The Justice of the King Part 14

Bertrand had a long start, but on Grey Roland's back was a rider who in his horsemanship had learned not only how to save his beast, so that no ounce of strength might be unduly hurried to waste, but who also knew how to compel into immediate energy all that reserve force which endures the trials of a long day's march.

Bareheaded--his hat was in his hand as he jested with Ursula de Vesc, and in the stress of the surprise he had flung it aside--La Mothe crouched low in the saddle, the reins gathered into his left hand so that he and Grey Roland alike were just conscious of the bit in the sensitive mouth. For the moment, with that tense grip of the knees, they were as one flesh; the need was they should be of one spirit.

With a quiet word La Mothe soothed the excitement which might have plunged them both to sudden destruction on the rounded cobbles of the paved streets, but once the gates were pa.s.sed, and the dust of the high road underfoot, he loosed the light tension and pressed his heels home into the flanks. There, ahead, a shifting vision in the rising swirl of dust, was the bay, thundering at top speed. Behind there were shouts, cries, the clatter of iron shoes upon the stones, but La Mothe heard only the m.u.f.fled rhythm of galloping hoof-beats sounding through the roar of the blood swelling his temples and booming in his ears like the surf of a far-off sea. Away to the side, with a stretch of sunburnt gra.s.s between, lay the river. Let Bertrand keep to the winding road and all was well. Gallop how he might Grey Roland would wear him down, but let him swerve, let the fluttering of a bird startle him aside, and Ursula de Vesc's prophetic terrors would be justified.

As the memory of her dread flashed into his mind afresh, there swept across Stephen La Mothe one of those sudden storms of temptation which at some time or another beat into every life, even the most sheltered, and surely prove that the curse of primal sin still dwells inherent in our best humanity. "He will drown! Well, let him drown!" and in the instant of the thought, by some instinct of the brain, the loose rein was drawn in with a jerk, which forced the grey to change his stride.

Let him drown and there was an end to the tangle which made a h.e.l.l in the possible heaven of Amboise, an end to the unnatural strife of father and son, an end to the threatened rending asunder of France, who was the mistress and mother of them all, whether King, Dauphin, or p.a.w.n in the terrible game of life and death, an end to the danger which hung over the head of Ursula de Vesc. Let him drown: death would pay all debts, and the crooked would be made straight.

Gritting his teeth La Mothe drew a deep breath. With the fuller realization of the thought the sudden convulsion of his heart choked him, and while his blood buzzed the louder for the possibility, fate, chance, or what you will threw the cards in the game his way. Beyond a bend of the road a waggoner's leisurely wain plodded its way to Amboise, and next instant the clearer thunder of Bertrand's hoofs came ringing back from the harder sod which lay between the river and the road. The bay had headed for the bank where, by the same bend, the river curved to a line ahead. Death would pay all debts, and the crooked would be made straight: he would pay Commines all he owed him and there would be clean hands for them both. Clean hands? "By G.o.d!

No!" he cried, and shook the tightened rein loose. Clean hands? Saul, who consented to Stephen's death, was as red-handed as the man who hurled the first stone: what better was it to let the boy ride to his fate unaided? That way there was no cleansing of hands. To permit a preventable death was murder--murder.

Stooping lower La Mothe drove Grey Roland forward, urging him with voice and hand, "Faster, boy, faster, faster." That he had no spurs was a point against him, but drawing his dagger he laid the point against the wet flank. There was no need to draw blood, no need for goading. The generous heart of the beast understood the touch, and the splendid muscles coined their utmost strength, squandering it in a spendthrift, willing energy. They were gaining now, stride by stride they were gaining: Bertrand, the half Arab, had the greater endurance, but English Grey Roland the greater power and the stouter heart. Yes, they were gaining, and there was hope if only the Dauphin kept the saddle, and so far he had held his place like a crouched statue, stooping by instinct as La Mothe had stooped, and clinging to the long mane with both hands. He was no coward, boy though he was, and not once had looked back, nor did he now though the following hoofs must have been loud in his ears as stride by stride the grey gained on the bay, and the ten lengths of s.p.a.ce between them closed to five, to three, to one, and the glint of the river rose almost at their feet.

Then La Mothe spoke.

"Monseigneur, keep your nerve, it will be all right. When I say 'Now!'

loose your hold and try to kick your feet free from the stirrups; leave the rest to me."

