The Path of the King Part 14

The crowd was held back by mounted men who made a ring around the gate of a high dark building. Inside its courtyard there were cries and the rumour of fighting, but out in the street there was silence. Every eye was turned to the archway, which was bright as day with the glare of fifty lanterns.

The two rode straight to the ring of soldiers.

"Make way," Gaspard commanded, speaking with a foreign accent.

"For whom, monsieur?" one asked who seemed to be of a higher standing than the rest.

"For the Amba.s.sador of the King of Spain."

The man touched his bonnet and opened up a road by striking the adjacent horses with the flat of his sword, and the two rode into the ring so that they faced the archway. They could see a little way inside the courtyard, where the light gleamed on armour. The men there were no rabble, but Guise's Swiss.

A priest came out, wearing the Jacobin habit, one of those preaching friars who had been fevering the blood of Paris. The crowd behind the men-at-arms knew him, for even in its absorption it sent up shouts of greeting. He flitted like a bat towards Gaspard and Champernoun and peered up at them. His face was lean and wolfish, with cruel arrogant eyes.

"Hail, father!" said Gaspard in Spanish. "How goes the good work?"

He replied in the same tongue. "Bravely, my children. But this is but the beginning. Are you girt and ready for the harvesting?"

"We are ready," said Gaspard. His voice shook with fury, but the Jacobin took it for enthusiasm. He held up his hand in blessing and fluttered back to the archway.

From inside the courtyard came the sound of something falling, and then a great shout. The mob had jumped to a conclusion. "That is the end of old Toothpick," a voice cried, using the Admiral's nickname. There was a wild surge round the hors.e.m.e.n, but the ring held. A body of soldiers poured out of the gate, with blood on their bare swords. Among them was one tall fellow all in armour, with a broken plume on his bonnet. His face was torn and disfigured and he was laughing horribly. The Jacobin rushed to embrace him, and the man dropped on his knees to receive a blessing.

"Behold our hero," the friar cried. "His good blade has rid us of the arch-heretic," and the mob took up the shout.

Gaspard was cool now. His fury had become a cold thing like a glacier.

"I know him!" he whispered to Champernoun. "He is the Italian Petrucci.

He is our first quarry."

"The second will be that d.a.m.ned friar," was the Englishman's answer.

Suddenly the ring of men-at-arms drew inward as a horseman rode out of the gate followed by half a dozen attendants. He was a tall young man, very n.o.ble to look upon, with a flushed face like a boy warm from the game of paume. His long satin coat was richly embroidered, and round his neck hung the thick gold collar of some Order. He was wiping a stain from his sleeve with a fine lawn handkerchief.

"What is that thing gilt like a chalice?" whispered Champernoun.

"Henry of Guise," said Gaspard.

The Duke caught sight of the two men in the centre of the ring. The lanterns made the whole place bright and he could see every detail of their dress and bearing. He saluted them courteously.

"We make your Grace our compliments," said Gaspard. "We are of the household of the Amba.s.sador of Spain, and could not rest indoors when great deeds were being done in the city."

The young man smiled pleasantly. There was a boyish grace in his gesture.

"You are welcome, gentlemen. I would have every good Catholic in Europe see with his own eyes the good work of this Bartholomew's day. I would ask you to ride with me, but I leave the city in pursuit of the Count of Montgomery, who is rumoured to have escaped. There will be much for you to see on this happy Sunday. But stay! You are not attended, and our streets are none too safe for strangers. Presently the Huguenots will counterfeit our white cross, and blunders may be made by the overzealous."

He unclasped the jewel which hung at the end of his chain. It was a little Agnus of gold and enamel, surmounting a lozenge-shaped shield charged with an eagle.

"Take this," he said, "and return it to me when the work is over. Show it if any man dares to question you. It is a pa.s.sport from Henry of Guise.... And now forward," he cried to his followers. "Forward for Montgomery and the Vidame."

The two looked after the splendid figure. "That bird is in fine feather," said Champernoun.

Gaspard's jaw was very grim. "Some day he will lie huddled under the a.s.sa.s.sin's knife. He will die as he has made my chief die, and his body will be cast to the dog's.... But he has given me a plan," and he spoke in his companion's ear.

The Englishman laughed. His stolidity had been slow to quicken, but his eyes were now hot and he had altogether ceased to swear.

