The Helmet of Navarre

  XVI

  _Mayenne's ward._

  Lucas sprang up.

  "You have him? Where?"

  "Yes, I have him," Mayenne answered with his tantalizing slowness.

  "Alive?"

  "I suppose so. He had his flogging but I told them I was not done withhim. I thought we might have a use for him. He is in the oratory there."

  "Diable! Listening?" cried Lucas, as if a quick doubt of Mayenne's goodfaith to him struck his mind.

  "Certainly not," Mayenne answered. "The door is bolted; he might be inthe street for all he can hear. The wall was built for that."

  "What will you do with him, monsieur?"

  "We'll have him out," said Mayenne. Lucas, needing no second bidding,hastened down the room.

  All this while mademoiselle, on the floor at my feet, had neitherstirred nor whispered, as rigid as the statued Virgin herself. But nowshe rose and for one moment laid her hand on my shoulder with anencouraging pat; the next she flung the door wide just as Lucas reachedthe threshold.

  He recoiled as from a ghost.

  "Lorance!" he gasped, "Lorance!"

  "Nom de dieu!" came Mayenne's shout from the back of the room. "What!Lorance!"

  He caught up the candelabrum and strode over to us.

  Mademoiselle stepped out into the council-room, I hanging back on theother side of the sill. She was as white as linen, but she lifted herhead proudly. She had not the courage that knows no fear, but she hadthe courage that rises to the need. Crouching on the oratory floor shehad been in a panic lest they find her. But in the moment of discoveryshe faced them unflinching.

  "You spying here, Lorance!" Mayenne stormed at her.

  "I did not come here to spy, monsieur," she answered. "I was here first,as you see. Your presence was as unlooked for by me as mine by you."

  His next accusation brought the blood in scarlet flags to her palecheeks; she made him no answer but burned him with her indignant eyes.

  "Mordieu, monsieur!" Lucas cried. "This is Mlle. de Montluc."

  "Then why did you come?" demanded Mayenne.

  "Because I had done harm to the lad and was sorry," she said. "Youdefend me now, Paul, but you did not hesitate to make a tool of me inyour cowardly schemes."

  "It was kindly meant, mademoiselle," Lucas retorted. "Since I shall killM. le Comte de Mar in any case, I thought it would pleasure you to havea word with him first."

  I think it did not need the look she gave him to make him regret thespeech. This Lucas was an extraordinary compound of shrewdness andrecklessness, one separating from the other like oil and vinegar in asloven's salad. He could plan and toil and wait, to an end, with skilland fortitude and patience; but he could not govern his own gustytempers.

  "You have been crying, Lorance," Mayenne said in a softer tone.

  "For my sins, monsieur," she answered quickly. "I am grieved mostbitterly to have been the means of bringing this lad into danger. SincePaul cozened me into doing what I did not understand, and since this isnot the man you wanted but only his servant, will you not let him gofree?"

  "Why, my pretty Lorance, I did not mean to harm him," Mayenne protested,smiling. "I had him flogged for his insolence to you; I thought youwould thank me for it."

  "I am never glad over a flogging, monsieur."

  "Then why not speak? A word from you and it had stopped."

  She flushed red for very shame.

  "I was afraid--I knew you vexed with me," she faltered. "Oh, I have doneill!" She turned to me, silently imploring forgiveness. There was noneed to ask.

  "Then you will let him go, monsieur? Alack that I did not speak before!Thank you, my cousin!"

  "Of what did you suspect me? The boy was whipped for a bit ofimpertinence to you; I had no cause against him."

  My heart leaped up; at the same time I scorned myself for a craven thatI had been overcome by groundless terror.

  "Then I have been a goose so to disturb myself," mademoiselle laughedout in relief. "You do well to rebuke me, cousin. I shall never meddlein your affairs again."

  "That will be wise of you," Mayenne returned. "For I did mean to let theboy go. But since you have opened his door and let him hear what heshould not, I have no choice but to silence him."

  "Monsieur!" she gasped, cowering as from a blow.

  "Aye," he said quietly. "I would have let him go. But you have made itimpossible."

