The Helmet of Navarre Part 25

"Monsieur, you are mad," I cried. "You have said yourself Mayenne is likely to be behind Lucas. If you go you do but walk into the enemies'

very jaws. It is a trap, a lure."

"Felix, beware what you say!" he interrupted with quick-blazing ire. "I do not permit such words to be spoken in connection with Mlle. de Montluc."

"But, monsieur--"

"Silence!" he commanded in a voice as sharp as crack of pistolet. The St. Quentins had ever the most abundant faith in those they loved. I remembered how Monsieur in just such a blaze of resentment had forbidden me to speak ill of his son. And I remembered, too, that Monsieur's faith had been justified and that my accusations were lies. Natheless, I liked not the look of this affair, and I attempted further warnings.

"Monsieur, in my opinion--"

"You are not here to hold opinions, Felix, but your tongue."

I did, at that, and stood back from the bed to let him do as it liked him. He rose and went over to the chair where his clothes lay, only to drop into it half swooning. I ran to the ewer and dashed half the water in it into his face.

"Peste, you need not drown me!" he cried testily. "I am well; it was but a moment's dizziness." He got up again at once, but was forced to seize my shoulder to keep from falling.

"It was that d.a.m.nable potion he made me drink," he muttered. "I am all well else; I am not weak. Curse the room; it reels about like a s.h.i.+p at sea."

I put my arm about him and led him back to bed; nor did he argue about it but lay back with his eyes shut, so white against the white bed-linen I thought him fainted for sure. But before I could drench him again he raised his lids.

"Felix, will you go get a shutter? For I see clearly that I shall reach Mlle. de Montluc this night in no other way."

"Monsieur," I said, "I can go. I can tell your mistress you cannot walk across this room to-night. I can do my best for you, M. etienne."

"My faith! I think I must e'en let you try. But what to bid you say to her--pardieu! I scarce know what I could say to her myself."

"I can tell her how sorely you are hurt--how you would come, but cannot."

"And make her believe it," he cried eagerly. "Do not let her think it a flimsy excuse. And yet I do think she will believe you," he added, with half a laugh. "There is something very trust-compelling about you, Felix. And a.s.sure her of my lifelong, never-failing service."

"But I thought monsieur was going to take service with Henry of Navarre."

"I was!" he cried. "I am! Oh, Felix, was ever a poor wight so harried and torn betwixt two as I? Whom Jupiter would destroy he first makes mad. I shall be gibbering in a cage before I have done with it."

"Monsieur will be gibbering in his bed unless he sleeps soon. I go now, monsieur."

"And good luck to you! Felix, I offer you no reward for this midnight journey into the house of our enemies. For recompense you will see her."

XIII

_Mademoiselle._

I went to find Maitre Menard, to urge upon him that some one should stay with M. etienne while I was gone, lest he swooned or became light-headed. But the surgeon himself was present, having returned from bandaging up some common skull to see how his n.o.ble patient rested. He promised that he would stay the night with M. le Comte; so, eased of that care, I set out for the Hotel de Lorraine, one of the inn-servants with a flambeau coming along to guide and guard me. M. etienne was a favourite in this inn of Maitre Menard's; they did not stop to ask whether he had money in his purse before falling over one another in their eagerness to serve him. It is my opinion that one gets more out of the world by dint of fair words than by a long purse or a long sword.

We had not gone a block from the inn before I turned to the right-about, to the impatience of my escort.

"Nay, Jean, I must go back," I said. "I will only delay a moment, but see Maitre Menard I must."

He was still in the cabaret where the crowd was thinning.

"Now what brings you back?"

"This, maitre," said I, drawing him into a corner. "M. le Comte has been in a fracas to-night, as you perchance may have divined. His arch-enemy gave us the slip. And I am not easy for monsieur while this Lucas is at large. He has the devil's own cunning and malice; he might track him here to the Three Lanterns. Therefore, maitre, I beg you to admit no one to M. le Comte--no one on any business whatsoever. Not if he comes from the Duke of Mayenne himself."

"I won't admit the Sixteen themselves," the maitre declared.

"There is one man you may admit," I conceded. "Vigo, M. de St. Quentin's equery. You will know him for the biggest man in France."

