Between Two Kings

by Lawrence Ellsworth

  “That’s all true, Monsieur; my destiny, my future, my obscurity or my glory depend on that man. But what did you gather from that?”

  “Just one thing: that if this General Monck is as troublesome as you say, it would be worthwhile to rid Your Majesty of him or make him your ally.”

  “Monsieur, since you listened to my conversation with my royal brother, you know that a king who has neither men nor money has no way of dealing with a man like Monck.”

  “Yes, Sire, I know that was your opinion—but fortunately for Your Majesty, it wasn’t mine.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “That with neither an army nor a million, I’ve done what Your Majesty thought could be done only with a million or an army.”

  “What! What do you mean? What have you done?”

  “What have I done? Well, Sire! I went across to get this man who was so frustrating Your Majesty.”

  “To England?”

  “Exactly, Sire.”

  “You went to England to get General Monck?”

  “Did I do something wrong, by chance?”

  “Really, Monsieur, you must be mad!”

  “Not in the least, Sire.”

  “You’ve taken Monck prisoner?”

  “Yes, Sire.”

  “From where?”

  “From the middle of his camp.”

  The king gaped and blinked.

  “And having plucked him from the causeway at Newcastle,” said d’Artagnan simply, “I’ve brought him to Your Majesty.”

  “You’ve brought him to me!” cried the king indignantly, thinking this was a hoax.

  “Yes, Sire,” replied d’Artagnan without changing his tone. “I’ve brought him to you. He’s just beyond, in a big box pierced with holes so he can breathe.”

  “Good Lord!”

  “Oh, don’t worry, Sire, we’ve taken good care of him. He arrives in good condition and perfect health. Is it Your Majesty’s pleasure to meet and confer with him, or shall I dump him in the Channel?”

  “Good Lord!” repeated Charles. “Good Lord! Monsieur, is this true? You’re not insulting me with some low jest? You’ve pulled off such a bold and brilliant feat? Impossible!”

  “Would Your Majesty permit me to open the window?” said d’Artagnan, opening it. The king didn’t even have time to say yes. D’Artagnan gave a long, high-pitched whistle, which he repeated three times into the silence of the night.

  “There!” he said. “They’ll bring him to Your Majesty.”

  XXIX In Which d’Artagnan Begins to Fear the Investment of Planchet and Co. Might Be Lost

  The king couldn’t contain his surprise, looking back and forth from the smiling musketeer to the dark window opened onto the night. Before he could arrange his thoughts, six of d’Artagnan’s men—for two had remained to guard the boat—brought to the house, where Parry received them, that oblong object that contained at that moment the destinies of England.

  Before leaving Calais, d’Artagnan had had a carpenter in that town make a sort of special coffin, large and deep enough for a man to turn easily around in it. The bottom and the sides were densely padded, forming a bed soft enough that the roll of the waves didn’t turn the box into a punishment cage. The little grating that d’Artagnan had mentioned to the king was like the visor of a helmet, installed at the height of a seated man’s face. It had a solid shutter so that at the slightest cry it could stifle the sound, and even, if need be, smother the one who cried out.

  D’Artagnan was well acquainted with the character of his crew, as well as that of his prisoner, and during the crossing had been afraid of only two things: that the general would prefer death to this strange bondage and get smothered in trying to cry out, or that his crew would allow themselves to be tempted by the prisoner’s offers and put d’Artagnan in the box in place of Monck. Therefore, d’Artagnan had spent the last two days and nights next to the trunk alone with the general, offering him wine and food which were refused, and repeatedly trying to reassure him about the eventual outcome of his singular captivity. Two pistols and his sword on the nearby table were his precautions against interference from outside.

  Once they arrived at Scheveningen, he stopped worrying. His men dreaded trouble with the authorities ashore, and he had enlisted as his second-in-command the man we’ve seen answer to the name Menneville, who acted as his lieutenant. The latter, being less vulgar a spirit than the others, had more at stake than they because he had more of a conscience. He believed he had a future in the service of d’Artagnan and would have been cut to pieces rather than violate his leader’s orders. Therefore, it was to him that, once ashore, d’Artagnan had confided the box, and the life, of the general. It was also to him that d’Artagnan had given the order to bring the box when he heard the triple whistle.

