Book: An Enemy To The King

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"Why is it that when I speak of what most occupies my heart you become
silent or sorrowful, or go suddenly from me?"

With assumed lightness she replied:

"Can a woman explain her capricious doings any more than a man can
understand them? It is well known that we do unaccountable things."

Not heeding this evasion, I went on:

"I sometimes fear that you imagine some other barrier between us than the
one of religion. Is it that some other gentleman--?"

"Oh, no, monsieur!" she answered, quickly and earnestly, before I had
time to finish the question.

"Is there, then, some vow or girlish resolution?"

She shook her head negatively in reply, but would not give me any more
satisfaction.

At last I said, abruptly, "Do you, then, wish me not to love you?"

She looked at me first as if she would answer yes, and then as if she
would answer no, and finally, after a sigh, she said:

"Can we cause things by wishing?"

Finally, as a last means of trying her, I said:

"Mademoiselle, I have been thinking that it might be better if I were to
go on alone to Guienne, and leave Blaise and my men to conduct you when
you are able to follow."

She regarded me strangely, first as if the suggestion were a welcome one,
then,--while her brow darkened, and a kind of mental anguish forced
itself into her expression,--as if the plan were not at all acceptable.

"But you will not do that, monsieur?" was all that she said.

I could but sigh in puzzlement, and abandon my attempt to make her tell
her feelings.

Sometimes I would suddenly turn my eyes towards her, and catch her
looking at me with mingled tenderness and pity, as a man condemned to die
might be looked on by the woman who loved him. At those times I thought
that she had some fear or foreboding that I might yet fall a victim to
the vengeance of those whom I had offended. Sometimes her look quite
startled me, for it contained, besides a world of grief and pity,
something of self-reproach. I then supposed that she blamed herself for
allowing her fatigue to delay me in my departure from the province.

But these demonstrations did not often escape her. She oftenest showed
the forced cheerfulness that I have already mentioned. The moments when
any kind of distress showed itself were exceptional, and many of them
were caused by the persistence with which I sought a response in words to
my declarations of love.

There came at last the afternoon--how well I remember it!--when we sat
together on the stone bench in the sunlit part of the old courtyard.
Through the interstices of the overspreading branches we could see a
perfectly clear blue sky. The slightest movement of air made the leaves
rustle sleepily, dreamily. Save the chirping of the birds, no other sound
emanated from the forest. The murmur of the river at the foot of the
wooded steep came up to us. In a corner of the yard the two gypsies lay
asleep. Some of my men were off on various employments. A few had gone
for game; others to fish. One of them, Frojac, was in Clochonne disguised
as a peasant, to keep a watch on the garrison there. The party of
foragers had not returned. Of the men at the château, those who were not
on guard were with Blaise Tripault in the great hall, where they had just
finished eating and drinking, Hugo had gone to the stables to feed
mademoiselle's horses. Jeannotte was asleep in her chamber. Mademoiselle
and I sat in silence, in the midst of a solitude, a remote tranquillity,
a dreamy repose that it was difficult to imagine as ever to be broken.

She seemed to yield to the benign influence of this enchanted place. She
leaned back restfully, closed her eyes, and smiled.

Suddenly there came from within the château the sound of my men singing.
Their rude, strong voices were low at first, but they rose in pitch and
volume as their song progressed. Mademoiselle ceased to smile, opened her
eyes, again took on the look of dark foreboding. The song had an ominous
ring. It was one of the Huguenot war hymns sung in the army of our Henri:

"With pricking of steel
Our foe we have sped,
We've peppered his heel
With pellets of lead,
And the battles we win are the gifts of the Lord,
Who pointeth our cannon and guideth our sword.
We fire and we charge and there's nothing can bar
When we fight in the track of the King of Navarre.
Then down, down, down with the Duke of Guise!
Death, death, death to our enemies!
And glory, we sing, to God and our King,
And death to the foes of Navarre!"

The melody was grim and stirring. The men's voices vibrated with war-like
wrath. They were impatient for battles, charges, the kind of fighting
that is done between great armies on the open field, when there is the
roar and smoke of cannon, the rattle of small firearms, the clash of
steel, the cries of captains, the shrieks and groans of wounded, the
plenteous spilling of blood. They were hungry for carnage.

"There is no cause to shudder, mademoiselle," said I, perceiving the
effect that the song had on her; "we are far away from fighting. There is
no danger here."

