The Helmet of Navarre Part 28

He turned away as one bored over a trifling matter. And as the lackeys dragged me back to the door, I heard Mlle. de Montluc saying:

"Oh, M. de Latour, what have I done in destroying your knave of diamonds! Ma foi, you had a quatorze!"

XIV

_In the oratory._

"Here, Pierre!" M. de Brie called to the head lackey, "here's a candidate for a hiding. This is a cub of that fellow Mar's. He reckoned wrong when he brought his insolence into this house. Lay on well, boys; make him howl."

Brie would have liked well enough, I fancy, to come along and see the fun, but he conceived that his duty lay in the salon. Pierre, the same who had conducted me to Mlle. de Montluc, now led the way into a long oak-panelled parlour. Opposite the entrance was a huge chimney carved with the arms of Lorraine; at one end a door led into a little oratory where tapers burned before the image of the Virgin; at the other, before the two narrow windows, stood a long table with writing-materials.

Chests and cupboards nearly filled the walls. I took this to be a sort of council-room of my Lord Mayenne.

Pierre sent one of his men for a cane and to the other suggested that he should quench the Virgin's candles.

"For I don't see why this rascal should have the comfort of a light in there," he said. "As for Madonna Mary, she will not mind; she has a million others to see by."

I was left alone with him and I promised myself the joy of one good blow at his face, no matter how deep they flayed me for it. But as I gathered myself for the rush he spoke to me low and cautiously:

"Now howl your loudest, lad; and I'll not lay on too hard."

My clinched fist dropped to my side.

"You never did me any harm," he muttered. "Howl till they think you half killed, and I'll manage."

I gaped at him, not knowing what to make of it. But this is the way of the world; if there is much cruelty in it, there is much kindness, too.

"Here's the cane, nom d'un chien!" Pierre exclaimed boisterously. "Give it here, Jean; there'll not be much of it left when I get through."

"You'll strip his coat off?" said the second lackey, from the oratory.

"My faith! no; I should kill him if I did, and the duke wants him,"

Pierre retorted. So without more ado the two men tied my wrists in front of me, and Jean held me by the knot while Pierre laid on. And he, good fellow, grasping my collar, contrived to pull my loose jerkin away from my back, so that he dusted it down without greatly incommoding me. Some hard whacks I did get, but they were nothing to what a strong man could have given in grim earnest.

I trust I could have taken a real flogging with as close lips as anybody, but if my kind succourer wanted howls, howls he should have. I yelled and cowered and dodged about, to the roaring delight of Jean and his mate. Indeed, I had drawn a crowd of grinning varlets to the door before my performance was over. But at length, when I thought I had done enough for their pleasure and that of the n.o.bles in the salon, I dropped down on the floor and lay quiet, with shut eyes.

"He has had his fill, I trow; we must not spoil him for the master,"

Pierre said.

"Oh, he'll come to in a minute," another answered. "Why, you have not even drawn blood, Pierre!" He laid his hand on my back, whereat I groaned my hollowest.

"It will be many a day before he cares to have his back touched,"

laughed Pierre. "Here, men, lend a hand. Pardieu! I wonder what Our Lady thinks of some of the devotees we bring her."

As they lifted me he took my hand with an inquiring squeeze; and I squeezed back, grateful, if ever a boy was. They flung me down on the oratory floor and left me there a prisoner.

I spent the next hour or so trying to undo the knot of my handcuff with my teeth; and failing that, to chew the stout rope in two. I was minded as I worked of Lucas and his bonds, and wondered whether he had managed to rid himself of their inconvenience. He went straightway, doubtless, to some confederate who cut them for him, and even now was planning fresh evil against the St. Quentins. I remembered his face as he cried to M. le Comte that they should meet again; and I thought that M.

etienne was likely to have his hands full with Lucas, without this unlucky tanglement with Mlle. de Montluc. In the darkness and solitude I called down a murrain on his folly. Why could he not leave the girl alone? There were other blue eyes in the world. And it would be hard on humanity if there were none kindlier.

