SOUTH FROM PLESSIS
Monseigneur made no comment until we were in the freshness of the open
air; then he drew a long breath as if a strain had been relaxed.
"It might have been worse. Come, now, that I may fill your purse; you
and Martin must leave Plessis to-night."
"But, Monseigneur," I protested, "this is not at all what I desired."
"What you desired! Who comes to Plessis to do what he desires? And
remember this, my friend, there is no turning back from the King's
plough. But to tell you the truth, it is not what I desired for you,
not exactly what I had in my mind for you, and yet I was a true
prophet. All is as the King wills. Keep that truth in your head, walk
at all times by its light, and your ten days in the rat-trap will not
have been wasted."
I made no reply, and we turned the angle of the royal block in silence.
In silence, too, we crossed the court to his lodgings; but with his
hand upon the latch, Monsieur de Commines, with a gayer note in his
voice, repeated my complaint.
"Not all you desired? Perhaps it is; perhaps it is even more than your
imagination groped after. The petulance of ignorant youth starts like
a shying horse at the first obstacle, and cries: I do not like the
road. It is the method that troubles me, not the end. The end!" and
the last of the cloud upon his face dissolved in merriment. "I think I
would play the end of the game myself if I were five-and-twenty."
"But to be a thief, an abductor of children----"
"Does that choke you? Then why did you not say No! to the King?"
"There was a glamour about him," I began.
"Did I not tell you he had many moods? He can make any man love
him--for the moment--when that is his pleasure or his profit. Besides,
you over-state the case; there is only one child, and he a very little
one."
"It is theft, all the same."
"Pooh! We are all thieves in court when a theft profits. A
reputation, an office, a title, a province, it is all a question of
degree. What? If I am His Majesty's ambassador at Cologne or
Rome--with credentials, mind you!--is it not that I may steal an
advantage? The greater the theft, the greater the honour--if only the
theft be successful! There you have the world's diplomacy in a
sentence. We lie and thieve abroad for the good of our country. Who
are you, friend Gaspard, that you should be more scrupulous than I?"
"But what kind of a household shall I find at--at----?"
"Where you are going? Charming, charming; especially if, as I imagine,
it is the frank abandonment of country life without etiquette or
punctilio."
His harangue upon the honourable methods of court life was, of course,
half jest, but there was also so much of truth in his irony that
complacency and self-respect once more lifted their head, swaggering as
if there was no such thing as a lie in the world. After all, what was
my task but to do in units what for years Monsieur de Commines had
schemed to do by thousands, in the transferring of whole principalities
from one ruler to another?
As I pushed open the door of Monseigneur's private apartment and stood
aside to allow him to precede me, Martin, standing within, caught sight
of me. What a cry he gave! "Monsieur Gaspard! Oh, thank God! thank
God!" It warmed my heart to hear him. Without ceremony he pushed past
Monsieur de Commines and caught me by both hands; nor would Monseigneur
listen to my apologies.
"Love is no respecter of persons," said he, clapping him on the
shoulder. "I told you Master Martin had a heart in his breast, and so
would make a bad courtier. All the same, I wish I had fifty such
insolents about me. I would be safer than Louis in Plessis for all its
walls and moats. That you will have Martin with you on your journey
makes me easier in my mind."
Dropping my hands, Martin bowed humbly, angry with himself that his
unceremonious impetuosity had, perhaps, lowered the dignity of his
Monsieur Gaspard.
"Your pardon, Monseigneur, and yours, Monsieur Gaspard; I forgot
myself. But when one has gone hungry for ten days----"
"That's a fine phrase of yours, my friend; say no more lest you spoil
it."
"Then, Monseigneur, if I am permitted? You spoke of a journey--is it
soon?"
"To-night."
"But not to Tours, Monseigneur, not to the Street----?"
"The Street of the House of the Great Nails! No, my friend, to the
south."
"To the south to-night! God be praised for all His mercies! I'll go
for the horses, Monsieur Gaspard."
