CHAPTER XIV

THE REGENT, THE PRINCE, AND THE

CARDINALIST

Margaret received William warmly; she already spoke of the Cardinal with

dislike and vexation, declared herself rejoiced to be rid of him, and

showed every intention of flattering the men who had replaced him and

his party and who must henceforth be supreme in her councils.

But the Prince was not captured by these compliments as Egmont had been;

he had his agents at the Spanish Court, he knew something of the other

side of the picture, and while Margaret was speaking he was looking at

Armenteros, the arrogant Spanish secretary, who remained in the chamber.

In this man, known to be deep in Philip's confidence and intimate with

the Duchess, William beheld Granvelle's true successor.

At the same time he was perfectly well aware that Margaret knew his

great influence, his unique position, and was sincerely desirous of

attaching him to her; indeed, it was quite clear to the Prince that the

Regent, despite her haughtiness, her pose of firmness, and independence,

was sorely bewildered and confused how to manage her perilous wardship

of the Netherlands, and eager enough for help and counsel.

But the Prince was not the man to sympathize with an arrogant woman

unequal to her charge; he deemed a woman as out of place in government

as a man at a spinning-wheel, though one who was queen by right and not

by choice would have had his deep loyalty, but Margaret, however, was

practically a foreigner, and lording in a place not her own, and neither

the character of this woman who assumed such masculine qualities and was

in reality so weak and futile, nor the rank of this Princess whose

mother had been the daughter of a poor weaver of Oudenarde, could

inspire any respect or admiration in the Prince.

He considered her as but a poor instrument of Philip's policy, and even

while she was offering him the courtesies she thought so diplomatic, he

was wondering how long she would hold her place.

Margaret on her side was uneasy; she could not read the Prince, she did

not wholly trust him, yet she knew him to be necessary to her. With

Egmont she had felt far safer; whatever his extravagances he was

obviously loyal, obviously a good Catholic, and she was sure of the

Prince on neither of these points; indeed, the painstaking Regent,

sincerely eager to do her duty towards Philip and the Church, was

secretly sorely puzzled how to deal with William.

She proceeded to endeavour to win, and if possible, deceive him by

cajoleries and blandishments, as she had already won and deceived

Egmont, for her politics were those of Machiavelli and Loyola.

"Now the Cardinal has gone," she said, "I can surround myself with my

good friends whom he kept from me, and I hope all will go more smoothly

and prosperously, both in my councils and the states, without this

meddling priest."

William smiled into his ruff; by her abuse of Granvelle he could measure

what she had said of him to the Cardinal, what she would, most likely,

be writing to that minister within a few hours.

"There will be more prosperity for His Majesty's subjects and less

anxiety for those who serve His Majesty, if His Eminence's counsels are

reversed," he said.

Margaret regarded him with an anxiety she could not altogether conceal;

her full bosom heaved beneath the gathered lawn and the Genoa velvet,

and a quiver passed over her majestic face which she endeavoured to keep

so regally impassive.

"It is to be supposed his policies are to be reversed, Highness," she

answered, "since his enemies will take his place;" then remembering that

the Cardinal's absence was supposed to be only a temporary one, "It may

be some while before he returns to the Netherlands, and meanwhile we

need not consult him," she added.

"Will he return at all?" smiled William, looking straightly at her. "I

scarcely think so, Madame."

The Duchess, who had had Philip's secret instructions to allow the

Cardinal to depart, and who knew that the visit to Burgundy was an

elaborate ruse to disguise the downfall of the minister, was startled at

the Prince's words. "How much does he know?" she thought, and her

respect and awe of him increased.

"The Cardinal's return must be in His Majesty's good pleasure," she

replied, smiling in her turn. "Meanwhile we have other things to think

of. I have asked Your Highness here, to this private audience, because I

know you to be of a nature as noble as your rank, and because I want you

to aid and support me in the task I have before me, which is not, the

Virgin help me, a light one."

Behind the obvious flattery of the words was a sincere feminine appeal

for help, and her eyes were turned on the Prince with a real anxiety.

"Surely, Madame," replied William, "you do not think I should be

disloyal to you? I know I have been greatly slandered, but I trust you

have never believed disloyalty of me."

"Nay, nay," said Margaret. "I did not even think of disloyalty—but I

have had to complain, with justice, that you have so obstinately kept

aloof from my councils."

"Because my presence was useless where no one was listened to save

Granvelle and his creatures, Madame."

"That is over," replied the Duchess, "and now I rely on the seigneurs

and principally on Your Highness."

"I hope to deserve the trust," said William, "and to advise Your Grace

for the peace and welfare of the States."

Margaret felt the words formal; she perceived that he could play with

phrases as well as she, and that she was unlikely to gain much from him

this way. While she was turning over in her mind the best way to gain

him, William spoke again, using a frankness that was more subtle and

more baffling than all Margaret's tortuous methods and policies.

"Your Excellency will not enforce the Inquisition?" he asked, he was

looking at Margaret, but he noted the little movement the silent

secretary made at his words.

"I have recommended mercy and gentleness to Peter Titelmann," replied

the Regent, "and I ever beg His Majesty to use clemency towards the

Netherlands."

"But you will enforce the Inquisition?" persisted the Prince.

"It cannot be supposed," answered Margaret suavely, "that the King will

endure heresy among his subjects."

"It is then his intention to extirpate heresy?" asked William, and he

remembered that conversation with Henry of France in the woods of

Vincennes.

"An intention known to all the world," asserted Margaret. "His Majesty

would rather lose his kingdoms than endure that heresy should flourish

under his rule."

They were almost the same words that Granvelle had used in the gardens

of La Fontaine.

"None the less," added Margaret, "His Majesty awaits the decision of the

Council of Trent before proceeding severely against these wretches."

"Meanwhile," said William, "the Inquisitors are burning, strangling,

torturing in every town in the States."

Margaret flushed angrily.

"Those who are thus punished are miserable blasphemers—would Your

Highness speak for a man who remained covered while the Host passed, or

one who mocked a statue of the Virgin?"

"I would not burn them quick," replied William, "nay, I would not touch

their lives at all, nor yet their properties."

"Your Highness has of late been dangerously clement towards these

heretics," remarked the Duchess.

"It is but natural," replied the Prince, with a smile, "since most of

those dearest to me are heretics. But I do not speak from clemency but

from policy when I advise Your Grace to toleration."

Again the secretary made that little movement; William could imagine the

letter he would write to Philip.

"Toleration?" cried the Duchess angrily; "do you advise me to accord

toleration to heretics?"

"Yes," said William, and he looked at the Spaniard sitting quiet in his

corner, for he felt he was speaking not to Margaret but to Philip, and

that his words, spoken in this chamber of the Brabant palace, would soon

be known in that cell of the Escorial where the laborious King sat

painstakingly annotating his lengthy and innumerable dispatches.

The Duchess knew not what to answer; all her policy of flattery and

conciliation was overwhelmed by the rage and contempt she felt for

William's views, which vexed her the more as she vaguely knew they were,

from the point of policy, right.

"The Netherlands," continued William, "will never take the Inquisition.

They will never give up heresy. If they are forced they will be maddened

into a revolt."

"The King will know how to deal with revolt," returned Margaret

haughtily.

"The King," said William, again turning his dark eyes on Armenteros,

"will scarcely provoke a revolt. He has too much wisdom and too little

right."

"You question the King's right?" exclaimed the Duchess aghast.

"Madame," the Prince reminded her, "the States and the cities have

charters and liberties older than the sovereignty of the House of

Burgundy. And both His Majesty and the Queen Mary, the late Regent,

swore to protect these liberties."

"But the King cannot, will not, endure heresy!" cried Margaret.

"The Emperor was as good a Catholic as His Majesty," said William, "and

he suffered heresy in his dominions when he was leaguing with the

Protestant Princes of Germany. Therefore the King may suffer it sooner

than spoil, ruin, and lose the richest portion of his realms."

"They would not revolt—they would not dare!" said Margaret.

"They will dare a great deal, these Netherlanders, once they are

roused," returned the Prince, "as Your Grace may have observed in the

great numbers who refuse to recant their heresy, even for their lives,

and in those who proclaim their faith knowing well what the penalties

are."

"Your Highness is very zealous in the cause of these wretched people,"

said the Duchess, with some bitterness.

"Call me zealous in the cause of His Majesty," replied William. "Before

God, all I say and do is loyally said and done, and with the sole desire

to preserve peace and contentment and obedience in these States."

"I do believe you," returned Margaret hastily; she was unwilling to

provoke further disputes, and considered it easier to take the Prince at

the mere face value of his words than to endeavour, as she might so

easily have done, to find offence in the possible meanings of them. "I

believe and trust Your Highness, and shall look to your good help and

counsel to assist me."

The question of the enforcement of the Inquisition was thus evaded; it

was a question Margaret preferred not to have to answer, and one William

saw no use in insisting on, so well did he know the mind of the Regent

and the King on this subject.

"Time," he contented himself by saying, "will prove if I am right in

what I say; and also my honest purpose to serve His Majesty and Your

Grace."

He rose, and again his glance travelled to the keen, sharp face of the

secretary, who had now risen also and stood very respectfully in his

corner.

"Does he think I do not know that he is a spy on me?" considered

William, as he kissed the Regent's hand; "does she think I am going to

be her tool to do hangman's work?"

He took his leave: Margaret gracious and smiling, pressing him and his

family to come to her banquets, beseeching his frequent presence at her

councils; the secretary all deference and stately homage.

When William had closed the door behind him, he laughed softly, then, as

he turned away down the tapestried corridor, he sighed.

It might be easy to read Margaret, even to manage her; it might be easy,

too, to influence and control those who composed her councils; but

behind Margaret was the most powerful, the most fanatic, the most

unscrupulous, the most obstinate King in the world, and behind him and

his Inquisition was a more powerful force still—the entire might, the

whole weight of the Holy Roman Church, armed not only with the fire and

sword of this world, but the punishments of hell and the rewards of

heaven.

The liberties of the Netherlands were signed and sealed in laws and

charters, but what could parchment and ink avail against the temporal

power of Philip; the heretics might be courageous and unyielding, but

what were they compared to the spiritual power of the Pope, supported by

all the great Princes of Europe?

And what could William of Orange hope to achieve if he set himself

against any of the desires of Philip? Merely that speedy and mysterious

death that awaited the King's disobedient servants.

