The White Plumes of Navarre: A Romance of the Wars of Religion

by S. R. Crockett

  CHAPTER XXIX.

  THE SHUT HOUSE IN MONEY STREET

  There is a house in the city of Perpignan, in the street called "of themoney," where on a time strange things were done and still strangerplanned. It is the ancient House of the Holy Office, that is to say, ofthe Inquisition. In an upper room, after the fatigues of the day, threepriests were seated. One was a dark, thin man, the type of Philip's newinquisitors, a Torquemada reborn; the second was a little grey-hairedman, with watering reddish eyes, and a small mouth, as if it had beencut with one blow of a chisel; while in the only comfortable chairlounged a certain smiling Jesuit father, who, though under the opencensure of his General, was yet the most powerful man in all theirterrible Order--one Mariana, historian, pamphleteer, disputant, plotter,inquisitor, and chief firebrand of the new Society which had come toturn the world upside down.

  These three men awaited a messenger who was to bring them momentousintelligence from a city far away.

  Little was said, though it was supper-time, and wines and meat had beenplaced on the table. The two Fathers of the Holy Office ate sparingly,as became men whose eyes had seen their fellows endure many hours oftorment that day, in order that their hearts and minds might be purifiedfrom heresy, and their money chink in the coffers of Holy Church. OnlyMariana ate and drank heartily. For was it not his business to go aboutthe world with soft compressive palm and a cheerful smile on his rosyface, a complete refutation of the idea that a Jesuit must of necessitybe a dark and cunning plotter, or an inquisitor, merely anecclesiastical executioner?

  The Chief Surintendant Teruel was a grim Aragonese, a peasant brought uphardly, the humanity ground out of him by long years of noviciate, tillnow he knew no pity, no kindness, no faltering, while he carried out thewill of God as interpreted to him by his hierarchical superiors.

  Little Frey Tullio, on the contrary, was a Neapolitan, who had been sentover from Rome on purpose to familiarise himself with the best Spanishmethods. For nowhere did the Holy Office thrive so congenially and rootitself so deeply as in Catholic Spain. Frey Tullio did his workconscientiously, but without the stern joy of his Aragonese superior,and certainly wholly without the supple, subtle wit and smiling finesseof Mariana, the famous "outcast" of the Company of the Gesu.

  "A man is waiting below," said a black-robed acolyte, who had handledcertain confession-producing ropes and cords that day, and was now alsoresting from his labours. The prisoners who had been saved for the next_auto de fe_ (except those who, being delicate, had succumbed to theLesser and Greater Question) rested equally from theirs--in the cellarsbelow, the blood stiffening in their unwashed wounds, and theirrack-tormented bones setting into place a little so as to be ready forten of the clock on the morrow.

  "A man waiting below?" repeated the Chief Inquisitor; "what does hewant?"

  "To see the Fathers of the Holy Office," said the servitor, wondering ifhe had sufficiently wiped the wine from his mouth ere he came in--theSurintendant was regarding him so sternly.

  "He looks like a shepherd of the hills," said the acolyte; "indeed, Ihave seen him before--at Collioure. He is a servant, so he says, of DonRaphael Llorient!"

  "Ah," said Mariana quickly, "then I think I can guess his message. Ihave already spoken of it with Don Raphael."

  "Bid three stout familiars of the Office stand unseen behind the curtainthere, weapons in hand," commanded Surintendant Teruel; "then show theman up!"

  Jean-aux-Choux entered, long-haired, wild-eyed, his cloak of roughfrieze falling low about his ankles, and his hand upon the dagger-hiltwhich had once been red with the blood of the Guise.

  The three looked silently at him, with that chill, pitiless gaze whichmade no difference between a man asked to speak his message and him who,by one word out of his own mouth, must deliver himself to torture and todeath.

  "Stand!" commanded the Chief Inquisitor, "speak your message briefly,and if all be well, you are at liberty to return as you came!"

  The threat was hardly veiled, but Jean-aux-Choux stood undaunted.

  "Death is my familiar friend," he said; "I am not afraid. God, who hathoft delivered me from the tooth of the lion and the claw of the bear,can deliver me also from this Philistine."