"Good. And this other; what is he like?"

"He is young," I said, "not above four or five and twenty. Tall and slim,--oh, without doubt, a gentleman. He has light-brown hair and thin, aquiline face. His tongue is unbound, too."

"His tongue shall not get around me," Maitre Menard promised. "The host of the Three Lanterns was not born yesterday let me tell you."

With this comforting a.s.surance I set out once more on my expedition with, to tell truth, no very keen enthusiasm for the business. It was all very well for M. etienne to declare grandly that as recompense for my trouble I should see Mlle. de Montluc. But I was not her lover and I thought I could get along very comfortably without seeing her. I knew not how to bear myself before a splendid young n.o.blewoman. When I had dashed across Paris to slay the traitor in the Rue Coupejarrets I had not been afraid; but now, going with a love-message to a girl, I was scared.

And there was more than the fear of her bright eyes to give me pause. I was afraid of Mlle. de Montluc, but more afraid of M. de Mayenne's cousin. What mocking devil had driven etienne de Mar, out of a whole France full of lovely women, to fix his unturnable desire on this Ligueuse of Mayenne's own brood? Had his father's friends no daughters, that he must seek a mistress from the black duke's household? Were there no families of clean hands and honest speech, that he must ally himself with the treacherous blood of Lorraine?

I had seen a sample of the League's work to-day, and I liked it not. If Mayenne were, as Yeux-gris surmised, Lucas's backer, I marvelled that my master cared to enter his house; I marvelled that he cared to send his servant there. Yet I went none the less readily for that; I was here to do his bidding. Nor was I greatly alarmed for my own skin; I thought myself too small to be worth my Lord Mayenne's powder. And I had, I do confess, a lively curiosity to behold the interior of the greatest house in Paris, the very core and centre of the League. Belike if it had not been for terror of this young demoiselle I had stepped along cheerfully enough.

Though the hour was late, many people still loitered in the streets, the clear summer night, and all of them were talking politics. As Jean and I pa.s.sed at a rapid pace the groups under the wine-shop lanterns, we caught always the names of Mayenne and Navarre. Everywhere they asked the same two questions: Was it true that Henry was coming into the Church? And if so, what would Mayenne do next? I perceived that old Maitre Jacques of the Amour de Dieu knew what he was talking about: the people of Paris were sick to death of the Leagues and their intriguery, galled to desperation under the yoke of the Sixteen.

Mayenne's fine new hotel in the Rue St. Antoine was lighted as for a fete. From its open windows came sounds of gay laughter and rattling dice. You might have thought them keeping carnival in the midst of a happy and loyal city. If the Lieutenant-General found anything to vex him in the present situation, he did not let the commonalty know it.

The Duke of Mayenne's house, like my duke's, was guarded by men-at-arms; but his grilles were thrown back while his soldiers lounged on the stone benches in the archway. Some of them were talking to a little knot of street idlers who had gathered about the entrance, while others, with the aid of a torch and a greasy pack of cards, were playing lansquenet.

I knew no way to do but to ask openly for Mlle. de Montluc, declaring that I came on behalf of the Comte de Mar.

"That is right; you are to enter," the captain of the guard replied at once. "But you are not the Comte de Mar yourself? Nay, no need to ask,"

he added with a laugh. "A pretty count you would make."

"I am his servant," I said. "I am charged with a message for mademoiselle."

"Well, my orders were to admit the count, but I suppose you may go in.

If mademoiselle cannot land her lover it were cruel to deny her the consolation of a message."

A laugh went up and one of the gamblers looked round to say:

"It has gone hard with mademoiselle lately, sangdieu! Here's the Comte de Mar has not set foot in the house for a month or more, and M. Paul for a quarter of a year is vanished off the face of the earth. It seemed as if she must take the little cheese or nothing. But now things are looking up with her. M. Paul has walked calmly in, and here is a messenger at least from the other."

"But M. Paul has walked calmly out again," a third soldier took up the tale. "He did not stay very long, for all mademoiselle's graces."

"Then I warrant 'twas mademoiselle sent him off with a flea in his ear," another cried. "She looks higher than a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, even Le Balafre's own."