CHAPTER XX. OF HOW THE CHEVALIER DE CANAPLES BECAME A FRONDEUR
It wanted an hour or so to noon next day as I drove across the Pont Neuf in a closed carriage, and was borne down the Rue St. Dominique to the portals of that splendid palace, facing the Jacobins, which bears the title of the “Hôtel de Luynes,” and over the portals of which is carved the escutcheon of our house.
Michelot—in obedience to the orders I had given him—got down only to be informed that Madame la Duchesse was in the country. The lackey who was summoned did not know where the lady might be found, nor when she might return to Paris. And so I was compelled to drive back almost despairingly to the Rue St. Antoine, and there lie concealed, nursing my impatience, until my aunt should return.
Daily I sent Michelot to the Hôtel de Luynes to make the same inquiry, and to return daily with the same dispiriting reply—that there was no news of Madame la Duchesse.
In this fashion some three weeks wore themselves out, during which period I lay in my concealment, a prey to weariness unutterable. I might not venture forth save at night, unless I wore a mask; and as masks were no longer to be worn without attracting notice—as during the late king's reign—I dared not indulge the practice.
Certainly my ennui was greatly relieved by the visits of Montrésor, which grew very frequent, the lad appearing to have conceived a kindness for me; and during those three weeks our fellowship at nights over a bottle or two engendered naturally enough a friendship and an intimacy between us.
I had written to Andrea on the morrow of my return to Paris, to tell him how kindly Montrésor had dealt with me, and some ten days later the following letter was brought me by the lieutenant—to whom, for safety, it had been forwarded:
“MY VERY DEAR GASTON:
I have no words wherewith to express my joy at the good news you send me, which terminates the anxiety that has been mine since you left us on the disastrous morning of our nuptials.
The uncertainty touching your fate, the fear that the worst might have befallen you, and the realisation that I—for whom you have done so much—might do naught for you in your hour of need, has been the one cloud to mar the sunshine of my own bliss.
That cloud your letter has dispelled, and the knowledge of your safety renders my happiness complete.
The Chevalier maintains his unforgiving mood, as no doubt doth also my Lord Cardinal. But what to me are the frowns of either, so that my lady smile? My little Geneviève is yet somewhat vexed in spirit at all this, but I am teaching her to have faith in Time, the patron saint of all lovers who follow not the course their parents set them. And so that time may be allowed to intercede and appeal to the parent heart with the potent prayer of a daughter's absence, I shall take my lady from Chambord some three days hence. We shall travel by easy stages to Marseilles, and there take ship for Palermo.
And so, dear, trusty friend, until we meet again, fare you well and may God hold you safe from the wickedness of man, devil, and my Lord Cardinal.
For all that you have done for me, no words of mine can thank you, but should you determine to quit this France of yours, and journey to Palermo after me, you shall never want a roof to shelter you or a board to sit at, so long as roof and board are owned by him who signs himself, in love at least, your brother—
“ANDREA DE MANCINI.”
With a sigh I set the letter down. A sigh of love and gratitude it was; a sigh also of regret for the bright, happy boy who had been the source alike of my recent joys and sorrows, and whom methought I was not likely to see again for many a day, since the peaceful vegetation of his Sicilian home held little attraction for me, a man of action.
It was on the evening of the last Sunday in May, whilst the bell of the Jesuits, close by, was tinkling out its summons to vespers, that Montrésor burst suddenly into my room with the request that I should get my hat and cloak and go with him to pay a visit. In reply to my questions—“Monseigneur's letter to Armand de Canaples,” he said, “has borne fruit already. Come with me and you shall learn how.”
He led me past the Bastille and up the Rue des Tournelles to the door of an unpretentious house, upon which he knocked. We were admitted by an old woman to whom Montrésor appeared to be known, for, after exchanging a word or two with her, he himself led the way upstairs and opened the door of a room for me.
By the melancholy light of a single taper burning upon the table I beheld a fair-sized room containing a curtained bed.
My companion took up the candle, and stepping to the bedside, he drew apart the curtains.
Lying there I beheld a man whose countenance, despite its pallor and the bloody bandages about his brow, I recognised for that of the little spitfire Malpertuis.
As the light fell upon his face, the little fellow opened his eyes, and upon beholding me at his side he made a sudden movement which wrung from him a cry of pain.
