The Justice of the King. Hamilton Drummond
of unhappiness and dread that the Dauphin might well be the centre of a plot, a plot to murder the father in the son's name for the relief of the nation. But was the Dauphin himself concerned in the plot, or had he that knowledge which, prince though he was, laid him open to the penalty for blood-guiltiness? These were the questions which troubled Commines.
Clearly—and as he followed his train of thought he turned aside, his hands locked behind him, his head bowed, and walked up and down in the shadow flung by the gloomy range of buildings which cut the courtyard into two halves—clearly the King had no doubt: clearly the despatch had left no room for doubt. Or else—the thought was contemptible, but it refused to be thrust aside—the King wished to have no room for doubt. The frown deepened on Commines' face as he remembered how often the King's wishes had been master of the truth.
But could any father be cursed with such a terrible wish? Yes, when the father was that complex, unhappy man, Louis of France. Commines knew the King as no man else knew him, and in the gloomy depths of that knowledge he found two reasons why the father would have no sorrow for the death of the son. It was characteristic of Louis to hate and dread his natural successor, nor did his distrustful fears pause to consider that if the Dauphin was swept aside Charles of Orleans would stand in his son's place. When that day came he would hate and dread Charles as his suspicious soul now hated and dreaded the Dauphin.
The other reason he had himself unveiled to Commines, no doubt with a set purpose. Behind the King's most trivial act there was always a set purpose. In a boy's feeble hands, a puppet as he had called him, a king in legal age and yet a child in years and ignorance, this great France he had built up so laboriously would crumble into ruin. Louis was a statesman first and a father afterwards. So Commines must go to Amboise, must sift, search, find—but especially find. Find what? His question had been answered—find and prove the boy's guilty knowledge. But having found, having proved that the King's fears were terribly justified, what then? The answer to that question touched the hopes of his ambition. Upon most men death steals unawares, but for Louis the edge of the grave crumbled in the sight of all who served him, nor, when the end came, would it linger in the coming. Supposing death struck down the King while he, Commines, was still at Amboise, finding? What then? The opportunist in Commines was vigilantly awake, that nice sense which discriminates the rising power and clings to its skirts. The Dauphin would be King of France. For the third time he asked himself, What then?
It was a relief to his perplexity that a cheery full-noted whistle broke across the question, a whistle which from time to time slipped into a song whose words Commines could hear in part:
"Heigh-ho! Love's but a pain,
Love's but a bitter-sweet, lasts an hour:
Heigh-ho! Sunshine and rain!
If it's so brief whence comes love's power?
Wherefore go clearly,
Sweetly and dearly—"
and the song ran again into a whistle.
At the sound the gravity faded from Commines' face and the coarse set mouth grew almost tender. It was Stephen La Mothe: and whatever the words might be, the lad surely knew little of love when he so lightly marred his own sentiment. A lover sighing for his mistress would have sighed less blithesomely and to the very end of his plaint. Presently the voice rose afresh:
"Heigh-ho! where dost thou hide,
Love, that I seek for thee, high and low?
Heigh-ho! world, thou art wide,
Heat of the summer and cold of the snow.
April so smiling,
June so beguiling,
Let us forget, love, that winter's storms blow."
Entering the narrow hall, lit only from the courtyard and with a much-shadowed stairway rising from the further end, Commines pushed open a door on his right, fastening it behind him as he entered.
"Stephen, Stephen, what do you know of June and December, love's sunshine and the cold of the snow?" he said railingly.
"Nothing at all, Uncle, and just as much as I want to know," was the answer. "But a song must have a theme or there'd be no song."
"And you think love is a better theme than the text you hold on your knee."
"Yes: for a song. If it was a tale, now, or an epic, it would be a different matter. But they are beyond me, both of them. Do you think, Uncle," and La Mothe turned over the arquebuse Commines had pointed at in jest as it lay on his lap, "this will ever be better than a curious toy? I think it is quite useless. By the time you could prime it here, set your tinder burning and touch it off there, I would have my sword through you six times over."
"Charles the Rash found it no toy in the hands of the Swiss at Morat," replied Commines. "But toy or no toy, put it aside while I talk to you. Stephen, my son, I fear I have done you an ill turn to-day."
"Then it is the first of your life," answered La Mothe cheerily, as he stood the weapon upright in the angle of the wall. "It would need a good many ill turns to set the balance even between us, Uncle Philip."
"No. One thoughtless act which cannot be recalled or undone may outweigh a life. And so with this. Stephen, I have commended you to the King for service."
La Mothe leaped to his feet, laying his hands on Commines' shoulders impulsively, one upon each. And if proof were needed of the relations between these two, it would be found in the spontaneous frankness of the gesture: Philip de Commines was not a man with whom to take liberties, but there stood La Mothe almost rocking the elder man in the fullness of his satisfaction.
"At last," he cried. "I have been eating my heart out for this for a week past! And you call that an ill turn?"
"Stop! Stop! Stop!" and Commines, smiling through his gravity, followed the other's gesture so that the two stood face to face, locked the one to the other at arm's length.
How like the lad was to Suzanne: a man's strong likeness of a woman's sweet face. There were the same clear expressive eyes, ready to light with laughter or darken with sympathy; the same sensitive firm mouth and squared chin, fuller and stronger as became a man and yet Suzanne's in steadfastness to the life; the same broad forehead and arched brows; the same unconscious trick of flushing in moments of excitement. Even the colour of the hair was the same, with the curious ruddy copper tint running through the brown in certain lights.
Yes; it was Suzanne's self, Suzanne whom he had loved as he had never loved Hélène de Chambes, his wife these nine years past! Suzanne whom he still loved with that reverence which belongs alone to the gentle dead: Suzanne for whom even now his spirit cried out in these rare moments when it broke through the cynical, selfish crust which had hardened upon him since Suzanne died. So for Suzanne's sake he called Stephen his son, though there was no such difference in age, nor any drop of blood relationship.
"Do you know," he went on, gravely tender in the memory of the dead woman, "that a king's service brings with it a king's risks?"
"And did Monsieur de Perche call me coward when he wrote to you?"
"No; he said many things which it were better a boy should not know were said. Conceit is only too ready to take youth by the arm."
"And am I such a boy? Surely four-and-twenty——"
"Are you so old? It always comes as an astonishment when those we love are no longer children. It is then we realize how the years have passed."
"So old, Uncle. Four-and-twenty is no boy."
"A man in years, a boy at heart. Be a boy at heart as long as you can, Stephen, for so will you keep your conscience clean before God. And yet what use has the King for a boy's service?"
"Teach the boy to be a man in thought that he may find a use for himself, Uncle; and who can do that so well as you?"
Commines let his hands fall to his sides and turned away, pacing the room with short strides. His man's thoughts were not always such as he would care to teach Stephen La