Chapter 9

"To my arms, brother, to my arms!" cried Cocardasse, and in a moment the amazing pair were clasped in each other's embrace.

"Is it really you?" said Cocardasse, when he thought the embrace had lasted long enough, holding Passepoil firmly by the shoulders and gazing fixedly into his pale, pathetic face.

Passepoil nodded. "Truly. What red star guides you to Paris?"

Cocardasse dropped his voice to a whisper. "I had a letter."

Passepoil whispered in reply: "So had I."

Cocardasse amplified: "My letter told me to be outside the Inn of the Three Graces, near Neuilly, on a certain day--this day--to serve the Prince of Gonzague."

Passepoil nodded again. "So did mine."

Cocardasse continued: "Mine enclosed a draft on the Bank of Marseilles to pay expenses."

Passepoil noted a point of difference: "Mine was on the Bank of Calais."

"I suppose Gonzague wants all that are left of us," Cocardasse said, thoughtfully.

Passepoil sighed significantly. "There aren't many."

Cocardasse looked as gloomy as was possible for one of his rubicund countenance and jolly bearing. "Lagardere has kept his word."

"Staupitz was killed at Seville," Passepoil murmured, as one who begins a catalogue of disasters.

Cocardasse continued: "Faenza was killed at Burgos."

Passepoil went on: "Saldagno at Toledo."

Cocardasse took up the tale: "Pinto at Valladolid."

Passepoil concluded the catalogue: "Joel at Grenada, Pepe at Cordova."

"All with the same wound," Cocardasse commented, with a curious solemnity in his habitually jovial voice.

Passepoil added, lugubriously: "The thrust between the eyes."

Cocardasse summed up, significantly: "The thrust of Nevers."

The pair were silent for an instant, looking at each other with something like dismay upon their faces, and their minds were evidently busy with old days and old dangers.

Passepoil broke the silence. "They didn't make much by their blood-money."

"Yes," said Cocardasse; "but we, who refused to hunt Lagardere, we are alive."

Passepoil cast a melancholy glance over his own dingy habiliments and then over the garments of Cocardasse, garments which, although glowing enough in color, were over-darned and over-patched to suggest opulence. "In a manner," he said, dryly.

Cocardasse drew himself up proudly and slapped his chest. "Poor but honest."

Passepoil allowed a faint smile, expressive of satisfaction, to steal over his melancholy countenance. "Thank Heaven, in Paris we can't meet Lagardere."

Cocardasse appeared plainly to share the pleasure of his old friend. "An exile dare not return," he said, emphatically, with the air of a man who feels sure of himself and of his words. But it is the way of destiny very often, even when a man is surest of himself and surest of his words, to interpose some disturbing factor in his confident calculations, to make some unexpected move upon the chess-board of existence, which altogether baffles his plans and ruins his hopes. So many people had crossed the bridge that morning that it really seemed little less than probable that the appearance of a fresh pedestrian upon its arch could have any serious effect upon the satisfactory reflections of the two bravos. Yet at that moment a man did appear upon the bridge, who paused and surveyed Cocardasse and Passepoil, whose backs were towards him, with a significant smile.

The new-comer was humbly clad, very much in the fashion of one of those gypsies who had pitched their camp so close to the wayside tavern; but if the man's clothes were something of the gypsy habit, he carried a sword under his ragged mantle, and it was plain from the man's face that he was not a gypsy. His handsome, daring, humorous face, bronzed by many suns and lined a little by many experiences--a face that in its working mobility and calm inscrutability might possibly have been the countenance of a strolling player--was the face of a man still in the prime of life, and carrying his years as lightly as if he were still little more than a lad. He moved noiselessly from the bridge to the high-road, and came cautiously upon the swashbucklers at the very moment when Passepoil was saying, with a shiver: "I'm always afraid to hear Lagardere's voice cry out Nevers's motto."

Even on the instant the man in the gypsy habit pushed his way between the two bandits, laying a hand on each of their shoulders and saying three words: "I am here!"

Cocardasse and Passepoil fell apart, each with the same cry in the same amazed voice.

"Lagardere!" said Cocardasse, and his ruddy face paled.