“Lie still, Monsieur,” said Montrésor quietly.
But for all the lieutenant's remonstrances, he struggled up into a sitting posture, requesting Montrésor to set the pillows at his back.
“Thank God you are here, M. de Luynes!” he said. “I learnt at Canaples that you were not dead.”
“You have been to Canaples?”
“I was a guest of the Chevalier for twelve days. I arrived there on the day after your departure.”
“You!” I ejaculated. “Pray what took you to Canaples?”
“What took me there?” he echoed, turning his feverish eyes upon me, almost with fierceness. “The same motive that led me to join hands with that ruffian St. Auban, when he spoke of waging war against Mancini; the same motive that led me to break with him when I saw through his plans, and when the abduction of Mademoiselle was on foot; the same motive that made me come to you and tell you of the proposed abduction so that you might interfere if you had the power, or cause others to do so if you had not.”
I lay back in my chair and stared at him. Was this, then, another suitor of Yvonne de Canaples, and were all men mad with love of her?
Presently he continued:
“When I heard that St. Auban was in Paris, having apparently abandoned all hope in connection with Mademoiselle, I obtained a letter from M. de la Rochefoucauld—who is an intimate friend of mine—and armed with this I set out. As luck would have it I got embroiled in the streets of Blois with a couple of cardinalist gentlemen, who chose to be offended by lampoon of the Fronde that I was humming. I am not a patient man, and I am even indiscreet in moments of choler. I ended by crying, 'Down with Mazarin and all his creatures,' and I would of a certainty have had my throat slit, had not a slight and elegant gentleman interposed, and, exercising a wonderful influence over my assailants, extricated me from my predicament. This gentleman was the Chevalier de Canaples. He was strangely enough in a mood to be pleased by an anti-cardinalist ditty, for his rage against Andrea de Mancini—which he took no pains to conceal—had extended already to the Cardinal, and from morn till night he did little else but revile the whole Italian brood—as he chose to dub the Cardinal's family.”
I recognised the old knight's weak, vacillating character in this, a creature of moods that, like the vane on a steeple, turns this way or that, as the wind blows.
“I crave your patience, M. de Luynes,” he continued, “and beg of you to hear my story so that you may determine whether you will save the Canaples from the danger that threatens them. I only ask that you dispatch a reliable messenger to Blois. But hear me out first. In virtue as much of La Rochefoucauld's letters as of the sentiments which the Chevalier heard me express, I became the honoured guest at his château. Three days after my arrival I sustained a shock by the unexpected appearance at Canaples of St. Auban. The Chevalier, however, refused him admittance, and, baffled, the Marquis was forced to withdraw. But he went no farther than Blois, where he hired himself a room at the Lys de France. The Chevalier hated him as a mad dog hates water—almost as much as he hated you. He spoke often of you, and always bitterly.”
Before I knew what I had said—
“And Mademoiselle?” I burst out. “Did she ever mention my name?”
Malpertuis looked up quickly at the question, and a wan smile flickered round his lips.
“Once she spoke of you to me—pityingly, as one might speak of a dead man whose life had not been good.”
“Yes, yes,” I broke in. “It matters little. Your story, M. Malpertuis.”
“After I had been at the château ten days, we learnt that Eugène de Canaples had been sent to the Bastille. The news came in a letter penned by his Eminence himself—a bitter, viperish letter, with a covert threat in every line. The Chevalier's anger went white hot as he read the disappointed Cardinal's epistle. His Eminence accused Eugène of being a frondeur; M. de Canaples, whose politics had grown sadly rusted in the country, asked me the meaning of the word. I explained to him the petty squabbles between Court and Parliament, in consequence of the extortionate imposts and of Mazarin's avariciousness. I avowed myself a partisan of the Fronde, and within three days the Chevalier—who but a little time before had sought an alliance with the Cardinal's family—had become as rabid a frondeur as M. de Gondi, as fierce an anticardinalist as M. de Beaufort.
“I humoured him in his new madness, with the result that ere long from being a frondeur in heart, he thirsted to become a frondeur in deeds, and he ended by begging me to bear a letter from him to the Coadjutor of Paris, wherein he offered to place at M. de Gondi's disposal, towards the expenses of the civil war which he believed to be imminent,—as, indeed, it is,—the sum of sixty thousand livres.
