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Title: The Justice of the King


Author: Hamilton Drummond



Release Date: February 1, 2008  [eBook #24483]

Language: English

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THE JUSTICE OF THE KING

by

HAMILTON DRUMMOND

Author of
  "The King's Scapegoat," "Room Five,"
  "The Houses," "Shoes of Gold," Etc.







International Fiction Library
Cleveland ---------- New York

Copyright, 1911
by the MacMillan Company
All rights reserved




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

      I. THE DESPATCH
     II. A LESSON IN OBEDIENCE
    III. FOR A WOMAN'S SAKE
     IV. THE JUSTICE OF THE KING
      V. THE KING LAYS BARE HIS HEART
     VI. HOW LOUIS LOVED HIS SON
    VII. FOUR-AND-TWENTY, WITH THE HEART OF EIGHTEEN
   VIII. THE BLACK DOG OF AMBOISE
     IX. FRANCOIS VILLON, POET AND GALLOWS-CHEAT
      X. LOVE, THE ENEMY
     XI. THE CROSS IN THE DARKNESS
    XII. LA MOTHE BELIEVES, BUT IS NOT CONVINCED
   XIII. "FRIEND IS MORE THAN FAMILY"
    XIV. FOR LIFE AND THRONE
     XV. A QUESTION IN THEOLOGY
    XVI. TOO SLOW AND TOO FAST
   XVII. STEPHEN LA MOTHE ASKS THE WRONG QUESTION
  XVIII. FRENCH AND ENGLISH
    XIX. GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN
     XX. THE LAST STAND
    XXI. DENOUNCED
   XXII. "WE MUST SAVE HER TOGETHER"
  XXIII. JEAN SAXE IS EXPLICIT
   XXIV. A PROPHET WITHOUT HONOUR
    XXV. "IT IS A TRAP"
   XXVI. COMMINES TAKES ADVICE
  XXVII. THE SUCCESS OF FAILURE
 XXVIII. PHILIP DE COMMINES, DIPLOMATIST
   XXIX. THE PRICE OF A LATE BREAKFAST
    XXX. "LOVE IS MY LIFE"
   XXXI. SAXE RISES IN VILLON'S ESTIMATION
  XXXII. LA MOTHE FULFILS HIS COMMISSION
 XXXIII. THE ARREST
  XXXIV. LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS
   XXXV. THE DAWN BROADENS




THE JUSTICE OF THE KING


CHAPTER I

THE DESPATCH

All morning the King had been restless, unappeasable, captious, with
little relapses unto the immobility of deep thought, and those who knew
him best were probing deeply both their conscience and their conduct.
Had he sat aloof, quiet in the sunshine, his dogs sleeping at his feet,
his eyes half closed, his hands, waxen, almost transparent, and bird's
claws for thinness, spread out to the heat, those about him would have
gone their rounds with a light heart.  At such times his schemes were
thoughts afar off, dreams of some new, subtle stroke of policy, and
none within touch had cause to fear.

But this May day he was restless, unsettled, his mind so full of an
active purpose shortly to be fulfilled that he could not keep his tired
body quiet for long, but every few minutes shifted his position or his
place.  If he sat in his great chair, padded with down to ease his
weakness and the aching of his bones, his fingers were constantly
plucking at his laces, or playing with the tags which fastened the
fur-lined scarlet cloak he wore for a double purpose, to comfort the
coldness of his meagre body, and that the death-like pallor of his face
might be touched by its gay brightness to a reflected, fictitious glow
of health.  But to remain seated for any length of time jarred with his
mood.  Pushing himself to his feet he would walk the length of the
gallery and back again, leaning heavily upon his stick, only to sink
once more into his chair and fumble anew with shaking hands at whatever
loose end or edge lay nearest.

So it had been all morning, but the restlessness had redoubled within
the last half-hour.  It was then that a post had reached Valmy, no man
knew from whence, nor had the messenger been asked any questions.  The
superscription on the despatch was a warning against the vice of
curiosity.  It was in the King's familiar handwriting, bold and
angular, and ran, "To His Majesty the King of France, At his Château of
Valmy, These in great haste."  A "Louis" in large letters was sprawled
across the lower corner of the cover.

But though none asked questions it was noted that the horse was fresher
than the man, and that whereas the one was streaming in a lather of
sweat which had neither set nor dried, the other was splashed, caked,
and powdered with mud and dust to the eyebrows: therefore the wise in
such matters deduced that short relays had been provided, but that the
rider had only halted long enough to climb from saddle to saddle.  In
silence he handed his letter to the Captain of the Guard, together with
the King's signet, and in silence he rode away; but whereas he came at
a gallop he rode away at a slow walk: therefore the wise further
deduced that his task was ended.

With the King in residence not even the Captain of the Guard could move
freely through Valmy, but the signet answered all challenges.  Every
door, every stair-head was double-sentried, but except for these silent
figures the rooms and passages were alike empty.  Loitering for gossip
was not encouraged at Valmy, and least of all in the block which held
the King's lodgings.  Only in the outer gallery, where the King took
the air with the pointed windows open to the south for warmth, was
there any suggestion of a court.  Here, at the entrance, and remote
from the King alone at the further end, Saint-Pierre and Leslie were in
attendance.  Pausing to show the ring for the last time Lessaix
unbuckled his sword, handed it in silence to Saint-Pierre, and passed
on.  In Valmy suspicion never slept, never opened its heart in faith to
loyalty, and not even the Captain of the Guard might approach the King
armed.

While he was still some yards distant Louis, gnawing his under lip as
he watched him, suddenly flung out one hand, the palm outward, the
fingers spread, and Lessaix halted.

"Well?"  He spoke curtly, harshly, as a man speaks whose temper is worn
to breaking-point.

"A despatch, sire."

"From whom?"

"There is nothing to show----"

"From whom?"

"I do not know, sire."

"Have you no tongue to ask?"

"I asked nothing, sire."

"Um; hold it up."  Leaning forward Louis bridged his dim eyes with his
hand, and under the shadow Lessaix saw the thin mouth open and shut
convulsively; but when the hand was lowered the King's face was
expressionless.  "What else?"

"Your Majesty's signet."

"Let me see!  Let me see!  Um; that will do.  Put them on the table and
go.  Where is the messenger?"

"He left at once."

"Um; were the roads bad from Paris?"

"He did not say, sire; he never opened his lips."

"Silent, was he?  Then there is one wise man in France.  Thank you,
Captain Lessaix."

With a salute Lessaix retired, but as he buckled on his sword again
Saint-Pierre whispered, "Whence?"

"I don't know," replied Lessaix, also under his breath, "but not from
Paris!"

Left alone Louis sat back in his chair, his thin lips mumbling
nervously at his nails, his eyes fixed on his own handwriting: the
ring, a passport to life or death, he had at once slipped upon his
finger.  Every moment he knew he was watched, every action weighed, and
he was a little uncertain how far a judicious self-betrayal would
further his purpose.  His handwriting would tell them nothing but that
he knew the writer of the letter, whence it came, and that it was
important.  To heighten the importance but conceal the cause seemed
wise.  Of course presently he must take some one into his confidence,
and from the depth of his soul he regretted the necessity.

That was the curse of kingship--the brain which planned, reconciling
discordant elements, must rely for execution on hands it could not
always control.  Yes, that was the vice of government, and the reason
why so many well-devised, smoothly-launched schemes utterly miscarried.
If the brain could only be the hands also!  If the hands could only
reach out from where the brain pondered and foresaw!  But they could
not, and so he must trust Commines.  Trust Commines!  A little gust of
anger at his impotence shook him and he shivered, dashing his hands
upon the table; it was never safe to trust any one--never!  But he was
helpless, there was no escape, and in turn Commines must trust one
other: trust him with execution, that is, with blind performance, not
with knowledge.  Beyond Commines he would trust no man with knowledge,
at least not as yet, nor Commines more than he must.  Later it might be
policy to let it be known publicly the great danger which had
threatened him, and France through him, but not till all was over!

Till all was over!  Again Louis shivered a little, but not this time
with anger.  The phrase was a euphemism for death, and he hated the
word even when wrapped up in a euphemism and applied to another.  Death
was death, disguise it in what phrase one might; a horror, a terror,
another vice of kings worse than the first.  It said in plain words,
"You can sow, but you may never reap; you can begin, but you may never
finish.  Some one else will reap: some one else will finish."  Some one
else!  The thought was intolerable.  He hated, he loathed the some one
else as he hated and loathed death.  With a sweep of his arm, as if he
thrust some bodily presence from him, Louis leaned forward and caught
up the despatch.  Let him make an end to brooding, here was work to be
done.

Having closely examined the seals securing the back to make certain
they were intact, he ripped apart the threads which bound it round and
round passing through the seals, and drew out the enclosure.  It was a
single sheet of stiff paper.  This he unfolded, and spreading it flat
upon the table bent over it eagerly.  But before he could have read
three lines he sank back in his chair with a cry, and so fierce was his
face that Saint-Pierre and Leslie, at the end of the gallery,
instinctively drew apart, each suspicious of the other.  The King's
wrath was like lightning, swift to fall, and where it fell there was
the danger of sudden destruction to those near.

So he sat for a full minute, his brows drawn, his thin lips narrowed to
a line, his head sunk between his shoulders, then with a sigh audible
to the length of the gallery he again bent above the paper, resting his
weight on both arms, as if utterly weary both in body and spirit.

This time the pause was while he might have read the page slowly twice
over, weighing its sense word by word, and when at length he raised his
head all passion had gone from him; he was a sorrowful old man, weary
and worn and grey.

"Commines!" he said harshly, "send me Commines," and sat back, the
paper crumpled lengthwise in his hand.

But he did not sit for long.  Rising, he paced up the gallery, his head
bent, his iron-shod stick striking the flags with a clang as he leaned
upon it at every second step, the crumpled paper still caught in his
hand.  At the door he paused, looking up sideways.

"Commines?  Where is Commines?  Head of God! is there no one to bring
me Commines?"

"We have sent for him, sire."

"Sent for him?  Why is he not here when I need him?  I am the
worse-served king in Christendom.  No one takes thought, no one cares,
no one----  Who is on guard?  Leslie?  Ah!  Leslie cares, with Leslie I
am safe: yes, yes, with Leslie I am safe," and once more he turned
away, the iron ringing from the pavement as before.  Suspicion breeds
suspicion, and it would never do to vex Leslie's blunt loyalty with any
seeming distrust.  Besides, it was true, he could trust Leslie.  It was
not the same trust as he had in Commines; Leslie would watch over him,
would guard him at all costs, but Commines would obey and ask no
questions.

Three times he had walked the length of the gallery, always with
growing impatience, and three times turned before he heard the sound of
whispering at the door, and the ring of rapid feet followed him.  But
he gave no sign, and went on his way as if he had heard nothing.  He
recognized the footfall, but preferred that Commines should reach him
as remotely from the door as possible.

"Sire!"

"Ah!" Louis turned with a start.  "You have come at last!  At last!
There was a time I was served better.  But let that pass.  Philip, I
have had letters."

"Yes, sire, I know: Lessaix told me."

"You know, and Lessaix told you!  You watch me--spy on me, do you?"

"Sire, it is my business to know everything which touches----"

"Yes! and what more do you know?  Where did the post come from, you,
whose business it is to know everything?"

"Lessaix thought from Paris."

"From Paris," and Louis raised his voice so that the affirmation in it
might be clearly heard at the further end of the gallery.  Then he
turned to the silent group at the doorway, watchful to seize upon any
clue to the King's mystery which might guide their feet clear of the
pitfalls besetting Valmy.

"Let all men go from me but my friend Argenton," he said, with a wave
of the hand which still held the paper crumpled in the grasp.  "Let the
guard remain beyond the door, but let no man enter till I give leave.
Paris!  Let them think Paris," he went on, lowering his voice, "but
from you, Philip, I have no secrets.  We are old friends, too old
friends to have secrets one from the other, eh, Philip, eh?  Give me
your arm that I may lean upon it, for I grow tired.  It is the heat,
not that I am ill or weaker; the heat, the heat, and I grow tired.  And
yet I must walk: I cannot rest; no, not for a moment; this--this horror
has unstrung me."




CHAPTER II

A LESSON IN OBEDIENCE

Passing his clenched hand through the crook of Commines' arm, and
leaning heavily on the stick in the other hand, Louis turned slowly up
the gallery, and for a time both were silent.  They made a strange
contrast.  The King was shrunken, bowed, and bent, a veritable walking
skeleton to whom the grave already imperiously beckoned nor would take
long denial.  With his bony head, his listless face, his lean, long
neck thrust out from the fur of his upturned collar, he resembled a
giant bird of prey.  The skinny hand thrust through the crook of
Commines' arm, and still grasping the crumpled despatch, was the claw
of a vulture.  Above him, head and shoulders, towered Commines,
square-set, burly, muscular, and as full of life and vigour as his
master was sapless.  Just midway to the threescore years and ten, his
bodily powers were at their highest, and in the ten years he had served
Louis his mind had ripened so that few men were more astute, more
shrewd to see and seize upon advantages, whether for himself or his
master.  In the King's service few scruples troubled him, the
questionable act was Louis', his part was to obey.

"Then, sire, the post was not from Paris?"

"From Amboise," answered Louis, with sudden incisive vigour, his voice
rasping harshly.  "From Amboise, where the ungrateful son of a
miserable father plots and plots and plots: and you, whose business it
is to know everything, know nothing."

"The Dauphin? and plotting against you?  But, sire, it is impossible.
The Dauphin is barely thirteen years of age."

