The White Plumes of Navarre Part 13

As, however, Claire was the only one concerning whom Jean cared an apple-pip, he would have been perfectly content had he known.

As it was, he waited till the Bearnais had betaken himself to his slumbers in Anthony Arpajon's best green-tapestried chamber, and then sailed out, hooded and robed like a Benedictine friar, to make his observations. In the town of Blois, as almost anywhere else in central and southern France, the ex-student of Geneva knew his way blindfold. He skirted the bare rocky side of the castle, whereon now stands the huge pavilion of Gaston of Orleans.

"They will not come and go by the great door," he said, "but there is the small postern, by which it is the custom to make exits and entrances when Court secrets are in the wind."

Accordingly, Jean placed himself behind a great hedge which marked the limits of the royal domain. The city hummed beneath him like a hive of bees aroused untimeously. He could hear now and then the voice of some Leaguer raised in curses of the Valois King and all his favourites. The voice was usually a little indistinct because of the owner's having too frequently considered the redness of the Blesois wine.

Anon the curses would arrive home to roost, and that promptly. For some good royalist, crying "_Vive D'Epernon_," would bear down upon the Guisard. Then dull smitings of combat would alternate with war-cries and over-words of faction songs. Once came a single deadly scream, way for which had evidently been opened by a knife, and then, after that, only the dull pad-pad of running feet--and silence!

In the palace wall the postern door opened and someone looked out. It was closed again immediately.

Jean's eyes strove in vain to see more clearly. But the windows above, being brilliantly lighted, threw the postern into the darkest shadow.

A moment after, however, four persons came out--first two men, then a slender figure wrapped in a cloak, which Jean knew in a moment for that of his mistress.

"He is keeping his word, after all," muttered Jean; "it may be just as well!"

He who stepped out last was tall and dark, and turned the key in the lock of the low door with the air of a man shutting up his own mansion for the night.

They went closely past Jean's hiding-place and, to his amazement, took the very way by the water-side, down the Street of the Butchery, by which he had come. More wonderful still, they turned aside without hesitation--or rather, their leader did--into the yard of Anthony Arpajon. Silently Jean-aux-Choux stalked them. How could they know? Was it treachery? Was it an ambush? At any rate, it was his duty to warn the Bearnais--that was evident.

But how? The blue-bloused carters and teamsters, wearing the silken sashes fringed so quaintly with silver bells, were asleep all about. But Jean-aux-Choux darted from sack to sack, dived beneath waggons, ran up stairways of rough wood. And presently, before the leader of the four had done parleying with the white-capped man behind the bar, the intruders were surrounded by thirty veterans of Henry of Navarre's most trusted guards. The chain mail showed under the trussed blouses of the wine-carriers. And D'Epernon, looking round, saw himself the centre of a ring of armed men.

"Ah," he said, with superb and even insolent coolness, "is it thus you keep your watch, you of the old Huguenot phalanx, you who, from father to son, have made your famous family compact with death? Here I find you asleep in a hostile city, where Guise could rouse a thousand men in an hour! Or I myself, if so minded----"

"I think, my Lord Duke," said D'Aubigne, putting his sword to the Duke's breast, "that long before your clarion sounded its first blast, one fine gentleman might chance to find himself in the Loire with as many holes in him as a nutmeg-grater!"

"It might indeed be so, sir," said the Duke, still haughtily, "but on this occasion I shall literally go scot-free. Wake your master, the King of Navarre. Tell him that the Duke of Epernon craves leave to speak with him immediately. He is alone, and has come far and risked much to meet His Majesty. Also, I bid you say that I come on the part of Francis Agnew the Scot, whom he knows!"

"You bid!" cried D'Aubigne, whose temper was not over long in the grain.

"Learn, then, that none bids me save my master, and he is neither King's minister nor King's minion."

"Sir," said the Duke, "I do not need to prove my courage, any more than the gentlemen of my Lord of Navarre. At another time and in another place I am at your service. In the meantime, will you have the goodness to do as I request of you? I must see the King, and swiftly, lest I be missed--up yonder!"

"The King is asleep!" said Anthony Arpajon--"asleep in my best tapestried chamber. He must not be waked."

