The Frenchman sprang up, steady enough upon his feet, but flushed, and somewhat wild-eyed. He had not drunk as much as Beauvallet. ‘A last toast!’ he cried, and slopped more wine into the empty cups. ‘To a speedy journey, say I!’
‘God save you!’ said Beauvallet. He drank deep, and sent the empty cup spinning over his shoulder to crash against the wall behind him. ‘One candle between the two of us.’ He picked it up, and the hot tallow dripped on to the floor. ‘Up with you, youngling.’ He stood at the foot of the rickety stairs, holding the candle unsteadily aloft. The dim light flickered over the steps; the Frenchman went up, with a hand against the wall.
Upstairs a lantern, burning low, was discovered. The French man took it, called a good-night, and went into his chamber. Sir Nicholas, yawning prodigiously, sought his own, and stumbled over the low truckle-bed on which Joshua lay peacefully asleep. ‘God's Death!’ swore Sir Nicholas.
Joshua was awakened by a drop of tallow alighting on his nose, and started up, rubbing the afflicted member.
Beauvallet set down the candle, laughing. ‘My poor Joshua!’
‘Master, you are in your cups,’ Joshua said severely.
‘None so deep,’ said Sir Nicholas cheerfully, and found the basin and ewer that stood upon a rude chest. There was a great splashing of water, and a spluttering. ‘Pouf !’ said Sir Nicholas, towelling his head. ‘Go to sleep, starveling. What are you at?’
Joshua was for rising. ‘You’ve need to come out of those clothes, sir,’ said he.
‘Oh, let be!’ said Beauvallet, and flung himself down as he was upon the bed.
The candle went out, but the moonlight shone in at the uncurtained window. It lit Beauvallet's face, but could not keep him awake. Soon a snore disturbed the stillness, and then another.
He was awakened out of a deep sleep by a hand shaking his shoulder, and a hissing whisper in his ear. He came groping out of the mists, felt the clutch upon his shoulder, and of instinct shot out a pair of hands to grasp the unknown's throat. ‘Ha, dog!’
Joshua choked, and tried to tear apart the gripping fingers. ‘’Tis I – Joshua!’ he gasped.
The grip slackened at once. Sir Nicholas sat up, and was shaken with laughter. ‘Ye were nigh sped that time, chewet! What a-plague ails you to come pawing me!’
‘Matter enough,’ Joshua said. ‘Ha’ done with your laughter, sir! Yon Frenchman's crept below stairs to steal the mare.’
‘What!’ Beauvallet swung his legs off the bed, and felt for his shoon. ‘Cock's passion, that whey-faced malt-warm! How learned you this?’
Joshua was groping for his breeches. ‘I waked to hear one go creeping down the stairs. A step creaked. Be sure I was alert upon the instant! I do not fall cup-shotten into a stupor.’
‘Peace, you elf-skin! What then?’
‘Then might I hear the door open stealthily below, and in a moment a cloaked fellow with a lantern crosses the yard to the barn. Ho, thinks I –’
‘Give me my sword,’ Beauvallet interrupted, and made for the door.
‘I shall be with you on the instant!’ Joshua hissed after him. ‘A plague on these points!’
Sir Nicholas went swiftly down the stairs, sword in hand, and crossed the taproom in two bounds to the door. Outside in the yard was bright moonlight, and to the right the barn cast a great black shadow. Through the door came the glimmer of a lantern, and the muffled sound of movement.
Beauvallet gave his head a little shake, as though to cast off the lingering fumes of the wine he had drunk, and went forward, cat-like, over the cobbles.
Inside the barn the Frenchman was hurriedly buckling saddle-girths. Beauvallet's mare was bridled already. A lantern stood upon the baked mud floor, and the Frenchman's cloak and hat were flung down beside it. His fingers trembled a little as he tugged at the straps; his back was turned towards the door.
There came a sound to make him jump well-nigh out of his skin, and spin round and face the door. Sir Nicholas stood there with a naked sword in his hand, laughing at him.
‘Oho, my young iniquity!’ said Sir Nicholas, and laughed again. ‘Now I think you are shent!’
