Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  “Good evening, mistress!” the innkeeper said, advancing to the fire. He masked well his nervousness: nevertheless, it was patent to us.

  “Good evening, Master Andrew,” she replied, looking up and nodding, but showing no sign of surprise at his appearance. “Martin is away, but he may return at any moment.”

  “To-night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he still of the same mind?”

  “Quite.”

  “Ah! That is so, is it. And what of Sully?” he continued, somewhat hoarsely. “Is he to die also?”

  “They have decided that he must,” the girl answered gloomily.

  On that, it may be believed that I listened; while the King by a nudge in my side, seemed to rally me on the destiny so coolly arranged for me. “Martin,” the girl continued, before the chill sensation had ceased to run down my back, “Martin says it is no good killing the other, unless he goes too — they have worked so long together. But it vexes me sadly, Master Andrew,” she added, with a certain break in her voice. “Sadly it vexes me. I could not sleep last night for thinking of it, and the risk Martin runs. And I shall sleep less — when it is done.”

  “Pooh! pooh!” said that rascally innkeeper, and stirred the fire. “Think less about it. Things will grow worse and worse, if they are let live. The King has done harm enough already. And he grows old besides. And to put off a step of this kind is dangerous. If a word got about— ’tis ruin.”

  “That is true!” the girl answered, gazing drearily at the pot. “And no doubt the sooner the King is put out of the way the better. I do not say a word for him. He must go. But ’tis Sully troubles me. He has done nought, and though he may become as bad as the others — he may not. It is that, and the risk Martin runs trouble me. ’Twould be death for him.”

  “Ay,” said Andrew, cutting her short; “that’s so.” And they both looked at the fire.

  At this I took the liberty of gently touching the King; but, by a motion of his finger, he enjoined silence. We stooped still farther forward so as to better command the room. The girl was rocking herself to and fro in evident anxiety, “If We killed the King,” she said, “Martin declares we should be no better off, as long as Sully lives. Both or neither, he Says. Both or neither. He grew mad about it. Both or neither! But I do not know. I cannot bear to think of it. It was a sad day When he brought the Duke here, Master Andrew, and one I fear we shall rue as long as we live!”

  It was now the King’s turn to be moved. He grasped my wrist so forcibly that I restrained a cry with difficulty. “The Duke!” he whispered harshly in my ear. “Then they are Epernon’s tools! Where is your warranty now, Rosny?”

  I confess that I trembled. I knew well that the King, particular in courtesies, never forgot to call his servants by their titles save in two cases: when he indicated by the error, as once in Marshal Biron’s affair, his intention to promote or degrade; or when he was moved to the depths of his nature and fell into an old habit. I did not dare to reply, but I listened greedily for more information.

  “When is it to be done?” the innkeeper asked, sinking his voice, and glancing round as if he would call especial attention to this.

  “That depends upon Master La Rivière,” the girl answered. “To-morrow night, I understand, if the physician can have the stuff ready.”

  I met the King’s eyes, shining in the faint light, which, issuing from the window, fell upon him. Of all things he hated treachery, and La Rivière was his first physician. At this very time, as I well knew, he was treating his Majesty for a slight derangement, which the King had brought upon himself by his imprudence. This doctor had formerly been in the employment of the Bouillon family, who had surrendered his services to the King. Neither I nor his Majesty had trusted the Duke of Bouillon for the last year past, so that we were not surprised by this hint that he also was privy to the design.

  Despite our anxiety not to miss a word, an approaching step warned us to leave the window for a moment. More than once before we had done so to escape the notice of a wayfarer passing up or down. But this time I had a difficulty in inducing the King to adopt the precaution. Yet it was well that I succeeded, for the person who came towards us did not pass, but, mounting the steps, almost within touch of me, entered the house.

  “The plot thickens,” the King muttered. “Who is this?”

  At the moment he asked I was racking my brain to remember. I have a good eye and a trained memory for faces; and this was one I had seen several times. The features were so familiar that I suspected the man of being a courtier in disguise, for he was shabbily dressed; and I ran over the names of several persons whom I knew to be Epernon’s friends or agents. But he was none of these, and, obeying the King’s gesture, I bent myself anew to the task of listening.

  The girl looked up at the man’s entrance, but did not rise. “You are late, Martin,” she said.

  “A little,” the new-comer answered. “How do you do, Master Andrew? What news of Aubergenville?” And then, not without a trace of affection in his tone, “What, still vexing, my girl?” he added, laying a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “You have too soft a heart for this business. I always said so.”

  She sighed, but made no answer.

