CHAPTER XIII.

TO REMIREMONT

In the morning there were none of the other peasants about, although Andrew could see them plainly enough as they lolled in front of their houses, or brushed the dust and rubbish from their doors into the road, where it would lie until the next rain swept it into the common sewer; or drove a grunting pig in front of them. And, as he looked at them through the window, while he ate the rude meal his host was able to set before him, he knew very well that the moment they suspected he had gone upstairs with Muhlenbein to begin trafficking for any of the "relics," they would flock in to take part in the bargain. For the "Goldener Hirsch" was, he had learnt overnight, the repository of their joint property, as being the place, or mart, where the "merchants" could most easily see all that was for disposal.

"Well!" He said to Muhlenbein after he had finished his breakfast, while, prior to beginning it, he had been round to see to his horse, "well, my host of the Golden Hart, if we are to have any dealings with the choice curiosities above now is the time. I must away ere long, and--and," this was an afterthought, which he considered would make him look still more like a merchant--"there is Entzheim, you know. Perhaps they have something there to sell, too."

"Nothing, nothing!" exclaimed Muhlenbein hastily. "Nothing. Unless the Herr wants to buy a wounded horse or two and some gun carriages and powder--tumbrils left behind by the Austrians--that's all they have got. The Herr doesn't want those."

"No," replied Andrew, "the Herr does not. Still, he must visit Entzheim. But now for the merchandise. Up, my man, up, and let us see what I can have for a few pieces of silver."

Up the ladder they went, therefore, as they had gone overnight, Muhlenbein muttering, however, that it was not "a few pieces of silver," but many pieces of gold which would be required to purchase anything worth having from his choice museum of relics; and, as Andrew had suspected, hardly were they in the room above, ere the men who had been with them on the evening before were there again.

"Fore gad!" he said to himself, "they are as keen as hawks. Their eyes must be able to see through the walls to know that I am a-marketing." And undoubtedly, whether they had seen through the walls, or the open door, or the two-foot-square window, there they were.

Disguising his desire to inspect the medallion which he believed to have hung round De Bois-Vallée's neck on the night when his sword had passed within four inches of it, disguising also his wish to observe if one of the rapiers in the bundle was likely to prove that which he suspected it to be, Andrew turned his attention to the wigs. Yet he had no intention of becoming a purchaser of any of these melancholy relics, nor of wearing the hair that had been on the head of any recently dead man. And, in spite of the recommendations of their present possessors--one of whom tried several on to give Andrew an idea of their suitability!--and of their chatterings and mutterings, he soon announced that he would have nothing to do with any of them.

"Nor of the clothes either!" exclaimed he. "What! wear them with this and this upon them," and he pointed with his finger to the dark stains, and--in some places--to the clean cuts through them from front to back, where sword or lance had passed. "Heavens! they would think I had murdered the previous wearer or stripped some gallows tree."

"But the lace, _gnädiger Herr_, the lace," whispered one, "the gold galloon. Look to it. See this"; and he held up a gorgeously-faced coat that when new must have cost many score of crowns.

"Nay, I will not have it either. 'Tis tarnished, spoilt--with rain and powder. No lace for me! Now, let us see for the weapons"; and he directed his eyes towards the bundle of swords.

"Ah! the weapons," said Muhlenbein, "the weapons. They are indeed worthy of so great a merchant as, without doubt, the Herr is. Now that one," speaking of a sword which Andrew was examining carefully, "is a noble tool, of splendid steel, a----"

"Tush," said Andrew. "Be silent, man. Did I not tell you last night I know a good sword. Your recommendations are useless."

However, even as he looked at the weapon in his hand he knew that there was no trace of De Bois-Vallée here. This sword had never been his, although it bore a strange resemblance to the one he had used against himself in their encounter; it being the exact length the Vicomte had selected, and with its hilt and handle almost a facsimile of the other. But it had fallen from some Austrian's hand he saw in a moment, and not from the Frenchman's; the knot showed that, while the maker's name stamped into it of "Kraft, Nürnberg," added confirmation.

Still, it was so good a weapon that he was loth not to buy it and strap it up with other things he carried--only it was sheathless; so from this he passed on also--appeasing the men, however, who were now getting very discontented, by purchasing a pair of handsome pistols, after much chaffering.

Then he approached the medallions, while, as he did so, he thought, "If this, which I expect, fails too, I am no nearer than before."

