Part 12

"And what then? It did not take you till three o'clock to be put out of the inn."

"No," Lucas answered; "I spoke to you of the varlet Pontou with whom Grammont had quarrelled. He had shut him up in a closet of the house in the Rue Coupejarrets. After the fight in the court we all went our ways, forgetting him. So I paid the house a visit; I was afraid some one else might find him and he might tell tales."

"And will he tell tales?"

"No," said Lucas, "he will tell no tales."

"How about your spy in the Hôtel St. Quentin?"

"Martin, the clerk? Oh, I warned him off before I left," Lucas said easily. "He will lie perdu till we want him again. And Grammont, you see, is dead too. There is no direct witness to the thing but the boy Broux."

"That's as good as to say there is none," Mayenne answered; "for I have the boy."

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 with him. 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 good faith to him struck his mind.

"Certainly not," Mayenne answered. "The door is bolted; he might be in the 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 neither stirred nor whispered, as rigid as the statued Virgin herself. But now she rose and for one moment laid her hand on my shoulder with an encouraging pat; the next she flung the door wide just as Lucas reached the 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 the other side of the sill. She was as white as linen, but she lifted her head proudly. She had not the courage that knows no fear, but she had the courage that rises to the need. Crouching on the oratory floor she had been in a panic lest they find her. But in the moment of discovery she 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 pale cheeks; 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. "You defend me now, Paul, but you did not hesitate to make a tool of me in your cowardly schemes."

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

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

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

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

"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 you would 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 done ill!" She turned to me, silently imploring forgiveness. There was no need 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 of impertinence to you; I had no cause against him."

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

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

"That will be wise of you," Mayenne returned. "For I did mean to let the boy go. But since you have opened his door and let him hear what he should 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 it impossible."

Never have I seen so piteous a sight as her face of misery. Had my hands been 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 of consternation, "you are degrading the greatest noble in the land! You, the head of the house of Lorraine, the chief of the League, the commander of the allied armies, debase yourself in stooping to take vengeance on a stable-boy."

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

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

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

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

She retreated toward the threshold where I stood, still covering me as with 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 tried to do your pleasure. I thought you meant harm to the boy because he was a servant to M. de Mar, and I knew that M. de St. Quentin, at least, had gone 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 punish the 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 the door-jamb, "will you not let the boy go?"

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

"A reproach to you," she answered quickly. "You will mark my white cheeks and my red eyes, and you will say, 'Now, there is my little cousin Lorance, my good ally Montluc's daughter, and I have made her cry her eyes blind over my cruelty. Her father, dying, gave her to me to guard and cherish, and I have made her miserable. I am sorry. I wish I had 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 if thinking aloud.

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

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

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

"I tell you I did not mean to kill the boy," Mayenne said. "With the door 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 my concerns. Dead men, mademoiselle, tell no tales."

"M. de Mayenne," she said, "I cannot see that you need trouble for the tales of boys--you, the lord of half France. But if you must needs fear his tongue, why, even then you should set him free. He is but a serving-boy sent here with a message. It is wanton murder to take his life; 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 heard how he upset your cousin Paul's arrangements."

"For that you should be thankful to him, monsieur. He has saved you the stain 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 was revolted 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 go to Blois."

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

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

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

"I have not called you that, monsieur; I said you had been saved from the 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 turmoil that we know not any other way to do but injure and kill. I think you are more harassed and troubled than any man in France. You have Henry of Navarre 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 of a dozen quarrelling factions, must strive and strive to placate and loyalize them all. The leaders work each for his own end, each against the others and against you; and the truth is not in one of them, and their pledges are ropes of straw. They intrigue and rebel and betray till you know not which way to turn, and you curse the day that made you head of the League."

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

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

He looked at her fixedly; I think he heeded her words less than her shining, 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 her knees before him, kissing his hand.

