Castelroux visited me upon the following morning, but he brought no news
that might be accounted encouraging. None of his messengers were yet
returned, nor had any sent word that they were upon the trail of my
followers. My heart sank a little, and such hope as I still fostered
was fast perishing. Indeed, so imminent did my doom appear and so
unavoidable, that later in the day I asked for pen and paper that I
might make an attempt at setting my earthly affairs to rights. Yet when
the writing materials were brought me, I wrote not. I sat instead with
the feathered end of my quill between my teeth, and thus pondered the
matter of the disposal of my Picardy estates.
Coldly I weighed the wording of the wager and the events that had
transpired, and I came at length to the conclusion that Chatellerault
could not be held to have the least claim upon my lands. That he had
cheated at the very outset, as I have earlier shown, was of less account
than that he had been instrumental in violently hindering me.
I took at last the resolve to indite a full memoir of the transaction,
and to request Castelroux to see that it was delivered to the King
himself. Thus not only would justice be done, but I should--though
tardily--be even with the Count. No doubt he relied upon his power to
make a thorough search for such papers as I might leave, and to destroy
everything that might afford indication of my true identity. But he had
not counted upon the good feeling that had sprung up betwixt the little
Gascon captain and me, nor yet upon my having contrived to convince the
latter that I was, indeed, Bardelys, and he little dreamt of such a step
as I was about to take to ensure his punishment hereafter.
Resolved at last, I was commencing to write when my attention was
arrested by an unusual sound. It was at first no more than a murmuring
noise, as of at sea breaking upon its shore. Gradually it grew its
volume and assumed the shape of human voices raised in lusty clamour.
Then, above the din of the populace, a gun boomed out, then another, and
another.
I sprang up at that, and, wondering what might be toward, I crossed to
my barred window and stood there listening. I overlooked the courtyard
of the jail, and I could see some commotion below, in sympathy, as it
were, with the greater commotion without.
Presently, as the populace drew nearer, it seemed to me that the
shouting was of acclamation. Next I caught a blare of trumpets, and,
lastly, I was able to distinguish above the noise, which had now grown
to monstrous proportions, the clattering hoofs of some cavalcade that
was riding past the prison doors.
It was borne in upon me that some great personage was arriving in
Toulouse, and my first thought was of the King. At the idea of such a
possibility my brain whirled and I grew dizzy with hope. The next moment
I recalled that but last night Roxalanne had told me that he was no
nearer than Lyons, and so I put the thought from me, and the hope
with it, for, travelling in that leisurely, indolent fashion that was
characteristic of his every action, it would be a miracle if His Majesty
should reach Toulouse before the week was out, and this but Sunday.
The populace passed on, then seemed to halt, and at last the shouts died
down on the noontide air. I went back to my writing, and to wait until
from my jailer, when next he should chance to appear, I might learn the
meaning of that uproar.
An hour perhaps went by, and I had made some progress with my memoir,
when my door was opened and the cheery voice of Castelroux greeted me
from the threshold.
“Monsieur, I have brought a friend to see you.”
I turned in my chair, and one glance at the gentle, comely face and
the fair hair of the young man standing beside Castelroux was enough to
bring me of a sudden to my feet.
“Mironsac!” I shouted, and sprang towards him with hands outstretched.
But though my joy was great and my surprise profound, greater still was
the bewilderment that in Mironsac's face I saw depicted.
“Monsieur de Bardelys!” he exclaimed, and a hundred questions were
contained in his astonished eyes.
“Po' Cap de Dieu!” growled his cousin, “I was well advised, it seems, to
have brought you.”
“But,” Mironsac asked his cousin, as he took my hands in his own, “why
did you not tell me, Amedee, that it was to Monsieur le Marquis de
Bardelys that you were conducting me?”
“Would you have had me spoil so pleasant a surprise?” his cousin
demanded.
“Armand,” said I, “never was a man more welcome than are you. You are
but come in time to save my life.”
And then, in answer to his questions, I told him briefly of all that had
befallen me since that night in Paris when the wager had been laid, and
of how, through the cunning silence of Chatellerault, I was now upon the
very threshold of the scaffold. His wrath burst forth at that, and
what he said of the Count did me good to hear. At last I stemmed his
invective.
“Let that be for the present, Mironsac,” I laughed. “You are here, and
you can thwart all Chatellerault's designs by witnessing to my identity
before the Keeper of the Seals.”
And then of a sudden a doubt closed like a cold hand upon my brain. I
turned to Castelroux.
“Mon Dieu!” I cried. “What if they were to deny me a fresh trial?”
“Deny it you!” he laughed. “They will not be asked to grant you one.”
