The Helmet of Navarre Part 72

"Not half so well as I like yours, mademoiselle, I promise you! But he comes to me well commended, since you vouch for him. Or rather, he does not come. What is this ardent follower doing so long away from me? Where the devil does this eager partizan keep himself? St. Quentin, where is your son?"

"He had been with you long ago, Sire, but for the bright eyes of a lady of the League. And now she comes to tell me--my page tells me--he is in the Bastille."

"Ventre-saint-gris! And how has that calamity befallen?"

She hesitated a moment, embarra.s.sed by her very wealth of matter, confused between her longing to set the whole case before the king, and her fear of wearying his patience. But his glance told her she need have no misgiving. Had she come to present him Paris, he could not have been more interested.

In the little silence Monsieur found his moment and his words.

"Sire, may I interrupt mademoiselle? Last night, for the first time in a month, I saw my son. He was just returned from an adventure under her window. Mayenne's guard had set on him, and he was escaped by the skin of his teeth. He declared to me that never till he was slain should he cease endeavour to win Mlle. de Montluc. And I? Marry, I ate my words in humblest fas.h.i.+on. After three years I made my surrender. Since you are his one desire, mademoiselle, then are you my one desire. I bade him G.o.d-speed."

She gave her hand to Monsieur, sudden tears welling over her lashes.

"Monsieur, I thought to-night I had no friends. And I have so many!"

"Mademoiselle," the king cried in the same breath, "fear not. I will get you your lover if I sell France for him."

She brushed the tears away and smiled on him.

"I have no fear, Sire. With you and M. de St. Quentin to save him, I can have no fear. But he is in desperate case. Has M. de St. Quentin told you of his secretary Lucas, my cousin Paul de Lorraine?"

"Aye," said the king, "it is a dolourous topic--very painful! Eh, Rosny?"

"I do not shrink from my pains, Sire," M. de Rosny answered quietly. "I hold myself much to blame in this matter. I thought I knew the Lucases root and branch--I did not discover that a daughter of the house had ever been a friend to Henri de Guise."

"And how should you discover it?" the king demanded. He had made the attack; now, since Rosny would not resent it, he rushed himself to the defence. "How were you to dream it? Henri de Guise's side was the last place to look for a girl of the Religion. But I forgive him. If he stole a Rochelaise, we have avenged it deep: we have stolen the flower of Lorraine."

"Paul Lucas--Paul de Lorraine," she went on eagerly, "was put into M. le Duc's house to kill him. He went all the more willingly that he believed M. de Mar to be my favoured suitor. He tried to draw M. de Mar into the scheme, to ruin him. He failed. And the whole plot came to naught."

"I have learned that," the king said. "I have been told how a country boy stripped his mask off."

He glanced around suddenly at me where I stood red and abashed. He was so quick that he grasped everything at half a word. Instantly he had turned to the lady again. "Pray continue, dear mademoiselle."

"Afterward--that is, yesterday--Paul went to M. de Belin and swore against M. de Mar that he had murdered a lackey in his house in the Rue Coupejarrets. The lackey was murdered there, but Paul de Lorraine did it. The man knew the plot; Paul killed him to stop his tongue. I heard him confess it to M. de Mayenne. I and this Felix Broux were in the oratory and heard it."

"Then M. de Mar was arrested?"

"Not then. The officers missed him. To-day he came to our house, dressed as an Italian jeweller, with a case of trinkets to sell. Madame admitted him; no one knew him but me and my chamber-*mate. On the way out, Mayenne met him and kept him while he chose a jewel. Paul de Lorraine was there too. I was like to die of fear. I went in to M. de Mayenne; I begged him to come out with me to supper, to dismiss the tradespeople that I might talk with him there--anything. But it availed not. M. de Mayenne spoke freely before them, as one does before common folk. Presently he led me to supper. Paul was left alone with M. de Mar and the boy. He recognized them. He was armed, and they were not, but they overbore him and locked him up in the closet."

"Mordieu, mademoiselle! I was to rescue M. de Mar for your sake, but now I will do it for his own. I find him much to my liking. He came away clear, mademoiselle?"

"Aye, to be seized in the street by the governor's men. When M. de Mayenne found how he had been tricked, Sire, he blazed with rage."

