The Justice of the King Part 4

"But I am only nine days in Valmy. And sometimes when I sing I remember where I am and stop suddenly. It is as indecent as if one sang in the house of the dead. Soon I shall always remember and not sing at all. And I do not wonder that few men laugh."

"Why?" asked Commines for the third time. This was a new side to Stephen La Mothe and one that in the King's service--not forgetting his own--should not be ignored. Often in his career he had seen a well-laid plan miscarry because some seeming triviality was ignored.

Was it not one of Louis' aphorisms that life held nothing really trivial?

"Because it is a house of the living dead."

"For G.o.d's sake, Stephen, hush. If the King heard you speak of his feebleness in such a way there would be a sudden end to both you and your service."

"The King? But I don't mean the King. I mean----" He paused as if searching for a comprehensive word or phrase, and presently he found it. "I mean the justice of the King."

"Well?" Commines' throat seemed suddenly to have gone dry, so that the word came harshly. Within the hour the King had used the same phrase, and the coincidence startled him unpleasantly.

But La Mothe made no immediate reply. To answer the little jerked-cut dry interrogatory in concise words was not easy. He knew his own meaning clearly enough, but how was he to make it equally clear to Commines, who was plainly unsympathetic? When at last he spoke it was with a hesitation which was almost an apology.

"As I pa.s.sed through Thouars on my way from Poitou--you know Thouars, Uncle?"

"Yes; go on."

"Then you know its market-place with the little shops all round and the church of St. Laon to the side: a cobble-paved s.p.a.ce where the children play? At the one end there was a ring of black and white ashes with the heat still in them, and in the middle a Thing which hung by chains from an iron stake. It had been a man that morning, but there it hung by the spine with the chains through its ribs; a man no more, only blackened bones and little crisped horrors here or there. Round it two or three score, white-faced women and children mostly, stood and gaped, or talked in whispers, pointing. Presently the little children will play there, and shout and sing and laugh, and the women gossip or buy and sell."

"A coiner," said Commines. "The King must see that the silver is full weight."

"Yes, Uncle: but I have heard that sometimes the King himself has coined----"

"Hush, boy: the King is King."

"Then at Tours, as I rode through the Rue des Trois Pucelles, there was a house with a fine bold front. One would say that a man with the soul of an artist lived in it. There were brave carvings on the stout oak door, carvings on the stone divisions of its five windows, strong iron bars of very choice smith-work, twisted and hammered, to keep the common folk from tumbling into the cellars, and in the peaked roof of fair white plaster were driven great nails from which hung f.a.gs of rope, and from one something which was no rope, but a poor wisp of humanity staring horribly aslant above a broken neck."

"Yes," said Commines, "Tristan's house. He is the King's Provost-Marshal and--and----"

"Yes, I know, Uncle. He carries out the justice of the King. But to hang a fellow-Christian over one's own hall-door is a strange taste."

"Stephen, take my advice and have naught to do with Tristan by word or deed. And no doubt the fellow deserved his hanging."

"That he may have naught to do with me is my hope," answered La Mothe, with a little laugh which had no humour in it. "And as to deserts, he drank overmuch and beat the watch. Truly a vicious rascal! G.o.d send us all sober to bed, Uncle, and may a sudden end find nothing worse on our conscience than a dizzy brain. But that's not all. Midway between the castle and the Loire stands the Valmy gibbet, fair set in the suns.h.i.+ne and for all to see: and as I rode past there were two hung from it; two hang from it still, but they are not the same two."

"Thieves," said Commines. "Would you have the roads unsafe?"

"One of to-day's couple is a boy of twelve--unripe fruit for such a tree, Uncle, and a fearsome danger to the peace of France. Tristan does well to keep the roads safe from such swaggerers. Twelve years of life, twelve years of a pinched stomach, and--the justice of the King to end it all! And what of the woman who gathered nettles for the pot from the river-bank? The archers shouted to her, but she was hungry, poor starved soul, and gathered on, bent to all-fours like a beast.

Then they shot her--like a beast. Down she went with an arrow through the bent back; a woman, Uncle."

"She should have hearkened and kept away," said Commines. "Neither man nor woman may come near Valmy without permission when the King is here."

"She should have hearkened," echoed La Mothe. "But the Good G.o.d had sealed her ears; she was deaf as a stone and so for the justice of the King she died. Then three days ago it was Guy de Molembrais, who came to Valmy--so 'tis said--with the King's safe-conduct."

"Molembrais lost his head as a traitor," answered Commines roughly.

"And the safe-conduct?"

