An Enemy To The King
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Robert Neilson Stephens >> An Enemy To The King
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My late antagonist lay in peace and order, Blaise having replaced his
doublet on him and put his sword by his side.
"A handsome gentleman," said Blaise, quietly, looking down at the body.
"But a fool as well as a liar," said I. "How could he think that such a
story was to be swallowed? To have thrown him into confusion, I should
have told him that I had overheard the plan for my capture, that I knew
of an attempt to be made to get me from my men, that mademoiselle has
never made any such attempt either by tryst or summons or on any pretext
whatever."
"Neither has De Berquin," answered Blaise, sullenly, "and yet you think
he was the spy whom the governor sent."
"He had no opportunity," I replied, rather sharply, annoyed at Blaise's
manner. "He did not dare come here until he had formed a desperate plan
on which to hazard everything."
"As for mademoiselle's having had the opportunity and yet not having
done so," Blaise went on, with a kind of doggedness, "the spy was not to
plan the ambush until the governor should arrive at Clochonne."
"By God!" I cried. "Do you dare hint that you credit this villain's lie
for a moment?" In my exasperation I half drew my sword.
"I credit nothing and discredit nothing," he said, in a low but stubborn
tone, "but I place no one above doubt, except God and you. I have had my
thoughts, monsieur, and have them still. It is enough, as yet, to keep
all eyes open and turned in many directions."
"You cur! You dare to suspect--" Without finishing the sentence, I struck
him across the face with the back of my hand.
He drew a deep breath, but made no movement.
"I shall not trouble myself to suspect," he went on, with no change of
tone, "until we know that M. de la Chatre is at Clochonne,--"
"We know that already," I broke in, hotly. "Marianne brought the news
this afternoon."
"Until we know that mademoiselle knows it," he went on.
"We know that, too," I said. "She heard Marianne tell me."
"Until her other servant happens to be missing, and some occasion arises
through her for your going somewhere without your men. For example, if
she should go for a walk in the forest with her maid, and presently the
maid should return with word that mademoiselle lay mortally hurt
somewhere--"
"I would go to her at once!" I cried, involuntarily.
"So mademoiselle would suppose. You would not wait for your men to arm
and accompany you. You would hasten to the place, without precaution,
never thinking that mademoiselle's servant might have carried word to La
Chatre, a day before, to have men waiting for you. Kill me if you like,
monsieur! I cannot avoid my thoughts. They are at your service as my hand
and sword are. I may be all wrong, but one cannot fathom women. You used
to speak of a lady of Catherine de Medici's--"
Ah, considered I, it is the thought of Mlle. d'Arency's deed that has
awakened these foolish suspicions in Blaise's mind! I had given him some
account of how that lady had, by a love tryst, drawn poor De Noyard to
his death. He was incapable of discriminating between women. He could not
see that Mlle. de Varion was of a kind of woman as unlike the court
intriguer as if the two belonged to different species of beings. Ought
one to expect delicacy of perception from a common soldier? His
suspiciousness arose partly from his devotion to me. So, much as I
adored mademoiselle and held her sacred and above the slightest breath of
accusation, I regretted the blow I had given him, and which he had
received so meekly.
"I see, Blaise, what is in your head," I said, "but there are matters of
which you cannot judge. No more of this talk, therefore. And I require of
you the greatest respect and devotion to mademoiselle."
"Very well, monsieur," he said, "Let me say but this: You remember my
forebodings the last time we rode through the province. Because we came
back alive, you thought there was nothing in them. Perhaps there was
nothing. Only I have been thinking that out of that last journey may yet
come our destruction. My premonition may have been right, after all."
I smiled and walked back to the courtyard and sat down on the bench, no
longer angry at either De Berquin or Blaise, and calm in the thought that
there seemed no immediate danger. If I could but communicate my sense of
security to mademoiselle! If I might see a smile on her face, if the look
of yielding would but come back there and remain! Surely her scruples
would pass when I should bring her father to her. What imaginary barrier
could stand before the combined forces of love and gratitude? The rescue
of her father must not be longer deferred. I must form my plan
immediately. Yet I continued to waste time thinking of the future, of
the day when she should acknowledge herself mine. I took off my hat and
removed from it the glove that she had given me. It was like a part of
her; it was fashioned by use to the very form of her hand. I pressed it
to my lips and then looked up at the window of her chamber.