These thoughts did not occur to Egmont, to Montigny, to Brederode, to

the other seigneurs who rejoiced in the departure of Granvelle; they

knew themselves free from even a treasonable thought, and considered

themselves as safe as the Regent herself from the wrath of Philip.

But William had been educated at the Emperor's Court; he had been for a

while intimate with Philip; he knew by heart the intricate policies of

the Court, the blind fanaticism, the narrow vanity, the dull obstinacy

of the King; and as surely as if he had seen it with his own eyes he

knew his name headed a list of the seigneurs the King kept until he

could one by one strike them off the paper—on the day when they would be

struck off the earth.

Therefore he knew the difficulties, the perils of his position, though

did no one else in the Netherlands, and he had reason for looking

thoughtful while Brederode jested and the others laughed. As he was

passing down the great stairs he met Barlaymont coming up.

This man, Granvelle's most detested follower, and the one who had

betrayed to him the secrets of the league of seigneurs formed against

him, was now entirely in disgrace. The Duchess received him with

rudeness, and those who had formerly fawned on him now rushed to pay

court to his ascendant enemies. He was white and haggard with

humiliation and vexation, his eyes red with bitter tears.

He looked up, coloured at seeing William, and paused.

The Prince came down slowly, a slender figure in a cross-cut doublet of

a peacock colour, a mantle of red and black fur; he carried his cap and

switch under his arm, and was fastening his fringed gauntlets with a

gold thread.

"Your Highness has soon come to the scene of your triumph," said

Barlaymont.

William turned serene eyes on him.

"Ah, Baron, I do not triumph," he said, half sadly.

"I think Your Highness does when you step into the place of the man you

have cast down."

"It was not I," replied William, "it was the Netherlands that would not

endure the Cardinal."

"You take refuge behind that," said Barlaymont bitterly, "but it shall

not save you. Now you exult. Now you think to put your foot on our

party, and for a time you may. But I tell you that you have won a

perilous victory."

"I know it," said the Prince.

"Now you are supreme, now you are the favourite," continued the fallen

minister. "But the King is not so easily dared, so safely affronted. As

surely as now you are uppermost, Philip will call you and those behind

you to account—to a very stern account, Highness."

"You speak as the mouthpiece of Madrid," said the Prince, "and doubtless

have good authority for these threats. Tell those who instructed you

that I know my position and their power."

"I speak for myself only," replied Barlaymont, "to let you know that I

am only for the moment disgraced and humiliated—down as I am, I would

not change to stand in your Highness's place! Nay, I would not wear your

present honours at the cost you must pay——"

"I do believe it," answered William; "but you and I are different men,

Barlaymont, and my house has never shirked perilous honours."

He bent his head and passed on, lacing again his glove.

About the bottom of the stairs a flood of crimson light lay, cast by the

two windows filled with red and gold glass, through which the last rays

of the winter sun was streaming; and as William descended, it gradually

enveloped him and dyed him red as if he was passing into a sea of blood,

over his feet, to his waist, to his shoulders, closing over his head.

Then he passed into the darkness of the shadowed hall beyond and was

lost to Barlaymont's watching eyes.

PART II

THE HOLY INQUISITION

"Lièver Turcx dan Paus."—_Legend on a Beggar Medal, 1574_

CHAPTER I

THE PIGEON

The sunshine of late summer was mellow in the beautiful room that looked

on the garden where the last roses bloomed amid the heavy luxuriance of

foreign shrubs and flowers; golden the fair light of afternoon filled

the chamber as amber-coloured wine might fill a dark cup, and there was

no sound save the insistent ticking of the tall clock in the corner.

The room served no particular purpose, but was a mere antechamber to the

library or corridor between that and a great chamber used for receptions

and feasts.

Rénèe le Meung stood at the window looking on the hushed and sunny

garden. She liked this chamber, and spent her little leisure there. She

was not commonly disturbed, as the Prince's luxurious household seldom

used this handsome library, and she had come to be fond of the room, to

regard it almost as her own—more her own than the hot little bedchamber

under the eaves, where she was within sound of Anne's persistent bell

and ceaseless shrill demands.

She knew and liked the several pieces of furniture here—the large dark

cupboard opposite to the window which was polished till it gleamed like

steel; the Spanish chairs with gilt leather fringed seats either side;

the waxed and shining picture, as bright as a jewel and as flat as a

mosaic, that hung above the door into the library, and the other

picture, a portrait of a fat, stern gentleman in black, handling the

massive chain round his neck, which was opposite above the other door;

and the tall wooden clock with the delicately engraved steel face and

the numbers cut in flourishes fine as pen-strokes.

There was no other furnishing save the three brocade cushions that

filled the seat of the high Gothic window, yet the chamber had an air of

richness and beauty and peace.

Rénèe's eyes lifted presently to the picture above the library door and

dwelt there curiously.

It was a Flemish painting, perhaps a hundred years old, and represented

a young saint, Agnes, Barbara, or Cecilia, being led out to martyrdom.

The virgin, robed in white, with fair hair, combed carefully in thin

curls over her slanting shoulders, stood in the midst of a neat and

flowery field, on which daisies and other little plants shone like

stars.

She lifted her round and smiling face, which was freshly coloured and

seemed never to have known care nor trouble, to a clear and lovely blue

sky.

Behind her the executioners, elaborately clad in ruffled scarlet

breeches and embroidered doublet, stood ready with rope and axe, and in

the distance a hill town showed against the blue horizon with the

distinctness of a toy model.

The picture fascinated Rénèe, it was so serene, so pleasant, so far

removed from horror or disgust, terror or pain, that it might make a

tired soul long to die that way, calm and smiling in a daisied meadow

that was but one step from the paradise where a martyr's crown was

already being plaited by the angels and saints.

There were martyrs now; men, women, and children as pious, as steadfast

as any of the early Christians whom heathens slaughtered and to whom

altars were set up all over Europe, died every day in the Netherlands.

But not that way.

Rénèe knew it was not that way, the way of peace, with flowers beneath

and the blue heavens above—nay, it was in the common day-time, amid the

sordid surroundings of the market-place, with insults, with jeers, with

flames, smoke, the shrieks of fellow-victims, the frenzied preaching of

the monks, the groans of the crowd, with their ravaged homes perhaps

within sight, their frantic children driven back by the soldiers, with

all the details of pain and misery and dreariness, with none to comfort

nor encourage—Rénèe knew that this was how the Netherlanders died—died

daily by every manner of torture, by every form of terrible and horrible

death.

There were some who were never seen in the market-place nor on the

public gallows; these were they who were thrown into the prisons of the

Holy Inquisition, and never more came forth from the dark only lit by

the glare of the torture fires, or the silence broken only by groans of

mortal agony and the calm adjurations of the monks.

Rénèe turned her eyes away from the picture. "It was never like that,"

she said to herself; "it lies—and who can tell that the heavens opened

to receive them, and the saints crowded to welcome them? Who can tell?

Who has seen it?"

She gazed into the Prince's garden, but the fairness of it brought no

peace to her heart.

A warm breeze waved the costly flowers and the carefully tended trees in

the groves and alleys. Two young men were playing tennis in the foremost

court; the white balls sped gracefully against the green, the soft-shod

figures moved noiselessly to and fro behind the nets.

In and out of the gables and crevices of the palace pigeons flew; their

hoarse cooing was steady in the stillness. Now and then their strong

wings beat past the window, and presently one settled on the open

lattice, and moving its flexible head, gazed at Rénèe with an eye as red

and bright as a ruby.

She looked at the bird with admiration; it was an exquisite thing, white

and black shot with purple, all gleaming in the sunlight and ruffled

with pride.

Then suddenly, as Rénèe looked, it flew straight past her into the room

and beat against the black bureau.

Rénèe rose and clapped her hands to frighten it away, but the bird clung

to the polished wood, fluttering the gleaming wings, the soft body

panting and quivering.

As she approached, it flew again with a powerful stroke of the fine

wings cutting the air, and beat frantically from door to door, passing

and repassing the open window.

"Poor silly thing!" cried Rénèe; "so do we all beat about in our prisons

when the door is open on the sky!"

The pigeon settled on the frame of the Flemish picture, and looked down,

palpitating, the tumbled breast heaving, the bright eyes alert and

anxious.

Rénèe stood helpless by the open window, her hand on her bosom and a

little flush of colour in her grave face.

The opening of the door from the reception room caused her to turn with

a start (she was so seldom disturbed in this chamber) and the pigeon to

fly up and round the ceiling.

He who entered shut the door instantly and gave a quick glance at Rénèe

in her warm, opulent beauty and severe blue gown, and then at the bird

flashing like a gleam of light in the dusky darkness of the high

ceiling.

It was the Prince.

Rénèe stood in a foolish confusion; it was long since she had seen him

save at a distance, and his sudden appearance bewildered her completely.

"The bird is a prisoner?" he asked, and he spoke quite gravely, though

he smiled a little.

"It will not see the open window, Highness," she replied; and as she

spoke, the pigeon circled lower in exhausted fashion, and settled on the

back of one of the black chairs.

The Prince put out his hand gently and easily and caught the bird by the

wings, and so held it out, the coral-coloured feet contracted, the red

gold-rimmed eyes bright with fear.

He took the struggling creature to the window and let it fly; it sped

far away, above and beyond the tennis court.

He turned to look at Rénèe. Their eyes met; words rushed to her lips,

and she spoke almost without meaning to and against her own awe and

shamefacedness.

"Oh, Seigneur!" she exclaimed, "you are so tender with a little bird,

will you not do something for the Netherlands?"

His look was surprised, almost startled. "Do I not do something for

them?" he asked.

"I do not know," was wrung from Rénèe's bitter heart. "Your Highness is

orthodox. Your Highness conforms. There were great hopes of you—I, among

the first, believed; but now—the time goes—and—you do nothing!"

Then, seeing his expression of marvel, her face became burning with

painful red, and she turned her head quickly away.

"It must be to Your Highness as if your dog should turn to speak to

you," she said humbly. "I entreat you to pass on and forget."

"No," replied William, with perfect graciousness. "It is not my way to

either pass on or forget. Tell me what you mean."

"I cannot," said Rénèe. "My heart is very full, and prompts me to

foolishness. I am a heretic, and therefore life cannot be pleasant to

me."

"But you are safe here," answered the Prince gently.

