught you," he answered, not letting me finish. "What? Am I so old that I cannot remember I was once young? And now I shall answer you the question you asked me last night; will you see Mademoiselle again? I think so—if the King wills."
Though Monsieur de Commines travelled, as he said, on the King's service—a service which, I have since concluded, had it been known, might have cost him his head—he travelled without ostentation. And yet our train of twelve mounted guards, six led packhorses and as many body servants was a royal progress compared with our entrance to Paris.
We crossed the river by the ferry that plied from the Louvre gardens, landing near the end of the Rue de Seine, a hundred paces below the Tour de Nesle. Thence we followed the same street till we reached the Rue du Bussy, where we turned to the right, keeping straight on till we reached the pillory which stands, as a terror to evil-doers, at the junction of the Rue du Four and the Rue des Boucheries. There, in the triangular open space used as an occasional market, we were joined by Monsieur de Rochfort, the Chancellor, and Monsieur de Commines, who, so far, had ridden by my side pointing out this or that of interest as we passed, drew apart.
"It is for your sake," said he, with a kindly nod. "The Chancellor and I are both too near the King to wish well to the other's friends."
Once or twice thereafter through the day he reined back alongside Roland, just as he did with each of the three or four gentlemen in his train. But, unless we were out of earshot of the Chancellor's friends, there was an indifferent coldness in his manner which, more than any words could have done, warned me how warily men must walk whose paths lie near a throne. So plain was this coldness to himself that he half-excused it.
"There are three parties at court," said he waving his hand aside as if indicating some point in the landscape. "I call them the party of the present, of the early future, and for all time; or, to put it more clearly, of the King, of the Dauphin, and of France. I am of the last, and so most truly for the King, though all do not see as I do. When the King is well, Monsieur de Rochfort is of the first; when the King is sick, he is of the second; and never, to my thinking, of the third. Now, such a man rarely,—oh ho! here comes one of his friends slipping back to catch what I am saying. Good-morning, Monsieur de Bueil, there is an urgent matter on which I wish to consult you, but without advertisement. Do you think the Chancellor would consider it wise——" and lowering his voice he drew aside, plunging into I know not what story, having in a single sentence flattered not only the Chancellor's wisdom and influence at court, but also Monsieur de Bueil's intimacy with his master.
That night we lay at Anneau where, because of the inn's cramped space, I slept on hay, and was glad of its softness for my wound still stung me. Next night our quarters were at Vendôme, and so Tours was reached before dinner on the third day. There Martin and I dropped off; Plessis, which lay a mile or so to the south-west, was not for us as yet.
"Put up at the Cross of Saint Martin," was Monsieur de Commines' last advice. "It is not the best inn in the city, but the other is in the Rue des Trois Pucelles, and so too near Confrère Tristan's for comfort, unless you have a strong stomach," a hint which, in my innocence, I failed to understand. "Give me a week," he added at parting, "but remember, I promise nothing except that I am at all times the friend of your father's son," and so rode on.
Later I was grateful for his choice of our lodgings. As we gaped about the streets, Martin a discreet half-pace behind me, but talking across my shoulder without a break, touched me.
"Monsieur Tristan's," he said, nodding at the other side. "That a man should make a gallows of the house where he eats and sleeps, and, it maybe, loves his wife and children."
"A gallows? where?"
"For God's sake walk on, Monsieur Gaspard, and don't stare. These nails, and that fag end of a cut rope blowing in the wind make my flesh creep."
That is always the way! The kennel is swimming in mud and a pretty woman crosses the road with her skirts a-tilt; or an unhappy gallant in silks is chasing his bonnet through the self-same mud, and you are bidden to look and not stare! Not stare? That's not in nature; the very warning is a challenge. Of course I stood and stared, though at first there was little to look at, a house, like a hundred others in Tours with a dozen of the kind in the same street. Then, as I looked again, there came a sense of the sinister. It was as when a face, which at the first glance seems one of a score, shows something of a peculiar and personal devil, and with it a fascination that fastens the attention, as all things evil or ugly fasten it.
It was a tall narrow house of four storeys, tapering as if by steps and stairs to a point at the ridge. The wall of the floor on the street level was pierced by two unequal windows, heavily barred. The larger was to the left, and in its position it balanced the stout door raised two steps above the pavement. Above these were three windows, the largest again to the left, and all with similar significant heavy defences; whoso lived there was careful of his safety. The two upper storeys were in the contraction of the roof. Each had but one outlook, and in the case of the lower it was again to the left, leaving a wide expanse of blank wall, and when I understood the tale it told, my gorge rose. Here was the sinister threat, the foul vice writ on an honest seeming; François Villon in stone and mortar stared across the road.