"Ah, Mlle. Julie," I said, "I know that you love me. You will be
mine; something in the moonlight, in the murmurs of the trees, in the
song of the nightingale, tells me so. How beautiful is the world! I
am too happy!"
I heard rapid footsteps from outside the gate, and presently one of my
men ran into the courtyard from the forest. It was Frojac, who had been
all day in Clochonne in search of information. Seeing me, he stopped and
stood still, out of breath from his run.
At the same moment Blaise came from the garden and stood beside the
bench, curious to hear Frojac's news.
"Ah, Frojac!" said I. "From Clochonne? I know your news already. M. de la
Chatre is there."
And I motioned to him to speak quietly, lest his news, which might
be alarming, should reach the ears of mademoiselle through her
chamber window.
"I had a talk with one of his men," said Frojac, "an old comrade of mine,
who did not guess that I was of your troop. I told him that I had given
up righting and settled down as a poacher. He says that it is well known
to the governor's soldiers that the governor has come south to catch you.
He declares that the governor knows the exact location of your
hiding-place."
"Soldiers' gabble," said I.
"But my old comrade is no fool," went on Frojac. "I pretended to laugh at
him for thinking that any one could find out the burrow of La Tournoire,
and as we were drinking he got angry and swore that he spoke truly. He
said that the governor had got word of your hiding-place from a boy. If
you knew my comrade, monsieur, you would know that what he says is to be
heeded. He is one who talks little, but keeps his ears and eyes open."
"Word from a boy?" I repeated, rather to myself. "Could De Berquin have
found some peasant boy and despatched him to the governor?"
"My comrade says that the boy was sent by a woman," said Frojac.
"A woman!" I cried. "If it be true, then, malediction on her! Some
covetous, spying wife of a farmer has found us out, perchance!"
"Perchance, monsieur! But, all the same, I and Maugert, who was on guard
yonder by the path, took the liberty just now of stopping the boy of
mademoiselle, your guest, as he was riding off. In advance of him rode a
woman. I had just come up the path and had stopped for a word with
Maugert. Suddenly the woman dashed by and was gone in an instant. Neither
of us had time to make up our minds whether to stop her or not, for she
came from this place, not towards it. By the time when we had decided
that we ought to have detained her, she was out of hearing. But then came
a second horse, and that we stopped. The rider was the boy Hugo."
"An unknown woman departing from our very camp!" I said, rising. "The
gypsy girl!" But at that instant the gypsy girl, Giralda, came in through
the gateway with an armful of herbs that she had been gathering just
outside the walls. She often plucked herbs after dark, as there are some
whose potency is believed to be the greater for their being uprooted at
night. "Ah, no, no, no!" I cried, repenting my unjust suspicion. "A woman
hidden at Maury! She shall be followed and caught and treated like any
cur of a papegot spy, man or woman!" I was wild with rage to think that
our hiding-place might really have been discovered, my guards eluded, the
presence of mademoiselle perhaps reported to Montignac, her safety and
ours put in immediate peril, by some one who had contrived to find
concealment under our very eyes! "And the boy Hugo riding off by night!"
I added. "Had this woman corrupted him, I wonder? Was it through him
that she obtained entrance and concealment? Where is he?"
I could at that moment have believed the most incredible things, even
that a woman had hidden herself in one of the ruined outbuildings; for
what could have been more incredible than Frojac's account of an unknown
woman riding from the chateau at the utmost speed?
"Maugert is bringing him to you," said Frojac. "I ran ahead to apprise
you of what had occurred."
"These are astounding things," I said, turning to Blaise. "Who can tell
now how much the governor knows or what he may intend? We may be attacked
at any time. And half our men away! Perhaps the governor knows that, too.
If not, this woman may tell him. We shall have to flee at once across the
mountains. Mademoiselle is now well enough to endure the journey. I must
tell her to make ready for flight."
I looked up at mademoiselle's window, and took a step towards it; but at
that moment Maugert came into the courtyard, leading Hugo, whom he held
by the arm with a grip of iron. The horse had been left outside.
"My boy, what is this?" I cried, not hiding my anger. "You would ride
away secretly, and without permission of your mistress?"
"It was my duty, when I followed to protect her," the boy said. "Mlle.
de Varion was mad, I think, to go alone at this hour."
"Mademoiselle?" I echoed, in great mystification. "Alone? Whither?"
"To Clochonne, to M. de la Chatre," was the reply.
It took away from me for a moment the very power of speech. I stared at
the boy in dumb amazement.
