The White Plumes of Navarre Part 20

As for Claire Agnew, she gazed steadily into the fire, elbow on knee, her rounded chin set in the palm of her hand, and her dark curls pushing themselves in dusky confusion about her cheek. The Abbe John was the only person at all uneasy. Yet it was not the distant dubious sounds from the town which troubled him, nor yet the cries of the boatmen of St. Victor dropping down under the bridge of Vienne, the premier arch of which sprang immediately out by the gable of Dame Granier's house.

No, the Abbe John was uneasy because he wished to move his little three-legged stool nearer to the black oaken settle at the corner of which sat Claire Agnew.

The Leaguers might seize his person to make him a king--in default of better. Well, he would keep out of their way. His cousin, the Bearnais, would certainly give him a company in the best-ordered army in the world. His other yet more distant cousin, Philip of Spain, would, if he caught him, present him with a neat arrangement in yellow, with flames and devils painted in red all over it. Then, all for the glory of G.o.d, he would burn him alive because of consorting with the heretic.

Many careers were thus opening to the young man. But just at present, and, indeed, ever since he had looked at her across the dead man, stretched so starkly out among the themes and lectures on Professor Anatole's Sorbonne table, John d'Albret had felt that his true call in life was to minister to the happiness of Mistress Claire Agnew. And incidentally, in so doing, to his own.

Of this purpose, of course, Mistress Claire was profoundly unconscious.

That was why she looked so steadily at the fire, and appeared to be revolving great problems of state. But it is certain, all the same, that no one else of all that company was deceived, not even st.u.r.dy Anthony Arpajon, who so far forgot himself, being a widower and a Calvinist, as to wink behind backs at Dame Granier when she was bringing up a new armful of dried orchard prunings to help boil the pot.

"I for one would not sleep comfortably in the Duke of Guise's bed at night," said the Professor sententiously. "I spoke to-day with that brigand D'O, whose name is as short as his sword is long, also with Guast, the man who goes about with his hand on the hilt of his dagger, familiarly, as if it were a whistle to call his scent-dogs to heel. No, I thank G.o.d I am but a poor professor of the Sorbonne--and even so, displaced. Not for ten thousand shields would I sleep in the Duke's bed."

"Perhaps that is the reason," suggested Jean-aux-Choux darkly, "why he prefers so often that of his friend Monsieur de Noirmoutier. He is afraid of seeing the curtains put suddenly back and, through the mists of his last sleep, the dark faces of the a.s.sa.s.sins and the gleaming of their daggers! Yet why should either you or he be afraid--a gurgle, a sigh, and all would be over!"

A shudder moved the shoulders of Claire as she drew nearer to the blaze, and, by consequence, further from the restless encroachments of the Abbe John's three-legged stool.

"He is a brave man, though he has done such ill," she said, sighing. "I love brave men!"

The Abbe John instantly resolved to demand the captaincy of a forlorn hope from the Bearnais, and so charge single-handed upon the ramparts of Paris.

But the Professor of the Sorbonne would listen to no praise whatsoever of the Guises. "The Duke," he averred, "spins his courage out of the weakness of others. He takes the King of France for a coward. 'He does not dare slay me,' he boasts; 'I am safe in his castle as in mine own house. If Henry of Valois slew me, he would have three-quarters of his realm about his ears in a week! And what is better, he knows it!'"

"Yes," said the Abbe John, speaking for the first time, "and I heard his sister, Madame de Montpensier, say only to-day, that she and her brother Henry were going to give the King the third of the three crowns on his scutcheon. He has been King of Poland, he is King of France, and the third crown represents the heavenly crown which will soon be his.

Alternatively, she exhibits to all comers, even in the antechamber of the King, the golden scissors with which she is going to cut a tonsure for 'Brother Henry,' as she calls him--the Monk Henry of that order of the Penitents which he organised in one of his fits of piety!"

Jean-aux-Choux shook his s.h.a.ggy head like a huge water-spaniel.

"They flatter themselves, these dogs of Guise," he said; "they fill themselves with costly wine, that the flower of life pa.s.s them not by.

They hasten to crown themselves with rosebuds, ere they be withered.

'Let us leave the husks of our pleasures in every place,' they say. 'For this is our lot. We alone are the great of the earth. The earth belongeth to Lorraine, and the goodliness thereof. Before us, kings twice-born, cradled in purple, are as naught. A good man is an insult to us. Let us slay and make an end, even as we did on the Eve of Bartholomew, that we may pa.s.s in and enjoy the land'--such is their insolence--'from Dan to Beer-sheba, and from Zidon even to the sunny slopes of Engedi--lest we be too late, lest we also pa.s.s away, as in the summer sky the trace of a cloud. For the Sea of Death is beneath--the Sea of Death is beneath!' Aha, aha! The mouth of the Lord hath spoken by Guise, even as by the mouth of Balaam his a.s.s, in the strait-walled path betwixt the two vineyards, as thou comest unto Arnon!"

At the voice of the Fool turned Prophet, all sound ceased in the wide kitchen-place of good Dame Granier. Anthony Arpajon stood rapt, not daring to move hand or foot. For he believed that the word of the Lord had entered into Jean-aux-Choux, and that he was predicting the fall of the Guises.

"Verily, the b.l.o.o.d.y and deceitful man shall not live out half his days!"

he muttered.

