Chapter 24

"You can of course hold us in durance, torture us, kill us; but you must answer for it to the people of Paris."

Still was Mayenne silent, drumming on the edge of the table. Finally he said roughly, as if the words were dragged from him against his will:

"I shall not torture you. I never meant to torture Mar. The arrest was not my work. Since it was done, I meant to profit by it to keep him awhile out of my way--only that. I threatened my cousin otherwise in heat of passion. But I shall not torture him. I shall not kill him."

"Monsieur--"

"I put a card in your hand," Mayenne said curtly. His pride ill brooked to concede the point, but he could not have it supposed that he did not see what he was doing. "I give you a card. Do what you can with it."

"Monsieur, you show what little surprises me--knightly generosity. It is to that generosity I appeal."

"Is the horse of that colour? But now you were frightening my prudence."

"Ah, but how fortunate the man to whom generosity and prudence point the same path!"

It may have been but pretence, this smiling bonhomie of Monsieur's. Mayenne doubtless gauged it as such, but, at any rate, he suffered it to warm him. He regained of a sudden all the amiability with which he had greeted his guest. Smiling and calm, he answered:

"St. Quentin, I care little for either your threats or your cajoleries. They amuse me alike, and move me not. But I have a care for my sweet cousin. Since you threaten me with her danger, you have the whiphand."

Now it was Monsieur's turn to sit discreetly silent, waiting.

"I went last night to tell the child I would not harm her lover. Lo! she had flown. I had a regiment searching Paris for her. I was in the streets myself till dawn."

"Monsieur, she made her way to us at St. Denis to offer herself to our torture did you torture Mar."

"Morbleu!" Mayenne cried, half rising.

"God's mercy, we're not ruffians out there! I tell it to show you to what the maid was strung."

"I never thought it great matter whom one married," Mayenne said slowly: "one boy is much like another. I should have mated her as befitted her station--I thought she would be happy enough. And she was good about it: I did not see how deep she cared. She was docile till I drove her too hard. She's a loving child. You are fortunate in your daughter, St. Quentin."

Monsieur sprang up radiant, advancing on him open-armed. Mayenne added, with his cool smile:

"You need not flatter yourself, Monsieur, that it is your doing. I laugh at your threats. 'Twere sport to me to clap you behind bars, to say to your king, to the mob you brag of, 'Come, now, get him out.'"

"Then," cried Monsieur, "I must value my sweet daughter more than ever."

He was standing over Mayenne with outstretched hand, but the chief delayed taking it.

"Not quite so fast, my friend. If I yield up the Duc de St. Quentin, the Comte de Mar, and Mlle. Lorance de Montluc, I demand certain little concessions for myself."

"By all means, monsieur. You stamp us churls else."

My duke sat again, his smile a shade uneasy. Which Mayenne perceived with quiet enjoyment, as he went on blandly: "Nothing that I could ask of you, M. de St. Quentin, could equal, could halve, what I give. Still, that the knightliness may not be, to your mortification, all on one side, I have thought of something for you to grant."

"Name it, monsieur."

"Another point in your favour I had forgot," Mayenne observed, with his usual reluctance to show his cards even when the time had come to spread them. "Last night I laid on this table a packet, just arrived, which I was told belonged to you. When I had time to think of it again, it had vanished. I accused my lackeys, but later it occurred to me that Mlle. de Montluc, arming for battle, had purloined it."

"Your shrewdness does you credit."

"You see you have scored a fourth point, though again by no prowess of your own. Therefore am I emboldened to demand what I want."

"Even to half my fortune--"

"No, not your gear. Save that for your Béarnais's itching palm."

"Then what the devil is it you want? You will not get my name in the League."

"I am glad my nephew Paul bungled that affair of his," Mayenne went on at his own pace. "It might have been a blunder to kill you; it had certainly been a pity. Though we Lorraines have two murders to avenge, I have changed my mind about beginning with yours."

"You are wise, monsieur. I am, after all, a harmless creature."

Mayenne laughed.

"Natheless have you done your best here in Paris to undermine me. Did I let you carry on your little works unhindered, they might in time annoy me. Therefore I request that so long as I stay in Paris you stay out."

"Oh, I don't like that!"

The naïveté amazed while it amused Mayenne.

