Vayenne Part 3

"You have seen me before, then?"

"To-night when she rode across the court-yard to look at you. Ah, yes, you are the man. You were so quiet I thought they had put you elsewhere. Did I frighten you?"

"Well, you startled me, friend Jean."

The dwarf laughed a little, low chuckle, and, silently clapping his hands, stood on one foot and scratched the calf of his leg with the other.

"Ah! So I startled you, friend Spy."

"Stop! Not that word."

"I must needs call you by some name. Give me another."

"Roger Herrick."

"Friend Roger, good. It comes to my tongue easily. Let's sit, and I'll tell you who I am." And doubling his legs under him he sank cross-legged onto the floor.

"I will lean by the wall, Jean, I find it easier," said Herrick.

"Ah, there are compensations, after all, for a man like me. To know Vayenne is to know me; you can't help it. They call me an innocent; you know what that means?"

"Yes."

"But not all it means, I warrant," chuckled the dwarf. "I get pity; I am not supposed to do things like other men. Who cares where I go? In the castle, in the church, in a house where there's feasting--anywhere--I don't count. Who cares if I listen? It's only Jean; in at one ear, out at the other. No one looks to me for work, they'd sooner pay me for playing the fool, and I let 'em, I let 'em."

And somewhere in his strange, loose garments he made the coins jingle.

"So I go in and out as I will. If I curled up to sleep on the rug at the Duke's door they'd hardly trouble to disturb me, I count for such a little. Generally I sleep in the church."

"In the church?"

"Ay; in the porch. They call me the dwarf of St. Etienne. Listen!

there's its music." And he remained silent with uplifted finger until the ripple of the carillon had died away into the night. "I'm a little fellow to have so large a church to myself, as I often do at nights; and, friend Roger, I see things in St. Etienne when the moonlight sends faint, colored beams through the painted windows. There are legends and superst.i.tions about St. Etienne, and people are superst.i.tious about me, too. They believe I know things, and so I do, but not of the sort they fancy."

A strange little madman, Herrick thought, yet one with a method surely, as the unbarred window showed.

"An innocent, that's what they call me," the dwarf went on, as though he answered his companion's thought, "and though I am no more one than you are, it suits my purpose. My wisdom would get any other man into trouble."

"That loose bar, for instance," said Herrick, pointing to the window.

"Yes; but I never thought of the use I should one day put it to. It is well to have more than one hole to creep into, and few would expect to find a man lodging in the South Tower of his own free will."

"I hear it has an evil reputation," said Herrick.

"Ay; the grave's anteroom. So I chose it as a hiding-place. There are times when I like to sleep here, to be alone and think of all I hear and see. I was many nights loosening that bar."

"And why have you come to-night--to sleep here?"

"No; to plot with friend Roger," the dwarf answered promptly. "The Duke died to-night; you know that? Out of his death will come trouble for many--for the woman you saw in the court-yard a little while since. Ah! That moves you. She is beautiful, friend Roger."

"Who is she?"

"Mademoiselle Christine de Liancourt, and might be ruler in Montvilliers, but that the law denies it to a woman. There are many who would overthrow that law if she would let them, but she will make no sign. The Duke is dead; his son must reign in his stead. This son is a poor sort of fellow, a lover of books instead of a man of affairs."

"The pale scholar of Pa.s.sey," said Herrick.

"How learnt you that catch phrase?" asked the dwarf sharply.

"I overheard it to-night."

"Yes; they call him that," Jean went on slowly, "and in truth he may make us a poor Duke, but Mademoiselle de Liancourt thinks otherwise.

Count Felix--maybe you overheard him mentioned to-night?"

"I did. He would be Duke, and the old Duke wished it so."

"You have great knowledge for a casual traveller in Vayenne, friend Roger," said the dwarf with some suspicion, "but you shall explain it to me presently. Count Felix would be Duke; more, would wed with Christine de Liancourt, and she loves not either of these ideas.

To-night she rides to Pa.s.sey to carry news of the Duke's death to his son, and to bring him to Vayenne."

"A strange office for a woman to perform; stranger still that Count Felix should let her go and jeopardize his schemes," Herrick said.

"She has influence with the scholar, who has no desire to be a Duke, that is why she was determined to go. Count Felix thought it wise not to thwart her, since he would stand well in her favor, but he has arranged that an accident shall prevent the scholar ever reaching Vayenne. The escort will be attacked, and it is arranged shall be beaten, and no effort will suffice to save the life of the scholar. It is cleverly conceived, eh, friend Roger? A man who can plot so prettily will go far toward success."

"But you could have warned her," Herrick exclaimed. "Why didn't you?"

"I am an innocent. Who would believe me?"

Herrick glanced at the window.

"Of what think you, friend Roger?"

"That Mademoiselle sorely needs a swift messenger to-night."

The dwarf sprang to his feet.

"Truly, by the way one man gets in another may well leave. But stay."

And he put his hand on Herrick's arm. "I took you not for a spy when I saw you in the court-yard to-night, but how came you by your knowledge of the scholar of Pa.s.sey?"

"As I dined to-night at the Croix Verte I heard a priest talk of him."

"A narrow, hatchet-faced priest, with never a smile, and eyes that look into you without blinking?"

"The same."

"Ah, Father Bertrand has his plot, too. When he talks, friend Roger, remember how easy it is for a man to lie. Come, you shall be the swift messenger Mademoiselle needs. That is why I came to-night. See, I have brought what shall pa.s.s you easily through the streets." And he produced a priest's ca.s.sock and cloak with a hood, which he had deftly fastened round him under the folds of his smock. "I borrowed them from St. Etienne." And then, as Herrick arrayed himself in the garments, he silently clapped his hands. "You are more like a priest than most of the real ones I know," he chuckled.

"I do not know how I am to travel to Pa.s.sey, but, at least, I trust you, and there's the proof of it," said Herrick, handing the dwarf his knife.

"A little while ago you didn't know that the bar was loose in that window," said Jean, taking the weapon, "and you didn't know me.

To-morrow is as far off as next year for all a man knows of it."

"That's true."