Chapter 9

I was left alone with him and I promised myself the joy of one good blow at his face, no matter how deep they flayed me for it. But as I gathered myself for the rush he spoke to me low and cautiously:

"Now howl your loudest, lad; and I'll not lay on too hard."

My clinched fist dropped to my side.

"You never did me any harm," he muttered. "Howl till they think you half killed, and I'll manage."

I gaped at him, not knowing what to make of it. But this is the way of the world; if there is much cruelty in it, there is much kindness, too.

"Here's the cane, nom d'un chien!" Pierre exclaimed boisterously. "Give it here, Jean; there'll not be much of it left when I get through."

"You'll strip his coat off?" said the second lackey, from the oratory.

"My faith! no; I should kill him if I did, and the duke wants him," Pierre retorted. So without more ado the two men tied my wrists in front of me, and Jean held me by the knot while Pierre laid on. And he, good fellow, grasping my collar, contrived to pull my loose jerkin away from my back, so that he dusted it down without greatly incommoding me. Some hard whacks I did get, but they were nothing to what a strong man could have given in grim earnest.

I trust I could have taken a real flogging with as close lips as anybody, but if my kind succourer wanted howls, howls he should have. I yelled and cowered and dodged about, to the roaring delight of Jean and his mate. Indeed, I had drawn a crowd of grinning varlets to the door before my performance was over. But at length, when I thought I had done enough for their pleasure and that of the nobles in the salon, I dropped down on the floor and lay quiet, with shut eyes.

"He has had his fill, I trow; we must not spoil him for the master," Pierre said.

"Oh, he'll come to in a minute," another answered. "Why, you have not even drawn blood, Pierre!" He laid his hand on my back, whereat I groaned my hollowest.

"It will be many a day before he cares to have his back touched," laughed Pierre. "Here, men, lend a hand. Pardieu! I wonder what Our Lady thinks of some of the devotees we bring her."

As they lifted me he took my hand with an inquiring squeeze; and I squeezed back, grateful, if ever a boy was. They flung me down on the oratory floor and left me there a prisoner.

I spent the next hour or so trying to undo the knot of my handcuff with my teeth; and failing that, to chew the stout rope in two. I was minded as I worked of Lucas and his bonds, and wondered whether he had managed to rid himself of their inconvenience. He went straightway, doubtless, to some confederate who cut them for him, and even now was planning fresh evil against the St. Quentins. I remembered his face as he cried to M. le Comte that they should meet again; and I thought that M. Étienne was likely to have his hands full with Lucas, without this unlucky tanglement with Mlle. de Montluc. In the darkness and solitude I called down a murrain on his folly. Why could he not leave the girl alone? There were other blue eyes in the world. And it would be hard on humanity if there were none kindlier.

He had been at it three years, too. For three long years this girl's fair face had stood between him and his home, between him and action, between him and happiness. It was a fair face, truly; yet, in my opinion, neither it nor any maid's was worth such pains. If she had loved him it had not been worth it, but this girl spurned and flouted him. Why, in the name of Heaven, could he not put the jade out of his mind and turn merrily to St. Denis and the road to glory? When I got back to him and told him how she had mocked him, hang me but he should, though!

Ah, but when was I to get back to him? That rested not with me but with my dangerous host, the League's Lieutenant-General, dark-minded Mayenne. What he wanted with me he had not revealed; nor was it a pleasant subject for speculation. He meant me, of course, to tell him all I knew of the St. Quentins; well, that was soon done; belike he understood more than I of the day's work. But after he had questioned me, what?

Would he consider, with his servant Pierre, that I had never done him any harm? Or would he--I wondered, if they flung me out stark into some alley's gutter, whether M. le Comte would search for me and claim my carcass? Or would he, too, have fallen by the blades of the League?

I was shuddering as I waited there in the darkness. Never, not even this morning in the closet of the Rue Coupejarrets, had I been in such mortal dread. I had walked out of that closet to find M. Étienne; but I was not likely to happen on succour here. Pierre, for all his kind heart, could not save me from the Duke of Mayenne.