"Lagardere!" said Passepoil, and his pale face flushed.

As for Lagardere, he laughed heartily at their confusion. "You are like scared children whose nurse hears bogey in the chimney."

Cocardasse strove to seem amused. "Children!" he said, with a forced laugh, and it was with a forced laugh that Passepoil repeated the word "Bogey."

For a moment the good-humor faded from the face of Lagardere, and he spoke grimly enough: "There were nine assassins in the moat at Caylus. How many are left now?"

"Only three," Cocardasse answered.

Passepoil was more precise. "Cocardasse and myself and AEsop."

Lagardere looked at them mockingly. "Doesn't it strike you that AEsop will soon be alone?"

Cocardasse shuddered. "It's no laughing matter."

Lagardere still continued to smile. "Vengeance sometimes wears a sprightly face and smiles while she strikes."

Passepoil was now a sickly green. "A very painful humor," he stammered.

There was an awkward pause, and then Cocardasse suddenly spoke in a decisive tone. "Captain, you have no right to kill us," he growled, and Passepoil, nodding his long head, repeated his companion's phrase with Norman emphasis.

Lagardere looked from one to the other of the pair, and there was a twinkle in his eyes that reassured them. "Are you scared, old knaves? No explanations; let me speak. That night in Caylus, seventeen years ago, when the darkness quivered with swords, I did not meet your blades."

Cocardasse explained. "When you backed Nevers we took no part in the scuffle."

"Nor did we join in hunting you later," Passepoil added, hurriedly.

Lagardere's face wore a look of satisfaction. "In all the tumult of that tragic night I thought I saw two figures standing apart--thought they might be, must be, my old friends. That is why I have sent for you."

"Sent for us?" Cocardasse echoed in astonishment.

"Was it you who--" Passepoil questioned, equally surprised.

"Why, of course it was," Lagardere answered. "Sit down and listen."

He led the way to the very table at which, such a short time before, AEsop had sat with Peyrolles. Now he and Cocardasse and Passepoil seated themselves, the two bravos side by side and still seemingly not a little perturbed, Lagardere opposite to them and studying them closely, resting his chin upon his hands.

"Ever since that night I have lived in Spain, hunted for a while by Gonzague's gang, until, gradually, Gonzague's gang ceased to exist."

"The thrust of Nevers," Cocardasse commented, quietly.

Lagardere smiled sadly. "Exactly. I had only one purpose in life--to avenge Nevers and to protect Nevers's child. I abandoned my captaincy of irregulars when the late cardinal quarrelled with Spain. I did not like the late cardinal, but he was a Frenchman, and so was I. Since then I have lived as best I could, from hand to mouth, but always the child was safe, always the child was cared for, always the child was in some obscure hands that were kind and mild. Well, the child grew up, the beautiful child dawned into a beautiful girl, and still I kept her to myself, for I knew it was not safe to let Gonzague know that she lived. But the girl is a woman now; she is the age to inherit the territories of Nevers. The law will shield her from the treason of Gonzague. The king will protect the daughter of his friend."

The Norman shook his head, and the expression of his face was very dubious. "Gonzague is a powerful personage."

Cocardasse did not appear to be so much impressed by the power of Gonzague, but then it must be remembered that he came from Marseilles, while Passepoil arrived from Calais, which is more impressed by Paris. What the Gascon wanted to know was how his old friend and one-time enemy had contrived to appear so opportunely.

"How did you get here?" he asked.

Lagardere explained. "There was a gypsy lass in Madrid of whom by chance Gabrielle had made a friend. Poor girl, she could not have many friends. One day this girl told us that she and her tribe were going to Paris on some secret business of their own. Here was an opportunity for the exiles to return, unseen, to France. As gypsies, we travelled with the gypsies. I have been a strolling player, and as a strolling player I helped to pay my way. Before we left Madrid I wrote you those letters. As a result of all this delicate diplomacy, here I am, and here you are."

Cocardasse still was puzzled. "But our letters spoke of the service of Gonzague?"

Lagardere laughed as he answered the riddle. "Because, dear dullards, I want you to enter the service of Gonzague. If I return to France to right a wrong, I know the risk I run and the blessing of you two devils to help me."

