The Helmet of Navarre

by Bertha Runkle

  XV

  _My Lord Mayenne._

  I knew she was shutting the door by the click of the latch; in the nextsecond 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 lineof light showed through the crack. She had not quite closed the door onaccount of the noise of the latch. She tried again; again it rattled andshe desisted. I heard her fluttered breathing and I heard somethingelse--a rapid, heavy tread in the corridor without. Into thecouncil-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 asharp grip that told me plain as words to be quiet.

  Mayenne was yawning; he had a rumpled and dishevelled look like one justroused from sleep. He crossed over to the table, lighted thethree-branched candlestick standing there, and seated himself with hisback 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 callaloud to him to mark it; but the candle-light scarcely pierced theshadows 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 inblack entered, saluting the general from the threshold.

  "So you have come back?" spoke the duke in his even tones. It wasimpossible 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 aninvitation.

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

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

  MLLE. De MONTLUC AND FELIX BROUX IN THE ORATORY]

  Mayenne turned on him, cursing. Lucas with the quickness of a catsprang 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 thatflashed 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. Hedodged and they circled round each other, wary as two matched cocks.Lucas was strictly on the defensive; Mayenne, the less agile by reasonof 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 defendingmyself?"

  Mayenne let the charge go by default.

  "For coming to me with the tale of your failures. Nom de dieu, do Iemploy 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 onthe table in front of him. His face smoothed out to good humour--no meantribute to his power of self-control. For the written words can conveyno notion of the maddening insolence of Lucas's bearing--an insolence sostudied that it almost seemed unconscious and was thereby well-nighimpossible 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 wasunnecessary severity. My tale will keep till morning."

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

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

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

  "I ordered Antoine to wake me if you returned in the night," Mayennewent on gruffly. "When I heard you had been here I knew something waswrong--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 heathe 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 youMar's boy?"

  "What boy?"

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

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

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

  "I thought you told me you had failed."

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

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

  "You may be very sure of one thing, my friend," the duke observed. "Ishall never give Lorance de Montluc to a white-livered flincher."

  "The Duke of St. Quentin is not immortal," Lucas repeated. "I havemissed him once, but I shall get him in spite of all."

  "I am not sure about Lorance even then," said Mayenne, reflectively."Francois de Brie is agitating himself about that young mistress. And hehas not made any failures--as yet."

  Lucas sprang to his feet.

  "You swore to me I should have her."

  "Permit me to remind you again that you have not brought me the price."

  "I will bring you the price."

  "E'en then," spoke Mayenne, with the smile of the cat standing over themouse--"e'en then I might change my mind."

  "Then," said Lucas, roundly, "there will be more than one dead duke inFrance."

  Mayenne looked up at him as unmoved as if it were not in the power ofmortal man to make him lose his temper. In stirring him to draw dagger,Lucas had achieved an extraordinary triumph. Yet I somehow thought thatthe man who had shown hot anger was the real man; the man who sat therequiet was the party leader.

  He said now, evenly:

  "That is a silly way to talk to me, Paul."

  "It is the truth for once," Lucas made sullen answer.

  So long as he could prick and irritate Mayenne he preserved an air ofunshakable composure; but when Mayenne recovered patience and himselfbegan to prick, Lucas's guard broke down. His voice rose a key, as ithad done when I called him fool; and he burst out violently:

  "Mort de dieu! monsieur, what am I doing your dirty work for? For loveof my affectionate uncle?"

  "It might well be for that. I have been your affectionate uncle, as yousay."

  "My affectionate uncle, you say? My hirer, my suborner! I was aProte
stant; I was bred up by the Huguenot Lucases when my father castoff my mother and me to starve. I had no love for the League or theLorraines. I was fighting in Navarre's ranks when I was made prisoner atIvry."

  "You were spying for Navarre. It was before the fight we caught you. Youhad been hanged and quartered in that gray dawn had I not recognizedyou, after twelve years, as my brother's son. I cut the rope from youand embraced you for your father's sake. You rode forth a cornet in myarmy, instead of dying like a felon on the gallows."

  "You had your ends to serve," Lucas muttered.

  "I took you into my household," Mayenne went on. "I let you wear thename of Lorraine. I did not deny you the hand of my cousin and ward,Lorance de Montluc."