Then, when my hope was at its nadir, I remembered who was with me in the little room. I groped my way to Our Lady's feet and prayed her to save me, and if she might not, then to stand by me during the hard moment of dying and receive my seeking soul. Comforted now and deeming I could pass, if it came to that, with a steady face, I laid me down, my head on the prie-dieu cushion, and presently went to sleep.

I was waked by a light in my face, and, all a-quiver, sprang up to meet my doom. But it was not the duke or any of his hirelings who bent over me, candle in hand; it was Mlle. de Montluc.

"Oh, my boy, my poor boy!" she cried pitifully, "I could not save you the flogging; on my honour, I could not. It would have availed you nothing had I pleaded for you on my bended knees."

With bewilderment I observed that the tears were brimming over her lashes and splashing down into the candle-flame. I stared, too confused for speech, while she, putting down the shaking candlestick on the altar, as she crossed herself, covered her face with her hands, sobbing.

"Mademoiselle," I stammered, "it is not worth mademoiselle's tears! The man, Pierre, he told me to scream, so they would think he was half flaying me. But in truth he did not strike very hard. He did not hurt so much."

She struggled to check the rising tempest of her tears, and presently dropped her hands and looked at me earnestly from out her shining wet eyes. "Is that true? Are you not flayed?" And to make sure, she laid her hand delicately on my back.

"They have whacked your coat to ribbons, but, thank St. Généviève, they have not brought the blood. I saw a man flogged once--" she shut her eyes, shuddering, and her mouth quivered anew. "But I am not much hurt, mademoiselle," I answered her.

She took out her film of a handkerchief to wipe her wet cheeks, her hand still trembling. I could think of nothing but to repeat:

"I am not in the least hurt, mademoiselle."

"Ah, but if they have spared you the flogging to take your life!" she breathed.

It was not a heartening suggestion. To my astonishment, suddenly I found myself, frightened victim, striving to comfort this noblewoman for my death.

"Nay, I am not afraid. Since mademoiselle weeps over me, I can die happily."

She sprang toward me as if to protect me with her body from some menacing thrust.

"They shall not kill you!" she cried, her eyes flashing blue fire. "They shall not! Mon dieu! is Lorance de Montluc so feeble a thing that she cannot save a serving-boy?"

She fell back a pace, pressing her hands to her temples as if to stifle their throbbing.

"It was my fault," she cried--"it was all my fault. It was my vanity and silliness brought you to this. I should never have written that letter--a three years' child would have known better. But I had not seen M. de Mar for five weeks--I did not know, what I readily guess now, that he had taken sides against us. M. de Lorraine played on my pique."

"Mademoiselle," I said, "the worst has not followed, since M. Étienne did not come himself."

"You are glad for that?"

"Why, of course, mademoiselle. Was it not a trap for him?"

She caught her breath as if in pain.

"I knew that as soon as I saw that my cousin Mayenne was not angry. When I told what I had done and he smiled at me and said I should have my gloves, why, then I thought my heart would stop beating. I saw what I had accomplished--mon dieu, I was sick with repentance of it!"

I had to tell her I had not thought it.

"No," she answered; "I had got you into this by my foolishness; I must needs try to get you out by my wits. Brie, the one who took you by the throat--there has been bad blood between him and your lord this twelvemonth; only last May M. le Comte ran him through the wrist. Had I interfered for you," she said, colouring a little, "M. de Brie would have inferred interest in the master from that in the man, and he had seen to your beating himself."

It suddenly dawned on me that this M. de Brie was the "little cheese" of guard-room gossip. And I thought that the gentleman would hardly display so much venom against M. Étienne unless he were a serious obstacle to his hopes. Nor would mademoiselle be here at midnight, weeping over a serving-lad, if she cared nothing for the master. If she had not worn her heart on her sleeve before the laughing salon, mayhap she would show it to me.

"Mademoiselle," I cried, "when the billet was brought him M. Étienne rose from his bed at once to come. But he was faint from fatigue and loss of blood; he could not walk across the room. But he bade me try to make mademoiselle believe his absence was no fault of his. He wrote her a month ago; he found to-day the letter was never delivered."

"Is he hurt dangerously?"

"No," I admitted reluctantly; "no, I think not. He was wounded in the right forearm, and again pinked in the shoulder; but he will recover."

"You said," she went on, the tears standing in her eyes, "that he was penniless. I have not much, but what I have is freely his."

