monseigneur made no comment until we were in the freshness of the open air; then he drew a long breath as if a strain had been relaxed.
"it might have been worse. come, now, that i may fill your purse; you and martin must leave plessis to-night."
"but, monseigneur," i protested, "this is not at all what i desired."
"what you desired! who comes to plessis to do what he desires? and remember this, my friend, there is no turning back from the king's plough. but to tell you the truth, it is not what i desired for you, not exactly what i had in my mind for you, and yet i was a true prophet. all is as the king wills. keep that truth in your head, walk at all times by its light, and your ten days in the rat-trap will not have been wasted."
i made no reply, and we turned the angle of the royal block in silence. in silence, too, we crossed the court to his lodgings; but with his hand upon the latch, monsieur de commines, with a gayer note in his voice, repeated my complaint.
"not all you desired? perhaps it is; perhaps it is even more than your imagination groped after. the petulance of ignorant youth starts like a shying horse at the first obstacle, and cries: i do not like the road. it is the method that troubles me, not the end. the end!" and the last of the cloud upon his face dissolved in merriment. "i think i would play the end of the game myself if i were five-and-twenty."
"but to be a thief, an abductor of children——"
"does that choke you? then why did you not say no! to the king?"
"there was a glamour about him," i began.
"did i not tell you he had many moods? he can make any man love him—for the moment—when that is his pleasure or his profit. besides, you over-state the case; there is only one child, and he a very little one."
"it is theft, all the same."
"pooh! we are all thieves in court when a theft profits. a reputation, an office, a title, a province, it is all a question of degree. what? if i am his majesty's ambassador at cologne or rome—with credentials, mind you!—is it not that i may steal an advantage? the greater the theft, the greater the honour—if only the theft be successful! there you have the world's diplomacy in a sentence. we lie and thieve abroad for the good of our country. who are you, friend gaspard, that you should be more scrupulous than i?"
"but what kind of a household shall i find at—at——?"
"where you are going? charming, charming; especially if, as i imagine, it is the frank abandonment of country life without etiquette or punctilio."
his harangue upon the honourable methods of court life was, of course, half jest, but there was also so much of truth in his irony that complacency and self-respect once more lifted their head, swaggering as if there was no such thing as a lie in the world. after all, what was my task but to do in units what for years monsieur de commines had schemed to do by thousands, in the transferring of whole principalities from one ruler to another?
as i pushed open the door of monseigneur's private apartment and stood aside to allow him to precede me, martin, standing within, caught sight of me. what a cry he gave! "monsieur gaspard! oh, thank god! thank god!" it warmed my heart to hear him. without ceremony he pushed past monsieur de commines and caught me by both hands; nor would monseigneur listen to my apologies.
"love is no respecter of persons," said he, clapping him on the shoulder. "i told you master martin had a heart in his breast, and so would make a bad courtier. all the same, i wish i had fifty such insolents about me. i would be safer than louis in plessis for all its walls and moats. that you will have martin with you on your journey makes me easier in my mind."
dropping my hands, martin bowed humbly, angry with himself that his unceremonious impetuosity had, perhaps, lowered the dignity of his monsieur gaspard.
"your pardon, monseigneur, and yours, monsieur gaspard; i forgot myself. but when one has gone hungry for ten days——"
"that's a fine phrase of yours, my friend; say no more lest you spoil it."
"then, monseigneur, if i am permitted? you spoke of a journey—is it soon?"
"to-night."
"but not to tours, monseigneur, not to the street——?"
"the street of the house of the great nails! no, my friend, to the south."
"to the south to-night! god be praised for all his mercies! i'll go for the horses, monsieur gaspard."
