‘Yes, mademoiselle, to procure a horse to bring me here,’ I replied drily. ‘However, it, shall be redeemed. In return, there is something I too would ask.’
‘What?’ she murmured, recovering herself with all effort, and looking at me with something of her old pride and defiance.
‘The broken coin you have,’ I said. ‘The token, I mean. It is of no use to you, for your enemies hold the other half. It might be of service to me.’
‘How?’ she asked curtly.
‘Because some day I may find its fellow, mademoiselle,’
‘And then?’ she cried. She looked at me, her lips parted, her eyes flashing. ‘What then, when you have found its fellow, M. de Marsac?’
I shrugged my shoulders.
‘Bah!’ she exclaimed, clenching her little hand, and stamping her foot on the floor in a passion I could not understand. ‘That is you! That is M. de Marsac all over. You say nothing, and men think nothing of you. You go with your hat in your hand, and they tread on you. They speak, and you are silent! Why, if I could use a sword as you can, I would keep silence before no man, nor let any man save the King of France cock his hat in my presence! But you! There! go, leave me. Here is your coin. Take it and go. Send me that lad of yours to keep me awake. At any rate he has brains, he is young, he is a man, he has a soul, he can feel — if he were anything but a clerk.’
She waved me off in such a wind of passion as might have amused me in another, but in her smacked so strongly of ingratitude as to pain me not a little. I went, however, and sent Simon to her; though I liked the errand very ill, and no better when I saw the lad’s face light up at the mention of her name. But apparently she had not recovered her temper when he reached her, for he fared no better than I had done; coming away presently with the air of a whipped dog, as I saw from the yew-tree walk where I was strolling.
Still, after that she made it a habit to talk to him more and more; and, Monsieur and Madame de Rosny being much taken up with one another, there was no one to check her fancy or speak a word of advice. Knowing her pride, I had no fears for her; but it grieved me to think that the lad’s head should be turned. A dozen times I made up my mind to speak to her on his behalf; but for one thing it was not my business, and for another I soon discovered that she was aware of my displeasure, and valued it not a jot. For venturing one morning, when she was in a pleasant humour, to hint that she treated those beneath her too inhumanly, and with an unkindness as little becoming noble blood as familiarity, she asked me scornfully if I did not think she treated Simon Fleix well enough. To which I had nothing to answer.
I might here remark on the system of secret intelligence by means of which M. de Rosny, even in this remote place, received news of all that was passing in France. But it is common fame. There was no coming or going of messengers, which would quickly have aroused suspicion in the neighbouring town, nor was it possible even for me to say exactly by what channels news came. But come it did, and at all hours of the day. In this way we heard of the danger of La Ganache and of the effort contemplated by the King of Navarre for its relief. M. de Rosny not only communicated these matters to me without reserve, but engaged my affections by farther proofs of confidence such as might well have flattered a man of greater importance.
I have said that, as a rule, there was no coming or going of messengers. But one evening, returning from the chase with one of the keepers, who had prayed my assistance in hunting down a crippled doe, I was surprised to find a strange horse, which had evidently been ridden hard and far, standing smoking in the yard. Inquiring whose it was, I learned that a man believed by the grooms to be from Blois had just arrived and was closeted with the baron. An event so far out of the ordinary course of things naturally aroused my wonder; but desiring to avoid any appearance of curiosity, which, if indulged, is apt to become the most vulgar of vices, I refrained from entering the house, and repaired instead to the yew-walk. I had scarcely, however, heated my blood, a little chilled with riding, before the page came to me to fetch me to his master.
I found M. de Rosny striding up and down his room, his manner so disordered and his face disfigured by so much grief and horror that I started on seeing him. My heart sinking in a moment, I did not need to look at Madame, who sat weeping silently in a chair, to assure myself that something dreadful had happened. The light was failing, and a lamp had been brought into the room. M. de Rosny pointed abruptly to a small piece of paper which lay on the table beside it, and, obeying his gesture, I took this up and read its contents, which consisted of less than a score of words.
‘He is ill and like to die,’ the message ran, ‘twenty leagues south of La Ganache. Come at all costs. P. M.