"I'll warrant he did!" the king answered, suppressing, however, in deference to her distress, his desire to laugh. "Ventre-saint-gris, mademoiselle! forgive me if this amuses me here at St. Denis. I trow it was not amusing in the Hotel de Lorraine."

"He sent for me, Sire," she went on, blanching at the memory; "he accused me of s.h.i.+elding M. de Mar. It was true. He called me liar, traitor, wanton. He said I was false to my house, to my bread, to my honour. He said I had smiling lips and a Judas-heart--that I had kissed him and betrayed him. I had given him my promise never to hold intercourse with M. de Mar again, I had given my word to be true to my house. M. de Mar came by no will of mine. I had no inkling of such purpose till I beheld him before madame and her ladies. He came to entreat me to fly--to wed him. I denied him, Sire. I sent him away. But was I to say to the guard, 'This way, gentlemen. This is my lover'?"

"Mademoiselle," the king exclaimed, "good hap that you have turned your back on the house of Lorraine. Here, if we are but rough soldiers, we know how to tender you."

"It was not for myself I came," she said more quietly. "My lord had the right to chasten me. I am his ward, and I did deceive him. But while he foamed at me came word of M. de Mar's capture. Then Mayenne swore he should pay for this dear. He said he should be found guilty of the murder. He said plenty of witnesses would swear to it. He said M. de Mar should be tortured to make him confess."

With an oath Monsieur sprang forward.

"Aye," she cried, starting up, "he swore M. de Mar should suffer the preparatory and the previous, the estrapade and the brodekins!"

"He dare not," the king shouted. "Mordieu, he dare not!"

"Sire," she cried, "you can promise him that for every blow he strikes etienne de Mar you will strike me two. Mar is in his hands, but I am in yours. For M. de Mar, unhurt, you will deliver him me, unhurt. If he torture Mar, you will torture me."

"Mademoiselle," the king cried, "rather shall he torture every chevalier in France than I touch a hair of your head!"

"Sire--" the word died away in a sigh; like a snapt rose she fell at his feet.

The king was quick, but Monsieur quicker. On his knees beside her, raising her head on his arm, he commanded me:

"Up-stairs, Felix! The door at the back--bid Dame Verney come instantly."

I flew, and was back to find him risen, holding mademoiselle in his arms. Her hair lay loose over his shoulder like a rippling flag; her lashes clung to her cheeks as they would never lift more.

"St. Quentin," his Majesty was saying, "I would have married her to a prince. But since she wants your son she shall have him, ventre-saint-gris, if I storm Paris to-morrow!" And as Monsieur was carrying her from the room, the king bent over and kissed her.

"Mademoiselle has dropped a packet from her dress," M. de Rosny said.

"Will you take it, St. Quentin?"

The king, who was nearest, turned to pa.s.s it to him; at the sight of it he uttered his dear "ventre-saint-gris!" It was a flat, oblong packet, tied about with common twine, the seal cut out. The king twitched the string off, and with one rapid glance at the papers put them into Monsieur's hand.

"Take them, St. Quentin; they are yours."

XXIX

_The two dukes._

Mademoiselle being given into Dame Verney's motherly hands, Gilles and I were ordered to repose ourselves on the skins in the saddler's shop.

Lying there in the malodourous gloom, I could see the crack of light under the door at the back and hear, between Gilles's snores, the murmur of voices. The king and his gentlemen were planning to save my master; I went to sleep in perfect peace.

At daybreak, even before the saddler opened the shop, Monsieur routed us out.

"I'm off for Paris, lads. Felix comes with me. Gilles stays to guard mademoiselle."

I felt not a little injured, deeming that I, whom mademoiselle knew best, should not be the one chosen to stay by her. But the sting pa.s.sed quickly. After all, Paris was likely to be more exciting than St. Denis.

The day being Friday, we delayed not to eat, but straightway mounted the two nags that a sunburnt Bearn pikeman had brought to the door. As we walked them gently across the square, which at this rath hour we alone shared with the twittering birds, we saw coming down one of the empty streets the hurrying figure of M. de Rosny. My lord drew rein at once.

"You are no slugabed, St. Quentin," the young councillor called. "I deserved to miss you. Fear not! I come not to hinder you, but to wish you G.o.d-speed."