The Justice of the King Part 2

"Sire, a promise to the dead is like a vow to the Saints; none can give it back."

"Um! a vow to the Saints? But we must have the Saints on our side.

Let me see--let me see. Yes! Take him with you, openly or secretly as you will, and if he bungles I shall deal with him. That frees you from your promise. The justice of the King! Eh, Philip! will the justice of the King please you better?"

The justice of the King! Louis sat back in his chair as he spoke, his blotched gums showing in a grin between his thin lips, his dull eyes half veiled by the drooping of the leaden-hued lids. More than ever he was a mask of death, but of a death that possessed a grim humour, malevolent in its satirical cynicism. The justice of the King. Who should know that justice so well as Commines, its minister for almost a dozen years, or who so testify to its stern implacability? None escaped the rigid iron of its wrath. Their almost royal blood saved neither the Duke of Nemours nor the Count of Armagnac. Saint-Pol, Constable of France, perished on the scaffold. Besides these a score of the greater n.o.bles of France had fallen, nor could the scarlet of the Cardinalate s.h.i.+eld Balue from its vengeance. If these, the great ones of the chess-board, were beyond the pale of mercy, what hope would there be for a simple p.a.w.n like Stephen La Mothe, if once he fell beneath that inflexible ban? And yet to the courtier the King's question could have but one reply.

"The justice of the King," repeated Commines; and added, without thought of irreverence, "Let him fall into the hands of G.o.d and not of man."

"Good!" The thin lips twitched, and deep in the dead eyes a sombre fire glowed. It warmed his cold humour to read so plainly the thought hidden behind the smooth words. But to a mind as fertile as the King's that very thought was a suggestion. It would be well that this La Mothe should clearly understand all he had to fear; and not to fear only but also to hope. The justice of the King could raise up as well as cast down, could reward without measure as well as crush without mercy.

"Go to Amboise. Be myself in Amboise. If--I use your own word, Philip--if justice must strike---- Ah! poor wretched King and yet more wretched father!--be thou the King's justice, be thou the King's hand in Amboise, and let this Monsieur La Mothe be your ears, your eyes.

And--um--yes, let me see this La Mothe before you leave; I am, as you know, something of a judge of men. To-morrow will do, and the next day you can go to Amboise."

"And my commission, sire? My authority to act on your behalf?"

"Commission?" The plaintive, gentle calm of the King's voice broke up in storm. Leaning forward Louis tapped his finger-tips on the table noisily. "Sift, search, find, find, there is your commission.

Authority? Um--um--when Absalom rebelled against David did Joab, the king's servant, say, 'Where is my authority?' Rebellion is your authority; the safety of your King is your authority; the plot against France is your authority. For such crimes there is none above justice, Monsieur d'Argenton, none--none. But justice is like truth, and sometimes dwells in shadow. Do you understand? Justice, but no scandal. We must be circ.u.mspect. There must be no shock to public thought in France. It is the curse and fate of kings to be misjudged.

Justice might well come by way of accident. And--let me see! This La Mothe! He owes you everything and you say he can be trusted?"

"Yes, sire, but I have been thinking----"

"Then, Philip, tell him something of what I have told you. The danger----" The King again shook in the air the crumpled despatch which had never been exposed, never left his grasp for an instant.

"The danger to me--to France--to you, above all to you who vouch for him. He owes you everything as you owe me, perhaps he will understand as you do?"

"But, sire," said Commines again, striving hard to keep his voice unemotional, "while you spoke I have been thinking. I fear Stephen La Mothe is too young, too inexperienced, for so grave a mission."

"And are there two in Valmy you can trust with your life? Too young?

No! To be young is to be generous, to be young is to dream dreams.

The generosity of his youth will repay you all he thinks he owes, and will not count the cost: the dreams will see the glory of serving France. Age brings caution, Philip; age brings too much of the weighing of consequence; and at Amboise a little incaution will be good, incaution of himself, you understand. He owes you everything; let him get it into his head that you are the gainer by his incaution--as you will be, Philip, as you will be, and he too. There!

That is settled. Send him to me to-morrow. Move the brazier nearer to me, then go. Nearer yet; within reach of my hand. There! that will do."

But filled by a fear he dared not show Commines still lingered. Across the gulf of the past years came the voice of the dear, dead woman, the voice of the lost love of his youth, lost while youth was generous, while youth dreamed dreams and loved pa.s.sionate. It was the sweetest voice he had ever known; sweet in itself because of itself, caressing, gentle, sweeter still because pa.s.sionate love had throbbed through it.

"Watch over him, Philip, for my sake," it said, and she had died comforted by his promises, died trusting him. And now---- But while he hesitated, willing but afraid to dare, Louis bestirred himself.

Resting one arm upon the table he pushed himself half upright with the other hand, and so, half poised, pointed forward at the door. A blotch of crimson showed upon the cheek-bones and the dull eyes glowed.

"G.o.d's name, man! did you not hear me? Do you serve me or the Dauphin?

Which? Go! go! go!"

This time Commines obeyed, and obeyed in silence. The King's question was not one which called for an answer; or rather he understood that Amboise must give the answer, give it emphatically and without a quibble. Once outside the door he paused. Between Saint-Pierre, Leslie, and himself no love was lost, but the bond of a united watchfulness against a common danger bound them to mutual service.

"Where was it from?" asked Saint-Pierre. But Commines shook his head, running his fingers inside the collar of his doublet significantly.

Complacency, even when it was the complacency of self-defence, had its limits.

"I dare not," he whispered back. "He is in the mood of the devil.

What is he doing now?"

