II
THE THRUST OF NEVERS
At the sight of the two men, the ruffians at the table set up a roar ofwelcome and bumped their mugs lustily upon the board to a chorus ofgreeting, in which the names of Cocardasse and Passepoil were repeated ina variety of accents from German to Italian, from Portuguese to Biscayan,from Spanish to Breton, but in all cases with the same degree ofenthusiasm and admiration. The big, gaudy fellow, patently pleased by thetribute, struck a magnificent attitude and extended a benedictory handtowards the drinkers. "Courage, chanticleers!" he shouted--"comradesall," and, advancing towards the table, gave Staupitz a lusty slap on theback, while Passepoil, following nervously behind him, whispered beneathhis breath and behind his lifted hand a timid "Greeting, gentlemen,"which was hardly audible in the buzz of voices. But while Cocardasse wasbusy engaging clasps of the hand with the men of many nationalities whohad been waiting for him, the attention of Passepoil was entirelydiverted by the appearance of the Inn maid, Martine, who at that momentappeared upon the scene with a fresh pitcher of wine in honor of thefresh arrivals. The lean and pale man blushed and sighed as he saw her.Those in the room that knew the Norman were well aware that love of womanwas his weakness, and they paid no heed to his attempted philandering,taking it, so far as they thought of it at all, as a matter of course andhonest Passepoil's way.
Though Martine was as little comely as need be, she was still a woman,and a woman Passepoil had never seen before, and, sidling towards her, heendeavored to enter into amicable conversation, which was received butindifferently well. By this time Cocardasse had finished his greetings,and, drawing back a step or two, surveyed the company with a look ofsatisfaction not unmingled with astonishment.
"Why, Papa Staupitz," he said, "here we have many friends and all fineblades. This is indeed a pleasure party." His eyes travelled from thetable to the window, where the man in black still sat and read quiteunconcernedly. Something like surprise puckered Cocardasse's rubicundface. "You here, AEsop?" he questioned.
The man whom he called AEsop looked up for a moment from his book andshrugged his shoulders. "Devil knows why!" he said. "If they want me,they don't want the others. If they want the others, they don't wantme."
His remarks were interrupted by a slight scuffle between Passepoil andMartine. Passepoil had so far conquered his natural timidity as to go tothe length of soliciting a kiss from the Inn maid. She had successfullyrepulsed him with a slap on each of his cheeks, and had slipped from theroom. While Passepoil was rubbing his face ruefully, AEsop went on,sardonically:
"What do you think of it, friend Cocardasse? Here we are, nine of us,nine picked swordsmen, and we are going to fight one man."
Cocardasse had returned to the table and filled himself a monstrousmeasure of wine. He was thirsty, an habitual state with him, and he eyedthe rough wine lovingly.
"Who is the giant who is going to fight nine of us?" he asked as helifted his cup from the board.
Passepoil, who, enjoying like his comrade an abiding drought, hadfollowed his example, hoping to find consolation in wine for thedisappointments of love, also expressed his surprise.
"Every man of us can fight three men at a time," he whispered, timidly,and he, too, lifted his glass.
"Who is the man, anyhow?" said Cocardasse, cheerfully, making the wineswing in the vessel; and Staupitz answered him, slowly:
"Louis, Duke of Nevers."
The effect of this simple speech upon the new-comers was exceedinglyremarkable. Cocardasse seemed suddenly to forget his thirst, for he setdown his untasted mug upon the table. Passepoil did the like. "Oh!" saidCocardasse, solemnly. "Ah!" said Passepoil, gloomily.
For a few appreciable seconds of strained excitement to those thatwatched them the pair remained rigid, staring at their rejectedwine-cups, as if the liquor they contained had some monstrous Medusa-likeproperty of stiffening into stone all those that presumed to drink of it.Then the Gascon, slowly turning his head, gazed steadfastly at theNorman; and the Norman, slowly turning his head, gazed steadfastly at theGascon, and then the pair, so gazing, both wagged their polls verysolemnly indeed, and puckered their eyebrows and betrayed many other veryvisible signs of dissatisfaction, not to say of discomfort. ThenCocardasse muttered to his comrade the words "Louis de Nevers," as ifthey were not at all to his liking, and Passepoil, in his turn, repeatedthe words, as if they were not at all to his liking, and then they bothsighed and grunted and were silent.
The look of stupefaction, not to say consternation, on the faces of thenew arrivals was patent to every man in the room--most patent and mostunpalatable to the leader of the gang. Staupitz thrust his red, Teutonicface forward with a mocking look and a mocking voice as he grunted:"Seems to me you don't relish the job."
