Drawing rein, we sat in silence and as we waited Martin slowly drew up with us. It was our first view of the—what shall I call it? Chateau? Palace? Prison? Fortress? It was all four in one, or something of all four. But perhaps Martin's summing up fitted the case best.
"God have mercy upon us!" he said under his breath; "it's a rat trap!"
"There is no cat in Europe with claws strong enough to scratch it open," answered Monsieur de Commines; this time we were alone, and he had no rebuke for Martin's freedom of speech. "No, nor wolf either! Look at its strength. First there is the iron paling set on the near bank of the fosse; next, the fosse is twenty feet deep and is no mere ditch, but a lake for breadth; then comes the outermost wall, bristling, as you see, with four-pointed hooks that would rip a man's flesh to the bone and hang him up by joints like a sheep in a butcher's shop. These two towers flank the gateway. It faces the river, and can only be approached by that zig-zag path which is set on every side by springes, traps and gins cunningly hidden. May the world to come show mercy to the man they grip, for in this life there is no longer hope for him! Within that outer wall there is a second which dominates the first and is also bounded by a moat; within that again there is a third yet higher and again girded by water. You see them there, terraced, one, two, three; and if the first gate were forced—a thing hard to believe—the second stands not opposite but aside, and the third yet further aside, so that to reach the core, where the King lies, there must be a transverse straggle along the bank under fire both back and front, then the fosse to cross and another gate to force. That grim black shaft rising from the centre is the donjon; strength within strength, defence defending defence, and these four iron-sheeted towers crown and govern all. Monsieur de Helville, your late master, saw war, and you with him, Master Martin, did either of you ever see such a King's house before, or was there ever such seen since the world began?"
"A rat trap," repeated Martin, "and God have mercy on——"
"Monsieur Gaspard!" said Monsieur de Commines, and rode on laughing. But not for long. While we were still more than a bowshot from the outer walls he turned to Martin. "Now, friend, get back to the Cross of Saint Martin, and wait there in patience. Do not go far from the inn door; your master may need you any hour by day or by night. God knows when! It is all as the King wills, and remember this, curiosity is a fatal vice at Plessis. If you approach too near the Castle those fellows you see on the walls will shoot you like a mad dog first, and enquire why afterwards, and so the saints keep you!"
Dropping the reins on Ninus' neck, Martin jumped to the ground, and went on his knee in the dust.
"The Lord, He knows, Monsieur Gaspard, that the leaving you is none of my doing," he said between the mumbles of his mouth upon my hand. "If I'd ha' thought it would come to this then the Lord again He knows I'd ha' sooner faced Jan Meert and his twenty devils and so never have been here to taste the bitterness. There were but three of us, Monsieur Gaspard; Babette is gone, now you will go, and I only shall be left, a poor, miserable, dried skin of a man that—that—would give his life to go first," and he broke down, weeping.
Laughing, but in no laughing mood, I leaned aside, and tried to pull him to his feet. But he would not move, and when at last I drew my hand away—for Monseigneur was waiting for me—its back was wet with his tears. Nor, so long as we were in sight, did he rise from his knee.
"Ah!" said Monseigneur, as we rode on, "Master Martin has a heart in him for all his years, and is not ashamed to show it. I fear he would never make a courtier, he has not learned to forget love, and be ungrateful."
When, out of his experience, the devil formed schools to teach apt humanity, he set them in the extremes of life, the noisome dens of packed cities and the courts of kings. Misery forgets God, that by theft and murder it may live out yet one more unhappy day, and greatness climbs upon its own shame to yet more dishonoured honour.
Never was there such a place as Plessis for intrigue. From Monsieur de Beaujeu, the King's son-in-law, down to the kitchen scullions, there was not a man but mined or countermined to gain some private advantage; nor, in all the palace, was there a finger-nail—mine among the rest—but itched to scratch the King's favour. That much I learned in my seven days of waiting.
Through Monsieur de Commines' influence almost every door was open to me, and by his instructions I used my liberty freely.
"Who knows to what service you may be put," he added; "Plessis is not to be turned inside out in a week, but a week may teach you not to show yourself a fool."
So day by day I went my rounds by the outer, middle and inner walls; the courtyards, the galleries, the anterooms, the sparrows' nests, the towers, the donjon, even to the bear-pit and the sheds where were housed that varied collection of strange beasts His Majesty had gathered from the four corners of the earth to distract his thoughts, and show the world how active was his mind. The quarters of the Scottish archers I avoided as far as possible. Though Monsieur de Commines did not love these interloping Northmen, nor they him, they were civil enough to me for his sake, or, rather, for the sake of his influence. But I could not understand half their guttural jargon.
The King I also avoided, and only saw from a distance until the day he sent for me; once, far off, his scarlet satin cloak and heavy furs showing like a giant poppy with the brown capsule half pushed off; once sunning himself in a narrow court, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands, his shoulders hunched to his ears, decrepit, shrunken, every muscle in collapse; and once, not an hour later, on the parapet of the outer wall, bowing a gracious acknowledgment to a group of the good folk of Tours who saluted him from a discreet and safe distance; the half-dead man was then very much alive, and so rumour was justified of her children!
Tied though he was to the King's girdle, it was Monsieur de Commines' custom to steal an hour nightly, and listen to my rehearsal of the day's lessons.
"What strikes me most," said I, as my week drew to an end, "is the confusion of tongues within the walls. There is the liquid music of Provence, the iron rasp of Normandy, the clipped French of Paris, the uncouth burr of Gascony; I even heard a Flanders oath or two to-day."
"Eh?" said Monseigneur, looking up at me; "Flanders? Did you say Flanders?"
"Yes, Jehan Flemalle the bearward. The brute clawed at him as he fed it, and he drew back swearing; I know a Flanders curse when I hear it, and so, I think, should you," I added, laughing.
But, so far from breaking up, the gravity on his face deepened, and for a full minute he sat with pursed mouth and narrowed eyes, staring into vacancy out of window. When I would have spoken he shook his head and snarled an incoherence, warning me into silence with a little impatient twist of his hand. But suddenly his face lit up, and he turned upon me, his eyes shining.
"Jehan Flemalle—Jan Flemael! By the splendour of God, I begin to understand!" then he checked himself, and sat watching me, as he had sat that night in the Louvre, when I knew to my discomfort that the keenest brain in France was reckoning up not my strength, but my weakness. "Do you know," he went on at last, his voice suave and smooth, with all trace of excitement gone from it, "I distrust this Jehan Flemalle. What if he starves the King's beasts to his own profit? He is an Angevin, and—Yes, here is your chance to do the King a service. From time to time these wild creatures have cost immense sums. I hate them myself, but the King loves them, and visits them almost daily. Watch this Jehan Flemalle; watch him when alone with the beasts, note whom he consorts with, and if they meet in secret try and catch them in talk."
"What, Monseigneur? Play spy upon a butcher?"