“Now albeit I had gone to Canaples for purposes of my own, and not as an agent of M. le Coadjuteur's, still for many reasons I saw fit to undertake the Chevalier's commission. And so, bearing the letter in question, which was hot and unguarded, and charged with endless treasonable matter, I set out four days later for Paris, arriving here yesterday.
“I little knew that I had been followed by St. Auban. His suspicions must have been awakened, I know not how, and clearly they were confirmed when I stopped before the Coadjutor's house last night. I was about to mount the steps, when of a sudden I was seized from behind by half a dozen hands and dragged into a side street. I got free for a moment and attempted to defend myself, but besides St. Auban there were two others. They broke my sword and attempted to break my skull, in which they went perilously near succeeding, as you see. Albeit half-swooning, I had yet sufficient consciousness left to realise that my pockets were being emptied, and that at last they had torn open my doublet and withdrawn the treasonable letter from the breast of it.
“I was left bleeding in the kennel, and there I lay for nigh upon an hour until a passer-by succoured me and carried out my request to be brought hither and put to bed.”
He ceased, and for some moments there was silence, broken only by the wounded man's laboured breathing, which argued that his narrative had left him fatigued. At last I sprang up.
“The Chevalier de Canaples must be warned,” I exclaimed.
“'T is an ugly business,” muttered Montrésor. “I'll wager a hundred that Mazarin will hang the Chevalier if he catches him just now.”
“He would not dare!” cried Malpertuis.
“Not dare?” echoed the lieutenant. “The man who imprisoned the Princes of Condé and Conti, and the Duke of Beaufort, not dare hang a provincial knight with never a friend at Court! Pah, Monsieur, you do not know Cardinal Mazarin.”
I realised to the full how likely Montrésor's prophecy was to be fulfilled, and before I left Malpertuis I assured him that he had not poured his story into the ears of an indifferent listener, and that I would straightway find means of communicating with Canaples.
CHAPTER XXI. OF THE BARGAIN THAT ST. AUBAN DROVE WITH MY LORD CARDINAL
From the wounded man's bedside I wended my steps back to the Rue St. Antoine, resolved to start for Blois that very night; and beside me walked Montrésor, with bent head, like a man deep in thought.
At my door I paused to take my leave of the lieutenant, for I was in haste to have my preparations made, and to be gone. But Montrésor appeared not minded to be dismissed thus easily.
“What plan have you formed?” he asked.
“The only plan there is to form—to set out for Canaples at once.”
“Hum!” he grunted, and again was silent. Then, suddenly throwing back his head, “Par la mort Dieu!” he cried, “I care not what comes of it; I'll tell you what I know. Lead the way to your chamber, M. de Luynes, and delay your departure until you have heard me.”
Surprised as much by his words as by the tone in which he uttered them, which was that of a man who is angry with himself, I passively did as I was bidden.
Once within my little ante-chamber, he turned the key with his own hands, and pointing to the door of my bedroom—“In there, Monsieur,” quoth he, “we shall be safe from listeners.”
Deeper grew my astonishment at all this mystery, as we passed into the room beyond.
“Now, M. de Luynes,” he cried, flinging down his hat, “for no apparent reason I am about to commit treason; I am about to betray the hand that pays me.”
“If no reason exists, why do so evil a deed?” I inquired calmly. “I have learnt during our association to wish you well, Montrésor; if by telling me that which your tongue burns to tell, you shall have cause for shame, the door is yonder. Go before harm is done, and leave me alone to fight my battle out.”
He stood up, and for a moment he seemed to waver, then dismissing his doubts with an abrupt gesture, he sat down again.
“There is no wrong in what I do. Right is with you, M. de Luynes, and if I break faith with the might I serve, it is because that might is an unjust one; I do but betray the false to the true, and there can be little shame in such an act. Moreover, I have a reason—but let that be.”
He was silent for a moment, then he resumed:
“Most of that which you have learnt from Malpertuis to-night, I myself could have told you. Yes; St. Auban has carried Canaples's letter to the Cardinal already. I heard from his lips to-day—for I was present at the interview—how the document had been wrested from Malpertuis. For your sake, so that you might learn all he knew, I sought the fellow out, and having found him in the Rue des Tournelles, I took you thither.”
