At last, in the distance, she espied a moving object, and down on the silent air of eventide came the far-off rattle of a horse’s hoofs. Some one was riding, galloping that way. He was returned at last. She leaned on the battlements, her breath coming in quick, short gasps, and watched the horseman growing larger with every stride of his horse.
A mist was rising from the river, and it dimmed the figure; and she cursed the mist for heightening her anxiety, for straining further her impatience. Then a new fear was begotten in her mind. Why came one horseman only where two should have ridden? Who was it that returned, and what had befallen his companion? God send, at least, it might be Marius who rode thus, at such a breakneck pace.
At last she could make him out. He was close to the chateau now, and she noticed that his right arm was bandaged and hanging in a sling. And then a scream broke from her, and she bit her lip hard to keep another in check, for she had seen the horseman’s face, and it was Fortunio’s. Fortunio — and wounded! Then, assuredly, Marius was dead!
She swayed where she stood. She set her hand on her bosom, above her heart, as if she would have repressed the beating of the one, the heaving of the other; her soul sickened, and her mind seemed to turn numb, as she waited there for the news that should confirm her fears.
The hoofs of his horse thundered over the planks of the drawbridge, and came clatteringly to halt as he harshly drew rein in the courtyard below. There was a sound of running feet and men sprang to his assistance. Madame would have gone below to meet him; but her limbs seemed to refuse their office. She leaned against one of the merlons of the embattled parapet, her eyes on the spot where he should emerge from the stairs, and thus she waited, her eyes haggard, her face drawn.
He came at last, lurching in his walk, being overstiff from his long ride. She took a step forward to meet him. Her lips parted.
“Well?” she asked him, and her voice sounded harsh and strained. “How has the venture sped?”
“The only way it could,” he answered. “As you would wish it.”
At that she thought that she must faint. Her lungs seemed to writhe for air, and she opened her lips and took long draughts of the rising mist, never speaking for a moment or two until she had sufficiently recovered from this tremendous revulsion from her fears.
“Then, where is Marius?” she asked at last.
“He has remained behind to accompany the body home. They are bringing it here.”
“They?” she echoed. “Who are they?”
“The monks of Saint Francis of Cheylas,” he answered.
A something in his tone, a something in his shifty eyes, a cloud upon his fair and usually so ingenuous looking countenance aroused her suspicions and gave her resurrected courage pause.
She caught him viciously by the arms, and forced his glance to meet her own in the fading daylight.
“It is the truth you are telling me, Fortunio?” she snapped, and her voice was half-angry, half-fearful.
He faced her now, his eyes bold. He raised a hand to lend emphasis to his words.
“I swear, madame, by my salvation, that Monsieur Marius is sound and well.”
She was satisfied. She released his arm.
“Does he come to-night?” she asked.
“They will be here to-morrow, madame. I rode on to tell you so.”
“An odd fancy, this of his. But” — and a sudden smile overspread her face— “we may find a more useful purpose for one of these monks.”
An hour ago she would willingly have set mademoiselle at liberty in exchange for the assurance that Marius had been successful in the business that had taken him over the border into Savoy. She would have done it gladly, content that Marius should be heir to Condillac. But now that Condillac was assured her son, she must have more for him; her insatiable greed for his advancement and prosperity was again upon her. Now, more than ever — now that Florimond was dead — must she have La Vauvraye for Marius, and she thought that mademoiselle would no longer be difficult to bend. The child had fallen in love with that mad Garnache, and when a woman is crossed in love, while her grief lasts it matters little to her where she weds. Did she not know it out of the fund of her own bitter experience? Was it not that — the compulsion her own father had employed to make her find a mate in a man so much older than herself as Condillac — that had warped her own nature, and done much to make her what she was?
A lover she had had, and whilst he lived she had resisted them, and stood out against this odious marriage that for convenience’ sake they forced upon her. He was killed in Paris in a duel, and when the news of it came to her, she had folded her hands and let them wed her to whom they listed.
Of just such a dejection of spirit had she observed the signs in Valerie; let them profit by it while it lasted. They had been long enough without Church ceremonies at Condillac. There should be two to-morrow to make up for the empty time — a wedding and a burial.
She was going down the stairs, Fortunio a step behind her, when her mind reverted to the happening at La Rochette.
“Was it well done?” she asked.
“It made some stir,” said he. “The Marquis had men with him, and had the affair taken place in France ill might have come of it.”
“You shall give me a full account of it,” said she, rightly thinking that there was still something to be explained. Then she laughed softly. “Yes, it was a lucky chance for us, his staying at La Rochette. Florimond was born under an unlucky star, I think, and you under a lucky one, Fortunio.”
“I think so, too, as regards myself,” he answered grimly, and he thought of the sword that had ploughed his cheek last night and pierced his sword-arm that morning, and he thanked such gods as in his godlessness he owned for the luck that had kept that sword from finding out his heart.
CHAPTER XXIII. THE JUDGMENT OF GARNACHE
On the morrow, which was a Friday and the tenth of November — a date to be hereafter graven on the memory of all concerned in the affairs of Condillac — the Dowager rose betimes, and, for decency’s sake, having in mind the business of the day, she gowned herself in black.
