A RACE FOR A LIFE
We rode slowly at first, lagging behind the Paris post, and still
slowly when we turned south.
"Not too fast till the horses are warmed to their work," said Lesellè,
and I, with a fevered, grudging impatience reined Mesrour back to a
trot.
But once across the Cher the pace quickened, and on every flat and down
every slope, we tore at a gallop. The road was good, smooth, broad and
hard, Louis and _corvée_ had seen to that. _Pa-lop, pa-lop, pa-lop_!
A race for a man's life, said Monseigneur. _Pa-lop, pa-lop, pa-lop_!
It was all that, and more than that for me--it was a race for a woman's
soul. How could there be a God at all if this monstrous iniquity of
Poictiers came to pass? _Pa-lop, pa-lop, pa-lop_! The intermingling
beat of our horses' hoofs rang their rhythm in my head; _a race--for
the life--of a man; a race--for the life--of a man; a race--for a
wom--an's soul_; over and over again, till I almost screamed at the
iteration.
A swerve down the hill to the valley of the Indre broke into the beat.
With a splash we plunged into the river, and walked our panting beasts
up the further slope.
"Do we keep our time, Monsieur Lesellè?"
"We more than keep it, Mademoiselle. Accidents apart, there is only
one thing to fear."
"What is that?"
"Wolves."
"I am not afraid, Monsieur Lesellè."
"I know it, Mademoiselle, nor do I mean fear for ourselves," and with a
thrust of the spur we rode on; by reaped cornfields, _a race--for the
life--of a man_; through broad pastures, waste lands and commonage,
_pa-lop, pa-lop, pa-lop! a race--for a wom--an's soul_; under leafy
arches, where the trees, grappling, met overhead and rasped their
boughs in a rising wind. What a race it was, and how the blood drummed
in the ears, how the courage rose as the night-wind blew cool in the
face! _Pa-lop, pa-lop, pa_----Crash! Bay Zadok was down, and Lesellè
lay in the ditch groaning. But before I could jump from the saddle he
was on his feet again, stooping over the horse. A minute or two he
fumbled at it in the dark, muttering to himself.
"Hurt," he said curtly. "Mesrour must carry double to Sainte Maure.
Mademoiselle, shift your foot from the stirrup an instant--yes, I have
it now."
In the gloom, I felt rather than saw him grip at Mesrour's gear. With
a swing he was up behind me on the croup, but as he steadied himself he
moaned.
"Are you also hurt, Monsieur?"
"It is nothing," he answered, grasping my belt, "nothing at all; ride
on."
God be thanked, it was not far, and at a trot we entered the straggle
of dim grey huts that called itself Sainte Maure. Rounding a curve, a
mellow glare flared from a doorstep.
"Monseigneur's posting-house," said Lesellè, and slipped to the ground.
"Within there! Horses, horses! In the King's name!"
They were alert and waiting. A head, cowled like a priest's, peered
round the jamb.
"Two minutes, Monsieur, two minutes; there is no more than to tighten
the girths."
"Better dismount and stretch your legs, Mademoiselle," said Lesellè.
"Two minutes means ten."
"Are we on time?"
"Better than that; one third the way, and the hour not much more than
gone eleven."
"Bay Zadok?"
"Ah, Mademoiselle! if we could but have put him out of pain!"
"Poor beast! So bad as that? What of your own hurt? Ungrateful that
I am, I had forgotten it."
"Nothing, Mademoiselle, nothing at all," and he turned into the shadow
of the thatched house, crying out, "Quick with the horses! the King is
in haste!"
The King is in haste! A true word. There were two Kings in haste, the
King of Life and Love and the King of Sorrows. In my impatience I
smote my palms together.
"Will they never bring the horses! Monsieur Lesellè! Monsieur
Lesellè----"
"Here they come, Mademoiselle."
Down a lane between the huts, a lane smelling of unutterable vileness,
came the night-capped figure, a bridle on either arm.
"Do you give Monsieur a hand; ride on, I'll follow," said Lesellè, and
like a bolt I shot into the dark. This time I could brook no cautious
warming into work.
Behind me Lesellè shouted for God's sake to wait; but I only cried
back, Follow, follow, follow! and spurred on. It was three leagues
before he caught me up, and then only because the Creuse at
Port-de-piles stopped me. Six, eight, ten minutes I waited, chafing.
But the river was brawling, and I dared not face the water alone.
Lesellè's words were a warning. Only wolves or accident can stop us,
and I feared the last more than the first.