In a very fever of excitement I listened.
“To take up the thread of the story where Malpertuis left off, let me tell you that St. Auban sought an audience with Mazarin this morning, and by virtue of a note which he desired an usher to deliver to his Eminence, he was admitted, the first of all the clients that for hours had thronged the ante-room. As in the instance of the audience to Eugène de Canaples, so upon this occasion did it chance that the Cardinal's fears touching St. Auban's purpose had been roused, for he bade me stand behind the curtains in his cabinet.
“The Marquis spoke bluntly enough, and with rude candour he stated that since Mazarin had failed to bring the Canaples estates into his family by marriage, he came to set before his Eminence a proof so utter of Canaples's treason that it would enable him to snatch the estates by confiscation. The Cardinal may have been staggered by St. Auban's bluntness, but his avaricious instincts led him to stifle his feelings and bid the Marquis to set this proof before him. But St. Auban had a bargain to drive—a preposterous one methought. He demanded that in return for his delivering into the hands of Mazarin the person of Armand de Canaples together with an incontestable proof that the Chevalier was in league with the frondeurs, and had offered to place a large sum of money at their disposal, he was to receive as recompense the demesne of Canaples on the outskirts of Blois, together with one third of the confiscated estates. At first Mazarin gasped at his audacity, then laughed at him, whereupon St. Auban politely craved his Eminence's permission to withdraw. This the Cardinal, however, refused him, and bidding him remain, he sought to bargain with him. But the Marquis replied that he was unversed in the ways of trade and barter, and that he had no mind to enter into them. From bargaining the Cardinal passed on to threatening and from threatening to whining, and so on until the end—St. Auban preserving a firm demeanour—the comedy was played out and Mazarin fell in with his proposal and his terms.
“Mille diables!” I cried. “And has St. Auban set out?”
“He starts to-morrow, and I go with him. When finally the Cardinal had consented, the Marquis demanded and obtained from him a promise in writing, signed and sealed by Mazarin, that he should receive a third of the Canaples estates and the demesne on the outskirts of Blois, in exchange for the body of Armand de Canaples, dead or alive, and a proof of treason sufficient to warrant his arrest and the confiscation of his estates. Next, seeing in what regard the Seigneur is held by the people of Blois, and fearing that his arrest might be opposed by many of his adherents, the Marquis has demanded a troop of twenty men. This Mazarin has also granted him, entrusting the command of the troop to me, under St. Auban. Further, the Marquis has stipulated that the greatest secrecy is to be observed, and has expressed his purpose of going upon this enterprise disguised and masked, for—as he rightly opines—when months hence he enters into possession of the demesne of Canaples in the character of purchaser, did the Blaisois recognise in him the man who sold the Chevalier, his life would stand in hourly peril.”
I heard him through patiently enough; yet when he stopped, my pent-up feelings burst all bonds, and I resolved there and then to go in quest of that Judas, St. Auban, and make an end of his plotting, for all time. But Montrésor restrained me, showing me how futile such a course must prove, and how I risked losing all chance of aiding those at Canaples.
He was right. First I must warn the Chevalier—afterwards I would deal with St. Auban.
Someone knocked at that moment, and with the entrance of Michelot, my talk with Montrésor came perforce to an end. For Michelot brought me the news that for days I had been awaiting; Madame de Chevreuse had returned to Paris at last.
But for Montrésor's remonstrances it is likely that I should have set out forthwith to wait upon her. I permitted myself, however, to be persuaded that the lateness of the hour would render my visit unwelcome, and so I determined in the end—albeit grudgingly—to put off my departure for Blois until the morrow.
Noon had but struck from Nôtre Dame, next day, as I mounted the steps of the Hôtel de Luynes. My swagger, and that brave suit of pearl grey velvet with its silver lace, bore me unchallenged past the gorgeous suisse, who stood, majestic, in the doorway.
But, for the first mincing lackey I chanced upon, more was needed to gain me an audience. And so, as I did not choose to speak my name, I drew a ring from my finger and bade him bear it to the Duchesse.
He obeyed me in this, and presently returning, he bowed low and begged of me to follow him, for, as I had thought, albeit Madame de Chevreuse might not know to whom that ring belonged, yet the arms of Luynes carved upon the stone had sufficed to ensure an interview.