"There may be dangers of which you do not guess," she answered.

As if to verify her words, a sudden, sharp cry broke the stillness. It
came from the forest path by which we had arrived at the château. It was
the voice of one of my sentinels challenging a newcomer.

"It is I," came the reply. "I have important news for the captain."

"Oh, it is you, Marianne?" replied the man on guard. "I didn't know you
for an instant, you appeared so suddenly, without any noise."

I hastened to the gate and called, "Come, Marianne, what is it?"

She came up puffing and perspiring. So breathless was she that she had to
sit down on a bench in the courtyard before she could answer me.

"Oh, monsieur!" she said, when she had recovered some breath. "Look to
yourself! The governor of the province is at Clochonne!"

"The devil!" I said, and turned to see the effect of this news on
mademoiselle.

She was standing, trembling, as white as death, her one hand on the back
of the bench for support.

"Be not alarmed, mademoiselle," I said, "Clochonne is not Maury! They do
not know our hiding-place. How did you learn, Marianne, and what else do
you know?"

Mademoiselle stood perfectly still and fixed her eyes on Marianne,
awaiting the latter's answers with apparently as much interest as I
myself felt.

"Godeau went to Clochonne this morning with some eggs to sell, and
learned that the governor arrived last night and occupies the château,"
said Marianne.

"With how many men?" I asked.

"Godeau said that the courtyard of the château and the market-place of
the town were full of men-at-arms, but he did not wait to find out how
many there were. He knew what he would catch from me if he did not
immediately bring me the news, that I might let you know. So he came home
at once, and as soon as I had heard it I started for this place."

"I thank you, Marianne. You are the best of women. Yet it may not be on
our account that M. de la Chatre honors Clochonne with a visit."

It was, indeed, true that the governor would naturally visit his border
towns at a time when war might be expected soon to enter his province.
Yet I could not help thinking that his coming at this particular time had
something to do with his plan to capture me. I remembered what course
Montignac had advised him to take: to wait until his spy should have
located me and sent him word of my hiding-place, then to come to
Clochonne, whither the spy, on learning of his presence, should send him
the information that would enable him to lay an ambuscade for me. This
was a good plan, for a premature arrival of the governor at Clochonne
might give me time to flee before my whereabouts should be known to the
spy; but, knowing my exact whereabouts, La Chatre could first take
measures for cutting off my flight, and then risk nothing by coming to
Clochonne. Moreover, should the spy fail as to the ambush, the governor's
acquaintance with my whereabouts would serve him in a chase that he might
make with his soldiers. The ambush was but a device more likely to
succeed than an open search and attack. It was, if at all possible,
easier, and would cost the governor no lives.

Now, if the plan suggested by Montignac was being carried out, the
governor's arrival at Clochonne meant that his spy had sent him word of
my hiding-place. But could De Berquin have done so? He had previously
shown some skill in secret pursuit. Had he eluded the vigilance of my
sentinels, learned that we were at Maury, and sent one of his men to the
governor with the information? It was improbable, yet nothing occurs more
often than the improbable. So I asked Marianne:

"Have you seen anything of the five men who drank with me the night you
carried wine to us from the inn?"

"Not since that night, monsieur."

"And you have no more news than you have told me?"

"Nothing more, monsieur; so, if you please, I will hurry back, for
my old man is sure to have fallen asleep, and it would be a pity if
the governor's men should come by the forest road without being
seen. Be sure, if they come after I reach home, you shall know of it
in good time."

I bade her go, and turned to mademoiselle.

She was as pale as a white lily. As soon as my eye met hers, she said, in
a faint voice:

"I am going in, monsieur. I am tired. No, I can go alone. Do not be
concerned about me. I shall soon feel better."

And she went rapidly into the château, giving me no time in which to
assure her that there was no reason for immediate alarm.

I wished to consider Marianne's news before communicating it to any of my
men. I had to inquire of myself whether it called for any immediate
action on my part. So that my meditations might not be interrupted, I
left the château and walked into the forest.

For hours I considered the possible relations of the governor's arrival
to mademoiselle's safety and my own, to that of my men and our cause, and
to my intention of delivering M. de Varion from prison. But I could
arrive at no conclusion, for I knew neither the governor's intentions,
nor what information he had concerning me. There were so many
probabilities and so many possible combinations of them, that at last I
threw the whole matter from my mind, determining to await events. On the
way back to the château I reproached myself for having wasted so much
time in making useless guesses, for when I found myself at the gate it
was night, and the moon had risen.

