AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEN MAN
FOR a moment I stood, thinking of Achon’s last words, and then it all
came back to me. It was he who had played the mendicant friar in Paris,
that night when Lignières had died. It was he who had got the letters
and the scroll of names. He was right. He held enough in his hands to
bring Marcilly and myself to the block, and to ruin the honor of Marie.
Then there was Ponthieu--come what may, I was resolved that he should
have a blow struck for him. I felt as if I was personally responsible
for the ill-luck that had overtaken him. But for what I had said he
would never have undertaken the rash enterprise that had brought him to
misfortune, and I could not leave him to his fate. My mind had for the
moment righted itself, and I was once again Gaspard de Vibrac. Other
things also urged me powerfully. The mortification of being outwitted
and browbeaten by the priest moved me to hot anger. The shame of being
overlooked and mocked at during my struggle with myself burned in my
veins, and, mingled with the desire to do something for Ponthieu, was a
savage resentment against Achon. It would have gone hard with Monsieur
of Arles, had we met at that juncture.
Swelling like an asp with rage, and dagger in hand, I stepped up to the
press, passing between it and the wall. There was the door by which
Achon had entered, and it was half open. He had doubtless not closed
it behind him when he came in, for fear of any noise attracting our
attention. I cautiously pushed it back. Before me lay a long and narrow
corridor, half in darkness and half in light. Up this I crept softly,
feeling on either hand for anything like a door. I was confident that
if I could find one, it would lead to Achon’s apartment, and then
I would show him if de Vibrac feared to die. There was no result,
however, to my search. At last I was brought to a standstill by a dead
wall. I tapped it gently with my fingers, placed my ear against it,
and searched the surface keenly, but with no avail. My eyes could see
nothing. My hand but met the rough, uneven surface of the stonework.
The secret of the passage, wherever it was, was too well concealed for
me to discover in the short time at my disposal, and disappointed, but
not despairing, I returned as I had come.
I resolved to seek Marcilly, and went out into the hall. A small
lantern burned there dimly, and above me curled the brown spiral of
the stairway that led to our chamber. Taking the lantern in my hand,
I went up, and knocked again and again at the door without receiving
any reply. A fear seized me that perhaps Marcilly had come to harm;
but just as I was about to put my shoulder to the door and attempt to
stave it in, I heard Jean’s voice.
“Is that you, Gaspard?”
“Yes, I----Open!”
The door swung back, and I saw Badehorn sleepily rubbing his eyes and
muttering apologies; beyond him, Marcilly lay half-dressed on the bed,
his sword on a stool beside him.
As I put down the lantern and closed the door, he said:
“What! Have you been keeping a vigil, or has the bashful stranger
proved good company at last?”
“Yes, and no, Marcilly; but something has happened, while you and
Badehorn slept like the dead, and we must act.” And, sitting on the bed
beside him, I told him briefly, but clearly, what had occurred. When I
had done, he remained silent for a moment, and then exclaimed:
“We can do nothing now!”
“But, Ponthieu----”
“_Mon ami!_ Ponthieu, and you, and I are playing for our lives. If
we lose the game, we pay the stake. I understand how you feel in the
matter; but--and you know why--we cannot risk anything now.”
“I know, and yet----”
“Listen! As I said, I know what you feel, and were things otherwise,
would have made a dash to free him. But consider for a moment. We are
now in the small hours. We know not our way about this rambling house.
We know not where Ponthieu is lodged, and it would be simply courting
disaster to do what is in your heart. I think, too, we can serve him
best now by doing nothing here, but using our influence at Orleans. Our
Gascon is too insignificant for much fuss to be made about him, and a
thousand écus of the sun would free him--be tranquil!”
“I see you are right, but I have so much on my soul already. I would
give the lands of Vibrac to free Ponthieu.”
Marcilly laughed as he rose from the bed. “Your nerves are unstrung,
Gaspard. This comes of not sleeping; as for your trouble of conscience,
I would give much to change the weight on my soul, friend, for that
which lies on yours--you will look back in ten years, and smile at your
burden of to-day.”