I was ushered into a pretty boudoir, hung in blue and gold, which overlooked the garden, and wherein, reclining upon a couch, with a book of Bois Robert's verses in her white and slender hand, I found my beautiful aunt.
Of this famous lady, who was the cherished friend and more than sister of Anne of Austria, much has been written; much that is good, and more—far more—that is ill, for those who have a queen for friend shall never lack for enemies. But those who have praised and those who have censured have at least been at one touching her marvellous beauty. At the time whereof I write it is not possible that she could be less than forty-six, and yet her figure was slender and shapely and still endowed with the grace of girlhood; her face delicate of tint, and little marked by time—or even by the sufferings to which, in the late king's reign, Cardinal de Richelieu had subjected her; her eyes were blue and peaceful as a summer sky; her hair was the colour of ripe corn. He would be a hardy guesser who set her age at so much as thirty.
My appearance she greeted by letting fall her book, and lifting up her hands—the loveliest in France—she uttered a little cry of surprise.
“Is it really you, Gaston?” she asked.
Albeit it was growing wearisome to be thus greeted by all to whom I showed myself, yet I studied courtesy in my reply, and then, 'neath the suasion of her kindliness, I related all that had befallen me since first I had journeyed to Blois, in Andrea de Mancini's company, withholding, however, all allusions to my feelings towards Yvonne. Why betray them when they were doomed to be stifled in the breast that begat them? But Madame de Chevreuse had not been born a woman and lived six and forty years to no purpose.
“And this maid with as many suitors as Penelope, is she very beautiful?” she inquired slyly.
“France does not hold her equal,” I answered, falling like a simpleton into the trap she had set me.
“This to me?” quoth she archly. “Fi donc, Gaston! Your evil ways have taught you as little gallantry as dissimulation.” And her merry ripple of laughter showed me how in six words I had betrayed that which I had been at such pains to hide.
But before I could, by protestations, plunge deeper than I stood already, the Duchesse turned the conversation adroitly to the matter of that letter of hers, wherein she had bidden me wait upon her.
A cousin of mine—one Marion de Luynes, who, like myself, had, through the evil of his ways, become an outcast from his family—was lately dead. Unlike me, however, he was no adventurous soldier of fortune, but a man of peace, with an estate in Provence that had a rent-roll of five thousand livres a year. On his death-bed he had cast about him for an heir, unwilling that his estate should swell the fortunes of the family that in life had disowned him. Into his ear some kindly angel had whispered my name, and the memory that I shared with him the frowns of our house, and that my plight must be passing pitiful, had set up a bond of sympathy between us, which had led him to will his lands to me. Of Madame de Chevreuse—who clearly was the patron saint of those of her first husband's nephews who chanced to tread ungodly ways—my cousin Marion had besought that she should see to the fulfilment of his last wishes.
My brain reeled beneath the first shock of that unlooked-for news. Already I saw myself transformed from a needy adventurer into a gentleman of fortune, and methought my road to Yvonne lay open, all obstacles removed. But swiftly there followed the thought of my own position, and truly it seemed that a cruel irony lay in the manner wherein things had fallen out, since did I declare myself to be alive and claim the Provence estates, the Cardinal's claws would be quick to seize me.
Thus much I told Madame de Chevreuse, but her answer cheered me, and said much for my late cousin's prudence.
“Nay,” she cried. “Marion was ever shrewd. Knowing that men who live by the sword, as you have lived, are often wont to die by the sword,—and that suddenly at times,—he has made provision that in the event of your being dead his estates shall come to me, who have been the most indulgent of his relatives. This, my dear Gaston, has already taken place, for we believed you dead; and therein fortune has been kind to you, for now, while receiving the revenues of your lands—which the world will look upon as mine—I shall contrive that they reach you wherever you may be, until such a time as you may elect to come to life again.”
Now but for the respect in which I held her, I could have taken the pretty Duchesse in my arms and kissed her.
Restraining myself, however, I contented myself by kissing her hand, and told her of the journey I was going, then craved another boon of her. No matter what the issue of that journey, and whether I went alone or accompanied, I was determined to quit France and repair to Spain. There I would abide until the Parliament, the Court, or the knife of some chance assassin, or even Nature herself should strip Mazarin of his power.