"Possibly not, but you will consent to it. You will ride out of my court, when we have finished some necessary signing of papers, straight to the St. Denis gate. And you will pledge me your honour to make no attempt hereafter to enter so long as the city is mine."

Mayenne was smiling broadly, Monsieur frowning. He relished the condition little. He was enjoying himself much in Paris, his dangers, his successes, his biting his thumb at the power of the League. To be killed at his post was nothing, but to be bundled away from it to inglorious safety, that stuck in his gorge. For a moment he actually hesitated. Then he began to laugh at his own hesitation.

"Well, ma foi! what do I expect? To walk, a rabbit, into the lion's den and make my own terms to Leo? I am happy to accept yours, M. de Mayenne, especially since, do I refuse, you will none the less pack me off."

"You mistake, St. Quentin. You are welcome to spend the rest of your days with me."

"In the Bastille?"

"Or in the League."

"The former is preferable."

"You may count yourself thrice fortunate, then, that a third alternative is given you."

"It needs not the reminder. You have treated me as a prince indeed. Be assured the St. Quentins will not forget."

"Every one forgets."

"Perhaps. But when you need our good offices we shall not have had time to forget."

"Pardieu, St. Quentin, you have good courage to tell me to my head my course is run!"

"My dear Mayenne, none punishes the maunderings of the court jester."

Monsieur laughed out with a gay gusto; after a moment Mayenne laughed too. My duke cried quickly, rising and walking the length of the table to his host:

"You have dealt with me munificently, Mayenne. You have kept back but one thing I want. That is yourself. You know you must come over to us sooner or later. Come now!"

The other did not flame out at Monsieur, but answered coldly:

"I have no taste to be Navarre's vassal."

"Better his than Spain's."

Mayenne shrugged his shoulders, his face at its stolidest.

"Well, I am no astrologer to read the future."

Monsieur laid an emphatic hand on his host's shoulder.

"But I read it, my friend. I see a French land under a French king, a Catholic and a gallant fellow, faithful to old friends, friendly to old foes. I see the dear land at peace at last, the looms humming, the mills clacking, wheat growing thick on the battle-fields."

Mayenne looked up with a grim smile.

"I have still a field or two to water for that wheat. My compliments to your new master, St. Quentin; you may tell him from me that when I submit, I submit. When I have made my surrender, from that hour forth am I his hound to lick his hand, to guard and obey him. Till then, let him beware of my teeth! While I have one pikeman to my back, one sou in my pouch, I fight my cause."

"And when you have none, you yet have three pairs of hands at Henry's court to pull you up out of the mire."

"I thank their graciousness, though I shall never need their offices," Mayenne said grandly. He stood there stately and proud and confident, the picture of princeliness and strength. Last night at St. Denis it had seemed to me that no power could defy my king. Now it seemed to me that no king could nick the power of my Lord Mayenne. When suddenly, precisely like a mummer who in his great moment winks at you to let you know it is make-believe, the general-duke's dignity melted into a smile.

"After all," he said, "it's as well to lay an anchor to windward."

XXX

_My young lord settles scores with two foes at once._

Occupied in wrangling with the grooms over the merits of our several stables, with the soldiers over politics and the armies, I awaited in a shady corner of the court the conclusion of formalities. I had just declared that King Henry would be in Paris within a week, and was on the point of getting my crown cracked for it, when, as if for the very purpose--save the mark!--of rescuing me, entered from the street Lucas. He approached rapidly, eyes straight in front of him, heeding us no whit; but all the loungers turned to stare at him. Even then he paid no heed, passing us without a glance. But the tall d'Auvray bespoke him.

"M. de Lorraine! Any news?"

He started and turned to us in half-absent surprise, as if he had not known of our presence nor, indeed, quite realized it now. He was both pale and rumpled, like one who has not closed an eye all night.

"Any news here?" he made Norman answer.

"No, monsieur, unless his Grace has information. We have heard nothing."

"And the woman?"

"Sticks to it mademoiselle told her never a word."

Lucas stood still, his eyes travelling dully over the group of us, as if he expected somewhere to find help. At the same time he was not in the least thinking of us. He looked straight at me for a full minute before he awoke to my identity.

"You!"

