The Justice of the King. Hamilton Drummond
the King's service every man must bring his own thought."
"And did Monsieur de Perche call me fool when he wrote to you?"
"No: but the little things of Marbahan are poor training for the greater things of Valmy, of Blois, of Plessis, of Amboise, of Paris."
"But truth and faithfulness and courage are the same everywhere, and whether at Marbahan or Valmy a man can but serve God and the King with the best wits God has given him, and that I'll do."
"Aye!" said Commines drily, "but what of that Heigh-ho song of yours? When love knocks on one door the service of the King may get bundled out of the other."
Stephen La Mothe laughed a hearty, wholesome laugh, pleasant to hear. There was nothing of self-consciousness in it, and no protest could have more clearly proved that the mental comment of Commines' shrewdness had read the broken melody aright.
"That is easily settled. All His Majesty has to do is to find me a wife of seven thousand crowns a year with two or three little additions to give salt to their spending. Item, eyes which see straight; item, a mouth that's sweet for kissing; item, a temper as sweet as the mouth; item, a proper appreciation of my great merit. But, Uncle, what is the service?"
"That the King will tell you himself. And, lad, when kings talk it is a simple man's duty to listen and obey. Stephen, whatever the service may be, do it."
"Gratefully and faithfully, Uncle. Anything my honour——"
"Honour? God's name, boy, the King's honour is your honour: the King's service, no matter what it may be, is your honour. Are you, a milk-child from Marbahan, knowing nothing of the ways of men, to talk of your honour to the King?"
"Yes, but Uncle, Monsieur de Perche taught me——"
"Monsieur de Perche? Monsieur de Perche taught you many admirable truths, I don't doubt. That he might so teach you I placed you in his household seven years ago. Monsieur de Perche has taught you the use of arms, and that courtesy which next to arms goes to the making of a man. But what can a simple gentleman in the wilds of Poitou know of a king's service? and above all, of such a King? His little household with its round of petty thought was his great world, and a trial of hawks an event to be talked of for a week; but all France is the household of the King, and beyond the borders the eagles of Europe are poised to harry us. But while he lives they are afraid to swoop. While he lives, yes, while he lives."
"But after him comes the Dauphin?"
"A child! a puling, weakling, feeble child. Stephen, as king the
Dauphin spells disaster."
"He will have you to guide him, Uncle, and under you——"
But Commines silenced him with a gesture full of angry denial.
Unconsciously La Mothe had put his finger on a rankling sore.
"With the Dauphin king my career ends!" he said harshly. "He and those around him hate me as they hate his father: hate me because I am faithful to the father. And yet, Stephen, I have sometimes thought—this is for you alone—it might be that if in some crisis of his life I served the Dauphin as I served his father—but no! no! no! Even then it is doubtful, worse than doubtful. If Charles of Orleans were king it would be different. He is no child and old enough to be grateful. Always remember, Stephen, that a child is never grateful; it forgets too soon."
"And I am a grown man, Uncle, and so never can forget."
"I know, my son," and Commines' stern eyes softened. "I told the King you were faithful, and already he trusts you as I trust you," which was rather an overstatement of the case, seeing that Louis trusted no man, not even Commines' self. "To-morrow you are to see him."
"Then I hope his service, no matter what it is, will take me out of
Valmy."
"Why?"
For a moment La Mothe hesitated. The thought in his mind seemed at variance with his assertions of maturity and manhood, but he spoke it with characteristic frankness.
"Valmy frightens me."
"Why?" repeated Commines.
"Because of its silences, its coldness, its inhumanity—no, not inhumanity, its inhumanness. In Valmy no man sings; in Valmy few men laugh. When they speak they say little and their eyes are always afraid. And they are afraid; I see it, and I am growing afraid too."
"But half an hour ago you were singing?"
"But I am only nine days in Valmy. And sometimes when I sing I remember where I am and stop suddenly. It is as indecent as if one sang in the house of the dead. Soon I shall always remember and not sing at all. And I do not wonder that few men laugh."
"Why?" asked Commines for the third time. This was a new side to Stephen La Mothe and one that in the King's service—not forgetting his own—should not be ignored. Often in his career he had seen a well-laid plan miscarry because some seeming triviality was ignored. Was it not one of Louis' aphorisms that life held nothing really trivial?
"Because it is a house of the living dead."
"For God's sake, Stephen, hush. If the King heard you speak of his feebleness in such a way there would be a sudden end to both you and your service."
"The King? But I don't mean the King. I mean——" He paused as if searching for a comprehensive word or phrase, and presently he found it. "I mean the justice of the King."
"Well?" Commines' throat seemed suddenly to have gone dry, so that the word came harshly. Within the hour the King had used the same phrase, and the coincidence startled him unpleasantly.
But La Mothe made no immediate reply. To answer the little jerked-cut dry interrogatory in concise words was not easy. He knew his own meaning clearly enough, but how was he to make it equally clear to Commines, who was plainly unsympathetic? When at last he spoke it was with a hesitation which was almost an apology.
"As I passed through Thouars on my way from Poitou—you know Thouars,
Uncle?"
"Yes; go on."
"Then you know its market-place with the little shops all round and the church of St. Laon to the side: a cobble-paved space where the children play? At the one end there was a ring of black and white ashes with the heat still in them, and in the middle a Thing which hung by chains from an iron stake. It had been a man that morning, but there it hung by the spine with the chains through its ribs; a man no more, only blackened bones and little crisped horrors here or there. Round it two or three score, white-faced women and children mostly, stood and gaped, or talked in whispers, pointing. Presently the little children will play there, and shout and sing and laugh, and the women gossip or buy and sell."
"A coiner," said Commines. "The King must see that the silver is full weight."
"Yes, Uncle: but I have heard that sometimes the King himself has coined——"
"Hush, boy: the King is King."
"Then at Tours, as I rode through the Rue des Trois Pucelles, there was a house with a fine bold front. One would say that a man with the soul of an artist lived in it. There were brave carvings on the stout oak door, carvings on the stone divisions of its five windows, strong iron bars of very choice smith-work, twisted and hammered, to keep the common folk from tumbling into the cellars, and in the peaked roof of fair white plaster were driven great nails from which hung fags of rope, and from one something which was no rope, but a poor wisp of humanity staring horribly aslant above a broken neck."
"Yes," said Commines, "Tristan's house. He is the King's
Provost-Marshal and—and——"
"Yes, I know, Uncle. He carries out the justice of the King. But to hang a fellow-Christian over one's own hall-door is a strange taste."
"Stephen, take my advice and have naught to do with Tristan by word or deed. And no doubt the fellow deserved his