"Ay! on a butcher," he said harshly; "the word is a good one, and you could not better it in a year. As to playing spy, I'd have you understand, Monsieur, that if I bid you lay your ear to the crack of a maid's door for the King's service, you must do it, or quit Plessis. There are two types of useful men in the world; those who think and are obeyed without question, and those who obey without question, but do not think. For the present, be content to be the second, that one day you may perhaps be the first. What! Monsieur Hellewyl, do you, who as yet are not a little finger in Plessis, presume to call yourself a brain?" Rising he strode to the door, and turning, shook a monitory if not a menacing forefinger at me. "Remember," he went on, "in this thing I am the King and you have your orders. If your dignity is not supple enough to stoop to a little thing, how can it rise to a great? And who are you to dare to question whys and wherefores in the King's business?"
Without waiting for an answer he was gone. And what answer was possible? Ever since Solignac was burned the whole force of my schooling had been, None dare cross the King's will! It was written in the ashes of my father's house, it was taught by the mouth of the King's friend, it met me at the four gates of the Louvre, the dangling-rope-ends on Tristan's house called it aloud, and even at the altar of God Himself, Mademoiselle caught the echo and bowed in an agony of prayer before its force. Or this order of Monsieur de Commines might be a test, a trap of the King's own devising. It was notorious that Louis loved crooked methods. Stoop that you may rise! Monseigneur's words had hinted as much. Perhaps—but excuses are never hard to find, even for a meanness, when that meanness serves a personal gain very near to the heart.
Though I have said little of him, Jan Meert was never long out of my thoughts. Dead Babette called to me across the smoke, and with both blood and fire to avenge my weakness of poverty could afford no luxury of qualms. It must lean where it could, even upon a foul staff. In a word, what Monsieur de Commines bade me do, I did, nor was the execution difficult.
A menagerie was as much part of a royal palace as were the kitchens. Why, I cannot say. Perhaps it tickled a King's pride to know that even the wild beasts were under his heel. That of Plessis at this time lay to the south-east; cages, stalls, dens, pits, as were required. These the King was continually adding to or enlarging, and behind the planks laid for their repair, slanting against the wall, there was perfect concealment.
Was I ashamed of the situation into which Monsieur de Commines had forced me? Frankly yes; but, also frankly, still more ashamed of the risk of being found out.
The stalls and cages were side by side, bordering both walls of an angle facing me not ten paces distant; nowhere in Plessis was there space to spare, and the poor, free-born beasts suffered from the congestion with their betters. In these were the King's true favourites. Monsieur de Commines might sleep at his feet, Monsieur de Beaujeu minister his affairs, the Chancellor, Rochfort, have his ear and his confidence, but their tenure was no stronger than a loose whim. These others held his love and his interest, and to such an extent that, ailing or well, he visited them almost daily; Barbary lions no larger than great cats, elk-deer, reindeer, a strange medley.
But oftenest of all he would stand opposite the cage that prisoned four great wolves from Auvergne. These he would bait till the savage brutes, bigger than month-old calves, flung themselves howling against the bars, raging but helpless, their fangs bared, their chaps dribbling foam and slaver. He had even names for them.
"Burgundy," he would say, pointing from one to the other, "Spain, The Empire, Rome!" Then, tapping his breast, add significantly, "France! Snarl, my friends, froth, howl, eat your hearts out in hate, France is unafraid," and they, as if they understood his jeer, would fling themselves afresh against the side of the cage, tearing and biting the bars to get at him. So, in jest, this cage came to be known as the cage of The Four Nations.
Presently, as I waited behind my pile of timber, Jehan Flemalle came. In Plessis there were no idlers. Even the four hundred archers of the guard had their duties, and discipline was iron. Jehan Flemalle, therefore, came alone and with no loiterers at his heels to watch the feeding of the animals. In either hand was a great basket of kitchen offal, and at the smell of him a howl arose whose echo rumbled in the confined space like a winter's thunder.
From cage to cage he went, dealing out the day's rations, here a half loaf such as few in France set teeth in from January to December, there a bone such as still fewer in France saw even once a month in their pots, and little by little the howls died down to a grumbling purr of brute contentment. If other days were as this, then Monsieur de Commines need be under no doubt; the King's beasts were not starved, let happen what might to the King's subjects. Then a curious thing struck me, spurring my jaded watchfulness; Jehan Flemalle in his feeding had passed by the cage of the Four Nations, leaving Burgundy and the rest to howl their hungry lamentations unheeded. He even goaded them to louder complaint and stronger protest, for, setting down their dinner in full sight, he gibed them as the King had done.
"Howl, Burgundy, snap your jaws, Spain! Tear at the bars, Rome, tear! tear! Perhaps one day the way will open, and then—eh, my sons? then we shall see, shall we not? That is the one thing needed, an open door, and, Christus! but it is creaking on its hinges if the world but knew it!" It was good Flemish, and not the mumbling jumble of a half-baked Angevin clod! "Here's to make it creak louder," he went on. "Here's to help it open with a crash that will shake all France from the Nivernais to the three seas."
From under his leathern jerkin he drew an armourer's file such as is used for cutting rivets, long, flat, and coarse, and through the howls of the frantic brutes came the steady rasp, rasp, rasp, while the sweat grew cold upon me at the cunning devilishness of the villian's purpose.
"Your dinner to-day, Burgundy," said he, plying the tool steadily under cover of the howling din. "Your dinner to-morrow, but the third day you must go a-hunting. One spring and you're through, my children; Rome, Burgundy, and the Empire all on France at a leap, and Spain crawling in behind to claim her share of the spoils. Good!" as one of the famished brutes, crouching, thundered against the bars, "that is the trick to play when a man jeers your empty belly. Spring! and you're through! but not to-day nor to-morrow. When the third day comes, then, God with us! poof! You're through! you're through!" and again the rasp, rasp, rasp arose, harsh and strident, his body swinging in rhythm to the grind of the tool.
If ever there had been a doubt of the scoundrel's treacherous purpose there was none now and, the beasts being at last fed, and he gone, it was with a humbled heart I slipped from my hiding-place. My God! What a secret to hold! Truly those who net in King's waters sometimes land strange fish. For a moment my purpose staggered. Jan Meert was the King's tool. Let me but hold my peace for two days, and the hand and brain which set that tool working would pass to judgment by as red a road as had dead Babette. I owed the King no loyalty, no gratitude, no love. Love! Who in all France or out of it owed Louis love? Mademoiselle? No, hate rather; for in some way which I did not understand, Louis stood to her for ruin and the wreck of all she held most dear.
Again my purpose staggered. Once already I have said I was not in love with Mademoiselle, but she had stirred my sympathy, and except Martin, and perhaps, no, not perhaps, certainly—Brigitta and the dead Babette, no one had touched me so nearly as that since my mother died.
But that mood passed. I have always believed that the finger of God is closer to the lives of men than some think. You are blind and do not see it, hardened and do not feel it, self-guided and so misunderstand its directings, but whose fault is it that we fail to read the signs, or are unconscious of the pressure of spirit on spirit? By silence I could secure my private vengeance, but at what a cost?