  Never have I seen so piteous a sight as her face of misery. Had my handsbeen free, Mayenne had been startled to find a knife in his heart.

  "Never mind, mademoiselle," I cried to her. "You came and wept over me,and that is worth dying for."

  "Monsieur," she cried, recovering herself after the first instant ofconsternation, "you are degrading the greatest noble in the land! You,the head of the house of Lorraine, the chief of the League, thecommander of the allied armies, debase yourself in stooping to takevengeance on a stable-boy."

  "It is no question of vengeance; it is a question of safety," heanswered impatiently. Yet I marvelled that he answered at all, sinceabsolute power is not obliged to give an account of itself.

  "Is your estate then so tottering that a stable-boy can overturn it? Inthat case be advised. Go hang yourself, monsieur, while there is yettime."

  He flushed with anger, and this time he offered no justification. Headvanced on the girl with outstretched hand.

  "Mademoiselle, it is not my habit to take advice from the damsels of myhousehold. Nor do I admit them to my council-room. Permit me then toconduct you to the staircase."

  She retreated toward the threshold where I stood, still covering me aswith a shield.

  "Monsieur, you are very cruel to me."

  "Your hand, mademoiselle."

  She did not yield it to him but held out both hands, clasped in appeal.

  "Monsieur, you have always been my loving kinsman. I have always triedto do your pleasure. I thought you meant harm to the boy because he wasa servant to M. de Mar, and I knew that M. de St. Quentin, at least, hadgone over to the other side. I did not know what you would do with him,and I could not rest in my bed because it was through me he came here.Monsieur, if I was foolish and frightened and indiscreet, do not punishthe lad for my wrong-doing."

  Mayenne was still holding out his hand for her.

  "I wish you sweet dreams, my cousin Lorance."

  "Monsieur," she cried, shrinking back till she stood against thedoor-jamb, "will you not let the boy go?"

  "How will you look to-morrow," he said with his unchanged smile, "ifyou lose all your sleep to-night, my pretty Lorance?"

  "A reproach to you," she answered quickly. "You will mark my whitecheeks and my red eyes, and you will say, 'Now, there is my littlecousin Lorance, my good ally Montluc's daughter, and I have made her cryher eyes blind over my cruelty. Her father, dying, gave her to me toguard and cherish, and I have made her miserable. I am sorry. I wish Ihad not done it.'"

  "Mademoiselle," the duke repeated, "will you get to your bed?"

  She did not stir, but, fixing him with her brilliant eyes, went on as ifthinking aloud.

  "I remember when I was a tiny maid of five or six, and you and yourbrother Guise (whom God rest!) would come to our house. You would ask myfather to send for me as you sat over your wine, and I would run in tokiss you and be fed comfits from your pockets. I thought you thehandsomest and gallantest gentleman in France, as indeed you were."

  "You were the prettiest little creature ever was," Mayenne saidabruptly.

  "And my little heart was bursting with love and admiration of you," shereturned. "When I first could lisp, I learned to pray for my cousinHenri and my cousin Charles. I have never forgotten them one night inall these years. 'God receive and bless the soul of Henri de Guise; Godguard and prosper Charles de Mayenne.' But you make it hard for me toask it for my cousin Charles."

  "This is a great coil over a horse-boy," Mayenne said curtly.

  "Life is as dear to a horse-boy as to M. le Duc de Mayenne."

&n
bsp; "I tell you I did not mean to kill the boy," Mayenne said. "With thedoor shut he could hear nothing. I meant to question him and let him go.But you have seen fit to meddle in what is no maid's business,mademoiselle. You have unlocked the door and let him listen to myconcerns. Dead men, mademoiselle, tell no tales."

  "M. de Mayenne," she said, "I cannot see that you need trouble for thetales of boys--you, the lord of half France. But if you must needs fearhis tongue, why, even then you should set him free. He is but aserving-boy sent here with a message. It is wanton murder to take hislife; it is like killing a child."

  "He is not so harmless as you would lead one to suppose, mademoiselle,"the duke retorted. "Since you have been eavesdropping, you have heardhow he upset your cousin Paul's arrangements."