The whole wide expanse, and it was a very wide one, for the windows were small, was studded over by stout nails driven between the joints of the masonry. From these fluttered rope-ends, some short, some long, some weather-frayed to rags, others—horrible to think of—newly cut, and there men and women had choked to death while the King's Provost Marshal ate, drank, or took his pleasure within to the music of the dying wretches clattering their boot heels against the wall!
Shuddering and half-sick with disgust I swallowed down my loathing as best I could. And yet it was nothing more than the sordid commentary to the comedy of the Louvre and a plain warning. Everywhere I turned the law of the King's will was a handwriting on the wall, inexorable, inevitable, callous.
Perhaps because of this newly reawakened sense of the dangers that lay behind the walls of Plessis, or perhaps—and I trust it was so—because to the heart of every man who thinks at all there comes the desire to give God thanks for mercies undeserved and unlooked for, and to seek His strength and guidance in the uncertainties of life, I shook off Martin about vespers, and made my way alone to the great church of Saint Gatien. Behind the grated screens of its dim aisles there rarely fails a priest to ease a burdened spirit of that which grows too heavy to be borne.
But before a man can thus cleanse his soul it is fitting he should pray, and so I knelt, but not before the great altar. No! its hard brilliance and gorgeous extravagance of this world's passing splendours repelled me. What had a poor crushed soul in common with such proud display? The God who loved these flaring lights, silver lamps that swung by silver chains, gilt candlesticks of many branches all ablaze, who took complacent pleasure in such ostentation of gold vessels, broidered draperies, fretted carvings, gems that flashed and gems that glowed, how could He stoop to a worm of the earth? True, the pure, pale Face of the suffering Christ looked out from it all, but looked out as if to ask, What have I, the Man of Sorrows acquainted with grief, Who had not where to lay His head, what have I to do with all this arrogance of flaunted wealth? Either I am the Son of God in My heaven of heavens, and what to Me are your tinsel glories! or I am the Son of Man working out salvation in anguish and alone, sweating, as it were, great drops of blood, no man ministering to Me, and what have I to do with all this splendour! The God of the high altar is either the God of the very great or the very poor; of the man who says in his pride, I, too, am a god, a god to myself, a god upon earth for the people's worship, and so we are a-kin, thou and I! Or else it is for those ignorants who find the incense of heaven in the smell of the unsnuffed guttering candles; for myself, I could not pray there. I found instead a small remote chapel, where a single rushlight trembled before a darkened shrine, faint and small like a soul facing the unknowable; shrinking, and yet persistent because of the Love unseen that watched and waited, yearning to be gracious. Nor was I alone. A woman knelt upon the altar step, her head bowed forward till it rested on the wooden rail.
Seeing her rapt worship I kept back, and in the quiet of the little sanctuary lost myself. The world, with its drone of life, its careless callous tread, was behind my back, and I forgot everything but that Solignac was in ashes, Babette murdered, and that God had prospered me on my way to retribution. What He begins He finishes, and not a thousand Jan Meerts, no, nor Louis of France, could turn back the hand of His justice.
But how diverse are His attributes, how infinite, how inscrutable, is the greatness of His powers. As I, through His justice cried for vengeance, another kneeling at the same footstool sought peace through mercy.
"Not the King's will, but Thine, O Lord!"
It was the voice of Mademoiselle, and as I heard it, my heart leaped! Our paths had come together through no seeking of mine, and there was now no question of disloyalty to Monsieur de Commines. Nor, I remembered with satisfaction, being a frail man, was I any longer in rags.
It may be asked, What was Mademoiselle to me, who had never so much as seen her face clearly, never spoken three words to her, never touched her hand? I answer, Nothing! And yet my heart leaped; perhaps because Monsieur de Commines' interference piqued me, perhaps—but at twenty-five one does not stop to analyse a perhaps that makes the heart leap! It is still the age of impulse and half-blind instinct, and these ask no questions. Rising, I slipped out into the growing dusk and waited without a thought as to whether or no there was a priest behind his grille ready to give comfort to the sinner.
Presently she came.
"Mademoiselle!" and I bared my head.
With a little twitch of her skirts she stood aside, straightening herself.
"What?" she said. "Even on the very church step? Oh, for shame, Monsieur, for shame!"
"No, no," I protested, "you mistake."
"Prove it, Monsieur," she retorted; "prove it by going your way while I go mine."
But as she had moved so had I, and the waning light fell sufficiently strongly on the gay greens and yellows of my bruised forehead for her to see them.