  We’ve seen that the lieutenant obeyed. Once the trunk was in the king’s house, d’Artagnan dismissed his men with a gracious smile, saying, “Messieurs, you’ve rendered a great service to His Majesty King Charles II, who within six weeks will be King of England. Your reward will be doubled; return to wait for me at the boat.” They departed with such joyful whoops and cries that they even frightened the big watchdog.

  D’Artagnan had had the trunk brought into the king’s antechamber. He closed the outer doors of this chamber with great care, after which he opened the trunk, saying to the general, “Mon Général, I have a thousand pardons to ask of you; my methods were unworthy of a man such as you, I’m well aware, but I had to have you take me for a fishing boat captain. And transportation in England can be so awkward. But here, General,” continued d’Artagnan, “you are free to get up and walk again.”

  That said, he cut the bonds that tied the general’s arms and legs. The latter got up, and then sat down with the expression of a man who expects imminent death.

  D’Artagnan then opened the door to Charles’s study and said to him, “Sire, here is your enemy, General Monck; I had taken a personal vow that I would bring him to you. It is done, and now it’s up to you. Monsieur Monck,” he added, turning to the prisoner, “you are before His Majesty King Charles II, Sovereign Lord of England and Scotland.”

  Monck raised his coldly stoic gaze to the young prince, and replied, “I recognize no King of England and Scotland; I don’t even know anyone here who is worthy to bear the title of gentleman, for it was in the name of King Charles II that an agent, whom I took for an honest man, came to take me in an infamous trap. I fell into this trap, the more fool me—but now you, the plotter,” he said to the king, “and you, the executioner,” he said to d’Artagnan, “hear every word I have to say to you: you have my body, and you can kill me, if you have the nerve to do it, but you’ll never have my mind or my soul. And now don’t ask me for another word, because from this moment forward I will not open my mouth even to shout. I have spoken.”

  He pronounced these words with the fierce and invincible resolution of the most diehard Puritan. D’Artagnan saw that his prisoner was a man who knew the value of every word and who fixed that value by the tone with which he pronounced them. “The fact is,” he whispered to the king, “that the general is just that implacable; he didn’t take a mouthful of bread or a drop of wine for two days. But from this moment it’s Your Majesty who decides his fate, and I wash my hands of him, as Pilate said.”

  Monck, standing pale and resigned, waited with eyes glowering and arms crossed. D’Artagnan turned to him and said, “You must understand that your speech, lovely as it was, is no use to anyone, not even you. His Majesty wanted to speak to you, but you refused him an interview; now that you’re here face to face, brought by a force independent of your own will, why would you force us to take measures that are ignoble and unworthy? Speak, devil take you! If only to say no.”

  Monck didn’t open his lips; Monck didn’t blink an eye; Monck just stroked his mustache with an air that announced he wasn’t at all mollified. Meanwhile, Charles II was deep in thought. He was facing Monck for the first time, t
he man he’d wanted so long to see, and with that profound gaze that God gives to eagles and to kings, he had sounded the depths of his heart.

  He recognized Monck was sincere in his determination to die before he’d speak, entirely consistent with so grave and distinguished a man who had been humiliated so cruelly. Charles II suddenly made one of those fateful decisions upon which an ordinary man bets his life, a general his career, and a king his realm. “Sir,” he said to Monck, “in certain respects, you are entirely justified. I don’t ask you to answer me, but I do ask you to listen.”

  There was a moment of silence during which the king gazed at Monck, who remained impassive.

  “Just now you directed a painful reproach to me, Sir,” continued the king. “You said that one of my agents went to Newcastle to set a trap for you, and as an aside I must have it understood that that can’t be said of Monsieur d’Artagnan here, whom I sincerely thank for his generous, even heroic devotion.”

  D’Artagnan bowed respectfully. Monck just stroked his mustache.

  “But Monsieur d’Artagnan—and please note, Mister Monck, that I don’t say this to excuse myself—Monsieur d’Artagnan went to England on his own initiative, without avarice, without orders, without hope, like the true gentleman he is, to render a service to an unfortunate king, and to add one more glorious exploit to the illustrious history of a life already full of them.”

