Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France Part 76

At last, "I bear a message," the man announced loudly and clearly, "for the lady of Vrillac. Is she present?"

"Give your message!" La Tribe replied.

"It is for her ears only."

"Do you want to enter?"

"No!" The man answered so hurriedly that more than one smiled. He had the bearing of a lay clerk of some precinct, a verger or sacristan; and after a fashion the dress of one also, for he was in dusty black and wore no sword, though he was girded with a belt. "No!" he repeated, "but if Madame will come to the gate, and speak to me----"

"Madame has other fish to fry," Carlat blurted out. "Do you think that she has naught to do but listen to messages from a gang of bandits?"

"If she does not listen she will repent it all her life!" the fellow answered hardily. "That is part of my message."

There was a pause while La Tribe considered the matter. In the end, "From whom do you come?" he asked.

"From His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor of Saumur," the envoy answered glibly, "and from my lord Bishop of Angers, him a.s.sisting by his Vicar; and from others gathered lawfully, who will as lawfully depart if their terms are accepted. Also from M. de Tignonville, a gentleman, I am told, of these parts, now in their hands and adjudged to die at sunset this day if the terms I bring be not accepted."

There was a long silence on the gate. The men looked down fixedly; not a feature of one of them moved, for no one was surprised. "Wherefore is he to die!" La Tribe asked at last.

"For good cause shown."

"Wherefore?"

"He is a Huguenot."

The minister nodded. "And the terms!" Carlat muttered.

"Ay, the terms!" La Tribe repeated, nodding afresh. "What are they?"

"They are for madame's ear only," the messenger made answer.

"Then they will not reach it!" Carlat broke forth in wrath. "So much for that! And for yourself, see you go quickly before we make a target of you!"

"Very well, I go," the envoy answered sullenly. "But----"

"But what?" La Tribe cried, gripping Carlat's shoulder to quiet him.

"But what! Say what you have to say, man! Speak out, and have done with it!"

"I will say it to her and to no other."

"Then you will not say it!" Carlat cried again. "For you will not see her. So you may go. And the black fever in your vitals."

"Ay, go!" La Tribe added more quietly.

The man turned away with a shrug of the shoulders, and moved off a dozen paces, watched by all on the gate with the same fixed attention.

But presently he paused; he returned. "Very well," he said, looking up with an ill grace. "I will do my office here, if I cannot come to her.

But I hold also a letter from M. de Tignonville, and that I can deliver to no other hands than hers!" He held it up as he spoke, a thin sc.r.a.p of greyish paper, the fly-leaf of a missal perhaps. "See!"

he continued, "and take notice! If she does not get this, and learns when it is too late that it was offered----"

"The terms," Carlat growled impatiently. "The terms! Come to them!"

"You will have them?" the man answered, nervously pa.s.sing his tongue over his lips. "You will not let me see her, or speak to her privately?"

"No."

"Then hear them. His Excellency is informed that one Hannibal de Tavannes, guilty of the detestable crime of sacrilege and of other gross crimes, has taken refuge here. He requires that the said Hannibal de Tavannes be handed to him for punishment, and, this being done before sunset this evening, he will yield to you free and uninjured the said M. de Tignonville, and will retire from the lands of Vrillac. But if you refuse"--the man pa.s.sed his eye along the line of attentive faces which fringed the battlement--"he will at sunset hang the said Tignonville on the gallows raised for Tavannes, and will harry the demesne of Vrillac to its farthest border!"

There was a long silence on the gate. Some, their gaze still fixed on him, moved their lips as if they chewed. Others looked aside, met their fellows' eyes in a pregnant glance, and slowly returned to him.

But no one spoke. At his back the flush of dawn was flooding the east, and spreading and waxing brighter. The air was growing warm; the sh.o.r.e below, from grey, was turning green. In a minute or two the sun, whose glowing marge already peeped above the low hills of France, would top the horizon.

The man, getting no answer, shifted his feet uneasily. "Well," he cried, "what answer am I to take?"

Still no one moved.

"I've done my part. Will no one give her the letter?" he cried. And he held it up. "Give me my answer, for I am going."

"Take the letter!" The words came from the rear of the group in a voice that startled all. They turned as though some one had struck them, and saw the Countess standing beside the wooden hood which covered the stairs. They guessed that she had heard all or nearly all; but the glory of the sunrise, shining full on her at that moment, lent a false warmth to her face, and life to eyes wofully and tragically set. It was not easy to say whether she had heard or not. "Take the letter," she repeated.

Carlat looked helplessly over the parapet.

"Go down!"

He cast a glance at La Tribe, but he got none in return, and he was preparing to do her bidding when a cry of dismay broke from those who still had their eyes bent downwards. The messenger, waving the letter in a last appeal, had held it too loosely; a light air, as treacherous as unexpected, had s.n.a.t.c.hed it from his hand, and bore it--even as the Countess, drawn by the cry, sprang to the parapet--fifty paces from him. A moment it floated in the air, eddying, rising, falling; then, light as thistle-down, it touched the water and began to sink.

The messenger uttered frantic lamentations, and stamped the causeway in his rage. The Countess only looked, and looked, until the rippling crest of a baby wave broke over the tiny venture, and with its freight of tidings it sank from sight.

The man, silent now, stared a moment, then shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, 'tis fortunate it was his," he cried brutally, "and not His Excellency's, or my back had suffered! And now," he added impatiently, "by your leave, what answer?"

What answer? Ah, G.o.d, what answer? The men who leant on the parapet, rude and coa.r.s.e as they were, felt the tragedy of the question and the dilemma, guessed what they meant to her, and looked everywhere save at her. What answer? Which of the two was to live? Which die--shamefully!

Which? Which?

"Tell him--to come back--an hour before sunset," she muttered.

They told him and he went; and one by one the men began to go too, and stole from the roof, leaving her standing alone, her face to the sh.o.r.e, her hands resting on the parapet. The light breeze which blew off the land stirred loose ringlets of her hair, and flattened the thin robe against her sunlit figure. So had she stood a thousand times in old days, in her youth, in her maidenhood. So in her father's time had she stood to see her lover come riding along the sands to woo her! So had she stood to welcome him on the eve of that fatal journey to Paris! Thence had others watched her go with him. The men remembered--remembered all; and one by one they stole shamefacedly away, fearing lest she should speak or turn tragic eyes on them.

True, in their pity for her was no doubt of the end, or thought of the victim who must suffer--of Tavannes. They, of Poitou, who had not been with him, knew nothing of him; they cared as little. He was a northern man, a stranger, a man of the sword, who had seized her--so they heard--by the sword. But they saw that the burden of choice was laid on her; there, in her sight and in theirs, rose the gibbet; and, clowns as they were, they discerned the tragedy of her _role_, play it as she might, and though her act gave life to her lover.

When all had retired save three or four, she turned and saw these gathered at the head of the stairs in a ring about Carlat, who was addressing them in a low eager voice. She could not catch a syllable, but a look hard, and almost cruel, flashed into her eyes as she gazed; and raising her voice she called the steward to her. "The bridge is up," she said, her tone hard, "but the gates? Are they locked?"

"Yes, Madame."

"The wicket?"

"No, not the wicket." And Carlat looked another way.

"Then go, lock it, and bring the keys to me!" she replied. "Or stay!"

Her voice grew harder, her eyes spiteful as a cat's. "Stay, and be warned that you play me no tricks! Do you hear? Do you understand? Or old as you are, and long as you have served us, I will have you thrown from this tower, with as little pity as Isabeau flung her gallants to the fishes. I am still mistress here, never more mistress than this day. Woe to you if you forget it."