I turned my head aside, but he went on: “There is one thing that
troubles me, and that is your promise to Achon. Edict or no edict, we
can laugh at his threats, and for these we will burn his Abbey of St.
Savin over his head the next ride we take with Rambures’ Horse--but
your promise----”
“It must be kept.”
“You will have to ride post from Poitou to do so”--he was dressing as
he spoke--“but, Ste. Croix! What a fool I have been! I doubt if you
will ever do that ride, Gaspard. Do you not see what this meeting at
Orleans five days hence means?”
“No.”
“It is clear as daylight to me. Achon is hilt-deep with the Guise in
their plans. ’Tis more than whispered that he is the brain behind the
Cardinal. He overheard your conversation with Ponthieu. He knew that
the letter the Gascon carried concerns the safety of the Prince. He has
the letter with him now, presumably, and Ponthieu has given away the
secret of reading a blank paper. Yet this meeting between Lorraine and
the Chancellor--sworn enemies until now--is to take place five days
hence; do you begin to see?”
“I think so; you mean that the execution of the sentence against Condé
is delayed.”
“Precisely. And this goes with what I told you before. There will be
delays. We shall have more time than we thought we had, and we shall
save Condé. _Parbleu!_ You will attend the meeting before starting for
Poitou, and now for the hour.”
He buckled on his sword and, stepping to the window, opened the
shutter. The storm had passed. It had ceased snowing, and morning was
at hand. The forest lay beneath us, but we could make out nothing
except a confused mass of dun shadow, streaked here and there with
patches of white. Above it shifted an uneasy sea of cloud, through
which, in the distant west, still glimmered the beacon fire on
Beaulieu. Above the clouds there was a faint light, which, weak as it
was, paled the glow of the lantern, and as we looked, a cock crowed
shrilly.
“Hark!” exclaimed Marcilly; “day at last! It is time to start.
Badehorn--the horses.”
And in a half-hour we were trotting through the snow toward Chenonceaux.
Our way was still through the chill arcades of the forest, yet dripping
with melting snow. At first we were almost numbed with the cold, but
the quick motion soon warmed our blood. Each moment it became lighter,
and there was every prospect of the mild winter of the Land of Quinces
giving us a fair day, such a storm as that of the night being unusual
in the Orléanais. Although I had not slept, my mental excitement kept
me unwearied; the interest of the adventure had seized hold of me,
and in the struggle I had with myself I believed I had cast off the
serpent’s skin of disloyal thought to my friend, and had no fear that
I would reclothe myself in it. Now and again I was haunted by the
recollection of Ponthieu; but I could not help reflecting that Marcilly
was right, and that the best thing for my poor friend was to wait until
we reached Orleans, and there use our influence, which was not small,
to get him freed. It was running a risk, and it would have been more to
my taste to have cut for him with the sword; but we did not even know
where he was confined, and our enterprise would not permit us to linger
on the heels of time. I say this in defence of what might otherwise
have seemed unworthy conduct on my part. In this miserable confession
of my folly and sin I have been utterly honest, and I cling, God alone
knows why, to the memory of every small action that goes to show I was
once not wholly lost.
What Marcilly was thinking of I know not. Perhaps in this early dawn he
was reflecting on the sacrifice he was about to make. As far as he was
concerned, he was going to almost certain death. Mayhap some thought
of this was working in his mind, as for once his cheery light heart
seemed to have left him, and he rode with his head held down and his
hat pulled over his brow.
And so we went on in silence through the gray morning, and keeping
Chartreuse du Liget to our right, we at length saw the mouldering old
church of Genille, built in the eleventh century, and knew then that
the Indroye was at hand, and the tortuous passage of the forest coming
to an end. We crossed the Indroye by the bridge below Genille, and
in a mile or so had entered the Champeigne, the chain of barren clay
hillocks that separates the valley of the Cher from that of the Indre.