  The two judges of men's souls looked at each other. This was perilouslylike fanaticism. They knew well how to deal with that. But Mariana onlylaughed and tapped his forehead covertly with his forefinger.

  "He is harmless, but mad, this fellow," he murmured; "I have oftenspoken with him while I abode at the house of Don Raphael of Collioure.He hath had in his youth some smattering of letters, but now what littlelear he had trots all skimble-skamble in his head. Yet, failing ouryoung Dominican of Sens--well, we might go farther and fare worse."

  Then he turned to Jean-aux-Choux.

  "Your message, shepherd?" he said. "Fear nothing. We shall not harmyou."

  "Had I supposed so, you would not have found me here--out of the mouthof the lion, and out of----"

  "That will do," said Mariana, cutting him short; "whence come you?"

  "From the camp of two kings, a great and a little, a true and a false,the lion and the dog----"

  "Speak plainly--we have little time to waste!"

  "Plainly then, I have seen the meeting of Henry of Valois and Henry ofNavarre! They fell each on the other's neck and kissed!"

  The two inquisitors rose to their feet. For the first time emotionshowed on their faces. The chief, tall, black, sombre, stood andthreatened Jean-aux-Choux with comminatory forefinger.

  "If you speak lies, beware!"

  The little Italian, formerly so grey and still, nothing stirring abouthim save the restless, beady eyes common to all Neapolitans, stood upand vociferated.

  "It is an open defiance of our Holy Father," he cried, "a shame ofshames--the Valois shall be accursed! He has delivered his realm to theHuguenot. He shall be burnt alive, and I--I would refuse him the_viaticum_!"

  "He may not have time even for that!" said Mariana softly--"that is,when his day comes. But haste you, man, tell us what befel--where, andhow."

  "On Sunday last," began Jean-aux-Choux, looking his three inquisitors inthe face with the utmost calm, "I was, as Father Mariana knows, in acertain place upon the affairs of my master.

  "It was in a park near a great city of many towers. A river ran near byand a bridge spanned it. At the bridge-head were three greatnobles--dukes and peers of France, so they said. Many people were in thepark and about the palace which stood within it. There seemed no fear.The place was open to all. About a chapel door they cried 'God save theKing!' For within a man, splendidly arrayed, was hearing mass--I saw himenter."

  The inquisitors looked at one another, nodding expressively.

  "But I cared not for that. I was at the bridge-head, and almost at myelbow the three nobles conferred one with the other, doubtful if he forwhom they waited would come.

  "'I should not, if I were he,' said one of them; 'my father did thelike, and died! Only he had a written promise.'"

  "That was Chatillon, Coligny's son, I warrant," said Mariana, who seemedto know everything.

  "And another said, 'He has my word--he will believe that, though hedoubts that of the King!'"

  "Epernon, for a wager!" cried the Jesuit, clapping his hands; "therespoke the man! And the third, what said he?"

  "Oh, he--no great matter," answered Jean-aux-Choux, gently stroking hisbrow, as if to recall a matter long past. "Ah, I do remember--he onlycaused great swelling words to come from his mouth, and rattled hissword in his scabbard, declaring that if there was any treachery hewould thrust the traitor through and through with 'Monsieur la Chose'(so he named his sword), which he declared to be the peer and overlordof any king in Christendie!"

  "That would be the Marshal d'Aumont," said Mariana, after a pause."Well, and so these three waited there, on the bridge, did they?"

  "Ay, I warrant. I was at their elbow, as I say," quoth Jean-aux-Choux,"on the bridge called the 'Pont de la Motte.' And presently there cam
ein sight a cloud of dust, and out of the cloud galloping horses, withone that rode in front. And there were spear-heads that glinted, andmusket-barrels, and swords with dinted scabbards. And the armour ofthese men was all tashed, and their helms like to a piece of lead thatone has smitten with a hammer long and long."

  "Battered armour is the worn breviary of the soldier!" commentedMariana. "Had these horsemen white scarves belting them?"

