ASTARTE THE SHE-WOLF
In a dark wainscoted room overlooking that branch of the Seine which
divides the northern part of Paris from the Isle of the City, Gilles
de Retz, lately Chamberlain of the King of France, sat writing. The
hotel had recently been redecorated after the sojourn of the English.
Wooden pavements had again been placed in the rooms where the
barbarians had strewed their rushes and trampled upon their rotting
fishbones. Noble furniture from the lathes of Poitiers, decorated with
the royal ermines of Brittany, stood about the many alcoves. The table
itself whereon the famous soldier wrote was closed in with drawers and
shelves which descended to the floor and seemed to surround the
occupant like a cell.
Before de Retz stood a curious inkstand, made by some cunning jeweller
out of the upper half of a human skull of small size, cut across at
the eye-holes, inverted, and set in silver with a rim of large rubies.
This was filled with ink of a startling vermilion colour.
The document which Gilles de Retz was busy transcribing upon sheets of
noble vellum in this strange ink was of an equally mysterious
character. The upper part had the appearance of a charter engrossed by
the hand of some deft legal scribe, but the words which followed were
as startling as the vehicle by means of which they were made to stand
out from the vellum.
"Unto Barran-Sathanas; Lord most glorious and puissant in hell
beneath and in the earth above, I, his unworthy servitor Gilles de
Retz, make my vows, hereby forever renouncing God, Christ, and the
Blessed Saints."
To this appalling introduction succeeded many lines of close and
delicate script, interspersed with curious cabalistic signs, in which
that of the cross reversed could frequently be detected. Gilles de
Retz wrote rapidly, rising only at intervals to throw a fresh log of
wood across the vast iron dogs on either side of the wide fireplace,
as the rain from the northwest beat more and more fiercely upon the
small glazed panes of the window and howled among the innumerable
gargoyles and twisted roof-stacks of the Hotel de Pornic.
Within the chamber itself, in the intervals of the storm, a low
continuous growling made itself evident. At first it was disregarded
by the writer, but presently, by its sheer pertinacity, the sound so
irritated him that he rose from his seat, and, striding to a narrow
door covered with a heavy curtain, he threw it wide open to the wall.
Then through the black oblong so made, a huge and shaggy she-wolf
slouched slowly into the room.
The marshal kicked the brute impatiently with his slippered foot as
she entered, and, strange to relate, the wolf slunk past him with the
cowed air of a dog conscious of having deserved punishment.
"Astarte, vilest beast," he cried, "have I not a thousand times warned
you to be silent and wait outside when I am at work within my
chamber?"
The she-wolf eyed her master as he went back towards his table. Then,
seeing him lift his pen, with a sigh of content she dropped down upon
the warm hearthstone, lying with her haunches towards the blazing logs
and her bristling head couched upon her paws. Her yellow shining eyes
blinked sleepily and approvingly at him, while with her tongue she
rasped the soft pads of her feet one by one, biting away the fur from
between the toes with her long and gleaming teeth. Presently Astarte
appeared to doze off. Her eyes were shut, her attitude relaxed. But so
soon as ever her master moved even an inch to consult a marked list of
dates which hung on a hook beside him, or leaned over to dip a quill
in his scarlet ink, the flashing yellow eye and the gleam of white
teeth underneath told that Astarte was awake and intently watching
every movement of the worker.
Through the heavy boom of the storm without, the thresh of the rain
upon the lattice casement, and the irregular whipping gusts which
shook the house, the soft wheeze of the engrossing quill could be
heard, the crackle of the burning logs and the heavy regular breathing
of the couchant she-wolf being the only other sounds audible within
the apartment.
Gilles de Retz wrote on, smiling to himself as he added line after
line to his manuscript. His beard shone with a truculent blue-black
lustre. For the moment the aged look had quite gone out of his face.
His cheek appeared flushed with the hues of youth and reinvigorated
hope, yet withal of a youth without innocence or charm. Rather it
seemed as if fresh blood had been injected into the veins of some aged
demon, moribund and cruel, giving, instead of health or grace, only a
new lease of cruelty and lust.
Presently another door opened, the main entrance of the apartment this
time, not the small private portal through which Astarte the wolf had
been admitted. A girl came in, thrusting aside the curtain, and, for
the space of a moment, holding it outstretched with an arm gowned in
pure white before dropping it with a rustle of heavy silken fabric
upon the ground.
The Marshal de Retz wrote on without appearing to be conscious of any
new presence in his private chamber. The girl stood regarding him,
with eyes that blazed with an intent so deadly and a hate so
all-possessing that the yellow treachery in those of Astarte the
she-wolf appeared kind and affectionate by contrast.
At the girl's entrance that shaggy beast had raised herself upon her
fore paws, and presently she gave vent to a low growl, half of
distrust and half of warning, which at once reached the ears of the
busy worker.
Gilles de Retz looked up quickly, and, catching sight of the Lady
Sybilla, with a sweep of his hand he thrust his manuscript into an
open drawer of the escritoire.