  "Deny me! No, you did not. Neither did you grant it me, but put me offwith lying promises. You thought then you could win back the falteringhouse of St. Quentin by a marriage between your cousin and the Comte deMar. Afterward, when my brother Charles dashed into Paris, and thepeople clamoured for his marriage with the Infanta, you conceived thescheme of forcing Lorance on him. But it would not do, and again youpromised her to me if I could get you certain information from theroyalist army. I returned in the guise of an escaped prisoner to Henry'scamp to steal you secrets; and the moment my back was turned youlistened to proposals from Mar again."

  "Mar is not in the race now. You need not speak of him, nor of yourbrother Charles, either."

  "No; I can well understand that my brother's is not a pleasant name inyour ears," Lucas agreed. "You acknowledged one King Charles X; youwould like well to see another Charles X, but it is not Charles of Guiseyou mean."

  "I have no desire to be King of France," Mayenne began angrily.

  "Have you not? That is well, for you will never feel the crown on yourbrows, good uncle! You are ground between the Spanish hammer and theBearnais anvil; there will soon be nothing left of you but powder."

  "Nom de dieu, Paul--" Mayenne cried, half rising; but Lucas, leaningforward on the table, riveting him with his keen eyes, went on:

  "Do not mistake me, monsieur uncle. I think you in bad case, but I amready to sink or swim with you. So long as the hand of Lorance is inyour bestowing I am your faithful servant. I have not hesitated to riskthe gallows to serve you. Last March I made my way here, disguised, totell you of the king's coming change of faith and of St. Quentin'scertain defection. I demanded then my price, my marriage withmademoiselle. But you put me off again. You sent me back to Mantes tokill you St. Quentin."

  "Aye. And you have been about it these four months, and you have notkilled him."

  Lucas reddened with ire.

  "I am no Jacques Clement to stab and be massacred. You cannot buy such aservice of me, M. de Mayenne. If I do bravo's work for you I choose myown time and way. I brought the duke to Paris, delivered him up to youto deal with as it liked you. But you with your army at your back wereafraid to kill him. You flinched and waited. You dared not shoulder theonus of his death. Then I, to help you out of your strait, planned tomake his own son's the hand that should do the deed; to kill the dukeand ruin his heir; to put not only St. Quentin but Mar out of yourway--"

  "Let us be accurate, Paul," Mayenne said. "Mar was not in my way; he wasof no consequence to me. You mean, put him out of your way."

  "He was in your way, too. Since he would not join the Cause he was ahindrance to it. You had as much to gain as I by his ruin."

  "Something--not as much. I did not want him killed--I preferred him toValere."

  "Nor did I want him killed; so our views jibed well."

  "Why not, then? Did you prefer him as your wife's lover to some otherwho might appear?"

  "I do not intend that my wife shall have lovers," Lucas answered.

  Mayenne broke into laughter.

  "Nom d'un chien, where will you keep her? In the Bastille? Lorance andno lovers! Ho, ho!"

  "I mean none whom she favours."

  "Then why do you leave Mar alive? She adores the fellow," Mayenne said.I had no idea whether he really thought it or only said it to annoyLucas. At any rate it had its effect. Lucas's brows were knotted; hespoke with an effort, like a man under stress of physical pain.

  "I know she loves him now, and she would love him dead; but she wouldnot love him a parricide."

  "Is that your creed? Pardieu! you don't know women. The blacker thevillain the more they adore him."

  "I know it is true, monsieur," Lucas said smoothly, "that you have hadsuccesses."

  Mayenne started forward with half an oath, changing to a laugh.

  "So it is not enough for you to possess the fair body of Lorance; youmust also have her love?"

  "She will love me," Lucas answered uneasily. "She must."

  "It is not worth your fret," Mayenne declared. "If she did, how longwould it last? _Souvent femme varie_--that is the only fixed fact abouther. If Lorance loves Mar to-day, she will love some one else to-morrow,and some one else still the day after to-morrow. It is not worth whiledisturbing yourself about it."

  "She will not love any one else," Lucas said hoarsely.

  Mayenne laughed.

  "You are very young, Paul."