  D’Artagnan, somewhat abashed, flushed and coughed a little. Monck didn’t budge.

  “I see you don’t believe that, Mister Monck,” said the king. “That’s understandable; such acts of devotion are so rare it’s reasonable to doubt them.”

  “Monsieur would be badly mistaken not to believe you, Sire,” said d’Artagnan anxiously, “for what Your Majesty has said is utterly true, so true that I now see that by going to bring back the general, I was completely in the wrong. And in truth, if that’s the case, I’m in despair.”

  “Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said the king, taking the musketeer’s hand, “you have obliged me as much as if you’d actually helped my cause, for you have revealed to me an unknown friend to whom I’ll be forever grateful and will always love.”

  And the king shook his hand warmly. “Plus,” he continued, bowing to Monck, “you’ve introduced me to an enemy whom I now know to esteem at his proper value.”

  The Puritan’s eyes flashed, but only once, before his expression resumed its dark impassivity.

  “So, Monsieur d’Artagnan,” continued Charles, “here is what’s been interrupted: the Comte de La Fère, whom you know, I believe, had gone to Newcastle…”

  “Athos?” cried d’Artagnan.

  “Yes, I believe that’s his nom de guerre. The Comte de La Fère had gone to Newcastle in hopes of arranging a conference with me or my representative when you somewhat violently abbreviated the negotiation.”

  “Mordioux!” replied d’Artagnan. “That must have been him I saw coming into the camp the same night I entered with my fishermen…”

  A barely perceptible furrowing of Monck’s brow told d’Artagnan he was right.

  “Yes,” he murmured, “I thought his figure and his voice seemed familiar. The devil! Oh, Sire, forgive me! I believed I’d steered my ship so carefully.”

  “There’s nothing wrong, Monsieur,” said the king, “except the general accuses me of having laid a trap for him, which I did not. No, General, these are not the means I planned to use with you, as you’ll soon see. Meanwhile, when I give you my word as a gentleman, Sir, you can take it, believe me. Now, Monsieur d’Artagnan, listen.”

  “On my knees, Sire!”

  “You are mine, are you not?”

  “As Your Majesty has seen. Too much so!”

  “Good. From a man like you, one word is enough—and the acts count even more. General, please follow me. Come with us, Monsieur d’Artagnan.”

  D’Artagnan, surprised, was quick to obey. Charles II went out, Monck followed him, and d’Artagnan followed Monck. Charles took the path by which d’Artagnan had come to him; soon the fresh sea air struck the faces of the three night walkers, and, fifty paces beyond a little gate that Charles opened, they found themselves atop a low dune, facing the ocean that, having stopped its advance, pawed at the shore like a restless monster. Charles II, pensive, walked with his head down and his hand under his cloak.

  Monck followed him, his arms ready and his eyes alert.

  D’Artagnan came last, his fist on the pommel of his sword.

  “Where is the boat that brought you, Messieurs?” Charles said to the musketeer.

  “Over there, Sire; I have seven men and an officer who await me at that small boat next to that little fire.”

  “Ah, yes! That boat drawn up on the sand, I see it. But you certainly didn’t come from Newcastle in a longboat?”

  “No, Sire, I have a hired dogger that’s at anchor about a cannon shot from the dunes. It was in that dogger that we made the trip.”

  “Sir,” said the king to Monck, “you are free.”

  Monck, despite himself, let out a murmur of surprise. The king nodded and continued, “We’re going to wake up a fisherman from this village who will put his boat to sea this very night to take you back to wherever you would go. Monsieur d’Artagnan, here, will escort Your Honor. I place Monsieur d’Artagnan under the safeguard of your integrity, General Monck.”

  Monck muttered another syllable of surprise, and d’Artagnan let out a deep sigh. The king, without seeming to notice, knocked on the gate of a pine-wood fence that surrounded the first shack at the edge of the dunes. “Hey! Keyser!” he cried. “Wake up!”

  “Who’s calling me?” asked the fisherman.

  “It’s me, Charles, the king.”

  “Ah, Milord!” said Keyser, appearing at the door wrapped in the sail in which he slept like a hammock. “What can I do for you?”