“There will be no need,” added Mironsac. “I have but to tell the King--”
“But, my friend,” I exclaimed impatiently, “I am to die in the morning!”
“And the King shall be told to-day--now, at once. I will go to him.”
I stared askance a moment; then the thought of the uproar that I had
heard recurring to me, “Has the King arrived already?” I exclaimed.
“Naturally, monsieur. How else do I come to be here? I am in His
Majesty's train.”
At that I grew again impatient. I thought of Roxalanne and of how she
must be suffering, and I bethought me that every moment Mironsac now
remained in my cell was another moment of torture for that poor child.
So I urged him to be gone at once and carry news of my confinement to
His Majesty. He obeyed me, and I was left alone once more, to pace up
and down in my narrow cell, a prey to an excitement such as I should
have thought I had outlived.
At the end of a half-hour Castelroux returned alone.
“Well?” I cried the moment the door opened, and without giving him so
much as time to enter. “What news?”
“Mironsac tells me that His Majesty is more overwrought than he has ever
seen him. You are to come to the Palace at once. I have an order here
from the King.”
We went in a coach, and with all privacy, for he informed me that His
Majesty desired the affair to be kept secret, having ends of his own to
serve thereby.
I was left to wait some moments in an ante-chamber, whilst Castelroux
announced me to the King; then I was ushered into a small apartment,
furnished very sumptuously in crimson and gold, and evidently set apart
for His Majesty's studies or devotions. As I entered, Louis's back was
towards me. He was standing--a tall, spare figure in black--leaning
against the frame of a window, his head supported on his raised left arm
and his eyes intent upon the gardens below.
He remained so until Castelroux had withdrawn and the door had closed
again; then, turning suddenly, he confronted me, his back to the light,
so that his face was in a shadow that heightened its gloom and wonted
weariness.
“Voila, Monsieur de Bardelys!” was his greeting, and unfriendly. “See
the pass to which your disobedience of my commands has brought you.”
“I would submit, Sire,” I answered, “that I have been brought to it by
the incompetence of Your Majesty's judges and the ill-will of others
whom Your Majesty honours with too great a confidence, rather than by
this same disobedience of mine.”
“The one and the other, perhaps,” he said more softly. “Though, after
all, they appear to have had a very keen nose for a traitor. Come,
Bardelys, confess yourself that.”
“I? A traitor?”
He shrugged his shoulders, and laughed without any conspicuous mirth.
“Is not a traitor one who runs counter to the wishes; of his King? And
are you not, therefore, a traitor, whether they call you Lesperon or
Bardelys? But there,” he ended more softly still, and flinging himself
into a chair as he spoke, “I have been so wearied since you left me,
Marcel. They have the best intentions in the world, these dullards,
and some of them love me even; but they are tiresome all. Even
Chatellerault, when he has a fancy for a jest--as in your case
perpetrates it with the grace of a bear, the sprightliness of an
elephant.”
“Jest?” said I.
“You find it no jest, Marcel? Pardieu, who shall blame you? He would be
a man of unhealthy humour that could relish such a pleasantry as that of
being sentenced to death. But tell me of it. The whole story, Marcel. I
have not heard a story worth the listening to since--since you left us.”
“Would it please you, Sire, to send for the Comte de Chatellerault ere I
begin?” I asked.
“Chatellerault? No, no.” He shook his head whimsically. “Chatellerault
has had his laugh already, and, like the ill-mannered dog he is, he has
kept it to himself. I think, Marcel, that it is our turn now. I have
purposely sent Chatellerault away that he may gain no notion of the
catastrophic jest we are preparing him in return.”
The words set me in the very best of humours, and to that it may be due
that presently, as I warmed to my narrative, I lent it a vigour that
drew His Majesty out of his wonted apathy and listlessness. He leaned
forward when I told him of my encounter with the dragoons at Mirepoix,
and how first I had committed the false step of representing myself to
be Lesperon.
Encouraged by his interest, I proceeded, and I told my story with as
much piquancy as I was master of, repressing only those slight matters
which might reflect upon Monsieur de Lavedan's loyalty, but otherwise
dealing frankly with His Majesty, even down to the genuineness of the
feelings I entertained for Roxalanne. Often he laughed, more often still
he nodded approvingly, in understanding and sympathy, whilst now and
then he purred his applause. But towards the end, when I came to the
matter of the Tribunal of Toulouse, of how my trial was conducted, and
of the part played in it by Chatellerault, his face grew set and hard.
“It is true--all this that you tell me?” he cried harshly.
“As true as the Gospels. If you deem an oath necessary, Sire, I swear
by my honour that I have uttered nothing that is false, and that, in
connection with Monsieur de Chatellerault, even as I have suppressed
nothing, so also have I exaggerated nothing.”
