by John Buchan
“That way lies the Admiral,” Gaspard cried. “I go to him,” and he clapped spurs to his horse.
But as his beast leapt forward another sound broke out, coming apparently from above their heads. It was the clanging of a great bell.
There is no music so dominant as bells. Their voice occupies sky as well as earth, and they overwhelm the senses, so that a man’s blood must keep pace with their beat. They can suit every part, jangling in wild joy, or copying the slow pace of sorrow, or pealing in ordered rhythm, blithe but with a warning of mortality in their cadence. But this bell played dance music. It summoned to an infernal jig. Blood and fever were in its broken fall, hate and madness and death.
Gaspard checked his plunging horse. “By God, it is from St. Germains l’Auxerrois! The Palace church. The King is in it. It is a plot against our faith. They have got the pick of us in their trap and would make an end of us.”
From every house and entry men and women and priests were pouring to swell the army that pressed roaring eastwards. No one heeded the two as they sat their horses like rocks in the middle of a torrent.
“The Admiral is gone,” said Gaspard with a sob in his voice. “Our few hundred spears cannot stand against the King’s army. It remains for us to die with him.”
Champernoun was cursing steadily in a mixture of English and Spanish, good mouth-filling oaths delivered without heat. “Die we doubtless shall, but not before we have trounced this bloody rabble.”
Still Gaspard did not move. “After to-night there will be no gentlemen left in France, for we of the religion had all the breeding. Then he laughed bitterly. “I mind Ribaut’s last words, when Menendez slew him. ‘We are of earth,’ says he, ‘and to earth we must return, and twenty years more or less can matter little!’ That is our case to-night, old friend.”
“Maybe,” said the Englishman. “But why talk of dying? You and I are Spanish caballeros. Walsingham told me that the King hated that nation, and that the Queen-mother loved it not, but it would appear that now we are very popular in Paris.”
“Nay, nay, this is no time to play the Nicodemite. It is the hour for public confession “I’m off to the dead Admiral to avenge him on his assassins.”
“Softly, Gaspard. You and I are old companions in war, and we do not ride against a stone wall if there be a gate. It was not thus that Gourgues avenged Ribaut at St. John’s. Let us thank God that we hold a master card in this game. We are two foxes in a flock of angry roosters, and by the Lord’s grace we will take our toll of them. Cunning, my friend. A stratagem of war! We stand outside this welter and, having only the cold passion of revenge, can think coolly. God’s truth, man, have we fought the Indian and the Spaniard for nothing? Wily is the word... Are we two gentlemen, who fear God, to be worsted by a rabble of Papegots and Marannes?”
It was the word “Marannes,” or, as we say, “halfcastes,” which brought conviction to Gaspard. Suddenly he saw his enemies as less formidable, as something contemptible — things of a lower breed, dupers who might themselves be duped.
“Faith, Gawain, you are the true campaigner. Let us forward, and trust to Heaven to show us a road.”
They galloped down the Rue St. Honoré, finding an open space in the cobbles of the centre, but at the turning into the Rue d’Arbre Sec they met a block. A great throng with torches was coming in on the right from the direction of the Bourbon and d’Alençon hotels. Yet by pressing their horses with whip and spur, and by that awe which the two tall dark cavaliers inspired even in a mob which had lost its wits, they managed to make their way to the entrance of the Rue de Bethisy. There they came suddenly upon quiet.
The crowd was held back by mounted men who made a ring around the gate of a high dark building. Inside its courtyard there were cries and the rumour of fighting, but out in the street there was silence. Every eye was turned to the archway, which was bright as day with the glare of fifty lanterns.
The two rode straight to the ring of soldiers.
“Make way,” Gaspard commanded, speaking with a foreign accent.
“For whom, monsieur?” one asked who seemed to be of a higher standing than the rest.
“For the Ambassador of the King of Spain.”
The man touched his bonnet and opened up a road by striking the adjacent horses with the flat of his sword, and the two rode into the ring so that they faced the archway. They could see a little way inside the courtyard, where the light gleamed on armour. The men there were no rabble, but Guise’s Swiss.
