The Helmet of Navarre Part 35

"Mordieu!" Mayenne exclaimed, "who foully murdered my brother?"

"The Valois."

"And his henchman, St. Quentin."

"Not so," she cried. "He was here in Paris when it happened. He was revolted at the deed."

"Did they teach you that at the convent?"

"No, but it is true. M. de St. Quentin warned my cousin Henri not to go to Blois."

"Pardieu, you think them angels, these St. Quentins."

"I think them brave and honest gentlemen, as I think you, Cousin Charles."

"That sounds ill on the lips that have but now called me villain and murderer," Mayenne returned.

"I have not called you that, monsieur; I said you had been saved from the guilt of murder, and I knew one day you would be glad."

He kept silence, eying her in a puzzled way. After a moment she went on:

"Cousin Charles, it is our lot to live in such days of blood and turmoil that we know not any other way to do but injure and kill. I think you are more hara.s.sed and troubled than any man in France. You have Henry of Navarre and the Huguenots and half the provinces to fight in the field, and your own League to combat at home. You must make favour with each of a dozen quarrelling factions, must strive and strive to placate and loyalize them all. The leaders work each for his own end, each against the others and against you; and the truth is not in one of them, and their pledges are ropes of straw. They intrigue and rebel and betray till you know not which way to turn, and you curse the day that made you head of the League."

"I do curse the day Henri was killed," Mayenne said soberly. "And that is true, Lorance. But I am head of the League, and I must do my all to lead it to success."

"But not by the path of shame!" she cried quickly. "Success never yet lay that way. Henri de Valois slew our Henri, and see how G.o.d dealt with him!"

He looked at her fixedly; I think he heeded her words less than her shining, earnest eyes. And he said at last:

"Well, you shall have your boy, Lorance."

"Ah, monsieur!"

With tears dimming the brightness of those sweet eyes she dropped on her knees before him, kissing his hand.

Lucas, since his one unlucky outburst, had said never a word but stood looking on with a ruefulness of visage that it warmed the c.o.c.kles of my heart to see.

Certes, he was in no very pleasant corner, this dear M. Paul. His mistress had heard his own lips describe his plot against the St.

Quentins; there was no possibility of lying himself clear of it. Out of his own mouth he was convicted of spycraft, treachery, and cowardly murder. And in the Hotel de Lorraine, as in the Hotel de St. Quentin, his betrayal had come about through me. I was unwitting agent in both cases; but that did not make him love me the more. Could eyes slay, I had fallen of the glance he shot me over mademoiselle's bowed head; but when she rose he said to her:

"Mademoiselle, the boy is as much my prisoner as M. le Duc's, since I got him here. But I, too, freely give him up to you."

She swept him a curtsey, silently, without looking at him. He made an eager pace nearer her.

"Lorance," he cried in a low, rapid voice, "I see I am out of your graces. Now, by Our Lady, what's life worth to me if you will not take me back again? I admit I have tried to ruin the Comte de Mar. Is that any marvel, since he is my rival with you? Last March, when I was hiding here and watched from my window the gay M. de Mar come airily in, day after day, to see and make love to you, was it any marvel that I swore to bring his proud head to the dust?"

Now she turned to him and met his gaze squarely.

"The means you employed was the marvel," she said. "If you did not approve of his visits, you had only to tell him so. He had been ready to defend to you his right to make them. But you never showed him your face; of course, had you, you could not have become his father's housemate and Judas. Oh, I blush to know that the same blood runs in your veins and mine!"

"You speak hard words, mademoiselle," Lucas returned, keeping his temper with a stern effort. "You forget that we live in France in war-time, and not in the kingdom of heaven. I was toiling for more than my own revenges. I was working at your cousin Mayenne's commands, to aid our holy cause, for the preservation of the Catholic Church and the Catholic kingdom of France."

"Your conversion is sudden, then; only an hour ago you were working for nothing and no one but Paul de Lorraine."

"Come, come, Lorance," Mayenne interposed, his caution setting him ever on the side of compromise. "Paul is no worse than the rest of us. He hates his enemies, and so do we all; he works against them to the best of his power, and so do we all. They are Kingsmen, we are Leaguers; they fight for their side, and we fight for ours. If we plot against them, they plot against us; we murder lest we be murdered. We cannot scruple over our means. Nom de dieu, mademoiselle, what do you expect? Civil war is not a dancing-school."

"Mademoiselle is right," Lucas said humbly, refusing any defence. "We have been using cowardly means, weapons unworthy of Christian gentlemen.

And I, at least, cannot plead M. le Duc's excuse that I was blinded in my zeal for the Cause. For I know and you know there is but one cause with me. I went to kill St. Quentin because I was promised you for it, as I would have gone to kill the Pope himself. This is my excuse; I did it to win you. There is no crime in G.o.d's calendar I would not commit for that."

He had possessed himself of her hand and was bending over her, burning her with his hot eyes. Ma.s.s of lies as the man was, in this last sentence I knew he spoke the truth.

She strove to free herself from him with none of the flattered pride in his declaration which he had perhaps looked for. Instead, she eyed him with positive fear, as if she saw no way of escape from his rampant desire.

"I wish rather you would practise a little virtue to win me," she said.

"So I will if you ask it," he returned, unabashed. "Lorance, I love you so there is no depth to which I could not stoop to gain you; there is no height to which I cannot rise. There is no shame so bitter, no danger so awful, that I would not face it for you. Nor is there any sacrifice I will not make to gain your good will. I hate M. de Mar above any living man because you have smiled on him; but I will let him go for your sake.

I swear to you before the figure of Our Blessed Lady there that I will drop all enmity to etienne de Mar. From this time forward I will neither move against him nor cause others to move against him in any shape or manner, so help me G.o.d!"

He dropped her hand to kiss the cross of his sword. She retreated from him, her face very pale, her breast heaving.

"You make it hard for me to know when you are speaking the truth," she said.

"May the lightning strike me if I am lying!" Lucas cried. "May my tongue rot at the root if ever I lie to you, Lorance!"

"Then I am very grateful and glad," she said gravely, and again curtsied to him.

"Yes, I give you my word for that, too, Lorance," Mayenne added. "I have no quarrel with young Mar. His father has stirred up more trouble for me than any dozen of Huguenots; I have my score to settle with St. Quentin.

But I have no quarrel with the son. I will not molest him."

"Grand'merci, monsieur," she said, sweeping him another of her graceful obeisances.

"Understand me, mademoiselle," Mayenne went on. "I pardon him, but not that he may be anything to you. That time is past. The St. Quentins are Navarre's men now, and our enemies. For your sake I will let Mar alone; but if he come near you again, I will crush him as I would a buzzing fly."

"That I understand, monsieur," she answered in a low tone. "While I live under your roof, I shall not be treacherous to you. I am a Ligueuse and he is a Kingsman, and there can be nothing between us. There shall be nothing, monsieur. I do not swear it, as Paul needs, because I have never lied to you."

She did not once look at Lucas, yet I think she saw him wince under her stab. The Duke of Mayenne was right; not even Mlle. de Montluc loved her enemies.

"You are a good girl, Lorance," Mayenne said.

"Will you let the boy go now, Cousin Charles?" she asked.

"Yes, I will let your boy go," he made answer. "But if I do this for you, I shall expect you henceforth to do my bidding."

"You have called me a good girl, cousin."

"Aye, so you are. And there is small need to look so Friday-faced about it. If I have denied you one lover, I will give you another just as good."

"Am I Friday-faced?" she said, summoning up a smile. "Then my looks belie me. For since you free this poor boy whom I was like to have ruined I take a grateful and happy heart to bed."