MONSEIGNEUR'S COUNTERPLOT
If ever there had been a doubt of the scoundrel's treacherous purpose
there was none now and, the beasts being at last fed, and he gone, it
was with a humbled heart I slipped from my hiding-place. My God! What
a secret to hold! Truly those who net in King's waters sometimes land
strange fish. For a moment my purpose staggered. Jan Meert was the
King's tool. Let me but hold my peace for two days, and the hand and
brain which set that tool working would pass to judgment by as red a
road as had dead Babette. I owed the King no loyalty, no gratitude, no
love. Love! Who in all France or out of it owed Louis love?
Mademoiselle? No, hate rather; for in some way which I did not
understand, Louis stood to her for ruin and the wreck of all she held
most dear.
Again my purpose staggered. Once already I have said I was not in love
with Mademoiselle, but she had stirred my sympathy, and except Martin,
and perhaps, no, not perhaps, certainly--Brigitta and the dead Babette,
no one had touched me so nearly as that since my mother died.
But that mood passed. I have always believed that the finger of God is
closer to the lives of men than some think. You are blind and do not
see it, hardened and do not feel it, self-guided and so misunderstand
its directings, but whose fault is it that we fail to read the signs,
or are unconscious of the pressure of spirit on spirit? By silence I
could secure my private vengeance, but at what a cost?
If Louis died, died murdered in such a fashion, war would surely
follow. A picture of The Four Nations let loose on France: of Burgundy
and Spain, Rome and The Empire, dividing her mangled body, not in type,
but in truth, with all the crowded horrors of siege and sack rose
before me; cities laid waste, a helpless peasantry ravaged, innocence
flung to feed the passions of human wolves; these were mine to permit
or prevent; who knew but that God Almighty had brought me to Plessis
for this very thing?
"Who are you, to question whys and wherefores in the King's business?"
Monsieur de Commines had said, and I had allowed the justice of the
demand. Here was the hand of the King of Kings Himself, and who was I
to question His whys and wherefores? or to His command. Do this for
me! answer, I will not! No! Monsieur de Commines must hear and must
act.
He listened without comment, almost without emotion, till I had ended.
Then--
"You know our Flanders proverb? Flood, and a high wind, do not go a
journey for nothing! No! nor does an Angevin swear Flemish in Plessis
at his neck's risk for nothing either!"
"Then I was only a catspaw? When you bade me seek, you knew what I
would find?"
"I guessed, but the affair was too small for me to touch. Besides, you
have now your claim upon the King, though I think we shall finish the
affair ourselves before informing His Majesty. Trifles at all times
vex great natures; think how a grit of sand in the eye galls you."
"Trifles? A grit of sand?" I repeated, nettled that he should make so
little of my discovery. "Do you call a plot to kill the King a trifle?
Do you call The Four Nations trifles? No man who saw these slavering
brutes pounding themselves frantic against the half-filed bars could
call them trifles!"
"That is just it; you have seen, but I have not, and so, perhaps, I
make too little of it. To-morrow Monsieur Jehan feeds them as usual?
Good! I shall be there. I think I see my way to do substantial
justice, and yet not give Monsieur Jehan the undeserved dignity of a
state trial. There again it would be making too much of trifles;
or"--he added, shaking a finger in the air--"some one may be behind
Monsieur Jehan whom it would not be convenient to unmask."
Though my belief is that next day Jehan Flemalle anticipated his usual
time, it seemed to me he lagged in the coming. Even to me, a patient,
almost a phlegmatic man, as you must have discovered, the waiting in
the half-gloom set my nerves all a-creep. I say half-gloom, because by
an alteration in the position of the boards Monsieur de Commines
blocked up the space which gave access to our hiding-place.
"It would never do," he whispered, "for Monsieur de Rochfort to catch
the Prince de Talmont slinking to cover like a thief behind arras. His
laughter would kill as surely as--as--the jaws of The Four Nations."
But even with this safeguard against observation he seemed ill at ease,
muttering to himself and shifting restlessly from place to place, so
that to us both it was a relief when a louder howl rose from the cage
facing us. The wolves scented blood and cried for it.
But their hunger had to wait Jehan Flemalle's pleasure, and as the
procedure of the previous day was repeated, here a loaf and there a
bone with the cage of The Four Nations passed ostentatiously by, I
touched Monseigneur on the shoulder. It was the vindication of the
truth of my story, which it seemed to me, he had more than
half-doubted. But he shook me off with an inconsiderate petulance.
"_Dame!_" he muttered impatiently, "have I not eyes of my own?"