"The pity of it, Argenton, oh! the pity of it."  As he spoke one who
did not know him as Commines knew him would have sworn that tears were
very near the dull, dry eyes.  "No more than thirteen--no, not
thirteen, and yet--ah! the pity of it."

"Oh, sire, some one has deceived you.  The Dauphin is too young to
plot, even if affection and common nature----"

"Too young?" broke in Louis, halting in his slow walk to strike the
pavement angrily with his stick.  "At what age does a serpent grow
fangs?  Too young?  Ill weeds grow apace, and then there may be those
about him who egg him on, who sow wrong ideas in his mind that they may
reap some gain to themselves.  All are not as faithful as thou art,
Philip.  I have not always been merciful--not always.  At times justice
has rejoiced against mercy for the general good; yes, for the general
good.  There was Molembrais; men blame me for Molembrais; but if the
King's arm be not strong enough to strike, who shall hold the kingdom
in its place?  And because the King's hand pulls down and raises up as
God wills"--he paused, and bowed with a little gesture of his hand to
his cap--"there are those who do not love me.  But if they egg on,
those others who should be loyal to their King and are not, if they
suggest, it is my son--my son, Argenton--who is the very heart and
centre; my son, who out of his little twelve years raises his hand
against my threescore."

"If he has done that," began Commines, picking his words slowly (he had
not as yet fathomed Louis' purpose, and feared lest he should commit
himself in too great haste to the wrong policy), "if the Dauphin has
truly so forgotten natural love and duty----"

"If!"  With a snarl which showed his gapped and yellow teeth Louis
again straightened himself, and as he raised his head beyond the
reflected glow of the scarlet cloak his face was grey with passion.
"If?  If?  Head of God, man! do you dare talk to me in 'ifs'?  Philip
de Commines, when you were little in your own eyes, when you were the
humble fetcher and carrier to that Bully of Burgundy whom I crushed,
when you were the very hound and cur of his pleasure, fawning on him
for the scraps of life, I took you up, I!--I!  Now you are Lord of
Argenton, now you are Seneschal of Poitou, now you are Prince of
Talmont, and I have made you all these, I!--I! and you answer me with
an 'if'!  But the hand which raised you up can drag down, you who
answer me with an 'if.'  The hand which drew from the mud can fling
into the ditch, you who answer me with an 'if.'  And, by God!  I'll do
it!  An 'if'?  We say 'ifs' to fools.  Was I a fool to turn the
lickshoe of Charles the Bully into the Prince of Talmont?  Was I a fool
to grope in the mud for a Seneschal of Poitou?  Am I a fool now--I, who
have held the strings of all Europe in my hand for thirty years, and
loosed or ravelled them as suited the greatness of France?  God be my
witness, all has been for the greatness of France!  France comes first,
always first.  And now, when I say my son plots against me, that
twelve-year boy who is of an age to be king, am I a fool and liar?
Does this lie?  Answer me, Argenton, does this lie?"  And wrenching his
hand free from Commines he shook the paper passionately above his head.

So sudden and so fierce was the attack, so full of bitter venom and raw
rage, so brutally naked and perilous in its threat, that Commines
fairly quailed.  The florid ruddiness of his fleshy face faded to a
pallor more cadaverous than the unhealthy grey of Louis' sunken cheeks
as he remembered Molembrais.  At the door stood the guards with crossed
pikes, beyond these were Leslie and Saint-Pierre, watchful and alert.
He was loved little better than his master, and he knew it.  Let the
King speak and there would be no hesitancy, little pity.  In his rapid
rise he had kicked many rivals from the ladder of Court favour, and
climbed yet higher by trampling them underfoot, caring little what gulf
of disgrace or worse swallowed them.  And the King's threat was no idle
boast; the hand which had raised could drag down, not only to
irremediable disaster, but to the very grave itself.  A hand?  A
beckoning finger to those who waited at the door would be enough, and
Commines trembled.

"Sire, sire," he cried, his arms raised in protest and supplication,
"how have I offended you?  In what have I been ungrateful?  I meant no
more but that it seemed impossible a son could turn against so good, so
great a father.  That--that--staggered me for the moment.  It beggared
reason; it--it--but let me read the despatch for myself, sire.  Not for
belief, but for comprehension, and that we may meet the blow together,
that we may turn it aside--may turn it back on--on--the hand that
strikes."

"Aye!" said Louis drily, "that is more like the Commines of old, the
Commines who served his master without an 'if.'  And that is a good
phrase of yours--turn back the blow on the hand that strikes!  When
that is done, and the time comes for reward, I will not forget that it
was your phrase.  And it was for that I sent for you: I knew my friend
Commines would find a way to--to--guard his master effectually."

Before Louis ended all the harshness had gone from his voice, and it
became marvellously gentle, marvellously kindly, almost caressing.  A
master student of the subtle trifles which unconsciously influence
great events, he played upon men's minds as a skilled musician on his
instrument, and they obeyed the touch.  Nor was Philip de Commines,
opportunist, political adventurer, philosopher, soldier of fortune,
diplomatist, exempt from the influence of that skilful mastery.  As he
had gloomed so now he gladdened: he squared his shoulders to his
fullest height, filling his lungs with a deeper inspiration, and the
colour ran back to his cheeks in flood.  Nor was it all in pride; there
was relief, and the lifting up of a burden which for one terrible
moment had threatened to crush him to the earth itself.

But the life which gave its strength to the hand which lifted and
dragged down was frail almost to extinction, and remembering that one
day the Dauphin must step into Louis' place Commines ventured to
temporize.

"Yes, sire, but to turn back the blow I must know who aims the blow,
whence it comes, where it will strike, and when.  To fight in the dark
is to waste strength.  Have I your leave to read the despatch from
Amboise?"

"Eh?"  With the gesture of a natural impulse Louis held out the paper,
then drew it back.  "We will wait a little.  I am tired, very tired.
This shock has unnerved me.  Let me sit down, Philip, and rest."

Slowly, with an arm on Commines' shoulder, he turned and, sinking into
the chair, leaned forward upon the table in an attitude of utter
weariness, his hand still resting upon the despatch.  So there was a
pause for a moment, Commines standing to one side, silent and ill at
ease.  Then with a sigh, which was almost a groan, Louis roused
himself.  Reaching out his hand he raised to his lips a little silver
image of Saint Denis, one of a group which filled a corner of the
table, some standing upright, some pitched upon their faces without
regard to reverence or respect.  Kissing it fervently he again sighed,
his eyes raised to the groined roof, and shook his head sadly.  If
Saint Denis did not whisper inspiration he at least spun out the time
for thought.  Commines' request was reasonable, and he was at a loss
how plausibly to evade it.

"Have I your leave, sire?"

"Eh?"  Down came the King's hand upon the paper, Saint Denis grasped,
baton-fashion, by the feet.  "No, Philip, no, I think not.  It is in
confidence, and above all things a king must respect confidence, or how
could he be trusted?"  A sentence which sounded strange from the lips
of a man who never kept a treaty he could break to his own advantage,
or, to give him his due, to the advantage of France.

"That I can understand," answered Commines, as gravely as if his
master's tortuous road to the consolidation of the kingdom had not been
strewn with ruptured contracts, unscrupulous chicanery, and solemn
pledges brazenly evaded.  "But how am I to act?  How can I, in the
dark, parry a blow from the dark?"

"Suspect every one," answered Louis, brushing aside Saint Denis as he
turned sharply in his chair.  The saint had served his turn.  He had
been invoked in a perplexity, and now that the way was clear, no doubt
in answer to the invocation, he was flung aside without ceremony.
"Suspect every one.  To suspect all you meet is the first great rule of
prudence, wisdom, success; and to suspect your own self is the second.
Go to Amboise.  Remember there is no if, and sift, search, find, but
especially find."

"Find what, sire?"

For answer Louis clutched the paper yet tighter and shook it in the
air, and if Commines could but have guessed it, there was a double
meaning in the action and the words which accompanied it.

"Find this!"

"And having found?"  Commines paused, conscious that the ground was
treacherous under his feet.  "Sire, remember he is the Dauphin and the
son of France."




CHAPTER III

FOR A WOMAN'S SAKE

With a quick gesture, the arm thrust out, the hand open, the fingers
spread, Louis shrank back, his other arm across his face.  It was a
movement eloquent of pathos, despair, and suffering; then, with another
sigh, he straightened himself, his corpse-like face pinched with care.

"The son of France!" he repeated.  "Yes! the son of France! but,
Philip, my friend, my one friend, must the father perish for the son?"

"Oh, sire, sire," cried Commines, deeply moved, both by the words and
the appeal in the voice.  "Never that.  And it is true--you are France,
France itself as no King ever has been; France in its strength, France
in its hope, and God knows what evil will befall----"  He checked
himself sharply as a spasm twisted the King's sunken mouth.  Carried
away by his sympathy he had forgotten that it was an almost
unforgivable offence to hint that Louis was not immortal.  For him the
word death was wiped from the language.  If the dread shadow took form
to strike, those near might say "Speak little," or "Confess," but
nothing more.

But for once the offence passed without rebuke; it was even seized upon
to point a moral, and nerving himself to face the thought the King
completed the sentence.

"God knows what evil will befall France in a boy's hands!  And within a
year he will be of age; of age and yet a child.  A puppet king of
France!"  Louis paused, drawing in his breath with a shudder like a man
chilled to the marrow.  "A puppet, a puppet, and in the hands of a
puppet what must the end be?  Ah!  France!  France!  France!  It is
disaster, unless it can be turned aside.  Philip, you must go to
Amboise.  Take with you some one you can trust, if in all Valmy there
is such an one!"

"There is, sire; one I can trust as my King can trust me."

"Yes, yes, but not overmuch; do not trust him overmuch.  Remember what
I said--suspect, suspect."

"I am not afraid, sire, Stephen La Mothe owes everything to me."

"Gratitude?  Is that any reason for faithfulness?  Piff!"  And the King
blew out his thin lips in contempt.  "To bind men to you, Commines, to
bind them so that you may sleep easy o' nights, you must hold them
either by the fear of to-day or the hope of to-morrow.  Gratitude!
Thanks for eaten bread!  How many are there who owe me everything, and
yet have turned against me.  But let that pass; may God and the Saints
forgive them as I do."  Louis paused, and a sardonic smile flickered
for an instant across his face.  If God and the Saints had no more
forgiveness for his enemies than he had, then their prospects in the
life to come were as miserable as Louis would have made the remnant of
their days in this present world if they but fell into his power.  "And
this La Mothe," he went on, "there is no need to tell him all we know.
To tell all you know is to lose your advantage.  And why should he be
faithful?  Why does he owe you everything?"

"I promised his sister--it was years ago----"

"A woman?  Um, I do not like women.  The ways of men I can follow, but
the ways of women are beyond me.  Seven devils were cast out of one,
but not from the rest, and so there is no understanding them.  No, I do
not like women."

"Sire, she is long dead."

"Yes?  That makes it safer, but I do not see that it is any reason for
trusting the brother.  Take him with you to Amboise if you think he is
safe, but remember"--and the King's lean hand was shaken suddenly
upward almost in Commines' face, a threat as well as a warning--"I hold
you responsible, you, you, you only.  Let him be with you, but not of
you; let him enter Amboise apart from you, and let him work out of
sight like a mole, obeying orders without knowing why he obeys.  Then
if he fails, or blunders, or is fool enough to be caught spying, you
can disown him, can wash your hands of him, and let him hang!  Um!  You
don't like it?  I see in your face that you don't like it.  Will you
never learn that a face has a tongue of its own to be used to conceal
our thoughts?  But yours--I know your thought.  The woman!  Bah! the
woman is dead."

"Sire, a promise to the dead is like a vow to the Saints; none can give
it back."

"Um! a vow to the Saints?  But we must have the Saints on our side.
Let me see--let me see.  Yes!  Take him with you, openly or secretly as
you will, and if he bungles I shall deal with him.  That frees you from
your promise.  The justice of the King!  Eh, Philip! will the justice
of the King please you better?"

The justice of the King!  Louis sat back in his chair as he spoke, his
blotched gums showing in a grin between his thin lips, his dull eyes
half veiled by the drooping of the leaden-hued lids.  More than ever he
was a mask of death, but of a death that possessed a grim humour,
malevolent in its satirical cynicism.  The justice of the King.  Who
should know that justice so well as Commines, its minister for almost a
dozen years, or who so testify to its stern implacability?  None
escaped the rigid iron of its wrath.  Their almost royal blood saved
neither the Duke of Nemours nor the Count of Armagnac.  Saint-Pol,
Constable of France, perished on the scaffold.  Besides these a score
of the greater nobles of France had fallen, nor could the scarlet of
the Cardinalate shield Balue from its vengeance.  If these, the great
ones of the chess-board, were beyond the pale of mercy, what hope would
there be for a simple pawn like Stephen La Mothe, if once he fell
beneath that inflexible ban?  And yet to the courtier the King's
question could have but one reply.

"The justice of the King," repeated Commines; and added, without
thought of irreverence, "Let him fall into the hands of God and not of
man."

"Good!"  The thin lips twitched, and deep in the dead eyes a sombre
fire glowed.  It warmed his cold humour to read so plainly the thought
hidden behind the smooth words.  But to a mind as fertile as the King's
that very thought was a suggestion.  It would be well that this La
Mothe should clearly understand all he had to fear; and not to fear
only but also to hope.  The justice of the King could raise up as well
as cast down, could reward without measure as well as crush without
mercy.

"Go to Amboise.  Be myself in Amboise.  If--I use your own word,
Philip--if justice must strike----  Ah! poor wretched King and yet more
wretched father!--be thou the King's justice, be thou the King's hand
in Amboise, and let this Monsieur La Mothe be your ears, your eyes.
And--um--yes, let me see this La Mothe before you leave; I am, as you
know, something of a judge of men.  To-morrow will do, and the next day
you can go to Amboise."