A priest came out, wearing the Jacobin habit, one of those preaching friars who had been fevering the blood of Paris. The crowd behind the men-at-arms knew him, for even in its absorption it sent up shouts of greeting. He flitted like a bat towards Gaspard and Champernoun and peered up at them. His face was lean and wolfish, with cruel arrogant eyes.
“Hail, father!” said Gaspard in Spanish. “How goes the good work?”
He replied in the same tongue. “Bravely, my children. But this is but the beginning. Are you girt and ready for the harvesting?”
“We are ready,” said Gaspard. His voice shook with fury, but the Jacobin took it for enthusiasm. He held up his hand in blessing and fluttered back to the archway.
From inside the courtyard came the sound of something falling, and then a great shout. The mob had jumped to a conclusion. “That is the end of old Toothpick,” a voice cried, using the Admiral’s nickname There was a wild surge round the horsemen, but the ring held. A body of soldiers poured out of the gate, with blood on their bare swords. Among them was one tall fellow all in armour, with a broken plume on his bonnet. His face was torn and disfigured and he was laughing horribly. The Jacobin rushed to embrace him, and the man dropped on his knees to receive a blessing.
“Behold our hero,” the friar cried. “His good blade has rid us of the arch-heretic,” and the mob took up the shout.
Gaspard was cool now. His fury had become a cold thing like a glacier.
“I know him!” he whispered to Champernoun. He is the Italian Petrucci. He is our first quarry.”
The second will be that damned friar,” was the Englishman’s answer.
Suddenly the ring of men-at-arms drew inward as a horseman rode out of the gate followed by half a dozen attendants. He was a tall young man, very noble to look upon, with a flushed face like a boy warm from the game of paume . His long satin coat was richly embroidered, and round his neck hung the thick gold collar of some Order. He was wiping a stain from his sleeve with a fine lawn handkerchief.
What is that thing gilt like a chalice?” whispered Champernoun.
“Henry of Guise,” said Gaspard.
The Duke caught sight of the two men in the centre of the ring. The lanterns made the whole place bright and he could see every detail of their dress and bearing. He saluted them courteously.
“We make your Grace our compliments,” said Gaspard. “We are of the household of the Ambassador of Spain, and could not rest indoors when great deeds were being done in the city.”
The young man smiled pleasantly. There was a boyish grace in his gesture.
“You are welcome, gentlemen. I would have every good Catholic in Europe see with his own eyes the good work of this Bartholomew’s day. I would ask you to ride with me, but I leave the city in pursuit of the Count of Montgomery, who is rumoured to have escaped. There will be much for you to see on this happy Sunday. But stay! You are not attended, and our streets are none too safe for strangers. Presently the Huguenots will counterfeit our white cross, and blunders may be made by the overzealous.”
He unclasped the jewel which hung at the end of his chain. It was a little Agnus of gold and enamel, surmounting a lozenge-shaped shield charged with an eagle.
“Take this,” he said, “and return it to me when the work is over. Show it if any man dares to question you. It is a passport from Henry of Guise... And now forward,” he cried to his followers. “Forward for Montgomery and the Vidame.”
The two looked after t
he splendid figure. “That bird is in fine feather,” said Champernoun.
Gaspard’s jaw was very grim. “Some day he will lie huddled under the assassin’s knife. He will die as he has made my chief die, and his body will be cast to the dog’s...
But he has given me a plan,” and he spoke in his companion’s ear.
The Englishman laughed. His stolidity had been slow to quicken, but his eyes were now hot and he had altogether ceased to swear.
“First let me get back to Walsingham’s lodging. I have a young kinsman there, they call him Walter Raleigh, who would dearly love this venture.”
“Tut, man, be serious. We play a desperate game, and there is no place for boys in it. We have Guise’s jewel, and by the living God we will use it. My mark is Petrucci.”
“And the priest,” said Champernoun.