My faith! but he had, and used them well. With his face pressed
against the boards he stared through a crack like a truant child at a
peepshow, his teeth clenched and bared, his eyes narrowed, his breath
coming in little short gasps. A faint grin was on his face, a spasm of
excited emotion rather than of merriment. I have since seen the same
look on gamesters' faces when a fortune hung on the fall of the dice
and to lose was ruin. But at that time it was new to me, and I stood
back a little, watching him curiously.
Here a loaf, there a bone, and back to the cage of The Four Nations
came Jehan Flemalle. Nothing remained except the wolves' meat, and
straddling his legs a yard or two from the den, he jeered their hunger.
"Hey! Burgundy! Hey! Spain!" he cried, snapping his fat fingers on
either side his head while the starving brutes raced howling up and
down the cage, pressing their lean flanks against the bars. "Yap and
yowl, my sons, yap and yowl! Dine to-day like fed lords, and to-morrow
go a-hunting for yourselves, my little ones! An open door, and France
in your jaws. France, do you hear?" and he clicked his tongue "France!
France! May you find him sweet!"
("_You hear for yourself_," said I, touching Monseigneur a second time,
"_are you satisfied, now?_" "_Peace, fool_," answered Monseigneur,
"_how can I hear if you chatter like a daw?_")
"All France by the throat to tear and nuzzle; God! I would I were a
wolf and one of you, if only for an hour! But yapping and yowling are
not enough, my children, you must jump for your dinner, jump at the
throat of the man who gibes your hunger, and pin him with your fangs.
Up he'll come, dragging his lame foot in the dust, dragging it thus,
thus, thus, up he'll come, smirking and jeering, ay, jeering, and the
Devil waiting for him behind the jowl of The Four Nations. Ah ha!
he'll say, fret and fume, curs! You'd tear France, would you? Bah!
France is not afraid! and he'll snap his fingers as I do. And you, my
sons, what will you do? So! So! that is your answer is it? You'll
jump for his throat, will you? Good, Burgundy, Good! down on your
belly, boy; flatter, flatter, and get the grip of your claws home for
the spring; now, _one, two, three_----Christus!"
In the half-gloom Monseigneur's hand caught mine, and drew me forward
imperiously. Above 7the grumbling mumble of the feeding brutes had
risen the howling of the wolves, sinking at last to a sharp, _yap, yap,
yap_, broken by a dog-like, complaining whine. Then, as Jehan Flemalle
marked time at the last there was an instant's silence, and a rasping
crash followed by a deep-chested, hoarse baying like that of hounds on
a trail.
"My God!" I cried, "they are loose!"
"I hope so," answered Monseigneur huskily; "they ought to be, for I
filed the bars myself last night."
"But there will be murder done?"
"Justice, not murder. Am I a man to do things by halves? Be quiet,
and let me look, for this is very curious, much more curious than if
Tristan had hanged him. Hanging is common, but I never saw a man die
in this way before."
No, nor can many have seen the like, for which God be thanked; it was
an awful end. Jan Flemael lay on his back, his limp arms flung out in
a cross. Burgundy had rolled aside with the force of the leap, and was
picking himself up, cowed by the fall and silent. Behind him Spain had
crept, had caught Jan Flemael by the throat, had given one whimpering
worrying wrench, had--but that is enough, it was an awful end. Rome
and The Empire sniffed and growled uneasily inside the cage, but made
no effort to escape.
In three minutes all was over and Monseigneur shook himself with a
sigh. His face had gone grey and haggard, and in ten breaths he had
aged as many years, so drawn was his mouth, so webbed the corners of
his eyes.
"A great sight," he said, shaking himself again, "and one with a moral
for more than us in Plessis. Death on the threshold, knocking,
knocking, knocking, and a man within call who has no ears to hear."
"With these brutes loose," answered I, as the worrying growl rose
afresh, "there will be knocking at many doors, and an answer to be
given whether we like or not."
But Monseigneur had already recovered his _sang froid_.
"I say again, am I a fool to do thing by halves? See!" and he pushed
aside the boards blocking the entrance.
Little by little a line of men were pushing forward strong nets hung
from poles and braced beneath; little by little The Four Nations would
be again trapped. Truly, as he said, Monsieur de Commines did nothing
by halves.
"My men," he added laconically.
"But this was to be kept from the King's ears, and now--"
"I tell you they are my men," he answered testily, "and what if they do
talk? Bars are already prepared to fit the sockets. The old bars will
be destroyed, and if men do whisper, Filed! there are so many lies
believed in Plessis that a little truth may well be discredited. If
necessary we shall say he tampered with the door and a lamentable
accident resulted! Faugh! look at the carrion! Jump for your dinners!
said he; Saints! how they have jumped, and how they have dined! He
told more truth than he knew!'"
Beyond that I never heard that Jehan Flemalle had any epitaph.