"Clochonne! La Chatre! Mademoiselle!" I murmured, questioningly, my
faculty of comprehension being for the instant dazed. "How do you
know, boy?"
"She said so when she left this courtyard to take horse," the boy
replied. "When I asked her whither she was bound, she said to Clochonne
to see M. de la Chatre, and she spoke of some mission, but I could not
hear the words exactly, for she was in great excitement. She then made
off, declaring she would go alone, but it was my duty, nevertheless, to
follow and guard her."
"Mademoiselle gone to Clochonne, to La Chatre," I repeated, as one
in a dream.
At that instant there came again from somewhere in the chateau the voice
of the gypsy in the song.
"False flame of woman's love!"
"The devil!" muttered Blaise. "Was De Berquin right?" And he ran into
the chateau.
"The woman who told our hiding-place!" said Frojac.
Could it be? Was she another Mademoiselle d'Arency? Had she thought that,
after De Berquin's accusation, any attempt on her part to draw me from my
men would convict her in my eyes; that indeed I might come at any moment
to believe in the treachery of which he had warned me? Had this thought
driven her to Clochonne, where she might be safe from my avenging wrath,
where also she might advise the governor to attack me at once? She had
spoken to the boy of a mission. There had, then, been a mission, and it
had to do with herself and the governor! As this horrible idea filled my
mind, I felt a kind of sinking, and as if the very earth trembled beneath
me. But then I thought of mademoiselle's sweet face, and I hurled the
dark thought from me, amazed that I could have held it for an instant.
"It is not true!" I cried, loudly. "By God, it is not true! I'll not
believe it! She has not gone! She is in her chamber yonder!" And I went
and stood beneath her window. "Mademoiselle! Come to the window! Tell us
that the boy lies or is deluded! Mademoiselle, I say!"
But no face appeared at the window--that window up to which I had looked
a few moments before while I sat on the bench, thinking that my love was
behind it.
And now Blaise came running out of the chateau. He stopped on the steps.
"She is not there," he said. "I found only the maid, wailing out prayers
to a Catholic saint!"
So she was really gone--gone! She must have left while I was
interrogating De Berquin's three henchmen in their cell or while I had
stood with Blaise in the garden, reproving him for his suspicions of her.
"And because he assailed her loyalty I killed that man!" I said aloud,
forgetful, for the time, of the presence of Blaise and Frojac, Maugert,
Hugo, and the gypsy girl. All these stood in silence, not knowing what to
do or say, awaiting some order or sign from me.
"She is a woman, monsieur!" said Blaise, gently, as if he thought to
please me by offering some excuse for her conduct, or for my having been
so deceived in her.
And then again I saw her pure, pale face, her full, moist eyes, her
slender, girlish figure. Let the evidence be what it might, it was
impossible for me to see her in my mind and conceive her to be
treacherous. There must be some other thing accounting for all these
strange circumstances. She could not be a spy, a hired traitress! A
glad thought came to me. She might have thought that her presence added
to my danger, that I would refuse to leave Maury while she continued
weak, that I might thus through her be caught, that her departure
would leave me no reason for further delay. It was a wild thought, but
it was within possibility, so I took it in and clung to it. At such a
time how does a man welcome the least surmise that agrees with his
wishes or checks his fears!
"She is a woman, monsieur!" Blaise had said, even while this thought
burst upon me.
"So much the worse for any man that dare accuse her!" I cried. "She is
the victim of some devilish seeming! My armor, Maugert! Frojac, to horse!
You and I ride at once! Blaise, marshal the men, and follow when you can,
by the forest path!"
"Ah!" cried Blaise, overjoyed. "To Guienne, to join Henri of Navarre?"
"No!" I answered. "To Clochonne, to join mademoiselle!"
Maugert obediently and hastily brought me my breast-piece, and began to
adjust it to my body. I already had my sword. Frojac had started for the
stables, but at my answer to Blaise he stopped and looked at me in
astonishment.
It was thus with me: Mademoiselle had gone. The presence that had made
Maury a paradise to me was no longer there. The place was now
intolerable. I could not exist away from mademoiselle. Where she was
not, life to me was torture. Guilty or innocent, she gave the world all
the charm it had for me. Traitress or true, she drew me to her. If she
were innocent, she imperilled herself. In any event, if she went to
Clochonne she put herself in the power of Montignac. The thought of
that was maddening to me. I must find her, whatever the risk. Perhaps I
could catch her before she reached Clochonne. If I ran into danger, I
should presently have Blaise and the men to help me out; but I could
not wait for them to arm. Every minute of delay was galling. Into what
might she fall? Whatever she be, good or bad, angel or fiend, I must
see her--see her!