"And my commission, sire?  My authority to act on your behalf?"

"Commission?"  The plaintive, gentle calm of the King's voice broke up
in storm.  Leaning forward Louis tapped his finger-tips on the table
noisily.  "Sift, search, find, find, there is your commission.
Authority?  Um--um--when Absalom rebelled against David did Joab, the
king's servant, say, 'Where is my authority?'  Rebellion is your
authority; the safety of your King is your authority; the plot against
France is your authority.  For such crimes there is none above justice,
Monsieur d'Argenton, none--none.  But justice is like truth, and
sometimes dwells in shadow.  Do you understand?  Justice, but no
scandal.  We must be circumspect.  There must be no shock to public
thought in France.  It is the curse and fate of kings to be misjudged.
Justice might well come by way of accident.  And--let me see!  This La
Mothe!  He owes you everything and you say he can be trusted?"

"Yes, sire, but I have been thinking----"

"Then, Philip, tell him something of what I have told you.  The
danger----"  The King again shook in the air the crumpled despatch
which had never been exposed, never left his grasp for an instant.
"The danger to me--to France--to you, above all to you who vouch for
him.  He owes you everything as you owe me, perhaps he will understand
as you do?"

"But, sire," said Commines again, striving hard to keep his voice
unemotional, "while you spoke I have been thinking.  I fear Stephen La
Mothe is too young, too inexperienced, for so grave a mission."

"And are there two in Valmy you can trust with your life?  Too young?
No!  To be young is to be generous, to be young is to dream dreams.
The generosity of his youth will repay you all he thinks he owes, and
will not count the cost: the dreams will see the glory of serving
France.  Age brings caution, Philip; age brings too much of the
weighing of consequence; and at Amboise a little incaution will be
good, incaution of himself, you understand.  He owes you everything;
let him get it into his head that you are the gainer by his
incaution--as you will be, Philip, as you will be, and he too.  There!
That is settled.  Send him to me to-morrow.  Move the brazier nearer to
me, then go.  Nearer yet; within reach of my hand.  There! that will
do."

But filled by a fear he dared not show Commines still lingered.  Across
the gulf of the past years came the voice of the dear, dead woman, the
voice of the lost love of his youth, lost while youth was generous,
while youth dreamed dreams and loved passionate.  It was the sweetest
voice he had ever known; sweet in itself because of itself, caressing,
gentle, sweeter still because passionate love had throbbed through it.
"Watch over him, Philip, for my sake," it said, and she had died
comforted by his promises, died trusting him.  And now----  But while
he hesitated, willing but afraid to dare, Louis bestirred himself.
Resting one arm upon the table he pushed himself half upright with the
other hand, and so, half poised, pointed forward at the door.  A blotch
of crimson showed upon the cheek-bones and the dull eyes glowed.

"God's name, man! did you not hear me?  Do you serve me or the Dauphin?
Which?  Go! go! go!"

This time Commines obeyed, and obeyed in silence.  The King's question
was not one which called for an answer; or rather he understood that
Amboise must give the answer, give it emphatically and without a
quibble.  Once outside the door he paused.  Between Saint-Pierre,
Leslie, and himself no love was lost, but the bond of a united
watchfulness against a common danger bound them to mutual service.

"Where was it from?" asked Saint-Pierre.  But Commines shook his head,
running his fingers inside the collar of his doublet significantly.
Complacency, even when it was the complacency of self-defence, had its
limits.

"I dare not," he whispered back.  "He is in the mood of the devil.
What is he doing now?"

As if playing the part of sentry Saint-Pierre turned and walked twice
or thrice up and down before the open door, glancing cautiously within.

"Tearing the despatch, and burning it piecemeal in the brazier."

"I feared as much.  If you love yourselves, gentlemen, see that you do
not cross him to-day.  And when I am gone from Valmy walk warily."

"Where are you going, Monsieur de Commines?"

"To Amboise, and I would have given a thousand crowns for one look at
that despatch."

But it is a question whether the look would have taught him much,
though he had studied the paper for an hour.  It was blank; beyond the
superscription and the "Louis" sprawled across the corner there was not
one single word.  And yet, to one trained by ten years service in his
master's ways of crooked cunning the very blank would have been
eloquent of warning.




CHAPTER IV

THE JUSTICE OF THE KING

As Commines crossed the courtyard to his lodgings his face was puckered
with anxious thought.  Many a time he had fished for his master in
waters both foul and troubled, but always he had known the prey he
angled for.  Now, and he shook his head like a man who argues against
his doubts, but with little hope of compelling conviction, he was not
sure.  Or was it that he was afraid to be sure?  Was he afraid to say
bluntly out, even in the secret of his own mind, the King desires the
death of the Dauphin and for good cause?

That there might well be cause, that there might well be a sinister
upheaval against the King with the Dauphin as its rallying centre he
could easily believe, even without the evidence of the despatch.
France had never yet known such a nation-builder as Louis.  His
quarries had lain north, south, and east.  In his twenty-two years upon
the throne he had added to the crown Artois, Burgundy, the northern
parts of Picardy, Anjou, Franche-Comté, Provence, and Roussillon.  To
secure such a wholesale aggrandizement he had been unscrupulous in
chicanery, sleepless in his aggression, ruthless to the extremest verge
of cruelty; no treaty had been too solemn to tear up, no oath too
sacred for violation, no act of blood too pitiless.

With Louis the one sole question had ever been, Does it advantage
France?  If it did, then his hand struck or his cunning filched,
careless of right or privileges.  As he had said, and said truly,
France came first.  It was his one justification for the unjustifiable.
No!  Never such a nation-builder and never a man so feared and hated
for valid cause.  He was the King of the greatest, the most powerful
France Europe had ever known, but it was a miserable France, a France
seething with wretchedness, with discontent, and each hour he went in
terror for his life.  Only a few, such as Commines himself, could
foresee how great would one day be the power of these weak,
antagonistic states he had so ruthlessly welded into one.  For the
rest, France was so full of unhappiness and dread that the Dauphin
might well be the centre of a plot, a plot to murder the father in the
son's name for the relief of the nation.  But was the Dauphin himself
concerned in the plot, or had he that knowledge which, prince though he
was, laid him open to the penalty for blood-guiltiness?  These were the
questions which troubled Commines.

Clearly--and as he followed his train of thought he turned aside, his
hands locked behind him, his head bowed, and walked up and down in the
shadow flung by the gloomy range of buildings which cut the courtyard
into two halves--clearly the King had no doubt: clearly the despatch
had left no room for doubt.  Or else--the thought was contemptible, but
it refused to be thrust aside--the King wished to have no room for
doubt.  The frown deepened on Commines' face as he remembered how often
the King's wishes had been master of the truth.

But could any father be cursed with such a terrible wish?  Yes, when
the father was that complex, unhappy man, Louis of France.  Commines
knew the King as no man else knew him, and in the gloomy depths of that
knowledge he found two reasons why the father would have no sorrow for
the death of the son.  It was characteristic of Louis to hate and dread
his natural successor, nor did his distrustful fears pause to consider
that if the Dauphin was swept aside Charles of Orleans would stand in
his son's place.  When that day came he would hate and dread Charles as
his suspicious soul now hated and dreaded the Dauphin.

The other reason he had himself unveiled to Commines, no doubt with a
set purpose.  Behind the King's most trivial act there was always a set
purpose.  In a boy's feeble hands, a puppet as he had called him, a
king in legal age and yet a child in years and ignorance, this great
France he had built up so laboriously would crumble into ruin.  Louis
was a statesman first and a father afterwards.  So Commines must go to
Amboise, must sift, search, find--but especially find.  Find what?  His
question had been answered--find and prove the boy's guilty knowledge.
But having found, having proved that the King's fears were terribly
justified, what then?  The answer to that question touched the hopes of
his ambition.  Upon most men death steals unawares, but for Louis the
edge of the grave crumbled in the sight of all who served him, nor,
when the end came, would it linger in the coming.  Supposing death
struck down the King while he, Commines, was still at Amboise, finding?
What then?  The opportunist in Commines was vigilantly awake, that nice
sense which discriminates the rising power and clings to its skirts.
The Dauphin would be King of France.  For the third time he asked
himself, What then?

It was a relief to his perplexity that a cheery full-noted whistle
broke across the question, a whistle which from time to time slipped
into a song whose words Commines could hear in part:

  "Heigh-ho!  Love's but a pain,
    Love's but a bitter-sweet, lasts an hour:
  Heigh-ho!  Sunshine and rain!
    If it's so brief whence comes love's power?
      Wherefore go clearly,
      Sweetly and dearly--"

and the song ran again into a whistle.

At the sound the gravity faded from Commines' face and the coarse set
mouth grew almost tender.  It was Stephen La Mothe: and whatever the
words might be, the lad surely knew little of love when he so lightly
marred his own sentiment.  A lover sighing for his mistress would have
sighed less blithesomely and to the very end of his plaint.  Presently
the voice rose afresh:

  "Heigh-ho! where dost thou hide,
    Love, that I seek for thee, high and low?
  Heigh-ho! world, thou art wide,
    Heat of the summer and cold of the snow.
        April so smiling,
        June so beguiling,
    Let us forget, love, that winter's storms blow."


Entering the narrow hall, lit only from the courtyard and with a
much-shadowed stairway rising from the further end, Commines pushed
open a door on his right, fastening it behind him as he entered.

"Stephen, Stephen, what do you know of June and December, love's
sunshine and the cold of the snow?" he said railingly.

"Nothing at all, Uncle, and just as much as I want to know," was the
answer.  "But a song must have a theme or there'd be no song."

"And you think love is a better theme than the text you hold on your
knee."

"Yes: for a song.  If it was a tale, now, or an epic, it would be a
different matter.  But they are beyond me, both of them.  Do you think,
Uncle," and La Mothe turned over the arquebuse Commines had pointed at
in jest as it lay on his lap, "this will ever be better than a curious
toy?  I think it is quite useless.  By the time you could prime it
here, set your tinder burning and touch it off there, I would have my
sword through you six times over."

"Charles the Rash found it no toy in the hands of the Swiss at Morat,"
replied Commines.  "But toy or no toy, put it aside while I talk to
you.  Stephen, my son, I fear I have done you an ill turn to-day."

"Then it is the first of your life," answered La Mothe cheerily, as he
stood the weapon upright in the angle of the wall.  "It would need a
good many ill turns to set the balance even between us, Uncle Philip."

"No.  One thoughtless act which cannot be recalled or undone may
outweigh a life.  And so with this.  Stephen, I have commended you to
the King for service."

La Mothe leaped to his feet, laying his hands on Commines' shoulders
impulsively, one upon each.  And if proof were needed of the relations
between these two, it would be found in the spontaneous frankness of
the gesture: Philip de Commines was not a man with whom to take
liberties, but there stood La Mothe almost rocking the elder man in the
fullness of his satisfaction.

"At last," he cried.  "I have been eating my heart out for this for a
week past!  And you call that an ill turn?"

"Stop!  Stop!  Stop!" and Commines, smiling through his gravity,
followed the other's gesture so that the two stood face to face, locked
the one to the other at arm's length.

How like the lad was to Suzanne: a man's strong likeness of a woman's
sweet face.  There were the same clear expressive eyes, ready to light
with laughter or darken with sympathy; the same sensitive firm mouth
and squared chin, fuller and stronger as became a man and yet Suzanne's
in steadfastness to the life; the same broad forehead and arched brows;
the same unconscious trick of flushing in moments of excitement.  Even
the colour of the hair was the same, with the curious ruddy copper tint
running through the brown in certain lights.

Yes; it was Suzanne's self, Suzanne whom he had loved as he had never
loved Hélène de Chambes, his wife these nine years past!  Suzanne whom
he still loved with that reverence which belongs alone to the gentle
dead: Suzanne for whom even now his spirit cried out in these rare
moments when it broke through the cynical, selfish crust which had
hardened upon him since Suzanne died.  So for Suzanne's sake he called
Stephen his son, though there was no such difference in age, nor any
drop of blood relationship.

"Do you know," he went on, gravely tender in the memory of the dead
woman, "that a king's service brings with it a king's risks?"

"And did Monsieur de Perche call me coward when he wrote to you?"

"No; he said many things which it were better a boy should not know
were said.  Conceit is only too ready to take youth by the arm."

"And am I such a boy?  Surely four-and-twenty----"

"Are you so old?  It always comes as an astonishment when those we love
are no longer children.  It is then we realize how the years have
passed."

"So old, Uncle.  Four-and-twenty is no boy."

"A man in years, a boy at heart.  Be a boy at heart as long as you can,
Stephen, for so will you keep your conscience clean before God.  And
yet what use has the King for a boy's service?"

"Teach the boy to be a man in thought that he may find a use for
himself, Uncle; and who can do that so well as you?"

Commines let his hands fall to his sides and turned away, pacing the
room with short strides.  His man's thoughts were not always such as he
would care to teach Stephen La Mothe.

"To the King's service every man must bring his own thought."

"And did Monsieur de Perche call me fool when he wrote to you?"

"No: but the little things of Marbahan are poor training for the
greater things of Valmy, of Blois, of Plessis, of Amboise, of Paris."

"But truth and faithfulness and courage are the same everywhere, and
whether at Marbahan or Valmy a man can but serve God and the King with
the best wits God has given him, and that I'll do."

"Aye!" said Commines drily, "but what of that Heigh-ho song of yours?
When love knocks on one door the service of the King may get bundled
out of the other."

