Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  “Well, sire, and why not?” Rochefoucauld answered in astonishment. And in his turn he looked round, wondering; and a chill fell on him. “Why not?” he repeated.

  For a moment no one answered him: the silence in the Chamber was intense. Where he looked, wherever he looked, he met solemn, wondering eyes, such eyes as gaze on men in their coffins.

  “What has come to you all?” he cried, with an effort. “What is the jest, for faith, sire, I don’t see it?”

  The King seemed incapable of speech, and it was Chicot who filled the gap.

  “It is pretty apparent,” he said, with a rude laugh. “The cock will lay and Foucauld will pay — to-morrow!”

  The young nobleman’s colour rose; between him and the Gascon gentleman was no love lost.

  “There are some debts I pay to-day,” he cried haughtily. “For the rest, farewell my little master! When one does not understand the jest it is time to be gone.”

  He was halfway to the door, watched by all, when the King spoke.

  “Foucauld!” he cried, in an odd, strangled voice. “Foucauld!” And the Huguenot favourite turned back, wondering. “One minute!” the King continued, in the same forced voice. “Stay till morning — in my closet. It is late now. We’ll play away the rest of the night!”

  “Your Majesty must excuse me,” Rochefoucauld answered frankly. “I am dead asleep.”

  “You can sleep in the Garde-Robe,” the King persisted.

  “Thank you for nothing, sire!” was the gay answer. “I know that bed! I shall sleep longer and better in my own.”

  The King shuddered, but strove to hide the movement under a shrug of his shoulders. He turned away.

  “It is God’s will!” he muttered. He was white to the lips.

  Rochefoucauld did not catch the words. “Good night, sire,” he cried. “Farewell, little master.” And with a nod here and there, he passed to the door, followed by Mergey and Chamont, two gentlemen of his suite.

  Nançay raised the curtain with an obsequious gesture. “Pardon me, M. le Comte,” he said, “do you go to his Highness’s?”

  “For a few minutes, Nançay.”

  “Permit me to go with you. The guards may be set.”

  “Do so, my friend,” Rochefoucauld answered. “Ah, Tignonville, is it you?”

  “I am come to attend you to your lodging,” the young man said. And he ranged up beside the other, as, the curtain fallen behind them, they walked along the gallery.

  Rochefoucauld stopped and laid his hand on Tignonville’s sleeve.

  “Thanks, dear lad,” he said, “but I am going to the Princess Dowager’s. Afterwards to his Highness’s. I may be detained an hour or more. You will not like to wait so long.”

  M. de Tignonville’s face fell ludicrously. “Well, no,” he said. “I — I don’t think I could wait so long — to-night.”

  “Then come to-morrow night,” Rochefoucauld answered, with good nature.

  “With pleasure,” the other cried heartily, his relief evident. “Certainly. With pleasure.” And, nodding good night, they parted.

  While Rochefoucauld, with Nançay at his side and his gentlemen attending him, passed along the echoing and now empty gallery, the younger man bounded down the stairs to the great hall of the Caryatides, his face radiant. He for one was not sleepy.

  CHAPTER III. THE HOUSE NEXT THE GOLDEN MAID.

  We have it on record that before the Comte de la Rochefoucauld left the Louvre that night he received the strongest hints of the peril which threatened him; and at least one written warning was handed to him by a stranger in black, and by him in turn was communicated to the King of Navarre. We are told further that when he took his final leave, about the hour of eleven, he found the courtyard brilliantly lighted, and the three companies of guards — Swiss, Scotch, and French — drawn up in ranked array from the door of the great hall to the gate which opened on the street. But, the chronicler adds, neither this precaution, sinister as it appeared to some of his suite, nor the grave farewell which Rambouillet, from his post at the gate, took of one of his gentlemen, shook that chivalrous soul or sapped its generous confidence.