Each of the two bravos extended his right hand. "Any help we can give," protested Cocardasse--"is yours," added Passepoil.

Lagardere clasped the extended hands confidently. "I take you at your words. Gonzague is at the fair yonder in attendance upon the king. You may get a chance to approach him. He can hardly refuse you his favor."

"Hardly," said Cocardasse, grimly, and--"hardly," echoed Passepoil, with a wry smile.

Lagardere rose to his feet. "Go now. I shall find means to let you know of my whereabouts and my purposes later. Till then--"

"Devotion!" cried Cocardasse.

"Discretion!" cried Passepoil, and each of the men saluted Lagardere with a military salute. Then the two bravos, linking arms, crossed the bridge together and made for the fair, conversing as they went of the wonderful chance that had brought Lagardere back to Paris and their own good-fortune in having been able to prove themselves innocent of complicity in the murder of Nevers.

When they were gone, Lagardere walked slowly up and down beneath the trees, reflecting deeply. He had gained one point in the desperate game he had set himself to play. He had found two adherents upon whose hands, whose hearts, and whose swords he could count with confidence, and he felt that he had succeeded, in a measure, in planting adherents of his own in the enemy's camp. But he had another point in his desperate game to win that morning. He had written a letter, he had requested a favor, he had made an appointment. Immediately on arriving in the neighborhood of Paris he had caused a letter to be despatched to the king's majesty--not to the king direct, indeed, but to the king's private secretary, whom Lagardere knew by repute to be an honorable and loyal gentleman, who could be, as he believed, relied upon, if he credited the letter, to keep it as a secret between himself and his royal master. It was a bold hazard, although the letter was weighted with the talisman of a name that must needs recall an ancient friendship. Would that letter be answered? Would that favor be granted? Would that appointment be kept?

For some time Lagardere paced the grass thoughtfully; for some time--perhaps for a quarter of an hour--his solitude was undisturbed. At the end of that time he emerged from the shadow of the trees, and, standing at the foot of the bridge, surveyed the road that led to Neuilly. What he saw upon the road seemed to give him the greatest satisfaction. Three gentlemen were walking together in the direction of the Inn. One was a very dandy-like young gentleman, very foppishly habited, who seemed to skip through existence upon twinkling heels. Another was a stiff, soldierly looking man of more than middle age, whom Lagardere knew to be Captain Bonnivet, of the Royal Guards. The third, who was the first of the group, was a man who, though still in the early prime of life, looked as if he were fretted with the cares of many more years than were his lot. He was a slender personage, with a long, pale face. He was clad entirely in black, in emphasis of a mourning mind, and as he walked he coughed from time to time, and shivered and looked about him wistfully. But at the same time he seemed to affect a gay manner with his companions, as one that aired a determination to be entertained. It was seventeen years since Lagardere had seen the king, and he was saddened at the change that the years had made in him. He could only pray that those changing years had wrought no alteration in the affection of Louis of France for Louis of Nevers.

XV

THE KING'S WORD

In a moment Lagardere enveloped himself in his gypsy's cloak and flung himself on one of the benches of the Inn, where he lay as if wrapped in the heavy sleep which is the privilege of those that live in the open air and follow the stars with their feet. When the king, accompanied by Chavernay and followed by Bonnivet, crossed the bridge and paused before the Inn, nothing was to be noticed save the huddle of gray cloth which represented some tired wayfarer.

Louis of France looked about him curiously. "Is this the Inn of the Three Graces?" he asked.

He even allowed himself to laugh a small laugh.

The Marquis of Chavernay smiled a faint smile. "Yes, your majesty, and since I have been privileged to behold two of its three attendant graces in the flesh, and found them most commendable girls and goddesses, I think, without indiscretion, I could hazard a guess as to your reason for this visit."

The king looked at his impudent companion with the complaisant good-humor which, since his much-talked-of bereavement, he was prepared to extend to those most fortunate among his courtiers who could succeed in diverting his melancholy. He was familiar with Chavernay's impertinences, for Chavernay had soon discovered that the witticisms which would have gained the frown of the cardinal earned the smiles of the king. "Truly," he said--"truly, I do come for an assignation, but it is with no woman. You boys think of nothing in the world but women."

