THE JUSTICE OF THE KING
As Commines crossed the courtyard to his lodgings his face was puckered
with anxious thought. Many a time he had fished for his master in
waters both foul and troubled, but always he had known the prey he
angled for. Now, and he shook his head like a man who argues against
his doubts, but with little hope of compelling conviction, he was not
sure. Or was it that he was afraid to be sure? Was he afraid to say
bluntly out, even in the secret of his own mind, the King desires the
death of the Dauphin and for good cause?
That there might well be cause, that there might well be a sinister
upheaval against the King with the Dauphin as its rallying centre he
could easily believe, even without the evidence of the despatch.
France had never yet known such a nation-builder as Louis. His
quarries had lain north, south, and east. In his twenty-two years upon
the throne he had added to the crown Artois, Burgundy, the northern
parts of Picardy, Anjou, Franche-Comté, Provence, and Roussillon. To
secure such a wholesale aggrandizement he had been unscrupulous in
chicanery, sleepless in his aggression, ruthless to the extremest verge
of cruelty; no treaty had been too solemn to tear up, no oath too
sacred for violation, no act of blood too pitiless.
With Louis the one sole question had ever been, Does it advantage
France? If it did, then his hand struck or his cunning filched,
careless of right or privileges. As he had said, and said truly,
France came first. It was his one justification for the unjustifiable.
No! Never such a nation-builder and never a man so feared and hated
for valid cause. He was the King of the greatest, the most powerful
France Europe had ever known, but it was a miserable France, a France
seething with wretchedness, with discontent, and each hour he went in
terror for his life. Only a few, such as Commines himself, could
foresee how great would one day be the power of these weak,
antagonistic states he had so ruthlessly welded into one. For the
rest, France was so full of unhappiness and dread that the Dauphin
might well be the centre of a plot, a plot to murder the father in the
son's name for the relief of the nation. But was the Dauphin himself
concerned in the plot, or had he that knowledge which, prince though he
was, laid him open to the penalty for blood-guiltiness? These were the
questions which troubled Commines.
Clearly--and as he followed his train of thought he turned aside, his
hands locked behind him, his head bowed, and walked up and down in the
shadow flung by the gloomy range of buildings which cut the courtyard
into two halves--clearly the King had no doubt: clearly the despatch
had left no room for doubt. Or else--the thought was contemptible, but
it refused to be thrust aside--the King wished to have no room for
doubt. The frown deepened on Commines' face as he remembered how often
the King's wishes had been master of the truth.
But could any father be cursed with such a terrible wish? Yes, when
the father was that complex, unhappy man, Louis of France. Commines
knew the King as no man else knew him, and in the gloomy depths of that
knowledge he found two reasons why the father would have no sorrow for
the death of the son. It was characteristic of Louis to hate and dread
his natural successor, nor did his distrustful fears pause to consider
that if the Dauphin was swept aside Charles of Orleans would stand in
his son's place. When that day came he would hate and dread Charles as
his suspicious soul now hated and dreaded the Dauphin.
The other reason he had himself unveiled to Commines, no doubt with a
set purpose. Behind the King's most trivial act there was always a set
purpose. In a boy's feeble hands, a puppet as he had called him, a
king in legal age and yet a child in years and ignorance, this great
France he had built up so laboriously would crumble into ruin. Louis
was a statesman first and a father afterwards. So Commines must go to
Amboise, must sift, search, find--but especially find. Find what? His
question had been answered--find and prove the boy's guilty knowledge.
But having found, having proved that the King's fears were terribly
justified, what then? The answer to that question touched the hopes of
his ambition. Upon most men death steals unawares, but for Louis the
edge of the grave crumbled in the sight of all who served him, nor,
when the end came, would it linger in the coming. Supposing death
struck down the King while he, Commines, was still at Amboise, finding?
What then? The opportunist in Commines was vigilantly awake, that nice
sense which discriminates the rising power and clings to its skirts.
The Dauphin would be King of France. For the third time he asked
himself, What then?
It was a relief to his perplexity that a cheery full-noted whistle
broke across the question, a whistle which from time to time slipped
into a song whose words Commines could hear in part:
"Heigh-ho! Love's but a pain,
Love's but a bitter-sweet, lasts an hour:
Heigh-ho! Sunshine and rain!
If it's so brief whence comes love's power?
Wherefore go clearly,
Sweetly and dearly--"
and the song ran again into a whistle.
