An Enemy to the King. Robert Neilson Stephens
trouble from the wilful but charming head of Marguerite. In either case, I might serve a beautiful woman, a queen, the wife of a Huguenot king. Certainly, if that man, paid spy or accidental interloper, should reach the guard-house with information that three men had left the Louvre by stealth, the three men might be overtaken and imprisoned, and great annoyance brought to Marguerite. All this occupied my mind but an instant. Before the man had taken ten steps, I was after him.
He heard me coming, looked around, saw my hand already upon my sword-hilt, and shouted, "The guard! Help!" I saw that, to avoid a disclosure, I must silence him speedily; yet I dared not kill him, for he might be somebody whose dead body found so near the palace would lead to endless investigations, and in the end involve Marguerite, for suppose that the King had set him to watch her? Therefore I called to him, "Stop and face me, or I will split you as we run!"
The man turned at once, as if already feeling my sword-point entering his back. Seeing that I had not even drawn that weapon, he, himself, drew a dagger and raised it to strike. But I was too quick and too long of arm for him. With my gloved fist I gave him a straight blow on the side of the chin, and he dropped like a felled tree, at the very moat's edge, over which I rolled him that he might recover in safety from the effects of the shock.
I knew that, when he should awake, he would not dare inform the guard, for the three men would then be far away, and he would have no evidence to support his story. He would only put himself in danger of having fabricated a false accusation against the King's sister.
I deemed it best to go from the vicinity of the Louvre at once, and I did so, with a last wistful look at the windows behind which Mlle. d'Arency might or might not be reposing. I did not reappear there until the next morning. The first person I then met was Malerain, who was coming from the church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, where he had been making up for previous neglect of devotions.
"Well," I said, as I stood before him, and twisted my up-shooting mustaches, in unconscious imitation of him, "I trust you found your quarter on duty last night an easy one. You must thank me for saving you some labor."
"What do you mean?" he asked, with a look of sudden interest.
"Nothing, only that you might have been called on to give chase to some flying bird or other, if I had not knocked down a rascal who was running to inform the guard."
"And you saw the bird fly?" he said, with increasing astonishment.
"From an opening in that great cage," I replied, looking towards the Louvre.
"Then I, for myself, am glad you knocked down the said rascal who would have made falçons of us to bring the bird down. But be more cautious. Suppose what you did should reach the ears of the King?"
"Why should the King concern himself?"
"Monsieur, is it possible that you don't know that the bird that flew from the Louvre last night was the Duke of Anjou?"
It was now my turn to stare in astonishment.
"But," I said, "what use for him to leave the palace? There would be the gates of Paris to pass."
"There is more than one way to cross the fortifications of Paris, especially when one has such an ally as Bussy d'Amboise, free, to arrange matters. Monsieur is at this moment certainly on his way to some stronghold of his own. The King is mad with rage. Queen Marguerite is looking innocent and astonished, but I'll wager she had a hand in this evasion. My friend, I am under obligations to you!"
"How?"
"Why, since Queen Marguerite undoubtedly rejoices at her favorite brother's escape, and you helped to make it good, she owes you gratitude. So do all her maids, who, naturally, share in her feelings and benefit by her joy. Now, that gratitude extends of course to your friends, of whom I am one. Therefore a good turn is due me from one of those maids in particular, and for that I am obliged to you!"
I laughed at this fantastic extension of a debt of gratitude. "Doubtless," I said; "but since neither Marguerite nor the maid knows anything about my share in the matter, I don't see how you are going to collect the debt."
Malerain said nothing, but there was already that in his mind which, absurd as it might seem at that time, was to save me when death should rise threateningly about me on every side. It is a world in which much comes from little.
I was somewhat agitated at realizing that I had been the means of aiding an escape which might result in opposing the troops of the King to those of certain Huguenot leaders; but this thought was suddenly driven from my mind by a sight which caused me to leave Malerain abruptly, and make for one of the streets that led from the Louvre to the midst of the town.
It was Mlle. d'Arency, mounted on a plumed horse, with tassellated trappings, which was led by a young equerry who wore Catherine's colors, and followed by two mounted lackeys in similar livery. Beside her rode the stout, elderly woman who usually attended her. Mlle. d'Arency wore a mask of black velvet, but that could not conceal her identity from eyes to which every line of her pretty head, every motion of her graceful person, had become familiar in actual contemplation and in dreams. Her cloak and gown were, alike, of embroidered velvet of the color of red wine, as was the velvet toque which sat perched on her dark brown hair.
I followed her at some distance, resolved to find an opportunity for a seemingly accidental meeting. I supposed that she was going to visit some of the shops—perhaps for the Queen-mother, perhaps for herself.
She led me on and on, until I began to wonder what could be her destination. She avoided the streets of fine shops, such as were patronized by the court, skirted market-places, and continued, in a general easterly direction, until she had crossed both the Rue St. Denis and the Rue St. Martin. At last, turning out of the Rue St. Antoine, she reached, by a little street lined with bakeries, a quiet square before a small church, of which I never even learned the name. She and the stout woman dismounted, and entered the church, leaving her male attendants outside with the horse.
"Oho," I mused, stopping at the door of a pastry-cook's at the place where the little street joined the square; "she chooses an obscure place for her devotions. Evidently she prefers to mingle solitude with them, so I must not disturb her."
I decided, therefore, to wait at the pastry-cook's till she should come out, and then to encounter her as if by chance. I would have, at least, a word in payment for having come so far afoot.
The pastry-cook must have been convinced of two things before Mlle. d'Arency came out of church: first, that his fortune was made if this new customer, myself, should only continue to patronize him; second, that there existed, at least, one human stomach able to withstand unlimited quantities of his wares.
I stood back in the shop, devouring one doughy invention after another, with my ear alert for the sound of her horse's hoofs on the stones. At last it occurred to me that she might have left the square by some other street. I made for the door of the shop to look. As I did so, a man rapidly passed the shop, going from the square towards the Rue St. Antoine. Was not that figure known to me? I hastened to the street. My first glance was towards the church. There stood her horse, and her three attendants were walking up and down in the sunlight. Then I looked after the man; I thought that the figure looked like that of De Noyard.
He disappeared into the Rue St. Antoine, having given me no opportunity to see his face. I would have followed, to make sure, roused into an intolerable jealousy at the idea of a secret meeting between Mlle. d'Arency and him, but that I now heard the full melodious voice of the lady herself. Looking around, I saw her on the steps of the church, with her middle-aged companion. At that instant her eyes met mine.
I advanced, with an exaggerated bow, sweeping the stones of the street with the plumes of my hat.
"So it is true!" I said, making no effort to control my agitation, and restraining my voice only that the lackeys might not hear; "you love that man!"
She looked at me steadily for a moment, and then said, "Do you mean M. de Noyard?"
"Ah, you admit it!"
"I admit nothing. But if I did love