  "She shall not love any one else! By the throne of heaven, she shallnot!"

  Mayenne went on laughing. If Lucas had for the moment teased him out ofhis equanimity, the duke had paid back the score a hundredfold. Lucas'sface was seared with his passions as with the torture-iron; he clinchedhis hands together, breathing hard. On my side of the door I heard asharp little sound in the darkness; mademoiselle had gritted her teeth.

  "It is a little early to sweat over the matter," Mayenne said, "sincemademoiselle is not your wife nor ever likely to become so."

  "You refuse her to me?" Lucas cried, livid. I thought he would leap overthe table at one bound on Mayenne. It occurred to the duke to take uphis dagger.

  "I promise her to you when you kill me St. Quentin. And you have notkilled me St. Quentin but instead come airily to tell me the scheme--myscheme--is wrecked. Pardieu! it was never my scheme. I never advocatedstolen pistoles and suborned witnesses and angered nephews and deceivedsons and the rest of your cumbrous machinery. I would have had you stabhim as he bent over his papers, and walk out of the house before theydiscovered him. But you had not the pluck for that; you must needs plotand replot to make some one else do your work. Now, after months ofintriguing and waiting, you come to me to tell me you have failed.Morbleu! is there any reason why I should not have you kicked into thegutter, as no true son of the valourous Le Balafre?"

  Lucas's hand went to his belt again; he made one step as if to comearound the table. Mayenne's angry eye was on him but he did not move;and Lucas made no more steps. Controlling himself with an effort, hesaid:

  "It was not my fault, monsieur. No man could have laboured harder orplanned better than I. I have been diligent, I have been clever. I havemade my worst enemy my willing tool--I have made Monsieur's own son mycat's-paw. I have left no end loose, no contingency unprovided for--andI am ruined by a freak of fate."

  "I never knew a failure yet but what the fault was fate's," Mayennereturned.

  "Call it accident, then, call it the devil, call it what you like!"Lucas cried. "I still maintain it was not my fault. Listen, monsieur."

  He sat down again and began his story, striving as he talked toreconquer something of his old coolness.

  "The thing was ruined by the advent of this boy, Mar's lackey I spokeof. You said he had not been here?"

  "You may go to Lorance with that question," Mayenne answered; "I havesomething else to attend to than the intrigues of my wife's maids."

  "He started hither; I thought some one would have the sense to keep him.Mordieu! I will find from Lorance whether she saw him."

  He fell silent, gnawing his lip; I could see that his thought hadtravelled away from the plot to the sore subject of mademoiselle'saffections.

  "Well," said Mayenne, sharply, "what about your boy?"

  It was a moment before Lucas answered. When h
e did he spoke low andhurriedly, so that I could scarce catch the words. I knew it was no fearof listeners that kept his voice down--they had shouted at each otheras if there was no one within a mile. I guessed that Lucas, for all hisbravado, took little pride in his tale, nor felt happy about itsreception. I could catch names now and then, Monsieur's, M. Etienne's,Grammont's, but the hero of the tale was myself.

  "You let him to the duke?" Mayenne cried presently.

  At the harsh censure of his voice, Lucas's rang out with the olddefiance:

  "With Vigo at his back I did. Sangdieu! you have yet to make theacquaintance of St. Quentin's equery. A regiment of your lansquenetscouldn't keep him out."

  "Does he never take wine?" Mayenne asked, lifting his hand with shutfingers over the table and then opening them.

  "That is easy to say, monsieur, sitting here in your own hotel stuffedwith your soldiers. But it was not so easy to do, alone in my enemy'shouse, when at the least suspicion of me they had broken me on thewheel."

  "That is the rub!" Mayenne cried violently. "That is the trouble withall of you. You think more of the safety of your own skins than ofaccomplishing your work. Mordieu! where should I be to-day--where wouldthe Cause be--if my first care was my own peril?"

  "Then that is where we differ, uncle," Lucas answered with a cold sneer."You are, it is well known, a patriot, toiling for the Church and theKing of Spain, with never a thought for the welfare of Charles ofLorraine, Lord of Mayenne. But I, Paul of Lorraine, your humble nephew,lord of my brain and hands, freely admit that I am toiling for no onebut the aforesaid Paul of Lorraine. I should find it most inconvenientto get on without a head on my shoulders, and I shall do my best to keepit there."