That stung her into again forgetting who he was and her own

insignificance.

"That makes it more horrible!" she cried, and she turned towards him.

Her flushed and glowing face was very beautiful in its utter

unconsciousness of either beauty or allure. "_I_ am safe, but others

better than I die every day—die horribly—burned alive, buried alive,

tortured to death. The Netherlands are a shambles, Seigneur; the smoke

of human sacrifice fouls the air. And it will be worse."

"Ay," said William quietly. "If the King enforce the findings of the

Council of Trent, it will be worse."

"He will not dare!" exclaimed the girl, "for that would mean to

exterminate the Netherlanders."

"I do not know what he would dare," returned William, in the same low,

quiet tone. "I do not know."

Rénèe bit her lip to keep the hot words back; the long habit of her

servitude controlled her to silence. She stood dutifully waiting for him

to go from her presence, and forget her amid the thousand incidents of

his gorgeous life.

But instead he stopped directly before her and spoke again, kindly, but

with a certain challenge.

"What makes you appeal to me? What makes you think I could or would do

anything for these heretics against whom the infallible voice of the

Church has just cried, 'Anathema, three times anathema'?"

His tone spurred her to answer.

"Because you are the greatest Prince in the land—because the people have

faith in you."

"But I am only half trusted," he smiled. "You may see as many pasquils

pasted on my walls as on those of any man in Brussels."

"That is because Your Highness will not declare yourself. At one time,

when you led the faction against the Cardinal, we all hoped"—her voice

faltered a little—"but since then you have chosen to be secret, close——"

"There are others," he said—"Brederode, Egmont, Hoorne——"

"Ah," replied Rénèe, lifted beyond her tumultuous fear of him, the sweet

dread of his presence, "none of these is the man we seek. In the people

is the strength, the ardour, the force; these nobles dance and jest and

brawl and spend, but do they believe, do they care—would they _die_ for

their God? All in the hands of Philip, all conforming to Church and

State, all bowing the neck to the Regent and Peter Titelmann with his

Holy Inquisition."

"You do some wrong," said William. "Montigny and Berghen have refused to

enforce the Inquisition in their provinces, and all the nobles have

protested to His Majesty against the dicta of the Council of Trent

becoming law in the Netherlands."

"Forgive me," said Rénèe, "I fear I grow bitter—I forget all bounds—I

forget even that I am your servant."

"Speak to me," answered the Prince. "I would hear your thoughts. It is

not often I meet with one so well versed in affairs, and so

warm-hearted. You are a fair young woman," he added, with great

gentleness, "to be so weighted with sad business."

The blood flowed back on her heart and left her unnaturally pale at

these kind words from him; she dared to look into his face; he stood

near enough for her to have touched him with a half-outstretched hand.

Her quick glance saw that his face was tired in expression; his dress,

black, gold, and crimson, less gorgeous than usual, almost careless

compared with his habitual magnificence.

The small head with the close waves of stiff dark chestnut hair was held

a little droopingly; the charming ardent countenance, brilliant and

dark, the dusky complexion showing the fine blood in warm tints, the

wide vivacious eyes, the lips soft and firm, was overcast, the level

brows knitted, the firm chin fallen on the double ruff of gold-edged

cambric.

What was troubling him, servant of King Philip, principal adviser of the

Regent, most powerful noble in the Netherlands? What care had he unless

the woes of these wretched thousands the Council of Trent had condemned

to fire for soul and body touched and moved him?

In his gravity, in his look of fatigue and preoccupation, Rénèe found

hope; she stepped back from him and stood with her shoulders pressed

against the window embrasure where the waxed wood gleamed in the

sunlight that was reddening to the west.

"Oh, you could do so much, you could do it all," she said, and her

gentle voice was rough and unsteady with passion. "I have dreamt

it—others have thought it—you, you might be the man! You might redeem us

from slavery, from tyranny, from misery unutterable—you are he who might

defy Philip."

"I am his subject," said William, narrowing his eyes on her face, "and I

am a Papist."

"But you are united to Protestant princes, and the young princes, your

brothers, are heretics," she answered, as if she was pleading with him.

"I am in Philip's service," he said, and lifted his head, looking at her

straightly and intently.

She was quick in her reply.

"But your first loyalty is to the statutes of this land, which Philip

rends and spurns, and your first obligation is the freedom and liberty

of the land you help govern."

"Ah! You know that, do you?" exclaimed the Prince, and his expressive

face changed, and seemed for a moment to be joyous; then the look of

reserve closed over the flash of daring and animation, and he added

quietly: "The Regent has sent a protest to His Majesty telling him it is

impossible to enforce stringent laws against heretics in the

Netherlands. And it is likely, it must be, that the King will see reason

in her arguments."

"Is it likely?" asked Rénèe, looking steadily at the Prince. "Your

Highness knows the King."

"Why, if he does not——" said William, then suddenly checked himself.

"If he does not?" repeated the girl swiftly. "What will Your Highness

do?"

He seemed to utterly withdraw into himself, and his face was smooth and

serene as a mask.

"I see you still have hopes of me," he smiled.

She could not answer; she felt that he was lightly putting her off,

gently showing her she had overstepped all etiquette, only to speak

folly. Her enthusiasm, her exaltation were swept away by a wave of

humiliation. She stood with downcast eyes, trembling in her place.

William looked at her.

"My child," he said, with that note of pity and tenderness in his voice

Rénèe found unbearable, "there was never tyrant yet without some one to

withstand, nor any oppression or cruelty some strength did not break

through. Take courage, hold up your heart—some one will arise to face

even King Philip and his Holy Inquisition."

She could only bend her head and say, "Forgive me, forgive what I have

said——"

He raised his hand with a little gesture as if he would check her

protestations, then turned away and entered the library.

There, amid the rich furnishings, in the silence, broken only by the

call of the pigeons without, he stood thoughtfully, as if he had

forgotten what he had come here for; the sunshine, red now as molten

gold, flushed the tapestries, the rows of gilded books, the carved walls

and ceilings, the bureaus of gleaming Chinese lacquers, the brocade and

velvet chairs, and this slender figure of the young man standing erect,

frowning, with one hand on his hip and his face strangely sombre for one

so young and splendid.

CHAPTER II

THE LOYALTY OF LAMORAL EGMONT

Presently he turned and mounted the little step leading to the low

gallery which ran round the bookcases that lined the rooms to the height

of a man.

The Prince put his hand over the backs of a row of ponderous books in

gilt and calf which dealt with the laws and statutes of the Netherlands;

then, not finding the particular volume he required, or losing interest

in his impulse, he turned away and crossed to a rare bureau of Chinese

work, the smooth brick-red lacquer surface of which was heavily

encrusted with gold birds and flowers, and there seated himself and

stared across the rich room to the garden filled by the warm light of

sunset.

His face was very grave, almost weary; his mouth was set tightly, so

that the lines of it were strained, and his nostrils slightly distended.

Presently he took from his pocket a little notebook of scented leather

and slowly turned over the vellum pages, which were closely covered with

numbers and calculations.

It was only lately that the Prince had deigned to take more than the

most superficial interest in the management of his vast affairs; he had

been too great, too rich, too powerful for any misgivings as to the

future. But recently it had been forced on his attention that his

fortunes needed mending; his debts were enormous, many of his estates

mortgaged; half of his French lordships were not paying their revenues,

many others were let at below their value. For fifteen years, ever since

he had had an establishment of his own, he had been spending money like

water to maintain a life and a magnificence such as many emperors had

not attained; his houses, his horses, his falcons, his kitchens, his

entertainments were the most splendid in the land, and famous in Europe,

and even his enormous income had felt the strain of such lavishness.

None of his services under Philip had been lucrative; his mission to

offer the crown imperial to the new Emperor on the abdication of Charles

had been a costly honour, as it had been undertaken at his own expense,

and had meant the expenditure of a fortune; his emoluments from his

present offices did not touch his outlay, and he was outside that circle

of the Regent's favourites (such as the Spanish secretary, Armenteros)

who enriched themselves from public funds, nor had he ever received any

of the rewards and benefits which had permitted Cardinal Granvelle to

retire a rich man.

His second marriage, put through in face of so much opposition and

difficulty, had proved a disastrous failure. Anne, unbalanced from the

beginning, was now almost a maniac, a disgrace and a humiliation to her

proud husband; her dowry had done little more than pay for the wedding

festivities, and the alliance with the German Princes, her kinsmen,

which William had hoped to create, remained more than doubtful.

There were his brothers—Louis, now sick and at Spa; Adolphus and Henry,

who had just left the college of Louvain,—looking to him for

advancement, for John, who had set up his household at Dillenburg, was

too limited in means to do anything, and there were his own son and the

little daughters; responsibilities, burdens, anxieties there were in

plenty, and he stood alone to meet them.

Certainly he was at present the most powerful person in the Netherlands,

and had been since the fall of Granvelle, but he knew perfectly well

that this power was principally rather in outward seeming than in

reality, and that his position was more perilous than glorious.

He did not trust Philip; he knew that Monarch hated him, and was only

waiting for the opportunity to hurl him down; and he knew Philip hated

him because he feared him. Egmont had lately visited Spain, and there

had been caressed and flattered and cajoled by the King into forgetting

his grievances and those of the country he represented; Montigny and

Berghen were ready to accept an invitation to Madrid; Hoorne stood out

to trust His Majesty; but William of Orange was not for a moment to be

deceived nor cajoled nor lured.

He knew the King.

And he felt a great loneliness in this knowledge, a great sense of

standing alone; every one seemed to be either Philip's tool, Philip's

puppet, or else utterly deceived by a few sweet words from the royal

lips.

It astonished as much as it grieved William that Egmont should be so

deceived, that Philip's kindness, Philip's presents, Philip's

hospitality should make the envoy of the wrongs of the Netherlands

forget his errand, and return praising Philip's charity, Philip's

clemency, Philip's generosity.

The thought of Egmont's folly spurred William to his feet.

He walked about the room, frowning, thinking; how was he, the only man

who did not fear nor trust Philip, to act now?

Supposing Philip forced the Inquisition and, in the fury of his bigotry,

exterminated the Netherlanders in seas of blood and flame?

William stopped short in his pacing to and fro.

"You shall not," he said suddenly, as if he spoke to a living man before

him.