If Louis died, died murdered in such a fashion, war would surely follow. A picture of The Four Nations let loose on France: of Burgundy and Spain, Rome and The Empire, dividing her mangled body, not in type, but in truth, with all the crowded horrors of siege and sack rose before me; cities laid waste, a helpless peasantry ravaged, innocence flung to feed the passions of human wolves; these were mine to permit or prevent; who knew but that God Almighty had brought me to Plessis for this very thing?
"Who are you, to question whys and wherefores in the King's business?" Monsieur de Commines had said, and I had allowed the justice of the demand. Here was the hand of the King of Kings Himself, and who was I to question His whys and wherefores? or to His command. Do this for me! answer, I will not! No! Monsieur de Commines must hear and must act.
He listened without comment, almost without emotion, till I had ended. Then—
"You know our Flanders proverb? Flood, and a high wind, do not go a journey for nothing! No! nor does an Angevin swear Flemish in Plessis at his neck's risk for nothing either!"
"Then I was only a catspaw? When you bade me seek, you knew what I would find?"
"I guessed, but the affair was too small for me to touch. Besides, you have now your claim upon the King, though I think we shall finish the affair ourselves before informing His Majesty. Trifles at all times vex great natures; think how a grit of sand in the eye galls you."
"Trifles? A grit of sand?" I repeated, nettled that he should make so little of my discovery. "Do you call a plot to kill the King a trifle? Do you call The Four Nations trifles? No man who saw these slavering brutes pounding themselves frantic against the half-filed bars could call them trifles!"
"That is just it; you have seen, but I have not, and so, perhaps, I make too little of it. To-morrow Monsieur Jehan feeds them as usual? Good! I shall be there. I think I see my way to do substantial justice, and yet not give Monsieur Jehan the undeserved dignity of a state trial. There again it would be making too much of trifles; or"—he added, shaking a finger in the air—"some one may be behind Monsieur Jehan whom it would not be convenient to unmask."
Though my belief is that next day Jehan Flemalle anticipated his usual time, it seemed to me he lagged in the coming. Even to me, a patient, almost a phlegmatic man, as you must have discovered, the waiting in the half-gloom set my nerves all a-creep. I say half-gloom, because by an alteration in the position of the boards Monsieur de Commines blocked up the space which gave access to our hiding-place.
"It would never do," he whispered, "for Monsieur de Rochfort to catch the Prince de Talmont slinking to cover like a thief behind arras. His laughter would kill as surely as—as—the jaws of The Four Nations."
But even with this safeguard against observation he seemed ill at ease, muttering to himself and shifting restlessly from place to place, so that to us both it was a relief when a louder howl rose from the cage facing us. The wolves scented blood and cried for it.
But their hunger had to wait Jehan Flemalle's pleasure, and as the procedure of the previous day was repeated, here a loaf and there a bone with the cage of The Four Nations passed ostentatiously by, I touched Monseigneur on the shoulder. It was the vindication of the truth of my story, which it seemed to me, he had more than half-doubted. But he shook me off with an inconsiderate petulance.
"Dame!" he muttered impatiently, "have I not eyes of my own?"
My faith! but he had, and used them well. With his face pressed against the boards he stared through a crack like a truant child at a peepshow, his teeth clenched and bared, his eyes narrowed, his breath coming in little short gasps. A faint grin was on his face, a spasm of excited emotion rather than of merriment. I have since seen the same look on gamesters' faces when a fortune hung on the fall of the dice and to lose was ruin. But at that time it was new to me, and I stood back a little, watching him curiously.
Here a loaf, there a bone, and back to the cage of The Four Nations came Jehan Flemalle. Nothing remained except the wolves' meat, and straddling his legs a yard or two from the den, he jeered their hunger.
"Hey! Burgundy! Hey! Spain!" he cried, snapping his fat fingers on either side his head while the starving brutes raced howling up and down the cage, pressing their lean flanks against the bars. "Yap and yowl, my sons, yap and yowl! Dine to-day like fed lords, and to-morrow go a-hunting for yourselves, my little ones! An open door, and France in your jaws. France, do you hear?" and he clicked his tongue "France! France! May you find him sweet!"
("You hear for yourself," said I, touching Monseigneur a second time, "are you satisfied, now?" "Peace, fool," answered Monseigneur, "how can I hear if you chatter like a daw?")
"All France by the throat to tear and nuzzle; God! I would I were a wolf and one of you, if only for an hour! But yapping and yowling are not enough, my children, you must jump for your dinner, jump at the throat of the man who gibes your hunger, and pin him with your fangs. Up he'll come, dragging his lame foot in the dust, dragging it thus, thus, thus, up he'll come, smirking and jeering, ay, jeering, and the Devil waiting for him behind the jowl of The Four Nations. Ah ha! he'll say, fret and fume, curs! You'd tear France, would you? Bah! France is not afraid! and he'll snap his fingers as I do. And you, my sons, what will you do? So! So! that is your answer is it? You'll jump for his throat, will you? Good, Burgundy, Good! down on your belly, boy; flatter, flatter, and get the grip of your claws home for the spring; now,one, two, three——Christus!"
In the half-gloom Monseigneur's hand caught mine, and drew me forward imperiously. Above 7the grumbling mumble of the feeding brutes had risen the howling of the wolves, sinking at last to a sharp,yap, yap, yap, broken by a dog-like, complaining whine. Then, as Jehan Flemalle marked time at the last there was an instant's silence, and a rasping crash followed by a deep-chested, hoarse baying like that of hounds on a trail.
"My God!" I cried, "they are loose!"
"I hope so," answered Monseigneur huskily; "they ought to be, for I filed the bars myself last night."
"But there will be murder done?"
"Justice, not murder. Am I a man to do things by halves? Be quiet, and let me look, for this is very curious, much more curious than if Tristan had hanged him. Hanging is common, but I never saw a man die in this way before."
No, nor can many have seen the like, for which God be thanked; it was an awful end. Jan Flemael lay on his back, his limp arms flung out in a cross. Burgundy had rolled aside with the force of the leap, and was picking himself up, cowed by the fall and silent. Behind him Spain had crept, had caught Jan Flemael by the throat, had given one whimpering worrying wrench, had—but that is enough, it was an awful end. Rome and The Empire sniffed and growled uneasily inside the cage, but made no effort to escape.
In three minutes all was over and Monseigneur shook himself with a sigh. His face had gone grey and haggard, and in ten breaths he had aged as many years, so drawn was his mouth, so webbed the corners of his eyes.
"A great sight," he said, shaking himself again, "and one with a moral for more than us in Plessis. Death on the threshold, knocking, knocking, knocking, and a man within call who has no ears to hear."
"With these brutes loose," answered I, as the worrying growl rose afresh, "there will be knocking at many doors, and an answer to be given whether we like or not."
But Monseigneur had already recovered hissang froid.
"I say again, am I a fool to do thing by halves? See!" and he pushed aside the boards blocking the entrance.
Little by little a line of men were pushing forward strong nets hung from poles and braced beneath; little by little The Four Nations would be again trapped. Truly, as he said, Monsieur de Commines did nothing by halves.
"My men," he added laconically.