  "You need not tell me that; I know it well enough," Mayenne answered."You are each for himself, none for me. At the same time, Paul, you willdo well to remember that your interest is to forward my interest."

  "To the full, monsieur. And I shall kill you St. Quentin yet. You neednot call me coward; I am working for a dearer stake than any man in yourranks."

  "Well," Mayenne rejoined, "get on with your tale."

  Lucas went on, Mayenne listening quietly, with no further word of blame.He moved not so much as an eyelid till Lucas told of M. le Duc'sdeparture, when he flung himself forward in his chair with a sharp oath.

  "What! by daylight?"

  "Aye. He was afraid, after this discovery, of being set on at night."

  "He went out in broad day?"

  "So Vigo said. I saw him not," Lucas answered with something of his oldnonchalance.

  "Mille tonnerres du diable!" Mayenne shouted. "If this is true, if hegot out in broad day, I'll have the head of the traitor that let him.I'll nail it over his own gate."

  "It is not worth your fret, monsieur," Lucas said lightly. "If you did,how long would it avail? _Souvent homme trahie_; that is the only fixedfact about him. If they pass St. Quentin to-day, they will pass some oneelse to-morrow, and some one else still the day after."

  Mayenne looked at him, half angry, half startled into some deeperemotion at this deft twisting of his own words.

  "Souvent homme trahie, Mal habile qui s'y fie,"

  he repeated musingly. He might have been saying over the motto of thehouse of Lorraine. For the Guises believed in no man's good faith, as noman believed in theirs.

  "_Souvent homme trahie_," Mayenne said again, as if in the words herecognized a bitter verity. "And that is as true as King Francis'sversion. I suppose you will be the next, Paul."

  "When I give up hope of Lorance," Lucas said bluntly.

  I caught myself suddenly pitying the two of them: Mayenne, because, forall his power and splendour and rank next to a king's and ability secondto none, he dared trust no man--not the son of his body, not hisbrother. He had made his own hell and dwelt in it, and there was no needto wish him any ill. And Lucas, perjured traitor, was farther from thegoal of his desire than if we had slain him in the Rue Coupejarrets.

  "What next? It appears you escaped the redoubted Vigo," Mayenne went onin his every-day tone; and the vision faded, and I saw him once more asthe greatest noble and greatest scoundrel in France, and feared andhated him, and Lucas too, as the betrayer of my dear lord Etienne.

  "Trust me for that."

  "Then came you here?"

  "Not at once. I tracked Mar and this Broux to Mar's old lodgings at theThree Lanterns. When I had dogged them to the door I came here andworked upon Lorance to write Mar a letter commanding his presence. For Ithought that the night was yet young and to-morrow he might be out of myreach. Well, it appears he had not the courage to come but he sent theboy. I was not sorry. I thought I could settle him more quietly at theinn. The boy went back once and almost ran into me in the court, but hedid not see me. I entered and asked for lodgings; but the fat old foolof a host put me through the catechism like an inquisitor, and finallydeclared the inn was full. I said I would take a garret; but it was nouse. Out I must trudge. I did, and paid two men to get into a brawl infront of the house, that the inn people might run out to look. Butinstead they locked the gate and put up the shutters in the cabaret."

  Mayenne burst out laughing.

  "It was not your night, Paul."

  "No," said Lucas, shortly.

  "And what then? It did not take you till three o'clock to be put out ofthe inn."

  "No," Lucas answered; "I spoke to you of the varlet Pontou with whomGrammont had quarrelled. He had shut him up in a closet of the house inthe Rue Coupejarrets. After the fight in the court we all went our ways,forgetting him. So I paid the house a visit; I was afraid some one elsemight find him and he might tell tales."

  "And will he tell tales?"

  "No," said Lucas, "he will tell no tales."

  "How about your spy in the Hotel St. Quentin?"

  "Martin, the clerk? Oh, I warned him off before I left," Lucas saideasily. "He will lie perdu till we want him again. And Grammont, yousee, is dead too. There is no direct witness to the thing but the boyBroux."

  "That's as good as to say there is none," Mayenne answered; "for I havethe boy."