  "Each man of them!" Jean-aux-Choux answered. "But even he that rode atthe head had his armour (so much of it as he wore) in a like state; butwhereas all the others rode with plain steel helms, there was a whiteplume in his. Those who stood near called it his panache, and said itwas miracle-working. Also he wore a cloak, like that of anight-sentinel, but underneath, his doublet and hose were of olive-greenvelvet. He was of a hearty countenance, robust of body, and rodegallantly, with his head thrown back, laughing at little things by theway--as when a court page-boy, all in cloth of gold, fell off the treeon which he had climbed to see the show, and had to be pulled out of theriver, dripping and weeping, with a countryman's rake all tangled in thehinder breadths of his raiment."

  "The Bearnais! To a hair!" cried the Jesuit. "Ah, what a man! What aman--if only he were on the side of Holy Church----"

  "He is a heretic of heretics," said the Surintendant Temel, "anddeserves only the flames and the yellow robe!"

  "It is a pity," said Mariana, with a certain contempt for suchintolerance of idea; "you would have found him an equally good man inyour father's wheat-field, and I, at the King's council. One day he willgive our Philip tit-for-tat--that is, if he live so long!"

  "Which God forbid!" said the inquisitor.

  "Amen!" assented Frey Tullio.

  "Well," smiled Mariana, "there is no pleasing you. For me, there aremany sorts of gallant men, but with you, a man must either swallow allthe Council of Trent, or be food for flames."

  The inquisitors were silent. Discussion was not their business. Theyworked honestly from ten in the morning till five in the afternoon.Therefore, they deserved their rest, and if Mariana persisted in talkingthey would not get it. Still, they were eager to hear what the servantof Raphael Llorient had to say.

  Mariana made Jean a signal to go on with his tale. He continued:

  "So being used to run on the mountains, I outstripped the crowd and cameto the door of the chapel where the Other King, he in the cloak of blueand gold, was at his prayers. The crowd pressed and thronged--alllooking the other way.

  "And I waited. But not long. From very far away there came a crying ofmany people--a great soughing whisper first, then a sound like thestrength of the wind among high trees, and last, loud as the roar ofmany waters--'The White Plume! The White Plume! Navarre! Navarre!'

  "Then the Other King, whom no one cheered greatly nor took much heed of,came out from his mass and strove to meet the king of the brisk andsmiling countenance. But for a long time they could not. For the crowdbroke in and pressed them so tight that during a good quarter of an hourthese two Kings, the White Plume, and the Man-all-covered-with-Lilies,stood within half-a-dozen paces of each other, unable to embrace or evento touch hands. Whereat the White Plume laughed and jested with thoseabout, bidding them remember that he had come without his breakfast, andsuch-like. But the Man-with-the-Lilies was sullen and angry with theconcourse."

  "Ah, for a couple of good disciplined Leaguers with long knives!"muttered the Chief of the Inquisitors regretfully.

  "And then," continued Jean-aux-Choux, "the angry Soldier-Man, who hadstood on the bridge with sword and baton, thrust back the people,speaking many words hotly, which are not fit that I should repeat inyour reverend ears. So finally the two Kings met and embraced, and thepeople shouted, so that none might know what his neighbour said. Andpresently I saw these two walk arm-in-arm through the press, and so upinto the chateau, out of my sight. They abode there long time talking,and then after eating they came out. For it was time that theKing-covered-with-Lilies should go back to his chapel, being a manapparently very devout."

  The expression on the faces of the two inquisitors was dreadful tobehold in its contempt and hate. But Mariana laughed.

  "So he came out again, and the King with the White Plume still with him.Only he of the Plume entered not in to the chapel, but stayed without,playing at tennis with the strongest and bravest youths of the court,and laughing when they beat him, or when the ball took him in his face.

  "And all the while the crowd cried, 'Long live the White Plume! Longlive Navarre!' And sometimes from the back, one or two would raise afeeble cry 'Long live France! Long live Henry of Valois!'"

  The Chief Inquisitor brought down his fist on the table with a crash, sothat the wine-bottles tottered and a glass smashed.

  "But he shall not--by the crucifix, he shall not!" he hissed,chill-white with anger. "He shall die--if there be poison in Italy,steel in France, or----"

  "Money in Spain!" said Mariana calmly, putting his hand on the arm ofhis coadjutor. "Well, there is not much--but this is the Street of theMoney--and I judge we shall find enough for that!"