She advanced upon me holding out her silken purse which she had taken from her bosom; but I retreated.

"No, no, mademoiselle," I cried, ashamed of my hot words; "we are not penniless--or if we are, we get on very well sans le sou. They do everything for monsieur at the Trois Lanternes, and he has only to return to the Hôtel St. Quentin to get all the gold pieces he can spend. Oh, no; we are in no want, mademoiselle. I was angry when I said it; I did not mean it. I cry mademoiselle's pardon."

She looked at me a little hesitatingly.

"You are telling me true?"

"Why, yes, mademoiselle; if my monsieur needed money, indeed, indeed, I would not refuse it."

"Then if you cannot take it for him, you can take it for yourself. It will be strange if in all Paris you cannot find something you like as a token from me." With her own white fingers she slipped some tinkling coins into my pouch, and cut short my thanks with the little wailing cry:

"Oh, your poor, bound hands! I have my poniard in my dress. I could free them in a second. But if they knew I had been here with you they never will let you go."

"If mademoiselle is running into danger staying here, I pray her to go back to bed. M. Étienne did not send me hither to bring her grief and trouble."

"Who are you?" she asked me abruptly. "You have never been here before on monsieur's errands?"

"No, mademoiselle; I came up only yesterday from Picardie. I belong on the St. Quentin estate. My name is Félix Broux."

"Alack, you have chosen a bad time to visit Paris!"

"I came up to see life," I said, "and mordieu! I am seeing it."

"I pray God you may not see death, too," she answered soberly.

She stood looking at me helplessly.

"I am in my lord's black books," she said slowly, as if to herself; "but I might weep François de Brie's rough heart to softness. Then it is a question whether he could turn Mayenne. I wish I knew whether the duke himself or only Paul de Lorraine has planned this move to-night. That is," she added, blushing, but speaking out candidly, "whether they attack M. de Mar as the League's enemy or as my lover."

"This M. Paul de Lorraine," said I, speaking as respectfully as I knew how, but eager to find out all I could for M. Étienne--"this M. de Lorraine is mademoiselle's lover, too?"

She shrugged her shoulders, neither assenting nor denying. "We are all pawns in the game for M. de Mayenne to push about as he chooses. For a time M. de Mar was high in his favour. Then my cousin Paul came back after a two years' disappearance, and straightway he was up and M. de Mar was down. And then Paul vanished again as suddenly as he had come, and it became the turn of M. de Brie. Now to-night Paul walked in as suddenly as he had left and at once played on me to write that unlucky letter. And what it bodes for _him_ I know not."

She spoke with amazing frankness; yet, much as she had told me, the fact of her telling it told me even more. I saw that she was as lonely in this great house as I had been at St. Quentin. She would have talked delightedly to M. le Comte's dog.

"Mademoiselle," I said, "I would like well to tell you what has been happening to my M. Étienne this last month, if you are not afraid to stay long enough to hear it."

"Oh, every one is asleep long ago; it is past two o'clock. Yes, you may tell me if you wish."

She sat down on a praying-cushion, motioning me to the other, and I began my tale. At first she listened with a little air of languor, as if the whole were of slight consequence and she really did not care at all what M. le Comte had been about these five weeks. But as I got into the affair of the Rue Coupejarrets she forgot her indifference and leaned forward with burning cheeks, hanging on my words with eager questions. And when I told her how Lucas had evaded us in the darkness, she cried:

"Blessed Virgin! M. de Mar has enough to contend with in this Lucas, without Paul de Lorraine, and Brie, and the Duke of Mayenne himself."

I was silent, being of her opinion. Presently she asked reluctantly:

"Does your master think this Lucas a tool of M. de Mayenne's?"

"Yes, mademoiselle. He says secretaries do not plot against dukedoms for their own pleasure."

"Asassination was not wont to be my cousin Mayenne's way," she said with an accent of confidence that rang as false as a counterfeit coin. I saw well enough that mademoiselle did fear, at least, Mayenne's guilt. I thought I might tell her a little more.

"M. le Comte told me that since his father's coming to Paris M. de Mayenne made him offers to join the League, and he refused them. So then M. de Mayenne, seeing himself losing the whole house of St. Quentin, invented this."

