CHAPTER VIII
THE BLACK DOG OF AMBOISE
Blessed four-and-twenty. From the first breath of life until the last,even though by reason of strength there be four-score years, is there amore perfect age? The restraints of the schoolboy are left behind, thetree of the knowledge of good and evil has scattered its fruit aboutthe feet, all sweet, all fresh in their newness, all a delight, even,alas, the worst of them: that of the tree of life seems just within thereach, and the burdens of the world are as yet on other men's backs.Even if the Porter's Knot, which all must bear sooner or later, isalready on the shoulder, the light heart of four-and-twenty isuntroubled. It believes, in its optimism, that it will tumble the loadof carks and cares into the first ditch, and live in freedom ever after!
To Stephen La Mothe's four-and-twenty with the spirit of eighteen theworld of that May day was God's good world, and what better could it bethan that! If a full-leaved cherry tree, its ripening clusters rosyred and waxen yellow against the dense greenery, flung shade across theroad he paused in his tramp, squared his shoulders, and drank a deepbreath of the cooler air; if the blazing sun sucked up a subtle, acridsmell from the hot dust stirred by his feet he snuffed it up greedilyand found it good to live. A hawk in the air, a thrush whistling froma hazel bush as only a thrush can whistle, the glorious yellow of abreak of whin, all were a delight.
"Heigh ho! Love is my life! Live I in loving, and love I to live!"
he sang, and broke into a whistle almost as blithe as the thrush itselfthat he might think more freely. Commines' gibe had come back to him,and for pastime he would make a verse of his love song, let Ursula deVesc's eyes be blue, grey, or black!
"Live I in loving, and love I to live,"
was a good line, a line Francois Villon himself could not havebettered, but how should the next line run?
"Heigho! Sweetest of strife!"
Strife! The word jarred the context, but where would he get a better?Wife? Rife? Worse! both worse! Sweetest of strife--of strife--strife,
"Winning the dearest that life can give!"
No! that was not good, not good at all: Villon would have turned therhyme better than that. But then Villon, wild rogue though he was, wasa poet. The dearest life can give--the dearest? What was the dearestlife could give? As the question, idly asked, fastened on his mind hiswhistle sobered into silence, and he plodded on through the dust,seeing neither the sunshine nor the shade.
France came first, the King had said, and then had made it clear thathe was France. Was the King's service the dearest thing life couldgive? In times of peace, when the millstones and the hearts of menalike grind placidly, patriotism is a cold virtue, and even in the hotpassion of war it is often the magnetism of the individual man--thepersonal leader--who wakens the enthusiasm of desperate courage ratherthan the cause in whose name men die. Roland, La Mothe told himself,might have roused such an enthusiasm, or Coeur de Lion, or Joan of Arc,but never that fierce corpse of Valmy. And if the father was France,what was the son--the twelve-year boy so dreaded and so loved? Was henot France too? Did France plot against France? "All is not well atAmboise," said the King. If that was true in the sense the fathermeant it, what then? Was this dull ailing boy a double parricide tohis father's knowledge?
That, by the law of association of ideas, called up a new thought, anda rush of warmth, which drew none of its heat from the sunshine,flushed La Mothe. What if the boy, dull and neglected though he was,hid such a love for the father as the father hid from the boy, and whatif cunning Stephen La Mothe should find it out and make this tornFrance one in heart? And so, because however one follows the cluesthrough this maze of life they always lead to love at the end, La Mothebroke into his song again:
"Heigh ho! Love is my life, Live I in loving, and love I to live. Heigh ho! Sweetest of strife, Winning the dearest that life can give. Love, who denied me, Hast thou not tried me----
And now, plague take the verse, where is my rhyme for the end?"
But a turn of the road brought him to Limeray with the stream of theEisse flowing beyond. Another league and he would reachAmboise--Amboise, where the shuttles of fate, the man and the woman,Fear and Love as the King had called them, were waiting to weave intothe warp and woof of life a pattern which would never fade; Amboise,where an end was to come--he had forgotten to ask Commines what end--anend which in some obscure way was to serve Commines and serve France."If I lift a finger he hangs," said the King. That, no doubt, was thehuman slime of the gutter who had roused Commines' contempt, and yetwho was his passport to the castle. A pretty passport, and one notmuch to his credit, thought La Mothe, and fell to wondering if Ursulade Vesc of the uncertain eyes would class them as birds of afeather--Ursula who found Amboise dull and was to kiss the poet asMargaret had kissed Alain Chartier. But Chartier had been asleep atthe time, while La Mothe promised himself he would be very much awake,and then called himself slime of the gutter for the thought. This wasnot the chivalry and respect for all women he had learned in Poitou.Who was he that a woman, sweet and good he had no doubt, should kisshim because Amboise was dull, and if she did would she be sweet andgood? He pulled a wry face and shook himself angrily, the thought waslike a bad taste in the mouth.