Yet, when he held the trinket in his hand and gazed at it under the light thrown by the window of the loft, he felt sure it was the one on which he had looked as he opened the wounded man's shirt to give him air. The painted face that stared at him from the miniature, set in rose diamonds, was the one he had seen on the man's breast that night--the face of a handsome woman of some forty-five or fifty years of age, a woman with blue eyes and auburn hair, flecked with red.

"Doubtless his mother," Andrew thought. And, recognizing the similarity of the traits of the woman of the medallion and the man he sought, he knew that this was the ornament he had previously seen. Even the links of the gold chain attached to it seemed familiar.

Yet, still, he knew that there was no clue here; there were a score or more of such things lying on the table that had been taken from the necks of their dead owners, or picked up on the battlefield.

"A pretty toy," he said aloud, "the face of a beautiful woman. Nay!" holding up his hand at the exclamations of admiration which the man who owned this particular treasure instantly began to utter, while at the same time he loudly called attention to the splendid, the magnificent, the superb jewels with which it was surrounded. "Nay, friend, their value is known to me as well as the worth of the weapons. Yet I will buy it of you at a reasonable rate--though, since the battlefield has yielded you so many other treasures of a like kind----"

"But," burst in the present owner, "that is no battlefield spoil; 'tis better, much better--oh! far better--than any of the others. No simple officer dropped that, I will be sworn, but some great general in the retreat. Doubtless his wife, now, or----"

"No battlefield spoil! In the retreat!" Andrew repeated. "Fellow, what do you mean?"

But as he asked the question he knew there was a slight eagerness in his tone, though it was not apparent to their dull senses; senses blunted, too, by their desire to make a swift and profitable bargain. Also he felt a tremor at his heart! Not picked up on the battlefield! "Where then? Where?" he mused.

"Some half league from here--though now I think upon it, 'twas not the road along which either army retreated. But the track that leads to----"

"To!" exclaimed Andrew in his impatience.

"To St. Dié. The track known to many--across the mountains to Remiremont."

To Remiremont!

Andrew's pulse beat faster, almost his head swam, as he heard those last words. To Remiremont! Yet he had to pause to collect himself, to ask when and where and how, in connection with his enemy, he had heard that place mentioned? To pause while, all the time, his would-be vendor was dinning in his ears the value of the medallion portrait, especially the value of its setting, for which he would not take less than seventy écus. "From anyone else," he added, "though from the gracious Herr, because he was first come, he would take fifty."

Mechanically, scarce knowing why he should possess himself of the miniature, yet feeling he must stop the boor's clamour somehow and get time to think; reflecting also that to keep up his appearance of a "merchant," he must buy more than the pair of pistols, he again had recourse to the leathern purse and told out ten gold pieces of five crowns into the owner's dirty palm, while as he did so the word "Remiremont," "Remiremont," was beating at his brain.

"Where, where," he murmured to himself, "is the connection between that place and De Bois-Vallée? Where?"

In a moment it had come to him!

"'He is of the _pays_; of Lorraine, near the Vosges, of the seigneurie of Remiremont. He will be doubly useful to Turenne in the Palatinate.'"

That was it; those almost the words! Uttered by the Court spy as he drank with Andrew at the inn in Paris! Of the seigneurie of Remiremont!

The bargaining came to an end as the clue rose to his mind; pushing the peasants aside, Andrew swiftly went down the ladder, his scabbard clanking on each rung, and the boors following--offering their wares at half, at a quarter, what they had previously demanded, now that they saw that there was no more huckstering to be done. Also, because their eyes had glinted into the leather purse and had seen many other gold pieces therein!

"Nay No more," he said; "I have done. Your treasures are too tempting. You will beggar me if I stay here. Now," laughing and pushing back with his masterful hands the men who flocked round him, begging all the time that he should miss no chance, and, therefore, offer his own price, "now, a bottle of the best, my golden hart, to drink to our next meeting, and then away. And the reckoning, too, Muhlenbein, the reckoning--though that should count as nothing with so good a customer as I!" and he laughed merrily, making even the peasants laugh too, his gaiety being infectious.

He had a little more to say, or ask, however, and it necessitated the drinking of a second bottle whereby to provide the time for obtaining the information he desired. Still, he did obtain it.

"This track," he said, "across the mountains of which you speak; to where does it lead? And Remiremont, what kind of place is that? And what leads from there?"