“There is the Etang de la Gauvrie,” exclaimed Marcilly, rousing
himself, and pointing to a blue splash below us; “that little stream
trickling from it falls into the Cher at Chenonceaux. It is full of fat
waterfowl.”
“Was it not in the reeds on the banks that Coqueville hid for two days
after Amboise?”
“Yes, and but escaped by a hair. St. Gris! But this is a stiff descent!”
We were on the top of a table-land as we spoke, and the descent wound
steeply down to the lake, and it was near the end of this that a slight
misfortune befell us. I was riding a little behind, and Marcilly turned
in his saddle to say something. At this moment his horse stumbled and
fell, bringing his rider down with him. He was on his feet in a moment,
however, and was examining the horse’s hoof, as I came alongside and
anxiously asked:
“Are you hurt?”
“No, Gaspard; but the very devil of ill-luck dogs us. The horse is
lame.”
“It is a good omen, though, that you have escaped.”
“True enough! But the delay.”
“It cannot be helped, Fortunately Chenonceaux is at hand. Take
Badehorn’s horse, and let us hasten on. We will get another beast
there.”
Badehorn had dismounted ere this, and Marcilly jumped on his nag.
Bidding him lead the lame horse to the Green Man, at Chenonceaux, we
pushed on with all the speed the country permitted, and in a little
under an hour were in the parlor of the inn, awaiting the coming of
Badehorn and the return of a messenger whom we had sent for horses.
I forced myself to eat something, and while my friend lay back in his
chair and exercised his patience by staring at the logs crackling in
the fireplace, I stretched myself on a settee near the window and
looked wearily out through the glazing. The window opened on the
little square of the village, now crowded with people, for it was
market day, and beyond rose the gray donjon, the towers and galleries
of the château of Chenonceaux, built by Bohier, the Receiver-General
of Normandy, on the remains of an old fifteenth-century fortress. The
financier died before the building was completed, and his son, the
Baron de St. Cyergue, a man of egregious vanity, made the château
a gift to La Valentinois, who, on her downfall, was forced to part
with it for a song to Catherine de Medicis, for whom it was held now
by Monsieur de Rabutin, a gentleman of the Tarantaise. I had not met
St. Cyergue since the affair in the Bouton d’Or. News had, however,
reached us that having totally lost his fortune, he had retired to a
small house he owned at Chenonceaux; though whenever he could scrape
together a hundred crowns or so, he returned to take his place among
the hangers-on of the Court. So, while idly recalling these things, I
dropped off to sleep, until I was suddenly aroused by a loud laugh,
and, starting up, saw a man, extravagantly dressed, engaged in converse
with Marcilly. It needed but a look at the vacant face, the protruding
eyes, the puffed breeches, the scarlet cloak, and the faded gold lace
of the coat-of-arms embroidered on the left breast of his pourpoint, to
tell it was St. Cyergue himself.
“Ah, ha!” he exclaimed. “So you are awake at last! Faith! I thought you
were sleeping as soundly as poor Lignières does at St. Merri--we buried
him there, you know.”
“Let that matter rest, St. Cyergue,” I said, but he went on:
“It was neat--devilish neat, Marcilly. _Ca! Ca!_ And he had our wit,
our duellist Lignières, spitted like a lark, and he never spoke again.
I only saw that thrust equalled once, when Richelieu--the man they call
‘The Monk’----”
“The Baron has just left the Court,” interrupted Marcilly, forcing a
change in the talk. “He confirms what we heard about Condé.”
“That is good news if it remains true. And how long have you been here,
Baron?”
“I arrived but last night, though it seems a year. I lost a thousand
écus of the sun to de Billy, and it has become necessary to take a
change of air until my rents come in.”
“St. Cyergue puts it down to the écus, Gaspard,” said Marcilly, “but we
know better. A few paltry crowns would not drive the Baron from Court.
Come, tell us, Baron.”
“There are things one does not speak of, messieurs,” he said, with a
simper, and winked his hare-like eyes.