"First let me get back to Walsingham's lodging. I have a young kinsman there, they call him Walter Raleigh, who would dearly love this venture."

"Tut, man, be serious. We play a desperate game, and there is no place for boys in it. We have Guise's jewel, and by the living G.o.d we will use it. My mark is Petrucci."

"And the priest," said Champernoun.

The crowd in the Rue de Bethisy was thinning, as bands of soldiers, each with its tail of rabble, moved off to draw other coverts. There was fighting still in many houses, and on the roof-tops as the pale dawn spread could be seen the hunt for fugitives. Torches and lanterns still flickered obscenely, and the blood in the gutters shone sometimes golden in their glare and sometimes spread drab and horrid in the waxing daylight.

The Jacobin stood at their elbow. "Follow me, my lords of Spain," he cried. "No friends of G.o.d and the Duke dare be idle this happy morn.

Follow, and I will show you wonders."

He led them east to where a broader street ran to the river.

"Somewhere here lies Teligny," he croaked. "Once he is dead the second head is lopped from the dragon of Babylon. Oh that G.o.d would show us where Conde and Navarre are hid, for without them our task is incomplete."

There was a great crowd about the door of one house, and into it the Jacobin fought his way with prayers and threats. Some Huguenot--Teligny it might be--was cornered there, but in the narrow place only a few could join in the hunt, and the hunters, not to be impeded by the mult.i.tude, presently set a guard at the street door. The mob below was already drunk with blood, and found waiting intolerable; but it had no leader and foamed aimlessly about the causeway. There were women in it with flying hair like Maenads, who shrilled obscenities, and drunken butchers and watermen and grooms who had started out for loot and ended in sheer l.u.s.t of slaying, and dozens of broken desperadoes and led-captains who looked on the day as their carnival. But to the mob had come one of those moments of indecision when it halted and eddied like a whirlpool.

Suddenly in its midst appeared two tall hors.e.m.e.n.

"Men of Paris," cried Gaspard with that masterful voice which is born of the deep seas. "You see this jewel. It was given me an hour back by Henry of Guise."

A ruffian examined it. "Ay," he murmured with reverence, "it is our Duke's. I saw it on his breast before Coligny's house."

The mob was all ears. "I have the Duke's command," Gaspard went on. "He pursues Montgomery and the Vidame of Chartres. Coligny is dead. Teligny in there is about to die. But where are all the others? Where is La Rochefoucault? Where is Rosny? Where is Grammont? Where, above all, are the young Conde and the King of Navarre?"

The names set the rabble howling. Every eye was on the speaker.

Gaspard commanded silence. "I will tell you. The Huguenots are cunning as foxes. They planned this very day to seize the King and make themselves masters of France. They have copied your badge," and he glanced towards his left arm. "Thousands of them are waiting for revenge, and before it is full day they will be on you. You will not know them, you will take them for your friends, and you will have your throats cut before you find out your error."

A crowd may be wolves one moment and chickens the next, for cruelty and fear are cousins. A shiver of apprehension went through the soberer part. One drunkard who shouted was clubbed on the head by his neighbour.

Gaspard saw his chance.

"My word to you--the Duke's word--is to forestall this devilry. Follow me, and strike down every band of white-badged Huguenots. For among them be sure is the cub of Navarre."

It was the leadership which the masterless men wanted. Fifty swords were raised, and a shout went up which shook the windows of that lodging where even now Teligny was being done to death. With the two hors.e.m.e.n at their head the rabble poured westwards towards the Rue d'Arbre Sec and the Louvre, for there in the vicinity of the Palace were the likeliest coverts.

"Now Heaven send us Petrucci," said Gaspard. "Would that the Little Man had been alive and with us! This would have been a ruse after his own heart."

"I think the great Conde would have specially misliked yon monk," said the Englishman.

"Patience, Gawain. One foe at a time. My heart tells me that you will get your priest."

The streets, still dim in the dawn, were thickly carpeted with dead. The mob kicked and befouled the bodies, and the bravos in sheer wantonness spiked them with their swords. There were women there, and children, lying twisted on the causeway. Once a fugitive darted out of an entry, to be brought down by a butcher's axe.

"I have never seen worse in the Indies," and Champernoun shivered. "My stomach turns. For heaven's sake let us ride down this rabble!"