Leatherface Part 40

"The Captain sent three men, Magnificence. But they had to go on foot.

We have no horses at the gates. The insurgents rounded them all in long before nightfall. But the men hope to pick up one or more on their way."

Alva, as is his wont, smothers a savage curse. The small body of Spanish cavalry which he had with him in the town had been the first to run helter-skelter over the Ketel Brughe into the Kasteel, whilst a whole squadron perished in the Schelde. One of those horses down there in the yard would mean reinforcements within a few hours.

"When did the messenger start for Dendermonde?" he asks again.

"When the Angelus began to ring at noon, Magnificence."

"Why not before?"

"The captain was undecided. He thought that every moment would bring help or orders from your Highness. He also tried to send messengers to Captain Lodrono at the Waalpoort, but the messengers must all have been intercepted and killed, for no help came from anywhere."

"Dost know if the message which thy captain sent to Dendermonde was couched in urgent terms?"

"I believe so, Magnificence. The senor captain was growing very anxious."

Once more the Duke is silent; his brows contract in an anxious frown.

His active brain is busy in making a mental calculation as to how soon those reinforcements can arrive. "The men will have to walk to Dendermonde," he muses, "and cannot get there before nightfall.... the commandant may start at night ... but he may tarry till the morrow....

It will be the end of the day before he and his men are here ... and in the meanwhile..."

"At the Braepoort?" he queries curtly, "how many of the guard have been killed?"

"We had a hundred and twenty killed when I left, Magnificence, and over three hundred lay wounded on the bridge. We have suffered heavily,"

adds the man after a slight moment of hesitation--the hesitation of the bearer of evil tidings who dreads his listener's wrath.

Alva remains silent for a moment or two, then he says abruptly: "Dost know that I have half a mind to kill thee, for all the evil news which thou hast brought?"

Then he laughs loudly and long because the man, with a quick cry of terror has made a sudden dash for the open window, and is brought back by the lance of the provost on guard upon the balcony. The pleasure of striking terror into the hearts of people has not yet palled upon his Magnificence.

"If I had a whole mind to kill thee," he continues, "thou wouldst have no chance of escape. So cease thy trembling and ask the provost there to give thee water to cleanse thyself, food to put inside thy belly and clothing wherewith to hide thy nakedness. Then come back before me.

I'll give thee a chance to save thy life by doing a service to thy King."

He makes a sign to one of the provosts, who seizes the man roughly by the shoulders and incontinently bundles him out of the room.

In the council chamber no one dares to speak. His Highness has become moody, and has sunk upon his high-backed chair where he remains inert and silent, wrapped in gloomy meditations, and when he is in one of those sullen moods no one dares to break in on his thoughts--no one except senor de Vargas, and he too is as preoccupied as his chief.

X

"De Vargas!" says Alva abruptly after a while, "dost mind that to-morrow is not only Sunday, but the feast of the Blessed Redeemer and a holy day of obligation?"

"Aye, Monseigneur," replied de Vargas unctuously, "I am minded that if we do not go to Ma.s.s to-morrow, those of us who die unabsolved of the sin will go to h.e.l.l."

"The men are grumbling already," breaks in don Sancho de Avila, captain of the bodyguard. "They say they will not fight to-morrow if they cannot go to Ma.s.s."

"Those Walloons..."

"Not only the Walloons, Monseigneur," rejoins de Avila, "the Spaniards are better Catholics than all these Netherlanders. They fear to die with a mortal sin upon their soul."

Nothing more is said just then; the grey day is already yielding to dusk; the fire of artillery and musketry is less incessant, the clash of pike and halberd can be heard more distinctly, and also the cries of the women and the groans of the wounded and the dying.

A few moments later a tall, lean man in the borrowed dress of a Spanish halberdier is ushered into the presence of the council. Water, food and clothes have effected a transformation which Alva surveys critically, and not without approval. The man--lean of visage and clean of limb--looks intelligent and capable; the Duke orders him to advance.

"'Tis good for thee," he says dryly, "that thy death is more unprofitable to me than thy life. I want a messenger ... art afraid to go to the miserable wretch who dares to lead a rebel horde against our Sovereign King?"

"I am afraid of nothing, Magnificence," replies the man quietly, "save your Highness's wrath."

"Dost know where to find the rebel?"

"Where musket-b.a.l.l.s fly thickest, your Highness."

"Then tell him," says Alva curtly, "that as soon as the night has fallen and the fire of culverins and muskets has ceased, I will have the drawbridge at the south-east of this castle lowered, and I will come forward to meet him, accompanied by my captains and the members of my council. Tell him to walk forward and meet me until we are within earshot of one another: and to order his torch-bearers to throw the light of their torches upon his face: then will I put forward a proposal which hath regard to the eternal salvation of every man, woman and child inside this city. Tell him to guard his person as he thinks fit, but tell him also that from the ramparts of this Kasteel three hundred muskets will be aimed at his head, and at the slightest suspicion of treachery the order will be given to fire. Dost understand?"

"Every word, your Highness," says the man simply.

"Then go in peace," concludes Alva, and the man is dismissed.

XI

An hour later the drawbridge at the south-east gate of the Kasteel was lowered. Twilight had now faded into night; the dull, grey day had yielded to black, impenetrable night. Here and there far away in the heart of the city lurid lights shot through the darkness, and every now and then a column of vivid flame would strike up to the dense black sky, and for a while illumine the ruined towers, the shattered roofs and broken chimneys around ere it fell again, sizzling in the damp atmosphere.

The Duke of Alva rode out in the gloom; he was seated upon his black charger, and was preceded by his torch-bearers and by his bodyguard of archers. Behind him walked his captains and the members of his council.

The procession slowly wended its way under the portal of the gate-house and then over the bridge. At the farthest end of the bridge the Duke reined in his horse, and his bodyguard, his captains and the members of his council all stood behind him so that he immediately faced the tract of open ground beyond which were the Orangist lines.

The flickering light of resin torches illumined the commanding figure of the Duke, dressed in sombre clothes and silk-lined mantle, and wearing breast and back plates of armour, with huge ta.s.sets over his wide breeches and open steel morion on his head. To right and left far away, toward the open country, the bivouac fires of the insurgents gleamed weirdly in the night.

All noise of fighting had ceased, and a strange silence had fallen over the city--a silence which hid many secrets of horror and of despair.

Suddenly something began to move, something that at first appeared darker than the darkness of the night; a few moments later it appeared as a speck of ruddy light which moved quickly--now toward the castle bridge; anon it was distinguishable as a group of men--a dozen or so--with a couple of torchbearers on in front, the light from whose torches fell full upon a tall figure which stood out boldly amongst the others. Now the group came to a halt less than fifty paces away, and those upon the bridge could see that tall figure quite clearly; a man in ragged doublet and hose, with grimy hands and face blackened with powder; he held his head very erect and wore neither helmet nor armour.

At sight of him, de Vargas gave a cry of rage and surprise.

"Mark van Rycke!" he exclaimed. "What hath he to do with it all?"

"Thy daughter's husband," said Alva coolly. "Nay, then we'll soon make her a widow."

But to the Orangists he called peremptorily: "'Tis with the rebel whom ye call Leatherface that I wish to speak."

"I have been known as Leatherface hitherto," retorts Mark van Rycke coolly. "Speak without fear. I listen."

Vargas' cry of rage was echoed by more than one Spanish captain present.

They remembered Mark van Rycke, the ne'er-do-well with whom they had oft drunk and jested in the taverns of Ghent and Brussels, aye! and before whom they had oft talked openly of their plans.