Cocardasse nodded at him with perfect affability, and patted his shoulderwith a massive, red hand. "Papa Staupitz," he said, good-humoredly, "youread me like a book."
"In the largest print," added Passepoil, who generally supplemented anyremark of his comrade with some approving comment of his own.
Staupitz swung round in his chair, upsetting a tankard in his angrymovement, as he glared, all rage, at the strangely assorted pair. "Areyou afraid?" he asked, with guttural contempt.
Cocardasse grinned and showed his large, dog-like teeth. "I am not afraidof you, Papa Staupitz," he said, quite cheerfully, "nor of any man inthis room, nor of all the men in this room."
Passepoil added, stammering in his speech, blinking his pink eyelidsrapidly: "If any gentleman doubts the point, there is a pleasant bit ofkitchen garden outside where we can adjourn and argue the matterpleasantly together, as gentlemen should."
Nobody present seemed inclined to pick a quarrel either with theebullient Gascon or the hesitating Norman. The six bullies at the tableknew well enough, and savage, masterful AEsop at the window knew wellenough, that the swaggering Gascon was the first fencing-master in Paris,and that his colleague, the Norman, for all his air of ineffabletimidity, was only second to him in skill with the weapon and readinessto use it. There was a moment's silence, and then Cocardasse observed:"I'm afraid of just two men in the world."
"The same with me," added Passepoil, humbly.
Cocardasse resumed his interrupted speech: "And one of them is Louis deNevers."
Staupitz's puzzled, angry face travelled round the room, ranging over theGascon, the Norman, the Spaniard, the Portuguese, the Biscayan, theBreton, and the hunchback. "Thunder and weather!" he cried; "is not nineto one good enough odds for you?"
The others, with the exception of AEsop, who still seemed to read aspeacefully in his book as if he were alone in the room, appeared inclinedto applaud the question of their chief, but Cocardasse was not in theleast impressed by the retort. He replied to Staupitz's query withanother--"Have you never heard of the secret thrust of Nevers?"
A new silence seemed to fall upon the company, and for the second timesince the Gascon and the Norman had entered the room the hunchback took apart in the conversation, closing his book as he did so, but carefullykeeping a finger between the pages to mark the place. "I don't believe insecret thrusts," he said, decisively.
The Gascon moved a little away from Staupitz and a little nearer to AEsop,whom he looked at fixedly. The hunchback sustained his gaze with hishabitual air of cold indifference. Cocardasse spoke: "You will, if youever face Louis de Nevers. Now, Passepoil, here, and I, we are, Ibelieve, held in general repute as pretty good swordsmen--"
Passepoil interrupted, stuttering furiously in his excitement: "But hetouched us with that secret thrust in our own school in Paris--"
Cocardasse completed his friend's statement: "Three times, here on theforehead, just between the eyes."
Passepoil labored his point: "Devil take us if we could find a parry forit."
Cocardasse summed up his argument, gloomily: "They say it has never beenparried, never will be parried."
Again an awkward silence reigned. With a shrug of his shoulders, AEsopresumed his studies, findin
g Aretino more diverting than such nonsense.Breton stared at Teuton; Italian interrogated Spaniard; Portuguesequestioned Biscayan. The affairs of the party seemed to be at adead-lock. The fact was that Staupitz and his little band of babies, ashe was pleased to call them, were not really of the same social standingin the world of cutthroats as Gascon Cocardasse and Norman Passepoil.Cocardasse and his companion were recognized fencing-masters in Paris,well esteemed, if not of the highest note, whereas Staupitz was no betterthan an ordinary bully-broker, and his so-styled children no more thanprovincial rascallions. It was not for them, and they knew it, to displaysuch knowledge of the great world as might be aired by Cocardasse andPassepoil, and when Cocardasse spoke with so much significance about thethrust of Nevers, and questioned them with so much insistence about thethrust of Nevers, it was plain that he spoke from the brimmings of awisdom richer than their own. Staupitz, who was in some sense a son ofParis, if only an adopted son, and that, indeed, by process ofself-adoption, knew enough of Olympian matters to be aware that there wasan illustrious gentleman that was Duke of Nevers, whom he was equallywilling to aid with his sword or slay with his sword, if occasion served.Now occasion seemed to demand that Staupitz should follow the lattercourse. He was employed to kill somebody, and AEsop had assured him thatthis somebody was Louis, Duke de Nevers. Staupitz had not cared who itwas; it was all one to him, but honestly he was troubled now by thepatent trouble of Cocardasse and his ominous mutterings about the thrustof Nevers.
