The Helmet of Navarre Part 76

"You mistake, St. Quentin. You are welcome to spend the rest of your days with me."

"In the Bastille?"

"Or in the League."

"The former is preferable."

"You may count yourself thrice fortunate, then, that a third alternative is given you."

"It needs not the reminder. You have treated me as a prince indeed. Be a.s.sured the St. Quentins will not forget."

"Every one forgets."

"Perhaps. But when you need our good offices we shall not have had time to forget."

"Pardieu, St. Quentin, you have good courage to tell me to my head my course is run!"

"My dear Mayenne, none punishes the maunderings of the court jester."

Monsieur laughed out with a gay gusto; after a moment Mayenne laughed too. My duke cried quickly, rising and walking the length of the table to his host:

"You have dealt with me munificently, Mayenne. You have kept back but one thing I want. That is yourself. You know you must come over to us sooner or later. Come now!"

The other did not flame out at Monsieur, but answered coldly:

"I have no taste to be Navarre's va.s.sal."

"Better his than Spain's."

Mayenne shrugged his shoulders, his face at its stolidest.

"Well, I am no astrologer to read the future."

Monsieur laid an emphatic hand on his host's shoulder.

"But I read it, my friend. I see a French land under a French king, a Catholic and a gallant fellow, faithful to old friends, friendly to old foes. I see the dear land at peace at last, the looms humming, the mills clacking, wheat growing thick on the battle-fields."

Mayenne looked up with a grim smile.

"I have still a field or two to water for that wheat. My compliments to your new master, St. Quentin; you may tell him from me that when I submit, I submit. When I have made my surrender, from that hour forth am I his hound to lick his hand, to guard and obey him. Till then, let him beware of my teeth! While I have one pikeman to my back, one sou in my pouch, I fight my cause."

"And when you have none, you yet have three pairs of hands at Henry's court to pull you up out of the mire."

"I thank their graciousness, though I shall never need their offices,"

Mayenne said grandly. He stood there stately and proud and confident, the picture of princeliness and strength. Last night at St. Denis it had seemed to me that no power could defy my king. Now it seemed to me that no king could nick the power of my Lord Mayenne. When suddenly, precisely like a mummer who in his great moment winks at you to let you know it is make-believe, the general-duke's dignity melted into a smile.

"After all," he said, "it's as well to lay an anchor to windward."

x.x.x

_My young lord settles scores with two foes at once._

Occupied in wrangling with the grooms over the merits of our several stables, with the soldiers over politics and the armies, I awaited in a shady corner of the court the conclusion of formalities. I had just declared that King Henry would be in Paris within a week, and was on the point of getting my crown cracked for it, when, as if for the very purpose--save the mark!--of rescuing me, entered from the street Lucas.

He approached rapidly, eyes straight in front of him, heeding us no whit; but all the loungers turned to stare at him. Even then he paid no heed, pa.s.sing us without a glance. But the tall d'Auvray bespoke him.

"M. de Lorraine! Any news?"

He started and turned to us in half-absent surprise, as if he had not known of our presence nor, indeed, quite realized it now. He was both pale and rumpled, like one who has not closed an eye all night.

"Any news here?" he made Norman answer.

"No, monsieur, unless his Grace has information. We have heard nothing."

"And the woman?"

"Sticks to it mademoiselle told her never a word."

Lucas stood still, his eyes travelling dully over the group of us, as if he expected somewhere to find help. At the same time he was not in the least thinking of us. He looked straight at me for a full minute before he awoke to my ident.i.ty.

"You!"

"Yes, M. de Lorraine," I said, with all the respectfulness I could muster, which may not have been much. Considering our parting, I was ready for any violence. But after the first moment of startlement he regarded me in a singularly lack-l.u.s.tre way, while he inquired without apparent resentment how I came there.

"With M. le Duc de St. Quentin," I grinned at him. "We and M. de Mayenne are friends now."

I could not rouse him even to curiosity, it seemed. But he turned abruptly to the men with more life than he had yet shown.

"You've not told this fellow?"

"We understand our orders, monsieur," d'Auvray answered, a bit huffed.

Now this was eminently the place for me to hold my tongue, but of course I could not.

"They had no need to tell me, M. de Lorraine. I know quite well what the trouble is. I know rather more about it than you do yourself."

He confronted me now with all the fire I could ask.

"What mean you, whelp?"

"I mean mademoiselle. What else should I mean?"

"What do you know?"

"Everything."