"Ah, Sybilla," he said, leaning back in his chair with an air of easy
familiarity, "you are more sparing of your visits to me than of yore.
To what do I owe the pleasure and honour of this one?"
The girl eyed him long before answering. She stood statue-still by the
curtain at the entrance of the apartment, ignoring the chair which the
marshal had offered her with a bow and a courteous wave of his hand.
"I have come," she made answer at last, in the deep even tones which
she had used before the council of the traitors at Stirling, "to
demand from you, Messire Gilles de Retz, what you mean to do with the
little Margaret Douglas and her companion, whom you wickedly
kidnapped from their own country and have brought with you in your
train to France?"
"I have satisfaction in informing you," replied the marshal, suavely,
"that it is my purpose to dispose of both these agreeable young ladies
entirely according to my own pleasure."
The girl caught at her breast with her hand, as if to stay a sudden
spasm of pain.
"Not at Tiffauges--" she gasped, "not at Champtocé?"
The marshal leaned back, enjoying her terror, as one tastes in slow
sips a rare brand of wine. He found the flavour of her fears
delicious.
"No, Sybilla," he replied at last, "neither at Champtocé nor yet at
Tiffauges--for the present, that is, unless some of your Scottish
friends come over to rescue them out of my hands."
"How, then, do you intend to dispose of them?" she urged.
"I shall send them to your puking sister and her child, hiding their
heads and sewing their samplers at Machecoul. What more can you ask?
Surely the young and fair are safe in such worthy society, even if
they may chance to find it a little dull."
"How can I believe him, or know that for once he will forego his
purposes of hell?" Sybilla murmured, half to herself.
The Marshal de Retz smiled, if indeed the contraction of muscles which
revealed a line of white teeth can be called by that name. In the
sense in which Astarte would have smiled upon a defenceless sheepfold,
so Gilles de Retz might have been said to smile at his visitor.
"You may believe me, sweet Lady Sybilla," said the marshal, "because
there is one vice which it is needless for me to practise in your
presence, that of uncandour. I give you my word that unless your
friends come worrying me from the land of Scots, the maids shall not
die. Perhaps it were better to warn any visitors that even at
Machecoul we are accustomed to deal with such cases. Is it not so,
Astarte?"
At the sound of her name the huge wolf rose slowly, and, walking to
her master's knee, she nosed upon him like a favourite hound.
"And if your intent be not that which causes fear to haunt the
precincts of your palaces like a night-devouring beast, and makes your
name an execration throughout Brittany and the Vendée, why have you
carried the little child and the other pretty fool forth from their
country? Was it not enough that you should slay the brothers?
Wherefore was it necessary utterly to cut off the race of the
Douglases?"
"Sybilla, dear sister of my sainted Catherine," purred the marshal,
"it is your privilege that you should speak freely. When it is
pleasing to me I may even answer you. It pleases me now, listen--you
know of my devotion to science. You are not ignorant at what cost, at
what vast sacrifices, I have in secret pushed my researches beyond the
very confines of knowledge. The powers of the underworlds are
revealing themselves to me, and to me alone. Evil and good alike shall
be mine. I alone will pluck the blossom of fire, and tear from hell
and hell's master their cherished mystery."
He paused as if mentally to recount his triumphs, and then continued.
"But at the moment of success I am crossed by a prejudice. The
ignorant people clamour against my life--_canaille_! I regard them
not. But nevertheless their foolish prejudices reach other ears.
Hearken!"
And like a showman he beckoned Sybilla to the window. A low roar of
human voices, fitful yet sustained, made itself distinctly audible
above the shriller hooting of the tempest.
"Open the window!" he commanded, standing behind the curtain.
The girl unhasped the brazen hook and looked out. Beneath her a little
crowd of poor people had collected about a woman who was beating with
bleeding hands upon the shut door of the Hotel de Pornic.
"Justice! justice!" cried the woman, her hands clasped and her long
black hair streaming down her shoulders, "give me my child, my little
Pierre. Yester-eve he was enticed into the monster's den by his
servant Poitou, and I shall never see him more! Give me my boy,
murderer! Restore me my son!"
And the answering roar of the people's voices rose through the open
window to the ears of the marshal. "Give the woman her son, Gilles de
Retz!"
At that moment the woman caught sight of Sybilla. Instantly she
changed her tone from entreaty to fierce denunciation.
"Behold the witch, friends, let us tear her to pieces. She is kept
young and beautiful by drinking the blood of children. Throw thyself
down, Jezebel, that the dogs may eat thee in the streets."
And a shout went up from the populace as Sybilla shut to the window,
shuddering at the horrors which surrounded her.
The Marshal de Retz had not moved, watching her face without regarding
the noise outside. Now he went back to his chair, and bending his
slender white fingers together, he looked up at her.
Presently he struck a silver bell by his side three times, and the
mellow sound pervaded the house.
Poitou appeared instantly at the inner door through which the she-wolf
had entered.
"How does it go?" asked the marshal, with his usual careless easy
grace.
"Not well," said Poitou, shaking his head; "that is, rightly up to a
point, and then--all wrong!"