“The dastard!” he snapped. “But we will avenge you, Marcel. Never fear
it.”
Then the trend of his thoughts being changed, he smiled wearily.
“By my faith, you may thank God every night of your worthless life that
I came so opportunely to Toulouse, and so may that fair child whose
beauty you have limned with such a lover's ardour. Nay, never redden,
Marcel. What? At your age, and with such a heavy score of affaires to
your credit, has it been left for a simple Languedoc maiden to call a
blush to your callous cheek? Ma foi, they say truly that love is a great
regenerator, a great rejuvenator!”
I made him no answer other than a sigh, for his words set me thinking,
and with thought came a tempering of the gay humour that had pervaded
me. Remarking this, and misreading it, he laughed outright.
“There, Marcel, never fear. We will not be rigorous. You have won both
the maid and the wager, and, by the Mass, you shall enjoy both.”
“Helas, Sire,” I sighed again, “when the lady comes to know of the
wager--”
“Waste no time in telling her, Marcel, and cast yourself upon her mercy.
Nay, go not with so gloomy a face, my friend. When woman loves, she can
be very merciful; leastways, they tell me so.”
Then, his thoughts shifting ground once more, he grew stern again.
“But first we have Chatellerault to deal with. What shall we do with
him?”
“It is for Your Majesty to decide.”
“For me?” he cried, his voice resuming the harshness that was never far
from it. “I have a fancy for having gentlemen about me. Think you I will
set eyes again upon that dastard? I am already resolved concerning him,
but it entered my mind that it might please you to be the instrument of
the law for me.”
“Me, Sire?”
“Aye, and why not? They say you can play a very deadly sword upon
necessity. This is an occasion that demands an exception from our edict.
You have my sanction to send the Comte de Chatellerault a challenge. And
see that you kill him, Bardelys!” he continued viciously. “For, by the
Mass, if you don't, I will! If he escapes your sword, or if he survives
such hurt as you may do him, the headsman shall have him. Mordieu! is it
for nothing that I am called Louis the Just?”
I stood in thought for a moment. Then--
“If I do this thing, Sire,” I ventured, “the world will say of me that I
did so to escape the payment I had incurred.”
“Fool, you have not incurred it. When a man cheats, does he not forfeit
all his rights?”
“That is very true. But the world--”
“Peste!” he snapped impatiently, “you are beginning to weary me,
Marcel--and all the world does that so excellently that it needs not
your collaboration. Go your ways, man, and do as you elect. But take my
sanction to slay this fellow Chatellerault, and I shall be the better
pleased if you avail yourself of it. He is lodged at the Auberge Royale,
where probably you will find him at present. Now, go. I have more
justice to dispense in this rebellious province.”
I paused a moment.
“Shall I not resume my duties near Your Majesty?”
He pondered a moment, then he smiled in his weary way.
“It would please me to have you, for these creatures are so dismally
dull, all of them. Je m'ennuie tellement, Marcel!” he sighed. “Ough!
But, no, my friend, I do not doubt you would be as dull as any of them
at present. A man in love is the weariest and most futile thing in all
this weary, futile world. What shall I do with your body what time your
soul is at Lavedan? I doubt me you are in haste to get you there. So go,
Marcel. Get you wed, and live out your amorous intoxication; marriage is
the best antidote. When that is done, return to me.”
“That will be never, Sire,” I answered slyly.
“Say you so, Master Cupid Bardelys?” And he combed his beard
reflectively. “Be not too sure. There have been other passions--aye, as
great as yours--yet have they staled. But you waste my time. Go, Marcel;
you are excused your duties by me for as long as your own affairs shall
hold you elsewhere--for as long as you please. We are here upon a gloomy
business--as you know. There are my cousin Montmorency and the others
to be dealt with, and we are holding no levees, countenancing no revels.
But come to me when you will, and I will see you. Adieu!”
I murmured my thanks, and very deep and sincere were they. Then, having
kissed his hand, I left him.
Louis XIII is a man who lacks not maligners. Of how history may come to
speak of him it is not mine to hazard. But this I can say, that I,
at least, did never find him other than a just and kindly master, an
upright gentleman, capricious at times and wilful, as must inevitably
be the case with such spoilt children of fortune as are princes, but
of lofty ideals and high principles. It was his worst fault that he was
always tired, and through that everlasting weariness he came to entrust
the determining of most affairs to His Eminence. Hence has it resulted
that the censure for many questionable acts of his reign, which were the
work of my Lord Cardinal, has recoiled upon my august master's head.
But to me, with all the faults that may be assigned him, he was ever
Louis the Just, and wherever his name be mentioned in my hearing, I bare
my head.