For an instant the Frenchman stood at gaze, his face all twisted with fury. And Beauvallet set his sword point to the ground, and laughed at his discomfiture. Then, suddenly, the Frenchman sprang forward, tearing his sword from the scabbard, and in his leap contrived to kick over the lantern, and put out its frail light. Sir Nicholas stood in the shaft of moonlight in the open doorway, but all else in the barn was pitch dark.
Beauvallet's sword flashed out before him; he sprang lightly to one side, felt a blade thrust within a hair's breadth of his shoulder, and lunged swiftly forward. His point went home; there was a choked gurgle, the clatter of a sword falling to earth, and a dull thud.
Beauvallet swore beneath his breath, and stood listening, back against the wall, with a shortened sword. Only the uneasy snorting and pawing of the horses broke the silence. He moved forward cautiously, and stumbled against something that lay on the ground at his feet. ‘God's Body, have I killed the boy?’ he muttered, and bent over the still figure.
Across the yard Joshua came running at full tilt, and bounded into the barn, ‘’Swounds! What's here? Master? Sir Nicholas!’
‘A plague on your screechings! Help me with this carcass.’
‘What, dead?’ gasped Joshua, feeling in the darkness.
‘I know not.’ Sir Nicholas spoke curtly. ‘Take you his legs, and help me to bear him out. So!’
They carried their burden out into the moonlight, and laid it down on the cobbles. Beauvallet knelt, and stripped open the elegant doublet, feeling for the heart. A clean-edged wound was there, deep and true.
‘Peste, I thrust better than I knew,’ Beauvallet muttered. ‘The devil! But the young traitor sought to murder me. What's this?’
A silken packet was in his hand, attached to a riband about the dead man's neck.
‘Open,’ said Joshua, shivering. ‘Perchance you might learn his name.’
‘What should that benefit me, fool?’ But Sir Nicholas took the packet, and thrust it into his doublet. ‘This is to ruin all. We must bury him, Joshua, and that speedily. No noise, mind!’
‘Bury! With your sword?’ Joshua said. ‘The evil hour! Nay, wait! As I remember there are tools within the barn.’
An hour later, the grim work done, Sir Nicholas, thoroughly sobered now, came softly back to the inn. He was frowning a little. This was an ill-happening, and had gone otherwise than he had planned. Yet who would have thought the young fool would play the traitor so? He mounted silently to his chamber again, and sat down on the bed, while Joshua relit the lantern.
It was set upon the chest. Beauvallet slowly wiped his sword, and returned it to its scabbard. He drew forth the packet from his breast, and slit open the silk with his dagger. Crackling sheets of paper were inside. Beauvallet bent towards the lamp. His eyes ran over the first sheet frowningly, and came to rest on the signature. A short exclamation broke from him, and he pulled the lantern nearer yet. He held a letter from the Guise to King Philip in his hand, but the bulk of it was writ in cypher.
Joshua, inquisitively hovering at hand, ventured a question. ‘What is it, master? Doth the writing give his name, perchance?’
Beauvallet was looking now at a fair-inscribed pass. ‘It seems, my Joshua,’ he said, ‘that I have slain a scion of the house of Guise.’
‘God mend my soul!’ quoth Joshua. ‘Shall it serve, master? Shall we turn it to good account?’
‘Since these purport to be papers writ to his Catholic Majesty it seems we may turn it to very good account,’ Sir Nicholas said, poring over the first paper again. ‘Now, I have some knowledge of cyphers, as I believe…’ He looked up. ‘Get you to bed, rogue, get you to bed!’
An hour later Joshua, waking as he turned on his bed, saw Sir Nicholas seated still by the chest, with a soaked cloth bound about a head which Joshua judged had good cause to ache, and his bro
ws close-knit over the papers. Joshua closed his eyes again, and sank back into slumber.
He woke again to broad daylight. Sir Nicholas lay asleep in the big bed; there was no sign of the papers. Joshua dressed softly, and stole away downstairs. He found there a perplexed landlord who was loud in abuse of the young gentleman who had stolen away in the night without paying his shot. Joshua's casual interest in this was well acted. He asked the proper questions, exclaimed piously at such behaviour, and thought privately of the night's work.
In a little while the voice of Sir Nicholas was heard, calling for his man. Joshua skipped upstairs with a tray bearing his master's breakfast.
Sir Nicholas was wide awake, and as brisk as though he had not sat up through the night puzzling over a cypher. His eyes were bright and unclouded; only a damp cloth on the floor bore witness of the night's labours.