Blaise stood looking at me with open mouth.
"She will prove her honesty, my life upon it!" I said.
"You are mad!" cried Blaise. "She will reach the chateau of Clochonne
long before you do!"
"Then I shall enter the chateau!" I answered, helping Maugert buckle
on my armor.
"And meet the governor and garrison!" said Blaise.
"They will rejoice to see me!"
"'Tis rushing into the lion's den, monsieur!" put in Frojac.
"Let the lion look to himself," said I, standing forth at last, all armed
and ready.
Frojac ran to get the horses.
"They would not let you see her!" cried Blaise, stubbornly standing in
my way. "You would go straight to death for nothing! My captain, you
shall not!"
And, as I started towards the stables to mount, he lay hands on me to
hold me back, and Maugert, too, caught me by one of the arms.
"Out of my way, rebels!" I cried, vehemently, struggling to free myself
from them. "I shall see her to-night though I have to beat down every
sword in France and force the very gates of hell!"
I threw them both from me so violently that neither dared touch me again.
As I stepped forward I saw on the ground at my feet the glove that
mademoiselle had given me, and which I had been caressing while sitting
alone in the courtyard. I must have dropped it on hearing Frojac's news.
I now stopped and picked it up. 'Twas all that was left with me of
mademoiselle. She had worn it, it had the form of her hand. I held it in
my fingers and looked at it. Again came the song of the gypsy:
"False flame of woman's love!"
I pressed the glove again and again to my lips, tears gushed from
my eyes, and I murmured: "Ah, mademoiselle, God grant I do not find
you false!"
Five minutes later, Frojac and I were speeding our horses over the forest
path towards Clochonne.
CHAPTER XV.
TO CLOCHONNE, AFTER MADEMOISELLE
On through the forest, on over the narrow path, the horse seeming to feel
my own impatience, his hoofs crushing the fallen twigs and the vegetation
that lay in the way, the branches of the trees striking me in forehead
and eyes, my heart on fire, my mind a turmoil, on to learn the truth, on
to see her! The moon was now overhead, and here and there it lighted up
the path. Close behind me came Frojac. I heard the footfalls and the
breathing of his horse.
Would we come up to her before she reached Clochonne? This depended on
the length of start she had. She would lose some time, perhaps, through
being less familiar with the road than we were, yet wherever the road lay
straight before her she would force her horse to its utmost, guessing
that her departure would be discovered and herself pursued.
My mind inclined this way and that as I rode. Now I saw how strong was
the evidence against her, yet I refused to be convinced by it before I
should hear what she might have to say. Now I conjured up her image
before me, and then all the evidence was naught. It was impossible that
this face, of all faces in the world, could have been a mask to conceal
falsehood and treachery, that this voice could have lied in its sweet and
sorrowful tones, that her appearance of grief could have been but a
pretence, that her seemingly unconscious signs of love could have been
simulation!
Yet had not the gypsy sung of the false flame of woman's love? It is
true, she had bade me heed these words. Would she have done so had her
own appearance of love been false? Perhaps it was this very thought, the
very improbability of a false woman's warning a man against woman's
treachery, that had made her do so, that I might the less readily on
occasion believe her false. Who can tell the resources and devices of a
subtle woman?
What? Was I doubting her? Was I believing the story? Was I, with my
closer knowledge of her, with my experience of the freaks of
circumstance, with my perception of her heart, to accept the first
apparent deduction from the few facts at hand, as blind, unthinking,
undiscriminating soldiers, Blaise and Frojac, had done? Did I not know of
what kind of woman she was? She was no Mlle. d'Arency.
Yet, who knows but that poor De Noyard had believed Mlle. d'Arency true?
Might he not, with the eyes of love, have seen in her as pure and
spotless a creature as I had seen in Mile, de Varion? Do the eyes of
love, then, deceive? Is the confidence of lovers never to be relied on?
But I must have read her heart aright. Surely her heart had spoken to
mine. Surely its voice was that of truth. Surely I knew her. Were not her
eyes to be believed. Were not truth, goodness, gentleness, love, written
on her face?
Yet, how went the gypsy's song,--the one we had heard him sing at
Godeau's inn, by the forest road?
"But, ah, the sadness of the day
When woman shows her treason!
And, oh, the price we have to pay
For joys that have their season!