"Harry of Bearn will always wake to win a battle or a lady's favour,"

said D'Epernon. "I can help him to both, if he will!"

"Then I will go," said Anthony. "Come with me, Jean-aux-Choux. Take bare blade in hand, that there be no treachery. I have known you some time now, Jean. For these others there is no saying!"

So these two went up together to the King's sleeping-chamber. Anthony knocked softly, but there was no answer, though they could hear the soft, regular breathing of the sleeper. He opened the door a little.

Jean-aux-Choux stood looking over his shoulder. A night-light burned on the table, shaded from the eyes of the sleeping man on the canopied couch. But a soft circle of illumination fell on the miniature of a lady, painted in delicate colours, set immediately beneath it.

"His mother--the famous Jeanne d'Albret," whispered Anthony; "he loved her greatly. She was even as a saint!"

Queen Jeanne was certainly a most attractive person, but somehow Jean-aux-Choux remained a little incredulous. "How shall we wake him?"

asked Anthony, under his breath.

"Sing a psalm," suggested Jean-aux-Choux.

"Alas, that I should say so concerning his mother's son, but from what I have seen in this my house, I judge that were more likely to send him into deeper sleep."

"Nay," said Jean, "I know him better--he is an old acquaintance of mine.

Only keep well behind the door when he wakes. For the Bearnais rises ever with his sword in his hand--unless he is in his own house, where the servants are at pains to place all weapons out of his reach. Sing the Gloria, Anthony, and then he will rise very cross and angry, demanding to know if we have not sung enough for one night."

"Ay, the Gloria. It is well thought on," quoth Anthony; "I have heard them tell in our country how it was his mother's favourite. He will love the strains. As I have said, she was a woman sainted--Jeanne the Queen!"

"Hum," said Jean-aux-Choux, "that's as may be. At all events, her son, the Bearnais, was born without any halo to speak of."

"The prayers of a good mother are never wholly lost," said Anthony sententiously.

"Then they are sometimes a long while mislaid," muttered Jean.

"Shame on you, that have known John Calvin in your youth," said Anthony, "to speak as the unbelieving. Have you forgotten that G.o.d works slowly, and that with Him one day is as a thousand years?"

"Aye," said the incorrigible Jean, arguing the matter with Scots persistency, "but the Bearnais takes a good deal out of himself. He is little likely to last so long as that. However, let us do the best we can--sing!"

So they sang the famous Huguenot verses made in the desert by Louis-of-the-Hermitage.

"Or soit au Pere tout puissant, Qui regne au ciel resplendissant, Gloire et magnificence!"

The Bearnais turned in his sleep, muttering restlessly.

"Why cannot they sing their psalms at proper hours," he grumbled, "as before a battle or on Sunday, leaving me to sleep now when I am weary and must ride far on the morrow?"

The psalm went on. Sleepily, the King searched for a boot to throw in the direction of the disturbance, possibly under the impression that his sentinels were chanting at their posts--a habit which, though laudable in itself, he had been compelled to forbid from a military point of view. The Bearnais discovered, by means of a spur which scratched him sharply, that his boots were on his feet. He muttered yet more loudly.

"His morning prayers," said Anthony in Jean's ear; "his mother, Jeanne the Queen, was ever like that. She waked with blessing on her lip--so also her son."

"I doubt," said Jean-aux-Choux.

"Sing--gabble less concerning the Anointed of G.o.d," commanded Anthony Arpajon.

And they sang the second time.

"In Sion's city G.o.d is known, For her defence He holds Him ready, Though banded kings attack at dawn, G.o.d's rock-bound fortress standeth steady."

This time the Bearnais stood up on his feet, broadly awake. He did not, as Jean-aux-Choux had foretold, thrust a sword behind the arras.

Instead, he picked up the painted miniature on which the little circle of light was falling. He pressed it a moment to his lips, and then, with the click of a small chain clasping, it was about his neck and over his heart, hidden by his mailed s.h.i.+rt.

"His mother's picture--even from here methinks I recognise the features," a.s.serted the faithful Anthony.

"Most touching!" interjected Jean-aux-Choux.

"It astonishes you," said Anthony Arpajon, "but that is because you are a stranger----"

"And ye would take me in," muttered Jean under his breath.