The crowd in the Rue de Bethisy was thinning, as bands of soldiers, each with its tail of rabble, moved off to draw other coverts. There was fighting still in many houses, and on the roof-tops as the pale dawn spread could be seen the hunt for fugitives. Torches and lanterns still flickered obscenely, and the blood in the gutters shone sometimes golden in their glare and sometimes spread drab and horrid in the waxing daylight.
The Jacobin stood at their elbow. “Follow me, my lords of Spain,” he cried. “No friends of God and the Duke dare be idle this happy morn. Follow, and I will show you wonders.”
He led them east to where a broader street ran to the river.
“Somewhere here lies Teligny,” he croaked. “Once he is dead the second head is lopped from the dragon of Babylon. Oh that God would show us where Conde and Navarre are hid, for without them our task is incomplete.
There was a great crowd about the door of one house, and into it the Jacobin fought his way with prayers and threats. Some Huguenot — Teligny it might be — was cornered there, but in the narrow place only a few could join in the hunt, and the hunters, not to be impeded by the multitude, presently set a guard at the street door. The mob below was already drunk with blood, and found waiting intolerable; but it had no leader and foamed aimlessly about the causeway. There were women in it with flying hair like Maenads, who shrilled obscenities, and drunken butchers and watermen and grooms who had started out for loot and ended in sheer lust of slaying, and dozens of broken desperadoes and led-captains who looked on the day as their carnival. But to the mob had come one of those moments of indecision when it halted and eddied like a whirlpool.
Suddenly in its midst appeared two tall horsemen.
“Men of Paris,” cried Gaspard with that masterful voice which is born of the deep seas. “You see this jewel. It was given me an hour back by Henry of Guise.”
A ruffian examined it. “Ay,” he murmured with reverence, “it is our Duke’s. I saw it on his breast before Coligny’s house.”
The mob was all ears. “I have the Duke’s command,” Gaspard went on. “He pursues Montgomery and the Vidame of Chartres. Coligny is dead. Teliguy in there is about to die. But where are all the others? Where is La Rochefoucault? Where is Rosny? Where is Grammont? Where, above all, are the young Conde and the King of Navarre?”
The names set the rabble howling. Every eye was on the speaker.
Gaspard commanded silence. “I will tell you. The Huguenots are cunning as foxes. They planned this very day to seize the King and make themselves masters of France. They have copied your badge,” and he glanced towards his left arm. “Thousands of them are waiting for revenge, and before it is full day they will be on you. You will not know them, you will take them for your friends, and you will have your throats cut before you find out your error.”
A crowd may be wolves one moment and chickens the next, for cruelty and fear are cousins. A shiver of apprehension went through the soberer part. One drunkard who shouted was clubbed on the head by his neighbour. Gaspard saw his chance.
“My word to you — the Duke’s word — is to forestall this devilry. Follow me, and strike down every band of white-badged Huguenots. For among them be sure is the cub of Navarre.”
It was the leadership which the masterless men wanted. Fifty swords were raised, and a shout went up which shook the windows of that lodging where even now Teliguy was being done to death. With the two horsemen at their head the rabble poured westwards towards the Rue d’Arbre Sec and the Louvre, for there in the vicinity of the Palace were the likeliest coverts.
“Now Heaven send us Petrucci,” said Gaspard. “Would that the Little Man had been alive and with us! This would have been a ruse after his own heart,”
“I think the great Conde would have specially misliked yon monk,” said the Englishman.
“Patience, Gawain. One foe at a time. My heart tells me that you will get your priest.”
The streets, still dim in the dawn, were thickly carpeted with dead. The mob kicked and befouled the bodies, and the bravos in sheer wantonness spiked them with their swords. There were women there, and children, lying twisted on the causeway. Once a fugitive darted out of an entry, to be brought down by a butcher’s axe.
“I have never seen worse in the Indies,” and Champernoun shivered. “My stomach turns. For heaven’s sake let us ride down this rabble!”
“Patience,” said Gaspard, his eyes hard as stones. “Cursed be he that putteth his hand to the plough and then turns back.”