The second question none of them could properly answer, though one, who seemed to know more than the others, said there was a great nunnery at Remiremont itself, he thought. But as to where the road from it led, all knew. South to the old Burgundian city--the boors around him called it the "great" Burgundian city of Dijon; west, to far-off Paris, where the French King was who sent out his accursed armies; north to Flanders, where he might have heard other fightings were going on. While their town--for so they called it--of Holtzheim was to the east, but with the mountains between.

"So!" exclaimed Andrew, and now the third bottle was broached--which, after all, was not much amongst six of them! "So I, who must myself go that way--Dijon, you say, is great and prosperous?--or anyone who wished to go that way from here, would do well to proceed by this track? Better than the high roads, which are doubtless roundabout and lengthy."

"Better far," replied Muhlenbein, "since thereby you save half the distance. Yet, have a care if you adventure by it. In the mountains there are no inns--none such as this; _mein Gott_, no!--no refuge nor shelter. Nothing but the great trees, and, in a storm, the riven branches on your head."

"_Ja, Ja_," said another, the man who had sold Andrew the medallion, "and sometimes worse than that, worse than shattered branches to burst in the head. Worse! outlaws and outcasts, men driven from France and from this land, too, to whom the Vosges alone offer retreat. Travellers have entered those mountains on one side before now, and have never come forth on the other yet. _Gott in Himmel!_ Their heads were not broken in by fallen branches. Not by fallen branches!"

"Ha!" said Andrew. "Well! here is one traveller who must pass that way. And we will see for the breaking of heads. We will see. While, for shelter, I have a cloak. 'Tis not," forgetting for the moment that he was a "merchant" and not a soldier, "'tis not the first time it has been my only roof. Friends, adieu!"

"The Herr will go," said Muhlenbein. "Soh! Well! he is big and strong. Has been a soldier, perhaps?"

"Ay, has been a soldier," and as he spoke he made his way to where his horse was. Yet, ere he mounted it he paused and said, while the rustics lolling at the inn door cast admiring glances over both man and steed:

"Where begins this ascent to the mountains? Tell me; or, rather, if anyone will earn a crown, let him conduct me to it."

In an instant all had proffered their services, and each man sprang forth as quickly as his great wooden shoes would let him, whereon Andrew, selecting one, set out upon his journey.

His journey! To end how, he knew not, and cared less, so long as it brought him to Remiremont. To Remiremont where he believed he would stand face to face with De Bois-Vallée once more, would find Marion Wyatt. The woman who, Debrasques had testified, was innocent, yet against whom all circumstances pointed as being guilty.

The road the peasant led him passed across the plains lying between Holtzheim and Entzheim, across the fields on which he had fought some few weeks ago, but which were now deserted except that there were other peasants from each of those villages still hunting and scraping for further pickings. For, to them, anything was precious, would fetch money some day if not now, would help to mend their broken and burst walls or buy fresh seed for their devastated fields.

Of the dead he saw but little, and what little he did see was enough even for him--a soldier. For if--half uncovered by the earth that had been lightly thrown over it, and, later on, washed away again by the drenching rains which had continued for days after the fight was over--any body met his eye, he saw that it was stripped naked by those who had come across it. Neither on man nor fallen beast was there left so much as, in the case of the former, a rag, or, in that of the latter, a bridle rein or smallest piece of leather; nay, in the case of the latter their manes and tails were gone--they were useful for something! Yet, still, amongst the heaps and mounds, where the bodies of all lay covered, so that pestilence might not be bred in the villages, there moved the human ghouls who sought for a broken piece of chain, a ring, or coin, anything that would remunerate them for their losses, even though in their search that pestilence should seize on them.

Beyond the Little Wood, now tranquil enough except for the cries to one another of the searchers in it, and showing no other signs of what had happened there but those furnished by trees shattered with cannonballs, by broken gun carriages and fallen cannon not yet removed--the road turned to the right; half a mile further the opening to the track was reached which led across the mountains to Lorraine.

"God speed," the peasant said, as he pouched the crown tossed him by Andrew, "God speed. Beware of the storm; beware the marauders of the woods. Have your sword easy in its scabbard, your holster-flap open. Farewell."

"Adieu," Andrew replied. "I will beware."

And, slackening his horse's rein as the ascent began, he took the first steps that led towards the seigneurie of Remiremont. While, as he did so, he whispered to himself:

"This time. This time."