Stephen La Mothe laughed a hearty, wholesome laugh, pleasant to hear.
There was nothing of self-consciousness in it, and no protest could
have more clearly proved that the mental comment of Commines'
shrewdness had read the broken melody aright.

"That is easily settled.  All His Majesty has to do is to find me a
wife of seven thousand crowns a year with two or three little additions
to give salt to their spending.  Item, eyes which see straight; item, a
mouth that's sweet for kissing; item, a temper as sweet as the mouth;
item, a proper appreciation of my great merit.  But, Uncle, what is the
service?"

"That the King will tell you himself.  And, lad, when kings talk it is
a simple man's duty to listen and obey.  Stephen, whatever the service
may be, do it."

"Gratefully and faithfully, Uncle.  Anything my honour----"

"Honour?  God's name, boy, the King's honour is your honour: the King's
service, no matter what it may be, is your honour.  Are you, a
milk-child from Marbahan, knowing nothing of the ways of men, to talk
of your honour to the King?"

"Yes, but Uncle, Monsieur de Perche taught me----"

"Monsieur de Perche?  Monsieur de Perche taught you many admirable
truths, I don't doubt.  That he might so teach you I placed you in his
household seven years ago.  Monsieur de Perche has taught you the use
of arms, and that courtesy which next to arms goes to the making of a
man.  But what can a simple gentleman in the wilds of Poitou know of a
king's service? and above all, of such a King?  His little household
with its round of petty thought was his great world, and a trial of
hawks an event to be talked of for a week; but all France is the
household of the King, and beyond the borders the eagles of Europe are
poised to harry us.  But while he lives they are afraid to swoop.
While he lives, yes, while he lives."

"But after him comes the Dauphin?"

"A child! a puling, weakling, feeble child.  Stephen, as king the
Dauphin spells disaster."

"He will have you to guide him, Uncle, and under you----"

But Commines silenced him with a gesture full of angry denial.
Unconsciously La Mothe had put his finger on a rankling sore.

"With the Dauphin king my career ends!" he said harshly.  "He and those
around him hate me as they hate his father: hate me because I am
faithful to the father.  And yet, Stephen, I have sometimes
thought--this is for you alone--it might be that if in some crisis of
his life I served the Dauphin as I served his father--but no! no! no!
Even then it is doubtful, worse than doubtful.  If Charles of Orleans
were king it would be different.  He is no child and old enough to be
grateful.  Always remember, Stephen, that a child is never grateful; it
forgets too soon."

"And I am a grown man, Uncle, and so never can forget."

"I know, my son," and Commines' stern eyes softened.  "I told the King
you were faithful, and already he trusts you as I trust you," which was
rather an overstatement of the case, seeing that Louis trusted no man,
not even Commines' self.  "To-morrow you are to see him."

"Then I hope his service, no matter what it is, will take me out of
Valmy."

"Why?"

For a moment La Mothe hesitated.  The thought in his mind seemed at
variance with his assertions of maturity and manhood, but he spoke it
with characteristic frankness.

"Valmy frightens me."

"Why?" repeated Commines.

"Because of its silences, its coldness, its inhumanity--no, not
inhumanity, its inhumanness.  In Valmy no man sings; in Valmy few men
laugh.  When they speak they say little and their eyes are always
afraid.  And they are afraid; I see it, and I am growing afraid too."

"But half an hour ago you were singing?"

"But I am only nine days in Valmy.  And sometimes when I sing I
remember where I am and stop suddenly.  It is as indecent as if one
sang in the house of the dead.  Soon I shall always remember and not
sing at all.  And I do not wonder that few men laugh."

"Why?" asked Commines for the third time.  This was a new side to
Stephen La Mothe and one that in the King's service--not forgetting his
own--should not be ignored.  Often in his career he had seen a
well-laid plan miscarry because some seeming triviality was ignored.
Was it not one of Louis' aphorisms that life held nothing really
trivial?

"Because it is a house of the living dead."

"For God's sake, Stephen, hush.  If the King heard you speak of his
feebleness in such a way there would be a sudden end to both you and
your service."

"The King?  But I don't mean the King.  I mean----"  He paused as if
searching for a comprehensive word or phrase, and presently he found
it.  "I mean the justice of the King."

"Well?"  Commines' throat seemed suddenly to have gone dry, so that the
word came harshly.  Within the hour the King had used the same phrase,
and the coincidence startled him unpleasantly.

But La Mothe made no immediate reply.  To answer the little jerked-cut
dry interrogatory in concise words was not easy.  He knew his own
meaning clearly enough, but how was he to make it equally clear to
Commines, who was plainly unsympathetic?  When at last he spoke it was
with a hesitation which was almost an apology.

"As I passed through Thouars on my way from Poitou--you know Thouars,
Uncle?"

"Yes; go on."

"Then you know its market-place with the little shops all round and the
church of St. Laon to the side: a cobble-paved space where the children
play?  At the one end there was a ring of black and white ashes with
the heat still in them, and in the middle a Thing which hung by chains
from an iron stake.  It had been a man that morning, but there it hung
by the spine with the chains through its ribs; a man no more, only
blackened bones and little crisped horrors here or there.  Round it two
or three score, white-faced women and children mostly, stood and gaped,
or talked in whispers, pointing.  Presently the little children will
play there, and shout and sing and laugh, and the women gossip or buy
and sell."

"A coiner," said Commines.  "The King must see that the silver is full
weight."

"Yes, Uncle: but I have heard that sometimes the King himself has
coined----"

"Hush, boy: the King is King."

"Then at Tours, as I rode through the Rue des Trois Pucelles, there was
a house with a fine bold front.  One would say that a man with the soul
of an artist lived in it.  There were brave carvings on the stout oak
door, carvings on the stone divisions of its five windows, strong iron
bars of very choice smith-work, twisted and hammered, to keep the
common folk from tumbling into the cellars, and in the peaked roof of
fair white plaster were driven great nails from which hung fags of
rope, and from one something which was no rope, but a poor wisp of
humanity staring horribly aslant above a broken neck."

"Yes," said Commines, "Tristan's house.  He is the King's
Provost-Marshal and--and----"

"Yes, I know, Uncle.  He carries out the justice of the King.  But to
hang a fellow-Christian over one's own hall-door is a strange taste."

"Stephen, take my advice and have naught to do with Tristan by word or
deed.  And no doubt the fellow deserved his hanging."

"That he may have naught to do with me is my hope," answered La Mothe,
with a little laugh which had no humour in it.  "And as to deserts, he
drank overmuch and beat the watch.  Truly a vicious rascal!  God send
us all sober to bed, Uncle, and may a sudden end find nothing worse on
our conscience than a dizzy brain.  But that's not all.  Midway between
the castle and the Loire stands the Valmy gibbet, fair set in the
sunshine and for all to see: and as I rode past there were two hung
from it; two hang from it still, but they are not the same two."

"Thieves," said Commines.  "Would you have the roads unsafe?"

"One of to-day's couple is a boy of twelve--unripe fruit for such a
tree, Uncle, and a fearsome danger to the peace of France.  Tristan
does well to keep the roads safe from such swaggerers.  Twelve years of
life, twelve years of a pinched stomach, and--the justice of the King
to end it all!  And what of the woman who gathered nettles for the pot
from the river-bank?  The archers shouted to her, but she was hungry,
poor starved soul, and gathered on, bent to all-fours like a beast.
Then they shot her--like a beast.  Down she went with an arrow through
the bent back; a woman, Uncle."

"She should have hearkened and kept away," said Commines.  "Neither man
nor woman may come near Valmy without permission when the King is here."

"She should have hearkened," echoed La Mothe.  "But the Good God had
sealed her ears; she was deaf as a stone and so for the justice of the
King she died.  Then three days ago it was Guy de Molembrais, who came
to Valmy--so 'tis said--with the King's safe-conduct."

"Molembrais lost his head as a traitor," answered Commines roughly.

"And the safe-conduct?"

"The safe-conduct was given before Molembrais' treason was fully
proved."

"Then it is the King's justice to lure suspects----"

"There can be no faith with traitors.  Did the safe-conduct make his
treason less?  Do you not see," he went on, as La Mothe made no reply,
"that Molembrais got no more than his deserts?"

"Like the brawler in Tours," said the lad whimsically.  "Perhaps
Tristan gave him a safe-conduct too, and the fool got drunk.  And if we
have good, warm blood in us we all get drunk sooner or later.  Yes, and
please God my time will come, but may the Saints send me far from
Valmy!  You think I'm talking nonsense, Uncle; but Monsieur de Perche
always let me talk.  He said it was better to let blow at the bung than
burst the cask."

"You drunk!" answered Commines jestingly.  La Mothe had been on very
dangerous ground and a change of subject was an unspeakable relief.
"Why, except the King, no man in Valmy drinks less wine."

"Wine-drunk?  Am I a beast, Uncle, that you should say such a thing?
No, not wine-drunk.  Love-drunk, war-drunk, fighting-drunk.  To feel
the nerves tingle, the blood run hot, the heart go throbbing mad! to
feel a glorious exultation quiver through you like--yes, Uncle, I know
I'm a fool, but it's not so long since you were young yourself."

"Nor am I so old yet, Stephen boy.  When that day of your drunkenness
comes there will either be a very happy woman or a sorrowful man."

"Yes, Uncle, if only the King gives me a safe-conduct----"

"The King requires the attendance of Monsieur Stephen La Mothe without
delay."

With a start like the cringe of a nervous woman suddenly frightened,
Commines, the man of iron nerves, turned to the door, the colour
rushing in a flood to his face.  Neither had heard its latch click nor
seen it open, but the broad figure of a burly man was massed in the
gloom against the greater light from the outer entrance.  A passing
torch, flaring up the hall-way from behind, showed him draped from
throat to ankle in some self-coloured, russet-red, woollen stuff which
caught the glare, and outlined him for the moment as with sweeping
curves of blood.  To La Mothe he was a stranger, but from the little he
could see of the shaven face, at once harsh and fleshly sensual, he
judged him to be nearly twenty years older than Commines.

"You--Tristan----"  The surprise had shaken even Commines from his
self-control and he spoke brokenly.  "How long have you been here?"

"Since the King sent me for Monsieur La Mothe.  At once, if you please,
Monsieur."

"But it was to-morrow----"

"He has changed his mind.  What is to be done is best done quickly.
You, Monsieur d'Argenton, will understand what the King means by
quickly.  I know nothing but that you are to leave Valmy to-morrow
morning instead of the day after, and so he must see Monsieur La Mothe
to-night.  As Monsieur d'Argenton's friend, Monsieur La Mothe, I would
advise humble acquiescence."

"In what?"  It was the first time La Mothe had spoken, and in his
repugnance he could not bring himself to add the courtesy "Monsieur" to
the curt question.

"Our Master's will, whatever it may be.  It is a privilege, young sir,
to further the justice of the King."

"The justice of the King!" replied La Mothe, carried hotly away by that
repugnance.  "God's name, Provost-Marshal, I am not--not--not the
King's arm, like you," he added lamely.  But though Tristan might
neither forgive nor forget the suggestion of the broken sentence he was
not the man to resent it at the moment.  The King's arm must endure
pin-pricks as well as deal justice.  It was Commines, rather, who
replied.

"Hush, Stephen, our friend is entirely right.  It is you who
misunderstand.  The King's justice is in all his acts.  Yes! and not
only his justice, but his mercy and his greatness, and these three have
made France what she is."

"And all these three are waiting for Monsieur La Mothe.  Come, young
sir, the King is very weary and it is time he was in his bed--though I
would not advise you to tell him so," and leaving the door open behind
him Tristan went out into the night: that he did so they were sure, for
they heard the rasp of his feet on the flags of the court.

"How long was he there?"  Commines spoke under his breath as his
fingers closed on La Mothe's arm with a grip which left its mark.  "How
long was he listening?  What did he hear?  You fool, you fool, you may
have ruined yourself--and me, and me.  And why has he left us together?
He has some reason for it--some end to serve: his own or the King's.
Try and think what you said: no, not now, there is no time, but when
you are with the King, and unsay it, unsay it.  And Stephen, remember,
he is the King, he is the Master of France, the maker of France, and he
is dying.  Promise him----"

"Monsieur La Mothe, Monsieur La Mothe, is the King to wait all night,
or shall I say Monsieur d'Argenton detains you?"

"Go, boy, go.  Promise everything, everything--he is the King," and as
Commines pushed him through the doorway La Mothe could hear his breath
coming in heavy gasps.




CHAPTER V

THE KING LAYS BARE HIS HEART

If proof were needed of the King's unique trust in his Grand Marshal it
was to be found in the ease with which Tristan conveyed La Mothe past
the sentries who stood guard at every door.  Not Commines, not Lessaix,
not Beaujeu himself, for all that he was the King's son-in-law, could
have brought a stranger to the King's presence without special licence.
But to none Tristan gave greeting, much less vouchsafed explanation,
and by none was he challenged.  Nor did La Mothe speak.  Not only had
the suddenness of the unexpected summons confused him, but his thoughts
were too deeply busied trying to remember how far he had allowed his
tongue to outrun discretion.

To say he was afraid would be too much, to say he had no fear would be
too little, but his fear was less a dread than an awe.  The gaiety of
his laughter had clean gone from him, and his heart of song was hushed:
even the crude, ironical satire of his uncomprehending youth was
stayed.  He had made grim jest of the justice of the King, and now the
King's justice, in its sternest, most sinister incarnation, rubbed
shoulders with him.  It was little wonder that his mood was sobered as
his mind, instinctively swayed by Commines' almost frenzied insistence,
groped its way step by step from Poitou to Valmy in a troubled
endeavour to recall just what had passed between them when Tristan's
interruption pricked the bubble of his irony.