At the sound the gravity faded from Commines' face and the coarse set
mouth grew almost tender. It was Stephen La Mothe: and whatever the
words might be, the lad surely knew little of love when he so lightly
marred his own sentiment. A lover sighing for his mistress would have
sighed less blithesomely and to the very end of his plaint. Presently
the voice rose afresh:
"Heigh-ho! where dost thou hide,
Love, that I seek for thee, high and low?
Heigh-ho! world, thou art wide,
Heat of the summer and cold of the snow.
April so smiling,
June so beguiling,
Let us forget, love, that winter's storms blow."
Entering the narrow hall, lit only from the courtyard and with a
much-shadowed stairway rising from the further end, Commines pushed
open a door on his right, fastening it behind him as he entered.
"Stephen, Stephen, what do you know of June and December, love's
sunshine and the cold of the snow?" he said railingly.
"Nothing at all, Uncle, and just as much as I want to know," was the
answer. "But a song must have a theme or there'd be no song."
"And you think love is a better theme than the text you hold on your
knee."
"Yes: for a song. If it was a tale, now, or an epic, it would be a
different matter. But they are beyond me, both of them. Do you think,
Uncle," and La Mothe turned over the arquebuse Commines had pointed at
in jest as it lay on his lap, "this will ever be better than a curious
toy? I think it is quite useless. By the time you could prime it
here, set your tinder burning and touch it off there, I would have my
sword through you six times over."
"Charles the Rash found it no toy in the hands of the Swiss at Morat,"
replied Commines. "But toy or no toy, put it aside while I talk to
you. Stephen, my son, I fear I have done you an ill turn to-day."
"Then it is the first of your life," answered La Mothe cheerily, as he
stood the weapon upright in the angle of the wall. "It would need a
good many ill turns to set the balance even between us, Uncle Philip."
"No. One thoughtless act which cannot be recalled or undone may
outweigh a life. And so with this. Stephen, I have commended you to
the King for service."
La Mothe leaped to his feet, laying his hands on Commines' shoulders
impulsively, one upon each. And if proof were needed of the relations
between these two, it would be found in the spontaneous frankness of
the gesture: Philip de Commines was not a man with whom to take
liberties, but there stood La Mothe almost rocking the elder man in the
fullness of his satisfaction.
"At last," he cried. "I have been eating my heart out for this for a
week past! And you call that an ill turn?"
"Stop! Stop! Stop!" and Commines, smiling through his gravity,
followed the other's gesture so that the two stood face to face, locked
the one to the other at arm's length.
How like the lad was to Suzanne: a man's strong likeness of a woman's
sweet face. There were the same clear expressive eyes, ready to light
with laughter or darken with sympathy; the same sensitive firm mouth
and squared chin, fuller and stronger as became a man and yet Suzanne's
in steadfastness to the life; the same broad forehead and arched brows;
the same unconscious trick of flushing in moments of excitement. Even
the colour of the hair was the same, with the curious ruddy copper tint
running through the brown in certain lights.
Yes; it was Suzanne's self, Suzanne whom he had loved as he had never
loved Hélène de Chambes, his wife these nine years past! Suzanne whom
he still loved with that reverence which belongs alone to the gentle
dead: Suzanne for whom even now his spirit cried out in these rare
moments when it broke through the cynical, selfish crust which had
hardened upon him since Suzanne died. So for Suzanne's sake he called
Stephen his son, though there was no such difference in age, nor any
drop of blood relationship.
"Do you know," he went on, gravely tender in the memory of the dead
woman, "that a king's service brings with it a king's risks?"
"And did Monsieur de Perche call me coward when he wrote to you?"
"No; he said many things which it were better a boy should not know
were said. Conceit is only too ready to take youth by the arm."
"And am I such a boy? Surely four-and-twenty----"
"Are you so old? It always comes as an astonishment when those we love
are no longer children. It is then we realize how the years have
passed."
"So old, Uncle. Four-and-twenty is no boy."
"A man in years, a boy at heart. Be a boy at heart as long as you can,
Stephen, for so will you keep your conscience clean before God. And
yet what use has the King for a boy's service?"
"Teach the boy to be a man in thought that he may find a use for
himself, Uncle; and who can do that so well as you?"
Commines let his hands fall to his sides and turned away, pacing the
room with short strides. His man's thoughts were not always such as he
would care to teach Stephen La Mothe.
