Saint Martin's Summer

by Rafael Sabatini

  "Will you do me a favour, Marius?" she asked. He halted too, and turned to her, studying her gentle face, seeking to guess her mind in the clear hazel eyes she raised to his. His eyebrows lifted slightly with surprise. Nevertheless—

  "There is in all the world, Valerie, nothing you could ask me that I would not do," he protested.

  She smiled wistfully. "How easy it is to utter words!" she sighed.

  "Marry me," he answered, leaning towards her, his eyes devouring her now, "and you shall find my words very quickly turned to deeds."

  "Ah," said she, and her smile broadened and took on a scornful twist, "you make conditions now. If I will marry you, there is nothing you will not do for me; so that, conversely, I may take it that if I do not marry you, there is nothing you will do. But in the meantime, Marius, until I resolve me whether I will marry you or not, would you not do a little thing that I might ask of you?"

  "Until you resolve?" he cried, and his face flushed with the sudden hope he gathered from those words. Hitherto there had been no suggestion of a possible modification of attitude towards his suit. It had been repulsion, definite and uncompromising. Again he studied her face. Was she fooling him, this girl with the angel-innocence of glance? The thought of such a possibility cooled him instantly. "What is it you want of me?" he asked, his voice ungracious.

  "Only a little thing, Marius." Her glance travelled back over her shoulder to the tall, limber fellow in leather jerkin and with cross-gartered legs who lounged a dozen steps behind them. "Rid me of that ruffian's company," said she.

  Marius looked back at "Battista," and from him to Valerie. Then he smiled and made a slight movement with his shoulders.

  "But to what end?" he asked, as one who pleadingly opposes an argument that is unreasonable. "Another would replace him, and there is little to choose among the men that garrison Condillac."

  "Little, perhaps; but that little matters." Sure of her ground, and gathering from his tone and manner that the more ardently she begged this thing the less likely would it be that she should prevail, she pursued her intercessions with a greater heat. "Oh," she cried, in a pretended rage, "it is to insult me to give me that unclean knave for perpetual company. I loathe and detest him. The very sight of him is too much to endure."

  "You exaggerate," said he coldly.

  "I do not; indeed I do not," she rejoined, looking frankly, pleadingly into his face. "You do not realize what it is to suffer the insolent vigilance of such as he; to feel that your every step is under surveillance; to feel his eyes ever upon you when you are within his sight. Oh, it is insufferable!"

  Suddenly he gripped her arm, his face within a hand's breadth of her own, his words falling hot and quickly on her ear.

  "It is yours to end it when you will, Valerie," he passionately reminded her. "Give yourself into my keeping. Let it be mine to watch over you henceforth. Let me—"

  Abruptly he ceased. She had drawn back her head, her face was white to the lips, and in her eyes, as they dwelt on his at such close quarters, there appeared a look of terror, of loathing unutterable. He saw it, and releasing her arm he fell back as if she had struck him. The colour left his face too.

  "Or is it," he muttered thickly, "that I inspire you, with much the same feeling as does he?"

  She stood before him with lowered eyelids, her bosom heaving still from the agitation of fear his closeness had aroused in her. He studied her in silence a moment, with narrowing eyes and tightening lips. Then anger stirred in him, and quenched the sorrow with which at first he had marked the signs of her repulsion. But anger in Marius de Condillac was a cold and deadly emotion that vented itself in no rantings, uttered no loud-voiced threats or denunciations, prompted no waving of arms or plucking forth of weapons.

  He stooped towards her again from his stately, graceful height. The cruelty hidden in the beautiful lines of his mouth took instant prominence in the smile that flickered round it.

  "I think that Battista makes a very excellent watchdog," he said, and you would have thought him amused, as if at the foolish subterfuge of some little child. "You may be right to dislike him. He knows no French, so that it may not be yours to pervert and bribe him with promises of what you will do if he assists you to escape; but you will see that this very quality which renders him detestable to you renders him invaluable to us."

  He laughed softly, as one well pleased with his own astuteness, doffed his hat with a politeness almost exaggerated, and whistling his dog he abruptly left her.