And he succeeded in part.  First there had been the coiner of Thouars,
then the brawling drunkard of Tours, the thief of Valmy, the
nettle-gatherer, and lastly Molembrais who held the King's
safe-conduct.  Truly the meshes of the net of Justice were small when
not even a twelve-year thief, a common quarreller in his cups, or the
holder of the King's safe-conduct could slip through.  Perhaps it was
as he spoke of this last the door had opened.  It was then he had hoped
he might be far from Valmy the day his passion of soul was stirred.  It
expressed his mood of the moment, but now he knew he had said more,
much more, than he had meant, as youth so often does in its gay
self-sufficiency, and the words as they stood--if Tristan had caught
them--were no commendation to either favour or confidence.  How could
the King trust him when his foolish satire had so plainly hinted that
he did not trust the King?  It would be unreasonable: faith begets
faith.  For an instant it flashed across his mind that he might explain
away the words, but in the same instant he dismissed the thought.
Explanation would never win belief from such a man as Tristan, nor
could he bend his repugnance to such a familiarity.

So in silence they crossed the courtyard where Leslie's Scottish
archers lurked in every shadow, in silence passed the many guards
grouped at the gateway to the King's lodgings, in silence traversed the
great square hall, gaunt and comfortless, but brighter than daylight
from its many lamps--the King was afraid of gloom--and in silence
mounted the stone stairway.  At its head they turned along the
right-hand corridor, entering a silent ante-room with sentinels at its
door; at a further door, masked by drawn curtains, the guard was
doubled.  Force, vigilance, suspicion, were the dominant notes of
Valmy--in a sense they were Valmy itself.  Midway across this ante-room
Tristan paused and struck La Mothe lightly on the arm with a gesture
that seemed part contempt.

"A word of advice, young man, from one who knows.  Be frank, say
little, answer promptly: do what the King bids you and be thankful."

"Is that a threat?" La Mothe answered the tone of half-truculent
command rather than the words.

"A threat?  No!  The King and I do not threaten, we fulfil."

"The King and you?"

"I have said so, do you want it proved?"  Drawing back the curtains
very quietly Tristan stood a moment blocking the doorway before
motioning to La Mothe to follow him.  He knew his master, and wished to
make certain that the stage picture was set before the audience was
admitted.

The room was even more brilliantly lit than any they had passed
through, and yet with such a skilful distribution of the light that the
further end was completely shadowed.  It was the effect of an
artificial alcove.  There, where the grey thickened, sat the King, or
rather there he lay propped high upon a couch, pillows behind him and
pillows at either side to support and comfort his weakness.  A peaked,
close-fitting cap of crimson silk, laced with gold embroidery, covered
his head down to the very roots of the ears, while a long, wide-sleeved
robe of the same colour, furred at the neck, and draped to give an
appearance of breadth of chest, swathed him to the feet.  So shadowed,
and with a reflected glow flushing the thin face, it would have needed
a shrewder suspicion than that of country-bred Stephen La Mothe to
detect how low the flame of life burned in the frail vessel of clay.

In front of the couch a low table, hardly higher than the couch itself,
was placed within reach of the King's hand: behind all--the draping, as
it were, of the alcove--hung arras of blue cloth interwoven with golden
fleurs-de-lis, a fitting and picturesque background to the tableau.  To
the left were windows, fast shuttered, to the right a closed door.

Drawing La Mothe to the front Tristan turned on his heel and re-entered
the ante-room in silence, dropping the curtains behind him.  There had
been no formal announcement, no word spoken, but as the curtain fell
the King stirred upon his pillows and La Mothe was conscious of a
scrutiny which slowly swept him from head to foot.  But the protection
of the peaked cap was insufficient.  Lifting his hand Louis shaded his
eyes yet further, and leaning forward repeated the scrutiny; then he
beckoned very gently and lay back upon the pillows.  He was a judge of
men, a crafty reader of the dumb truths told by eyes and mouth, or the
faint, uncontrollable shifts of expression, and so far he was
satisfied.  Commines might be right or wrong, but at least this La
Mothe was no assassin.  Nevertheless the door upon the right opened
quietly so soon as La Mothe had passed beyond eyesight of it, opened
wide enough for a cross-bow to cover him from the darkness of the
passage without.  Louis was not a man to run a needless risk, and the
bolt which brought home the King's justice to the nettle-gatherer would
not miss Stephen La Mothe at thirty feet.

"Nearer," said a soft voice as La Mothe paused, uncertain how far that
beckoning hand had called him, "nearer yet; there! that will do for the
present.  You are Stephen La Mothe, the friend of my dear and trusted
friend, therefore my friend also, and the King has need of friends.
No, no, say nothing, Philip said I could trust you as himself.  That is
a great deal for one man to say of another."

"Prove me, sire."  La Mothe spoke with an effort.  The weary, caressing
voice with its subtle note of pathos, the affectionate, frank admission
of Commines' worth, the half-veiled appeal with its confession of a
personal need, had touched him deeply, stirring him as music has the
power to stir, so that to command words was difficult.  "My uncle told
me----"

"Uncle?"  Louis' suspicions sprang to life newborn.  Goaded by their
sting he leaned forward, one arm thrust out, and for the first time La
Mothe saw the deathly pallor of his face.  "Uncle, do you say?
Commines never called you nephew?"

"Not in blood, sire: in love--service--gratitude."

"Then it is better to have a nephew by name than a son by nature.  Do
you hear?  If you love your uncle pray with all your soul that he may
never have a son to grudge him his life."  The thrust-out fingers,
little more than bleached skin drawn tight over fleshless bones, were
shaken in a convulsion of passion, from the sunken, dull eyes a sudden
fire glared, and the thin lips shrank upon the uneven teeth.  But in an
instant the spasm passed and Louis sank back upon the pillows,
breathing heavily and plucking at the tags of gold cord fastening his
robe at the breast.  "See what it is to have a son," he said, but in so
low a tone that La Mothe barely caught the words, nor were they spoken
as if addressed to him, then with an effort which racked his strength
the King roused himself.  "Love!  Service and gratitude!  Words! empty
words!  Kings hear them daily and find them lies.  Because of these in
his mouth Guy de Molembrais was trusted as it may be Stephen La Mothe
will be trusted, and Molembrais is dead--dead in a traitor's grave.
Words?  It is deeds France has need of, deeds--deeds.  And you, young
sir, for whom my friend Philip vouched as for himself, are you more
faithful than Molembrais?"

"God helping me, sire."

"Um, um; have you need of God's help to be faithful?"

"I only meant----"

"There! there! obey orders and you will have help enough.  You owe much
to Monsieur de Commines?"

"Everything, sire."

"Everything?  Sit there," and Louis pointed to a low stool placed just
beyond the transverse angle of the bench-like table which fronted the
couch.  "Everything!  Love!  Service!  Gratitude! You are right!  Take
these from life and there is not much left.  And how will you repay the
everything you owe?"

"Love for love----"

"Um!  A woman may have a word to say as to that!  Well?"

"Service for service----"

"You are not your own.  France claims you; never forget a man's first
service is to his country.  The nation is the mother of us all.  Well,
what next?  Shall I tell you?  Win his gratitude in return!  Eh, Master
Stephen, how would that please you?  Prove your love, show your
service, earn his gratitude, and these you will do to the uttermost by
serving the King and France."

"Sire, sire," cried La Mothe, shaken out of himself by the gust of
healthy emotion which seized him as the King's quiet voice grew in
strength and fullness till it seemed to vibrate with as generous a
passion as that which stirred the depths of the listener; "I am yours
to use body and soul."

"Body and soul," repeated Louis, his eyes fixed searchingly on La
Mothe's face.  The lad's prompt response promised well, all that was
needed was to keep this enthusiasm of devotion keyed to the pitch of
action.  "Body and soul!  Be sure I shall not forget.  But what you
promise in hot blood you will forget when your mood cools.  No?  Well,
Molembrais' mood cooled and he has been colder than his mood these
three days past.  But you are different, you are of stronger, finer,
truer stuff, your love and service are for Commines as well as for
France, and so you will not forget.  You understand?  Monsieur de
Commines vouches for you.  Monsieur de Commines."  The King paused, and
the nervous fretful fingers plucked at the breast of his robe afresh.
He was utterly wearied and must have time to regain strength.
"Monsieur de Commines stands surety for you; never forget that.  Your
faithfulness is his faithfulness, your failure his failure: keep that
always before you.  To-morrow you will----, but first tell me something
of yourself."  With a moan of weakness he settled back into the pillows
and his eyes closed.  "I must know Philip's friend as Philip knows
him," said the soft voice.

And again La Mothe was touched to the heart, touched in his pride for
Commines, the King's trusted friend, touched in his grateful sympathies
that the King, weary and burdened by many anxieties, should find time
and thought for so kind an interest in one so insignificant as himself,
though that, too, was for Commines' sake; touched above all with a
generous self-reproach when he remembered his bitter satire on the
King's justice.  He now saw that the severities which had horrified and
repelled him were exigencies of State, repugnant to the gentle, kindly
nature of the man in whose name the law took its course.

And out of that grateful heart of youth he spoke frankly as Tristan had
bidden him speak.  Briefly, succinctly, he told of his childhood's
poverty, of the change which came later under Commines' unfailing,
affectionate liberality, of his placing him as a lad in the household
of Monsieur de Perche, of the life in Poitou with its training in arms
and simple teaching of Keep faith, Live clean, Follow the right and
trust God unafraid.  It was a very simple story, but he told it well.
No tale grows cold in the interest or halts for words when the heart is
behind the telling.

And through it all Louis lay among his cushions like one dead.  Not an
eyelid flickered, not a finger moved, his breath came so softly, so
quietly that the red robe scarcely stirred beneath his sunken chin.
Every muscle was relaxed in that restfulness which next to sleep is the
surest restorer of exhausted vitality.  But the brain, the most acute
and cunning brain in France, was awake.  With that dual consciousness
which, even more than dissimulation, is the diplomatist's prime
necessity for success in the worsting of an adversary, he gathered and
stored for use in his memory the salient points from La Mothe's story,
while all the while, co-energetically, his mind was busy searching out
how best to use this new tool for the cementing closer that fabric of
France which was his pride and glory.  France was at once the mother
who gave his genius form and the son of his jealous love.  And as he
listened, planning, sufficient strength crept back to the worn body.
He could play out his part to the end, and La Mothe would carry with
him no sense of his master's frailty to paralyze action.  In loyalty
for loyalty's sake Louis had no faith.

"You need say no more," he said, nodding his head with sympathetic
interest.  "A debt--a debt indeed.  And to-morrow you begin your
repayment.  To-morrow you go to Amboise with Monsieur de Commines.
Amboise," he repeated slowly, "Amboise," and paused.  "Where His
Highness, the Dauphin----"

"Where my son waits--and watches."  The thin hand crept up to the sunk
lips, lingered there an instant, crept up to the dull eyes, passed
across them once or twice with a motion eloquent of weary hopelessness,
and fell drearily to the lap.  "God keep us in His mercy," said the
King, and as his finger-tips made the four points of the cross upon his
breast La Mothe felt he was upon holy ground.  "God keep us in His
comfort.  All is not well at Amboise, but my friend Philip knows--knows
and feels for me.  I have no orders to give.  All is left to him.  Only
I say this, and never forget it, never--France comes first and
obedience is the payment of your debt."




CHAPTER VI

HOW LOUIS LOVED HIS SON

La Mothe sat silent.  His fear had passed away utterly, but in its
place his awe had grown, an awe full of a deep pity.  Youth is the true
age of intolerance and for the simple reason that it is the age of
ignorance.  In its abundant strength, its sense of growth and
development, its vigorous, unfailing elasticity, its blessed want of
knowledge of the ills of life, its blindness to the inevitable coming
of these ills, it is impatient of a caution it calls cowardice, or a
frailty it neither understands in another nor anticipates for itself.
But in the rare instances when it takes thought its sympathies are more
generous than those of age, because the sorrows it sees are so much
greater than any it has known, ever realized in itself or even
conceived.  So was it now with La Mothe.  The pathetic, solitary
figure, feeble almost to helplessness, diseased, shrunken, dying,
Commines had said, yet with a heart warm in friendliness and a thought
for France alone, thrilled him to the very depths.  And the dull eyes,
watching him from under the heavy lids with an alert vigilance from
which no shift of mood escaped, read his emotion unerringly.

Again Louis leaned forward.  But it was a changed Louis.  This time the
light fell on a worn face fixed in a grey solemnity.  The grave
protesting voice, the outstretched hand driving home its indignant
points, completed the spell.

"No, all is not well at Amboise.  They think the King grows old.  Poor
humanity must needs grow old, but they are impatient and
would--anticipate age.  I have a son, not yet thirteen--but of age to
be king.  Silence--silence, he is the Dauphin.  It is not for you to
blame--or condemn the Dauphin.  Nor does the King's justice condemn
ignorantly.  Plots, plots, plots!  Plots against the father, God and
the father can forgive; but plots against the King--plots against
France: for these there is no forgiveness and youth is no excuse."

"But, sire," began La Mothe.  Then he remembered the Valmy gibbet where
a boy of twelve still hung that the roads of France might be safe, and
his voice choked.  The King was right; youth was no excuse.

"There are no buts," said Louis, sternly emphatic, and sank back upon
the pillows.  "I have knowledge, I have knowledge, Commines
knows--others--France, Europe--must know later; an honest lad like you
will be believed."

"Three weeks ago I was in Poitou----"

"Yes, and so they will trust you; you are without prejudice, you are
not of the Court."

"I meant, sire, I have no experience."