"To the King's service every man must bring his own thought."
"And did Monsieur de Perche call me fool when he wrote to you?"
"No: but the little things of Marbahan are poor training for the
greater things of Valmy, of Blois, of Plessis, of Amboise, of Paris."
"But truth and faithfulness and courage are the same everywhere, and
whether at Marbahan or Valmy a man can but serve God and the King with
the best wits God has given him, and that I'll do."
"Aye!" said Commines drily, "but what of that Heigh-ho song of yours?
When love knocks on one door the service of the King may get bundled
out of the other."
Stephen La Mothe laughed a hearty, wholesome laugh, pleasant to hear.
There was nothing of self-consciousness in it, and no protest could
have more clearly proved that the mental comment of Commines'
shrewdness had read the broken melody aright.
"That is easily settled. All His Majesty has to do is to find me a
wife of seven thousand crowns a year with two or three little additions
to give salt to their spending. Item, eyes which see straight; item, a
mouth that's sweet for kissing; item, a temper as sweet as the mouth;
item, a proper appreciation of my great merit. But, Uncle, what is the
service?"
"That the King will tell you himself. And, lad, when kings talk it is
a simple man's duty to listen and obey. Stephen, whatever the service
may be, do it."
"Gratefully and faithfully, Uncle. Anything my honour----"
"Honour? God's name, boy, the King's honour is your honour: the King's
service, no matter what it may be, is your honour. Are you, a
milk-child from Marbahan, knowing nothing of the ways of men, to talk
of your honour to the King?"
"Yes, but Uncle, Monsieur de Perche taught me----"
"Monsieur de Perche? Monsieur de Perche taught you many admirable
truths, I don't doubt. That he might so teach you I placed you in his
household seven years ago. Monsieur de Perche has taught you the use
of arms, and that courtesy which next to arms goes to the making of a
man. But what can a simple gentleman in the wilds of Poitou know of a
king's service? and above all, of such a King? His little household
with its round of petty thought was his great world, and a trial of
hawks an event to be talked of for a week; but all France is the
household of the King, and beyond the borders the eagles of Europe are
poised to harry us. But while he lives they are afraid to swoop.
While he lives, yes, while he lives."
"But after him comes the Dauphin?"
"A child! a puling, weakling, feeble child. Stephen, as king the
Dauphin spells disaster."
"He will have you to guide him, Uncle, and under you----"
But Commines silenced him with a gesture full of angry denial.
Unconsciously La Mothe had put his finger on a rankling sore.
"With the Dauphin king my career ends!" he said harshly. "He and those
around him hate me as they hate his father: hate me because I am
faithful to the father. And yet, Stephen, I have sometimes
thought--this is for you alone--it might be that if in some crisis of
his life I served the Dauphin as I served his father--but no! no! no!
Even then it is doubtful, worse than doubtful. If Charles of Orleans
were king it would be different. He is no child and old enough to be
grateful. Always remember, Stephen, that a child is never grateful; it
forgets too soon."
"And I am a grown man, Uncle, and so never can forget."
"I know, my son," and Commines' stern eyes softened. "I told the King
you were faithful, and already he trusts you as I trust you," which was
rather an overstatement of the case, seeing that Louis trusted no man,
not even Commines' self. "To-morrow you are to see him."
"Then I hope his service, no matter what it is, will take me out of
Valmy."
"Why?"
For a moment La Mothe hesitated. The thought in his mind seemed at
variance with his assertions of maturity and manhood, but he spoke it
with characteristic frankness.
"Valmy frightens me."
"Why?" repeated Commines.
"Because of its silences, its coldness, its inhumanity--no, not
inhumanity, its inhumanness. In Valmy no man sings; in Valmy few men
laugh. When they speak they say little and their eyes are always
afraid. And they are afraid; I see it, and I am growing afraid too."
"But half an hour ago you were singing?"
"But I am only nine days in Valmy. And sometimes when I sing I
remember where I am and stop suddenly. It is as indecent as if one
sang in the house of the dead. Soon I shall always remember and not
sing at all. And I do not wonder that few men laugh."
"Why?" asked Commines for the third time. This was a new side to
Stephen La Mothe and one that in the King's service--not forgetting his
own--should not be ignored. Often in his career he had seen a
well-laid plan miscarry because some seeming triviality was ignored.