The gap narrowed foot by foot: up to the girth of the bay crept the straining muzzle of the grey, the eyeb.a.l.l.s staring, the teeth bared, the nostrils wide, the foam flying with every jar of the hoof, up and up with a scant two yards of river-bank to spare upon the outer side, up and up till, leaning forward and aside with outstretched arm, La Mothe could feel the pressing of the Dauphin's back, and the hand closed in upon the ribs. "Now," he cried, his voice cracked and hoa.r.s.e. "Now, Christ help us, now, now," and gripping the boy he reined back as tightly as he dared, reined back to feel the slender boy slip from the bay's back, hang helpless in the air an instant, then fall sprawling across the saddle. On dashed the bay, and as Grey Roland staggered in his halt the bank caved under the Arab's feet; he too staggered, rearing back too late, then plunged head foremost forward.

As, dropping the reins, La Mothe caught the Dauphin in both his arms to raise him more fully upon the saddle, he was conscious for the first time that they were followed. From behind there was a shout and the noise of hoofs, and looking across his shoulder he saw Hugues mounted on the roan riding recklessly. Beyond him the rest of the escort tailed off almost to the city gate, with Ursula de Vesc framed by the grey arch, her hand upon her breast, as it had been when La Mothe first saw her, Love the Enemy, whom he so longed to make Love the more than friend. "Win the girl and you win the boy," said Villon. But what if he had won the boy, and winning him had won Ursula de Vesc, won her to friendliness, won her to kindliness, won her to trust, won her to--and Hugues thundered up breathlessly.

"Monseigneur?"

"Safe, unhurt, but I think he has fainted. Here," and lifting the lad with little effort La Mothe leaned across to Hugues and won his heart for ever by the act, "take him, you: he will be less fretted when he comes to himself. The sooner he is in mademoiselle's care the better, and I must spare Grey Roland."

"Monsieur, monsieur," stammered the valet, gathering the boy into his arms as carefully as any tender woman, "how can we thank you--how can we prove----"

"Thank Grey Roland," answered La Mothe, speaking more lightly than he felt. "I did nothing but keep my stirrups."

"Nothing?" Hugues' eyes turned to the gapped bank and followed the course of the river, void of any trace of the bay. "Then to save a king for France is nothing. But you are right, monsieur; the sooner the Dauphin is in Amboise the better."

"Was it for this you came to Amboise?" said Villon, as La Mothe, having given Grey Roland his own time to return, halted at the inn door. The crowd had been shaken off and the two were alone. "I doubt it myself, and you should have heard Saxe curse: I give you my word it was Parisian. But, as I said last night, what you do in Amboise is between you and the King, and you won't be the first man in the world who could not see beyond a pair of grey eyes."

"Come, Villon, no Paris jests."

"This was pure nature and no jest. I stood near her there in the shadow of the gate as Roland drew in to the bay on the edge of the bank, and she forgot Francois Villon, the guard, and everybody, as a woman does when her soul speaks to her heart. Not a word had she said till then, not one, but stood breathing deep breaths; there were red spots on the cheek-bones, with those little white teeth of hers hard on her lip. But when you leant aside and gripped the boy she cried--but what matters what she cried?"

"Is not friend more than family?" said La Mothe. "Tell me, my friend."

"So you would win old Villon as well as the girl? Well, here it is then--'Thank G.o.d I was wrong, oh, thank G.o.d I was wrong: G.o.d be thanked for a good man,' and the tears were tumbling down her cheeks. My friend," and Villon's voice deepened soberly, "I who am old have been young, and I tell you this, if a man has any true salt in him at all, heaven may well open for him when a woman like Ursula de Vesc calls him good with tears on her cheeks." And La Mothe had the wisdom and humble grace to answer nothing at all. It was Villon himself who broke the silence with a whistle.

"I am forgetting, fool that I am, though I think you too would have forgotten with a pair of grey eyes weeping at your elbow. What do you call this?"

From the cloth pouch which hung from his girdle he drew a small twig and handed it to La Mothe. It was spray of wild sloe cut from a thicket and trimmed to the shape of a cross, with one stiff thorn, broad based and sharp at the point as a needle, projecting at right angles from the intersection. The marks of the knife were still fresh upon it, the bark so soft and sappy that it must have been cut from the living plant within the hour. La Mothe shook his head as he turned it over on his palm.

