THE CROSS UNDER THE APRON
The face of Gilles de Laval, Lord of Retz, had shone all day with an
unholy lustre like that of iron in which the red heat yet struggles
with the black. In the Castle of Machecoul his familiars went about,
wearing expressions upon their countenances in which disgust and
expectation were mingled with an overwhelming fear of the terrible
baron.
The usual signs of approaching high saturnalia at Machecoul had not
been wanting.
Early in the morning La Meffraye had been seen hovering like an
unclean bird of prey about the playing grounds of the village children
at Saint Benoit on the edges of the forest. At nine the frightened
villagers heard the howl of a day-hunting wolf, and one Louis Verger,
a woodman who was cutting bark for the tanneries in the valley, saw a
huge grey wolf rush out and seize his little son, Jean, a boy of five
years old, who came bringing his father's breakfast. With a great cry
he hurried back to alarm the village, but when men gathered with
scythes and rude weapons of the chase, the beast's track was lost in
the depth of the forest.
Little Jean Verger of Saint Benoit was never seen again, unless it
were he who, half hidden under the long black cloak of La Meffraye,
was brought at noon by the private postern of the baron into the
Castle of Machecoul.
So the men of Saint Benoit went not back to their work, but abode
together all that day, sullen anger burning in their hearts. And one
calling himself the servant of the Bishop of Nantes went about among
them, and his words were as knives, sharp and bitter beyond belief.
And ever as he spoke the men turned them about till they faced
Machecoul. Their lips moved like those of a Moslemite who says his
prayers towards Mecca. And the words they uttered were indeed prayers
of solemnest import.
With his usual devotion at such seasons, Gilles de Retz had attended
service thrice that day in his Chapel of the Holy Innocents. His
behaviour had been marked by intense devoutness. An excessive
tenderness of conscience had characterised his confessions to Père
Blouyn, his spiritual director-in-ordinary. He confessed as his most
flagrant sin that his thoughts were overmuch set on the vanities of
the world, and that he had even sometimes been tempted of the devil to
question the right of Holy Church herself to settle all questions
according to the will of her priests and prelates.
Whereupon Père Blouyn, with suave correctness of judgment, had pointed
out wherein his master erred; but also cautioned him against that
undue tenderness of conscience natural to one with his exalted
position and high views of duty and life. Finally the marshal had
received absolution.
In the late afternoon the Lord of Retz commanded the fire to be laid
ready for lighting in his chamber aloft in the keep of Machecoul, and
set himself down to listen to the singing of the choir, which, under
the guidance of Precentor Renouf, rehearsed for him the sweetest hymns
recently written for the choir of the Holy Father at Rome. For there
the marshal's choir-master had been trained, and with its leader he
still kept up a correspondence upon kindred interests.
Gilles de Retz, as he sat under the late blooming roses in the
afternoon sunshine of the autumn of western France, appeared to the
casual eye one of the most noble seigneurs and the most enlightened in
the world. He affected a costume already semiecclesiastic as a token
of his ultimate intention to enter holy orders. It seemed indeed as if
the great soldier who had ridden into Orleans with Dunois and the Maid
had begun to lay aside his earthly glories and seek the heavenly.
There, upon a chair set within the cloisters, in a place which the
sunshine touched most lovingly and where it lingered longest, he sat,
nodding his head to the sound of the sweet singing, and bowing low at
each mention of the name of Jesus (as the custom is)--a still,
meditative, almost saintly man. Upon the lap of his furred robe (for,
after all, it was a sunshine with a certain shrewd wintriness in it)
lay an illuminated copy of the Holy Gospels; and sometimes as he
listened to the choir-boys singing, he glanced therein, and read of
the little children to whom belongs the kingdom. Upon occasion he
lifted the book also, and looked with pleasure at the pictured cherubs
who cheered the way of the Master Jerusalemwards with strewn palm
leaves and shouted hosannas.