Joshua set down a tray, and shook out a clean shirt for Sir Nicholas. ‘Look you, master, there is a deal of pother below, on account of we-know-what. Where is the man gone? why is he gone? I do not presume to answer, me, but I consider it meet we should make all speed over the Frontier.’
‘Just as soon as I have broken my fast,’ said Beauvallet. ‘See that door well-shut. Now, rogue, give ear a minute.’ He drank some wine, and broke off a piece of rye bread. ‘I am become overnight the Chevalier Claude de Guise, do ye mark me?’
‘Well, master. I said we might turn all to good account.’
‘The best. I don’t fathom all these papers, and one is sealed fast. But enough to serve, I judge. Matters too high for you, but ye may know that we travel henceforth as a secret messenger from the Guise to King Philip. Hey, but I have meat for Walsingham in this!’ He stretched, and reached out a hand for his shirt. ‘A great venture, rogue – the greatest I have been on.’
‘Like to end in nasty wise,’ Joshua grumbled. ‘Secret messengers, forsooth! Ay, we shall be so secret there's none will hear of us again.’
‘An ill jest. This as mad a quest as I have ever known. Does your courage fail? Turn back then, you have still time.’
Joshua threw out his chest. ‘Ho, pretty speaking! I follow to the end. Moreover, it has been foretold that I shall die in my bed. What have I to fear?’
‘On then,’ said Sir Nicholas, and laughed. ‘On, and reck not!’
Nine
It was an easy matter to cross the Frontier, armed with the Chevalier de Guise's credentials. From as much of the despatch to Philip as he could read, or was not sealed, Beauvallet had learned that the youthful Frenchman was some sort of a cousin to the Duc de Guise, and it seemed probable from so particular a mention of him that he had not been employed on an errand into Spain before. Beauvallet did not doubt that he could brave out the imposture, but he knew that he carried his life in his hand. One evil chance, one Frenchman in Madrid to whom the Chevalier was known, and he might expect to find himself sped. The knowledge made him set his horse caracoling on the road, never so keenly enjoying life as when he stood in danger of losing it. He tossed his sword up in the air, and caught it deftly as it fell. The sunlight glinted all along the shimmering blade. Between eight crowns the name Andrea Ferrara was inscribed, and beneath it a pungent motto: My bite is sure. ‘A sword and my wits against all Spain!’ sang out Beauvallet, and whistled a catch between his teeth. Then he fell to thinking of her whom he went to seek, and the leagues passed uncounted.
There was time enough for meditation during these long days upon the road, for it took them close upon two weeks to come within sight of Madrid, a white town perched on a spur above a vast plateau, looking north over many windy leagues to the Guadarrama Mountains, and south to the grand chain that guarded Toledo.
The roads called forth curses from Joshua, struggling with the led sumpter. Years ago he had journeyed into Spain with Beauvallet, but he protested that he had forgotten long since how incomparably bad were the roads. He rode to the rear, and observed all with bright, calculating eyes. ‘Naught but sheep!’ he grunted. ‘Enough to ravage the land. God's Life, but this is a poor country! Ruin stares us in the face, master, from all sides. Here are no crops, no snug farmers. Naught but bare rocks, and dust. And sheep – I forget the sheep, which you would have thought hardly possible. Why, call you this a road? Ho, we Englishmen can still teach the Spaniards some few matters, it seems!’
‘Set a guard on that tongue of yours,’ Beauvallet said sharply. ‘Let me hear no talk of Englishmen. Ay, this is a waste country. Now, how might a runner go at speed, to the Frontier, let us say?’
‘He might not, master, on these roads, without foundering. It's a land of the Dark Ages, one would say. Bethink you of the fair manor my lord has built him in Alreston, and look on these grim fortresses!’ He spoke of a gloomy castle seen some miles back along the road, and shuddered. ‘Nay, I like not this land. It frowns, master! Mark what I say, it frowns!’
Over the Guadarrama Mountains they climbed, and dropped on to the great, parched plateau. They rode league upon weary league, and at last saw Madrid ahead, and came to it in the cold of the evening. Joshua shivered on his horse, and muttered against a climate so extreme. He was roasted by day, he swore, but when evening fell Arctic winds arose that were like to lay him low of a fever.