"But this was to be kept from the King's ears, and now—"
"I tell you they are my men," he answered testily, "and what if they do talk? Bars are already prepared to fit the sockets. The old bars will be destroyed, and if men do whisper, Filed! there are so many lies believed in Plessis that a little truth may well be discredited. If necessary we shall say he tampered with the door and a lamentable accident resulted! Faugh! look at the carrion! Jump for your dinners! said he; Saints! how they have jumped, and how they have dined! He told more truth than he knew!'"
Beyond that I never heard that Jehan Flemalle had any epitaph.
It was Monsieur de Commines himself who came for me as I went my rounds of self-instruction three days after The Four Nations had gone a-hunting.
"The King calls you," he said, out of breath with haste; "I think your chance has come, for he has some scheme in his head."
"The King? What! This instant?" and I looked downward at my dress, plain, clean, and serviceable enough, but hardly fit for a court presentation.
"Bah! Catch fortune as she flies. Besides, silks and satins would not become the man who files a wolf's bars to save the King's life, and then hunts the brutes back to their cage at the risk of his own."
"But, Monseigneur, I did none of these things."
"No, but the King thinks you did, and that is the same thing. I told you the counter-plot was too trivial for me to lend my name to it. It would not hoist a man at the top of the ladder an inch higher; but you, who are at the bottom, it may raise a rung, or even two, if you are politic. Come, the King waits; he has his dogs to play with, but he may tire of them at any moment, and your chance be lost. One last word," he went on, as, hurrying at a trot whose pace was very significant in a man of Monseigneur's age and dignity, we drew near the mouth of the Cour au Soleil, where Louis warmed his cold blood in the sun. "Remember, you climb over my back. It is I who have brought you into Plessis, and there are many who would be glad to see you muddy my shoulders; therefore be watchful. Here in a sentence is the way to win and hold court favour. Catch the King's meaning, and jump with his humour, whatever it may be. Hush! not a word till he speaks, he is often like that."
The court was triangular in shape, and faced south. Across the apex of the angle a couch was drawn, and there, stretched upon its cushions, was Louis. One leg was drawn up under him, the other lay straight out, and where it showed below the edge of his mantle the calf was of a bigness no greater than my wrist. A sleeved cloak or coat of scarlet satin, lined and trimmed with ermine, wrapped him to the knees. A tight-fitting cap of the same colour as the cloak covered not alone the scalp, but coming round the back of the head as far as the nape, caught in his ears, leaving only the face exposed, and, my God! what a face it was! Meagre as a death's head, the smooth-shaven skin a yellow parchment, the nose long and thin as a vulture's beak, the full lips withered and shrivelled to a crumpling of livid skin tightened across broken teeth, the eyes—was he awake or asleep? living or dead? for though these eyes were open they had rolled back in their sockets and showed only a narrow splash of muddy grey shot with blood at the corners. One arm hung over the couch-edge almost to the ground, and the whole attitude was the pitiable collapse of a sick old age and utter weariness.
Three or four dogs stood or sprawled beside him, good courtiers all! for they seemed to know his mood, and lay quiet, waiting for the change. One, a coarse-jowled brindled beast that panted for fatness, cowered on its haunches a foot or two away from the couch-head. No member of the court was present, but knots of the King's archers, half-armoured, but with sword and dagger, and carrying their bows, were on guard at every point that commanded the court.
As minute after minute passed, and the King still lay as one dead, there was ample time for the picture to fix itself in my memory. Then, suddenly, the sightless eyes rolled in their sockets, and he awoke.
"Sire," said Monseigneur, as, hat in hand, I went down on one knee, "here is Monsieur de Helville."
"The compatriot of Monsieur Jehan Flemalle?"
"Your majesty's faithful servant."
"Faithful as England, and for the same cause," answered Louis, beckoning with his fingers to the big-jowled dog crouching near him.
The brute saw and understood, for, though the lips twitched till the fangs showed, it flattened itself on its belly and inched nearer to the thin hand it feared. But though the King called the dog, his eyes never left my face, and as I said of the face a moment back so now I say, My God! what eyes they were! Ice and fire, cold, inscrutable, implacable; dead as grey ash, but with the smouldering heat of the ember not far below the film; remorseless eyes that groped the secrets of a man's thoughts as the delicate fingers of the blind grope a face.
"I call him England, after my dear brother Edward," went on Louis, "because though he shows his teeth and would fly at me if he dared, a sop will always bribe him, and, like the King whose premature decease we all so bitterly lament, he will die at last of over-eating. God and Saint Claude forgive me if I seem to speak evil of the dead! Are you as faithful as this my dog, Monsieur de Helville?"
For a moment I was silent, partly because the shrewd, malevolent, fixed gaze fascinated me as men say a serpent fascinates a bird, partly because he had cleft the truth to the very core. I had told Mademoiselle that I owed the King no loyalty, I had even been in two minds as to letting Jan Flemael's plot run a triumphant course; to gain my own ends, and my own ends alone, had brought me to Plessis. As the King had said, my fidelity was no greater than that of the cowed bull-dog, and thereby came a lesson.
The poor brute had crept reluctantly within reach of the beckoning hand, and the thin fingers that looked so frail, but had so much iron of will in them, had gripped the loose skin of the plethoric neck, twisting it till the dog wheezed in an agony of breathlessness. Let the grip close in another half-inch, and it would choke.
"Faithful as England and for the same reason," said the King, reading the truth. "What is the sop that wins your love, Monsieur de Helville?"
"I desire service, Sire."
He grinned contemptuously, grinned till the thin lips twitched up, showing the teeth as England had shown his.
"Pish, man! Leave useless flattery to your betters! You desire Jan Meert's life. Monsieur d'Argenton has told me. Who knows! perhaps you may have it."
The words stung me, or rather, their contempt. It was as if he gave me the lie, and impelled by the smart, I answered more boldly than I had dreamed I would have dared—
"Why not, Sire? A man's house is his house, and if yours were burned would you not lop the hand——"
He stopped me with a laugh; no thin sarcastic smile at such a childish outburst, but full-throated merriment.
"The torch, you mean, Monsieur Hellewyl, not the hand itself; the hand that held the torch was—elsewhere!"
Groping upward, he patted a little leaden image of the Virgin that hung from a loop in his cap, patted it without reverence but rather as one who would say, God is on my side.
"Mary have mercy upon you if you so much as touch that hand except to kiss it; what it gropes it grasps, and what it grasps it crushes. You mean the torch, eh, Monsieur Hellewyl?"
"The torch, then, Sire," said I, shivering a little, so significant was the threat, and so significant too, when taken in conjunction with that threat, the laugh that foreran it; "would you not set your foot on the torch that burned your father's house? Would you not trample it, quench it——?"
"I? I am France, while you are——" He flung aside the half-choked brute with more strength than one would have supposed possible in such a shrunken frame. "Monsieur d'Argenton, take away the dogs, but do not hasten poor England lest he die before his next sop gorges him; and you, Monsieur Hellewyl, wait."
Back he sank upon the cushions, upwards rolled the eyes to sightlessness, and again he lay as one dead, but breathing heavily from the exertion.
