Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France

by Stanley John Weyman

  CHAPTER XXXV.

  AGAINST THE WALL.

  In a room beside the gateway, into which, as the nearest and mostconvenient place, Count Hannibal had been carried from his saddle, aman sat sideways in the narrow embrasure of a loophole, to which hiseyes seemed glued. The room, which formed part of the oldest block ofthe chateau, and was ordinarily the quarters of the Carlats, possessedtwo other windows, deep-set indeed, yet superior to that through whichBigot--for he it was--peered so persistently. But the larger windowslooked southwards, across the bay--at this moment the noon-high sunwas pouring his radiance through them; while the object which heldBigot's gaze and fixed him to his irksome seat, lay elsewhere. Theloophole commanded the causeway leading shorewards; through it theNorman could see who came and went, and even the crossbeam of the uglyobject which rose where the causeway touched the land.

  On a flat truckle-bed behind the door lay Count Hannibal, his injuredleg protected from the coverlid by a kind of cage. His eyes werebright with fever, and his untended beard and straggling hairheightened the wildness of his aspect. But he was in possession of hissenses; and as his gaze passed from Bigot at the window to the oldFree Companion, who sat on a stool beside him, engaged in shaping apiece of wood into a splint, an expression almost soft crept into hisharsh face.

  "Old fool!" he said. And his voice, though changed, had not lost allits strength and harshness. "Did the Constable need a splint when youlaid him under the tower at Gaeta?"

  The old man lifted his eyes from his task, and glanced through thenearest window. "It is long from noon to night," he said quietly, "andfar from cup to lip, my lord!"

  "It would be if I had two legs," Tavannes answered, with a grimace,half-snarl, half-smile. "As it is--where is that dagger? It leaves meevery minute."

  It had slipped from the coverlid to the ground. Badelon took it up,and set it on the bed within reach of his master's hand.

  Bigot swore fiercely. "It would be farther still," he growled, "if youwould be guided by me, my lord. Give me leave to bar the door, and'twill be long before these fisher clowns force it. Badelon and I----"

  "Being in your full strength," Count Hannibal murmured cynically.

  "Could hold it. We have strength enough for that," the Norman boasted,though his livid face and his bandages gave the lie to his words. Hecould not move without pain; and for Badelon, his knee was as big astwo with plaisters of his own placing.

  Count Hannibal stared at the ceiling. "You could not strike twoblows!" he said. "Don't lie to me! And Badelon cannot walk two yards!Fine fighters!" he continued with bitterness, not all bitter. "Finebars 'twixt a man and death! No, it is time to turn the face to thewall. And, since go I must, it shall not be said Count Hannibal darednot go alone! Besides----"

  Bigot stopped him with an oath that was in part a cry of pain. "D--nher!" he exclaimed in fury, "'tis she is that _besides!_ I know it.'Tis she has been our ruin from the day we saw her first, ay, to thisday! 'Tis she has bewitched you until your blood, my lord, has turnedto water. Or you would never, to save the hand that betrayed us, neverto save a man----"

  "Silence!" Count Hannibal cried, in a terrible voice. And rising onhis elbow, he poised the dagger as if he would hurl it. "Silence, or Iwill spit you like the vermin you are! Silence, and listen! And you,old ban-dog, listen too, for I know you obstinate! It is not to savehim. It is because I will die as I have lived, fearing nothing andasking nothing! It were easy to bar the door as you would have me, anddie in the corner here like a wolf at bay, biting to the last. Thatwere easy, old wolf-hound! Pleasant and good sport!"

  "Ay! That were a death!" the veteran cried, his eyes brightening. "SoI would fain die!"

  "And I!" Count Hannibal returned, showing his teeth in a grim smile."I too! Yet I will not! I will not! Because so to die were to dieunwillingly, and give them triumph. Be dragged to death? No, old dog,if die we must, we will go to death! We will die grandly, highly, asbecomes Tavannes! That when we are gone they may say, 'There died aman!'"

  "_She_ may say!" Bigot muttered scowling.

  Count Hannibal heard and glared at him, but presently thought betterof it, and after a pause, "Ay, she too!" he said. "Why not? As we haveplayed the game--for her--so, though we lose, we will play it to theend; nor because we lose throw down the cards! Besides, man, die inthe corner, die biting, and he dies too!"