At Grand-Vouvray he forded the Loire, with Amboise sloping up from theriver in full sight, the red roofs of its houses, huddled almostunderneath the Chateau for protection, glowing yet more ruddily in thesetting sun, and entered the town by the Tours gate as Commines hadbidden him. Reared high above the town it at once awed and protectedwas the grey castle, towered and turreted like a fortress, and fortressit was,--fortress, palace, and prison in one. Round town and castlealike lay the river, holding them in its embrace like a guardian arm,and beyond stretched the rich fertility of the Orleannais.
The Chien Noir was easily found. It seemed as well known in Amboise asNotre Dame in Paris, and from the warmth of his reception La Motheguessed shrewdly that his coming was expected. Innkeepers were notprone to lavish welcomes on wandering minstrels who carried all theirworld's gear on their back like any snail. For such light-hearted folkan open window at night was an easier method of payment than an openpurse.
"A room and supper? Both, monsieur, and of the best. For the firstwhat do you say to this?" and the landlord threw open a door with aflourish of pride. "Not in the Chateau itself will you find a better.Two windows, as you see: bright by day and cool by night, with all thelife of the town passing up and down the road to keep you company ifyou are dull, and the castle gates in full view so that none can go inor out and you not know it. And for supper--I am my own cook and youmay trust Jean Saxe. Give me twenty minutes, monsieur, twenty littleminutes, and you'll say blessed be the Black Dog of Amboise!"
"And who are in the castle?"
"Two or three units with a dozen of noughts to their tail to give themvalue; Monsieur de Commines----"
"Monsieur de Commines? Do you dare speak of Monsieur de Commines soinsolently?" burst out La Mothe, too indignant in his loyal devotion toCommines to remember that a wandering singer ate the bread ofsufferance and had no opinions. But the innkeeper took no offence,which again suggested that he had his own private opinion of theknapsack and the lute.
"Monsieur, I meant no harm," he protested humbly. "I am Monsieur deCommines' man--that is, the King's man--to the death."
"Well, let it pass. Who else are at the Chateau?"
"Mademoiselle de Vesc----"
"Does she come next in consequence? Why not the Dauphin?"
"Oh! The Dauphin!" and Jean Saxe blew out his lips in contempt. "Wewho live in Amboise do not think great things of little Charles. To mymind little Charles is one of the noughts. But wait till you go to theChateau and then you will understand for yourself."
"And why should I go to the Chateau?"
"Because they love music," and the fellow grinned knowingly as hecocked a cunning eye at the exposed lute, "because there is another wholoves musi
c and can open the doors and will say---- There! do you hearhim? La, lilla, la! La, la, lilla, la! He always sings over thethird bottle, and the King--God bless him--pays for all."
Opening the door to its widest Saxe stood aside listening, his head onone side, his hand beckoning familiarly to La Mothe, as up the darkwell of stairs there came the rise and fall of a man's voice in a briskchant. No words could be caught, but the air ran trippingly, and ifthe higher notes broke in a crack which told of age or misuse, or bothtogether, the lower ran clear and full, and the tune ran on with arollicking, careless awing which showed that, whoever might cavil, thesinger had at least one appreciative hearer--himself!
"A wonderful man, wonderful," whispered Saxe, his small eyes twinklingwith appreciation, but whether at the music or because the King paidfor all, La Mothe was uncertain. "A poet of poets, a drinker ofdrinkers, and a shrewd, bitter-tongued devil drunk or sober. Not thathe grows drunk easily, not he! and always he sings at his third bottle."
"What is his name?"
"Whatever he chooses, monsieur, and so long as the King pays what doesa name matter? He serves the King as I do and--with great respect--asyou do also. Did I ask your name when you said, 'A room and supper'?Not I!"
"I am called Stephen La Mothe."
"As you please, monsieur, and I don't doubt you will eat as good asupper by that name as by any other. Give me twenty minutes and youwill say the Black Dog of Amboise is no cur."
Nor was Jean Saxe's boast unjustified. La Mothe not only supped butate, and with such satisfaction that in the peace of a healthy hungercrowned with as healthy a digestion--unappreciated blessings offour-and-twenty--he forgot alike King and Dauphin, Valmy and the GreyGates of Amboise in the shadows across the road.
