PLESSIS-LES-TOURS
That, of course, was Monsieur de Commines' doing. He had said, Give me
seven days; but he took no more than one, and added to the favour of
haste the grace of coming himself to tell me of his success.
I had just returned from a fruitless enquiry at Mademoiselle's lodgings
when the landlord met me at the door. To see his change of countenance
was a vision of the contemptible in human nature.
"Monsieur is a friend of Monseigneur the Prince de Talmont and I did
not know it!" he said plaintively, his hands lightly crossed upon the
servile hinge below his chest. "His Excellency is within asking for
your Lordship. Ah! Monsieur, had I but known! What a supper I could
have served, what a room I could have prepared----"
"And what a bill would have followed! Be easy, a man can only sleep on
one bed at a time. Where is Monsieur de Commines?"
"Monsieur le Prince does me the honour to wait in the garden. He has
already given orders----"
But Martin, who had heard my voice, pushed him aside.
"Monsieur Gaspard," he cried ruefully, "tell him you cannot have it so.
He says the permit is for you only and that I must bide here. I told
him, No! Where you went, I went. But he laughed at me, and said every
babe must leave its nurse and walk alone some day, and that your time
had come."
As he talked we had walked on into the garden that lay to the side and
back of the inn, a pleasant place of prune trees well set with young
fruit; pinks and roses grew underneath the boughs, and after rain the
air was heavy with the sweets of lavender. To these thyme and early
gillyflowers added their scent, making the morning air a king's luxury
with perfume. Here Monsieur de Commines was waiting for me, a great
bunch of newly-gathered flowers in his hands.
Catching Martin's last words he looked up.
"Fie!" said he frowning, though a twinkle in his eyes belied the
gravity of the rebuke; "a soldier and preaching cowardice?"
"No coward for myself, Monseigneur, and I'll prove it to you," answered
Martin sturdily. "If that fox in Plessis must gnaw his bone, then let
him gnaw me, not Monsieur Gaspard."
The spasm of fear that swept across Monsieur de Commines' face startled
me, so sudden was it, so abject, so unlike the man who had within four
days faced a howling mob unflinchingly, with no more than a table's
breadth between. His cheeks had gone white even in the sunlight, and
the flowers fell from his hands as if the fingers had no longer
strength to hold them.
"Christ's life! man! hold your fool's tongue!" he screamed in a harsh
high-pitched voice more like a shrewish woman's than a man's; "who are
you to take the King's majesty into your mouth and mangle it? Would
you ruin your master? Would you ruin me? Would you hang yourself and
that gaping idiot behind you there on Tristan's gallows? By the
splendour of God! but I've a mind to swing the two of you! You that
dared speak, and him that he dared listen and not cry out upon you!
Eh, master host, eh?"
"But Monseigneur," cried the poor shaking wretch, "I heard nothing,
I--I--I swear I heard nothing."
"Nothing at all? You are sure, eh? You are sure?"
"Sure, Monseigneur," he repeated in an agony; "do you think I would
hear our gracious King miscalled a--a--sneaking beast, and not resent
it? But how could I hear when there was nothing said?"
"Then go bid them saddle the horses; but remember this, if I hear you
repeat what that fool never said, then----"
"Never, Monseigneur, never; have no fear."
"Fear? I? Use civiller language, rascal; what have I to do with fear?
Do as thou'rt bid, and thou of the loose tongue, finish thy master's
packing, and make haste."
Too cowed to do more than look piteously at me, Martin turned away to
obey, and as the pair went about their business, Monsieur de Commines
drew the deep breath of a man who for one terrible minute has hung by a
single handsgrip above a gulf of death.
"I think I played my part," said he, forcing a smile. "Martin has
learned his lesson, and the other--yes, for his own sake the other will
be silent. But one thing is sure, even had the permit been for two,
only one would have used it."
Played a part! My heart was still beating double tides from the sick
fear I had seen in his face, and he called it playing a part! No
warning, whether of direct words or tongueless flesh hooks with
fragments of freshly-used dangling rope could urge discretion in the
affairs of His Most Christian Majesty with half the emphasis of that
agony of terror. If the King's friend, who tended him by day, and
slept at his feet by night, had such cause for circumspection, how
warily must he walk who came to urge the King to fling aside a soiled
tool still keen for the royal service?