"And so the nut may be too hard for your teeth?  I see no fault in your
modesty: diffidence is not cowardice.  But you will have help in your
nut-cracking, you will have three good friends in Amboise, Greed, Fear,
and Love: with these three I have made France what she is.  Money--a
man--a woman; what will these not do!  With the first--bribe and see
that you do not hold my skin too cheap; Fear--a life forfeit, if I lift
a finger he hangs; Love--a woman."

"A friend, sire?"

"An enemy--but a woman.  Fool her: she is young and Amboise is dull.  I
have a scheme for you ready made.  You sing?  But I know you do,
Tristan has told me.  Nothing escapes him, nothing: and nothing is too
small for the King's service.  Always remember life holds nothing
trivial.  Leave Valmy with Commines, but separate on the road and go to
Amboise as a wandering jongleur.  They are dull and will welcome any
distraction.  You make verses?"

"Sometimes, sire," stammered La Mothe, very ill at ease, and flushing
as youth will in the shame of its pride.  It was almost as
disconcerting as being found out in a lie.

"Margaret of Scotland kissed Alain Chartier who made verses, and
Amboise is dull.  Queen or waiting-maid, women are all of one flesh
under the skin, and to fool her should be easy.  Remember," added Louis
hastily, "I do not bid you do this or that: I only suggest, nothing
more, nothing more.  Monsieur de Commines--your uncle--will give you
your orders, and when--when"--he paused, catching at the throat of his
robe as if it choked the breath a little, swallowed with a gasp, then
went on harshly--"when the end has come say nothing, but take horse and
ride here for your life.  Find me--me, without an instant's delay and
keep silence till you have found.  Here is a ring that day or night
will open every door in Valmy."

"What end, sire?"

"What end?  What end?  Ask Commines, serve him, serve France; that end,
boy, that end, and in the name of Almighty God, ride fast."  The dull
eyes took fire, and this time there was no need for the lying glow of
the scarlet robe to make pretence of health; so fierce a passion waked
the blood even in the deathly cheeks.  But it also had the defect of
its quality, and Louis sank back breathless in exhaustion.  "No, no!"
he whispered, the words whistling in his throat as he motioned
imperiously to La Mothe to keep his seat.  "Call no one, it will
pass--it is nothing, nothing at all--and I have one thing more to say."

Fumbling amongst the cushions he drew out a little silver figure,
whether of man or woman La Mothe was uncertain, so fully the tense
fingers clenched it.  This he held up, palsied, before his face, bowed
to it thrice, his lips moving soundlessly, then the hand slipped weakly
to his knees, the grasp relaxed, and the image clattered on the floor.
It had served its purpose, out of the curious act of faith a renewal of
strength was born and Louis was again King.  But even then the words
faltered.

Shading his face with one hand he reached forward to the low bench.  It
was littered with the contents natural to such a surrounding in such a
presence, papers, parchments, an ink-horn or two, a stand of goose
quills, a tray of blotting-sand, with, nearer to the King's hand, a
lumped-up linen cloth with the four corners folded and twisted inwards.
Amongst these the nervous hand shifted uncertainly here and there,
almost like the fluttering of a bird, then came to rest upon the
bunched folds of the napkin.

"The Dauphin is a child," he said, his fingers closing upon the
looseness of the linen as he spoke.  "A weakling--girl!  And so,
girl-like, he loves to play at make-believe.  You know their games?
There is the shell of a ruined house beyond the walls and he holds it
against all-comers with a sword of lath, or carries it by assault at
the head of his army of two stable-boys.  Then he cries, 'I am
Charlemagne!  I am Roland!  I am the Cid!  I am----'--anything but the
Dauphin of France!"

"But, sire," ventured La Mothe, as the King paused, "that is natural in
a child."

"I played no such games at twelve years old," answered Louis bitterly.
"At twelve I learned king's-craft and foresaw realities; at twelve I
struggled to be a man in thought, never was I a girl-child in
make-believe, but Charles--Charles sucks sugar and hugs his toys.  But
being a child we must treat him as a child, yes, yes, and so--and
so----"  The voice trailed into silence and the hand upon the linen
shook as with a palsy.  "You see," the King went on hoarsely, "what it
is to be a father.  The child is a child and must be treated as a
child, and yet not encouraged in childish plays by the father, not
outwardly--not outwardly.  Else Commines, Beaujeu, and these others
would say I fostered with my hand what I condemned with my head.  No,
the father's hand must be hidden out of sight, and that will be your
part."

With a quick jerk he flung the linen napkin on the floor, and, dropping
the hand which had shaded his face, turned to La Mothe with what seemed
a challenge in his eyes, almost a defiance: it was as if he said, Scoff
if you dare!  And yet in the little heap of interwoven, fine steel
rings there was nothing to move either laughter or contempt, and if the
quaint velvet mask which lay beside the coat of mail was effeminate in
the tinsel of its gold embroidery, it was at least no child's toy to
raise a sneer or gibe a moral.

Laughter?  There was no thought of laughter.  The warm heart of young
blood is emotional once its crust of unthinking carelessness is
pierced, and La Mothe was never nearer tears.  More than that, the
pathetic humanness of it all, the bitter cynical censure of the King,
overborne and cast out by the abiding tenderness of the father, crushed
by no logic of kingcraft, was that touch of nature which made him kin
even to this stern and pitiless despot in spite of the repulsion
wakened by the justice of the King.  With these secret gifts of
fatherhood before him he saw Louis in a new light, and the loyalty
which had been a loyalty of cold duty took fire in that enthusiasm
which is the devotion of the heart and counts life itself no sacrifice.
Nor could he hide the new birth within him, and the dark lines of
challenge were smoothed from the King's face.

"A little slender coat such as the French Maid might have worn," he
said, lifting the woven links gently as if he loved them, and dropping
them again in a little heap that caught the light on every separate
ring and split it up into a hundred glittering points.  "It may have a
message for him when he plays Roland or Charlemagne, and through it the
spirit of the child may grow."

"But surely all the world may know of such a gift as that?  Sire, sire,
let me tell the whole truth; give me leave to say this is from the
father to the son, from the King who is to the King who shall be----"

"God's name, boy, who bade you fill thrones with your King
who shall be!  Is this Commines' work?  Does he think--does he
think--that--that--Christ give me breath!"  And the hooked fingers
caught roughly, fiercely, at his robe, tearing it open so that the lean
neck with its tense sinewy cords was laid bare to the glare.  "Quick,
quick, is it Commines--Commines--Commines?" he stammered, gasping.  "I
took him from the gutter--from the very gutter; he was traitor to a
Charles to serve Louis, and now is he a traitor to Louis to serve a
Charles again?"  Pushing himself up, half kneeling on the couch, half
leaning on the low bench, he stretched out a shaking, threatening hand
towards La Mothe.  "Why don't you speak, boy, why don't you speak and
tell the truth, you dumb dog?"

But the passion was beyond his strength, his jaw dropped, he shivered
as if with cold, and fell back upon the cushions, one hand feebly
beckoning to La Mothe to come nearer.

"Whisper," he said, patting La Mothe's arm fawningly, a wry smile
twitching his lips, but leaving the watchful eyes cold.  "We are alone,
we two.  Who put that thought into your head?  Eh?  Come now?  Come
now?"

"No one, sire, on my honour, no one."

"Honour?  I know too much of the ways of men to trust men's honour.
Swear, boy," he burst out again, passionately roused.  "Swear on this.
It is the Cross of Saint Lo, and remember, remember, whoso swears
falsely dies, dies within the year--dies damned.  Honour?  Honour is a
net with too wide a mesh to hold men's oaths.  Dare you swear?"

Lifting the relic to his lips La Mothe kissed it reverently, while
Louis, his lungs still fighting for breath, witched him narrowly.

"Sire, I meant nothing, nothing but----"

"But that you were a fool.  Only a fool sells--the lion's skin--while
the lion--is alive."  His voice strengthened as if the thought
stimulated him like a cordial.  "And the lion is alive--alive!  I must
finish, I must finish," he went on more querulously.  "Yes, a fool, but
fools are commonly honest.  You may be a faithful servant, but you are
a bad courtier, Monsieur La Mothe."

"But, sire, have you not more need of the one than of the other?"

"Of the servant than the courtier?  Aye, aye, that is well said, very
well said.  You are less a fool than I thought.  But I must finish or
Coictier, my doctor--he thinks me less strong than I am--will be
scolding me.  Take these," and he pushed the coat of mail away from him
impatiently, as if vexed that he had been betrayed into such a display
of feeling.  "Remember that I have never seen them, never, never.  You
promise me that?  You swear that?"

"I swear it, sire, solemnly."

"And you will return to Valmy--to me, in silence?"

"I promise, sire."

"Swear, boy, swear."

"I swear it, solemnly."

"There!"  And again he pushed the mail from him, his delicate fingers
touching the mask delicately.  "Give them from yourself.  All things
have their price, and the price of a child's confidence is to serve its
pleasures.  But, young sir, remember this too, remember it, I say, my
son is the Dauphin of France and that which is for a prince's use, even
in play, is for his use only.  Let no one else have commerce with
these."

"Be sure, sire, I reverence the prince too deeply----"

"Aye, aye: you can go.  Words cost even less than honour.  Give me
proofs, Stephen La Mothe, proofs, and trust to the justice of the
King," which shows how right Commines was when he said that the justice
of the King had many sides.

And so, with his deepest bow and his heart full of many emotions, La
Mothe left his master's presence, and the cross-bow in the shadows
beyond the door on the right was lowered for the first time in more
than half an hour.  For what he was to trust the justice of the King he
was no more clear in the confusion of the moment than what his mission
to Amboise was.  But of one thing he was certain, the King was a man
much maligned and little understood: harsh of word and stern of act,
perhaps, but with a great, undreamed wealth of tenderness behind the
apparent austerity.  Of that the little coat of mail and tinselled mask
bore witness.  It was wonderful, he told himself, how the yearnings of
the human heart found excuse for what the sterner brain condemned;
surely that was where the human drew nearest to the divine!  This was
not alone a master to serve, but a man to love!

And Louis, a huddled, shapeless mass on his tossed cushions, sat
gnawing his finger-tips and staring with dull eyes into vacancy.  All
passion had died from him and suddenly he had grown very old, though
the indomitable spirit knew no added touch of age.

"My son," he said, shivering, "my son, my son."  Then the bent
shoulders straightened, the bowed head was raised, and into the tired
eyes there shot a gleam of fire.  "I have no son but France!"  Was he a
hypocrite?  Who can tell?  But let the man who never deceived himself
to another's hurt cast the first stone at him.

When the little troop of ten or a dozen rode from Valmy the next
morning on their way to Amboise he was there upon the walls, a solitary
grey figure pathetic in his utter loneliness.  Nor, so long as they
were in sight, did his eyes wander from them.




CHAPTER VII

FOUR-AND-TWENTY, WITH THE HEART OF EIGHTEEN

Many, deep, and diverse are the springs of silence.  If Commines asked
no question when La Mothe returned from his interview with Louis, and
made no comment beyond "You are late, my son," it was because he knew
that curiosity was almost as dangerous as opposition where the schemes
or secrets of his master were concerned.  La Mothe, in his ignorance,
had on the other hand no such thought, no such fear, but a charge which
he held sacred had been solemnly committed to him: he shared a secret
with the King and the first necessity was silence.  Whatever Commines'
ultimate orders might be he understood now what his mission was, this
mission to Amboise: it was to do for the father what the father might
not do for himself, and as they rode slowly along the high road from
Valmy he thought complacently to himself that he alone recognized the
true nature of the man who watched them from the walls.

But there were obvious limits to the silence if the line of procedure
laid down by the King was to be followed.  A parting and a meeting were
to be arranged, a plan of campaign to be decided upon; and it struck La
Mothe as curious that the man who scoffed at make-believe in a boy
could yet seize upon make-believe for his own purposes.

"The King does not wish me to arrive at Amboise with you," began La
Mothe, and it is to his credit that he spoke with hesitation.  To
Commines, as Commines himself had said, he owed everything, and yet it
seemed as if already he had come between Commines and the King's
confidence.  And yet, just because he was in the King's confidence it
was not easy to keep a touch of importance out of his voice.  It was as
if he said, "The King and I have decided so-and-so, and you are to
stand aside."  But the bubble of his complacency was soon pricked.

"At Château-Renaud you will stay behind after we have dined," answered
Commines, "nor will you leave the inn until three o'clock.  You will
then go on foot to Limeray, where you will cross the Eisse, and take
the Tours road until west of Amboise.  You are then to ford the Loire
at Grand-Vouvray and enter Amboise from the south.  Once in Amboise ask
for the Chien Noir and put up there for the night."

"So you know all about it," said La Mothe, crest-fallen.  Nor was it
simply that Commines knew all about it, it seemed he knew much more
than La Mothe himself.

"Except that at the Chien Noir you will find some one who can open the
doors of the Château to you I know nothing, and I want to know nothing.
There you are to obey orders, but to have your time to yourself; and,
my son, my son, pray God there may be no orders to give."

"But the King told me nothing of all this last night."

"It is enough that he told me this morning," answered Commines drily.
"You need not look downcast; it is his custom to divide his
instructions."

But La Mothe had another objection, and one so obvious that he
marvelled how it had escaped Commines' notice.

"One thing the King forgets.  To enter Amboise as a stranger will be
impossible.  Riding behind us there are twelve good reasons why I
should be recognized."

"Do you take us for fools?" retorted Commines.  Turning in his saddle
he pointed backwards.  Valmy was still in sight, and a keen eye could
have detected the meagre grey figure above the outlines of the grey
walls.  "What is that to the right of the castle?"

"Valmy gallows."

