Count Hannibal Part 39

"I am from the King!" he cried, throwing his voice to all parts of the crowd. "And this is his Majesty's pleasure and good will! That every man hold his hand until to-morrow on pain of death, or worse! And at noon his further pleasure will be known! Vive le Roi!"

And he covered his head again.

"Vive le Roi!" cried a number of the foremost. But their shouts were feeble and half-hearted, and were quickly drowned in a rising murmur of discontent and ill-humour, which, mingled with cries of "Is that all? Is there no more? Down with the Huguenots!" rose from all parts. Presently these cries became merged in a persistent call, which had its origin, as far as could be discovered, in the darkest corner of the square. A call for "Montsoreau! Montsoreau! Give us Montsoreau!"

With another man, or had Tavannes turned or withdrawn, or betrayed the least anxiety, words had become actions, disorder a riot; and that in the twinkling of an eye. But Count Hannibal, sitting his horse, with his handful of riders behind him, watched the crowd, as little moved by it as the Armed Knight of Notre Dame. Only once did he say a word. Then, raising his hand as before to gain a hearing--

"You ask for Montsoreau?" he thundered. "You will have Montfaucon if you do not quickly go to your homes!"

At which, and at the glare of his eye, the more timid took fright.

Feeling his gaze upon them, seeing that he had no intention of withdrawing, they began to sneak away by ones and twos. Soon others missed them and took the alarm, and followed. A moment and scores were streaming away through lanes and alleys and along the main street. At last the bolder and more turbulent found themselves a remnant. They glanced uneasily at one another and at Tavannes, took fright in their turn, and plunging into the current hastened away, raising now and then as they pa.s.sed through the streets a cry of "Vive Montsoreau!

Montsoreau!"--which was not without its menace for the morrow.

Count Hannibal waited motionless until no more than half a dozen groups remained in the open. Then he gave the word to dismount; for, so far, even the Countess and her women had kept their saddles, lest the movement which their retreat into the inn must have caused should be misread by the mob. Last of all he dismounted himself, and with lights going before him and behind, and preceded by Bigot, bearing his cloak and pistols, he escorted the Countess into the house. Not many minutes had elapsed since he had called for silence; but long before he reached the chamber looking over the square from the first floor, in which supper was being set for them, the news had flown through the length and breadth of Angers that for this night the danger was past. The hawk had come to Angers, and lo!

it was a dove.

Count Hannibal strode to one of the open windows and looked out. In the room, which was well lighted, were people of the house, going to and fro, setting out the table; to Madame, standing beside the hearth--which held its summer dressing of green boughs--while her woman held water for her to wash, the scene recalled with painful vividness the meal at which she had been present on the morning of the St. Bartholomew--the meal which had ushered in her troubles. Naturally her eyes went to her husband, her mind to the horror in which she had held him then; and with a kind of shock--perhaps because the last few minutes had shown him in a new light--she compared her old opinion of him with that which, much as she feared him, she now entertained.

This afternoon, if ever, within the last few hours, if at all, he had acted in a way to justify that horror and that opinion. He had treated her--brutally; he had insulted and threatened her, had almost struck her.

And yet--and yet Madame felt that she had moved so far from the point which she had once occupied that the old att.i.tude was hard to understand.

Hardly could she believe that it was on this man, much as she still dreaded him, that she had looked with those feelings of repulsion.

She was still gazing at him with eyes which strove to see two men in one, when he turned from the window. Absorbed in thought, she had forgotten her occupation, and stood, the towel suspended in her half-dried hands.

Before she knew what he was doing he was at her side; he bade the woman hold the bowl, and he rinsed his hands. Then he turned, and without looking at the Countess, he dried his hands on the farther end of the towel which she was still using.

She blushed faintly. A something in the act, more intimate and more familiar than had ever marked their intercourse, set her blood running strangely. When he turned away and bade Bigot unbuckle his spur-leathers, she stepped forward.

"I will do it!" she murmured, acting on a sudden and unaccountable impulse. And as she knelt, she shook her hair about her face to hide its colour.