“Quite right, St. Cyergue! Though I little thought you would ever be a
conspirator.”
“Conspirator! I! _Diable!_ But you mistake. It was an affair--a grand
dame, if you must know.”
“Keep your secret, Baron. Yet such a man as you are must have his hands
full of affairs.”
“Oh, no! No! Perhaps one or two; but that is all. Still, there was
something of excitement about this one, and, as we are all friends
here, I will tell you. You know de Semiers--tall, thin, with a nose
like a vulture, and a heart as jealous as a Spaniard’s. Well, he
raised a fuss about madame, and we had a pass or so on the parvis of
Ste. Croix. He was a child in my hands, I assure you, and in the shake
of a sparrow’s tail it was all over, and monsieur was pinked through
the ribs, and will have to keep his bed for a month. Now, _mordioux!_
as the Gascons say, what do you think happened? Madame herself made
an outcry; your uncle Cipierre sent his Swiss after me; and it would
have gone hard with St. Cyergue, I assure you, but for that business
at the storming of Calais, when I drove the English back, and another
I will not name took the credit. So what with this, and my losses at
play, I judged it best to retreat for a time. But you must sup with me
to-night; I have some rare old Romanée, soft as velvet, and as light as
air.”
“A thousand thanks, but I fear we cannot have that honor, Baron. We
but await fresh horses to push on to Orleans.”
He was still pressing us, however, when the landlord made his
appearance to say that Badehorn had arrived, and he added to this the
bad news that other horses were not procurable in Chenonceaux. Perhaps,
however, if we sent to Bléré, or Montrichard, we might get them by
to-morrow.
“What!” I said; “it is market day. Your yard is humming with clients.
All the countryside is here, and no horses for sale or hire?”
“Monsieur can judge for himself. They have asses and mules enough, but
no horses for sale or hire--it is indeed true.” And then he added, as
if with an inspiration, “Perhaps Monsieur de Rabutin would be able to
lend you horses, messieurs.”
“The Governor of the Château?”
“Monsieur, the horses of the Queen-Mother are there.”
“It is worth trying,” I began; but now St. Cyergue stepped in to rescue
us from our difficulty, and very good-naturedly offered to lend us two
horses of his own, adding at the same time that they were gifts to him
from the Duke of Guise.
And hardly waiting for our acceptance, he bade the landlord fetch
them at once from his house. I confess, however, that until the
beasts actually appeared, I had some small doubts of my own of
their existence. As to their being a present from Guise, that was
of a piece with the tales of his other adventures, the conceit of
the man being such, that he surrounded every moment of his life with
imaginary exploits, which he fully believed he had himself performed.
Nevertheless his good nature was so great that he would have divided
his last livre with a total stranger, had he been asked, and it was
in this way that he had been wheedled out of the fine estate of
Chenonceaux by Madame La Grande Seneschale, whose avarice was as great
as her effrontery. We had, of course, no intention of profiting by his
easy disposition, and knowing he was in straits, and being unwilling to
borrow his nags, we prevailed upon him to sell them to us for a hundred
crowns apiece, which, after some demure, that the price we offered was
too great, our friend finally accepted. We would still have to take one
of our own horses with his two, but Badehorn rode a light weight, and
we had but a bare twenty leagues before us, as the crow flies, to reach
Orleans. It was now past midday, so, leaving the remaining two of our
beasts with St. Cyergue, we mounted and prepared to set out, having
hopes to reach Nanteuil by evening, where we could rest the horses and
ourselves in the house of M. de Villequier.
Wishing the Baron good-by and a speedy termination of his temporary
exile, and bearing from him a number of confused messages to the
greatest personages in France, which we promised faithfully to
deliver, we rode out of the crowded courtyard of the Green Man into the
little square of Chenonceaux, at the same moment that M. de Rabutin,
the Captain of the Castle, who was taking an airing on foot, with a
half-dozen of his friends, entered it at the other end.