He had been at it three years, too. For three long years this girl's fair face had stood between him and his home, between him and action, between him and happiness. It was a fair face, truly; yet, in my opinion, neither it nor any maid's was worth such pains. If she had loved him it had not been worth it, but this girl spurned and flouted him. Why, in the name of Heaven, could he not put the jade out of his mind and turn merrily to St. Denis and the road to glory? When I got back to him and told him how she had mocked him, hang me but he should, though!

Ah, but when was I to get back to him? That rested not with me but with my dangerous host, the League's Lieutenant-General, dark-minded Mayenne.

What he wanted with me he had not revealed; nor was it a pleasant subject for speculation. He meant me, of course, to tell him all I knew of the St. Quentins; well, that was soon done; belike he understood more than I of the day's work. But after he had questioned me, what?

Would he consider, with his servant Pierre, that I had never done him any harm? Or would he--I wondered, if they flung me out stark into some alley's gutter, whether M. le Comte would search for me and claim my carca.s.s? Or would he, too, have fallen by the blades of the League?

I was shuddering as I waited there in the darkness. Never, not even this morning in the closet of the Rue Coupejarrets, had I been in such mortal dread. I had walked out of that closet to find M. etienne; but I was not likely to happen on succour here. Pierre, for all his kind heart, could not save me from the Duke of Mayenne.

Then, when my hope was at its nadir, I remembered who was with me in the little room. I groped my way to Our Lady's feet and prayed her to save me, and if she might not, then to stand by me during the hard moment of dying and receive my seeking soul. Comforted now and deeming I could pa.s.s, if it came to that, with a steady face, I laid me down, my head on the prie-dieu cus.h.i.+on, and presently went to sleep.

I was waked by a light in my face, and, all a-quiver, sprang up to meet my doom. But it was not the duke or any of his hirelings who bent over me, candle in hand; it was Mlle. de Montluc.

"Oh, my boy, my poor boy!" she cried pitifully, "I could not save you the flogging; on my honour, I could not. It would have availed you nothing had I pleaded for you on my bended knees."

With bewilderment I observed that the tears were br.i.m.m.i.n.g over her lashes and splas.h.i.+ng down into the candle-flame. I stared, too confused for speech, while she, putting down the shaking candlestick on the altar, as she crossed herself, covered her face with her hands, sobbing.

"Mademoiselle," I stammered, "it is not worth mademoiselle's tears! The man, Pierre, he told me to scream, so they would think he was half flaying me. But in truth he did not strike very hard. He did not hurt so much."

She struggled to check the rising tempest of her tears, and presently dropped her hands and looked at me earnestly from out her s.h.i.+ning wet eyes. "Is that true? Are you not flayed?" And to make sure, she laid her hand delicately on my back.

"They have whacked your coat to ribbons, but, thank St. Genevieve, they have not brought the blood. I saw a man flogged once--" she shut her eyes, shuddering, and her mouth quivered anew. "But I am not much hurt, mademoiselle," I answered her.

She took out her film of a handkerchief to wipe her wet cheeks, her hand still trembling. I could think of nothing but to repeat:

"I am not in the least hurt, mademoiselle."

"Ah, but if they have spared you the flogging to take your life!" she breathed.

It was not a heartening suggestion. To my astonishment, suddenly I found myself, frightened victim, striving to comfort this n.o.blewoman for my death.

"Nay, I am not afraid. Since mademoiselle weeps over me, I can die happily."

She sprang toward me as if to protect me with her body from some menacing thrust.

"They shall not kill you!" she cried, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng blue fire. "They shall not! Mon dieu! is Lorance de Montluc so feeble a thing that she cannot save a serving-boy?"

She fell back a pace, pressing her hands to her temples as if to stifle their throbbing.

"It was my fault," she cried--"it was all my fault. It was my vanity and silliness brought you to this. I should never have written that letter--a three years' child would have known better. But I had not seen M. de Mar for five weeks--I did not know, what I readily guess now, that he had taken sides against us. M. de Lorraine played on my pique."

"Mademoiselle," I said, "the worst has not followed, since M. etienne did not come himself."

"You are glad for that?"

"Why, of course, mademoiselle. Was it not a trap for him?"