  “You have made up your mind to it, I hear,” said the innkeeper.

  “That is it. Needs must when the devil drives!” the man replied jauntily. He had a bold, reckless, determined air; yet in his face I thought I saw still surviving some traces of a better spirit.

  “The devil in this case was the Duke,” quoth Andrew.

  “Ay, curse him! I would I had cut the dog’s liver out before he crossed my threshold,” cried the man, with passion. “But there, ’tis done! It is too late to say that now. What has to be done, has to be done.”

  “How are you going about it? Poison, the mistress says. And it is safest.”

  “Yes, she will have it so; but, if I had my way,” the man continued hardily, “I would out one of these nights and cut the dogs’ throats without more.”

  “You could never escape, Martin!” the girl cried, clasping her hands and rising in excitement. “It would be hopeless. It would be throwing away your own life. And besides, you promised me.”

  “Well, have it so. It is to be done your way, so there is an end,” the man answered wearily. “It is more expensive, that is all. Give me my supper. The devil take the King, and Sully too! He will soon have them!”

  Master Andrew rose on this, and I took his movement towards the door for a signal to us to retire. He came out presently, after bidding the two good night, and closed the door behind him. He found us standing in the street waiting for him, and forthwith he fell on his knees in the mud and looked up at me, the perspiration standing thick on his white face. “My lord,” he cried hoarsely, “I have earned my pardon!”

  “If you go on,” I said encouragingly, “as you have begun, have no fear.” And I whistled up the Swiss, and bade Maignan go in with them and arrest the man and woman with as little disturbance as possible. While this was being done we waited without, keeping a sharp eye upon the informer, whose terror, I noted with suspicion, seemed to be increasing rather than diminishing. He did not try to escape, however, and Maignan presently came to tell us that he had executed the arrest without difficulty or resistance.

  The importance of arriving at the truth before Epernon and the greater conspirators took the alarm was so vividly present to the minds both of the King and myself, that we decided to examine the prisoners in the house, rather than hazard the delay which the removal to a fit place must occasion. Accordingly taking the precaution to post Coquet in the street outside, and to plant a burly Swiss in the doorway, the King and I entered. I removed my mask, as I did so, being aware of the necessity of gaining the prisoners’ confidence, but I begged the King to retain his. As I had expected, the man immediately recognized me, and fell on his knees. A nearer view confirmed the notion I had previously entertained that his features were familiar to me, but
I could not remember his name. I thought this a good starting point for the examination; and bidding Maignan withdraw, I assumed an air of mildness, and asked the fellow his name.

  “Martin only, please your lordship,” he answered; adding “Once I sold you two dogs, sir, for the chase; and to your lady a lapdog called Ninette, no larger than her hand. ’Twas of three pounds weight and no more.”

  I remembered the knave then, as a well-known dog dealer, who had been much about the court in the reign of Henry the Third and later: and I saw at once how convenient a tool he might be made since he could be seen in converse with people of all ranks without arousing suspicion. The man’s face as he spoke expressed so much fear and surprise that I determined to try what I had often found successful in the case of greater criminals; to squeeze him for a confession, while still excited by his arrest, and before he had had time to consider what his chances of support at the hands of his confederates might be. I charged him therefore to tell the whole truth as he hoped for the King’s mercy. He heard me, gazing at me piteously; but his only answer, to my surprise, was that he had nothing to confess. Nothing! nothing, as he hoped for mercy.

  “Come! come!” I replied. “This will avail you nothing. If you do not speak quickly, and to the point, we shall find means to compel you. Who counselled you to attempt his Majesty’s life?”

  He stared at me, at that, so stupidly, and cried out with so real an appearance of horror, “How? I attempt the King’s life? God forbid!” that I doubted we had before us a more dangerous rascal than I had thought; and I hastened to bring him to the point.

  “What then—” I cried, frowning— “of the stuff Master La Rivière is to give you? To take the King’s life? To-morrow night? Oh, we know something I assure you. Bethink you quickly, and find your tongue if you would have an easy death.”

  I expected to see his self-control break down at this proof of our knowledge. But he only stared at me with the same look of bewilderment, and I was about to bid them bring in the informer that I might see the two front to front, when the female prisoner who had hitherto stood beside him, weeping in such distress and terror as were to be expected in a woman of that class, suddenly stopped her tears and lamentations. It occurred to me that she might make a better witness. I turned to her, but when I would have questioned her, she broke on the instant into hysterics, screaming and laughing in the wildest manner.