Without so much as a grimace of repugnance at his task, Monsieur de Commines caught up a little shaggy Spanish dog, a present from King Ferdinand the Catholic, and nursing it in his arms turned away, whistling softly to the rest. The signal was well known and quickly obeyed, for all at once followed him, England capering clumsily in the joy of dismissal.
I admit my envy went with the wheezing beast. Had I dared, I, too, would have danced lightheartedly out of the sunshine of the King's presence into any shadow in Plessis. But such joyful release was not for me. Wait, said he, and I waited, motionless, still on one knee. Wait for what? To be gripped, so to speak, by the throat, gibed at, and then flung aside like a dog? And yet that was the very fate I craved for Jan Meert, whose only offence was that he had done what he was bid.
How far the King played a part, and how far his weariness was real no man could tell, but it's my belief that through all his lassitude nothing escaped him. No sooner had Monsieur de Commines and the drove of dogs turned the angle of the court than he sat up.
"On your feet, on your feet!" he said sharply, all the weak huskiness gone from his voice. "You asked for service, priests serve with their knees—God be thanked for prayer—but a man with his hands and feet. What service? Jehan Flemalle's place is vacant, will that suit you?" Pausing, he again read my thoughts, read them as a man reads a book, and put them into such blunt words as after his late rebuke I would not have dared to use. "You are a gentleman, and fit for something better than to feed offal to brutes? Perhaps; and then again, perhaps not! What do I know of your fitness? Will you take Jehan Flemalle's place, Monsieur de Helville?"
"If the King bids me," answered I, crestfallen.
"And if the King bids you do him some other service?"
"If my honour, Sire——"
"Honour! God's name sir, I am your honour." The sudden storm that possessed him frightened me, so fierce was it, so malevolent. His dull lacklustre eyes blazed up like powder sparks, and he shook his clenched fist at me as if he desired nothing better than to strike me down. "We have no room for if's in Plessis, no, nor out of it, on the King's service. If?—If?—do you serve me, or do you not?"
"With the blessing of God, yes, Sire," I answered.
"Ah!" and the lean hands went together, the fingers pointing upwards, following the direction of his eyes. "If the blessing of God be not with us we are indeed undone. His mercy forbid we should ever seek aught contrary to His will. But I have often found that what I willed, He was graciously pleased to will also, and this service, Monsieur de Helville, is one peculiarly pleasing to God Almighty. Tell me, why did you file the bars of The Four Nations?"
The question caught me unawares, and for two reasons I had no answer ready; one, that I am unready in a lie and had not filed the bars at all; the other, that my first impulse had been to let Jan Flemael do his own filing, follow what might. Louis was quick to catch my embarrassment, and shrewd to understand it, at least in part.
"So, so!" he said. "You, too, are of Flanders, Monsieur Hellewyl? But let that pass. I judge a man by his acts, and whatever your first thought was in the end you filed the bars. But why? Why? You, too, being of Flanders."
By this time I had my wits at command, and could have lied with a courtier-like straight face, protesting against the imputation, but that I knew he would have scoffed at the pretence. Jump with his mood, said Monsieur de Commines, and as his mood seemed to desire the truth, I told it.
"For the sake of peace, Sire. The wolves would have torn France. Better one man die than——"
"A whole nation perish! My own thought, Monsieur de Helville, of a verity my own thought, as God's my witness." Crossing his breast hastily, he put a hand under him, pushing himself to his feet, and stood facing me, his back arched, his limbs trembling in weakness, but with the virile fire of the eyes unquenched, indomitable in their masterful purpose. "I, too, desire peace, and shall one life stand between to say No! to me? Peace to France, peace—oh yes, yes, yes"—and he laughed a little cackling laugh, nodding his trembling head in time to the merriment—"peace, too, to Navarre; poor distracted Navarre that needs peace even more than does France! It is a Christian act to bring peace, a Christian act. Monsieur de Helville, does the service suit you?"
"A life, you said, Sire: whose life?"
For a moment or two the King stood silent, one lean transparent hand laid across his narrow chest as if for warmth, the other covered his mouth so that the chin rested on the palm while the teeth gnawed at the finger nails.
"There is a child," he began at last, "a miserable, useless, puling child——"
"My God, Sire!" I cried, shaken out of all control, even out of all trepidation, "is it murder?"
Out flew both hands, open, shaking in a passion of menace, and he staggered forward a step as if to claw me in the face, but drew back, panting.
"I cannot! God! I cannot, I cannot!" he muttered, and gulping for breath, stood staring at me with blinking eyes. "Murder? Shame, Monsieur de Helville, shame, shame to think such a thought of a Christian king, such a thought of me—of me!" groping upward, he again patted the image on his cap. "See! I swear it, by the Virgin, by the Virgin; God strike me—strike me—eh? You understand? I seek peace, Monsieur, only peace and the good of France, and—yes, yes,—the pleasing of God, that of course, always, the pleasing of God. Again I ask, do you say No! to such a service? Dare any man say No? Dare any—any——"
His voice fell, quavering, his jaw dropped, and a look of abject terror broke across his face. Swaying on his feet he pawed blindly at the air, then collapsed backwards in a heap upon the cushions.
"Coctier! Coctier! Coctier!" he screamed. "For the love of Christ, come to me. Coctier! Coctier! Ah! dear God! not this time, give me a little longer, just a little, little longer!"
Whimpering, he tore at his throat with powerless fingers, and thinking he wanted his cloak loosened at the collar I ran forward to help him. But he dug at me with his nails, spitting like a frightened cat.
"Not you, not you; no man but Coctier. Mon Dieu! will no man send me Coctier!" again his voice rose to a scream. "The King is dying, Coctier, Coctier! dying! dying!"
Turning to seek help, I ran full tilt into the arms of Monsieur de Commines, who, with Maitre Jacques Coctier, the King's physician, was hastening in answer to the cry.
"Monseigneur——"
"Dolt! You have crossed him and I bid you not. He is never like this except when crossed. If the King dies, by God! you may count Jan Flamael's end a happy one," and striking at me, he ran on.
Down on one knee went Coctier, his fingers busy with the throat of the King's cloak, and as I drew back I heard Louis' voice as if in answer to a question.
"A priest? No, no, not this time, not this time. Priests are for the sick, for the dying—and I must live that there may be peace."
Peace! It was curious how I stumbled on the word. First Mademoiselle, then Monsieur de Commines, and now the King; all desired peace, but it seemed to me that to all peace did not mean the same thing.
At what length, and in what terms, Monsieur de Commines berated me I need say little. Those who know his command of vigorous language may judge, but had his tongue been a birch rod, and I a little thievish boy, caught red-handed, I could not have been more sorely lashed. Epithets flew as thick as snow-flakes in winter, but were neither as cold nor as soft. I was a blundering dolt, a thick-headed fool, a self-seeking, ungrateful pick-thank.
But there I stopped him.
"No, Monseigneur, never ungrateful."
"Ungrateful," he persisted. "Here do I bring you to Plessis, vouch for you, sow a thought in the King's mind for you, and when it buds you trample it under foot, never caring that you may trample me down with it. Is that gratitude?"
"A man has his honour, Monseigneur; yes, and something greater than his honour; for when it comes to steeping his soul in a child's blood——"
"A child's blood? What do you mean, de Helville?"