Naturally I accepted Monsieur de Commines' half apologetic explanation
without comment, but when I would have asked about the progress of my
own affairs he motioned me to silence.
"When we are on our road," he said curtly. But when Martin brought out
Ninus saddled, as well as Roland and the pack-horse, his angry mood
again burst constraint. "What fresh foolery is this? Did I not tell
you the permit was for one only?"
"Yes, Monseigneur," answered Martin humbly, "but with your leave it is
my duty to see Monsieur Gaspard as far as--as--as maybe."
De Commines' face cleared.
"Right, my friend! Love and duty are the pillars of the world; happy
is the man who holds by them. Thou shalt see thy Master Gaspard as far
as--as maybe. Ride thou behind with Benoit and my fellows and tell
them to keep their distance; they know what that means. We will travel
at a foot's pace," he added to me; "for there is much to be said, and
the way is short."
"The first thing," he went on, as, side by side, we wound our way
through the narrow streets, "is that you must change your name.
Hellewyl smacks of Flanders, and the King hates--Good-day, my lord; we
are all jealous of you at court. This marriage of the Dauphin will put
you gentlemen of Flanders in such high favour that we poor ancient
servants of the King will be forgotten in the cold--God grant he thinks
so! As I was saying, we must drop the Hellewyl and henceforth be
Monsieur Gaspard de Helville. In the King's present health and peevish
mood--Yes, Monsieur le Conseiller, I rejoice to say His Majesty is in
excellent health and spirits, excellent, excellent, but I do not think
he receives to-day--with the King in his present mood it would be
unwise to cross his prejudice. After all, a name is but a little
thing, and the permit is for Monsieur de Helville. Next grasp this;
the King is never ailing, except under the breath, you understand? To
you I will tell the truth. When he sleeps we do not know that he will
wake again, and when he wakes we do not know but that his next sleep
will be eternal. He eats--as I have just said to Monsieur Chasse,
excellent! You should have seen him break his fast this morning! I am
a fair trencherman, but His Majesty surpasses me in that as in all
things--eats nothing, only sucks the juice of an orange or two, so that
we can almost see his bones sharpen daily. No man dares cross him--ah,
my lord! you ride our way? To Plessis no doubt? Then a friendly word
in your ear; the King was asking for you this morning, and you know his
impatience is not always--H'm! I thought that would put spurs to his
horse and so rid us of his company. It is true, too, that His Majesty
did ask for 'that fool, de Baux,' but it was to forbid him the gate!
It was no business of mine to tell him unpalatable news. Through life
I have made it my rule to serve not only my friends but my enemies.
Courtesy is a seed that bears fruit in all soils, even the roughest and
least kindly. But there are so many interruptions I had better wait
till we are beyond the walls."
To which I cordially agreed, so bewildering were the diplomatic
contradictions which a plain man would have called blunt lies.
So, for the remainder of our ride through the city he bowed, smiled,
saluted, talked; and was grave, gay, suave, stern, cordial, cold, as
the person and the occasion demanded. There is nothing like being a
courtier with a reputation for favour to win a man acquaintances,
friends I dare not call them, for one half are ready to turn upon him
for envy, and the other half are thinking their hardest how they can
climb upon his back to their own advantage.
But once clear of the gate the throng slackened, and he took up his
parable as if there had been no break in the thread.
"No! no man dares cross him. That does not mean there is need to cross
him, by the Spirit of God! no! The King may be frail in body, but his
brain burns as with fire, and when his thought blazes out in offence
upon a man it consumes him. I tell you that, Monsieur de Helville,
lest it should flash out at you and shrivel you and your petty
vengeance out of the world. In your twenty-four hours in Tours rumour
must have whispered many things in your ears; whispered, I say, since
to speak outright is to court an outside lodgings at the Chateau
Tristan, for all these rumours buzz round and round the King. The King
is half dead; the King was never more alive; the King is crazed; the
King's policy is keener witted than ever; the Dauphin goes in terror of
his father; the King goes in terror of the Dauphin; these, and many
more, and all of them true by turns, for he is compounded of
contradictions. For instance, so coward is he that no man dares say
Death! or The Grave! in his presence, and yet, when a few months back
Death jogged his elbow and sent him staggering to the Grave's mouth,
the King never winced, but thrust out his chin, and stared the Terror
in the face, unafraid."