As if playing the part of sentry Saint-Pierre turned and walked twice or thrice up and down before the open door, glancing cautiously within.

"Tearing the despatch, and burning it piecemeal in the brazier."

"I feared as much. If you love yourselves, gentlemen, see that you do not cross him to-day. And when I am gone from Valmy walk warily."

"Where are you going, Monsieur de Commines?"

"To Amboise, and I would have given a thousand crowns for one look at that despatch."

But it is a question whether the look would have taught him much, though he had studied the paper for an hour. It was blank; beyond the superscription and the "Louis" sprawled across the corner there was not one single word. And yet, to one trained by ten years service in his master's ways of crooked cunning the very blank would have been eloquent of warning.

CHAPTER IV

THE JUSTICE OF THE KING

As Commines crossed the courtyard to his lodgings his face was puckered with anxious thought. Many a time he had fished for his master in waters both foul and troubled, but always he had known the prey he angled for. Now, and he shook his head like a man who argues against his doubts, but with little hope of compelling conviction, he was not sure. Or was it that he was afraid to be sure? Was he afraid to say bluntly out, even in the secret of his own mind, the King desires the death of the Dauphin and for good cause?

That there might well be cause, that there might well be a sinister upheaval against the King with the Dauphin as its rallying centre he could easily believe, even without the evidence of the despatch.

France had never yet known such a nation-builder as Louis. His quarries had lain north, south, and east. In his twenty-two years upon the throne he had added to the crown Artois, Burgundy, the northern parts of Picardy, Anjou, Franche-Comte, Provence, and Roussillon. To secure such a wholesale aggrandizement he had been unscrupulous in chicanery, sleepless in his aggression, ruthless to the extremest verge of cruelty; no treaty had been too solemn to tear up, no oath too sacred for violation, no act of blood too pitiless.

With Louis the one sole question had ever been, Does it advantage France? If it did, then his hand struck or his cunning filched, careless of right or privileges. As he had said, and said truly, France came first. It was his one justification for the unjustifiable.

No! Never such a nation-builder and never a man so feared and hated for valid cause. He was the King of the greatest, the most powerful France Europe had ever known, but it was a miserable France, a France seething with wretchedness, with discontent, and each hour he went in terror for his life. Only a few, such as Commines himself, could foresee how great would one day be the power of these weak, antagonistic states he had so ruthlessly welded into one. For the rest, France was so full of unhappiness and dread that the Dauphin might well be the centre of a plot, a plot to murder the father in the son's name for the relief of the nation. But was the Dauphin himself concerned in the plot, or had he that knowledge which, prince though he was, laid him open to the penalty for blood-guiltiness? These were the questions which troubled Commines.

Clearly--and as he followed his train of thought he turned aside, his hands locked behind him, his head bowed, and walked up and down in the shadow flung by the gloomy range of buildings which cut the courtyard into two halves--clearly the King had no doubt: clearly the despatch had left no room for doubt. Or else--the thought was contemptible, but it refused to be thrust aside--the King wished to have no room for doubt. The frown deepened on Commines' face as he remembered how often the King's wishes had been master of the truth.

But could any father be cursed with such a terrible wish? Yes, when the father was that complex, unhappy man, Louis of France. Commines knew the King as no man else knew him, and in the gloomy depths of that knowledge he found two reasons why the father would have no sorrow for the death of the son. It was characteristic of Louis to hate and dread his natural successor, nor did his distrustful fears pause to consider that if the Dauphin was swept aside Charles of Orleans would stand in his son's place. When that day came he would hate and dread Charles as his suspicious soul now hated and dreaded the Dauphin.

The other reason he had himself unveiled to Commines, no doubt with a set purpose. Behind the King's most trivial act there was always a set purpose. In a boy's feeble hands, a puppet as he had called him, a king in legal age and yet a child in years and ignorance, this great France he had built up so laboriously would crumble into ruin. Louis was a statesman first and a father afterwards. So Commines must go to Amboise, must sift, search, find--but especially find. Find what? His question had been answered--find and prove the boy's guilty knowledge.

But having found, having proved that the King's fears were terribly justified, what then? The answer to that question touched the hopes of his ambition. Upon most men death steals unawares, but for Louis the edge of the grave crumbled in the sight of all who served him, nor, when the end came, would it linger in the coming. Supposing death struck down the King while he, Commines, was still at Amboise, finding?

What then? The opportunist in Commines was vigilantly awake, that nice sense which discriminates the rising power and clings to its skirts.

The Dauphin would be King of France. For the third time he asked himself, What then?

It was a relief to his perplexity that a cheery full-noted whistle broke across the question, a whistle which from time to time slipped into a song whose words Commines could hear in part:

"Heigh-ho! Love's but a pain, Love's but a bitter-sweet, lasts an hour: Heigh-ho! Suns.h.i.+ne and rain!

If it's so brief whence comes love's power?

Wherefore go clearly, Sweetly and dearly--"

and the song ran again into a whistle.

At the sound the gravity faded from Commines' face and the coa.r.s.e set mouth grew almost tender. It was Stephen La Mothe: and whatever the words might be, the lad surely knew little of love when he so lightly marred his own sentiment. A lover sighing for his mistress would have sighed less blithesomely and to the very end of his plaint. Presently the voice rose afresh:

"Heigh-ho! where dost thou hide, Love, that I seek for thee, high and low?

Heigh-ho! world, thou art wide, Heat of the summer and cold of the snow.

April so smiling, June so beguiling, Let us forget, love, that winter's storms blow."

Entering the narrow hall, lit only from the courtyard and with a much-shadowed stairway rising from the further end, Commines pushed open a door on his right, fastening it behind him as he entered.