When at length he came through the gloom he was swaying in his saddle.
"Now I know why you lagged behind!" I cried sharply. "Shame, boy,
shame! Monsieur de Commines said I could trust you. Is this a time to
drink yourself drunk?"
Steadying himself by an effort he turned to the left, making neither
retort nor protest.
"The ford is upstream, Mademoiselle," was all he said.
That he took the rebuke so meekly turned the edge of my anger,
righteous though it was, and I followed him without further comment.
But as we crossed the stream, I riding on his left, midway my horse
stumbled, and I cried out, for the waiting had broken down my
self-control. Promptly he dropped the reins from his right hand,
catching at my bridle. But reaching across his body he missed it, and
I recovered of myself, shaken and out of temper.
"Try your nearer hand next time."
"Yes, Mademoiselle," he answered submissively, and splashing on through
the shallow water of the ford led up the road.
But now galloping was no longer possible because of loose stones and
greasy ruts. So sure as we pushed on beyond our cautious trot our
beasts stumbled, nor did the track improve till we had passed Ingrande.
Twice I broke out on Lesellè, once in tears and once lashing him with
my tongue as if the fault was his. But he either kept silence and rode
on doggedly, or answered, always submissively, that there was no better
path, and that the going was faster beyond Chatellerault.
But in Chatellerault there was again a check.
The _Corne d'Abondance_ was asleep from garret to cellar, and ten
precious minutes were wasted before Lesellé, having beaten the door in
vain, at last roused life by flinging a stone through an open window.
Then a man leaned out, cursing. But Lesellè cursed him back in two
languages, and cried out for the horses that were to be ready in the
King's name. But there had either been a blunder or treachery: the
horses were ordered for the night following, and again he cursed us for
thieves.
"At your peril!" cried Lesellè. "If the King's business miscarries
because of you, by God! you'll hang! You know the King's way."
"To-morrow night," answered the fellow, "that was the order, and it is
the King's way to be obeyed to the letter."
In the end it was Lesellè's archer's dress that saved us, and
thereafter there was no delay. But there had been a desperate waste of
time, and as we galloped out of Chatellerault it seemed to me the east
was grey.
The road was now a steady rise, with the Clain on our left glimmering
in and out of the hosts of trunks that stretched from Mirebeaud to the
river's bank. The wind was growing with the dawn, but so buried were
we in leafage we scarcely heard the rustle. From the right, not far
off, came the short, gasping bark of a fox; that, with the _pa-lop,
pa-lop, pa-lop_, of the hoofs on the hard, sound road, was the only
life.
So dark was it we dared not touch a bridle, but with a loose rein plied
whip and spur in our race for a man's life.
"Are we on time?" I cried to Lesellè, who led the way.
"Please God!" he cried back across his shoulder, and stooping low to
avoid the downward thrust of the branches, rode on.
Please God! When a man says, Please God! he doubts. Little by little
the strain of the gallop on the rising hill began to tell on the
horses, and their speed slackened. The smooth, easy motion shortened
to a lumpish gait, and at a very sharp rise they stopped, half
stumbling.
"How far to Poictiers?"
"Five leagues, Mademoiselle."
"And the hour?"
All Lesellè's boyish ardour was gone. He rode like an old man,
slouching in the saddle, his chin sunk on his breast. At my question I
saw him raise his head and look at me, his face white against the
overhung blackness of the night.
"Mademoiselle, I have done my best."
"The hour, Monsieur, if you please?"
"Gone four, I think."
"Oh!" and with a savage lash I brought down the whip on my beast's
sweating flank. "Dawn in an hour! Lesellè, Lesellè, is there nothing
will drive them on?"
"They are only blown, Mademoiselle; give them time."
"Time? Who will give Gaspard de Helville time? God of Love! Is there
nothing--nothing to drive them on?"
I have never ceased to count it a miracle, and a proof how, out of
evil, the Almighty can bring good. But two things can stop us, Lesellè
had said, wolves or accident. Of the two, I feared the last more than
the first, and even as I spoke there came the howl of a wolf through
the silence, a howl caught up and answered again and again from right
and left till the vast wood seemed full of howls. As he heard the
baying, the beast under me stopped dead still, his skin creeping with
fear till the shudder shook me in the saddle; then with a scream he
bolted forward, and on we dashed as if the hounds of hell were loose
coursing a soul.
"Lower, stoop lower!" cried Lesellè as the horses swerved, still
holding the road. "Keep a drag on the right rein, Mademoiselle!"