"Yes, M. de Lorraine," I said, with all the respectfulness I could muster, which may not have been much. Considering our parting, I was ready for any violence. But after the first moment of startlement he regarded me in a singularly lack-lustre way, while he inquired without apparent resentment how I came there.

"With M. le Duc de St. Quentin," I grinned at him. "We and M. de Mayenne are friends now."

I could not rouse him even to curiosity, it seemed. But he turned abruptly to the men with more life than he had yet shown.

"You've not told this fellow?"

"We understand our orders, monsieur," d'Auvray answered, a bit huffed.

Now this was eminently the place for me to hold my tongue, but of course I could not.

"They had no need to tell me, M. de Lorraine. I know quite well what the trouble is. I know rather more about it than you do yourself."

He confronted me now with all the fire I could ask.

"What mean you, whelp?"

"I mean mademoiselle. What else should I mean?"

"What do you know?"

"Everything."

"Her whereabouts?"

"Her whereabouts."

He had his hand to his knife by this. I abated somewhat of my drawl to say, still airily:

"Go ask M. de St. Quentin. He's here. He'll be so glad to see you."

"Here?"

"Certes. He's closeted now with M. de Mayenne. They're thicker than brothers. Go see for yourself, M.--Lucas."

"Where is mademoiselle?"

"Safe. She's to marry the Comte de Mar to-morrow."

He stared at me for one moment, weighing whether this could be true; then without further parley he shot into the house.

"Is that true?" d'Auvray demanded.

Their tongues loosened now, they flooded me with questions concerning mademoiselle, which I answered warily as I could, heartily repenting me by this of baiting Lucas. No good could come of it. He might even turn Mayenne from his bargain, upset all our triumph. I hardly heard what the soldiers said to me; I was almost nervous enough, wild enough, to dash up-stairs after him. But that was no help. I stayed where I was, fevered with anxiety.

At the end of five minutes he came out of the house again, and, without a glance at us, went straight through the gate with the step and air of a man who knows what he is about. I was no easier in my mind though I saw him gone.

Soon on his steps came a lackey to order M. de St. Quentin's horses and two musketeers to mount and ride with him. On reaching the door with the nags, I discovered I was not to be of the party; our second steed must carry gear of mademoiselle's and her handwoman, a hard-faced peasant, silent as a stone. Though the men quizzed her, asking if she were glad to get to her mistress again, whether she had known all this time the lady's whereabouts, she answered no single word, but busied herself seeing the horse loaded to her notion. Presently, in the guidance of Pierre, Monsieur appeared.

"You stay, Félix, and go to the Bastille for your master. Then you will wait at the St. Denis gate for Vigo, with horses."

"Is all right, Monsieur?" I had to ask, as I held his stirrup. "Is all right? Lucas--"

His face had been a little clouded as he came down the stairs, and now it darkened more, but he answered:

"Quite right, Achates. M. de Mayenne stands to his word. Lucas availed nothing."

He stood a moment frowning, then his countenance cleared up.

"My faith! I have enough to gladden me without fretting that Lucas is alive. Fare you well, Félix. You are like to reach St. Denis as soon as I. My son's horse will not lag."

He sprang to the saddle with a smiling salute to his guardians, and the little train clattered off.

Pierre came to my elbow with an open paper--the order signed and sealed for M. de Mar's release.

"Here, my young cockerel, you and d'Auvray are to take this to the Bastille, and it will be strange if your master does not walk free again. His Grace bids you tell M. de Mar he remembers Wednesday night, underground."

"And I remember Tuesday night in the council-room, Pierre," I was beginning, but he cut me short. Even now that I was in favour, he risked no mention of his disobedience. He packed me off with d'Auvray on the instant; I had no chance to ask him whether he suspected us yesterday. Sometimes I have thought he did, but I am bound to say he gave us no look to show it.

D'Auvray and I walked straight across Paris to the many-towered Bastille. It seemed a little way. Before the potent name of Mayenne bars flew open; a sentry on guard in the court led us into a small room all stone, floor, walls, ceiling, where sat at the table some high official, perhaps the governor of the prison himself. He was an old campaigner, grizzled and weather-beaten, his right sleeve hanging empty. An interesting figure, no doubt, but I paid him scant attention, for at his side stood Lucas.