Beauvallet knew Madrid of old, but found it grown since his day. He made his way to the inn of the Rising Sun, lying some paces off the Puerta del Sol. It was not necessary to caution Joshua again. That wiry individual ceased complaining as they climbed the steep streets into the heart of the town, and might be trusted to carry all off with a bold front. Beauvallet had no fear of unwitting betrayal from him. French he spoke fluently, if roughly, and Spanish very fairly. He was not likely to slip into his own tongue through inability to find words in a foreign language.
Sir Nicholas bespoke a private room at the inn, and supped there that evening, waited on by Joshua. ‘Since it is very certain that the French Ambassador is not privy to this correspondence I carry, you will say, Joshua, that I am travelling for my pleasure. You know naught of secret documents.’
‘Master, what will you do with those papers?’ Joshua asked uneasily.
The corners of Sir Nicholas’ mouth lifted under the trim moustachio. ‘Why, present them to his Catholic Majesty! What else?’
‘’Sdeath, sir, will you go into the lion's den?’ quaked Joshua.
‘I know of only one lion, sirrah, and that one is not to be found in Spain!’ Beauvallet said. ‘I am bound on the morrow for the Alcazar. Lay me out a rich suit of the French cut.’ He brought out the stolen papers from his bosom, and laid them on the table. ‘And stitch me these safe in a length of silk.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘What, do you tremble still? Cross yourself, and say Jesu! It's in the part.’
Access to the Alcazar was not found to be so easy as access to any of Queen Elizabeth's palaces. There was a long delay, many questions, and the pseudo-Chevalier's credentials were taken from him while he was left to cool his heels in the great austere hall.
He sat down on a carved chair of cypress wood, and looked about him with interest. There was much sombre marble, much rich brocade, and hangings of Flanders tapestry depicting the martyrdoms of various saints. A statue in bronze stood at the foot of the wide stairway; there were Turkey carpets on the floor, strange sight to an English eye, so that footsteps fell muffled. Certain, there was no sound in the Alcazar. Lackeys stood graven on either side of the great door; sundry personages passed across the hall from time to time, but they spoke no word. There was a courtier, all in silk and velvet; a soberly clad individual whom Beauvallet took to be a secretary; a priest of the Dominican order with his cowl shading his face, and his hands hidden in the wide sleeves of his habit; an elderly man who looked curiously at Beauvallet; an officer of the guard, a hurrying woman who might be a maid of honour.
It was oppressive in the lofty hall; the very hush of the place might have preyed on nerves less hardy than Beauvallet's. Here, to an Englishman, was a place of grim foreboding, of lurking terror. I
t did not need the sight of that dark priest to conjure up hideous pictures to the mind.
But Sir Nicholas saw no hideous pictures, and his pulse beat as steadily as ever. A false step, and he would never again see England: with a kind of brazen dare-devilry he was confident there would be no false step. In Paris, a month ago, the Marquis de Belrémy had said aghast: ‘Mon Dieu, quel sang-froid! ’ Could he have set eyes on his kinsman now he would have been still more aghast, and might have repeated with even more conviction, that Nicholas would sit jesting in hell's mouth itself.
After a full half-hour's wait the lackey came back with a long-gowned, close-shaven secretary who looked keenly at Beauvallet. ‘You are the Chevalier de Guise?’ he asked in French.
Sir Nicholas was swinging his golden pomander. He did not think, from his knowledge of them, that the Guise would rise out of their seats for a mere scrivener. Gravely he bowed his head.
‘You have letters for his Majesty?’ pursued the secretary.
Again Beauvallet bowed, and knew that he was creating a good impression. Privately he thought: ‘Our sovereign keeps men of better blood than this about her, God wot!’ He was very quick to nose out the parvenu.
The secretary bowed in his turn, and held out his hand. ‘I will deliver them to his Majesty, señor.’
At that Beauvallet raised his black brows delicately. Maybe he thought it more in the part, maybe it was the audacity of the man, or a mere curiosity to see this far-famed Philip, but he said gently: ‘My orders, señor, are to deliver these letters into his Majesty's own hands.’
The secretary bowed again. ‘All goes very well,’ thought Beauvallet, watching him like a lynx, in spite of his careless demeanour.