"It were truer, perhaps, to say," the Professor interjected, "that they who take the sword shall perish by the sword, and that those who arouse in King Henry of Valois the blackness of his gall, shall perish by the sword held under the cloak--suddenly, secretly, with none to help, and with the sins of a lifetime as lead upon their souls!"

"Amen!" cried Jean-aux-Choux; "stamp on the serpent's eggs! Cut the Guisards off, root and branch----"

"Is not that only your own Saint Bartholomew turned upside down?"

demanded the Professor of Eloquence sharply. "You have read the Book of the Wisdom, I hear. I would remind you of the better way which you will find written therein. For, if prudence worketh, what is there that worketh better than she? You, who are a learned theologue, answer me that!"

"Prudence," cried the Genevan fiercely. "Have not I made myself a fool for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake? This is no time for prudence, but for fewer soft answers and more sharp swords! Ha, wait till the Bearnais comes to his own. Then there will be a day when the butchers of Paris shall cry to their shambles to fall on them and hide them. We of the Faith will track them with bloodhounds, and trap them like rats!"

"Then," retorted the Professor, "if that be so, I solemnly declare that you of the Huguenots are no whit better than the Leaguers and Guisards, who are even now seeking my life. I stand in the middle way. May G.o.d (such is your cry) give you victory or give you death. Well, I am sure that victory would be the worst present He could give you, if such were the use you would make of it."

But Jean-aux-Choux, pupil of Calvin, was not to be put down.

"Have ye never read in the Psalms," he cried, "how David said that the Lord would arise in judgment to help all the meek of the earth, and how that surely even the wrath of man G.o.d would turn to His praise?"

"I have also read in the same place," retorted the Professor of Eloquence, "that 'the remainder of the wrath He will restrain.' You Huguenots are not quite of the meek of the earth. When one cheek is smitten, doth the Bearnais turn the other? I, for one, should not like to try. Nay, not even with good Master Johannus here, Doctor in Theology, late of Geneva, commonly known as Jean-aux-Choux!"

"If, indeed, you know a better way, my good Doctor of the Sorbonne,"

said Jean, "pray show it forthwith! I am open to conviction, even as was my master, John Calvin!"

"That I will," quoth the Professor; "if you will have none of prudence, then seek wisdom. Ask of G.o.d. He will not refuse you. Is it not written in the Book that 'Wisdom, the worker of all things, hath taught me? For in her is the spirit of understanding--holy, only begotten, manifold, subtle, clear, undefined, loving the good and doing it, courteous, stable, sure, without care, having all power, yet circ.u.mspect in all things--and so, pa.s.sing into all intellectual, pure, and subtle spirits.' So, indeed, it is written."

"Ah, that is part of your lecture on the blessings of peace," said the Abbe John, disgusted that he could arrive no nearer to the goal of his desirings. A three-legged stool makes a courser both slow and noisy.

"Eh," said the Professor, "it may be--it may be. I have often read these words with delight and, I grant you, I may have used them in another connexion."

"I have the notes of the lecture in my pocket!" said the Abbe John.

"Hum," commented Professor Anatole, looking sidelong at his pupil, "it is well to find you so attentive once in a way. At the Sorbonne the thing did not happen too often."

There was a short, uncomfortable period of silence, for the tone of the Professor of Eloquence had been somewhat rasping. He was annoyed, as perhaps John d'Albret had expected.

But he resumed again after awhile, his anger having as quickly fallen.

"I do not deny it. I am by nature a man urbane. I hold with him who said that the worst peace that ever was made is better than the best war that ever was waged. I am of Paul's faction, when he counselled 'Follow peace with all men'!"

There came a sudden loud knocking at the river-gate. A hush and an awe fell upon all. Instinctively hands drew to sword-hilts. John and Anthony leaned forward, listening intently, hardly daring to breathe. But the man who flung the door wide open was the Apostle of Peace himself--even Professor Anatole Long, Doctor of the Sorbonne.

Having done so, he found himself with his sword-stick bare in one hand, and a loaded pistol in the other.

CHAPTER XIX.

DEATH WARNINGS

D'Epernon stood at the door.

The splendid favourite of the King of France was attired in a plain, close-fitting black dress, while a cloak of the like material dropped from his shoulders. A broad-brimmed hat, high-crowned, and with a sweeping black feather, was on his head. He held out both hands.

"See, my good Professor," he began, "I am at your martial mercy. I have come without arms, clothed only with my sole innocence, into this haunt of heretics. Let me enter. I am, at least, a well-wisher of the white _panache_, and an old friend of Monsieur Anthony Arpajon there!"

The Professor of Eloquence, though in his heart he liked not the bold favourite, knew him for a keeper of his word. He stood back and let him pa.s.s within. D'Epernon carefully barred the door behind him, and with a grand salute strode masterfully into the kitchen of Dame Granier, which seemed to shrink in size at his entrance.

"Fairer waters than those we are now crossing be to us and to France!"

said the Duke, who loved a sounding phrase. There was a silence in the kitchen, all wondering what this sudden interruption might mean. "You are all strangely speechless," continued the Duke.

"We would be glad to know what is your Grace's will with us," said Jean-aux-Choux; "after that, we will speak as plain as men may!"

"You are, I take it, for the King of France so long as he may live, and for the Bearnais afterwards?"