"One little thing only, your excellency," he answered slyly, "and of no
importance."
"But you did not tell it to Maignan?"
"No, my Lord," he replied, his face relaxing in a cunning smile.
"Well?"
"Once to-day I saw Diego where he should not have been."
"Where?"
"In the King's dressing-room at the tennis-court."
"You saw him there?"
"I saw him coming out," he answered.
It may be imagined how I felt on hearing this; for although I might
have thought nothing of the matter before my suspicions were
aroused--since any man might visit such a place out of curiosity--now,
my mind being disturbed, I was quick to conceive the worst, and saw
with horror my beloved master already destroyed through my
carelessness. I questioned La Trape in a fury, but could learn nothing
more. He had seen the man slip out, and that was all.
"But did you not go in yourself?" I said, restraining my impatience
with difficulty.
"Afterwards? Yes, my lord."
"And made no discovery?"
He shook his head.
"Was anything prepared for his Majesty?"
"There was sherbet; and some water."
"You tried them?"
La Trape grinned. "No, my lord," he said. "But I gave some to
Maignan."
"Not explaining?"
"No, my lord."
"You sacrilegious rascal!" I cried, amused in spite of my anxiety.
"And he was none the worse?"
"No, my lord."
Not satisfied yet, I continued to press him, but with so little success
that I still found myself unable to decide whether the Spaniard had
wandered in innocently or to explore his ground. In the end, therefore,
I made up my mind to see things for myself; and early next morning, at
an hour when I was not likely to be observed, I went out by a back
door, and with my face muffled and no other attendance than Maignan and
La Trape, went to the tennis-court and examined the dressing-room.
This was a small closet on the first floor, of a size to hold two or
three persons, and with a casement through which the King, if he wished
to be private, might watch the game. Its sole furniture consisted of a
little table with a mirror, a seat for his Majesty, and a couple of
stools, so that it offered small scope for investigation. True, the
stale sherbet and the water were still there, the carafes standing on
the table beside an empty comfit box, and a few toilet necessaries; and
it will be believed that I lost no time in examining them. But I made
no discovery, and when I had passed my eye over everything else that
the room contained, and noticed nothing that seemed in the slightest
degree suspicious, I found myself completely at a loss. I went to the
window, and for a moment looked idly into the court.
But neither did any light come thence, and I had turned again and was
about to leave, when my eye alighted on a certain thing and I stopped.
"What is that?" I said. It was a thin case, book-shaped, of Genoa
velvet, somewhat worn.
"Plaister," Maignan, who was waiting at the door, answered. "His
Majesty's hand is not well yet, and as your excellency knows, he--"
"Silence, fool!" I cried, and I stood rooted to the spot, overwhelmed
by the conviction that I held the clue to the mystery, and so shaken by
the horror which that conviction naturally brought with it that I could
not move a finger. A design so fiendish and monstrous as that which I
suspected might rouse the dullest sensibilities, in a case where it
threatened the meanest; but being aimed in this at the King, my master,
from whom I had received so many benefits, and on whose life the
well-being of all depended, it goaded me to the warmest resentment. I
looked round the tennis-court--which, empty, shadowy and silent, seemed
a fit place for such horrors--with rage and repulsion; apprehending in
a moment of sad presage all the accursed strokes of an enemy whom
nothing could propitiate, and who, sooner or later, must set all my
care at nought, and take from France her greatest benefactor.
But, it will be said, I had no proof, only a conjecture; and this is
true, but of it hereafter. Suffice it that, as soon as I had swallowed
my indignation, I took all the precautions affection could suggest or
duty enjoin, omitting nothing; and then, confiding the matter to no one
the two men who were with me excepted--I prepared to observe the issue
with gloomy satisfaction.
The match was to take place at three in the afternoon. A little after
that hour, I arrived at the tennis-court, attended by La Font and other
gentlemen, and M. l'Huillier, the councillor, who had dined with me.