‘Who?’ I said stupidly — stupidly, for already I began to understand. Who is ill and like to die?’
M. de Rosny turned to me, and I saw that the tears were trickling unbidden down his cheeks. ‘There is but one HE for me,’ he cried. ‘May God spare that one! May He spare him to France, which needs him, to the Church, which hangs on him, and to me, who love him! Let him not fall in the hour of fruition. O Lord, let him not fall!’ And he sank on to a stool, and remained in that posture with his face in his hands, his broad shoulders shaken with grief.
‘Come, sir,’ I said, after a pause sacred to sorrow and dismay; ‘let me remind you that while there is life there is hope.’
‘Hope?’
‘Yes, M. de Rosny, hope,’ I replied more cheerfully. ‘He has work to do. He is elected, called, and chosen; the Joshua of his people, as M. d’Amours rightly called him. God will not take him yet. You shall see him and be embraced by him, as has happened a hundred times. Remember, sir, the King of Navarre is strong, hardy, and young, and no doubt in good hands.’
‘Mornay’s,’ M. de Rosny cried, looking up with contempt in his eye.
Yet from that moment he rallied, spurred, I think, by the thought that the King of Navarre’s recovery depended under God on M. de Mornay; whom he was ever inclined to regard as his rival. He began to make instant preparations for departure from Rosny, and bade me do so also, telling me, somewhat curtly and without explanation, that he had need of me. The danger of so speedy a return to the South, where the full weight of the Vicomte de Turenne’s vengeance awaited me, occurred to me strongly; and I ventured, though with a little shame, to mention it. But M. de Rosny, after gazing at me a moment in apparent doubt, put the objection aside with a degree of peevishness unusual in him, and continued to press on his arrangements as earnestly as though they did not include separation from a wife equally loving and beloved.
Having few things to look to myself, I was at leisure, when the hour of departure came, to observe both the courage with which Madame de Rosny supported her sorrow, ‘for the sake of France,’ and the unwonted tenderness which Mademoiselle de la Vire, lifted for once above herself, lavished on her. I seemed to stand — happily in one light, and yet the feeling was fraught with pain — outside their familiar relations; yet, having made my adieux as short and formal as possible, that I might not encroach on other and more sacred ones, I found at the last moment something in waiting for me. I was surprised as I rode under the gateway a little ahead of the others, by something small and light falling on the saddle-bow before me. Catching it before it could slide to the ground, I saw, with infinite astonishment, that I held in my hand a tiny velvet bow.
To look up at the window of the parlour, which I have said was over the archway, was my first impulse. I did so, and met mademoiselle’s eyes for a second, and a second only. The next moment she was gone. M. de Rosny clattered through the gate at my heels, the servants behind him. And we were on the road.
CHAPTER XIV. M. DE RAMBOUILLET.
For a while we were but a melancholy party. The incident I have last related which seemed to admit of more explanations than one — left me in a state of the greatest perplexity; and this prevailed with me for a time, and was only dissipated at length by my seeing my own face, as it were, in a glass. For, chancing pr
esently to look behind me, I observed that Simon Fleix was riding, notwithstanding his fine hat and feather and his new sword, in a posture and with an air of dejection difficult to exaggerate; whereon the reflection that master and man had the same object in their minds — nay, the thought that possibly he bore in his bosom a like token to that which lay warm in mine — occurring to me, I roused myself as from some degrading dream, and, shaking up the Cid, cantered forward to join Rosny, who, in no cheerful mood himself, was riding steadily forward, wrapped to his eyes in his cloak.
The news of the King of Navarre’s illness had fallen on him, indeed, in the midst of his sanguine scheming with the force of a thunderbolt. He saw himself in danger of losing at once the master he loved and the brilliant future to which he looked forward; and amid the imminent crash of his hopes and the destruction of the system in which he lived, he had scarcely time to regret the wife he was leaving at Rosny or the quiet from which he was so suddenly called. His heart was in the South, at La Ganache, by Henry’s couch. His main idea was to get there quickly at all risks. The name of the King of Navarre’s physician was constantly on his lips. ‘Dortoman is a good man. If anyone call save him, Dortoman will,’ was his perpetual cry. And whenever he met anyone who had the least appearance of bearing news, he would have me stop and interrogate him, and by no means let the traveller go until he had given us the last rumour from Blois — the channel through which all the news from the South reached us.