Passepoil broke the silence, surveying the puzzled faces around him. "Nowonder there's such a crowd of us." And for the first time there wassomething like the sound of audacity in his voice and a glance ofaudacity on his visage.
"Faith," said Cocardasse, emphatically, "I'd rather face an army thanface Louis de Nevers."
Again there was a silence. The gentlemen of the sword seemed to be at aloss for conversation. Again Passepoil broke the silence, this time witha question: "Why are we after Louis de Nevers?"
Nobody seemed to be able to answer him. Even Staupitz, who wasresponsible to the others for this gathering of the company, was baffled.He had been told to supply nine swords, and he had supplied them. He hadbeen told by his employer the purpose for which the nine swords werewanted--he had been told by AEsop against whom those nine swords were tobe drawn--and that was the extent of his knowledge. This time thehunchback, in his favorite character of know-all, took the lead. He puthis book in his pocket, as if he perceived that further study was to bedenied him that afternoon, with so much noise and bustle of curiosityabout him, and rose from his chair. Holding his long rapier behind hisback with both his hands, he advanced into the middle of the room, wherehe proceeded to harangue his fellow-guardsmen.
"I can tell you," he said, harshly, "if you would care to hear thestory."
Now bravos, swashbucklers, spadassins, and such soldiers of fortune arelike children in this regard--as indeed in many another--that they love agood yarn well spun. If something in the dominating, masterful manner ofAEsop compelled their attention, something also in the malicious smilethat twitched his lips seemed to promise plenitude of entertainment. Agrave quiet settled upon the ragamuffins, their sunburned faces wereturned eagerly towards the hunchback, their wild eyes studied his mockingface; they waited in patience upon his pleasure. Pleased with thehumility of his audience, AEsop began his narrative.
"There are," he said, "now living three noble gentlemen in the firstflush of youth, in the first flight of greatness, young, handsome,brilliant, more like brothers than friends. They are known in the nobleworld of the court as the three Louis, because by a curious chance eachof these splendid gentlemen carries Louis for a Christian name. Humoristshave been known to speak of them as the three Louis d'or. The first isnone other than our good king's person, Louis of Bourbon, thirteenthmonarch of his name; the second is Louis, Duke of Nevers; the third ishis cousin, Louis of Mantua, Prince of Gonzague."
He paused for a moment, looking with the satisfaction of a tale-teller atthe expectant faces before him, and as he paused an approving murmur fromhis audience urged him to continue. AEsop resumed his narration.
"You will ask how the Italianate Mantuan comes to be a cousin of ourFrench Nevers, and I will tell you. Nevers's father, Louis de Nevers, thetwelfth duke, had a very beautiful sister, who was foolish enough, orwise enough, as you may choose to take it, to fall in love with a needyItalian nobleman that came adventuring to Paris in the hope of making arich marriage. He made a rich marriage, or perhaps it would be moreaccurate to say that he thought he made a rich marriage. He marriedMademoiselle de Nevers."
Again AEsop halted, employing one of the familiar devices of rhetoricians,who lure their hearers to keener interest by such judicious pauses in thecourse of their exposition. The listening ruffians were as attentive asbabes at a day-school, and AEsop, with a hideous distortion of hisfeatures, which he intended for a pleased smile, went on with his story:
"Mademoiselle de Nevers had some fortune of her own, of course, but itwas not large; it was not the feast for which the amative Mantuan hadhungered. The Nevers's fortune was in the duke's hands, and remained inthe duke's hands, for the duke married at much the same time as hissister; and the duke's wife and Gonzague's wife were brought to bed muchabout the same time, and each bore a son, and each son was named Louisafter the twelfth duke, out of the affection his wife bore him, out ofthe affection his sister bore him, and out of the affection that sister'sMantuan husband pretended, in his sly Italian manner, to bear him."
A belated patriotism stirring vaguely in Faenza's muddled mind temptedhim to resent the hunch-back's slights upon the land which had beenunlucky enough to mother him.
"All men of Italy are not knaves," he growled, huskily, and, half risingfrom his seat with crimsoned visage, he was busying himself to say more,when Staupitz, who was as interested as the others in Master AEsop'sscandalous chronicle, clapped one bear's paw on Faenza's shoulder andanother bear's paw across Faenza's mouth, and thus forced him at once, bysheer effort of brute strength, to a sitting posture and to silence. Thisaction on the part of the man whom for the time being he had consented toaccept as his general, combined with the cold glance of cruelty and scornwhich AEsop gave him, served to cool Faenza's hot blood. He heard AEsopsay, dryly, "Some men of Italy are fools," and might perchance haveflamed again, to his misluck, but that Staupitz, breathing thickly in hisear, whispered: "Idiot, he mocks a Mantuan. Are not you Naples born andbred?" Faenza, recovering his composure, resolved himself swiftly from anItalian in general to a Neapolitan in particular, with a clannishantagonism to alien states. He spat upon the floor. "Damn all Mantuans!"he muttered, and did no more to interrupt the flow of AEsop's discourse.