I stopped at the entrance and stood still to listen to the voice of
Blaise, which rose in the courtyard in the words of a psalm. He sang it
with a gentleness the very reverse of the feeling his voice had expressed
in the war hymn a few hours earlier. From a sound that came between the
words now and then, I knew that he was engaged in one of his favorite
occupations, that of polishing his weapons.

Pleased to hear him singing in the moonlight, I stood at the gate, lest
by entering I might interrupt the psalm.

Presently, at the end of the stanza, I heard another voice from the
doorway of the château.

"Ah, Blaise," said Jeannotte, "it is the spirit of your mother that
controls you now."

He made no answer, nor did he resume his singing. Then I recalled that
for the past few days he had not shown his former susceptibility to the
maid's charms; he had, indeed, exhibited towards her a kind of
disapproving shyness. I had not attached any importance to this.

"Why do you not go on singing your psalm?" Jeannotte asked, coming
nearer to him.

His answer was a strange one. It was spoken with a kind of contemptuous
irony and searching interrogation. The words were:

"Mademoiselle's boy Pierre has not yet come back to us."

"What has that to do with your singing?" said Jeannotte. "We all know it
very well. Poor Pierre! To think that he may have been taken by Monsieur
de Berquin!"

"It is well that he did not know the place of our destination when he
went away," said Blaise, in the same insignificant tone, "else M. de
Berquin might torture the secret out of him, and carry it to the governor
of the province, for M. de Berquin knows now that my master is La
Tournoire. It would not be well for the boy, or any one else, to be the
means of the governor's learning La Tournoire's hiding-place!"

After which words, spoken with a kind of ominous menace, Blaise abruptly
left the girl, and strode around the corner of the château. The maid
stood still a few moments, then went into the château.

Completely mystified, I crossed the courtyard and called Blaise.

"M. de la Chatre is at Clochonne," I said, abruptly, as soon as he was
before me.

He stood still, returning my gaze. Presently he said:

"Do you think that he has learned where you are?"

"Through M. de Berquin?" I said, as if completing his question.

"Or any one else?" he said, in a low voice. "There was the boy who
disappeared, for instance."

"But he did not know our hiding-place when he left. He did not know how
near we then were to it. He did not then know that I was La Tournoire."

"But there was much talk of La Tournoire on the journey. Did you at any
time drop any hint of this place, and how it might be reached?"

"None that could have reached his ears. I told only Mlle. de Varion, and
we were quite alone when I did so."

Blaise looked at the ground in silence. After some time he gave a heavy
sigh, and, raising his eyes, said:

"Monsieur, I have been thinking of many things of late. Certain matters
have had a strange appearance. But,--well, perhaps my thoughts have been
absurd, and, in short, I have nothing to say about them except this,
monsieur, it is well to be on one's guard always against every one!"

I was about to ask him whether he meant that the boy Pierre had been
guilty of eavesdropping and treachery, and to reprove him for that
unworthy suspicion, when there was a noise at the gate. Looking thither,
I saw two of my men, Sabray and Roquelin, conducting into the courtyard
three starved-looking persons, who leaned wearily on one another's
shoulders, and seemed ready to drop with fatigue.

"We found these wretches in the woods," explained Sabray. "They are
Catholics, although that one tried to hide his cross and shouted, 'Down
with the mass!' when we told them to surrender in the name of the Sieur
de la Tournoire."

"It is true that I was a Catholic," whined the bedraggled fop who had
belonged to De Berquin's band of four; "but I was just about to abjure
when these men came up."

"I will abjure twice over, if it pleases monsieur," put in the tall
Spanish-looking ruffian. "Nothing would delight me more than to be a
Huguenot. By the windpipe of the Pope, for a flagon of wine I would
be a Jew!"

"And I a damned infidel Turk," wearily added their fat comrade, "for a
roast fowl, and a place to lay my miserable body!"

At this moment the fop's eyes fell on Blaise.

"Saint Marie!" he cried, falling to his knees. "We are dead men. It is
the big fellow we trussed up at the inn!"

"Belly of Beelzebub, so it is!" bellowed Blaise, pulling out his sword.
Turning to Jeannotte, who had just reappeared in the courtyard, he
roared: "It is now my father's spirit that controls me!"