  From that, I remember, I learned nothing, though it greatly annoyed me. But there was one present who did, and that was the King. He laid his hand on my shoulder, gripping it with a force, that I read as a command to be silent. “Where,” he said to the man, “do you keep the King and Sully and The Duke, my friend?”

  “The King and Sully — with his lordship’s leave—” the man said quickly, but with a frightened glance at me— “are in the kennels at the back of the house; but it is not safe to go near them. The King is raving mad, and — and the other dog is sickening, I fear. The Duke we had to kill a month back. He brought the disease here, and I have had such losses through him as have nearly ruined me, please your lordship. And if the tale that we have got the madness among the dogs, goes about — —”

  “Get up! Get up, man!” cried the King. And tearing off his mask he stamped up and down the room, so torn by paroxysms of laughter that he choked himself whenever he attempted to speak. I too now saw the mistake, but I could not at first see it in the same light. Commanding my choler as well as I could, I ordered one of the Swiss to fetch in the innkeeper, but to admit no one else.

  The knave fell on his knees as soon as he saw me, his cheeks shaking like a jelly. “Mercy! mercy!” was all he could say.

  “You have dared to play with me?” I whispered. “With me? With me?”

  “You bade me joke!” he sobbed. “You bade me joke!”

  I was about to say that it would be his last joke in this world, for my anger was fully aroused, but the King intervened.

  “Nay,” he said, laying his hand on my shoulder, “it has been the most glorious jest. He has joked indeed. I would not have missed it for a kingdom! Not for a kingdom! I command you, Sully, to forgive him.”

  On which his Majesty strictly charged the three that they should not, on peril of their lives, tell the story; his regard for me, when he had laughed to satiety, proving strong enough to overcome his love of the diverting. Nor to the best of my belief did they do so; being so shrewdly scared when they recognized the King that I think they never afterwards so much as spoke of the affair to one another. My master further gave me his promise that he would not disclose the matter even to Madame de Verneuil, or the Queen; and upon these representations he induced me freely to forgive the innkeeper. I may seem to have dwelt longer than I should on the amusing details of this conspiracy. But alas! in twenty-one years of power, I investigated many, and this one only — and one other — can I regard with satisfaction. The rest were so many warnings and predictions of the fate which, despite all my care and fidelity, was in store for the King, my master.

  Such were the reasons, which would have led me had I followed the promptings of my own sagacity to oppose the return of the Jesuits. It remains for me to add that these arguments lost their weight when set in the balance against the safety of my beloved master. To this plea the King himself for once condescended, and found those who were most strenuous to dissuade him the least able to refute it; since the less a man loved the Jesuits, the more ready he was to allow that the King’s life could not be safe while the edict against them remained in force. The support which I gave to the King on this occasion exposed me to the utmost odium of my co-religionists, and was in later times ill-requited by the Order. But an incident which occurred while the matter was still in debate, and which I now for the first time make public, proved the wisdom of my conduct.

  Fontainebleau was at this time in the hands of the builders, and the King had gone to spend his Easter at Chantilly, whither Mademoiselle d’Entragues had also repaired. During his absence I was seated one morning in my library at the Arsenal, when I was informed that Father Cotton, he who at Nancy had presented the petition of the Jesuits, and who was now in Paris pursuing that business under a safe conduct, craved leave to wait upon me. I was not surprised, for I had been before this of some service to him. The pages of the Court while loitering outside the Louvre, as their custom is, had insulted the father by shouting after him, “Old Wool! Old Cotton!” in imitation of the Paris street cry. For this the King at my instigation had caused them to be whipped. I supposed that the Jesuit desired to thank me for this support — given in truth out of regard to discipline rather than to him; and I bade them admit him.

  His first words uttered before my secretaries retired, indicated that this was his errand; and for a few moments I listened to such statements, and myself made such answers as became our positions. Then, as he did not go, I conceived the notion that he had come with a further purpose; and his manner, which seemed strangely lacking in ease, considering that he was a man of skill and address, confirmed the notion. I waited therefore with patience, and presently he named his Majesty with some expressions of devotion to his person. “I trust,” said he, “that the air of Fontainebleau agrees with him, M. de Rosny.”

  “You mean, good father, of Chantilly?” I answered. “He is there.”

  “Ay, to be sure!” he rejoined. “I had forgotten. He is, to be sure, at Chantilly.”

  He rose after that to depart, but was delayed by the raptures into which he fell on the subject of the fire, which the weather being cold for the time of year, I had caused to be lit. “It burns so brightly,” said he, “that it must be of boxwood, M. de Rosny.”