"Ah!" she cried, drawing in her breath, "you come from—from—Monseigneur? You were with us in the Paris inn and are the servant of that Monsieur Hellewyl he said he knew? What is your message? Has he seen the King?"
"I have no message, Mademoiselle, and it is I who am Gaspard Hellewyl."
"You? But it was the other——"
"That was a mistake and——"
"No message? Then whoever you may be, Monsieur, what have I to do with you, or you with me?"
"Nothing, Mademoiselle, except——" and I stopped, not knowing how to answer her.
The pain of her disappointment was written on her face, and I, in my blundering want of thought, had brought it there. The optimism of her youth had jumped to the comfort of the hope that Monsieur de Commines had already good news for her, and that I had brought it. Now the reaction galled her like a blow; I could have cursed myself for my tactless want of foresight. But her gentle womanhoods found an excuse even for that stupidity.
"Except—?" and her face softened.
Have I described her face? I think not, no, I cannot have since till then I had not seen it, and God forbid that I should describe it now. No two faces are alike in the world, and that in almost every one some other finds a sweetness others fail to see is the recurrent miracle of life. I could tell you much of the face that looked up to mine in the twilight, but I could never tell its sweetness, and failing that, the rest is little better than dead flesh. What do so many inches matter except in a man who may have to use their strength? It is not the inches a wise man loves, nor yet the eyes or lips or cheeks, but the Spirit that uses all these, and more than these, as God uses the cold dead things of stone and wood, the perishing things of the world, to point a promise of eternal life. And yet, understand me; I did not, at that time, love Mademoiselle, nor had I totally forgotten Brigitta, as will be seen. But I had begun to compare the two, and when a man begins comparing a new interest with an old love a change is not far off.
"Except," she said, her face softening, and, I think, a little moisture shining in her eyes, "except that we owe you a life—perhaps even more than a life."
"No, no," and I drew back, wounded that she should think I traded on her gratitude, and yet with the wound salved by her wakened warmth of kindliness; "it was not that, it was that in Tours—in a strange city—at this hour—Mademoiselle might have trouble——"
"And that Monsieur might have the pleasure of killing some one else? Bah?" and she searched me gravely with her eyes a second or two. "I can guard myself. What does Tours care for a serving maid! Had it been my mistress, there might have been a need for your gallantry."
"Oh! Mademoiselle, but Monseigneur said——"
"Nothing to you, of that I am sure; and besides Monseigneur knows there are more cloaks in the world than go on the shoulders."
A serving maid? Her mistress? Of course it should have been an evident folly; but remember I was no more than a Flemish clod. I suppose it was that same cloddishness in me, for even while I staggered at what she said I kept my hat in my hand.
"But," I persisted, "Tours is still Tours, and you are still you. With your leave, I will see you safe home."
Turning, she looked over her shoulder with the first glimpse of coquetry I had seen. We had, of course, quitted the Place Saint Gatien, I following her a foot or two behind, as Martin earlier in the day had followed me. But now she slackened her pace, and without increasing mine I drew along side.
"Madame will laugh when I tell her how Monsieur Hellewyl—you said you were Monsieur Hellewyl, did you not, and not that other? I think I prefer the exchange, but it is hard to be sure on so short an acquaintance—how Monsieur Hellewyl, Monseigneur's friend, squired a serving maid through the streets of Tours!"
"Let her laugh!" answered I bravely, "better she should laugh than that a woman left alone in Tours should have bitter cause to weep."
"One woman!" she cried with a sudden pained sharpness, "oh! what does one woman matter? If your King has his way it will not be one woman who will weep but thousands; yes, thousands, thousands."
"Not my King," I answered, and again I will say, answered bravely. More bravely than I knew. To say such words on the streets of Tours risked more than the being laughed at for a woman's sake; Tristan's House of the Great Nails was grim warrant for the danger. "Not my King, I am of Flanders, and so—not my King."
"The better fortune yours!" she answered curtly. "I would rather trust the grossest bully in Tours than Louis of France."
"Then," said I, giving tongue to the thought that had troubled me these ten minutes, "why come to Tours at all, with Louis only a mile away?"
"Because it was safest so. Do you think he would look for me under the shadow of Tristan's gallows? And because, too, I am a woman, Monsieur Hellewyl, and hoped—hoped I might bring back a message of peace to my—my—mistress."
With the words in her mouth, words caught by a half-breath of tears, she turned into a little covered archway opening off the street, and dropped a curtsey.
"I lodge here, Monsieur, and my mistress and I both thank you for your care—though this time there was no man to kill!"
"To-morrow——" I began.
