The Helmet of Navarre Part 32

"I am no Jacques Clement to stab and be ma.s.sacred. You cannot buy such a service of me, M. de Mayenne. If I do bravo's work for you I choose my own time and way. I brought the duke to Paris, delivered him up to you to deal with as it liked you. But you with your army at your back were afraid to kill him. You flinched and waited. You dared not shoulder the onus of his death. Then I, to help you out of your strait, planned to make his own son's the hand that should do the deed; to kill the duke and ruin his heir; to put not only St. Quentin but Mar out of your way--"

"Let us be accurate, Paul," Mayenne said. "Mar was not in my way; he was of no consequence to me. You mean, put him out of your way."

"He was in your way, too. Since he would not join the Cause he was a hindrance to it. You had as much to gain as I by his ruin."

"Something--not as much. I did not want him killed--I preferred him to Valere."

"Nor did I want him killed; so our views jibed well."

"Why not, then? Did you prefer him as your wife's lover to some other who might appear?"

"I do not intend that my wife shall have lovers," Lucas answered.

Mayenne broke into laughter.

"Nom d'un chien, where will you keep her? In the Bastille? Lorance and no lovers! Ho, ho!"

"I mean none whom she favours."

"Then why do you leave Mar alive? She adores the fellow," Mayenne said.

I had no idea whether he really thought it or only said it to annoy Lucas. At any rate it had its effect. Lucas's brows were knotted; he spoke with an effort, like a man under stress of physical pain.

"I know she loves him now, and she would love him dead; but she would not love him a parricide."

"Is that your creed? Pardieu! you don't know women. The blacker the villain the more they adore him."

"I know it is true, monsieur," Lucas said smoothly, "that you have had successes."

Mayenne started forward with half an oath, changing to a laugh.

"So it is not enough for you to possess the fair body of Lorance; you must also have her love?"

"She will love me," Lucas answered uneasily. "She must."

"It is not worth your fret," Mayenne declared. "If she did, how long would it last? _Souvent femme varie_--that is the only fixed fact about her. If Lorance loves Mar to-day, she will love some one else to-morrow, and some one else still the day after to-morrow. It is not worth while disturbing yourself about it."

"She will not love any one else," Lucas said hoa.r.s.ely.

Mayenne laughed.

"You are very young, Paul."

"She shall not love any one else! By the throne of heaven, she shall not!"

Mayenne went on laughing. If Lucas had for the moment teased him out of his equanimity, the duke had paid back the score a hundredfold. Lucas's face was seared with his pa.s.sions as with the torture-iron; he clinched his hands together, breathing hard. On my side of the door I heard a sharp little sound in the darkness; mademoiselle had gritted her teeth.

"It is a little early to sweat over the matter," Mayenne said, "since mademoiselle is not your wife nor ever likely to become so."

"You refuse her to me?" Lucas cried, livid. I thought he would leap over the table at one bound on Mayenne. It occurred to the duke to take up his dagger.

"I promise her to you when you kill me St. Quentin. And you have not killed me St. Quentin but instead come airily to tell me the scheme--my scheme--is wrecked. Pardieu! it was never my scheme. I never advocated stolen pistoles and suborned witnesses and angered nephews and deceived sons and the rest of your c.u.mbrous machinery. I would have had you stab him as he bent over his papers, and walk out of the house before they discovered him. But you had not the pluck for that; you must needs plot and replot to make some one else do your work. Now, after months of intriguing and waiting, you come to me to tell me you have failed.

Morbleu! is there any reason why I should not have you kicked into the gutter, as no true son of the valourous Le Balafre?"

Lucas's hand went to his belt again; he made one step as if to come around the table. Mayenne's angry eye was on him but he did not move; and Lucas made no more steps. Controlling himself with an effort, he said:

"It was not my fault, monsieur. No man could have laboured harder or planned better than I. I have been diligent, I have been clever. I have made my worst enemy my willing tool--I have made Monsieur's own son my cat's-paw. I have left no end loose, no contingency unprovided for--and I am ruined by a freak of fate."

"I never knew a failure yet but what the fault was fate's," Mayenne returned.

"Call it accident, then, call it the devil, call it what you like!"

Lucas cried. "I still maintain it was not my fault. Listen, monsieur."

He sat down again and began his story, striving as he talked to reconquer something of his old coolness.

"The thing was ruined by the advent of this boy, Mar's lackey I spoke of. You said he had not been here?"

"You may go to Lorance with that question," Mayenne answered; "I have something else to attend to than the intrigues of my wife's maids."

"He started hither; I thought some one would have the sense to keep him.

Mordieu! I will find from Lorance whether she saw him."

He fell silent, gnawing his lip; I could see that his thought had travelled away from the plot to the sore subject of mademoiselle's affections.

"Well," said Mayenne, sharply, "what about your boy?"

It was a moment before Lucas answered. When he did he spoke low and hurriedly, so that I could scarce catch the words. I knew it was no fear of listeners that kept his voice down--they had shouted at each other as if there was no one within a mile. I guessed that Lucas, for all his bravado, took little pride in his tale, nor felt happy about its reception. I could catch names now and then, Monsieur's, M. etienne's, Grammont's, but the hero of the tale was myself.

"You let him to the duke?" Mayenne cried presently.

At the harsh censure of his voice, Lucas's rang out with the old defiance:

"With Vigo at his back I did. Sangdieu! you have yet to make the acquaintance of St. Quentin's equery. A regiment of your lansquenets couldn't keep him out."

"Does he never take wine?" Mayenne asked, lifting his hand with shut fingers over the table and then opening them.

"That is easy to say, monsieur, sitting here in your own hotel stuffed with your soldiers. But it was not so easy to do, alone in my enemy's house, when at the least suspicion of me they had broken me on the wheel."

"That is the rub!" Mayenne cried violently. "That is the trouble with all of you. You think more of the safety of your own skins than of accomplishing your work. Mordieu! where should I be to-day--where would the Cause be--if my first care was my own peril?"

"Then that is where we differ, uncle," Lucas answered with a cold sneer.

"You are, it is well known, a patriot, toiling for the Church and the King of Spain, with never a thought for the welfare of Charles of Lorraine, Lord of Mayenne. But I, Paul of Lorraine, your humble nephew, lord of my brain and hands, freely admit that I am toiling for no one but the aforesaid Paul of Lorraine. I should find it most inconvenient to get on without a head on my shoulders, and I shall do my best to keep it there."

"You need not tell me that; I know it well enough," Mayenne answered.

"You are each for himself, none for me. At the same time, Paul, you will do well to remember that your interest is to forward my interest."

"To the full, monsieur. And I shall kill you St. Quentin yet. You need not call me coward; I am working for a dearer stake than any man in your ranks."

"Well," Mayenne rejoined, "get on with your tale."