Whereupon he fell to belaboring the three poor, weary, hungry, thirsty
rascals with the flat of his sword, till all of them yelled in concert.
They were too limp to resist or even to run, and he had his way with them
until Sabray and Roquelin howled with laughter. At last I ordered him to
stop, and to confine the men in a chamber, where they should be fed and
questioned. So they limped away moaning, driven like cattle by Blaise,
who promised them as they went that they should not be put to the trouble
of tying up honest people in the dark for some time to come. Jeannotte
followed, out of curiosity, as did Sabray and Roquelin.

Left alone in the courtyard, I sat on the stone bench, which was now in
part yellow with moonlight, and began to ponder. I could doubtless learn
from the three captives whether De Berquin had had any hand in the coming
of La Chatre to Clochonne. Anxious as I was to inform myself, I was yet
in no mood to question the men at that moment, preferring to wait and
hear the result of Blaise's interrogations.

While I was thinking, my arms folded and my eyes turned to the ground at
my feet, I suddenly heard a deep sigh very near me.

I looked up and saw Mademoiselle de Varion standing before me in the
moonlight. My gaze met hers, and in the delicious glow that her presence
sent through me I forgot all in the world but her.




CHAPTER XIII.

HOW DE BERQUIN INVITED DEATH


"Mademoiselle!" I whispered, starting up and taking her hand.

She trembled slightly, and averted her look. But she did not draw
away her hand.

"You are still disturbed by Marianne's news," I said. "But you have
little more reason to fear when M. de la Chatre is at Clochonne than if
he were at the other end of the province."

"Yet I do fear, monsieur," she said, in a low tone, "for your sake."

"Then if you will fear," said I, "I take great happiness in knowing that
it is for me. But this is no place or time for fear. Look and listen. The
moonlight, the sounds of the forest, the song of the nightingale, all
speak of peace."

"The song of the nightingale may give place to the clash of swords and
the cries of combat," she replied. "And because you have delayed here
with me, you now risk the peril you are in."

"Peril is familiar company to me, mademoiselle," I said, gaily. "It
comes and it goes. It is a very welcome guest when it brings with it the
sweetest lady in the world."

Talking thus, I led her around the side of the château to the old garden
appertaining to it, a place now wild with all kinds of forest growth, its
former use indicated by a broken statue, a crumbling grotto, and in its
centre an old sun-dial overgrown with creepers. The path to the sun-dial
was again passable, thanks to my frequent visits to the spot since my
first arrival at Maury. It was up this path that we now went.

The moonlight and the presence of mademoiselle made the place a very
paradise to me. We two were alone in the garden. The moon spread beauty
over the broken walls of the château on one side, and the green
vegetation around us leaving some places in mysterious shade. The
sun-dial was all in light, and so was mademoiselle standing beside it. I
breathed sweet wild odors from the garden. From some part of the château
came the soft twang of the strings responding to the fingers of the
gypsy, I held the soft hand of mademoiselle. I raised it to my lips.

"I love you, I love you!" I whispered.

She made no answer, only looked at me with a kind of mingled grief and
joy, bliss embittered by despair.

"It cannot be," I went on, "that Heaven would permit so great a love to
find no response. Will you not answer me, mademoiselle?"

"What answer would you have?" she asked, in a perturbed voice.

"I would have love for love."

Her answer was arrested by the sound of the gypsy's voice, which at that
instant rose in an old song, that one in which a woman's love is likened
to a light or a fire. These are the first words:

"Bright as the sun, more quick to fade;
Fickle as marsh-lights prove;
Where brightest, casting deepest shade--
False flame of woman's love."

"Heed the song, monsieur," said mademoiselle, in the tone of one who
warns vaguely of a danger which dare not be disclosed openly.

"It is an old, old song," I answered. "The raving of some misanthrope of
bygone time."

"It has truth in it," she said.

"Nay, he judged all women from some bitter experience of his own. His
song ought to have died with him, ought to be shut up in the grave
wherein he lies, with his sins and his sorrows."

"Though the man is dead, the truth he sang is not. Heed it, monsieur, as
a warning from the dead to the living, a warning to all brave men who
unwarily trust in women!"

"I needed no song to warn me, mademoiselle," I said, thinking of Mile.
d'Arency and M. de Noyard. "I have in my own time seen something of the
treachery of which some women are capable."

"You have loved other women?" she said, quickly.

