In Kings' Byways Part 12

Laughing with an easy carelessness that struck the citizen's daughter with fresh astonishment, the stranger drew up the armchair, which was commonly held sacred to M. Toussaint's use, and threw himself into it; lazily disposing his booted feet in the glow which poured from the stove, and looking across at his companion with admiration in his bold eyes. At another time she might have been offended by the look: or she might not. Women are variable. Now her fears lest Felix should be discovered dulled her apprehension.

Yet the name of La Noue had caught her ear. She knew it well, as all France and the Low Countries knew it in those days, for the name of one of the boldest and stanchest soldiers on the Huguenot side.

"La Noue?" she murmured, misty suspicions beginning to take form in her mind.

"Yes, pretty one," he replied, laughing. "La Noue and no other. Does Bras-de-fer pa.s.s for an ogre here in Paris that you tremble so at his name? Let me----"

But whatever the proposition he was going to offer, it came to nothing.

The dull clash of the gates outside warned both of them that Nicholas Toussaint and his party had returned. A moment later a hasty tread sounded on the stairs; and an elderly man wearing a cloak burst in upon them.

His eyes swept the room while his hand still held the door; and it was clear that what he saw did not please him. He came forward stiffly, his brows knitted. But he said nothing; he seemed uncertain and embarra.s.sed.

"See!" the first comer said, looking quietly up at him, but not offering to move. "Now what do you think of your ogre? And by the rood he looks fierce enough to eat babes! There, old friend," he continued, speaking to the elder man in a different tone, "spare your lecture. This is Toussaint's daughter, and as staunch I will warrant as her father."

The old n.o.ble--he had but one arm, she saw--still looked at her with disfavour. "Girls have sweethearts, sire," he said shrewdly.

For a moment--at that word--the room seemed to go round with her. Though something more of reproach and playful defence pa.s.sed between the two men, she heard not a syllable of it. The consciousness that her lover was listening to every word, and that from this moment La Noue's life was in his hands, numbed her brain. She sat helpless, hardly aware that half a dozen men were entering, her father one of them. When a lamp was called for--it was growing dark--she did not stir: and Toussaint, who had not seen her, fetched it himself.

By the time he came back she had partly recovered her wits. She noted that her father locked the door with care before he set the lamp on the table. As its light fell on the harsh features of the men, a ray pa.s.sed between two of them, and struck her pale face. Her father saw her and stared in astonishment.

"By heaven!" he cried. "What does the wench here?" No one answered; but all turned and looked at her where she cowered back against the stove.

"Go, girl!" Toussaint cried, beside himself with pa.s.sion. "Begone! and presently I will deal with you!"

"Nay, stop!" La Noue interposed. "Your daughter knows too much. We cannot let her go thus."

"Knows too much? How?" and the citizen tossed his head like a bull balked in his charge. "What does she know?"

"His majesty----"

"Nay, let his majesty speak for himself--for once," said the man with the grey eyes; and even in her terror and confusion Madeline saw that all turned to him with a single movement. "Mistress Toussaint did but chat with La Noue and myself, during her father's absence. True, she knows us; or one of us. But if any be to blame it is I. Let her stay. I will answer for her fidelity."

"Nay, but she is a woman, sire," some one objected.

"Ay, she is, good Poulain," and Henry turned to the speaker with a singularly bright smile. "So we are safe; for there is no woman in France would betray Henry of Bourbon!"

A laugh went round. Some one mentioned the d.u.c.h.ess.

"True!" said Henry, for Henry it was, he whom the Leaguers called the Bearnais and the Politiques the King of Navarre, but whom later generations have crowned as the first of French kings--Henry the Great.

"True! I had forgotten her. I must beware of her golden scissors. We have two crowns already, and want not another of her making. But come, let us to business without farther delay. Be seated, gentlemen; be seated without ceremony: and while we consider whether our plans hold good, Mistress Toussaint--" he paused and turned, to look kindly at the terrified girl--"will play the sentry for us."

Madeline's presence within a few feet of their council-board was soon forgotten by the eager men who sat round the table. And in a sense she forgot them. She heard, it is true, their hopes and plans, of which the chief, and that which brought them together to-day, was a scheme to surprise Paris by introducing men hidden in carts laden with hay. She heard how Henry and La Noue had entered, and who had brought them in, and how it was proposed to smuggle them out again; and many details of men and means and horses; and who were loyal and who disaffected, and who might be bought over, and at what price. She even took note of the manner of each speaker as he leaned forward, and brought his face within the circle of light, marking who were known to her before, substantial citizens these, constant at ma.s.s and market; and who were strangers, men fiercer looking, thinner, haughtier, more restless, with the stamp of constant peril at the corners of their eyes, and swords some inches longer than their neighbours'.

She saw and heard all this, and more, and reasoned dully on it. But all the time her mind was paralysed by the numbing sense of one great evil awaiting her, of something with which she must presently come face to face, though her faculties had not grasped it yet. Men's lives! Ah, yes, men's lives! The girl had been bred a Huguenot. She had been taught to revere the men of the religion, the men whose names were household words; and not the weakness of the cause, not even her lover's influence, had sapped her loyalty to it.

Presently there was a stir about the table. Some of the men rose. "Then that arrangement meets your views, sire?" said La Noue.

"I think it is the better suggestion. Let it hold. I sleep to-night at my good friend Mazeau's," the king answered, turning to the person he named; "and leave to-morrow about noon by St. Martin's gate. That is understood, is it? Then let it stand so."