  "For that you should be thankful to him, monsieur. He has saved you thestain of a cowardly crime."

  "Mordieu!" Mayenne exclaimed, "who foully murdered my brother?"

  "The Valois."

  "And his henchman, St. Quentin."

  "Not so," she cried. "He was here in Paris when it happened. He wasrevolted at the deed."

  "Did they teach you that at the convent?"

  "No, but it is true. M. de St. Quentin warned my cousin Henri not to goto Blois."

  "Pardieu, you think them angels, these St. Quentins."

  "I think them brave and honest gentlemen, as I think you, CousinCharles."

  "That sounds ill on the lips that have but now called me villain andmurderer," Mayenne returned.

  "I have not called you that, monsieur; I said you had been saved fromthe guilt of murder, and I knew one day you would be glad."

  He kept silence, eying her in a puzzled way. After a moment she went on:

  "Cousin Charles, it is our lot to live in such days of blood and turmoilthat we know not any other way to do but injure and kill. I think youare more harassed and troubled than any man in France. You have Henry ofNavarre and the Huguenots and half the provinces to fight in the field,and your own League to combat at home. You must make favour with each ofa dozen quarrelling factions, must strive and strive to placate andloyalize them all. The leaders work each for his own end, each againstthe others and against you; and the truth is not in one of them, andtheir pledges are ropes of straw. They intrigue and rebel and betraytill you know not which way to turn, and you curse the day that made youhead of the League."

  "I do curse the day Henri was killed," Mayenne said soberly. "And thatis true, Lorance. But I am head of the League, and I must do my all tolead it to success."

  "But not by the path of shame!" she cried quickly. "Success never yetlay that way. Henri de Valois slew our Henri, and see how God dealt withhim!"

  He looked at her fixedly; I think he heeded her words less than hershining, earnest eyes. And he said at last:

  "Well, you shall have your boy, Lorance."

  "Ah, monsieur!"

  With tears dimming the brightness of those sweet eyes she dropped on herknees before him, kissing his hand.

  Lucas, since his one unlucky outburst, had said never a word but stoodlooking on with a ruefulness of visage that it warmed the cockles of myheart to see.

  Certes, he was in no very pleasant corner, this dear M. Paul. Hismistress had heard his own lips describe his plot against the St.Quentins; there was no possibility of lying himself clear of it. Out ofhis own mouth he was convicted of spycraft, treachery, and cowardlymurder. And in the Hotel de Lorraine, as in the Hotel de St. Quentin,his betrayal had come about through me. I was unwitting agent in bothcases; but that did not make him love me the more. Could eyes slay, Ihad fallen of the glance he shot me over mademoiselle's bowed head; butwhen she rose he said to her:

  "Mademoiselle, the boy is as much my prisoner as M. le Duc's, since Igot him here. But I, too, freely give him up to you."

  She swept him a curtsey, silently, without looking at him. He made aneager pace nearer her.

  "Lorance," he cried in a low, rapid voice, "I see I am out of yourgraces. Now, by Our Lady, what's life worth to me if you will not takeme back again? I admit I have tried to ruin the Comte de Mar. Is thatany marvel, since he is my rival with you? Last March, when I was hidinghere and watched from my window the gay M. de Mar come airily in, dayafter day, to see and make love to you, was it any marvel that I sworeto bring his proud head to the dust?"

  Now she turned to him and met his gaze squarely.

  "The means you employed was the marvel," she said. "If you did notapprove of his visits, you had only to tell him so. He had been ready todefend to you his right to make them. But you never showed him yourface; of course, had you, you could not have become his father'shousemate and Judas. Oh, I blush to know that the same blood runs inyour veins and mine!"

  "You speak hard words, mademoiselle," Lucas returned, keeping his temperwith a stern effort. "You forget that we live in France in war-time, andnot in the kingdom of heaven. I was toiling for more than my ownrevenges. I was working at your cousin Mayenne's commands, to aid ourholy cause, for the preservation of the Catholic Church and the Catholickingdom of France."

  "Your conversion is sudden, then; only an hour ago you were working fornothing and no one but Paul de Lorraine."