"What thought you sowed I do not know," I answered bluntly and perhaps without much respect, for at the moment my blood was hot, "but the crop was murder, and I was bid go reap it."
The heavy wrinkles on his forehead, wrinkles in which you might have sunk a bow-string out of sight, deepened yet further, and he stood gnawing his lip in silence.
"Yes, I remember now," he said at last. "There is a child, but his name never passed between us, the King and myself, I mean. Mon Dieu! Monsieur de Helville, you surely cannot think His Majesty meant any harm to the boy?"
"You told me, Monseigneur, that my time to think had not yet come, and so, if it pleases you, I shall think nothing," I answered. "I am a plain man, a stranger to Plessis and new to its admirable court ways. It may be when the King says this is black, he means it is white or red or blue, and that to kill a child is to stuff it with sweetmeats. What passed was this," and I told him everything in as few words as I could.
By the time I had ended, he was reasonable. That is where a man frequently differs from a woman; he can see two sides to a question, she only that which reflects her mood of the moment.
"Thank God he seeks peace," said he when I had finished. "Gaspard, my friend, my tongue was too rough just now, and yet I think you were wrong. You should have played him, and so learned his true mind. What he said was to try you, or, at worst, a jest."
"A grim jest, Monseigneur, so grim that the King nearly died of its failure."
Monsieur de Commines shook an open palm in the air as if to push a thought from him.
"You see how we stand, always on the brink of the grave. Some day, to-morrow, next month, next year, the grave-edge will crumble under our feet and yet we dare not say, Sire! take care! All we can do is to hold him back at all costs and in spite of himself. For when that grave shuts——"
Though my knowledge of Plessis could be measured by days, my ears had been open as well as my eyes, and so the snap of the fingers that rounded off the sentence was more informatory than words. It meant, as far as Monseigneur was concerned, a friend's deep sorrow, a crown minister's despair, a courtier's ruin; bereavement instant and irremediable to heart, brain, and ambition; it meant that the present fortunes and future prospects of the living Commines would certainly be buried with the dead King, and perhaps also the glory and greatness of France. Nor do I think the certainty of the one fretted him as sorely as the perhaps of the others. For eleven years Philip de Commines had been the greatest man in the kingdom, serving Louis, France, and himself, and loving all three. Let the grave close over his master, and at the groan of the sepulchral stone rasping to its socket Love and Service perished. But I think that with him, as with every truly great man, his life's work was dearer than himself, and his heart, as he leaned against the little diamond window panes looking out into the narrow court, was bitter for the loss to France rather than at the crumbling of his own fortunes.
"At any cost," he said, repeating the words over and over, "at any cost, at any—any cost."
"Even of a child's murder?"
"What?" he answered looking back across his shoulder, "are you still harping on that blunder? Oh! you Flemish calves! with but one idea in your head!"
"And is Commines not also in Flanders?"
He laughed, and quitting the window came towards me.
"True, friend Gaspard, and a fair hit; but there are great ideas as well as small ones, and it would be a mercy if you and that Martin of yours could think of more than one thing at a time."
"Martin?" said I, in despair at this fresh blow. "My own folly you have made clear, but what has Martin done?"
Monsieur de Commines shook his head gravely, but it was a relief to see a twinkle of humour shining through the gravity in his eyes.
"Martin has broken that high law of courts which says, Thou shalt run no risks to thyself for the sake of another! Love and faithfulness are dead in Plessis, and who is Martin to dare pretend they are alive? Twice every day he has come out from Tours to glower at the walls that hold his Master Gaspard, and it is not safe for a man to do that for a week at a stretch. Tristan has a keen nose and scented treason, love and faithfulness being perfumes strange to his nostrils, and had I not said No! haling Martin into Plessis almost by the neck, the misguided fool would have tapped his heels against that wall in the Rue Trois Pucelles before this."
"What, Monseigneur! You had this thought for us even when you were scolding me? How can I thank you?"
"Chut, chut," he answered, taking my hand in his, and holding it fast. "You gave the reason yourself a minute back; is not Commines also in Flanders?"
That was Philip de Commines all over. Policy and the mean cunning of court life might crust him round, but underneath were the tender heart, the broad deep mind, the generous sentiment ever ready to break a way to the surface. But when I would have pressed to see Martin at once he refused me.
"Not yet; the King has a claim before even a brother of Flanders, and the King is waiting for you."
"Now?"
"Yes, by this time he should be ready. Rochfort is with him but will be turned out that Monsieur Gaspard de Helville may be received in private audience. How important we are! But for both our sakes do not fall into the same trap a second time. Once was pardonable, but twice savours of suspicion, or what is worse in a man seeking the King's service, a witless foolishness. The one is natural at Plessis, and to be forgiven, but never the other! Take this from me; the man who cannot quickly understand a jest and laugh at it, even when it is against himself, is not fit for nice negotiations."
Leaving Monsieur de Commines' lodgings we turned to the left to the block set apart for the King's use. It lay east and west, with its windows, none of the widest, facing south, for the sun was the only living force on earth that Louis was willing should enter freely. Round the door were archers of the Scottish guard, on every landing of the stone stairway they lounged in threes and fours, and half a company were quartered in the outer room we first entered.
By all three we were challenged in turn, and for every group there was a different password. But even that security could not satisfy the King's jealous suspicion. Beyond the great chamber was an anteroom, where three of the officers of the archers were always in attendance, and well as the Prince de Talmont was known at court the captain of these would have turned him back, had it not been for the famous signet which had already saved our necks in Paris.
But even then the Scot had a scruple of what no doubt he called his conscience.
"It franks you, Monsieur," he said, pushing his scabbard in front of me when, Monsieur de Commines having entered, I would have followed, "but our orders are strict. 'Understand, Lesellè,' His Majesty said to me only to-day, 'you are to admit no one who does not carry the King's token.'"
For a foreigner, he spoke good French, but there was a harsh guttural in the voice that grated in my ears. As to his name, I do not know how it was spelt, but I give it as I caught the pronunciation.
For a moment Monseigneur looked perplexed as he stood with the curtain drawn back and one foot already across the threshold. To argue with the wooden-witted northerner was impossible, and he dared not risk the sound of an altercation at the King's door. Louis might have scented treason and called out to Lesellè to strike, not knowing nor caring who was struck. Nor would Lesellè have been slow to obey. I think I have said there was not much love between Monsieur de Commines and these mercenaries of the guard. But the embarrassment was only for an instant; Monseigneur was not the Prince de Talmont for nothing.
"The King is well served," he said courteously. Slipping the ring from his finger he dropped it into my palm across the outstretched steel and at the same moment withdrew himself into the King's chamber. "Show your token, Monsieur de Helville, and lose no time; already His Majesty has been made to wait."
"The King's signet, Monsieur," said I, catching my cue and shaking the collet within an inch or two of Lesellè's surprised eyes. "Will you withdraw your sword, or must I push it aside?"