"The safe-conduct was given before Molembrais' treason was fully proved."

"Then it is the King's justice to lure suspects----"

"There can be no faith with traitors. Did the safe-conduct make his treason less? Do you not see," he went on, as La Mothe made no reply, "that Molembrais got no more than his deserts?"

"Like the brawler in Tours," said the lad whimsically. "Perhaps Tristan gave him a safe-conduct too, and the fool got drunk. And if we have good, warm blood in us we all get drunk sooner or later. Yes, and please G.o.d my time will come, but may the Saints send me far from Valmy! You think I'm talking nonsense, Uncle; but Monsieur de Perche always let me talk. He said it was better to let blow at the bung than burst the cask."

"You drunk!" answered Commines jestingly. La Mothe had been on very dangerous ground and a change of subject was an unspeakable relief.

"Why, except the King, no man in Valmy drinks less wine."

"Wine-drunk? Am I a beast, Uncle, that you should say such a thing?

No, not wine-drunk. Love-drunk, war-drunk, fighting-drunk. To feel the nerves tingle, the blood run hot, the heart go throbbing mad! to feel a glorious exultation quiver through you like--yes, Uncle, I know I'm a fool, but it's not so long since you were young yourself."

"Nor am I so old yet, Stephen boy. When that day of your drunkenness comes there will either be a very happy woman or a sorrowful man."

"Yes, Uncle, if only the King gives me a safe-conduct----"

"The King requires the attendance of Monsieur Stephen La Mothe without delay."

With a start like the cringe of a nervous woman suddenly frightened, Commines, the man of iron nerves, turned to the door, the colour rus.h.i.+ng in a flood to his face. Neither had heard its latch click nor seen it open, but the broad figure of a burly man was ma.s.sed in the gloom against the greater light from the outer entrance. A pa.s.sing torch, flaring up the hall-way from behind, showed him draped from throat to ankle in some self-coloured, russet-red, woollen stuff which caught the glare, and outlined him for the moment as with sweeping curves of blood. To La Mothe he was a stranger, but from the little he could see of the shaven face, at once harsh and fleshly sensual, he judged him to be nearly twenty years older than Commines.

"You--Tristan----" The surprise had shaken even Commines from his self-control and he spoke brokenly. "How long have you been here?"

"Since the King sent me for Monsieur La Mothe. At once, if you please, Monsieur."

"But it was to-morrow----"

"He has changed his mind. What is to be done is best done quickly.

You, Monsieur d'Argenton, will understand what the King means by quickly. I know nothing but that you are to leave Valmy to-morrow morning instead of the day after, and so he must see Monsieur La Mothe to-night. As Monsieur d'Argenton's friend, Monsieur La Mothe, I would advise humble acquiescence."

"In what?" It was the first time La Mothe had spoken, and in his repugnance he could not bring himself to add the courtesy "Monsieur" to the curt question.

"Our Master's will, whatever it may be. It is a privilege, young sir, to further the justice of the King."

"The justice of the King!" replied La Mothe, carried hotly away by that repugnance. "G.o.d's name, Provost-Marshal, I am not--not--not the King's arm, like you," he added lamely. But though Tristan might neither forgive nor forget the suggestion of the broken sentence he was not the man to resent it at the moment. The King's arm must endure pin-p.r.i.c.ks as well as deal justice. It was Commines, rather, who replied.

"Hush, Stephen, our friend is entirely right. It is you who misunderstand. The King's justice is in all his acts. Yes! and not only his justice, but his mercy and his greatness, and these three have made France what she is."

"And all these three are waiting for Monsieur La Mothe. Come, young sir, the King is very weary and it is time he was in his bed--though I would not advise you to tell him so," and leaving the door open behind him Tristan went out into the night: that he did so they were sure, for they heard the rasp of his feet on the flags of the court.

"How long was he there?" Commines spoke under his breath as his fingers closed on La Mothe's arm with a grip which left its mark. "How long was he listening? What did he hear? You fool, you fool, you may have ruined yourself--and me, and me. And why has he left us together?

He has some reason for it--some end to serve: his own or the King's.

Try and think what you said: no, not now, there is no time, but when you are with the King, and unsay it, unsay it. And Stephen, remember, he is the King, he is the Master of France, the maker of France, and he is dying. Promise him----"

"Monsieur La Mothe, Monsieur La Mothe, is the King to wait all night, or shall I say Monsieur d'Argenton detains you?"

"Go, boy, go. Promise everything, everything--he is the King," and as Commines pushed him through the doorway La Mothe could hear his breath coming in heavy gasps.