  “Captain Keyser,” said Charles, “set sail at once. Here is a traveler who hires your boat and will pay you well; oblige him.”

  And the king stepped back a few paces to allow Monck to speak freely with the fisherman.

  “I wish to go over to England,” said Monck, who spoke enough Dutch to be able to make himself understood.

  “This very moment, if you want,” said the fisherman.

  “How long before we can go?” said Monck.

  “Not half an hour, Your Honor. My eldest son is already up and readying the boat, since we sail with the tide at three in the morning.”

  “Well! Is it settled?” asked Charles, approaching again.

  “Yes, Sire, all but the price,” said the fisherman.

  “That’s my affair,” said Charles. “This gentleman is my friend.”

  At that word, Monck shivered all over and looked at Charles.

  “Good, Milord,” replied Keyser. And just then they heard his eldest son signaling from the shore with a blast on a bull’s horn.

  “And now, Gentlemen, on your way,” said the king.

  “Sire,” said d’Artagnan, “may it please Your Majesty to give me just a few minutes? I have hired men I’m leaving behind and must notify them.”

  “Whistle for them,” said Charles, smiling.

  D’Artagnan whistled loudly, and while Keyser went to warn his son, Menneville and four men came up at a run.

  “Here’s payment as promised,” said d’Artagnan, showing them a purse containing twenty-five hundred livres in gold. “Wait for me in Calais at the place you know of.”

  And d’Artagnan, uttering a deep sigh, dropped the purse into Menneville’s hands.

  “What, are you leaving us?” the men said anxiously.

  “For a short time,” said d’Artagnan, “or a long one, who knows? But with these twenty-five hundred livres and the two thousand five hundred you’ve already received, you’ve been paid according to our agreement. So, go happily, my children.”

  “What about the dogger?”

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s back in port.”

  “But our th
ings are still aboard.”

  “Go get them and then be on your way.”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  D’Artagnan returned to Monck and said, “Sir, I await your orders, for it seems we’re going together, unless my company is disagreeable to you.”

  “On the contrary, Monsieur,” said Monck.

  “Let’s go, Milords! We’re ready!” Keyser’s son called.

  Charles saluted the general with nobility and dignity, and told him, “You will forgive me for the violence and inconvenience you’ve suffered once you’re convinced I didn’t cause them.”

  Monck bowed deeply but said nothing. Charles spoke a final word to d’Artagnan, but aloud rather than privately, saying, “Thank you for your services. They’ll be repaid by the Lord God, who reserves for me alone, I hope, all trials and pain.”

  Monck followed Keyser and his son and went aboard with them. D’Artagnan came last, murmuring, “Ah, my poor Planchet! I’m afraid we’ve made a bad investment.”

  XXX The Stock of Planchet and Co. Rebounds

  During the passage, Monck spoke to d’Artagnan only when absolutely necessary. When the Frenchman hesitated to join him at supper, a poor meal of salt fish, biscuits, and gin, Monck called to him and said, “To table, Monsieur!”

  That was all. D’Artagnan, precisely because he was himself extremely concise when engaged in important affairs, didn’t think this curtness augured a favorable result for his situation. As he had plenty of time to himself, he used it in racking his brain to try to figure out how Athos had met Charles II, how they had conspired on his mission to England, and how he’d gotten into Monck’s camp. The poor Lieutenant of Musketeers pulled a hair from his mustache every time he thought that Athos must have been the cavalier who’d accompanied Monck to the abbey on the night of the abduction.

  Finally, after a crossing of two days and two nights, the skipper landed at the spot designated by Monck, who’d given all the orders during the passage. It was at the village at the mouth of the river where Athos had taken lodgings. The day was fading; the beautiful sun, like a buckler of red steel, was dipping its lower edge into the sea’s blue horizon. The fishing boat was making its way up the river, which was wide enough at its mouth, but Monck, in his impatience, ordered it to the shore, and Keyser landed him, along with d’Artagnan, on the muddy river bank among the reeds. D’Artagnan, resigned to obedience, followed his master Monck like a chained bear, but the position was humiliating, and he grumbled under his breath that the service of kings, even the best of them, was a bitter calling.