LAURENCE TAKES NEW SERVICE
"Look to them well, Malise," said the Lord James; "'twas you who did
the skull-cracking at any rate. See if your leechcraft can tell us if
any of these young rogues are likely to die. I would not have their
deaths on my conscience if I can avoid it."
First picking up and sheathing his sword, then bidding Sholto hold a
torch, Malise turned the youths over on their backs. Four of them
grunted and complained of the flare of the light in their eyes, like
men imperfectly roused from sleep.
"Thae loons will be round in half an hour," said Malise, confidently.
"But they will hae richt sair heads the morn, I'se warrant, and some
o' them may be marked aboot the chafts for a Sabbath or twa!"
But the swarthy youth whom the others called De Sillé, he who had been
spokesman and who had fallen first, was more seriously injured. He had
worn a thin steel cap on his head, which had been cracked by the
buffet he had received from the mighty fist of the master armourer.
The broken pieces had made a wound in the skull, from which blood
flowed freely. And in the uncertain light of the torch Malise could
not make any prolonged examination.
"Let us tak' the callant up to the tap o' the hoose," he said at
last; "we can put him in the far ben garret till we see if he is gaun
to turn up his braw silver-taed shoon."
Without waiting for any permission or dissent, the smith of Carlinwark
tucked his late opponent under his arm as easily as an ordinary man
might carry a puppy. Then, sheathing their swords, the other three
Scots made haste to leave the place, for the gleaming of lanthorns
could already be seen down the street, which might either mark the
advent of the city watch or the return of the enemy with
reinforcements.
It was to a towering house with barred windows and great doors that
the four Scots retreated. Entering cautiously by a side portal, Malise
led the way with his burden. This mansion had been the town residence
of the first Duke of Touraine, Archibald the Tineman. It had been
occupied by the English for military purposes during their tenancy of
the city, and now that they were gone, it had escaped by its very
dilapidation the fate of the other possessions of the house of Douglas
in France.
James Douglas had obtained the keys from Gervais Bonpoint, the trusty
agent of the Avondales in Paris, who also attended to the foreign
concerns of most others of the Scottish nobility. So the four men had
taken possession, none saying them nay, and, indeed, in the disordered
state of the government, but few being aware of their presence.
Upon an old bedstead hastily covered with plaids, Malise proceeded to
make his prisoner comfortable. Then, having washed the wound and
carefully examined it by candlelight, he pronounced his verdict:
"The young cheat-the-wuddie will do yet, and live to swing by the lang
cord about his craig!"
Which, when interpreted in the vulgar, conveyed at once an expectation
of a life to be presently prolonged to the swarthy de Sillé, but after
a time to be cut suddenly short by the hangman.
Every day James Douglas and Sholto haunted the precincts of the Hotel
de Pornic and made certain that its terrible master had not departed.
Malise wished to leave Paris and proceed at once to the De
Retz country, there to attempt in succession the marshal's great
castles of Machecoul, Tiffauges, and Champtocé, in some one of which
he was sure that the stolen maids must be immured.
But James Douglas and Sholto earnestly dissuaded him from the
adventure. How did they know (they reminded him) in which to look?
They were all fortresses of large extent, well garrisoned, and it was
as likely as not that they might spend their whole time fruitlessly
upon one, without gaining either knowledge or advantage.
Besides, they argued it was not likely that any harm would befall the
maids so long as their captor remained in Paris--that is, none which
had not already overtaken them on their journey as prisoners on board
the marshal's ships.
So the Hotel de Pornic and its inhabitants remained under the strict
espionage of Sholto and Lord James, while up in the garret in the Rue
des Ursulines Laurence nursed his brother clerk and Malise sat
gloomily polishing and repolishing the weapons and secret armour of
the party.
It was the evening of the third day before the "clout" showed signs
of healing. Its recipient had been conscious on the second day, but,
finding himself a prisoner in the hands of the enemy, he had been
naturally enough inclined to be a little sulky and suspicious. But the
bright carelessness of Laurence, who dashed at any speech in idiomatic
but ungrammatical outlander's French, gradually won upon him. As also
the fact that Laurence was clerk-learned and could sing and play upon
the viol with surprising skill for one so young.
The prisoner never tired of watching the sunny curls upon the brow of
Laurence MacKim, as he wandered about trying the benches, the chairs,
and even the floor in a hundred attitudes in search of a comfortable
position.
"Ah," the sallow youth said at last, one afternoon as he lay on his
pallet, "you should be one of the choristers of my master's chapel.
You can sing like an angel!"
"Well," laughed Laurence in reply, "I would be indeed content, if he
be a good master, and if in his house it snoweth wherewithal to eat
and drink. But tell me what unfortunate may have the masterage of so
profitless a servant as yourself?"
"I am the poor gentleman Gilles de Sillé of the household of the
Marshal de Retz!" answered the swarthy youth, readily.
"De Silly indeed to bide with such a master!" quoth Laurence, with his
usual prompt heedlessness of consequences.