They passed several small bodies of Catholic horse, which they greeted with cheers. That was in the Rue des Poulies; and at the corner where it abutted on the quay before the Hotel de Bourbon, a ferret-faced man ran blindly into them. Gaspard caught him and drew him to his horse’s side, for he recognised the landlord of the tavern where he had supped.
“What news, friend?” he asked.
The man was in an anguish of terror, but he recognised his former guest.
“There is a band on the quay,” he stammered. “They are mad and do not know a Catholic when they see him. They would have killed me, had not the good Father Antoine held them till I made off.”
“Who leads them?” Gaspard asked, having a premonition.
“A tall man in crimson with a broken plume.”
“How many?”
“Maybe a hundred, and at least half are men-at-arms.”
Gaspard turned to Champernoun.
“We have found our quarry,” he said.
Then he spoke to his following, and noted with comfort that it was now some hundred strong, and numbered many swords. “There is a Huguenot band before us,” he cried. “They wear our crosses, and this honest fellow has barely escaped from them. They are less than three score. On them, my gallant lads, before they increase their strength, and mark specially the long man in red, for he is the Devil. It may be Navarre is with them.”
The mob needed no second bidding. Their chance had come, and they swept along with a hoarse mutter more fearful than any shouting.
“Knee to knee, Gawain,” said Gaspard, “as at St. John d’Ulloa. Remember, Petrucci is for me.”
The Italian’s band, crazy with drink and easy slaying, straggled across the wide quay and had no thought of danger till the two horsemen were upon them. The songs died on their lips as they saw bearing down on them an avenging army. The scared cries of “The Huguenots!” “Montgomery!” were to Gaspard’s following a confirmation of their treachery. The swords of the bravos and the axes and knives of the Parisian mob made havoc with the civilian rabble, but the men-at-arms recovered themselves and in knots fought a stout battle. But the band was broken at the start by the two grim horsemen who rode through it as through meadow grass, their blades falling terribly, and then turned and cut their way back. Yet a third time they turned, and in that last mowing they found their desire. A tall man in crimson appeared before them. Gaspard flung his reins to Champernoun and in a second was on the ground, fighting with a fury that these long hours had been stifled. Before his blade the Italian gave ground till he was pinned against the wall of the Bourbon hotel. His eyes were staring with amazement and dawning fear.
“I am a friend,” he stammered in broken French and was answered in curt Spanish. Presently his guard weakened and Gaspard gave him the point in his heart. As he drooped to the ground, his conqueror bent over him. “The Admiral is avenged,” he said. “Tell your master in hell that you died at the hands of Coligny’s kinsman.”
Gaspard remounted, and, since the fight had now gone eastward, they rode on to the main gate of the Louvre, where they met a company of the royal Guards coming out to discover the cause of an uproar so close to the Palace. He told his tale of the Spanish Embassy and showed Guise’s jewel. “The streets are full of Huguenots badged as Catholics. His Majesty will be well advised to quiet the rabble or he will lose some trusty servants.”
In the Rue du Coq, now almost empty, the two, horsemen halted.
“We had better be journeying, Gawain. Guise’s jewel will open the gates. In an hour’s time all Paris will be on our trail.”
“There is still that priest,” said Champernoun doggedly. He was breathing heavily, and his eyes were light and daring. Like all his countrymen, he was slow to kindle but slower to cool.
“In an hour, if we linger here, we shall be at his mercy. Let us head for the St. Antoine gate.”
The jewel made their way easy, for through that gate Henry of Guise himself had passed in the small hours. “Half an hour ago,” the lieutenant of the watch told them, “I opened to another party which bore the Duke’s credentials. They were for Amiens to spread the good news.”
“Had they a priest with them?”
“Ay, a Jacobin monk, who cried on them to hasten and not spare their horses. He said there was much to do in the north.”
“I think the holy man spoke truth,” said Gaspard, and they rode into open country.
They broke their fast on black bread and a cup of wine at the first inn, where a crowd of frightened countrymen were looking in the direction of Paris. It was now about seven o’clock, and a faint haze, which promised heat, cloaked the ground. From it rose the towers and high-peaked roofs of the city, insubstantial as a dream.