THE GOLDEN DUKE
The river flowed at their right hand, the water blue, the pebbly banks
chased silver, green walls of wood framing the picture, and noble
chateaux looking out here and there.
Almost audibly Claire's heart beat. She had seen the court of the King
of Navarre, what time Margaret of Valois made Nerac gay for a whole
year, as ever was Paris under the first Francis. But even there, betwixt
the old grey chateau on the hill and the new summer pavilion in the
valley, something of the warriors' camp had ever lingered about that
Capua of the "Bearnais."
Besides, Claire had been young then, and many things she had not
understood--which was perhaps the better for her and the happier. But
now, she doubted not. The child was a woman, and all would now be made
clear. Not Eve, looking up at the Eden apple-tree in the reserved corner
of the orchard, had more of certainty that all happiness lay in the
tasting of the first of these golden pippins.
Presently they began to mingle with the crowd, and from under his shaggy
brows the Professor watched the gay young courtiers with unconcealed
displeasure.
As he listened to the quick give-and-take of wit from this galliard to
the other, he murmured to himself the words of the Wise Man, even the
words of Jesus the son of Sirach, "There is a certain subtlety that is
fine, but it is unrighteous."
And to his pupil he said, "Answer not these fools according to their
folly. Your sword's point will make a better answer! Even I myself----"
But here he checked himself, as if he would have said something that
became not a grave Professor of the Sorbonne in the habit of his order.
And even while saying so--lo! in a moment, the swords were out and
flickering, his own first of all, the same little, thin, snaky
sword-cane made in Toledo, supple as a reed, which the Abbe John and Guy
Launay had returned to appropriate on the Day of the Barricades. John
d'Albret stood on his defence with an Italian blade, having a small cup
to protect the over-guard, which was just coming into fashion among the
young bloods. While from the rear Jean-aux-Choux spurred his Flanders
mare into the riot, waving over his head a huge two-handed sword of
Italian pattern, like those with which the Swiss had harvested the
armoured knights like ripe corn at Granson and at Morat.
And the reason of the pother was this.
A couple of gentlemen-cavaliers had approached from behind, and
descending as suddenly as hawks into a courtyard full of doves
fluttering and pacing each in his innocence, had deftly cut out the
little jennet of Arab blood on which Claire was riding.
Her dark student's over-mantle, descending low as her spurs, had not
concealed from these faithful stewards of their master that the younger
and more delicately featured of the two clerks was no other than a
pretty maiden.
"Our great Duke would speak with you, Mistress," was all the
explanation they deigned to give. And in such troubled times even so
much was frequently omitted.
But the hawks soon found out their mistake. Though the Professor's
sword-cane might have been safely disregarded by the breast-plate
wearers, it was otherwise with the huge bell-mouthed pistol which he
carried in his left hand. It was also far otherwise with the snaky blade
of the Abbe John, the daintiest sworder of all the _Pre des Clercs_. The
man at the left of Claire's bridle-rein felt something sting him just at
the coming together of the head-piece and shoulder-plates. Even less
could the two captors afford to disregard Claire's last defender, when,
all unexpectedly, with a shrill war-cry of "Stirling Brig an' doon wi'
the Papishers," Jean-aux-Choux whirled two-handed into the fray.
The first blow fell on the right-hand man. Fair on the boss of his
shoulder-plate, heavy as a mace, fell that huge six foot of blade.
The armour was of proof, or that head would have been shorn from his
body. As it was, the man fell senseless from his horse. Promptly his
companion let go the rein of Claire's pony, crying, "Help there, my Lord
Duke!" And so, wheeling his horse about, put speed to it, and rode in
the direction of a group of gay knights and gentlemen who, as it now
appeared, had been watching the fray with some amusement without caring
to meddle with it.
Then from the midst of the little crowd there came one forth, the finest
and properest man Claire had ever seen. He was tall and magnificently
arrayed. The cloak over his light chain-armour was of dark crimson and
gold, and the six enamelled lilies on his helmet marked him as next in
rank to the princes of the blood.
The cavaliers about him drew their swords, and after saluting, asked if
it were the will of their Lord Duke that they should punish these
caitiffs who had so battered Goulard and Moulinet.
But "My Lord" put them aside with an impatient gesture of his glove.
"It would have served Goulard and Moulinet right if they had gotten
twice as much!" he said. "They meddled in what did not concern them."