An incident which occurred at the inn that evening cheered him somewhat; the most powerful minds being prone, I have observed, to snatch at omens in times of uncertainty. An elderly man, of strange appearance, and dressed in an affected and bizarre fashion, was seated at table when we arrived. Though I entered first in my assumed capacity of leader of the party, he let me pass before him without comment, but rose and solemnly saluted M. de Rosny, albeit the latter walked behind me and was much more plainly dressed. Rosny returned his greeting and would have passed on; but the stranger, interposing with a still lower bow, invited him to take his seat, which was near the fire and sheltered from the draught, at the same time making as if he would himself remove to another place.
‘Nay,’ said my companion, surprised by such an excess of courtesy, ‘I do not see why I should take your place, sir.’
‘Not mine only,’ the old man rejoined, looking at him with a particularity and speaking with an emphasis which attracted our attention, ‘but those of many others, who I can assure you will very shortly yield them up to you, whether they will or not.’
M. de Rosny shrugged his shoulders and passed on, affecting to suppose the old man wandered. But privately he thought much of his words, and more when he learned that he was an astrologer from Paris, who had the name, at any rate in this country, of having studied under Nostradamus. And whether he drew fresh hopes from this, or turned his attention more particularly as we approached Blois to present matters, certainly he grew more cheerful, and began again to discuss the future, as though assured of his master’s recovery.
‘You have never been to the King’s Court?’ he said presently, following up, as I judged, a train of thought in his own mind. ‘At Blois, I mean.’
‘No; nor do I feel anxious to visit it,’ I answered. ‘To tell you the truth, M. le Baron,’ I continued with some warmth, ‘the sooner me are beyond Blois, the better I shall be pleased. I think we run some risk there, and, besides, I do not fancy a shambles. I do not think I could see the king without thinking of the Bartholomew, nor his chamber without thinking of Guise.’
‘Tut, tut!’ he said, ‘you have killed a man before now.’
‘Many,’ I answered.
‘Do they trouble you?’
‘No, but they were killed in fair fight,’ I replied, ‘That makes a difference.’
‘To you,’ he said drily. ‘But you are not the King of France, you see. Should you ever come across him,’ he continued, flicking his horse’s ears, a faint smile on his lips, ‘I will give you a hint. Talk to him of the battles at Jarnac and Moncontour, and praise your Conde’s father! As Conde lost the fight and, he won it, the compliment comes home to him. The more hopelessly a man has lost his powers, my friend, the more fondly he regards them, and the more highly he prizes the victories he call no longer gain.’
‘Ugh!’ I muttered.
‘Of the two parties at Court,’ Rosny continued, calmly overlooking my ill-humour, ‘trust D’Aumont and Biron and the French clique. They are true to France at any rate. But whomsoever you see consort with the two Retzs — the King of Spain’s jackals as men name them — avoid him for a Spaniard and a traitor.’
‘But the Retzs are Italians,’ I objected peevishly.
‘The same thing,’ he answered curtly. ‘They cry, “Vive le Roi!” but privately they are for the League, or for Spain, or for whatever may most hurt us; who are better Frenchmen than themselves, and whose leader will some day, if God spare his life, be King of France.’
‘Well, the less I have to do with the one or the other of them, save at the sword’s point, the better I shall be pleased,’ I rejoined.
On that he looked at me with a queer smile; as was his way when he had more in his mind than appeared. And this, and something special in the tone of his conversation, as well, perhaps, as my own doubts about my future and his intentions regarding me, gave me an uneasy feeling; which lasted through the day, and left me only when more immediate peril presently rose to threaten us.
It happened in this way. We had reached the outskirts of Blois, and were just approaching the gate, hoping to pass through it without attracting attention, when two travellers rode slowly out of a lane, the mouth of which we were passing. They eyed us closely as they reined in to let us go by; and M. de Rosny, who was riding with his horse’s head at my stirrup, whispered me to press on. Before I could comply, however, the strangers cantered by us, and turning in the saddle when abreast of us looked us in the face. A moment later one of them cried loudly, ‘It is he!’ and both pulled their horses across the road, and waited for us to come up.
