THE MARSHAL'S CHAMBER
There came a low voice in Laurence MacKim's ear, chill and sinister:
"You do well to look out upon the fair world. None knoweth when we may
have to leave it. Yonder is a star. Look well at it. They say God made
it. Perhaps He takes more interest in it than in the concerns of this
other world He hath made."
The son of Malise MacKim gripped himself, as it were, with both hands,
and turned a face pale as marble to look into the grim countenance
which hid the soul of the Lord of Machecoul.
Gilles de Retz appeared to peruse each feature of the boy's person as
if he read in a book. Yet even as Laurence gave back glance for
glance, and with the memory of what he had seen yet fresh upon him, a
strange courage began to glow in the heart of the young Scot. There
came a kind of contempt, too, into his breast, as though he had it in
him to be a man in despite of the devil and all his works.
The marshal continued his scrutiny, and Laurence returned his gaze
with interest.
"Well, boy," said the marshal, smiling as if not ill pleased at his
boldness, "what do you think of me?"
"I think, sir," said Laurence, simply, "that you have grown older
since I saw you in the lists at Thrieve."
It seemed to Laurence that the words were given him. And all the time
he was saying to himself: "Now I have done it. For this he will surely
put me to death. He cannot help himself. Why did I not stick to it
that I was an Irelander?"
But, somehow, the answer seemed like an arrow from a bow shot at a
venture, entering in between the joints of the marshal's armour.
"Do you think so?" he said, with some startled anxiety, yet without
surprise; "older than at Thrieve? I do not believe it. It is
impossible. Why, I grow younger and younger every day. It has been
promised me that I should."
And setting his elbow on the sill of the window, Gilles de Retz looked
thoughtfully out upon the cool dusk of the rose garden. Then all at
once it came to him what was implied in that unlucky speech of
Laurence's. The grim intensity returned to his eyes as he erected
himself and bent his brows, white with premature age, upon the boy,
who confronted him with the fearlessness born of youth and ignorance.
"Ah," he said, "this is interesting; you have changed your nation. You
were an Irishman to De Sillé in Paris, to the clerk Henriet, and to
the choir at Machecoul. Yet to me you admit in the very first words
you speak that you are a Scot and saw me at the Castle of Thrieve."
Even yet the old Laurence might have turned the corner. He had, as we
know, graduated as a liar ready and expert. He had daily practised his
art upon the Abbot. He had even, though more rarely, succeeded with
his father. But now in the day of his necessity the power and wit had
departed from him.
To the lord of the Castle of Machecoul Laurence simply could not lie.
Ringed as he was by evil, his spirit became strong for good, and he
testified like one in the place of final judgment, when the earthly
lendings of word and phrase and covering excuse must all be cast aside
and the soul stand forth naked and nakedly answer that which is
required.
"I am a Scot," said Laurence, briefly, and without explanation.
"Come with me into my chamber," said the marshal, and turned to
precede him thither.
And without word of complaint or backward glance, the lad followed the
great lord to the chamber, into which so many had gone before him of
the young and beautiful of the earth, and whence so few had come out
alive.
As he passed the threshold, Laurence put into his mouth the elastic
pellet which had been given him by Blaise Renouf, the choir-master's
son.
The marshal threw himself upon a chair, reclining with a wearied air
upon the hands which were clasped behind his head. In the action of
throwing himself back one could see that Gilles de Retz was a young
and not an old man, though ordinarily his vitality had been worn to
the quick, and both in appearance and movement he was already
prematurely aged.
"What is your name?"
The question came with military directness from the lips of the
marshal of France.
"Laurence MacKim," said the lad, with equal directness.
"For what purpose did you come to the Castle of Machecoul?"
"I came," said Laurence, coolly, "to take service with you, my lord.
And because I was tired of monk rule, and getting only the husks of
life, tired too of sitting dumb and watching others eat the kernel."
"Ha!" cried Gilles de Retz, "I am with you there. There is, after all,
some harmony between our immortal parts. For my part, I would have all
of life,--husk, kernel, stalk,--aye, and the root that grows amid the
dung."
He paused a moment, looking at Laurence with the air of a connoisseur.
"Come hither, lad," he said, with a soft and friendly accent; "sit on
this seat with your back to the window. Turn your head so that the
lamp shines aright upon your face. You are not so handsome as was
reported, but that there is something wondrously taking about your
countenance, I do admit. There--sit so, and fear nothing."
Laurence sat down with the bad grace of a manly youth who is admired
for what he privately despises, and wishes himself well quit of. But,
notwithstanding this, there was something so insinuating and pleasant
about the marshal's manner that the lad almost thought he must have
dreamed the incident of the burned door and the sacrifice upon the
iron altar.