"To-morrow?" echoed she, looking back at me with her foot on the doorstep, "I hope there is no To-morrow for me in Tours, for if there is, it will be passed dangling from one of Tristan's flesh hooks!" and with a little gesture of farewell, she was gone.
Nor had Tours a To-morrow for me either; by midday I was behind the triple walls of Plessis.
That, of course, was Monsieur de Commines' doing. He had said, Give me seven days; but he took no more than one, and added to the favour of haste the grace of coming himself to tell me of his success.
I had just returned from a fruitless enquiry at Mademoiselle's lodgings when the landlord met me at the door. To see his change of countenance was a vision of the contemptible in human nature.
"Monsieur is a friend of Monseigneur the Prince de Talmont and I did not know it!" he said plaintively, his hands lightly crossed upon the servile hinge below his chest. "His Excellency is within asking for your Lordship. Ah! Monsieur, had I but known! What a supper I could have served, what a room I could have prepared——"
"And what a bill would have followed! Be easy, a man can only sleep on one bed at a time. Where is Monsieur de Commines?"
"Monsieur le Prince does me the honour to wait in the garden. He has already given orders——"
But Martin, who had heard my voice, pushed him aside.
"Monsieur Gaspard," he cried ruefully, "tell him you cannot have it so. He says the permit is for you only and that I must bide here. I told him, No! Where you went, I went. But he laughed at me, and said every babe must leave its nurse and walk alone some day, and that your time had come."
As he talked we had walked on into the garden that lay to the side and back of the inn, a pleasant place of prune trees well set with young fruit; pinks and roses grew underneath the boughs, and after rain the air was heavy with the sweets of lavender. To these thyme and early gillyflowers added their scent, making the morning air a king's luxury with perfume. Here Monsieur de Commines was waiting for me, a great bunch of newly-gathered flowers in his hands.
Catching Martin's last words he looked up.
"Fie!" said he frowning, though a twinkle in his eyes belied the gravity of the rebuke; "a soldier and preaching cowardice?"
"No coward for myself, Monseigneur, and I'll prove it to you," answered Martin sturdily. "If that fox in Plessis must gnaw his bone, then let him gnaw me, not Monsieur Gaspard."
The spasm of fear that swept across Monsieur de Commines' face startled me, so sudden was it, so abject, so unlike the man who had within four days faced a howling mob unflinchingly, with no more than a table's breadth between. His cheeks had gone white even in the sunlight, and the flowers fell from his hands as if the fingers had no longer strength to hold them.
"Christ's life! man! hold your fool's tongue!" he screamed in a harsh high-pitched voice more like a shrewish woman's than a man's; "who are you to take the King's majesty into your mouth and mangle it? Would you ruin your master? Would you ruin me? Would you hang yourself and that gaping idiot behind you there on Tristan's gallows? By the splendour of God! but I've a mind to swing the two of you! You that dared speak, and him that he dared listen and not cry out upon you! Eh, master host, eh?"
"But Monseigneur," cried the poor shaking wretch, "I heard nothing, I—I—I swear I heard nothing."
"Nothing at all? You are sure, eh? You are sure?"
"Sure, Monseigneur," he repeated in an agony; "do you think I would hear our gracious King miscalled a—a—sneaking beast, and not resent it? But how could I hear when there was nothing said?"
"Then go bid them saddle the horses; but remember this, if I hear you repeat what that fool never said, then——"
"Never, Monseigneur, never; have no fear."
"Fear? I? Use civiller language, rascal; what have I to do with fear? Do as thou'rt bid, and thou of the loose tongue, finish thy master's packing, and make haste."
Too cowed to do more than look piteously at me, Martin turned away to obey, and as the pair went about their business, Monsieur de Commines drew the deep breath of a man who for one terrible minute has hung by a single handsgrip above a gulf of death.
"I think I played my part," said he, forcing a smile. "Martin has learned his lesson, and the other—yes, for his own sake the other will be silent. But one thing is sure, even had the permit been for two, only one would have used it."
Played a part! My heart was still beating double tides from the sick fear I had seen in his face, and he called it playing a part! No warning, whether of direct words or tongueless flesh hooks with fragments of freshly-used dangling rope could urge discretion in the affairs of His Most Christian Majesty with half the emphasis of that agony of terror. If the King's friend, who tended him by day, and slept at his feet by night, had such cause for circumspection, how warily must he walk who came to urge the King to fling aside a soiled tool still keen for the royal service?
Naturally I accepted Monsieur de Commines' half apologetic explanation without comment, but when I would have asked about the progress of my own affairs he motioned me to silence.
