The traitor's way

For a moment I stood, thinking of Achon’s last words, and then it all came back to me. It was he who had played the mendicant friar in Paris, that night when Lignières had died. It was he who had got the letters and the scroll of names. He was right. He held enough in his hands to bring Marcilly and myself to the block, and to ruin the honor of Marie. Then there was Ponthieu—come what may, I was resolved that he should have a blow struck for him. I felt as if I was personally responsible for the ill-luck that had overtaken him. But for what I had said he would never have undertaken the rash enterprise that had brought him to misfortune, and I could not leave him to his fate. My mind had for the moment righted itself, and I was once again Gaspard de Vibrac. Other things also urged me powerfully. The mortification of being outwitted and browbeaten by the priest moved me to hot anger. The shame of being overlooked and mocked at during my struggle with myself burned in my veins, and, mingled with the desire to do something for Ponthieu, was a savage resentment against Achon. It would have gone hard with Monsieur of Arles, had we met at that juncture.

Swelling like an asp with rage, and dagger in hand, I stepped up to the press, passing between it and the wall. There was the door by which Achon had entered, and it was half open. He had doubtless not closed it behind him when he came in, for fear of any noise attracting our attention. I cautiously pushed it back. Before me lay a long and narrow corridor, half in darkness and half in light. Up this I crept softly, feeling on either hand for anything like a door. I was confident that if I could find one, it would lead to Achon’s apartment, and then I would show him if de Vibrac feared to die. There was no result, however, to my search. At last I was brought to a standstill by a dead wall. I tapped it gently with my fingers, placed my ear against it, and searched the surface keenly, but with no avail. My eyes could see nothing. My hand but met the rough, uneven surface of the stonework. The secret of the passage, wherever it was, was too well concealed for me to discover in the short time at my disposal, and disappointed, but not despairing, I returned as I had come.

I resolved to seek Marcilly, and went out into the hall. A small lantern burned there dimly, and above me curled the brown spiral of the stairway that led to our chamber. Taking the lantern in my hand, I went up, and knocked again and again at the door without receiving any reply. A fear seized me that perhaps Marcilly had come to harm; but just as I was about to put my shoulder to the door and attempt to stave it in, I heard Jean’s voice.

“Is that you, Gaspard?”

“Yes, I——Open!”

The door swung back, and I saw Badehorn sleepily rubbing his eyes and muttering apologies; beyond him, Marcilly lay half-dressed on the bed, his sword on a stool beside him.

As I put down the lantern and closed the door, he said:

“What! Have you been keeping a vigil, or has the bashful stranger proved good company at last?”

“Yes, and no, Marcilly; but something has happened, while you and Badehorn slept like the dead, and we must act.” And, sitting on the bed beside him, I told him briefly, but clearly, what had occurred. When I had done, he remained silent for a moment, and then exclaimed:

“We can do nothing now!”

“But, Ponthieu——”

“Mon ami! Ponthieu, and you, and I are playing for our lives. If we lose the game, we pay the stake. I understand how you feel in the matter; but—and you know why—we cannot risk anything now.”

“I know, and yet——”

“Listen! As I said, I know what you feel, and were things otherwise, would have made a dash to free him. But consider for a moment. We are now in the small hours. We know not our way about this rambling house. We know not where Ponthieu is lodged, and it would be simply courting disaster to do what is in your heart. I think, too, we can serve him best now by doing nothing here, but using our influence at Orleans. Our Gascon is too insignificant for much fuss to be made about him, and a thousand écus of the sun would free him—be tranquil!”

“I see you are right, but I have so much on my soul already. I would give the lands of Vibrac to free Ponthieu.”

Marcilly laughed as he rose from the bed. “Your nerves are unstrung, Gaspard. This comes of not sleeping; as for your trouble of conscience, I would give much to change the weight on my soul, friend, for that which lies on yours—you will look back in ten years, and smile at your burden of to-day.”

I turned my head aside, but he went on: “There is one thing that troubles me, and that is your promise to Achon. Edict or no edict, we can laugh at his threats, and for these we will burn his Abbey of St. Savin over his head the next ride we take with Rambures’ Horse—but your promise——”

“It must be kept.”

“You will have to ride post from Poitou to do so”—he was dressing as he spoke—“but, Ste. Croix! What a fool I have been! I doubt if you will ever do that ride, Gaspard. Do you not see what this meeting at Orleans five days hence means?”

“No.”

“It is clear as daylight to me. Achon is hilt-deep with the Guise in their plans. ’Tis more than whispered that he is the brain behind the Cardinal. He overheard your conversation with Ponthieu. He knew that the letter the Gascon carried concerns the safety of the Prince. He has the letter with him now, presumably, and Ponthieu has given away the secret of reading a blank paper. Yet this meeting between Lorraine and the Chancellor—sworn enemies until now—is to take place five days hence; do you begin to see?”

“I think so; you mean that the execution of the sentence against Condé is delayed.”

“Precisely. And this goes with what I told you before. There will be delays. We shall have more time than we thought we had, and we shall save Condé. Parbleu! You will attend the meeting before starting for Poitou, and now for the hour.”