"yes," said de commines, laughing at his haste, but a little bitterly, "go, go, for there is no time to be lost. it's a strange world, de helville," he went on as the door closed. "here we have the greatest names in the land, and every ambitious schemer in france intriguing to set foot in plessis, and this honest heart thanking god unfeignedly that he rides away into the darkness,—he does not even ask where! but now to arrange for your journey. for the king's peace and your own, leave plessis to-night, late as it is. you will just have time before the gates close, when none can pass. halt at ouzay for the night—it is the first of the king's posts, and put up at the sign of the laughing man. say to the host as you enter, 'is the good-man of tours in the neighbourhood?' and having received his answer, say no more. sup on the best and sleep softly, there will be no reckoning to pay. but in the morning a man, wearing a bunch of trefoil in his hat, will give you your next instructions. follow these, but ask no questions. as you find it at ouzay, so will it be straight through to navarre. everywhere you rest you will be expected, or, rather, not you, but the king's messenger, and everywhere you pass shot free."
"then what is this for?" asked i, for while he was speaking he had filled a wallet with more gold coin than solignac had ever seen in all my five-and-twenty years.
"for diplomacy," he answered laughing. "where you cannot steal you must bribe. but there, i hear the horses in the courtyard, and since needs must when the king bids, the sooner you go south the sooner solignac will give you a roof to your head. and who knows but the journey may find you a mistress for it! brigitta? h'm, perhaps brigitta, though i am no lover of swineherd wenches. let me see the king's letter a moment."
i took it from the inner pocket where, half mechanically, i had placed it for safety, and handed it to monsieur de commines—an oblong envelope of crisp paper, a palm and a half in length by a palm wide, stout, substantial, close-fastened. he took it, and turned at once to the seal.
"my cypher and quarterings exactly, even to the flaw on the upper right hand corner of the collet; my shade of wax too, even to the perfume i commonly use. men call me avaricious. it's a lie, de helville; money is a good servant but the worst of masters. yet i would give five hundred, yes a thousand livres to know what is written within, or even to see the writing. who knows but it may seem my very own? if i do nothing by halves, neither does the king my master, though how he procured the signet i cannot imagine." with a sigh and a shake of the head he raised his eyes from the seal. "no; truly things have not turned out as i desired."
in the courtyard he bade martin follow with roland and the pack-horse, and walked with me to the outer gate, his arm linked in mine. neither spoke, for he was wrapped in deep thought, his face as dismal as if we followed a funeral. but as we passed along the outer fosse i saw his eyes lighten.
"credentials! sneered the king," and he tapped the paper with his finger. "perhaps he was more right than he supposed! that letter, without superscription though it is, may open a smooth way for you of which his majesty never dreamed; though god forbid that i should judge how clear and deep are his majesty's dreams. keep it, friend gaspard, and if you find a difficulty in making good your footing at—at—the end of your journey, philip de commines' forged signet, with his name across the corner of he knows not what, may clear away the opposition as no king's credentials would do."
by this time we were beyond the final drawbridge, with martin, who had passed ahead, waiting for us, the bridles across his arm, and roland's stirrup in his palm. royal palace and all, monsieur gaspard must receive the humble service due to him, and so impress the loafers at the gate with his exalted rank!
"how can i thank you, monseigneur!" i began. "here was i, forlorn, helpless, a beggar, with neither hope nor prospect, not even a second suit to my back, and now, through you, i am an envoy on the king's service."
"for god's sake," he cried, "say nothing of the prospect till it is proved. only remember this: first for your father's sake, and now for the sake of your father's son, philip de commines is your friend without reserve. that is a thing i say to few. if you tumble into a pitfall on this path of my choosing—what a fool i was to meddle with the king's affairs!—i'll pull you out, cost what it may; and oh, lad! lad! there's a huge cost to be paid by someone, of that i'm certain. and now, good-bye, and god keep you. take care of him, martin."
"to the death, monseigneur; trust me. for what else was i born?"
"farewell, monseigneur, and again my thanks. how long do you give me to return?"
with a groan and an upward gesture of both hands, de commines turned back towards the gate, now about to be shut.