He did not see--none of them saw--how the girl in the shadow by the stove started; nor did they mark how the last trace of colour fled from her cheeks. She was face to face with her fate now, and knew that her own hand must work it out. The men were separating. Henry had risen and was bidding farewell to one and another; until no more than four or five beside Toussaint and La Noue remained with him. Then he prepared himself to go, and girt on his sword, talking earnestly the while. Still engaged in low converse with one of the strangers, he walked slowly, lighted by his host to the door; he had forgotten to take leave of the girl. In another minute he and they would have disappeared in the pa.s.sage, when a hoa.r.s.e sound escaped from Madeline's lips.

It was not so much a cry as a groan, but it was enough for men whose nerves were strained to the breaking point. All--at the moment they had their backs to her, their faces to the king--turned swiftly. "Ha!" Henry cried on the instant, "I had forgotten my manners. I was leaving my most faithful sentry without a word of thanks, or a keepsake by which to remember Henry of France."

She had risen, and was supporting herself--but she swayed as she stood--by the arm of the chair. Never had her lover been so dear to her; never had his faults seemed so small, his love so precious. As the king approached, the light fell on her face, on her agonized eyes, and he stopped short. "Toussaint!" he cried sharply, "your daughter is ill.

Look to her!" But it was noticeable that he laid his hand on his sword.

"Stay!" she cried, the word ringing shrilly through the room. "You are betrayed! There is some one--there!" she pointed to the closet--"who has heard--all! All! Oh, sire, mercy! mercy!"

As the last words pa.s.sed the girl's writhing lips she clutched at her throat: she seemed to fight a moment for breath, for life: then with a stifled shriek fell in a swoon to the ground.

A second's silence. Then a whistling sound as half a dozen swords were s.n.a.t.c.hed from the scabbards. The veteran La Noue sprang to the door: others ran to the windows and stood before them. Only Henry--after a swift glance at Toussaint, who, pale and astonished, leaned over his daughter--stood still, his fingers on his hilt. Another second of suspense, and before any one spoke, the cupboard door swung slowly open, and Felix Portail, pale to the lips, stood before them.

"What do you here?" cried Henry, restraining by a gesture those who would have instantly flung themselves upon the spy.

"I came to see her," Felix said. He was quite calm, but a perspiration cold as death stood on his brow, and his dilated eyes wandered from one to another. "You surprised me. Toussaint knows--that I was her sweetheart," he murmured.

"Ay, wretched man, you came to see her! And for what else?" Henry replied, his eyes, as a rule, so kindly, bent on the other in a gaze fixed and relentless.

A sudden visible quiver--as it were the agony of death--shot through Portail's frame. He opened his mouth, but for a while no sound came. His eyes sought the nearest sword with a horrid side-glance. "Kill me at once," he gasped, "before she--before----"

He never finished the sentence. With an oath the nearest Huguenot lunged at his breast, and fell back foiled by a blow from the king's hand.

"Back!" cried Henry, his eyes flashing as another sprang forward, and would have done the work. "Will you trench on the King's justice in his presence? Sheath your swords, all save the Sieur de la Noue, and the gentlemen who guard the windows!"

"He must die!" several voices cried; and two men still pressed forward viciously.

"Think, sire! Think what you do," cried La Noue himself, warning in his voice. "He has in his hand the life of every man here! And they are your men, risking all for the crown."

"True," Henry replied smiling; "but I ask no man to run a risk I will not take myself."

A murmur of dissatisfaction burst forth. Several who had sheathed, drew their swords again. "I have a wife and child!" cried one, bringing his point to the thrust. "He dies!"

"He dies!" cried another following his example. And the two pressed forward.

"He does not die!" exclaimed the King, his voice so ringing through the room that all fell back once more; fell back not so much because it was the king who spoke as in obedience to the voice which two years before had rallied the flying squadrons at Arques, and years before that had rung out hour after hour and day after day above the long street fight of Cahors. "He does not die!" repeated Henry, looking from one to another, with his chin thrust out, and his eyes glittering. "France speaks, dare any contradict. Surely, my masters, there are no traitors here!"

"Your majesty," said La Noue after a moment's pause, "commands our lives."

"Thanks, Francis," Henry replied, instantly changing his tone. "And now hear me, gentlemen. Think you that it was a light thing in this girl to give up her lover? She might have let us go to our doom, and we none the wiser! Would you take her gift and make her no requital? That were not just! That were not royal! That cannot the King of France do! And now for you, sir"--he turned with another manner to Felix, who was leaning half-fainting against the wall--"hearken to me. You shall go free. I, who this morning played the son to your dead father, I give you your life for your sweetheart's sake. For her sake be true. You shall go out alive and safe into the streets of Paris, which five minutes ago you little thought to see again. The girl you love has ransomed you: go therefore and be worthy of her. Or if I am wrong, if you still will betray me--still go! Go to be d.a.m.ned to all eternity! Go, to leave a name that shall live for centuries--and stand for treachery!"

He spoke the last words with such scorn that a murmur of applause broke out even among those stern men. He took instant advantage of it. "Now go!" he said hurriedly. "You can take the girl with you. She has but fainted. A kiss will bring her to life. Go, and, as you love, be silent."

The man took up his burden and went, trembling; still unable to speak.

But no hand was now raised to stop him.

When he had disappeared, La Noue turned to the king. "You will not now sleep at Mazeau's, sire?"

Henry rubbed his chin. "Yes; let the plan stand," he answered after a brief pause. "If he betray one, he shall betray all."

"But this is madness," La Noue urged.