  "And why not?" Bigot asked, rising in a fury. "Why not? Whose work isit we lie here, snared by these clowns of fisherfolk? Who led us wrongand betrayed us? He die? Would the devil had taken him a year ago!Would he were within my reach now! I would kill him with my barefingers! He die? And why not?"

  "Why, because, fool, his death would not save me!" Count Hannibalanswered coolly. "If it would, he would die! But it will not; andwe must even do again as we have done. I have spared him--he's awhite-livered hound!--both once and twice, and we must go to the endwith it since no better can be! I have thought it out, and it must be.Only see you, old dog, that I have the dagger hid in the splint whereI can reach it. And then, when the exchange has been made, and my ladyhas her silk glove again--to put in her bosom!"--with a grimace and asudden reddening of his harsh features--"if master priest come withinreach of my arm, I'll send him before me, where I go."

  "Ay, ay!" said Badelon. "And if you fail of your stroke I will notfail of mine! I shall be there, and I will see to it he goes! I shallbe there!"

  "You?"

  "Ay, why not?" the old man answered quietly. "I may halt on this legfor aught I know, and come to starve on crutches like old ClaudeBoiteux who was at the taking of Milan and now begs in the passageunder the Chatelet."

  "Bah, man, you will get a new lord!"

  Badelon nodded. "Ay, a new lord with new ways!" he answered slowly andthoughtfully. "And I am tired. They are of another sort, lords now,than they were when I was young. It was a word and a blow then. Now Iam old, with most it is--'Old hog, your distance! You scent my lady!'Then they rode, and hunted, and tilted year in and year out, andsummer or winter heard the lark sing. 'Now they are curled, and paintthemselves, and lie in silk and toy with ladies--who shamed to be seenat Court or board when I was a boy--and love better to hear the mousesqueak than the lark sing."

  "Still, if I give you my gold chain," Count Hannibal answered quietly,"'twill keep you from that."

  "Give it to Bigot," the old man answered. The splint he was fashioninghad fallen on his knees, and his eyes were fixed on the distance ofhis youth. "For me, my lord, I am tired, and I go with you. I go withyou. It is a good death to die biting before the strength be quitegone. Have the dagger too, if you please, and I'll fit it within thesplint right neatly. But I shall be there----"

  "And you'll strike home?" Tavannes cried eagerly. He raised himself onhis elbow, a gleam of joy in his gloomy eyes.

  "Have no fear, my lord. See, does it tremble?" He held out his hand."And when you are sped, I will try the Spanish stroke--upwards with aturn ere you withdraw, that I learned from Ruiz--on the shaven-pate. Isee them about me now!" the old man continued, his face flushing, hisform dilating.

  "It will be odd if I cannot snatch a sword and hew down three to gowith Tavannes! And Bigot, he will see my lord the Marshal by-and-by;and as I do to the priest, the Marshal will do to Montsoreau. Ho! ho!He will teach him the _coup de Jarnac_, never fear!" And the old man'smoustaches curled up ferociously.

  Count Hannibal's eyes sparkled with joy. "Old dog!" he cried--and heheld his hand to the veteran, who brushed it reverently with hislips--"we will go together then! Who touches my brother, touchesTavannes!"

  "Touches Tavannes!" Badelon cried, the glow of battle lighting hisbloodshot eyes. He rose to his feet. "Touches Tavannes! You mind atJarnac----"

  "Ah! At Jarnac!"

  "When we charged their horse, was my boot a foot from yours, my lord?"

  "Not a foot!"

  "And at Dreux," the old man continued with a proud, elated gesture,"when we rode down the German pikemen-
-they were grass before us,leaves on the wind, thistle-down--was it not I who covered your bridlehand, and swerved not in the _melee?_"

  "It was! It was!"

  "And at St. Quentin, when we fled before the Spaniard--it was his day,you remember, and cost us dear----"

  "Ay, I was young then," Tavannes cried in turn, his eyes glistening."St. Quentin! It was the tenth of August. And you were new with me,and seized my rein----"

  "And we rode off together, my lord--of the last, of the last, as Godsees me! And striking as we went, so that they left us for easiergame."

