The Justice of the King Part 37

"With instructions, and," he paused, motioning to the open doorway behind him, then added, "means to carry them out."

"What are your instructions?"

"To arrest Monsieur Stephen La Mothe----"

"Arrest Monsieur La Mothe? Why? On what ground--on what charge?"

Sweeping the Dauphin aside Ursula de Vesc moved forward as she spoke.

The instinct of protection had given way to something very like the instinct of attack: her love for the boy was satisfied with a pa.s.sivity which could never content her love for the man.

"If I could tell you, I would," he replied courteously, "but I fear Monsieur La Mothe must ask the King that question himself. I know nothing beyond my instructions."

"Are your orders in writing?" It was Villon who spoke.

"Yes, but I do not recognize your right to see them."

"My right, then," said La Mothe, "since it is against me they are directed."

"Certainly; no doubt you can identify the writing."

"I can," answered Ursula, stretching out her hand for the paper which would have been Beaufoy's pa.s.sport to promotion but for his unlucky appet.i.te. But it was withheld in obvious hesitation.

"Remember, mademoiselle, that if it is destroyed, I still have the means behind me----"

"Oh, monsieur," she interrupted, striking at him with her tongue and finding a relief in the contempt, "it is easy to see you come from Valmy."

A sour smile crossed his face as the colour rose at the gibe, but he only shrugged his shoulders with a little outward gesture of the hands.

"Yes, we grow suspicious in Valmy. There are my instructions, mademoiselle; you will see they leave me no alternative."

"Yes, the writing is the King's throughout. 'Go to Amboise,'" she read, "'Arrest Monsieur Stephen La Mothe, and bring him to Valmy without delay. Tell him his orders are cancelled, and on your life let him hold no communication with the Dauphin.--LOUIS.'" With every sentence her voice hardened; spots of colour flecked the pallor of her cheeks, grew and deepened. "It is vile, infamous, contemptible," she said, "but it is like your King. Yes! You come from Valmy, there can be no doubt you come from Valmy. Stephen, I shall speak. Useless?

Perhaps; but I shall speak all the same. Your King has hid spies in Amboise, we know that, spies who can lie or tell the truth as it suits their master. Through them the King knows that Monsieur La Mothe has twice saved the Dauphin at the risk of his own life, and now--now!"

She paused, beating the paper with the back of her hand with a force that lent her words power and meaning, "now he is to hold no communication with the Dauphin! Monsieur La Mothe may set his own life on the hazard to save the Dauphin but he may not speak with him! That is Valmy grat.i.tude and the King's miserable, jaundiced mind. And his commission is cancelled! What that commission is I do not know, but, thank G.o.d! Monsieur La Mothe, you are freed from it, whatever it is, since it came out of Valmy."

"I thank G.o.d too," said La Mothe, his eyes meeting hers a moment and travelling behind to where the Dauphin stood hugging the wall with Diane and Lui-meme at his feet. The significance of the glance was unmistakable, and the girl paused, breathless, in the revelation. The gifts were his commission, the mask which killed Charlot was his commission, and the commission was cancelled. The King had repented, had he not repented there would be no cancellation. "Yes," repeated La Mothe, "very humbly I thank G.o.d, nor do I think the King can have heard as yet of the Dauphin's second danger. Monsieur, I am at your service; I was about to leave for Valmy to-night in any case."

"So much the better; but I regret you must go as my prisoner. You can understand that I have no option."

"I quite understand, and here is my sword. Monseigneur--no, since you permit it, Charles, my friend, I leave you in good keeping. You will have Mademoiselle de Vesc, Father John, and Villon here, to watch over you. Villon, beware of that third cast of the net. I think that is now the one great danger."

"La Mothe, La Mothe, must you go? Is there no other way? Remember Molembrais."

"What other way is possible? The King has my word, and if that were not enough there are what Monsieur de Commines would call five good reasons behind the door. Monsieur, you have my parole. Something stronger than your five reasons holds me. Good-bye, Charles, my friend----"

But somewhere in the boy's blood a dash of the Crusader's spirit he had sneered at stirred. Brushing past Ursula de Vesc he ranged himself by La Mothe's side, his coat-of-mail an undulating pool of light as when the moon shines on a falling wave pitted by the wind.

"Monsieur from Valmy, Mademoiselle de Vesc is right. You may tell my father that Monsieur La Mothe has twice saved my life and that all Amboise knows it. That he saved me may not count for much in Valmy--it may even be against him--but what all Amboise knows all France will know. I think my father will understand. Monsieur La Mothe, good-bye, and when you come back we shall play our games together again. I don't think I care about the mask, but I shall not forget to be Roland.

Come, Father John, let us go and pray that Monsieur La Mothe will soon come back to us."

"Monseigneur--Charles!" cried La Mothe, taking the stretched-out hand in both his, "you are a gallant little gentleman. No; I do not think you will forget to be Roland. G.o.d save the Dauphin!"