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

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

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

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

"Lorance," he cried in a low, rapid voice, "I see I am out of your graces. Now, by Our Lady, what's life worth to me if you will not take me back again? I admit I have tried to ruin the Comte de Mar. Is that any marvel, since he is my rival with you? Last March, when I was hiding here and watched from my window the gay M. de Mar come airily in, day after day, to see and make love to you, was it any marvel that I swore to 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 not approve of his visits, you had only to tell him so. He had been ready to defend to you his right to make them. But you never showed him your face; of course, had you, you could not have become his father's housemate and Judas. Oh, I blush to know that the same blood runs in your veins and mine!"

"You speak hard words, mademoiselle," Lucas returned, keeping his temper with a stern effort. "You forget that we live in France in war-time, and not in the kingdom of heaven. I was toiling for more than my own revenges. I was working at your cousin Mayenne's commands, to aid our holy cause, for the preservation of the Catholic Church and the Catholic kingdom of France."

"Your conversion is sudden, then; only an hour ago you were working for nothing and no one but Paul de Lorraine."

"Come, come, Lorance," Mayenne interposed, his caution setting him ever on the side of compromise. "Paul is no worse than the rest of us. He hates his enemies, and so do we all; he works against them to the best of his power, and so do we all. They are Kingsmen, we are Leaguers; they fight 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 scruple over our means. Nom de dieu, mademoiselle, what do you expect? Civil war is not a dancing-school."

"Mademoiselle is right," Lucas said humbly, refusing any defence. "We have been using cowardly means, weapons unworthy of Christian gentlemen. And I, at least, cannot plead M. le Duc's excuse that I was blinded in my zeal for the Cause. For I know and you know there is but one cause with 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 did it to win you. There is no crime in God's calendar I would not commit for that."

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

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

"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 you so there is no depth to which I could not stoop to gain you; there is no height to which I cannot rise. There is no shame so bitter, no danger so awful, that I would not face it for you. Nor is there any sacrifice I will not make to gain your good will. I hate M. de Mar above any living man 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 will drop all enmity to Étienne de Mar. From this time forward I will neither move against him nor cause others to move against him in any shape or manner, so help me God!"

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

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

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

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

"Yes, I give you my word for that, too, Lorance," Mayenne added. "I have no quarrel with young Mar. His father has stirred up more trouble for me than 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 graceful obeisances.

"Understand me, mademoiselle," Mayenne went on. "I pardon him, but not that he may be anything to you. That time is past. The St. Quentins are Navarre'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 buzzing fly."

"That I understand, monsieur," she answered in a low tone. "While I live under your roof, I shall not be treacherous to you. I am a Ligueuse and he is a Kingsman, and there can be nothing between us. There shall be nothing, monsieur. I do not swear it, as Paul needs, because I have never lied to you."

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

"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 for you, 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 about it. If I have denied you one lover, I will give you another just as good."

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

"Aye, and you must stay happy. Pardieu, what does it matter whether your husband have yellow hair or brown? My brother Henri was for getting himself into a monastery because he could not have his Margot. Yet in less than a year he is as merry as a fiddler with the Duchesse Katharine."

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

"It is the most foolish act of my life," Mayenne answered. "But it is for 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 bright confidence 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 so flatter yourself, Lorance."

Thus it happened that I was not bound to silence concerning what I had seen 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 against the putting of a weapon in any one's hand. Then, ashamed of the suspicion, which indeed was not of her, he yielded the knife and she cut my bonds. She looked straight into my eyes, with a glance earnest, beseeching, loving; I could not begin to read all she meant by it. The next moment she was making her deep curtsey before the duke.

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

With a bare inclination of the head to Lucas, she turned to go. But Mayenne 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 taking her hand with stately politeness led her from the room. The light seemed to go from it with the gleam of her yellow gown.

"Lorance!" Lucas cried to her, but she never turned her head. He stood glowering, grinding his teeth together, his glib tongue finding for once no way to better his sorry case. He was the picture of trickery rewarded; I could not repress a grin at him. Marking which, he burst out at me, vehemently, yet in a low tone, for Mayenne had not closed the door:

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

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