"Yes," said de Commines, laughing at his haste, but a little bitterly,
"go, go, for there is no time to be lost. It's a strange world, de
Helville," he went on as the door closed. "Here we have the greatest
names in the land, and every ambitious schemer in France intriguing to
set foot in Plessis, and this honest heart thanking God unfeignedly
that he rides away into the darkness,--he does not even ask where! But
now to arrange for your journey. For the King's peace and your own,
leave Plessis to-night, late as it is. You will just have time before
the gates close, when none can pass. Halt at Ouzay for the night--it
is the first of the King's posts, and put up at the sign of the
Laughing Man. Say to the host as you enter, 'Is the good-man of Tours
in the neighbourhood?' and having received his answer, say no more.
Sup on the best and sleep softly, there will be no reckoning to pay.
But in the morning a man, wearing a bunch of trefoil in his hat, will
give you your next instructions. Follow these, but ask no questions.
As you find it at Ouzay, so will it be straight through to Navarre.
Everywhere you rest you will be expected, or, rather, not you, but the
King's messenger, and everywhere you pass shot free."
"Then what is this for?" asked I, for while he was speaking he had
filled a wallet with more gold coin than Solignac had ever seen in all
my five-and-twenty years.
"For diplomacy," he answered laughing. "Where you cannot steal you
must bribe. But there, I hear the horses in the courtyard, and since
needs must when the King bids, the sooner you go south the sooner
Solignac will give you a roof to your head. And who knows but the
journey may find you a mistress for it! Brigitta? H'm, perhaps
Brigitta, though I am no lover of swineherd wenches. Let me see the
King's letter a moment."
I took it from the inner pocket where, half mechanically, I had placed
it for safety, and handed it to Monsieur de Commines--an oblong
envelope of crisp paper, a palm and a half in length by a palm wide,
stout, substantial, close-fastened. He took it, and turned at once to
the seal.
"My cypher and quarterings exactly, even to the flaw on the upper right
hand corner of the collet; my shade of wax too, even to the perfume I
commonly use. Men call me avaricious. It's a lie, de Helville; money
is a good servant but the worst of masters. Yet I would give five
hundred, yes a thousand livres to know what is written within, or even
to see the writing. Who knows but it may seem my very own? If I do
nothing by halves, neither does the King my master, though how he
procured the signet I cannot imagine." With a sigh and a shake of the
head he raised his eyes from the seal. "No; truly things have not
turned out as I desired."
In the courtyard he bade Martin follow with Roland and the pack-horse,
and walked with me to the outer gate, his arm linked in mine. Neither
spoke, for he was wrapped in deep thought, his face as dismal as if we
followed a funeral. But as we passed along the outer fosse I saw his
eyes lighten.
"Credentials! sneered the King," and he tapped the paper with his
finger. "Perhaps he was more right than he supposed! That letter,
without superscription though it is, may open a smooth way for you of
which His Majesty never dreamed; though God forbid that I should judge
how clear and deep are His Majesty's dreams. Keep it, friend Gaspard,
and if you find a difficulty in making good your footing at--at--the
end of your journey, Philip de Commines' forged signet, with his name
across the corner of he knows not what, may clear away the opposition
as no King's credentials would do."
By this time we were beyond the final drawbridge, with Martin, who had
passed ahead, waiting for us, the bridles across his arm, and Roland's
stirrup in his palm. Royal palace and all, Monsieur Gaspard must
receive the humble service due to him, and so impress the loafers at
the gate with his exalted rank!
"How can I thank you, Monseigneur!" I began. "Here was I, forlorn,
helpless, a beggar, with neither hope nor prospect, not even a second
suit to my back, and now, through you, I am an envoy on the King's
service."
"For God's sake," he cried, "say nothing of the prospect till it is
proved. Only remember this: first for your father's sake, and now for
the sake of your father's son, Philip de Commines is your friend
without reserve. That is a thing I say to few. If you tumble into a
pitfall on this path of my choosing--what a fool I was to meddle with
the King's affairs!--I'll pull you out, cost what it may; and oh, lad!
lad! there's a huge cost to be paid by someone, of that I'm certain.
And now, good-bye, and God keep you. Take care of him, Martin."
"To the death, Monseigneur; trust me. For what else was I born?"
"Farewell, Monseigneur, and again my thanks. How long do you give me
to return?"
With a groan and an upward gesture of both hands, de Commines turned
back towards the gate, now about to be shut.
"How can I tell? A month! Eternity! What I said at the first I say
at the last--All is as the King wills"; and with that, which was at
best a boding God-speed, we rode on our way.