"When we are on our road," he said curtly. But when Martin brought out Ninus saddled, as well as Roland and the pack-horse, his angry mood again burst constraint. "What fresh foolery is this? Did I not tell you the permit was for one only?"
"Yes, Monseigneur," answered Martin humbly, "but with your leave it is my duty to see Monsieur Gaspard as far as—as—as maybe."
De Commines' face cleared.
"Right, my friend! Love and duty are the pillars of the world; happy is the man who holds by them. Thou shalt see thy Master Gaspard as far as—as maybe. Ride thou behind with Benoit and my fellows and tell them to keep their distance; they know what that means. We will travel at a foot's pace," he added to me; "for there is much to be said, and the way is short."
"The first thing," he went on, as, side by side, we wound our way through the narrow streets, "is that you must change your name. Hellewyl smacks of Flanders, and the King hates—Good-day, my lord; we are all jealous of you at court. This marriage of the Dauphin will put you gentlemen of Flanders in such high favour that we poor ancient servants of the King will be forgotten in the cold—God grant he thinks so! As I was saying, we must drop the Hellewyl and henceforth be Monsieur Gaspard de Helville. In the King's present health and peevish mood—Yes, Monsieur le Conseiller, I rejoice to say His Majesty is in excellent health and spirits, excellent, excellent, but I do not think he receives to-day—with the King in his present mood it would be unwise to cross his prejudice. After all, a name is but a little thing, and the permit is for Monsieur de Helville. Next grasp this; the King is never ailing, except under the breath, you understand? To you I will tell the truth. When he sleeps we do not know that he will wake again, and when he wakes we do not know but that his next sleep will be eternal. He eats—as I have just said to Monsieur Chasse, excellent! You should have seen him break his fast this morning! I am a fair trencherman, but His Majesty surpasses me in that as in all things—eats nothing, only sucks the juice of an orange or two, so that we can almost see his bones sharpen daily. No man dares cross him—ah, my lord! you ride our way? To Plessis no doubt? Then a friendly word in your ear; the King was asking for you this morning, and you know his impatience is not always—H'm! I thought that would put spurs to his horse and so rid us of his company. It is true, too, that His Majesty did ask for 'that fool, de Baux,' but it was to forbid him the gate! It was no business of mine to tell him unpalatable news. Through life I have made it my rule to serve not only my friends but my enemies. Courtesy is a seed that bears fruit in all soils, even the roughest and least kindly. But there are so many interruptions I had better wait till we are beyond the walls."
To which I cordially agreed, so bewildering were the diplomatic contradictions which a plain man would have called blunt lies.
So, for the remainder of our ride through the city he bowed, smiled, saluted, talked; and was grave, gay, suave, stern, cordial, cold, as the person and the occasion demanded. There is nothing like being a courtier with a reputation for favour to win a man acquaintances, friends I dare not call them, for one half are ready to turn upon him for envy, and the other half are thinking their hardest how they can climb upon his back to their own advantage.
But once clear of the gate the throng slackened, and he took up his parable as if there had been no break in the thread.
"No! no man dares cross him. That does not mean there is need to cross him, by the Spirit of God! no! The King may be frail in body, but his brain burns as with fire, and when his thought blazes out in offence upon a man it consumes him. I tell you that, Monsieur de Helville, lest it should flash out at you and shrivel you and your petty vengeance out of the world. In your twenty-four hours in Tours rumour must have whispered many things in your ears; whispered, I say, since to speak outright is to court an outside lodgings at the Chateau Tristan, for all these rumours buzz round and round the King. The King is half dead; the King was never more alive; the King is crazed; the King's policy is keener witted than ever; the Dauphin goes in terror of his father; the King goes in terror of the Dauphin; these, and many more, and all of them true by turns, for he is compounded of contradictions. For instance, so coward is he that no man dares say Death! or The Grave! in his presence, and yet, when a few months back Death jogged his elbow and sent him staggering to the Grave's mouth, the King never winced, but thrust out his chin, and stared the Terror in the face, unafraid."
"But, Monseigneur, how can I, a stranger, and no courtier, walk safely through these pitfalls?"
"For seven days you will share my quarters; make the most of your chances. The King will then put you to service, God knows what, for he has strange whims at times, and again I say, make the most of what he offers. Your time in Plessis will be short. It is his wisdom to change his servants often lest they should learn too much and be dangerous. As I have told you, he spends half his days making and breaking men's fortunes; only what the King finally sends you to do, do: or else tear up the permit now and ride back, not to Tours, but to your charnel house of Solignac, lest he reach after you. There stands Plessis!" he added abruptly.