And indeed it was not difficult for the Prince to conjure from the dusk

the figure once so familiar to him: the meagre form, the pallid face,

the mild and blank blue eyes, the projecting lower jaw with the full and

tremulous under lip, the yellow-red hair and beard—the figure of the man

who, with less brains than the meanest of his clerks, and more bitter

insane bigotry than any fanatic devotee, imposed the terror of his rule

over half the world.

William could picture him as he had last seen him in the streets of

Flushing, the pallid face livid, the lips twisted into a snarl that

showed the broken teeth, the foolish blue eyes injected with blood,

while he stammered, in answer to the Prince's serene and courteous

excuse—"Not the States, but you—you!" using the first person as if he

had addressed a servant. William had turned on his heel and left him,

not even escorting him as far as the shore where he was to embark.

They had not seen each other since; in spite of his constant promises it

did not seem as if Philip would ever set foot in the Netherlands again,

and William would have as soon walked into fire as have gone to Spain.

Yet the presence of the King was ever with him, an intangible foe, an

all-pervading enemy.

The Prince did not know which of his servants, nay, which of his

friends, was secretly in the pay or service of Philip.

But William also had been trained at the Court of Charles V; he had his

spies in the Escorial, his agents in Madrid, and he was better informed

as to the King's doings than the Regent herself, who was but a puppet in

that vast game of triple intrigue and interwoven duplicity, that

confusion of lies and counter-lies and manifold deceptions which the

Court of Spain called statecraft.

William's thoughts went back to the same point again and again—the point

that was indeed the centre of his problem—

"If the King forces the edicts against heretics—what to do?"

The final issue of slaughter, torture, emigration, and woe unutterable

he saw with vision unconfused; he foresaw, too, the ruin of all the

great Flemish nobles who refused to be Philip's executioners.

All Stadtholders, all magistrates, all officials who refused to enforce

the King's orders would be dismissed from their offices, probably

imprisoned, certainly disgraced; their estates would, of a necessity,

share the inevitable ruin of the country; their fortunes would be lost

in the general bankruptcy.

So much was obvious; it was obvious also that the only way to escape

this ruin would be to submit to Philip, to support his policy, to fulfil

his decrees, to obey him in everything with implicit loyalty.

And what was Philip going to demand?—that these noblemen, of as proud a

birth as his own, become inquisitors, executioners, the despoilers of

their native land or the land whose charters and liberties they had

sworn to protect?

Impatient with his own thoughts and with circumstances William left the

library and returned to his cabinet, where two secretaries were working

by the light of lamps of red Florentine copper.

William had scarcely entered when Lamoral Egmont was ushered into his

presence; the Prince took his friend by the hand and, greeting him

pleasantly, led him into the outer chamber, already lit by tall candles

in polished brass sticks shining like pale gold.

William had not had so much of the Count's company of late; Egmont was

generally in attendance on the Regent, who flattered his vanity by

affecting to lean on his advice, and since his return from Madrid he had

rather shunned the society of the Prince, for he was a little uneasy, a

little ashamed, at the ease with which Philip had lured him from his

ancient allegiance to the plans and policy of his friend.

He stood now awkwardly, like a man with something on his mind, his fine

and gallant head held rather defiantly high, his handsome features

flushed and troubled. The Prince observed him closely, but was silent,

waiting for him to speak.

"I have been with the Regent to-day," said Egmont at last; "she commands

my assistance in the preparation of these wedding festivities. It

becomes wearisome," he added, with some impatience.

The Prince made no comment; he was not very interested either in all

these pompous feasts and tourneys which were to celebrate the marriage

of the Regent's son (whom Egmont had brought back from Spain with him)

and the Princess Maria of Portugal. It was an ill time for this

extravagant and lavish rejoicing, and neither bride nor groom pleased

the Prince; besides, the memory of his own costly wedding festivities

was still fresh and unpleasantly vivid in his mind.

"The Regent heard to-day from Spain," added Egmont suddenly.

The Prince looked at him sharply.

"Was it an answer to the protest about the decrees of the Council of

Trent?" he asked.

"I do not know—she would not make the news public. But I know the

tidings were ill, the tears were in her eyes and her breath came short,

and on the first excuse she could, she hurried from me and retired to

her chamber. And, later, I heard the young Prince, her son, say that if

all the heretics were exterminated, God would be well pleased."

"He will be a rod and a scourge, that youth," remarked William. "I never

met one with so much pride. So Philip will cut the Netherlanders to the

measure of the Pope's yardstick?"

"I do not say so," replied Lamoral Egmont hurriedly.

"Nay, but in your heart you know it," returned the Prince. "Now you are

away from the seductions of the Escorial you know that Philip

is—Philip."

The Stadtholder of Flanders winced and flushed.

"I see no cause to mistrust the King's word," he answered obstinately.

"He spoke to me graciously—with charity and kindness——"

"My poor Lamoral!" exclaimed William with a sarcasm he could not

restrain, "and could a little sweetness, the false Spanish honey, so

easily lure you into the net? Do you really believe in Philip's

caresses, Philip's promises?"

"I have always been loyal," said Egmont. "I have never offended His

Majesty."

"You have—we all have," answered William. "Do you think he has forgotten

that we forced him to remove Granvelle? Do you think he has forgiven the

jest of the livery?"

The Count laughed.

"Why, I have dined at the Regent's table in camlet, doublet, and the

device——"

"And she has smiled and flattered. She is Philip's sister," remarked the

Prince drily. "Trust none of them. The King is only waiting for his

revenge."

Egmont paled a little and looked at William uneasily; he felt himself

again coming under the Prince's influence, again affected by the

Prince's warning; he began to entertain a horrid doubt: Philip's

sincerity, if that was all a snare?—if the King was offended with him

beyond appeasement?—his very soul shuddered before that possibility and

what it meant.

William saw his hesitancy and spoke again—spoke earnestly and ardently

as a man would to save a friend.

"Egmont, believe none of them," he said. "The King loves us not—he has

those about him who do not allow him to forget—keep out of his power,

eschew his flatteries, trust neither him nor his creatures."

But Philip's blandishments were still too fresh in the Count's ears, he

was too secure in the consciousness of his own loyalty to give more than

a passing heed to any warning, much as he was impressed by the force of

the Prince's stronger character. He reassured himself by recalling the

Regent's favour, the King's promises of benefits and rewards; and he was

a man hampered with debts, with daughters to dower presently—a man who

needed magnificence, splendour, the atmosphere of Courts,—a man ductile

under the flattery of the great.

"You are too prudent, too cautious," he answered, with a vehemence to

cover his momentary hesitation and alarm. "I cannot overstep loyalty—you

sail near to defiance of His Majesty's authority."

"If the King forces the Inquisition, what will you do?" asked William

suddenly and abruptly.

Egmont flushed and stammered.

"I? I must stand by my duty—it is true these heretics must be outrooted.

I am treating them with severity——"

"You will stand by the King," said the Prince briefly.

"What else?" demanded the Count. "I am satisfied His Majesty will not

push matters past prudence."

"Do you call it prudence if he insists on measures being forced on the

country which will mean every inhabitant being put to the sword or

flying overseas?—that will mean the ruin of every trade, every industry,

every business?"

"Nay," said Egmont, "the heretics will come back to the true Church."

William smiled at the weakness of this.

"If Philip were to send every soldier he possesses to the Netherlands to

force the Inquisition and the decrees of the Council of Trent by the

sword, not one of these people would change his faith."

"You speak as one too favourable to heresy," cried the Count.

"I speak as one knowing well these heretics and the power of the faith

they hold."

"Would we could extirpate that cursed faith," exclaimed Egmont

impatiently, "which, like a foul weed in a fair garden, has brought

confusion and misery where there was order and peace!"

"Ah, you are a good Catholic," said William quietly, "and you, too, have

tried to put a bridle on men's consciences and whip them to the mass—you

have hanged and burned to clear heresy from Flanders—but you will never

succeed, Count Egmont, and all your efforts will not save you from King

Philip, loyal and pious as you are."

"You, too, are a good Catholic," answered Egmont.

"Ah, yes, I am a good Catholic," replied the Prince indifferently.

He turned aside to snuff the candles that stood on the low table by the

heavy carved fireplace.

Egmont was silent; with every moment, with every word, these two, once

so inseparably friends and allies, were widening the distance between

each other.

It was evident that in the struggle between Philip and William for

Egmont, Philip had won; the Stadtholder of Flanders stood firm to Church

and King; he had been bought, as Granvelle had always said he could be,

by a little flattery, a few promises.

But still the charm and power of the Prince held him, he regretted the

old confidence, the old alliance.

"What will Your Highness do?" he asked a little wistfully.

The Prince smiled and, turning towards him, pressed his hand.

"Whatever I do, I think I shall stand alone," he answered. "You will

remain my friend though, Lamoral?" he added, and his dark eyes were

eloquent with affection.

"Always," replied Egmont. "Come what will, I do not leave my friends so

easily, Prince."

"We will talk no more of politics when we are together, and so we shall

keep our conversation sweet; the times are difficult and bloody, and it

is well to forget them," replied William.

They spoke together a while on indifferent topics, their hawks, their

hounds, their debts, the last extravagance of Brederode, Montigny's

approaching marriage, the arrogance of the young Prince of

Parma—Margaret's son—and the severe piety of his bride—the Portuguese

Princess.

Only when Egmont was leaving did William refer again to the first topic

of their conversation.

"Is Count Hoorne of your mind?" he asked, as he stood with his guest on

the great stairs. "About trusting Spain?" he explained.

"Ah yes," said Lamoral Egmont.

"And Hoogstraaten?"

"That—I do not know."

They parted affectionately, and William returned into his palace which,

for all the magnificence and luxury and splendour and moving to and fro

of servitors, was somehow lonely and desolate.

The Prince mounted the gorgeous stairs slowly, with his eyes downcast;

as he gained the first landing he raised them, to see the figure of his

wife.

She was going up the stairs before him, half-crouching against the wall

and dragging at the tapestries; her heavy handsome skirts trailed

loosely after her; her white head-cloth was soiled and disarranged; she

was sucking a stick of sweetmeat, and her pale flaccid face clouded with

an instant expression of dislike and annoyance touched with fear when

she observed her husband.

He glanced away, and turned across the landing to his cabinet; she crept

on up the stairs, muttering to herself, and looking back at him with a

half-snarl like a malignant animal.

