The Justice of the King

  CHAPTER XIII

  "FRIEND IS MORE THAN FAMILY"

  With his overnight's irritation still unallayed, and more than everconvinced that the prejudice which could so misread Mademoiselle deVesc must also wrong Francois Villon, La Mothe was early at the ChienNoir. Of the Amboise household he had seen nothing, which means thathe had looked in vain for Ursula of the Cupid's bow, and his temper wasnot thereby improved. But he had the day before him, and he promisedhimself some recompense for his disappointment before it was many hoursold. Meanwhile, he would show Villon that all who came from Valmy werenot sharers in Commines' harsh judgment. He found the poetcontemplative over the remains of his breakfast, but in a mood ascaptious as his own.

  "Have you found already that the inn has a warmer welcome than theChateau? I tell you this, my young friend, it will cost you less tolive here than there, though in either case it is the King who pays."

  "To every man his wages," answered La Mothe, but Villon shook his head.His knowledge of the paying of wages, or at least of the earning ofthem, gave the chance phrase a sinister meaning.

  "As to that, we all look for more than our dues in this world and lessin that to come. God's mercy keep us from justice! If our wages werepaid in full where would we be? What is little Charles doing?"

  "Sleeping, I suppose."

  "And Mademoiselle de Vesc?"

  "How should I know!" answered La Mothe crossly. It vexed him thatVillon should speak at all of Ursula de Vesc, and still more that hisanswer was so lame. But recognizing the symptoms out of a wideexperience, Villon only laughed softly at the brusque retort.

  "Some peaches hang themselves high," he said, the laugh broadening asLa Mothe's face grew wrathful, "but they are peaches all the same.Shake the tree, my young friend, shake the tree, and see that you keepyour mouth open when the fruit drops."

  "Monsieur Villon, if we are to be friends----"

  "So young, so very young," said Villon softly. "Friends? mostcertainly. If we are not friends, who should be? Are we not bothjackals hunting in the one pack, and jackal does not bite jackal."Then his mood changed with a swiftness which La Mothe soon found to becharacteristic, a kindliness cast out the jarring banter from his face,and his luminous eyes grew wistful. "Friends? It is a good word, thevery best word in the world. Friends are more than family or kinship,and not many care to call old Francois Villon friend nowadays. Therewas a time----" He paused, running his hand down the long trail of hisbeard reflectively, a slender-fingered supple hand. La Mothe noted itwas, a hand that had a distinct character of its own, just as thecontradictory face had, though the finger-tips were less sensitive thanin the days when their itching acquisitiveness had brought their ownerto the cold shadows of the gallows. "Aye! there was a time. Therewere four of us----"

  "The ballad says six," said La Mothe.

  "Four, four: a man--yet, more, a woman--may have many lovers but fewfriends, many to tuck an arm in his or throw it across his neck whenthe pockets are full. But that's not friendship, and I don't callevery man friend who dips his fingers into the same till with me. Yes,there were four of us, Montigny, Tabary, Cayeux, poor snows of yesteryear sucked down by the cold earth. But while the blood was warm inour veins we four were as one with one purse. When it was full welaughed and sang and feasted as no king feasts, because no king hassuch spice of appetite nor can snap his fingers at the world and careas we could: when it was empty, and it was mostly empty, we laughed andsang the louder and shared our crusts or went gaily hungry. Brave ladsevery one, and brave days. Aye, aye."

  "And where are they now?"

  "With the snows of yester year! God knows where! and I fear me thedevil knows too. Montigny was hung in '57, Tabary in '58, and Cayeux,Cayeux of the light heart and lighter fingers, went by the same pathtwo years later: I only am left. They said I killed a man and wouldhave hung me--me! Francois Villon! Certainly a man died or therewould be no Villon now: it was either he or I, and they would have hungme." The full lips parted in a comfortable laugh and the eyestwinkled. "I appealed to Parliament in a ballad, and the humour of thenotion moved the good gentlemen to mercy. 'How can we choke the breathfrom so sweet a singer?' said they. 'There are ten thousand hangablerogues in Paris, but only one poet amongst them!' God be praised forhumour. I think it gave Francois Villon his life; but since thenfriendship has walked the other side of the street."

  "And yet," La Mothe laid his hand on the elder man's shoulder, lettingit lie there in kindliness, "you who so gibe at your best self are theFrancois Villon of the ballad to Mary the Mother. How is that?"

  "Can I tell you?

  'Je cognois tout fors que moy mesme.'

  Man is Eden in little: there is the slime of the serpent under the treeof knowledge, but the Lord God walks through the garden in the cool ofthe day. What are we but contradictions, shadows of Montfaucon shotthrough by glories from Notre Dame. Perhaps some day a clearerknowledge than ours will straighten out the tangles," and with a laugh,which had little joyousness in it, Villon plunged afresh into memorieswhich seemed to strike the whole gamut of a soul's experience from A toG.

  La Mothe allowed him to run on without interruption. The alternationsof mood, tender and callous by turns, but never remorseful, neverregretful, except with the regrets for a lost delight, both amused andrepelled him, but at last as Villon sat silent he turned to the windowand flung open the wooden sun-blinds.

  "At last they are awake in the Chateau," he said. "Horses? hawks? Arethey going hunting, do you suppose?"

  "Saxe will know. Hulloa! Saxe! Saxe! What is little Charles doingto-day?"