He buckled on his sword and, stepping to the window, opened the shutter. The storm had passed. It had ceased snowing, and morning was at hand. The forest lay beneath us, but we could make out nothing except a confused mass of dun shadow, streaked here and there with patches of white. Above it shifted an uneasy sea of cloud, through which, in the distant west, still glimmered the beacon fire on Beaulieu. Above the clouds there was a faint light, which, weak as it was, paled the glow of the lantern, and as we looked, a cock crowed shrilly.

“Hark!” exclaimed Marcilly; “day at last! It is time to start. Badehorn—the horses.”

And in a half-hour we were trotting through the snow toward Chenonceaux.

Our way was still through the chill arcades of the forest, yet dripping with melting snow. At first we were almost numbed with the cold, but the quick motion soon warmed our blood. Each moment it became lighter, and there was every prospect of the mild winter of the Land of Quinces giving us a fair day, such a storm as that of the night being unusual in the Orléanais. Although I had not slept, my mental excitement kept me unwearied; the interest of the adventure had seized hold of me, and in the struggle I had with myself I believed I had cast off the serpent’s skin of disloyal thought to my friend, and had no fear that I would reclothe myself in it. Now and again I was haunted by the recollection of Ponthieu; but I could not help reflecting that Marcilly was right, and that the best thing for my poor friend was to wait until we reached Orleans, and there use our influence, which was not small, to get him freed. It was running a risk, and it would have been more to my taste to have cut for him with the sword; but we did not even know where he was confined, and our enterprise would not permit us to linger on the heels of time. I say this in defence of what might otherwise have seemed unworthy conduct on my part. In this miserable confession of my folly and sin I have been utterly honest, and I cling, God alone knows why, to the memory of every small action that goes to show I was once not wholly lost.

What Marcilly was thinking of I know not. Perhaps in this early dawn he was reflecting on the sacrifice he was about to make. As far as he was concerned, he was going to almost certain death. Mayhap some thought of this was working in his mind, as for once his cheery light heart seemed to have left him, and he rode with his head held down and his hat pulled over his brow.

And so we went on in silence through the gray morning, and keeping Chartreuse du Liget to our right, we at length saw the mouldering old church of Genille, built in the eleventh century, and knew then that the Indroye was at hand, and the tortuous passage of the forest coming to an end. We crossed the Indroye by the bridge below Genille, and in a mile or so had entered the Champeigne, the chain of barren clay hillocks that separates the valley of the Cher from that of the Indre.

“There is the Etang de la Gauvrie,” exclaimed Marcilly, rousing himself, and pointing to a blue splash below us; “that little stream trickling from it falls into the Cher at Chenonceaux. It is full of fat waterfowl.”

“Was it not in the reeds on the banks that Coqueville hid for two days after Amboise?”

“Yes, and but escaped by a hair. St. Gris! But this is a stiff descent!”

We were on the top of a table-land as we spoke, and the descent wound steeply down to the lake, and it was near the end of this that a slight misfortune befell us. I was riding a little behind, and Marcilly turned in his saddle to say something. At this moment his horse stumbled and fell, bringing his rider down with him. He was on his feet in a moment, however, and was examining the horse’s hoof, as I came alongside and anxiously asked:

“Are you hurt?”

“No, Gaspard; but the very devil of ill-luck dogs us. The horse is lame.”

“It is a good omen, though, that you have escaped.”

“True enough! But the delay.”

“It cannot be helped, Fortunately Chenonceaux is at hand. Take Badehorn’s horse, and let us hasten on. We will get another beast there.”

Badehorn had dismounted ere this, and Marcilly jumped on his nag. Bidding him lead the lame horse to the Green Man, at Chenonceaux, we pushed on with all the speed the country permitted, and in a little under an hour were in the parlor of the inn, awaiting the coming of Badehorn and the return of a messenger whom we had sent for horses. I forced myself to eat something, and while my friend lay back in his chair and exercised his patience by staring at the logs crackling in the fireplace, I stretched myself on a settee near the window and looked wearily out through the glazing. The window opened on the little square of the village, now crowded with people, for it was market day, and beyond rose the gray donjon, the towers and galleries of the château of Chenonceaux, built by Bohier, the Receiver-General of Normandy, on the remains of an old fifteenth-century fortress. The financier died before the building was completed, and his son, the Baron de St. Cyergue, a man of egregious vanity, made the château a gift to La Valentinois, who, on her downfall, was forced to part with it for a song to Catherine de Medicis, for whom it was held now by Monsieur de Rabutin, a gentleman of the Tarantaise. I had not met St. Cyergue since the affair in the Bouton d’Or. News had, however, reached us that having totally lost his fortune, he had retired to a small house he owned at Chenonceaux; though whenever he could scrape together a hundred crowns or so, he returned to take his place among the hangers-on of the Court. So, while idly recalling these things, I dropped off to sleep, until I was suddenly aroused by a loud laugh, and, starting up, saw a man, extravagantly dressed, engaged in converse with Marcilly. It needed but a look at the vacant face, the protruding eyes, the puffed breeches, the scarlet cloak, and the faded gold lace of the coat-of-arms embroidered on the left breast of his pourpoint, to tell it was St. Cyergue himself.