So now the Prince and his wife met and passed.

CHAPTER III

THE AMUSEMENTS OF THE PRINCESS OF

ORANGE

Duprès—the skryer, alchemist, and religious refugee whom the Prince of

Orange was sheltering—had arranged the two chambers allotted to him as

half shop, half laboratory, in the fashion of Vanderlinden, the Elector

Augustus' alchemist and Duprès' former master.

This fellow, partly charlatan, yet genuinely gifted, and not without a

wild flash of genius at times, and real moments of spiritual insight and

exaltation, had contrived, by the fascination of the supernatural arts

he professed and by his wit and readiness in following the politics and

scandals, the rumours and whispers of the hour, to attach to himself a

considerable following, both in the Prince's household and among those

who came and went in the palace, and whose visits to the alchemist (as

he chose to call himself, though he had little real pretension to any of

the honours of hermetic philosophy) were not noticed amid the manifold

distractions of the huge establishment.

The Princess of Orange continued Duprès' most ardent patroness and most

credulous dupe; she spent hours in his laboratory watching him tell her

fortune by means of melted lead, by the markings in the blade bone of a

freshly killed sheep, by the arrangement of strange Eastern

playing-cards, or in observing the fusing and transformation of various

chemicals into powder and essences which Duprès declared were the first

steps to the discovery of the Philosopher's Stone.

Anne was hot on this pursuit; the events that shook the Netherlands, the

threatened upheaval which might overshadow her husband, the daily

torture and death of heretics, the cries arising from the tortured

prisoners, the Regent's anxiety and confusion, the enigmatic attitude of

the awful Philip—none of these things interested the Lutheran Princess

whose father had been so splendid a champion of the Reformed Faith; but

to stand over glass retorts and glowing furnaces, to listen to the

Frenchman's tedious and learned explanations of matter she could not

even begin to understand, to meddle with signs and wonders, to attempt

to raise spirits, to experiment with perfumes, dyes, and cosmetics—all

this had a deep and irresistible fascination for Anne of Orange.

And Duprès made his full profit thereby, for he obtained from her

considerable sums of money, and when she had not these to give, jewels,

ornaments, and even costly articles from her chambers. Rénèe le Meung

had known Duprès at Dresden and then believed him to be a worthless,

though cunning creature, and she found it hard to stand by and see him

fool the Princess and mock the Prince; but William and all the members

of the Nassau family who came and went in Brussels treated Anne and her

doings with magnificent indifference, Duprès was beneath their notice,

and it was not in Rénèe to play the tale-bearer and carry complaints of

her mistress to her master, so she, too, had to spend the dreariest of

hours listening to Duprès' jargon and watching his futile experiments,

while the sickly smell of perfumes and the acrid odour of chemicals made

her head heavy and feverish.

But when the Princess began visiting the laboratory alone, and the

whispers and laughter grew among her women, Rénèe went through an agony

of hot shame and bitter indignation compared to which the dullness of

her former life was peace.

Anne was making a jest of herself, and Rénèe winced as if she had

herself been humiliated, not because of Anne, but because of the name

she carried.

Towards this momentous winter, when Brussels was brilliant with the

pompous marriage of Alexander of Parma, Anne's women began to openly

laugh at their hated mistress.

They had ceased to believe that she went to Duprès' studios solely to

study magic and alchemy.

"It is to meet that young lawyer, Jan Rubens," they said, and made a

mock of her behind her back.

Rénèe, sick of living, sick of loving, weak and pale with watching the

ruin of her people and her faith, roused at this.

"The charlatan must go," she said, and all the women laughed again and

asked, 'Why? If Anne was quiet with these amusements, why take them from

her?'

But Rénèe repeated, "He must go."

She meant to take the desperate step of frightening the fellow into

leaving the palace, and so closing Anne's dangerous means of

communication with the outside world.

The Princess of Orange and a Flemish lawyer!—it was impossible that she

should stoop so low or he look so high, yet in her heart Rénèe did not

trust Anne, and meanwhile, if nothing else, she was trampling on her

husband's dignity and giving cause for little men to laugh at him.

It was a wild winter day when Anne, in a bitter and stormy mood, had

locked herself into her darkened chamber, that Rénèe went on her

distasteful errand to the alchemist.

Rain was hurled against the palace windows with a force that shook the

painted glass in the frames, and lay in great pools beneath the swaying

and broken trees and bushes in the garden, until a great gust of wind

would come and suck up the water in the hollows and dry the wet lashings

on the windows and make the whole great building tremble, then it would

die away reluctantly, and another black cloud would burst, drenching all

again.

Rénèe shuddered in her worn velvet (none of Anne's women went

splendidly) as she passed through the magnificent corridors and

stairways to the obscure chamber where Duprès lodged.

To her surprise as much as to her relief and satisfaction she found him

alone, though she had to use some authority to gain admission from the

idle lad who kept his door.

Duprès was in his outer room which opened directly from the antechamber.

He was bending over an alabaster table set on gilt legs, which stood in

the corner by the high window, and mixing several brilliant liquids by

means of a long silver spoon.

At the sound of Rénèe's firm step he turned, and the sight of his face

startled her, for he wore a glass mask bound tightly round forehead and

chin by strips of black leather.

"Mademoiselle le Meung!" he cried, in tones of surprise and vexation,

and, quickly covering his mixtures with silver lids, he took off the

mask and looked at her keenly with his bright tired eyes.

"You did not wish to see me," remarked Rénèe.

"No," replied Duprès, at once courteous and composed, "you are wrong—no

one could have been more welcome, but I am engaged on an important

experiment, and told the lad I did not wish to be disturbed."

"Oh, Monsieur Duprès," said Rénèe, "do not seek to delude me with these

labours of yours—I knew you in Dresden."

He placed a deep-seated leather chair for her in front of the cedar-wood

fire which emitted a perfumed heat, and he answered calmly—

"You despise me and what I do, but there again you are wrong. If I can

make invisible ink, potent sleeping-draughts, swift poisons, keen

medicines, and cosmetics to keep women beautiful, am I not of some use

in the great affairs of the world?"

"Ah, you suit your argument to your listener," replied Rénèe. "Since you

cannot dazzle me with your magic and your alchemy you speak straightly,

and I am thankful for it."

"Blaspheme neither magic nor alchemy," he returned thoughtfully. "All

miracles are possible, but our wit is so muddy we may not achieve them.

I have talked with angels and glimpsed infinity as certainly as I have

been drunk and a cheat."

"Maybe," said Rénèe; she sat still, looking round the strange room full

of curious pictures and diagrams, planetary signs, shelves of bottles

and jars, rows of ancient books and astronomical instruments. She was

tired, as always, and, as always, sad in spirit, and she felt that what

she had to say was an effort difficult to make.

Duprès came and stood the other side of the wide hearth; his long black

gown, his flat velvet cap, the thick gold chain round his neck, his

grave, pallid, and wasted face gave him the air of a scholar long closed

from the light, but his restless hands and his reckless eyes were those

of a man of action.

"You have heard what is taking place in Brussels?" he asked keenly.

"I hear nothing," said Rénèe, "but the last scraps of gossip from the

pages and servants. I never leave the palace and hardly the Princess's

apartments."

"I can tell you this," said Duprès, with an air of lively interest,

"that the younger nobles, Brederode, Culemburg, Hoogstraaten, De Hammes,

have organized a league against the enforcement of the decrees of the

Council of Trent. They had a meeting on the very eve of the Parma

wedding. What do you think of that?" he added, smacking his lips. "Does

it not look like splendid times ahead—confusion, chances, war, perhaps?"

"Is the Prince in this, or Egmont or Hoorne?" asked Rénèe.

"None of those, but the Count Louis—and Egmont's house is as full of

heretics as Geneva, while our dear master is hardly a very good Catholic

nor a very good loyalist," he added, with a slight, unpleasant smile.

The waiting-woman flushed and felt her heart beating fast.

"I must come to my errand," she said, "before we are interrupted."

"Yes, your errand," repeated Duprès keenly. "But first, lest we

misunderstand one another, are you in the confidence of your mistress?"

"As much as anyone is, perhaps," replied Rénèe.

He looked at her searchingly, then his eyes fell; the waiting-woman was

conscious of a sudden wave of disgust, of loathing for him and all the

pretentious details of this room so obviously arranged to impress the

foolish and ignorant, and this feeling gave her strength and courage to

speak.

"You must leave the palace, Duprès," she said; "it would be better if

you left Brussels, but this you must leave, and at once."

His whole face paled and hardened into a set look of defiance and alarm.

"What do you mean? Who told you to say that?" he asked roughly.

Rénèe rose.

"I speak on my own authority," she said quietly, "but if you refuse to

take my warning, I will go to the Prince."

Duprès winced so palpably and looked so hideously alarmed that Rénèe was

slightly astonished, slightly softened.

"Go at once," she added, following up her advantage; "you have made

enough plunder and may now try your fortunes elsewhere."

Duprès rallied himself; his eyes flickered to the fire.

"What have you against me?" he asked anxiously.

"You are a plague spot, a fester in this house," answered Rénèe. "You

seduce the Prince's people with lies and foolishness, you bring those

here who have no right to enter these doors."

"The Princess wishes me to stay—go to her with these complaints, and

hear her answer," cried Duprès, with a sudden snarl.

His words woke Rénèe's lurking anger; she flashed from coldness to heat.

"The Prince maintains you, shelters you, saved you—not his wife—and your

gratitude is to pander to her foolishness and drain her of her very

jewels by your tricks. And there is worse than that, Duprès, she meets

here those whom she should not meet, she degrades herself by consorting

with idlers in a charlatan's company. You know this—again I tell you, as

a warning, you must go."

"Who gave you authority to talk so boldly?" exclaimed the alchemist in a

rage. "If my honoured lady deigns to come here to watch my poor

experiments, what is it to you?"

"I will not argue on this theme," returned Rénèe. "But if you are not

gone within the week it shall be put before His Highness that you bring

disgrace and disorder into his house."

A curious expression of dislike, rage, and half-amusement gleamed in the

alchemist's narrowed eyes, but Rénèe, already hot, agitated, and

half-ashamed of her own errand, her own plain speaking, was turning

quickly and resolutely away, when a sudden sound caused her to stop and

turn violently towards Duprès.

It was a woman's laugh she heard—a high, shrill, long laugh; it came

from the alchemist's inner room, and was unmistakably the laugh of Anne

of Orange.