The sallow youth with his bandaged head did not understand the poor
jest, but, taking offence at the tone, he instantly reared himself on
his elbow and darted a look at Laurence from under brows so lowering
and searching that Laurence fell back in mock terror.
"Nay," he cried, shaking at the knees and letting his hands swing
ludicrously by his sides, "do not affright a poor clerk! If you look
at me like that I will call the cook from yonder eating-stall to
protect me with his basting-ladle. I wot if he fetches you one on the
other side of your cracked sconce, you will never take service again
with the Marshal de Retz."
"What know you of my master?" reiterated Gilles de Sillé, glowering at
his mercurial jailer, without heeding his persiflage.
"Why, nothing at all," said Laurence, truthfully, "except that while
we stood listening to the singing of the choir within his hotel, a
poor woman came crying for her son, whom (so she declared) the marshal
had kidnapped. Whereat came forth the guard from within, and thrust
her away. Then arrived you and your varlets and got your heads broken
for your impudence. That is all I know or want to know of your
master."
Gilles de Sillé lay back on his pallet with a sigh, still, however,
continuing to watch the lad's countenance.
"You should indeed take service with the marshal. He is the most
lavish and generous master alive. He thinks no more of giving a
handful of gold pieces to a youth with whom he is taken than of
throwing a crust to a beggar at his gate. He owns the finest province
in all the west from side to side. He has castles well nigh a dozen,
finer and stronger than any in France. He has a college of priests,
and the service at his oratory is more nobly intoned than that in the
private chapel of the Holy Father himself. When he goes in procession
he has a thurifer carried before him by the Pope's special permission.
And I tell you, you are just the lad to take his fancy. That I can
see at a glance. I warrant you, Master Laurence, if you will come with
me, the marshal will make your fortune."
"Did the other young fellow make his fortune?" said Laurence. Gilles
de Sillé glared as if he could have slain him.
"What other?" he growled, truculently.
"Why, the son of the poor woman who cried beneath your kind master's
window the night before yestreen'."
The lank swarthy youth ground his teeth.
"'Tis ill speaking against dignities," he replied presently, with a
certain sullen pride. "I daresay the young fellow took service with
the marshal to escape from home, and is in hiding at Tiffauges, or
mayhap Machecoul itself. Or he may well have been listening at some
lattice of the Hotel de Pornic itself to the idiot clamour of his
mother and of the ignorant rabble of Paris!"
"Your master loves the society of the young?" queried Laurence,
mending carefully a string of his viol and keeping the end of the
catgut in his mouth as he spoke.
"He doats on all young people," answered Gilles de Sillé, eagerly, the
flicker of a smile running about his mouth like wild-fire over a swamp.
"Why, when a youth of parts once takes service with my master, he
never leaves it for any other, not even the King's!"
Which in its way was a true enough statement.
"Well," quoth Master Laurence, when he had tied his string and
finished cocking his viol and twingle-twangling it to his
satisfaction, "you speak well. And I am not sure but what I may think
of it. I am tired both of working for my father without pay, and of
singing psalms in a monastery to please my lord Abbot. Moreover, in
this city of Paris I have to tell every jack with a halbert that I am
not the son of the King of England, and then after all as like as not
he marches me to the bilboes!"
"Of what nativity are you?" asked de Sillé.
"Och, I'm all of a rank Irelander, and my name is Laurence O'Halloran,
at your service," quoth the rogue, without a blush. For among other
accomplishments which he had learned at the Abbey of Dulce Cor, was
that of lying with the serene countenance of an angel. Indeed, as we
have seen, he had the rudiments of the art in him before setting out
from the tourneying field at Glenlochar on his way to holy orders.
"Then you will come with me to-morrow?" said Gilles, smiling.
Laurence listened to make sure that neither his father nor Sholto was
approaching the garret.
"I will go with you on two conditions," he said: "you shall not
mention my purpose to the others, and when we escape, I must put a
bandage over your eyes till we are half a dozen streets away."
"Why, done with you--after all you are a right gamesome cock, my
Irelander," cried Gilles, whom the conditions pleased even better than
Laurence's promise to accompany him.
Then, lending the prisoner his viol wherewith to amuse himself and
locking the door, Laurence made an excuse to go to the kitchen, where
he laughed low to himself, chuckling in his joy as he deftly handled
the saucepans.
"Aha, Master Sholto, you are the captain of the guard and a knight,
forsooth, and I am but poor clerk Laurence--as you have ofttimes
reminded me. But I will show you a shift worth two of watching outside
the door of the marshal's hotel for tidings of the maids. I will go
where the marshal goes, and see all he sees. And then, when the time
comes, why, I will rescue them single-handed and thereafter make up my
mind which of them I shall marry, whether Sholto's sweetheart or the
Fair Maid of Galloway herself."
Thus headlong Laurence communed with himself, not knowing what he said
nor to what terrible adventure he was committing himself.
But Gilles de Sillé of the house of the Marshal de Retz, being left to
himself in the half darkness of the garret, took up the viol and sang
a curious air like that with which the charmer wiles his snakes to
him, and at the end of every verse, he also laughed low to himself.