The Justice of the King Part 36

"Stephen, what does it all mean?"

But La Mothe only shook his head. Comprehension had been staggered but had recovered, and was growing to conviction as small significances, luminous and imperative in spite of their triviality, pieced themselves together in his memory. But how could he answer the question? How put in words the fear which was taking shape in his mind? It was Villon who gave her the key.

"Poison."

"Poison?" she repeated, shrinking in a natural repulsion. "Poison on a mask you gave the Dauphin? Stephen, how could that be? But you must answer, you must tell us," she insisted as he shook his head for the second time, "you must, you must!"

"I cannot." He spoke curtly, harshly, but the determination was unmistakable. Twice he repeated it. "I cannot, I cannot."

"But, Stephen----"

"Ursula, you don't doubt me? You don't think--you can't think I knew?

You can't think I planned this--this----" He faltered as his eyes turned upon the limp body he still carried in his hands. He had pa.s.sed his word to the King to be silent, and even if he spoke, the truth would only add horror to horrors. "Ursula--beloved!" Laying Charlot on the table he held out his hands in appeal, to have them caught in both hers, and he himself drawn into her arms.

"Doubt you? No, Stephen, no, no; I trust you utterly--utterly. And cannot you trust me? We have the boy to think of--the Dauphin--he must be protected. But for Charlot he--he--oh! I cannot say it. Stephen, don't you see? don't you understand? How can we guard him in the dark?

The mask, Stephen: whose was it? where did it come from? Tell me for the boy's sake."

"I cannot, Ursula. Dearest heart, I cannot."

Lifting from the table the napkin in which the mask had been wrapped, Villon shook it out, holding it up much as La Mothe had held the coat-of-mail. Then he threw it on the table, spreading it flat.

"Fleur-de-lys," he said, his finger on the woven pattern.

"Fleur-de-lys and--Stephen, you came from Valmy? Oh! My G.o.d! My G.o.d!

I understand it all. So that is why you are in Amboise?"

Villon nodded gravely. Temperamentally he was the most emotional of the three, and the tragedy in little, which so nearly had been a tragedy in great, had so shaken his nerve that he controlled his tongue with difficulty.

"Yes," he said slowly, "that is why he is in Amboise, and he never knew it. There were two arrows on the string, Saxe and this. And it might have been me." He turned to La Mothe. "You saved me; but for you it would have been me."

But La Mothe gave him no answer. For the moment it seemed as if he had forgotten Villon's existence altogether. His arms were round the girl, one hand mechanically stroking her shoulder to quiet her fears, lover fashion, and comfort her with his nearness. But his thoughts were in Valmy, a thin, tired voice whispering in his ears, a white face whose eyes smouldered fire looking into his. With a shiver he roused himself.

"Yes, I came from Valmy, and I must go back to Valmy; I must go this very night. Saxe used to keep a horse always ready," he ended, with the bitterness of shame in his voice.

"Stephen, was it for this?"

"I suppose so. But I must go to Valmy to-night. As to the Dauphin, when I return----"

"When you return!" echoed Villon drearily. "Did Molembrais return?

Saxe knew too much, and Saxe is dead. You will be the next, for you know more than Saxe ever guessed at."

"Saxe dead?" said Ursula, turning to Villon in her distress. "Monsieur Villon, how did Saxe die?"

"Do not ask me, but persuade La Mothe to keep away from Valmy; let him go anywhere--anywhere, but not to Valmy. Remember Molembrais, and Monsieur La Mothe has not even a safe-conduct."

"Stephen, Stephen, for my sake! Oh, that terrible King!"

"Beloved, I must go to Valmy, my word is pledged. Help me to be strong to go; you who are so loyal and so brave, be brave now for me. Surely to be brave for another is love itself! But, Villon, the Dauphin must know nothing of what has happened. Let him be happy while he can.

Take away poor Charlot and that horrible thing, and leave me to make up a tale. Ursula, go and play with the dogs--anything that he may not see the pain on your dear face. He is coming back--listen how he laughs, poor lad! Go, Villon; go, man, go, go!"

"Blaise broke his knife-blade and never dented a link!" cried the boy, rushing in as Villon disappeared. Never had Ursula de Vesc seen him so full of a child's joyous life, a child's flood-tide of the gladness of living, and so little like the dull, unhappy, suspicion-haunted dauphin of France. "Father John says I look like a Crusader, but I would rather be Roland. Now I must wear my mask."

"Monseigneur, will you ever forgive my carelessness? but Charlot has torn it."

"Charlot? Where is Charlot?"

"Sent away in disgrace. As a punishment he is banished for a week."

"But my mask, I want my mask!"

"It is spoiled, and I must get you a new one--a better one."

"But I don't want a new one or a better one; I want this one, and I want it now! It was very careless, Monsieur La Mothe, and I am very angry with you."

"Charles! Charles!" broke in the Franciscan, "Roland would never have said that; and I am sure it was not Monsieur La Mothe's fault."

For a moment the boy turned upon the priest in a child's gust of pa.s.sion at the interruption, his face a struggle between petulance and tears. Then he tilted his chin, squaring his meagre shoulders under the coat-of-mail as he supposed Roland might have done.

"You are right, Father, though you do come from Valmy. Monsieur La Mothe, I am sorry for what I said, and do not forget you are to call me Charles. Ursula, you have been crying; is that because Charlot spoilt my mask?"

"No, Charles; but because Monsieur La Mothe must go to Valmy."

"Oh! Valmy?" he said dully. "I am never happy but somehow it is Valmy, Valmy, Valmy! I think h.e.l.l must be like Valmy."

"My son, you must not say such things."

"But what if I think them? Am I not to say what I think? And in h.e.l.l they hate, do they not? Monsieur Villon," he went on as the poet re-entered the room, "they were talking of Valmy as I pa.s.sed the stair-head. Will you go and see if my father is dead a second time?

No! stay where you are, I hear some one coming."

Hastily crossing the room, Charles cowered close to Ursula de Vesc, furtively catching at her skirts as if half ashamed of his fears and yet drawn to the comfort of a strength greater than his own. All his pride of possession and joyousness of childhood were gone, and instead of wholesome laughter the terrors of a crushed spirit looked out of his dull eyes. He was no longer Roland, but the son of Louis of France.

Laying her arm about him in the old att.i.tude of protection which had so stirred La Mothe's heart, she held him close to her, the anxiety of her watchfulness no less evident than his own. The darkness of her dread had deepened tenfold. Valmy could bring no good to Amboise, no good to Stephen La Mothe.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

THE ARREST

There was no long delay. Pa.s.sing Villon with a single, keen, scrutinizing glance, a man, a stranger to them all, entered, pausing a yard or two within the room. Four or five troopers showed behind him in the doorway, but made no attempt to cross the threshold. All were dusty, travel-stained, and with every sign of having ridden both far and fast. Their leader alone was bareheaded, his sheathed sword caught up in a gauntleted hand.

"In the King's name, Monseigneur," he said, turning to the Dauphin with a salute which halted evenly between respect and contempt. But the Dauphin only shrank closer to Ursula de Vesc and it was La Mothe who answered.

"You are from Valmy?"

"By order of the King."

"With despatches?"