In a flash Rénèe remembered the private door from the Princess's

apartments which Anne had affected to have locked and hidden under the

tapestries, in a flash she recalled the hours Anne had been seemingly

enclosed in her chamber—now it was all clear enough.

"So she comes thus," said Rénèe, with tears in her eyes, "and you have

been the go-between!"

"No one is here—no one," stammered Duprès, but he backed before the

door, and he was colourless and quivering.

"She is there, and I will take her away," cried Rénèe. "Who is with

her—who?"

"Go, go!" implored Duprès; "there is none here but a young wench who

serves me. Oh, gods and angels!" he cried in real terror, as Rénèe

slipped behind him and seized the handle of the door.

She thought he was going to strike her or use his short dagger on her,

and she did not care; but the irresolution and the mocking fatalism that

were so strongly in this man's character kept him from action.

"There is an end now," he said cynically, and stepped behind the great

chair where Rénèe had sat.

The waiting-woman opened the door.

The inner room was glowing with a rich firelight which warmed the chilly

gleam of the stormy daylight; the round table was set with a lace cloth

and all manner of sweets, cakes, fruits, and wines; and before it, on a

long couch, sat the Princess of Orange and Jan Rubens, the young lawyer.

One of his arms was round her waist, one of hers round his neck; their

flushed faces were pressed together, and they were endeavouring to drink

out of the same goblet, a rare thing of rock crystal, in the form of a

fish, mounted in rubies and gold.

All this Rénèe saw in a breath, and while she saw she realized her own

utter failure, the uselessness of all her years of effort, of

watchfulness, of endurance, of patience; she had been outwitted like a

fool. Anne had eluded her, and gone straight to that shame, that

degradation from which Rénèe had laboured to save her; not even this

service had she been able to render the Prince, and that was the

bitterest thought of all.

She stood silent, holding the door open, and the two at the table

stopped their foolish laughter and rose. Rubens dropped the goblet; the

wine spilt over his crumpled ruff and his violet velvet suit.

"Go to your room, Madame," said Rénèe, and spoke as a mistress to a

servant.

Anne was too frightened to answer; she shrank together as if she

expected to be beaten.

The young lawyer tugged at his sword.

"That fool Duprès," he kept saying, "that fool Duprès——"

Rénèe could see he was half-intoxicated; she turned her back on him and

spoke again to Anne.

"Go, go!" she cried. "Do you realize that you are playing with death?"

This last word seemed to recall Jan Rubens to his senses.

"I am ruined!" he cried. "I have a wife and children. God forgive me!

Oh, God forgive me!"

He turned his face away and put his hands before his eyes.

Anne limped towards the door.

"Oh, make haste!" whispered Rénèe, through strained lips.

Duprès came forward; he was the most composed of the four, though there

was terror in his eyes and his hands shook.

"Mademoiselle will not speak?" he said in a low voice, catching

hold of Rénèe's sleeve. "A little foolishness, a little

indiscretion—Mademoiselle would not make mischief for that?"

"A little foolishness," repeated Anne vaguely. She began to weep. "May I

not have my amusements? You were always hard, Rénèe; do not be hard——"

"See," said Duprès, in a quick, eager whisper. "Keep this from the

Prince, and I will go away—_he_ will leave Brussels——"

"Make no bargains with me," cried Rénèe passionately, exasperated with

disdain of the cringing attitude of all of them, by Anne's utter lack of

dignity, by the horrid sordidness of the thing she had disclosed, which

sickened her as one might be sickened by lifting a smooth stone and

discovering beneath a foul reptile. "You will go—all of you—and at

once."

The young Fleming now stumbled forward into the outer room. He was a

big, clumsy man, fresh-coloured, blonde, fair-bearded, and blue-eyed;

his face was grey and distorted with terror; he stood before Rénèe

shuddering like a lashed hound. She noted, with further contempt for his

utter cowardice, that he neither tried to bribe nor threaten her.

"Will it be the rope—the rope?" he asked. "Or would the Prince grant the

sword—for my family's sake?"

"Go," cried Rénèe, "escape from here like the thing you are!"

She caught Anne's limp hand and dragged her to the door.

"If he kills me," said the Princess sullenly, "he will take a life that

is worth nothing to me." She twisted round in Rénèe's grasp to throw

insult at the two men standing foolishly side by side.

"And you could neither strike a blow nor say a word, tricksters and

churls!"

She said nothing more while Rénèe led her back through the palace until

they came to the great staircase window which looked on the courtyard.

A cavalcade, muffled against the weather, was leaving the palace gates.

"My husband going to the Council," muttered Anne. "My husband!"

When they reached the Princess's apartments, Rénèe locked the secret

door and took away the key.

Anne watched from where she crouched over the fire.

"I suppose you despise me, hate me now?" she asked.

Rénèe turned her beautiful haggard face towards her mistress, and for

the first time in her long bondage she spoke what had ever been in her

heart.

"I always despised and hated you," she said.

"I knew it," answered Anne apathetically, and sat silent over the warmth

of the flames till she fell heavily asleep.

But the waiting-woman paced her little chamber in agonies of torment,

weeping unbearably bitter tears of pain and shame and unavailing regret.

CHAPTER IV

PHILIP'S MANDATE

William of Orange rode up to the beautiful Brabant palace in company

with Egmont, who had been dining with him, and several gentlemen who

were in attendance on both the noblemen.

Egmont was silent, uneasy, almost sullen; he felt that Philip was not

carrying out the golden promises he had made in Madrid, and that he had

been more or less deceived and cajoled; and though his loyalty was not

shaken, he was humiliated at appearing as a man of straw in the eyes of

William of Orange.

The Prince too was uneasy. He knew, by means of secret information, that

the Regent had received dispatches from the King during her son's

marriage festivities, and had kept them concealed. He did not think this

seemed as if they contained good news; he saw everything very gloomy and

black ahead, very troubled and difficult, but at least he hoped that the

King had taken up some definite attitude. To a man of William's

temperament, Philip's endless irresolution, interminable delays, shifty

evasions, blank silences, and long inaction were the most unbearable of

policies.

They reached the palace wet with rain and blown with wind, to find most

of the other members of the Council there before them, and already

gathered in the presence of the Regent in the splendid council chamber

of the ancient Dukes of Brabant.

Baron de Barlaymont, the last representative of the fallen party of

Granvelle, was there seated humbly in his usual quiet corner, where he

was seldom noticed and seldom spoke. His colleague Vigilius, President

of the Privy Council, was also present; he had but recently recovered

from an almost mortal illness which had seized him while preparing an

answer to the Prince of Orange's speech against the Inquisition and the

corruption of the Court, and had been left by it almost useless, almost

senseless.

Thomas Armenteros, Margaret's Spanish secretary, was there, and Admiral

Hoorne, gloomy and sad.

The Duke of Aerschot, the one noble who had unflinchingly supported all

Philip's measures, and the Sieur de Glayon, completed, with the arrival

of the Prince and Egmont, the members of the Council of State; but the

ancient and feeble Vigilius was supported by several of the learned

doctors of law who composed the board of the Privy Council of which he

was President.

The Regent sat in her usual place at the head of the long table, working

nervously at the usual length of embroidery which served to give

employment to her restless fingers.

She had aged of late; her face had hardened, and there were strands of

white in her thick, heavy hair. The firm set of her powerful jaw and her

majestic deportment gave her a resemblance to the Emperor her father,

but her eyes were the eyes of a woman overwhelmed and frightened.

When all the councillors were seated, she dropped her work on to her lap

and looked keenly and anxiously from one face to another—the dark,

handsome face of Orange; the old, feeble face of Vigilius; the downcast,

bitter face of Barlaymont; the beautiful, uneasy face of Egmont; the

brooding, sullen face of Hoorne; and the sleek, smiling face of

Armenteros, the secretary, who held the dispatches in his hand.

Margaret spoke; her shaking voice was rendered half inaudible by the

sound of the rain beating on the leaded casements where glowed the arms

of Brabant, and the wind struggling with the heavy window-frames.

William rested his hands on the soft Persian cloth that covered the

council table, and he, in his turn, looked steadily at the Regent.

But he was not considering, nor reckoning with, Madame Parma; behind the

figure of this confused, agitated woman, whose task was too great for

her wits, William saw the real master, the pale King going to and fro

his masses and his cell in the Escorial, from whence he directed the

destinies of the Netherlands.

"You shall hear the Royal commands, seigneurs," finished the Duchess,

and she glanced at those two fine shapely hands of William of Orange

resting on the cloth in front of him, and her look of fright deepened as

if they had held a bared sword towards her breast.

"Read, read," she cried to Armenteros, in great agitation. She caught up

her work, but tears were in her eyes, and she could not see the

stitches.

The secretary rose. He was a mere clerk, but since Granvelle's downfall

he had grown fat on the spoils of the corruption of the Court, and now

affected the great lord; he was dressed in the Spanish style, close

doublet and short cloak in plain black velvet which disdained the French

and Flemish finery of button, lace, and feather, and wore a great ruff

of wired cambric so stiff that he could not turn his head.

He bowed, but formally, to the councillors, and announced that the

present dispatches had been received a few days before the Parma

wedding, had been placed before the Privy Council and by that body

reported upon, which report would be read after the Royal commands.

Hoorne glanced at Orange, Egmont kept his eyes down, Vigilius seemed

scarcely less agitated than the Regent; he shook as if slightly palsied,

and the water stood in his eyes.

Armenteros read the dispatches in a high-pitched clear voice, which rose

above the outer tumult of the wind and rain; his dark, precise figure

showed clear-cut in the grey winter light against the dark panelled

walls of the council chamber.

Philip's dispatches were prolix as always, but this time they were

neither obscure nor irresolute nor enigmatical. The King had hesitated

long, but now he was resolved, and he spoke out his resolution with no

uncertain words.

The decrees of the Council of Trent were to be enforced with full

rigour, the Inquisition was to be given full power and authority, all

the placards and edicts against heretics issued by the late Emperor were

to be enforced, such heretics as were at present in confinement awaiting

judgment were to be at once executed.

In brief, the ancient religion was to be re-established by sword and

fire and faggot, by fine, by banishment, by ruin; if need be, by the

extermination of a whole people.