And ever sweeter and sweeter fell the music upon his ear, till
suddenly, like the silence after a thunderclap, the organ ceased to
roll, the choir was silent, and out of the quiet rose a single
voice--that of Laurence the Scot singing in a tenor of infinite
sweetness the words of blessing:
"_Suffer the little children to come unto Me,
And forbid them not;
For of such is the Kingdom of Heaven._"
And as the boy's voice welled out, clear and thrilling as the song of
an upward pulsing lark, the tears ran down the face of Gilles de Retz.
God knows why. Perhaps it was some glint of his own innocent
childhood--some half-dimmed memory of his happily dead mother.
Perhaps--but enough. Gilles de Laval de Retz went up the turret stair
to find Poitou and Gilles de Sillé on guard on either side the portals
which closed his chamber.
"Is all ready?" he asked, though the tears were scarcely dry on his
cheeks.
They bowed before him to the ground.
"All is ready, lord and master," they said as with one voice.
"And Prelati?"
"He is in waiting."
"And La Meffraye," he went on, "has she arrived?"
"La Meffraye has arrived," they said; "all goes fortunately."
"Good!" said Gilles de Retz, and shedding his furred monkish cloak
carelessly from off his shoulders, he went within.
Poitou and Gilles de Sillé both reached to catch the mantle ere it
fell. As they did so their hands met and touched. And at the meeting
of each other's flesh they started and drew apart. Their eyes
encountered furtively and were instantly withdrawn. Then, having hung
up the cloak, with pallid countenances and lips white and tremulous,
they slowly followed the marshal within.
* * * * *
"Sybilla de Thouars, as you are in my power, so I bid you work my
will!"
It was the deep, stern voice of the Marshal de Retz which spoke. The
Lady Sybilla lay back in a great chair with her eyes closed, breathing
slowly and gently through her parted lips. Messire Gilles stood before
her with his hands joined palm to palm and his white fingertips almost
touching the girl's brow.
"Work my will and tell me what you see!"
Her hands were clasped under a light silken apron which she wore
descending from her neck and caught in a loose loop behind her gown.
The fingers were firmly netted one over the other and clutched between
them was a golden crucifix.
The girl was praying, as one prays who dares not speak.
"O God, who didst hang on this cross--keep now my soul. Condemn it
afterwards, but help me to keep it this night. Deliver me--oh, deliver
from the power of this man. Help me to lie. By Thy Son's blood, help
me to lie well this night."
"Where are the three men from the land of the Scots? Tell me what you
see. Tell me all," the marshal commanded, still standing before her in
the same posture.
Then the voice of the Lady Sybilla began to speak, low and even, and
with that strange halt at the end of the sentences. The Lord of Retz
nodded, well pleased when he heard the sound. It was the voice of the
seeress. Oftentimes he had heard it before, and it had never deceived
him.
"I see a boat on a stormy sea," she said; "there are three men in it.
One is great of stature and very strong. The others are young men.
They are trying to furl the sail. A gust strikes them. The boat heels
and goes over. I see them struggling in the pit of waters. There are
cliffs white and crumbling above them. They are calling for help as
they cling to the boat. Now there is but one of them left. I see him
trying to climb up the slippery rocks. He falls back each time. He is
weary with much buffeting. The waves break about him and suck him
under. Now I do not see the men any more, but I can hear the broken
mast of the boat knocking hollow and dull against the rocks. Some few
shreds of the sail are wrapped about it. But the three men are gone."
She ceased suddenly. Her lips stopped their curiously detached
utterance.
But under her breath and deep in her soul Sybilla de Thouars was still
praying as before. And this which follows was her prayer:
"O God, his devil is surely departed from him. I thank thee, God of
truth, for helping me to lie."
"It is well," said Gilles de Retz, standing erect with
a satisfied air. "All is well. The three Scots who sought my life are
gone to their destruction. Now, Sybilla de Thouars, I bid you look
upon John, Duke of Brittany. Tell me what he does and says."
