Marguerite de Valois Part 67

"I must speak to your majesty."

"Unfortunately," said the king, approaching him, "do you not know you risk your head?"

"I know it."

"Well?"

"Well, I am here."

Henry turned slightly pale, for he knew that he shared the danger run by this rash young man. He looked anxiously about him, and stepped back a second time, no less quickly than he had done at first. He had seen the Duc d'Alencon at a window.

At once changing his manner Henry took the musket from the hands of De Mouy, standing, as we have said, sentinel, and while apparently measuring it:

"De Mouy," said he, "it is certainly not without some very strong motive that you have come to beard the lion in his den in this way?"

"No, sire, I have waited for you a week; only yesterday I heard that your majesty was to try a horse this morning, and I took my position at the gate of the Louvre."

"But how in this uniform?"

"The captain of the company is a Protestant and is one of my friends."

"Here is your musket; return to your duty of sentinel. We are watched.

As I come back I will try to say a word to you, but if I do not speak, do not stop me. Adieu."

De Mouy resumed his measured walk, and Henry advanced towards the house.

"What is that pretty little animal?" asked the Duc d'Alencon from his window.

"A horse I am going to try this morning," replied Henry.

"But that is not a horse for a man."

"Therefore it is intended for a beautiful woman."

"Take care, Henry; you are going to be indiscreet, for we shall see this beautiful woman at the hunt; and if I do not know whose knight you are, I shall at least know whose equerry you are."

"No, my lord, you will not know," said Henry, with his feigned good-humor, "for this beautiful woman cannot go out this morning; she is indisposed."

He sprang into the saddle.

"Ah, bah!" cried d'Alencon, laughing; "poor Madame de Sauve."

"Francois! Francois! it is you who are indiscreet."

"What is the matter with the beautiful Charlotte?" went on the Duc d'Alencon.

"Why," replied Henry, spurring his horse to a gallop, and making him describe a graceful curve; "why, I have no idea,--a heaviness in the head, according to what Dariole tells me. A torpor of the whole body; in short, general debility."

"And will this prevent you from joining us?" asked the duke.

"I? Why should it?" asked Henry. "You know that I dote on a hunt, and that nothing could make me miss one."

"But you will miss this one, Henry," said the duke, after he had turned and spoken for an instant with some one unnoticed by Henry, who addressed Francois from the rear of the room, "for his Majesty tells me that the hunt cannot take place."

"Bah!" said Henry, in the most disappointed tone imaginable. "Why not?"

"Very important letters from Monsieur de Nevers, it seems. There is a council among the King, the queen mother, and my brother the Duc d'Anjou."

"Ah! ah!" said Henry to himself, "could any news have come from Poland?"

Then aloud:

"In that case," he continued, "it is useless for me to run any further risk on this frost. Good-by, brother!"

Pulling up his horse in front of De Mouy:

"My friend," said he, "call one of your comrades to finish your sentinel duty for you. Help the groom ungirth my horse. Put the saddle over your head and carry it to the saddler's; there is some embroidery to be done on it, which there was not time to finish for to-day. You will bring an answer to my apartments."

De Mouy hastened to obey, for the Duc d'Alencon had disappeared from his window, and it was evident that he suspected something.

In fact, scarcely had De Mouy disappeared through the gate before the Duc d'Alencon came in sight. A real Swiss was in De Mouy's place.

D'Alencon looked carefully at the new sentinel; then turning to Henry:

"This is not the man you were talking with just now, is it, brother?"

"The other is a young man who belongs to my household and whom I had enter the Swiss guards. I have just given him a commission and he has gone to carry it out."

"Ah!" said the duke, as if this reply sufficed. "And how is Marguerite?"

"I am going to ask her, brother."

"Have you not seen her since yesterday?"

"No. I went to her about eleven o'clock last night, but Gillonne told me that she was tired and had gone to sleep."

"You will not find her in her room. She has gone out."

"Oh!" said Henry. "Very likely. She was to go to the _Convent de l'Annonciade_."

There was no way of carrying the conversation further, as Henry had seemingly made up his mind simply to answer. The two brothers-in-law therefore departed, the Duc d'Alencon to go for news, he said, the King of Navarre to return to his room.

Henry had been there scarcely five minutes when he heard a knock at the door.

"Who is it?" he asked.

"Sire," replied a voice which Henry recognized as that of De Mouy, "it is the answer from the saddler."

Henry, visibly moved, bade the young man enter and closed the door behind him.