There was to be no further temporizing, no appeal; the secular judges

were commanded to give all possible assistance to the Inquisitors, and

the Stadtholders were abjured to protect them; all loyal subjects of the

King were to assist him in his ardent desire to uproot heresy, or to be

reckoned among those they protected.

The passionate sincerity of the writer, "who would rather die a hundred

deaths than be the lord of heretics," illumined the diffuse and rambling

letter as a flame does darkness; the fierceness and force of this

tremendous decision was a mighty thing, the power of one overmastering

passion giving to a little man the semblance, the terror of greatness.

When the secretary folded up the letter and sat down, a sound like a sob

went through the room; then bitter protest, like a cry of despair, broke

from the pale lips of Egmont.

"This is not what His Majesty told me, this is not what was

promised—before God it is not!"

"His Majesty has written to you, Count," said Margaret hurriedly.

"Yes," admitted Egmont, "and the written words were different enough

from the spoken ones; yet I hoped—I still hoped——Ah!" he broke out again

passionately, "by Christ, I hoped for something better than this!"

So had Margaret; the emphatic severity of the King's mandate, the now

obvious hopelessness of his ever coming in person to the Netherlands,

the ruin ahead of the whole country if the Royal orders were

obeyed—these things had kept Madame Parma from rest and ease ever since

she had first read the fatal dispatches; and now her doubt, fear, and

vexation were beyond concealment.

Hoorne spoke now; he was not given to many words, and his speech was

commonly to the point.

"What do you intend to do, Madame?" he asked grimly, and his usual

disdain of women was heightened by the sight of Margaret's obvious

weakness.

"His Majesty must be obeyed," said Barlaymont and Aerschot almost in a

breath; Vigilius and the secretary murmured an assent; only William of

Orange remained silent, still looking down at his peaceful hands folded

on the edge of the table.

"Read the comments of the Privy Council," said the Regent desperately;

and the secretary rose again, and in his clear, expressionless voice

read out the tedious report of the Privy Council, which merely amounted

to a strong recommendation to the State Council to endorse the Royal

commands. When he had finished a passionate murmur broke from Hoorne and

Egmont.

"What can I do?" asked Margaret, answering them before they spoke. "I

have made all representations to His Majesty—I have told him the state

of the country, your own protests. You, Count Egmont, have yourself been

to Madrid and laid the case of the Netherlands before His Majesty."

"I will undertake no such mission again!" cried the Stadtholder of

Flanders stormily.

"It were wise not to," said the Seigneur de Glayon, with meaning.

"What is to be done?" asked Margaret weakly, and she looked at

Armenteros, the man on whom she had learnt to rely, and he in his turn

gazed at the rain-splashed panes of the tall window at his side.

William of Orange spoke for the first time since he had entered the

council room.

"There is nothing to be done," he said, "but to obey the mandate of the

King."

They all looked at him, half in terror, half in relief, Egmont almost

incredulously.

"You!" he exclaimed. "You who were ever so hot against the Inquisition,

against religious oppression—you who would leave the very weavers and

labourers free to choose their faith?"

"What I have said I maintain—I think you know, Count Egmont, that I

maintain my words—but I have said already, at this very Board, all I can

say. And now the King's attitude is clear, his commands are definite,

his wishes unmistakable—let them be fulfilled."

So saying, the Prince turned his dark eyes on Margaret, and there was an

expression of challenge, of reserved strength and judgment in them that

caused the Regent to feel doubtful of the support William so calmly

offered.

"To obey is to put a match to straw," she said in real terror, "but to

refuse is impossible."

"Ay, impossible," said William. He pointed to the dispatches lying

before Armenteros on the many-coloured cloth. "There is Philip's

mandate. Let it be obeyed."

"We have no excuse to disobey," admitted Hoorne sourly. "But what will

the Netherlanders do?"

"What will any of us do?" smiled William. "Let His Majesty's wishes be

put in force, and then it will be seen what all will do."

These words seemed to further frighten Margaret, who had always been in

awe of the powerful Prince of Orange.

"I count on Your Highness to support me in these troubles," she said

anxiously, and her tired eyes, full of tears, fixed searchingly on

William's serene and inscrutable face.

He slightly bowed his head, without replying; Egmont traced the lines of

a yellow tulip in the pattern of the cloth with his forefinger; Hoorne

stared desolately in front of him; Aerschot, Glayon, Barlaymont appeared

amazed and frightened; an air of gloom, of foreboding, of dismay rested

on all. With the exception of the Prince of Orange, all seemed like men

confused.

Margaret turned desperately to the secretary: "The edicts and placards

of the Inquisition, the decrees of the Council of Trent, must be

published in every village, immediately——"

Then Vigilius rose. He had been one of Granvelle's hottest partisans,

one of the sternest upholders of the Inquisition, one of the most

uncompromising believers in the extermination of the heretics; but now

that the fiat had gone forth, now that the die was finally cast, he was

afraid—afraid of a whole nation driven to the extreme of agony and

despair.

In a long, confused, and wearisome speech he feebly spoke for delay, for

compromise, for the avoidance of scandal and riot; in general, for

further evasion of that final issue which Philip had suddenly forced.

He shook with age and sickness, his hands beat the air with palsied

movements, he altered and retracted his words—the burden of his speech

was fear, fear and terror obvious in every sentence.

When he at last sat down, wiping the tears from his eyes, the other

councillors moved impatiently. All felt that the moment had come; the

sword so long suspended over the Netherlands had fallen, and further

procrastination was useless.

"The matter is now between the King and the people," said the Prince of

Orange. "Put before them the King's commands—and hear their answer."

Again Margaret trembled to hear him speak; her blurred eyes strove to

pierce the fast-encroaching winter dusk that was descending on the

council chamber, so that she might read his expression.

"His Highness is right," said Egmont. "The placards and edicts must be

issued."

"I see us all ruined," muttered Hoorne, tugging at his black beard, "but

we must obey."

All agreed; no one supported Vigilius, who sat shaking in his chair,

counselling "a little delay—a little delay."

"You have resigned, learned President," William answered him. "Before

this storm breaks, you may be safely in shelter."

"Methinks this will be a storm from which there will be no shelter,"

murmured the old man.

"Speak encouraging words, or hold your peace, good sir," cried Margaret

distractedly; and turning to Armenteros she gave the orders for the

enforcement of the edicts and placards.

No one noticed the increasing darkness, which now almost prevented them

seeing each other's faces; no one heard the sound and wrath of the storm

without, the whirling of the waters, the combat of the winds. All were

listening to the scratching of the Spaniard's quill while he took down

the instructions which were practically the death-warrants of a whole

nation; all watched him as he leant sideways to catch the light—him, and

the white blur of the paper over which his quill was moving.

At length it was done; the Regent bent from her chair, took the pen, and

blindly signed.

William of Orange drew a great breath.

"Now we shall see the beginning of the most terrible tragedy the world

has known!" he whispered to Hoorne, and his tone was almost one of

exultation, the tone of a man who sees his enemy face to face, out in

the open, at last.

The Admiral crossed himself in silence; Egmont gave a passionate

ejaculation; the rest were dumb and motionless in the darkness.

And so the thing was done, and Philip's mandate obeyed.

Margaret rose and called for candles; Armenteros put up his papers; the

councillors got to their feet.

Severally they took leave of the Regent; when the first candles were

brought in, William of Orange was at her side, and she saw his face,

pale and extraordinarily aglow with some inner emotion.

He took his leave with no added word, and she could find none with which

to detain him, though she longed to try and test him.

He was on the palace steps with Lamoral Egmont at his side; they paused

a second watching the loose, fiercely driven clouds flying over the

seven churches and proud palaces of Brussels, the long broken lances of

the rain dashing on shining wet roof and spire.

"'Tis the Angel of Death riding the whirlwind—the clouds of havoc gather

from the four corners of the earth," said the Prince. "God send us a

good deliverance."

CHAPTER V

THE KNIGHT-ERRANT

AS the Prince of Orange returned to his palace he passed a mansion which

defied the stormy night with light and music, and from the great doors,

which emitted rays of rose and gold on to the bitter rain, a band of

young cavaliers came forth, mounted, and turned their several ways, with

joyous farewells to each other.

William recognized the persons and voices of several—Brederode,

Hoogstraaten, Culemburg, Nicolas de Hammes, commonly called Golden

Fleece, and his own brother Louis, who was newly come to Brussels.

The Prince reined up his wet and steaming horse and waited for the

Count, who bared his head to the rain at sight of his brother.

"From the Council?" he asked, as he brought his horse long-side his

brother.

"Yes," said William briefly, and neither spoke again as, bending before

the weather, they made their way to the Nassau palace.

For once the Prince did not appear at the almost public table he kept,

but dined alone with Louis in his private apartments.

The princely chamber was warmly lit by the yellow glow of fair wax

candles; the gay tapestries, the heavy furniture gleamed with gold;

among the crystal and lace of the dining-table gold shone too, and in

the brocade of the chairs and in the great heart of the fire burning

behind the sparkling brass and irons on the wide brick hearth.

In the magnificence of their persons the two young men were worthy of

the gorgeous setting. The tawny velvet and violet silk of the Prince's

attire was drawn and purfled with gold, the triple ruff that framed his

dark face as high as the close waves of hair above the small ears was

edged with gold lace, gold flashed again in the chain which was twisted

in heavy links round and round his neck.

Louis wore black satin cut over yellow velvet and a falling ruff of

Malines lace; his fair and charming face was as fresh as a flower, his

eyes flashed as brightly as any gold in the room, and the ruby clasps

fastening his doublet rose and fell with his eager and impatient

breaths.

William usually ate with a hearty appetite, and enjoyed the luxurious

pleasure of a richly set meal; but to-night he let the courses pass

almost untouched, and broke the pieces upon his plate and left them.

Neither did he speak much, though it was not his habit to be taciturn.

After he had given his brother a brief account of the momentous Council

he was silent.

But Louis glowed with swift anger and boundless enthusiasm.

"We have not been idle," he declared. "The festivities, the weddings of

Parma and Montigny, have been a fair pretext for our meetings. We have

already a league among ourselves."

"I know something of that," answered William. "It will be as dangerous a

matter as Egmont's livery."

"Do you bid me hold back—now?" cried Louis impetuously.

"I bid no man hold back," replied the Prince quietly. "Who are with you

in this design?"