“Ah, ha!” he exclaimed. “So you are awake at last! Faith! I thought you were sleeping as soundly as poor Lignières does at St. Merri—we buried him there, you know.”

“Let that matter rest, St. Cyergue,” I said, but he went on:

“It was neat—devilish neat, Marcilly. Ca! Ca! And he had our wit, our duellist Lignières, spitted like a lark, and he never spoke again. I only saw that thrust equalled once, when Richelieu—the man they call ‘The Monk’——”

“The Baron has just left the Court,” interrupted Marcilly, forcing a change in the talk. “He confirms what we heard about Condé.”

“That is good news if it remains true. And how long have you been here, Baron?”

“I arrived but last night, though it seems a year. I lost a thousand écus of the sun to de Billy, and it has become necessary to take a change of air until my rents come in.”

“St. Cyergue puts it down to the écus, Gaspard,” said Marcilly, “but we know better. A few paltry crowns would not drive the Baron from Court. Come, tell us, Baron.”

“There are things one does not speak of, messieurs,” he said, with a simper, and winked his hare-like eyes.

“Quite right, St. Cyergue! Though I little thought you would ever be a conspirator.”

“Conspirator! I! Diable! But you mistake. It was an affair—a grand dame, if you must know.”

“Keep your secret, Baron. Yet such a man as you are must have his hands full of affairs.”

“Oh, no! No! Perhaps one or two; but that is all. Still, there was something of excitement about this one, and, as we are all friends here, I will tell you. You know de Semiers—tall, thin, with a nose like a vulture, and a heart as jealous as a Spaniard’s. Well, he raised a fuss about madame, and we had a pass or so on the parvis of Ste. Croix. He was a child in my hands, I assure you, and in the shake of a sparrow’s tail it was all over, and monsieur was pinked through the ribs, and will have to keep his bed for a month. Now, mordioux! as the Gascons say, what do you think happened? Madame herself made an outcry; your uncle Cipierre sent his Swiss after me; and it would have gone hard with St. Cyergue, I assure you, but for that business at the storming of Calais, when I drove the English back, and another I will not name took the credit. So what with this, and my losses at play, I judged it best to retreat for a time. But you must sup with me to-night; I have some rare old Romanée, soft as velvet, and as light as air.”

“A thousand thanks, but I fear we cannot have that honor, Baron. We but await fresh horses to push on to Orleans.”

He was still pressing us, however, when the landlord made his appearance to say that Badehorn had arrived, and he added to this the bad news that other horses were not procurable in Chenonceaux. Perhaps, however, if we sent to Bléré, or Montrichard, we might get them by to-morrow.

“What!” I said; “it is market day. Your yard is humming with clients. All the countryside is here, and no horses for sale or hire?”

“Monsieur can judge for himself. They have asses and mules enough, but no horses for sale or hire—it is indeed true.” And then he added, as if with an inspiration, “Perhaps Monsieur de Rabutin would be able to lend you horses, messieurs.”

“The Governor of the Château?”

“Monsieur, the horses of the Queen-Mother are there.”

“It is worth trying,” I began; but now St. Cyergue stepped in to rescue us from our difficulty, and very good-naturedly offered to lend us two horses of his own, adding at the same time that they were gifts to him from the Duke of Guise.

And hardly waiting for our acceptance, he bade the landlord fetch them at once from his house. I confess, however, that until the beasts actually appeared, I had some small doubts of my own of their existence. As to their being a present from Guise, that was of a piece with the tales of his other adventures, the conceit of the man being such, that he surrounded every moment of his life with imaginary exploits, which he fully believed he had himself performed. Nevertheless his good nature was so great that he would have divided his last livre with a total stranger, had he been asked, and it was in this way that he had been wheedled out of the fine estate of Chenonceaux by Madame La Grande Seneschale, whose avarice was as great as her effrontery. We had, of course, no intention of profiting by his easy disposition, and knowing he was in straits, and being unwilling to borrow his nags, we prevailed upon him to sell them to us for a hundred crowns apiece, which, after some demure, that the price we offered was too great, our friend finally accepted. We would still have to take one of our own horses with his two, but Badehorn rode a light weight, and we had but a bare twenty leagues before us, as the crow flies, to reach Orleans. It was now past midday, so, leaving the remaining two of our beasts with St. Cyergue, we mounted and prepared to set out, having hopes to reach Nanteuil by evening, where we could rest the horses and ourselves in the house of M. de Villequier.

Wishing the Baron good-by and a speedy termination of his temporary exile, and bearing from him a number of confused messages to the greatest personages in France, which we promised faithfully to deliver, we rode out of the crowded courtyard of the Green Man into the little square of Chenonceaux, at the same moment that M. de Rabutin, the Captain of the Castle, who was taking an airing on foot, with a half-dozen of his friends, entered it at the other end.