"As I was saying, this princeling of Gonzague affected a great show offriendship for his ducal brother of Nevers, and this same friendship heleft--it was, indeed, wellnigh all he had to leave--to his only son andonly child, the present prince of Gonzague."
He made a momentary halt, as if he were observing curiously the effect ofhis words upon his hearers, then resumed:
"The young Louis de Gonzague and the young Louis de Nevers were almost ofan age. Each was an only child, each was an only son, each was clever,each was courageous, each was comely, each was the chosen heart's friendof a namesake king, each was much a lover of ladies, each was much lovedby ladies."
AEsop grinned hideously as he said these words, and his left hand fumbledlovingly at the little volume that lay hid in the breast of his doublet,but he did not delay the flow of his words.
"The chief difference between the two young men who were bound soclosely by ties of blood and yet more closely by ties of personalaffection was that while Louis de Nevers was the heir to all thetreasures of his house, Louis of Gonzague was heir to little more than arotting palace and a hollow title. And yet, by the irony of nature thatseemed to deny long life to any of the stock of Nevers, Louis de Gonzaguewas the next of kin to his cousin, and the heir to all his wealth if byany ill chance the dear y
oung duke should die unmarried."
Here AEsop deliberately shut his mouth for several seconds, while thelistening bandits, persuaded that some thrilling news was toward, nudgedeach other with their elbows and riddled the watchful hunchback withimploring glances that entreated him to proceed. Thus mutely importuned,AEsop opened his mouth again:
"But the difference in the youths' fortunes never made any difference intheir friendship. The purse of the rich Nevers was always open to thefingers of the poor Gonzague, and the poor Gonzague had always too truean appreciation of the meaning of friendship to deny his heart's brotherthe privilege of ministering to his needs. And as the young Nevers didnot hint at the slightest inclination to marry and settle down, butalways declared himself and approved himself the most vagrant of loversand the most frivolous of libertines, there seemed no reason for the goodGonzague to be uneasy as to his possible heritage. Moreover, the youngDuke of Nevers was something delicate of constitution, as it would seem,for all his skill as a soldier and swordsman and his fame as a lady'sman. Once when he was the guest of his cousin of Gonzague in Mantua hefell ill of a strange fever that came near to ending his days, and wasonly saved by his French physician, who tended him day and night and tookhim back to France in the first dawn of his convalescence."
AEsop stopped and blinked at his hearers viciously, looking like someschool-master that wonders how much or how little of what he has beensaying his pupils have understood. Cocardasse was the first to showintelligence and to give it tongue.
"I'll wager," he cried, and swore a great Gascon oath, "that I can hazarda pretty guess as to the name of our employer in to-night's work."
AEsop leered at him with a pitying benignity.
"You were always a great brain for deduction, friend Cocardasse," hesaid. "And who should you say was the honest gentleman who wanted ourswords for this present business?"
"Why," answered Cocardasse, shaking his head gloomily, "though I hate tothink it, and hate to say it, it seems to me that the man who has most togain from this little meeting and its inevitable result is none otherthan the third Louis, your Italian of Gonzague."
AEsop nodded, and a ferocious smile illuminated his evil face.
"You have come to a very creditable conclusion, friend Cocardasse. Itlooks very much as if Jonathan wanted to kill David, as if Patroclusyearned to slaughter Achilles, as if Pythias wanted to extinguishDamon."
Master AEsop prided himself upon his scholarship and his felicity inclassical allusion--a felicity wholly wasted upon his present audience.
Cocardasse was still curious. "Why does Louis de Gonzague want to killhis friend, Louis of Nevers, just at this particular moment, and why herein this heaven-forgotten hole of a place, in this heaven-forgotten cornerof the world?"
AEsop explained: "Because Louis de Gonzague, having tried once, with goodreason, and failed, tries again with better reason and means to succeedthis time, believing much steel to do better than a little poison.Because, in a few words, Louis de Gonzague wants to marry the beautifulGabrielle, daughter of old Caylus of the castle there, who is wealthy,too."