Her look of love is but a mask
For plots that she is weaving.
Alas, for those who fondly bask
In smiles that are deceiving!"
Might this, then, be true of any woman? So many men had found it out. The
eyes of so many had been opened at last. Was I still a fool, had I
learned so little of women, had my experience with Mile. d'Arency taught
me only to beware of women outwardly like her, did I need a separate
lesson for each different woman on whom I might set my heart? Was it my
peculiar lot to be twice deceived in the same way?
And yet, how her eyes had moistened in dwelling on mine, how they had
dropped before my look, how she had yielded to my embrace, how she had
stood still and unresisting in my arms! No, no, they were wrong! De
Berquin had lied, Blaise and Frojac were stolid fools, capable of making
only the most obvious inference, and I was a contemptible wretch to
falter in my faith in her for an instant! She was the victim of a set of
circumstances. She had reason for her hasty departure, she would make all
clear in a few words. On, on, my horse, that I may hear those words, that
my heart may rejoice! How soon shall we come up to her? How far ahead is
she? How near to Clochonne? On! She is true, I know it. On! It may be
even for my sake that she is endangering herself. On, that I may be at
her side to shield her! On, for of late I have passed all the hours of
the day with her, all the nights near her, her presence has been the
breath of life to me, it is a new and unwonted and intolerable thing to
be away from her, and I madly thirst and hunger for the sight of her! On,
good horse!
Yet, torturing thought, how the story explained all that had seemed
strange! How it fitted so many facts! At the inn at Fleurier we had
overheard the plan suggested by Montignac for my capture, the employment
of a spy who was to find my hiding place, send word of it, then plan an
ambush for me. Then the lady had come to the inn. Perhaps she was one
who had already some kind of relations with the governor and had now come
purposely to meet him. What had passed between her and the governor we
had not overheard. It might easily have been the proposal by him, and the
acceptance by her, of the mission against me. Such a task might better be
entrusted to a woman. Catherine herself had employed women to entrap men
who would have been on their guard against men. Certain Huguenot
gentlemen had been especially susceptible to the charms of her
accomplished decoys. Then the governor and his secretary had gone, and
the latter had reappeared with De Berquin. It might really be that this
woman, whether she were Mlle. de Varion, or whether she merely took that
name in order to get my confidence without having to make the risky
pretence of being a Protestant, was desired by Montignac and yet disliked
him, and that De Berquin had been hired indeed to hold her forcibly for
the secretary after she had accomplished her mission. But her ingenuous
signs of a tender feeling for me? A device to blind me and win my trust,
and so, through me, get the confidence of my supposed friend, La
Tournoire. Her grief on the journey? Mere pretence, in order to bear out
her story and enlist my sympathy. Her periods of silence and meditation?
She was thinking out the details of her plot. Her questions about La
Tournoire? A means of learning what manner of man she would have to deal
with, and of finding out his hiding-place at a time when it would be
easiest to despatch her boy with a description of it to the governor. Her
desire to know how great was my friendship for La Tournoire? This arose
perhaps from a thought that I might be won over to her purpose, perhaps
from a fear that I might some day avenge his betrayal. The barrier that,
she said, lay between us? A pretext to get rid of me as soon as I might
be, not only useless to her, but also in the way of her designs against
La Tournoire. Her strange agitation? A mask to cover the real excitement
that one in her position must have felt. Her aspect of horror at the
disclosure that I was La Tournoire? This may have been real, coming from
a fear that she might have betrayed herself by the curiosity she had
shown about me, that the eyes of La Tournoire must be keener than those
of the light-hearted man she had taken me to be, that I had dissembled to
her as well as to De Berquin, that I had been playing with her from the
first. After she knew me to be La Tournoire, and was assured that I did
not suspect her, she no more spoke of my going from her. What was her
weakness of body at Maury but a pretext for delay, that the governor
might have time to come to Clochonne and the project of the ambush be
carried out? She had forged chains of love to hold me where she was. Her
coyness but kept those chains the stronger, her postponement of the
surrender made it the more impossible for me to leave her side. Who can
go from the woman he loves while his fate is uncertain? If she had made
no show of love, I could have left her. If she had confessed her love in
words, and promised to be my own, I could have endured to leave her for a
time. How well she knew men! How well she had maintained just that
appearance which kept my thoughts on her night and day, which made me
unwilling to lose sight of her, and which would have made me instantly
responsive to any summons that she might have sent me from any part of
the forest!
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