Betimes, too, the Lord Seneschal rode out of Grenoble, attended by a couple of grooms, and headed for Condillac, in doing which — little though he suspected it — he was serving nobody’s interests more thoroughly than Monsieur de Garnache’s.
Madame received him courteously. She was in a blithe and happy mood that morning — the reaction from her yesterday’s distress of mind. The world was full of promise, and all things had prospered with her and Marius. Her boy was lord of Condillac; Florimond, whom she had hated and who had stood in the way of her boy’s advancement, was dead and on his way to burial; Garnache, the man from Paris who might have made trouble for them had he ridden home again with the tale of their resistance, was silenced for all time, and the carp in the moat would be feasting by now upon what was left of him; Valerie de La Vauvraye was in a dejected frame of mind that augured well for the success of the Dowager’s plans concerning her, and by noon at latest there would be priests at Condillac, and, if Marius still wished to marry the obstinate baggage, there would be no difficulty as to that.
It was a glorious morning, mild and sunny as an April day, as though Nature took a hand in the Dowager’s triumph and wished to make the best of its wintry garb in honour of it.
The presence of this gross suitor of hers afforded her another source of satisfaction. There would no longer be the necessity she once had dreaded of listening to his suit for longer than it should be her pleasure to be amused by him. But when Tressan spoke, he struck the first note of discord in the perfect harmony which the Dowager imagined existed.
“Madame,” said he, “I am desolated that I am not a bearer of better tidings. But for all that we have made the most diligent search, the man Rabecque has not yet been apprehended. Still, we have not abandoned hope,” he added, by way of showing that there was a silver lining to his cloud of danger.
For just a moment mad
ame’s brows were knitted. She had forgotten Rabecque until now; but an instant’s reflection assured her that in forgetting him she had done him no more than such honour as he deserved. She laughed, as she led the way down the garden steps — the mildness of the day and the brightness of her mood had moved her there to receive the Seneschal.
“From the sombreness of your tone one might fear your news to be of the nature of some catastrophe. What shall it signify that Rabecque eludes your men? He is but a lackey after all.”
“True,” said the Seneschal, very soberly; “but do not forget, I beg, that he is the bearer of letters from one who is not a lackey.”
The laughter went out of her face at that. Here was something that had been lost sight of in the all-absorbing joy of other things. In calling the forgotten Rabecque to mind she had but imagined that it was no more than a matter of the tale he might tell — a tale not difficult to refute, she thought. Her word should always weigh against a lackey’s. But that letter was a vastly different matter.
“He must be found, Tressan,” she said sharply.
Tressan smiled uneasily, and chewed at his beard.
“No effort shall be spared,” he promised her. “Of that you may be very sure. The affairs of the province are at a standstill,” he added, that vanity of his for appearing a man of infinite business rising even in an hour of such anxiety, for to himself, no less than to her, was there danger should Rabecque ever reach his destination with the papers Garnache had said he carried.
“The affairs of the province are at a standstill,” he repeated, “while all my energies are bent upon this quest. Should we fail to have news of his capture in Dauphiny, we need not, nevertheless, despond. I have sent men after him along the three roads that lead to Paris. They are to spare neither money nor horses in picking up his trail and effecting his capture. After all, I think we shall have him.”
“He is our only danger now,” the Marquise answered, “for Florimond is dead — of the fever,” she added, with a sneering smile which gave Tressan sensations as of cold water on his spine. “It were an irony of fate if that miserable lackey were to reach Paris now and spoil the triumph for which we have worked so hard.”
“It were, indeed,” Tressan agreed with her, “and we must see that he does not.”
“But if he does,” she returned, “then we must stand together.” And with that she set her mind at ease once more, her mood that morning being very optimistic.
“Always, I hope, Clotilde,” he answered, and his little eyes leered up out of the dimples of fat in which they were embedded. “I have stood by you like a true friend in this affair; is it not so?”
“Indeed; do I deny it?” she answered half scornfully.
“As I shall stand by you always when the need arises. You are a little in my debt concerning Monsieur de Garnache.”
“I — I realize it,” said she, and she felt again as if the sunshine were gone from the day, the blitheness from her heart. She was moved to bid him cease leering at her and to take himself and his wooing to the devil. But she bethought her that the need for him might not yet utterly be passed. Not only in the affair of Garnache — in which he stood implicated as deeply as herself — might she require his loyalty, but also in the matter of what had befallen yesterday at La Rochette; for despite Fortunio’s assurances that things had gone smoothly, his tale hung none too convincingly together; and whilst she did not entertain any serious fear of subsequent trouble, yet it might be well not utterly to banish the consideration of such a possibility, and to keep the Seneschal her ally against it. So she told him now, with as much graciousness as she could command, that she fully realized her debt, and when, encouraged, he spoke of his reward, she smiled upon him as might a girl smile upon too impetuous a wooer whose impetuosity she deprecates yet cannot wholly withstand.