  M. de Tignonville was young and less versed in danger than the Governor of Rochelle; with him, had he seen so much, it might have been different. But he left the Louvre an hour earlier — at a time when the precincts of the palace, gloomy-seeming to us in the light cast by coming events, wore their wonted aspect. His thoughts, moreover, as he crossed the courtyard, were otherwise employed. So much so, indeed, that though he signed to his two servants to follow him, he seemed barely conscious what he was doing; nor did he shake off his reverie until he reached the corner of the Rue Baillet. Here the voices of the Swiss who stood on guard opposite Coligny’s lodgings, at the end of the Rue Bethizy, could be plainly heard. They had kindled a fire in an iron basket set in the middle of the road, and knots of them were visible in the distance, moving to and fro about their piled arms.

  Tignonville paused before he came within the radius of the firelight, and, turning, bade his servants take their way home. “I shall follow, but I have business first,” he added curtly.

  The elder of the two demurred. “The streets are not too safe,” he said. “In two hours or less, my lord, it will be midnight. And then—”

  “Go, booby; do you think I am a child?” his master retorted angrily. “I’ve my sword and can use it. I shall not be long. And do you hear, men, keep a still tongue, will you?”

  The men, country fellows, obeyed reluctantly, and with a full intention of sneaking after him the moment he had turned his back. But he suspected them of this, and stood where he was until they had passed the fire, and could no longer detect his movements. Then he plunged quickly into the Rue Baillet, gained through it the Rue du Roule, and traversing that also, turned to the right into the Rue Ferronerie, the main thoroughfare, east and west, of Paris. Here he halted in front of the long, dark outer wall of the Cemetery of the Innocents, in which, across the tombstones and among the sepulchres of dead Paris, the living Paris of that day, bought and sold, walked, gossiped, and made love.

  About him things were to be seen that would have seemed stranger to him had he been less strange to the city. From the quarter of the markets north of him, a quarter which fenced in the cemetery on two sides, the same dull murmur proceeded, which Mademoiselle de Vrillac had remarked an hour earlier. The sky above the cemetery glowed with reflected light, the cause of which was not far to seek, for every window of the tall houses that overlooked it, and the huddle of booths about it, contributed a share of the illumination. At an hour late even for Paris, an hour when honest men should have been sunk in slumber, this strange brilliance did for a moment perplex him; but the past week had been so full of fêtes, of masques and frolics, often devised on the moment and dependent on the King’s whim, that he set this also down to such a cause, and wondered no more.

  The lights in the houses did not serve the purpose he had in his mind, but beside the closed gate of the cemetery, and between two stalls, was a votive lamp burning before an image of the Mother and Child. He crossed to this, and assuring himself by a glance to right and left that he stood in no danger from prowlers, he drew a note from his breast. It had been slipped into his hand in the gallery before he saw Mademoiselle to her lodging; it had been in his possession barely an hour. But brief as its contents were, and easily committed to memory, he had perused it thrice already.

  “At the house next the Golden Maid, Rue Cinq Diamants, an hour before midnight, you may find the door open should you desire to talk farther with C. St. L.”

  As he read it for the fourth time the light of the lamp fell athwart his face; and even as his fine clothes had never seemed to fit him worse than when he faintly denied the imputations of gallantry launched at him by Nançay, so his features had never looked less handsome than they did now. The glow of vanity which warmed his cheek as he read the message, the smile of conceit which wreathed his lips, bespoke a nature not of the mo
st noble; or the lamp did him less than justice. Presently he kissed the note, and hid it. He waited until the clock of St. Jacques struck the hour before midnight; and then moving forward, he turned to the right by way of the narrow neck leading to the Rue Lombard. He walked in the kennel here, his sword in his hand and his eyes looking to right and left; for the place was notorious for robberies. But though he saw more than one figure lurking in a doorway or under the arch that led to a passage, it vanished on his nearer approach. In less than a minute he reached the southern end of the street that bore the odd title of the Five Diamonds.

  Situate in the crowded quarter of the butchers, and almost in the shadow of their famous church, this street — which farther north was continued in the Rue Quimcampoix — presented in those days a not uncommon mingling of poverty and wealth. On one side of the street a row of lofty gabled houses, built under Francis the First, sheltered persons of good condition; on the other, divided from these by the width of the road and a reeking kennel, a row of peat-houses, the hovels of cobblers and sausage-makers, leaned against shapeless timber houses which tottered upwards in a medley of sagging roofs and bulging gutters. Tignonville was strange to the place, and nine nights out of ten he would have been at a disadvantage. But, thanks to the tapers that to-night shone in many windows, he made out enough to see that he need search only the one side; and with a beating heart he passed along the row of newer houses, looking eagerly for the sign of the Golden Maid.