All the same, as he rode forward, his eyebrows, which were thick and
barred across, twitched threateningly. He threw off his crimson cloak
with an impatient gesture, and suddenly shone forth in a dazzling array
of steel breast-plate and chain armour, all worked and damascened with
gold.
"Epernon--Epernon--for my life, Epernon!" muttered the Abbe John under
his breath to the Professor of Eloquence; "we could not have fallen on
worse!"
The King's reigning favourite and boldest soldier rode straight up to
them, with the careless ease which became the handsomest man in the
kingdoms of France and Navarre.
"What have we here?" he demanded. "A pretty girl, two holy men, and a
scarecrow! You are Genevists--Calvin's folk--Huguenots! This will not
do; a fair maid's place is in a king's court. I will escort her thither.
My wife will have great pleasure in her society, and will make her one
of her own or of the Queen's maids-of-honour. From what I hear, her
elder Majesty hath great need of such!"
"Not more than His Majesty has need of men of honour about him," cried
the Abbe John fiercely--"aye, and has had all his life!"
"Hola, young cock-sparrow, clad in the habit of the hoodie-crow!" said
D'Epernon, turning upon him, "from what stable-heap do you come that you
chirp so loud?"
"From that same heap on which you serve as stable-boy, my Lord Duke!"
said the Abbe John.
The Duke's brow darkened. He put his hand quickly to his gold-hilted
rapier.
"Ah, pray do," sneered the Abbe John; "follow your inclination. Let the
bright steel out. Get a man to hold our horses, and--have at you, my
good Gascon!"
By this time the Duke d'Epernon's gentlemen were spurring angrily
forward, but he halted them with a wave of his hand, without turning
round in his saddle or taking his eyes off John's face.
"What is your name?" he demanded, his brows twitching so quickly that
the eye could scarce follow their movements.
"I am John d'Albret, nephew of the Cardinal Bourbon and----"
"Cousin of the Bearnais?" sneered the Duke, his eye glittering.
"Student at the Sorbonne!" said the Abbe John firmly. "All the same, if
clerk I am, I am no poor clerk, and so you will find me--if, waiving my
royal blood, I consent to put my steel to yours upon the sward. Come,
down with you--and fall on!"
Now the Duke d'Epernon was anything rather than a coward. He made a
motion as if to dismount, and there is little doubt but that his
intention was to match his long-trained skill and success as a swordsman
against the Abbe John's mastery of the latest science of sword-play
learned in the Paris _salles_.
But suddenly D'Epernon checked himself. Then he laughed.
"No," he said; "after all, why should we fight? We may need each other
one day, and there is no honour in killing a bantam, even if he hath a
left-hand strain of kingly blood in him!"
"Left-hand!" cried the Abbe John: "you lie in your throat. My blood is
infinitely more dexter than your own, and I make a better use of it! I
am no mignon, at least."
Now this was a bitter taunt indeed, and even the tanned face of the
King's warlike favourite flushed.
"As to mignons," he said, "you look much more like one yourself, young
cockerel. I have overly many scars on my cheeks for the trade. And this
is, I presume, your sister--to judge by the resemblance?" The Duke
turned to Claire, who had been looking at him with a certain involuntary
admiration. "What, no? Your niece, you say, my good Sorbonnist? I am not
sure but that, as a strict Catholic, I must object. The age is scarce
canonical!"
"I am no priest," said Doctor Anatole, roughly, for this touched him on
the raw. "I am only the Professor of Eloquence attached to the faculty
of philosophy. And I have the honour to inform you that I travel with my
niece, to put her under the care of my mother at her house near to
Collioure, in Roussillon."
"What!" cried the Duke, "now here is another of the suspicions which
awake in the mind of the most guileless of men. Here we have a Bourbon,
next-of-kin to the Cardinal himself, together with a Professor of the
Sorbonne (that hotbed of sedition), travelling towards the dominions of
the Demon of the South--of Philip of Spain! As a good subject, how am I
to know that you are not on your way to stir up another rebellion
against the King my master?"
It was then that Claire spoke for the first time.
"Sir," she said quietly, but looking full at the Duke with her
eyes--dark green eyes the colour of jade, with little golden flashlets
floating about in them, "I vouch for my friends. They are loyal and
peaceful; I who speak am the only Huguenot. You can take and burn me if
you like!"
The great Duke d'Epernon stood a moment aghast, as if the hunted hare
had turned upon him in defiance. Then he slid off his helmet, and
saluted, bareheaded.