Chavernay made the king a most sweeping reverence. "Your majesty would, if your majesty deigned to condescend so far, prove the most fatal rival of your most amorous subject."

Since the death of the cardinal, Louis liked it to be hinted that he was still the man of gallantry, irresistible when he pleased. So he smiled as he caught Chavernay's ear and pinched it. "Imp, do you think you lads are the only gallants, and that we old soldiers must give way to you?"

Chavernay saluted him again. "You are our general, your majesty--we win our battles in your name."

Louis laughed and then looked grave, smiled again and then sighed. "My dear Chavernay, when you are my age you will think that one pretty woman is very like another pretty woman. But there is no pretty woman in this case."

Chavernay made a still more ironical bow. "Your majesty!" he said, with an air that implied: "Of course I must appear to believe you, but in reality I do not believe you at all." Chavernay was thinking to himself of the adorable creatures whom he had seen disappear within the walls of the Inn and the walls of the caravan, and he drew his conclusions accordingly, and drew them wrong. When the king answered him, he answered, gravely, as one who objects to have his word questioned even by a frivolous spirit like Chavernay.

"I come here," he said, "in reply to a letter I received two days ago--a letter which appeals to me by a name which compels me to consider the appeal. That is why I come here to-day. My correspondent makes it a condition that I come alone. Take Bonnivet with you. Keep within call, but out of sight."

Chavernay bowed very respectfully this time. The newest friends of Louis of France knew that they best pleased him by appearing to presume on his good-nature, but even the lightest and liveliest of them felt that there was a point beyond which he must not venture to presume. Chavernay felt instinctively that he had reached that point now, and his manner was a pattern to presentable courtiers.

"Yes, your majesty," he said, and turned to Bonnivet, and Bonnivet and he went over the bridge and out of sight among a little clump of trees on the roadside. From here they could see the king plainly enough, and hear him if he chose to raise his voice loud enough to call them, but here they were out of ear-shot of any private conversation. That their presence in the neighborhood was scarcely necessary they were both well aware, for there were few conspiracies against the king's authority and no plots against the king's life, and if Louis of France had chosen to go unattended his pompous, melancholy person would have been in no danger.

Louis walked slowly to the little table in the arbor, and, seating himself, took out a letter from his pocket and read it thoughtfully over. Then he drew a watch looped in diamonds from his pocket and looked at the hour. As he did so the huddled, seeming sleeping figure on the bench stiffened itself, sat up erect, and cast off its cloak.

Lagardere rose and advanced towards the king. "I am here," he said, in a firm, respectful voice.

Louis turned round and looked with curiosity but without apprehension at the man who addressed him, the man who was dressed like a gypsy, but who clearly was no gypsy. "Are you the writer of this letter?" he asked.

Lagardere saluted him with a graceful reverence. "Yes, your Majesty. I know that you are the King of France."

Louis slightly inclined his head. "I could not refuse a summons that promised to tell me of Louis de Nevers. Are you Lagardere?"

Lagardere made a gesture as of protest. "I am his ambassador. Have I the privilege of an ambassador?"

The king frowned slightly. "What privilege?"

"Immunity if my mission displeases you," Lagardere answered.

The king looked steadily at the seeming gypsy, who returned his glance as steadily. "You are bold, sir," he said.

Lagardere answered him, with composure. "I am bold because I address Louis of France, who never broke his word--Louis of France, who still holds dear the memory of Louis of Nevers."

The king signed to him to continue. "Speak freely. What do you know of Louis of Nevers?"

Lagardere went on: "Lagardere knows much. He knows who killed Nevers. He knows where Nevers's child is. He can produce the child. He can denounce the murderer."

"When?" asked the king, eagerly.

"To-morrow," Lagardere answered. Then he hastened to add: "But he makes his conditions."

Louis frowned as Lagardere mentioned the word "conditions," and asked: "What reward does he want?"

Lagardere smiled at the question. "You do not know Lagardere. He asks for a safe-conduct for himself."

The king agreed. "He shall have it."

But Lagardere had more to ask. "He also wants four invitations for the ball your majesty gives at the Palais Royal to-morrow night."