Now, at the Court of Spain it was well known that my aunt's influence was vast, and so, the boon I craved was that she should aid me to a position in the Spanish service that would allow me during my exile to find occupation and perchance renown. To this my aunt most graciously acceded, and when at length I took my leave—with such gratitude in my heart that what words I could think of seemed but clumsily to express it—I bore in the breast of my doublet a letter to Don Juan de Cordova—a noble of great prominence at the Spanish Court—and in the pocket of my haut-de-chausses a rouleau of two hundred gold pistoles, as welcome as they were heavy.
CHAPTER XXII. OF MY SECOND JOURNEY TO CANAPLES
An hour after I had quitted the Hôtel de Luynes, Michelot and I left Paris by the barrier St. Michel and took the Orleans road. How different it looked in the bright June sunshine, to the picture which it had presented to our eyes on that February evening, four months ago, when last we had set out upon that same journey!
Not only in nature had a change been wrought, but in my very self. My journey then had been aimless, and I had scarcely known whither I was bound nor had I fostered any great concern thereon. Now I rode in hot haste with a determined purpose, a man of altered fortunes and altered character.
Into Choisy we clattered at a brisk pace, but at the sight of the inn of the Connétable such memories surged up that I was forced to draw rein and call for a cup of Anjou, which I drank in the saddle. Thereafter we rode without interruption through Longjumeau, Arpajon, and Etrechy, and so well did we use our horses that as night fell we reached Étampes.
From inquiries that Michelot had made on the road, we learned that no troop such as that which rode with St. Auban had lately passed that way, so that 't was clear we were in front of them.
But scarce had we finished supper in the little room which I had hired at the Gros Paon, when, from below, a stamping of hoofs, the jangle of arms, and the shouts of many men told me that we were overtaken.
Clearly I did not burn with a desire to linger, but rather it seemed to me that although night had closed in, black and moonless, we must set out again, and push on to Monnerville, albeit our beasts were worn and the distance a good three leagues.
With due precaution we effected our departure, and thereafter had a spur been needed to speed us on our way that spur we had in the knowledge that St. Auban came close upon our heels. At Monnerville we slept, and next morning we were early afoot; by four o'clock in the afternoon we had reached Orleans, whence—with fresh horses—we pursued our journey as far as Meung, where we lay that night.
There we were joined by a sturdy rascal whom Michelot enlisted into my service, seeing that not only did my means allow, but the enterprise upon which I went might perchance demand another body servant. This recruit was a swart, powerfully built man of about my own age; trusty, and a lover of hard knocks, as Michelot—who had long counted him among his friends—assured me. He owned the euphonious name of Abdon.
I spent twenty pistoles in suitable raiment and a horse for him, and as we left Meung next day the knave cut a brave enough figure that added not a little to my importance to have at my heels.
This, however, so retarded our departure, that night had fallen by the time we reached Blois. Still our journey had been a passing swift one. We had left Paris on a Monday, the fourth of June—I have good cause to remember, since on that day I entered both upon my thirty-second year and my altered fortunes; on the evening of Wednesday we reached Blois, having covered a distance of forty-three leagues in less than three days.
Bidding Michelot carry my valise to the hostelry of the Vigne d'Or, and there await my coming, I called to Abdon to attend me, and rode on, jaded and travel-stained though I was, to Canaples, realising fully that there was no time to lose.
Old Guilbert, who came in answer to my knock at the door of the château, looked askance when he beheld me, and when I bade him carry my compliments to the Chevalier, with the message that I desired immediate speech of him on a matter of the gravest moment, he shook his grey head and protested that it would be futile to obey me. Yet, in the end, when I had insisted, he went upon my errand, but only to return with a disturbed countenance, to tell me that the Chevalier refused to see me.
“But I must speak to him, Guilbert,” I exclaimed, setting foot upon the top step. “I have travelled expressly from Paris.”
The man stood firm and again shook his head.
“I beseech you not to insist, Monsieur. M. le Chevalier has sworn to dismiss me if I permit you to set foot within the château.”
