The Justice of the King Part 3

"Stephen, Stephen, what do you know of June and December, love's sunshine and the cold of the snow?" he said railingly.

"Nothing at all, Uncle, and just as much as I want to know," was the answer. "But a song must have a theme or there'd be no song."

"And you think love is a better theme than the text you hold on your knee."

"Yes: for a song. If it was a tale, now, or an epic, it would be a different matter. But they are beyond me, both of them. Do you think, Uncle," and La Mothe turned over the arquebuse Commines had pointed at in jest as it lay on his lap, "this will ever be better than a curious toy? I think it is quite useless. By the time you could prime it here, set your tinder burning and touch it off there, I would have my sword through you six times over."

"Charles the Rash found it no toy in the hands of the Swiss at Morat,"

replied Commines. "But toy or no toy, put it aside while I talk to you. Stephen, my son, I fear I have done you an ill turn to-day."

"Then it is the first of your life," answered La Mothe cheerily, as he stood the weapon upright in the angle of the wall. "It would need a good many ill turns to set the balance even between us, Uncle Philip."

"No. One thoughtless act which cannot be recalled or undone may outweigh a life. And so with this. Stephen, I have commended you to the King for service."

La Mothe leaped to his feet, laying his hands on Commines' shoulders impulsively, one upon each. And if proof were needed of the relations between these two, it would be found in the spontaneous frankness of the gesture: Philip de Commines was not a man with whom to take liberties, but there stood La Mothe almost rocking the elder man in the fullness of his satisfaction.

"At last," he cried. "I have been eating my heart out for this for a week past! And you call that an ill turn?"

"Stop! Stop! Stop!" and Commines, smiling through his gravity, followed the other's gesture so that the two stood face to face, locked the one to the other at arm's length.

How like the lad was to Suzanne: a man's strong likeness of a woman's sweet face. There were the same clear expressive eyes, ready to light with laughter or darken with sympathy; the same sensitive firm mouth and squared chin, fuller and stronger as became a man and yet Suzanne's in steadfastness to the life; the same broad forehead and arched brows; the same unconscious trick of flushing in moments of excitement. Even the colour of the hair was the same, with the curious ruddy copper tint running through the brown in certain lights.

Yes; it was Suzanne's self, Suzanne whom he had loved as he had never loved Helene de Chambes, his wife these nine years past! Suzanne whom he still loved with that reverence which belongs alone to the gentle dead: Suzanne for whom even now his spirit cried out in these rare moments when it broke through the cynical, selfish crust which had hardened upon him since Suzanne died. So for Suzanne's sake he called Stephen his son, though there was no such difference in age, nor any drop of blood relationship.

"Do you know," he went on, gravely tender in the memory of the dead woman, "that a king's service brings with it a king's risks?"

"And did Monsieur de Perche call me coward when he wrote to you?"

"No; he said many things which it were better a boy should not know were said. Conceit is only too ready to take youth by the arm."

"And am I such a boy? Surely four-and-twenty----"

"Are you so old? It always comes as an astonishment when those we love are no longer children. It is then we realize how the years have pa.s.sed."

"So old, Uncle. Four-and-twenty is no boy."

"A man in years, a boy at heart. Be a boy at heart as long as you can, Stephen, for so will you keep your conscience clean before G.o.d. And yet what use has the King for a boy's service?"

"Teach the boy to be a man in thought that he may find a use for himself, Uncle; and who can do that so well as you?"

Commines let his hands fall to his sides and turned away, pacing the room with short strides. His man's thoughts were not always such as he would care to teach Stephen La Mothe.

"To the King's service every man must bring his own thought."

"And did Monsieur de Perche call me fool when he wrote to you?"

"No: but the little things of Marbahan are poor training for the greater things of Valmy, of Blois, of Plessis, of Amboise, of Paris."

"But truth and faithfulness and courage are the same everywhere, and whether at Marbahan or Valmy a man can but serve G.o.d and the King with the best wits G.o.d has given him, and that I'll do."

"Aye!" said Commines drily, "but what of that Heigh-ho song of yours?

When love knocks on one door the service of the King may get bundled out of the other."

Stephen La Mothe laughed a hearty, wholesome laugh, pleasant to hear.

There was nothing of self-consciousness in it, and no protest could have more clearly proved that the mental comment of Commines'

shrewdness had read the broken melody aright.

"That is easily settled. All His Majesty has to do is to find me a wife of seven thousand crowns a year with two or three little additions to give salt to their spending. Item, eyes which see straight; item, a mouth that's sweet for kissing; item, a temper as sweet as the mouth; item, a proper appreciation of my great merit. But, Uncle, what is the service?"

"That the King will tell you himself. And, lad, when kings talk it is a simple man's duty to listen and obey. Stephen, whatever the service may be, do it."

"Gratefully and faithfully, Uncle. Anything my honour----"

"Honour? G.o.d's name, boy, the King's honour is your honour: the King's service, no matter what it may be, is your honour. Are you, a milk-child from Marbahan, knowing nothing of the ways of men, to talk of your honour to the King?"

"Yes, but Uncle, Monsieur de Perche taught me----"

"Monsieur de Perche? Monsieur de Perche taught you many admirable truths, I don't doubt. That he might so teach you I placed you in his household seven years ago. Monsieur de Perche has taught you the use of arms, and that courtesy which next to arms goes to the making of a man. But what can a simple gentleman in the wilds of Poitou know of a king's service? and above all, of such a King? His little household with its round of petty thought was his great world, and a trial of hawks an event to be talked of for a week; but all France is the household of the King, and beyond the borders the eagles of Europe are poised to harry us. But while he lives they are afraid to swoop.

While he lives, yes, while he lives."

"But after him comes the Dauphin?"

"A child! a puling, weakling, feeble child. Stephen, as king the Dauphin spells disaster."

"He will have you to guide him, Uncle, and under you----"

But Commines silenced him with a gesture full of angry denial.

Unconsciously La Mothe had put his finger on a rankling sore.

"With the Dauphin king my career ends!" he said harshly. "He and those around him hate me as they hate his father: hate me because I am faithful to the father. And yet, Stephen, I have sometimes thought--this is for you alone--it might be that if in some crisis of his life I served the Dauphin as I served his father--but no! no! no!

Even then it is doubtful, worse than doubtful. If Charles of Orleans were king it would be different. He is no child and old enough to be grateful. Always remember, Stephen, that a child is never grateful; it forgets too soon."

"And I am a grown man, Uncle, and so never can forget."

"I know, my son," and Commines' stern eyes softened. "I told the King you were faithful, and already he trusts you as I trust you," which was rather an overstatement of the case, seeing that Louis trusted no man, not even Commines' self. "To-morrow you are to see him."

"Then I hope his service, no matter what it is, will take me out of Valmy."

"Why?"

For a moment La Mothe hesitated. The thought in his mind seemed at variance with his a.s.sertions of maturity and manhood, but he spoke it with characteristic frankness.

"Valmy frightens me."

"Why?" repeated Commines.

"Because of its silences, its coldness, its inhumanity--no, not inhumanity, its inhumanness. In Valmy no man sings; in Valmy few men laugh. When they speak they say little and their eyes are always afraid. And they are afraid; I see it, and I am growing afraid too."

"But half an hour ago you were singing?"