"And from it hang three good reasons why the twelve will keep silence.
The King's grip is as sure in Amboise as it is in Valmy; it is over all
France, and God have mercy on the man it closes upon in anger.  Think
twice, Stephen, before you say the King forgets--and then don't say it."

La Mothe rode on in silence.  This sudden reminder of the justice of
the King had dashed his satisfaction.  Wherever he turned it confronted
him, and always with a warning which was less a warning than a threat.
It had been so with Tristan, it was so now with Commines, nor could the
memory of the coat of mail and embroidered toy in his saddle-bags
entirely quiet the uneasiness of the threat gendered.  But, seeking
relief, his thought cast back to Commines' curt instructions.

"Who is this fellow--for I suppose it is a man who is to meet me at the
Chien Noir?"

"Who is he?  Slime of the gutter, contemptible old age unashamed, human
pitch whose very touch is a loathing, a repulsion, a defilement."  It
seemed as if Commines was less afraid to speak his mind now that the
walls of Valmy were out of hearing, for he went on bitterly: "The King
chooses his tools well, a foul tool for a foul use, and neither you nor
I can come out of it with clean hands.  His name?  The gallows-cheat
has a dozen names and changes them as you would your coat.  He is like
a Paris rag-picker, and his basket of life is full of the garbage he
has raked from the gutter."

"And the woman?"

"The woman!  To hear you say the woman one would think there was but
one in the world.  The King told me of no woman."

"Then I am not likely to get drunk in Amboise, unless your rag-picker
pours the wine.

  'Heigh ho!  Love is the sun,
    Love is the moon and the stars by night.'

The scheme seems a foolish one to me.  I can never play the part.  But,
Uncle, what do you say?  Shall I make a good troubadour?"

"Sing while you may," answered Commines, with a dry gravity behind the
softening of his stern mouth, "and remember that at Amboise you sing
for a King's pay."

"And I would sing five songs for nothing but the pleasure of singing
rather than one for a fee.  What kind of a little lad is the Dauphin?"

Commines made no reply, but rode on with knit brows.  The question so
lightly asked was one he had often weighed in his own mind nor found a
clear answer.  Rumour said of him--but under her breath, for to speak
at all was dangerous--that he was shamefully neglected, slow-witted,
ill-taught, or, worse still, untaught, but, and here rumour whispered
yet lower, that flashes of shrewdness broke the dull level of the
undeveloped intellect when least expected.  That he was small for his
age he knew, that he was weakly, ill-formed, and awkward.  These things
were patent to the eye and common knowledge, but into the depths of the
lad's nature he had not ventured to probe lest Louis' suspicious
jealousy should be aroused.  Now that he found himself between a
father's twilight and a son's dawn, with "The king is dead, long live
the king," an imminent proclamation, he blamed himself for his
cowardice as men always do who are wise after the event.  With a little
more certain knowledge his star might rise with the dawn, instead of,
as he feared, setting with the twilight.

"Eh?" he said, rousing himself as La Mothe repeated the question.  "The
Dauphin?  I know little of him.  He has lived at Amboise, I at Valmy or
Plessis with the King: it is long since the two have met.  An ailing,
obstinate, dull boy, they say, with no more wit than can be put in him
with a spoon.  If it were not that weak natures often turn vicious that
they may be thought strong I would say the King's fear of a plot was
baseless."

"But surely there is no plot--a son against a father: a father who
loves him," added La Mothe, remembering the contents of his saddle-bags.

"I wish the plot was as doubtful as the love; we might then have stayed
comfortably in Valmy," answered Commines cynically, and La Mothe's eyes
twinkled as he thought how much better he had read the King in his
single hour than Commines had in all his ten years of intimacy.  "The
woman," he went on, "must be Ursula de Vesc, and if so you can spend
your hour or two's walk from Château-Renaud to Amboise adding a verse
to your love song."

"Why not a new song all for herself!" replied La Mothe, the twinkle
broadening to a laugh, "or had I better wait till I see her?  She would
never forgive me if the adored dimple was in the right cheek instead of
the left, or the sweet eyes of my song grey instead of blue.  Which are
they, Uncle?"

"I never knew the colour of any woman's eyes but one," answered
Commines; and La Mothe knew by the softened voice that he spoke of
Suzanne.  "And when a woman has taught you the colour of her eyes may
you see that in them which will make black or blue or grey the one
colour in the world for you.  As to Ursula de Vesc, she detests me much
as I detest that offscouring from the dregs of brazen Paris who will
meet you at the Chien Noir.  But there is Château-Renaud, where you
will find something better for your age and more to your liking than
women's eyes."

"Dinner! and I twenty-four!"

"Eighteen, Stephen, eighteen, not a day older, and be thankful for the
heart of a boy."

"Why not be thankful for the heart of a girl!" retorted La Mothe.
"Pray the Saints, as the King would say, that Ursula de Vesc is as
pretty as her name."

Partly that his men might be free from the restraint of his presence,
and partly because he did not wish to advertise his visit to Amboise
more broadly than necessary, Commines ordered their meal to be served
in a private room.  It was to the front, with two small windows
overlooking the roadway.  These were open, and as the stamping of hoofs
and jingling of bridle-chains came through them Commines bade La Mothe
see who were without.

"But do not show yourself.  Between Valmy and Amboise every man is a
friend or an enemy, with fewer friends the further Valmy is left
behind."

"A priest, with three of an escort," said La Mothe, "King's men, I am
sure.  Some of your own have gone out to meet them.  Shall I go down to
make sure?"

"No; go into that inner room, rather, for I hear feet upon the stairs.
If you are to be a stranger in Amboise the fewer who see you at
Château-Renaud the better.  We cannot give a priest the Valmy gallows
as a reason for silence."

As the inner door closed the outer opened, and a Franciscan entered,
his robe strewn thickly with the dust from the highway.  Commines
recognized him at once; he was from Valmy, one of the many clerics the
King's strange religiosity gathered round him, and justly held by Louis
in deep respect for the simplicity and saintliness of his life.  In an
age when the fires of scandal scorched the Church with such a flaming
vehemence that the heat kindled round the throne of the Chief Bishop
himself, Father John escaped without so much as the smell of burning on
his garments.  None could lay self-seeking to his charge, nor even the
smallest of the many vices which in every order raised their heads,
rampant and unashamed.  It was characteristic of Louis that he should
attach to himself men of such unselfish humility and austere pureness
of life.  God and the Saints would surely forgive a little chicanery to
one who lived in an atmosphere of other men's holy lives.

"Father John!" and Commines caught the Franciscan by the arm almost
roughly, a sudden fear setting his pulses throbbing.  "Has Saint-Pierre
sent you?  Is the King ill--is he--is he?--you of all men know what we
fear for him."

"No, my son, no; the King is as you left him, well, praise God! and
strong: it is he himself who has sent me after you.  He said that such
a mission as yours had great need of the blessing of God upon it."

"And was that all his message?"

"That he committed France to your care.  He spoke, no doubt, of the
Dauphin, who is the hope of France."

"Yes," answered Commines drily, "I do not doubt he spoke of the
Dauphin.  Now, Father, I fear you must dine in haste, for it is time we
were on the road."

"A crust in my hand to eat as we go is enough.  It makes me so happy,
Monsieur d'Argenton, to see the King at last taking thought for his
son."

"Yes," repeated Commines, with the same dryness.  "The Dauphin is
indeed much in his thought.  But though we are in haste there is no
need you should die of starvation.  France has need of you, Father
John.  There are plenty to play the devil's game by living, do not you
play it by dying before your time."

Twenty minutes later they were again on the road, La Mothe's
saddle-bags fastened on his led horse.  He himself followed at the hour
named by the King, but on foot, a knapsack strapped across his
shoulders and on it a lute in open advertisement of his new trade.  His
sword was with his saddle-bags, but was no loss, so free from danger
were the roads under the iron persuasion of the justice of the King.
Nor were travellers numerous.  Only twice was he passed, once by a
courier riding post to Valmy, and once by a lad, little more than a
child in age, who thundered up from behind on a great raw-boned roan
horse and disappeared ahead in a cloud of dust.




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 a
more perfect age?  The restraints of the schoolboy are left behind, the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil has scattered its fruit about
the 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 the
reach, 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, is
already on the shoulder, the light heart of four-and-twenty is
untroubled.  It believes, in its optimism, that it will tumble the load
of 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 the
world of that May day was God's good world, and what better could it be
than that!  If a full-leaved cherry tree, its ripening clusters rosy
red and waxen yellow against the dense greenery, flung shade across the
road he paused in his tramp, squared his shoulders, and drank a deep
breath of the cooler air; if the blazing sun sucked up a subtle, acrid
smell from the hot dust stirred by his feet he snuffed it up greedily
and found it good to live.  A hawk in the air, a thrush whistling from
a hazel bush as only a thrush can whistle, the glorious yellow of a
break 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 itself
that 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 de
Vesc'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 have
bettered, 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 the
rhyme better than that.  But then Villon, wild rogue though he was, was
a poet.  The dearest life can give--the dearest?  What was the dearest
life could give?  As the question, idly asked, fastened on his mind his
whistle 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 that
he was France.  Was the King's service the dearest thing life could
give?  In times of peace, when the millstones and the hearts of men
alike grind placidly, patriotism is a cold virtue, and even in the hot
passion of war it is often the magnetism of the individual man--the
personal leader--who wakens the enthusiasm of desperate courage rather
than 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 he
not France too?  Did France plot against France?  "All is not well at
Amboise," said the King.  If that was true in the sense the father
meant it, what then?  Was this dull ailing boy a double parricide to
his father's knowledge?

That, by the law of association of ideas, called up a new thought, and
a 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 what
if cunning Stephen La Mothe should find it out and make this torn
France one in heart?  And so, because however one follows the clues
through this maze of life they always lead to love at the end, La Mothe
broke 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 the
Eisse flowing beyond.  Another league and he would reach
Amboise--Amboise, where the shuttles of fate, the man and the woman,
Fear and Love as the King had called them, were waiting to weave into
the 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--an
end 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 the
human slime of the gutter who had roused Commines' contempt, and yet
who was his passport to the castle.  A pretty passport, and one not
much to his credit, thought La Mothe, and fell to wondering if Ursula
de Vesc of the uncertain eyes would class them as birds of a
feather--Ursula who found Amboise dull and was to kiss the poet as
Margaret had kissed Alain Chartier.  But Chartier had been asleep at
the time, while La Mothe promised himself he would be very much awake,
and then called himself slime of the gutter for the thought.  This was
not 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 kiss
him because Amboise was dull, and if she did would she be sweet and
good?  He pulled a wry face and shook himself angrily, the thought was
like a bad taste in the mouth.

At Grand-Vouvray he forded the Loire, with Amboise sloping up from the
river in full sight, the red roofs of its houses, huddled almost
underneath the Château for protection, glowing yet more ruddily in the
setting sun, and entered the town by the Tours gate as Commines had
bidden him.  Reared high above the town it at once awed and protected
was the grey castle, towered and turreted like a fortress, and fortress
it was,--fortress, palace, and prison in one.  Round town and castle
alike 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 as
Notre Dame in Paris, and from the warmth of his reception La Mothe
guessed shrewdly that his coming was expected.  Innkeepers were not
prone to lavish welcomes on wandering minstrels who carried all their
world's gear on their back like any snail.  For such light-hearted folk
an open window at night was an easier method of payment than an open
purse.

"A room and supper?  Both, monsieur, and of the best.  For the first
what do you say to this?" and the landlord threw open a door with a
flourish of pride.  "Not in the Château itself will you find a better.
Two windows, as you see: bright by day and cool by night, with all the
life of the town passing up and down the road to keep you company if
you are dull, and the castle gates in full view so that none can go in
or out and you not know it.  And for supper--I am my own cook and you
may trust Jean Saxe.  Give me twenty minutes, monsieur, twenty little
minutes, 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 them
value; Monsieur de Commines----"

"Monsieur de Commines?  Do you dare speak of Monsieur de Commines so
insolently?" burst out La Mothe, too indignant in his loyal devotion to
Commines to remember that a wandering singer ate the bread of
sufferance and had no opinions.  But the innkeeper took no offence,
which again suggested that he had his own private opinion of the
knapsack and the lute.

"Monsieur, I meant no harm," he protested humbly.  "I am Monsieur de
Commines' man--that is, the King's man--to the death."

"Well, let it pass.  Who else are at the Château?"

"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.  "We
who live in Amboise do not think great things of little Charles.  To my
mind little Charles is one of the noughts.  But wait till you go to the
Château and then you will understand for yourself."

"And why should I go to the Château?"

"Because they love music," and the fellow grinned knowingly as he
cocked a cunning eye at the exposed lute, "because there is another who
loves music and can open the doors and will say----  There! do you hear
him?  La, lilla, la!  La, la, lilla, la!  He always sings over the
third bottle, and the King--God bless him--pays for all."

Opening the door to its widest Saxe stood aside listening, his head on
one side, his hand beckoning familiarly to La Mothe, as up the dark
well of stairs there came the rise and fall of a man's voice in a brisk
chant.  No words could be caught, but the air ran trippingly, and if
the higher notes broke in a crack which told of age or misuse, or both
together, the lower ran clear and full, and the tune ran on with a
rollicking, careless awing which showed that, whoever might cavil, the
singer had at least one appreciative hearer--himself!

"A wonderful man, wonderful," whispered Saxe, his small eyes twinkling
with appreciation, but whether at the music or because the King paid
for all, La Mothe was uncertain.  "A poet of poets, a drinker of
drinkers, and a shrewd, bitter-tongued devil drunk or sober.  Not that
he 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 does
a name matter?  He serves the King as I do and--with great respect--as
you 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 a
supper by that name as by any other.  Give me twenty minutes and you
will say the Black Dog of Amboise is no cur."