"But, Monseigneur, how can I, a stranger, and no courtier, walk safely
through these pitfalls?"
"For seven days you will share my quarters; make the most of your
chances. The King will then put you to service, God knows what, for he
has strange whims at times, and again I say, make the most of what he
offers. Your time in Plessis will be short. It is his wisdom to
change his servants often lest they should learn too much and be
dangerous. As I have told you, he spends half his days making and
breaking men's fortunes; only what the King finally sends you to do,
do: or else tear up the permit now and ride back, not to Tours, but to
your charnel house of Solignac, lest he reach after you. There stands
Plessis!" he added abruptly.
Drawing rein, we sat in silence and as we waited Martin slowly drew up
with us. It was our first view of the--what shall I call it? Chateau?
Palace? Prison? Fortress? It was all four in one, or something of
all four. But perhaps Martin's summing up fitted the case best.
"God have mercy upon us!" he said under his breath; "it's a rat trap!"
"There is no cat in Europe with claws strong enough to scratch it
open," answered Monsieur de Commines; this time we were alone, and he
had no rebuke for Martin's freedom of speech. "No, nor wolf either!
Look at its strength. First there is the iron paling set on the near
bank of the fosse; next, the fosse is twenty feet deep and is no mere
ditch, but a lake for breadth; then comes the outermost wall,
bristling, as you see, with four-pointed hooks that would rip a man's
flesh to the bone and hang him up by joints like a sheep in a butcher's
shop. These two towers flank the gateway. It faces the river, and can
only be approached by that zig-zag path which is set on every side by
springes, traps and gins cunningly hidden. May the world to come show
mercy to the man they grip, for in this life there is no longer hope
for him! Within that outer wall there is a second which dominates the
first and is also bounded by a moat; within that again there is a third
yet higher and again girded by water. You see them there, terraced,
one, two, three; and if the first gate were forced--a thing hard to
believe--the second stands not opposite but aside, and the third yet
further aside, so that to reach the core, where the King lies, there
must be a transverse straggle along the bank under fire both back and
front, then the fosse to cross and another gate to force. That grim
black shaft rising from the centre is the donjon; strength within
strength, defence defending defence, and these four iron-sheeted towers
crown and govern all. Monsieur de Helville, your late master, saw war,
and you with him, Master Martin, did either of you ever see such a
King's house before, or was there ever such seen since the world began?"
"A rat trap," repeated Martin, "and God have mercy on----"
"Monsieur Gaspard!" said Monsieur de Commines, and rode on laughing.
But not for long. While we were still more than a bowshot from the
outer walls he turned to Martin. "Now, friend, get back to the Cross
of Saint Martin, and wait there in patience. Do not go far from the
inn door; your master may need you any hour by day or by night. God
knows when! It is all as the King wills, and remember this, curiosity
is a fatal vice at Plessis. If you approach too near the Castle those
fellows you see on the walls will shoot you like a mad dog first, and
enquire why afterwards, and so the saints keep you!"
Dropping the reins on Ninus' neck, Martin jumped to the ground, and
went on his knee in the dust.
"The Lord, He knows, Monsieur Gaspard, that the leaving you is none of
my doing," he said between the mumbles of his mouth upon my hand. "If
I'd ha' thought it would come to this then the Lord again He knows I'd
ha' sooner faced Jan Meert and his twenty devils and so never have been
here to taste the bitterness. There were but three of us, Monsieur
Gaspard; Babette is gone, now you will go, and I only shall be left, a
poor, miserable, dried skin of a man that--that--would give his life to
go first," and he broke down, weeping.
Laughing, but in no laughing mood, I leaned aside, and tried to pull
him to his feet. But he would not move, and when at last I drew my
hand away--for Monseigneur was waiting for me--its back was wet with
his tears. Nor, so long as we were in sight, did he rise from his knee.
"Ah!" said Monseigneur, as we rode on, "Master Martin has a heart in
him for all his years, and is not ashamed to show it. I fear he would
never make a courtier, he has not learned to forget love, and be
ungrateful."