"I come on M. de Mayenne's business," he was expostulating, vehement, yet civil. "I suppose he did not think it necessary to write the order, since you know me."

"The regulations, M. de Lorraine--" The officer broke off to demand of our escort, "Well, what now?"

I went straight up to him, not waiting permission, and held out my paper.

"An order, if it please you, monsieur, for the Comte de Mar's release."

Lucas's hand went out to snatch and crumple it; then his clenched fist dropped to his side. It seemed as if his eyes would blacken the paper with their fire.

"Just that--the requisition for M. de Mar's release," the officer told him, looking up from it. "All perfectly regular and in order. In five minutes, M. de Lorraine, the Comte de Mar shall be before you. You may have all the conversation you wish."

Lucas's face was as blank as the wall.

"I am a soldier, and a soldier's orders must be obeyed," the officer went on to explain, evidently not caring to offend the general's nephew. "Without the written order I could not admit your brother of Guise. But now you can have all the conversation you desire with M. de Mar."

Lucas's face did not change, save to scowl at the very name of his brother Guise. He said curtly, "No, I must get back to his Grace," and, barely bowing, went from the room.

"Now, I don't make that out," the keeper muttered in his beard. That Lucas should be in one moment cured of his urgent need of seeing the Comte de Mar was too much for him, but no riddle to me. I knew he had come to stab M. Étienne in his cell. It was his last chance, and he had missed it. I feared him no longer, for I believed in Mayenne's faith. My master once released, Lucas could not hurt him.

What was as much to the point, the officer had no doubt of Mayenne's good faith. He went with his paper into an inner room, where we caught sight, through the door, of big books with a clerk or two behind them, and in a moment appeared again with a key.

"Since the young gentleman's a count, I'll do turnkey's office myself," he said, his grim old battlement of a face smiling.

This was our day; from Mayenne down, everybody went out of his way to pleasure us. I was suddenly emboldened by his manner.

"Monsieur, perhaps it is preposterous to ask, but might I go with you?"

He looked at me a moment, surprised.

"Well, after all, why not? You too, Sir Musketeer, an you like."

So the three of us, he and d'Auvray and I, went to rescue the Comte de Mar.

We passed through corridor after corridor, row after row of heavy-barred doors. The deeper we penetrated the mighty pile, the fonder I grew of my friend Mayenne, by whose complaisance none of these doors would shut on me. We climbed at last a steep turret stair winding about a huge fir trunk, lighted by slits of windows in the four-foot wall, and at the top turned down a dark passage to a door at the end, the bolts of which, invisible to me in the gloom, the veteran drew back with familiar hand.

The cell was small, with one high window through which I could see naught but the sky. For all furniture it contained a pallet, a stool, a bench that might serve as table. M. Étienne stood at the window, his arm crooked around the iron bars, gazing out over the roofs of Paris.

He wheeled about at the door's creaking.

"I go to trial, monsieur?" he asked quickly, not seeing me behind the keeper.

"No, M. le Comte. The charge is cancelled. I come to set you free."

I dashed in past the officer, snatching my lord's hand to kiss.

"It's true, monsieur! You're free! It's all settled with Mayenne. Monsieur's seen him; he sets you free. He said, 'In recognizance of Wednesday night.'"

Incredulous joy flashed over his face, to give way to belief without joy.

"Now I know she's married."

"Nothing of the sort!" I fairly shouted at him, dancing up and down in my eagerness. "She's to marry M. le Comte. She's at St. Denis with Monsieur. She's to marry you. It's all arranged. Mayenne consents--the king--everybody. It's all settled. She marries you."

Preposterous as it seemed, he could not discredit my fervour. He followed us out of the cell and through the fortress in a radiant daze. He half believed himself dreaming, I think, and feared to speak lest his happiness should melt. I fancied even that he walked lightly and gingerly, as if the slightest unwary movement might break the spell. Not till we were actually in the open door of the court, face to face with freedom, did he rouse himself to acknowledge the thing real. With a joyous laugh, he turned to the keeper:

"M. de La Motte, you should employ your leisure in writing down your reflections, like the Chevalier de Montaigne. You could give us a trenchant essay on the Ingratitude of Man. Here are you host of the biggest inn in Paris--a pile more imposing than the Louvre itself. Your hospitality is so eager that you insist on entertaining me, so lavish that you lodge me for nothing, would keep me without a murmur till the end of my life. Yet I, ingrate that I am, depart without a thank you!"