L'Huillier's business had detained me somewhat, and the men had begun;
but as I had anticipated this, I had begged my good friend De Vic to
have an eye to my interests. The King, who was in the gallery, had with
him M. de Montpensier, the Comte de Lude, Vitry, Varennes, and the
Florentine Ambassador, with Sancy and some others. Mademoiselle
d'Entragues and two ladies had taken possession of his closet, and from
the casement were pouring forth a perpetual fire of badinage and BONS
MOTS. The tennis-court, in a word, presented as different an aspect as
possible from that which it had worn in the morning. The sharp crack of
the ball, as it bounded from side to side, was almost lost in the crisp
laughter and babel of voices; which as I entered rose into a perfect
uproar, Mademoiselle having just flung a whole lapful of roses across
the court in return for some witticism. These falling short of the
gallery had lighted on the head of the astonished Diego, causing a
temporary cessation of play, during which I took my seat.
Madame de Lude's saucy eye picked me out in a moment. "Oh, the grave
man!" she cried. "Crown him, too, with roses."
"As they crowned the skull at the feast, madame?" I answered, saluting
her gallantly.
"No, but as the man whom the King delighteth to honour," she answered,
making a face at me. "Ha! ha! I am not afraid! I am not afraid! I
am not afraid!"
There was a good deal of laughter at this. "What shall I do to her, M.
de Rosny?" Mademoiselle cried out, coming to my rescue.
"If you will have the goodness to kiss her, mademoiselle," I answered,
"I will consider it an advance, and as one of the council of the King's
finances, my credit should be good for the re--"
"Thank you!" the King cried, nimbly cutting me short. "But as my
finances seem to be the security, faith, I will see to the repayment
myself! Let them start again; but I am afraid that my twenty crowns
are yours, Grand Master; your man is in fine play."
I looked into the court. Diego, lithe and sinewy, with his cropped
black hair, high colour, and quick shallow eyes, bounded here and
there, swift and active as a panther. Seeing him thus, with his heart
in his returns, I could not but doubt; more, as the game proceeded,
amid the laughter and jests and witty sallies of the courtiers, I felt
the doubt grow; the riddle became each minute more abstruse, the man
more mysterious. But that was of no moment now.
A little after four o'clock the match ended in my favour; on which the
King, tired of inaction, sprang up, and declaring that he would try
Diego's strength himself, entered the court. I followed, with Vitry
and others, and several strokes which had been made were tested and
discussed. Presently, the King going to talk with Mademoiselle at her
window, I remarked the Spaniard and Maignan, with the King's marker,
and one or two others waiting at the further door. Almost at the same
moment I observed a sudden movement among them, and voices raised
higher than was decent, and I called out sharply to know what it was.
"An accident, my lord," one of the men answered respectfully.
"It is nothing," another muttered. "Maignan was playing tricks, your
excellency, and cut Diego's hand a little; that is all."
"Cut his hand now!" I exclaimed angrily "And the King about to play
with him. Let me see it!"
Diego sulkily held up his hand, and I saw a cut, ugly but of no
importance.
"Pooh!" I said; "it is nothing. Get some plaister. Here, you," I
continued wrathfully, turning to Maignan, "since you have done the
mischief, booby, you must repair it. Get some plaister, do you hear?
He cannot play in that state."
Diego muttered something, and Maignan that he had not got any; but
before I could answer that he must get some, La Trape thrust his may to
the front, and producing a small piece from his pocket, proceeded with
a droll air of extreme carefulness to treat the hand. The other knaves
fell into the joke, and the Spaniard had no option but to submit;
though his scowling face showed that he bore Maignan no good-will, and
that but for my presence he might not have been so complaisant. La
Trape was bringing his surgery to an end by demanding a fee, in the
most comical manner possible, when the King returned to our part of the
court. "What is it?" he said. "Is anything the matter?"
"No, sire," I said. "My man has cut his hand a little, but it is
nothing."
"Can he play?" Henry asked with his accustomed good-nature.
"Oh, yes, sire," I answered. "I have bound it up with a strip of
plaister from the case in your Majesty's closet."
"He has not lost blood?"
"No, sire."
And he had not. But it was small wonder that the King asked; small
wonder, for the man's face had changed in the last ten seconds to a
strange leaden colour; a terror like that of a wild beast that sees
itself trapped had leapt into his eyes. He shot a furtive glance round
him, and I saw him slide his hand behind him. But I was prepared for
that, and as the King moved off a space I slipped to the man's side, as
if to give him some directions about his game.
"Listen," I said, in a voice heard only by him; "take the dressing off
your hand, and I have you broken on the wheel. You understand? Now
play."
