Michel and Angele [A Ladder of Swords] Part 10

"'Tis not the custom to draw swords in secret, Lempriere of Rozel. Also my teeth are not on edge to fight you."

Lempriere had already drawn his sword, and the look of his eyes was as that of a mad bull in a ring. "You won't fight with me--you don't think Rozel your equal?" His voice was high.

Leicester's face took on a hard, cruel look. "We cannot fight among the ladies," he said quietly. Lempriere followed his glance, and saw the Duke's Daughter and another in the trees near by.

He hastily put up his sword. "When, my lord?" he asked.

"You will hear from me to-night," was the answer, and Leicester went forward hastily to meet the ladies--they had news no doubt.

Lempriere turned on his heel and walked quickly away among the trees towards the quarters where Buonespoir was in durance, which was little more severe than to keep him within the palace yard. There he found the fool and the pirate in whimsical converse.

The fool had brought a letter of inquiry and warm greeting from Angele to Buonespoir, who was laboriously inditing one in return. When Lempriere entered the pirate greeted him jovially.

"In the very pinch of time you come," he said. "You have grammar and syntax and etiquette."

"'Tis even so, Nuncio," said the fool. "Here is needed prosody potential. Exhale!"

The three put their heads together above the paper.

CHAPTER XI

"I would know your story. How came you and yours to this pa.s.s? Where were you born? Of what degree are you? And this Michel de la Foret, when came he to your feet--or you to his arms? I would know all. Begin where life began; end where you sit here at the feet of Elizabeth. This other cushion to your knees. There--now speak. We are alone."

Elizabeth pushed a velvet cushion towards Angele, where she half-knelt, half-sat on the rush-strewn floor of the great chamber. The warm light of the afternoon sun glowed through the thick-tinted gla.s.s high up, and, in the gleam, the heavy tapestries sent by an archduke, once suitor for Elizabeth's hand, emerged with dramatic distinctness, and peopled the room with silent watchers of the great Queen and the n.o.bly-born but poor and fugitive Huguenot. A splendid piece of sculpture--Eleanor, wife of Edward--given Elizabeth by another royal suitor, who had sought to be her consort through many years, caught the warm bath of gold and crimson from the clerestory and seemed alive and breathing. Against the pedestal the Queen had placed her visitor, the red cushions making vivid contrast to her white gown and black hair. In the half-kneeling, half-sitting posture, with her hands clasped before her, so to steady herself to composure, Angele looked a suppliant--and a saint. Her pure, straightforward gaze, her smooth, urbane forehead, the guilelessness that spoke in every feature, were not made worldly by the intelligence and humour reposing in the brown depths of her eyes. Not a line vexed her face or forehead. Her countenance was of a singular and almost polished smoothness, and though her gown was severely simple by comparison with silks and velvets, furs and ruffles of a gorgeous Court at its most gorgeous period, yet in it here and there were touches of exquisite fineness. The black velvet ribbon slashing her sleeves, the slight cloud-like gathering of lace at the back of her head, gave a distinguished softness to her appearance.

She was in curious contrast to the Queen, who sat upon heaped-up cushions, her rich buff and black gown a blaze of jewels, her yellow hair, now streaked with grey, roped with pearls, her hands heavy with rings, her face past its youth, past its hopefulness, however n.o.ble and impressive, past its vivid beauty. Her eyes wore ever a determined look, were persistent and vigilant, with a lurking trouble, yet flooded, too, by a quiet melancholy, like a low, insistent note that floats through an opera of pa.s.sion, romance, and tragedy; like a tone of pathos giving deep character to some splendid pageant, which praises whilst it commemorates, proclaiming conquest while the gra.s.s has not yet grown on quiet houses of the children of the sword who no more wield the sword.

Evasive, cautious, secretive, creator of her own policy, she had sacrificed her womanhood to the power she held and the State she served.