Was it not one of Louis' aphorisms that life held nothing really
trivial?
"Because it is a house of the living dead."
"For God's sake, Stephen, hush. If the King heard you speak of his
feebleness in such a way there would be a sudden end to both you and
your service."
"The King? But I don't mean the King. I mean----" He paused as if
searching for a comprehensive word or phrase, and presently he found
it. "I mean the justice of the King."
"Well?" Commines' throat seemed suddenly to have gone dry, so that the
word came harshly. Within the hour the King had used the same phrase,
and the coincidence startled him unpleasantly.
But La Mothe made no immediate reply. To answer the little jerked-cut
dry interrogatory in concise words was not easy. He knew his own
meaning clearly enough, but how was he to make it equally clear to
Commines, who was plainly unsympathetic? When at last he spoke it was
with a hesitation which was almost an apology.
"As I passed through Thouars on my way from Poitou--you know Thouars,
Uncle?"
"Yes; go on."
"Then you know its market-place with the little shops all round and the
church of St. Laon to the side: a cobble-paved space where the children
play? At the one end there was a ring of black and white ashes with
the heat still in them, and in the middle a Thing which hung by chains
from an iron stake. It had been a man that morning, but there it hung
by the spine with the chains through its ribs; a man no more, only
blackened bones and little crisped horrors here or there. Round it two
or three score, white-faced women and children mostly, stood and gaped,
or talked in whispers, pointing. Presently the little children will
play there, and shout and sing and laugh, and the women gossip or buy
and sell."
"A coiner," said Commines. "The King must see that the silver is full
weight."
"Yes, Uncle: but I have heard that sometimes the King himself has
coined----"
"Hush, boy: the King is King."
"Then at Tours, as I rode through the Rue des Trois Pucelles, there was
a house with a fine bold front. One would say that a man with the soul
of an artist lived in it. There were brave carvings on the stout oak
door, carvings on the stone divisions of its five windows, strong iron
bars of very choice smith-work, twisted and hammered, to keep the
common folk from tumbling into the cellars, and in the peaked roof of
fair white plaster were driven great nails from which hung fags of
rope, and from one something which was no rope, but a poor wisp of
humanity staring horribly aslant above a broken neck."
"Yes," said Commines, "Tristan's house. He is the King's
Provost-Marshal and--and----"
"Yes, I know, Uncle. He carries out the justice of the King. But to
hang a fellow-Christian over one's own hall-door is a strange taste."
"Stephen, take my advice and have naught to do with Tristan by word or
deed. And no doubt the fellow deserved his hanging."
"That he may have naught to do with me is my hope," answered La Mothe,
with a little laugh which had no humour in it. "And as to deserts, he
drank overmuch and beat the watch. Truly a vicious rascal! God send
us all sober to bed, Uncle, and may a sudden end find nothing worse on
our conscience than a dizzy brain. But that's not all. Midway between
the castle and the Loire stands the Valmy gibbet, fair set in the
sunshine and for all to see: and as I rode past there were two hung
from it; two hang from it still, but they are not the same two."
"Thieves," said Commines. "Would you have the roads unsafe?"
"One of to-day's couple is a boy of twelve--unripe fruit for such a
tree, Uncle, and a fearsome danger to the peace of France. Tristan
does well to keep the roads safe from such swaggerers. Twelve years of
life, twelve years of a pinched stomach, and--the justice of the King
to end it all! And what of the woman who gathered nettles for the pot
from the river-bank? The archers shouted to her, but she was hungry,
poor starved soul, and gathered on, bent to all-fours like a beast.
Then they shot her--like a beast. Down she went with an arrow through
the bent back; a woman, Uncle."
"She should have hearkened and kept away," said Commines. "Neither man
nor woman may come near Valmy without permission when the King is here."
"She should have hearkened," echoed La Mothe. "But the Good God had
sealed her ears; she was deaf as a stone and so for the justice of the
King she died. Then three days ago it was Guy de Molembrais, who came
to Valmy--so 'tis said--with the King's safe-conduct."
"Molembrais lost his head as a traitor," answered Commines roughly.
"And the safe-conduct?"
"The safe-conduct was given before Molembrais' treason was fully
proved."
"Then it is the King's justice to lure suspects----"
"There can be no faith with traitors. Did the safe-conduct make his
treason less? Do you not see," he went on, as La Mothe made no reply,
"that Molembrais got no more than his deserts?"