"This? What do you call it?"

"Many things; the shadow of death for one; revenge, I think, for another; hate, and a warning certainly, unless I am a fool as well as all the hard things Monsieur d'Argenton calls me. And perhaps I am a fool, perhaps I had better have left that lying where I found it.

Almost death, that's just what it is."

"Villon, what do you mean?"

"I mean you would find just such another bit of villainous innocence under Bertrand's saddle-flap. The poor brute was driven mad by it. I picked this up where Michel's stop-gap dropped it."

"That hedge-side beggar?"

"A hedge-side beggar who carries a signet slung round his neck. His jacket opened as he stooped and the ring swung out. The hedge-side beggar boasts a crest, Monsieur La Mothe: a martlet with three mullets in chief. Now do you understand?"

"No."

"It is the crest of the Molembrais. There were two brothers, the last of their family, and Guy de Molembrais trusted our revered King--yes, I see you know the name."

Know the name? La Mothe knew it as he knew the justice of the King.

Had he not given his satire a loose rein over the safe-conduct which drew this very Guy de Molembrais to Valmy, and the swift ruthlessness which brushed aside any such feeble plea as a King's good faith? If Villon was right then this little inch or two of new-cut twig might indeed be all he said, the shadow of death, revenge, hate, and a warning against further attempts of a like kind yet to be faced. But was he right?

"Are you quite sure?"

"Quite," and Villon nodded. His face was very grave: not for an instant had he slipped into his sardonic mood of ironical jest. "And, mind you, I find it hard to blame Molembrais. He must strike how and when he can."

"Does Saxe know?"

"Better not ask. I told you he swore, but that may have been at the way you pounded his horse."

La Mothe had dismounted while they talked, and now, leaving the grey where he stood, the sweat caking on his dusty flanks, he turned to the stables. But if his intention was to charge Molembrais with his cowardly attempt on the boy's life it was baulked. At the door Michel met him, his rheumy eyes still blinking from his drunken sleep.

"Where is that fellow who took your place?"

"That's what I want to know, master. Took my place, did he? I'd place him, I would, making an old man drunk to rob him of his bread."

"Who was he?"

"No good, that's all I know. Gipsy sc.u.m! rob an old man, would he?

I'll gipsy him if I find hair or hoof of him. Lord, master, how liquor do make a man thirsty. You must ha' found it so yourself?"

CHAPTER XV

A QUESTION IN THEOLOGY

Never was the cynical philosophy of the proverb, Virtue is its own reward, made more clear than in the indifference with which Amboise greeted the rescue of the Dauphin. Of course, there are those who contend that virtue is in itself a sufficient reward, but there is certainly a second possible reading, and this reading La Mothe found true. No one said what a fine fellow he was, no one stared in admiration of his prompt.i.tude or in awe of his courage. Amboise was cold, chillingly cold.

Hugues, perhaps, was an exception, and if Villon was right Ursula de Vesc had also been deeply moved. But that, La Mothe told himself as he wandered disconsolately through the dull and gloomy corridors of the Chateau, might have been nothing more than the transitory emotion of an excited girl moved to an expression repented of when the mood cooled.

So, as lovers have done ever since this h.o.a.r world was young, he gave himself up to melancholy and found, as more than lovers have found, a satisfaction in a grievance. Then, while he fumed, three half-grown spaniel puppies, followed more sedately by a full-grown brother, came scampering around a corner, and the lover remembered he was a sportsman who loved dogs as well as little Charles himself. It was almost the sole hereditary trait in the lad, and the pa.s.sion for animals was as strong in the Dauphin as it was in the King.

Round the corner, full cry, they raced, slipped upon the smooth flags, tumbled, rolled over, and with a common impulse fell upon one another as puppies will in the sheer joy of living. But the elder dog, if he still had the heart of eighteen or younger, did not forget he was twenty-four with responsibilities and a dignity to maintain. Pa.s.sing gravely by the riot of paws and flapping ears he halted a yard away from La Mothe, pushed out a sensitive, twitching nose, sniffed the hand held out in greeting and as gravely licked it. Love at first sight is not confined to humanity, and thanks to the unfailing miracle of instinct the dog makes fewer mistakes than man. Inside of two minutes he had adopted La Mothe into the very select circle of his friends.

"I have heard of you," said La Mothe, pulling the soft ears gently.