It seemed at first as if he would have protested against the trick played upon him; then a saving sense of humour came to his rescue, and with a laugh he lowered his sword. Only, as I let the curtain fall behind me, I heard him say:
"Next time your hand comes so close to my face, Monsieur Whoever-you-are, I hope it will have no King's ring on its finger."
There was no time to reply. Taking me by the arm, Monsieur drew me on, and again I found myself in the King's presence.
Before ever I had set foot in Plessis I had been warned that Louis was a man of many moods, many contradictions. Some of these sides of character I had already seen, but now a new, and at times a nobler vein, was brought to the surface; I was to see the King who governed. France had had kings who prayed, kings who fought, kings who reigned, but rarely a king who governed.
The apartment at the end of which we stood was long, narrow, and lofty, with windows only to the south. These were wider than the average in Plessis but were so fast barred that the power of the sun was greatly broken even though there were no hangings to shut out the heat. The floor was cumbered by but little furniture. A narrow table stood near the farther end with a few carved chairs surrounding it; a sacred picture or two, with a crucifix between, broke the dull flat of the walls; beyond these there was nothing of ornament. A prosperous merchant in any of the larger cities would be better housed than was Louis of France in his private cabinet.
Beyond the table the eastern end of the room terminated in an apse partly cut off by curtains, a kind of oratory dimly visible by the aid of a single hanging lamp. Facing the table and with his back to the oratory sat the King, a litter of papers spread out before him. He was again dressed in scarlet satin heavily fringed with fur, and there was such a tinge of colour on his hollow cheeks that at first I thought he was in better health than at the time of his seizure. But presently it was clear that this wholesomeness came not from within but from without, and was nothing more than the reflection of his clothing. It was a trivial thing, and yet its very triviality was significant of the King's thoroughness. Louis was as careful of his complexion as any faded coquette, but the deception was one of policy, not vanity. It was not well for France that men should know how ill was the King of France.
At his elbow stood Rochfort the Chancellor, nor, though there was a swift upward glance of the King's eyes, did our entrance turn aside the flow of words.
"I repeat," he was saying, rustling his hand among the papers, "Spain will not trouble us. Her toy, the Kingdom of Naples, fills her mind for the present. What says the Scripture?"—and he crossed himself, bowing with a duck of the head towards the table, and patting at a venture one of the leaden images hung about his person. In his opinion all the saints were on his side, and it did not matter very much which he invoked—"a fool's eyes are on the ends of the earth! Let Spain divide herself in Italy; Rome may be trusted to see she does not grow too strong; there are such things as Estates of the Church! Eh, Rochfort, eh? Well, what next?" again he glanced at us, still standing where we had entered. "England? I think not, I think not. Now that Edward has eaten himself to death—dear Edward—there is no need even to fling a sop to England. Peace in the south, peace in the north, there remains then our beloved—son! Our beloved fool!" he snarled suddenly, both his hands shivering amongst the papers like a wind in dry leaves, while he rocked to and fro on his seat, his head sunk between his shoulders like some painted image of malevolent death. "Oh that such a father should have such a son! Rochfort! It makes me—it makes me—well, well, well, even he has his uses; he reminds me of Flanders. Flanders!" he was gnawing his finger-tips now, his glaring eyes fixed on us, but vacantly, as though he saw us not.
Monsieur de Commines touched my elbow.
"There is a stroke coming, be on your guard," he said, without seeming to speak, "I know the symptoms!"
"Flanders!" went on the curiously roughened shrill voice that vibrated through me like the jarring of a tense chord, "there lies our business to-day. Let Spain grow weak in Italy, let England prey upon herself till only the picked bones are left, the policy of France is to widen her borders near home. Rochfort, we must have Flanders. The Dauphin, our beloved—fool! is contracted to that milk-mouthed Flemish princess of three and a half. That marriage will never come to pass, and we must make good our claim now."
As in the games with these playing-cards which His Majesty had introduced into court use there are certain well-defined rules, so also are there in the greater game of politics. When the King paused, with a challenge in his voice and attitude, Monsieur de Rochfort promptly responded to his lead, asking the question he was meant to ask.
"Flanders? Yes, Sire, but how make good our claim now? Nay, if I might hint a doubt, have we a claim?"
"Yes, yes, yes," answered Louis, his voice rising clear above its common level of sharp huskiness. The Chancellor's astute second question went farther than the King had intended, but not too far, for a smile twitched his lips. "The claim of every just man to right the wrong, to free the oppressed, and bring intolerable disorder to an end. Flanders is in flames and I must quench the fire for my dear son's sake. It has been reported to me——"
Again his finger-tips were drawn in between the yellow teeth, and again Monseigneur nudged me. "Again I say, be on your guard," he whispered almost soundlessly.
"——reported on high authority that a certain Jan Meert holds the country in terror, burning, ravaging, murdering, plundering where he pleases, and with none to check him. The peasantry he grinds, the lesser lords he crushes one by one. The subjects of the princess who is to be my beloved son's dear wife go in fear of their lives because of this Jan Meert, and I have a mind to make a sharp end of Jan Meert. Eh, Chancellor?"
"It would be bare justice, Sire," began Rochfort cautiously. This time the lead was not so clear, and Louis did not easily pardon blunders. "Indeed, a righteous act, but—but—"
"We are in Plessis and Flanders is far off? Splendour of God! Rochfort, are my fingers so weak or my arm so short that for the honour of God and the upholding of the law I cannot reach and crush a miserable plundering rogue? By Saint Claude! I'll do it, I'll do it—if it be worth my while. Eh, Monsieur le Prince, whom have you there with you? Is it some private business? Perhaps some petition to present? Some news to tell? Chancellor, we will excuse you; de Talmont has something to say, and you know I am always greedy of secrets. Kings govern by hiding their knowledge.Qui nescit dissimulare nescit regnare. And your companion? Ah ha! ah ha! it is—Yes, yes, it is Monsieur Hellewyl. Well, Monsieur, do you still desire to serve France?"
As we moved forward, Rochfort retired by a door at the side of the oratory, leaving us alone with the King. But though the question asked was a direct one, I could only answer it by a bow. My mouth had suddenly gone dry, so that I dared not attempt words. But for Monsieur de Commines' hint I might have assumed that our overhearing of the King's reference to Jan Meert was coincidence, but Monseigneur's significance forbade that mistake. Louis was dangling his bribe, but a bribe to what end? It was de Commines who replied for me.
"I can say Yes to that, Sire."
"So, so, but of all men, d'Argenton, you should know we can only employ servants who are faithful."
"I guarantee Monsieur de Helville's fidelity, Sire."
"You guarantee? you! Of what use is that to me? Am I to hang you if this de Helville of yours breaks faith? And yet it is guarantees I want. Have you a father or a mother, Monsieur?"
"Neither, Sire," I replied, wetting my lips, "both are dead."
"That is unfortunate," he said, the sour sardonic smile twitching his mouth afresh, "for I have noticed that a man is sometimes faithful when I can hold and crush his mother, as I hold and crush this," and his fingers shut viciously over a sheet of the paper spread in front of him, rasping it into a crumpled mass, which he flung briskly aside. "But not all men, no! some are superior to such weakness and they mostly rise high—when they are not hung first! Sisters, then? brothers? None? Well, they would not be sufficient, especially if the brother were an elder one. What then? Solignac is burned, there are no lands to forfeit; with you it is all to gain and nought to lose, and yet the fear of loss is a surer guarantee than the hope of gain. Suggest something, d'Argenton."