“I am a widow of six months,” she reminded him, as she had reminded him once before. Her widowhood was proving a most convenient refuge. “It is not for me to listen to a suitor, however my foolish heart may incline. Come to me in another six months’ time.”
“And you will wed me then?” he bleated.
By an effort her eyes smiled down upon him, although her face was a trifle drawn.
“Have I not said that I will listen to no suitor? and what is that but a suitor’s question?”
He caught her hand; he would have fallen on his knees there and then, at her feet, on the grass still wet with the night’s mist, but that he in time bethought him of how sadly his fine apparel would be the sufferer.
“Yet I shall not sleep, I shall know no rest, no peace until you have given me an answer. Just an answer is all I ask. I will set a curb upon my impatience afterwards, and go through my period of ah — probation without murmuring. Say that you, will marry me in six months’ time — at Easter, say.”
She saw that an answer she must give, and so she gave him the answer that he craved. And he — poor fool! — never caught the ring of her voice, as false as the ring of a base coin; never guessed that in promising she told herself it would be safe to break that promise six months hence, when the need of him and his loyalty would be passed.
A man approached them briskly from the chateau. He brought news that a numerous company of monks was descending the valley of the Isere towards Condillac. A faint excitement stirred her, and accompanied by Tressan she retraced her steps and made for the battlements, whence she might overlook their arrival.
As they went Tressan asked for an explanation of this cortege, and she answered him with Fortunio’s story of how things had sped yesterday at La Rochette.
Up the steps leading to the battlements she went ahead of him, with a youthful, eager haste that took no thought for the corpulence and short-windedness of the following Seneschal. From the heights she looked eastwards, shading her eyes from the light of the morning sun, and surveyed the procession which with slow dignity paced down the valley towards Condillac.
At its head walked the tall, lean figure of the Abbot of Saint Francis of Cheylas, bearing on high a silvered crucifix that flashed and scintillated in the sunlight. His cowl was thrown back, revealing his pale, ascetic countenance and shaven head. Behind him came a coffin covered by a black pall, and borne on the shoulders of six black-robed, black cowled monks, and behind these again walked, two by two, some fourteen cowled brothers of the order of Saint Francis, their heads bowed, their arms folded, and their hands tucked away in their capacious sleeves.
It was a numerous cortege, and as she watched its approach the Marquise was moved to wonder by what arguments had the proud Abbot been induced to do so much honour to a dead Condillac and bear his body home to this excommunicated roof.
Behind the monks a closed carriage lumbered down the uneven mountain way, and behind this rode four mounted grooms in the livery of Condillac. Of Marius she saw nowhere any sign, and she inferred him to be travelling in that vehicle, the attendant servants being those of the dead Marquis.
In silence, with the Seneschal at her elbow, she watched the procession advance until it was at the foot of the drawbridge. Then, while the solemn rhythm of their feet sounded across the planks that spanned the moat, she turned, and, signing to the Seneschal to follow her, she went below to meet them. But when she reached the courtyard she was surprised to find they had not paused, as surely would have been seemly. Unbidden, the Abbot had gone forward through the great doorway and down the gallery that led to the hall of Condillac. Already, when she arrived below, the coffin and its bearers had disappeared, and the last of the monks was passing from sight in its wake. Leaning against the doorway through which they were vanishing stood Fortunio, idly watching that procession and thoughtfully stroking his mustachios. About the yard lounged a dozen or so men-at-arms, practically all the garrison that was left them since the fight with Garnache two nights ago.
After the last monk had disappeared, she still remained there, expectantly; and when she saw that neither the carriage nor the grooms made their appearanc
e, she stepped up to Fortunio to inquire into the reason of it.
“Surely Monsieur de Condillac rides in that coach,” said she.
“Surely,” Fortunio answered, himself looking puzzled. “I will go seek the reason, madame. Meanwhile will you receive the Abbot? The monks will have deposited their burden.”
She composed her features into a fitting solemnity, and passed briskly through to the hall, Tressan ever at her heels. Here she found the coffin deposited on the table, its great black pall of velvet, silver-edged, sweeping down to the floor. No fire had been lighted that morning nor had the sun yet reached the windows, so that the place wore a chill and gloomy air that was perhaps well attuned to the purpose that it was being made to serve.
With a rare dignity, her head held high, she swept down the length of that noble chamber towards the Abbot, who stood erect as a pikestaff: at the tablehead, awaiting her. And well was it for him that he was a man of austere habit of mind, else might her majestic, incomparable beauty have softened his heart and melted the harshness of his purpose.
He raised his hand when she was within a sword’s length of him, and with startling words, delivered in ringing tones, he broke the ponderous silence.
“Wretched woman,” he denounced her, “your sins have found you out. Justice is to be done, and your neck shall be bent despite your stubborn pride. Derider of priests, despoiler of purity, mocker of Holy Church, your impious reign is at an end.”
Tressan fell back aghast, his face blenching to the lips; for if justice was at hand for her, as the Abbot said, then was justice at hand for him as well. Where had their plans miscarried? What flaw was there that hitherto she had not perceived? Thus he questioned himself in his sudden panic.
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 158