  Thus were Marius and his mother—to whom he bore the tale of Valerie's request—tricked further into reposing the very fullest trust in the watchful, incorruptible "Battista." Realizing that this would be so, Garnache now applied himself more unreservedly to putting into effect the plans he had been maturing. And he went about it with a zest that knew no flagging, with a relish that nothing could impair. Not that it was other than usual for Garnache to fling himself whole-heartedly into the conduct of any enterprise he might have upon his hands; but he had come into this affair at Condillac against his will; stress of circumstances it was had driven him on, step by step, to take a personal hand in the actual deliverance of Valerie.

  It was vanity and pride that had turned him back when already he was on the road to Paris; not without yet a further struggle would he accept defeat. To this end had he been driven, for the first time in his life, to the indignity of his foul disguise; and he, whose methods had ever been direct, had been forced to have recourse to the commonest of subterfuges. It was with anger in his heart that he had proceeded to play the part he had assumed. He felt it to be a thing unworthy of him, a thing that derogated from his self-respect. Had he but had the justification of some high political aim, he might have endured it with a better resignation; the momentous end to be served might have sanctioned the ignoble means adopted. But here was a task in itself almost as unworthy of him as the methods by which he now set about accomplishing it. He was to black his face and dye his beard and hair, stain his skin and garb himself in filthy rags, for no better end than that he might compass the enlargement of a girl from the captivity into which she had been forced by a designing lady of Dauphiny. Was that a task to set a soldier, a man of his years and birth and name? He had revolted at it; yet that stubborn pride of his that would not brook his return to Paris to confess himself defeated by a woman over this woman's business, held him relentlessly to his distasteful course.

  And gradually the distaste of it had melted. It had begun to fall away five nights ago, when he had heard what passed between Madame de Condillac and Valerie. A great pity for this girl, a great indignation against those who would account no means too base to achieve their ends with her, a proper realization of the indignities she was suffering, caused him to shed some of his reluctance, some of his sense of injury to himself.

  His innate chivalry, that fine spirit of his which had ever prompted him to defend the weak against the oppressor, stirred him now, and stirred him to such purpose that, in the end, from taking up the burden of his task reluctantly, he came to bear it zestfully and almost gladly. He was rejoiced to discover himself equipped with histrionic gifts of which he had had no suspicion hitherto, and it delighted him to set them into activity.

  Now it happened that at Condillac there was a fellow countryman of "Battista's," a mercenary from Northern Italy, a rascal named Arsenio, whom Fortunio had enlisted when first he began to increase the garrison a month ago. Upon this fellow's honesty Garnache had formed designs. He had closely observed him, and in Arsenio's countenance he thought he detected a sufficiency of villainy to augur well for the prosperity of any scheme of treachery that might be suggested to him provided the reward were adequate.

  Garnache went about sounding the man with a wiliness peculiarly his own. Arsenio being his only compatriot at Condillac it was not wonderful that in his few daily hours of relief from his gaoler's duty "Battista" should seek out the fellow and sit in talk with him. The pair became intimate, and intercourse b
etween them grew more free and unrestrained. Garnache waited, wishing to risk nothing by precipitancy, and watched for his opportunity. It came on the morrow of All Saints. On that Day of the Dead, Arsenio, whose rearing had been that of a true son of Mother Church, was stirred by the memory of his earthly mother, who had died some three years before. He was silent and moody, and showed little responsiveness to Garnache's jesting humour. Garnache, wondering what might be toward in the fellow's mind, watched him closely.

  Suddenly the little man—he was a short, bowlegged, sinewy fellow—heaved a great sigh as he plucked idly at a weed that grew between two stones of the inner courtyard, where they were seated on the chapel steps.

  "You are a dull comrade to-day, compatriot," said Garnache, clapping him on the shoulder.

  "It is the Day of the Dead," the fellow answered him, as though that were an ample explanation. Garnache laughed.

  "To those that are dead it no doubt is; so was yesterday, so will to-morrow be. But to us who sit here it is the day of the living."