  "I was coming for you both," answered Saxe from the open door. "Theyare riding to Chateau-Renaud, and your worships are so beloved by boththe Dauphin and mademoiselle that you must needs go with them.Monsieur de Commines and Monsieur La Follette have gone hawking for theday."

  "Do not go," said Villon. "They know you at Chateau-Renaud, and howcould you explain if they recognized you?"

  "But we may not go near the inn," answered La Mothe, to whom the ridemeant neither more nor less than a morning with Ursula de Vesc,therefore a delight not to be denied. "But what of horses?"

  "They are being saddled this very moment," replied Jean Saxe, and thenwent on to paint out La Mothe's roseate dreams with the dull brush ofrealities. "Always," and he lowered his voice as he spoke, "whether byday or by night, you will find a horse waiting ready for your ride toValmy. It is in the stall facing the door, monsieur. By day thestable is open and not a soul will ask questions; saddle and bridle foryourself, then ride like the devil. By night send a stone through thelast window on the left and I will be with you in three seconds. Don'tspare your spurs, that's my advice."

  "God send the man who rides to Valmy nothing redder than a red spur."Villon had joined La Mothe at the window, and was peering out at thestir of men and horses in the open space between the inn and the castlegates.

  "Saxe, what man of yours is that who is bitting Grey Roland? I don'tknow his face."

  "A stop-gap," answered Saxe indifferently. "A gipsy fellow I think heis by his colour. Old Michel is drunk in the barn--how I don't know,but the Chien Noir is none the better for it--this other is in hisplace for the day. I don't know his name, but he can tell a horse froma mule by more than the ears, and that's name enough for me."

  "Who owns that huge, raw-boned roan?" asked La Mothe. "Surely I haveseen it somewhere."

  "It's as much a stranger to me as Michel's stop-gap," answered Saxe."It's not one of the regular Chateau horses, that's certain. The beasthas power in his legs, rough though he is. Why do you ask, monsieur?"

  But La Mothe had already lost his interest. "There is the Dauphin," hesaid. "Come, let us go."

  But his gaze was fixed on the slender figure which followed the boy,and the eyes of a much greyer age than a lover of twenty-four with theheart of eighteen might well have lit into a sparkle at the charm ofthe picture. He was not learned in women's st
uffs, or the hundredlittle arts through which an accent, as it were, is put upon a charmalready sufficiently gracious, or a beauty brought into yet clearerrelief for the luring and undoing of the unsuspecting male, and socould not have told whether Ursula de Vesc was clad in sober grey orsunny lightness. She was Ursula de Vesc, and that was enough, Ursulade Vesc, the woman of a single hour of life, and yet the one sweetwoman in the world.

  "A lover's arms ought to be her riding-chair," said Villon, followingLa Mothe's gaze. "No, there is no offence meant," he added, asStephen's face reddened with the beginnings of umbrage. "She may be aspitfire and not love Francois Villon, but she is a good girl, and myfour eyes are not blind."

  "Your four eyes?" questioned La Mothe; "most of us have but two."

  "Two in my head and two in my sense, and it is by the two in his sensea man should marry. The two in the head are the greatest liars anddeceivers in creation."

  The Dauphin had already mounted when La Mothe and Villon crossed theroadway with their horses following, led by drunken Michel'ssubstitute, and his greeting to both was of the curtest. The apologueof the night before was neither forgotten nor forgiven. But withUrsula de Vesc's grey eyes smiling at him La Mothe cared little for theboy's dour looks. Hugues, who had mounted his master, still waited bythe horse's head, a spirited, high-bred bay, sleek and well groomed,which stood shifting its feet with impatience at the delay. The bridleof the less fiery but no less well-cared-for jennet intended for thegirl was held by a stable-helper, while in a group behind the escortmade ready to mount. Neither Commines nor La Follette was present;they had gone hawking, as Saxe had said, nor was Hugues booted forriding.

  "Good morning, Monsieur La Mothe." Ursula de Vesc spoke gaily,frankly, as if she had not a care in the world, and the greeting in thesoft clear voice stirred La Mothe's heart as the smile in the grey eyeshad stirred it. "We missed you at breakfast: what early risers youpoets are."

  "Mademoiselle," stammered La Mothe, "my day has but now begun."

  "Then you must walk in your sleep," she interrupted laughingly."Monseigneur, do you hear? Monsieur La Mothe walks in his sleep. Sodo not be frightened if you hear him in the corridor o' nights. He hasbeen up these three hours and says the day has only now begun."

  "I hear," replied Charles, turning on La Mothe those dull, watchfuleyes which, according to Villon, saw so much more than men supposed."And Hugues hears too. While Hugues sleeps at my door I shan't befrightened. Come, Ursula, mount and let us go. Bertrand is so restiveI can scarcely hold him."

  At that moment La Mothe felt the bridle of Grey Roland pushed into hishand with a "Hold that a moment, monsieur," and Jean Saxe's stop-gapcrossed to the Dauphin's side.

  "Your pardon, Monseigneur," he said, stooping, "there is a buckleloose, if your Highness would lift your leg a moment while I fasten it."

  "A buckle? Where?"

  "Below the saddle-flap, Monseigneur: a shift of the leg--thank you,Monseigneur, that is right," and he drew back toward the Chien Noir,nor paused until he was lost in the crowd of idlers. For a gipsy hewas singularly unobtrusive.