"Nay, Madame, but you will soil your fingers!" he said coldly.

"Permit me," she muttered half coherently. And though her fingers shook, she pursued and performed her task.

When she rose he thanked her; and then the devil in the man, or the Nemesis he had provoked when he took her by force from another--the Nemesis of jealousy, drove him to spoil all.

"And for whose sake, Madame?" he added, with a jeer; "mine or M. de Tignonville's?" And with a glance between jest and earnest, he tried to read her thoughts.

She winced as if he had indeed struck her, and the hot colour fled her cheeks.

"For his sake!" she said, with a shiver of pain. "That his life may be spared!" And she stood back humbly, like a beaten dog. Though, indeed, it was for the sake of Angers, in thankfulness for the past rather than in any desperate hope of propitiating her husband, that she had done it!

Perhaps he would have withdrawn his words. But before he could answer, the host, bowing to the floor, came to announce that all was ready, and that the Provost of the City, for whom M. le Comte had sent, was in waiting below.

"Let him come up!" Tavannes answered, grave and frowning. "And see you, close the room, sirrah! My people will wait on us. Ah!" as the Provost, a burly man, with a face framed for jollity, but now pale and long, entered and approached him with many salutations. "How comes it, M. le Prevot--you are the Prevot, are you not?"

"Yes, M. le Comte."

"How comes it that so great a crowd is permitted to meet in the streets?

And that at my entrance, though I come unannounced, I find half of the city gathered together?"

The Provost stared. "Respect, M. le Comte," he said, "for His Majesty's letters, of which you are the bearer, no doubt induced some to come together."

"Who said I brought letters?"

"Who--?"

"Who said I brought letters?" Count Hannibal repeated in a strenuous voice. And he ground his chair half about and faced the astonished magistrate. "Who said I brought letters?"

"Why, my lord," the Provost stammered, "it was everywhere yesterday--"

"Yesterday?"

"Last night, at latest--that letters were coming from the King."

"By my hand?"

"By your lordship's hand--whose name is so well known here," the magistrate added, in the hope of clearing the great man's brow.

Count Hannibal laughed darkly. "My hand will be better known by-and-by,"

he said. "See you, sirrah, there is some practice here. What is this cry of Montsoreau that I hear?"

"Your lordship knows that he is His Grace's lieutenant-governor in Saumur."

"I know that, man. But is he here?"

"He was at Saumur yesterday, and 'twas rumoured three days back that he was coming here to extirpate the Huguenots. Then word came of your lordship and of His Majesty's letters, and 'twas thought that M. de Montsoreau would not come, his authority being superseded."

"I see. And now your rabble think that they would prefer M. Montsoreau.

That is it, is it?"

The magistrate shrugged his shoulders and opened his hands.

"Pigs!" he said. And having spat on the floor, he looked apologetically at the lady. "True pigs!"

"What connections has he here?" Tavannes asked.

"He is a brother of my lord the Bishop's vicar, who arrived yesterday."

"With a rout of shaven heads who have been preaching and stirring up the town!" Count Hannibal cried, his face growing red. "Speak, man; is it so? But I'll be sworn it is!"

"There has been preaching," the Provost answered reluctantly.

"Montsoreau may count his brother, then, for one. He is a fool, but with a knave behind him, and a knave who has no cause to love us! And the Castle? 'Tis held by one of M. de Montsoreau's creatures, I take it?"

"Yes, my lord."

"With what force?"

The magistrate shrugged his shoulders, and looked doubtfully at Badelon, who was keeping the door. Tavannes followed the glance with his usual impatience. "Mon Dieu, you need not look at him!" he cried. "He has sacked St. Peter's and singed the Pope's beard with a holy candle! He has been served on the knee by Cardinals; and is Turk or Jew, or monk or Huguenot as I please. And Madame"--for the Provost's astonished eyes, after resting awhile on the old soldier's iron visage, had pa.s.sed to her--"is Huguenot, so you need have no fear of her! There, speak, man,"