The level, impassive, detached voice began again. The hands clasped
the cross of gold more closely under the silk apron.
"I see a room done about with silver scallop shells and white-painted
ermines. I see a fair, cunning-faced, soft man. Behind him stands one
tall, spare, haggard--"
"Pierre de l'Hopital, President of Brittany--one that hates me," said
de Retz, grimly between his teeth. "I will meet my fingers about his
dog's throat yet. What of him?"
The Lady Sybilla, without a quiver of her shut eyelids took up the
cue.
"He hath his finger on a parchment. He strives to point out something
to the fair-haired man, but that other shakes his head and will not
agree--"
The marshal suddenly grew intent, and even excited.
"Look closer, Sybilla--look closer. Can you not read that which is
written on the parchment? I bid you, by all my power, to read it."
Then the countenance of the Lady Sybilla was altered. Striving and
blank failure were alternately expressed upon it.
"I cannot! Oh, I cannot!" she cried.
"By my power, I bid you. By that which I will make you suffer if you
fail me, I command you!" cried Gilles de Retz, bending himself towards
her and pressing his fingers against her brow so that the points
dented her skin.
The tears sprang from underneath the dark lashes which lay so
tremulously upon her white cheek.
"You make me do it! It hurts! I cannot!" she said in the pitiful voice
of a child.
"Read--or suffer the shame!" cried Gilles de Retz.
"I will--oh, I will! Be not angry," she answered pleadingly.
And underneath the silk the hands were grasped with a grip like that
of a vice upon the golden cross she had borrowed from the little Maid
of Galloway.
"Read me that which is written on the paper," said the marshal.
The Lady Sybilla began to speak in a voice so low that Gilles de Retz
had to incline his ear very close to her lips to listen.
"Accusation against the great lord and most noble seigneur, Gilles de
Laval de Retz, Sire de--"
"That is it--go on after the titles," said the eager voice of the
marshal.
"Accused of having molested the messengers of his suzerain, the
supreme Duke John of Brittany, accused of ill intent against the
State; accused of quartering the arms-royal upon his shield; called to
answer for these offences in the city of Nantes--and that is all."
She ended abruptly, like one who is tired and desires no more than to
sleep.
Gilles de Retz drew a long sigh of relief.
"All is hid," he said; "these things are less than nothing. What does
the Duke?"
"I cannot look again, I am weary," she said.
"Look again!" thundered her taskmaster.
"I see the fair-haired man take the parchment from the hand of the
dark, stern man--"
"With whom I will reckon!"
"He tries to tear it in two, but cannot. He throws it angrily in the
fire."
"My enemies are destroyed," said Gilles de Retz, "I thank thee, great
Barran-Sathanas. Thou hast indeed done that which thou didst promise.
Henceforth I am thy servant and thy slave."
So saying, he took a glass of water from the table and dashed it on
the face of the Lady Sybilla.
"Awake," he said, "you have done well. Go now and repose that you may
again be ready when I have need of you."
A flicker of conscious life appeared under the purple-veined eyelids
of the Lady Sybilla. Her long, dark lashes quivered, tried to rise,
and again lay still.
The marshal took the illuminated copy of the Evangelists from the
table and fanned her with the thin parchment leaves.
"Awake!" he cried harshly and sternly.
The eyes of the girl slowly opened their pupils dark and dilated. She
carried her hand to her head, but wearily, as if even that slight
movement pained her. The golden cross swung unseen under the silken
folds of her apron.
"I am so tired--so tired," the girl murmured to herself as Gilles de
Retz assisted her to rise. Then hastily handing her over to Poitou, he
bade him conduct her to her own chamber.
But as she went through the door of the marshal's laboratory she
looked upon the floor and smiled almost joyously.
"His devil has indeed departed from him," she murmured to herself. "I
thank the God of Righteousness who this night hath enabled me to
baffle him with a woman's poor wit, and to lie to him that he may be
led quick to destruction, and fall himself into the pit which he hath
prepared for the feet of the innocent."