Vain, pa.s.sionate, and faithful, her heart all England and Elizabeth, the hunger for glimpses of what she had never known, and was never to know, thrust itself into her famished life; and she was wont to indulge, as now, in fancies and follow some emotional whim with a determination very like to eccentricity.

That, at this time, when great national events were forward, when conspiracies abounded, when Parliament was grimly gathering strength to compel her to marry; and her Council were as sternly pursuing their policy for the destruction of Leicester; while that very day had come news of a rising in the North and of fresh Popish plots hatched in France--that in such case, this day she should set aside all business, refuse amba.s.sadors and envoys admission, and occupy herself with two Huguenot refugees seemed incredible to the younger courtiers. To such as Cecil, however, there was clear understanding. He knew that when she seemed most inert, most impa.s.sive to turbulent occurrences, most careless of consequences, she was but waiting till, in her own mind, her plans were grown; so that she should see her end clearly ere she spoke or moved. Now, as the great minister showed himself at the door of the chamber and saw Elizabeth seated with Angele, he drew back instinctively, expectant of the upraised hand which told him he must wait. And, in truth, he was nothing loth to do so, for his news he cared little to deliver, important though it was that she should have it promptly and act upon it soon. He turned away with a feeling of relief, however, for this gossip with the Huguenot maid would no doubt interest her, give new direction to her warm sympathies, which if roused in one thing were ever more easily roused in others. He knew that a crisis was nearing in the royal relations with Leicester. In a life of devotion to her service he had seen her before in this strange mood, and he could feel that she was ready for an outburst. As he thought of De la Foret and the favour with which she had looked at him he smiled grimly, for if it meant aught it meant that it would drive Leicester to some act which would hasten his own doom; though, indeed, it might also make another path more difficult for himself, for the Parliament, for the people.

Little as Elizabeth could endure tales of love and news of marriage; little as she believed in any vows, save those made to herself; little as she was inclined to adjust the rough courses of true love, she was the surgeon to this particular business, and she had the surgeon's love of laying bare even to her own cynicism the hurt of the poor patient under her knife. Indeed, so had Angele impressed her that for once she thought she might hear the truth. Because she saw the awe in the other's face and a worshipping admiration of the great protectress of Protestantism, who had by large gifts of men and money in times past helped the Cause, she looked upon her here with kindness.

"Speak now, mistress fugitive, and I will listen," she added, as Cecil withdrew; and she made a motion to musicians in a distant gallery.

Angele's heart fluttered to her mouth, but the soft, simple music helped her, and she began with eyes bent upon the ground, her linked fingers clasping and unclasping slowly.

"I was born at Rouen, your high Majesty," she said. "My mother was a cousin of the Prince of Pa.s.sy, the great Protestant--"

"Of Pa.s.sy--ah!" said Elizabeth amazed. "Then you are Protestants indeed; and your face is no invention, but cometh honestly. No, no, 'tis no accident--G.o.d rest his soul, great Pa.s.sy!"

"She died--my mother--when I was a little child. I can but just remember her--so brightly quiet, so quick, so beautiful. In Rouen life had little motion; but now and then came stir and turmoil, for war sent its message into the old streets, and our captains and our peasants poured forth to fight for the King. Once came the King and Queen--Francis and Mary--"

Elizabeth drew herself upright with an exclamation. "Ah, you have seen her--Mary of Scots," she said sharply. "You have seen her?"

"As near as I might touch her with my hand, as near as is your high Majesty. She spoke to me--my mother's father was in her train;--as yet we had not become Huguenots, nor did we know her Majesty as now the world knows. They came, the King and Queen--and that was the beginning."

She paused, and looked shyly at Elizabeth, as though she found it hard to tell her story.

"And the beginning, it was--?" said Elizabeth, impatient and intent.

"We went to Court. The Queen called my mother into her train. But it was in no wise for our good. At Court my mother pined away--and so she died in durance."

"Wherefore in durance?"