"You came hither to search for Margaret of Douglas," said the marshal,
suddenly bending forward as if to take him by surprise.
Laurence, wholly taken aback, answered neither yea nor nay, but held
his peace.
Then Gilles de Retz nodded sagely, with a quiet satisfaction in his
own prevision, which to one less bold and reckless than the young
clerk of Dulce Cor would have proved disconcerting. Then he propounded
his next question:
"How many came hither with you?"
"One," said Laurence, promptly; "I came here alone with your servant
De Sillé."
The marshal smiled.
"Good--we will try some other method with you," he said; "but be
advised and speak. None hath ever hidden aught from Gilles de Retz."
"Then, my lord," said Laurence, "there is the less reason for you to
put me to the question."
"I can expound dark speeches," said the marshal, "and I also know my
way through the subtleties of lying tongues. Hope not to lie to me.
How many were they that came to France with you?"
"I will not tell you," said the son of Malise.
The marshal smiled again and nodded his head repeatedly with a certain
gustful appreciation.
"You would make a good soldier. It is a pity that I have gone out of
the business. Yet I have only (as it were) descended from wholesale to
particular, from the gross to the detail."
Laurence, who felt that the true policy was to be sparing of his
words, made no answer.
"You say that you are a clerk. Can you read Latin?"
"Yes," said Laurence, "and write it too."
"Read this, then," said the marshal, and handed him a book.
Laurence had been well instructed in the humanities by Father Colin of
Saint Michael's Kirk by the side of Dee water, and he read the words,
which record the cruelties of the Emperor Caligula with exactness and
decorum.
"You read not ill," said his auditor; "you have been well taught,
though you have a vile foreign accent and know not the shades of
meaning that lie in the allusions.
"You say that you came to Machecoul with desire to serve me," the
marshal continued after a pause for thought. "In what manner did you
think you could serve, and why went you not into the house of some
other lord?"
"As to service," said Laurence, "I came because I was invited by your
henchman de Sillé. And as to what I can do, I profess that I can sing,
having been well taught by a master, the best in my country. I can
play upon the viol and eke upon the organ. I am fairly good at fence,
and excellent as any at singlestick. I can faithfully carry a message
and loyally serve those who trust me. I would have some money to
spend, which I have never had. I wish to live a life worth living,
wherein is pleasure and pain, the lack of sameness, and the joy of
things new. And if that may not be--why, I am ready to die, that I may
make proof whether there be anything better beyond."
"A most philosophic creed," cried the marshal. "Well, there is one
thing in which I can prove, if indeed you lie not. Sing!"
Then Laurence stood up and sang, even as the choir had done, the
lamentation of Rachel according to the setting of the Roman precentor.
"_A voice was heard in Ramah!_"
And as he sang, the Lord of Retz took up the strain, and, with true
accord and feeling, accompanied him to the end.
[Illustration: THE PRISONERS OF THE WHITE TOWER.]
"Brava!" cried Gilles de Retz when Laurence had finished; "that is
truly well sung indeed! You shall sing it alone in my chapel next
feast day of the Holy Innocents."
He paused as if to consider his words.
"And now for this time go. But remember that this Castle of Machecoul
is straiter than any prison cell, and better guarded than a fortress.
It is surrounded with constant watchers, secret, invisible,
implacable. Whoso tries to escape, dies. You are a bold lad, and, as I
think, fear not much death for yourself. But come hither, and I will
show you something which will chain you here."
With a kind of solicitous familiarity the Marshal de Retz took the lad
by the arm and drew him to another window on the further side of the
keep.
"Look forth and tell me what you see," he said.
Laurence set his head out of the window. He looked upon an intricate
mass of building, composing the western wing of the castle, and it was
some moments before he could distinguish what the Sieur de Retz wished
him to see. Then, as his eyes took in the details, he saw on the flat
roof of a square tower beneath him two maidens seated, and when he
looked closer--lo! they were Margaret Douglas and, beside her, his
brother's sweetheart Maud Lindesay. These two were sitting hand in
hand, as was their wont, and the head of the child was bowed almost to
her friend's knee. Maud's arm was about Margaret's neck, and her
fingers caressed the childish tangle of hair. Presently the elder
lifted the younger upon her knee and hushed her like a mother who
puts a tired child to sleep.
Immediately behind this group, in the shadow of a buttress, Laurence
saw a tall man, masked, clad in a black suit, and with a drawn sword
in his hand.
The marshal looked out over the lad's shoulder.
"The day you are missed from the Castle of Machecoul, or the day that
the rest of your company arrives here, that sword shall fall, but in a
more terrible fashion than I can tell you! That sentinel can neither
hear nor speak, but he has his orders and will obey them. I bid you
good night. Go to your singing in the choir. It is time for the
chanting of vespers in the chapel of the Holy Innocents."