For the first time the countenance of the marshal appeared troubled.
"And I was sure of success this time. We must try them younger. It is
all so near, yet, strangely it escapes us. Well, Poitou, I shall come
in a little when I have finished with this lady. Tell De Sillé to
expect me."
Poitou bowed respectfully and was withdrawing, too well trained to
smile or even lift his eyes to where Sybilla stood by the window.
His master appeared to recollect himself.
"A moment, Poitou--there are some troublesome people of the city
rabble at the door. Bid the guard turn out, and thrust them away. Tell
them to strike not too gently with the flats of their swords and the
butts of their spears."
Gilles de Retz listened for some time after the disappearance of his
familiar. Presently the low droning note of popular execration
changed into sharper exclamations of hatred, mingled with cries of
pain.
Then the marshal smiled, and rubbed his hands lightly one over the
other.
"That's my good lads," he said; "hear the rattle of the spear-hilts
upon the paving-stones? They are bringing the butts into close
acquaintance with certain very ill-shod feet. Ah, now they are gone!"
The marshal took a long breath and went on, half to himself and half
to Sybilla.
"But I own it is all most inconvenient," he said, thoughtfully. "Here
in Paris, in King Charles's country, it does not so greatly matter.
For the affair in Scotland has set me right with the King and in
especial with the Dauphin. By the death of the Douglases I have given
back the duchy of Touraine to the kings of France after three
generations. I have therefore well earned the right to be allowed to
seek knowledge in mine own way."
"The service of the devil is a poor way to knowledge," said the girl.
"Ah, there it is," said the marshal, raising his hand with gentle
deprecation, "even you, who are so highly privileged, are not wholly
superior to vulgar prejudice. I keep a college of priests for the
service of God and the Virgin. They have done me but little good.
Surely therefore I may be allowed a little service of That Other, who
has afforded me such exquisite pleasure and aided me so much. The
Master of Evil knows all things, and he can help whom he will to the
secrets of wealth, of power, and of eternal youth."
"Have you gained any of these by the aid of that Master whom you
serve?" asked the Lady Sybilla, with great quiet in her voice.
"Nay, not yet," cried the marshal, moved for the first time, "not
yet--perhaps because I have sought too eagerly and hotly. But I am now
at least within sight of the wondrous goal. See," he added, with
genuine excitement labouring in his voice, "see--I am still a young
man, yet though I, Gilles de Retz, was born to the princeliest fortune
in France, and by marriage added another, they have both been spent
well nigh to the last stiver in learning the hidden secrets of the
universe. I am still a young man, I say, but look at my whitening
hair, count the deep wrinkles on my forehead, consider my withered
cheek. Have I not tasted all agonies, renounced all delights, and cast
aside all scruples that I might win back my youth, and with it the
knowledge of good and evil?"
Sybilla went to the door and stood again by the curtain.
"Then you swear by your own God that you will let no evil befall the
Scottish maids?" she said.
"I have told you already--let that suffice!" he replied with sudden
coldness; "you know that, like the Master whom I serve, I can keep my
word. I will not harm them, so long as their Scottish kinsfolk come
not hither meddling with my purposes. I have enough of meddlers in
France without adding outlanders thereto! I cannot keep a new and
permanent danger at grass within my gates."
The Lady Sybilla passed through the portal by which she had entered,
without adieu or leave-taking of any kind. Gilles de Retz rose as soon
as the curtain had fallen, and shook himself with a yawn, like one
who has got through a troublesome necessary duty. Then he walked to
the window and looked out. The woman had come back and was kneeling
before the Hotel de Pornic.
[Illustration: A BRIGHT LIGHT AS OF A FURNACE BURNT UP BEFORE HIM, AND
THE HEAT WAS OVERPOWERING AS IT RUSHED LIKE A RUDDY TIDE-RACE AGAINST
HIS FACE.]
At sight of him she cried with sudden shrillness, "My lord, my great
lord, give me back my child--my little Pierre. He is my heart's heart.
My lord, he never did you any harm in all his innocent life!"
The Marshal de Retz shut the window with a shrug of protest against
the vulgarity of prejudice. He did not notice four men in the garb of
pilgrims who stood in the dark of a doorway opposite.
"This is both unnecessary and excessively discomposing," he muttered;
"I fear Poitou has not been judicious enough in his selections."
He turned towards the private door, and as he did so Astarte the
she-wolf rose and silently followed him with her head drooped forward.
He went along a dark passage and pushed open a little iron door. A
bright light as of a furnace burnt up before him, and the heat was
overpowering as it rushed like a ruddy tide-race against his face.
"Well, Poitou, does it go better?" he said cheerfully, "or must we try
them of the other sex and somewhat younger, as I at first proposed?"
He let the door slip back, and the action of a powerful spring shut
out Astarte. Whereat she sat down on her haunches in the dark of the
passage, and showed her gleaming teeth in a grin, as, with cocked
ears, she listened to the sounds from within the secret laboratory of
the Marshal de Retz.