  He found it at last; and then for a moment he stood puzzled. The note said, next door to the Golden Maid, but it did not say on which side. He scrutinised the nearer house, but he saw nothing to determine him; and he was proceeding to the farther, when he caught sight of two men, who, ambushed behind a horse-block on the opposite side of the roadway, seemed to be watching his movements. Their presence flurried him; but much to his relief his next glance at the houses showed him that the door of the farther one was unlatched. It stood slightly ajar, permitting a beam of light to escape into the street.

  He stepped quickly to it — the sooner he was within the house the better — pushed the door open and entered. As soon as he was inside he tried to close the entrance behind him, but he found he could not; the door would not shut. After a brief trial he abandoned the attempt and passed quickly on, through a bare lighted passage which led to the foot of a staircase, equally bare. He stood at this point an instant and listened, in the hope that Madame’s maid would come to him. At first he heard nothing save his own breathing; then a gruff voice from above startled him.

  “This way, Monsieur,” it said. “You are early, but not too soon!”

  So Madame trusted her footman! M. de Tignonville shrugged his shoulders; but after all, it was no affair of his, and he went up. Halfway to the top, however, he stood, an oath on his lips. Two men had entered by the open door below — even as he had entered! And as quietly!

  The imprudence of it! The imprudence of leaving the door so that it could not be closed! He turned, and descended to meet them, his teeth set, his hand on his sword, one conjecture after another whirling in his brain. Was he beset? Was it a trap? Was it a rival? Was it chance? Two steps he descended; and then the voice he had heard before cried again, but more imperatively —

  “No, Monsieur, this way! Did you not hear me? This way, and be quick, if you please. By-and-by there will be a crowd, and then the more we have dealt with the better!”

  He knew now that he had made a mistake, that he had entered the wrong house; and naturally his impulse was to continue his descent and secure his retreat. But the pause had brought the two men who had entered face to face with him, and they showed no signs of giving way. On the contrary.

  “The room is above, Monsieur,” the foremost said, in a matter-of-fact tone, and with a slight salutation. “After you, if you please,” and he signed to him to return.

  He was a burly man, grim and truculent in appearance, and his follower was like him. Tignonville hesitated, then turned and ascended. But as soon as he had reached the landing where they could pass him, he turned again.

  “I have made a mistake, I think,” he said. “I have entered the wrong house.”

  “Are you for the house next the Golden Maid, Monsieur?”

  “Yes.”

  “Rue Cinq Diamants, Quarter of the Boucherie?”

  “Yes.”

  “No mistake, then,” the stout man replied firmly. “You are early, that is all. You have arms, I see. Maillard!” — to the person whose voice Tignonville had heard at the head of the stairs— “A white sleeve, and a cross for Monsieur’s hat, and his name on the register. Come, make a beginning! Make a beginning, man.”

  “To be sure, Monsieur. All is ready.”

  “Then lose no time, I say. Here are others, also early in the good cause. Gentlemen, welcome! Welcome all who are for the true faith! Death to the heretics! ‘Kill, and no quarter!’ is the word to-night!”

  “Death to the heretics!” the last comers cried in chorus. “Kill and no quarter! At what hour, M. le Prévot?”

  “At daybreak,” the Provost answered importantly. “But have no fear, the tocsin will sound. The King and our good man M. de Guise have all in hand. A white sleeve, a white cross, and a sharp knife shall rid Paris of the vermin! Gentlemen of the quarter, the word of the night is ‘Kill, and no quarter! Death to the Huguenots!’”

  “Death! Death to the Huguenots! Kill, and no quarter!” A dozen — the room was beginning to fill — waved their weapons and echoed the cry.