  "It was so, good sword! I remember it as if it had been yesterday!"

  "And at Cerisoles, the Battle of the Plain, in the old Spanish wars,that was most like a joust of all the pitched fields I ever saw--atCerisoles, where I caught your horse? You mind me? It was in the shockwhen we broke Guasto's line----"

  "At Cerisoles?" Count Hannibal muttered slowly. "Why, man, I----"

  "I caught your horse, and mounted you afresh? You remember, my lord?And at Landriano, where Leyva turned the tables on us again."

  Count Hannibal stared. "Landriano?" he muttered bluntly. "'Twas in'29, forty years ago and more! My father, indeed----"

  "And at Rome--at Rome, my lord? _Mon Dieu!_ in the old days at Rome!When the Spanish company scaled the wall--Ruiz was first, I next--wasit not my foot you held? And was it not I who dragged you up, whilethe devils of Swiss pressed us hard? Ah, those were days, my lord! Iwas young then, and you, my lord, young too, and handsome as themorning----"

  "You rave!" Tavannes cried, finding his tongue at last. "Rome? Yourave, old man! Why, I was not born in those days. My father even was aboy! It was in '27 you sacked it--five-and-forty years ago!"

  The old man passed his hands over his heated face, and, as a manroused suddenly from sleep looks, he looked round the room. The lightdied out of his eyes--as a light blown out in a room; his form seemedto shrink, even while the others gazed at him, and he sat down. "No, Iremember," he muttered slowly. "It was Prince Philibert of Chalons, mylord of Orange."

  "Dead these forty years!"

  "Ay, dead these forty years! All dead!" the old man whispered, gazingat his gnarled hand, and opening and shutting it by turns. "And I growchildish! 'Tis time, high time, I followed them! It trembles now; buthave no fear, my lord, this hand will not tremble then. All dead! Ay,all dead!"

  He sank into a mournful silence; and Tavannes, after gazing at himawhile in rough pity, fell to his own meditations, which were gloomyenough. The day was beginning to wane, and with the downward turn,though the sun still shone brightly through the southern windows, ashadow seemed to fall across his thoughts. They no longer rioted in aturmoil of defiance as in the forenoon. In its turn, sober reflectionmarshalled the past before his eyes. The hopes of a life, theambitious of a life, moved in sombre procession, and things done andthings left undone, the sovereignty which Nostradamus had promised,the faces of men he had spared and of men he had not spared--and theface of one woman.

  She would not now be his. He had played highly, and he would losehighly, playing the game to the end, that to-morrow she might think ofhim highly. Had she begun to think of him at all? In the chamber ofthe inn at Angers he had fancied a change in her, an awakening to lifeand warmth, a shadow of turning to him. It had pleased him to thinkso, at any rate. It pleased him still to imagine--of this he was moreconfident--that in the time to come, when she was Tignonville's, shewould think of him secretly and kindly. She would remember him, and inher thoughts and in her memory he would grow to the heroic, even asthe man she had chosen would shrink as she learned to know him.

  It pleased him, that. It was almost all that was left to pleasehim--that, and to die proudly as he had lived. But as the day wore on,and the room grew hot and close, and the pain in his thigh became moregrievous, the frame of his mind altered. A sombre rage was born andgrew in him, and a passion fierce and ill-suppressed. To end thus,with nothing done, nothing accomplished of all his hopes andambitions! To die thus, crushed in a corner by a mean priest and arabble of spearmen, he who had seen Dreux and Jarnac, had defied theKing, and dared to turn the St. Bartholomew to his ends! To die thus,and leave her to that puppet! Strong man as he was, of a strength ofwill surpassed by few, it taxed him to the utmost to lie and make nosign. Once, indeed, he raised himself on his elbow with somethingbetween an oath and a snarl, and he seemed about to speak. So thatBigot came hurriedly to him.

  "My lord?"