"Like the brawler in Tours," said the lad whimsically. "Perhaps
Tristan gave him a safe-conduct too, and the fool got drunk. And if we
have good, warm blood in us we all get drunk sooner or later. Yes, and
please God my time will come, but may the Saints send me far from
Valmy! You think I'm talking nonsense, Uncle; but Monsieur de Perche
always let me talk. He said it was better to let blow at the bung than
burst the cask."
"You drunk!" answered Commines jestingly. La Mothe had been on very
dangerous ground and a change of subject was an unspeakable relief.
"Why, except the King, no man in Valmy drinks less wine."
"Wine-drunk? Am I a beast, Uncle, that you should say such a thing?
No, not wine-drunk. Love-drunk, war-drunk, fighting-drunk. To feel
the nerves tingle, the blood run hot, the heart go throbbing mad! to
feel a glorious exultation quiver through you like--yes, Uncle, I know
I'm a fool, but it's not so long since you were young yourself."
"Nor am I so old yet, Stephen boy. When that day of your drunkenness
comes there will either be a very happy woman or a sorrowful man."
"Yes, Uncle, if only the King gives me a safe-conduct----"
"The King requires the attendance of Monsieur Stephen La Mothe without
delay."
With a start like the cringe of a nervous woman suddenly frightened,
Commines, the man of iron nerves, turned to the door, the colour
rushing in a flood to his face. Neither had heard its latch click nor
seen it open, but the broad figure of a burly man was massed in the
gloom against the greater light from the outer entrance. A passing
torch, flaring up the hall-way from behind, showed him draped from
throat to ankle in some self-coloured, russet-red, woollen stuff which
caught the glare, and outlined him for the moment as with sweeping
curves of blood. To La Mothe he was a stranger, but from the little he
could see of the shaven face, at once harsh and fleshly sensual, he
judged him to be nearly twenty years older than Commines.
"You--Tristan----" The surprise had shaken even Commines from his
self-control and he spoke brokenly. "How long have you been here?"
"Since the King sent me for Monsieur La Mothe. At once, if you please,
Monsieur."
"But it was to-morrow----"
"He has changed his mind. What is to be done is best done quickly.
You, Monsieur d'Argenton, will understand what the King means by
quickly. I know nothing but that you are to leave Valmy to-morrow
morning instead of the day after, and so he must see Monsieur La Mothe
to-night. As Monsieur d'Argenton's friend, Monsieur La Mothe, I would
advise humble acquiescence."
"In what?" It was the first time La Mothe had spoken, and in his
repugnance he could not bring himself to add the courtesy "Monsieur" to
the curt question.
"Our Master's will, whatever it may be. It is a privilege, young sir,
to further the justice of the King."
"The justice of the King!" replied La Mothe, carried hotly away by that
repugnance. "God's name, Provost-Marshal, I am not--not--not the
King's arm, like you," he added lamely. But though Tristan might
neither forgive nor forget the suggestion of the broken sentence he was
not the man to resent it at the moment. The King's arm must endure
pin-pricks as well as deal justice. It was Commines, rather, who
replied.
"Hush, Stephen, our friend is entirely right. It is you who
misunderstand. The King's justice is in all his acts. Yes! and not
only his justice, but his mercy and his greatness, and these three have
made France what she is."
"And all these three are waiting for Monsieur La Mothe. Come, young
sir, the King is very weary and it is time he was in his bed--though I
would not advise you to tell him so," and leaving the door open behind
him Tristan went out into the night: that he did so they were sure, for
they heard the rasp of his feet on the flags of the court.
"How long was he there?" Commines spoke under his breath as his
fingers closed on La Mothe's arm with a grip which left its mark. "How
long was he listening? What did he hear? You fool, you fool, you may
have ruined yourself--and me, and me. And why has he left us together?
He has some reason for it--some end to serve: his own or the King's.
Try and think what you said: no, not now, there is no time, but when
you are with the King, and unsay it, unsay it. And Stephen, remember,
he is the King, he is the Master of France, the maker of France, and he
is dying. Promise him----"
"Monsieur La Mothe, Monsieur La Mothe, is the King to wait all night,
or shall I say Monsieur d'Argenton detains you?"
"Go, boy, go. Promise everything, everything--he is the King," and as
Commines pushed him through the doorway La Mothe could hear his breath
coming in heavy gasps.