  Tignonville had been fortunate enough to apprehend the position — and the peril in which he stood — before Maillard advanced to him bearing a white linen sleeve. In the instant of discovery his heart had stood a moment, the blood had left his cheeks; but with some faults, he was no coward, and he managed to hide his emotion. He held out his left arm, and suffered the beadle to pass the sleeve over it and to secure the white linen above the elbow. Then at a gesture he gave up his velvet cap, and saw it decorated with a white cross of the same material.

  “Now the register, Monsieur,” Maillard continued briskly; and waving him in the direction of a clerk, who sat at the end of the long table, having a book and a ink-horn before him, he turned to the next comer.

  Tignonville would fain have avoided the ordeal of the register, but the clerk’s eye was on him. He had been fortunate so far, but he knew that the least breath of suspicion would destroy him, and summoning his wits together he gave his name in a steady voice. “Anne Desmartins.” It was his mother’s maiden name, and the first that came into his mind.

  “Of Paris?”

  “Recently; by birth, of the Limousin.”

  “Good, Monsieur,” the clerk answered, writing in the name. And he turned to the next. “And you, my friend?”

  CHAPTER IV. THE EVE OF THE FEAST.

  It was Tignonville’s salvation that the men who crowded the long white-walled room, and exchanged vile boasts under the naked flaring lights, were of all classes. There were butchers, natives of the surrounding quarter whom the scent of blood had drawn from their lairs; and there were priests with hatchet faces, who whispered in the butchers’ ears. There were gentlemen of the robe, and plain mechanics, rich merchants in their gowns, and bare-armed ragpickers, sleek choristers, and shabby led-captains; but differ as they might in other points, in one thing all were alike. From all, gentle or simple, rose the same cry for blood, the same aspiration to be first equipped for the fray. In one corner a man of rank stood silent and apart, his hand on his sword, the working of his face alone betraying the storm that reigned within. In another, a Norman horse-dealer talked in low whispers with two thieves. In a third, a gold-wire drawer addressed an admiring group from the Sorbonne; and meantime the middle of the floor grew into a seething mass of muttering, scowling men, through whom the last comers, thrust as they might, had much ado to force their way.

  And from all under the low ceiling rose a ceaseless hum, though none spoke loud. “Kill! kill! kill!” was the bu
rden; the accompaniment such profanities and blasphemies as had long disgraced the Paris pulpits, and day by day had fanned the bigotry — already at a white heat — of the Parisian populace. Tignonville turned sick as he listened, and would fain have closed his ears. But for his life he dared not. And presently a cripple in a beggar’s garb, a dwarfish, filthy creature with matted hair, twitched his sleeve, and offered him a whetstone.

  “Are you sharp, noble sir?” he asked, with a leer. “Are you sharp? It’s surprising how the edge goes on the bone. A cut and thrust? Well, every man to his taste. But give me a broad butcher’s knife and I’ll ask no help, be it man, woman, or child!”

  A bystander, a lean man in rusty black, chuckled as he listened.

  “But the woman or the child for choice, eh, Jehan?” he said. And he looked to Tignonville to join in the jest.

  “Ay, give me a white throat for choice!” the cripple answered, with horrible zest. “And there’ll be delicate necks to prick to-night! Lord, I think I hear them squeal! You don’t need it, sir?” he continued, again proffering the whetstone. “No? Then I’ll give my blade another whet, in the name of our Lady, the Saints, and good Father Pezelay!”

  “Ay, and give me a turn!” the lean man cried, proffering his weapon. “May I die if I do not kill one of the accursed for every finger of my hands!”

  “And toe of my feet!” the cripple answered, not to be outdone. “And toe of my feet! A full score!”

  “’Tis according to your sins!” the other, who had something of the air of a Churchman, answered. “The more heretics killed, the more sins forgiven. Remember that, brother, and spare not if your soul be burdened! They blaspheme God and call Him paste! In the paste of their own blood,” he continued ferociously, “I will knead them and roll them out, saith the good Father Pezelay, my master!”

  The cripple crossed himself. “Whom God keep,” he said. “He is a good man. But you are looking ill, noble sir?” he continued, peering curiously at the young Huguenot.