“Mille diables! This is madness! I seek to serve him,” I cried, my temper rising fast. “At least, Guilbert, will you tell Mademoiselle that I am here, and that I—”
“I may carry no more messages for you, Monsieur,” he broke in. “Listen! There is M. le Chevalier.”
In reality I could hear the old knight's voice, loud and shrill with anger, and a moment later Louis, his intendant, came across the hall.
“Guilbert,” he commanded harshly, “close the door. The night air is keen.”
My cheeks aflame with anger, I still made one last attempt to gain an audience.
“Master Louis,” I exclaimed, “will you do me the favour to tell M. de Canaples—”
“You are wasting time, Monsieur,” he interrupted. “M. de Canaples will not see you. He bids you close the door, Guilbert.”
“Pardieu! he shall see me!”
“The door, Guilbert!”
I took a step forward, but before I could gain the threshold, the door was slammed in my face, and as I stood there, quivering with anger and disappointment, I heard the bolts being shot within.
I turned with an oath.
“Come, Abdon,” I growled, as I climbed once more into the saddle, “let us leave the fool to the fate he has chosen.”
CHAPTER XXIII. OF HOW ST. AUBAN CAME TO BLOIS
In silence we rode back to Blois. Not that I lacked matter for conversation. Anger and chagrin at the thought that I had come upon this journey to earn naught but an insult and to have a door slammed in my face made my gorge rise until it went near to choking me. I burned to revile Canaples aloud, but Abdon's was not the ear into which I might pour the hot words that welled up to my lips.
Yet if silent, the curses that I heaped upon the Chevalier's crassness were none the less fervent, and to myself I thought with grim relish of how soon and how dearly he would pay for the affront he had put upon me.
That satisfaction, however, endured not long; for presently I bethought me of how heavily the punishment would fall upon Yvonne—and yet, of how she would be left to the mercy of St. Auban, whose warrant from Mazarin would invest with almost any and every power at Canaples.
I ground my teeth at the sudden thought, and for a moment I was on the point of going back and forcing my way into the château at the sword point if necessary, to warn and save the Chevalier in spite of himself and unthanked.
It was not in such a fashion that I had thought to see my mission to Canaples accomplished; I had dreamt of gratitude, and gratitude unbars the door to much. Nevertheless, whether or not I earned it, I must return, and succeed where for want of insistence I had failed awhile ago.
Of a certainty I should have acted thus, but that at the very moment upon which I formed the resolution Abdon drew my attention to a dark shadow by the roadside not twenty paces in front of us. This proved to be the motionless figure of a horseman.
As soon as I was assured of it, I reined in my horse, and taking a pistol from the holster, I levelled it at the shadow, accompanying the act by a sonorous—
“Who goes there?”
The shadow stirred, and Michelot's voice answered me:
“'T is I, Monsieur. They have arrived. I came to warn you.”
“Who has arrived?” I shouted.
“The soldiers. They are lodged at the Lys de France.”
An oath was the only comment I made as I turned the news over in my mind. I must return to Canaples.
Then another thought occurred to me. The Chevalier was capable of going to extremes to keep me from entering his house; he might for instance greet me with a blunderbuss. It was not the fear of that that deterred me, but the fear that did a charge of lead get mixed with my poor brains before I had said what I went to say, matters would be no better, and there would be one poor knave the less to adorn the world.
“What shall we do, Michelot?” I groaned, appealing in my despair to my henchman.
“Might it not be well to seek speech with M. de Montrésor?” quoth he.
I shrugged my shoulders. Nevertheless, after a moment's deliberation I determined to make the attempt; if I succeeded something might come of it.
And so I pushed on to Blois with my knaves close at my heels.
Up the Rue Vieille we proceeded with caution, for the hostelry of the Vigne d'Or, where Michelot had hired me a room, fortunately overlooking the street, fronted the Lys de France, where St. Auban and his men were housed.
I gained that room of mine without mishap, and my first action was to deal summarily with a fat and well-roasted capon which the landlord set before me—for an empty stomach is a poor comrade in a desperate situation. That meal, washed down with the best part of a bottle of red Anjou, did much to restore me alike in body and in mind.
From my open window I gazed across the street at the Lys de France. The door of the common-room, opening upon the street, was set wide, and across the threshold came a flood of light in which there flitted the black figures of maybe a dozen amazed rustics, drawn thither for all the world as bats are drawn to a glare.