So long as Plessis gates remained in sight Martin kept his distance,
nor, though I reined Roland back to a walk, would he decrease the space
between us by a yard. But once a turn of the path, following the
river's curve, hid the towers, he drew up beside me.
"Oh, Monsieur Gaspard, Monsieur Gaspard, but this is good!"
"What is good?" answered I, holding out a hand to him, which he caught
and gripped. I knew his meaning very well, but I knew, too, that it
would please him to speak his thought.
"That we two should be out in the sweet air together, free from the
rat-trap, free from the fox with the wolf's claws, free
from--from--that accursed house in the Rue Trois Pucelles, and
riding--God knows where! What does it matter!"
"Why, what was that house to you?" I asked, remembering a hint
Monseigneur had let fall.
"It was very near being my last rise in the world, and having seen two
poor souls travel by that upward road I had no heart to follow them.
One was a common thief, a foul-mouthed gutter bully, and I daresay
deserved his hanging. But the other was a miserable, white-faced wench
who stole a loaf out of sheer hunger, and that she might keep her
wretched soul one day longer in its starved body. They hung them
together--for company, I suppose; and it made me sick to see a coarse,
burly scoundrel climb out of that upper window and slide down the rope
to the girl's shoulders and crouch there, tailor-fashion, laughing at
some vile jest of his own making, while she--quite right, Monsieur
Gaspard, I'll say no more about it. It's a filthy way by which to send
even a sinner to God."
The picture Martin conjured up was a horrible one, and remembering
Mademoiselle's grim suggestion as to what her fate would be if found in
Tours, I had made an involuntary gesture of loathing. If it had
sickened Martin to see an outcast of the streets--a nameless wretch
haled from God knows what cellar of vice--suffer such foul indignity,
how would the spirit not revolt to think of that pure, sweet face----
But even as I clenched my teeth and cursed at large, a new thought
broadened upon me. What a spirit she must have had, what a courage,
what a boldness, what an abnegation of self, to deliberately, and with
open eyes, face so horrible an end in cold blood! It is curious how
the little side winds of life fan the flame of love. Martin's chance
words, and the shocking scene they forced upon the imagination, had
turned my thoughts afresh in Mademoiselle's direction, warming my
admiration to glowing point. But of that he knew nothing.
"And you?" I asked. "How did Tristan's brutal work touch you?"
"It was this way, Monsieur Gaspard. What had I to do with myself all
alone in Tours? Nothing! So each day, yes, and twice a day, to keep
Ninus in condition, I rode out as far as Plessis and walked him up and
down where I could see the gates. You were inside, and they were
always something to look at. For a time nothing happened. Then a
fellow followed me out--a huge, pock-marked rascal on a raw-boned
sorrel. Not a word did he speak, but as I sentried up and down he drew
aside and sat watching me. Then he followed me back to the Cross of
Saint Martin, and later on I saw him earwigging the landlord. What he
learned I don't know. Possibly that robber of guests thought it his
interest to remember what he told Monseigneur he had never heard, for
next day and the next I was again followed. Then three more joined
him, and before I caught their intention they had me on my back. 'I
denounce him for a spy,' cried pock-pit. 'Lord! Lord! what a neck he
has! He's so light it will take my weight to stretch it as I did the
girl's last week. Three minutes on her shoulders, and--click! all was
over!' But Monsieur de Commines met us on the road to Tours,
and--and--here we are riding together in the cool of God's free air,
riding to---- Where do we ride, Monsieur Gaspard?"
Stretching out my hand again, I caught his, squeezing it hard.
"I owe Monseigneur a good turn for that, and perhaps you and I may be
able to pay him shortly." My idea was that the prompt success of de
Commines' _protégé_ would redound to de Commines' credit with the King,
which was another reason against a too delicate squeamishness as to
methods. "To-night we ride to Ouzay."
"And then?"
"God knows! Wherever a Jack-in-a-box of a fellow bids us."
"But surely, Monsieur Gaspard, you know the end of it all?"
"Navarre, I think."
"That's beyond my tether," said Martin, shaking his head doubtfully.
"But there, the good God didn't open the rat-trap for us for nothing,
that I'm sure."