"how can i tell? a month! eternity! what i said at the first i say at the last—all is as the king wills"; and with that, which was at best a boding god-speed, we rode on our way.
so long as plessis gates remained in sight martin kept his distance, nor, though i reined roland back to a walk, would he decrease the space between us by a yard. but once a turn of the path, following the river's curve, hid the towers, he drew up beside me.
"oh, monsieur gaspard, monsieur gaspard, but this is good!"
"what is good?" answered i, holding out a hand to him, which he caught and gripped. i knew his meaning very well, but i knew, too, that it would please him to speak his thought.
"that we two should be out in the sweet air together, free from the rat-trap, free from the fox with the wolf's claws, free from—from—that accursed house in the rue trois pucelles, and riding—god knows where! what does it matter!"
"why, what was that house to you?" i asked, remembering a hint monseigneur had let fall.
"it was very near being my last rise in the world, and having seen two poor souls travel by that upward road i had no heart to follow them. one was a common thief, a foul-mouthed gutter bully, and i daresay deserved his hanging. but the other was a miserable, white-faced wench who stole a loaf out of sheer hunger, and that she might keep her wretched soul one day longer in its starved body. they hung them together—for company, i suppose; and it made me sick to see a coarse, burly scoundrel climb out of that upper window and slide down the rope to the girl's shoulders and crouch there, tailor-fashion, laughing at some vile jest of his own making, while she—quite right, monsieur gaspard, i'll say no more about it. it's a filthy way by which to send even a sinner to god."
the picture martin conjured up was a horrible one, and remembering mademoiselle's grim suggestion as to what her fate would be if found in tours, i had made an involuntary gesture of loathing. if it had sickened martin to see an outcast of the streets—a nameless wretch haled from god knows what cellar of vice—suffer such foul indignity, how would the spirit not revolt to think of that pure, sweet face——
but even as i clenched my teeth and cursed at large, a new thought broadened upon me. what a spirit she must have had, what a courage, what a boldness, what an abnegation of self, to deliberately, and with open eyes, face so horrible an end in cold blood! it is curious how the little side winds of life fan the flame of love. martin's chance words, and the shocking scene they forced upon the imagination, had turned my thoughts afresh in mademoiselle's direction, warming my admiration to glowing point. but of that he knew nothing.
"and you?" i asked. "how did tristan's brutal work touch you?"
"it was this way, monsieur gaspard. what had i to do with myself all alone in tours? nothing! so each day, yes, and twice a day, to keep ninus in condition, i rode out as far as plessis and walked him up and down where i could see the gates. you were inside, and they were always something to look at. for a time nothing happened. then a fellow followed me out—a huge, pock-marked rascal on a raw-boned sorrel. not a word did he speak, but as i sentried up and down he drew aside and sat watching me. then he followed me back to the cross of saint martin, and later on i saw him earwigging the landlord. what he learned i don't know. possibly that robber of guests thought it his interest to remember what he told monseigneur he had never heard, for next day and the next i was again followed. then three more joined him, and before i caught their intention they had me on my back. 'i denounce him for a spy,' cried pock-pit. 'lord! lord! what a neck he has! he's so light it will take my weight to stretch it as i did the girl's last week. three minutes on her shoulders, and—click! all was over!' but monsieur de commines met us on the road to tours, and—and—here we are riding together in the cool of god's free air, riding to—— where do we ride, monsieur gaspard?"
stretching out my hand again, i caught his, squeezing it hard.
"i owe monseigneur a good turn for that, and perhaps you and i may be able to pay him shortly." my idea was that the prompt success of de commines' protégé would redound to de commines' credit with the king, which was another reason against a too delicate squeamishness as to methods. "to-night we ride to ouzay."
"and then?"
"god knows! wherever a jack-in-a-box of a fellow bids us."
"but surely, monsieur gaspard, you know the end of it all?"
"navarre, i think."
"that's beyond my tether," said martin, shaking his head doubtfully. "but there, the good god didn't open the rat-trap for us for nothing, that i'm sure."