  "Come, come, Lorance," Mayenne interposed, his caution setting him everon the side of compromise. "Paul is no worse than the rest of us. Hehates his enemies, and so do we all; he works against them to the bestof his power, and so do we all. They are Kingsmen, we are Leaguers; theyfight for their side, and we fight for ours. If we plot against them,they plot against us; we murder lest we be murdered. We cannot scrupleover our means. Nom de dieu, mademoiselle, what do you expect? Civil waris not a dancing-school."

  "Mademoiselle is right," Lucas said humbly, refusing any defence. "Wehave been using cowardly means, weapons unworthy of Christian gentlemen.And I, at least, cannot plead M. le Duc's excuse that I was blinded inmy zeal for the Cause. For I know and you know there is but one causewith me. I went to kill St. Quentin because I was promised you for it,as I would have gone to kill the Pope himself. This is my excuse; I didit to win you. There is no crime in God's calendar I would not commitfor that."

  He had possessed himself of her hand and was bending over her, burningher with his hot eyes. Mass of lies as the man was, in this lastsentence I knew he spoke the truth.

  She strove to free herself from him with none of the flattered pride inhis declaration which he had perhaps looked for. Instead, she eyed himwith positive fear, as if she saw no way of escape from his rampantdesire.

  "I wish rather you would practise a little virtue to win me," she said.

  "So I will if you ask it," he returned, unabashed. "Lorance, I love youso there is no depth to which I could not stoop to gain you; there isno height to which I cannot rise. There is no shame so bitter, no dangerso awful, that I would not face it for you. Nor is there any sacrifice Iwill not make to gain your good will. I hate M. de Mar above any livingman because you have smiled on him; but I will let him go for your sake.I swear to you before the figure of Our Blessed Lady there that I willdrop all enmity to Etienne de Mar. From this time forward I will neithermove against him nor cause others to move against him in any shape ormanner, so help me God!"

  He dropped her hand to kiss the cross of his sword. She retreated fromhim, her face very pale, her breast heaving.

  "You make it hard for me to know when you are speaking the truth," shesaid.

  "May the lightning strike me if I am lying!" Lucas cried. "May my tonguerot at the root if ever I lie to you, Lorance!"

  "Then I am very grateful and glad," she said gravely, and again curtsiedto him.

  "Yes, I give you my word for that, too, Lorance," Mayenne added. "I haveno quarrel with young Mar. His father has stirred up more trouble for methan any dozen of Huguenots; I have my score to settle with St. Quentin.But I have no quarrel with the son. I will not molest him."

  "Grand'merci, monsieur," she said, sweeping him another of her gracefulobeisances.

  "Understand me, mademoiselle
," Mayenne went on. "I pardon him, but notthat he may be anything to you. That time is past. The St. Quentins areNavarre's men now, and our enemies. For your sake I will let Mar alone;but if he come near you again, I will crush him as I would a buzzingfly."

  "That I understand, monsieur," she answered in a low tone. "While I liveunder your roof, I shall not be treacherous to you. I am a Ligueuse andhe is a Kingsman, and there can be nothing between us. There shall benothing, monsieur. I do not swear it, as Paul needs, because I havenever lied to you."

  She did not once look at Lucas, yet I think she saw him wince under herstab. The Duke of Mayenne was right; not even Mlle. de Montluc loved herenemies.

  "You are a good girl, Lorance," Mayenne said.

  "Will you let the boy go now, Cousin Charles?" she asked.

  "Yes, I will let your boy go," he made answer. "But if I do this foryou, I shall expect you henceforth to do my bidding."

  "You have called me a good girl, cousin."

  "Aye, so you are. And there is small need to look so Friday-faced aboutit. If I have denied you one lover, I will give you another just asgood."

  "Am I Friday-faced?" she said, summoning up a smile. "Then my looksbelie me. For since you free this poor boy whom I was like to haveruined I take a grateful and happy heart to bed."

  "Aye, and you must stay happy. Pardieu, what does it matter whether yourhusband have yellow hair or brown? My brother Henri was for gettinghimself into a monastery because he could not have his Margot. Yet inless than a year he is as merry as a fiddler with the DuchesseKatharine."