  "Water!" he said. "Water, fool!" And, having drank, he turned his faceto the wall, lest he should name her or ask for her. For the desire tosee her before he died, to look into her eyes, to touch her hand once,only once, assailed his mind and all but whelmed his will. She hadbeen with him, he knew it, in the night; she had left him only atdaybreak. But then, in his state of collapse, he had been hardlyconscious of her presence. Now to ask for her or to see her wouldstamp him coward, say what he might to her. The proverb, that theKing's face gives grace, applied to her; and an overture on his sidecould mean but one thing, that he sought her grace. And that he wouldnot do though the cold waters of death covered him more and more, andthe coming of the end--in that quiet chamber, while the September sunsank to the appointed place--awoke wild longings and a wild rebellionin his breast. His thoughts were very bitter, as he lay, hisloneliness of the uttermost. He turned his face to the wall.

  In that posture he slept after a time, watched over by Bigot withlooks of rage and pity. And on the room fell a long silence. The sunhad lacked three hours of setting when he fell asleep. When hereopened his eyes, and, after lying for a few minutes between sleepand waking, became conscious of his position, of the day, of thethings which had happened, and his helplessness--an awakening whichwrung from him an involuntary groan--the light in the room was stillstrong, and even bright. He fancied for a moment that he had merelydozed off and awaked again; and he continued to lie with his face tothe wall, courting a return of slumber.

  But sleep did not come, and little by little, as he lay listening andthinking and growing more restless, he got the fancy that he wasalone. The light fell brightly on the wall to which his face wasturned; how could that be if Bigot's broad shoulders still blocked theloophole? Presently, to assure himself, he called the man by name.

  He got no answer.

  "Badelon!" he muttered. "Badelon!"

  Had he gone, too, the old and faithful? It seemed so, for again noanswer came.

  He had been accustomed all his life to instant service; to see the actfollow the word ere the word ceased to sound. And nothing which hadgone before, nothing which he had suffered since his defeat at Angers,had brought him to feel his impotence and his position--and that theend of his power was indeed come--as sharply as this. The blood rushedto his head; almost the tears to eyes which had not shed them sinceboyhood, and would not shed them now, weak as he was! He rose on hiselbow and looked with a full heart; it was as he had fancied.Badelon's stool was empty; the embrasure--that was empty too. Throughits narrow outlet he had a tiny view of the shore and the low rockyhill, of which the summit shone warm in the last rays of the settingsun.

  The setting sun! Ay, for the lower part of the hill was growing cold;the shore at its foot was grey. Then he had slept long, and the timewas come. He drew a deep breath and listened. But on all within andwithout lay silence, a silence marked, rather than broken, by the dullfall of a wave on the causeway. The day had been calm, but with thesunset a light breeze was rising.

  He set his teeth hard, and continued to listen. An hour before sunsetwas the time they had named for the exchange. What did it mean? Infive minutes the sun would be below the horizon; already the zone ofwarmth on the hillside was moving and retreating upwards. And Bigotand old Badelon? Why had they left him while he slept? An hour beforesunset! Why, the room was growing grey, grey and dark in the corners,and--what was that?

  He started, so violently that he jarred his leg, and the pain wrung agroan from him. At the foot of the bed, overlooked until then, a womanlay
prone on the floor, her face resting on her outstretched arms. Shelay without motion, her head and her clasped hands towards theloophole, her thick, clubbed hair hiding her neck. A woman! CountHannibal stared, and, fancying he dreamed, closed his eyes, thenlooked again. It was no phantasm. It was the Countess; it was hiswife!

  He drew a deep breath, but he did not speak, though the colour roseslowly to his cheek. And slowly his eyes devoured her from head tofoot, from the hands lying white in the light below the window to theshod feet; unchecked he took his fill, of that which he had so muchdesired--the seeing her! A woman prone, with all of her hidden but herhands: a hundred acquainted with her would not have known her. But heknew her, and would have known her from a hundred, nay from athousand, by her hands alone.

  What was she doing here, and in this guise? He pondered; then helooked from her for an instant and saw that while he had gazed at herthe sun had set, the light had passed from the top of the hill; theworld without and the room within were growing cold. Was that thecause she no longer lay quiet? He saw a shudder run through her, and asecond; then it seemed to him--or was he going mad?--that she moaned,and prayed in half-heard words, and, wrestling with herself, beat herforehead on her arms, and then was still again, as still as death. Bythe time the paroxysm had passed, the last flush of sunset had fadedfrom the sky, and the hills were growing dark.