"Once I thought I loved one, until I learned what she was."

"What was she?" she asked, slowly, as if divining the answer, and
dreading to hear it.

"She was a tool of Catherine de Medici's," said I, speaking with all the
more contempt when I compared the guileful court beauty, Mile. d'Arency,
with the pure, sweet woman before me; "one of those creatures whom
Catherine called her Flying Squadron, and she betrayed a very honest
gentleman to his death."

"Betrayed him!" she repeated.

"Yes, by a pretended love tryst."

Mademoiselle trembled, and held out her hand to the dial for support.

Something in her attitude, something in the pose of her slender figure,
something in her white face, her deep, wide-open eyes, so appealed to my
love, to my impulse to protect her, that I clasped her in my arms, and
drew her close to me. She made no attempt to repulse me, and into her
eyes came the look of surrender and yielding.

"Ah, mademoiselle, Julie," I murmured, for she had told me her name,
"you do not shrink from me, your hand clings to mine, the look in
your eyes tells what your lips have refused to utter. The truth is
out, you love me!"

She closed her eyes, and let me cover her face with kisses.

Presently, still holding her hand in mine, I stepped to the other side
of the sun-dial, so that we stood with it between us, our hands
clasped over it.

"There needs no oath between us now," said I, "yet here let us vow by the
moonlight and the sunlight that mark the time on this old dial. I pledge
you here, on the symbol of time, to fidelity forever!"

"False flame of woman's love!"

came the song of the gypsy, before mademoiselle could answer.

The look of unresisting acquiescence faded from her face. She started
backward, drew her hand quickly from mine, and with the words, "Oh,
monsieur, monsieur!" glided swiftly from the garden and around the
château. In perplexity, I followed. When I reached the courtyard she was
not there. She had gone in, and to her chamber.

But I was happy. I felt that now she was mine. Her face, her attitude,
had spoken, if not her lips. As for her breaking away, I thought that due
to a last recurrence of her old scruples concerning the barrier between
us. I did not attribute it to the effect of the sudden intrusion of the
gypsy's song. It was by mere accident, I told myself, that her scruples
had returned at the moment of that intrusion. What was there in her love
that I need fear? She had told me to heed the song as a warning. I
considered this a mere device on her part to check the current of my
wooing. Her old scruples or her maidenly impulses might cause her to use
for that purpose any device that might occur. But, how long she might
postpone the final confession of surrender, it must come at last, for the
surrender itself was already made. Her heart was mine. What mattered it
now though the governor had come to Clochonne solely in quest of me? What
though he knew my hiding-place, discovered by the persistent De Berquin,
and its location by him communicated through Barbemouche? For, I said to
myself, if De Berquin had sent word to the governor, Barbemouche must
have been the messenger, for the three rascals now held at Maury could
not have been relied on, and they had the appearance of having wandered
in the forest several days.

I was just about to summon Blaise, that I might learn the result of his
interrogations, when I heard the voice of Maugert, who was lying in watch
by the forest path, call out:

"Who goes there?"

"We are friends," came the answer, quickly.

This voice also I knew, as well as Maugert's. It was that of De Berquin.

I ran to the gate and heard him tell Maugert, who covered him with an
arquebus, match lighted, that he was seeking the abode of the Sieur de la
Tournoire, for whom he had important news.

"Let him come, Maugert!" I called from the gate.

I stepped back into the courtyard. At that moment Blaise came out of the
château. Very soon De Berquin strode in through the gateway, followed by
the burly Barbemouche. Both looked wayworn and fatigued.

"Monsieur de la Tournoire," said De Berquin, saluting me with fine grace
and a pleasant air,--he never lost the ways of a gallant gentleman,--"I
have come here to do you a service."

So! thought I, does he really intend to seek my confidence and try to
betray me, after all? Admirable self-assurance!

I was about to answer, when Barbemouche put in;

"So you, whom it was in my power to kill a hundred times over that night,
are the very Tournoire whom I chased from one end of France to the other
eight years ago?" And he looked me over with a frank curiosity.

"Yes," I said, with a smile, "after you had destroyed the home of my
fathers. And at last you have found me."

"I was but the servant of the Duke of Guise then," said Barbemouche.

At this point Blaise, who, in all our experiences with De Berquin and his
henchmen, had not while sober come within hearing of Barbemouche's voice,
or within close sight of him, stepped up and said, coolly:

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