"There are other women in the world besides mothers, Sire."
Louis nodded and his cold eyes travelled over me thoughtfully. As once before he had searched my thoughts, he was now appraising my person as one would the points of a horse.
"Twenty-five, broad enough, tall enough, comely enough, and not altogether a fool. Who is the woman, Monsieur de Helville?"
Had I been more of a courtier I could have lied, warned by the King's cruel cynicism. But at the sudden question the blood rose to my face, and I stammered:
"There is none, your Majesty, at least there is none worthy——"
"Oh ho! he is modest, this sucking envoy of yours, d'Argenton. Well, all the better. Come, Monsieur, her name and degree? The King speaks."
From mockery he passed into incisive demand, and though what I had already said was true enough in the sense he meant, I was constrained to answer. In five minutes he had dragged from me all there was to know concerning Brigitta and, in his cunning, inferred much more than the truth. With his elbows on the table, and one hand half-covering his mouth, he stared up at me until I ended, the sallow parchment of his face withered into wrinkles.
"A peasant! And he would marry her! What do you say to that, d'Argenton?"
"Only that Monsieur de Helville is a man of contradictory tastes, Sire; but, for my part, I prefer second thoughts."
"Pish! you talk riddles, and I do not like what I do not understand," said Louis. Though he spoke to Commines, his gaze never left my face, and I was conscious that he played with me as a tolerant cat plays with a mouse. "So you would marry her, though she is only a peasant? Some would say, have you nodroits de Seigneurin your parts! and cry Fie! on you for your honesty. But not I. Her limbs may be as white as any satin lady's, her cheeks as pink, her lips as red to kiss, her breath as sweet, and what more can five and twenty ask! eh?"
He paused, as if for an answer, but I, conscious of Monseigneur's veiled reference to Mademoiselle, and that I was practising at least half a lie, could do no more than stammer an inane something to the effect that he was very good, which was in itself a lie, and at which banality the grin broke out afresh.
"For my part," he went on, "I am well enough pleased. After all, you are a gentleman; the breed will be one degree nearer to the sod and all the better for the mixture. It is from the people that salvation must come to the nation, not from the nobles. Besides she is a hostage, and being a peasant, will be the easier handled. For her sake, be faithful, Monsieur, or by God!" and leaning aside, he shook his finger backwards and forwards at the dim shrine behind him, "by God! I say, those white limbs shall suffer, and those red lips scream, nor will all the love in the world keep a curse of Gaspard de Helville off them. The marriage bed with Solignac as your roof-tree, or the naked rack, Monsieur, and at your own choice."
"I have already promised, Sire——"
"No, Monsieur, no," he interrupted, "you have promised nothing. D'Argenton has promised for you, which is quite another thing. Promises? Bah! what are promises? I have known even kings break them! Give me an oath." Fumbling at his throat he loosed a collar of reliquaries which hung round his neck and spread it on the table before him with more real reverence than I had ever yet seen him display, even when taking the name of Christ in his mouth. "Now, Monsieur, lay your hand there. No, no, down on your knees, on your knees. What! you kneel to me, and yet dare stand upright in the presence of God Almighty, before Whom you swear? Down on your knees, I say! when you call Christ and His saints to witness. Now, repeat: I Gaspard de Helville, otherwise, Hellewyl, swear by my honour in this life, and by my salvation in that to come, that I shall perform the King's service faithfully to the end, or, failing such performance, will return forthwith to Plessis to confess the failure and its cause, so help me God and His Saints."
Speaking from my knees, and with both hands spread over the little heap of holy things, I repeated the oath clause by clause. As I ended, and while still kneeling, Louis snatched the necklet from under my palms, and touching a spring in one of the reliquaries, pressed the little grey morsel it contained to my lips.
"Consummatum est!" he cried triumphantly, "Now indeed we have you, have you body and soul, bound fast for this world and that which is to come. 'Tis the Cross of Saint Lo, Monsieur de Helville, whereon who forswears himself dies within the year and perishes eternally. The guarantees are complete. What a man will not do for a woman's sake he will for his life—if not for his soul. His soul!" he groaned complainingly, the unctuousness slipping out from his voice as suddenly as it had slipped in. "We spend so much time saving our souls that France suffers. Cannot the Saints save us and have done with it! But there's a thought there; d'Argenton, your arm."
Pushing back his chair, the King rose painfully to his feet, a meagre skeleton of a man, bent by more than the weight of years.
"On this occasion when we seek the peace of the world it would be a Christian duty to ask the blessing of Saint Eutropius."
Leaning on Monseigneur, Louis limped towards the oratory, dragging one foot rasping on the floor as he walked.
"It can do no harm," I heard him mutter. "It is always well to keep heaven on our side, eh, d'Argenton?"
"Yes, Sire, but is it wise that the priest should over-hear——?"
"Tut, tut; he never leaves Plessis. Besides, a priest has a neck between his frock and his shaven crown as well as another man."
"But, Sire, his office?"
Louis paused, looking round, so that I saw the profile of his wrinkled forehead and thin nose white against the gloom of the shrine.
"I am faithful to the Church, d'Argenton, no man more so, but, by God! the Church had better be faithful to me, for there's no benefit of clergy to traitors! We desire your prayers, dear father," he went on loudly, "to the end that an enterprise of peace may have the blessing of Saint Eutropius upon it. Only, no Latin, pray in honest French so that I, as well as the good Saint, may understand what you say." Down on his knees he went by the rail, Monseigneur on a faltstool behind him, while I, apparently forgotten, knelt in turn on the bare floor. "To the point, and not too long," said Louis. "Like myself, he is busy in good works, and we must not waste his time."
Out from the deeper shadow at the side of the altar a black-frocked figure stole into view.
"Then you do not desire a special office, Sire?" said a soft voice.
Louis raised his head.
"Anything, man, so that you are quick, and to the point. If I could have spoken for myself, we would have done by this."
There was a brief silence, to allow, no doubt, for a collecting of thoughts. Where a man is accustomed to have prayers put into his mouth it is not always easy to draw them fresh from the heart upon an emergency. But at last the soft voice broke into a murmur.
"Forasmuch, oh holy Saint Eutropius, as it has pleased thee to put into the heart of thy faithful servant purposes of blessed peace, grant, we humbly beseech thee, that the consummation he seeks may richly abound to—to—"
"The greatness of France," interrupted Louis in a loud voice; "make haste to the end."
"The greatness of France," went on the soft voice submissively, "and the furtherance of the Lord's eternal Kingdom. Grant, also, we pray thee, that upon the King, thy servant, may descend with great power refreshment and strength to body and soul——"
"There, there," said Louis, rising heavily to his feet, "cut it short at the body and leave the soul for another time. It is not well to importune the blessed saint by too many requests at once. The body will do for to-day." And once more taking Monseigneur's arm, he shuffled back to his seat.