"But it failed. Thank God, it failed! And now he will leave Paris. He will--he must!"

"He did mean to seek Navarre's camp to-morrow," I answered; "but--"

"But what?"

"But then the letter came."

"But that makes no difference! He must go for all that. The time is over for trimming. He must stand on one side or the other. I am a Ligueuse born and bred, and I tell him to go to King Henry. It is his father's side; it is his side. He cannot stay in Paris another day."

"I do not think he will go, mademoiselle."

"But he must!" she cried with vehemence. "Paris is not safe for him. If he cannot stand for his wound, he must go. I will send him a letter myself to tell him he must."

"Then he will never go."

"Félix!"

"He will not. He was going because he thought his lady flouted him; when he finds she does not--well, if he budges a step out of Paris, I do not know him. When he thought himself despised--"

"And why did I turn his suit into laughter in the salon if I did not mean that I despised him? I did it for you to tell him how I made a mock of him, that he might hate me and keep away from me."

"Oh," I said, "mademoiselle is beyond me; I cannot keep up with her."

"And you believed it! But you must needs spoil all by flaring out with impudent speech."

"I crave mademoiselle's pardon. I was wrong and insolent. But she played too well."

"And if it was not play?" she cried, rising. "If I do--well, I will not say despise him--but care nothing for him? Will he then go to St. Denis? Then tell him from me that he has my pity as one cruelly cozened, and my esteem as a one-time servant of mine, but never my love. Tell him I would willingly save him alive, for the sake of the love he once bore me. But as for any answering love in my bosom, I have not one spark. Tell him to go find a new mistress at St. Denis. He might as well cry for the moon as seek to win Lorance de Montluc."

"That may be true," I said; "but all the same he will try. Can mademoiselle suppose he will go out of Paris now, and leave her to marry Brie and Lorraine?"

"Only one," she protested with the shadow of a smile; and then a sudden rush of tears blinded her. "I am a very miserable girl," she said woefully, "for I bring nothing but danger to those that love me."

I dropped on my knees before her and kissed the hem of her dress.

"Ah, Félix," she said, "if you really pitied me, you would get him out of Paris!" And she fell to weeping as if her heart would break.

I had no skill to comfort her. I bent my head before her, silent. At length she sobbed out:

"It boots little for us to quarrel over what you shall say to M. de Mar, when we know not that you will ever speak to him again. And it was all my fault."

"Mademoiselle, it was the fault of my hasty tongue."

But she shook her head.

"I maintained that to you, but it was not true. Mayenne had something in his mind before. A general holds his schemes so dear and lives so cheap. But I will do my utmost, Félix, lad. It is not long to daylight now. I will go to François de Brie and we'll believe I shall prevail."

She took up her candle and said good night to me very gently and quietly, and gave me her hand to kiss. She opened the door,--with my fettered wrists I could not do the office for her,--and on the threshold turned to smile on me, wistfully, hopefully. In the next second, with a gasp that was half a cry, she blew out the light and pushed the door shut again.

XV

_My Lord Mayenne._

I knew she was shutting the door by the click of the latch; in the next second I made the discovery that she was still on my side of it. "What--" I was beginning, when she laid her hand over my mouth. A line of light showed through the crack. She had not quite closed the door on account of the noise of the latch. She tried again; again it rattled and she desisted. I heard her fluttered breathing and I heard something else--a rapid, heavy tread in the corridor without. Into the council-room came a man carrying a lighted taper. It was Mayenne.

Mademoiselle, with a whispered "God save us!" sank in a heap at my feet.

I bent over her to find if she had swooned, when she seized my hand in a sharp grip that told me plain as words to be quiet.

Mayenne was yawning; he had a rumpled and dishevelled look like one just roused from sleep. He crossed over to the table, lighted the three-branched candlestick standing there, and seated himself with his back to us, pulling about some papers. I hardly dared glance at him, for fear my eyes should draw his; the crack of our door seemed to call aloud to him to mark it; but the candle-light scarcely pierced the shadows of the long room.

More quick footsteps in the corridor. Mayenne hitched his chair about, sidewise to the table and to us, facing the outer door. A tall man in black entered, saluting the general from the threshold.