And there they hovered with open mouths and stupid eyes, hearkening to the din of voices that floated out on the tranquil air, the snatches of ribald songs, the raucous bursts of laughter, the clink of glasses, the clank of steel, the rattle of dice, and the strange soldier oaths that fell with every throw, and which to them must have sounded almost as words of some foreign tongue.
Whilst I stood by my window, the landlord entered my room, and coming up to me—
“Thank Heaven they are not housed at the Vigne d'Or,” he said. “It will take Maître Bernard a week to rid his house of the stench of leather. They are part of a stray company that is on its way to fight the Spaniards,” he informed me. “But methinks they will be forced to spend two or three days at Blois; their horses are sadly jaded and will need that rest before they can take the road again, thanks to the pace at which their boy of an officer must have led them. There is a gentleman with them who wears a mask. 'T is whispered that he is a prince of the blood who has made a vow not to uncover his face until this war be ended, in expiation of some sin committed in mad Paris.”
I heard him in silence, and when he had done I thanked him for his information. So! This was the story that the crafty St. Auban had spread abroad to lull suspicion touching the real nature of their presence until their horses should be fit to undertake the return journey to Paris, or until he should have secured the person of M. de Canaples.
Towards eleven o'clock, as the lights in the hostelry opposite were burning low, I descended, and made my way out into the now deserted street. The troopers had apparently seen fit—or else been ordered—to seek their beds, for the place had grown silent, and a servant was in the act of making fast the door for the night. The porte-cochère was half closed, and a man carrying a lantern was making fast the bolt, whistling aimlessly to himself. Through the half of the door that was yet open, I beheld a window from which the light fell upon a distant corner of the courtyard.
I drew near the fellow with the lantern, in whom I recognised René, the hostler, and as I approached he flashed the light upon my face; then with a gasp—“M. de Luynes,” he exclaimed, remembering me from the time when I had lodged at the Lys de France, three months ago.
“Sh!” I whispered, pressing a louis d'or into his hand. “Whose window is that, René?” And I pointed towards the light.
“That,” he replied, “is the room of the lieutenant and the gentleman in the mask.”
“I must take a look at them, René, and whilst I am looking I shall search my pocket for another louis. Now let me in.”
“I dare not, Monsieur. Maître Bernard may call me, and if the doors are not closed—”
“Dame!” I broke in. “I shall stay but a moment.”
“But—”
“And you will have easily earned a louis d'or. If Bernard calls you—peste, tell him that you have let fall something, and that you are seeking it. There, let me pass.”
I got past him at last, and made my way swiftly towards the other end of the quadrangle.
As I approached, the sound of voices smote my ear, for the lighted window stood open. I stopped within half a dozen paces of it, and climbed on to the step of a coach that stood there. Thence I could look straight into the room, whilst the darkness hid me from the eyes of those I watched.
Three men there were; Montrésor, the sergeant of his troop, and a tall man dressed in black, and wearing a black silk mask. This I concluded to be St. Auban, despite the profusion of fair locks that fell upon his shoulders, concealing—I rightly guessed—his natural hair, which was as black as my own. It was a cunning addition to his disguise, and one well calculated to lead people on to the wrong scent hereafter.
Presently, as I watched them, St. Auban spoke, and his voice was that of a man whose gums are toothless, or else whose nether lip is drawn in over his teeth whilst he speaks. Here again the dissimulation was as effective as it was simple.
“So; that is concluded,” were the words that reached me. “To-morrow we will install our men at the château, for while we remain here it is preposterous to lodge them at an inn. On the following day I hope that we may be able to set out again.”
“If we could obtain fresh horses—” began the sergeant, when he of the mask interrupted him.
“Sangdieu! Think you my purse is bottomless? We return as we came, with the Cardinal's horses. What signify a day or two, after all? Come—call the landlord to light me to my room.”
I had heard enough. But more than that, whilst I listened, an idea had of a sudden sprung up in my mind which did away with the necessity of gaining speech with Montresor—a contingency, moreover, that now presented insuperable difficulties.
So I got down softly from my perch and made my way out of the yard, and, after fulfilling my part of the bargain with René, across to the Vigne d'Or and to my room, there to sit and mature the plan that of a sudden I had conceived.