Nor was Jean Saxe's boast unjustified.  La Mothe not only supped but
ate, and with such satisfaction that in the peace of a healthy hunger
crowned with as healthy a digestion--unappreciated blessings of
four-and-twenty--he forgot alike King and Dauphin, Valmy and the Grey
Gates of Amboise in the shadows across the road.

But neither was allowed to remain forgotten.  As he sat over the
remains of his supper, tapping out a verse of his love song with his
finger-tips on the table, the door from the common room of the inn was
opened and a man entered whom La Mothe at once guessed to be one of his
three good friends in Amboise.  In one hand he carried a lighted
candle, in the other a great horn cup.

"Thanks, Jean," he said patronizingly, nodding towards the room he had
left as he spoke.  "Close the door behind me, my good fellow: both my
hands are full."  Then raising the candle, he turned and scrutinized La
Mothe with a curiosity as great as La Mothe's own and much more frankly
evident.

And he was worth studying, as a rare specimen is studied in the
difficulty of classification.  If there were many such men in France La
Mothe had never yet met one of them.  He was under middle height, the
jaunty, alert youthfulness of his slim figure, supple without great
strength, contradicted by the grey which shot with silver the thin hair
falling almost to his narrow shoulders, and, as La Mothe searched him
in the wavering, guttered candle-light, it flashed upon him that
contradiction was the note of all his characteristics.  The weak chin
with the unkempt straggle of a beard gave the lie to a forehead
magnificent in its abundant strength of mental power: the promise of
the luminous, clear eyes was robbed of fulfilment by the loose mouth
with the slime of the gutter and sensuality of the beast writ large
upon its thick lips.  From the thin peaked nose upwards it was the face
of a son of the gods who knew his parentage and birthright; but
downward that of a human swine who loved the foulness of the trough for
the trough's sake.  A Poet of poets, said the eyes: Slime of the gutter
and old age unashamed of its shame, retorted the mouth; and both spoke
truth.  Evidently his scrutiny satisfied him, for he heaved a sigh of
contentment as he drew nearer to La Mothe.

"The image of what I was at your age," he said, and again there was the
note of contradiction.  The voice was the sweet, full voice of a
singer, but ruined at the first emotion into roughness by excess.
Placing the candlestick on the table he lifted La Mothe's wine bottle
and smelt it with slow carefulness, applying it first to one nostril
then to the other.  "Vintage '63," he said appreciatively, "and that
animal Saxe fobs me off with '75."

"Then try my '63," said La Mothe, "and we shall see if Saxe has another
bottle of the same."

Promptly the contents of the horn mug were flung with a splash into the
open fireplace at La Mothe's back.

"Just what I was at your age!  The same to a hair!  A gay companion
generous of heart and purse.  Yes," he went on, half seating himself on
the 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 I
tasted it last.  The palate, Monsieur La Mothe, is like nature and
never forgets.  For that reason we should never outrage either."

"Four years!" repeated La Mothe with mock admiration, then remembering
that 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 yet
brighter, and a firmer set of the mouth gave the face that note of
strength it so sorely needed.  If it were not that he was already deep
in his fourth bottle La Mothe would have said the wine had set his
blood on fire, warming him with a fictitious energy, so sudden and so
marked was the change.

"Ah ha!" he said, setting down the horn mug as he leaned towards La
Mothe, and this time the voice was as full and round as a woman's.  "So
you 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 same
rascality.  'Where are the snows of Yester Year?'  That is the cry of
all the years after, say, four- or five-and-twenty."  He paused, his
bright keen eyes watching La Mothe with a wistful humour in them, half
envious, 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's
plucking! and ever after, 'Where are the snows of Yester Year?'  I
think," he added, pursing his mouth reflectively, "that what the
priests call Hell is hot just because last year's snows never come
back."

"Gone!" said La Mothe, falling into his humour, "dead like Villon's
rascality, but as unforgotten.  But are you sure Villon is alive?"

"Monsieur," and the little man slipped from the table-edge to his feet
and bowed, his eyes twinkling with an intense enjoyment, "I can vouch
for him as you can for Stephen La Mothe: I have the honour to present
to you Francois Villon, Master of Arts of Paris and of all the crafts
of this wicked world."




CHAPTER IX

FRANCOIS VILLON, POET AND GALLOWS-CHEAT

La Mothe stared up at him incredulously.  "You Francois Villon?" he
began; "Francois Villon the--the----"

The gallows-cheat, the human pitch whose very touch is defilement was
what was in his mind, but with those clear luminous eyes looking down
unashamed into his own he could not put the brutal thought into the
naked brutality of words.  But Villon read something of his meaning in
his eyes and rounded off the sentence for him.

"The King's Jackal!" he said, not without a sour resentment.

  "Nécessité faict gens mesprendre:
  Et fain sallir le loup des boys!

You don't believe it?  But you have been dandled on the knees of
respectability all your little life: what do you know of necessity or
hunger?  I know both, and I tell you necessity and hunger are two gods
before whom all who meet them bow down.  Better a live jackal than a
dead poet.  Besides, is he not the greatest of kings?  Bishop Thibault
had me in gaol for a mere slip of the fingers and talked of a judicial
noose--the third I've looked through--but the King fetched me out--God
save the King!"

"God save the King!" echoed La Mothe, for want of something better to
say.  His mind was still confused by this sudden upheaval of his
ideals.  All that was best in Villon's poetry had stirred his
enthusiasm, while all the much which was worst had left his sane
wholesomeness untainted.  To the half-dreamer, half-downright,
practical lad in Poitou, Villon, with his jovial, bitter humour and
even flow of human verse, had been something of an idol, and when our
idols crash into ruin the thunder of the catastrophe bewilders
judgment.  But there was more than bewilderment, there was an
inevitable disgust.  The frankness of this disgust Villon discovered.

"Besides, again, my very young friend," he went on, "what are you in
Amboise at all for, you and your lute?  Is Villon the only King's
Jackal here in the Chien Noir?  Do we not hunt in a couple, and have
you as good an excuse for your hunting as poor Francois Villon, who
looked through a halter, and found the eternity beyond unpoetical to a
man of imagination?  What brought you to Amboise, I say?"

"The King's orders: the peace of France," began La Mothe, but though
the words were fine swelling words in the mouth they somehow failed to
fill the stomach of his sense.  Nor did Villon let him finish.

"And I say the same.  What is more, I say them openly, and do not drown
the words with the twanging of a lute.  Not that I blame you--not I,

  'Toute beste garde sa pel,'

or, as a greater poet than Francois Villon has said, Skin for skin, all
that a man hath will he give for his life.  Whose hide you guard, your
own or another's, I don't know and don't care.  Mine was that of bare
life, and there you sit and look disgust at me as if to cling fast to
this good gift of God which comes to a man but once were a sin.  And
what are you doing in Amboise?  No!" he interrupted himself hastily,
emphasizing the negative with a rapid gesture of both hands, "don't
tell me.  If there is one thing more dangerous than knowing too little
it is knowing too much.  Tell me, rather, what you want me to do for
you and tell me nothing more."

"Gain me a footing in the Château."

"I can open the doors, but the footing you must gain and hold for
yourself.  I warn you Amboise is well guarded.  Oh! not with pikes,
cross-bows, and such-like useless things in which our beloved King puts
his faith, but by eyes that see and hearts that love, and so Amboise is
a hard nut to crack.  But your teeth are strong, and if the good God
had made no peach stones there would be no peaches, and, my faith!
peaches are worth the eating."

He drew a long breath and sat silent, the horn mug, which he had again
filled and emptied, tilted against his thigh.  A smile flickered his
loose mouth, and the full bright eyes, turned toward the vacancy of the
empty fireplace, were sparkling with reminiscences.

And who should have reminiscences if not Francois Villon?  There was
not such another judge of peaches in all France, no such authority upon
their eating, and few who had broken more teeth over their stones.  The
smile broadened into a soft chuckle, laughter deepened into puckers the
many wrinkles of his crow-footed temples, and he wagged his grey head
in the warm appreciation of a happy memory.  Dipping a finger-tip into
a pool of spilt wine he wrote on the table reflectively, and as La
Mothe watched his leering face he understood Commines' outspoken
contempt of this old man unashamed of his shamefulness.

"Peaches," he said, scratching his chin with a wet forefinger; "my
faith! yes!  I have climbed walls for them, robbed gardens of them,
found them in market baskets--the gutter even.  What matters where they
come from so long as the cheek is warm, the bloom fresh, the skin
smooth, and the sweetness full in the mouth.  And where are they now?
Aye! aye!  'Where are the snows of Yester Year?'  My young friend, my
very young friend, you have but one life, and when you drop it behind
you see that only the husks of its possibilities are left: crush the
grapes while you may and drink the wine."

"I thought," said La Mothe, "that the rascality of Francois Villon was
dead?  Leave it in its grave, if you please.  It is decenter buried out
of sight and does not interest me.  How am I to gain entrance to
Amboise?"

Villon turned to him with an elaborate appearance of carelessness, but
the unctuous complacency was wiped from his face, and the narrow eyes
and mouth showed how deep was his anger at La Mothe's disgusted
contempt.

"How, but as my friend, pupil, and protégé," he replied, with evident
enjoyment of the other's discomfiture at the unwelcome association.
Then with incredible swiftness his mood changed.  The raillery passed
from his voice and he went on bitterly, "Do you think I love my life?
Perhaps I do--at times.  But not always, no, not always.  You see that
fly there on the table?  Watch it now.  It tastes the spilt wine, the
ragout with its spices, the salad with its oil and its vinegar,
everything within reach which tickles its palate: then it rubs its
stupid head with its forelegs and trots back to the wine again.
Presently"--and Villon suited the action to the word--"a great hand
turns an empty tumbler over it and there it is: all the delights of the
world it has lost clear within sight, but out of reach--always out of
reach.  That, my young friend, is what is called Hell.  Do you blame
the fly because it remembers the wine and spice of life?  Perhaps if
the great hand is merciful it draws the glass to one side, thus, and
still to one side, thus and thus and thus, until, phit! there is a
little red patch and no fly; yes, perhaps.  Aye, aye, I have seen life.
But it is better for the fly to laugh as it runs round and round under
the glass than to sulk and cry its heart out for the snows of Yester
Year.  God save the King!"

The abrupt change of thought and the sudden end seemed to La Mothe so
irrelevant that he sat in silent bewilderment, but in an instant
comprehension came and a sense of compassion, almost of respect, shot
through the disgust.

"Perhaps the hand will lift the glass," he said, "and let the fly back
to its spilt wine and spices?"

Villon eyed La Mothe sourly.  "Will that give me back my twenty years?
Bah! the palate is as stale as the spilt wine, and when the good of
life is gone life itself may go.  There is Saxe knocking at the door.
My faith! but you have indeed scared him into discretion; he never
knocks for me.  Perhaps he has brought that second bottle."

But Saxe was empty-handed, and by the light of the candle La Mothe
could see a quizzical grin upon his face.

"Monsieur," he began, but which of the two he addressed was uncertain,
"they are dull at the Château."

"And have sent for Francois Villon to make sport!  I have dropped the
'de,' Monsieur La Mothe, there are so many rascals amongst the nobility
nowadays that I find it more distinguished to be the simple commoner.
Dull at the Château!  Good Lord! don't I know it!"  He paused, lifting
his head with a quick, bird-like motion: a cunning smile wrinkled his
face and he smote the table with his open hand.  "Dull, are they?
There, my hedge-minstrel from Valmy, is your welcome ready made.  Bring
your lute and make pretty Ursula's grey eyes dance to a love song,
prude that she is."

"To-night?" said La Mothe doubtfully.  "Surely not to-night: the
Dauphin might resent a stranger's coming so late."

"The Dauphin?  Phit!  Little Charles is pretty Ursula's echo and
nothing more.  Come, let us go."

"Then Mademoiselle de Vesc may object."

"Mademoiselle de Vesc?  So you know her name, do you?  And what girl
objects to a love song?  I never yet knew one who did, and Francois
Villon has lived his life.  If they pout and turn aside don't believe
them: it's just that you may not see how the heart beats.  Black eyes,
blue, grey, hazel, brown; Fat Meg and Lean Joan, wrinkled fifty and
smooth sixteen, their eyes have all the same sparkle, the same dear
light in them when the heart melts.  I should know, for I have made
love to every colour under the sun.  Except Albino," he added
reflectively and with the conscientious air of one who desires to tell
the whole truth.  "I wonder what it would be like to make love to an
Albino.  But now I shall never know, the fly must run round and round
its glass until the day of the red blotch.  It is a mercy I tasted the
oil and vinegar in time.  That disgusts you, does it?  My young friend,
you must learn not to say more with your face than you do with your
tongue if you are to keep your secrets and the King's.  Come, I talk
too much and they are waiting for us."

But Stephen La Mothe left his lute behind him.  He had accepted the
part allotted to him half as a jest and half for the sake of the
adventure it promised, but Villon had put a less pleasant gloss on this
open-faced masquerade, nor had the blunt question, Why are you in
Amboise? been easy of answer.  Or rather, the answer was easy, but one
he did not relish in its naked truth.  If to be the secret almoner of
the King's love for the Dauphin had been the sole reply to the
question, his scruples would have been as light as his love song.  But
that answer was insufficient: there was a second answer, an answer
which Commines knew and these two men, Villon and Saxe, suspected, one
which would leave a soiling on clean hands, yet which must be faced.

He found himself in the position of a circus-rider who, with one foot
on the white horse--which was Honour--and the other on the
piebald--which was duty and a Ki