  "You are a scoffer," the other reproached him, and his rascally face was oddly grave. "You don't understand."

  "Enlighten me, then. Convert me."

  "It is the day when our thoughts turn naturally to the dead, and mine are with my mother, who has lain in her grave these three years. I am thinking of what she reared me and of what I am."

  Garnache made a grimace which the other did not observe. He stared at the little cut-throat, and there was some dismay in his glance. What ailed the rogue? Was he about to repent him of his sins, and to have done with villainy and treachery; was he minded to slit no more gullets in the future, be faithful to the hand that paid him, and lead a godlier life? Peste! That was a thing that would nowise suit Monsieur de Garnache's ends just then. If Arsenio had a mind to reform, let him postpone that reformation until Garnache should have done with him. So he opened his lips and let out a deep guffaw of mockery.

  "We shall have you turning monk," said he, "a candidate for canonization going barefoot, with flagellated back and shaven head. No more wine, no more dice, no more wenches, no more—"

  "Peace!" snapped the other.

  "Say 'Pax,"' suggested Garnache, "'Pax tecum,' or `vobiscum.' It is thus you will be saying it later."

  "If my conscience pricks me, is it aught to you? Have you no conscience of your own?"

  "None. Men wax lean on it in this vale of tears. It is a thing invented by the great to enable them to pursue the grinding and oppression of the small. If your master pays you ill for the dirty work you do for him and another comes along to offer you some rich reward for an omission in that same service, you are warned that if you let yourself be tempted, your conscience will plague you afterwards. Pish! A clumsy, childish device that, to keep you faithful."

  Arsenio looked up. Words that defamed the great were ever welcome to him; arguments that showed him he was oppressed and imposed upon sounded ever gratefully in his ears. He nodded his approval of "Battista's" dictum.

  "Body of Bacchus!" he swore, "you are right in that, compatriot. But my case is different. I am thinking of the curse that Mother Church has put upon this house. Yesterday was All Saints, and never a Mass heard I. To-day is All Souls, and never a prayer may I offer up in this place of sin for the rest of my mother's soul."

  "How so?" quoth Garnache, looking in wonder at this religiously minded cut-throat.

  "How so? Is not the House of Condillac under excommunication, and every man who stays in it of his own free will? Prayers and Sacraments are alike forbidden here."

  Garnache received a sudden inspiration. He leapt to his feet, his face convulsed as if at the horror of learning of a hitherto undreamt-of state of things. He never paused to give a moment's consideration to the cut-throat's mind, so wonderfully constituted as to enable him to break with impunity every one of the commandments every day of the week for the matter of a louis d'or or two, and yet be afflicted by qualms of conscience at living under a roof upon which the Church had hurled her malediction.

  "What are you saying, compatriot? What is it that you tell me?"

  "The truth," said Arsenio, with a shrug. "Any man who wilfully abides in the services of Condillac"—and instinctively he lowered his voice lest the Captain or the Marquise should be within earshot—, "is excommunicate."

  "By the Host!" swore the false Piedmontese. "I am a Christian man myself, Arsenio, and I have lived in ignorance of this thing?"

  "That ignorance may be your excuse. But now that you know—" Arsenio shrugged his shoulders.

  "Now that I know, I, had best have a care of my soul and look about me for other employment."

  "Alas!" sighed Arsenio; "it is none so easy to find."

  Garnache looked at him. Garnache began to have in his luck a still greater faith than hitherto. He glanced stealthily around; then he sat down again, so that his mouth was close to Arsenio's ear.

  "The pay is beggarly here, yet I have refused a fortune offered me by another that I might remain loyal to my masters at Condillac. But this thing that you tell me alters everything. By the Host! yes."

  "A fortune?" sneered Arsenio.

  "Aye, a fortune—at least, fifty pistoles. That is a fortune to some of us."

  Arsenio whistled. "Tell me more," said he.

  Garnache rose with the air of one about to depart.

  "I must think of it," said he, and he made shift to go. But the other's hand fell with a clenching grip upon his arm.