"Thank you, Monsieur La Mothe. Monsieur from Valmy, you have my leave to go. Come, Father John." With a stiff little bow he hooked his arm into the brown sleeve of the Franciscan, and the two left the room.

"I think, monsieur," said Ursula de Vesc, "the Dauphin speaks the sentiments of us all. You have Monsieur La Mothe's parole: he will follow you in five minutes."

But how spirit drew to spirit as lip to lip in these five minutes needs not to be told. Whoso has seen love go out of life, uncertain of return, will understand. But if that morning there had been a pa.s.sing behind the veil into the holy of holies where immortal love dwelleth, then in these five minutes there was the very throbbing of the heart which beats eternal even in these earthly walls of time.

Nor was Villon drier of eye as he waited under the stars.

"He knows too much," he said; "and when a man knows too much, not even a ballad can save him."

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS

But for two happenings by the way Stephen La Mothe's ride over the route taken twenty-four hours earlier by Commines was without event.

Of these happenings one was bitter and one was sweet, and in mercy the bitter came first, leaving the sweet to comfort the end of the journey.

Once fully clear of Amboise the leader of the troop halted, and by a prearranged plan his followers gathered round them, hemming them into a circle as they had hemmed Beaufoy earlier in the day.

"Monsieur La Mothe," he said civilly, but speaking with the air of a man who had a fixed purpose, "there is a certain signet which I must demand. We who come from Valmy always say must and demand," he added, with a touch of grim humour, which was lost on La Mothe, but which Paul Beaufoy would have appreciated.

"Your instructions said nothing about a signet."

"I must have it, nevertheless. You can see for yourself that the order was written in haste, and how should I know the ring exists if the King had not told me? To be frank with you, these men do not go with us all the way to Valmy, and where would I be if, when we arrived, you played your signet against my sc.r.a.p of paper?"

"But you have my parole."

"Valmy's parole!" he said scornfully. "I mean no offence, but I can afford no risks. Come, Monsieur La Mothe, do not put me and yourself to the indignity of a search."

At the contempt in the scornful voice La Mothe started, flushing hotly in the darkness. But the memory of the deadly deceit practised on his own faith was too recent, and he controlled himself. How could he blame a stranger for judging the servant by the master?

"The ring came from the King and should go back to the King. On your honour, is this part of your duty?"

"My most solemn duty, as G.o.d is above us; without the signet I cannot fulfil all that has been laid upon me"--which was true in a sense. The order stolen from Beaufoy might gain him entrance to Valmy, but without the signet he could not count on forcing a way to Louis himself.

"On compulsion, then," said La Mothe, giving up the signet, and thenceforward they rode in silence, not pressing their horses unduly; but it vexed him to think that Louis would not trust him to return the ring.

If Stephen La Mothe was sick at heart, who could blame him or charge it to the discredit of his courage? The rough lesson had been roughly taught that it is better to tramp the road of life afoot and one's own master than to ride a-horseback under compulsion. He had learned, too, that on the tree of knowledge of the ways of men are many fruits which pucker the mouth, as well as those which gladden the spirit. As to the ways of women, that is an altogether different book--a serial, let us say, but in how many numbers?

Of these ways La Mothe learned one before the sun of a new day had risen. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of the auberge where Paul Beaufoy had purchased breakfast at a cost greater than an empty purse, the troopers were dismissed after a brief conference, from which La Mothe was excluded, and the two rode on alone. Each was preoccupied and neither spoke. Knowing the relationship which existed between Valmy and Amboise there seemed to La Mothe nothing strange in the procedure followed both at the Chateau and afterwards. If the King suspected he had joined the camp of the Dauphin, then arrest might have been resisted; but once upon the road, and his parole pa.s.sed, there was no further need for force. The King who kept no faith was shrewd to know when he could trust the faith of others, and the troopers doubtless were required elsewhere. The truth was they followed at a distance, in order to cover and aid Molembrais' flight in the desperate possibility of his escape from Valmy.

Unconsciously following the precedent set by Commines, they drew rein while it was yet dark. Daylight, both knew, would show Valmy in the distance. But as they crawled at a foot's pace in the yet darker shadow of a dense pine-wood edging the highway, the east a sullen grey ribbed by a narrow cloud poised upon the horizon like an inverted giant monolith, there sounded behind them the remote pad, pad of rapid hoofs m.u.f.fled by dust. It was the very dead hour of night, when even nature is steeped in the quiet of a child's sleep, and the rhythmic beat broke the stillness like the throbbing of a heart.

"This way and be silent."

La Mothe felt rather than saw his bridle caught, wrenching his horse backward into a gloom so heavy that those behind them would have pa.s.sed them by but that Grey Roland, chafing at the pressure on the bit, tossed his head and set the cheek-chains jangling. Instantly the foremost rider checked, and a voice called out of the darkness, "Who is there? Stephen! Stephen!" It was Ursula de Vesc. With a touch of the spur La Mothe drove Grey Roland forward, dragging the rein from the hand which held it.