  "You have made me happy, to-night at least, monsieur," she answeredgently, if not merrily.

  "It is the most foolish act of my life," Mayenne answered. "But it isfor you, Lorance. If ill comes to me by it, yours is the credit."

  "You can swear him to silence, monsieur," she cried quickly.

  "What use? He would not keep silence."

  "He will if I ask it," she returned, flinging me a look of brightconfidence that made the blood dance in my veins. But Mayenne laughed.

  "When you have lived in the world as long as I have, you will not soflatter yourself, Lorance."

  Thus it happened that I was not bound to silence concerning what I hadseen and heard in the house of Lorraine.

  Mayenne took out his dagger.

  "What I do I do thoroughly. I said I'd set you free. Free you shall be."

  Mademoiselle sprang forward with pleading hand.

  "Let me cut the cords, Cousin Charles."

  He recoiled a bare second, the habit of a lifetime prompting him againstthe putting of a weapon in any one's hand. Then, ashamed of thesuspicion, which indeed was not of her, he yielded the knife and she cutmy bonds. She looked straight into my eyes, with a glance earnest,beseeching, loving; I could not begin to read all she meant by it. Thenext moment she was making her deep curtsey before the duke.

  "Monsieur, I shall never cease to love you for this. And now I thank youfor your long patience, and bid you good night."

  With a bare inclination of the head to Lucas, she turned to go. ButMayenne bade her pause.

  "Do I get but a curtsey for my courtesy? No warmer thanks, Lorance?"

  He held out his arms to her, and she let him kiss both her cheeks.

  "I will conduct you to the staircase, mademoiselle," he said, and takingher hand with stately politeness led her from the room. The light seemedto go from it with the gleam of her yellow gown.

  "Lorance!" Lucas cried to her, but she never turned her head. He stoodglowering, grinding his teeth together, his glib tongue finding for onceno way to better his sorry case. He was the picture of trickeryrewarded; I could not repress a grin at him. Marking which, he burst outat me, vehemently, yet in a low tone, for Mayenne had not closed thedoor:

  "You think I am bested, do you, you devil's brat? Let him laugh thatwins; I shall have her yet."

  "I will tell M. le Comte so," I answered with all the impudence I couldmuster.

  "By Heaven, you will tell him nothing," he cried. "You will never seedaylight again."

  "I have Mayenne's word," I began, but his retort was to draw dagger. Ideemed it time to stop parleying, and I did what the best of soldiersmust do sometimes: I ran. I bounded into the oratory, flinging the doorto after me. He was upon it before I could get it shut, and the heavyoak was swung this way and that between us, till it seemed as if we musttear it off the hinges. I contrived not to let him push it open wideenough to enter; meantime, as I was unarmed, I thought it no shame toshriek for succour. I heard an answering cry and hurrying footsteps.Then Lucas took his weight from the door so suddenly that mine banged itshut. The next minute it flew open again, mademoiselle, frightened andpanting, on the threshold.

  A tall soldier with a musket stood at her back; at one side Lucaslounged by the cabinet where the duke had set down the light. His righthand he held behind his back, while with his left he poked his daggerinto the candle-flame.

  Mayenne, red and puffing, hurried into the room.

  "What is the pother?" he demanded. "What devilment now, Paul?"

  "Mademoiselle's protege is nervous," Lucas answered with a fine sneer."When I drew out my knife to get the thief from the candle he screamedto wake the dead and took sanctuary in the oratory."

  I had given him the lie then and there, but as I emerged from thedarkness Mayenne commanded:

  "Take him out to the street, d'Auvray."

  The tall musketeer, saluting, motioned me to precede him. For a moment Ihesitated, burning to defend my valour before mademoiselle. Then,reflecting how much harm my hasty tongue had previously done me, andthat the path to freedom was now open before me, I said nothing. Nor hadI need. For as I turned she flashed over to Lucas and said straight inhis face:

  "When you marry me, Paul de Lorraine, you will marry a dead wife."