  "Of what must you think, fool?" said he. "Tell me this service you have been offered. I have a conscience that upbraids me. If you refuse these fifty pistoles, why should not I profit by your folly?"

  "There would not be the need. Two men are required for the thing I speak of, and there are fifty pistoles for each. If I decide to undertake the task, I'll speak of you as a likely second."

  He nodded gloomily to his companion, and shaking off his hold he set out to cross the yard. But Arsenio was after him and had fastened again upon his arm, detaining him.

  "You fool!" said he; "you'd not refuse this fortune?"

  "It would mean treachery," whispered Garnache.

  "That is bad," the other agreed, and his face fell. But remembering what Garnache had said, he was quick to brighten again. "Is it to these folk here at Condillac?" he asked. Garnache nodded. "And they would pay—these people that seek our service would pay you fifty pistoles?"

  "They seek my service only, as yet. They might seek yours were I to speak for you."

  "And you will, compatriot. You will, will you not? We are comrades, we are friends, and we are fellow-countrymen in a strange land. There is nothing I would not do for you, Battista. Look, I would die for you if there should come the need! Body of Bacchus! I would. I am like that when I love a man."

  Garnache patted his shoulder. "You are a good fellow, Arsenio."

  "And you will speak for me?"

  "But you do not know the nature of the service," said Garnache. "You may refuse it when it is definitely offered you."

  "Refuse fifty pistoles? I should deserve to be the pauper that I am if such had been my habits. Be the service what it may, my conscience pricks me for serving Condillac. Tell me how the fifty pistoles are to be earned, and you may count upon me to put my hand to anything."

  Garnache was satisfied. But he told Arsenio no more that day, beyond assuring him he would speak for him and let him know upon the morrow. Nor on the morrow, when they returned to the subject at Arsenio's eager demand, did Garnache tell him all, or even that the service was mademoiselle's. Instead he pretended that it was some one in Grenoble who needed two such men as they.

  "Word has been brought me," he said mysteriously. "You must not ask me how."

  "But how the devil are we to reach Grenoble? The Captain will never let us go," said Arsenio, in an ill-humour.

  "On the night that you are of the watch, Arsenio, we will depart together without asking the Captain's leave. You shall open the postern when I come to join you he
re in the courtyard."

  "But what of the man at the door yonder?" And he jerked his thumb towards the tower where mademoiselle was a captive, and where at night "Battista" was locked in with her. At the door leading to the courtyard a sentry was always posted for greater security. That door and that sentry were obstacles which Garnache saw the futility of attempting to overcome without aid. That was why he had been forced to enlist Arsenio's assistance.

  "You must account for him, Arsenio," said he.

  "Thus?" inquired Arsenio coolly, and he passed the edge of his hand significantly across his throat. Garnache shook his head.

  "No," said he; "there will be no need for that. A blow over the head will suffice. Besides, it may be quieter. You will find the key of the tower in his belt. When you have felled him, get it and unlock the door; then whistle for me. The rest will be easy."

  "You are sure he has the key?"

  "I have it from madame herself. They were forced to leave it with him to provide for emergencies. Mademoiselle's attempted escape by the window showed them the necessity for it." He did not add that it was the implicit confidence they reposed in "Battista" himself that had overcome their reluctance to leave the key with the sentry.

  To seal the bargain, and in earnest of all the gold to come, Garnache gave Arsenio a couple of gold louis as a loan to be repaid him when their nameless employer should pay him his fifty pistoles in Grenoble.

  The sight and touch of the gold convinced Arsenio that the thing was no dream. He told Garnache that he believed he would be on guard-duty on the night of the following Wednesday—this was Friday—and so for Wednesday next they left the execution of their plans unless, meantime, a change should be effected in the disposition of the sentries.

  CHAPTER XIII. THE COURIER

  Monsieur de Garnache was pleased with the issue of his little affair with Arsenio.

  "Mademoiselle," he told Valerie that evening, "I was right to have faith in my luck, right to believe that the tide of it is flowing. All we need now is a little patience; everything has become easy."