"They don't leave in such case that they can very well thank me, most of my guests," La Motte answered, with a dry smile. "You are a fortunate man, M. de Mar."

"M. le Comte, will you come quietly with me to the St. Denis gate?" d'Auvray asked him. "Or must I borrow a guard from M. de La Motte?"

M. Étienne's whole face was smiling; not his lips alone, but his eyes. Even his skin and hair seemed to have taken on a brighter look. He glanced at d'Auvray in surprise at the absurd question.

"I will come like a lamb, M. le Mousquetaire."

We saluted La Motte and walked merrily out into the Place Bastille. I think I never felt so grand as when I passed through the noble sally-port, the soldiers making no motion to hinder us, but all saluting as if we owned the place. It had its advantage, this making friends with Mayenne.

The first thing my lord did, still in the shadow of the prison, was to come to terms with d'Auvray.

"See here, my friend, why must you put yourself to the fatigue of escorting me to the gate?"

"Orders, monsieur. The general-duke wants to know that you get into no mischief between here and the gate. You are banished, you understand, from Paris."

"I pledge you my word I shall make no attempt to elude my fate. I go straight to the gate. But, with all politeness to you, Sir Musketeer, I could dispense with your company."

"I am a soldier, and a soldier's orders must be obeyed," d'Auvray quoted the keeper's words, which seemed to have impressed him. "However, M. le Comte, if I had something to look at, I could walk ten paces behind you and look at it."

"Oh, if it is a question of something to play with!" M. Étienne laughed.

D'Auvray was provided with toys, and M. Étienne linked arms with me, the soldier out of ear-shot behind us. He followed till we were in the Rue St. Denis, when, waving his hand in farewell, he turned his steps with the pious consciousness of duty done. Only I looked back to see it; monsieur had forgotten his existence.

"I am not proud; I don't mind being marched through the streets by a musketeer," M. Étienne explained as we started; "but I can't talk before him. Tell me, Félix, the story, if you would have me live."

And I told him, till we almost ran blindly into the tower of the St. Denis gate.

We learned of the warder that M. de St. Quentin had recently passed out, but that nothing had been seen of his equery. No steeds were here for us.

"Well, then, we'll go have a glass. But if Vigo doesn't come soon, by my faith, I'll walk to St. Denis!"

But that promised glass was never drunk, nor were we to set out at once for St. Denis; for in the door of the wine-shop we met Lucas.

I had dismissed him from thought, as something out of the reckoning, dead and done with, powerless as yesterday's broken sword. I thought him gone out of our lives when he went out of prison--gone forever, like last year's snow. And here within the hour we encountered him, a naked sword in his hand, a smile on his lips. He said, in the flower of his easy insolence:

"Tuesday I told you our hour would come. It is here."

"At your service," quoth my lord.

"Then it needs not to slap your face?"

"You insult me safely, Lucas. You have but one life. That is forfeit, be you courteous."

"You think so?"

"I know it."

Lucas held out the bare sword, hilt toward us.

"Monsieur had a box for weapon yesterday, but as I prefer to fight in the established way, I ventured to provide him with a sword."

"Thoughtful of you, Lucas. Is this the make of sword you elect to be killed with?"

He was bending the blade to try its temper. Lucas unsheathed his own.

"M. de Mar may have his choice."

M. de Mar professed himself satisfied with the blade given him.

"Have you summoned your seconds, Lucas?"

Lucas raised his eyebrows.

"Is that necessary? I thought we might settle our affairs without delay. I confess myself impatient."

"Your sentiments for once are mine."

"It is understood you bring your spaniel with you. He will watch that I do not spring on you before you are ready," Lucas said, with a fine sneer.

"And who is to watch me?"

"Oh, monsieur's chivalry is notorious. Precautions are unnecessary. It is your privilege, monsieur, to appoint the happy spot."

"The spot is near at hand. Where you slew Pontou is the fitting place for you to die."

"It is fitting for you to die in your own house," Lucas amended.

Without further parley we turned into the Rue des Innocents, on our way to that of the Coupejarrets.