But neither was allowed to remain forgotten. As he sat over theremains of his supper, tapping out a verse of his love song with hisfinger-tips on the table, the door from the common room of the inn wasopened and a man entered whom La Mothe at once guessed to be one of histhree good friends in Amboise. In one hand he carried a lightedcandle, in the other a great horn cup.
"Thanks, Jean," he said patronizingly, nodding towards the room he hadleft as he spoke. "Close the door behind me, my good fellow: both myhands are full." Then raising the candle, he turned and scrutinized LaMothe with a curiosity as great as La Mothe's own and much more franklyevident.
And he was worth studying, as a rare specimen is studied in thedifficulty of classification. If there were many such men in France LaMothe had never yet met one of them. He was under middle height, thejaunty, alert youthfulness of his slim figure, supple without greatstrength, contradicted by the grey which shot with silver the thin hairfalling almost to his narrow shoulders, and, as La Mothe searched himin the wavering, guttered candle-light, it flashed upon him thatcontradiction was the note of all his characteristics. The weak chinwith the unkempt straggle of a beard gave the lie to a foreheadmagnificent in its abundant strength of mental power: the promise ofthe luminous, clear eyes was robbed of fulfilment by the loose mouthwith the slime of the gutter and sensuality of the beast writ largeupon its thick lips. From the thin peaked nose upwards it was the faceof a son of the gods who knew his parentage and birthright; butdownward that of a human swine who loved the foulness of the trough forthe trough's sake. A Poet of poets, said the eyes: Slime of the gutterand old age unashamed of its shame, retorted the mouth; and both spoketruth. Evidently his scrutiny satisfied him, for he heaved a sigh ofcontentment as he drew nearer to La Mothe.
"The image of what I was at your age," he said, and again there was thenote of contradiction. The voice was the sweet, full voice of asinger, but ruined at the first emotion into roughness by excess.Placing the candlestick on the table he lifted La Mothe's wine bottleand smelt it with slow carefulness, applying it first to one nostrilthen to the other. "Vintage '63," he said appreciatively, "and thatanimal Saxe fobs me off with '75."
"Then try my '63," said La Mothe, "and we shall see if Saxe has anotherbottle of the same."
Promptly the contents of the horn mug were flung with a splash into theopen fireplace at La Mothe's back.
"Just what I was at your age! The same to a hair! A gay companiongenerous of heart and purse. Yes," he went on, half seating himself onthe table-edge and sucking down the wine with slow appreciative gulps,"'63; I knew I could not be mistaken, though it is four years since Itasted it last. The palate, Monsieur La Mothe, is like nature andnever forgets. For that reason we should never outrage either."
"Four years!" repeated La Mothe with mock admiration, then rememberingthat this was a poet of poets and should know his Villon, he quoted,"'And where are the snows of Yester Year?'"
The narrow shoulders broadened with a start, the bright eyes grew yetbrighter, and a firmer set of the mouth gave the face that note ofstrength it so sorely needed. If it were not that he was already deepin his fourth bottle La Mothe would have said the wine had set hisblood on fire, warming him with a fictitious energy, so sudden and somarked was the change.
"Ah ha!" he said, setting down the horn mug as he leaned towards LaMothe, and this time the voice was as full and round as a woman's. "Soyou know your Villon, do you? rascal that he was!"
"Was? Is Villon dead?"
"Dead! No! But his rascality is dead: dead but not forgotten!Saints! what a dear sweet life it gave him while it lived, that samerascality. 'Where are the snows of Yester Year?' That is the cry ofall the years after, say, four- or five-and-twenty." He paused, hisbright keen eyes watching La Mothe with a wistful humour in them, halfenvious, half reminiscent. "Four-and-twenty! Up to that age it is,Oh, for next year's suns! Oh, for the flowers of a new spring'splucking! and ever after, 'Where are the snows of Yester Year?' Ithink," he added, pursing his mouth reflectively, "that what thepriests call Hell is hot just because last year's snows never comeback."
"Gone!" said La Mothe, falling into his humour, "dead like Villon'srascality, but as unforgotten. But are you sure Villon is alive?"
"Monsieur," and the little man slipped from the table-edge to his feetand bowed, his eyes twinkling with an intense enjoyment, "I can vouchfor him as you can for Stephen La Mothe: I have the honour to presentto you Francois Villon, Master of Arts of Paris and of all the craftsof this wicked world."