"Brederode, Ste Aldegonde, Culemburg, Hoogstraaten, de Hammes,

Montigny—all the younger nobility——"

"Montigny!" said William softly, "and he has just taken a wife."

"Is she not a beautiful creature?" answered Louis. "Half of those who

jousted before her would have given half their rents to win Hélène

d'Espinoy. Montigny loves his wife," he added, in a lower voice. "Did

you not notice it at the jousts?"

"I hope he will not go to Madrid," remarked William. "I hear that he and

Berghen think of undertaking an embassy to Philip."

"Egmont—will he not go again?" asked Louis.

"No—he is still sore at the success of his last mission."

The Prince rose and crossed to the hearth, resting his elbow against the

chimney-side and his face in his hand.

Louis, still seated at the table, glanced at his brother wistfully.

"You take my news coldly," he said in a tone of disappointment. "I

thought that you would be rejoiced to hear that there was this league to

protect the rights of the nobles and the liberties of the people."

"It was no news to me," answered William. "I knew your designs. You are

all young and ardent and reckless—God keep you all."

Louis bit his lip and drank the last drop of yellow wine that lay like

liquid amber in his sparkling crystal glass.

"We do what we can," he said, with great emotion, "and none but a coward

would do less at such a time as this."

William was silent; his face was turned away from his brother and his

shoulders drooped a little.

The young Count flushed all over his sensitive face at what he thought

the Prince's disapproval.

He rose and stood before the brilliant disorder of the dining-table in

the attitude of a man justifying himself.

His ardent gaiety had gone; he was passionately grave, passionately in

earnest.

"If Your Highness will not support me in what I do, I must go on alone.

I too am one of these doomed people, I too am a heretic. I am one of

those whom the Church and Philip have thrice cursed, thrice damned; and

every poor artisan whose flesh smokes above the market-place, and every

wandering preacher who is tortured to death, is my brother in God. I

cannot speak of these things without tears. We may tourney and dance and

feast, but the nation is bleeding to death from a thousand wounds, and I

cannot go on in my own easy safety——"

"It is not your country, Louis, nor your quarrel."

"Yes, it is my quarrel," returned the young Count eagerly, "because I

too am a heretic. This cause I espouse, to this quarrel I devote

myself."

"You are knight-errant," said the Prince.

Louis flushed again.

"No, I am nothing but a poor soldier, as which I shall live and die."

William suddenly moved so as to face him.

"How far will you go?" he demanded.

"As far as any."

"Would you take up arms against the King?"

"With all my heart and, I think, God's blessing," answered the young man

gravely. "If Egmont should lead a rising against the King——"

"Egmont!" said William quickly. "Egmont never will—Egmont is a good

Catholic. Egmont is loyal to Philip."

"Even now?"

"Even now—he is not the man of this moment."

"Brederode will lead us, then," replied Louis.

"Brederode is reckless, imprudent——"

"He is popular, loyal, brave. Then there is Ste Aldegonde——"

"Another fiery spirit—a poet, too!"

"Culemburg, then De Hammes."

"Too low in rank—you yourself are better suited than any of these."

Louis replied soberly—

"If I am called, I am willing to serve—to the death."

"I know," said William, "I know."

Louis stood doubtful, distressed, his brown fingers pulling nervously at

the edge of the fine tablecloth.

"Would you not be willing for me to take this charge upon myself?" he

asked earnestly and imploringly.

The Prince did not reply; his face seemed drained of blood beneath the

brown skin, his dark eyes were black with the dilation of the pupils.

"And you, you?" urged Louis. "What will you do? Bow the neck to Philip?"

He moved away from the table, crushing his hands together.

William turned now and spoke; he made an effort with his words. Choosing

them carefully, arranging them exactly, often faltering in the endeavour

to force his wide and far-reaching thoughts into speech; in all he said

was great patience, great sincerity, great gentleness.

"You must not think me cold. Indeed I am not cold. I know Spain and

Philip better than you—better than your friends. I know his power, his

resources, his persistency—above all his power! 'Tis the King of half

the world. And now he has spoken, he will not go back from his word. Do

you think the Regent will long serve his turn? Before this present

crisis she will fail utterly. A dull woman. Philip will send Alva and an

army—the finest army in the world, Louis. It was Alva who advised this

stern decree. I know that—a great soldier, the Duke of Alva, a loyal

Catholic—he will come. Nothing will stop Philip now. No laws, no

charters, no promises—he has condemned to death the Netherlands, and he

will not fail to send the executioner."

Louis listened intently, one hand pressing the ruby buttons on his

breast, his eyes eagerly on his brother's face.

"I have been like a watchman over this land since King Henry spoke to me

in Vincennes wood. I have seen havoc and ruin and desolation coming

nearer and nearer," continued the Prince mournfully; "I see it very near

now. I see this country overwhelmed as if the dikes had been cut down

and the sea were rushing in—a flood no man can withstand—and do you

think I wish to see all I love dash forward vainly, to be swept away by

the first wave of this deluge? Ah, Louis," he added, in a tone of

anguish, "what is your defiance against Philip's might—what are all the

gentlemen of Flanders against Alva's army? But a stone in the way to be

flung aside and forgotten."

"Are we, then, to submit?" asked Louis in a low voice.

The Prince took a restless turn about the room.

"Philip is not to be defeated by knight-errantry, but by subtle ways,

like to his own—by policy, by patience, by long years of endeavour and

waiting. He is not to be met openly in the field, but snared in secret

places."

"Meanwhile, we shall grow old and palsied," cried Louis, "and all the

hot blood in us will go for nothing."

"You see the glory of the combat, I see the anguish of the defeat," said

William slowly. "You remember the skryer in Leipsic? How he saw the

future in the crystal—and the end, all blood and blackness? To me too it

seems like that—darkness ahead and death—the sacrifice of all our

house."

"Speak words of good import," cried the Count. "Why should God utterly

forsake us? Will He not set high the standard of the good cause?"

William looked at him thoughtfully.

"Yea, if one gave all one had, if one suffered and waited, if one

sacrificed—all—for what one dared to think the right, perhaps God might

help one—God! But doth He help, or rather leave us to depend on our own

poor energies?"

Louis was startled by the emotion in his brother's voice, by the look of

his pallid face on which the dews of anguish had started.

"What do you mean? What will you do?"

"I do not know," said William. "I do not know. I say I see it all dark

ahead—last night the stars were red and flashing through the blackness

of hideous clouds, and methought it needed no great fancy to believe

these tales of spectral battalions who nightly combat in the skies and

rain blood upon the earth. Two days ago at Leyden the sentries felt warm

blood upon their hands and heard the shouts of battle overhead."

Louis shuddered.

"At Utrecht and Haarlem they saw armed men fighting in the air," he

answered; "one told the very pattern of the flint-locks and the manner

of caps they wore."

"I would consult my skryer," smiled William sadly, "but the strange

rogue has left me on the sudden. And we need no skryer to warn us of

what is before us, and no portents in the air to prepare us."

"And I, what must I do?" asked Louis, with a noble and winning deference

to the other.

"Wait," replied the Prince. "Wait—persuade the others to do so too. Put

no other check upon yourselves but prudence—be secret, take only those

on whom you can rely into your League—watch Ste Aldegonde, Brederode,

and de Hammes; they are too reckless—do not trust Charles Mansfeld—rely

on Hoogstraaten and Culemburg——Ah, what can I say!" He passionately

caught the young Count by the shoulders. "I leave it to your own heart,

your own judgment; but remember that you will be needed, do not fling

yourself away."

"Princely brother," answered Louis, and the tears stood in his eyes, "I

am always at your service, and only ask leave to die at your feet."

William kissed him on the brow, then releasing him, drew from the gilded

pocket that hung at his own waist a curious iron ring set with a large

opal the colour of milk, and holding blood and fire in the heart.

"Wear this," said the Prince. "It is an Eastern talisman which shall

protect you from evil."

Louis slipped it on his signet finger.

"When another than myself brings you this, you will know that I am

dead," he smiled.

"God grant that I may never see it save on your hand!" exclaimed the

Prince. "And now I give you leave to go—you are due at Hoogstraaten's

supper?"

"Yes; will you not come?"

"Not to-night—my duty to all. Until to-morrow, adieu."

They touched hands again, and each looked at the other with a certain

wistfulness, as if their hearts were full of a yearning affection they

did not dare express.

When Louis had gone William returned to the fire, which was falling into

ashes at the edges.

Of all the conversation with his brother one phrase suddenly leapt to

his mind unbidden; he seemed to read it in the dying heart of the flame—

"Montigny loves his wife."

The four words gave the Prince a strange pang in the remembrance; he

crossed the room and looked at a little painting of Anna van Buren, the

first Princess of Orange, which hung on the opposite wall.

The pale prim face, her gentle eyes, her drooping mouth, the very dress

she wore, and the jewel round her neck which he had given—he recalled

her so clearly—even as she was painted now—yet how remote she was; she

had made no impression on his life, and he never thought of her now save

as he might think of some playmate of his youth—for they had been

married at seventeen, and she had died almost before he had reached full

manhood; but she had been to him what the wives of most great nobles

were to their husbands—a little more than the wives of Hoorne and

Brederode were to them, a little less than Egmont's wife was to him. In

the misery and humiliation of his present marriage he could recall her

gratefully.

But love—"Montigny _loves_ his wife"—the words came again to him like

the echo in a shell held to the ear, and sounded sadly in the loneliness

of the Prince's heart. "If a man had great difficulties and a hard and

toilsome task, a loving wife would be a marvellous comfort," he thought.

Then he laughed at his own fancies. "A man must not depend on women.

There are things to be done in which no woman can help."

He went to the window, opened the shutters and looked out upon the

storm.

The rain had ceased, and the bitter winds were tearing the black clouds

apart and hurling them across the heavens; the curled thread of the new

moon glimpsed here and there amid the vapours like a frail barque amid

the wreckage of a hideous sea.

The fair fields of Brabant and the proud gay town of Brussels were

blotted out in the darkness, but a faint strain of melody rose fitfully

on the winds: it was the carillon from some hidden clock tower.

William of Orange stood silent, holding the window casement open with

either hand and listening to the storm that for him held the sound of

gathering armies, the tramp of feet, the galloping of horses, the

flapping of banners straining at their poles—the coming of great

multitudes onrushing in the agony and the exultation of supreme

conflict.

CHAPTER VI

THE EDICTS