Instinctively, but without comprehension, I obeyed, and the rasp of a
low-hung bough along my back taught me the lad's wisdom. To the left
was the river, and at all hazards we must keep the road. Let such a
branch catch me across the breast, and my dawn would break more redly
than Gaspard's, and sooner by an hour. Such a thing as that I dreaded,
but not the wolves. The wolves? Their howl was salvation, and with my
face buried in the drifting mane, I thanked God for the wolves.
Jesu! what a race it was! Men have said, Were you not afraid? But
with that wild rush of wind in the face, with the swelled veins
throbbing under my cheek, with the sobbing catch in the breath growing
hoarser almost every stride, there was no time for conscious fear. If
I thought at all, it was that the pace could not last, that Poictiers
was far away and the dawn near, that the sob was growing hoarser,
hoarser, till the breath in the windpipes roared like the rasping of a
file. Then Lesellè shouted, "Halt, halt, halt!" and straining on the
bit, I pulled the staggering beast to a stand.
Behind was the howling of the wolves, but down the road ahead came the
clatter of hoofs.
"Life or death," said the lad, panting in sympathy with his moaning
horse, "but in another furlong or two it would have been----Halt! halt
there! Horses in the King's name; horses for life or death!"
No need now to tell that it was for life. A north bound train from
Poictiers saved us; but as we rode on the dawn was grey even in the
thick of the wood, and on our left the east flared to a red glare as of
the Last Day.
Again it was whip and spur, nor, with no more than a scant league to
go, was there need to spare the horses. Spare them? We drove them
along at the dagger's point. But the throbbing exultation born of that
wild burst had died away, and it was a weary, trembling, white-faced
woman who, leading the Scots lad by ten lengths, splashed uuhalting
through the Clain and galloped up the hill to the newly opened gate,
for the sun was fully risen, and down the valley of the Clain the
morning mists were all a-swim with glory.
Before the gate the guard stretched themselves, yawning, and when I
would have passed, one caught my bridle. But with a wrench I dragged
it from his grasp.
"A pardon!" I cried, my lips dry and cracked, my woman's voice harsh
and shrill by turns. "The King is dead! Long live the King! I bear a
pardon from King Charles!"
With that they closed in upon me, clamouring, and Lesellè rode up.
"Tell them," I gasped, "tell them as we go, but in God's name, let us
ride on. Monsieur de Helville!--a pardon from the King!"
The name pricked them.
"De Helville?" cried one, flinging out a level arm to point ahead.
"On--on--to the right--in front of Notre Dame; perhaps there is still
time."
Oh! that last dash through the still streets in the cool of the
morning! At my right was Lesellè, his face whiter than my own. His
left hand was thrust through his belt, the palm flattened outwards.
Bay Zadok had broken the arm, and all through the night he had ridden
in his pain, making no moan. But I had no thought of pity for him, my
thought was all with the packed crowd before us, a crowd that filled
the square and overflowed into every avenue of approach, choking them.
When Louis said, Do this! it was the people's wisdom to obey; and, even
under Louis, a Seigneur was not hung every day of the week!
Dropping the reins, Lesellè drew his sword and pushed on ahead.
"God save King Charles!" he cried, standing in his stirrups and
shouting till the cry roared down even the buzzing clamour of the
crowd. "God save King Charles! A pardon! A pardon!"
How such a knitted throng could part asunder I do not know; who went
down under whose feet in the surge backwards I do not know; but the
roar, the thundering gallop, and the naked steel cleft them like a
plough cutting a furrow through a sodden field, and we burst into the
square unchecked.
In the centre was a hollow kept clear of rabble by treble lines of
soldiers, and we, looking above the swaying sea of heads, saw what they
guarded--a gibbet, a wheeled platform drawn by oxen, and on the
platform three men; they were Gaspard, Father Paulus, and another. A
short ladder rose slanting above the wheel.
"God save King Charles!" we cried, "God save King Charles! A pardon! a
pardon! The King is dead, is dead; God save the King!"
What a silence fell upon the crowd! what a silence! It was stiller
than death itself. Then a roar broke out, drowning our puny outcry.
"Long live King Charles! Long live King Charles!"
But for myself I say this: another King had indeed come to his throne
that day; a greater than Louis who was dead, a greater than Charles who
had come to his own; a greater than any King who ever reigned in
France; for it was the King of Life and Love.
The Lord God be praised for all His faithful mercies!
Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.
End of Project Gutenberg's The King's Scapegoat, by Hamilton Drummond