Passepoil, who was always interested in affairs of the heart, put in hisword. "Why doesn't he marry her?"
AEsop was ready to explain that matter also: "Because Gabrielle de Caylusis already secretly married to Louis de Nevers. They were married oneyear ago in the chapel of Caylus, and the only witnesses were Louis deGonzague and his factotum, Monsieur Peyrolles, who has summoned us tothis tryst."
"Why were they secretly married?" asked the amorous Passepoil.
AEsop answered him: "An old family feud between the houses of Nevers andCaylus. The marquis would rather kill his daughter than let her marryLouis de Nevers. So they were wedded secretly, without his knowledge, andLouis de Gonzague, that could deny his dear friend and cousin, Louis deNevers, nothing, helped him to his wife."
"That was generous, at least," Passepoil sighed.
AEsop sneered. "He hoped, as he believed with reason, that there would beno issue of the marriage, and that by-and-by he would come to what hecalled his own. But three months ago a daughter was born to the nuptialsof Nevers, and that is why we are here to-night. Monsieur Peyrolles wouldpretend that it is the old marquis who is using us, the old marquis whois suspicious of an amour between his daughter and Nevers. But I knowbetter."
"How do you know all this?" Cocardasse inquired.
AEsop shrugged his shoulders. "My good fellow," he said, "it is mybusiness to know everything that is worth knowing in my trade. There arevery few noble houses in France that can hope to hold any secrets fromme. You may take my word for it--that is how matters stand."
Staupitz and his five swordsmen sat silent and puzzled, leaving the ballof conversation to be tossed between Cocardasse, Passepoil, and AEsop.
Cocardasse spoke next: "An ugly job. There's only one man alive to matchLouis de Nevers."
Something almost approaching a human smile distorted the wrinkled faceof AEsop and made it appear more than usually repulsive. "You mean me," hesaid, and the smirk deepened, only to dissipate quickly as Cocardassereplied:
"Devil a bit. I mean the little Parisian, Henri de Lagardere."
"The best swordsman in Paris!" Passepoil cried, enthusiastically.
"The best swordsman in France!" Cocardasse shouted.
Passepoil commented again: "The best swordsman in Europe."
Cocardasse, not to be outdone, put the final touch to the picture: "Thebest swordsman in the world."
The name of Lagardere seemed to make a marked impression upon thecompany. Every man seemed to have his contribution to make to the historyof the little Parisian.
Faenza was the first to speak.
"I met your Lagardere once," he said, "at a fencing-school in Milan,where half a dozen French gentlemen met half a dozen gentlemen of mynationality in a match to test the merits of the French and Italianmethods of fence. This Lagardere of yours was the only one whom I had anydifficulty in overcoming."
Cocardasse gave an ironic snort. It was evident that he did not in theleast believe the latter part of Faenza's narrative. Joel de Jurgan tookup the thread of reminiscence.
"If your Lagardere be the same as the man I am thinking of," he said, "Icame across him a couple of years ago at the fair of Neuilly. We had apassage of arms, and I think I gave him a cut on the head, but it took mesome time, I promise you."
Cocardasse glared at the speaker, but said nothing, though the word"liar" was plainly expressed in his scornful glance. Joel, impressed byhis angry face, hastened to add, with the air of one that praises anadversary in the handsomest manner, "I swear he was the best fellow,second to myself, that I ever met with the rapier."
"I have met him," grunted Staupitz. "He touched me once in a bout oftwelve points. That was a triumph for him, to my thinking."
Pepe added: "He fought with me once in Madrid, and got off without ascratch. That says a good deal for his skill, I'm thinking."
Saldagno and Pinto were silent. They looked curiously at Pepe, but theynodded their heads approvingly.
Thus each of the bravos had his eager tale to tell, and would have toldmore but that Cocardasse waved them into silence with his large hand."There is only one Lagardere," he said, and looked as if the subject wereended.
AEsop yawned. "I should like to meet your Lagardere."
Cocardasse eyed him ironically. "Sword in hand?" he questioned. "Whenthat day comes, pray for your soul."
AEsop shrugged his shoulders, and with an air of indifference produced awatch and consulted its dial. "Friends," he said, "this is the hour fixedfor the arrival of Monsieur Peyrolles, and I think I hear footsteps inthe passage."
Instantly the Gascon seemed animated by a hurried purpose. He sprang toStaupitz's side, and, catching him by the shoulder, shook him vehemently."We must be well paid to face the thrust of Nevers. Let me bargain foryou. Back me up, and those that are alive to-night will have money inpocket to-morrow."
The Duke's Motto: A Melodrama Page 3