Perhaps Lagardere showed himself something of a courtier in this speech. The great Richelieu had bequeathed to the little Louis his splendid dwelling-house, and Louis was indeed giving a stately entertainment there, avowedly in order to do honor to the memory of him who had made so munificent a gift, but in reality to prove to himself that he was master where he had been slave, and that he could, if he pleased, amuse himself to his heart's content in the house that had been the dwelling of his tyrant. What Louis, always dissimulative, feigned to be an act of gracious homage to dead generosity was in truth an act of defiant and safe self-assertion. Perhaps Lagardere guessed as much. Certainly he played agreeably upon the king's susceptibilities when he gave to Richelieu's bequest the name of Palais Royal, which was still quite unfamiliar, instead of the name of Palais Cardinal, which it had worn so long and by which name almost every one still called it. Certainly the king's pale cheeks reddened with satisfaction at the phrase; it assured him soothingly of what he was pleased to consider his triumph. But he allowed a slight expression of surprise to mingle with his air of complacency, and Lagardere hastened to give the reason for what was on the face of it a sufficiently strange request.

"There, before the flower of the nobility of France, Lagardere will denounce Nevers's assassin and produce Nevers's child."

The king agreed again. "He shall have his wish. Where shall the invitations be sent?"

Lagardere bowed low in acknowledgment of the promise. "Sire," he said, "an emissary from Lagardere will wait upon your secretary to-morrow morning He will say that he has come for four invitations promised by your majesty for to-morrow night, and he will back his demand with the password 'Nevers.'"

The king bowed his head. "It shall be done as you wish," he answered. "Is there anything more?" he asked, and Lagardere replied: "This much more: that your majesty speak nothing of this to any one till midnight to-morrow."

The king agreed a third time. "Lagardere has my word."

"Then," said Lagardere, "Lagardere will keep his word."

Louis rose to his feet, and signed that the interview was ended. "If he does, I am his friend for life. But if he fail, let him never enter France again, for on my word as a gentleman I will have his head."

He saluted Lagardere slightly, and turned and crossed the bridge. A few paces beyond it he was joined by Chavernay and Bonnivet. The three stood together for a few moments; then the king and Bonnivet continued their journey towards Neuilly, leaving Chavernay behind them, lingering in the shade of the trees.

XVI

SHADOWS

Lagardere looked thoughtfully after the departing monarch. "God save your majesty for a gallant man," he murmured to himself. "Now we may enter Paris in safety. Why, who is this?" He was about to enter the Inn, when he suddenly stopped and looked back sharply over the Neuilly road. To his surprise he saw that the light-heeled fop who had accompanied the king was retracing his steps in the direction of the bridge.

Lagardere asked himself what this could mean. Did the king suspect him? Was he sending this delicate courtier to question him, to spy upon him? He moved a little way across the stretch of common land, and stood at the side of the caravan so that he was concealed from any one crossing the bridge from Neuilly. As a matter of fact, Chavernay's return had nothing whatever to do with the business which had brought the king to the Inn of the Three Graces. He had asked and gained permission to be free to pursue a pastime of his own, and that pastime was to try and learn something of the pretty lady whom he had frightened into the seclusion of the Inn, a pastime that he felt the freer to pursue now that the king's assurance that he had visited the Three Graces for the sake of no woman.

So, dreaming of amorous possibilities, Chavernay came daintily across the bridge, very young, very self-confident, very impudent, very much enjoying himself. As he neared the Inn he looked about him nonchalantly, and, seeing that no one was in sight, he stooped and caught up a pebble from the roadway and flung it dexterously enough against the window above the Inn porch. Then he slipped, smiling mischievously, under the doorway of the Inn, and waited upon events. In a moment the window was opened, and Gabrielle looked out. "Is that you, Henri?" she asked, softly.

Instantly Chavernay emerged from his hiding-place, and stood bareheaded and bending almost double before the beautiful girl. "It was I," he said, with a manner of airy deference.

Gabrielle drew back a little. "You? Who are you?" she asked, astonished.

Chavernay again made her a reverence. "Your slave," he asserted.

Gabrielle remembered him now, and looked annoyed. "Sir!" she said, angrily.