"_Ma belle damoselle_," he said, "you may be the niece of a Doctor of
the Sorbonne and at the same time a Huguenot. These are good reasons
enough for carrying you to the castle of His Majesty. But be
comforted--we are not as Philip of Spain, our enemy. We do not burn
pretty brave maids such as you!"
It was then that Jean-aux-Choux forced himself forward on his big,
blundering Spanish mare, driving between a couple of cavaliers, and
sending them right and left like ninepins.
"Great Duke," he said, "you would do well to let us go on our way. You
talk much of His Majesty--I ask you which. You have served the
'Bearnais'--you will serve him again. Even now you have cast an anchor
to windward. It sticks firmly in the camp of the Bearnais, not far from
that King's tent."
Duke d'Epernon turned on Jean-aux-Choux his fierce, dark eyes.
"It seems to me that I have seen you before, my churl of the carroty
locks," he said; "were you not at the King's last fooling in the
Louvre?"
"Aye," said Jean, "that I was, and in a certain window-seat behind a
certain curtain I gave your Dukeship a certain letter----"
"It is enough," muttered the Duke, waving his hand hastily. "I am on my
way to Angouleme, which is my government. Come all of you with me to
Blois, and there abide quietly in a house till I return to salute the
King. The Estates meet in the late autumn, and if things go as it seems
likely after this Day of the Barricades, we may need your blood royal,
my excellent Clerk d'Albret--your best wisdom, my good and eloquent
Professor--your rarest quips, my merry scarecrow--and, as for you,
little lady, my newly-wed wife Marguerite will not be sorry to have a
companion so frank and charming among the fading blossoms and over-ripe
fruit of the court of the Queen-mother!"
"My lord," said the Professor, "I fear that I have not time to wait upon
the King. I must go to visit my mother, and carry this maid with me!"
The Duke smiled.
"I am not demanding your learned preferences, most eloquent Professor,"
he said; "I am taking you into safe keeping in the name of the King.
After all, I am not an ignorant man, and I know well that it was a
certain Doctor Anatole Long who, in the full concourse of the Sorbonne,
voted alone for the rights of the Valois. Give the King, therefore, a
chance of voicing his thanks. Also, since the King is at Chartres and I
must speed to Angouleme, I will leave you at Blois in good and
comfortable keeping with the young damsel, your niece, taking with me
only this young man, that he may see some good Leaguer fighting. He hath
been, I dare say, on the Barricades himself. It is permitted to his age
to be foolish. But he has never yet seen a full-grown, raw-hide,
unwashen Catholic Leaguer. Let him come to Angouleme with me, and I will
warrant to improve his sword-play for him! Close up, gentlemen of my
guard! To Blois! Ride, accommodating your pace to mine, as I shall do
mine to that of the palfrey of the new lady companion of Marguerite of
Foix, whom I have the honour to love!"
He lifted his gloved hand, and from the fingers blew a kiss in the
direction of the north, daintily as a girl upon a high terrace to a
lover over the sea.
And so by the river-side, in the golden light of the afternoon, they
rode forward to Blois.
In the rear Jean-aux-Choux continued to mutter to himself, trudging
heavily along on his Flanders mare, laden with cloaks and provend, "'Tis
all very well--very well--but what does his golden dukeship propose to
do with me? I will not leave my little mistress alone in a strange city,
and with a man who, though ten times a professor at the Sorbonne, is no
more kin to her than I am to this fat-fetlocked Flemish brute."
He pondered a little, dropping gradually behind. But as soon as they had
passed the gates of the city, he guided his beast into the first little
alley, letting the cavalcade go on, amid much craning of necks from the
windows, towards the royal pavilion where D'Epernon was to lodge.
"I will seek out Anthony Arpajon, that good man of the Faith," he said.
"He has a stable down by the water-side, and being a lover of the
learned, he will give me bite and sup for teaching him some scraps of
Greek wherewith to puzzle the wandering Lutheran pastors. For a
Calvinist stark is Anthony, and only wants a head-piece like mine to be
a clever man. But he hath an arm and a purse. And for the rest, I will
load him up with the best of Greek, and also teach him to read the
_Institutions of John Calvin_, my first and greatest master!"
So through the narrow streets of Blois he made his great mare push
herself lumberingly, crying out whenever there was a crowd or a busy
street to cross, "Hoo! hoo! hoo! Make way for the King's fool--for
Jean-aux-Choux--for the fool--the King's fool!"