Assuring myself that he did understand, and that Maignan and La Trape
were at hand if he should attempt anything, I went back to my place,
and sitting down by De Vic began to watch that strange game; while
Mademoiselle's laughter and Madame de Lude's gibes floated across the
court, and mingled with the eager applause and more dexterous
criticisms of the courtiers. The light was beginning to sink, and for
this reason, perhaps, no one perceived the Spaniard's pallor; but De
Vic, after a rally or two, remarked that he was not playing his full
strength.
"Wise man!" he added.
"Yes," I said. "Who plays well against kings plays ill."
De Vic laughed. "How he sweats!" he said, "and he never turned a hair
when he played Colet. I suppose he is nervous."
"Probably," I said.
And so they chattered and laughed--chattered and laughed, seeing an
ordinary game between the King and a marker; while I, for whom the
court had grown sombre as a dungeon, saw a villain struggling in his
own toils, livid with the fear of death, and tortured by horrible
apprehensions. Use and habit were still so powerful with the man that
he played on mechanically with his hands, but his eyes every now and
then sought mine with the look of the trapped beast; and on these
occasions I could see his lips move in prayer or cursing. The sweat
poured down his face as he moved to and fro, and I, fancied that his
features were beginning to twitch. Presently--I have said that the
light was failing, so that it was not in my imagination only that the
court was sombre--the King held his ball. "My friend, your man is not
well," he said, turning to me.
"It is nothing, sire; the honour you do him makes him nervous," I
answered. "Play up, sirrah," I continued; "you make too good a
courtier."
Mademoiselle d'Entragues clapped her hands and laughed at the hit; and
I saw Diego glare at her with an indescribable look, in which hatred
and despair and a horror of reproach were so nicely mingled with
something as exceptional as his position, that the whole baffled words.
Doubtless the gibes and laughter he heard, the trifling that went on
round him, the very game in which he was engaged, and from which he
dared not draw back, seemed in his eyes the most appalling mockery; but
ignorant who were in the secret, unable to guess how his diabolical
plot had been discovered, uncertain even whether the whole were not a
concerted piece, he went on playing his part mechanically; with
starting eyes and labouring chest, and lips that, twitching and
working, lost colour each minute. At length he missed a stroke, and
staggering leaned against the wall, his-face livid and ghastly. The
King took the alarm at that, and cried out that something was wrong.
Those who were sitting rose. I nodded to Maignan to go to the man.
"It is a fit," I said. "He is subject to them, and doubtless the
excitement--but I am sorry that it has spoiled your Majesty's game.
"It has not," Henry answered kindly. "The light is gone. But have him
looked to, will you, my friend? If La Riviere were here he might do
something for him."
While he spoke, the servants had gathered round the man, but with the
timidity which characterises that class in such emergencies, they would
not touch him. As I crossed the court, and they made way for me, the
Spaniard, who was still standing, though in a strange and distorted
fashion, turned his bloodshot eyes on me.
"A priest!" he muttered, framing the words with difficulty, "a priest!"
I directed Maignan to fetch one. "And do you," I continued to the
other servants, "take him into a room somewhere."
They obeyed, reluctantly. As they carried him out, the King, content
with my statement, was giving his hand to Mademoiselle to descend the
stairs; and neither he nor any, save the two men in my confidence, had
the slightest suspicion that aught was the matter beyond a natural
illness. But I shuddered when I considered how narrow had been the
King's escape, how trifling the circumstance which had led to
suspicion, how fortuitous the inspiration by which I had chanced on
discovery. The delay of a single day, the occurrence of the slightest
mishap, might have been fatal not to him only but to the best interests
of France; which his death at a time when he was still childless must
have plunged into the most melancholy of wars.
Of the wretched Spaniard I need say little more. Caught in his own
snare, he was no sooner withdrawn from the court than he fell into
violent convulsions, which held him until midnight when he died with
symptoms and under circumstances so nearly resembling those which had
attended the death of Madame de Beaufort at Easter, that I have several
times dwelt on the strange coincidence, and striven to find the
connecting link. But I never hit on it; and the King's death, and that
unexplained tendency to imitate great crimes under which the vulgar
labour, prevailed with me to keep the matter secret. Nay, as I
believed that d'Evora had played the part of an unconscious tool, and
as a hint pressed home sufficed to procure the withdrawal of the
chaplain whom Maignan had named, I did not think it necessary to
disclose the matter even to the King my master.