Aware that if M. de Rosny were discovered he would be happy if he escaped with imprisonment, the king being too jealous of his Catholic reputation to venture to protect a Huguenot, however illustrious, I saw that the situation was desperate; for, though we were five to two, the neighbourhood of the city — the gate being scarcely a bow-shot off — rendered flight or resistance equally hopeless. I could think of nothing for it save to put a bold face on the matter, and, M. de Rosny doing the same, we advanced in the most innocent way possible.
‘Halt, there!’ cried one of the strangers sharply. ‘And let me tell you, sir, you are known.’
‘What if I am?’ I answered impatiently, still pressing on. ‘Are you highwaymen, that you stop the way?’
The speaker on the other side looked at me keenly, but in a moment retorted, ‘Enough trifling, sir! Who YOU are I do not know. But the person riding at your rein is M. de Rosny. Him I do know, and I warn him to stop.’
I thought the game was lost, but to my surprise my companion answered at once and almost in the same words I had used. ‘Well, sir, and what of that?’ he said.
‘What of that?’ the stranger exclaimed, spurring his horse so as still to bar the way. ‘Why, only this, that you must be a madman to show yourself on this side of the Loire.’
‘It is long since I have seen the other,’ was my companion’s unmoved answer.
‘You are M. de Rosny? You do not deny it?’ the man cried in astonishment.
‘Certainly I do not deny it,’ M. de Rosny answered bluntly. ‘And more, the day has been, sir,’ he continued with sudden fire, ‘when few at his Majesty’s Court would have dared to chop words with Solomon de Bethune, much less to stop him on the highway within a mile of the palace. But times are changed with me, sir, and it would seem with others also, if true men rallying to his Majesty in his need are to be challenged by every passer on the road.’
‘What! Are you Solomon de Beth
une?’ the man cried incredulously. Incredulously, but his countenance fell, and his voice was full of chagrin and disappointment,
‘Who else, sir?’ M. de Rosny replied haughtily. ‘I am, and, as far as I know, I have as much right on this side of the Loire as any other man.’
‘A thousand pardons.’
‘If you are not satisfied—’
‘Nay, M. de Rosny, I am perfectly satisfied.’
The stranger repented this with a very crestfallen air, adding, ‘A thousand pardons’; and fell to making other apologies, doffing his hat with great respect. ‘I took you, if you will pardon me saying so, for your Huguenot brother, M. Maximilian,’ he explained. ‘The saying goes that he is at Rosny.’
‘I can answer for that being false,’ M. de Rosny answered peremptorily, ‘for I have just come from there, and I will answer for it he is not within ten leagues of the place. And now, sir, as we desire to enter before the gates shut, perhaps you will excuse us.’ With which he bowed, and I bowed, and they bowed, and we separated. They gave us the road, which M. de Rosny took with a great air, and we trotted to the gate, and passed through it without misadventure.
The first street we entered was a wide one, and my companion took advantage of this to ride up abreast of me. ‘That is the kind of adventure our little prince is fond of,’ he muttered. ‘But for my part, M. de Marsac, the sweat is running down my forehead. I have played the trick more than once before, for my brother and I are as like as two peas. And yet it would have gone ill with us if the fool had been one of his friends.’
‘All’s well that ends well,’ I answered in a low voice, thinking it an ill time for compliments. As it was, the remark was unfortunate, for M. de Rosny was still in the act of reining back when Maignan called out to us to say we were being followed.
I looked behind, but could see nothing except gloom and rain and overhanging eaves and a few figures cowering in doorways. The servants, however, continued to maintain that it was so, and we held, without actually stopping, a council of war. If detected, we were caught in a trap, without hope of escape; and for the moment I am sure M. do Rosny regretted that he had chosen this route by Blois — that he had thrust himself, in his haste and his desire to take with him the latest news, into a snare so patent. The castle — huge, dark, and grim — loomed before us at the end of the street in which we were, and, chilled as I was myself by the sight, I could imagine how much more appalling it must appear to him, the chosen counsellor of his master, and the steadfast opponent of all which it represented.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 89