"So you have come back?" spoke the duke in his even tones. It was impossible to tell whether the words were a welcome or a sentence.

"Yes," answered the other, in a voice as noncommittal as Mayenne's own. He shut the door after him and walked over to the table.

"And how goes it?"

"Badly."

The newcomer threw his hat aside and sat down without waiting for an invitation.

"What! Badly, sirrah!" Mayenne exclaimed sharply. "You come to me with that report?"

"I do, monsieur," answered the other with cool insolence, leaning back in his chair. The light fell directly on his face and proved to me what I had guessed at his first word. The duke's night visitor was Lucas. "Yes," he repeated indifferently, "it has gone badly. In fact, your game is up."

Mayenne jumped to his feet, bringing his fist down on the table.

"You tell me this?"

Lucas regarded him with an easy smile.

"Unfortunately, monsieur, I do."

Mayenne turned on him, cursing. Lucas with the quickness of a cat sprang a yard aside, dagger unsheathed.

"Put up that knife!" shouted Mayenne.

"When you put up yours, monsieur."

"I have drawn none!"

"In your sleeve, monsieur."

"Liar!" cried Mayenne.

I know not who was lying, for I could not tell whether the blade that flashed now in the duke's hand came from his sleeve or from his belt. But if he had not drawn before he had drawn now and rushed at Lucas. He dodged and they circled round each other, wary as two matched cocks. Lucas was strictly on the defensive; Mayenne, the less agile by reason of his weight, could make no chance to strike. He drew off presently.

"I'll have your neck wrung for this," he panted.

"For what, monsieur?" asked Lucas, imperturbably. "For defending myself?"

Mayenne let the charge go by default.

"For coming to me with the tale of your failures. Nom de dieu, do I employ you to fail?"

"We are none of us gods, monsieur. You yourself lost Ivry."

Mayenne backed over to his chair and seated himself, laying his knife on the table in front of him. His face smoothed out to good humour--no mean tribute to his power of self-control. For the written words can convey no notion of the maddening insolence of Lucas's bearing--an insolence so studied that it almost seemed unconscious and was thereby well-nigh impossible to silence.

"Sit down," bade the duke, "and tell me."

Lucas, standing at the foot of the table, observed:

"They turned you out of your bed, monsieur, to see me. It was unnecessary severity. My tale will keep till morning."

"By Heaven, it shall not!" Mayenne shouted. "Beware how much further you dare anger me, you Satan's cub!"

He was fingering the dagger again as if he longed to plunge it into Lucas's gullet, and I rather marvelled that he did not, or summon his guard to do it. For I could well understand how infuriating was Lucas. He carried himself with an air of easy equality insufferable to the first noble in the land. Mayenne's chosen rôle was the unmoved, the inscrutable, but Lucas beat him at his own game and drove him out into the open of passion and violence. It was a miracle to me that the man lived--unless, indeed, he were a prince in disguise.

"Satan's cub!" Lucas repeated, laughing. "Our late king had called me that, pardieu! But I knew not you acknowledged Satan in the family."

"I ordered Antoine to wake me if you returned in the night," Mayenne went on gruffly. "When I heard you had been here I knew something was wrong--unless the thing were done."

"It is not done. The whole plot is ruined."

"Nom de dieu! If it is by your bungling--"

"It was not by my bungling," Lucas answered with the first touch of heat he had shown. "It was fate--and that fool Grammont."

"Explain then, and quickly, or it will be the worse for you."

Lucas sat down, the table between them.

"Look here," he said abruptly, leaning forward over the board. "Have you Mar's boy?"

"What boy?"

"A young Picard from the St. Quentin estate, whom the devil prompted to come up to town to-day. Mar sent him here to-night with a love-message to Lorance."

"Oh," said Mayenne, slowly, "if it is a question of mademoiselle's love-affairs, it may be put off till to-morrow. It is plain to the very lackeys that you are jealous of Mar. But at present we are discussing l'affaire St. Quentin."

"It is all one," Lucas answered quickly. "You know what is to be the reward of my success."

"I thought you told me you had failed."

Lucas's hand moved instinctively to his belt; then he thought better of it and laid both hands, empty, on the table.

"Our plot has failed; but that does not mean that St. Quentin is immortal."