"To what she saw she would not shut her eyes; to what she heard she would not close her soul; what was required of her she would not do."

"She would not obey the Queen?"

"She could not obey those whom the Queen favoured. Then the tyranny that broke her heart--"

The Queen interrupted her.

"In very truth, but 'tis not in France alone that Queen's favourites grasp the sceptre and speak the word. Hath a Queen a thousand eyes--can she know truth where most dissemble?"

"There was a man--he could not know there was one true woman there, who for her daughter's sake, for her desired advancement, and because she was cousin of Pa.s.sy, who urged it, lived that starved life; this man, this prince, drew round her feet snares, set pit-falls for her while my father was sent upon a mission. Steadfast she kept her soul unspotted; but it wore away her life. The Queen would not permit return to Rouen--who can tell what tale was told her by one whom she foiled? And so she stayed. In this slow, savage persecution, when she was like a bird that, thinking it is free, flieth against the window-pane and falleth back beaten, so did she stay, and none could save her. To cry out, to throw herself upon the spears, would have been ruin of herself, her husband and her child; and for these she lived."

Elizabeth's eyes had kindled. Perhaps never in her life had the life at Court been so exposed to her. The simple words, meant but to convey the story, and with no thought behind, had thrown a light on her own Court, on her own position. Adept in weaving a sinuous course in her policy, in making mazes for others to tread, the mazes which they in turn prepared had never before been traced beneath her eyes to the same vivid and ultimate effect.

"Help me, ye saints, but things are not at such a pa.s.s in this place!"

she said abruptly, but with weariness in her voice. "Yet sometimes I know not. The Court is a city by itself, walled and moated, and hath a life all its own. 'If there be found ten honest men within the city yet will I save it,' saith the Lord. By my father's head, I would not risk a finger on the hazard if this city, this Court of Elizabeth were set 'twixt the fire from Heaven and eternal peace. In truth, child, I would lay me down and die in black disgust were it not that one might come hereafter would make a very Sodom or Gomorrah of this land: and out yonder--out in all my counties, where the truth of England is among my poor burgesses, who die for the great causes which my n.o.bles profess but risk not their lives--out yonder all that they have won, and for which I have striven, would be lost.... Speak on. I have not heard so plain a tongue and so little guile these twenty years."

Angele continued, more courage in her voice. "In the midst of it all came the wave of the new faith upon my mother. And before ill could fall upon her from her foes, she died and was at rest. Then we returned to Rouen, my father and I, and there we lived in peril, but in great happiness of soul until the day of ma.s.sacre. That night in Paris we were given greatly of the mercy of G.o.d."

"You were there--you were in the ma.s.sacre at Paris?"

"In the house of the Duke of Langon, with whom was resting after a hazardous enterprise, Michel de la Foret."

"And here beginneth the second lesson," said the Queen with a smile on her lips; but there was a look of scrutiny in her eyes, and something like irony in her tone. "And I will swear by all the stars of Heaven that this Michel saved ye both. Is it not so?"

"It is even so. By his skill and bravery we found our way to safety, and in a hiding-place near to our loved Rouen watched him return from the gates of death."

"He was wounded then?"

"Seven times wounded, and with as little blood left in him as would fill a cup. But it was summer, and we were in the hills, and they brought us, our friends of Rouen, all that we had need of; and so G.o.d was with us.

"But did he save thy life, except by skill, by indirect and fortunate wisdom? Was there deadly danger upon thee? Did he beat down the sword of death?"

"He saved my life thrice directly. The wounds he carried were got by interposing his own sword 'twixt death and me."

"And that hath need of recompense?"

"My life was little worth the wounds he suffered; but I waited not until he saved it to owe it unto him. All that it is was his before he drew the sword."

"And 'tis this ye would call love betwixt ye--sweet givings and takings of looks, and soft sayings, and unchangeable and devouring faith. Is't this--and is this all?"